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BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 AND 
 
 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, 
 
 N 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA," "THE CONQUEST 
 
 OF MEXICO," ETC. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 
 &A%Q$ Lu >j 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 1875- 
 

 «v* 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 
TO 
 
 GEORGE TICKNOR, ESQ., 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 WHICH MAY REMIND HIM OF STUDIES PURSUED TOGETHER 
 
 IN EARLIER YEARS, 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 BY HIS FRIEND, 
 
 WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. 
 
PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Publishers have the pleasure of announcing, 
 with the issue of this volume, the completion of their 
 new edition of Mr. Prescott's Works, printed from 
 entirely new stereotype plates. 
 
 During the last years of his life Mr. Prescott devoted 
 much time to the revision of his works, making numer- 
 ous corrections and additions, some of which were 
 inserted in the later English editions published in his 
 lifetime, while a larger number have hitherto remained 
 in manuscript. The whole, in accordance with his 
 intention, are incorporated in the present edition, 
 which the editor has endeavored to render still more 
 valuable and complete by verifying doubtful references, 
 adding occasional notes where statements in the text, 
 based on insufficient authority or called in question by 
 recent investigators, needed to be substantiated or cor- 
 rected, and aiding, by a careful supervision of the press, 
 in securing that high degree of typographical accuracy 
 which is especially desirable in standard works. 
 
 Philadelphia, May i, 1875. 
 
 a* ( v) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 
 
 The following Essays, with a single exception, have 
 been selected from contributions originally made to 
 the North American Review. They are purely of a 
 literary character ; and, as they have little reference 
 to local or temporary topics, and as the journal in 
 which they appeared, though the most considerable 
 in the United States, is not widely circulated in Great 
 Britain, it has been thought that a republication of 
 the articles might have some novelty and interest for 
 the English reader. 
 
 Several of the papers were written many years since; 
 and the author is aware that they betray those crudi- 
 ties in the execution which belong to an unpractised 
 writer, while others of more recent date may be 
 charged with the inaccuracies incident to rapid and, 
 sometimes, careless composition. The more obvious 
 blemishes he has endeavored to correct, without at- 
 tempting to reform the critical judgments, which in 
 some cases he could wish had been expressed in a 
 more qualified and temperate manner ; and he dis- 
 misses the volume with the hope that in submitting it 
 to the British public he may not be thought to have 
 relied too far on that indulgence which has been so 
 freely extended to his more elaborate efforts. 
 
 Boston, March 30, 1845. 
 (vi) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, THE AMERICAN NOVELIST . 1 
 
 ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND S3 
 
 IRVING'S CONQUEST OF GRANADA 82 
 
 CERVANTES 114 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 163 
 
 CHATEAUBRIAND'S ENGLISH LITERATURE .... 227 
 
 BANCROFT'S UNITED STATES 272 
 
 MADAME CALDERON'S LIFE IN MEXICO .... 315 
 
 MOLIERE 335 
 
 ITALIAN NARRATIVE TOETRY 381 
 
 POETRY AND ROMANCE OF THE ITALIANS .... 455 
 
 SCOTTISH SONG . . 532 
 
 DA PONTE'S OBSERVATIONS 559 
 
 TICKNOR'S HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE . . . 6dO 
 
 (vii) 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL 
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, 
 
 THE AMERICAN NOVELIST* 
 
 The class of professed men of letters, if we exclude 
 from the account the conductors of periodical journals, 
 is certainly not very large, even at the present day, in 
 our country; but before the close of the last century it 
 was nearly impossible to meet with an individual who 
 looked to authorship as his only, or, indeed, his prin- 
 cipal, means of subsistence. This was somewhat the 
 more remarkable, considering the extraordinary de- 
 velopment of intellectual power exhibited in every 
 quarter of the country, and applied to every variety 
 of moral and social culture, and formed a singular 
 contrast with more than one nation in Europe, where 
 literature still continued to be followed as a distinct 
 profession, amid all the difficulties resulting from an 
 arbitrary government and popular imbecility and ig- 
 norance. 
 
 * From Sparks's American Biography, 1834. 
 A I 
 
2 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Abundant reasons are suggested for this by the va- 
 rious occupations afforded to talent of all kinds, not 
 only in the exercise of political functions, but in the 
 splendid career opened to enterprise of every descrip- 
 tion in our free and thriving community. We were in 
 the morning of life, as it were, when every thing sum- 
 moned us to action ; when the spirit was quickened by 
 hope and youthful confidence; and we felt that we 
 had our race to run, unlike those nations who, having 
 reached the noontide of their glory or sunk into their 
 decline, were naturally led to dwell on the soothing 
 recollections of the past, and to repose themselves, 
 after a tumultuous existence, in the quiet pleasures of 
 study and contemplation. "It was amid the ruins of 
 the Capitol," says Gibbon, "that I first conceived the 
 idea of writing the History of the Roman Empire." 
 The occupation suited well with the spirit of the place, 
 but would scarcely have harmonized with the life of 
 bustling energy and the thousand novelties which 
 were perpetually stimulating the appetite for adventure 
 in our new and unexplored hemisphere. In short, to 
 express it in one word, the peculiarities of our situa- 
 tion as naturally disposed us to active life as those of 
 the old countries of Europe to contemplative. 
 
 The subject of the present memoir affords an almost 
 solitary example, at this period, of a scholar, in the 
 enlarged application of the term, who cultivated let- 
 ters as a distinct and exclusive profession, resting his 
 means of support, as well as his fame, on his success, 
 and who, as a writer of fiction, is still farther entitled 
 to credit for having quitted the beaten grounds of the 
 Old Country and sought his subjects in the untried 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 3 
 
 wilderness of his own. The particulars of his un- 
 ostentatious life have been collected with sufficient 
 industry by his friend Mr. William Dunlap, to whom 
 our native literature is under such large obligations for 
 the extent and fidelity of his researches. We will se- 
 lect a few of the most prominent incidents from a mass 
 of miscellaneous fragments and literary lumber with 
 which his work is somewhat encumbered. It were to 
 be wished that, in the place of some of them, more 
 copious extracts had been substituted for his journal 
 and correspondence, which, doubtless, in this as in 
 other cases, must afford the most interesting as well as 
 authentic materials for biography. 
 
 Charles Brockden Brown was born at Philadel- 
 phia, January 17th, 1 771. He was descended from a 
 highly respectable family, whose ancestors were of that 
 estimable sect who came over with William Perm to 
 seek an asylum where they might worship their Creator 
 unmolested in the meek and humble spirit of their own 
 faith. From his earliest childhood Brown gave evi- 
 dence of his studious propensities, being frequently no- 
 ticed by his father, on his return from school, poring 
 over some heavy tome, nothing daunted by the formi- 
 dable words it contained, or mounted on a table and 
 busily engaged in exploring a map which hung on the 
 parlor wall. This infantine predilection for geograph- 
 ical studies ripened into a passion in later years. An- 
 other anecdote, recorded of him at the age of ten, sets 
 in a still stronger light his appreciation of intellectual 
 pursuits far above his years. A visitor at his father's 
 having rebuked him, as it would seem, without cause, 
 for some remark he had made, gave him the con- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 > > 
 
 temptuous epithet of "boy." "What does he mean, 
 said the young philosopher, after the guest's depart- 
 ure, "by calling me boy? Does he not know that it 
 is neither size nor age, but sense, that makes the man? 
 I could ask him a hundred questions, none of which he 
 could answer." 
 
 At eleven years of age he was placed under the tui- 
 tion of Mr. Robert Proud, well known as the author 
 of the History of Pennsylvania. Under his direction 
 he went over a large course of English reading, and 
 acquired the elements of Greek and Latin, applying 
 himself with great assiduity to his studies. His bodily 
 health was naturally delicate, and indisposed him to 
 engage in the robust, athletic exercises of boyhood. 
 His sedentary habits, however, began so evidently to 
 impair his health that his master recommended him to 
 withdraw from his books and recruit his strength by 
 excursions on foot into the country. These pedestrian 
 rambles suited the taste of the pupil, and the length 
 of his absence often excited the apprehensions of his 
 friends for his safety. He may be thought to have sat 
 to himself for this portrait of one of his heroes. "I 
 preferred to ramble in the forest and loiter on the hill ; 
 perpetually to change the scene; to scrutinize the end- 
 less variety of objects; to compare one leaf and pebble 
 with another; to pursue those trains of thought which 
 their resemblances and differences suggested; to inquire 
 what it was that gave them this place, structure, and 
 form, were more agreeable employments than ploughing 
 and threshing." " My frame was delicate and feeble. 
 Exposure to wet blasts and vertical suns was sure to 
 make me sick. ' ' The fondness for these solitary rambles 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 5 
 
 continued through life, and the familiarity which they 
 opened to him with the grand and beautiful scenes of 
 nature undoubtedly contributed to nourish the habit 
 of revery and abstraction, and to deepen the romantic 
 sensibilities from which flowed so much of his misery, 
 as well as happiness, in after-life. 
 
 He quitted Mr. Proud's school before the age of 
 sixteen. He had previously made some small poetical 
 attempts, and soon after sketched the plans of three 
 several epics, on the discovery of America and the 
 conquests of Peru and Mexico. For some time they 
 engaged his attention to the exclusion of every other 
 object. No vestige of them now remains, or, at least, 
 has been given to the public, by which we can ascer- 
 tain the progress made towards their completion. The 
 publication of such immature juvenile productions may 
 gratify curiosity by affording a point of comparison with 
 later excellence. They are rarely, however, of value in 
 themselves sufficient to authorize their exposure to the 
 world, and, notwithstanding the occasional exception 
 of a Pope or a Pascal, may very safely put up with 
 Uncle Toby's recommendation on a similar display of 
 precocity, "to hush it up, and say as little about it as 
 possible." 
 
 Among the contributions which, at a later period of 
 life, he was in the habit of making to different journals, 
 the fate of one was too singular to be passed over in 
 silence. It was a poetical address to Franklin, pre- 
 pared for the Edentown newspaper. " The blundering 
 printer," says Brown, in his journal, "from zeal or 
 ignorance, or perhaps from both, substituted the name 
 of Washington. Washington, therefore, stands arrayed 
 
biographical and 
 
 in awkward colors ; philosophy smiles to behold her 
 darling son ; she turns with horror and disgust from 
 those who have won the laurel of victory in the field 
 of battle, to this her favorite candidate, who had never 
 participated in such bloody glory, and whose fame was 
 derived from the conquest of philosophy alone. The 
 printer, by his blundering ingenuity, made the subject 
 ridiculous. Every word of this clumsy panegyric was a 
 direct slander upon Washington, and so it was regarded 
 at the time." There could not well be imagined a more 
 expeditious or effectual recipe for converting eulogy into 
 satire. 
 
 Young Brown had now reached a period of life when 
 it became necessary to decide on a profession. After 
 due deliberation, he determined on the law, — a choice 
 which received the cordial approbation of his friends, 
 who saw in his habitual diligence and the character of 
 his mind, at once comprehensive and logical, the most 
 essential requisites for success. He entered on the 
 studies of his profession with his usual ardor ; and the 
 acuteness and copiousness of his arguments on various 
 topics proposed for discussion in a law-society over 
 which he presided bear ample testimony to his ability 
 and industry. But, however suited to his talents the 
 profession of the law might be, it was not at all to his 
 taste. He became a member of a literary club, in which 
 he made frequent essays in composition and eloquence. 
 He kept a copious journal, and by familiar exercise 
 endeavored to acquire a pleasing and graceful style of 
 writing ; and every hour that he could steal from pro- 
 fessional schooling was devoted to the cultivation of 
 more attractive literature. In one of his contributions 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 7 
 
 to a journal, just before this period, he speaks of " the 
 rapture with which he held communion with his own 
 thoughts amid the gloom of surrounding woods, where 
 his fancy peopled every object with ideal beings, and 
 the barrier between himself and the world of spirits 
 seemed burst by the force of meditation. In this 
 solitude, he felt himself surrounded by a delightful 
 society ; but when transported from thence, and com- 
 pelled to listen to the frivolous chat of his fellow- 
 beings, he suffered all the miseries of solitude." He 
 declares that his intercourse and conversation with 
 mankind had wrought a salutary change; that he can 
 now mingle in the concerns of life, perform his appro- 
 priate duties, and reserve that higher species of discourse 
 for the solitude and silence of his study. In this 
 supposed control over his romantic fancies he grossly 
 deceived himself. 
 
 As the time approached for entering on the practice 
 of his profession, he felt his repugnance to it increase 
 more and more ; and he sought to justify a retreat from 
 it altogether by such poor sophistry as his imagination 
 could suggest. He objected to the profession as having 
 something in it immoral. He could not reconcile it 
 with his notions of duty to come forward as the cham- 
 pion indiscriminately of right and wrong ; and he con- 
 sidered the stipendiary advocate of a guilty party as 
 becoming, by that very act, participator in the guilt. 
 He did not allow himself to reflect that no more equita- 
 ble arrangement could be devised, none which would give 
 the humblest individual so fair a chance for maintaining 
 his rights as the employment of competent and upright 
 counsel, familiar with the forms of legal practice, neces- 
 
8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 sarily so embarrassing to a stranger ; that, so far from 
 being compelled to undertake a cause manifestly unjust, 
 it is always in the power of an honest lawyer to decline 
 it, but that such contingencies are of most rare occur- 
 rence, as few cases are litigated where each party has 
 not previously plausible grounds for believing himself 
 in the right, a question only to be settled by fair 
 discussion on both sides ; that opportunities are not 
 wanting, on the other hand, which invite the highest 
 display of eloquence and professional science in de- 
 tecting and defeating villany, in vindicating slandered 
 innocence, and in expounding the great principles of 
 law on which the foundations of personal security and 
 property are established ; and, finally, that the most 
 illustrious names in his own and every other civilized 
 country have been drawn from the ranks of a profession 
 whose habitual discipline so well trains them for legis- 
 lative action and the exercise of the highest political 
 functions. 
 
 Brown cannot be supposed to have been insensible 
 to these obvious views ; and, indeed, from one of his 
 letters in later life, he appears to have clearly recog- 
 nized the value of the profession he had deserted. But 
 his object was, at this time, to justify himself in his 
 fickleness of purpose, as he best might, in his own 
 eyes and those of his friends. Brown was certainly 
 not the first man of genius who found himself incapa- 
 ble of resigning the romantic world of fiction and the 
 uncontrolled revels of the imagination for the dull and 
 prosaic realities of the law. Few, indeed, like Mans- 
 field, have been able so far to constrain their young 
 and buoyant imaginations as to merit the beautiful 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 9 
 
 eulogium of the English poet ; while many more com- 
 paratively, from the time of Juvenal downward, fortu- 
 nately for the world, have been willing to sacrifice the 
 affections plighted to Themis on the altars of the Muse. 
 
 Brown's resolution at this crisis caused sincere regret 
 to his friends, which they could not conceal, on seeing 
 him thus suddenly turn from the path of honorable 
 fame at the very moment when he was prepared to 
 enter on it. His prospects, but lately so brilliant, 
 seemed now overcast with a deep gloom. The embar- 
 rassments of his situation had also a most unfavorable 
 effect on his own mind. Instead of the careful disci- 
 pline to which it had been lately subjected, it was now 
 left to rove at large wherever caprice should dictate, 
 and waste itself on those romantic reveries and specu- 
 lations to which he was naturally too much addicted. 
 This was the period when the French Revolution was 
 in its heat, and the awful convulsion experienced in 
 one unhappy country seemed to be felt in every quarter 
 of the globe ; men grew familiar with the wildest para- 
 doxes, and the spirit of innovation menaced the oldest 
 and best-established principles in morals and govern- 
 ment. Brown's inquisitive and speculative mind par- 
 took of the prevailing skepticism. Some of his com- 
 positions, and especially one on the Rights of Women, 
 published in 1797, show to what extravagance a benev- 
 olent mind may be led by fastening too exclusively on 
 the contemplation of the evils of existing institutions 
 and indulging in indefinite dreams of perfectibility. 
 
 There is no period of existence when the spirit of a 
 man is more apt to be depressed than when he is about 
 to quit the safe and quiet harbor in which he has rode 
 
 A* 
 
IO BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 in safety from childhood, and to launch on the dark 
 and unknown ocean where so many a gallant bark has 
 gone down before him. How much must this disquiet- 
 ude be increased in the case of one who, like Brown, 
 has thrown away the very chart and compass by which 
 he was prepared to guide himself through the doubtful 
 perils of the voyage ! How heavily the gloom of de- 
 spondency fell on his spirits at this time is attested by 
 various extracts from his private correspondence. " As 
 for me," he says, in one of his letters, "I long ago 
 discovered that Nature had not qualified me for an 
 actor on this stage. The nature of my education only 
 added to these disqualifications, and I experienced all 
 those deviations from the centre which arise when all 
 our lessons are taken from books, and the scholar 
 makes his own character the comment. A happy des- 
 tiny, indeed, brought me to the knowledge of two or 
 three minds which Nature had fashioned in the same 
 mould with my own, but these are gone. And, O 
 God ! enable me to wait the moment when it is thy 
 will that I should follow them." In another epistle 
 he remarks, "I have not been deficient in the pursuit 
 of that necessary branch of knowledge, the study of 
 myself. I will not explain the result, for have I not 
 already sufficiently endeavored to make my friends 
 unhappy by communications which, though they might 
 easily be injurious, could not be of any possible advan- 
 tage? I really, dear W., regret that period when your 
 pity was first excited in my favor. I sincerely lament 
 that I ever gave you reason to imagine that I was not 
 so happy as a gay indifference with regard to the pres- 
 ent, stubborn forgetfulness with respect to the uneasy 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. ri 
 
 past, and excursions into lightsome futurity could 
 make me ; for what end, what useful purposes, were 
 promoted by the discovery ? It could not take away 
 from the number of the unhappy, but only add to it* 
 by making those who loved me participate in my un- 
 easiness, which each participation, so far from tending 
 to diminish, would in reality increase, by adding those 
 regrets, of which I had been the author in them, to 
 my own original stock." It is painful to witness the 
 struggles of a generous spirit endeavoring to suppress 
 the anguish thus involuntarily escaping in the warmth 
 of affectionate intercourse. This becomes still more 
 striking in the contrast exhibited between the assumed 
 cheerfulness of much of his correspondence at this 
 period and the uniform melancholy tone of his private 
 journal, the genuine record of his emotions. 
 
 Fortunately, his taste, refined by intellectual culture, 
 and the elevation and spotless purity of his moral 
 principles, raised him above the temptations of sensual 
 indulgence, in which minds of weaker mould might 
 have sought a temporary relief. His soul was steeled 
 against the grosser seductions of appetite. The only 
 avenue through which his principles could in any way 
 be assailed was the understanding ; and it would ap- 
 pear, from some dark hints in his correspondence at 
 this period, that the rash idea of relieving himself 
 from the weight of earthly sorrows by some voluntary 
 deed of violence had more than once flitted across his 
 mind. It is pleasing to observe with what beautiful 
 modesty and simplicity of character he refers his ab- 
 stinence from coarser indulgences to his constitutional 
 infirmities, and consequent disinclination to them, 
 
12 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 which, in truth, could be only imputed to the excel- 
 lence of his heart and his understanding. In one of 
 his letters he remarks " that the benevolence of Nature 
 rendered him, in a manner, an exile from many of the 
 temptations that infest the minds of ardent youth. 
 Whatever his wishes might have been, his benevolent 
 destiny had prevented him from running into the fri- 
 volities of youth." He ascribes to this cause his love 
 of letters, and his predominant anxiety to excel in 
 whatever was a glorious subject of competition. "Had 
 he been furnished with the nerves and muscles of his 
 comrades, it was very far from impossible that he might 
 have relinquished intellectual pleasures. Nature had 
 benevolently rendered him incapable of encountering 
 such severe trials." 
 
 Brown's principal resources for dissipating the mel- 
 ancholy which hung over him were his inextinguish- 
 able love of letters, and the society of a few friends, 
 to whom congeniality of taste and temper had united 
 him from early years. In addition to these resources, 
 we may mention his fondness for pedestrian rambles, 
 which sometimes were of several weeks' duration. In 
 the course of these excursions, the circle of his ac- 
 quaintance and friends was gradually enlarged. In 
 the city of New York, in particular, he contracted an 
 intimacy with several individuals of similar age and 
 kindred mould with himself. Among these, his ear- 
 liest associate was Dr. E. H. Smith, a young gen- 
 tleman of great promise in the medical profession. 
 Brown had become known to him during the residence 
 of the latter as a student in Philadelphia. By him our 
 hero was introduced to Mr. Dunlap, who has survived 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 13 
 
 to commemorate the virtues of his friend in a biogra- 
 phy already noticed, and to Mr. Johnson, the accom- 
 plished author of the New York Law Reports. The 
 society of these friends had sufficient attractions to 
 induce him to repeat his visit to New York, until at 
 length, in the beginning of 1798, he may be said to 
 have established his permanent residence there, pass- 
 ing much of his time under the same roof with them. 
 His amiable manners and accomplishments soon rec- 
 ommended him to the notice of other eminent indi- 
 viduals. He became a member of a literary society, 
 called the Friendly Club, comprehending names which 
 have since shed a distinguished lustre over the various 
 walks of literature and science. 
 
 The spirits of Brown seemed to be exalted in this 
 new atmosphere. His sensibilities found a grateful 
 exercise in the sympathies of friendship, and the 
 powers of his mind were called into action by col- 
 lision with others of similar tone with his own. His 
 memory was enriched with the stores of various read- 
 ing, hitherto conducted at random, with no higher 
 object than temporary amusement or the gratification 
 of an indefinite curiosity. He now concentrated his 
 attention on some determinate object, and proposed to 
 give full scope to his various talents and acquisitions 
 in the career of an author, as yet so little travelled in 
 our own country. 
 
 His first publication was that before noticed, en- 
 titled "Alcui??, a dialogue on the Rights of Women." 
 It exhibits the crude and fanciful speculations of a 
 theorist who, in his dreams of optimism, charges ex- 
 clusively on human institutions the imperfections neces- 
 
 2 
 
U 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 sarily incident to human nature. The work, with all 
 its ingenuity, made little impression on the public : it 
 found few purchasers, and made, it may be presumed, 
 still fewer converts. 
 
 He soon after began a romance, which he never com- 
 pleted, from which his biographer has given copious 
 extracts. It is conducted in the epistolary form, and, 
 although exhibiting little of his subsequent power 
 and passion, is recommended by a graceful and easy 
 manner of narration, more attractive than the more 
 elaborate and artificial style of his latter novels. 
 
 This abortive attempt was succeeded, in 1798, by 
 the publication of Wieland, the first of that remark- 
 able series of fictions which flowed in such rapid suc- 
 cession from his pen in this and the three following 
 years. In this romance, the author, deviating from 
 the usual track of domestic or historic incident, pro- 
 posed to delineate the powerful workings of passion 
 displayed by a mind constitutionally excitable, under 
 the control of some terrible and mysterious agency. 
 The scene is laid in Pennsylvania. The action takes 
 place in a family by the name of Wieland, the princi- 
 pal member of which had inherited a melancholy and 
 somewhat superstitious constitution of mind, which 
 his habitual reading and contemplation deepened into 
 a calm but steady fanaticism. This temper is nour- 
 ished still farther by the occurrence of certain inex- 
 plicable circumstances of ominous import. Strange 
 voices are heard by different members of the family, 
 sometimes warning them of danger, sometimes an- 
 nouncing events seeming beyond the reach of human 
 knowledge. The still and solemn hours of night are 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 15 
 
 disturbed by the unearthly summons. The other 
 actors of the drama are thrown into strange perplex- 
 ity, and an underplot of events is curiously entangled 
 by the occurrence of unaccountable sights as well as 
 sounds. By the heated fancy of Wieland they are 
 referred to supernatural agency. A fearful destiny 
 seems to preside over the scene, and to carry the 
 actors onward to some awful catastrophe. At length 
 the hour arrives. A solemn, mysterious voice an- 
 nounces to Wieland that he is now called on to testify 
 his submission to the divine will by the sacrifice of 
 his earthly affections, — to surrender up the affectionate 
 partner of his bosom, on whom he had reposed all his 
 hopes of happiness in this life. He obeys the man- 
 date of Heaven. The stormy conflict of passion into 
 which his mind is thrown, as the fearful sacrifice he is 
 about to make calls up all the tender remembrances 
 of conjugal fidelity and love, is painted with frightful 
 strength of coloring. Although it presents, on the 
 whole, as pertinent an example as we could offer from 
 any of Brown's writings of the peculiar power and 
 vividness of his conceptions, the whole scene is too 
 long for insertion here. We will mutilate it, however, 
 by a brief extract, as an illustration of our author's 
 manner, more satisfactory than any criticism can be. 
 Wieland, after receiving the fatal mandate, is repre- 
 sented in an apartment alone with his wife. His cour- 
 age, or, rather, his desperation, fails him, and he sends 
 her, on some pretext, from the chamber. An interval, 
 during which his insane passions have time to rally, 
 ensues. 
 
 "She returned with a light; I led the way to the 
 
1 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 chamber; she looked round her; she lifted the curtain 
 of the bed ; she saw nothing. At length she fixed 
 inquiring eyes upon me. The light now enab'ed her 
 to discover in my visage what darkness had hitherto 
 concealed. Her cares were now transferred from my 
 sister to myself, and she said, in a tremulous voice, 
 ' Wieland ! you are not well ; what ails you ? Can I 
 do nothing for you?' That accents and looks so win- 
 ning should disarm me of my resolution was to be 
 expected. My thoughts were thrown anew into an- 
 archy. I spread my hand before my eyes, that I might 
 not see her, and answered only by groans. She took 
 my other hand between hers, and, pressing it to her 
 heart, spoke with that voice which had ever swayed 
 my will and wafted away sorrow. ' My friend ! my 
 soul's friend ! tell me thy cause of grief. Do I not 
 merit to partake with thee in thy cares? Am I not 
 thy wife ?' 
 
 "This was too much. I broke from her embrace, 
 and retired to a corner of the room. In this pause, 
 courage was once more infused into me. I resolved 
 to execute my duty. She followed me, and renewed 
 her passionate entreaty to know the cause of my dis- 
 tress. 
 
 "I raised my head and regarded her with steadfast 
 looks. I muttered something about death, and the 
 injunctions of my duty. At these words she shrunk 
 back, and looked at me with a new expression of 
 anguish. After a pause, she clasped her hands and 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " ' O Wieland ! Wieland ! God grant that I am mis- 
 taken ; but surely something is wrong. I see it ; it is 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. j 7 
 
 too plain ; thou art undone — lost to me and to thy- 
 self.' At the same time she gazed on my features 
 with intensest anxiety, in hope that different symptoms 
 would take place. I replied with vehemence, 'Undone \ 
 No; my duty is known, and I thank my God that my 
 cowardice is now vanquished, and I have power to 
 fulfil it. Catharine ! I pity the weakness of nature ; 
 I pity thee, but must not spare. Thy life is claimed 
 from my hands : thou must die !' 
 
 "Fear was now added to her grief. 'What mean 
 you ? Why talk you of death ? Bethink yourself, 
 Wieland ; bethink yourself, and this fit will pass. O ! 
 why came I hither? Why did you drag me hither?' 
 
 " 'I brought thee hither to fulfil a divine command. 
 I am appointed thy destroyer, and destroy thee I must. ' 
 Saying this, I seized her wrists. She shrieked aloud, 
 and endeavored to free herself from my grasp, but her 
 efforts were vain. 
 
 il ' Surely, surely, Wieland, thou dost not mean it. 
 Am I not thy wife? and wouldst thou kill me? Thou 
 wilt not ; and yet — I see — thou art Wieland no longer ! 
 A fury, resistless and horrible, possesses thee : spare 
 me — spare — help — help — ' 
 
 "Till her breath was stopped she shrieked for help 
 — for mercy. When she could speak no longer, her 
 gestures, her looks, appealed to my compassion. My 
 accursed hand was irresolute and tremulous. I meant 
 thy death to be sudden, thy struggles to be brief. Alas ! 
 my heart was infirm, my resolves mutable. Thrice I 
 slackened my grasp, and life kept its hold, though in 
 the midst of pangs. Her eyeballs started from their 
 sockets. Grimness and distortion took place of all 
 
1 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 that used to bewitch me into transport and subdue me 
 into reverence. 
 
 " I was commissioned to kill thee, but not to torment 
 thee with the foresight of thy death ; not to multiply 
 thy fears and prolong thy agonies. Haggard, and pale, 
 and lifeless, at length thou ceasedst to contend with thy 
 destiny. 
 
 "This was a moment of triumph. Thus had I suc- 
 cessfully subdued the stubbornness of human passions ; 
 the victim which had been demanded was given ; the 
 deed was done past recall. 
 
 "I lifted the corpse in my arms, and laid it on the 
 bed. I gazed upon it with delight. Such was the 
 elation of my thoughts that I even broke into laughter. 
 I clapped my hands, and exclaimed, 'It is done ! My 
 sacred duty is fulfilled ! To that I have sacrificed, O 
 my God ! thy last and best gift, my wife !' 
 
 "For a while I thus soared above frailty. I im- 
 agined I had set myself forever beyond the reach of 
 selfishness, but my imaginations were false. This rap- 
 ture quickly subsided. I looked again at my wife. 
 My joyous ebullitions vanished, and I asked myself 
 who it was whom I saw. Methought it could not be 
 Catharine. It could not be the woman who had 
 lodged for years in my heart ; who had slept nightly 
 in my bosom ; who had borne in her womb, who had 
 fostered at her breast, the beings who called me father; 
 whom I had watched with delight, and cherished with 
 a fondness ever new and perpetually growing: it could 
 not be the same. 
 
 "Where was her bloom? These deadly and blood- 
 suffused orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 *9 
 
 tenderness of her eyes. The lucid stream that mean- 
 dered over that bosom, the glow of love that was wont 
 to sit upon that cheek, are much unlike these livid 
 stains and this hideous deformity. Alas ! these were 
 the traces of agony : the gripe of the assassin had 
 been here ! 
 
 " I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and 
 outrageous sorrow. The breath of Heaven that sus- 
 tained me was withdrawn, and I sunk into mere man. 
 I leaped from the floor ; I dashed my head against the 
 wall ; I uttered screams of horror ; I panted after tor- 
 ment and pain. Eternal fire and the bickerings of hell, 
 compared with what I felt, were music and a bed of 
 roses. 
 
 "I thank my God that this degeneracy was tran- 
 sient, — that he deigned once more to raise me aloft. 
 I thought upon what I had done as a sacrifice to duty, 
 and was calm. My wife was dead ; but I reflected that, 
 though this source of human consolation was closed, 
 yet others were still open. If the transports of a hus- 
 band were no more, the feelings of a father had still 
 scope for exercise. When remembrance of their 
 mother should excite too keen a pang, I would look 
 upon them and be comforted. 
 
 "While I revolved these ideas, new warmth flowed 
 in upon my heart. I was wrong. These feelings were 
 the growth of selfishness. Of this I was not aware ; 
 and, to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, 
 a new effulgence and a new mandate were necessary. 
 
 "From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray that 
 was shot into the room. A voice spake like that which 
 I had before heard, 'Thou hast done well; but all is not 
 
2 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 done — the sacrifice is incomplete — thy children must 
 be offered — they must perish with their mother !.' " 
 
 This, too, is accomplished by the same remorseless 
 arm, although the author has judiciously refrained from 
 attempting to prolong the note of feeling, struck with 
 so powerful a hand, by the recital of the particulars. 
 The wretched fanatic is brought to trial for the mur- 
 der, but is acquitted on the ground of insanity. The 
 illusion which has bewildered him at length breaks 
 on his understanding in its whole truth. He cannot 
 sustain the shock, and the tragic tale closes with the 
 suicide of the victim of superstition and imposture. 
 The key to the whole of this mysterious agency which 
 controls the circumstances of the story is — ventrilo- 
 quism ! ventriloquism exerted for the very purpose by 
 a human fiend, from no motives of revenge or hatred, 
 but pure diabolical malice, or, as he would make us 
 believe, and the author seems willing to endorse this 
 absurd version of it, as a mere practical joke ! The 
 reader, who has been gorged with this feast of horrors, 
 is tempted to throw away the book in disgust at finding 
 himself the dupe of such paltry jugglery ; which, what- 
 ever sense be given to the term ventriloquism, is alto- 
 gether incompetent to the various phenomena of sight 
 and sound with which the story is so plentifully sea- 
 soned. We can feel the force of Dryden's imprecation 
 when he cursed the inventors of those fifth acts which 
 are bound to unravel all the fine mesh of impossibilities 
 which the author's wits had been so busy entangling in 
 the four preceding. 
 
 The explication of the mysteries of Wieland natu- 
 rally suggests the question how far an author is bound 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 21 
 
 to explain the supernaturalities ', if we may so call them, 
 of his fictions, and whether it is not better, on the 
 whole, to trust to the willing superstition and credulity 
 of the reader (of which there is perhaps store enough 
 in almost every bosom, at the present enlightened day 
 even, for poetical purposes) than to attempt a solution 
 on purely natural or mechanical principles. It was 
 thought no harm for the ancients to bring the use of 
 machinery into their epics, and a similar freedom was 
 conceded to the old English dramatists, whose ghosts 
 and witches were placed in the much more perilous 
 predicament of being subjected to the scrutiny of the 
 spectator, whose senses are not near so likely to be 
 duped as the sensitive and excited imagination of the 
 reader in his solitary chamber. It must be admitted, 
 however, that the public of those days, when the 
 
 " Undoubting mind 
 Believed the magic wonders that were sung," 
 
 were admirably seasoned for the action of superstition 
 in all forms, and furnished, therefore, a most enviable 
 audience for the melodramatic artist, whether drama- 
 tist or romance-writer. But all this is changed. No 
 witches ride the air nowadays, and fairies no longer 
 "dance their rounds by the pale moonlight," as the 
 worthy Bishop Corbet, indeed, lamented a century 
 and a half ago. 
 
 Still, it may be allowed, perhaps, if the scene is laid 
 in some remote age or country, to borrow the ancient 
 superstitions of the place, and incorporate them into, 
 or, at least, color the story with them, without shock- 
 ing the well-bred prejudices of the modern reader. Sir 
 
2 2 BIOGRAPHICAL AXD 
 
 Walter Scott has done this with good effect in more 
 than one of his romances, as every one will readily 
 call to mind. A fine example occurs in the Boden 
 Glass apparition in Waverley, which the great novelist, 
 far from attempting to explain on any philosophical 
 principles, or even by an intimation of its being the 
 mere creation of a feverish imagination, has left as he 
 found it, trusting that the reader's poetic feeling will 
 readily accommodate itself to the popular superstitions 
 of the country he is depicting. This reserve on his 
 part, indeed, arising from a truly poetic view of the 
 subject and an honest reliance on a similar spirit in 
 his reader, has laid him open, with some matter-of-fact 
 people, to the imputation of not being wholly un- 
 touched himself by the national superstitions. Yet 
 how much would the whole scene have lost in its per- 
 manent effect if the author had attempted an explana- 
 tion of the apparition on the ground of an optical 
 illusion not infrequent among the mountain-mists of 
 the Highlands, or any other of the ingenious solutions 
 so readily at the command of the thoroughbred story- 
 teller ! 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that this way of 
 solving the riddles of romance would hardly be admis- 
 sible in a story drawn from familiar scenes and situa- 
 tions in modern life, and especially in our own country. 
 The lights of education are flung too bright and broad 
 over the land to allow any lurking-hole for the shadows 
 of a twilight age. So much the worse for the poet and 
 the novelist. Their province must now be confined 
 to poor human nature, without meddling with the 
 "Gorgons and chimeras dire" which floated through 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 3 
 
 the bewildered brains of our forefathers, at least on 
 the other side of the water. At any rate, if a writer, in 
 this broad sunshine, ventures on any sort of diablerie, 
 he is forced to explain it by all the thousand con- 
 trivances of trap-doors, secret passages, waxen images, 
 and other make-shifts from the property-room of Mrs. 
 Radcliffe and Company. 
 
 Brown, indeed, has resorted to a somewhat higher 
 mode of elucidating his mysteries by a remarkable 
 phenomenon of our nature. But the misfortune of 
 all these attempts to account for the marvels of the 
 story by natural or mechanical causes is, that they are 
 very seldom satisfactory, or competent to their object. 
 This is eminently the case with the ventriloquism in 
 Wieland. Even where they are competent, it may be 
 doubted whether the reader who has suffered his cred- 
 ulous fancy to be entranced by the spell of the ma- 
 gician will be gratified to learn, at the end, by what 
 cheap mechanical contrivance he has been duped. 
 However this may be, it is certain that a very unfavor- 
 able effect, in another respect, is produced on his 
 mind, after he is made acquainted with the nature of 
 the secret spring by which the machinery is played, 
 more especially when one leading circumstance, like 
 ventriloquism in Wieland, is made the master-key, as 
 it were, by which all the mysteries are to be unlocked 
 and opened at once. With this explanation at hand, 
 it is extremely difficult to rise to that sensation of mys- 
 terious awe and apprehension on which so much of the 
 sublimity and general effect of the narrative necessarily 
 depends. Instead of such feelings, the only ones which 
 can enable us to do full justice to the author's concep- 
 
24 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tions, we sometimes, on the contrary, may detect a 
 smile lurking in the corner of the mouth as we peruse 
 scenes of positive power, from the contrast obviously 
 suggested of the impotence of the apparatus and the 
 portentous character of the results. The critic, there- 
 fore, possessed of the real key to the mysteries of the 
 story, if he would do justice to his author's merits, 
 must divest himself, as it were, of his previous knowl- 
 edge, by fastening his attention on the results, to the 
 exclusion of the insignificant means by which they are 
 achieved. He will not always find this an easy matter. 
 But to return from this rambling digression. In the 
 following year, 1799, Brown published his second 
 novel, entitled Ormond. The story presents few of 
 the deeply agitating scenes and powerful bursts of 
 passion which distinguish the first. It is designed to 
 exhibit a model of surpassing excellence in a female 
 rising superior to all the shocks of adversity and the 
 more perilous blandishments of seduction, and who, as 
 the scene grows darker and darker around her, seems 
 to illumine the whole with the radiance of her celes- 
 tial virtues. The reader is reminded of the "patient 
 Griselda," so delicately portrayed by the pencils of 
 Boccaccio and Chaucer. It must be admitted, how- 
 ever, that the contemplation of such a character in the 
 abstract is more imposing than the minute details by 
 which we attain to the knowledge of it; and although 
 there is nothing, we are told, which the gods looked 
 down upon with more satisfaction than a brave mind 
 struggling with the storms of adversity, yet, when 
 these come in the guise of poverty and all the train of 
 teasing annoyances in domestic life, the tale, if long 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 25 
 
 protracted, too often produces a sensation of weariness 
 scarcely to be compensated by the moral grandeur of 
 the spectacle. 
 
 The appearance of these two novels constitutes an 
 epoch in the ornamental literature of America. They 
 are the first decidedly successful attempts in the walk 
 of romantic fiction. They are still farther remarkable 
 as illustrating the character and state of society on this 
 side of the Atlantic, instead of resorting to the ex- 
 hausted springs of European invention. These circum- 
 stances, as well as the uncommon powers they displayed 
 both of conception and execution, recommended them 
 to the notice of the literary world, although their philo- 
 sophical method of dissecting passion and analyzing 
 motives of action placed them somewhat beyond the 
 reach of vulgar popularity. Brown was sensible of the 
 favorable impression which he had made, and mentions 
 it in one of his epistles to his brother with his usual 
 unaffected modesty : "I add somewhat, though not so 
 much as I might if I were so inclined, to the number 
 of my friends. I find to be the writer of Wieland 
 and Ormond is a greater recommendation than I ever 
 imagined it would be." 
 
 In the course of the same year, the quiet tenor of 
 his life was interrupted by the visitation of that fearful 
 pestilence, the yellow fever, which had for several suc- 
 cessive years made its appearance in the city of New 
 York, but which in 1798 fell upon it with a violence 
 similar to that with which it had desolated Philadel- 
 phia in 1793. Brown had taken the precaution of 
 withdrawing from the latter city, where he then re- 
 sided, on its first appearance there. He prolonged 
 B 3 
 
26 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 his stay in New York, however, relying on the healthi- 
 ness of the quarter of the town where he lived, and 
 the habitual abstemiousness of his diet. His friend 
 Smith was necessarily detained there by the duties of 
 his profession; and Brown, in answer to the reiterated 
 importunities of his absent relatives to withdraw from 
 the infected city, refused to do so, on the ground that 
 his personal services might be required by the friends 
 who remained in it, — a disinterestedness well meriting 
 the strength of attachment which he excited in the 
 bosom of his companions. 
 
 Unhappily, Brown was right in his prognostics, and 
 his services were too soon required in behalf of his 
 friend Dr. Smith, who fell a victim to his own benevo- 
 lence, having caught the fatal malady from an Italian 
 gentleman, a stranger in the city, whom he received, 
 when infected with the disease, into his house, relin- 
 quishing to him his own apartment. Brown had the 
 melancholy satisfaction of performing the last sad 
 offices of affection to his dying friend. He himself 
 soon became affected with the same disorder ; and it 
 was not till after a severe illness that he so far recov- 
 ered as to be able to transfer his residence to Perth 
 Amboy, the abode of Mr. Dunlap, where a pure and 
 invigorating atmosphere, aided by the kind attentions 
 of his host, gradually restored him to a sufficient de- 
 gree of health and spirits for the prosecution of his 
 literary labors. 
 
 The spectacle he had witnessed made too deep an 
 impression on him to be readily effaced, and he re- 
 solved to transfer his own conceptions of it, while yet 
 fresh, to the page of fiction, or, as it might rather be 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 27 
 
 called, of history, for the purpose, as he intimates in 
 his preface, of imparting to others some of the fruits 
 of the melancholy lesson he had himself experienced. 
 Such was the origin of his next novel, Arthur Mervyn ; 
 or, Me??wirs of the Year 1793. This was the fatal year 
 of the yellow fever in Philadelphia. The action of the 
 story is chiefly confined to that city, but seems to be 
 prepared with little contrivance, on no regular or sys- 
 tematic plan, consisting simply of a succession of inci- 
 dents, having little cohesion except in reference to the 
 hero, but affording situations of great interest and 
 frightful fidelity of coloring. The pestilence wasting 
 a thriving and populous city has furnished a topic for 
 more than one great master. It will be remembered 
 as the terror of every school-boy in the pages of Thu- 
 cydides; it forms the gloomy portal to the light and 
 airy fictions of Boccaccio ; and it has furnished a sub- 
 ject for the graphic pencil of the English novelist De 
 Foe, the only one of the three who never witnessed 
 the horrors which he paints, but whose fictions wear 
 an aspect of reality which history can rarely reach. 
 
 Brown has succeeded in giving the same terrible 
 distinctness to his impressions by means of individual 
 portraiture. He has, however, not confined himself 
 to this, but, by a variety of touches, lays open to our 
 view the whole interior of the city of the plague. 
 Instead of expatiating on the loathsome symptoms and 
 physical ravages of the disease, he selects the most 
 striking moral circumstances which attend it ; he 
 dwells on the withering sensation that falls so heavily 
 on the heart in the streets of the once busy and 
 crowded city, now deserted and silent, save only 
 
28 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 where the wheels of the melancholy hearse are heard 
 to rumble along the pavement. Our author not un- 
 frequently succeeds in conveying more to the heart 
 by the skilful selection of a single circumstance than 
 would have flowed from a multitude of petty details. 
 It is the art of the great masters of poetry and painting. 
 
 The same year in which Brown produced the first 
 part of "Arthur Mervyn," he entered on the publica- 
 tion of a periodical entitled The Mo?ithly Magazine 
 and American Review, a work that during its brief 
 existence, which terminated in the following year, 
 afforded abundant evidence of its editor's versatility 
 of talent and the ample range of his literary acqui- 
 sitions. Our hero was now fairly in the traces of 
 authorship. He looked to it as his permanent voca- 
 tion ; and the indefatigable diligence with which he 
 devoted himself to it may at least serve to show that 
 he did not shrink from his professional engagements 
 from any lack of industry or enterprise. 
 
 The publication of "Arthur Mervyn" was succeeded 
 not long after by that of Edgar Hunt ly ; or, The Adven- 
 tures of a Sleepwalker, a romance presenting a greater 
 variety of wild and picturesque adventure, with more 
 copious delineations of natural scenery, than is to be 
 found in his other fictions ; circumstances, no doubt, 
 possessing more attractions for the mass of readers 
 than the peculiarities of his other novels. Indeed, 
 the author has succeeded perfectly in constantly stimu- 
 lating the curiosity by a succession of as original inci- 
 dents, perils, and hairbreadth escapes as ever flitted 
 across a poet's fancy. It is no small triumph of the 
 art to be able to maintain the curiosity of the reader 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 29 
 
 unflagging through a succession of incidents which, far 
 from being sustained by one predominant passion and 
 forming parts of one whole, rely each for its interest on 
 its own independent merits. 
 
 The story is laid in the western part of Pennsylvania, 
 where the author has diversified his descriptions of 
 a simple and almost primitive state of society with 
 uncommonly animated sketches of rural scenery. It 
 is worth observing how the sombre complexion of 
 Brown's imagination, which so deeply tinges his moral 
 portraiture, sheds its gloom over his pictures of mate- 
 rial nature, raising the landscape into all the severe 
 and savage sublimity of a Salvator Rosa. The som- 
 nambulism of this novel, which, like the ventriloquism 
 of "Wieland," is the moving principle of all the 
 machinery, has this advantage over the latter, that it 
 does not necessarily impair the effect by perpetually 
 suggesting a solution of mysteries, and thus dispelling 
 the illusion on whose existence the effect of the whole 
 story mainly depends. The adventures, indeed, built 
 upon it are not the most probable in the world ; but, 
 waiving this, — we shall be well rewarded for such con- 
 cession, — there is no farther difficulty. 
 
 The extract already cited by us from the first of our 
 author's novels has furnished the reader with an illus- 
 tration of his power in displaying the conflict of passion 
 under high moral excitement. We will now venture 
 another quotation from the work before us, in order 
 to exhibit more fully his talent for the description of 
 external objects. 
 
 Edgar Huntly, the hero of the story, is represented 
 in one of the wild mountain-fastnesses of Norwalk, a 
 
 3* 
 
3° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 district in the western part of Pennsylvania. He is 
 on the brink of a ravine, from which the only avenue 
 lies over the body of a tree thrown across the chasm, 
 through whose dark depths below a rushing torrent is 
 heard to pour its waters. 
 
 "While occupied with these reflections, my eyes 
 were fixed upon the opposite steeps. The tops of the 
 trees, waving to and fro in the wildest commotion, and 
 their trunks occasionally bending to the blast, which, 
 in these lofty regions, blew with a violence unknown 
 in the tracts below, exhibited an awful spectacle. At 
 length my attention was attracted by the trunk which 
 lay across the gulf, and which I had converted into a 
 bridge. I perceived that it had already swerved some- 
 what from its original position; that every blast broke 
 or loosened some of the fibres by which its roots were 
 connected with the opposite bank ; and that, if the 
 storm did not speedily abate, there was imminent 
 danger of its being torn from the rock and precipi- 
 tated into the chasm. Thus my retreat would be cut 
 off, and the evils from which I was endeavoring to 
 rescue another would be experienced by myself. 
 
 "I believed my destiny to hang upon the expedition 
 with which I should recross this gulf. The moments 
 that were spent in these deliberations were critical, 
 and I shuddered to observe that the trunk was held in 
 its place by one or two fibres, which were already 
 stretched almost to breaking. 
 
 "To pass along the trunk, rendered slippery by the 
 wet and unsteadfast by the wind, was eminently dan- 
 gerous. To maintain my hold in passing, in defiance 
 of the whirlwind, required the most vigorous exertions. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 31 
 
 For this end, it was necessary to discommode myself 
 of my cloak, and of the volume which I carried in the 
 pocket of my coat. 
 
 "Just as I had disposed of these encumbrances, and 
 had risen from my seat, my attention was again called 
 to the opposite steep by the most unwelcome object 
 that at this time could possibly occur. Something was 
 perceived moving among the bushes and rocks, which, 
 for a time, I hoped was nothing more than a raccoon 
 or opossum, but which presently appeared to be a pan- 
 ther. His gray coat, extended claws, fiery eyes, and 
 a cry which he at that moment uttered, and which, 
 by its resemblance to the human voice, is peculiarly 
 terrific, denoted him to be the most ferocious and 
 untamable of that detested race. The industry of 
 our hunters has nearly banished animals of prey from 
 these precincts. The fastnesses of Norwalk, however, 
 could not but afford refuge to some of them. Of late 
 I had met them so rarely that my fears were seldom 
 alive, and I trod without caution the ruggedest and 
 most solitary haunts. Still, however, I had seldom 
 been unfurnished in my rambles with the means of 
 defence. 
 
 "The unfrequency with which I had lately en- 
 countered this foe, and the encumbrance of provision, 
 made me neglect, on this occasion, to bring with 
 me my usual arms. The beast that was now before 
 me, when stimulated by hunger, was accustomed to 
 assail whatever could provide him with a banquet of 
 blood. He would set upon the man and the deer 
 with equal and irresistible ferocity. His sagacity was 
 equal to his strength, and he seemed able to dis- 
 
32 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 cover when his antagonist was armed and prepared for 
 defence. 
 
 "My past experience enabled me to estimate the 
 full extent of my danger. He sat on the brow of the 
 steep, eying the bridge, and apparently deliberating 
 whether he should cross it. It was probable that he 
 had scented my footsteps thus far, and, should he pass 
 over, his vigilance could scarcely fail of detecting my 
 asylum. 
 
 "Should he retain his present station, my danger 
 was scarcely lessened. To pass over in the face of a 
 famished tiger was only to rush upon my fate. The 
 falling of the trunk, which had lately been so anxiously 
 deprecated, was now with no less solicitude desired. 
 Every new gust I hoped would tear asunder its remain- 
 ing bands, and, by cutting off all communication be- 
 tween the opposite steeps, place me in security. My 
 hopes, however, were destined to be frustrated. The 
 fibres of the prostrate tree were obstinately tenacious 
 of their hold, and presently the animal scrambled 
 down the rock and proceeded to cross it. 
 
 " Of all kinds of death, that which now menaced 
 me was the most abhorred. To die by disease, or by 
 the hand of a fellow-creature, was propitious and le- 
 nient in comparison with being rent to pieces by the 
 fangs of this savage. To perish in this obscure retreat 
 by means so impervious to the anxious curiosity of my 
 friends, to lose my portion of existence by so untoward 
 and ignoble a destiny, was insupportable. I bitterly 
 deplored my rashness in coming hither unprovided for 
 an encounter like this. 
 
 "The evil of my present circumstances consisted 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 33 
 
 chiefly in suspense. My death was unavoidable, but 
 my imagination had leisure to torment itself by antici- 
 pations. One foot of the savage was slowly and cau- 
 tiously moved after the other. He struck his claws so 
 deeply into the bark that they were with difficulty with- 
 drawn. At length he leaped upon the ground. We 
 were now separated by an interval of scarcely eight 
 feet. To leave the spot where I crouched was impos- 
 sible. Behind and beside me the cliff rose perpen- 
 dicularly, and before me was this grim and terrible 
 visage. I shrunk still closer to the ground, and closed 
 my eyes. 
 
 "From this pause of horror I was aroused by the 
 noise occasioned by a second spring of the animal. 
 He leaped into the pit in which I had so deeply re- 
 gretted that I had not taken refuge, and disappeared. 
 My rescue was so sudden, and so much beyond my 
 belief or my hope, that I doubted for a moment 
 whether my senses did not deceive me. This oppor- 
 tunity of escape was not to be neglected. I left my 
 place and scrambled over the trunk with a precipita- 
 tion which had like to have proved fatal. The tree 
 groaned and shook under me, the wind blew with 
 unexampled violence, and I had scarcely reached the 
 opposite steep when the roots were severed from the 
 rock, and the whole fell thundering to the bottom of 
 the chasm. 
 
 " My trepidations were not speedily quieted. I 
 looked back with wonder on my hairbreadth escape, 
 and on that singular concurrence of events which had 
 placed me in so short a period in absolute security. 
 Had the trunk fallen a moment earlier, I should have 
 
 B* 
 
34 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 been imprisoned on the hill or thrown headlong. Had 
 its fall been delayed another moment, I should have 
 been pursued ; for the beast now issued from his den, 
 and testified his surprise and disappointment by tokens 
 the sight of which made my blood run cold. 
 
 " He saw me, and hastened to the verge of the 
 chasm. He squatted on his hind legs, and assumed 
 the attitude of one preparing to leap. My conster- 
 nation was excited afresh by these appearances. It 
 seemed at first as if the rift was too wide for any power 
 of muscles to carry him in safety over ; but I knew 
 the unparalleled agility of this animal, and that his 
 experience had made him a better judge of the practi- 
 cability of this exploit than I was. 
 
 "Still, there was hope that he would relinquish this 
 design as desperate. This hope was quickly at an end. 
 He sprung, and his fore legs touched the verge of the 
 rock on which I stood. In spite of vehement exertions, 
 however, the surface was too smooth and too hard to 
 allow him to make good his hold. He fell, and a 
 piercing cry uttered below showed that nothing had 
 obstructed his descent to the bottom." 
 
 The subsequent narrative leads the hero through a 
 variety of romantic adventures, especially with the 
 savages, with whom he has several desperate rencoun- 
 ters and critical escapes. The track of adventure, 
 indeed, strikes into the same wild solitudes of the 
 forest that have since been so frequently travelled over 
 by our ingenious countryman Cooper. The light in 
 which the character of the North American Indian has 
 been exhibited by the two writers has little resemblance. 
 Brown's sketches, it is true, are few and faint. As far 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 35 
 
 as they go, however, they are confined to such views 
 as are most conformable to the popular conceptions, 
 bringing into full relief the rude and uncouth linea- 
 ments of the Indian character, its cunning, cruelty, 
 and unmitigated ferocity, with no intimations of a 
 more generous nature. Cooper, on the other hand, 
 discards all the coarser elements of savage life, re- 
 serving those only of a picturesque and romantic cast, 
 and elevating the souls of his warriors by such senti- 
 ments of courtesy, high-toned gallantry, and passionate 
 tenderness as belong to the riper period of civilization. 
 Thus idealized, the portrait, if not strictly that of the 
 fierce and untamed son of the forest, is at least suffi- 
 ciently true for poetical purposes. Cooper is indeed 
 a poet. His descriptions of inanimate nature, no less 
 than of savage man, are instinct with the breath of 
 poetry. Witness his infinitely various pictures of the 
 ocean, or, still more, of the beautiful spirit that rides 
 upon its bosom, the gallant ship, which under his 
 touches becomes an animated thing, inspired by a 
 living soul ; reminding us of the beautiful superstition 
 of the simple-hearted natives, who fancied the bark of 
 Columbus some celestial visitant, descending on his 
 broad pinions from the skies. 
 
 Brown is far less of a colorist. He deals less in 
 external nature, but searches the depths of the soul. 
 He may be rather called a philosophical than a poetical 
 writer ; for, though he has that intensity of feeling 
 which constitutes one of the distinguishing attributes 
 of the latter, yet in his most tumultuous bursts of 
 passion we frequently find him pausing to analyze and 
 coolly speculate on the elements - which have raised it. 
 
3 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 This intrusion, indeed, of reason, la raison froide, into 
 scenes of the greatest interest and emotion, has some- 
 times the unhappy effect of chilling them altogether. 
 
 In 1800 Brown published the second part of his 
 Arthur Mervyn, whose occasional displays of energy 
 and pathos by no means compensate the violent dislo- 
 cations and general improbabilities of the narrative. 
 Our author was led into these defects by the unpardon- 
 able precipitancy of his composition. Three of his 
 romances were thrown off in the course of one year. 
 These were written with the printer's devil literally at 
 his elbow, one being begun before another was com- 
 pleted, and all of them before a regular, well-digested 
 plan was devised for their execution. 
 
 The consequences of this curious style of doing 
 business are such as might have been predicted. The 
 incidents are strung together with about as little con- 
 nection as the rhymes in "The House that Jack 
 built;" and the whole reminds us of some bizarre, 
 antiquated edifice, exhibiting a dozen styles of archi- 
 tecture, according to the caprice or convenience of its 
 successive owners. 
 
 The reader is ever at a loss for a clue to guide him 
 through the labyrinth of strange, incongruous incident. 
 It would seem as if the great object of the author was 
 to keep alive the state of suspense, on the player's 
 principle, in "The Rehearsal," that "on the stage it 
 is best to keep the audience in suspense ; for to guess 
 presently at the plot or the sense tires them at the end 
 of the first act. Now, here every line surprises you, 
 and brings in new matter !" Perhaps, however, all this 
 proceeds less from calculation than from the embarrass- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 37 
 
 ment which the novelist feels in attempting a solution 
 of his own riddles, and which leads him to put off the 
 reader, by multiplying incident after incident, until at 
 length, entangled in the complicated snarl of his own 
 intrigue, he is finally obliged, when the fatal hour 
 arrives, to cut the knot which he cannot unravel. 
 There is no other way by which we can account for 
 the forced and violent denouements which bring up so 
 many of Brown's fictions. Voltaire has remarked, 
 somewhere in his Commentaries on Corneille, that 
 "an author may write with the rapidity of genius, but 
 should correct with scrupulous deliberation." Our 
 author seems to have thought it sufficient to comply 
 with the first half of the maxim. 
 
 In 1801 Brown published his novel of Clara Howard, 
 and in 1804 closed the series with Jane Talbot, first 
 printed in England. They are composed in a more 
 subdued tone, discarding those startling preternatural 
 incidents of which he had made such free use in his 
 former fictions. In the preface to his first romance, 
 "Wieland," he remarks, in allusion to the mystery 
 on which the story is made to depend, that "it is a 
 sufficient vindication of the writer if history furnishes 
 one parallel fact." But the French critic, who tells us 
 le vrai peut quelquefois 11 etre pas vraisemblable, has, 
 with more judgment, condemned this vicious recur- 
 rence to extravagant and improbable incident. Truth 
 cannot always be pleaded in vindication of the author 
 of a fiction any more than of a libel. Brown seems to 
 have subsequently come into the same opinion ; for, 
 in a letter addressed to his brother James, after the 
 publication of "Edgar Huntly," he observes, "Your 
 
 4 
 
38 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 remarks upon the gloominess and out-of-nature inci- 
 dents of 'Huntly,' if they be not just in their full 
 extent, are doubtless such as most readers will make, 
 which alone is a sufficient reason for dropping the 
 doleful tone and assuming a cheerful one. or, at least, 
 substituting moral causes and daily incidents in place 
 of the prodigious or the singular. I shall not fall 
 hereafter into that strain." The two last novels of 
 our author, however, although purified from the more 
 glaring defects of the preceding, were so inferior in 
 their general power and originality of conception that 
 they never rose to the same level in public favor. 
 
 In the year 1801 Brown returned to his native city, 
 Philadelphia, where he established his residence in the 
 family of his brother. Here he continued, steadily 
 pursuing his literary avocations, and in 1803 under- 
 took the conduct of a periodical, entitled The Literary 
 Magazine and American Register. A great change 
 had taken place in his opinions on more than one 
 important topic connected with human life and hap- 
 piness, and, indeed, in his general tone of thinking, 
 since abandoning his professional career. Brighter 
 prospects, no doubt, suggested to him more cheerful 
 considerations. Instead of a mere dreamer in the 
 world of fancy, he had now become a practical man : 
 larger experience and deeper meditation had shown 
 him the emptiness of his Utopian theories; and, though 
 his sensibilities were as ardent and as easily enlisted as 
 ever in the cause of humanity, his schemes of ameliora- 
 tion were built upon, not against, the existing institu- 
 tions of society. The enunciation of the principles on 
 which the periodical above alluded to was to be con- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 39 
 
 ducted is so honorable every way to his heart and his 
 understanding that we cannot refrain from making a 
 brief extract from it : 
 
 " In an age like this, when the foundations of re- 
 ligion and morality have been so boldly attacked, it 
 seems necessary, in announcing a work of this nature, 
 to be particularly explicit as to the path which the 
 editor means to pursue. He therefore avows himself 
 to be, without equivocation or reserve, the ardent 
 friend and the willing champion of the Christian re- 
 ligion. Christian piety he reveres as the highest ex- 
 cellence of human beings ; and the amplest reward he 
 can seek for his labor is the consciousness of having in 
 some degree, however inconsiderable, contributed to 
 recommend the practice of religious duties. As in the 
 conduct of this work a supreme regard will be paid to 
 the interests of religion and morality, he will scrupu- 
 lously guard against all that dishonors and impairs 
 that principle. Every thing that savors of indelicacy 
 or licentiousness will be rigorously proscribed. His 
 poetical pieces may be dull, but they shall at least be 
 free from voluptuousness or sensuality; and his prose, 
 whether seconded or not by genius and knowledge, 
 shall scrupulously aim at the promotion of public and 
 private virtue." 
 
 During his abode in New York our author had 
 formed an attachment to an amiable and accomplished 
 young lady, Miss Elizabeth Linn, daughter of the ex- 
 cellent and highly-gifted Presbyterian divine, Dr. Wil- 
 liam Linn, of that city. Their mutual attachment, in 
 which the impulses of the heart were sanctioned by the 
 understanding, was followed by their marriage in No- 
 
4o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 vember, 1804, after which he never again removed his 
 residence from Philadelphia. 
 
 With the additional responsibilities of his new sta- 
 tion, he pursued his literary labors with increased dili- 
 gence. He projected the plan of an Annual Register, 
 the first work of the kind in the country, and in 1806 
 edited the first volume of the publication, which was 
 undertaken at the risk of an eminent bookseller of 
 Philadelphia, Mr. Conrad, who had engaged his edi- 
 torial labors in the conduct of the former Magazine, 
 begun in 1803. When it is considered that both these 
 periodicals were placed under the superintendence of 
 one individual, and that he bestowed such indefati- 
 gable attention on them that they were not only pre- 
 pared, but a large portion actually executed, by his 
 own hands, we shall form no mean opinion of the 
 extent and variety of his stores of information and his 
 facility in applying them. Both works are replete with 
 evidences of the taste and erudition of their editor, em- 
 bracing a wide range of miscellaneous articles, essays, 
 literary criticism, and scientific researches. The his- 
 torical portion of "The Register" in particular, com- 
 prehending, in addition to the political annals of the 
 principal states of Europe and of our own country, an 
 elaborate inquiry into the origin and organization of 
 our domestic institutions, displays a discrimination in 
 the selection of incidents, and a good faith and candor 
 in the mode of discussing them, that entitle it to great 
 authority as a record of contemporary transactions. 
 Eight volumes were published of the first-mentioned 
 periodical, and the latter was continued under his di- 
 rection till the end of the fifth volume, 1809. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 41 
 
 In addition to these regular and, as they may be 
 called, professional labors, he indulged his prolific pen 
 in various speculations, both of a literary and political 
 character, many of which appeared in the pages of the 
 "Portfolio." Among other occasional productions, 
 we may notice a beautiful biographical sketch of his 
 wife's brother, Dr. J. B. Linn, pastor of the Presby- 
 terian church in Philadelphia, whose lamented death 
 occurred in the year succeeding Brown's marriage. 
 We must not leave out of the account three elaborate 
 and extended pamphlets, published between 1803 and 
 1809, on political topics of deep interest to the com- 
 munity at that time. The first of these, on the cession 
 of Louisiana to the French, soon went into a second 
 edition. They all excited general attention at the 
 time of their appearance by the novelty of their argu- 
 ments, the variety and copiousness of their informa- 
 tion, the liberality of their views, the independence, 
 so rare at that day, of foreign prejudices, the exemp- 
 tion, still rarer, from the bitterness of party spirit, 
 and, lastly, the tone of loyal and heartfelt patriotism 
 — a patriotism without cant — with which the author 
 dwells on the expanding glory and prosperity of his 
 country in a strain of prophecy that it is our boast has 
 now become history. 
 
 Thus occupied, Brown's situation seemed now to 
 afford him all the means for happiness attainable in 
 this life. His own labors secured to him an honor- 
 able independence and a high reputation, which, to 
 a mind devoted to professional or other intellectual 
 pursuits, is usually of far higher estimation than gain. 
 Round his own fireside he found ample scope for the 
 
 4* 
 
42 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 exercise of his affectionate sensibilities, while the tran- 
 quil pleasures of domestic life proved the best possible 
 relaxation for a mind wearied by severe intellectual 
 effort. His grateful heart was deeply sensible to the 
 extent of his blessings ; and in more than one letter 
 he indulges in a vein of reflection which shows that 
 his only solicitude was from the fear of their insta- 
 bility. His own health furnished too well-grounded 
 cause for such apprehensions. 
 
 We have already noticed that he set out in life with 
 a feeble constitution. His sedentary habits and in- 
 tense application had not, as it may well be believed, 
 contributed to repair the defects of Nature. He had 
 for some time shown a disposition to pulmonary com- 
 plaints, and had raised blood more than once, which he 
 in vain endeavored to persuade himself did not proceed 
 from the lungs. As the real character of the disease 
 disclosed itself in a manner not to be mistaken, his 
 anxious friends would have persuaded him to cross the 
 water in the hope of re-establishing his health by a 
 seasonable change of climate. But Brown could not 
 endure the thoughts of so long a separation from his 
 beloved family, and he trusted to the effect of a tem- 
 porary abstinence from business, and of one of those 
 excursions into the country by which he had so often 
 recruited his health and spirits. 
 
 In the summer of 1809 he made a tour into New 
 Jersey and New York. A letter addressed to one of 
 his family from the banks of the Hudson, during this 
 journey, exhibits in melancholy colors how large a 
 portion of his life had been clouded by disease, which 
 now, indeed, was too oppressive to admit of any other 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 43 
 
 alleviation than what he could find in the bosom of his 
 own family. 
 
 "My dearest Mary, — Instead of wandering about 
 and viewing more nearly a place that affords very 
 pleasing landscapes, here am I, hovering over the 
 images of wife, children, and sisters. I want to write 
 to you and home ; and, though unable to procure 
 paper enough to form a letter, I cannot help saying 
 something even on this scrap. 
 
 "I am mortified to think how incurious and inact- 
 ive a mind has fallen to my lot. I left home with 
 reluctance. If I had not brought a beloved part of my 
 home along with me, I should probably have not left it 
 at all. At a distance from home, my enjoyments, my 
 affections, are beside you. If swayed by mere inclina- 
 tion, I should not be out of your company a quarter 
 of an hour between my parting and returning hour ; 
 but I have some mercy on you and Susan, and a due 
 conviction of my want of power to beguile your vacant 
 hour with amusement or improve it by instruction. 
 Even if I were ever so well, and if my spirits did not 
 continually hover on the brink of dejection, my talk 
 could only make you yawn ; as things are, my company 
 can only tend to create a gap indeed. 
 
 "When have I known that lightness and vivacity 
 of mind which the divine flow of health, even in 
 calamity, produces in some men, and would produce 
 in me, no doubt, — at least, when not soured by misfor- 
 tune ? Never ; scarcely ever ; not longer than half an 
 hour at a time since I have called myself man, and not 
 a moment since I left you." 
 
44 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Finding these brief excursions productive of no salu- 
 tary change in his health, he at length complied with 
 the entreaties of his friends, and determined to try the 
 effect of a voyage to Europe in the following spring. 
 That spring he was doomed never to behold. About 
 the middle of November he was taken with a violent 
 pain in his left side, for which he was bled. From that 
 time forward he was confined to his chamber. His 
 malady was not attended with the exemption from 
 actual pain with which Nature seems sometimes willing 
 to compensate the sufferer for the length of its duration. 
 His sufferings were incessant and acute ; and they were 
 supported not only without a murmur, but with an 
 appearance of cheerfulness to which the hearts of his 
 friends could but ill respond. He met the approach 
 of death in the true spirit of Christian philosophy. No 
 other dread but that of separation from those dear to 
 him on earth had power to disturb his tranquillity for a 
 moment. But the temper of his mind in his last hours 
 is best disclosed in a communication from that faithful 
 partner who contributed more than any other to support 
 him through them. "He always felt for others more 
 than for himself; and the evidences of sorrow in those 
 around him, which could not at all times be suppressed, 
 appeared to affect him more than his own sufferings. 
 Whenever he spoke of the probability of a fatal termi- 
 nation to his disease, it was in an indirect and covert 
 manner, as, ' you must do so and so when I am absent,' 
 or 'when I am asleep.' He surrendered not up one 
 faculty of his soul but with his last breath. He saw 
 death in every step of his approach, and viewed him 
 as a messenger that brought with him no terrors. He 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 45 
 
 frequently expressed his resignation ; but his resigna- 
 tion was not produced by apathy or pain ; for, while 
 he bowed with submission to the Divine will, he felt 
 with the keenest sensibility his separation from those 
 who made this world but too dear to him. Towards the 
 last he spoke of death without disguise, and appeared 
 to wish to prepare his friends for the event which he 
 felt to be approaching. A few days previous to his 
 change, as sitting up in the bed, he fixed his eyes on 
 the sky, and desired not to be spoken to until he first 
 spoke. In this position, and with a serene counte- 
 nance, he continued for some minutes, and then said 
 to his wife, ' When I desired you not to speak to me, I 
 had the most transporting and sublime feelings I have 
 ever experienced ; I wanted to enjoy them, and know 
 how long they would last ;' concluding with requesting 
 her to remember the circumstance." 
 
 A visible change took place in him on the morning 
 of the 19th of.February, 1810, and he caused his family 
 to be assembled around his bed, when he took leave of 
 each one of them in the most tender and impressive 
 manner. He lingered, however, a few days longer, 
 remaining in the full possession of his faculties to the 
 2 2d of the month, when he expired without a struggle. 
 He had reached the thirty-ninth year of his age the 
 month preceding his death. The family which he left 
 consisted of a wife and four children. 
 
 There was nothing striking in Brown's personal ap- 
 pearance. His manners, however, were distinguished 
 by a gentleness and unaffected simplicity which ren- 
 dered them extremely agreeable. He possessed collo- 
 quial powers which do not always fall to the lot of the 
 
46 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 practised and ready writer. His rich and various ac- 
 quisitions supplied an unfailing fund for the edification 
 of his hearers. They did not lead him, however, to 
 affect an air of superiority, or to assume too prominent 
 a part in the dialogue, especially in large or mixed 
 company, where he was rather disposed to be silent, 
 reserving the display of his powers for the unrestrained 
 intercourse of friendship. He was a stranger not only 
 to base and malignant passions, but to the paltry jeal- 
 ousies which sometimes sour the intercourse of men of 
 letters. On the contrary, he was ever prompt to do 
 ample justice to the merits of others. His heart was 
 warm with the feeling of universal benevolence. Too 
 sanguine and romantic views had exposed him to some 
 miscalculations and consequent disappointments in 
 youth, from which, however, he was subsequently re- 
 trieved by the strength of his understanding, which, 
 combining with what may be called his natural eleva- 
 tion of soul, enabled him to settle the soundest prin- 
 ciples for the regulation of his opinions and conduct 
 in after-life. His reading was careless and desultory, 
 but his appetite was voracious; and the great amount 
 of miscellaneous information which he thus amassed 
 was all demanded to supply the outpourings of his 
 mind in a thousand channels of entertainment and 
 instruction. His unwearied application is attested by 
 the large amount of his works, large even for the 
 present day, when mind seems to have caught the 
 accelerated movement so generally given to the opera- 
 tions of machinery. The whole number of Brown's 
 printed works, comprehending his editorial as well as 
 original productions, to the former of which his own 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 47 
 
 pen contributed a very disproportionate share, is not 
 less than four-and-twenty printed volumes, not to 
 mention various pamphlets, anonymous contributions 
 to divers periodicals, as well as more than one com- 
 pilation of laborious research which he left unfinished 
 at his death. 
 
 Of this vast amount of matter, produced within the 
 brief compass of little more than ten years, that por- 
 tion on which his fame as an author must permanently 
 rest is his novels. We have already entered too mi- 
 nutely into the merits of these productions to require 
 any thing farther than a few general observations. 
 They may probably claim to be regarded as having 
 first opened the way to the successful cultivation of 
 romantic fiction in this country. Great doubts were 
 long entertained of our capabilities for immediate suc- 
 cess in this department. We had none of the buoyant, 
 stirring associations of a romantic age ; none of the 
 chivalrous pageantry, the feudal and border story, or 
 Robin Hood adventure; none of the dim, shadowy 
 superstitions, and the traditional legends, which had 
 gathered like moss round every stone, hill, and valley 
 of the olden countries. Every thing here wore a 
 spick-and-span new aspect, and lay in the broad, 
 garish sunshine of every-day life. We had none of the 
 picturesque varieties of situation or costume ; every 
 thing lay on the same dull, prosaic level : in short, we 
 had none of the most obvious elements of poetry: at 
 least so it appeared to the vulgar eye. It required the 
 eye of genius to detect the rich stores of romantic and 
 poetic interest that lay beneath the crust of society. 
 Brown was aware of the capabilities of our country, 
 
48 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and the poverty of the results he was less inclined to 
 impute to the soil than to the cultivation of it : at least 
 this would appear from some remarks dropped in his 
 correspondence in 1794, several years before he broke 
 ground in this field himself. "It used to be a favorite 
 maxim with me, that the genius of a poet should be 
 sacred to the glory of his country. How far this rule 
 can be reduced to practice by an American bard, how 
 far he can prudently observe it, and what success has 
 crowned the efforts of those who, in their composi- 
 tions, have shown that they have not been unmindful 
 of it, is perhaps not worth the inquiry. 
 
 "Does it not appear to you that to give poetry a 
 popular currency and universal reputation a particular 
 cast of manners and state of civilization is necessary? 
 I have sometimes thought so; but perhaps it is an 
 error, and the want of popular poems argues only the 
 demerit of those who have already written, or some 
 defect in their works, which unfits them for every taste 
 or understanding." 
 
 The success of our author's experiment, which was 
 entirely devoted to American subjects, fully established 
 the soundness of his opinions, which have been abun- 
 dantly confirmed by the prolific pens of Irving, Cooper, 
 Sedgwick, and other accomplished writers, who in their 
 diversified sketches of national character and scenery 
 have shown the full capacity of our country for all the 
 purposes of fiction. Brown does not direct himself, 
 like them, to the illustration of social life and charac- 
 ter. He is little occupied with the exterior forms of 
 society. He works in the depths of the heart, dwelling 
 less on human action than the sources of it. He has 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 49 
 
 been said to have formed himself on Godwin. In- 
 deed, he openly avowed his admiration of that emi- 
 nent writer, and has certainly in some respects adopted 
 his mode of operation, studying character with a philo- 
 sophic rather than a poetic eye. But there is no servile 
 imitation in all this. He has borrowed the same torch, 
 indeed, to read the page of human nature, but the les- 
 son he derives from it is totally different. His great 
 object seems to be to exhibit the soul in scenes of 
 extraordinary interest. For this purpose, striking and 
 perilous situations are devised, or circumstances of 
 strong moral excitement, a troubled conscience, par- 
 tial gleams of insanity, or bodings of imaginary evil, 
 which haunt the soul and force it into all the agonies 
 of terror. In the midst of the fearful strife, we are 
 coolly invited to investigate its causes and all the va- 
 rious phenomena which attend it ; every contingency, 
 probability, nay, possibility, however remote, is dis- 
 cussed and nicely balanced. The heat of the reader 
 is seen to evaporate in this cold-blooded dissection, 
 in which our author seems to rival Butler's hero, who, 
 
 " Profoundly skilled in analytic, 
 Could distinguish and divide 
 A hair 'twixt south and southwest side." 
 
 We are constantly struck with the strange contrast of 
 over-passion and over-reasoning. But perhaps, after 
 all, these defects could not be pruned away from 
 Brown's composition without detriment to his peculiar 
 excellences. Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus. If 
 so, we may willingly pardon the one for the sake of 
 the other. 
 
 c 5 
 
5° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 We cannot close without adverting to our author's 
 style. He bestowed great pains on the formation of 
 it, but, in our opinion, without great success, at least 
 in his novels. It has an elaborate, factitious air, con- 
 trasting singularly with the general simplicity of his 
 taste and the careless rapidity of his composition. 
 We are aware, indeed, that works of imagination may 
 bear a higher flush of color, a poetical varnish, in 
 short, that must be refused to graver and more studied 
 narrative. No writer has been so felicitous in reach- 
 ing the exact point of good taste in this particular as 
 Scott, who on a groundwork of prose may be said to 
 have enabled his readers to breathe an atmosphere of 
 poetry. More than one author, on the other hand, as 
 Florian, in French, for example, and Lady Morgan, 
 in English, in their attempts to reach this middle re- 
 gion, are eternally fluttering on the wing of sentiment, 
 equally removed from good prose and good poetry. 
 
 Brown, perhaps willing to avoid this extreme, has 
 fallen into the opposite one, forcing his style into un- 
 natural vigor and condensation. Unusual and pedantic 
 epithets, and elliptical forms of expression, in perpet- 
 ual violation of idiom, are resorted to at the expense 
 of simplicity and nature. He seems averse to telling 
 simple things in a simple way. Thus, for example, we 
 have such expressions as these: "I was fraught with 
 the persuasion that my life was endangered." " The 
 outer door was ajar. I shut it with trembling eager- 
 ness, and drew every bolt that appended X.o it." " Flis 
 brain seemed to swell beyond its continent." "I 
 waited till their slow and hoarser inspirations showed 
 them to be both asleep. Just then, on changing my 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES, 
 
 51 
 
 position, my head struck against some things which 
 depended from the ceiling of the closet." ''It was 
 still dark, but my sleep was at an end, and, by a com- 
 mon apparatus (tinder-box?) that lay beside my bed, 
 I could instantly produce a light." "On recover- 
 ing from deliqnhun, you found it where it had been 
 dropped." It is unnecessary to multiply examples 
 which we should not have adverted to at all had not 
 our opinions in this matter been at variance with those 
 of more than one respectable critic. This sort of 
 language is no doubt in very bad taste. It cannot be 
 denied, however, that although these defects are suffi- 
 ciently general to give a coloring to the whole of his 
 composition, yet his works afford many passages of 
 undeniable eloquence and rhetorical beauty. It must 
 be remembered, too, that his novels were his first pro- 
 ductions, thrown off with careless profusion, and ex- 
 hibiting many of the defects of an immature mind, 
 which longer experience and practice might have cor- 
 rected. Indeed, his later writings are recommended 
 by a more correct and natural phraseology, although it 
 must be allowed that the graver topics to which they 
 are devoted, if they did not authorize, would at least 
 render less conspicuous any studied formality and 
 artifice of expression. 
 
 These verbal blemishes, combined with defects al- 
 ready alluded to in the development of his plots, but 
 which all relate to the form rather than the fond of his 
 subject, have made our author less extensively popular 
 than his extraordinary powers would have entitled him 
 to be. His peculiar merits, indeed, appeal to a higher 
 order of criticism than is to be found in ordinary and 
 
52 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 superficial readers. Like the productions of Cole- 
 ridge or Wordsworth, they seem to rely on deeper 
 sensibilities than most men possess, and tax the reason- 
 ing powers more severely than is agreeable to readers 
 who resort to works of fiction only as an epicurean 
 indulgence. The number of their admirers is there- 
 fore necessarily more limited than that of writers of 
 less talent, who have shown more tact in accommo- 
 dating themselves to the tone of popular feeling or 
 prejudice. 
 
 But we are unwilling to part, with any thing like a 
 tone of disparagement lingering on our lips, with the 
 amiable author to whom our rising literature is under 
 such large and various obligations ; who first opened 
 a view into the boundless fields of fiction which sub- 
 sequent adventurers have successfully explored ; who 
 has furnished so much for our instruction in the several 
 departments of history and criticism, and has rendered 
 still more effectual service by kindling in the bosom of 
 the youthful scholar the same generous love of letters 
 which glowed in his own ; whose writings, in fine, 
 have uniformly inculcated the pure and elevated mo- 
 rality exemplified in his life. The only thing we 
 can regret is that a life so useful should have been so 
 short, if, indeed, that can be considered short which 
 has done so much towards attaining life's great end, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 53 
 
 ASYLUxM FOR THE BLIND.* 
 
 (July, 1830.) 
 
 There is nothing in which the moderns surpass the 
 ancients more conspicuously than in their noble pro- 
 visions for the relief of indigence and distress. The 
 public policy of the ancients seems to have embraced 
 only whatever might promote the aggrandizement or 
 the direct prosperity of the state, and to have cared 
 little for those unfortunate beings who, from disease 
 or incapacity of any kind, were disqualified from con- 
 tributing to this. But the beneficent influence of 
 Christianity, combined with the general tendency of 
 our social institutions, has led to the recognition of 
 rights in the individual as sacred as those of the com- 
 munity, and has suggested manifold provisions for 
 personal comfort and happiness. 
 
 The spirit of benevolence, thus widely, and often- 
 times judiciously, exerted, continued until a very recent 
 period, however, strangely insensible to the claims of a 
 large class of objects to whom nature, and no miscon- 
 duct or imprudence of their own, as is too often the 
 case with the subjects of public charity, had denied 
 some of the most estimable faculties of man. No 
 
 * An Act to Incorporate the New England Asylum for the Blind. 
 Approved March 2d, 1829. 
 
 5* 
 
54 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 suitable institutions, until the close of the last century, 
 have been provided for the nurture of the deaf and 
 dumb, or the blind. Immured within hospitals and 
 almshouses, like so many lunatics and incurables, they 
 have been delivered over, if they escaped the physical, 
 to all the moral contagion too frequently incident to 
 such abodes, and have thus been involved in a mental 
 darkness far more deplorable than their bodily one. 
 
 This injudicious treatment has resulted from the erro- 
 neous principle of viewing these unfortunate beings as 
 an absolute burden on the public, utterly incapable of 
 contributing to their own subsistence or of ministering 
 in any degree to their own intellectual wants. Instead, 
 however, of being degraded by such unworthy views, 
 they should have been regarded as, what in truth they 
 are, possessed of corporeal and mental capacities per- 
 fectly competent, under proper management, to the 
 production of the most useful results. If wisdom from 
 one entrance was quite shut out, other avenues for its 
 admission still remained to be opened. 
 
 In order to give effective aid to persons in this 
 predicament, it is necessary to place ourselves as far as 
 possible in their peculiar situation, to consider to what 
 faculties this insulated condition is, on the whole, most 
 favorable, and in what direction they can be exercised 
 with the best chance of success. Without such fore- 
 sight, all our endeavors to aid them will only put them 
 upon efforts above their strength, and result in serious 
 mortification. 
 
 The blind, from the cheerful ways of men cut off, are 
 necessarily excluded from the busy theatre of human 
 action. Their infirmity, however, which consigns them 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 55 
 
 to darkness, and often to solitude, would seem favor- 
 able to contemplative habits and to the pursuits of 
 abstract science and pure speculation. Undisturbed 
 by external objects, the mind necessarily turns within, 
 and concentrates its ideas on any point of investiga- 
 tion with greater intensity and perseverance. It is 
 no uncommon thing, therefore, to find persons setting 
 apart the silent hours of the evening for the purpose 
 of composition or other purely intellectual exercise. 
 Malebranche, when he wished to think intensely, used 
 to close his shutters in the daytime, excluding every 
 ray of light ; and hence Democritus is said to have 
 put out his eyes in order that he might philosophize 
 the better, — a story the veracity of which Cicero, who 
 relates it, is prudent enough not to vouch for. 
 
 Blindness must also be exceedingly favorable to 
 the discipline of the memory. Whoever has had the 
 misfortune, from any derangement of the organ, to 
 be compelled to derive his knowledge of books less 
 from the eye than the ear. will feel the truth of this. 
 The difficulty of recalling what has once escaped, of 
 reverting to or dwelling on the passages read aloud by 
 another, compels the hearer to give undivided attention 
 to the subject, and to impress it more forcibly on his 
 own mind by subsequent and methodical reflection. 
 Instances of the cultivation of this facultv to an ex- 
 traordinary extent have been witnessed among the 
 blind, and it has been most advantageously applied to 
 the pursuit of abstract science, especially mathematics. 
 
 One of the most eminent illustrations of these re- 
 marks is the well-known history of Saunderson, who, 
 though deprived in his infancy not only of sight, but 
 
56 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of the organ itself, contrived to become so well ac- 
 quainted with the Greek tongue as to read the works of 
 the ancient mathematicians in the original. He made 
 such advances in the higher departments of the science 
 that he was appointed, " though not matriculated at 
 the University," to fill the chair which a short time pre- 
 vious had been occupied by Sir Isaac Newton at Cam- 
 bridge. The lectures of this blind professor on the 
 most abstruse points of the Newtonian philosophy, and 
 especially on optics, naturally filled his audience with 
 admiration ; and the perspicuity with which he com- 
 municated his ideas is said to have been unequalled. 
 He was enabled, by the force of his memory, to per- 
 form many long operations in arithmetic, and to carry 
 in his mind the most complex geometrical figures. As, 
 however, it became necessary to supply the want of 
 vision by some symbols which might be sensible to the 
 touch, he contrived a table in which pins, whose value 
 was determined principally by their relative position to 
 each other, served him instead of figures, while for his 
 diagrams he employed pegs, inserted at the requisite 
 angles to each other, representing the lines by threads 
 drawn around them. He was so expert in the use of 
 these materials that when performing his calculations 
 he would change the position of the pins with nearly 
 the same facility that another person would indite 
 figures, and when disturbed in an operation would 
 afterwards resume it again, ascertaining the posture in 
 which he had left it by passing his hand carefully over 
 the table. To such shifts and inventions does human 
 ingenuity resort when stimulated by the thirst of 
 knowledge; as the plant, when thrown into shade on 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 57 
 
 one side, sends forth its branches eagerly in that 
 direction where the light is permitted to fall upon it. 
 
 In like manner, the celebrated mathematician Euler 
 continued, for many years after he became blind, to 
 indite and publish the results of his scientific labors, 
 and at the time of his decease left nearly a hundred 
 memoirs ready for the press, most of which have since 
 been given to the world. An example of diligence 
 equally indefatigable, though turned in a different 
 channel, occurs in our contemporary Huber, who has 
 contributed one of the most delightful volumes within 
 the compass of natural history, and who, if he em- 
 ployed the eyes of another, guided them in their 
 investigation to the right results by the light of his 
 own mind. 
 
 Blindness would seem to be propitious, also, to the 
 exercise of the inventive powers. Hence poetry, from 
 the time of Thamyris and the blind Maeonides down to 
 the Welsh harper and the ballad-grinder of our day, has 
 been assigned as the peculiar province of those bereft of 
 vision, 
 
 " As the wakeful bird 
 Sings darkling, and, in shadiest cover hid, 
 Tunes her nocturnal note." 
 
 The greatest epic poem of antiquity was probably, as 
 that of the moderns was certainly, composed in dark- 
 ness. It is easy to understand how the man who has 
 once seen can recall and body forth in his conceptions 
 new combinations of material beauty; but it would 
 seem scarcely possible that one born blind, excluded 
 from all acquaintance with "colored nature," as Con- 
 dillac finely styles it, should excel in descriptive poetry. 
 
5 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Yet there are eminent examples of this ; among others, 
 that of Blacklock, whose verses abound in the most 
 agreeable and picturesque images. Yet he could have 
 formed no other idea of colors than was conveyed by 
 their moral associations, the source, indeed, of most 
 of the pleasures we derive from descriptive poetry. 
 It was thus that he studied the variegated aspect of 
 nature, and read in it the successive revolutions of 
 the seasons, their freshness, their prime, and decay. 
 
 Mons. Guillie, in an interesting essay on the instruc- 
 tion of the blind, to which we shall have occasion re- 
 peatedly to refer, quotes an example of the association 
 of ideas in regard to colors, which occurred in one of 
 his own pupils, who, in reciting the well-known pas- 
 sage in Horace, " rubente dexter a saeras jaculatus 
 arces" translated the first two words by "fiery" or 
 "burning right hand." On being requested to render 
 it literally, he called it "red right hand," and gave as 
 the reason for his former version that he could form no 
 positive conception of a red color; but that, as fire was 
 said to be red, he connected the idea of heat with this 
 color, and had therefore interpreted the wrath of Jupi- 
 ter, demolishing town and tower, by the epithet "fiery 
 or burning;" for "when people are angry," he added, 
 " they are hot, and when they are hot, they must of 
 course be red." He certainly seems to have formed a 
 much more accurate notion of red than Locke's blind 
 man. 
 
 But while a gift for poetry belongs only to the in- 
 spired few, and while many have neither taste nor 
 talent for mathematical or speculative science, it is a 
 consolation to reflect that the humblest individual who 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 59 
 
 is destitute of sight may so far supply this deficiency 
 by the perfection of the other senses as by their aid to 
 attain a considerable degree of intellectual culture, as 
 well as a familiarity with some of the most useful 
 mechanic arts. It will be easier to conceive to what 
 extent the perceptions of touch and hearing may be 
 refined if we reflect how far that of sight is sharpened 
 by exclusive reliance on it in certain situations. Thus 
 the mariner descries objects at night, and at a distance 
 upon the ocean, altogether imperceptible to the un- 
 practised eye of a landsman. And the North Amer- 
 ican Indian steers his course undeviatingly through 
 the trackless wilderness, guided only by such signs as 
 escape the eye of the most inquisitive white man. 
 
 In like manner, the senses of hearing and feeling 
 are capable of attaining such a degree of perfection in 
 a blind person that by them alone he can distinguish 
 his various acquaintances, and even the presence of 
 persons whom he has but rarely met before, the size of 
 the apartment, and the general locality of the spots in 
 which he may happen to be, and guide himself safely 
 across the most solitary districts and amid the throng 
 of towns. Dr. Bew, in a paper in the Manchester Col- 
 lection of Memoirs, gives an account of a blind man 
 of his acquaintance in Derbyshire, who was much used 
 as a guide for travellers in the night over certain in- 
 tricate roads, and particularly when the tracks were 
 covered with snow. This same man was afterwards 
 employed as a projector and surveyor of roads in that 
 county. We well remember a blind man in the neigh- 
 boring town of Salem, who officiated some twenty 
 years since as the town crier, when that functionary 
 
6o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 performed many of the advertising duties now usurped 
 by the newspaper, making his diurnal round, and 
 stopping with great precision at every corner, trivium 
 or quodrivium, to "chime his melodious twang." Yet 
 this feat, the familiarity of which prevented it from oc- 
 casioning any surprise, could have resulted only from 
 the nicest observation of the undulations of the ground, 
 or by an attention to the currents of air, or the differ- 
 ent sound of the voice or other noises in these open- 
 ings, signs altogether lost upon the man of eyes. 
 
 Mons. Guillie mentions several apparently well-at- 
 tested anecdotes of blind persons who had the power 
 of discriminating colors by the touch. One of the in- 
 dividuals noticed by him, a Dutchman, was so expert 
 in this way that he was sure to come off conqueror at 
 the card-table by the knowledge which he thus ob- 
 tained of his adversary's hand whenever it came to his 
 turn to deal. This power of discrimination of colors, 
 which seems to be a gift only of a very few of the finer- 
 fingered gentry, must be founded on the different con- 
 sistency or smoothness of the ingredients used in the 
 various dyes. A more certain method of ascertaining 
 these colors, that of tasting or touching them with the 
 tongue, is frequently resorted to by the blind, who by 
 this means often distinguish between those analogous 
 colors, as black and dark blue, red and pink, which, 
 having the greatest apparent affinity, not unfrequently 
 deceive the eye. 
 
 Diderot, in an ingenious letter on the blind, a T usage 
 de ceux qui voient, has given a circumstantial narration 
 of his visit to a blind man at Puisseaux, the son of a 
 professor in the University of Paris, and well known in 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 61 
 
 his day from the various accomplishments and manual 
 dexterity which he exhibited, remarkable in a person 
 in his situation. Being asked what notion he had 
 formed of an eye, he replied, " I conceive it to be an 
 organ on which the air produces the same effect as this 
 staff on my hand. If, when you are looking at an 
 object, I should interpose any thing between your eyes 
 and that object, it would prevent you from seeing it. 
 And I am in the same predicament when I seek one 
 thing with my staff and come across another." An 
 explanation, says Diderot, as lucid as any which could 
 be given by Descartes, who, it is singular, attempts, 
 in his Dioptrics, to explain the analogy between the 
 senses of feeling and seeing by figures of men blind- 
 folded, groping their way with staffs in their hands. 
 This same intelligent personage became so familiar with 
 the properties of touch that he seems to have accounted 
 them almost equally valuable with those of vision. On 
 being interrogated if he felt a great desire to have 
 eyes, he answered, ''Were it not for the mere gratifica- 
 tion of curiosity, I think I should do as well to wish 
 for long arms. It seems to me that my hands would 
 inform me better of what is going on in the moon than 
 your eyes and telescopes ; and then the eyes lose the 
 power of vision more readily than the hands that of 
 feeling. It would be better to perfect the organ which 
 I have than to bestow on me that which I have not." 
 
 Indeed, the "geometric sense" of touch, as Buffon 
 terms it, as far as it reaches, is more faithful, and con- 
 veys oftentimes a more satisfactory idea of external 
 forms, than the eye itself. The great defect is that its 
 range is necessarily so limited. It is told of Saunder- 
 
 6 
 
62 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 son that on one occasion he detected by his finger 
 a counterfeit coin which had deceived the eye of a 
 connoisseur. We are hardly aware how much of our 
 dexterity in the use of the eye arises from incessant 
 practice. Those who have been relieved from blind- 
 ness at an advanced, or even early, period of life, have 
 been found frequently to recur to the old and more 
 familiar sense of touch, in preference to the sight. 
 The celebrated English anatomist Cheselden mentions 
 several illustrations of this fact in an account given by 
 him of a blind boy whom he had successfully couched 
 for cataracts at the age of fourteen. It was long be- 
 fore the youth could discriminate by his eye between 
 his old companions the family cat and dog, dissimilar 
 as such animals appear to us in color and conforma- 
 tion. Being ashamed to ask the oft-repeated question, 
 he was observed one day to pass his hand carefully 
 over the cat, and then, looking at her steadfastly, to 
 exclaim, "So, puss, I shall know you another time." 
 It is more natural that he should have been deceived 
 by the illusory art of painting, and it was long before 
 he could comprehend that the objects depicted did not 
 possess the same relief on the canvas as in nature. He 
 inquired, "Which is the lying sense here, the sight or 
 the touch?" 
 
 The faculty of hearing would seem susceptible of a 
 similar refinement with that of seeing. To prove this 
 without going into farther detail, it is only necessary to 
 observe that much the larger proportion of blind per- 
 sons are, more or less, proficients in music, and that 
 in some of the institutions for their education, as that 
 in Paris, for instance, all the pupils are instructed in 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 63 
 
 this delightful art. The gift of a natural ear for mel- 
 ody, therefore, deemed comparatively rare with the 
 clairvoyans, would seem to exist so far in every indi- 
 vidual as to be capable, by a suitable cultivation, of 
 affording a high degree of relish, at least to himself. 
 
 As, in order to a successful education of the blind, 
 it becomes necessary to understand what are the facul- 
 ties, intellectual -and corporeal, to the development 
 and exercise of which their peculiar condition is best 
 adapted, so it is equally necessary to understand how 
 far, and in what manner, their moral constitution is 
 likely to be affected by the insulated position in which 
 they are placed. The blind man, shut up within the 
 precincts of his own microcosm, is subjected to influ- 
 ences of a very different complexion from the bulk of 
 mankind, inasmuch as each of the senses is best fitted 
 to the introduction of a certain class of ideas into the 
 mind, and he is deprived of that one through which 
 the rest of his species receive by far the greatest num- 
 ber of theirs. Thus it will be readily understood that 
 his notions of modesty and delicacy may a good deal 
 differ from those of the world at large. The blind 
 man of Puisseaux confessed that he could not compre- 
 hend why it should be reckoned improper to expose 
 one part of the person rather than another. Indeed, 
 the conventional rules, so necessarily adopted in so- 
 ciety in this relation, might seem in a great degree 
 superfluous in a blind community. 
 
 The blind man would seem, also, to be less likely to 
 be endowed with the degree of sensibility usual with 
 those who enjoy the blessing of sight. It is difficult 
 to say how much of our early education depends on 
 
64 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the looks, the frowns, the smiles, the tears, the ex- 
 ample, in fact, of those placed over and around us. 
 From all this the blind child is necessarily excluded. 
 These, however, are the great sources of sympathy. 
 We feel little for the joys or the sorrows which we 
 do not witness. "Out of sight, out of mind," says 
 the old proverb. Hence people are so ready to turn 
 away from distress which they cannot, or their avarice 
 will not suffer them to relieve. Hence, too, persons 
 whose compassionate hearts would bleed at the inflic- 
 tion of an act of cruelty on so large an animal as a 
 horse or a dog, for example, will crush without con- 
 cern a wilderness of insects, whose delicate organiza- 
 tion and whose bodily agonies are imperceptible to the 
 naked eye. The slightest injury occurring in our own 
 presence affects us infinitely more than the tidings of 
 the most murderous battle, or the sack of the most 
 populous and flourishing city at the extremity of the 
 globe. Yet such, without much exaggeration, is the 
 relative position of the blind, removed by their in- 
 firmity at a distance from the world, from the daily ex- 
 hibition of those mingled scenes of grief and gladness 
 which have their most important uses, perhaps, in 
 calling forth our sympathies for our fellow-creatures. 
 
 It has been affirmed that the situation of the blind is 
 unpropitious to religious sentiment. They are neces- 
 sarily insensible to the grandeur of the spectacle which 
 forces itself upon our senses every day of our existence. 
 The magnificent map of the heavens, with 
 
 " Every star 
 Which the clear concave of a winter's night 
 Pours on the eye," 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 65 
 
 is not unrolled for them. The revolutions of the sea- 
 sons, with all their beautiful varieties of form and color, 
 and whatever glories of the creation lift the soul in 
 wonder and gratitude to the Creator, are not for them. 
 Their world is circumscribed by the little circle which 
 they can span with their own arms. All beyond has 
 for them no real existence. This seems to have passed 
 within the mind of the mathematician Saunderson, 
 whose notions of a Deity would seem to have been, 
 to the last, exceedingly vague and unsettled. The 
 clergyman who visited him in his latter hours endeav- 
 ored to impress upon him the evidence of a God as 
 afforded by the astonishing mechanism of the universe. 
 "Alas!" said the dying philosopher, "I have been 
 condemned to pass my life in darkness, and you speak 
 to me of prodigies which I cannot comprehend, and 
 which can only be felt by you and those who see like 
 you." When reminded of the faith of Newton, Leib- 
 nitz, and Clarke, minds from whom he had drunk so 
 deeply of instruction, and for whom he entertained the 
 profoundest veneration, he remarked, "The testimony 
 of Newton is not so strong for me as that of Nature 
 was for him : Newton believed on the word of God 
 himself, while I am reduced to believe on that of 
 Newton." He expired with this ejaculation on his 
 lips : " God of Newton, have mercy on me !" 
 
 These, however, may be considered as the peevish 
 ebullitions of a naturally skeptical and somewhat 
 disappointed spirit, impatient of an infirmity which 
 obstructed, as he conceived, his advancement in the 
 career of science to which he had so zealously devoted 
 himself. It was in allusion to this, undoubtedly, that 
 
 6* 
 
66 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 he depicted his life as having been "one long desire 
 and continued privation." 
 
 It is far more reasonable to believe that there are 
 certain peculiarities in the condition of the blind 
 which more than counterbalance the unpropitious cir- 
 cumstances above described, and which have a decided 
 tendency to awaken devotional sentiment in their 
 minds. They are the subjects of a grievous calamity, 
 which, as in all such cases, naturally disposes the heart 
 to sober reflection, and, when permanent and irremedi- 
 able, to passive resignation. Their situation necessarily 
 excludes most of those temptations which so sorely beset 
 us in the world, — those tumultuous passions which, in 
 the general rivalry, divide man from man and embitter 
 the sweet cup of social life, — those sordid appetites 
 which degrade us to the level of the brutes. They 
 are subjected, on the contrary, to the most healthful 
 influences. Their occupations are of a tranquil, and 
 oftentimes of a purely intellectual, character. Their 
 pleasures are derived from the endearments of domestic 
 intercourse, and the attentions almost always conceded 
 to persons in their dependent condition must neces- 
 sarily beget a reciprocal kindliness of feeling in their 
 own bosoms. In short, the uniform tenor of their 
 lives is such as naturally to dispose them to resignation, 
 serenity, and cheerfulness ; and accordingly, as far as 
 our own experience goes, these have usually been the 
 characteristics of the blind. 
 
 Indeed, the cheerfulness almost universally incident 
 to persons deprived of sight leads us to consider blind- 
 ness as, on the whole, a less calamity than deafness. 
 The deaf man is continually exposed to the sight of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 67 
 
 pleasures and to society in which he can take no part. 
 He is the guest at a banquet of which he is not per- 
 mitted to partake, the spectator at a theatre where he 
 cannot comprehend a syllable. If the blind man is 
 excluded from sources of enjoyment equally important, 
 he has at least the advantage of not perceiving, and 
 not even comprehending, what he has lost. It may be 
 added that perhaps the greatest privation consequent 
 on blindness is the inability to read, as that on deafness 
 is the loss of the pleasures of society. Now, the eyes 
 of another may be made in a great degree to supply 
 this defect of the blind man, while no art can afford a 
 corresponding substitute to the deaf for the privations 
 to which he is doomed in social intercourse. He can- 
 not hear with the ears of another. As, however, it is 
 undeniable that blindness makes one more dependent 
 than deafness, we may be content with the conclusion 
 that the former would be the most eligible for the 
 rich, and the latter for the poor. Our remarks will be 
 understood as applying to those only who are wholly 
 destitute of the faculties of sight and hearing. A 
 person afflicted only with a partial derangement or 
 infirmity of vision is placed in the same tantalizing 
 predicament above described of the deaf, and is, con- 
 sequently, found to be usually of a far more impatient 
 and irritable temperament, and, consequently, less 
 happy, than the totally blind. With all this, we doubt 
 whether there be one of our readers, even should he 
 assent to the general truth of our remarks, who would 
 not infinitely prefer to incur partial to total blindness, 
 and deafness to either. Such is the prejudice in favor 
 of eyes ! 
 
68 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Patience, perseverance, habits of industry, and, above 
 all, a craving appetite for knowledge, are sufficiently 
 common to be considered as characteristics of the blind, 
 and have tended greatly to facilitate their education, 
 which must otherwise prove somewhat tedious, and, 
 indeed, doubtful as to its results, considering the formi- 
 dable character of the obstacles to be encountered. A 
 curious instance of perseverance in overcoming such 
 obstacles occurred at Paris, when the institutions for 
 the deaf and dumb and for the blind were assembled 
 under the same roof in the convent of the Celestines. 
 The pupils of the two seminaries, notwithstanding the 
 apparently insurmountable barrier interposed between 
 them by their respective infirmities, contrived to open 
 a communication with each other, which they carried 
 on with the greatest vivacity. 
 
 It was probably the consideration of those moral 
 qualities, as well as of the capacity for improvement 
 which we have described as belonging to the blind, 
 which induced the benevolent Haiiy, in conjunction 
 with the Philanthropic Society of Paris, to open there, 
 in 1784, the first regular seminary for their education 
 ever attempted. This institution underwent several 
 modifications, not for the better, during the revolu- 
 tionary period which followed; until, in 1816, it was 
 placed on the respectable basis on which it now exists, 
 under the direction of Dr. Guillie, whose untiring 
 exertions have been blessed with the most beneficial 
 results. 
 
 We shall give a brief view of the course of education 
 pursued under his direction, as exhibited by him in the 
 valuable treatise to which we have already referred, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 69 
 
 occasionally glancing at the method adopted in the 
 corresponding institution at Edinburgh. 
 
 The fundamental object proposed in every scheme 
 of education for the blind is, to direct the attention of 
 the pupil to those studies and mechanic arts which he 
 will be able afterwards to pursue by means of his own 
 exertions and resources, without any external aid. The 
 sense of touch is the one, therefore, almost exclusively 
 relied on. The fingers are the eyes of the blind. They 
 are taught to read in Paris by feeling the surface of 
 metallic types, and in Edinburgh by means of letters 
 raised on a blank leaf of paper. If they are previously 
 acquainted with spelling, which may be easily taught 
 them before entering the institution, they learn to 
 discriminate the several letters with great facility. 
 Their perceptions become so fine by practice that they 
 can discern even the finest print, and, when the fingers 
 fail them, readily distinguish it by applying the tongue. 
 A similar method is employed for instructing them in 
 figures; the notation-table invented by Saunderson, 
 and once used in the Paris seminary, having been 
 abandoned as less simple and obvious, although his 
 symbols for the representation of geometrical diagrams 
 are still retained. 
 
 As it would be labor lost to learn the art of reading 
 without having books to read, various attempts have 
 been made to supply this desideratum. The first hint 
 of the form now adopted for the impression of these 
 books was suggested by the appearance exhibited on 
 the reverse side of a copy as removed fresh from the 
 printing-press. In imitation of this, a leaf of paper 
 of a firm texture is forcibly impressed with types un- 
 
7 o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 stained by ink, and larger than the ordinary size, until 
 a sufficiently bold relief has been obtained to enable 
 the blind person to distinguish the characters by the 
 touch. The French have adopted the Italian hand, or 
 one very like it, for the fashion of the letters, while the 
 Scotch have invented one more angular and rectilinear, 
 which, besides the advantage of greater compactness, is 
 found better suited to accurate discrimination by the 
 touch than smooth and extended curves and circles. 
 
 Several important works have been already printed 
 on this plan, viz., a portion of the Scriptures, cate- 
 chisms, and offices fcr daily prayer ; grammars in the 
 Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian, and Spanish 
 languages ; a Latin sclccta, a geography, a course of 
 general history, a selection from English poets and 
 prose-writers, a course of literature, with a compilation 
 of the choicest specimens of French eloquence. With 
 all this, the art of printing for the blind is still in its 
 infancy. The characters are so unwieldy, and the 
 leaves (which cannot be printed on the reverse side, 
 as this would flatten the letters upon the other) are 
 necessarily so numerous, as to make the volume ex- 
 ceedingly bulky, and of course expensive. The Gospel 
 of St. John, for example, expands into three large oc- 
 tavo volumes. Some farther improvement must occur, 
 therefore, before the invention can become extensively 
 useful. There can be no reason to doubt of such a 
 result eventually, for it is only by long and repeated 
 experiment that the art of printing in the usual way, 
 and every other art, indeed, has been brought to 
 its present perfection. Perhaps some mode may be 
 adopted like that of stenography, which, although en- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 71 
 
 cumbering the learner with some additional difficulties 
 at first, may abundantly compensate him in the con- 
 densed forms and consequently cheaper and more nu- 
 merous publications which could be afforded by it. 
 Perhaps ink or some other material of greater con- 
 sistency than that ordinarily used in printing may be 
 devised, which, when communicated by the type to 
 the paper, will leave a character sufficiently raised to 
 be distinguished by the touch. We have known a 
 blind person able to decipher the characters in a piece 
 of music to which the ink had been imparted more 
 liberally than usual. In the mean time, what has been 
 already done has conferred a service on the blind 
 which we, who become insensible from the very prodi- 
 gality of our blessings, cannot rightly estimate. The 
 glimmering of the taper, which is lost in the blaze of 
 day, is sufficient to guide the steps of the wanderer in 
 darkness. The unsealed volume of Scripture will fur- 
 nish him with the best sources of consolation under 
 every privation ; the various grammars are so many 
 keys with which to unlock the stores of knowledge to 
 enrich his after-life ; and the selections from the most 
 beautiful portions of elegant literature will afford him 
 a permanent source of recreation and delight. 
 
 One method used for instruction in writing is, to 
 direct the pencil, or stylus, in a groove cut in the 
 fashion of the different letters. Other modes, how- 
 ever, too complex for description here, are resorted 
 to, by which the blind person is enabled not only to 
 write, but to read what he has thus traced. A portable 
 writing-case for this purpose has also been invented by 
 one of the blind, who, it is observed, are the most in- 
 
72 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 genious in supplying, as they are best acquainted with, 
 their own wants. A very simple method of epistolary 
 correspondence, by means of a string-alphabet, as it is 
 called, consisting of a cord or riband in which knots 
 of various dimensions represent certain classes of let-. 
 ters, has been devised by two blind men at Edinburgh. 
 This contrivance, which is so simple that it can be 
 acquired in an hour's time by the most ordinary ca- 
 pacity, is asserted to have the power of conveying 
 ideas with equal precision with the pen. A blind lady 
 of our acquaintance, however, whose fine understand- 
 ing and temper have enabled her to surmount many 
 of the difficulties of her situation, after a trial of this 
 invention, gives the preference to the mode usually 
 adopted by her of pricking the letters on the paper 
 with a pin, — an operation which she performs with 
 astonishing rapidity, and which, in addition to the 
 advantage possessed by the string-alphabet of being 
 legible by the touch, answers more completely the 
 purposes of epistolary correspondence, since it may be 
 readily interpreted by any one on being held up to the 
 light. 
 
 The scheme of instruction at the institution for the 
 blind in Paris comprehends geography, history, the 
 Greek and Latin, together with the French, Italian, 
 and English languages, arithmetic and the higher 
 branches of mathematics, music, and some of the most 
 useful mechanic arts. For mathematics the pupils 
 appear to discover a natural aptitude, many of them 
 attaining such proficiency as not only to profit by the 
 public lectures of the most eminent professors in the 
 sciences, but to carry away the highest prizes in the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 73 
 
 lyceums in a competition with those who possess the 
 advantages of sight. In music, as we have before 
 remarked, they all make greater or less proficiency. 
 They are especially instructed in the organ, which, 
 from its frequency in the churches, affords one of the 
 most obvious means of obtaining a livelihood. 
 
 The method of tuition adopted is that of mutual 
 instruction. The blind are ascertained to learn most 
 easily and expeditiously from those in the same con- 
 dition with themselves. Two male teachers, with one 
 female, are in this way found adequate to the super- 
 intendence of eighty scholars, which, considering the 
 obstacles to be encountered, must be admitted to be 
 a small apparatus for the production of such extensive 
 results. 
 
 In teaching them the mechanic arts, two principles 
 appear to be kept in view, namely, to select such for 
 each individual respectively as may be best adapted to 
 his future residence and destination ; the trades, for 
 example, most suitable for a sea-port being those least 
 so for the country, and vice versa. Secondly, to con- 
 fine their attention to such occupations as from their 
 nature are most accessible to, and which can be most 
 perfectly attained by, persons in their situation. It is 
 absurd to multiply obstacles from the mere vanity of 
 conquering them. 
 
 Printing is an art for which the blind show partic- 
 ular talent, going through all the processes of com- 
 posing, serving the press, and distributing the types 
 with the same accuracy with those who can see. In- 
 deed, much of this mechanical occupation with the 
 clairvoyans (we are in want of some such compendious 
 d 7 
 
74 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 phrase in our language) appears to be the result rather 
 of habit than any exercise of the eye. The blind 
 print all the books for their own use. They are taught 
 also to spin, to knit, in which last operation they 
 are extremely ready, knitting very finely, with open 
 work, etc., and are much employed by the Parisian 
 hosiers in the manufacture of elastic vests, shirts, and 
 petticoats. They make purses, delicately embroidered 
 with figures of animals and flowers, whose various 
 tints are selected with perfect propriety. The fingers 
 of the females are observed to be particularly adapted 
 to this nicer sort of work, from their superior delicacy, 
 ordinarily, to those of men. They are employed also 
 in manufacturing girths, in netting in all its branches, 
 in making shoes of list, plush, cloth, colored skin, and 
 list carpets, of which a vast number is annually dis- 
 posed of. Weaving is particularly adapted to the 
 blind, who perform all the requisite manipulation 
 without any other assistance but that of setting up 
 the warp. They manufacture whips, straw bottoms 
 for chairs, coarse straw hats, rope, cord, pack-thread, 
 baskets, straw, rush, and plush mats, which are very 
 salable in France. 
 
 The articles manufactured in the Asvlum for the 
 Blind in Scotland are somewhat different ; and, as 
 they show for what an extensive variety of occupations 
 they may be qualified in despite of their infirmity, we 
 will take the liberty, at the hazard of being somewhat 
 tedious, of quoting the catalogue of them exhibited in 
 one of their advertisements. The articles offered for 
 sale consist of cotton and linen cloths, ticked and 
 striped Hollands, towelling and diapers, worsted net 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 75 
 
 for fruit-trees ; hair cloth, hair mats, and hair ropes ; 
 basket-work of every description ; hair, India hemp, 
 and straw door-mats ; saddle-girths ; rope and twines 
 of all kinds ; netting for sheep-pens ; garden and 
 onion twine nets ; fishing-nets, beehives, mattresses, 
 and cushions ; feather beds, bolsters, and pillows ; 
 mattresses and beds of every description cleaned and 
 repaired. The labors in this department are per- 
 formed by the boys. The girls are employed in 
 sewing, knitting stockings, spinning, making fine 
 banker's twine, and various works besides, usually 
 executed by well-educated females. 
 
 Such is the emulation of the blind, according to 
 Dr. Guillie, in the institution of Paris, that hitherto 
 there has been no necessity of stimulating their ex- 
 ertions by the usual motives of reward or punishment. 
 Delighted with their sensible progress in vanquishing 
 the difficulties incident to their condition, they are 
 content if they can but place themselves on a level 
 with the more fortunate of their fellow -creatures. And 
 it is observed that many, who in the solitude of their 
 own homes have failed in their attempts to learn some 
 of the arts taught in this institution, have acquired a 
 knowledge of them with great alacrity when cheered 
 by the sympathy of individuals involved in the same 
 calamity with themselves, and with whom, of course, 
 they could compete with equal probability of success. 
 
 The example of Paris has been followed in the prin- 
 cipal cities in most of the other countries of Europe: 
 in England, Scotland, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Swit- 
 zerland, Holland, and Denmark. These establish- 
 ments, which are conducted on the same general prin- 
 
7 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ciples, have adopted a plan of education more or less 
 comprehensive, some of them, like those of Paris and 
 Edinburgh, involving the higher branches of intel- 
 lectual education, and others, as in London and Liv- 
 erpool, confining themselves chiefly to practical arts. 
 The results, however, have been in the highest degree 
 cheering to the philanthropist in the light thus poured 
 in upon minds to which all the usual avenues were 
 sealed up, — in the opportunity afforded them of de- 
 veloping those latent powers which had been hitherto 
 wasted in inaction, and in the happiness thus imparted 
 to an unfortunate class of beings, who now for the first 
 time were permitted to assume their proper station in 
 society, and, instead of encumbering, to contribute by 
 their own exertions to the general prosperity. 
 
 We rejoice that the inhabitants of our own city have 
 been the first to give an example of such beneficent 
 institutions in the New World. And it is principally 
 with the view of directing the attention of the public 
 towards it that we have gone into a review of what has 
 been effected in this way in Europe. The credit of 
 having first suggested the undertaking here is due to 
 our townsman, Dr. John D. Fisher, through whose 
 exertions, aided by those of several other benevolent 
 individuals, the subject was brought before the Legis- 
 lature of this State, and an act of incorporation was 
 granted to the petitioners, bearing date March 2d, 
 1829, authorizing them, under the title of the "New 
 England Asylum for the Blind," to hold property, 
 receive donations and bequests, and to exercise the 
 other functions usually appertaining to similar corpo- 
 rations. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 77 
 
 A resolution was subsequently passed, during the 
 same session, requiring the selectmen of the several 
 towns throughout the commonwealth to make returns 
 of the number of blind inhabitants, with their ages, 
 periods of blindness, personal condition, etc. By far 
 the larger proportion of these functionaries, however, 
 with a degree of apathy which does them very little 
 credit, paid no attention whatever to this requisition. 
 By the aid of such as did comply with it, and by means 
 of circulars addressed to the clergymen of the various 
 parishes, advices have been received from one hundred 
 and forty-one towns, comprising somewhat less than 
 half of the whole number within the State. From 
 this imperfect estimate it would appear that the num- 
 ber of blind persons in these towns amounts to two 
 hundred and forty-three, of whom more than one-fifth 
 are under thirty years of age, which period is assigned 
 as the limit within which they cannot fail of receiv- 
 ing all the benefit to be derived from the system of 
 instruction pursued in the institutions for the blind. 
 
 The proportion of the blind to our whole population, 
 as founded on the above estimate, is somewhat higher 
 than that established by Zeune for the corresponding 
 latitudes in Europe, where blindness decreases in ad- 
 vancing from the equator to the poles, it being com- 
 puted in Egypt at the rate of one to one hundred, and 
 in Norway of one to one thousand, which last is 
 conformable to ours. 
 
 Assuming the preceding estimate as the basis, it will 
 appear that there are about five hundred blind persons 
 in the State of Massachusetts at the present moment ; 
 and, adopting the census of 1820, there could not at 
 
 7* 
 
7 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 that time, according to the same rate, be less than six- 
 teen hundred and fifty in all New England, one-fifth 
 being under thirty years of age ; a number which, as 
 the blind are usually retired from public observation, 
 far exceeds what might be conceived on a cursory 
 inspection. 
 
 From the returns it would appear that a large pro- 
 portion of the blind in Massachusetts are in humble 
 circumstances, and a still larger proportion of those in 
 years indigent or paupers. This is imputable to their 
 having learned no trade or profession in their youth, 
 so that, when deprived of their natural guardians, they 
 have necessarily become a charge upon the public. 
 
 Since the year 1825 an appropriation has been con- 
 tinued by the Legislature for the purpose of maintaining 
 a certain number of pupils at the Asylum for the Deaf 
 and Dumb at Hartford. A resolution was obtained 
 during the last session of the General Court authorizing 
 the governor to pay over to the Asylum for the Blind 
 whatever balance of the sum thus appropriated might 
 remain in the treasury unexpended at the end of the 
 current year, and the same with every subsequent year 
 to which the grant extended, unless otherwise advised. 
 Seven hundred dollars only have been received as the 
 balance of the past year, a sum obviously inadequate to 
 the production of any important result, and far inferior 
 to what had been anticipated by the friends of the 
 measure. On the whole, we are inclined to doubt 
 whether this will be found the most suitable mode of 
 creating resources for the asylum. Although, in fact, 
 it disposes only of the superfluity, it has the appearance 
 of subtracting from the positive revenues of the Deaf 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 79 
 
 and Dumb, an institution of equal merit and claims 
 with any other whatever. The Asylum for the Blind 
 is an establishment of too much importance to be left 
 thus dependent on a precarious contingent, and is 
 worthy, were it only in an economical point of view, 
 of being placed by the State on some more secure and 
 ample basis. 
 
 As it is, the want of funds opposes a sensible ob- 
 struction to its progress. The pressure of the times 
 has made the present moment exceedingly unfavorable 
 to personal solicitation, although so much has been 
 effected in this way, through the liberality of a few 
 individuals, that, as we understand, preparations are 
 now making for procuring the requisite instructors and 
 apparatus on a moderate and somewhat reduced scale. 
 
 As to the comprehensiveness of the scheme of edu- 
 cation to be pursued at the asylum, whether it shall 
 embrace intellectual culture or be confined simply to 
 the mechanic arts, this must, of course, be ultimately 
 determined by the extent of its resources. We trust, 
 however, it will be enabled to adopt the former 
 arrangement, at least so far as to afford the pupils an 
 acquaintance with the elements of the more popular 
 sciences. There is such a diffusion of liberal knowl- 
 edge among all classes in this country, that if the blind 
 are suffered to go without any tincture of it from the 
 institution, they will always, whatever be the skill 
 acquired by them in mechanical occupations, continue 
 to feel a sense of their own mental inferiority. The 
 connection of these higher with the more direct objects 
 of the institution will serve, moreover, to give it greater 
 dignity and importance. And while it will open sources 
 
80 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of knowledge from which many may be in a situation 
 to derive permanent consolation, it will instruct the 
 humblest individual in what may be of essential utility 
 to him, as writing and arithmetic, for example, in his 
 intercourse with the world. 
 
 To what extent it is desirable that the asylum be 
 placed on a charitable foundation is another subject of 
 consideration. This, we believe, is the character of 
 most of the establishments in Europe. That in Scot- 
 land, for instance, contains about a hundred subjects, 
 who, with their families included, amount to two hun- 
 dred and fifty souls, all supported from the labors of 
 the blind, conjointly with the funds of the institution. 
 This is undoubtedly one of the noblest and most dis- 
 criminating charities in the world. It seems probable, 
 however, that this is not the plan best adapted to our 
 exigencies. We want not to maintain the blind, but 
 to put them in the way of contributing to their own 
 maintenance. By placing the expenses of tuition and 
 board as low as possible, the means of effecting this 
 will be brought within the reach of a large class of 
 them ; and for the rest, it will be obvious economy in 
 the State to provide them with the means of acquiring 
 an education at once that may enable them to con- 
 tribute permanently towards their own support, which, 
 in some shape or other, is now chargeable on the public. 
 Perhaps, however, some scheme may be devised for 
 combining both these objects, if this be deemed prefer- 
 able to the adoption of either exclusively. 
 
 We are convinced that, as far as the institution is to 
 rely for its success on public patronage, it will not be 
 disappointed. If once successfully in operation and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 81 
 
 brought before the public eye, it cannot fail of exciting 
 a very general sympathy, which, in this country, has 
 never been refused to the calls of humanity. No one, 
 we think, who has visited the similar endowments in 
 Paris or in Edinburgh will easily forget the sensations 
 which he experienced on witnessing so large a class of 
 his unfortunate fellow-creatures thus restored from in- 
 tellectual darkness to the blessings, if we may so speak, 
 of light and liberty. There is no higher evidence of 
 the worth of the human mind than its capacity of 
 drawing consolation from its own resources under so 
 heavy a privation ; so that it not only can exhibit 
 resignation and cheerfulness, but energy to burst the 
 fetters with which it is encumbered. Who could 
 refuse his sympathy to the success of these efforts, or 
 withhold from the subject of them the means of attain- 
 ing his natural level and usefulness in society, from 
 which circumstances less favorable to him than to our- 
 selves have hitherto excluded him ? 
 
 D* 
 
82 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 IRVING'S CONQUEST OF GRANADA.* 
 
 (October, 1829.) 
 
 Almost as many qualifications may be demanded 
 for a perfect historian, indeed the Abbe Mably has 
 enumerated as many, as Cicero stipulates for a perfect 
 orator. He must be strictly impartial ; a lover of truth 
 under all circumstances, and ready to declare it at all 
 hazards : he must be deeply conversant with whatever 
 may bring into relief the character of the people he is 
 depicting, not merely with their laws, constitution, 
 general resources, and all the other more visible parts 
 of the machinery of government, but with the nicer 
 moral and social relations, the informing spirit which 
 gives life to the whole, but escapes the eye of a vulgar 
 observer. If he has to do with other ages and nations, 
 he must transport himself into them, expatriating him- 
 self, as it were, from his own, in order to get the very 
 form and pressure of the times he is delineating. He 
 must be conscientious in his attention to geography, 
 chronology, etc., an inaccuracy in which has been 
 fatal to more than one good philosophical history ; 
 and, mixed up with all these drier details, he must 
 display the various powers of a novelist or dramatist, 
 
 * "A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada. By Fray Antonio 
 Agapida." 1829 : 2 vols. i2mo. Philadelphia : Carey, Lea & Carey. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. S3 
 
 throwing his characters into suitable lights and shades, 
 disposing his scenes so as to awaken and maintain an 
 unflagging interest, and diffusing over the whole that 
 finished style without which his work will only become 
 a magazine of materials for the more elegant edifices 
 of subsequent writers. He must be — in short, there is 
 no end to what a perfect historian must be and do. It 
 is hardly necessary to add that such a monster never 
 did and never will exist. 
 
 But, although we cannot attain to perfect excellence 
 in this or any other science in this world, considerable 
 approaches have been made to it, and different indi- 
 viduals have arisen at different periods, possessed in 
 an eminent degree of some of the principal qualities 
 which go to make up the aggregate of the character we 
 have been describing. The peculiar character of these 
 qualities will generally be determined in the writer by 
 that of the age in which he lives. Thus, the earlier 
 historians of Greece and Rome sought less to instruct 
 than to amuse. They filled their pictures with dazzling 
 and seductive images. In their researches into an- 
 tiquity, they were not startled by the marvellous, like 
 the more prudish critics of our day, but welcomed it 
 as likely to stir the imaginations of their readers. 
 They seldom interrupted the story by impertinent re- 
 flection. They bestowed infinite pains on the costume, 
 the style of their history, and, in fine, made every 
 thing subordinate to the main purpose of conveying 
 an elegant and interesting narrative. Such was He- 
 rodotus, such Livy, and such, too, the earlier chroni- 
 clers of modern Europe, whose pages glow with the 
 picturesque and brilliant pageants of an age of chiv- 
 
84 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 airy. These last, as well as Herodotus, may be said 
 to have written in the infancy of their nations, when 
 the imagination is more willingly addressed than the 
 understanding. Livy, who wrote in a riper age, lived, 
 nevertheless, in a court and a period where tranquil- 
 lity and opulence disposed the minds of men to ele- 
 gant recreation rather than to severe discipline and 
 exertion. 
 
 As, however, the nation advanced in years, or be- 
 came oppressed with calamity, history also assumed a 
 graver complexion. Fancy gave way to reflection. 
 The mind, no longer invited to rove abroad in quest 
 of elegant and alluring pictures, was driven back upon 
 itself, speculated more deeply, and sought for support 
 under the external evils of life in moral and philo- 
 sophical truth. Description was abandoned for the 
 study of character; men took the place of events; and 
 the romance was converted into the drama. Thus it 
 was with Tacitus, who lived under those imperial 
 monsters who turned Rome into a charnel-house, and 
 his compact narratives are filled with moral and polit- 
 ical axioms sufficiently numerous to make a volume ; 
 and, indeed, Brotier has made one of them in his 
 edition of the historian. The same philosophical spirit 
 animates the page of Thucydides, himself one of the 
 principal actors in the long, disastrous struggle that 
 terminated in the ruin of his nation. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the deeper and more compre- 
 hensive thought of these later writers, there was still a 
 wide difference between the complexion given to his- 
 tory under their hands and that which it lias assumed 
 in our time. We would not be understood as deter- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 85 
 
 mining, but simply as discriminating, their relative 
 merits. The Greeks and Romans -lived when the 
 world, at least when the mind, was in its comparative 
 infancy, — when fancy and feeling were most easily 
 and loved most to be excited. They possessed a finer 
 sense of beauty than the moderns. They were in- 
 finitely more solicitous about the external dress, the 
 finish, and all that makes up the poetry of a composi- 
 tion. Poetry, indeed, mingled in their daily pursuits 
 as well as pleasures ; it determined their gravest delib- 
 erations. The command of their armies was given, 
 not to the best general, but ofttimes to the most elo- 
 quent orator. Poetry entered into their religion, and 
 created those beautiful monuments of architecture and 
 sculpture which the breath of time has not tarnished. 
 It entered into their philosophy; and no one confessed 
 its influence more deeply than he who would have 
 banished it from his republic. It informed the souls 
 of their orators, and prompted those magnificent rhap- 
 sodies which fall lifeless enough from the stammering 
 tongue of the school-boy, but which once awaked to 
 ecstasy the living populace of Athens. It entered 
 deeply even into their latest history. It was first ex- 
 hibited in the national chronicles of Homer. It lost 
 little of its coloring, though it conformed to the gen- 
 eral laws of prosaic composition, under Herodotus. 
 And it shed a pleasing grace over the sober pages of 
 Thucydides and Xenophon. The muse, indeed, was 
 stripped of her wings ; she no longer made her airy 
 excursions into the fairy regions of romance ; but, as 
 she moved along the earth, the sweetest wild flowers 
 seemed to spring up unbidden at her feet. We would 
 
 8 
 
86 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 not be understood as implying that Grecian history 
 was ambitious of florid or meretricious ornament. 
 Nothing could be more simple than its general plan 
 and execution ; far too simple, we fear, for imitation 
 in our day. Thus Thucydides, for example, distributes 
 his events most inartiflcially, according to the regular 
 revolutions of the seasons ; and the rear of every sec- 
 tion is brought up with the same eternal repetition of 
 EToq rw -uAitj.w izi/.sura rwde, ov Oouy.udcdr^ guviypcufts. 
 But in the fictitious speeches with which he has illu- 
 mined his narrative he has left the choicest specimens 
 of Attic eloquence ; and he elaborated his general dic- 
 tion into so high a finish that Demosthenes, as is well 
 known, in the hope of catching some of his rhetorical 
 graces, thought him worthy of being thrice transcribed 
 with his own hand. 
 
 Far different has been the general conception, as 
 well as execution, of history by the moderns. In this, 
 however, it was accommodated to the exigencies of 
 their situation, and, as with the ancients, still reflected 
 the spirit of the age. If the Greeks lived in the infancy 
 of civilization, the contemporaries of our day may be 
 said to have reached its prime. The same revolution 
 has taken place as in the growth of an individual. 
 The vivacity of the imagination has been blunted, but 
 reason is matured. The credulity of youth has given 
 way to habits of cautious inquiry, and sometimes to a 
 phlegmatic skepticism. The productions, indeed, which 
 first appeared in the doubtful twilight of morning ex- 
 hibited the love of the marvellous, the light and fanciful 
 spirit of a green and tender age. But a new order of 
 things commenced as the stores of classical learning 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 87 
 
 were unrolled to the eye of the scholar. The mind 
 seemed at once to enter upon the rich inheritance 
 which the sages of antiquity had been ages in accu- 
 mulating, and to start, as it were, from the very point 
 where they had terminated their career. Thus raised 
 by learning and experience, it was enabled to take a 
 wider view of its proper destiny, — to understand that 
 truth is the greatest good, and to discern the surest 
 method of arriving at it. The Christian doctrine, too, 
 inculcated that the end of being was best answered by 
 a life of active usefulness, and not by one of abstract 
 contemplation, or selfish indulgence, or passive forti- 
 tude, as variously taught by the various sects of an- 
 tiquity. Hence a new standard of moral excellence 
 was formed. Pursuits were estimated by their practical 
 results, and the useful was preferred to the ornamental. 
 Poetry, confined to her own sphere, was no longer 
 permitted to mingle in the councils of philosophy. 
 Intellectual and physical science, instead of floating on 
 vague speculation, as with the ancients, was established 
 on careful induction and experiment. The orator, in- 
 stead of adorning himself with the pomp and garniture 
 of verse, sought only to acquire greater dexterity in 
 the management of the true weapons of debate. The 
 passions were less frequently assailed, the reason more. 
 A wider field was open to the historian. He was 
 no longer to concoct his narrative, if the scene lay 
 in a remote period, from the superficial rumors of oral 
 tradition. Libraries were to be ransacked ; medals and 
 monuments to be studied ; obsolete manuscripts to be 
 deciphered. Every assertion was to be fortified by an 
 authority ; and the opinions of others, instead of being 
 
88 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 admitted on easy faith, were to be carefully collated, 
 and the balance of probability struck between them. 
 With these qualifications of antiquarian and critic, the 
 modern historian was to combine that of the philoso- 
 pher, deducing from his mass of facts general theorems, 
 and giving to them their most extended application. 
 
 By all this process, poetry lost much, but philosophy 
 gained more. The elegant arts sensibly declined, but 
 the most important and recondite secrets of nature 
 were laid open. All those sciences which have for 
 their object the happiness and improvement of the 
 species, the science of government, of political econ- 
 omy, of education — natural and experimental science 
 — were carried far beyond the boundaries which they 
 could possibly have reached under the ancient systems. 
 
 The peculiar forms of historic writing, as it exists 
 with the moderns, were not fully developed until the 
 last century. It may be well to notice the intermediate 
 shape which it assumed before it reached this period in 
 Spain and Italy, but especially this latter country, in 
 the sixteenth century. The Italian historians of that 
 age seem to have combined the generalizing and re- 
 flecting spirit characteristic of the moderns, with the 
 simple and graceful forms of composition which have 
 descended to us from the ancients. Machiavelli, in 
 particular, may remind us of some recent statue which 
 exhibits all the lineaments and proportions of a con- 
 temporary, but to which the sculptor has given a sort 
 of antique dignity by enveloping it in the folds of the 
 Roman toga. No one of the Spanish historians is to 
 be named with him. Mariana, who enjoys among 
 them the greatest celebrity, has, it is true, given to 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 89 
 
 his style, both in the Latin and Castilian, the elegant 
 transparency of an ancient classic; but the mass of 
 detail is not quickened by a single spark of philosophy 
 or original reflection. Mariana was a monk, one of a 
 community who have formed the most copious but in 
 many respects the most incompetent chroniclers in the 
 world, cut off as they are from all sympathy with any 
 portion of the species save their own order, and pre- 
 disposed by education to admit as truth the grossest 
 forgeries of fanaticism. What can their narratives be 
 worth, distorted thus by prejudice and credulity? The 
 Aragonese writers, and Zurita in particular, though far 
 inferior as to the literary execution of their works, 
 exhibit a pregnant thought and a manly independence 
 of expression far superior to the Jesuit Mariana. 
 
 The Italian historians of the sixteenth century, 
 moreover, had the good fortune not only to have been 
 eye-witnesses but to have played prominent parts in 
 the events which they commemorated. And this gives 
 a vitality to their touches which is in vain to be ex- 
 pected from those of a closet politician. This rare 
 union of public and private excellence is delicately in- 
 timated in the inscription on Guicciardini's monument, 
 ii Cujus negotium, an otium, gloriosius imertum." 
 
 The personage by whom the present laws of historic 
 composition may be said to have been first arranged 
 into a regular system was Voltaire. This extraordinary 
 genius, whose works have been productive of so much 
 mingled good and evil, discovers in them many traces 
 of a humane and beneficent disposition. Nowhere is 
 his invective more keenly directed than against acts of 
 cruelty and oppression, — above all, of religious oppres- 
 
 8* 
 
9 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 sion. He lived in an age of crying abuses both in 
 Church and government. Unfortunately, he employed 
 a weapon against them whose influence is not to be 
 controlled by the most expert hand. The envenomed 
 shaft of irony not only wounds the member at which 
 it is aimed, but diffuses its poison to the healthiest 
 and remotest regions of the body. 
 
 The free and volatile temper of Voltaire forms a sin- 
 gular contrast with his resolute pertinacity of purpose. 
 Bard, philosopher, historian, this literary Proteus ani- 
 mated every shape with the same mischievous spirit of 
 philosophy. It never deserted him, even in the most 
 sportive sallies of his fancy. It seasons his romances 
 equally with his gravest pieces in the encyclopedia; 
 his familiar letters and most licentious doggerel no less 
 than his histories. The leading object of this philos- 
 ophy may be defined by the single cant phrase, "the 
 abolition of prejudices." But in Voltaire prejudices 
 were too often confounded with principles. 
 
 In his histories, he seems ever intent on exhibiting, 
 in the most glaring colors, the manifold inconsisten- 
 cies of the human race ; in showing the contradiction 
 between profession and practice ; in contrasting the 
 magnificence of the apparatus with the impotence of 
 the results. The enormous abuses of Christianity are 
 brought into juxtaposition with the most meritorious 
 features in other religions, and thus all are reduced to 
 nearly the same level. The credulity of one half of 
 mankind is set in opposition to the cunning of the 
 other. The most momentous events are traced to the 
 most insignificant causes, and the ripest schemes of 
 wisdom are shown to have been baffled by the inter- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 9 1 
 
 vention of the most trivial accidents. Thus, the con- 
 duct of the world seems to be regulated by chance ; 
 the springs of human action are resolved into selfish- 
 ness; and religion, of whatever denomination, is only 
 a different form of superstition. It is true that his 
 satire is directed not so much against any particular 
 system as the vices of that system ; but the result left 
 upon the mind is not a whit less pernicious. His 
 philosophical romance of " Candide" affords a good 
 exemplification of his manner. The thesis of perfect 
 optimism in this world, at which he levels this jeu 
 d % esprit, is manifestly indefensible. But then he sup- 
 ports his position with such an array of gross and hyper- 
 bolical atrocities, without the intervention of a single 
 palliative circumstance, and, withal, in such a tone of 
 keen derision, that if any serious impression be left 
 on the mind it can be no other than that of a baleful, 
 withering skepticism. The historian rarely so far for- 
 gets his philosophy as to kindle into high and generous 
 emotion the glow of patriotism, or moral and religious 
 enthusiasm. And hence, too, his style, though always 
 graceful, and often seasoned with the sallies of a piquant 
 wit, never rises into eloquence or sublimity. 
 
 Voltaire has been frequently reproached for want of 
 historical accuracy. But, if we make due allowance 
 for the sweeping tenor of his reflections and for the 
 infinite variety of his topics, we shall be slow in giving 
 credit to this charge.* He was, indeed, oftentimes 
 misled by his inveterate Pyrrhonism ; a defect, when 
 
 *' Indeed, Hallam and Warton — the one as diligent a laborer in 
 the field of civil history as the other has been in literary — both bear 
 testimony to his general veracity. 
 
9 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 carried to the excess in which he indulged it, almost 
 equally fatal to the historian with credulity or super- 
 stition. His researches frequently led him into dark, 
 untravelled regions ; but the aliment which he im- 
 ported thence served only too often to minister to his 
 pernicious philosophy. He resembled the allegorical 
 agents of Milton, paving a way across the gulf of 
 Chaos for the spirits of mischief to enter more easily 
 upon the earth. 
 
 Voltaire effected a no less sensible revolution in the 
 structure than in the spirit of history. Thus, instead 
 of following the natural consecutive order of events, 
 the work was distributed, on the principle of a Catalogue 
 raisotme, into sections arranged according to their sub- 
 jects, and copious dissertations were introduced into 
 the body of the narrative. Thus, in his Essai sur les 
 MceurSy etc., one chapter is devoted to letters, another 
 to religion, a third to manners, and so on. And in the 
 same way, in his "Age of Louis the Fourteenth," he 
 has thrown his various illustrations of the policy of 
 government, and of the social habits of the court, into 
 a detached portion at the close of the book. 
 
 This would seem to be deviating from the natural 
 course of things as they occur in the world, where the 
 multifarious pursuits of pleasure and business, the lights 
 and shadows, as it were, of life, are daily intermingled 
 in the motley panorama of human existence. But, 
 however artificial this division, it enabled the reader 
 to arrive more expeditiously at the results, for which 
 alone history is valuable, while at the same time it put 
 it in the power of the writer to convey with more 
 certainty and facility his own impressions. 
 
CRITIC A L M ISC EL LANIES. 
 
 93 
 
 This system was subsequently so much refined upon 
 that Montesquieu, in his " Grandeur et Decadence des 
 Romains," laid no farther stress on historical facts than 
 as they furnished him with illustrations of his particular 
 theorems. Indeed, so little did his work rest upon the 
 veracity of such facts that, although the industry of 
 Niebuhr, or, rather, of Beaufort, has knocked away 
 almost all the foundations of early Rome, Montes- 
 quieu's treatise remains as essentially unimpaired in 
 credit as before. Thus the materials which anciently 
 formed the body of history now served only as ingre- 
 dients from which its spirit was to be extracted. But 
 this was not always the spirit of truth. And the 
 arbitrary selection as well as disposition of incidents 
 which this new method allowed, and the coloring 
 which they were to receive from the author, made it 
 easy to pervert them to the construction of the wildest 
 hypotheses. 
 
 The progress of philosophical history is particularly 
 observable in Great Britain, where it seems to have 
 been admirably suited to the grave, reflecting temper 
 of the people. In the graces of narrative they have 
 ever been unequal to their French neighbors. Their 
 ancient chronicles are inferior in spirit and execution 
 to those either of France or Spain ; and their more 
 elaborate histories, down to the middle of the eigh- 
 teenth century, could not in any way compete with 
 the illustrious models of Italy. But soon after this 
 period several writers appeared, exhibiting a combina- 
 tion of qualities, erudition, critical penetration, powers 
 of generalization, and a political sagacity unrivalled in 
 any other age or country. 
 
94 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The influence of the new forms of historical com- 
 position, however, was here, as elsewhere, made too 
 frequently subservient to party and sectarian preju- 
 dices. Tory histories and Whig histories, Protestant 
 and Catholic histories, successively appeared, and 
 seemed to neutralize each other. The most venerable 
 traditions were exploded as nursery-tales. The statues 
 decreed by antiquity were cast down, and the charac- 
 ters of miscreants whom the general suffrage of mankind 
 had damned to infamy — of a Dionysius, a Borgia, or a 
 Richard the Third — were now retraced by what Jovius 
 distinguishes as "the golden pen" of the historian, 
 until the reader, bewildered in the maze of uncertainty, 
 is almost ready to join in the exclamation of Lord 
 Orford to his son, " Oh, quote me not history, for that 
 I know to be false!" It is remarkable, indeed, that 
 the last-mentioned monarch, Richard the Third, whose 
 name has become a byword of atrocity, the burden of 
 the ballad and the moral of the drama, should have 
 been the subject of elaborate vindication by two 
 eminent writers of the most opposite characters, the 
 pragmatical Horace Walpore and the circumspect and 
 conscientious Sharon Turner. The apology of the 
 latter exhibits a technical precision, a severe scrutiny 
 into the authenticity of records, and a nice balancing 
 of contradictory testimony, that give it all the air of a 
 legal investigation. Thus history seems to be con- 
 ducted on the principles of a judicial process, in which 
 the writer, assuming the functions of an advocate, 
 studiously suppresses whatever may make against his 
 own side, supports himself by the strongest array of 
 evidence which he can muster, discredits as far as 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 95 
 
 possible that of the opposite party, and, by dexterous 
 interpretation and ingenious inference, makes out the 
 most plausible argument for his client that the case 
 will admit. 
 
 But these, after all, are only the abuses of philosoph- 
 ical history, and the unseasonable length of remark into 
 which we have been unwarily led in respect to them 
 may give us the appearance of laying on them greater 
 emphasis than they actually deserve. There are few 
 writers in any country whose judgment has not been 
 sometimes warped by personal prejudices. But it is to 
 the credit of the principal British historians that, how- 
 ever they may have been occasionally under the influ- 
 ence of such human infirmity, they have conducted 
 their researches, in the main, with equal integrity 
 and impartiality. And while they have enriched their 
 writings with the stores of a various erudition, they 
 have digested from these details results of the most 
 enlarged and practical application. History in their 
 hands, although it may have lost much of the sim- 
 plicity and graphic vivacity which it maintained with 
 the ancients, has gained much more in the amount of 
 useful knowledge and the lessons of sound philosophy 
 which it inculcates. 
 
 There is no writer who exhibits more distinctly the 
 full development of the principles of modern history, 
 with all its virtues and defects, than Gibbon. His 
 learning was fully equal to his vast subject. This, com- 
 mencing with expiring civilization in ancient Rome, 
 continues on until the period of its final and perfect 
 resurrection in Italy in the fifteenth century, and thus 
 may be said to furnish the lights which are to guide us 
 
9 6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 through the long interval of darkness which divides the 
 Old from the Modern world. The range of his subject 
 was fully equal to its duration. Goths, Huns, Tartars, 
 and all the rude tribes of the North are brought upon 
 the stage, together with the more cultivated natives of 
 the South, the Greeks, Italians, and the intellectual 
 Arab ; and, as the scene shifts from one country to 
 another, we behold its population depicted with that 
 peculiarity of physiognomy and studied propriety of 
 costume which belong to dramatic exhibition ; for 
 Gibbon was a more vivacious draughtsman than most 
 writers of his school. He was, moreover, deeply 
 versed in geography, chronology, antiquities, verbal 
 criticism, — in short, in all the sciences in any way 
 subsidiary to his art. The extent of his subject per- 
 mitted him to indulge in those elaborate disquisitions 
 so congenial to the spirit of modern history on the 
 most momentous and interesting topics, while his early 
 studies enabled him to embellish the drier details of 
 his narrative with the charms of a liberal and elegant 
 scholarship. 
 
 What, then, was wanting to this accomplished writer? 
 Good faith. His defects were precisely of the class 
 of which we have before been speaking, and his most 
 elaborate efforts exhibit too often the perversion of 
 learning and ingenuity to the vindication of precon- 
 ceived hypotheses. He cannot, indeed, be convicted 
 of ignorance or literal inaccuracy, as he has triumph- 
 antly proved in his discomfiture of the unfortunate 
 Davis. But his disingenuous mode of conducting the 
 argument leads precisely to the same unfair result. 
 Thus, in his celebrated chapters on the "Progress of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 97 
 
 Christianity," which he tells us were "reduced by 
 three successive revisals from a bulky volume to their 
 present size, ' ' he has often slurred over in the text such 
 particulars as might reflect most credit on the charac- 
 ter of the religion, or shuffled them into a note at the 
 bottom of the page, while all that admits of a doubtful 
 complexion in its early propagation is ostentatiously 
 blazoned and set in contrast to the most amiable fea- 
 tures of paganism. At the same time, by a style of 
 innuendo that conveys "more than meets the ear," he 
 has contrived, with Iago-like duplicity, to breathe a 
 taint of suspicion on the purity which he dares not 
 openly assail. It would be easy to furnish examples 
 of all this were this the place for them ; but the charges 
 have no novelty, and have been abundantly substan- 
 tiated by others. 
 
 It is a consequence of this skepticism in Gibbon, as 
 with Voltaire, that his writings are nowhere warmed 
 with a generous moral sentiment. The most sublime 
 of all spectacles, that of the martyr who suffers for 
 conscience' sake, and this equally whether his creed 
 be founded in truth or error, is contemplated by the 
 historian with the smile, or, rather, sneer, of philo- 
 sophic indifference. This is not only bad taste, as he is 
 addressing a Christian audience, but he thus voluntarily 
 relinquishes one of the most powerful engines for the 
 movement of human passion, which is never so easily 
 excited as by deeds of suffering, self-devoted heroism. 
 
 But, although Gibbon was wholly defective in moral 
 enthusiasm, his style is vivified by a certain exhila- 
 rating glow that kindles a corresponding warmth in 
 the bosom of his reader. This may perhaps be traced 
 e " 9 
 
9 8 BIOGRAPHICAL A /YD 
 
 to his egotism, or, to speak more liberally, to an ardent 
 attachment to his professional pursuits and to his inex- 
 tinguishable love of letters. This enthusiasm appears 
 in almost every page of his great work, and enabled 
 him to triumph over all its difficulties. It is particu- 
 larly conspicuous whenever he touches upon Rome, 
 the alma mater of science, whose adopted son he may 
 be said to have been from his earliest boyhood. When- 
 ever he contemplates her fallen fortunes, he mourns 
 over her with the fond solicitude that might become 
 an ancient Roman ; and when he depicts her pristine 
 glories, dimly seen through the mist of so many cen- 
 turies, he does it with such vivid accuracy of concep- 
 tion that the reader, like the traveller who wanders 
 through the excavations of Pompeii, seems to be 
 gazing on the original forms and brilliant colors of 
 antiquity. 
 
 To Gibbon's egotism — in its most literal sense, to 
 his personal vanity — may be traced some of the pecu- 
 liar defects for which his style is conspicuous. The 
 "historian of the Decline and Fall" too rarely forgets 
 his own importance in that of his subject. The con- 
 sequence which he attaches to his personal labors is 
 shown in a bloated dignity of expression and an osten- 
 tation of ornament that contrast whimsically enough 
 with the trifling topics and commonplace thoughts 
 on which, in the course of his long work, they are oc- 
 casionally employed. He nowhere moves along with 
 the easy freedom of nature, but seems to leap, as it 
 were, from triad to triad by a succession of strained, 
 convulsive efforts. He affected, as he tells us, the 
 light, festive raillery of Voltaire ; but his cumbrous 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 99 
 
 imitation of the mercurial Frenchman may remind 
 one, to make use of a homely simile, of the ass in 
 ^Esop's fable, who frisked upon his master in imitation 
 of the sportive gambols of the spaniel. The first two 
 octavo volumes of Gibbon's history were written in a 
 comparatively modest and unaffected manner, for he 
 was then uncertain of the public favor ; and, indeed, 
 his style was exceedingly commended by the most 
 competent critics of that day, as Hume, Joseph War- 
 ton, and others, as is abundantly shown in their cor- 
 respondence ; but when he had tasted the sweets of 
 popular applause, and had been crowned as the his- 
 torian of the day, his increased consequence becomes 
 at once visible in the assumed stateliness and mag- 
 nificence of his bearing. But even after this period, 
 whenever the subject is suited to his style, and when 
 his phlegmatic temper is warmed by those generous 
 emotions of which, as we have said, it was sometimes 
 susceptible, he exhibits his ideas in the most splendid 
 and imposing forms of which the English language is 
 capable. 
 
 The most eminent illustrations of the system of his- 
 torical writing, which we have been discussing, that 
 have appeared in England in the present century, are 
 the works of Mr. Hallam, in which the author, dis- 
 carding most of the circumstances that go to make up 
 mere narrative, endeavors to fix the attention of the 
 reader on the more important features of constitutional 
 polity, employing his wide range of materials in strict 
 subordination to this purpose. 
 
 But, while history has thus been conducted on 
 nearly the same principles in England for the last 
 
ioo BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 century, a new path has been struck out in France, or, 
 rather, an attempt has lately been made there to re- 
 trace the old one. M. de Barante, no less estimable 
 as a literary critic than as a historian, in the prelimi- 
 nary remarks to his " Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne," 
 considers the draughts of modern compilers as alto- 
 gether wanting in the vivacity and freshness of their 
 originals. They tell the reader how he should feel, 
 instead of making him do so. They give him their 
 own results, instead of enabling him, by a fair delinea- 
 tion of incidents, to form his own. And while the 
 early chroniclers, in spite of their unformed and ob- 
 solete idiom, are still read with delight, the narratives 
 of the former are too often dry, languid, and uninter- 
 esting. He proposes, therefore, by a close adherence 
 to his originals, to extract, as it were, the spirit of 
 their works, without any affectation, however, of their 
 antiquated phraseology, and to exhibit as vivid and 
 veracious a portraiture as possible of the times he is 
 delineating, unbroken by any discussions or reflections 
 of his own. The result has been a work in eleven 
 octavo volumes, which, notwithstanding its bulk, has 
 already passed into four editions. 
 
 The two last productions of our countryman Mr. 
 Irving undoubtedly fall within the class of narrative 
 history. To this he seems peculiarly suited by his 
 genius, his fine perception of moral and natural beauty, 
 his power of discriminating the most delicate shades 
 of character and of unfolding a series of events so as 
 to maintain a lively interest in the reader, and a lactea 
 ubertas of expression which can impart a living elo- 
 quence even to the most commonplace sentiments. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES, 101 
 
 Had the "Life of Columbus" been written by a his- 
 torian of the other school of which we have been 
 speaking, he would have enlarged with greater circum- 
 stantiality on the system adopted by Ferdinand and 
 Isabella for the administration of their colonies and for 
 the regulation of trade ; nor would he have neglected 
 to descant on a topic — worn somewhat threadbare, it 
 must be owned — so momentous as the moral and polit- 
 ical consequences of the discovery of America ; neither 
 would such a writer, in an account of the conquest of 
 Granada, have omitted to collect such particulars as 
 might throw light on the genius, social institutions, 
 and civil polity of the Spanish Arabs. But all these 
 particulars, however pertinent to a philosophical his- 
 tory, would have been entirely out of keeping in Mr. 
 Irving' s, and might have produced a disagreeable dis- 
 cordance in the general harmony of his plan. 
 
 Mr. Irving has seldom selected a subject better suited 
 to his peculiar powers than the conquest of Granada. 
 Indeed, it would hardly have been possible for one of 
 his warm sensibilities to linger so long among the 
 remains of Moorish magnificence with which Spain is 
 covered, without being interested in the fortunes of a 
 people whose memory has almost passed into oblivion, 
 but who once preserved the "sacred flame" when it 
 had become extinct in every corner of Christendom, 
 and whose influence is still visible on the intellectual 
 culture of Modern Europe. It has been found no easy 
 matter, however, to compile a satisfactory and authen- 
 tic account of the Arabians, notwithstanding that the 
 number of their historians, cited by D'Herbelot and 
 Casiri, would appear to exceed that of any European 
 
 9* 
 
102 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 nation. The despotic governments of the East have 
 never been found propitious to that independence of 
 opinion so essential to historical composition: "ubi 
 sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet." And 
 their copious compilations, prolific in frivolous and 
 barren detail, are too often wholly destitute of the sap 
 and vitality of history. 
 
 The social and moral institutions of Arabian Spain 
 experienced a considerable modification from her long 
 intercourse with the Europeans, and she offers a nobler 
 field of research for the chronicler than is to be found 
 in any other country of the Moslem. Notwithstanding 
 this, the Castilian scholars, until of late, have done 
 little towards elucidating the national antiquities of 
 their Saracen brethren ; and our most copious notices 
 of their political history, until the recent posthumous 
 publication of Conde, have been drawn from the ex- 
 tracts which M. Cardonne translated from the Arabic 
 Manuscripts in the Royal Library at Paris.* 
 
 The most interesting periods of the Saracen do- 
 minion in Spain are that embraced by the empire of 
 the Omeyades of Cordova, between the years 755 and 
 1030, and that of the kingdom of Granada, extending 
 from the middle of the thirteenth to the close of the 
 fifteenth century. The intervening period of their 
 existence in the Peninsula offers only a spectacle of 
 
 * [Since this article was written, the deficiency noticed in the text 
 has been supplied by the translation into English of Al-Makkari's 
 " Mohammedan Dynasties," with copious notes and illustrations by 
 Don Pascual de Gayangos, a scholar whose acute criticism has 
 enabled him to rectify many of the errors of his laborious predeces- 
 sors, and whose profound Oriental learning sheds a flood of light on 
 both the civil and literary history of the Spanish Arabs.] 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 I03 
 
 inextricable anarchy. The first of those periods was 
 that in which the Arabs attained their meridian of 
 opulence and power, and in which their general illu- 
 mination affords a striking contrast with the deep bar- 
 barism of the rest of Europe ; but it was that, too, in 
 which their character, having been but little affected 
 by contact with the Spaniards, retained most of its 
 original Asiatic peculiarities. This has never been 
 regarded, therefore, by European scholars as a period 
 of greatest interest in their history, nor has it ever, so 
 far as we are aware, been selected for the purposes of 
 romantic fiction. But when their territories became 
 reduced within the limits of Granada, the Moors had 
 insensibly submitted to the superior influences of their 
 Christian neighbors. Their story, at this time, abounds 
 in passages of uncommon beauty and interest. Their 
 wars were marked by feats of personal prowess and 
 romantic adventure, while the intervals of peace were 
 abandoned to all the license of luxurious revelry. 
 Their character, therefore, blending the various pecu- 
 liarities of Oriental and European civilization, offers a 
 rich study for the poet and the novelist. As such, it 
 has been liberally employed by the Spaniards, and has 
 not been altogether neglected by the writers of other 
 nations. Thus, Florian, whose sentiments, as well as 
 his style, seem to be always floundering midway be- 
 tween the regions of prose and poetry, has made out 
 of the story of this people his popular romance of 
 " Gonsalvo of Cordova." It also forms the burden of 
 an Italian epic, entitled "II Conquista di Granata," 
 by Girolamo Gratiani, a Florentine, — much lauded 
 by his countrymen. The ground, however, before the 
 
io4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 appearance of Mr. Irving, had not been occupied by 
 any writer of eminence in the English language for 
 the purposes either of romance or history. 
 
 The conquest of Granada, to which Mr. Irving has 
 confined himself, so disastrous to the Moors, was one 
 of the most brilliant achievements in the most brilliant 
 period of Spanish history. Nothing is more usual than 
 overweening commendations of antiquity, — the "good 
 old times" whose harsher features, like those of a 
 rugged landscape, lose all their asperity in the dis- 
 tance. But the period of which we are speaking, 
 embracing the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, at 
 the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the six- 
 teenth centuries, was undoubtedly that in which the 
 Spanish nation displayed the fulness of its moral and 
 physical energies, when, escaping from the license of 
 a youthful age, it seems to have reached the prime of 
 manhood and the perfect development of those faculties 
 whose overstrained exertions were soon to be followed 
 by exhaustion and premature decrepitude. 
 
 The remnant of Spaniards who, retreating to the 
 mountains of the north, escaped the overwhelming 
 inundation of the Saracens at the beginning of the 
 eighth century, continued to cherish the free institu- 
 tions of their Gothic ancestors. The "Fuero Juzgo," 
 the ancient Visi-Gothic code, was still retained by the 
 people of Castile and Leon, and may be said to form 
 the basis of all their subsequent legislation, while in 
 Aragon the dissolution of the primitive monarchy 
 opened the way for even more liberal and equitable 
 forms of government. The independence of character 
 thus fostered by the peculiar constitutions of these 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 105 
 
 petty states was still farther promoted by the circum- 
 stances of their situation. Their uninterrupted wars 
 with the infidel — the necessity of winning back from 
 him, inch by inch, as it were, the conquered soil — 
 required the active co-operation of every class of the 
 community, and gave to the mass of the people an 
 intrepidity, a personal consequence, and an extent of 
 immunities, such as were not enjoyed by them in any 
 other country of Europe. The free cities acquired 
 considerable tracts of the reconquered territory, with 
 rights of jurisdiction over them, and sent their repre- 
 sentatives to Cortes, near a century before a similar 
 privilege was conceded to them in England. Even 
 the peasantry, so degraded, at this period, throughout 
 the rest of Europe, assumed under this state of things 
 a conscious dignity and importance, which are visible 
 in their manners at this day; and it was in this class, 
 during the late French invasions, that the fire of ancient 
 patriotism revived with greatest force, when it seemed 
 almost extinct in the breasts of the degenerate nobles. 
 The religious feeling which mingled in their wars 
 with the infidels gave to their characters a tinge of 
 lofty enthusiasm ; and the irregular nature of this 
 warfare suggested abundant topics for that popular 
 minstrelsy which acts so powerfully on the passions of 
 a people. The " Poem of the Cid," which appeared, 
 according to Sanchez, before the middle of the twelfth 
 century, contributed in no slight degree, by calling up 
 the most inspiring national recollections, to keep alive 
 the generous glow of patriotism. This influence is not 
 imaginary. Heeren pronounces the "poems of Homer 
 to have been the principal bond which united the 
 
106 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Grecian states;" and every one knows the influence 
 exercised over the Scottish peasantry by the Border 
 minstrelsy. Many anecdotes might be quoted to show 
 the veneration universally entertained by the Span- 
 iards, broken, as they were, into as many discordant 
 states as ever swarmed over Greece, for their favorite 
 hero of romance and history. Among others, Mari- 
 ana relates one of a king of Navarre, who, making an 
 incursion into Castile about a century after the war- 
 rior's death, was carrying off a rich booty, when he 
 was met by an abbot of a neighboring convent, with 
 his monks, bearing aloft the standard of the Cid, who 
 implored him to restore the plunder to the inhabitants 
 from whom he had ravished it. And the monarch, 
 moved by the sight of the sacred relic, after complying 
 with his request, escorted back the banner in solemn 
 procession with his whole army to the place of its 
 deposit. 
 
 But, while all these circumstances conspired to give 
 an uncommon elevation to the character of the ancient 
 Spaniard, even of the humblest rank, and while the 
 prerogative of the monarch was more precisely as well 
 as narrowly defined than in most of the other nations 
 of Christendom, the aristocracy of the country was 
 insensibly extending its privileges, and laying the 
 foundation of a power that eventually overshadowed 
 the throne and well nigh subverted the liberties of 
 the state. In addition to the usual enormous immu- 
 nities claimed by this order in feudal governments 
 (although there is no reason to believe that the system 
 of feudal tenure obtained in Castile, as it certainly did 
 in Aragon), they enjoyed a constitutional privilege of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 107 
 
 withdrawing their allegiance from their sovereign on 
 sending him a formal notice of such renunciation, and 
 the sovereign, on his part, was obliged to provide for 
 the security of their estates and families so long as 
 they might choose to continue in such overt rebellion. 
 These anarchical provisions in their constitution did 
 not remain a dead letter, and repeated examples of 
 their pernicious application are enumerated both by the 
 historians of Aragon and Castile. The long minorities 
 with which the latter country was afflicted, moreover, 
 contributed still farther to swell the overgrown power 
 of the privileged orders ; and the violent revolution 
 which, in 1368, placed the house of Trastamarre upon 
 the throne, by impairing the revenues, and consequently 
 the authority of the crown, opened the way for the wild 
 uproar which reigned throughout the kingdom during 
 the succeeding century. Alonso de Palencia, a con- 
 temporary chronicler, dwells with melancholy minute- 
 ness on the calamities of this unhappy period, when 
 the whole country was split into factions of the nobles, 
 the monarch openly contemned, the commons trodden 
 in the dust, the court become a brothel, the treasury 
 bankrupt, public faith a jest, and private morals too 
 loose and audacious to court even the veil of hypocrisy. 
 The wise administration of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 could alone have saved the state in this hour of peril-. 
 It effected, indeed, a change on the face of things as 
 magical as that produced by the wand of an enchanter 
 in some Eastern tale. Their reign wears a more glo- 
 rious aspect from its contrast with the turbulent period 
 which preceded it, as the landscape glows with re- 
 doubled brilliancy when the sunshine Iras scattered the 
 
108 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tempest. We shall briefly notice some of the features 
 of the policy by which they effected this change. 
 
 They obtained from the Cortes an act for the re- 
 sumption of the improvident grants made by their 
 predecessor, by which means an immense accession of 
 revenue, which had been squandered upon unworthy 
 favorites, was brought back to the royal treasury. 
 They compelled many of the nobility to resign, in 
 favor of the crown, such of its possessions as they 
 had acquired, by force, fraud, or intrigue, during the 
 late season of anarchy. The son of that gallant Mar- 
 quis Duke of Cadiz, for instance, with whom the reader 
 has become so familiar in Mr. Irving's Chronicle, was 
 stripped of his patrimony of Cadiz and compelled to 
 exchange it for the humbler territory of Arcos, from 
 whence the family henceforth derived their title. By 
 all these expedients the revenues of the state at the 
 demise of Isabella, were increased twelvefold beyond 
 what they had been at the time of her accession. 
 They reorganized the ancient institution of the "Her- 
 mandad," — a very different association, under their 
 hands, from the "Holy Brotherhood" which we meet 
 with in Gil Bias. Every hundred householders were 
 obliged to equip and maintain a horseman at their 
 joint expense ; and this corps furnished a vigilant po- 
 lice in civil emergencies and an effectual aid in war. 
 It was found, moreover, of especial service in suppress- 
 ing the insurrections and disorders of the nobility. 
 They were particularly solicitous to abolish the right 
 and usage of private war claimed by this haughty 
 order, compelling them on all occasions to refer their 
 disputes to the constituted tribunals of justice. But 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 109 
 
 it was a capital feature in the policy o" the Catholic 
 sovereigns to counterbalance the mthority of the aris- 
 tocracy by exalting, as far as prudent, that of the com- 
 mons. In the various convocations of the national 
 legislature, or Cortes, in this reign, no instance occurs 
 of any city having lost its prescriptive right of furnish- 
 ing representatives, as had frequently happened under 
 preceding monarchs, who, from negligence or policy, 
 had omitted to summon them. 
 
 But it would be tedious to go into all the details of 
 the system employed by Ferdinand and Isabella for 
 the regeneration of the decayed fabric of government; 
 of their wholesome regulations for the encouragement 
 of industry ; of their organization of a national mi- 
 litia and an efficient marine ; of the severe decorum 
 which they introduced within the corrupt precincts of 
 the court ; of the temporary economy by which they 
 controlled the public expenditures, and of the munifi- 
 cent patronage which they, or, rather, their almoner 
 on this occasion, that most enlightened of bigots, Car- 
 dinal Ximenes, dispensed to science and letters. In 
 short, their sagacious provisions were not merely reme- 
 dial of former abuses, but were intended to call forth 
 all the latent energies of the Spanish character, and, 
 with these excellent materials to erect a constitution 
 of government which should secure to the nation tran- 
 quillity at home, and enable it to go forward in its 
 ambitious career of discovery and conquest. 
 
 The results were certainly equal to the wisdom of the 
 preparations. The first of the series of brilliant enter- 
 prises was the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of 
 Granada, — those rich and lovely regions of the Penin- 
 
 10 
 
no BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 sula, the last retreat of the infidel, and which he had 
 held for nearly eight centuries. This, together with the 
 subsequent occupation of Navarre by the crafty Ferdi- 
 nand, consolidated the various principalities of Spain 
 into one monarchy, and, by extending its boundaries 
 in the Peninsula to their present dimensions, raised it 
 from a subordinate situation to the first class of Eu- 
 ropean powers. The Italian wars, under the conduct 
 of the ''Great Captain," secured to Spain the more 
 specious but less useful acquisition of Naples, and 
 formed that invincible infantry which enabled Charles 
 the Fifth to dictate laws to Europe for nearly half a 
 century. And, lastly, as if the Old World could not 
 afford a theatre sufficiently vast for their ambition, 
 Columbus gave a New World to Castile and Leon. 
 
 Such was the attitude assumed by the nation under 
 the Catholic kings, as they were called. It was the 
 season of hope and youthful enterprise, when the na- 
 tion seemed to be renewing its ancient energies and to 
 prepare like a giant to run its course. The modern 
 Spaniard who casts his eye over the long interval that 
 has since elapsed, during the first half of which the 
 nation seemed to waste itself on schemes of mad am- 
 bition or fierce fanaticism, and in the latter half to 
 sink into a state of paralytic torpor, — the Spaniard, we 
 say, who casts a melancholy glance over this dreary 
 interval will turn with satisfaction to the close of the 
 fifteenth century as the most glorious epoch in the 
 annals of his country. This is the period to which 
 Mr. Irving has introduced us in his late work. And 
 if his portraiture of the Castilian of that day wears 
 somewhat of a romantic and, it may be, incredible 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. m 
 
 aspect to those who contrast it with the present, they 
 must remember that he is only reviving the tints which 
 had faded on the canvas of history. But it is time 
 that we should return from this long digression, into 
 which we have been led by the desire of exhibiting in 
 stronger relief some peculiarities in the situation and 
 spirit of the nation at the period from which Mr. 
 Irving has selected the materials of his last, indeed, 
 his last two publications. 
 
 Our author, in his "Chronicle of Granada," has 
 been but slightly indebted to Arabic authorities. 
 Neither Conde nor Cardonne has expended more than 
 fifty or sixty pages on this humiliating topic ; but 
 ample amends have been offered in the copious pro- 
 lixity of the Castilian writers. The Spaniards can 
 boast a succession of chronicles from the period of the 
 great Saracen invasion. Those of a more early date, 
 compiled in rude Latin, are sufficiently meagre and 
 unsatisfactory; but from the middle of the thirteenth 
 century the stream of history runs full and clear, and 
 their chronicles, composed in the vernacular, exhibit 
 a richness and picturesque variety of incident that gave 
 them inestimable value as a body of genuine historical 
 documents. The reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 were particularly fruitful in these sources of informa- 
 tion. History then, like most of the other depart- 
 ments of literature, seemed to be in a state of transi- 
 tion, when the fashions of its more antiquated costume 
 began to mingle insensibly with the peculiarities of the 
 modern ; when, in short, the garrulous graces of nar- 
 ration were beginning to be tempered by the tone of 
 grave and philosophical reflection. 
 
112 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 We will briefly notice a few of the eminent sources 
 from which Mr. Irving has drawn his account of the 
 " Conquest of Granada." The first of these is the 
 Epistles of Peter Martyr, an Italian savant, who, 
 having passed over with the Spanish ambassador into 
 Spain, and being introduced into the court of Isabella, 
 was employed by her in some important embassies. 
 He was personally present at several campaigns of this 
 war. In his "Letters" he occasionally smiles at the 
 caprice which had led him to exchange the pen for the 
 sword, while his speculations on the events passing 
 before him, being those of a scholar rather than of a 
 soldier, afford in their moral complexion a pleasing 
 contrast to the dreary details of blood and battle. 
 Another authority is the Chronicle of Bernaldez, a 
 worthy ecclesiastic of that period, whose bulky manu- 
 script, like that of many a better writer, lies still en- 
 gulfed in the dust of some Spanish library, having 
 never been admitted to the honors of the press. 
 Copies of it, however, are freely circulated. It is 
 one of those good-natured, gossiping memorials of an 
 antique age, abounding equally in curious and com- 
 monplace incident, told in a way sufficiently prolix, 
 but not without considerable interest. The testimony 
 of this writer is of particular value, moreover, on this 
 occasion, from the proximity of his residence in Anda- 
 lusia to those scenes which were the seat of the war. 
 His style overflows with that religious loyalty with 
 which Mr. Irving has liberally seasoned the effusions 
 of Fra Antonio Agapida. Hernando del Pulgar, an- 
 other contemporary historian, was the secretary and 
 counsellor of their Catholic majesties, and appointed 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 "3 
 
 by them to the post of national chronicler, an office 
 familiar both to the courts of Castile and Aragon, in 
 which latter country, especially, it has been occupied 
 by some of its most distinguished historians. Pulgar's 
 long residence at court, his practical acquaintance 
 with affairs, and, above all, the access which he ob- 
 tained, by means of his official station, to the best 
 sources of information, have enabled him to make his 
 work a rich repository of facts relating to the general 
 resources of government, the policy of its administra- 
 tion, and, more particularly, the 1 conduct of the mil- 
 itary operations in the closing war of Granada, of 
 which he was himself an eye-witness. In addition to 
 these writers, this period has been illumined by the 
 labors of the most celebrated historians of Castile 
 and Aragon, Mariana and Zurita, both of whom con- 
 clude their narratives with it, the last expanding the 
 biography of Ferdinand alone into two volumes folio. 
 Besides these, Mr. Irving has derived collateral lights 
 from many sources of inferior celebrity but not less un- 
 suspicious credit. So that, in conclusion, notwithstand- 
 ing a certain dramatic coloring which Fra Agapida's 
 "Chronicle" occasionally wears, and notwithstanding 
 the romantic forms of a style which, to borrow the 
 language of Cicero, seems "to flow, as it were, from 
 the very lips of the Muses," we may honestly recom- 
 mend it as substantially an authentic record of one of 
 the most interesting and, as far as English scholars are 
 concerned, one of the most untravelled portions of 
 Spanish history. 
 
 10* 
 
CERVANTES.* 
 
 (July, 1837.) 
 
 The publication, in this country, of an important 
 Spanish classic in the original, with a valuable com- 
 mentary, is an event of some moment in our literary 
 annals, and indicates a familiarity, rapidly increasing, 
 with the beautiful literature to which it belongs. It- 
 may be received as an omen favorable to the cause of 
 modern literature in general, the study of which, in all 
 its varieties, may be urged on substantially the same 
 grounds. The growing importance attached to this 
 branch of education is visible in other countries quite 
 as much as in our own. It is the natural, or, rather, 
 necessary result of the changes which have taken place 
 in the social relations of man in this revolutionary age. 
 Formerly a nation, pent up within its own barriers, 
 knew less of its neighbors than we now know of what 
 is going on in Si am or Japan. A river, a chain of 
 mountains, an imaginary line, even, parted them as far 
 asunder as if oceans had rolled between. To speak 
 
 * " El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, compuesto 
 por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Nueva Edicion clasica, ilus- 
 trada con Notas historicas, gramaticales y criticas, por la Academia 
 Espanola, sus Individuos de Numero Pellicer, Arrieta, y Clemencin. 
 Enmendada y eorregida por Francisco Sales, A.M., Instructor de 
 Frances y Espanol en la Universidad de Harvard, en Cambrigia, 
 Estado de Massachusetts, Norte America," 2 vols. i2mo, Boston, 
 1836. 
 
 ("4) 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 "5 
 
 correctly, it was their imperfect civilization, their ig- 
 norance of the means and the subjects of communica- 
 tion, which thus kept them asunder. Now, on the 
 contrary, a change in the domestic institutions of one 
 country can hardly be effected without a corresponding 
 agitation in those of its neighbors. A treaty of alliance 
 can scarcely be adjusted without the intervention of a 
 general Congress. The sword cannot be unsheathed 
 in one part of Christendom without thousands leaping 
 from their scabbards in every other. The whole sys- 
 tem is bound together by as nice sympathies as if ani- 
 mated by a common pulse, and the remotest countries 
 of Europe are brought into contiguity as intimate as 
 were in ancient times the provinces of a single mon- 
 archy. 
 
 This intimate association has been prodigiously in- 
 creased of late years by the unprecedented discover- 
 ies which science has made for facilitating intercom- 
 munication. The inhabitants of Great Britain, that 
 " ultima Thule" of the ancients, can now run down to 
 the extremity of Italy in less time than it took Horace 
 to go from Rome to Brundusium. A steamboat of 
 fashionable tourists will touch at all the places of note 
 in the Iliad and Odyssey in fewer weeks than it would 
 have cost years to an ancient Argonaut or a crusader 
 of the Middle Ages. Every one, of course, travels, 
 and almost every capital and noted watering-place on 
 the Continent swarms with its thousands, and Paris 
 with its tens of thousands, of itinerant cockneys, many 
 of whom, perhaps, have not wandered beyond the 
 sound of Bow-bells in their own little island. 
 
 Few of these adventurers are so dull as not to be 
 
Ii6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 quickened into something like curiosity respecting the 
 language and institutions of the strange people among 
 whom they are thrown, while the better sort and more 
 intelligent are led to study more carefully the new 
 forms, whether in arts or letters, under which human 
 genius is unveiled to them. 
 
 The effect of all this is especially visible in the re- 
 forms introduced into the modern systems of education. 
 In both the universities recently established in London, 
 the apparatus for instruction, instead of being limited 
 to the ancient tongues, is extended to the whole circle 
 of modern literature ; and the editorial labors of many 
 of the professors show that they do not sleep on their 
 posts. Periodicals, under the management of the ablest 
 writers, furnish valuable contributions of foreign crit- 
 icism and intelligence; and regular histories of the 
 various Continental literatures, a department in which 
 the English are singularly barren, are understood to be 
 now in actual preparation. 
 
 But, although barren of literary, the English have 
 made important contributions to the political history 
 of the Continental nations. That of Spain has em- 
 ployed some of their best writers, who, it must be 
 admitted, however, have confined themselves so far to 
 the foreign relations of the country as to have left the 
 domestic in comparative obscurity. Thus, Robertson's 
 great work is quite as much the history of Europe as of 
 Spain under Charles the Fifth; and Watson's "Reign 
 of Philip the Second" might with equal propriety be 
 styled "The War of the Netherlands," which is its 
 principal burden. 
 
 A few works recently published in the United States 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 117 
 
 have shed far more light on the interior organization 
 and intellectual culture of the Spanish nation. Such, 
 for example, are the writings of Irving, whose gor- 
 geous coloring reflects so clearly the chivalrous splendors 
 of the fifteenth century, and the travels of Lieutenant 
 Slidell, presenting sketches equally animated of the 
 social aspect of that most picturesque of all lands in 
 the present century. In Mr. Cushing's " Reminis- 
 cences of Spain" we find, mingled with much char- 
 acteristic fiction, some very laborious inquiries into 
 curious and recondite points of history. In the purely 
 literary department, Mr. Ticknor's beautiful lectures 
 before the classes of Harvard University, still in manu- 
 script, embrace a far more extensive range of criticism 
 than is to be found in any Spanish work, and display, 
 at the same time, a degree of thoroughness and re- 
 search which the comparative paucity of materials 
 will compel us to look for in vain in Bouterwek or 
 Sismondi. Mr. Ticknor's successor, Professor Long- 
 fellow, favorably known by other compositions, has 
 enriched our language with a noble version of the 
 " Coplas de Manrique," the finest gem, beyond all com- 
 parison, in the Castilian verse of the fifteenth century. 
 We have also read with pleasure a clever translation 
 of Quevedo's "Visions," no very easy achievement, 
 by Mr. Elliot, of Philadelphia; though the translator 
 is wrong in supposing his the first English version. 
 The first is as old as Queen Anne's time, and was 
 made by the famous Sir Roger L' Estrange. To close 
 the account, Mr. Sales, the venerable instructor in 
 Harvard College, has now given, for the first time in 
 the New World, an elaborate edition of the prince of 
 
Il8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Castilian classics, in a form which may claim, to a 
 certain extent, the merit of originality. 
 
 We shall postpone the few remarks we have to make 
 on this edition to the close of our article ; and in the 
 mean time we propose, not to give the life of Cer- 
 vantes, but to notice such points as are least familiar 
 in his literary history, and especially in regard to the 
 composition and publication of his great work, the 
 Don Quixote ; a work which, from its wide and long- 
 established popularity, may be said to constitute part 
 of the literature not merely of Spain, but of every 
 country in Europe. 
 
 The age of Cervantes was that of Philip the Second, 
 when the Spanish monarchy, declining somewhat from 
 its palmy state, was still making extraordinary efforts 
 to maintain, and even to extend, its already overgrown 
 empire. Its navies were on every sea, and its armies 
 in every quarter of the Old World and in the New. 
 Arms was the only profession worthy of a gentleman ; 
 and there was scarcely a writer of any eminence — cer- 
 tainly no bard — of the age, who, if he were not in 
 orders, had not borne arms, at some period, in the 
 service of his country. Cervantes, who, though poor, 
 was born of an ancient family (it must go hard with a 
 Castilian who cannot make out a pedigree for himself), 
 had a full measure of this chivalrous spirit, and during 
 the first half of his life we find him in the midst of all 
 the stormy and disastrous scenes of the iron trade of 
 war. His love of the military profession, even after 
 the loss of his hand, or of the use of it, for it is uncer- 
 tain which, is sufficient proof of his adventurous spirit. 
 In the course of his checkered career he visited the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 119 
 
 principal countries in the Mediterranean, and passed 
 five years in melancholy captivity at Algiers. The 
 time was not lost, however, which furnished his keen 
 eye with those glowing pictures of Moslem luxury and 
 magnificence with which he has enriched his pages. 
 After a life of unprecedented hardship, he returned to 
 his own country, covered with laurels and scars, with 
 very little money in his pocket, but with plenty of that 
 experience which, regarding him as a novelist, might 
 be considered his stock in trade. 
 
 The poet may draw from the depths of his own 
 fancy; the scholar, from his library; but the proper 
 study of the dramatic writer, whether in verse or in 
 prose, is man, — man as he exists in society. He who 
 would faithfully depict human character cannot study 
 it too nearly and variously. He must sit down, like 
 Scott, by the fireside of the peasant and listen to the 
 " auld wife's" tale; he must preside, with Fielding, 
 at a petty justice sessions, or share with some Squire 
 Western in the glorious hazards of a fox-hunt ; he 
 must, like Smollett and Cooper, study the mysteries of 
 the deep, and mingle on the stormy element itself with 
 the singular beings whose destinies he is to describe ; 
 or, like Cervantes, he must wander among other races 
 and in other climes, before his pencil can give those 
 chameleon touches which reflect the shifting, many- 
 colored hues of actual life. He may, indeed, like 
 Rousseau, if it were possible to imagine another Rous- 
 seau, turn his thoughts inward, and draw from the 
 depths of his own soul ; but he would see there only 
 his own individual passions and prejudices, and the 
 portraits he might sketch, however various in subordi- 
 
120 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Date details, would be, in their characteristic features, 
 only the reproduction of himself. He might, in short, 
 be a poet, a philosopher, but not a painter of life and 
 manners. 
 
 Cervantes had ample means for pursuing the study 
 of human character, after his return to Spain, in the 
 active life which engaged him in various parts of the 
 country. In Andalusia he might have found the models 
 of the sprightly wit and delicate irony with which he 
 has seasoned his fictions ; in Seville, in particular, he 
 was brought in contact with the fry of small sharpers 
 and pickpockets who make so respectable a figure in 
 his picaresco novels ; and in La Mancha he not only 
 found the geography of his Don Quixote, but that 
 whimsical contrast of pride and poverty in the na- 
 tives, which has furnished the outlines of many a 
 broad caricature to the comic writers of Spain. 
 
 During all this while he had made himself known 
 only by his pastoral fiction, the "Galatea," a beautiful 
 specimen of an insipid class, which, with all its literary 
 merits, afforded no scope for the power of depicting 
 human character, which he possessed, perhaps, un- 
 known to himself. He wrote, also, a good number 
 of plays, all of which, except two, and these recov- 
 ered only at the close of the last century, have per- 
 ished. One of these, "The Siege of Numantia," 
 displays that truth of drawing and strength of color 
 which mark the consummate artist. It was not until 
 he had reached his fifty-seventh year that he completed 
 the First Part of his great work, the Don Quixote. 
 The most celebrated novels, unlike most works of 
 imagination, seem to have been the production of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 12 i 
 
 later period of life. 1 ielding was between forty and 
 fifty when he wrote "Tom Jones;" Richardson was 
 sixty, or very near it, when he wrote "Clarissa;" and 
 Scott was some years over forty when he began the 
 series of the Waverley novels. The world, the school 
 of the novelist, cannot be run through like the terms 
 of a university, and the knowledge of its manifold va- 
 rieties must be the result of long and diligent training. 
 
 The First Part . of the Quixote was begun, as the 
 author tells us, in a prison, to which he had been 
 brought, not by crime or debt, but by some offence, 
 probably, to the worthy people of La Mancha. It is 
 not the only work of genius which has struggled into 
 being in such unfavorable quarters. The "Pilgrim's 
 Progress," the most popular, probably, of English 
 fictions, was composed under similar circumstances. 
 But we doubt if such brilliant fancies and such flashes 
 of humor ever lighted up the walls of the prison-house 
 before the time of Cervantes. 
 
 The First Part of the Don Quixote was given to the 
 public in 1605. Cervantes, when the time arrived for 
 launching his satire against the old, deep-rooted preju- 
 dices of his countrymen, probably regarded it, as well 
 he might, as little less rash than his own hero's tilt 
 against the windmills. He sought, accordingly, to 
 shield himself under the cover of a powerful name, 
 and asked leave to dedicate the book to a Castilian 
 grandee, the Duke de Bejar. The duke, it is said, 
 whether ignorant of the design or doubting the success 
 of the work, would have declined, but Cervantes urged 
 him first to peruse a single chapter. The audience 
 summoned to sit in judgment were so delighted with 
 
 F II 
 
122 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the first pages that they would not abandon the novel 
 till they had heard the whole of it. The duke, of 
 course, without farther hesitation, condescended to 
 allow his name to be inserted in this passport to 
 immortality. 
 
 There is nothing very improbable in the story. It 
 reminds one of a similar experiment by St. Pierre, who 
 submitted his manuscript of "Paul and Virginia" to 
 a circle of French litterateurs , Monsieur and Madame 
 Necker, the Abbe Galiani, Thomas, Buffon, and some 
 others, all wits of the first water in the metropolis. 
 Hear the result, in the words of his biographer, or, 
 rather, his agreeable translator: "At first the author 
 was heard in silence ; by degrees the attention grew 
 languid ; they began to whisper, to gape, and listened 
 no longer. M. de BurTon looked at his watch, and 
 called for his horses; those near the door slipped out; 
 Thomas went to sleep ; M. Necker laughed to see the 
 ladies weep; and the ladies, ashamed of their tears, 
 did not dare to confess that they had been interested. 
 The reading being finished, nothing was praised. 
 Madame Necker alone criticised the conversation of 
 Paul and the old man. This moral appeared to her 
 tedious and commonplace: it broke the action, chilled 
 the reader, and was a sort of glass of iced water. M. 
 de St. Pierre retired in a state of indescribable depres- 
 sion. He regarded what had passed as his sentence 
 of death. The effect of his work on an audience like 
 that to which he had read it left him no hope for the 
 future." Yet this work was "Paul and Virginia," one 
 of the most popular books in the French language. So 
 much for criticism ! 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 123 
 
 The truth seems to be, that the judgment of no pri- 
 vate circle, however well qualified by taste and talent, 
 can afford a sure prognostic of that of the great public. 
 If the manuscript to be criticised is our friend's, of 
 course the verdict is made up before perusal. If some 
 great man modestly sues for our approbation, our self- 
 complacency has been too much flattered for us to 
 withhold it. If it be a little man (and St. Pierre was 
 but a little man at that time), our prejudices — the 
 prejudices of poor human nature — will be very apt to 
 take an opposite direction. Be the cause what it may,- 
 whoever rests his hopes of public favor on the smiles 
 of a coterie runs the risk of finding himself very un- 
 pleasantly deceived. Many a trim bark which has 
 flaunted gayly in a summer lake has gone to pieces 
 amid the billows and breakers of the rude ocean. 
 
 The prognostic in the case of Cervantes, however, 
 proved more correct. His work produced an instan- 
 taneous effect on the community. He had struck a 
 note which found an echo in every bosom. Four 
 editions were published in the course of the first year, 
 — two in Madrid, one in Valencia, and another at 
 Lisbon. 
 
 This success, almost unexampled in any age, was 
 still more extraordinary in one in which the reading 
 public was comparatively limited. That the book 
 found its way speedily into the very highest circles in 
 the kingdom is evident from the well-known explana- 
 tion of Philip the Third when he saw a student laugh- 
 ing immoderately over some volume : "The man must 
 be either out of his wits, or reading Don Quixote." 
 Notwithstanding this, its author felt none of that sun- 
 
124 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 shine of royal favor which would have been so grateful 
 in his necessities. 
 
 The period was that of the golden prime of Cas- 
 tilian literature. But the monarch on the throne, one 
 of the ill-starred dynasty of Austria, would have been 
 better suited to the darkest of the Middle Ages. His 
 hours, divided between his devotions and his debauch- 
 eries, left nothing to spare for letters; and his minister, 
 the arrogant Duke of Lerma, was too much absorbed 
 by his own selfish though shallow schemes of policy to 
 trouble himself with romance-writers, or their satirist. 
 Cervantes, however, had entered on a career which, as 
 he intimates in some of his verses, might lead to fame, 
 but not to fortune. Happily, he did not compromise 
 his fame by precipitating the execution of his works 
 from motives of temporary profit. It was not till sev- 
 eral years after the publication of the Don Quixote 
 that he gave to the world his Exemplary Novels, as he 
 called them, — fictions which, differing from any thing 
 before known, not only in the Castilian, but, in some 
 respects, in any other literature, gave ample scope to 
 his dramatic talent, in the contrivance of situations 
 and the nice delineation of character. These works, 
 whose diction was uncommonly rich and attractive, 
 were popular from the first. 
 
 One cannot but be led to inquire why, with such 
 success as an author, he continued to be so straitened 
 in his circumstances, as he plainly intimates was the 
 case more than once in his writings. From the Don 
 Quixote, notwithstanding its great run, he probably 
 received little, since he had parted with the entire 
 copyright before publication, when the work was re- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 125 
 
 garded as an experiment the result of which was quite 
 doubtful. It is not so easy to explain the difficulty 
 when his success as an author had been so completely 
 established. Cervantes intimates his dissatisfaction, in 
 more than one place in his writings, with the book- 
 sellers themselves. "What, sir!" replies an author 
 introduced into his Don Quixote, "would you have 
 me sell the profit of my labor to a bookseller for three 
 maravedis a sheet ? for that is the most they will bid, 
 nay, and expect, too, I should thank them for the 
 offer." This burden of lamentation, the alleged illib- 
 erally of the publisher towards the poor author, is as 
 old as the art of book-making itself. But the public 
 receive the account from the party aggrieved only. If 
 the bookseller reported his own case, we should, no 
 doubt, have a different version. If Cervantes was in 
 the right, the trade in Castile showed a degree of 
 dexterity in their proceedings which richly entitled 
 them to the pillory. In one of his tales we find a 
 certain licentiate complaining of "the tricks and de- 
 ceptions they put upon an author when they buy a 
 copyright from him; and still more, the manner in 
 which they cheat him if he prints the book at his own 
 charges ; since nothing is more common than for them 
 to agree for fifteen hundred, and have privily, perhaps, 
 as many as three thousand thrown off, one-half, at the 
 least, of which they sell, not for his profit, but their 
 own." 
 
 The writings of Cervantes appear to have gained 
 him, however, two substantial friends in Cabra, the 
 Count of Lemos, and the Archbishop of Toledo, of 
 the ancient family of Rojas; and the patronage of these 
 
 11* 
 
I2 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 illustrious individuals has been nobly recompensed by 
 having their names forever associated with the imper- 
 ishable productions of genius. 
 
 There was still one kind of patronage wanting in 
 this early age, that of a great, enlightened community, 
 — the only patronage which can be received without 
 some sense of degradation by a generous mind. There 
 was, indeed, one golden channel of public favor, and 
 that was the theatre. The drama has usually flourished 
 most at the period when a nation is beginning to taste 
 the sweets of literary culture. Such was the early 
 part of the seventeenth century in Europe; the age 
 of Shakspeare, Jonson, and Fletcher in England ; of 
 Ariosto, Machiavelli, and the wits who first successfully 
 wooed the comic muse of Italy ; of the great Cor- 
 neille, some years later, in France; and of that mir- 
 acle, or, rather, "monster of nature," as Cervantes 
 styled him, Lope de Vega in Spain. Theatrical ex- 
 hibitions are a combination of the material with the 
 intellectual, at which the ordinary spectator derives 
 less pleasure, probably, from the beautiful creations of 
 the poet than from the scenic decorations, music, and 
 other accessories which address themselves to the 
 senses. The fondness for spectacle is characteristic of 
 an early period of society, and the theatre is the most 
 brilliant of pageants. With the progress of education 
 and refinement, men become less open to, or, at least, 
 less dependent on, the pleasures of sense, and seek 
 their enjoyment in more elevated and purer sources. 
 Thus it is that, instead of 
 
 " Sweating in the crowded theatre, squeezed 
 And bored with elbow-points through both our sides," 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 127 
 
 as the sad minstrel of nature sings, we sit quietly at 
 home, enjoying the pleasures of fiction around our 
 own firesides, and the poem or the novel takes the 
 place of the acted drama. The decline of dramatic 
 writing may justly be lamented as that of one of the 
 most beautiful varieties in the garden of literature. 
 But it must be admitted to be both a symptom and a 
 necessary consequence of the advance of civilization. 
 
 The popularity of the stage, at the period of which 
 we are speaking, in Spain, was greatly augmented by 
 the personal influence and reputation of Lope de Vega, 
 the idol of his countrymen, who threw off the various 
 inventions of his genius with a rapidity and profusion 
 that almost staggers credibility. It is impossible to 
 state the results of his labors in any form that will not 
 powerfully strike the imagination. Thus, he has left 
 twenty-one million three hundred thousand verses in 
 print, besides a mass of manuscript. He furnished 
 the theatre, according to the statement of his intimate 
 friend Montalvan, with eighteen hundred regular plays, 
 and four hundred autos or religious dramas, — all acted. 
 He composed, according to his own statement, more 
 than one hundred comedies in the almost incredible 
 space of twenty-four hours each, and a comedy aver- 
 aged between two and three thousand verses, great part 
 of them rhymed and interspersed with sonnets and 
 other more difficult forms of versification. He lived 
 seventy-two years ; and supposing him to have em- 
 ployed fifty of that period in composition, although he 
 filled a variety of engrossing vocations during that 
 time, he must have averaged a play a week, to say 
 nothing of twenty-one volumes quarto of miscella- 
 
128 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 neous works, including five epics, written in his leisure 
 moments, and all now in print ! 
 
 The only achievements we can recall in literary his- 
 tory bearing any resemblance to, though falling far 
 short of this, are those of our illustrious contemporary 
 Sir Walter Scott. The complete edition of his works, 
 recently advertised by Murray, with the addition of two 
 volumes of which Murray has not the copyright, prob- 
 ably contains ninety volumes small octavo. To these 
 should farther be added a large supply of matter for the 
 Edinburgh Annual Register, as well as other anony- 
 mous contributions. Of these, forty-eight volumes of 
 novels and twenty-one of history and biography were 
 produced between 1814 and 1831, or in seventeen 
 years. These would give an average of four volumes 
 a year, or one for every three months during the whole 
 of that period, to which must be added twenty-one 
 volumes of poetry and prose previously published. 
 The mere mechanical execution of so much work, 
 both in his case and Lope de Vega's, would seem to 
 be scarce possible in the limits assigned. Scott, too, 
 was as variously occupied in other ways as his Spanish 
 rival, and probably, from the social hospitality of his 
 life, spent a much larger portion of his time in no 
 literary occupation at all. 
 
 Notwithstanding we have amused ourselves, at the 
 expense of the reader's patience perhaps, with these 
 calculations, this certainly is not the standard by which 
 we should recommend to estimate works of genius. 
 Wit is not to be measured, like broadcloth, by the 
 yard. Easy writing, as the adage says, and as we all 
 know, is apt to be very hard reading. This brings to 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 129 
 
 our recollection a conversation, in the presence of 
 Captain Basil Hall, in which, some allusion having 
 been made to the astonishing amount of Scott's daily 
 composition, the literary argonaut remarked, "There 
 was nothing astonishing in all that, and that he did 
 as much himself nearly every day before breakfast." 
 Some one of the company unkindly asked "whether 
 he thought the quality was the same." It is the 
 quality, undoubtedly, which makes the difference. 
 And in this view Lope de Vega's miracles lose much 
 of their effect. Of all his multitudinous dramas, one 
 or two only retain possession of the stage, and few, 
 very few, are now even read. His facility of com- 
 position was like that of an Italian improvisatore, whose 
 fertile fancy easily clothes itself in verse, in a language 
 the vowel terminations of which afford such a pleni- 
 tude of rhymes. The Castilian presents even greater 
 facilities for this than the Italian. Lope de Vega was 
 an improvisatore. 
 
 With all his negligences and defects, however, 
 Lope's interesting intrigues, easy, sprightly dialogue, 
 infinite variety of inventions, and the breathless ra- 
 pidity with which they followed one another, so daz- 
 zled and bewildered the imagination that he completely 
 controlled the public, and became, in the words of 
 Cervantes, "sole monarch of the stage." The public 
 repaid him with such substantial gratitude as has never 
 been shown, probably, to any other of its favorites. 
 His fortune at one time, although he was careless 
 of his expenses, amounted to one hundred thousand 
 ducats, equal, probably, to between seven and eight 
 hundred thousand dollars of the present day. In the 
 
 F* 
 
13° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 same street in which dwelt this spoiled child of for- 
 tune, who, amid the caresses of the great and the 
 lavish smiles of the public, could complain that his 
 merits were neglected, lived Cervantes, struggling 
 under adversity, or at least earning a painful subsist- 
 ence by the labors of his immortal pen. What a con- 
 trast do these pictures present to the imagination ! 
 If the suffrages of a cote?'ie, as we have said, afford no 
 warrant for those of the public, the example before us 
 proves that the award of one's contemporaries is quite 
 as likely to be set aside by posterity. Lope de Vega, 
 who gave his name to his age, has now fallen into 
 neglect even among his countrymen, while the fame 
 of Cervantes, gathering strength with time, has be- 
 come the pride of his own nation, as his works still 
 continue to be the delight of the whole civilized world. 
 However stinted may have been the recompense of 
 his deserts at home, it is gratifying to observe how 
 widely his fame was diffused in his own lifetime, and 
 that in foreign countries, at least, he enjoyed the full 
 consideration to which he was entitled. An interest- 
 ing anecdote illustrating this is recorded, which, as we 
 have never seen it in English, we will lay before the 
 reader. On occasion of a visit made by the Arch- 
 bishop of Toledo to the French ambassador resident 
 at Madrid, the prelate's suite fell into conversation 
 with the attendants of the minister, in the course of 
 which Cervantes was mentioned. The French gen- 
 tlemen expressed their unqualified admiration of his 
 writings, specifying the Galatea, Don Quixote, and the 
 Novels, which, they said, were read in all the countries 
 round, and in France particularly, where there were 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 131 
 
 some who might be said to know them actually by 
 heart. They intimated their desire to become per- 
 sonally acquainted with so eminent a man, and asked 
 many questions respecting his present occupations, his 
 circumstances, and way of life. To all this the Cas- 
 tilians could only reply that he had borne arms in the 
 service of his country, and was now old and poor. 
 "What!" exclaimed one of the strangers, "is Sefior 
 Cervantes not in good circumstances ? Why is he 
 not maintained, then, out of the public treasury?" 
 "Heaven forbid," rejoined another, "that his neces- 
 sities should be ever relieved, if it is these which make 
 him write, since it is his poverty that makes the world 
 rich." 
 
 There are other evidences, though not of so pleas- 
 ing a character, of the eminence which he had reached 
 at home, in the jealousy and ill will of his brother 
 poets. The Castilian poets of that day seem to have 
 possessed a full measure of that irritability which has 
 been laid at the door of all their tribe since the days 
 of Horace ; and the freedom of Cervantes' s literary 
 criticisms in his Don Quixote and other writings, 
 though never personal in their character, brought 
 down on his head a storm of arrows, some of which, 
 if not sent with much force, were at least well steeped 
 in venom. Lope de Vega is even said to have appeared 
 among the assailants, and a sonnet, still preserved, is 
 currently imputed to him, in which, after much eulogy 
 on himself, he predicts that the works of his rival will 
 find their way into the kennel. But the author of this 
 bad prophecy and worse poetry could never have been 
 the great Lope, who showed on all occasions a gen- 
 
I 3 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 erous spirit, and whose literary success must have made 
 such an assault unnecessary and in the highest degree 
 unmanly. On the contrary, we have evidence of a 
 very different feeling, in the homage which he renders 
 to the merits of his illustrious contemporary in more 
 than one passage of his acknowledged works, espe- 
 cially in his " Laurel de Apolo," in which he concludes 
 his poetical panegyric with the. following touching 
 conceit : 
 
 " Porque se diga que una mano herida 
 Pudo dar a su duefio eterna vida." 
 
 This poem was published by Lope in 1630, fourteen 
 years after the death of his rival ; notwithstanding, 
 Mr. Lockhart informs his readers, in his biographical 
 preface to the Don Quixote, that "as Lope de Vega 
 was dead (1615), there was no one to divide with 
 Cervantes the literary empire of his country." 
 
 In the dedication of his ill-fated comedies, 161 5 (for 
 Cervantes, like most other celebrated novelists, found 
 it difficult to concentrate his expansive vein within the 
 compass of dramatic rules), the public was informed 
 that "Don Quixote was already booted" and pre- 
 paring for another sally. It may seem strange that the 
 author, considering the great popularity of his hero, 
 had not sent him on his adventures before. But he 
 had probably regarded them as already terminated ; 
 and he had good reason to do so, since every incident 
 in the First Part, as it has been styled only since the 
 publication of the Second, is complete in itself, and 
 the Don, although not actually killed on the stage, is 
 noticed as dead, and his epitaph transcribed for the 
 reader. However this may be, the immediate execu- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 *33 
 
 tion of his purpose, so long delayed, was precipitated 
 by an event equally unwelcome and unexpected. This 
 was the continuation of his work by another hand. 
 
 The author's name, his nom de guerre, was Avella- 
 neda, a native of Tordesillas. Adopting the original 
 idea of Cervantes, he goes forward with the same char- 
 acters, through similar scenes of comic extravagance, 
 in the course of which he perpetrates sundry plagiar- 
 isms from the First Part, and has some incidents so 
 much resembling those in the Second Part, already 
 written by Cervantes, that it has been supposed he 
 must have had access to his manuscript. It is more 
 probable, as the resemblance is but general, that he 
 obtained his knowledge through hints which may have 
 fallen in conversation from Cervantes in the progress 
 of his own work. The spurious continuation had some 
 little merit, and attracted, probably, some interest, as 
 any work conducted under so popular a name could 
 not have failed to do. It was, however, on the whole, 
 a vulgar performance, thickly sprinkled with such gross 
 scurrility and indecency as was too strong even for the 
 palate of that not very fastidious age. The public 
 feeling may be gathered from the fact that the author 
 did not dare to depart from his incognito and claim 
 the honors x)f a triumph. The most diligent inquiries 
 have established nothing farther than that he was an 
 Aragonese, judging from his diction, and, from the 
 complexion of certain passages in the work, proba- 
 bly an ecclesiastic, and one of the swarm of small 
 dramatists who felt themselves rudely handled by the 
 criticism of Cervantes. The work was subsequently 
 translated, or rather paraphrased, by Le Sage, who has 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 more than once given a substantial value to gems of 
 little price in Castilian literature by the brilliancy of 
 his setting. The original work of Avellaneda, always 
 deriving an interest from the circumstances of its pro- 
 duction, has been reprinted in the present century, 
 and is not difficult to be met with. To have thus 
 coolly invaded an author's own property, to have 
 filched from him the splendid though unfinished crea- 
 tions of his genius before his own face, and while, as 
 was publicly known, he was in the very process of 
 completing them, must be admitted to be an act of 
 unblushing effrontery not surpassed in the annals of 
 literature. 
 
 Cervantes was much annoyed, it appears, by the cir- 
 cumstance. The continuation of Avellaneda reached 
 him, probably, when on the fifty-ninth chapter of the 
 Second Part. At least, from that time he begins to 
 discharge his gall on the head of the offender, who, it 
 should be added, had consummated his impudence by 
 sneering, in his introduction, at the qualifications of 
 Cervantes. The best retort of the latter, however, was 
 the publication of his own book, which followed at the 
 close of 1 615. 
 
 The English novelist Richardson experienced a treat- 
 ment not unlike that of the Castilian^ His popular 
 story of Pamela was continued by another and very 
 inferior hand, under the title of "Pamela in High 
 Life." The circumstance prompted Richardson to 
 undertake the continuation himself; and it turned out, 
 like most others, a decided failure. Indeed, a skilful 
 continuation seems to be the most difficult work of art. 
 The first effort of the author breaks, as it were, unex- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 135 
 
 pectedly on the public, taking their judgments by sur- 
 prise, and by its very success creating a standard by 
 which the author himself is subsequently to be tried. 
 Before, he was compared with others ; he is now to be 
 compared with himself. The public expectation has 
 been raised. A degree of excellence which might 
 have found favor at first will now scarcely be tolerated. 
 It will not even suffice for him to maintain his own 
 level. He must rise above himself. The reader, in 
 the mean while, has naturally filled up the blank, and 
 insensibly conducted the characters and the story to a 
 termination in his own way. As the reality seldom 
 keeps pace with the ideal, the author's execution will 
 hardly come up to the imagination of his readers ; 
 at any rate, it will differ from them, and so far be 
 displeasing. We experience something of this dis- 
 appointment in the dramas borrowed from popular 
 novels, where the development of the characters by 
 the dramatic author, and the new direction given to 
 the original story in his hands, rarely fail to offend the 
 taste and preconceived ideas of the spectator. To feel 
 the force of this, it is only necessary to see the Guy 
 Mannering, Rob Roy, and other plays dramatized from 
 the Waverley novels. 
 
 Some part of the failure of such continuations is, no 
 doubt, fairly chargeable, in most instances, on the au- 
 thor himself, who goes to his new task with little of his 
 primitive buoyancy and vigor. He no longer feels the 
 same interest in his own labors, which, losing their 
 freshness, have become as familiar to his imagination 
 as a thrice-told tale. The new composition has, of 
 course, a different complexion from the former, cold, 
 
136 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 stiff, and disjointed, like a bronze statue whose parts 
 have been separately put together, instead of being 
 cast in one mould when the whole metal was in a state 
 of fusion. 
 
 The continuation of Cervantes forms a splendid 
 exception to the general rule. The popularity of his 
 First Part had drawn forth abundance of criticism, and 
 he availed himself of it to correct some material blem- 
 ishes in the design of the Second, while an assiduous 
 culture of the Castilian enabled him to enrich his style 
 with greater variety and beauty. 
 
 He had now reached the zenith of his fame, and the 
 profits of his continuation may have relieved the pecu- 
 niary embarrassments under which he had struggled. 
 But he was not long to enjoy his triumph. Before his 
 death, which took place in the following year, he com- 
 pleted his romance of "Persiles and Sigismunda," the 
 dedication to which, written a few days before his 
 death, is strongly characteristic of its writer. It is 
 addressed to his old patron, the Conde de Lemos, then 
 absent from the country. After saying, in the words 
 of the old Spanish proverb, that he had " one foot in 
 the stirrup^'' in allusion to the distant journey on which 
 he was soon to set out, he adds, "Yesterday I received 
 the extreme unction ; but, now that the shadows of 
 death are closing around me, I still cling to life, from 
 the love of it, as well as from the desire to behold you 
 again. But if it is decreed otherwise (and the will of 
 Heaven be done), your excellency will at least feel 
 assured there was one person whose wish to serve you 
 was greater than the love of life itself." After these 
 reminiscences of his benefactor, he expresses his own 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 137 
 
 purpose, should life be spared, to complete several 
 works he had already begun. Such were the last words 
 of this illustrious man ; breathing the same generous 
 sensibility, the same, ardent love of letters and beauti- 
 ful serenity of temper which distinguished him through 
 life. He died a few days after, on the 23d of April, 
 1 61 6. His remains were laid, without funeral pomp, 
 in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Madrid. No 
 memorial points out the spot to the eye of the travel- 
 ler, nor is it known at this day. And, while many a 
 costly construction has been piled on the ashes of the 
 little great, to the shame of Spain be it spoken, no 
 monument has yet been erected in honor of the greatest 
 genius she has produced. He has built, however, a 
 monument for himself more durable than brass or 
 sculptured marble. 
 
 Don Quixote is too familiar to the reader to require 
 any analysis ; but we will enlarge on a few circum- 
 stances attending its composition but little known to 
 the English scholar, which may enable him to form a 
 better judgment for himself. The age of chivalry, as 
 depicted in romances, could never, of course, have 
 had any real existence ; but the sentiments which are 
 described as animating that age have been found more 
 or less operative in different countries and different 
 periods of society. In Spain, especially, this influence 
 is to be discerned from a very early date. Its inhab- 
 itants may be said to have lived in a romantic atmo- 
 sphere, in which all the extravagances of chivalry were 
 nourished by their peculiar situation. Their hostile 
 relations with the Moslem kept alive the full glow of 
 religious and patriotic feeling. Their history is one 
 
 12* 
 
1 38 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 interminable crusade. An enemy always on the bor- 
 ders invited perpetual displays of personal daring and 
 adventure. The refinement and magnificence of the 
 Spanish Arabs throw a lustre over these contests such 
 as could not be reflected from the rude skirmishes 
 with their Christian neighbors. Lofty sentiments, em- 
 bellished by the softer refinements of courtesy, were 
 blended in the martial bosom of the Spaniard, and 
 Spain became emphatically the land of romantic chiv- 
 alry. 
 
 The very laws themselves, conceived in this spirit, 
 contributed greatly to foster it. The ancient code of 
 Alfonso the Tenth, in the thirteenth century, after 
 many minute regulations for the deportment of the 
 good knight, enjoins on him to "invoke the name of 
 his mistress in the fight, that it may infuse new ardor 
 into his soul and preserve him from the commission 
 of unknightly actions." Such laws were not a dead 
 letter. The history of Spain shows that the sentiment 
 of romantic gallantry penetrated the nation more 
 deeply and continued longer than in any other quarter 
 of Christendom. 
 
 Foreign chroniclers, as well as domestic, of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, notice the frequent 
 appearance of Spanish knights in different courts of 
 Europe, whither they had travelled, in the language of 
 an old writer, " to seek honor and reverence" by their 
 feats of arms. In the Paston Letters, written in the 
 time of Henry the Sixth of England, we find a notice 
 of a Castilian knight who presented himself before the 
 court, and, with his mistress's favor around his arm, 
 challenged the English cavaliers "to run a course of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 1 39 
 
 sharp spears with him for his sovereign lady's sake." 
 Pulgar, a Spanish chronicler of the close of the six- 
 teenth century, speaks of this roving knight-errantry 
 as a thing of familiar occurrence among the young 
 cavaliers of his day; and Oviedo, who lived somewhat 
 later, notices the necessity under which every true 
 knight found himself of being in love, ox feigning to 
 be so, in order to give a suitable lustre and incentive to 
 his achievements. But the most singular proof of the 
 extravagant pitch to which these romantic feelings 
 were carried in Spain occurs in the account of the 
 jousts appended to the fine old chronicle of Alvaro 
 de Luna, published by the Academy in 1784. The 
 principal champion was named Sueno de Quenones, 
 who, with nine companions in arms, defended a pass 
 at Orbigo, not far from the shrine of Compostella, 
 against all comers, in the presence of King John the 
 Second and his court. The object of this passage 
 of arms, as it was called, was to release the knight 
 from the obligation imposed on him by his mistress of 
 publicly wearing an iron collar round his neck every 
 Thursday. The jousts continued for thirty days, and 
 the doughty champions fought without shield or target, 
 with weapons bearing points of Milan steel. Six hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven encounters took place, and one 
 hundred and sixty-six lances were broken, when the 
 emprise was declared to be fairly achieved. The whole 
 affair is narrated, with becoming gravity, by an eye- 
 witness, and the reader may fancy himself perusing 
 the adventures of a Launcelot or an Amadis. The 
 particulars of this tourney are detailed at length in 
 Mills's Chivalry (vol. ii. chap, v.), where, however, the 
 
140 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 author has defrauded the successful champions of their 
 full honors by incorrectly reporting the number of 
 lances broken as only sixty-six. 
 
 The taste for these romantic extravagances naturally 
 fostered a corresponding taste for the perusal of tales 
 of chivalry. Indeed, they acted reciprocally on each 
 other. These chimerical legends had once, also, be- 
 guiled the long evenings of our Norman ancestors, but, 
 in the progress of civilization, had gradually given 
 way to other and more natural forms of composition. 
 They still maintained their ground in Italy, whither 
 they had passed later, and where they were consecrated 
 by the hand of genius. But Italy was not the true 
 soil of chivalry, and the inimitable fictions of Bojardo, 
 Pulci, and Ariosto were composed with that lurking 
 smile of half-suppressed mirth which, far from a serious 
 tone, could raise only a corresponding smile of incre- 
 dulity in the reader. 
 
 In Spain, however, the marvels of romance were all 
 taken in perfect good faith. Not that they were re- 
 ceived as literally true; but the reader surrendered 
 himself up to the illusion, and was moved to admi- 
 ration by the recital of deeds which, viewed in any 
 other light than as a wild frolic of imagination, would 
 be supremely ridiculous; for these tales had not the 
 merit of a seductive style and melodious versification 
 to relieve them. They were, for the most part, an ill- 
 digested mass of incongruities, in which there was as 
 little keeping and probability in the characters as in 
 the incidents, while the whole was told in that stilted 
 " Hercles' vein" and with that licentiousness of allu- 
 sion and imagery which could not fail to debauch both 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 141 
 
 the taste and the morals of the youthful reader. The 
 mind, familiarized with these monstrous, over-colored 
 pictures, lost all relish for the chaste and sober produc- 
 tions of art. The love of the gigantic and the marvel- 
 lous indisposed the reader for the simple delineations of 
 truth in real history. The feelings expressed by a sen- 
 sible Spaniard of the sixteenth century, the anonymous 
 author of the "Dialogo de las Lenguas," probably 
 represent those of many of his contemporaries. "Ten 
 of the best years of my life," says he, " were spent no 
 more profitably than in devouring these lies, which I 
 did even while eating my meals ; and the consequence 
 of this depraved appetite was, that if I took in hand 
 any true book of history, or one that passed for such, 
 I was unable to wade through it." 
 
 The influence of this meretricious taste was nearly 
 as fatal on the historian himself as on his readers, since 
 he felt compelled to minister to the public appetite 
 such a mixture of the marvellous in all his narrations 
 as materially discredited the veracity of his writings. 
 Every hero became a demigod, who put the labors of 
 Hercules to shame ; and every monk or old hermit 
 was converted into a saint, who wrought more mira- 
 cles, before and after death, than would have sufficed 
 to canonize a monastery. The fabulous ages of Greece 
 are scarcely more fabulous than the close of the Middle 
 Ages in Spanish history, which compares very discred- 
 itably, in this particular, with similar periods in most 
 European countries. The confusion of fact and fiction 
 continues to a very late age ; and as one gropes his 
 way through the twilight of tradition he is at a loss 
 whether the dim objects are men or shadows. The 
 
142 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 most splendid names in Castilian annals — names incor- 
 porated with the glorious achievements of the land, 
 and embalmed alike in the page of the chronicler and 
 the song of the minstrel — names associated with the 
 most stirring, patriotic recollections — are now found 
 to have been the mere coinage of fancy. There seems 
 to be no more reason for believing in the real exist- 
 ence of Bernardo del Carpio, of whom so much has 
 been said and sung, than in that of Charlemagne's 
 paladins, or of the Knights of the Round Table. 
 Even the Cid, the national hero of Spain, is con- 
 tended, by some of the shrewdest native critics of our 
 own times, to be an imaginary being; and it is certain 
 that the splendid fabric of his exploits, familiar as 
 household words to every Spaniard, has crumbled to 
 pieces under the rude touch of modern criticism. 
 These heroes, it is true, flourished before the intro- 
 duction of romances of chivalry; but the legends of 
 their prowess have been multiplied beyond bounds, in 
 consequence of the taste created by these romances, 
 and an easy faith accorded to them at the same time, 
 such as would never have been conceded in any other 
 civilized nation. In short, the elements of truth and 
 falsehood became so blended that history was converted 
 into romance, and romance received the credit due 
 only to history. 
 
 These mischievous consequences drew down the an- 
 imadversions of thinking men, and at length provoked 
 the interference of government itself. In 1543, Charles 
 the Fifth, by an edict, prohibited books of chivalry 
 from being imported into his American colonies, or 
 being printed or even read there. The legislation for 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 143 
 
 America proceeded from the crown alone, which had 
 always regarded the New World as its own exclusive 
 property. In 1555, however, the Cortes of the king- 
 dom presented a petition (which requires only the royal 
 signature to become at once the law), setting forth the 
 manifold evils resulting from these romances. There 
 is an air at once both of simplicity and solemnity in 
 the language of this instrument which may amuse the 
 reader: "Moreover, we say that it is very notorious 
 what mischief has been done to young men and maid- 
 ens, and other persons, by the perusal of books full of 
 lies and vanities, like Amadis, and works of that de- 
 scription, since young people especially, from their 
 natural idleness, resort to this kind of reading, and, 
 becoming enamored of passages of love or arms, or 
 other nonsense which they find set forth therein, when 
 situations at all analogous offer, are led to act much 
 more extravagantly than they otherwise would have 
 done. And many times the daughter, when her mother 
 has locked her up safely at home, amuses herself with 
 reading these books, which do her more hurt than she 
 would have received from going abroad. All which 
 redounds not only to the dishonor of individuals, 
 but to the great detriment of conscience, by divert- 
 ing the affections from holy, true, and Christian doc- 
 trine, to those wicked vanities with which the wits, 
 as we have intimated, are completely bewildered. To 
 remedy this, we entreat your majesty that no book 
 treating of such matters be henceforth permitted 
 to be read, that those now printed be collected and 
 burned, and that none be published hereafter without 
 special license ; by which measures your majesty will 
 
i 4 4 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 render great service to God as well as to these king- 
 doms," etc., etc. 
 
 Notwithstanding this emphatic expression of public 
 disapprobation, these enticing works maintained their 
 popularity. The emperor Charles, unmindful of his 
 own interdict, took great satisfaction in their perusal. 
 The royal fetes frequently commemorated the fabulous 
 exploits of chivalry, and Philip the Second, then a 
 young man, appeared in these spectacles in the charac- 
 ter of an adventurous knight-errant. Moratin enumer- 
 ates more than seventy bulky romances, all produced 
 in the sixteenth century, some of which passed through 
 several editions, while many more works of the kind 
 have, doubtless, escaped his researches. The last on 
 his catalogue was printed in 1602, and was composed 
 by one of the nobles at the court. Such was the state 
 of things when Cervantes gave to the world the First 
 Part of his Don Quixote; and it was against preju- 
 dices which had so long bade defiance to public opinion 
 and the law itself that he now aimed the delicate shafts 
 of his irony. It was a perilous emprise. 
 
 To effect his end, he did not produce a mere hu- 
 morous travesty, like several of the Italian poets, who, 
 having selected some well-known character in romance, 
 make him fall into such low dialogue and such gross 
 buffoonery as contrast most ridiculously with his as- 
 sumed name; for this, though a very good jest in its 
 way, was but a jest, and Cervantes wanted the biting 
 edge of satire. He was, besides, too much of a poet — 
 was too deeply penetrated with the true spirit of chiv- 
 alry not to respect the noble qualities which were the 
 basis of it. He shows this in the auto da fe of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 1 45 
 
 Don's library, where he spares the Am ad is de Gaula 
 and some others, the best of their kind. He had once 
 himself, as he tells us, actually commenced a serious 
 tale of chivalry. 
 
 Cervantes brought forward a personage, therefore, 
 in whom were embodied all those generous virtues 
 which belong to chivalry: disinterestedness, contempt 
 of danger, unblemished honor, knightly courtesy, and 
 those aspirations after ideal excellence which, if empty 
 dreams, are the dreams of a magnanimous spirit. They 
 are, indeed, represented by Cervantes as too ethereal 
 for this world, and are successively dispelled as they 
 come in contact with the coarse realities of life. It is 
 this view of the subject which has led Sismondi, among 
 other critics, to consider that the principal end of the 
 author was " the ridicule of enthusiasm, — the contrast 
 of the heroic with the vulgar," — and he sees some- 
 thing profoundly sad in the conclusions to which it 
 leads. This sort of criticism appears to be over- 
 refined. It resembles the efforts of some commenta- 
 tors to allegorize the great epics of Homer and Virgil, 
 throwing a disagreeable mistiness over the story by con- 
 verting mere shadows into substances, and substances 
 into shadows. 
 
 The great purpose of Cervantes was, doubtless, that 
 expressly avowed by himself, namely, to correct the 
 popular taste for romances of chivalry. It is unneces- 
 sary to look for any other in so plain a tale, although, 
 it is true, the conduct of the story produces impres- 
 sions on the reader, to a certain extent, like those 
 suggested by Sismondi. The melancholy tendency, 
 however, is in a great degree counteracted by the ex- 
 g 13 
 
146 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 quisitely ludicrous character of the incidents. Per- 
 haps, after all, if we are to hunt for a moral as the key 
 of the fiction, we may with more reason pronounce it 
 to be the necessity of proportioning our undertakings 
 to our capacities. 
 
 The mind of the hero, Don Quixote, is an ideal 
 world, into which Cervantes has poured all the rich 
 stores of his own imagination, the poet's golden 
 dreams, high romantic exploit, and the sweet visions 
 of pastoral happiness ; the gorgeous chimeras of the 
 fancied age of chivalry, which had so long entranced 
 the world ; splendid illusions, which, floating before 
 us like the airy bubbles which the child throws off 
 from his pipe, reflect, in a thousand variegated tints, 
 the rude objects around, until, brought into collision 
 with these, they are dashed in pieces and melt into 
 air. These splendid images derive tenfold beauty from 
 the rich, antique coloring of the author's language, 
 skilfully imitated from the old romances, but which 
 necessarily escapes in the translation into a foreign 
 tongue. Don Quixote's insanity operates both in mis- 
 taking the ideal for the real, and the real for the ideal. 
 Whatever he has found in romances he believes to exist 
 in the world; and he converts all he meets with in the 
 world into the visions of his romances. It is difficult 
 to say which of the two produces the most ludicrous 
 results. 
 
 For the better exposure of these mad fancies, Cer- 
 vantes has not only put them into action in real life, 
 but contrasted them with another character which may 
 be said to form the reverse side of his hero's. Honest 
 Sancho represents the material principle as perfectly as 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 147 
 
 his master does the intellectual or ideal. He is of the 
 earth, earthy. Sly, selfish, sensual, his dreams are not 
 of glory, but of good feeding. His only concern is 
 for his carcass. His notions of honor appear to be 
 much the same with those of his jovial contemporary 
 Falstaff, as conveyed in his memorable soliloquy. In 
 the sublime night-piece which ends with the fulling- 
 mills — truly sublime until we reach the denouement — 
 Sancho asks his master, " Why need you go about this 
 adventure ? It is main dark, and there is never a 
 living soul sees us; we have nothing to do but to sheer 
 off and get out of harm's way. Who is there to take 
 notice of our flinching?" Can any thing be imagined 
 more exquisitely opposed to the true spirit of chivalry? 
 The whole compass of fiction nowhere displays the 
 power of contrast so forcibly as in these two charac- 
 ters : perfectly opposed to each other, not only in their 
 minds and general habits, but in the minutest details 
 of personal appearance. 
 
 It was a great effort of art for Cervantes to maintain 
 the dignity of his hero's character in the midst of the 
 whimsical and ridiculous distresses in which he has 
 perpetually involved him. His infirmity leads us to 
 distinguish between his character and his conduct, and 
 to absolve him from all responsibility for the latter. 
 The author's art is no less shown in regard to the other 
 principal figure in the piece, Sancho Panza, who, with 
 the most- contemptible qualities, contrives to keep a 
 strong hold on our interest by the kindness of his 
 nature and his shrewd understanding. He is far too 
 shrewd a person, indeed, to make it natural for him to 
 have followed so crack-brained a master unless bribed 
 
148 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 by the promise of a substantial recompense. He is a 
 personification, as it were, of the popular wisdom, — a 
 "bundle of proverbs," as his master somewhere styles 
 him ; and proverbs are the most compact form in 
 which the wisdom of a people is digested. They have 
 been collected into several distinct works in Spain, 
 where they exceed in number those of any other, if 
 not every other, country in Europe. As many of 
 them are of great antiquity, they are of inestimable 
 price with the Castilian purists, as affording rich sam- 
 ples of obsolete idioms and the various mutations of 
 the language. 
 
 The subordinate portraits in the romance, though 
 not wrought with the same care, are admirable studies 
 of national character. In this view, the Don Quixote 
 may be said to form an epoch in the history of letters, 
 as the original of that kind of composition, the Novel 
 of Character, which is one of the distinguishing pecu- 
 liarities of modern literature. When well executed, 
 this sort of writing rises to the dignity of history itself, 
 and may be said to perform no insignificant part of 
 the functions of the latter. History describes men 
 less as they are than as they appear, as they are play- 
 ing a part on the great political theatre, — men in mas- 
 querade. It rests on state documents, which too often 
 cloak real purposes under an artful veil of policy, or 
 on the accounts of contemporaries blinded by passion 
 or interest. Even without these deductions, the revo- 
 lutions of states, their wars, and their intrigues do not 
 present the only aspect, nor, perhaps, the most inter- 
 esting, under which human nature can be studied. It 
 is man in his domestic relations, around his own fire- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 149 
 
 side, where alone his real character can be truly dis- 
 closed ; in his ordinary occupations in society, whether 
 for purposes of profit or of pleasure ; in his every-day 
 manner of living, his tastes and opinions, as drawn 
 out in social intercourse \ it is, in short, under all those 
 forms which make up the interior of society that man 
 is to be studied, if we would get the true form and 
 pressure of the age, — if, in short, we would obtain 
 clear and correct ideas of the actual progress of civil- 
 ization. 
 
 But these topics do not fall within the scope of the 
 historian. He cannot find authentic materials for 
 them. They belong to the novelist, who, indeed, 
 contrives his incidents and creates his characters, but 
 who, if true to his art, animates them with the same 
 tastes, sentiments, and motives of action which belong 
 to the period of his fiction. His portrait is not the 
 less true because no individual has sat for it. He has 
 seized the physiognomy of the times. Who is there 
 that does not derive a more distinct idea of the state 
 of society and manners in Scotland from the Waverley 
 novels than from the best of its historians ? of the 
 condition of the Middle Ages from the single romance 
 of Ivanhoe than from the volumes of Hume or Hal- 
 lam? In like manner, the pencil of Cervantes has 
 given a far more distinct and a richer portraiture of 
 life in Spain in the sixteenth century than can be 
 gathered from a library of monkish chronicles. 
 
 Spain, which furnished the first good model of this 
 kind of writing, seems to have possessed more ample 
 materials for it than any other country except Eng- 
 land. This is perhaps owing in a great degree to the 
 
 13* 
 
150 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 freedom and originality of the popular character. It 
 is the country where the lower classes make the near- 
 est approach, in their conversation, to what is called 
 humor. Many of the national proverbs are seasoned 
 with it, as well as the picaresco tales, the indigenous 
 growth of the soil, where, however, the humor runs 
 rather too much to mere practical jokes. The free 
 expansion of the popular characteristics may be traced, 
 in part, to the freedom of the political institutions of the 
 country before the iron hand of the Austrian dynasty 
 was laid on it. The long wars with the Moslem in- 
 vaders called every peasant into the field, and gave 
 him a degree of personal consideration. In some of 
 the provinces, as Catalonia, the democratic spirit fre- 
 quently rose to an uncontrollable height. In this free 
 atmosphere the rich and peculiar traits of national char- 
 acter were unfolded. The territorial divisions which 
 marked the Peninsula, broken up anciently into a num- 
 ber of petty and independent states, gave, moreover, 
 great variety to the national portraiture. The rude 
 Asturian, the haughty and indolent Castilian, the 
 industrious Aragonese, the independent Catalan, the 
 jealous and wily Andalusian, the effeminate Valencian, 
 and magnificent Granadine, furnished an infinite va- 
 riety of character and costume for the study of the 
 artist. The intermixture of Asiatic races to an extent 
 unknown in any other European land was favorable to 
 the same result. The Jews and the Moors were settled 
 in too great numbers, and for too many centuries, in 
 the land, not to have left traces of their Oriental civil- 
 ization. The best blood of the country has flowed 
 from what the modern Spaniard — the Spaniard of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 *5* 
 
 Inquisition — regards as impure sources ; and a work, 
 popular in the Peninsula, under the name of Tizon de 
 Espana, or " Brand of Spain," maliciously traces back 
 the pedigrees of the noblest houses in the kingdom to 
 a Jewish or Morisco origin. All these circumstances 
 have conspired to give a highly poetic interest to the 
 character of the Spaniards ; to make them, in fact, the 
 most picturesque of European nations, affording richer 
 and far more various subjects for the novelist than 
 other nations whose peculiarities have been kept down 
 by the weight of a despotic government or the artificial 
 and levelling laws of fashion. 
 
 There is one other point of view in which the Don 
 Quixote presents itself, that of its didactic import. It 
 is not merely moral in its general tendency, though 
 this was a rare virtue in the age in which it was 
 written, but is replete with admonition and criticism, 
 oftentimes requiring great boldness, as well as origi- 
 nality, in the author. Such, for instance, are the de- 
 rision of witchcraft, and other superstitions common to 
 the Spaniards ; the ridicule of torture, which, though 
 not used in the ordinary courts, was familiar to the 
 Inquisition ; the frequent strictures on various depart- 
 ments and productions of literature. The literary 
 criticism scattered throughout the work shows a pro- 
 found acquaintance with the true principles of taste far 
 before his time, and which has left his judgments of 
 the writings of his countrymen still of paramount 
 authority. In truth, the great scope of his work was 
 didactic, for it was a satire against the false taste of 
 his age. And never was there a satire so completely 
 successful. The last romance of chivalry, before the 
 
i5 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 appearance of the Don Quixote, came out in 1602. 
 It was the last that was ever published in Spain. So 
 completely was this kind of writing, which had bade 
 defiance to every serious effort, now extinguished by 
 the breath of ridicule, 
 
 " That soft and summer breath, whose subtile power 
 Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour." 
 
 It was impossible for any new author to gain an audi- 
 ence. The public had seen how the thunder was fab- 
 ricated. The spectator had been behind the scenes, 
 and witnessed of what cheap materials kings and 
 queens were made. It was impossible for him, by 
 any stretch of imagination, to convert the tinsel and 
 painted baubles which he had seen there into diadems 
 and sceptres. The illusion had fled forever. 
 
 Satire seldom survives the local or temporary inter- 
 ests against which it is directed. It loses its life with 
 its sting. The satire of Cervantes is an exception. 
 The objects at which it was aimed have long since 
 ceased to interest. The modern reader is attracted to 
 the book simply by its execution as a work of art, 
 and, from want of previous knowledge, comprehends 
 few of the allusions which gave such infinite zest to 
 the perusal in its own day. Yet, under all these dis- 
 advantages, it not only maintains its popularity, but 
 is far more widely extended, and enjoys far higher con- 
 sideration, than in the life of its author. Such are 
 the triumphs of genius ! 
 
 Cervantes correctly appreciated his own work. He 
 more than once predicted its popularity. "I will lay 
 a wager," says Sancho, "that before long there will 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 *53 
 
 not be a chop-house, tavern, or barber's stall but will 
 have a painting of our achievements." The honest 
 squire's prediction was verified in his own day; and 
 the author might have seen paintings of his work on 
 wood and on canvas, as well as copper-plate engrav- 
 ings of it. Besides several editions of it at home, it 
 was printed, in his own time, in Portugal, Flanders, 
 and Italy. Since that period, it has passed into num- 
 berless editions both in Spain and other countries. It 
 has been translated into nearly every European tongue 
 over and over again ; into English ten times, into 
 French eight, and others less frequently. We will 
 close the present notice with a brief view of some of 
 the principal editions, together with that at the head 
 of our article. 
 
 The currency of the romance among all classes fre- 
 quently invited its publication by incompetent hands ; 
 and the consequence was a plentiful crop of errors, 
 until the original text was nearly despoiled of its 
 beauty, while some passages were omitted, and foreign 
 ones still more shamefully interpolated. The first 
 attempt to retrieve the original from these harpies, 
 who thus foully violated it, singularly enough, was 
 made in England. Queen Caroline, the wife of George 
 the Second, had formed a collection of books of ro- 
 mance, which she playfully named the "library of the 
 sage Merlin." The romance of Cervantes alone was 
 wanting; and a nobleman, Lord Carteret, undertook 
 to provide her with a suitable copy at his own expense. 
 This was the origin of the celebrated edition published 
 by Tonson, in London, 1738, 4 torn. 4to. It con- 
 tained the Life of the Author, written for it by the 
 g* . 
 
*54 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL A AW 
 
 learned Mayans y Siscar. It was the first biography 
 (which merits the name) of Cervantes ; and it shows 
 into what oblivion his personal history had already 
 fallen, that no less than seven towns claimed each the 
 honor of giving him birth. The fate of Cervantes 
 resembled that of Homer. 
 
 The example thus set by foreigners excited an hon- 
 orable emulation at home; and at length, in 1780, a 
 magnificent edition, from the far-famed press of Ibarra, 
 was published at Madrid, in 4 torn. 4to, under the aus- 
 pices of the Royal Spanish Academy ; which, unlike 
 many other literary bodies of sounding name, has con- 
 tributed most essentially to the advancement of letters, 
 not merely by original memoirs, but by learned and 
 very beautiful editions of ancient writers. Its Don 
 Quixote exhibits a most careful revision of the text, 
 collated from the several copies printed in the author's 
 lifetime and supposed to have received his own emen- 
 dations. There is too good reason to believe that these 
 corrections were made with a careless hand ; at all 
 events, there is a plentiful harvest of typographical 
 blunders in these primitive editions. 
 
 Prefixed to the publication of the Academy is the 
 Life of Cervantes, by Rios, written with uncommon 
 elegance, and containing nearly all that is of much 
 interest in his personal history. A copious analysis 
 of the romance follows, in which a parallel is closely 
 elaborated between it and the poems of Homer. But 
 the romantic and the classical differ too widely from 
 each other to admit of such an approximation ; and 
 the method of proceeding necessarily involves its 
 author in infinite absurdities, which show an entire 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 *55 
 
 ignorance of the true principles of philosophical criti- 
 cism, and which he would scarcely have fallen into 
 had he given heed to the maxims of Cervantes himself. 
 
 In the following year, 1781, there appeared another 
 edition in England deserving of particular notice. It 
 was prepared by the Rev. Mr. Bowie, a clergyman at 
 Idemestone, who was so enamored of the romance of 
 Cervantes that, after collecting a library of such works 
 as could any way illustrate his author, he spent four- 
 teen years in preparing a suitable commentary on him. 
 There was ample scope for such a commentary. Many 
 of the satirical allusions of the romance were misun- 
 derstood, as we have said, owing to ignorance of the 
 books of chivalry at which they were aimed. Many 
 incidents and usages, familiar to the age of Cervantes, 
 had long since fallen into oblivion ; and much of the 
 idiomatic phraseology had grown to be obsolete, and 
 required explanation. Cervantes himself had fallen 
 into some egregious blunders, which in his subsequent 
 revision of the work he had neglected to set right. 
 The reader will readily call to mind the confusion as 
 to Sancho's Dapple, who appears and disappears, most 
 unaccountably, on the scene, according as the author 
 happens to remember or forget that he was stolen. 
 He afterwards corrected this in two or three instances, 
 but left three or four others unheeded. To the same 
 account must be charged numberless gross anachron- 
 isms. Indeed, the whole Second Part is an anachron- 
 ism, since the author introduces his hero criticising his 
 First Part, in which his own epitaph is recorded. 
 
 Cervantes seems to have had a great distaste for the 
 work of revision. Some of his blunders he laid at the 
 
156 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 printer's door, and others he dismissed with the re- 
 mark, more ingenious than true, that they were like 
 moles, which, though blemishes in themselves, add to 
 the beauty of the countenance. He little dreamed 
 that his lapses were to be watched so narrowly, that a 
 catalogue was actually to be set down of all his repe- 
 titions and inconsistencies, and that each of his hero's 
 sallies was to be adjusted by an accurate chronological 
 table like any real history. He would have been still 
 slower to believe that in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century a learned society, the Academy of Literature 
 and Fine Arts at Troyes, in Champagne, should have 
 chosen a deputation of their body to visit Spain and 
 examine the library of the Escurial, in order to obtain, 
 if possible, the original MS. of that Arabian sage from 
 whom Cervantes professed to have translated his ro- 
 mance. This was to be more mad than Don Quixote 
 himself; yet this actually happened. 
 
 Bowie's edition was printed in six volumes quarto; 
 the two last contained notes, illustrations, and index, 
 all, as well as the text, in Castilian. Watt, in his 
 laborious " Bibliotheca Britannica," remarks that the 
 book did not come up to the public expectation. If 
 so, the public must have been very unreasonable. It 
 was a marvellous achievement for a foreigner. It was 
 the first attempt at a commentary on the Quixote, 
 and, although doubtless exhibiting inaccuracies which 
 a native might have escaped, has been a rich mine 
 of illustration, from which native critics have helped 
 themselves most liberally, and sometimes with scanty 
 ackno wledgme n t . 
 
 The example of the English critic led to similar 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 157 
 
 labors in Spain, among the most successful of which 
 may be mentioned the edition by Pellicer, which has 
 commended itself to every scholar by its very learned 
 disquisitions on many topics both of history and criti- 
 cism. It also contains a valuable memoir of Cervantes, 
 whose life has since been written, in a manner which 
 leaves nothing farther to be desired, by Navarrete, well 
 known by his laborious publication of documents rela- 
 tive to the early Spanish discoveries. His biography 
 of the novelist comprehends all the information, direct 
 and subsidiary, which can now be brought together for 
 the elucidation of his personal or literary history. If 
 Cervantes, like his great contemporary, Shakspeare, 
 has left few authentic details of his existence, the de- 
 ficiency has been diligently supplied in both cases by 
 speculation and conjecture. 
 
 There was still wanting a classical commentary on 
 the Quixote devoted to the literary execution of the 
 work. Such a commentary has at length appeared 
 from the pen of Clemencin, the accomplished secretary 
 of the Spanish Academy of History, who had acquired 
 a high reputation for himself by the publication of the 
 sixth volume of its memoirs, the exclusive work of his 
 own hand. In his edition of the romance, besides 
 illuminating with rare learning many of the obscure 
 points in the narrative, he has accompanied the text 
 with a severe but enlightened criticism, which, while 
 it boldly exposes occasional offences against taste or 
 grammar, directs the eye to those latent beauties which 
 might escape a rapid or an ordinary reader. We much 
 doubt if any Castilian classic has been so ably illus- 
 trated. Unfortunately, the First Part only was com- 
 
 14 
 
158 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 pleted by the commentator, who died very recently. 
 It will not be easy to find a critic equally qualified by 
 his taste and erudition for the completion of the work. 
 
 The English, as we have noticed, have evinced their 
 relish for Cervantes not only by their critical labors 
 but by repeated translations. Some of these are exe- 
 cuted with much skill, considering the difficulty of 
 correctly rendering the idiomatic phraseology of hu- 
 morous dialogue. The most popular versions are those 
 of Motteux, Jarvis, and Smollett. Perhaps the first is 
 the best of all. It was by a Frenchman, who came 
 over to England in the time of James the Second. It 
 betrays nothing of its foreign parentage, however, 
 while its rich and racy diction and its quaint turns of 
 expression are admirably suited to convey a lively and 
 very faithful image of the original. The slight tinge 
 of antiquity which belongs to the time is not displeas- 
 ing, and comports well with the tone of knightly dig- 
 nity which distinguishes the hero. Lockhart's notes 
 and poetical versions of old Castilian ballads, appended 
 to the recent edition of Motteux, have rendered it 
 by far the most desirable translation. It is singular 
 that the first classical edition of Don Quixote, the first 
 commentary, and probably the best foreign trans- 
 lation should have been all produced in England ; 
 and, farther, that the English commentator should 
 have written in Spanish, and the English translation 
 have been by a Frenchman. 
 
 We now come to Mr. Sales' s recent edition of the 
 original, the first, probably, which has appeared in the 
 New World, of the one-half of which the Spanish is 
 the spoken language. There was great need of some 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 159 
 
 uniform edition to meet the wants of our University, 
 where much inconvenience has been long experienced 
 from the discrepancies of the copies used. The only- 
 ones to be procured in this country are contemptible 
 both in regard to printing and paper, and are defaced 
 by the grossest errors. They are the careless manu- 
 facture of ill-informed Spanish booksellers, made to 
 sell, and dear to boot. 
 
 Mr. Sales has adopted a right plan for remedying 
 these several evils. He has carefully formed his text 
 on that of the last and most correct edition of the 
 Academy, and, as he has stereotyped the work, any 
 verbal errors may be easily rectified. The Academy 
 has substituted the modern orthography for that of 
 Cervantes, who, independently of the change which has 
 gradually taken place in the language, seems to have 
 had no uniform system himself. Mr. Sales has con- 
 formed to the rules prescribed by this high authority 
 for regulating his orthography, accent, and punctua- 
 tion. In some instances, only, he has adopted the an- 
 cient usage in beginning words with/" instead of h, and 
 retaining obsolete terminations of verbs, as hablades 
 for hablais, hablabades for hablabais, amades for amais, 
 amabades for amabais, etc., no doubt as better suited 
 to the lofty tone of the good knight's discourses, who 
 himself affected a reverence for the antique in his 
 conversation to which his translators have not always 
 sufficiently attended. . 
 
 In one respect the present editor has made some 
 alterations not before attempted, we believe, in the text 
 of his original. We have already noticed the inaccu- 
 racies of the early copies of the Don Quixote, partly 
 
160 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 imputable to Cervantes himself, and in a greater de- 
 gree, doubtless, to his printers. There is no way of 
 rectifying such errors by collation with the author's 
 manuscript, which has long since disappeared. All 
 that can now be done, therefore, is to point out the 
 purer reading in a note, as Clemencin, Arrieta, and 
 other commentators have done, or, as Mr. Sales has 
 preferred, to introduce it into the body of the text. 
 We will give one or two specimens of these alterations : 
 
 " Poco mas 6 menos." — Tom. i. p. 141. 
 
 The reading in the old editions is "poco mas a me- 
 nos," a phrase as unintelligible in Spanish now as its 
 literal translation would be in English, although in 
 use, it would seem from other authorities, in the age 
 of Cervantes. 
 
 " Por tales os juzgue y tuve." — Tom. i. p. 104. 
 
 The old editions add "siempre," which clearly is in- 
 correct, since Don Quixote is speaking of the present 
 occasion. 
 
 " Don Quijote quedo admirado." — Tom. i. p. 143. 
 
 Other editions read "El dial quedo," etc. The use 
 of the relative leaves the reader in doubt who is in- 
 tended, and Mr. Sales, in conformity to Clemencin's 
 suggestion, has made the sentence clear by substituting 
 the name of the knight. 
 
 " Donde les sucediero?i cosas," etc. — Tom. ii. p. 44. 
 
 In other editions, " sucedib ;" bad grammar, since it 
 agrees with a plural noun. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. j6i 
 
 " En tan poco espacio de tiempo como ha que estuvo 
 alia," etc. (torn. ii. p. 132), instead of " estd alia," 
 clearly the wrong tense, since the verb refers to past 
 time. 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply examples, a sufficient 
 number of which have been cited to show on what 
 principles the emendations have been made. They 
 have been confined to the correction of such violations 
 of grammar, or such inaccuracies of expression, as 
 obscure or distort the meaning. They have been made 
 with great circumspection, and in obedience to the 
 suggestion of the highest authorities in the language. 
 For the critical scholar, who would naturally prefer the 
 primitive text with all its impurities, they were not 
 designed. But they are of infinite value to the gen- 
 eral reader and the student, who may now read this 
 beautiful classic purified from those verbal blemishes 
 which, however obvious to a native, could not fail to 
 mislead a foreigner. 
 
 Besides these emendations, Mr. Sales has illustrated 
 the work by prefixing to it the admirable preliminary 
 discourse of Clemencin, and by a considerable body of 
 notes, selected and abridged from the most approved 
 commentators ; and, as the object has been to explain 
 the text to the reader, not to involve him in antiqua- 
 rian or critical disquisitions, when his authorities have 
 failed to do this the editor has supplied notes of his 
 own, throwing much light on matters least familiar to 
 a foreigner. In this part of his work we think he 
 might have derived considerable aid from Bowie, whom 
 he does not appear to have consulted. The Castilian 
 commentator Arrieta, whom he liberally uses, is largely 
 
 14* 
 
1 62 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 indebted to the English critic, who, as a foreigner, 
 moreover, has been led into many seasonable explana- 
 tions that would be superfluous to a Spaniard. 
 
 We may notice another peculiarity in the present 
 edition, that of breaking up the text into reasonable 
 paragraphs, in imitation of the English translations ; 
 a great relief to the spirits of the reader, which are 
 seriously damped, in the ancient copies, by the in- 
 terminable waste of page upon page, without these 
 convenient halting-places. 
 
 But ourreaders, we fear, will think we are running 
 into an interminable waste of discussion. We will 
 only remark, therefore, in conclusion, that the me- 
 chanical execution of the book is highly creditable to 
 our press. It is, moreover, adorned with etchings by 
 our American Cruikshank, Johnston, — some of them 
 original, but mostly copies from the late English edi- 
 tion of Smollett's translations. They are designed and 
 executed with much spirit, and, no doubt, would have 
 fully satisfied honest Sancho, who predicted this kind 
 of immortality for himself and his master. 
 
 We congratulate the public on the possession of an 
 edition of the pride of Castilian literature from our 
 own press in so neat a form and executed with so much 
 correctness and judgment; and we trust that the am- 
 bition of its respectable editor will be gratified by its 
 becoming, as it well deserves to be, the manual of the 
 student in every seminary throughout the country where 
 the noble Castilian language is taught. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 163 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT.* 
 
 (April, 1838.) 
 
 There is no kind of writing, which has truth and 
 instruction for its main object, so interesting and pop- 
 ular, on the whole, as biography. History, in its larger 
 sense, has to deal with masses, which, while they di- 
 vide the attention by the dazzling variety of objects, 
 from their very generality are scarcely capable of 
 touching the heart. The great objects on which it is 
 employed have little relation to the daily occupations 
 with which the reader is most intimate. A nation, 
 like a corporation, seems to have no soul, and its 
 checkered vicissitudes may be contemplated rather 
 with curiosity for the lessons they convey than with 
 personal sympathy. How different are the feelings 
 excited by the fortunes of an individual, — one of the 
 mighty mass, who in the page of history is swept along 
 the current unnoticed and unknown ! Instead of a 
 mere abstraction, at once we see a being like ourselves, 
 "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, 
 subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, 
 warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer" 
 
 * 1. "Memoirs of the Life of Sir. Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. 
 Lockhart. Five vols. 121110. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co., 1837." 
 
 2. "Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., i6mo. London: 
 James Fraser, 1837." 
 
1 64 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 as we are. We place ourselves in his position, and 
 see the passing current of events with the same eyes. 
 We become a party to all his little schemes, share in 
 his triumphs, or mourn with him in the disappoint- 
 ment of defeat. His friends become our friends. We 
 learn to take an interest in their characters from their 
 relation to him. As they pass away from the stage 
 one after another, and as the clouds of misfortune, 
 perhaps, or of disease, settle around the evening of his 
 own day, we feel the same sadness that steals over us 
 on a retrospect of earlier and happier hours. And 
 when at last we have followed him to the tomb, we 
 close the volume, and feel that we have turned over 
 another chapter in the history of life. 
 
 On the same principles, probably, we are more 
 moved by the exhibition of those characters whose 
 days have been passed in the ordinary routine of do- 
 mestic and social life than by those most intimately 
 connected with the great public events of their age. 
 What, indeed, is the history of such men but that of 
 the times? The life of Wellington or of Bonaparte is 
 the- story of the wars and revolutions of Europe. But 
 that of Cowper, gliding away in the seclusion of rural 
 solitude, reflects all those domestic joys, and, alas ! 
 more than the sorrows, which gather around every 
 man's fireside and his heart. In this way the story of 
 the humblest individual, faithfully recorded, becomes 
 an object of lively interest. How much is that in- 
 terest increased m the case of a man like Scott, who, 
 from his own fireside, has sent forth a voice to cheer 
 and delight millions of his fellow-men, — whose life was 
 passed within the narrow circle of his own village, as 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 165 
 
 it were, but who, nevertheless, has called up more 
 shapes and fantasies within that magic circle, acted 
 more extraordinary parts, and afforded more marvels 
 for the imagination to feed on, than can be furnished 
 by the most nimble-footed, nimble-tongued traveller, 
 from Marco Polo down to Mrs. Trollope, and that 
 literary Sinbad, Captain Hall. 
 
 Fortunate as Sir Walter Scott was in his life, it is 
 not the least of his good fortunes that he left the task 
 of recording it to one so competent as Mr. Lockhart, 
 who to a familiarity with the person and habits of his 
 illustrious subject unites such entire sympathy with his 
 pursuits and such fine tact and discrimination in ar- 
 ranging the materials for their illustration. We have 
 seen it objected that the biographer has somewhat 
 transcended his lawful limits in occasionally exposing 
 what a nice tenderness for the reputation of Scott 
 should have led him to conceal ; but, on reflection, we 
 are not inclined to adopt these views. It is difficult to 
 prescribe any precise rule by which the biographer 
 should be guided in exhibiting the peculiarities, and, 
 still more, the defects, of his subject. He should, 
 doubtless, be slow to draw from obscurity those mat- 
 ters which are of a strictly personal and private nature, 
 particularly when they have no material bearing on the 
 character of the individual. But whatever the latter 
 has done, said, or written to others can rarely be made 
 to come within this rule. A swell of panegyric, where 
 every thing is in broad sunshine, without the relief of a 
 shadow to contrast it, is out of nature, and must bring 
 discredit on the whole. Nor is it much better when 
 a sort of twilight mystification is spread over a man's 
 
1 66 BIOGRAPHICAL AA'D 
 
 actions, until, as in the case of all biographies of 
 Cowper previous to that of Southey, we are completely 
 bewildered respecting the real motives of conduct. If 
 ever there was a character above the necessity of any 
 management of this sort, it was Scott's; and we can- 
 not but think that the frank exposition of the minor 
 blemishes which sully it, by securing the confidence of 
 the reader in the general fidelity of the portraiture, 
 and thus disposing him to receive without distrust 
 those favorable statements in his history which might 
 seem incredible, as they certainly are unprecedented, 
 is, on the whole, advantageous to his reputation. As 
 regards the moral effect on the reader, we may apply 
 Scott's own argument for not always recompensing 
 suffering virtue, at the close of his fictions, with tem- 
 poral prosperity, — that such an arrangement would 
 convey no moral to the heart whatever, since a glance 
 at the great picture of life would show that virtue is 
 not always thus rewarded. 
 
 In regard to the literary execution of Mr. Lockhart's 
 work, the public voice has long since pronounced on 
 it. A prying criticism may discern a few of those 
 contraband epithets and slipshod sentences, more ex- 
 cusable in young "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," 
 where, indeed, they are thickly sown, than in the pro- 
 duction of a grave Aristarch of British criticism. But 
 this is small game, where every reader of the least 
 taste and sensibility must find so much to applaud. 
 It is enough to say that in passing from the letters 
 of Scott, with which the work is enriched, to the 
 text of the biographer, we find none of those chilling 
 transitions which occur on the like occasions in more 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 167 
 
 bungling productions; as, for example, in that recent 
 one in which the unfortunate Hannah More is done 
 to death by her friend Roberts. On the contrary, we 
 are sensible only to a new variety of beauty in the style 
 of composition. The correspondence is illumined by 
 all that is needed to make it intelligible to a stranger, 
 and selected with such discernment as to produce the 
 clearest impression of the character of its author. The 
 mass of interesting details is conveyed in language 
 richly colored with poetic sentiment, and, at the same 
 time, without a tinge of that mysticism which, as Scott 
 himself truly remarked, " will never do for a writer of 
 fiction, no, nor of history, nor moral essays, nor ser- 
 mons," but which, nevertheless, finds more or less 
 favor in our own community, at the present day, in 
 each and all of these. 
 
 The second work which we have placed at the head 
 of this article, and from which the last remark of Sir 
 Walter's was borrowed, is a series of notices originally 
 published in " Fraser's Magazine," but now collected, 
 with considerable additions, into a separate volume. 
 Its author, Mr. Robert Pierce Gillies, is a gentleman 
 of the Scotch bar, favorably known by translations 
 from the German. The work conveys a lively report 
 of several scenes and events which before the appear- 
 ance of Lockhart's book were of more interest and 
 importance than they can now be, lost as they are in 
 the flood of light which is poured on us from that 
 source. In the absence of the sixth and last volume, 
 however, Mr. Gillies may help us to a few particulars 
 respecting the closing years of Sir Walter's life, that 
 may have some novelty — we know not how much to 
 
1 68 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 be relied on — for the reader. In the present notice 
 of a work so familiar to most persons, we shall confine 
 ourselves to some of those circumstances which con- 
 tribute to form, or have an obvious connection with, 
 his literary character. 
 
 Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh, August 15th, 
 1 771. The character of his father, a respectable mem- 
 ber of that class of attorneys who in Scotland are 
 called Writers to the Signet, is best conveyed to the 
 reader by saying that he sat for the portrait of Mr. 
 Saunders Fairford in " Redgauntlet." His mother 
 was a woman of taste and imagination, and had an 
 obvious influence in guiding those of her son. His 
 ancestors, by both father's and mother's side, were of 
 "gentle blood," a position which, placed between the 
 highest and the lower ranks in society, was extremely 
 favorable, as affording facilities for communication 
 with both. A lameness in his infancy, — a most fortu- 
 nate lameness for the world, if, as Scott says, it spoiled 
 a soldier, — and a delicate constitution, made it expe- 
 dient to try the efficacy of country air and diet, and 
 he was placed under the roof of his paternal grand- 
 father at Sandy-Knowe, a few miles distant from the 
 capital. Here his days were passed in the open fields, 
 "with no other fellowship," as he says, "than that of 
 the sheep and lambs;" and here, in the lap of Nature, 
 
 " Meet nurse for a poetic child," 
 
 his infant vision was greeted with those rude, romantic 
 scenes which his own verses have since hallowed for 
 the pilgrims from every clime. In the long even- 
 ings, his imagination, as he grew older, was warmed by 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 1 6g 
 
 traditionary legends of border heroism and adventure, 
 repeated by the aged relative, who had herself witnessed 
 the last gleams of border chivalry. His memory was 
 one of the first powers of his mind which exhibited an 
 extraordinary development. One of the longest of 
 these old ballads, in particular, stuck so close to it, and 
 he repeated it with such stentorian vociferation, as to 
 draw from the minister of a neighboring kirk the testy 
 exclamation, "One may as well speak in the mouth of 
 a cannon as where that child is. ' ' 
 
 On his removal to Edinburgh, in his eighth year, 
 he was subjected to different influences. His worthy 
 father was a severe martinet in all the forms of his pro- 
 fession, and, it may be added, of his religion, which 
 he contrived to make somewhat burdensome to his 
 more volatile son. The tutor was still more strict in 
 his religious sentiments, and the lightest literary di- 
 version in which either of them indulged was such 
 as could be gleaned from the time-honored folios of 
 Archbishop Spottiswoode or worthy Robert Wodrow. 
 Even here, however, Scott's young mind contrived to 
 gather materials and impulses for future action. In 
 his long arguments with Master Mitchell, he became 
 steeped in the history of the Covenanters and the per- 
 secuted Church of Scotland, while he was still more 
 rooted in his own Jacobite notions, early instilled into 
 his mind by the tales of his relatives of Sandy-Knowe, 
 whose own family had been out in the "affair of forty- 
 five." Amid the professional and polemical worthies 
 of his father's library, Scott detected a copy of Shak- 
 speare, and he relates with what gout he used to creep 
 out of his bed, where he had been safely deposited for 
 h 15 
 
170 BIOGRAPHICAL AXD 
 
 the night, and, by the light of the fire, in puris natu- 
 ralibus, pore over the pages of the great magician, and 
 study those mighty spells by which he gave to airy 
 fantasies the forms and substance of humanity. Scott 
 distinctly recollected the time and the spot where he 
 first opened a volume of Percy's "Reliques of English 
 Poetry;" a work which may have suggested to him 
 the plan and the purpose of the "Border Minstrelsy." 
 Every day's experience shows how much more actively 
 the business of education goes on out of school than 
 in it; and Scott's history shows equally that genius, 
 whatever obstacles may be thrown in its way in one 
 direction, will find room for its expansion in another, 
 as the young tree sends forth its shoots most prolific 
 in that quarter where the sunshine is permitted to fall 
 on it. 
 
 At the High School, in which he was placed by 
 his father at an early period, he seems not to have 
 been particularly distinguished in the regular course 
 of studies. His voracious appetite for books, how- 
 ever, of a certain cast, as romances, chivalrous tales, 
 and worm-eaten chronicles scarcely less chivalrous, 
 and his wonderful memory for such reading as struck 
 his fancy, soon made him regarded by his fellows as 
 a phenomenon of black-letter scholarship, which, in 
 process of time, achieved for him the cognomen of 
 that redoubtable schoolman, Duns Scotus. He now 
 also gave evidence of his powers of creation as well as 
 of acquisition. He became noted for his own stories, 
 generally bordering on the marvellous, with a plen- 
 tiful seasoning of knight-errantry, which suited his 
 bold and chivalrous temper. "Slink over beside 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 171 
 
 me, Jamie," he would whisper to his school-fellow 
 Ballantyne, "and I'll tell you a story." Jamie was, 
 indeed, destined to sit beside him during the greater 
 part of his life. 
 
 The same tastes and talents continued to display 
 themselves more strongly with increasing years. Hav- 
 ing beaten pretty thoroughly the ground of romantic 
 and legendary lore, at least so far as the English libra- 
 ries to which he had access would permit, he next 
 endeavored, while at the University, to which he had 
 been transferred from the High School, to pursue the 
 same subject in the Continental languages. Many 
 were the strolls which he took in the neighborhood, 
 especially to Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, where, 
 perched on some almost inaccessible eyry, he might be 
 seen conning over his Ariosto or Cervantes, or some 
 other bard of romance, with some favorite companion 
 of his studies, or pouring into the ears of the latter 
 his own boyish legends, glowing with 
 
 " achievements high, 
 And circumstance of chivalry." 
 
 A critical knowledge of these languages he seems 
 not to have obtained, and even in the French made 
 but an indifferent figure in conversation. An accurate 
 acquaintance with the pronunciation and prosody of a 
 foreign tongue is undoubtedly a desirable accomplish- 
 ment ; but it is, after all, a mere accomplishment, sub- 
 ordinate to the great purposes for which a language 
 is to be learned. Scott did not, as is too often the 
 case, mistake the shell for the kernel. He looked on 
 language only as the key to unlock the foreign stores 
 
172 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of wisdom, the pearls of inestimable price, wherever 
 found, with which to enrich his native literature. 
 
 After a brief residence at the University, he was 
 regularly indented as an apprentice to his father in 
 1786. One can hardly imagine a situation less con- 
 genial with the ardent, effervescing spirit of a poetic 
 fancy, fettered down to a daily routine of drudgery 
 scarcely above that of a mere scrivener. It proved, 
 however, a useful school of discipline to him. It 
 formed early habits of method, punctuality, and labo- 
 rious industry, — business habits, in short, most adverse 
 to the poetic temperament, but indispensable to the 
 accomplishment of the gigantic tasks which he after- 
 wards assumed. He has himself borne testimony to 
 his general diligence in his new vocation, and tells 
 us that on one occasion he transcribed no less than 
 a hundred and twenty folio pages at a sitting. 
 
 In the midst of these mechanical duties, he did not 
 lose sight of the favorite objects of his study and 
 meditation. He made frequent excursions into the 
 Lowland as well as Highland districts in search of 
 traditionary relics. These pilgrimages he frequently 
 performed on foot. His constitution, now become 
 hardy by severe training, made him careless of ex- 
 posure, and his frank and warm-hearted manners — 
 eminently favorable to his purposes, by thawing at 
 once any feelings of frosty reserve which might have 
 encountered a stranger — made him equally welcome 
 at the staid and decorous manse and at the rough 
 but hospitable board of the peasant. Here was, in- 
 deed, the study of the future novelist, the very school 
 in which to meditate those models of character and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 173 
 
 situation which he was afterwards, long afterwards, to 
 transfer, in such living colors, to the canvas. " He 
 was makin' himsel a' the time," says one of his com- 
 panions, "but he didna ken, maybe, what he was 
 about till years had passed. At first he thought o' 
 little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun." 
 The honest writer to the signet does not seem to have 
 thought it either so funny or so profitable; for on his 
 son's return from one of these raids, as he styled them, 
 the old gentleman peevishly inquired how he had been 
 living so long. "Pretty much like the young ravens," 
 answered Walter: "I only wished I had been as good 
 a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in the 
 Vicar of Wakefield. If I had his art, I should like 
 nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to 
 cottage over the world." "I doubt," said the grave 
 clerk to the signet, "I greatly doubt, sir, you were 
 born for nae better than a gangrel scrapegut /' ' Per- 
 haps even the revelation, could it have been made to 
 him, of his son's future literary glory, would scarcely 
 have satisfied the worthy father, who probably would 
 have regarded a seat on the bench of the Court of Ses- 
 sions as much higher glory. At all events, this was 
 not far from the judgment of Dominie Mitchell, who, 
 in his notice of his illustrious pupil, "sincerely regrets 
 that Sir Walter's precious time was devoted to the 
 fluke rather than the utile of composition, and that 
 his great talents should have been wasted on such 
 subjects" ! 
 
 It is impossible to glance at Scott's early life with- 
 out perceiving how powerfully all its circumstances, 
 whether accidental or contrived, conspired to train 
 
 15* 
 
174 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 him for the peculiar position he was destined to occupy 
 in the world of letters. There never was a character 
 in whose infant germ the mature and fully-developed 
 lineaments might be more distinctly traced. What he 
 was in his riper age, so he was in his boyhood. We 
 discern the same tastes, the same peculiar talents, the 
 same social temper and affections, and, in a great de- 
 gree, the same habits, — in their embryo state, of course, 
 but distinctly marked ; and his biographer has shown 
 no little skill in enabling us to trace their gradual, pro- 
 gressive expansion from the hour of his birth up to the 
 full prime and maturity of manhood. 
 
 In 1792, Scott, whose original destination of a writer 
 had been changed to that of an advocate, — from his 
 father's conviction, as it would seem, of the superiority 
 of his talents to the former station, — was admitted to 
 the Scottish bar. Here he continued in assiduous 
 attendance during the regular terms, but more noted 
 for his stories in the Outer House than his arguments 
 in court. It may appear singular that a person so 
 gifted both as a writer and as a raconteur should have 
 had no greater success in his profession. But the 
 case is not uncommon. Indeed, experience shows that 
 the most eminent writers have not made the most suc- 
 cessful speakers. It is not more strange than that a 
 good writer of novels should not excel as a dramatic 
 author. Perhaps a consideration of the subject would 
 lead us to refer the phenomena in both cases to the 
 same principle. At all events, Scott was an exempli- 
 fication of both, and we leave the solution to those 
 who have more leisure and ingenuity to unravel the 
 mystery. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 175 
 
 Scott's leisure, in the mean time, was well em- 
 ployed in storing his mind with German romance, 
 with whose wild fictions, intrenching on the grotesque, 
 he found at that time more sympathy than in later 
 life. In 1796 he first appeared before the public as 
 a translator of Burger's well-known ballads, thrown 
 off by him at a heat, and which found favor with the 
 few into whose hands they passed. He subsequently 
 adventured in Monk Lewis's crazy bark, " Tales of 
 Wonder," which soon went to pieces, leaving, however, 
 among its surviving fragments the scattered contribu- 
 tions of Scott. 
 
 At last, in 1802, he gave to the world his first two 
 volumes of the "Border Minstrelsy," printed by his 
 old school-fellow Ballantyne, and which, by the beauty 
 of the typography, as well as literary execution, made 
 an epoch in Scottish literary history. There was no 
 work of Scott's after-life which showed the result of so 
 much preliminary labor. Before ten years old, he had 
 collected several volumes of ballads and traditions, and 
 we have seen how diligently he pursued the same voca- 
 tion in later years. The publication was admitted to 
 be far more faithful, as well as skilfully collated, than 
 its prototype, the " Reliques" of Bishop Percy; while 
 his notes contained a mass of antiquarian information 
 relative to border life, conveyed in a style of beauty 
 unprecedented in topics of this kind, and enlivened 
 with a higher interest than poetic fiction. Percy's 
 "Reliques" had prepared the way for the kind recep- 
 tion of the " Minstrelsy," by the general relish — not- 
 withstanding Dr. Johnson's protest — it had created for 
 the simple pictures of a pastoral and heroic time. 
 
176 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Burns had since familiarized the English ear with the 
 Doric melodies of his native land ; and now a greater 
 than Burns appeared, whose first production, by a sin- 
 gular chance, came into the world in the very year in 
 which the Ayrshire minstrel was withdrawn from it, as 
 if Nature had intended that the chain of poetic in- 
 spiration should not be broken. The delight of the 
 public was farther augmented on the appearance of the 
 third volume of the " Minstrelsy," containing various 
 imitations of the old ballad, which displayed the rich 
 fashion of the antique, purified from the mould and 
 rust by which the beauties of such weather-beaten 
 trophies are defaced. 
 
 The first edition of the "Minstrelsy," consisting of 
 eight hundred copies, went off, as Lockhart tells us, in 
 less than a year; and the poet, on the publication of 
 a second, received five hundred pounds sterling from 
 Longman, — an enormous price for such a commodity, 
 but the best bargain, probably, that the bookseller ever 
 made, as the subsequent sale has since extended to 
 twenty thousand copies. 
 
 Scott was not in great haste to follow up his success. 
 It was three years later before he took the field as an 
 independent author, in a poem which at once placed 
 him among the great original writers of his country. 
 The " Lay of the Last Minstrel," a complete expansion 
 of the ancient ballad into an epic form, was published 
 in 1805. It was opening a new creation in the realm 
 of fancy. It seemed as if the author had transfused 
 into his page the strong delineations of the Homeric 
 pencil, the rude but generous gallantry of a primitive 
 period, softened by the more airy and magical inven- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 177 
 
 tions of Italian romance,* and conveyed in tones of 
 natural melody such as had not been heard since the 
 strains of Burns. The book speedily found that un- 
 precedented circulation which all his subsequent com- 
 positions attained. Other writers had addressed them- 
 selves to a more peculiar and limited feeling, — to a 
 narrower and, generally, a more select audience. But 
 Scott was found to combine all the qualities of interest 
 for every order. He drew from the pure springs which 
 gush forth in every heart. His narrative chained every 
 reader's attention by the stirring variety of its inci- 
 dents, while the fine touches of sentiment with which 
 it abounded, like wild flowers springing up spontane- 
 ously around, were full of freshness and beauty that 
 made one wonder others should not have stooped to 
 gather them before. 
 
 The success of the "Lay" determined the course of 
 its author's future life. Notwithstanding his punctual 
 attention to his profession, his utmost profits for any 
 one year of the ten he had been in practice had not 
 exceeded two hundred and thirty pounds ; and of late 
 they had sensibly declined. Latterly, indeed, he had 
 coquetted somewhat too openly with the Muse for his 
 professional reputation. Themis has always been found 
 
 * " Mettendo lo Turpin, lo metto anch' io," 
 
 says Ariosto, playfully, when he tells a particularly tough story. 
 
 " I cannot tell how the truth may be, 
 I say the tale as 'twas said to me," 
 
 says the author of the " Lay" on a similar occasion. The resem- 
 blance might be traced much farther than mere forms of expression, 
 to the Italian, who, like 
 
 " the Ariosto of the North, 
 Sung ladye-love, and war, romance, and knightly worth." 
 H* 
 
178 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 a stern and jealous mistress, chary of dispensing her 
 golden favors to those who are seduced into a flirtation 
 with her more volatile sister. 
 
 Scott, however, soon found himself in a situation 
 that made him independent of her favors. His income 
 from the two offices to which he was promoted, of 
 Sheriff of Selkirk, and Clerk of the Court of Sessions, 
 was so ample, combined with what fell to him by in- 
 heritance and marriage, that he was left at liberty 
 freely to consult his own tastes. Amid the seductions 
 of poetry, however, he never shrunk from his burden- 
 some professional duties ; and he submitted to all their 
 drudgery with unflinching constancy when the labors 
 of his pen made the emoluments almost beneath con- 
 sideration. He never relished the idea of being di- 
 vorced from active life by the solitary occupations of a 
 recluse. And his official functions, however severely 
 they taxed his time, may be said to have in some de- 
 gree compensated him by the new scenes of life which 
 they were constantly disclosing, — the very materials of 
 those fictions on which his fame and his fortune were 
 to be built. 
 
 Scott's situation was eminently propitious to literary 
 pursuits. He was married, and passed the better por- 
 tion of the year in the country, where the quiet pleas- 
 ures of his fireside circle, and a keen relish for rural 
 sports, relieved his mind and invigorated both health 
 and spirits. In early life, it seems, he had been crossed 
 in love ; and, like Dante and Byron, to whom in this 
 respect he is often compared, he had more than once, 
 according to his biographer, shadowed forth in his 
 verses the object of his unfortunate passion. He does 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 179 
 
 not appear to have taken it very seriously, however, 
 nor to have shown the morbid sensibility in relation 
 to it discovered by both Byron and Dante, whose stern 
 and solitary natures were cast in a very different mould 
 from the social temper of Scott. 
 
 His next great poem was his " Marmion," tran- 
 scending, in the judgment of many, all his other epics, 
 and containing, in the judgment of all, passages of 
 poetic fire which he never equalled, but which, never- 
 theless, was greeted on its entrance into the world by 
 a critique, in the leading journal of the day, of the 
 most caustic and unfriendly temper. The journal 
 was the Edinburgh, to which he had been a frequent 
 contributor, and the reviewer was his intimate friend, 
 Jeffrey. The unkindest cut in the article was the im- 
 putation of a neglect of Scottish character and feeling. 
 "There is scarcely one trait of true Scottish nation- 
 ality or patriotism introduced into the whole poem; 
 and Mr. Scott's only expression of admiration for the 
 beautiful country to which he belongs is put, if we 
 rightly remember, into the mouth of one of his Southern 
 favorites." This of Walter Scott ! 
 
 Scott was not slow, after this, in finding the political 
 principles of the Edinburgh so repugnant to his own 
 (and they certainly were as opposite as the poles) that 
 he first dropped the journal, and next labored with 
 unwearied diligence to organize another, whose main 
 purpose should be to counteract the heresies of the 
 former. This was the origin of the London Quar- 
 terly, more imputable to Scott's exertions than to those 
 of any, indeed all, other persons. The result has been, 
 doubtless, highly serviceable to the interests of both 
 
i8o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 morals and letters. Not that the new Review was con- 
 ducted with more fairness, or, in this sense, principle, 
 than its antagonist. A remark of Scott's own, in a 
 letter to Ellis, shows with how much principle. "I 
 have run up an attempt on ' The Curse of Kehama' for 
 the Quarterly. It affords cruel openings to the quiz- 
 zers, and I suppose will get it roundly in the Edinburgh 
 Review. I would have made a very different hand 
 of it, indeed, had the order of the day been pour 
 declarer." But, although the fate of the individual 
 was thus, to a certain extent, a matter of caprice, or, 
 rather, prejudgment, in the critic, yet the great ab- 
 stract questions in morals, politics, and literature, by 
 being discussed on both sides, were presented in a 
 fuller and, of course, fairer light to the public. An- 
 other beneficial result to letters was — and we shall gain 
 credit, at least, for candor in confessing it — that it 
 broke down somewhat of that divinity which hedged 
 in the despotic we of the reviewer so long as na rival 
 arose to contest the sceptre. The claims to infalli- 
 bility, so long and slavishly acquiesced in, fell to the 
 ground when thus stoutly asserted by conflicting par- 
 ties. It was pretty clear that the same thing could not 
 be all black and all white at the same time. In short, 
 it was the old story of pope and anti-pope ; and the 
 public began to find out that there might be hopes 
 for the salvation of an author though damned by the 
 literary popedom. Time, by reversing many of its 
 decisions, must at length have shown the same thing. 
 
 But to return. Scott showed how nearly he had 
 been touched to the quick by two other acts not so 
 discreet. These were, the establishment of an Annual 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. igi 
 
 Register, and of the great publishing house of the 
 Ballantynes, in which he became a silent partner. The 
 last step involved him in grievous embarrassments, and 
 stimulated him to exertions which required "a frame 
 of adamant and soul of fire." At the same time, 
 we find him overwhelmed with poetical, biographical, 
 historical, and critical compositions, together with 
 editorial labors of appalling magnitude. In this mul- 
 tiplication of himself in a thousand forms we see him 
 always the same, vigorous and effective. "Poetry," 
 he says in one of his letters, "is a scourging crop, 
 and ought not to be hastily repeated. Editing, there- 
 fore, may be considered as a green crop of turnips or 
 pease, extremely useful to those whose circumstances 
 do not admit of giving their farm a summer fallow." 
 It might be regretted, however, that he should have 
 wasted powers fitted for so much higher culture on the 
 coarse products of a kitchen garden, which might have 
 been safely trusted to inferior hands. 
 
 In i8it, Scott gave to the world his exquisite poem, 
 "The Lady of the Lake." One of his fair friends 
 had remonstrated with him on thus risking again the 
 laurel he had already won. He replied, with charac- 
 teristic and, indeed, prophetic spirit, "If I fail, I will 
 write prose all my life. But if I succeed, 
 
 ' Up wi' the bonnie blue bonnet, 
 The dirk an' the feather an' a' !' " 
 
 In his eulogy on Byron, Scott remarks, "There has 
 been no reposing under the shade of his laurels, no 
 living upon the resource of past reputation ; none of 
 that coddling and petty precaution which little authors 
 
 16 
 
1 82 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 call 'taking care of their fame.' Byron let his fame 
 take care of itself." Scott could not have more accu- 
 rately described his own character. 
 
 The "Lady of the Lake" was welcomed with an 
 enthusiasm surpassing that which attended any other 
 of his poems. It seemed like the sweet breathings of 
 his native pibroch, stealing over glen and mountain, 
 and calling up all the delicious associations of rural 
 solitude, which beautifully contrasted with the din of 
 battle and the shrill cry of the war-trumpet that stirred 
 the soul in every page of his "Marmion." The pub- 
 lication of this work carried his fame as a poet to its 
 most brilliant height. The post-horse duty rose to an 
 extraordinary degree in Scotland, from the eagerness 
 of travellers to visit the localities of the poem. A 
 more substantial evidence was afforded in its amazing 
 circulation, and, consequently, its profits. The press 
 could scarcely keep pace with the public demand, and 
 no less than fifty thousand copies of it have been sold 
 since the date of its appearance. The successful au- 
 thor received more than two thousand guineas from his 
 production. Milton received ten pounds for the two 
 editions which he lived to see of his "Paradise Lost." 
 The Ayrshire bard had sighed for "a lass wi' a tocher." 
 Scott had now found one where it was hardly to be 
 expected, in the Muse. 
 
 While the poetical fame of Scott was thus at its 
 zenith, a new star rose above the horizon, whose ec- 
 centric course and dazzling radiance completely be- 
 wildered the spectator. In 1812, " Childe Harold" 
 appeared, and the attention seemed to be now called 
 for the first time from the outward form of man and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 183 
 
 visible nature to the secret depths of the soul. The 
 darkest recesses of human passion were laid open, and 
 the note of sorrow was prolonged in tones of agonized 
 .sensibility, the more touching as coming from one who 
 was placed on those dazzling heights of rank and fash- 
 ion which, to the vulgar eye at least, seem to lie in 
 unclouded sunshine. Those of the present generation 
 who have heard only the same key thrummed ad naic- 
 seam by the feeble imitators of his lordship can form no 
 idea of the effect produced when the chords were first 
 swept by the master's fingers. It was found' impossible 
 for the ear, once attuned to strains of such compass 
 and ravishing harmony, to return with the same relish 
 to purer, it might be, but tamer melody; and the 
 sweet voice of the Scottish minstrel lost much of its 
 power to charm, let him charm never so wisely. While 
 " Rokeby" was in preparation, bets were laid on the 
 rival candidates by the wits of the day. The sale of 
 this poem, though great, showed a sensible decline in 
 the popularity of its author. This became still more 
 evident on the publication of "The Lord of the Isles;" 
 and Scott admitted the conviction with his character- 
 istic spirit and good nature. " 'Well, James' " (he said 
 to his printer), " 'I have given you a week — what are 
 people saying about the Lord of the Isles?' I hesitated 
 a little, after the fashion of Gil Bias, but he speedily 
 brought the matter to a point. 'Come,' he said, 'speak 
 out, my good fellow ; what has put it into your head 
 to be on so much ceremony with me all of a sudden ? 
 But I see how it is ; the result is given in one word, — 
 Disappointment.' 1 My silence admitted his inference 
 to the fullest extent. His countenance certainly did 
 
1 84 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 look rather blank for a few seconds; in truth, he had 
 been wholly unprepared for the event. At length he 
 said, with perfect cheerfulness, 'Well, well, James, so 
 be it ; but you know we must not droop, for we can't 
 afford to give over. Since one line has failed, we must 
 stick to something else.' This something else was a 
 mine he had already hit upon, of invention and sub- 
 stantial wealth, such as Thomas the Rhymer, or Michael 
 Scott, or any other adept in the black art had never 
 dreamed of. 
 
 Everybody knows the story of the composition of 
 " Waverley," — the most interesting story in the annals 
 of letters, — and how, some ten years after its com- 
 mencement, it was fished out of some old lumber in 
 an attic and completed in a few weeks for the press in 
 1814. Its appearance marks a more distinct epoch in 
 English literature than that of the poetry of its author. 
 All previous attempts in the same school of fiction — a 
 school of English growth — had been cramped by the 
 limited information or talent of the writers. Smollett 
 had produced his spirited sea-pieces, and Fielding his 
 warm sketches of country life, both of them mixed up 
 with so much Billingsgate as required a strong flavor of 
 wit to make them tolerable. Richardson had covered 
 acres of canvas with his faithful family pictures. Mrs. 
 Radcliffe had dipped up to the elbows in horrors ; 
 while Miss Burney's fashionable gossip, and Miss Edge- 
 worth's Hogarth drawings of the prose — not the poetry 
 — of life and character, had each and all found favor 
 in their respective ways. But a work now appeared in 
 which the author swept over the whole range of char- 
 acter with entire freedom as well as fidelity, ennobling 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 185 
 
 the whole by high historic associations, and in a style 
 varying with his theme, but whose pure and classic flow 
 was tinctured with just so much of poetic coloring 
 as suited the purposes of romance. It was Shakspeare 
 in prose. 
 
 The work was published, as we know, anonymously. 
 Mr. Gillies states, however, that, while in the press, 
 fragments of it were communicated to "Mr. Macken- 
 zie, Dr. Brown, Mrs. Hamilton, and other savans or 
 savantes, whose dicta on the merits of a new novel 
 were considered unimpeachable." By their approba- 
 tion "a strong body of friends was formed, and the 
 curiosity of the public prepared the way for its recep- 
 tion." This may explain the rapidity with which the 
 anonymous publication rose into a degree of favor 
 which, though not less surely, perhaps, it might have 
 been more slow in achieving. The author jealously 
 preserved his incognito, and, in order to heighten the 
 mystification, flung off almost simultaneously a variety 
 of works, in prose and poetry, any one of which might 
 have been the labor of months. The public for a mo- 
 ment was at fault. There seemed to be six Richmonds 
 in the field. The world, therefore, was reduced to the 
 dilemma of either supposing that half a dozen different 
 hands could work in precisely the same style, or that 
 one could do the work of half a dozen. With time, 
 however, the veil wore thinner and thinner, until at 
 length, and long before the ingenious argument of 
 Mr. Adolphus, there was scarcely a critic so purblind 
 as not to discern behind it the features of the mighty 
 minstrel. 
 
 Constable had offered seven hundred pounds for the 
 
 16* 
 
1 86 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 new novel. " It was," says Mr. Lockhart, "ten times 
 as much as Miss Edgeworth ever realized from any 
 of her popular Irish tales." Scott declined the offer, 
 which had been a good one for the bookseller had he 
 made it as many thousand. But it passed the art of 
 necromancy to divine this. 
 
 Scott, once entered on this new career, followed it 
 up with an energy unrivalled in the history of litera- 
 ture. The public mind was not suffered to cool for a 
 moment, before its attention was called to another 
 miracle of creation from the same hand. Even illness, 
 that would have broken the spirits of most men, as it 
 prostrated the physical energies of Scott, opposed no 
 impediment to the march of composition. When he 
 could no longer write he could dictate, and in this 
 way, amid the agonies of a racking disease, he com- 
 posed "The Bride of Lammermoor," the "Legend 
 of Montrose," and a great part of "Ivanhoe." The 
 first, indeed, is darkened with those deep shadows that 
 might seem thrown over it by the sombre condition of 
 its author. But what shall we say of the imperturbable 
 dry humor of the gallant Captain Dugald Dalgetty 
 of Drumthwacket, or of the gorgeous revelries of 
 Ivanhoe, — 
 
 " Such sights as youthful poets dream 
 On summer eves by haunted stream," — 
 
 what shall we say of such brilliant day-dreams for a 
 bed of torture? Never before had the spirit triumphed 
 over such agonies of the flesh. " The best way," said 
 Scott, in one of his talks with Gillies, " is, if possible, 
 to triumph over disease by setting it at defiance; some- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 187 
 
 what on the same principle as one avoids being stung 
 by boldly grasping a nettle." 
 
 The prose fictions were addressed to a much larger 
 audience than the poems could be. They had attrac- 
 tions for every age and every class. The profits, of 
 course, were commensurate. Arithmetic has never 
 been so severely taxed as in the computation of Scott's 
 productions and the proceeds resulting from them. In 
 one year he received (or, more properly, was credited 
 with, for it is somewhat doubtful how much he actually 
 received) fifteen thousand pounds for his novels, com- 
 prehending the first edition and the copyright. The 
 discovery of this rich mine furnished its fortunate pro- 
 prietor with the means of gratifying the fondest and 
 even most chimerical desires. He had always coveted 
 the situation of a lord of acres, — a Scottish laird, — 
 where his passion for planting might find scope in the 
 creation of whole forests, — for every thing with him 
 was on a magnificent scale, — and where he might in- 
 dulge the kindly feelings of his nature in his benevo- 
 lent offices to a numerous and dependent tenantry. 
 The few acres of the original purchase now swelled 
 into hundreds, and, for aught we know, thousands; for 
 one tract alone we find incidentally noticed as costing 
 thirty thousand pounds. "It rounds off the property 
 so handsomely," he says, in one of his letters. There 
 was always a corner to "round off." The mansion, 
 in the mean time, from a simple cottage ornee, was 
 amplified into the dimensions almost, as well as the 
 bizarre proportions, of some old feudal castle. The 
 furniture and decorations were of the costliest kind ; 
 the wainscots of oak and cedar ; the floors tessellated 
 
1 88 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 with marbles, or woods of different dyes; the ceil- 
 ings fretted and carved with the delicate tracery of a 
 Gothic abbey; the storied windows blazoned with the 
 richly-colored insignia of heraldry, the walls garnished 
 with time-honored trophies, or curious specimens of 
 art, or volumes sumptuously bound, — in short, with all 
 that luxury could demand or ingenuity devise; while 
 a copious reservoir of gas supplied every corner of 
 the mansion with such fountains of light as must have 
 puzzled the genius of the lamp to provide for the less 
 fortunate Aladdin. 
 
 Scott's exchequer must have been seriously taxed in 
 another form by the crowds of visitors whom he enter- 
 tained under his hospitable roof. There was scarcely 
 a person of note, or, to say truth, not of note, who 
 visited that country without paying his respects to the 
 Lion of Scotland. Lockhart reckons up a full sixth 
 of the British peerage who had been there within his 
 recollection ; and Captain Hall, in his amusing Notes, 
 remarks that it was not unusual for a dozen or more 
 coach-loads to find their way into his grounds in the 
 course of the day, most of whom found or forced an 
 entrance into the mansion. Such was the heavy tax 
 paid by his celebrity, and, we may add, his good 
 nature ; for if the one had been a whit less than the 
 other he could never have tolerated such a nuisance. 
 
 The cost of his correspondence gives one no light 
 idea of the demands made on his time, as well as 
 purse, in another form. His postage for letters, inde- 
 pendently of franks, by which a large portion of it 
 was covered, amounted to a hundred and fifty pounds, 
 it seems, in the course of the year. In this, indeed, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 189 
 
 should be included ten pounds for a pair of unfortu- 
 nate Cherokee Lovers, sent all the way from our own 
 happy land in order to be godfathered by Sir Walter 
 on the London boards. Perhaps the smart-money he 
 had to pay on this interesting occasion had its influ- 
 ence in mixing up rather more acid than was natural 
 to him in his judgments of our countrymen. At all 
 events, the Yankees find little favor on the few occa- 
 sions on which he has glanced at them in his corre- 
 spondence. "I am not at all surprised," he says, in 
 a letter to Miss Edgeworth, " I am not at all surprised 
 at what you say of the Yankees. They are a people 
 possessed of very considerable energy, quickened and 
 brought into eager action by an honorable love of their 
 country and pride in their institutions; but they are 
 as yet rude in their ideas of social intercourse, and 
 totally ignorant, speaking generally, of all the art of 
 good breeding, which consists chiefly in a postpone- 
 ment of one's own petty wishes or comforts to those 
 of others. By rude questions and observations, an 
 absolute disrespect to other people's feelings, and a 
 ready indulgence of their own, they make one feverish 
 in their company, though perhaps you may be ashamed 
 to confess the reason. But this will wear off, and is 
 already wearing away. Men, when they have once got 
 benches, will soon fall into the use of cushions. They 
 are advancing in the lists of our literature, and they 
 will not be long deficient in the petite morale, especially 
 as they have, like ourselves, the rage for travelling." 
 On another occasion, he does, indeed, admit having 
 met with, in the course of his life, "four or five well- 
 lettered Americans, ardent in pursuit of knowledge, 
 
190 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and free from the ignorance and forward presumption 
 which distinguish many of their countrymen." This 
 seems hard measure ; but perhaps we should find it dif- 
 ficult, among the many who have visited this country, 
 to recollect as great a number of Englishmen — and 
 Scotchmen to boot — entitled to a higher degree of 
 commendation. It can hardly be that the well-in- 
 formed and well-bred men of both countries make a 
 point of staying at home ; so we suppose we must look 
 for the solution of the matter in the existence of some 
 disagreeable ingredient, common to the characters of 
 both nations, sprouting, as they do, from a common 
 stock, which remains latent at home, and is never fully 
 disclosed till they get into a foreign climate. But, 
 as this problem seems pregnant with philosophical, 
 physiological, and, for aught we know, psychological 
 matter, we have not courage for it here, but recom- 
 mend the solution to Miss Martineau, to whom it will 
 afford a very good title for a new chapter in her next 
 edition. The strictures we have quoted, however, to 
 speak more seriously, are worth attending to, coming as 
 they do from a shrewd observer, and one whose judg- 
 ments, though here somewhat colored, no doubt, by 
 political prejudice, are in the main distinguished by 
 a sound and liberal philanthropy. But were he ten 
 times an enemy, we would say, "Fas est ab hoste 
 doceri." 
 
 With the splendid picture of the baronial residence 
 at Abbotsford, Mr. Lockhart closes all that at this 
 present writing we have received of his delightful work 
 in this country; and in the last sentence the melan- 
 choly sound of "the muffled drum" gives ominous 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 191 
 
 warning of what we are to expect in the sixth and 
 concluding volume. In the dearth of more authentic 
 information, we will piece out our sketch with a few 
 facts gleaned from the somewhat meagre bill of fare — 
 meagre by comparison with the rich banquet of the 
 true Amphitryon — afforded by the "Recollections" 
 of Mr. Robert Pierce Gillies. 
 
 The unbounded popularity of the Waverley Novels 
 led to still more extravagant anticipations on the part 
 both of the publishers and author. Some hints of a 
 falling off, though but slightly, in the public favor, 
 were unheeded by both parties, though, to say truth, 
 the exact state of things was never disclosed to Scott, 
 it being Ballantyne's notion that it would prove a 
 damper, and that the true course was "to press on 
 more sail as the wind lulled." In these sanguine cal- 
 culations, not only enormous sums, or, to speak cor- 
 rectly, bills t were given for what had been written, but 
 the author's drafts, to the amount of many thousand 
 pounds, were accepted by Constable in favor of works 
 the very embryos of which lay, not only unformed, 
 but unimagined, in the womb of time. In return for 
 this singular accommodation, Scott was induced to 
 endorse the drafts of his publisher, and in this way an 
 amount of liabilities was incurred which, considering 
 the character of the house and its transactions, it is 
 altogether inexplicable that a person in the independ- 
 ent position of Sir Walter Scott should have subjected 
 himself to for a moment. He seems to have had en- 
 tire confidence in the stability of the firm, a confidence 
 to which it seems, from Mr. Gillies's account, not to 
 have been entitled from the first moment of his con- 
 
192 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 nection with it. The great reputation of the house, 
 however, the success and magnitude of some of its 
 transactions, especially the publication of these novels, 
 gave it a large credit, which enabled it to go forward 
 with a great show of prosperity in ordinary times, and 
 veiled its tottering state probably from Constable's 
 own eyes. It is but the tale of yesterday. The case 
 of Constable & Co. is, unhappily, a very familiar one 
 to us. But when the hurricane of 1825 came on, it 
 swept away all those buildings that were not founded 
 on a rock, and those of Messrs. Constable, among 
 others, soon became literally mere castles in the air: 
 in plain English, the firm stopped payment. The assets 
 were very trifling in comparison with the debts ; and 
 Sir Walter Scott was found on their paper to the 
 frightful amount of one hundred thousand pounds ! 
 
 His conduct on the occasion was precisely what was 
 to have been anticipated from one who had declared, 
 on a similar though much less appalling conjuncture, 
 "I am always ready to make any sacrifices to do justice 
 to my engagements, and would rather sell any thing, 
 or every thing, than be less than a true man to the 
 world." He put up his house and furniture in town at 
 auction, delivered over his personal effects at Abbots- 
 ford, his plate, books, furniture, etc., to be held in 
 trust for his creditors (the estate itself had been re- 
 cently secured to his son on occasion of his marriage), 
 and bound himself to discharge a certain amount an- 
 nually of the liabilities of the insolvent firm. He 
 then, with his characteristic energy, set about the per- 
 formance of his Herculean task. He took lodgings 
 in a third-rate house in St. David's Street, saw but 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 193 
 
 little company, abridged the hours usually devoted to 
 his meals and his family, gave up his ordinary exercise, 
 and, in short, adopted the severe habits of a regular 
 Grub Street stipendiary. 
 
 "For many years," he said to Mr. Gillies, "I have 
 been accustomed to hard work, because I found it a 
 pleasure; now, with all due respect for Falstaff's prin- 
 ciple, 'nothing on compulsion,' I certainly will not 
 shrink from work because it has become necessary." 
 
 One of his first tasks was his "Life of Bonaparte," 
 achieved in the space of thirteen months. For this 
 he received fourteen thousand pounds, about eleven 
 hundred per month, — not a bad bargain either, as it 
 proved, for the publishers. The first two volumes of 
 the nine which make up the English edition were a 
 rifach?iento of what he had before compiled for the 
 "Annual Register." With every allowance for the 
 inaccuracies and the excessive expansion incident to 
 such a flashing rapidity of execution, the work, taking 
 into view the broad range of its topics, its shrewd 
 and sagacious reflections, and the free, bold, and 
 picturesque coloring of its narration, and, above all, 
 considering the brief time in which it was written, is 
 indisputably one of the most remarkable monuments 
 of genius and industry — perhaps the most remarkable 
 — ever recorded. 
 
 Scott's celebrity made every thing that fell from 
 him, however trifling, — the dew-drops from the lion's 
 mane, — of value. But none of the many adventures 
 he embarked in, or, rather, set afloat, proved so profit- 
 able as the republication of his novels with his notes 
 and illustrations. As he felt his own strength in the 
 1 17 
 
194 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 increasing success of his labors, he appears to have 
 relaxed somewhat from them, and to have again re- 
 sumed somewhat of his ancient habits, and, in a miti- 
 gated degree, his ancient hospitality. But still his 
 exertions were too severe, and pressed heavily on the 
 springs of his health, already deprived by age of their 
 former elasticity and vigor. At length, in 1831, he 
 was overtaken by one of those terrible shocks of par- 
 alysis which seem to have been constitutional in his 
 family, but which, with more precaution and under 
 happier auspices, might doubtless have been post- 
 poned, if not wholly averted. At this time he had, 
 in the short space of little more than five years, by his 
 sacrifices and efforts, discharged about two-thirds of 
 the debt for which he was responsible, — an astonishing 
 result, wholly unparalleled in the history of letters. 
 There is something inexpressibly painful in this spec- 
 tacle of a generous heart thus courageously contending 
 with fortune, bearing up against the tide with uncon- 
 querable spirit, and finally overwhelmed by it just 
 within reach of shore. 
 
 The rest of his story is one of humiliation and sor- 
 row. He was induced to take a voyage to the Conti- 
 nent to try the effect of a more genial climate. Under 
 the sunny sky of Italy he seemed to gather new 
 strength for a while ; but his eye fell with indifference 
 on the venerable monuments which in better days 
 would have kindled all his enthusiasm. The invalid 
 sighed for his own home at Abbotsford. The heat of 
 the weather and the fatigue of rapid travel brought 
 on another shock, which reduced him to a state of 
 deplorable imbecility. In this condition he returned 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 195 
 
 to his own halls, where the sight of early friends, and 
 of the beautiful scenery, the creation, as it were, of his 
 own hands, seemed to impart a gleam of melancholy 
 satisfaction, which soon, however, sunk into insensi- 
 bility. To his present situation might well be applied 
 the exquisite verses which he indited on another mel- 
 ancholy occasion : 
 
 "Yet not the landscape to mine eye 
 
 Bears those bright hues that once it bore ; 
 Though Evening, with her richest dye, 
 Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore. 
 
 "With listless look along the plain 
 I see Tweed's silver current glide, 
 And coldly mark the holy fane 
 Of Melrose rise in ruined pride. 
 
 "The quiet lake, the balmy air, 
 
 The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree, 
 Are they still such as once they were, 
 Or is the dreary change in me ?" 
 
 Providence, in its mercy, did not suffer the shattered 
 frame long to outlive the glorious spirit which had in- 
 formed it. He breathed his last on the 21st of Sep- 
 tember, 1832. His remains were deposited, as he had 
 always desired, in the hoary abbey of Dryburgh, and 
 the pilgrim from many a distant clime shall repair to 
 the consecrated spot so long as the reverence for ex- 
 alted genius and worth shall survive in the human 
 heart. 
 
 This sketch, brief as we could make it, of the literary 
 history of Sir Walter Scott, has extended so far as to 
 leave but little space for — what Lockhart's volumes 
 
196 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 afford ample materials for — his personal character. 
 Take -it for all and all, it is not too much to say that 
 this character is probably the most remarkable on 
 record. There is no man of historical celebrity that 
 we now recall, who combined in so eminent a degree 
 the highest qualities of the moral, the intellectual, and 
 the physical. He united in his own character what 
 hitherto had been found incompatible. Though a 
 poet, and living in an ideal world, he was an exact, 
 methodical man of business; though achieving with 
 the most wonderful facility of genius, he was patient 
 and laborious ; a mousing antiquarian, yet with the 
 most active interest in the present and whatever was 
 going on around him; with a strong turn for a roving 
 life and military adventure, he was yet chained to his 
 desk more hours, at some periods of his life, than a 
 monkish recluse ; a man with a heart as capacious as 
 his head ; a Tory, brimful of Jacobitism, yet full of 
 sympathy and unaffected familiarity with all classes, 
 even the humblest ; a successful author, without ped- 
 antry and without conceit ; one, indeed, at the head 
 of the republic of letters, and yet with a lower estimate 
 of letters, as compared with other intellectual pursuits, 
 than was ever hazarded before. 
 
 The first quality of his character, or, rather, that 
 which forms the basis of it, as of all great characters, 
 was his energy. We see it, in his early youth, triumph- 
 ing over the impediments of nature, and, in spite of 
 lameness, making him conspicuous in every sort of 
 athletic exercise, — clambering up dizzy precipices, 
 wading through treacherous fords, and performing 
 feats of pedestrianism that make one's joints ache to 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 197 
 
 read of. As he advanced in life, we see the same force 
 of purpose turned to higher objects. A striking ex- 
 ample occurs in his organization of the journals and 
 the publishing house in opposition to Constable. In 
 what Herculean drudgery did not this latter business, 
 in which he undertook to supply matter for the nimble 
 press of Ballantyne, involve him ! while, in addition 
 to his own concerns, he had to drag along by his soli- 
 tary momentum a score of heavier undertakings, that 
 led Lockhart to compare him to a steam-engine with a 
 train of coal-wagons hitched to it. "Yes," said Scott, 
 laughing, and making a crashing cut with his axe (for 
 they were felling larches), "and there was a cursed lot 
 of dung-carts too." 
 
 We see the same powerful energies triumphing over 
 disease at a later period, when nothing but a resolution 
 to get the better of it enabled him to do so. " Be 
 assured," he remarked to Mr. Gillies, "that if pain 
 could have prevented my application to literary labor, 
 not a page of Ivanhoe would have been written. Now, 
 if I had given way to mere feelings, and ceased to 
 work, it is a question whether the disorder might not 
 have taken a deeper root, and become incurable." 
 But the most extraordinary instance of this trait is the 
 readiness with which he assumed and the spirit with 
 which he carried through, till his mental strength 
 broke down under it, the gigantic task imposed on 
 him by the failure of Constable. 
 
 It mattered little what the nature of the task was, 
 whether it were organizing an opposition to a political 
 faction, or a troop of cavalry to resist invasion, or a 
 medley of wild Highlanders or Edinburgh cockneys to 
 
 17* 
 
l 9 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 make up a royal puppet-show — a loyal celebration — for 
 "His Most Sacred Majesty," he was the master-spirit 
 that gave the cue to the whole dramatis persona. This 
 potent impulse showed itself in the thoroughness with 
 which he prescribed not merely the general orders, but 
 the execution of the minutest details, in his own per- 
 son. Thus all around him was the creation, as it were, 
 of his individual exertion. His lands waved with 
 forests planted with his own hands, and, in process of 
 time, cleared by his own hands. He did not lay the 
 stones in mortar, exactly, for his whimsical castle, but 
 he seems to have superintended the operation from the 
 foundation to the battlements. The antique relics, the 
 curious works of art, the hangings and furniture, even, 
 with which his halls were decorated, were specially 
 contrived or selected by him ; and, to read his letters 
 at this time to his friend Terry, one might fancy him- 
 self perusing the correspondence of an upholsterer, so 
 exact and technical is he in his instructions. We say 
 this not in disparagement of his great qualities. It is 
 only the more extraordinary; for, while he stooped to 
 such trifles, he was equally thorough in matters of the 
 highest moment. It was a trait of character. 
 
 Another quality, which, like the last, seems to have 
 given the tone to his character, was his social or benev- 
 olent feelings. His heart was an unfailing fountain, 
 which not merely the distresses but the joys of his 
 fellow-creatures made to flow like water. In early life, 
 and possibly sometimes in later, high spirits and a 
 vigorous constitution led him occasionally to carry his 
 social propensities into convivial excess ; but he never 
 was in danger of the habitual excess to which a vulgar 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. T gg 
 
 mind — and sometimes, alas ! one more finely tuned — 
 abandons itself. With all his conviviality, it was not 
 the sensual relish, but the social, which acted on him. 
 He was neither gourme nor gourmand ; but his social 
 meetings were endeared to him by the free interchange 
 of kindly feelings with his friends. La Bruyere says 
 (and it is odd he should have found it out in Louis the 
 Fourteenth's court), " the heart has more to do than 
 the head with the pleasures, or, rather, promoting the 
 pleasures, of society;" " Un horame est d'un meilleur 
 commerce dans la societe par le cceur que par 1' esprit." 
 If report — the report of travellers — be true, we Amer- 
 icans, at least the New Englanders, are too much per- 
 plexed with the cares and crosses of life to afford many 
 genuine specimens of this bonhommie. However this 
 may be, we all, doubtless, know some such character, 
 whose shining face, the index of a cordial heart, radiant 
 with beneficent pleasure, diffuses its own exhilarating 
 glow wherever it appears. Rarely, indeed, is this 
 precious quality found united with the most exalted 
 intellect. Whether it be that Nature, chary of her 
 gifts, does not care to shower too many of them on 
 one head, or that the public admiration has led the 
 man of intellect to set too high a value on himself, or 
 at least his own pursuits, to take an interest in the 
 inferior concerns of others, or that the fear of com- 
 promising his dignity puts him "on points" with those 
 who approach him, or whether, in truth, the very mag- 
 nitude of his own reputation throws a freezing shadow 
 over us little people in his neighborhood, — whatever 
 be the cause, it is too true that the highest powers of 
 mind are very often deficient in the only one which 
 
200 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 can make the rest of much worth in society, — the 
 power of pleasing. 
 
 Scott was not one of these little great. His was not 
 one of those dark-lantern visages which concentrate all 
 their light on their own path and are black as midnight 
 to all about them. He had a ready sympathy, a word 
 of contagious kindness or cordial greeting, for all. His 
 manners, too, were of a kind to dispel the icy reserve 
 and awe which his great name was calculated to inspire. 
 His frank address was a sort of open sesame to every 
 heart. He did not deal in sneers, the poisoned 
 weapons which come not from the head, as the man 
 who launches them is apt to think, but from an acid 
 heart, or, perhaps, an acid stomach, a very common 
 laboratory of such small artillery. Neither did Scott 
 amuse the company with parliamentary harangues or 
 metaphysical disquisitions. His conversation was of 
 the narrative kind, not formal, but as casually suggested 
 by some passing circumstance or topic, and thrown in 
 by way of illustration. He did not repeat himself, 
 however, but continued to give his anecdotes such 
 variations, by rigging them out in a new "cocked hat 
 and walking-cane," as he called it, that they never 
 tired like the thrice-told tale of a chronic raconteur. 
 He allowed others, too, to take their turn, and thought 
 with the Dean of St. Patrick's : 
 
 " Carve to all, but just enough ; 
 Let them neither starve nor stuff; 
 And, that you may have your due, 
 Let your neighbors carve for you." 
 
 He relished a good joke, from whatever quarter it came, 
 and was not over-dainty in his manner of testifying his 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 2 ot 
 
 satisfaction. "In the full tide of mirth, he did in- 
 deed laugh the heart's laugh," says Mr. Adolphus. 
 "Give me an honest laugher," said Scott himself, on 
 another occasion, when a buckram man of fashion had 
 been paying him a visit at Abbotsford. His manners, 
 free from affectation or artifice of any sort, exhibited 
 the spontaneous movements of a kind disposition, 
 subject to those rules of good breeding which Nature 
 herself might have dictated. In this way he answered 
 his own purpose admirably as a painter of character, 
 by putting every man in good humor with himself, in 
 the same manner as a cunning portrait-painter amuses 
 his sitters with such store of fun and anecdote as may 
 throw them off their guard and call out the happiest 
 expressions of their countenances. 
 
 Scott, in his wide range of friends and companions, 
 doos not seem to have been over-fastidious. In the 
 instance of John Ballantyne, it has exposed him to 
 some censure. In truth, a more worthless fellow never 
 hung on the skirts of a great man ; for he did not take 
 the trouble to throw a decent veil over the grossest 
 excesses. But then he had been the school-boy friend 
 of Scott ; had grown up with him in a sort of depend- 
 ence, — a relation which begets a kindly feeling in the 
 party that confers the benefits, at least. How strong 
 it was in him may be inferred from his remark at 
 his funeral. "I feel," said Scott, mournfully, as the 
 solemnity was concluded, "I feel as if there would be 
 less sunshine for me from this day forth." It must be 
 admitted, however, that his intimacy with little Rig- 
 dumfunnidos, whatever apology it may find in Scott's 
 heart, was not very creditable to his taste. 
 
202 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 But the benevolent principle showed itself not merely 
 in words, but in the more substantial form of actions. 
 How many are the cases recorded of indigent merit 
 which he drew from obscurity and almost warmed into 
 life by his own generous and most delicate patronage ! 
 Such were the cases, among others, of Leyden, Weber, 
 Hogg. How often and how cheerfully did he supply 
 such literary contributions as were solicited by his 
 friends — and they taxed him pretty liberally — amid all 
 the pressure of business, and at the height of his fame, 
 when his hours were golden hours to him ! In the 
 more vulgar and easier forms of charity he did not 
 stint his hand, though, instead of direct assistance, he 
 preferred to enable others to assist themselves, — in this 
 way fortifying their good habits and relieving them 
 from the sense of personal degradation. 
 
 But the place where his benevolent impulses found 
 their proper theatre for expansion was his own home, 
 surrounded by a happy family, and dispensing all the 
 hospitalities of a great feudal proprietor. "There are 
 many good things in life," he says, in one of his let- 
 ters, "whatever satirists and misanthropes may say to 
 the contrary; but probably the best of all, next to a 
 conscience void of offence (without which, by-the-by, 
 they can hardly exist), are the quiet exercise and en- 
 joyment of the social feelings, in which we are at once 
 happy ourselves and the cause of happiness to them 
 who are dearest to us." Every page of the work, 
 almost, shows us how intimately he blended himself 
 with the pleasures and the pursuits of his own family, 
 watered over the education of his children, shared in 
 their rides, their rambles and sports, losing no oppor- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLAMES. 
 
 203 
 
 tunity of kindling in their young minds a love of vir- 
 tue, and honorable principles of action. He delighted, 
 too, to collect his tenantry around him, multiplying 
 holidays, when young and old might come together 
 under his roof-tree, when the jolly punch was liberally 
 dispensed by himself and his wife among the elder 
 people, and the Hogmanay cakes and pennies were 
 distributed among the young ones, while his own chil- 
 dren mingled in the endless reels and hornpipes on 
 the earthen floor, and the laird himself, mixing in the 
 groups of merry faces, had "his private joke for every 
 old wife or 'gausie carle,' his arch compliment for the 
 ear of every bonny lass, and his hand and his blessing 
 for the head of every little Eppie Daidle from Abbots- 
 town or Broomylees." "Sir Walter," said one of his 
 old retainers, "speaks to every man as if he were his 
 blood relation." No wonder that they should have 
 returned this feeling with something warmer than blood 
 relations usually do. Mr. Gillies tells an anecdote of 
 the Ettrick Shepherd, showing how deep a root such 
 feelings, notwithstanding his rather odd way of express- 
 ing them sometimes, had taken in his honest nature. 
 "Mr. James Ballantyne, walking home with him one 
 evening from Scott's, where, by-the-by, Hogg had 
 gone uninvited, happened to observe, - 1 do not at all 
 like this illness of Scott's. I have often seen him 
 look jaded of late, and am afraid it is serious.' 'Haud 
 your tongue, or I'll gar you measure your length on the 
 pavement!' replied Hogg. 'Youfause, down-hearted 
 loon that you are ; ye daur to speak as if Scott were 
 on his death-bed ! It cannot be — it must not be ! I 
 will not suffer you to speak that gait.' The sentiment 
 
204 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 was like that of Uncle Toby at the bedside of Le 
 Fevre; and, at these words, the Shepherd's voice 
 became suppressed with emotion." 
 
 But Scott's sympathies were not confined to his spe- 
 cies ; and if he treated them like blood relations, he 
 treated his brute followers like personal friends. Every 
 one remembers old Maida and faithful Camp, the "dear 
 old friend," whose loss cost him a dinner. Mr. Gil- 
 lies tells us that he went into his study on one occa- 
 sion, when he was winding off his " Vision of Don 
 Roderick." "'Look here,' said the poet, 'I have 
 just begun to copy over the rhymes that you heard to- 
 day and applauded so much. Return to supper, if you 
 can ; only don't be late, as you perceive we keep early 
 hours, and Wallace will not suffer me to rest after six 
 in the morning. Come, good dog, and help the poet.' 
 At this hint, Wallace seated himself upright on a chair 
 next his master, who offered him a newspaper, which 
 he directly seized, looking very wise, and holding it 
 firmly and contentedly in his mouth. Scott looked at 
 him with great satisfaction, for he was excessively fond 
 of dogs. ' Very well/ said he ; ' ?iow we shall get on.' 
 And so I left them abruptly, knowing that my ' absence 
 would be the best company.' " This fellowship ex- 
 tended much farther than to his canine followers, of 
 which, including hounds, terriers, mastiffs, and mon- 
 grels, he had certainly a goodly assortment. We find, 
 also, Grimalkin installed in a responsible post in the 
 library, and, out of doors, pet hens, pet donkeys, and — 
 tell it not in Judaea — a pet pig ! 
 
 Scott's sensibilities, though easily moved and widely 
 diffused, were warm and sincere. None shared more 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 205 
 
 cordially in the troubles of his friends ; but on all such 
 occasions, with a true manly feeling, he thought less of 
 mere sympathy than of the most effectual way for miti- 
 gating their sorrows. After a touching allusion in one 
 of his epistles to his dear friend Erskine's death, he con- 
 cludes, "I must turn to and see what can be done about 
 getting some pension for his daughters." In another 
 passage, which may remind one of some of the exqui- 
 site touches in Jeremy Taylor, he indulges in the fol- 
 lowing beautiful strain of philosophy: "The last three 
 or four years have swept away more than half the 
 friends with whom I lived in habits of great intimacy. 
 So it must be with us 
 
 ' When ance life's day draws near the gloamin',' 
 
 and yet we proceed with our plantations and plans as 
 if any tree but the sad cypress would accompany us to 
 the grave, where our friends have gone before us. It 
 is the way of the world, however, and must be so ; 
 otherwise life would be spent in unavailing mourning 
 for those whom we have lost. It is better to enjoy the 
 society of those who remain to us." His well-disci- 
 plined heart seems to have confessed the influence of 
 this philosophy in his most ordinary relations. "I 
 can't help it," was a favorite maxim of his, "and 
 therefore will not think about it ; for that, at least, I 
 can help." 
 
 Among his admirable qualities must not be omitted 
 a certain worldly sagacity or shrewdness, which is 
 expressed as strongly as any individual trait can be in 
 some of his portraits, especially in the excellent one of 
 him by Leslie. Indeed, his countenance would seem to 
 
 18 
 
206 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 exhibit, ordinarily, much more of Dandie Dinmont's 
 benevolent shrewdness than of the eye glancing from 
 earth to heaven which in fancy we assign to the poet, 
 and which, in some moods, must have been his. This 
 trait may be readily discerned in his business transac- 
 tions, which he managed with perfect knowledge of 
 character as well as of his own rights. No one knew 
 better than he the market value of an article ; and, 
 though he underrated his literary wares as to their 
 mere literary rank, he set as high a money value on 
 them and made as sharp a bargain as any of the trade 
 could have done. In his business concerns, indeed, he 
 managed rather too much, or, to speak more correctly, 
 was too fond of mixing up mystery in his transactions, 
 which, like most mysteries, proved of little service to 
 their author. Scott's correspondence, especially with 
 his son, affords obvious examples of shrewdness, in the 
 advice he gives as to his deportment in the novel 
 situations and society into which the young cornet 
 was thrown. Occasionally, in the cautious hints about 
 etiquette and social observances, we may be reminded 
 of that ancient "arbiter elegantiarum," Lord Chester- 
 field, though it must be confessed there is throughout 
 a high moral tone, which the noble lord did not very 
 scrupulously affect. 
 
 Another feature in Scott's character was his loyalty, 
 which some people would extend into a more general 
 deference to rank not royal. We do certainly meet 
 with a tone of deference, occasionally, to the privileged 
 orders (or, rather, privileged persons, as the king, or 
 his own chief, for to the mass of stars and garters he 
 showed no such respect) which falls rather unpleasantly 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 207 
 
 on the ear of a republican. But, independently of 
 the feelings which rightfully belonged to him as the 
 subject of a monarchy, and without which he must 
 have been a false-hearted subject, his own were height- 
 ened by a poetical coloring that mingled in his mind 
 even with much more vulgar relations of life. At the 
 opening of the regalia in Holyrood House, when the 
 honest burgomaster deposited the crown on the head 
 of one of the young ladies present, the good man 
 probably saw nothing more in the dingy diadem than 
 we should have seen, — a headpiece for a set of men no 
 better than himself, and. if the old adage of a "dead 
 lion" holds true, not quite so good. But to Scott's 
 imagination other views were unfolded. "A thousand 
 years their cloudy wings expanded" around him, and 
 in the dim visions of distant times he beheld the 
 venerable line of monarchs who had swayed the coun- 
 cils of his country in peace and led her armies in 
 battle. The "golden round" became in his eye the 
 symbol of his nation's glory; and, as he heaved a 
 heavy oath from his heart, he left the room in agita- 
 tion, from which he did not speedily recover. There 
 was not a spice of affectation in this, — for who ever 
 accused Scott of affectation ? — but there was a good 
 deal of poetry, the poetry of sentiment. 
 
 We have said that this feeling mingled in the more 
 common concerns of his life. His cranium, indeed, 
 to judge from his busts, must have exhibited a strong 
 development of the organ of veneration. He regarded 
 with reverence every thing connected with antiquity. 
 His establishment was on the feudal scale ; his house 
 was fashioned more after the feudal ages than his own ; 
 
2 o8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and even in the ultimate distribution of his fortune, 
 although the circumstance of having made it himself 
 relieved him from any legal necessity of contravening 
 the suggestions of natural justice, he showed such 
 attachment to the old aristocratic usage as to settle 
 nearly the whole of it on his eldest son. 
 
 The influence of this poetic sentiment is discernible 
 in his most trifling acts, in his tastes, his love of 
 the arts, his social habits. His museum, house, and 
 grounds were adorned with relics curious not so much 
 from their workmanship as their historic associations. 
 It was the ancient fountain from Edinburgh, the Tol- 
 booth lintels, the blunderbuss and spleughan of Rob 
 Roy, the drinking-cup of Prince Charlie, or the like. 
 It was the same in the arts. The tunes he loved were 
 not the refined and complex melodies of Italy, but the 
 simple notes of his native minstrelsy, from the bagpipe 
 of John of Skye, or from the harp of his own lovely 
 and accomplished daughter. So, also, in painting. It 
 was not the masterly designs of the great Flemish and 
 Italian schools that adorned his walls, but some portrait 
 of Claverhouse, or of Queen Mary, or of " glorious old 
 John." In architecture we see the same spirit in the 
 singular "romance of stone and lime," which may be 
 said to have been his own device, down to the minutest 
 details of its finishing. We see it again in the joyous 
 celebrations of his feudal tenantry, the good old fes- 
 tivals, the Hogmanay, the Kirn, etc., long fallen into 
 desuetude, when the old Highland piper sounded the 
 same wild pibroch that had so often summoned the 
 clans together, for war or for wassail, among the fast- 
 nesses of the mountains. To the same source, in fine, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 209 
 
 may be traced the feelings of superstition which seemed 
 to hover round Scott's mind like some "strange, 
 mysterious dream," giving a romantic coloring to his 
 conversation and his writings, but rarely, if ever, 
 influencing his actions. It was a poetic sentiment. 
 
 Scott was a Tory to the backbone. Had he come 
 into the world half a century sooner, he would, no 
 doubt, have made a figure under the banner of the 
 Pretender. He was at no great pains to disguise his 
 political creed; witness his jolly drinking-song on the 
 acquittal of Lord Melville. This was verse ; but his 
 prose is not much more qualified. "As for Whiggery 
 in general," he says, in one of his letters, " I can only 
 say that, as no man can be said to be utterly overset 
 until his rump has been higher than his head, so I can- 
 not read in history of any free state which has been 
 brought to slavery until the rascal and uninstructed 
 populace had had their short hour of anarchical gov- 
 ernment, which naturally leads to the stern repose of 
 
 military despotism With these convictions, I am 
 
 very jealous of Whiggery under all modifications, and 
 I must say my acquaintance with the total want of 
 principle in some of its warmest professors does not 
 tend to recommend it." With all this, however, 
 his Toryism was not, practically, of that sort which 
 blunts a man's sensibilities for those who are not of 
 the same porcelain clay with himself. No man, Whig 
 or Radical, ever had less of this pretension, or treated 
 his inferiors with greater kindness, and even familiar- 
 ity, — a circumstance noticed by every visitor at his 
 hospitable mansion who saw him strolling round his 
 grounds, taking his pinch of snuff out of the mull of 
 
 18* 
 
210 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 some "gray-haired old hedger," or leaning on honest 
 Tom Purdie's shoulder and taking sweet counsel as 
 to the right method of thinning a plantation. But, 
 with all this familiarity, no man was better served by 
 his domestics. It was the service of love, the only 
 service that power cannot command and money cannot 
 buy. 
 
 Akin to the feelings of which we have been speak- 
 ing was the truly chivalrous sense of honor which 
 stamped his whole conduct. We do not mean that 
 Hotspur honor which is roused only by the drum and 
 fife, — though he says of himself, "I like the sound of 
 a drum as well as Uncle Toby ever did," — but that 
 honor which is deep-seated in the heart of every true 
 gentleman, shrinking with sensitive delicacy from the 
 least stain, or imputation of a stain, on his faith. "If 
 we lose every thing else," writes he, on a trying occa- 
 sion, to a friend who was not so nice in this particular, 
 " we will at least keep our honor unblemished." It 
 reminds one of the pithy epistle of a kindred chiv- 
 alrous spirit, Francis the First, to his mother, from 
 the unlucky field of Pavia: "Tout est perdu, fors 
 l'honneur." Scott's latter years furnished a noble 
 commentary on the sincerity of his manly principles. 
 
 Little is said directly of his religious sentiments in 
 the biography. They seem to have harmonized well 
 with his political. He was a member of the English 
 Church, a stanch champion of established forms, and 
 a sturdy enemy to every thing that savored of the 
 sharp tang of Puritanism. On this ground, indeed, 
 the youthful Samson used to wrestle manfully with 
 worthy Dominie Mitchell, who, no doubt, furnished 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 2 il 
 
 many a screed of doctrine for the Rev. Peter Pound- 
 text, Master Nehemiah Holdenough, and other lights 
 of the Covenant. Scott was no friend to cant under 
 any form. But, whatever were his speculative opin- 
 ions, in practice his heart overflowed with that charity 
 which is the life -spring of our religion ; and whenever 
 he takes occasion to allude to the subject directly he 
 testifies a deep reverence for the truths of revelation, 
 as well as for its Divine original. 
 
 Whatever estimate be formed of Scott's moral quali- 
 ties, his intellectual were of a kind which well entitled 
 him to the epithet conferred on Lope de Vega, "mon- 
 struo de naturaleza" (a miracle of nature). His mind 
 scarcely seemed to be subjected to the same laws that 
 control the rest of his species. His memory, as is 
 usual, was the first of his powers fully developed. 
 While an urchin at school, he could repeat whole 
 cantos, he says, of Ossian and of Spenser. In riper 
 years we are constantly meeting with similar feats of 
 his achievement. Thus, on one occasion he repeated 
 the whole of a poem in some penny magazine, inci- 
 dentally alluded to, which he had not seen since he 
 was a school-boy. On another, when the Ettrick 
 Shepherd was trying ineffectually to fish up from his 
 own recollections some scraps of a ballad he had him- 
 self manufactured years before, Scott called to him, 
 "Take your pencil, Jemmy, and I will tell it to you, 
 word for word ;" and he accordingly did so. But it 
 is needless to multiply examples of feats so startling as 
 to look almost like the tricks of a conjurer. 
 
 What is most extraordinary is, that while he acquired 
 with such facility that the bare perusal, or the repeti- 
 
212 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tion of a thing once to him, was sufficient, he yet re- 
 tained it with the greatest pertinacity. Other men's 
 memories are so much jostled in the rough and tumble 
 of life that most of the facts get sifted out nearly as 
 fast as they are put in ; so that we are in the same 
 dilemma with those unlucky daughters of Danaus, of 
 school-boy memory, obliged to spend the greater part 
 of the time in replenishing. But Scott's memory 
 seemed to be hermetically sealed, suffering nothing 
 once fairly in to leak out again. This was of im- 
 mense service to him when he took up the business of 
 authorship, as his whole multifarious stock of facts, 
 whether from books or observation, became, in truth, 
 his stock in trade, ready furnished to his hands. This 
 may explain in part — though it is not less marvellous — 
 the cause of his rapid execution of works often replete 
 with rare and curious information. The labor, the 
 preparation, had been already completed. His whole 
 life had been a business of preparation. When he ven- 
 tured, as in the case of " Rokeby" and of " Quentin 
 Durward," on ground with which he had not been 
 familiar, we see how industriously he set about new 
 acquisitions. 
 
 In most of the prodigies of memory which we have 
 ever known, the overgrowth of that faculty seems to 
 have been attained at the expense of all the others ; 
 but in Scott the directly opposite power of the imagi- 
 nation, the inventive power, was equally strongly de- 
 veloped, and at the same early age ; for we find him 
 renowned for story-craft while at school. How many 
 a delightful fiction, warm with the flush of ingenuous 
 youth, did he not throw away on the ears of thought- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 213 
 
 less childhood, which, had they been duly registered, 
 might now have amused children of a larger growth ? 
 We have seen Scott's genius in its prime and its decay. 
 The frolic graces of childhood are alone wanting. 
 
 The facility with which he threw his ideas into lan- 
 guage was also remarked very early. One of his first 
 ballads, and a long one, was dashed off at the dinner- 
 table. His "Lay" was written at the rate of a canto 
 a week. " Waverley," or, rather, the last two volumes 
 of it, cost the evenings of a summer month. Who 
 that has ever read the account can forget the move- 
 ments of that mysterious hand, as described by the 
 two students from the window of a neighboring attic, 
 throwing off sheet after sheet, with untiring rapidity, 
 of the pages destined to immortality? Scott speaks 
 pleasantly enough of this marvellous facility in a letter 
 to his friend Morritt : "When once I set my pen to 
 the paper, it will walk fast enough. I am sometimes 
 tempted to leave it alone, and see whether it will not 
 write as well without the assistance of my head as with 
 it. A hopeful prospect for the reader." 
 
 As to the time and place of composition, he appears 
 to have been nearly indifferent. He possessed entire 
 power of abstraction, and it mattered little whether he 
 were nailed to his clerk's desk, under the drowsy elo- 
 quence of some long-winded barrister, or dashing his 
 horse into the surf on Portobello sands, or rattling in 
 a post-chaise, or amid the hum of guests in his over- 
 flowing halls at Abbotsford, — it mattered not ; the 
 same well-adjusted little packet, "nicely corded and 
 sealed," was sure to be ready, at the regular time, for 
 the Edinburgh mail. His own account of his compo- 
 
214 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 sition to a friend, who asked when he found time for 
 it, is striking enough. "Oh," said Scott, "I lie sim- 
 mering over things for an hour or so before I get up, 
 and there's the time I am dressing to overhaul my 
 half-sleeping, half- waking ^r<?/<?/ de chapitre ; and when 
 I get the paper before me, it commonly runs off pretty 
 easily. Besides, I often take a doze in the plantations, 
 and while Tom marks out a dike or a drain as I have 
 directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs in 
 some other world." Never did this sort of simmering 
 produce such a splendid bill of fare. 
 
 The quality of the material, under such circum- 
 stances, is, in truth, the great miracle of the whole. 
 The execution of so much work, as a mere feat of pen- 
 manship, would undoubtedly be very extraordinary, 
 but, as a mere scrivener's miracle, would be hardly 
 worth recording. It is a sort of miracle that is every 
 day performing under our own eyes, as it were, by 
 Messrs. James, Bulwer, & Co., who, in all the various 
 staples of "comedy, history, pastoral-comical, histor- 
 ical-pastoral," etc., supply their own market, and ours 
 too, with all that can be wanted. In Spain, and in 
 Italy also, we may find abundance of improvvisatori 
 and improvvisatrici, who perform miracles of the same 
 sort, in verse too, in languages whose vowel termina- 
 tions make it very easy for the thoughts to tumble into 
 rhyme without any malice prepense. Sir Stamford 
 Raffles, in his account of Java, tells us of a splendid 
 avenue of trees before his house, which in the course 
 of a year shot up to the height of forty feet. But who 
 shall compare the brief, transitory splendors of a 
 fungous vegetation with the mighty monarch of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 215 
 
 forest, sending his roots deep into the heart of the 
 earth, and his branches, amid storm and sunshine, to 
 the heavens ? And is not the latter the true emblem 
 of Scott ? For who can doubt that his prose creations, 
 at least, will gather strength with time, living on 
 through succeeding generations, even when the lan- 
 guage in which they are written, like those of Greece 
 and Rome, shall cease to be a living language ? 
 
 The only writer deserving, in these respects, to be 
 named with Scott, is Lope de Vega, who in his own 
 day held as high a rank in the republic of letters as 
 our great contemporary. The beautiful dramas which 
 he threw off for the entertainment of the capital, and 
 whose success drove Cervantes from the stage, out- 
 stripped the abilities of an amanuensis to copy. His 
 intimate friend Montalvan, one of the most popular 
 and prolific authors of the time, tells us that he under- 
 took with Lope once to supply the theatre with a 
 comedy — in verse, and in three acts, as the Spanish 
 dramas usually were — at a very short notice. In order 
 to get through his half as soon as his partner, he rose 
 by two in the morning, and at eleven had completed 
 it; an extraordinary feat, certainly, since a play ex- 
 tended to between thirty and forty pages, of a hundred 
 lines each. Walking into the garden, he found his 
 brother poet pruning an orange-tree. "Well, how do 
 you get on?" said Montalvan. "Very well," answered 
 Lope. "I rose betimes, — at five, — and, after I had 
 got through, eat my breakfast; since which I have 
 written a letter of fifty triplets, and watered the whole 
 of the garden, which has tired me a good deal." 
 
 But a little arithmetic will best show the comparative 
 
216 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 fertility of Scott and Lope de Vega. It is so germane 
 to the present matter that we shall make no apology 
 for transcribing here some computations from our last 
 July number ; and as few of our readers, we suspect, 
 have the air-tight memory of Sir Walter, we doubt not 
 that enough of it has escaped them by this time to 
 excuse us from equipping it with one of those "cocked 
 hats and walking-sticks" with which he furbished up 
 an old story. 
 
 "It is impossible to state the results of Lope de 
 Vega's labors in any form that will not powerfully 
 strike the imagination. Thus, he has left twenty-one 
 million three hundred thousand verses in print, besides 
 a mass of manuscript. He furnished the theatre, ac- 
 cording to the statement of his intimate friend Mon- 
 talvan, with eighteen hundred regular plays and four 
 hundred autos, or religious dramas, — all acted. He 
 composed, according to his own statement, more than 
 one hundred comedies in the almost incredible space 
 of twenty-four hours each ; and a comedy averaged 
 between two and three thousand verses, great part of 
 them rhymed, and interspersed with sonnets and other 
 more difficult forms of versification. He lived seventy- 
 two years ; and, supposing him to have employed fifty 
 of that period in composition, although he filled a 
 variety of engrossing vocations during that time, he 
 must have averaged a play a week, to say nothing of 
 twenty-one volumes, quarto, of miscellaneous works, 
 including five epics, written in his leisure moments, 
 and all now in print ! 
 
 "The only achievements we can recall in literary 
 history bearing any resemblance to, though falling far 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 217 
 
 short of this, are those of our illustrious contemporary 
 Sir Walter Scott. The complete edition of his works, 
 recently advertised by Murray, with the edition of two 
 volumes of which Murray has not the copyright, prob- 
 ably contains ninety volumes, small octavo. [To these 
 should farther be added a large supply of matter for the 
 Edinburgh Annual Register, as well as other anony- 
 mous contributions.] Of these, forty-eight volumes of 
 novels, and twenty-one of history and biography, were 
 produced between 1814 and 1831, or in seventeen 
 years. These would give an average of four volumes 
 a year, or one for every three months during the whole 
 of that period ; to which must be added twenty-one 
 volumes of poetry and prose, previously published. 
 The mere mechanical execution of so much work, 
 both in his case and Lope de Vega's, would seem to 
 be scarce possible in the limits assigned. Scott, too, 
 was as variously occupied in other ways as his Spanish 
 rival, and probably, from the social hospitality of his 
 life, spent a much larger portion of his time in no 
 literary occupation at all." 
 
 Of all the wonderful dramatic creations of Lope de 
 Vega's genius, what now remains ? Two or three plays 
 only keep possession of the stage, and few, very few, 
 are still read with pleasure in the closet. They have 
 never been collected into a uniform edition, and are 
 now met with in scattered sheets only on the shelves 
 of some mousing bookseller, or collected in miscella- 
 neous parcels in the libraries of the curious. 
 
 Scott, with all his facility of execution, had none 
 of that pitiable affectation sometimes found in men of 
 genius, who think that the possession of this quality 
 
 K 19 
 
2i 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 may dispense with regular, methodical habits of study. 
 He was most economical of time. He did not, like 
 Voltaire, speak of it as "a terrible thing that so much 
 time should be wasted in talking." He was too little 
 of a pedant, and far too benevolent, not to feel that 
 there are other objects worth living for than mere 
 literary fame ; but he grudged the waste of time on 
 merely frivolous and heartless objects. "As for dress- 
 ing when we are quite alone," he remarked one day 
 to Mr. Gillies, whom he had taken home with him to a 
 family dinner, "it is out of the question. Life is not 
 long enough for such fiddle-faddle." In the early part 
 of his life he worked late at night, but subsequently, 
 from a conviction of the superior healthiness of early 
 rising, as well as the desire to secure, at all hazards, a 
 portion of the day for literary labor, he rose at five the 
 year round ; no small effort, as any one will admit who 
 has seen the pain and difficulty which a regular bird 
 of night finds in reconciling his eyes to daylight. He 
 was scrupulously exact, moreover, in the distribution of 
 his hours. In one of his letters to his friend Terry, 
 the player, replete, as usual, with advice that seems 
 to flow equally from the head and the heart, he says, 
 in reference to the practice of dawdling away one's 
 time, "A habit of the mind it is which is very apt to 
 beset men of intellect and talent, especially when their 
 time is not regularly filled up, but left to their own 
 arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak, and 
 ends by limiting, if it does not destroy, the power of 
 manly and necessary exertion. I must love a man so 
 well, to whom I offer such a word of advice, that I will 
 not apologize for it, but expect to hear you are become 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 219 
 
 as regular as a Dutch clock, — hours, quarters, minutes, 
 all marked and appropriated. ' ' With the same emphasis 
 he inculcates the like habits on. his son. If any man 
 might dispense with them, it was surely Scott. But he 
 knew that without them the greatest powers of mind 
 will run to waste, and water but the desert. 
 
 Some of the literary opinions of Scott are singular, 
 considering, too, the position he occupied in the world 
 of letters. " I promise you," he says, in an epistle to 
 an old friend, " my oaks will outlast my laurels ; and 
 I pique myself more on my compositions for manure 
 than on any other compositions to which I was ever 
 accessary." This may seem badinage ; but he repeat- 
 edly, both in writing and conversation, places literature, 
 as a profession, below other intellectual professions, and 
 especially the military. The Duke of Wellington, the 
 representative of the last, seems to have drawn from 
 him a very extraordinary degree of deference, which 
 we cannot but thinks smacks a little of that strong 
 relish for gunpowder which he avows in himself. 
 
 It is not very easy to see on what this low estimate 
 of literature rested. As a profession, it has too little 
 in common with more active ones to afford much 
 ground for running a parallel. The soldier has to do 
 with externals ; and his contests and triumphs are over 
 matter in its various forms, whether of man or material 
 nature. The poet deals with the bodiless forms of air, 
 of fancy lighter than air. His business is contem- 
 plative; the other's is active, and depends for its 
 success on strong moral energy and presence of mind. 
 He must, indeed, have genius of the highest order to 
 effect his own combinations, anticipate the movements 
 
220 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of his enemy, and dart with eagle eye on his vulnerable 
 point. But who shall say that this practical genius, if 
 we may so term it, is to rank higher in the scale than 
 the creative power of the poet, the spark from the mind 
 of divinity itself? 
 
 The orator might seem to afford better ground for 
 comparison, since, though his theatre of action is 
 abroad, he may be said to work with much the same 
 tools as the writer. Yet how much of his success 
 depends on qualities other than intellectual! "Ac- 
 tion," said the father of eloquence, "action, action, 
 are the three most essential things to an orator." How 
 much depends on the look, the gesture, the magical 
 tones of voice, modulated to the passions he has stirred, 
 and how much on the contagious sympathies of the 
 audience itself, which drown every thing like criticism 
 in the overwhelming tide of emotion ! If any one would 
 know how much, let him, after patiently standing 
 
 " till his feet throb, 
 And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 
 Of patriots bursting with heroic rage," 
 
 read the same speech in the columns of a morning 
 newspaper or in the well-concocted report of the 
 orator himself. The productions of the writer are 
 subjected to a fiercer ordeal. He has no excited 
 sympathies of numbers to hurry his readers along over 
 his blunders. He is scanned in the calm silence of the 
 closet. Every flower of fancy seems here to wither 
 under the rude breath of criticism ; every link in the 
 chain of argument is subjected to the touch of prying 
 scrutiny, and if there be the least flaw in it it is sure 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 221 
 
 to be detected. There is no tribunal so stern as the 
 secret tribunal of a man's own closet, far removed 
 from all the sympathetic impulses of humanity. Surely 
 there is no form in which intellect can be exhibited to 
 the world so completely stripped of all adventitious 
 aids as the form of written composition. But, says 
 the practical man, let us estimate things by their 
 utility. "You talk of the poems of Homer," said a 
 mathematician, "but, after all, what do they prove ?" 
 A question which involves an answer somewhat too 
 voluminous for the tail of an article. But if the poems 
 of Homer were, as Heeren asserts, the principal bond 
 which held the Grecian states together and gave them 
 a national feeling, they "prove" more than all the 
 arithmeticians of Greece — and there were many cun- 
 ning ones in it — ever proved. The results of military 
 skill are indeed obvious. The soldier, by a single 
 victory, enlarges the limits of an empire ; he may do 
 more, — he may achieve the liberties of a nation, or roll 
 back the tide of barbarism ready to overwhelm them. 
 Wellington was placed in such a position, and nobly 
 did he do his work ; or, rather, he was placed at the 
 head of such a gigantic moral and physical apparatus 
 as enabled him to do it. With his own unassisted 
 strength, of course, he could have done nothing. But 
 it is on his own solitary resources that the great writer 
 is to rely. And yet who shall say that the triumphs 
 of Wellington have been greater than those of Scott, 
 whose works are familiar as household words to every 
 fireside in his own land, from the castle to the cottage, 
 — have crossed oceans and deserts, and, with healing 
 on their wings, found their way to the remotest re- 
 
 19* 
 
222 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 gions, — have helped to form the character, until his 
 own mind may be said to be incorporated into those 
 of hundreds of thousands of his fellow-men ? Who is 
 there that has not, at some time or other, felt the 
 heaviness of his heart lightened, his pains mitigated, 
 and his bright moments of life made still brighter by 
 the magical touches of his genius ? And shall we speak 
 of his victories as less real, less serviceable to humanity, 
 less truly glorious than those of the greatest captain of 
 his day ? The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by 
 the narrow theatre of his own age ; but those of a Scott 
 or a Shakspeare will be renewed with greater and greater 
 lustre in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain 
 shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the 
 minstrel and the page of the chronicler. 
 
 But, after all, this sort of parallel is not very gracious 
 nor very philosophical, and, to say truth, is somewhat 
 foolish. We have been drawn into it by the not 
 random, but very deliberate and, in our poor judg- 
 ment, very disparaging estimate by Scott of his own 
 vocation ; and, as we have taken the trouble to write 
 it, our readers will excuse us from blotting it out. 
 There is too little ground for the respective parties to 
 stand on for a parallel. As to the pedantic cut bono 
 standard, it is impossible to tell the final issues of a 
 single act ; how can we then hope to those of a course 
 of action? As for the honor of different vocations, 
 there never was a truer sentence than the stale one of 
 Pope, — stale now, because it is so true, — ■ 
 
 "Act well your part — there all the honor lies." 
 
 And it is the just boast of our own country that in no 
 civilized nation is the force of this philanthropic maxim 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 223 
 
 so nobly illustrated as in ours, — thanks to our glorious 
 institutions. 
 
 A great cause, probably, of Scott's low estimate of 
 letters was the facility with which he wrote. What 
 costs us little we are apt to prize little. If diamonds 
 were as common as pebbles, and gold-dust as any other, 
 who would stoop to gather them ? It was the prostitu- 
 tion of his muse, by-the-by, for this same gold-dust, 
 which brought a sharp rebuke on the poet from Lord 
 Byron, in his ''English Bards:" 
 
 " For this we spurn Apollo's venal son ;" 
 
 a coarse cut, and the imputation about as true as most 
 satire, — that is, not true at all. This was indited in 
 his lordship's earlier days, when he most chivalrously 
 disclaimed all purpose of bartering his rhymes for gold. 
 He lived long enough, however, to weigh his literary 
 wares in the same money-balance used by more vulgar 
 manufacturers ; and, in truth, it would be ridiculous 
 if the produce of the brain should not bring its price 
 in this form as well as any other. There is little 
 danger, we imagine, of finding too much gold in the 
 bowels of Parnassus. 
 
 Scott took a more sensible view of things. In a 
 letter to Ellis, written soon after the publication of 
 " The Minstrelsy," he observes, " People may say this 
 and that of the pleasure of fame, or of profit, as a 
 motive of writing ; I think the only pleasure is in the 
 actual exertion and research, and I would no more 
 write on any other terms than I would hunt merely 
 to dine upon hare soup. At the same time, if credit 
 and profit came unlooked for, I would no more quarrel 
 
224 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 with them than with the soup." Even this declaration 
 was somewhat more magnanimous than was warranted 
 by his subsequent conduct. The truth is, he soon found 
 out, especially after the Waverley vein had opened, that 
 he had hit on a gold-mine. The prodigious returns he 
 got gave the whole thing the aspect of a speculation. 
 Every new work was an adventure, and the proceeds 
 naturally suggested the indulgence of the most extrav- 
 agant schemes of expense, which, in their turn, stimu- 
 lated him to fresh efforts. In this way the "profits" 
 became, whatever they might have been once, a prin- 
 cipal incentive to, as they were the recompense of, 
 exertion. His productions were cash articles, and were 
 estimated by him more on the Hudibrastic rule of "the 
 real worth of a thing" than by any fanciful standard 
 of fame. He bowed with deference to the judgment 
 of the booksellers, and trimmed his sails dexterously as 
 the " aura popularis" shifted. " If it's na weil bobbit," 
 he writes to his printer, on turning out a less lucky 
 novel, "we'll bobbit again." His muse was of that 
 school who seek the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number. We can hardly imagine him invoking her like 
 Milton : 
 
 " Still govern thou my song, 
 Urania, and fit audience find, though few." 
 
 Still less can we imagine him, like the blind old bard, 
 feeding his soul with visions of posthumous glory, and 
 spinning out epics for five pounds apiece. 
 
 It is singular that Scott, although he set as high a 
 money value on his productions as the most enthusi- 
 astic of the " trade" could have done, in a literary 
 view should have held them so cheap. "Whatever 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 225 
 
 others may be," he said, "I have never been a par- 
 tisan of my own poetry; as John Wilkes declared 
 that, 'in the height of his success, he had himself 
 never been a Wilkite. ' " Considering the poet's pop- 
 ularity, this was but an indifferent compliment to the 
 taste of his age. With all this disparagement of his 
 own productions, however, Scott was not insensible 
 to criticism. He says somewhere that, "if he had 
 been conscious of a single vulnerable point in himself, 
 he would not have taken up the business of writing;" 
 but on another occasion he writes, "I make it a rule 
 never to read the attacks made upon me;" and Cap- 
 tain Hall remarks, "He never reads the criticisms on 
 his books ; this I know from the most unquestionable 
 authority. Praise, he says, gives him no pleasure, and 
 censure annoys him." Madame de Graffigny says, 
 also, of Voltaire, "that he was altogether indifferent 
 to praise, but the least word from his enemies drove 
 him crazy." Yet both these authors banqueted on the 
 sweets of panegyric as much as any who ever lived. 
 They were in the condition of an epicure whose palate 
 has lost its relish for the dainty fare in which it has 
 been so long revelling, without becoming less sensible 
 to the annoyances of sharper and coarser flavors. It 
 may afford some consolation to humble mediocrity, to 
 the less fortunate votaries of the muse, that those who 
 have reached the summit of Parnassus are not much 
 more contented with their condition than those who 
 are scrambling among the bushes at the bottom of the 
 mountain. The fact seems to be, as Scott himself in- 
 timates more than once, that the joy is in the chase, 
 whether in the prose or the poetry of life. 
 
 K* 
 
226 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 But it is high time to terminate our lucubrations, 
 which, however imperfect and unsatisfactory, have 
 already run to a length that must trespass on the pa- 
 tience of the reader. We rise from the perusal of these 
 delightful volumes with the same sort of melancholy 
 feeling with which we wake from a pleasant dream. 
 The concluding volume, of which such ominous pre- 
 sage is given in the last sentence of the fifth, has not 
 yet reached us ; but we know enough to anticipate the 
 sad catastrophe it is to unfold of the drama. In those 
 which we have seen, we have beheld a succession of 
 interesting characters come upon the scene and pass 
 away to their long home. " Bright eyes now closed 
 in dust, gay voices forever silenced," seem to haunt us, 
 too, as we write. The imagination reverts to Abbots- 
 ford, — the romantic and once brilliant Abbotsford, — 
 the magical creation of his hands. We see its halls 
 radiant with the hospitality of his benevolent heart ; 
 thronged with pilgrims from every land, assembled to 
 pay homage at the shrine of genius ; echoing to the 
 blithe music of those festal holidays when young and 
 old met to renew the usages of the good old times. 
 
 " These were its charms, but all these charms are fled." 
 
 Its courts are desolate, or trodden only by the foot 
 of the stranger. The stranger sits under the shadows 
 of the trees which his hand planted. The spell of the 
 enchanter is dissolved ; his wand is broken ; and the 
 mighty minstrel himself now sleeps in the bosom of 
 the peaceful scenes embellished by his taste, and which 
 his genius has made immortal. 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND'S ENGLISH LITERA- 
 TURE.* 
 
 (October, 1839.) 
 
 There are few topics of greater attraction, or, when 
 properly treated, of higher importance, than literary 
 history. For what is it but a faithful register of the 
 successive steps by which a nation has advanced in the 
 career of civilization? Civil history records the crimes 
 and the follies, the enterprises, discoveries, and tri- 
 umphs, it may be, of humanity. But to what do all 
 these tend, or of what moment are they in the eye of 
 the philosopher, except as they accelerate or retard the 
 march of civilization ? The history of literature is the 
 history of the human mind. It is, as compared with 
 other histories, the intellectual as distinguished from 
 the material, — the informing spirit, as compared with 
 the outward and visible. 
 
 When such a view of the mental progress of a people 
 is combined with individual biography, we have all the 
 materials for the deepest and most varied interest. The 
 life of the man of letters is not always circumscribed 
 by the walls of a cloister, and was not, even in those 
 days when the cloister was the familiar abode of 
 science. The history of Dante and of Petrarch is the 
 
 *" Sketches of English Literature; with Considerations on the 
 Spirit of the Times, Men, and Revolutions. By the Viscount de 
 Chateaubriand." 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1836. 
 
 (227) 
 
228 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 best commentary on that of their age. In later times, 
 the man of letters has taken part in all the principal 
 concerns of public and social life. But, even when 
 the story is to derive its interest from personal charac- 
 ter, what a store of entertainment is supplied by the 
 eccentricities of genius, — the joys and sorrows, not 
 visible to vulgar eyes, but which agitate his finer sensi- 
 bilities as powerfully as the greatest shocks of worldly 
 fortune would a hardier and less visionary temper ! 
 What deeper interest can romance afford than is to be 
 gathered from the melancholy story of Petrarch, Tasso, 
 Alfieri, Rousseau, Byron, Burns, and a crowd of famil- 
 iar names, whose genius seems to have been given them 
 only to sharpen their sensibility to suffering? What 
 matter if their sufferings were, for the most part, of 
 the imagination? They were not the less real to them. 
 They lived in a world of imagination, and, by the gift 
 of genius, unfortunate to its proprietor, have known 
 how, in the language of one of the most unfortunate, 
 "to make madness beautiful" in the eyes of others. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the interest and importance 
 of literary history, it has hitherto received but little 
 attention from English writers. No complete survey 
 of the treasures of our native tongue has been yet pro- 
 duced, or even attempted. The earlier periods of the 
 poetical development of the nation have been well 
 illustrated by various antiquaries. Warton has brought 
 the history of poetry down to the season of its first 
 vigorous expansion, — the age of Elizabeth. But he 
 did not penetrate beyond the magnificent vestibule of 
 the temple. Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" have 
 done much to supply the deficiency in this depart- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 229 
 
 ment. But much more remains to be done to afford 
 the student any thing like a complete view of the pro- 
 gress of poetry in England. Johnson's work, as every 
 one knows, is conducted on the most capricious and 
 irregular plan. The biographies were dictated by the 
 choice of the bookseller. Some of the most memorable 
 names in British literature are omitted to make way 
 for a host of minor luminaries, whose dim radiance, 
 unassisted by the critic's magnifying lens, would never 
 have penetrated to posterity. The same irregularity is 
 visible in the proportion he has assigned to each of his 
 subjects; the principal figures, or what should have 
 been such, being often thrown into the background 
 to make room for some subordinate person whose story 
 was thought to have more interest. 
 
 Besides these defects of plan, the critic was cer- 
 tainly deficient in sensibility to the more delicate, the 
 minor beauties of poetic sentiment. He analyzes verse 
 in the cold-blooded spirit of a chemist, until all the 
 aroma which constituted its principal charm escapes in 
 the decomposition. By this kind of process, some of 
 the finest fancies of the Muse, the lofty dithyrambics 
 of Gray, the ethereal effusions of Collins, and of Mil- 
 ton too, are rendered sufficiently vapid. In this sort 
 of criticism, all the effect that relies on impressions 
 goes for nothing. Ideas are alone taken into the ac- 
 count, and all is weighed in the same hard, matter-of- 
 fact scales of common sense, like so much solid prose. 
 What a sorry figure would Byron's Muse make sub- 
 jected to such an ordeal ! The doctor's taste in com- 
 position, to judge from his own style, was not of the 
 highest order. It was a style, indeed, of extraordinary 
 
 20 
 
230 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 power, suited to the expression of his original think- 
 ing, bold, vigorous, and glowing with all the lustre of 
 pointed antithesis. But the brilliancy is cold, and the 
 ornaments are much too florid and overcharged for a 
 graceful effect. When to these minor blemishes we 
 add the graver one of an obliquity of judgment, pro- 
 duced by inveterate political and religious prejudice, 
 which has thrown a shadow over some of the brightest 
 characters subjected to his pencil, we have summed up 
 a fair amount of critical deficiencies. With all this, 
 there is no one of the works of this great and good 
 man in which he has displayed more of the strength 
 of his mighty intellect, shown a more pure and mascu- 
 line morality, more sound principles of criticism in the 
 abstract, more acute delineation of character, and more 
 gorgeous splendor of diction. His defects, however, 
 such as they are, must prevent his maintaining with pos- 
 terity that undisputed dictatorship in criticism which 
 was conceded to him in his own day. We must do 
 justice to his errors as well as to his excellences, in 
 order that we may do justice to the characters which 
 have come under his censure. And we must admit 
 that his work, however admirable as a gallery of splen- 
 did portraits, is inadequate to convey any thing like a 
 complete or impartial view of English poetry. 
 
 The English have made but slender contributions to 
 the history of foreign literatures. The most important, 
 probably, are Roscoe's works, in which literary criti- 
 cism, though but a subordinate feature, is the most 
 valuable part of the composition. As to any thing 
 like a general survey of this department, they are 
 wholly deficient. The deficiency, indeed, is likely to 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 231 
 
 be supplied, to a certain extent, by the work of Mr. 
 Hallam, now in progress of publication, the first vol- 
 ume of which — the only one which has yet issued from 
 the press — gives evidence of the same curious erudi- 
 tion, acuteness, honest impartiality, and energy of dic- 
 tion which distinguish the other writings of this emi- 
 nent scholar. But the extent of his work, limited to 
 four volumes, precludes any thing more than a survey 
 of the most prominent features of the vast subject he 
 has undertaken. 
 
 The Continental nations, under serious discourage- 
 ments, too, have been much more active than the 
 British in this field. The Spaniards can boast a gen- 
 eral history of letters, extending to more than twenty 
 volumes in length, and compiled with sufficient impar- 
 tiality. The Italians have several such. Yet these 
 are the lands of the Inquisition, where reason is hood- 
 winked and the honest utterance of opinion has been 
 recompensed by persecution, exile, and the stake. How 
 can such a people estimate the character of composi- 
 tions which, produced under happier institutions, are 
 instinct with the spirit of freedom ! How can they 
 make allowance for the manifold eccentricities of a lit- 
 erature where thought is allowed to expatiate in all the 
 independence of individual caprice ! How can they 
 possibly, trained to pay such nice deference to outward 
 finish and mere verbal elegance, have any sympathy 
 with the rough and homely beauties which emanate 
 from the people and are addressed to the people ? 
 
 The French, nurtured under freer forms of govern- 
 ment, have contrived to come under a system of liter- 
 ary laws scarcely less severe. Their first great dramatic 
 
232 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 production gave rise to a scheme of critical legislation 
 which has continued ever since to press on the genius 
 of the nation in all the higher walks of poetic art. 
 Amid all the mutations of state, the tone of criticism 
 has remained essentially the same to the present cen- 
 tury, when, indeed, the boiling passions and higher 
 excitements of a revolutionary age have made the 
 classic models on which their literature was cast appear 
 somewhat too frigid, and a warmer coloring has been 
 sought by an infusion of English sentiment. But this 
 mixture, or rather confusion, of styles, neither French 
 nor English, seems to rest on no settled principles, and 
 is, probably, too alien to the genius of the people to 
 continue permanent. 
 
 The French, forming themselves early on a foreign 
 and antique model, were necessarily driven to rules, as 
 a substitute for those natural promptings which have 
 directed the course of other modern nations in the 
 career of letters. Such rules, of course, while assimi- 
 lating them to antiquity, drew them aside from sym- 
 pathy with their own contemporaries. How can they, 
 thus formed on an artificial system, enter into the spirit 
 of other literatures so uncongenial with their own ? 
 
 That the French continued subject to such a system, 
 with little change to the present age, is evinced by the 
 example of Voltaire, a writer whose lawless ridicule, 
 
 " like the wind, 
 Blew where it listed, laying all things prone," 
 
 but whose revolutionary spirit made no serious changes 
 in the principles of the national criticism. Indeed, 
 his commentaries on Corneille furnish evidence of a 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 33 
 
 willingness to contract still closer the range of the 
 poet, and to define more accurately the laws by which 
 his movements were to be controlled. Voltaire's his- 
 tory affords an evidence of the truth of the Horatian 
 maxim, " naturam expellas" etc. In his younger days 
 he passed some time, as is well known, in England, 
 and contracted there a certain relish for the strange 
 models which came under his observation. On his 
 return he made many attempts to introduce the foreign 
 school with which he had become acquainted to his 
 own countrymen. His vanity was gratified by detect- 
 ing the latent beauties of his barbarian neighbors and 
 by being the first to point them out to his countrymen. 
 It associated him with names venerated on the other 
 side of the Channel, and at home transferred a part of 
 their glory to himself. Indeed, he was not backward 
 in transferring as much as he could of it, by borrowing 
 on his own account, where he could venture, manibus 
 ftlenis, and with very little acknowledgment. The 
 French at length became so far reconciled to the mon- 
 strosities of their neighbors that a regular translation 
 of Shakspeare, the lord of the British Pandemonium, 
 was executed by Letourneur, a scholar of no great 
 merit; but the work was well received. Voltaire, the 
 veteran, in his solitude of Ferney, was roused, by the 
 applause bestowed on the English poet in his Parisian 
 costume, to a sense of his own imprudence. He saw, 
 in imagination, the altars which had been raised to 
 him, as well as to the other master-spirits of the na- 
 tional drama, in a fair way to be overturned in order 
 to make room for an idol of his own importation. 
 " Have you seen," he writes, speaking of Letourneur' s 
 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 version, "his abominable trash? Will you endure the 
 affront put upon France by it ? There are no epithets 
 bad enough, nor fool's-caps, nor pillories enough in 
 all France for such a scoundrel. The blood tingles in 
 my old veins in speaking of him. What is the most 
 dreadful part of the affair is, the monster has his party 
 in France; and, to add to my shame and consterna- 
 tion, it was I who first sounded the praises of this Shak- 
 speare, — I who first showed the pearls, picked here and 
 there, from his overgrown dung-heap. Little did I 
 anticipate that I was helping to trample under foot, at 
 some future day, the laurels of Racine and Corneille 
 to adorn the brows of a barbarous player, — this drunk- 
 ard of a Shakspeare." Not content with this expecto- 
 ration of his bile, the old poet transmitted a formal 
 letter of remonstrance to D'Alembert, which was read 
 publicly, as designed, at a regular seance of the Acad- 
 emy. The document, after expatiating at length on 
 the blunders, vulgarities, and indecencies of the Eng- 
 lish bard, concludes with this appeal to the critical 
 body he was addressing : " Paint to yourselves, gentle- 
 men, Louis the Fourteenth in his gallery at Versailles, 
 surrounded by his brilliant court : a tatterdemalion 
 advances, covered with rags, and proposes to the assem- 
 bly to abandon the tragedies of Racine for a mounte- 
 bank, full of grimaces, with nothing but a lucky hit, 
 now and then, to redeem them." 
 
 At a later period, Ducis, the successor of Voltaire, 
 if we remember right, in the Academy, a writer of far 
 superior merit to Letourneur, did the British bard into 
 much better French than his predecessor ; though 
 Ducis, as he takes care to acquaint us, "did his best 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 35 
 
 to efface those startling impressions of horror which 
 would have damned his author in the polished theatres 
 of Paris !" Voltaire need not have taken the affair so 
 much to heart. Shakspeare, reduced within the com- 
 pass, as much as possible, of the rules, with all his 
 eccentricities and peculiarities — all that made him 
 English, in fact — smoothed away, may be tolerated, 
 and to a certain extent countenanced, in the "pol- 
 ished theatres of Paris." But this is not 
 
 " Shakspeare, Nature s child, 
 Warbling his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 The Germans are just the antipodes of their French 
 neighbors. Coming late on the arena of modern litera- 
 ture, they would seem to be particularly qualified for 
 excelling in criticism by the variety of styles and 
 models for their study supplied by other nations. 
 They have, accordingly, done wonders in this depart- 
 ment, and have extended their critical wand over the 
 remotest regions, dispelling the mists of old prejudice, 
 and throwing the light of learning on what before was 
 dark and inexplicable. They certainly are entitled to 
 the credit of a singularly cosmopolitan power of divest- 
 ing themselves of local and national prejudice. No 
 nation has done so much to lay the foundations of that 
 reconciling spirit of criticis n which, instead of con- 
 demning a difference of taste in different nations as a 
 departure from it, seeks to explain such discrepancies 
 by the peculiar circumstances of the nation, and thus 
 from the elements of discord, as it were, to build up a 
 universal and harmonious S)'stem. The exclusive and 
 unfavorable views entertained by some of their later 
 
236 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 critics respecting the French literature, indeed, into 
 which they have been urged, no doubt, by a desire to 
 counteract the servile deference shown to that literature 
 by their countrymen of the preceding age, forms an 
 important exception to their usual candor. 
 
 As general critics, however, the Germans are open 
 to grave objections. The very circumstances of their 
 situation, so favorable, as we have said, to the forma- 
 tion of a liberal criticism, have encouraged the taste 
 for theories and for system-building, always unpro- 
 pitious to truth. Whoever broaches a theory has a 
 hard battle to fight with conscience. If the theory 
 cannot conform to the facts, so much the worse for the 
 facts, as some wag has said ; they must, at all events, 
 conform to the theory. The Germans have put together 
 hypotheses with the facility with which children con- 
 struct card houses, and many of them bid fair to last 
 as long. They show more industry in accumulating 
 materials than taste or discretion in their arrangement. 
 They carry their fantastic imagination beyond the legit- 
 imate province of the muse into the sober fields of 
 criticism. Their philosophical systems, curiously and 
 elaborately devised, with much ancient lore and solemn 
 imaginings, may remind one of some of those vener- 
 able English cathedrals where the magnificent and 
 mysterious Gothic is blended with the clumsy Saxon. 
 The effect, on the whole, is grand, but grotesque 
 withal. 
 
 The Germans are too often sadly wanting in dis- 
 cretion, or, in vulgar parlance, taste. They are per- 
 petually overleaping the modesty of nature. They are 
 possessed by a cold-blooded enthusiasm, if we may say 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 237 
 
 so, — since it seems to come rather from the head than 
 the heart, — which spurs them on over the plainest 
 barriers of common sense, until even the right becomes 
 the wrong. A striking example of these defects is 
 furnished by the dramatic critic Schlegel, whose "Lec- 
 tures" are, or may be, familiar to every reader, since 
 they have been reprinted in the English version in this 
 country. No critic, not even a native, has thrown 
 such a flood of light on the characteristics of the sweet 
 bard of Avon. He has made himself so intimately 
 acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of the poet's 
 age and country that he has been enabled to speculate 
 on his productions as those of a contemporary. In 
 this way he has furnished a key to the mysteries of his 
 composition, has reduced what seemed anomalous to 
 system, and has supplied Shakspeare's own countrymen 
 with new arguments for vindicating the spontaneous 
 suggestions of feeling on strictly philosophical princi- 
 ples. Not content with this important service, he, as 
 usual, pushes his argument to extremes, vindicates ob- 
 vious blemishes as necessary parts of a system, and 
 calls on us to admire, in contradiction to the most 
 ordinary principles of taste and common sense. Thus, 
 for example, speaking of Shakspeare's notorious blun- 
 ders in geography and chronology, he coolly tells us, 
 " I undertake to prove that Shakspeare's anachronisms 
 are, for the most part, committed purposely and after 
 great consideration." In the same vein, speaking of 
 the poet's villanous puns and quibbles, which, to his 
 shame, or, rather, that of his age, so often bespangle 
 with tawdry brilliancy the majestic robe of the Muse, 
 he assures us that "the poet here probably, as every- 
 
238 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 where else, has followed principles which will bear a 
 strict examination." But the intrepidity of criticism 
 never went farther than in the conclusion of this same 
 analysis, where he unhesitatingly assigns several apocry- 
 phal plays to Shakspeare, gravely informing us that 
 the last three, "Sir John Oldcastle," "A Yorkshire 
 Tragedy," and "Thomas Lord Cromwell," of which 
 the English critics speak with unreserved contempt, 
 "are not only unquestionably Shakspeare's, but, in 
 his judgment, rank among the best and ripest of his 
 works !" The old bard, could he raise his head from 
 the tomb where none might disturb his bones, would 
 exclaim, we imagine, " Non tali auxilio /" 
 
 It shows a tolerable degree of assurance in a critic 
 thus to dogmatize on nice questions of verbal resem- 
 blance which have so long baffled the natives of the 
 country, who, on such questions, obviously can be the 
 only competent judges. It furnishes a striking example 
 of the want of discretion noticeable in so many of the 
 German scholars. With all these defects, however, it 
 cannot be denied that they have widely extended the 
 limits of rational criticism, and, by their copious stores 
 of erudition, furnished the student with facilities for 
 attaining the best points of view for a comprehensive 
 survey of both ancient and modern literature. 
 
 The English have had advantages, on the whole, 
 greater than those of any other people for perfecting 
 the science of general criticism. They have had no 
 academies to bind the wing of genius to the earth by 
 their thousand wire-drawn subtleties. No Inquisition 
 has placed its burning seal upon the lip and thrown 
 its dark shadow over the recesses of the soul. They 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 239 
 
 have enjoyed the inestimable privilege of thinking 
 what they pleased, and of uttering what they thought. 
 Their minds, trained to independence, have had no 
 occasion to shrink from encountering any topic, and 
 have acquired a masculine confidence indispensable to 
 a calm appreciation of the mighty and widely diversi- 
 fied productions of genius, as unfolded under the influ- 
 ences of as widely-diversified institutions and national 
 character. Their own literature, with chameleon-like 
 delicacy, has reflected all the various aspects of the na- 
 tion in the successive stages of its history. The rough, 
 romantic beauties and gorgeous pageantry of the Eliza- 
 bethan age, the stern, sublime enthusiasm of the Com- 
 monwealth, the cold brilliancy of Queen Anne, and 
 the tumultuous movements and ardent sensibilities of 
 the present generation, all have been reflected, as in a 
 mirror, in the current of English literature as it has 
 flowed down through the lapse of ages. It is easy to 
 understand what advantages this cultivation of all these 
 different styles of composition at home must give the 
 critic in divesting himself of narrow and local preju- 
 dice, and in appreciating the genius of foreign litera- 
 tures, in each of which some one or other of these 
 different styles has found favor. To this must be 
 added the advantages derived from the structure of 
 the English language itself, which, compounded of the 
 Teutonic and the Latin, offers facilities for a compre- 
 hension of other literatures not afforded by those lan- 
 guages, as the German and the Italian, for instance, 
 almost exclusively derived from but one of them. 
 
 With all this, the English, as we have remarked, 
 have made fewer direct contributions to general lite: - 
 
240 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ary criticism than the Continental nations, unless, 
 indeed, we take into the account the periodical criti- 
 cism, which has covered the whole field with a light 
 skirmishing, very unlike any systematic plan of opera- 
 tions. The good effect of this guerilla warfare may 
 well be doubted. Most of these critics for the nonce 
 (and we certainly are competent judges on this point) 
 come to their work with little previous preparation. 
 Their attention has been habitually called, for the most 
 part, in other directions, and they throw off an acci- 
 dental essay in the brief intervals of other occupation. 
 Hence their views are necessarily often superficial, and 
 sometimes contradictory, as may be seen from turning 
 over the leaves of any journal where literary topics 
 are widely discussed ; for, whatever consistency may 
 be demanded in politics or religion, very free scope is 
 offered, even in the same journal, to literary specula- 
 tion. Even when the article may have been the fruit 
 of a mind ripened by study and meditation on con- 
 genial topics, it too often exhibits only the partial view 
 suggested by the particular and limited direction of the 
 author's thoughts in this instance. Truth is not much 
 served by this irregular process ; and the general illu- 
 mination indispensable to a full and fair survey of the 
 whole ground can never be supplied from such scat- 
 tered and capricious gleams thrown over it at random. 
 Another obstacle to a right result is founded in the 
 very constitution of review-writing. Miscellaneous in 
 its range of topics, and addressed to a miscellaneous 
 class of readers, its chief reliance for success in com- 
 petition with the thousand novelties of the day is in 
 the temporary interest it can excite. Instead of a con- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 241 
 
 scientious discussion and cautious examination of the 
 matter in hand, we too often find an attempt to stimu- 
 late the popular appetite by piquant sallies of wit, by 
 caustic sarcasm, or by a pert, dashing confidence, that 
 cuts the knot it cannot readily unloose. Then, again, 
 the spirit of periodical criticism would seem to be 
 little favorable to perfect impartiality. The critic, 
 shrouded in his secret tribunal, too often demeans him- 
 self like a stern inquisitor, whose business is rather to 
 convict than to examine. Criticism is directed to scent 
 out blemishes instead of beauties. "Judex damnatur 
 cum nocens absolvitor" is the bloody motto of a well- 
 known British periodical, which, under this piratical 
 flag, has sent a broadside into many a gallant bark that 
 deserved better at its hands. 
 
 When we combine with all this the spirit of patriot- 
 ism, or, what passes for such with nine-tenths of the 
 world, the spirit of national vanity, we shall find 
 abundant motives for a deviation from a just, impartial 
 estimate of foreign literatures. And if we turn over 
 the pages of the best-conducted English journals, we 
 shall probably find ample evidence of the various 
 causes we have enumerated. We shall find, amid 
 abundance of shrewd and sarcastic observation, smart 
 skirmish of wit, and clever antithesis, a very small in- 
 fusion of sober, dispassionate criticism ; the criticism 
 founded on patient study and on strictly philosophical 
 principles ; the criticism on which one can safely rely 
 as the criterion of good taste, and which, however 
 tame it may appear to the jaded appetite of the liter- 
 ary lounger, is the only one that will attract the eye 
 of posterity. 
 
 l 21 
 
242 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The work named at the head of our article will, we 
 suspect, notwithstanding the author's brilliant reputa- 
 tion, never meet this same eye of posterity. Though 
 purporting to be, in its main design, an Essay on Eng- 
 lish Literature, it is, in fact, a multifarious compound 
 of as many ingredients as entered into the witches' 
 caldron, to say nothing of a gallery of portraits of 
 dead and living, among the latter of whom M. de 
 Chateaubriand himself is not the least conspicuous. 
 " I have treated of every thing," he says, truly enough, 
 in his preface, "the Present, the Past, the Future." 
 The parts are put together in the most grotesque and 
 disorderly manner, with some striking coincidences, 
 occasionally, of characters and situations, and some 
 facts not familiar to every reader. The most unpleas- 
 ant feature in the book is the doleful lamentation of the 
 author over the evil times on which he has fallen. He 
 has, indeed, lived somewhat beyond his time, which 
 was that of Charles the Tenth, of pious memory, — the 
 good old time of apostolicals and absolutists, which 
 will not be likely to revisit France again very soon. 
 Indeed, our unfortunate author reminds one of some 
 weather-beaten hulk which the tide has left high and 
 dry on the strand, and whose signals of distress are 
 little heeded by the rest of the convoy, which have 
 trimmed their sails more dexterously and sweep mer- 
 rily on before the breeze. The present work affords 
 glimpses, occasionally, of the author's happier style, 
 which has so often fascinated us in his earlier produc- 
 tions. On the whole, however, it will add little to 
 his reputation, nor, probably, much subtract from it. 
 When a man has sent forth a score or two of octavos 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 243 
 
 into the world, and as good as some of M. de Chateau- 
 briand's, he can bear up under a poor one now and 
 then. This is not the first indifferent work laid at his 
 door, and, as he promises to keep the field for some 
 time longer, it will probably not be the last. 
 
 We pass over the first half of the first volume, to 
 come to the Reformation, the point of departure, as 
 it were, for modern civilization. Our author's views in 
 relation to it, as we might anticipate, are not precisely 
 those we should entertain. 
 
 "In a religious point of view," he says, "the Ref- 
 ormation is leading insensibly to indifference, or the 
 complete absence of fai th : the reason is, that the 
 independence of the mind terminates in two gulfs, 
 doubt and incredulity. 
 
 "By a very natural reaction, the Reformation, at its 
 birth, rekindled the dying flame of Catholic fanati- 
 cism. It may thus be regarded as the indirect cause 
 of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the disturbances 
 of the League, the assassination of Henry the Fourth, 
 the murders in Ireland, and of the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, and the dragonnades" / — Vol. i. p. 
 
 193- 
 
 As to the tendency of the Reformation towards 
 
 doubt and incredulity, we know that free inquiry, con- 
 tinually presenting new views as the sphere of observa- 
 tion is enlarged, may unsettle old principles without 
 establishing any fixed ones in their place, or, in other 
 words, lead to skepticism ; but we doubt if this hap- 
 pens more frequently than under the opposite system, 
 inculcated by the Romish Church, which, by precluding 
 examination, excludes the only ground of rational be- 
 
244 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 lief. At all events, skepticism in the former case is 
 much more remediable than in the latter; since the 
 subject of it, by pursuing his inquiries, will, it is to 
 be hoped, as truth is mighty, arrive at last at a right 
 result ; while the Romanist, inhibited from such in- 
 quiry, has no remedy. The ingenious author of 
 " Doblado's Letters from Spain" has painted in the 
 most affecting colors the state of such a mind, which, 
 declining to take its creed at the bidding of another, 
 is lost in a labyrinth of doubt without a clue to guide 
 it. As to charging on the Reformation the various 
 enormities with which the above extract concludes, 
 the idea is certainly new. It is, in fact, making the 
 Protestants guilty of their own persecution, and Henry 
 the Fourth of his own assassination ; quite an original 
 view of the subject, which, as far as we know, has 
 hitherto escaped the attention of historians. 
 
 A few pages farther, and we find the following in- 
 formation respecting the state of Catholicism in our 
 own country : 
 
 "Maryland, a Catholic and very populous state, 
 made common cause with the others, and now most 
 of the Western States are Catholic. The progress of 
 this communion in the United States of America 
 exceeds belief. There it has been invigorated in its 
 evangelical aliment, popular liberty, while other com- 
 munions decline in profound indifference.'''' — Vol. i. 
 p. 201. 
 
 We were not aware of this state of things. We did 
 indeed know that the Roman Church had increased 
 much of late years, especially in the Valley of the 
 Mississippi ; but so have other communions, as the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 245 
 
 Methodist and Baptist, for example, the latter of which 
 comprehends five times as many disciples as the Ro- 
 man Catholic. As to the population of the latter in 
 the West, the whole number of Catholics in the Union 
 does not amount, probably, to three-fourths of the 
 number of inhabitants in the single Western State of 
 Ohio. The truth is, that in a country where there is 
 no established or favored sect, and where the clergy 
 depend on voluntary contribution for their support, 
 there must be constant efforts at proselytism, and a 
 mutation of religious opinion, according to the con- 
 victions, or fancied convictions, of the converts. What 
 one denomination gains another loses, till, roused in 
 its turn by its rival, new efforts are made to retrieve 
 its position, and the equilibrium is restored. In the 
 mean time, the population of the whole country goes 
 forward with giant strides, and each sect boasts, and 
 boasts with truth, of the hourly augmentation of its 
 numbers. Those of the Roman Catholics are swelled, 
 moreover, by a considerable addition from emigration, 
 many Of the poor foreigners, especially the Irish, being 
 of that persuasion. But this is no ground of triumph, 
 as it infers no increase to the sum of Catholicism, since 
 what is thus gained in the New World is lost in the Old. 
 
 Our author pronounces the Reformation hostile to 
 the arts, poetry, eloquence, elegant literature, and even 
 the spirit of military heroism. But hear his own words : 
 
 "The Reformation, imbued with the spirit of its 
 founder, declared itself hostile to the arts. It sacked 
 tombs, churches, and monuments, and made in France 
 and England heaps of ruins.". . . . 
 
 "The beautiful in literature will be found to exist 
 
 21* 
 
246 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 in a greater or less degree, in proportion as writers 
 have approximated to the genius of the Roman 
 Church." ... 
 
 " If the Reformation restricted genius in poetry, 
 eloquence, and the arts, it also checked heroism in 
 war, for heroism is imagination in the military order." 
 — Vol. i. pp. 194-207. 
 
 This is a sweeping denunciation, and, as far as the 
 arts of design are intended, may probably be defended. 
 The Romish worship, its stately ritual and gorgeous 
 ceremonies, the throng of numbers assisting, in one 
 form or another, at the service, all required spacious 
 and magnificent edifices, with the rich accessories of 
 sculpture and painting, and music also, to give full 
 effect to the spectacle. Never was there a religion 
 which addressed itself more directly to the senses. 
 And, fortunately for it, the immense power and rev- 
 enues of its ministers enabled them to meet its exorbi- 
 tant demands. On so splendid a theatre, and under 
 such patronage, the arts were called into life in modern 
 Europe, and most of all in that spot which represented 
 the capital of Christendom. It was there, amid the 
 pomp and luxury of religion, that those beautiful 
 structures rose, with those exquisite creations of the 
 chisel and the pencil, which embodied in themselves 
 all the elements of ideal beauty. 
 
 But, independently of these external circumstances, 
 the spirit of Catholicism was eminently favorable to 
 the artist. Shut out from free inquiry — from the 
 Scriptures themselves — and compelled to receive the 
 dogmas of his teachers upon trust, the road to con- 
 viction lay less through the understanding than the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 247 
 
 heart. The heart was to be moved, the affections and 
 sympathies to be stirred, as well as the senses to be 
 dazzled. This was the machinery by which alone 
 could an effectual devotion to the faith be maintained 
 in an ignorant people. It was not, therefore, Christ as 
 a teacher delivering lessons of practical wisdom and 
 morality that was brought before the eye, but Christ 
 filling the offices of human sympathy, ministering to 
 the poor and sorrowing, giving eyes to the blind, 
 health to the sick, and life to the dead. It was Christ 
 suffering under persecution, crowned with thorns, lacer- 
 ated with stripes, dying on the cross. These sorrows 
 and sufferings were understood by the dullest soul, and 
 told more than a thousand homilies. So with the 
 Virgin. It was not that sainted mother of the Saviour 
 whom Protestants venerate but do not worship ; it was 
 the Mother of God, and entitled, like him, £0 adora- 
 tion. It was a woman, and, as such, the object of 
 those romantic feelings which would profane the ser- 
 vice of the Deity, but which are not the less touching 
 as being in accordance with human sympathies. The 
 respect for the Virgin, indeed, partook of that which a 
 Catholic might feel for his tutelar saint and his mistress 
 combined. Orders of chivalry were dedicated to her 
 service ; and her shrine was piled with more offerings 
 and frequented by more pilgrimages than the altars of 
 the Deity himself. Thus, feelings of love, adoration, 
 and romantic honor, strangely blended, threw a halo 
 of poetic glory around their object, making it the most 
 exalted theme for the study of the artist. What wonder 
 that this subject should have called forth the noblest 
 inspirations of his genius? What wonder that an artist 
 
248 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 like Raphael should have found in the simple portraiture 
 of a woman and a child the materials for immortality ? 
 
 It was something like a kindred state of feeling which 
 called into being the arts of ancient Greece, when her 
 mythology was comparatively fresh, and faith was easy, 
 — when the legends of the past, familiar as Scripture 
 story at a later day, gave a real existence to the beings 
 of fancy, and the artist, embodying these in forms of 
 visible beauty, but finished the work which the poet had 
 begun. 
 
 The Reformation brought other trains of ideas, and 
 with them other influences on the arts, than those 
 of Catholicism. Its first movements were decidedly 
 hostile, since the works of art with which the temples 
 were adorned, being associated with the religion itself, 
 became odious as the symbols of idolatry. But the 
 spirit of the Reformation gave thought a new direction 
 even in the cultivation of art. It was no longer sought 
 to appeal to the senses by brilliant display, or to waken 
 the sensibilities by those superficial emotions which find 
 relief in tears. A sterner, deeper feeling was roused. 
 The mind was turned within, as it were, to ponder on 
 the import of existence and its future destinies ; for 
 the chains were withdrawn from the soul, and it was 
 permitted to wander at large in the regions of specula- 
 tion. Reason took the place of sentiment, — the useful 
 of the merely ornamental. Facts were substituted for 
 forms, even the ideal forms of beauty. There were to 
 be no more Michael Angelos and Raphaels ; no glorious 
 Gothic temples which consumed generations in their 
 building. The sublime and the beautiful were not the 
 first objects proposed by the artist. He sought truth, — 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 249 
 
 fidelity to nature. He studied the characters of his 
 species as well as the forms of imaginary perfection. 
 He portrayed life as developed in its thousand pecu- 
 liarities before his own eyes, and the ideal gave way to 
 the natural. In this way, new schools of painting, like 
 that of Hogarth, for example, arose, which, however 
 inferior in those great properties for which we must 
 admire the masterpieces of Italian art, had a signifi- 
 cance and philosophic depth which furnished quite as 
 much matter for study and meditation. 
 
 A similar tendency was observable in poetry, elo- 
 quence, and works of elegant literature. The influence 
 of the Reformation here was undoubtedly favorable, 
 whatever it may have been on the arts. How could it 
 be otherwise on literature, the written expression of 
 thought, in which no grace of visible forms and pro- 
 portions, no skill of mechanical execution, can cheat 
 the eye with the vain semblance of genius? But it was 
 not until the warm breath of the Reformation had dis- 
 solved the icy fetters which had so long held the spirit 
 of man in bondage that the genial current of the soul 
 was permitted to flow, that the gates of reason were 
 unbarred, and the mind was permitted to taste of the 
 tree of knowledge, forbidden tree no longer. Where 
 was the scope for eloquence when thought was stifled 
 in the very sanctuary of the heart ? for out of the ful- 
 ness of the heart the mouth speaketh. 
 
 There might, indeed, be an elaborate attention to 
 the outward forms of expression, an exquisite finish of 
 verbal arrangement, the dress and garniture of thought. 
 And, in fact, the Catholic nations have surpassed the 
 Protestant in attention to verbal elegance and the 
 
 L* 
 
250 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 soft music of numbers, to nice rhetorical artifice and 
 brilliancy of composition. The poetry of Italy and 
 the prose of France bear ample evidence how much 
 time and talent have been expended on this beauty of 
 outward form, the rich vehicle of thought. But where 
 shall we find the powerful reasoning, various knowl- 
 edge, and fearless energy of diction which stamp the 
 oratory of Protestant England and America ? In 
 France, indeed, where prose has received a higher 
 polish and classic elegance than in any other country, 
 pulpit eloquence has reached an uncommon degree of 
 excellence ; for, though much was excluded, the ave- 
 nues to the heart, as with the painter and the sculptor, 
 were still left open to the orator. If there has been a 
 deficiency in this respect in the English Church, which 
 all will not admit, it arises probably from the fact that 
 the mind, unrestricted, has been occupied with reason- 
 ing rather than rhetoric, and sought to clear away old 
 prejudices and establish new truths, instead of waken- 
 ing a transient sensibility or dazzling the imagination 
 with poetic flights of eloquence. That it is the fault 
 of the preacher, at all events, and not of Protestantism, 
 is shown by a striking example under our own eyes, 
 that of our distinguished countryman Dr. Channing, 
 whose style is irradiated with all the splendors of a 
 glowing imagination, showing, as powerfully as any 
 other example, probably, in English prose, of what 
 melody and compass the language is capable under the 
 touch of genius instinct with genuine enthusiasm. Not 
 that we would recommend this style, grand and beau- 
 tiful as it is, for imitation. We think we have seen the 
 ill effects of this already in more than one instance. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 251 
 
 In fact, no style should be held up as a model for imi- 
 tation. Dr. Johnson tells us, in one of those oracular 
 passages somewhat threadbare now, that " whoever 
 wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not 
 coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his 
 days and nights to the volumes of Addison." With 
 all deference to the great critic, who, by the formal 
 cut of the sentence just quoted, shows that he did not 
 care to follow his own prescription, we think other- 
 wise. Whoever would write a good English style, we 
 should say, should acquaint himself with the mysteries 
 of the language as revealed in the writings of the best 
 masters, but should form his own style on nobody but 
 himself. Every man, at least every man with a spark 
 of originality in his composition, has his own peculiar 
 way of thinking, and, to give it effect, it must find its 
 way out in its own peculiar language. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to separate language from thought in that 
 delicate blending of both which is called style; at 
 least, it is impossible to produce the same effect with 
 the original by any copy, however literal. We may 
 imitate the structure of a sentence, but the ideas which 
 gave it its peculiar propriety we cannot imitate. The 
 forms of expression that suit one man's train of think- 
 ing no more suit another's than one man's clothes will 
 suit another. They will be sure to be either too large 
 or too small, or, at all events, not to make what gen- 
 tlemen of the needle call a good fit. If the party 
 chances, as is generally the case, to be rather under 
 size, and the model is over size, this will only expose 
 his own littleness the more. There is no case more in 
 point than that afforded by Dr. Johnson himself. His 
 
252 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 brilliant style has been the ambition of every school- 
 boy, and of some children of larger growth, since the 
 days of the Rambler. But the nearer they come to it 
 the worse. The beautiful is turned into the fantastic, 
 and the sublime into the ridiculous. The most curious 
 example of this within our recollection is the case of 
 Dr. Symmons, the English editor of Milton's prose 
 writings, and the biographer of the poet. The little 
 doctor has maintained throughout his ponderous vol- 
 ume a most exact imitation of the great doctor, his 
 sesquipedalian words, and florid rotundity of period. 
 With all this cumbrous load of brave finery on his 
 back, swelled to twice his original dimensions, he 
 looks for all the world, as he is, like a mere bag of 
 wind, — a scarecrow, to admonish others of the folly 
 of similar depredations. 
 
 But to return. The influence of the Reformation on 
 elegant literature was never more visible than in the 
 first great English school of poets, which came soon 
 after it, at the close of the sixteenth century. The 
 writers of that period displayed a courage, originality, 
 and truth highly characteristic of the new revolution, 
 which had been introduced by breaking down the old 
 landmarks of opinion and giving unbounded range to 
 speculation and inquiry. The first great poet, Spenser, 
 adopted the same vehicle of imagination with the Ital- 
 ian bards of chivalry, the romantic epic ; but, instead 
 of making it, like them, a mere revel of fancy, with 
 no farther object than to delight the reader by bril- 
 liant combinations, he moralized his song, and gave it 
 a deeper and more solemn import by the mysteries of 
 Allegory, which, however prejudicial to its effect as a 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 53 
 
 work of art, showed a mind too intent on serious 
 thoughts and inquiries itself to be content with the 
 dazzling but impotent coruscations of genius, that 
 serve no other end than that of amusement. 
 
 In the same manner, Shakspeare and the other dra- 
 matic writers of the time, instead of adopting the formal 
 rules recognized afterwards by the French writers, their 
 long rhetorical flourishes, their exaggerated models of 
 character, and ideal forms, went freely and fearlessly 
 into all the varieties of human nature, the secret depths 
 of the soul, touching on all the diversified interests of 
 humanity, — for he might touch on all without fear of 
 persecution, — and thus making his productions a store- 
 house of philosophy, of lessons of practical wisdom, 
 deep, yet so clear that he who runs may read. 
 
 But the spirit of the Reformation did not descend 
 in all its fulness on the Muse till the appearance of 
 Milton. That great poet was in heart as thoroughly 
 a Reformer, and in doctrine much more thoroughly 
 so than Luther himself. Indignant at every effort to 
 crush the spirit, and to cheat it, in his own words, 
 "of that liberty which rarefies and enlightens it like 
 the influence of heaven," he proclaimed the rights 
 of man as a rational, immortal being, undismayed by 
 menace and obloquy, amid a generation of servile and 
 unprincipled sycophants. The blindness which ex- 
 cluded him from the things of earth opened to him 
 more glorious and spiritualized conceptions of heaven, 
 and aided him in exhibiting the full influence of those 
 sublime truths which the privilege of free inquiry in 
 religious matters had poured upon the mind. His 
 Muse was as eminently the child of Protestantism as 
 
 22 
 
254 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 that of Dante, who resembled him in so many traits of 
 character, was of Catholicism. The latter poet, com- 
 ing first among the moderns, after the fountains of the 
 great deep which had so long overwhelmed the world 
 were broken up, displayed in his wonderful composi- 
 tion all the elements of modern institutions as distin- 
 guished from those of antiquity. He first showed the 
 full and peculiar influence of Christianity on literature, 
 but it was Christianity under the form of Catholicism. 
 His subject, spiritual in its design, like Milton's, was 
 sustained by all the auxiliaries of a visible and mate- 
 rial existence. His passage through the infernal abyss 
 is a series of tragic pictures of human woe, suggesting 
 greater refinements of cruelty than were ever imagined 
 by a heathen poet. Amid all the various forms of 
 mortal anguish, we look in vain for the mind as a means 
 of torture. In like manner, in ascending the scale of 
 celestial being, we pass through a succession of bril- 
 liant fetes, made up of light, music, and motion, in- 
 creasing in splendor and velocity, till all are lost and 
 confounded in the glories of the Deity. Even the 
 pencil of the great master, dipped in these gorgeous 
 tints of imagination, does not shrink from the attempt 
 to portray the outlines of Deity itself. In this he 
 aspired to what many of his countrymen in the sister 
 arts of design have since attempted, and, like him, 
 have failed ; for who can hope to give form to the In- 
 finite? In the same false style Dante personifies the 
 spirits of evil, including Satan himself. Much was 
 doubtless owing to the age, though much, also, must 
 be referred to the genius of Catholicism, which, ap- 
 pealing to the senses, has a tendency to materialize the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 255 
 
 spiritual, as Protestantism, with deeper reflection, aims 
 to spiritualize the material. Thus Milton, in treading 
 similar ground, borrows his illustrations from intel- 
 lectual sources, conveys the image of the Almighty by 
 his attributes, and, in the frequent portraiture which 
 he introduces of Satan, suggests only vague concep- 
 tions of form, the faint outlines of matter, as it were, 
 stretching vast over many a rood, but towering sub- 
 lime by the unconquerable energy of will, — the fit 
 representative of the principle of evil. Indeed, Milton 
 has scarcely any thing of what may be called scenic 
 decorations to produce a certain stage effect. His 
 actors are few, and his action nothing. It is only by 
 their intellectual and moral relations — by giving full 
 scope to the 
 
 " Cherub Contemplation — 
 He that soars on golden wing, 
 Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne," 
 
 that he has prepared for us visions of celestial beauty 
 and grandeur which never fade from our souls. 
 
 In the dialogue with which the two poets have sea- 
 soned their poems, we see the action of the oppo- 
 site influences we have described. Both give vent to 
 metaphysical disquisition, of learned sound, and much 
 greater length than the reader would desire ; but in 
 Milton it is the free discussion of a mind trained to 
 wrestle boldly on abstrusest points of metaphysical 
 theology, while Dante follows in the same old barren 
 footsteps which had been trodden by the schoolmen. 
 Both writers were singularly bold and independent. 
 Dante asserted that liberty which should belong to 
 the citizen of every free state, — that civil liberty 
 
256 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 which had been sacrificed in his own country by 
 the spirit of faction. But Milton claimed a higher 
 freedom, — a freedom of thinking and of giving utter- 
 ance to thought, uncontrolled by human authority. 
 He had fallen on evil times ; but he had a generous 
 confidence that his voice would reach to posterity and 
 would be a guide and a light to the coming genera- 
 tions. And truly has it proved so ; for in his writings 
 we find the germs of many of the boasted discoveries 
 of our own day in government and education, so that 
 he may be fairly considered as the morning star of that 
 higher civilization which distinguishes our happier era. 
 Milton's poetical writings do not seem, however, to 
 have been held in that neglect by his contemporaries 
 which is commonly supposed. He had attracted too 
 much attention as a political controversialist, was too 
 much feared for his talents, as well as hated for his 
 principles, to allow any thing which fell from his pen 
 to pass unnoticed. Although the profits went to others, 
 he lived to see a second edition of " Paradise Lost," 
 and this was more than was to have been fairly antici- 
 pated of a composition of this nature, however well 
 executed, falling on such times. Indeed, its sale was 
 no evidence that its merits were comprehended, and 
 may be referred to the general reputation of its au- 
 thor ; for we find so accomplished a critic as Sir Wil- 
 liam Temple, some years later, omitting the name of 
 Milton in his roll of writers who have done honor to 
 modern literature, a circumstance which may perhaps 
 be imputed to that reverence for the ancients which 
 blinded Sir William to the merits of their successors. 
 How could Milton be understood in his own genera- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 257 
 
 tion, in the grovelling, sensual court of Charles the 
 Second ? How could the dull eyes so long fastened on 
 the earth endure the blaze of his inspired genius? It 
 was not till time had removed him to a distance that 
 he could be calmly gazed on and his merits fairly con- 
 templated. Addison, as is well known, was the first to 
 bring them into popular view, by a beautiful specimen 
 of criticism that has permanently connected his name 
 with that of his illustrious subject. More than half a 
 century later, another great name in English criticism, 
 perhaps the greatest in general reputation, Johnson, 
 passed sentence of a very different kind on the preten- 
 sions of the poet. A production more discreditable 
 to the author is not to be found in the whole of his 
 voluminous works, — equally discreditable whether re- 
 garded in an historical light or as a sample of literary 
 criticism. What shall we say of the biographer who, 
 in allusion to that affecting passage where the blind old 
 bard talks of himself as "in darkness, and with dangers 
 compass' d round," can coolly remark that "this dark- 
 ness, had his eyes been better employed, might un- 
 doubtedly have deserved compassion"? Or what of 
 the critic who can say of the most exquisite effusion of 
 Doric minstrelsy that our language boasts, " Surely no 
 man could have fancied that he read 'Lycidas' with 
 pleasure, had he not known the author;" and of " Par- 
 adise Lost" itself, that "its perusal is a duty rather 
 than a pleasure' ' ? Could a more exact measure be 
 afforded than by this single line of the poetic sensi- 
 bility of the critic, and his unsuitableness for the office 
 he had here assumed? His "Life of Milton" is a 
 humiliating testimony of the power of political and 
 
 22' 
 
258 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 religious prejudices to warp a great and good mind 
 from the standard of truth, in the estimation not 
 merely of contemporary excellence, but of the great 
 of other years, over whose frailties Time might be 
 supposed to have drawn his friendly mantle. 
 
 Another half-century has elapsed, and ample justice 
 has been rendered to the fame of the poet by two 
 elaborate criticisms : the one in the Edinburgh Re- 
 view, from the pen of Mr. Macaulay; the other by 
 Dr. Channing, in the u Christian Examiner," since 
 republished in his own works ; remarkable perform- 
 ances, each in the manner highly characteristic of its 
 author, and which have contributed, doubtless, to draw 
 attention to the prose compositions of their subject, 
 as the criticism of Addison did to his poetry. There 
 is something gratifying in the circumstance that this 
 great advocate of intellectual liberty should have found 
 his most able and eloquent expositor among us, whose 
 position qualifies us in a peculiar manner for profiting 
 by the rich legacy of his genius. It was but discharging 
 a debt of gratitude. 
 
 Chateaubriand has much to say about Milton, for 
 whose writings, both prose and poetry, notwithstanding 
 the difference of their sentiments on almost all points 
 of politics and religion, he appears to entertain the 
 most sincere reverence. His criticisms are liberal and 
 just ; they show a thorough study of his author ; but 
 neither the historical facts nor the reflections will 
 suggest much that is new on a subject now become 
 trite to the English reader. 
 
 We may pass over a good deal of skimble-skamble 
 stuff about men and things, which our author may have 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 59 
 
 cut out of his commonplace-book, to come to his 
 remarks on Sir Walter Scott, whom he does not rate 
 so highly as most critics. 
 
 "The illustrious painter of Scotland," he says, 
 "seems to me to have created a false class; he has, 
 in my opinion, confounded history and romance. 
 The novelist has set about writing historical romances, 
 and the historian romantic histories." — Vol. ii. p. 306. 
 
 We should have said, on the contrary, that he had 
 improved the character of both ; that he had given 
 new value to romance by building it on history, and 
 new charms to history by embellishing it with the 
 graces of romance. 
 
 To be more explicit. The principal historical work 
 of Scott is the "Life of Napoleon." It has, unques- 
 tionably, many of the faults incident to a dashing style 
 of composition, which precluded the possibility of 
 compression and arrangement in the best form of 
 which the subject was capable. This, in the end, may 
 be fatal to the perpetuity of the work, for posterity 
 will be much less patient than our own age. He will 
 have a much heavier load to carry, inasmuch as he is 
 to bear up under all of his own time, and ours too. It 
 is very certain, then, some must go by the board ; and 
 nine sturdy volumes, which is the amount of Sir Wal- 
 ter's English edition, will be somewhat alarming. Had 
 he confined himself to half the quantity, there would 
 have been no ground for distrust. Every day, nay, 
 hour, we see, ay, and feel, the ill effects of this rapid 
 style of composition, so usual with the best writers of 
 our day. The immediate profits which such writers 
 are pretty sure to get, notwithstanding the example of 
 
260 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 M. Chateaubriand, operate like the dressing improv- 
 idently laid on a naturally good soil, forcing out 
 noxious weeds in such luxuriance as to check, if not 
 absolutely to kill, the more healthful vegetation. 
 Quantities of trivial detail find their way into the 
 page, mixed up with graver matters. Instead of that 
 skilful preparation by which all the avenues verge at 
 last to one point, so as to leave a distinct impression — 
 an impression of unity — on the reader, he is hurried 
 along zigzag, in a thousand directions, or round and 
 round, but never, in the cant of the times, "going 
 ahead" an inch. He leaves off pretty much where he 
 set out, except that his memory may be tolerably well 
 stuffed with facts, which, from want of some principle 
 of cohesion, will soon drop out of it. He will find 
 himself like a traveller who has been riding through a 
 fine country, it may be, by moonlight, getting glimpses 
 of every thing, but no complete, well-illuminated view 
 of the whole (" quale per incertam lunam" etc.), or, 
 rather, like the same traveller whizzing along in a 
 locomotive so rapidly as to get even a glimpse fairly 
 of nothing, instead of making his tour in such a 
 manner as would enable him to pause at what was 
 worth his attention, to pass by night over the barren 
 and uninteresting, and occasionally to rise to such 
 elevations as would afford the best points of view for 
 commanding the various prospect. 
 
 The romance-writer labors under no such embarrass- 
 ments. He may, undoubtedly, precipitate his work, 
 so that it may lack proportion, and the nice arrange- 
 ment required by the rules which, fifty years ago, would 
 have condemned it as a work of art. But the criticism 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 261 
 
 of the present day is not so squeamish, or, to say truth, 
 pedantic. It is enough for the writer of fiction if 
 he give pleasure; and this, everybody knows, is not 
 effected by the strict observance of artificial rules. It 
 is of little consequence how the plot is entangled, or 
 whether it be untied or cut in order to extricate the 
 dra?natis persona. At least, it is of little consequence 
 compared with the true delineation of character. The 
 story is serviceable only as it affords a means for the 
 display of this; and if the novelist but keep up the 
 interest of his story and the truth of his characters, we 
 easily forgive any dislocations which his light vehicle 
 may encounter from too heedless motion. Indeed, 
 rapidity of motion may in some sort favor him, keep- 
 ing up the glow of his invention, and striking out, as 
 he dashes along, sparks of wit and fancy, that give a 
 brilliant illumination to his track. But in history there 
 must be another kind of process, — a process at once 
 slow and laborious. Old parchments are to be ran- 
 sacked, charters and musty records to be deciphered, 
 and stupid, worm-eaten chroniclers, who had much 
 more of passion, frequently, to blind, than good sense 
 to guide them, must be sifted and compared. In short, 
 a sort of Medea-like process is to be gone through, 
 and many an old bone is to be boiled over in the 
 caldron before it can come out again clothed in the 
 elements of beauty. The dreams of the novelist, — 
 the poet of prose, — on the other hand, are beyond the 
 reach of art, and the magician calls up the most 
 brilliant forms of fancy by a single stroke of his wand. 
 Scott, in his History, was relieved in some degree 
 from this necessity of studious research by borrowing 
 
262 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 his theme from contemporary events. It was his duty, 
 indeed, to examine evidence carefully and sift out con- 
 tradictions and errors. This demanded shrewdness and 
 caution, but not much previous preparation and study. 
 It demanded, above all, candor ; for it was his busi- 
 ness not to make out a case for a client, but to weigh 
 both sides, like an impartial judge, before summing up 
 the evidence and delivering his conscientious opinion. 
 We believe there is no good ground for charging Scott 
 with having swerved from this part of his duty. Those 
 who expected to see him deify his hero and raise altars 
 to his memory were disappointed ; and so were those, 
 also, who demanded that the tail and cloven hoof 
 should be made to peep out beneath the imperial robe. 
 But this proves his impartiality. It would be unfair, 
 however, to require the degree of impartiality which is 
 to be expected from one removed to a distance from 
 the theatre of strife, from those national interests and 
 feelings which are so often the disturbing causes of 
 historic fairness. An American, no doubt, would have 
 been in this respect in a more favorable point of view 
 for contemplating the European drama. The ocean, 
 stretched between us and the Old World, has the effect 
 of time, and extinguishes, or, at least, cools, the hot 
 and angry feelings which find their way into every 
 man's bosom within the atmosphere of the contest. 
 Scott was a Briton, with all the peculiarities of one, — 
 at least of a North Briton ; and the future historian 
 who gathers materials from his labors will throw these 
 national predilections into the scale in determining the 
 probable accuracy of his statements. These are not 
 greater than might occur to any man, and allowance 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 263 
 
 will always be made for them, on the ground of a gen- 
 eral presumption ; so that a greater degree of impar- 
 tiality, by leading to false conclusions in this respect, 
 would scarcely have served the cause of truth better 
 with posterity. An individual who felt his reputation 
 compromised may have joined issue on this or that 
 charge of inaccuracy; but no such charge has come 
 from any of the leading journals in the country, which 
 would not have been slow to expose it, and which 
 would not, considering the great popularity and, con- 
 sequently, influence of the work, have omitted, as they 
 did, to notice it at all, had it afforded any obvious 
 ground of exception on this score. Where, then, is 
 the romance which our author accuses Sir Walter of 
 blending with history? 
 
 Scott was, in truth, master of the picturesque. He 
 understood, better than any historian since the time 
 of Livy, how to dispose his lights and shades so as to 
 produce the most striking result. This property of 
 romance he had a right to borrow. This talent is par- 
 ticularly observable in the animated parts of his story, 
 — in his battles, for example. No man ever painted 
 those terrible scenes with greater effect. He had a 
 natural relish for gunpowder; and his mettle roused, 
 like that of the war-horse, at the sound of the trumpet. 
 His acquaintance with military science enabled him to 
 employ a technical phraseology, just technical enough 
 to give a knowing air to his descriptions, without em- 
 barrassing the reader by a pedantic display of unintel- 
 ligible jargon. This is a talent rare in a civilian. 
 Nothing can be finer than many of his battle-pieces 
 in his "Life of Bonaparte," unless, indeed, we except 
 
264 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 one or two in his "History of Scotland," as the fight 
 of Bannockburn, for example, in which Burns' s "Scots, 
 wha hae" seems to breathe in every line. 
 
 It is when treading on Scottish ground that he 
 seems to feel all his strength. "I seem always to 
 step more firmly," he said to some one, "when on 
 my own native heather." His mind was steeped 
 in Scottish lore, and his bosom warmed with a sym- 
 pathetic glow for the age of chivalry. Accordingly, 
 his delineations of this period, whether in history 
 or romance, are unrivalled ; as superior in effect to 
 those of most compilers as the richly-stained glass of 
 the feudal ages is superior in beauty and brilliancy of 
 tints to a modern imitation. If this be borrowing 
 something from romance, it is, we repeat, no more 
 than what is lawful for the historian, and explains 
 the meaning of our assertion that he has improved 
 history by the embellishments of fiction. 
 
 Yet, after all, how wide the difference between the 
 province of history and of romance, under Scott's own 
 hands, may be shown by comparing his account of 
 Mary's reign in his "History of Scotland" with the 
 same period in the novel of "The Abbot." The his- 
 torian must keep the beaten track of events. The 
 novelist launches into the illimitable regions of fiction, 
 provided only that his historic portraits be true to their 
 originals. By due attention to this, fiction is made to 
 minister to history, and may, in point of fact, contain 
 as much real truth, — truth of character, though not of 
 situation. "The difference between the historian and 
 me," says Fielding, "is that with him every thing is 
 false but the names and dates, while with me nothing 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 265 
 
 is false but these." There is, at least, as much truth 
 in this as in most witticisms. 
 
 It is the great glory of Scott that, by nice attention 
 to costume and character in his novels, he has raised 
 them to historic importance without impairing their 
 interest as works of art. Who now would imagine that 
 he could form a satisfactory notion of the golden days 
 of Queen Bess that had not read " Kenilworth" ? or 
 of Richard Cceur-de-Lion and his brave paladins that 
 had not read "Ivanhoe"? Why, then, it has been 
 said, not at once incorporate into regular history all 
 these traits which give such historical value to the 
 novel ? Because in this way the strict truth which 
 history requires would be violated. This cannot be. 
 The fact is, History and Romance are too near akin 
 ever to be lawfully united. By mingling them to- 
 gether, a confusion is produced, like the mingling of 
 day and night, mystifying and distorting every feature 
 of the landscape. It is enough for the novelist if he 
 be true to the spirit; the historian must be true also to 
 the letter. He cannot coin pertinent remarks and 
 anecdotes to illustrate the characters of his drama. 
 He cannot even provide them with suitable costumes. 
 He must take just what Father Time has given him, 
 just what he finds in the records of the age, setting 
 down neither more nor less. Now, the dull chroniclers 
 of the old time rarely thought of putting down the 
 smart sayings of the great people they biographize, 
 still less of entering into minute circumstances of 
 personal interest. These were too familiar to contem- 
 poraries to require it, and therefore they waste their 
 breath on more solemn matters of state, all important 
 m 23 
 
266 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 in their generation, but not worth a rush in the pres- 
 ent. What would the historian not give could he 
 borrow those fine touches of nature with which the 
 novelist illustrates the characters of his actors, — natu- 
 ral touches, indeed, but, in truth, just as artificial as 
 any other part, — all coined in the imagination of the 
 writer ! There is the same difference between his occu- 
 pation and that of the novelist that there is between 
 the historical and the portrait painter. The former 
 necessarily takes some great subject, with great person- 
 ages, all strutting about in gorgeous state attire and air 
 of solemn tragedy, while his brother artist insinuates 
 himself into the family groups, and picks out natural, 
 familiar scenes and faces, laughing or weeping, but in 
 the charming undress of nature. What wonder that 
 novel-reading should be so much more amusing than 
 history? 
 
 But we have already trespassed too freely on the 
 patience of our readers, who will think the rambling 
 spirit of our author contagious. Before dismissing 
 him, however, we will give a taste of his quality by 
 one or two extracts, not very germane to English 
 literature, but about as much so as a great part of the 
 work. The first is a poetical sally on Bonaparte's 
 burial-place, quite in Monsieur Chateaubriand's pecu- 
 liar vein : 
 
 '-'The solitude of Napoleon, in his exile and his 
 tomb, has thrown another kind of spell over a brilliant 
 memory. Alexander did not die in sight of Greece ; 
 he disappeared amid the pomp of distant Babylon. 
 Bonaparte did not close his eyes in the presence of 
 France ; he passed away in the gorgeous horizon of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 267 
 
 torrid zone. The man who had shown himself in such 
 powerful reality vanished like a dream ; his life, which 
 belonged to history, co-operated in the poetry of his 
 death. He now sleeps forever, like a hermit or a 
 paria, beneath a willow, in a narrow valley, surrounded 
 by steep rocks, at the extremity of a lonely path. The 
 depth of the silence which presses upon him can only 
 be compared to the vastness of that tumult which had 
 surrounded him. Nations are absent ; their throng has 
 retired. The bird of the tropics, harnessed to the car 
 of the sun, as Buffon magnificently expresses it, speed- 
 ing his flight downward from the planet of light, rests 
 alone, for a moment, over the ashes the weight of which 
 has shaken the equilibrium of the globe. 
 
 "Bonaparte crossed the ocean to repair to his final 
 exile, regardless of that beautiful sky which delighted 
 Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Camoens. Stretched 
 upon the ship's stern, he perceived not that unknown 
 constellations were sparkling over his head. His power- 
 ful glance, for the first time, encountered their rays. 
 What to him were stars which he had never seen from 
 his bivouacs and which had never shone over his 
 empire? Nevertheless, not one of them has failed to 
 fulfil its destiny : one half of the firmament spread its 
 light over his cradle, the other half was reserved to 
 illuminate his tomb." — Vol. ii. pp. 185, 186. 
 
 The next extract relates to the British statesman, 
 William Pitt : 
 
 " Pitt, tall and slender, had an air at once melancholy 
 and sarcastic. His delivery was cold, his intonation 
 monotonous, his action scarcely perceptible. At the 
 same time, the lucidness and the fluency of his thoughts, 
 
268 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the logic of his arguments, suddenly irradiated with 
 flashes of eloquence, rendered his talents something 
 above the ordinary line. 
 
 "I frequently saw Pitt walking across St. James's 
 Park from his own house to the palace. On his part, 
 George the Third arrived from Windsor, after drinking 
 beer out of a pewter pot with the farmers of the neigh- 
 borhood ; he drove through the mean courts of his 
 mean habitation in a gray chariot, followed by a few 
 of the horse-guards. This was the master of the kings 
 of Europe, as five or six merchants of the city are the 
 masters of India. Pitt, dressed in black, with a steel- 
 hilted sword by his side, and his hat under his arm, 
 ascended, taking two or three steps at a time. In his 
 passage he only met with three or four emigrants, who 
 had nothing to do. Casting on us a disdainful look, 
 he turned up his nose and his pale face, and passed on. 
 
 " At home, this great financier kept no sort of order; 
 he had no regular hours for his meals or for sleep. Over 
 head and ears in debt, he paid nobody, and never could 
 take the trouble to cast up a bill. A valet de chambre 
 managed his house. Ill dressed, without pleasure, with- 
 out passion, greedy of power, he despised honors, and 
 would not be any thing more than William Pitt. 
 
 "In the month of June, 1822, Lord Liverpool took 
 me to dine at his country-house. As we crossed 
 Putney Heath, he showed me the small house where 
 the son of Lord Chatham, the statesman who had had 
 Europe in his pay and distributed with his own hand 
 all the treasures of the world, died in poverty." — Vol. 
 ii. pp. 277, 278. 
 
 The following extracts show the changes that have 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 269 
 
 taken place in English manners and society, and may 
 afford the "whiskered pandour" of our own day an 
 opportunity of contrasting his style of dandyism with 
 that of the preceding generation : 
 
 "Separated from the Continent by a long war, the 
 English retained their manners and their national char- 
 acter till the end of the last century. All was not 
 yet machine in the working classes, folly in the upper 
 classes. On the same pavements where you now meet 
 squalid figures and men in frock-coats, you were passed 
 by young girls with white tippets, straw hats tied under 
 the chin with a riband, with a basket on the arm, in 
 which was fruit or a book: all kept their eyes cast 
 down ; all blushed when one looked at them. Frock- 
 coats, without any other, were so unusual in London in 
 1793 that a woman, deploring with tears the death of 
 Louis the Sixteenth, said to me, ' But, my dear sir, is 
 it true that the poor king was dressed in a frock-coat 
 when they cut off his head ?' 
 
 "The gentlemen -farmers had not yet sold their 
 patrimony to take up their residence in London ; 
 they still formed, in the House of Commons, that 
 independent fraction which, transferring their support 
 from the opposition to the ministerial side, upheld the 
 ideas of order and propriety. They hunted the fox 
 and shot pheasants in autumn, ate fat goose at Michael- 
 mas, greeted the sirloin with shouts of ' Roast beef 
 forever!' complained of the present, extolled the past, 
 cursed Pitt and the war, which doubled the price of 
 port wine, and went to bed drunk, to begin the same life 
 again on the following day. They felt quite sure that 
 the glory of Great Britain would not perish so long as 
 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ' God save the King' was sung, the rotten boroughs 
 maintained, the game-laws enforced, and hares and 
 partridges could be sold by stealth at market, under 
 the names of lions and ostriches." — Vol. ii. pp. 279, 
 280. 
 
 " In 1822, at the time of my embassy to London, the 
 fashionable was expected to exhibit, at the first glance, 
 an unhappy and unhealthy man ; to have an air of 
 negligence about his person, long nails, a beard neither 
 entire nor shaven, but as if grown for a moment un- 
 awares, and forgotten during the preoccupations of 
 wretchedness ; hair in disorder ; a sublime, mild, 
 wicked eye ; lips compressed in disdain of human 
 nature; a Byronian heart, overwhelmed with weariness 
 and disgust of life. 
 
 " The dandy of the present day must have a conquer- 
 ing, frivolous, Insolent look. He must pay particular 
 attention to his toilet, wear mustaches, or a beard 
 trimmed into a circle like Queen Elizabeth's ruff, or 
 like the radiant disc of the sun. He shows the proud 
 independence of his character by keeping his hat upon 
 his head, by lolling upon sofas, by thrusting his boots 
 into the faces of the ladies seated in admiration upon 
 chairs before him. He rides with a cane, which he 
 carries like a taper, regardless of the horse, which he 
 bestrides, as it were, by accident. His health must be 
 perfect, and he must always have five or six felicities 
 upon his hands. Some radical' dandies, who have 
 advanced the farthest towards the future, have a pipe. 
 But, no doubt, all this has changed, even during the 
 time that I have taken to describe it." — Vol. ii. pp. 
 3°3> 3°4- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 271 
 
 The avowed purpose of the present work, singular as 
 it may seem from the above extracts, is to serve as an 
 introduction to a meditated translation of Milton into 
 French, since wholly, or in part, completed by M. 
 Chateaubriand, who thinks, truly enough, that Milton's 
 "poetical ideas make him a man of our own epoch." 
 When an exile in England, in his early life, during the 
 troubles of the Revolution, our author earned an hon- 
 orable subsistence by translating some of Milton's 
 verses ; and he now proposes to render the bard and 
 himself the same kind office by his labors on a more 
 extended scale. Thus he concludes: "I again seat 
 myself at the table of my poet. He will have nour- 
 ished me in my youth and my old age. It is nobler 
 and safer to have recourse to glory than to power." 
 Our author's situation is an indifferent commentary on 
 the value of literary fame, at least on its pecuniary 
 value. No man has had more of it in his day. No 
 man has been more alert to make the most of it by 
 frequent, reiterated appearance before the public, — 
 whether in full dress or dishabille, yet always before 
 them; and now, in the decline of life, we find him 
 obtaining a scanty support by " French translation and 
 Italian song." We heartily hope that the bard of 
 " Paradise Lost" will do better for his translator than 
 he did for himself, and that M. de Chateaubriand will 
 put more than five pounds in his pocket by his literary 
 labor. 
 
BANCROFT'S UNITED STATES.* 
 
 (January, 184 1.) 
 The celebrated line of Bishop Berkeley, 
 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way," 
 
 is too gratifying to national vanity not to be often 
 quoted (though not always quoted right) ; and if we 
 look on it in the nature of a prediction, the comple- 
 tion of it not being limited to any particular time, it 
 will not be easy to disprove it. Had the bishop sub- 
 stituted "freedom" for "empire," it would be already 
 fully justified by experience. It is curious to observe 
 how steadily the progress of freedom, civil and re- 
 ligious, — of the enjoyment of those rights which may 
 be called the natural rights of humanity, — has gone on 
 from east to west, and how precisely the more or less 
 liberal character of the social institutions of a country 
 may be determined by its geographical position, as 
 falling within the limits of one of the three quarters 
 of the globe occupied wholly or in part by members 
 of the great Caucasian family. 
 
 Thus, in Asia we find only far-extended despotisms, 
 in which but two relations are recognized, those of 
 
 * " History of the United States from the Discovery of the Amer- 
 ican Continent. By George Bancroft." Vol. iii. Boston: Charles 
 C. Little and James Brown. 8vo, pp. 468. 
 (272) 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 273 
 
 master and slave : a solitary master, and a nation of 
 slaves. No constitution exists there to limit his au- 
 thority; no intermediate body to counterbalance, or, 
 at least, shield the people from its exercise. The 
 people have no political existence. The monarch is 
 literally the state. The religion of such countries is 
 of the same complexion with their government. The 
 free spirit of Christianity, quickening and elevating 
 the soul by the consciousness of its glorious destiny, 
 made few proselytes there; but Mohammedanism, with 
 its doctrines of blind fatality, found ready favor with 
 those who had already surrendered their wills — their 
 responsibility — to an earthly master. In such coun- 
 tries, of course, there has been little progress in sci- 
 ence. Ornamental arts, and even the literature of 
 imagination, have been cultivated with various suc- 
 cess ; but little has been done in those pursuits which 
 depend on freedom of inquiry and are connected with 
 the best interests of humanity. The few monuments 
 of an architectural kind that strike the traveller's eye 
 are the cold memorials of pomp and selfish vanity, not 
 those of public spirit, directed to enlarge the resources 
 and civilization of an empire. 
 
 As we cross the boundaries into Europe, among 
 the people of the same primitive stock and under the 
 same parallels, we may imagine ourselves transplanted 
 to another planet. Man no longer grovels in the dust 
 beneath a master's frown. He walks erect, as lord of 
 the creation, his eyes raised to that heaven to which 
 his destinies call him. He is a free agent, — thinks, 
 speaks, acts for himself; enjoys the fruits of his own 
 industry ; follows the career suited to his own genius 
 
 M* 
 
274 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and taste ; explores fearlessly the secrets of time and 
 nature ; lives under laws which he has assisted in 
 framing; demands justice as his right when those laws 
 are invaded. In his freedom of speculation and action 
 he has devised various forms of government. In most 
 of them the monarchical principle is recognized ; but 
 the power of the monarch is limited by written or 
 customary rules. The people at large enter more or 
 less into the exercise of government; and a numerous 
 aristocracy, interposed between them and the crown, 
 secures them from the oppression of Eastern tyranny, 
 while this body itself is so far an improvement in the 
 social organization that the power, instead of being 
 concentrated in a single person, — plaintiff, judge, and 
 executioner, — is distributed among a large number of 
 different individuals and interests. This is a great ad- 
 vance, in itself, towards popular freedom. 
 
 The tendency, almost universal, is to advance still 
 farther. It is this war of opinion — this contest be- 
 tween light and darkness, now going forward in most 
 of the countries of Europe — which furnishes the point 
 of view from which their history is to be studied in 
 the present, and, it may be, the following centuries ; 
 for revolutions in society, when founded on opinion, 
 — the only stable foundation, the only foundation at 
 which the friend of humanity does not shudder, — must 
 be the slow work of time; and who would wish the 
 good cause to be so precipitated that, in eradicating 
 the old abuses which have interwoven themselves with 
 every stone and pillar of the building, the noble build- 
 ing itself, which has so long afforded security to its 
 inmates, should be laid in ruins? What is the best, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 275 
 
 what the worst form of government, in the abstract, 
 may be matter of debate ; but there can be no doubt 
 that the best will become the worst to a people who 
 blindly rush into it without the preliminary training 
 for comprehending and conducting it. Such transi- 
 tions must, at least, cost the sacrifice of generations ; 
 and the patriotism must be singularly pure and abstract 
 which, at such cost, would purchase the possible, or 
 even probable, good of a remote posterity. Various 
 have been the efforts in the Old World at popular 
 forms of government, but, from some cause or other, 
 they have failed ; and however time, a wider inter- 
 course, a greater familiarity with the practical duties 
 of representation, and, not least of all, our own aus- 
 picious example, may prepare the European mind for 
 the possession of republican freedom, it is very certain 
 that, at the present moment, Europe is not the place 
 for republics. 
 
 The true soil for these is our own continent, the 
 New World, the last of the three great geographical 
 divisions of which we have spoken. This is the spot 
 on which the beautiful theories of the European phi- 
 losopher — who had risen to the full freedom of specu- 
 lation, while action was controlled — have been reduced 
 to practice. The atmosphere here seems as fatal to 
 the arbitrary institutions of the Old World as that has 
 been to the democratic forms of our own. It seems 
 scarcely possible that any other organization than these 
 latter should exist here. In three centuries from the 
 discovery of the country, the various races by which it 
 is tenanted, some of them from the least liberal of the 
 European monarchies, have, with few exceptions, come 
 
276 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 into the adoption of institutions of a republican char- 
 acter. Toleration, civil and religious, has been pro- 
 claimed, and enjoyed to an extent unknown since the 
 world began, throughout the wide borders of this vast 
 continent. Alas for those portions which have assumed 
 the exercise of these rights without fully comprehend- 
 ing their import, — who have been intoxicated with the 
 fumes of freedom instead of drawing nourishment from 
 its living principle ! 
 
 It was a fortunate, or, to speak more properly, a 
 providential thing that the discovery of the New World 
 was postponed to the precise period when it occurred. 
 Had it taken place at an earlier time, — during the 
 flourishing period of the feudal ages, for example, — 
 the old institutions of Europe, with their hallowed 
 abuses, might have been ingrafted on this new stock, 
 and, instead of the fruit of the tree of life, we should 
 have furnished only varieties of a kind already far ex- 
 hausted and hastening to decay. But, happily, some 
 important discoveries in science, and, above all, the 
 glorious Reformation, gave an electric shock to the 
 intellect, long benumbed under the influence of a 
 tyrannical priesthood. It taught men to distrust au- 
 thority, to trace effects back to their causes, to search 
 for themselves, and to take no guide but the reason 
 which God had given them. It taught them to claim 
 the right of free inquiry as their inalienable birthright, 
 and, with free inquiry, freedom of action. The six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries were the period of 
 the mighty struggle between the conflicting elements 
 of religion, as the eighteenth and nineteenth have been 
 that of the great contest for civil liberty. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 277 
 
 It was in the midst of this universal ferment, and in 
 consequence of it, that these shores were first peopled 
 by our Puritan ancestors. Here they found a world 
 where they might verify the value of those theories 
 which had been derided as visionary or denounced as 
 dangerous in their own land. All around was free, — 
 free as nature herself: the mighty streams rolling on 
 in their majesty, as they had continued to roll from 
 the creation ; the forests, which no hand had violated, 
 flourishing in primeval grandeur and beauty; their 
 only tenants the wild animals, or the Indians nearly 
 as wild, scarcely held together by any tie of social 
 polity. Nowhere was the trace of civilized man or of 
 his curious contrivances. Here was no Star Chamber 
 nor Court of High Commission; no racks, nor jails, 
 nor gibbets ; no feudal tyrant to grind the poor man 
 to the dust on which he toiled ; no Inquisition, to 
 pierce into the thought, and to make thought a crime. 
 The only eye that was upon them was the eye of 
 Heaven. 
 
 True, indeed, in the first heats of suffering enthu- 
 siasm they did not extend that charity to others which 
 they claimed for themselves. It was a blot on their 
 characters, but one which they share in common with 
 most reformers. The zeal requisite for great revolu- 
 tions, whether in church or state, is rarely attended by 
 charity for difference of opinion. Those who are will- 
 ing to do and to suffer bravely for their own doctrines 
 attach a value to them which makes them impatient of 
 opposition from others. The martyr for conscience' 
 sake cannot comprehend the necessity of leniency to 
 those who denounce those truths for which he is pre- 
 
 24 
 
278 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 pared to lay down his own life. If he set so little 
 value on his own life, is it natural he should set more 
 on that of others? The Dominican, who dragged his 
 victims to the fires of the Inquisition in Spain, freely 
 gave up his ease and his life to the duties of a mis- 
 sionary among the heathen. The Jesuits, who suffered 
 martyrdom among the American savages in the propa- 
 gation of their faith, stimulated those very savages to 
 their horrid massacres of the Protestant settlements of 
 New England. God has not often combined charity 
 with enthusiasm. When he has done so, he has pro- 
 duced his noblest work, — a More, or a Fenelon. 
 
 But, if the first settlers were intolerant in practice, 
 they brought with them the living principle of free- 
 dom, which would survive when their generation had 
 passed away. They could not avoid it ; for their 
 coming here was in itself an assertion of that prin- 
 ciple. They came for conscience' sake, — to worship 
 God in their own way. Freedom of political institu- 
 tions they at once avowed. Every citizen took his 
 part in the political scheme, and enjoyed all the con- 
 sideration of an equal participation in civil privileges ; 
 and liberty in political matters gradually brought with 
 it a corresponding liberty in religious concerns. In 
 their subsequent contest with the mother-country they 
 learned a reason for their faith, and the best manner 
 of defending it. Their liberties struck a deep root 
 in the soil amid storms which shook but could not 
 prostrate them. It is this struggle with the mother- 
 country, this constant assertion of the right of self- 
 government, this tendency — feeble in its beginning, 
 increasing with increasing age — towards republican 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 279 
 
 institutions, which connects the Colonial history with 
 that of the Union, and forms the true point of view 
 from which it is to be regarded. 
 
 The history of this country naturally divides itself 
 into three great periods: the Colonial, when the idea 
 of independence was slowly and gradually ripening in 
 the American mind ; the Revolutionary, when this idea 
 was maintained by arms ; and that of the Union, when 
 it was reduced to practice. The first two heads are 
 now ready for the historian ; the last is not yet ripe for 
 him. Important contributions may be made to it in the 
 form of local narratives, personal biographies, political 
 discussions, subsidiary documents, and memoires pour 
 servir ; but we are too near the strife, too much in the 
 dust and mist of the parties, to have reached a point 
 sufficiently distant and elevated to embrace the whole 
 field of operations in one view and paint it in its true 
 colors and proportions for the eye of posterity. We 
 are, besides, too new as an independent nation, our 
 existence has been too short, to satisfy the skepticism 
 of those who distrust the perpetuity of our political 
 institutions. They do not consider the problem, so 
 important to humanity, as yet solved. Such skeptics 
 are found not only abroad, but at home. Not that the 
 latter suppose the possibility of again returning to those 
 forms of arbitrary government which belong to the Old 
 World. It would not be more chimerical to suspect the 
 Emperor Nicholas, or Prince Metternich, or the citizen- 
 king Louis Philippe, of being republicans at heart, and 
 sighing for a democracy, than to suspect the people 
 of this country (above all, of New England, the most 
 thorough democracy in existence) — who have inherited 
 
2 8o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 republican principles and feelings from their ancestors, 
 drawn them in with their mother's milk, breathed the 
 atmosphere of them from their cradle, participated in 
 their equal rights and glorious privileges — of foregoing 
 their birthright and falsifying their nature so far as to 
 acquiesce in any other than a popular form of govern- 
 ment. But there are some skeptics who, when they 
 reflect on the fate of similar institutions in other 
 countries, — when they see our sister states of South 
 America, after nobly winning their independence, split 
 into insignificant fractions, — when they see the abuses 
 which from time to time have crept into our own 
 administration, and the violence offered, in manifold 
 ways, to the Constitution, — when they see ambitious 
 and able statesmen in one section of the country pro- 
 claiming principles which must palsy the arm of the Fed- 
 eral Government, and urging the people of their own 
 quarter to efforts for securing their independence of 
 every other quarter, — there are, we say, some wise and 
 benevolent minds among us who, seeing all this, feel a 
 natural distrust as to the stability of the federal compact, 
 and consider the experiment as still in progress. 
 
 We, indeed, are not of that number, while we respect 
 and feel the weight of their scruples. We sympathize 
 fully in those feelings, those hopes, it may be, which 
 animate the great mass of our countrymen. Hope is 
 the attribute of republics : it should be peculiarly so 
 of ours. Our fortune is all in the advance. We have 
 no past, as compared with the nations of the Old 
 World. Our existence is but two centuries, dating 
 from our embryo state ; our real existence as an inde- 
 pendent people little more than half a century. We 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 2 8l 
 
 are to look forward, then, and go forward, not with 
 vainglorious boasting, but with resolution and honest 
 confidence. Boasting, indecorous in all, is peculiarly 
 so in those who take credit for the great things they are 
 going to do, not those they have done. The glorifica- 
 tion of an Englishman or a Frenchman, with a long 
 line of annals in his rear, may be offensive ; that of an 
 American is ridiculous. But we may feel a just confi- 
 dence from the past that we shall be true to ourselves 
 for the future ; that, to borrow a cant phrase of the day, 
 we shall be true to our mission, — the most momentous 
 ever intrusted to a nation ; that there is sufficient intel- 
 ligence and moral principle in the people, if not always 
 to choose the best rulers, at least to right themselves 
 by the ejection of bad ones when they find they have 
 been abused ; that they have intelligence enough to 
 understand their only consideration, their security as a 
 nation, is in union ; that separation into smaller com- 
 munities is the creation of so many hostile states ; that 
 a large extent of empire, instead of being an evil, from 
 embracing regions of irreconcilable local interests, is a 
 benefit, since it affords the means of that commercial 
 reciprocity which makes the country, by its own re- 
 sources, independent of every other; and that the 
 representatives drawn from these "magnificent dis- 
 tances" will, on the whole, be apt to legislate more 
 independently and on broader principles than if occu- 
 pied with the concerns of a petty state, where each 
 legislator is swayed by the paltry factions of his own 
 village. In all this we may honestly confide ; but our 
 confidence will not pass for argument, will not be 
 accepted as a solution of the problem. Time only can 
 
 24* 
 
282 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 solve it ; and until the period has elapsed which shall 
 have fairly tried the strength of our institutions, through 
 peace and through war, through adversity and more 
 trying prosperity, the time will not have come to write 
 the history of the Union.* 
 
 But, still, results have been obtained sufficiently glo- 
 rious to give great consideration to the two preliminary 
 narratives, namely, of the Colonies and the Revolution, 
 which prepared the way for the Union. Indeed, with- 
 out these results they would both, however important 
 in themselves, have lost much of their dignity and in- 
 terest. Of these two narratives, the former, although 
 less momentous than the latter, is most difficult to treat. 
 
 It is not that the historian is called on to pry into 
 the dark recesses of antiquity, the twilight of civiliza- 
 
 * The preceding cheering remarks on the auspicious destinies of 
 our country were written more than four years ago ; and it is not now 
 as many days since we have received the melancholy tidings that the 
 project for the Atinexation of Texas has been sanctioned by Congress. 
 The remarks in the text on " the extent of empire" had reference only 
 to that legitimate extent which might grow out of the peaceful settle- 
 ment and civilization of a territory, sufficiently ample certainly, that 
 already belongs to us. The craving for foreign acquisitions has ever 
 been a most fatal symptom in the history of republics ; but when these 
 acquisitions are made, as in the present instance, in contempt of con- 
 stitutional law and in disregard of the great principles of international 
 justice, the evil assumes a tenfold magnitude; for it flows not so 
 much from the single act as from the principle on which it rests, and 
 which may open the way to the indefinite perpetration of such acts. 
 In glancing my eye over the text at this gloomy moment, and con- 
 sidering its general import, I was unwilling to let it go into the world 
 with my name to it, without entering my protest, in common with so 
 many better and wiser in our country, against a measure which every 
 friend of freedom, both at home and abroad, may justly lament as 
 the most serious shock yet given to the stability of our glorious insti- 
 tutions. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 283 
 
 tion, mystifying and magnifying every object to the 
 senses, nor to unravel some poetical mythology, hang- 
 ing its metaphorical allusions around every thing in 
 nature, mingling fact with fiction, the material with 
 the spiritual, until the honest inquirer after truth may 
 fold his arms in despair before he can cry euprj/.a ; nor 
 is he compelled to unroll musty, worm-eaten parch- 
 ments, and dusty tomes in venerable black letter, of the 
 good times of honest Caxton and Winken de Worde, 
 nor to go about gleaning traditionary tales and ballads 
 in some obsolete provincial patois. The record is plain 
 and legible, and he need never go behind it. The 
 antiquity of his story goes but little more than two 
 centuries back, — a very modern antiquity. The com- 
 mencement of it was not in the dark ages, but in a 
 period of illumination, — an age yet glowing with the 
 imagination of Shakspeare and Spenser, the philosophy 
 of Bacon, the learning of Coke and of Hooker. The 
 early passages of his story- — coeval with Hampden and 
 Milton and Sidney — belong to the times in which the 
 same struggle for the rights of conscience was going 
 on in the land of our fathers as in our own. There 
 was no danger that the light of the Pilgrim should be 
 hid under a bushel, or that there should be any dearth 
 of chronicler or bard — such as they were — to record 
 his sacrifice. And fortunate for us that it was so, since 
 in this way every part of this great enterprise, from its 
 conception to its consummation, is brought into the 
 light of day. We are put in possession not merely of 
 the action, but of the motives which led to it, and, as 
 to the character of the actors, are enabled to do justice 
 to those who, if we pronounce from their actions only, 
 
284 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 would seem not always careful to do justice to them- 
 selves. 
 
 The embarrassment of the Colonial history arises 
 from the difficulty of obtaining a central point of in- 
 terest among so many petty states, each independent 
 of the others, and all at the same time so dependent 
 on a foreign one as to impair the historic dignity which 
 attaches to great, powerful, and self-regulated com- 
 munities. This embarrassment must be overcome by 
 the author's detecting, and skilfully keeping before the 
 reader, some great principle of action, if such exist, 
 that may give unity and, at the same time, impor- 
 tance to the theme. Such a principle did exist in that 
 tendency to independence, which, however feeble till 
 fanned by the breath of persecution into a blaze, was 
 nevertheless the vivifying principle, as before remarked, 
 of our ante-revolutionary annals. 
 
 Whoever has dipped much into historical reading is 
 aware how few have succeeded in weaving an harmo- 
 nious tissue from the motley and tangled skein of gen- 
 eral history. The most fortunate illustration of this 
 within our recollection is Sismondi's "Republiques Ita- 
 liennes," a work in sixteen volumes, in which the author 
 has brought on the stage all the various governments of 
 Italy for a thousand years, and in almost every variety 
 of combination. Yet there is a pervading principle 
 in this great mass of apparently discordant interests. 
 That principle was the rise and decline of liberty. It 
 is the key-note to every revolution that occurs. It 
 gives an harmonious tone to the many-colored canvas, 
 which would else have offended by its glaring con- 
 trasts and the startling violence of its transitions. The 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 285 
 
 reader is interested in spite of the transitions, but 
 knows not the cause. This is the skill of the great 
 artist. So true is this, that the same author has been 
 able to concentrate what may be called the essence of 
 his bulky history into a single volume, in which he 
 confines himself to the development of the animating 
 principle of his narrative, stripped of all the super- 
 fluous accessories, under the significant title of "Rise, 
 Progress, and Decline of Italian Freedom." 
 
 This embarrassment has not been easy to overcome 
 by the writers of our Colonial annals. The first vol- 
 ume of Marshall's "Life of Washington" has great 
 merit as a wise and comprehensive survey of this early 
 period, but the plan is too limited to afford room for 
 any thing like a satisfactory fulness of detail. The 
 most thorough work, and incomparably the best, on the 
 subject, previous to the appearance of Mr. Bancroft's, 
 is the well-known history by Mr. Grahame, a truly valu- 
 able book, in which the author, though a foreigner, has 
 shown himself capable of appreciating the motives and 
 comprehending the institutions of our Puritan ancestors. 
 He has spared no pains in the investigation of such 
 original sources as were at his command, and has con- 
 ducted his inquiries with much candor, manifesting 
 throughout the spirit of a scholar and a gentleman. 
 It is not very creditable to his countrymen that they 
 should have received his labors with the apathy which 
 he tells us they have, amid the ocean of contemptible 
 trash with which their press is daily deluged. But, in 
 truth, the Colonial and Revolutionary story of this 
 country is a theme too ungrateful to British ears for 
 us to be astonished at any insensibility on this score. 
 
286 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Mr. Grahame's work, however, with all its merit, is 
 the work of a foreigner, and that word comprehends 
 much that cannot be overcome by the best writer. 
 He may produce a beautiful composition, faultless in 
 style, accurate in the delineation of prominent events, 
 full of sound logic and most wise conclusions, but he 
 cannot enter into the sympathies, comprehend all the 
 minute feelings, prejudices, and peculiar ways of think- 
 ing, which form the idiosyncrasy of the nation. What 
 can he know of these who has never been warmed by 
 the same sun, lingered among the same scenes, listened 
 to the same tales in childhood, been pledged to the 
 same interests in manhood by which these fancies are 
 nourished, — the loves, the hates, the hopes, the fears, 
 that go to form national character? Write as he will, 
 he is still an alien, speaking a tongue in which the 
 nation will detect the foreign accent. He may produce 
 a book without a blemish in the eyes of foreigners ; it 
 may even contain much for the instruction of the 
 native that he would not be likely to find in his own 
 literature; but it will afford evidence on every page of 
 its exotic origin. Botta's "History of the War of the 
 Revolution" is the best treatise yet compiled of that 
 event. It is, as every one knows, a most classical and 
 able work, doing justice to most of the great heroes 
 and actions of the period ; but, we will venture to say, 
 no well-informed American ever turned over its leaves 
 without feeling that the writer was not nourished 
 among the men and the scenes he is painting. With 
 all its great merits, it cannot be, at least for Americans, 
 the history of the Revolution. 
 
 It is the same as in portrait-painting. The artist 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 287 
 
 may catch the prominent lineaments, the complexion, 
 the general air, the peculiar costume of his subject, — 
 all that a stranger's eye will demand; but he must not 
 hope, unless he has had much previous intimacy with 
 the sitter, to transfer those fleeting shades of expres- 
 sion, the almost imperceptible play of features, which 
 are revealed to the eye of his own family. 
 
 Who would think of looking to a Frenchman for a 
 history of England ? to an Englishman for the best 
 history of France? Ill fares it with the nation that 
 cannot find writers of genius to tell its own story. 
 What foreign hand could have painted like Herodotus 
 and Thucydides the achievements of the Greeks? who 
 like Livy and Tacitus have portrayed the shifting char- 
 acter of the Roman in his rise, meridian, and decline? 
 Had the Greeks trusted their story to these same Ro- 
 mans, what would have been their fate with posterity? 
 Let the Carthaginians tell. All that remains of this 
 nation, the proud rival of Rome, who once divided 
 with her the empire of the Mediterranean and sur- 
 passed her in commerce and civilization, — nearly all 
 that now remains to indicate her character is a poor 
 proverb, Punic a fides, a brand of infamy given by the 
 Roman historian, and one which the Romans merited 
 probably as richly as the Carthaginians. Yet America, 
 it is too true, must go to Italy for the best history of 
 the Revolution, and to Scotland for the best history of 
 the Colonies. Happily, the work before us bids fair, 
 when completed, to supply this deficiency; and it is 
 quite time we should turn to it. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft's first two volumes have been too long 
 before the public to require any thing to be now said 
 
288 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of them. Indeed, the first has already been the sub- 
 ject of a particular notice in this Journal. These vol- 
 umes are mainly occupied with the settlement of the 
 country by the different colonies, and the institutions 
 gradually established among them, with a more par- 
 ticular illustration of the remarkable features in their 
 character or policy. 
 
 In the present volume the immediate point of view 
 is somewhat changed. It was no longer necessary to 
 treat each of the colonies separately, and a manifest 
 advantage in respect to unity is gained by their being 
 brought more under one aspect. A more prominent 
 feature is gradually developed by the relations with the 
 mother-country. This is the mercantile system, as it 
 is called by economical writers, which distinguishes 
 the colonial policy of modern Europe from that of 
 ancient. The great object of this system was to get as 
 much profit from the colonies, with as little cost to the 
 mother-country, as possible. The former, instead of 
 being regarded as an integral part of the empire, were 
 held as property, to be dealt with for the benefit of the 
 proprietors. This was the great object of legislation, 
 almost the sole one. The system, so different from 
 any thing known in antiquity, was introduced by the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, and by them carried to an 
 extent which no other nation has cared to follow. By 
 the most cruel and absurd system of prohibitory legis- 
 lation, their colonies were cut off from intercourse with 
 all but the parent country; and, as the latter was un- 
 able to supply their demands for even the necessaries 
 of life, an extensive contraband trade was introduced, 
 which, without satisfying the wants of the colonies, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 289 
 
 corrupted their morals. It is an old story, and the 
 present generation has witnessed the results, in the ruin 
 of those fine countries and the final assertion of their 
 independence, which the degraded condition in which 
 they have so long been held has wholly unfitted them 
 to enjoy. 
 
 The English government was too wise and liberal 
 to press thus heavily on its transatlantic subjects ; but 
 the policy was similar, consisting, as is well known, 
 and is ably delineated in these volumes, of a long series 
 of restrictive measures, tending to cramp their free 
 trade, manufactures, and agriculture, and to secure the 
 commercial monopoly of Great Britain. This is the 
 point from which events in the present volume are to 
 be more immediately contemplated, all subordinate, 
 like those in the preceding, to that leading principle 
 of a republican tendency, — -the centre of attraction, 
 controlling the movements of the numerous satellites 
 in our colonial system. 
 
 The introductory chapter in the volume opens with 
 a view of the English Revolution in 1688, which, 
 though not popular, is rightly characterized as leading 
 the way to popular liberty. Its great object was the 
 security of property; and our author has traced its 
 operation, in connection with the gradual progress of 
 commercial wealth, to give greater authority to the 
 mercantile system. We select the following original 
 sketch of the character of William the Third : 
 
 "The character of the new monarch of Great Britain 
 
 could mould its policy, but not its Constitution. True 
 
 to his purposes, he yet wins no sympathy. In political 
 
 sagacity, in force of will, far superior to the English 
 
 n -5 
 
290 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 statesmen who environed him, more tolerant than his 
 ministers or his Parliaments, the childless man seems 
 like the unknown character in algebra, which is intro- 
 duced to form the equation and dismissed when the 
 problem is solved. In his person thin and feeble, with 
 eyes of a hectic lustre, of a temperament inclining to 
 the melancholic, in conduct cautious, of a self-relying 
 humor, with abiding impressions respecting men, he 
 sought no favor, and relied for success on his own 
 inflexibility and the greatness and maturity of his 
 designs. Too wise to be cajoled, too firm to be 
 complaisant, no address could sway his resolve. In 
 Holland he had not scrupled to derive an increased 
 power from the crimes of rioters and assassins; in 
 England, no filial respect diminished the energy of 
 his ambition. His exterior was chilling ; yet he had a 
 passionate delight in horses and the chase. In con- 
 versation he was abrupt, speaking little and slowly, and 
 with repulsive dryness ; in the day of battle he was all 
 activity, and the highest energy of life, without kin- 
 dling his passions, animated his frame. His trust in 
 Providence was so connected with faith in general laws 
 that in every action he sought the principle which 
 should range it on an absolute decree. Thus, uncon- 
 scious to himself, he had sympathy with the people, 
 who always have faith in Providence. ' Do you dread 
 death in my company?' he cried to the anxious sailors, 
 when the ice on the coast of Holland had almost 
 crushed the boat that was bearing him to the shore. 
 Courage and pride pervaded the reserve of the prince 
 who, spurning an alliance with a bastard daughter of 
 Louis XIV., had made himself the centre of a gigantic 
 
CRITIC A L MIS CELL A NILS. 
 
 291 
 
 opposition to France. For England, for the English 
 people, for English liberties, he had no affection, 
 indifferently employing the Whigs, who found their 
 pride in the Revolution, and the Tories, who had 
 opposed his elevation, and who yet were the fittest 
 instruments 'to carry the prerogative high.' One 
 great passion had absorbed his breast, — the independ- 
 ence of his native country. The harsh encroachments 
 of Louis XIV., which in 1672 had made William of 
 Orange a Revolutionary stadtholder, now assisted to 
 constitute him a Revolutionary king, transforming the 
 impassive champion of Dutch independence into the 
 defender of the liberties of Europe." — Vol. iii. pp. 
 2-4. 
 
 The chapter proceeds to examine the relations, not 
 always of the most friendly aspect, between England 
 and the colonies, in which Mr. Bancroft pays a well- 
 merited tribute to the enlightened policy of Penn and 
 the tranquillity he secured to his settlement. At the 
 close of the chapter is an account of that lamentable — 
 farce, we should have called it, had it not so tragic a 
 conclusion — the Salem witchcraft. 
 
 Our author has presented some very striking sketches 
 of these deplorable scenes, in which poor human nature 
 appears in as humiliating a plight as would be possible 
 in a civilized country. The Inquisition, fierce as it 
 was, and most unrelenting in its persecutions, had 
 something in it respectable in comparison with this 
 wretched and imbecile self-delusion. The historian 
 does not shrink from distributing his censure in full 
 measure to those to whom he thinks it belongs. The 
 erudite divine, Cotton Mather, in particular, would 
 
292 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 feel little pleasure in the contemplation of the portrait 
 sketched for him on this occasion. Vanity, according 
 to Mr. Bancroft, was quite as active an incentive to his 
 movements as religious zeal ; and, if he began with the 
 latter, there seems no reason to doubt that pride of 
 opinion, an unwillingness to expose his error, so hu- 
 miliating to the world, perhaps even to his own heart, 
 were powerful stimulants to his continuing the course 
 he had begun, though others faltered in it. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft has taken some pains to show that the 
 prosecutions were conducted before magistrates not 
 appointed by the people, but the crown, and that a 
 stop was not put to them till after the meeting of the 
 representatives of the people. This, in our view, is a 
 distinction somewhat fanciful. The judges held their 
 commissions from the governor; and if he was ap- 
 pointed by the crown it was, as our author admits, at 
 the suggestion of Increase Mather, a minister of the 
 people. The accusers, the witnesses, the jurors, were 
 all taken from the people. And when a stop was put 
 to farther proceedings by the seasonable delay inter- 
 posed by the General Court, before the assembling of 
 the "legal colonial" tribunal (thus giving time for the 
 illusion to subside), it was, in part, from the apprehen- 
 sion that, in the rising tide of accusation, no man, 
 however elevated might be his character or condition, 
 would be safe. 
 
 In the following chapter, after a full exposition of 
 the prominent features in the system of commercial 
 monopoly which controlled the affairs of the colonies, 
 we are introduced to the great discoveries in the north- 
 ern and western regions of the continent, made by the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 293 
 
 Jesuit missionaries of France. Nothing is more ex- 
 traordinary in the history of this remarkable order than 
 their bold enterprise in spreading their faith over this 
 boundless wilderness, in defiance of the most appalling 
 obstacles which man and nature could present. Faith 
 and zeal triumphed over all, and, combined with science 
 and the spirit of adventure, laid open unknown regions 
 in the heart of this vast continent, then roamed over 
 by the buffalo and the savage, and now alive with the 
 busy hum of an industrious and civilized population. 
 
 The historian has diligently traced the progress of the 
 missionaries in their journeys into the western territory 
 of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, down the deep basin 
 of the Mississippi to its mouth. He has identified the 
 scenes of some striking events in the history of discov- 
 ery, as, among others, the place where Marquette first 
 met the Illinois tribe, at Iowa. No preceding writer 
 has brought into view the results of these labors in a 
 compass which may be embraced, as it were, in a single 
 glance. The character of this order, and their fortune, 
 form one of the most remarkable objects for contem- 
 plation in the history of man. Springing up, as it 
 were, to prop the crumbling edifice of Catholicism 
 when it" was reeling under the first shock of the 
 Reformation, it took up its residence indifferently 
 within the precincts of palaces or in the boundless 
 plains and forests of the wilderness, held the con- 
 sciences of civilized monarchs in its keeping, and 
 directed their counsels, while at the same time it was 
 gathering barbarian nations under its banners and 
 pouring the light of civilization into the farthest and 
 darkest quarters of the globe. 
 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 "The establishment of *' the Society of Jesus,'" 
 says Mr. Bancroft, "by Loyola had been contemporary 
 with the Reformation, of which it was designed to 
 arrest the progress, and its complete organization 
 belongs to the period when the first full edition of 
 Calvin's ' Institutes' saw the light. Its members were, 
 by its rules, never to become prelates, and could gain 
 power and distinction only by influence over mind. 
 Their vows were poverty, chastity, absolute obedience, 
 and a constant readiness to go on missions against 
 heresy or heathenism. Their cloisters became the best 
 schools in the world. Emancipated, in a great degree, 
 from the forms of piety, separated from domestic ties, 
 constituting a community essentially intellectual as well 
 as essentially plebeian, bound together by the most per- 
 fect organization, and having for their end a control 
 over opinion among the scholars and courts of Europe 
 and throughout the habitable globe, the order of the 
 Jesuits held as its ruling maxims the widest diffusion 
 of its influence, and the closest internal unity. Imme- 
 diately on its institution, their missionaries, kindling 
 with a heroism that defied every danger and endured 
 every toil, made their way to the ends of the earth ; 
 they raised the emblem of man's salvation on the Mo- 
 luccas, in Japan, in India, in Thibet, in Cochin China, 
 and in China ; they penetrated Ethiopia, and reached 
 the Abyssinians; they planted missions among the Caf- 
 fres ; in California, on the banks of the Maranhon, in 
 the plains of Paraguay, they invited the wildest of bar- 
 barians to the civilization of Christianity." 
 
 "Religious enthusiasm," he adds, "colonized New 
 England ; and religious enthusiasm founded Montreal, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2 95 
 
 made a conquest of the wilderness on the upper Lakes, 
 and explored the Mississippi. Puritanism gave New 
 England its worship and its schools ; the Roman 
 Church created for Canada its altars, its hospitals, and 
 its seminaries. The influence of Calvin can be traced 
 to every New England village ; in Canada, the monu- 
 ments of feudalism and the Catholic Church stand side 
 by side, and the names of Montmorenci and Bourbon, 
 of Levi and Conde, are mingled with memorials of St. 
 Athanasius and Augustin, of St. Francis of Assisi and 
 Ignatius Loyola." — Ibid., pp. 120, 121. 
 
 We hardly know which to select from the many 
 brilliant and spirited sketches in which this part of 
 the story abounds. None has more interest, on the 
 whole, than the discovery of the Mississippi by Mar- 
 quette and his companions, and the first voyage of the 
 white men down its majestic waters : 
 
 "Behold, then, in 1673, on the tenth day of June, 
 the meek, single-hearted, unpretending, illustrious Mar- 
 quette, with Joliet for his associate, five Frenchmen as 
 his companions, and two Algonquins as guides, lifting 
 their two canoes on their backs and walking across the 
 narrow portage that divides the Fox River from the 
 Wisconsin. They reach the water-shed; uttering a 
 special prayer to the immaculate Virgin, they leave 
 the streams that, flowing onward, could have borne 
 their greetings to the Castle of Quebec ; already they 
 stand by the Wisconsin. 'The guides returned,' says 
 the gentle Marquette, ' leaving us alone in this un- 
 known land, in the hands of Providence.' France 
 and Christianity stood in the Valley of the Mississippi. 
 Embarking on the broad Wisconsin, the discoverers, 
 
296 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 as they sailed west, went solitarily down the stream, 
 between alternate prairies and hill-sides, beholding 
 neither man nor the wonted beasts of the forest : no 
 sound broke the appalling silence but the ripple of 
 their canoe and the lowing of the buffalo. In seven 
 days 'they entered happily the Great River, with a joy 
 that could not be expressed ;' and the two birch-bark 
 canoes, raising their happy sails under new skies and 
 to unknown breezes, floated gently down the calm mag- 
 nificence of the ocean stream, over the broad, clear 
 sand-bars, the resort of innumerable water-fowl, — 
 gliding past islands that swelled from the bosom of 
 the stream, with their tufts of massive thickets, and 
 between the wide plains of Illinois and Iowa, all gar- 
 landed as they were with majestic forests, or checkered 
 by island grove and the open vastness of the prairie. 
 
 " About sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wis- 
 consin, the western bank of the Mississippi bore on its 
 sands the trail of men ; a little footpath was discerned 
 leading into a beautiful prairie ; and, leaving the ca- 
 noes, Joliet and Marquette resolved alone to brave a 
 meeting with the savages. After walking six miles, 
 they beheld a village on the banks of a river, and two 
 others on a slope, at a distance of a mile and a half 
 from the first. The river was the Mou-in-gou-e-na, or 
 Moingona, of which we have corrupted the name into 
 Des Moines. Marquette and Joliet were the first white 
 men who trod the soil of Iowa. Commending them- 
 selves to God, they uttered a loud cry. The Indians 
 hear; four old men advance slowly to meet them, bear- 
 ing the peace-pipe brilliant with many-colored plumes. 
 'We are Illinois,' said they; that is, when translated, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 297 
 
 'We are men;' and they offered the calumet. An 
 aged chief received them at his cabin with upraised 
 hands, exclaiming, 'How beautiful is the sun, French- 
 men, when thou comest to visit us ! Our whole village 
 awaits thee ; thou shalt enter in peace into all our 
 dwellings.' And the pilgrims were followed by the 
 devouring gaze of an astonished crowd. 
 
 "At the great council, Marquette published to them 
 the one true God, their creator. He spoke, also, of 
 the great captain of the French, the Governor of 
 Canada, who had chastised the Five Nations and com- 
 manded peace ; and he questioned them respecting 
 the Mississippi and the tribes that possessed its banks. 
 For the messengers who announced the subjection of 
 the Iroquois, a magnificent festival was prepared of 
 hominy, and fish, and the choicest viands from the 
 prairies. 
 
 "After six days' delay, and invitations to new visits, 
 the chieftain of the tribe, with hundreds of warriors, 
 attended the strangers to their canoes; and, selecting 
 a peace-pipe embellished with the head and neck of 
 brilliant birds and all feathered over with plumage of 
 various hues, they hung around Marquette the myste- 
 rious arbiter of peace and war, the sacred calumet, a 
 safeguard among the nations. 
 
 "The little group proceeded onward. 'I did not 
 fear death,' says Marquette; ' I should have esteemed 
 it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of 
 God.' They passed the perpendicular rocks, which 
 wore the appearance of monsters ; they heard at a dis- 
 tance the noise of the waters of the Missouri, known 
 to them by the Algonquin name of Pekitanoni ; and 
 
298 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 when they came to the most beautiful confluence of 
 waters in the world — where the swifter Missouri rushes 
 like a conqueror into the calmer Mississippi, dragging 
 it, as it were, hastily to the sea — the good Marquette 
 resolved in his heart, anticipating Lewis and Clarke, 
 one day to ascend the mighty river to its source, to 
 cross the ridge that divides the oceans, and, descending 
 a westerly-flowing stream, to publish the gospel to all 
 the people of this New World. 
 
 ''In a little less than forty leagues, the canoes floated 
 past the Ohio, which was then, and long afterward, 
 called the Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by nu- 
 merous villages of the peaceful Shawnees, who quailed 
 under the incursions of the Iroquois. 
 
 "The thick canes begin to appear so close and 
 strong that the buffalo could not break through them ; 
 the insects become intolerable; as a shelter against the 
 suns of July, the sails are folded into an awning. The 
 prairies vanish; thick forests of whitewood, admirable 
 for their vastness and height, crowd even to the skirts 
 of the pebbly shore. It is also observed that, in the 
 land of the Chickasas, the Indians have guns. 
 
 "Near the latitude of thirty-three degrees, on the 
 western bank of the Mississippi, stood the village of 
 Mitchigamea, in a region that had not been visited by 
 Europeans since the days of De Soto. ' Now,' thought 
 Marquette, 'we must indeed ask the aid of the Virgin.' 
 Armed with bows and arrows, with clubs, axes, and 
 bucklers, amid continual whoops, the natives, bent on 
 war, embark in vast canoes made out of the trunks of 
 hollow trees ; but, at the sight of the mysterious peace- 
 pipe held aloft, God touched the hearts of the old 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 299 
 
 men, who checked the impetuosity of the young, and, 
 throwing their bows and quivers into the canoes as a 
 token of peace, they prepared a hospitable welcome. 
 
 "The next day, a long wooden canoe, containing 
 ten men, escorted the discoverers, for eight or ten 
 leagues, to the village of Akansea, the limit of their 
 voyage. They had left the region of the Algonquins, 
 and, in the midst of the Sioux and Chickasas, could 
 speak only by an interpreter. A half-league above 
 Akansea they were met by two boats, in one of which 
 stood the commander, holding in his hand the peace- 
 pipe, and singing as he drew near. After offering the 
 pipe, he gave bread of maize. The wealth of his tribe 
 consisted in buffalo-skins ; their weapons were axes of 
 steel, — a proof of commerce with Europeans. 
 
 "Thus had our travellers descended below the en- 
 trance of the Arkansas, to the genial climes that have 
 almost no winter but rains, beyond the bound of the 
 Huron and Algonquin languages, to the vicinity of 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and to tribes of Indians that had 
 obtained European arms by traffic with Spaniards or 
 with Virginia. 
 
 "So, having spoken of God and the mysteries of 
 the Catholic faith, having become certain that the 
 Father of Rivers went not to the ocean east of Florida, 
 nor yet to the Gulf of California, Marquette and Joliet 
 left Akansea and ascended the Mississippi. 
 
 "At the thirty-eighth degree of latitude they entered 
 the river Illinois, and discovered a country without its 
 paragon for the fertility of its beautiful prairies, cov- 
 ered with buffaloes and stags ; for the loveliness of its 
 rivulets, and the prodigal abundance of wild duck and 
 
3°° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 swans, and of a species of parrots and wild turkeys. 
 The tribe of Illinois, that tenanted its banks, entreated 
 Marquette to come and reside among them. One of 
 their chiefs, with their young men, conducted the 
 party, by way of Chicago, to Lake Michigan ; and 
 before the end of September all were safe in Green 
 Bay. 
 
 "Joliet returned to Quebec to announce the dis- 
 covery, of which the fame, through Talon, quickened 
 the ambition of Colbert; the unaspiring Marquette re- 
 mained to preach the gospel to the Miamis, who dwelt 
 in the north of Illinois, round Chicago. Two years 
 afterward, sailing from Chicago to Mackinaw, he en- 
 tered a little river in Michigan. Erecting an altar, he 
 said mass after the rites of the Catholic Church; then, 
 begging the men who conducted his canoe to leave 
 him alone for half an hour, 
 
 ' in the darkling wood, 
 Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
 And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
 And supplication.' 
 
 At the end of the half-hour they went to seek him, and 
 he was no more. The good missionary, discoverer of 
 a world, had fallen asleep on the margin of the stream 
 that bears his name. Near its mouth the canoe-men 
 dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest 
 rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke 
 his name. The people of the West will build his 
 monument." — Ibid., pp. 157-162. 
 
 The list of heroic adventurers in the path of dis- 
 covery is closed by La Salle, the chivalrous French- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 301 
 
 man of whom we have made particular record in a pre- 
 vious number of this Journal,* and whose tremendous 
 journey from the Illinois to the French settlements in 
 Canada, a distance of fifteen hundred miles, is also 
 noticed by Mr. Bancroft. His was the first European 
 bark that emerged from the mouth of the Mississippi ; 
 and Mr. Bancroft, as he notices the event, and the 
 feelings it gave rise to in the mind of the discoverer, 
 gives utterance to his own in language truly sublime: 
 
 "As he raised the cross by the Arkansas, as he 
 planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, 
 he anticipated the future affluence of emigrants, and 
 heard in the distance the footsteps of the advancing 
 multitude that were coming to take possession of the 
 valley."— Ibid., p. 168. 
 
 This descent of the Great River our author places, 
 without hesitation, in 1682, being a year earlier than 
 the one assigned by us in the article referred to.f Mr. 
 Bancroft is so familiar with the whole ground, and has 
 studied the subject so carefully, that great weight is 
 due to his opinions ; but he has not explained the pre- 
 cise authority for his conclusions in this particular. 
 
 This leads us to enlarge on what we consider a de- 
 fect in our author's present plan. His notes are dis- 
 carded altogether, and his references transferred from 
 the bottom of the page to the side-margin. This is 
 very objectionable, not merely on account of the dis- 
 agreeable effect produced on the eye, but from the 
 more serious inconvenience of want of room for very 
 frequent and accurate reference. Titles are necessarily 
 
 * See " North American Review," vol. xlviii. p. 69, et seq. 
 t Ibid., pp. 84, 85. 
 
 26 
 
3° 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 much abridged, sometimes at the expense of perspi- 
 cuity. The first reference in this volume is "Hallam, 
 iv., 374;" the second is "Archdale." Now, Hallam 
 has written several works, published in various forms 
 and editions. As to the second authority, we have no 
 means of identifying the passage at all. This, how- 
 ever, is not the habit of Mr. Bancroft where the fact 
 is of any great moment, and his references throughout 
 are abundant. But the practice of references in the 
 side-margin, though warranted by high authority, is 
 unfavorable, from want of room, for very frequent or 
 very minute specification. 
 
 The omission of notes we consider a still greater 
 evil. It is true, they lead to great abuses, are often 
 the vehicle of matter which should have been incorpo- 
 rated in the text, more frequently of irrelevant matter 
 which should not have been admitted anywhere, and 
 thus exhaust the reader's patience, while they spoil the 
 effect of the work by drawing the attention from the 
 continuous flow of the narrative, checking the heat 
 that is raised by it in the reader's mind, and not un- 
 frequently jarring on his feelings by some misplaced 
 witticism or smart attempt at one. For these and the 
 like reasons, many competent critics have pronounced 
 against the use of notes, considering that a writer who 
 could not bring all he had to say into the compass of 
 his text was a bungler. Gibbon, who practised the 
 contrary, intimates a regret in one of his letters that 
 he had been overruled so far as to allow his notes to 
 be printed at the bottom of the page instead of being 
 removed to the end of the volume. But from all this 
 we dissent, especially in reference to a work of research 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 303 
 
 like the present History. We are often desirous here to 
 have the assertion of the author, or the sentiment quoted 
 by him, if important, verified by the original extract, 
 especially when this is in a foreign language. We want 
 to see the grounds of his conclusions, the scaffolding 
 by which he has raised his structure ; to estimate the 
 true value of his authorities; to know something of 
 their characters, positions in society, and the probable 
 influences to which they were exposed. Where there 
 is contradiction, we want to see it stated, the pros and 
 the cons, and the grounds for rejecting this and ad- 
 mitting that. We want to have a reason for our faith, 
 otherwise we are merely led blindfold. Our guide may 
 be an excellent guide ; he may have travelled over the 
 path till it has become a beaten track to him ; but we 
 like to use our own eyesight too, to observe somewhat 
 for ourselves, and to know, if possible, why he has 
 taken this particular road in preference to that which 
 his predecessors have travelled. 
 
 The objections made to notes are founded rather on 
 the abuse than the proper use of them. Gibbon only 
 wished to remove his own to the end of his volume ; 
 though in this we think he erred, from the difficulty 
 and frequent disappointment which the reader must 
 have experienced in consulting them, — a disappoint- 
 ment of little moment when unattended by difficulty. 
 But Gibbon knew too well the worth of this part of his 
 labors to him to wish to discard them altogether. He 
 knew his reputation stood on them as intimately as on 
 his narrative. Indeed, they supply a body of criticism, 
 and well-selected, well-digested learning, which of itself 
 would make the reputation of any scholar. Many ac- 
 
3°4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 com pi i shed writers, however, and Mr. Bancroft among 
 the number, have come to a different conclusion ; and 
 he has formed his, probably, with deliberation, having 
 made the experiment in both forms. 
 
 It is true, the fulness of the extracts from original 
 sources with which his text is inlaid, giving such life 
 and presence to it, and the frequency of his references, 
 supersede much of the necessity of notes. We should 
 have been very glad of one, however, of the kind we are 
 speaking of, at the close of his expedition of La Salle. 
 
 We have no room for the discussion of the topics in 
 the next chapter, relating to the hostilities for the 
 acquisition of colonial territory between France and 
 England, each of them pledged to the same system of 
 commercial monopoly, but must pass to the author's 
 account of the aborigines east of the Mississippi. In 
 this division of his subject he brings into view the 
 geographical positions of the numerous tribes, their 
 languages, social institutions, religious faith, and prob- 
 able origin. All these copious topics are brought 
 within the compass of a hundred pages, arranged with 
 great harmony, and exhibited with perspicuity and sin- 
 gular richness of expression. It is, on the whole, the 
 most elaborate and finished portion of the volume. 
 
 His remarks on the localities of the tribes, instead of 
 a barren muster-roll of names, are constantly enlivened 
 by picturesque details connected with their situation. 
 His strictures on their various languages are conceived 
 in a philosophical spirit. The subject is one that has 
 already employed the pens of the ablest philologists 
 in this country, among whom it is only necessary to 
 mention the names of Du Ponceau, Pickering, and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3°5 
 
 Gallatin. Our author has evidently bestowed much 
 labor and thought on the topic. He examines the 
 peculiar structure of the languages, which, though 
 radically different, bear a common resemblance in 
 their compounded and synthetic organization. He 
 has omitted to notice the singular exception to the 
 polysynthetic formation of the Indian languages pre- 
 sented by the Otomie, which has afforded a Mexican 
 philologist so ingenious a parallel, in its structure, with 
 the Chinese. Mr. Bancroft concludes his review of 
 them by admitting the copiousness of their combina- 
 tions, and by inferring that this copiousness is no 
 evidence of care and cultivation, but the elementary 
 form of expression of a rude and uncivilized people ; 
 in proof of which he cites the example of the partially 
 civilized Indian in accommodating his idiom gradually 
 to the analytic structure of the European languages. 
 May not this be explained by the circumstance that 
 the influence under which he makes this, like his other 
 changes, is itself European ? But we pass to a more 
 popular theme, the religious faith of the red man, 
 whose fanciful superstitions are depicted by our author 
 with highly poetical coloring : 
 
 "The red man, unaccustomed to generalization, 
 obtained no conception of an absolute substance, of a 
 self-existent being, but saw a divinity in every power. 
 Wherever there was being, motion, or action, there to 
 him was a spirit; and, in a special manner, wherever 
 there appeared singular excellence among beasts, or 
 birds, or in the creation, there to him was the presence 
 of a divinity. When he feels his pulse throb or his heart 
 beat, he knows that it is a spirit. A god resides in the 
 
 26* 
 
306 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 flint, to give forth the kindling, cheering fire ; a spirit 
 resides in the mountain-cliff; a spirit makes its abode 
 in the cool recesses of the grottoes which nature has 
 adorned; a god dwells in each 'little grass' that springs 
 miraculously from the earth. ' The woods, the wilds, 
 and the waters respond to savage intelligence ; the stars 
 and the mountains live ; the river, and the lake, and 
 the waves have a spirit.' Every hidden agency, every 
 mysterious influence, is personified. A god dwells in 
 the sun, and in the moon, and in the firmament ; the 
 spirit of the morning reddens in the eastern sky ; a 
 deity is present in the ocean and in the fire; the crag 
 that overhangs the river has its genius ; there is a spirit 
 to the waterfall; a household god dwells in the Indian's 
 wigwam and consecrates his home ; spirits climb upon 
 the forehead to weigh down the eyelids in sleep. Not 
 the heavenly bodies only, the sky is filled with spirits 
 that minister to man. To the savage, divinity, broken 
 as it were into an infinite number of fragments, fills all 
 place and all being. The idea of unity in the creation 
 may exist contemporaneously, but it existed only in 
 the germ, or as a vague belief derived from the har- 
 mony of the universe. Yet faith in the Great Spirit, 
 when once presented, was promptly seized and appro- 
 priated, and so infused itself into the heart of remotest 
 tribes that it came to be often considered as a portion 
 of their original faith. Their shadowy aspirations and 
 creeds assumed, through the reports of missionaries, a 
 more complete development, and a religious system was 
 elicited from the pregnant but rude materials." — Ibid., 
 pp. 285, 286. 
 
 The following pictures of the fate of the Indian 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3°7 
 
 infant, and the shadowy pleasures of the land of spirits, 
 have also much tenderness and beauty : 
 
 "The same motive prompted them to bury with the 
 warrior his pipe and his manitou, his tomahawk, quiver, 
 and bow ready bent for action, and his most splendid 
 apparel ; to place by his side his bowl, his maize, and 
 his venison, for the long journey to the country of his 
 ancestors. Festivals in honor of the dead were also 
 frequent, when a part of the food was given to the 
 flames, that so it might serve to nourish the departed. 
 The traveller would find in the forests a dead body 
 placed on a scaffold erected upon piles, carefully 
 wrapped in bark for its shroud, and attired in warmest 
 furs. If a mother lost her babe, she would cover it 
 with bark and envelop it anxiously in the softest 
 beaver-skins ; at the burial-place she would put by its 
 side its cradle, its beads, and its rattles, and, as a last 
 service of maternal love, would draw milk from her 
 bosom in a cup of bark, and burn it in the fire, that 
 her infant might still find nourishment on its solitary 
 journey to the land of shades. Yet the new-born babe 
 would be buried, not, as usual, on a scaffold, but by 
 the wayside, that so its spirit might secretly steal into 
 the bosom of some passing matron and be born again 
 under happier auspices. On burying her daughter, 
 the Chippewa mother adds, not snow-shoes and beads 
 and moccasins only, but (sad emblem of woman's lot 
 in the wilderness) the carrying-belt and the paddle. 
 1 1 know my daughter will be restored to me,' she once 
 said, as she clipped a lock of hair as a memorial ; ' by 
 this lock of hair I shall discover her, for I shall take it 
 with me ;' alluding to the day when she too, with her 
 
3 o8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 carrying-belt and paddle, and the little relic of her 
 child, should pass through the grave to the dwelling- 
 place of her ancestors." 
 
 " The faith, as well as the sympathies, of the savage, 
 descended also to inferior things. Of each kind of 
 animal they say there exists one, the source and origin 
 of all, of a vast size, the type and original of the 
 whole class. From the immense invisible beaver come 
 all the beavers, by whatever run of water they are 
 found ; the same is true of the elk and buffalo, of the 
 eagle and robin, of the meanest quadruped of the 
 forest, of the smallest insect that buzzes in the air. 
 There lives for each class of animals this invisible vast 
 type or elder brother. Thus the savage established his 
 right to be classed by philosophers in the rank of 
 Realists, and his chief effort at generalization was a 
 reverent exercise of the religious sentiment. Where 
 these older brothers dwell they do not exactly know ; 
 yet it may be that the giant manitous which are 
 brothers to beasts are hid beneath the waters, and 
 that those of the birds make their homes in the blue 
 sky. But the Indian believes also of each individual 
 animal that it possesses the mysterious, the indestruc- 
 tible principle of life; there is not a breathing thing 
 but has its shade, which never can perish. Regarding 
 himself, in comparison with other animals, but as the 
 first among co-ordinate existence, he respects the brute 
 creation, and assigns to it, as to himself, a perpetuity 
 of being. '- The ancients of these lands believed that 
 the warrior, when released from life, renews the pas- 
 sions and activity of this world ; is seated once more 
 among his friends; shares again the joyous feast; walks 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3°9 
 
 through shadowy forests, that are alive with the spirits 
 of birds ; and there, in his paradise, 
 
 " ' By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews, 
 In vestments for the chase arrayed, 
 The hunter still the deer pursues, 
 The hunter and the deer a shade.' 
 
 Ibid., pp. 295, 298. 
 
 At the close of this chapter the historian grapples 
 with the much-vexed question respecting the origin of 
 the aborigines, — that po?is asinorum which has called 
 forth so much sense and nonsense on both sides of the 
 water, and will continue to do so as long as a new relic 
 or unknown hieroglyphic shall turn up to irritate the 
 nerves of the antiquary. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft passes briefly in review the several 
 arguments adduced in favor of the connection with 
 Eastern Asia. He lays no stress on the affinity of 
 languages or of customs and religious notions, consid- 
 ering these as spontaneous expressions of similar ideas 
 and wants in similar conditions of society. He at- 
 taches as little value to the resemblance established by 
 Humboldt between the signs of the Mexican calendar 
 and those of the signs of the zodiac in Thibet and Tar- 
 tary; and as for the far-famed Dighton Rock, and the 
 learned lucubrations thereon, he sets them down as so 
 much moonshine, pronouncing the characters Algon- 
 quin. The tumuli — the great tumuli of the West — he 
 regards as the work of no mortal hand, except so far 
 as they have been excavated for a sepulchral purpose. 
 He admits, however, vestiges of a migratory movement 
 on our continent from the northeast to the south- 
 west, shows very satisfactorily, by estimating the dis- 
 
3io BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tances of the intervening islands, the practicability 
 of a passage in the most ordinary sea-boat from the 
 Asiatic to the American shores in the high latitudes, 
 and, by a comparison of the Indian and Mongolian 
 skulls, comes to the conclusion that the two races are 
 probably identical in origin. But the epoch of their 
 divergence he places at so remote a period that the 
 peculiar habits, institutions, and culture of the ab- 
 origines must be regarded as all their own, — as in- 
 digenous. This is the outline of his theory. 
 
 By this hypothesis he extricates the question from 
 the embarrassment caused by the ignorance which the 
 aborigines have manifested in the use of iron and milk, 
 known to the Mongol hordes, but which he, of course, 
 supposes were not known at the time of the migration. 
 This is carrying the exodus back to a far period. But 
 the real objection seems to be that by thus rejecting all 
 evidence of communication but that founded on ana- 
 tomical resemblance he has unnecessarily narrowed the 
 basis on which it rests. The resemblance between a 
 few specimens of Mongolian and American skulls is 
 a narrow basis indeed, taken as the only one, for so 
 momentous a theory. 
 
 In fact, this particular point of analogy does not strike 
 us as by any means the most powerful of the arguments 
 in favor of a communication with the East, when we 
 consider the small number of the specimens on which it 
 is founded, the great variety of formation in individuals 
 of the same family, — some of the specimens approach- 
 ing even nearer to the Caucasian than the Mongolian, 
 — and the very uniform deviation from the latter in the 
 prominence and the greater angularity of the features. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 311 
 
 This connection with the East derives, in our judg- 
 ment, some support, feeble though it be, from affinities 
 of language ; but this is a field which remains to be 
 much more fully explored. The analogy is much more 
 striking of certain usages and institutions, particularly 
 of a religious character, and, above all, the mytho- 
 logical traditions which those who have had occasion to 
 look into the Aztec antiquities cannot fail to be struck 
 with. This resemblance is oftentimes in matters so 
 purely arbitrary that it can hardly be regarded as 
 founded in the constitution of man, so very exact that 
 it can scarcely be considered as accidental. We give up 
 the Dighton Rock, that rock of offence to so many 
 antiquaries, who may read in it the handwriting of the 
 Phoenicians, Egyptians, or Scandinavians, quite as well 
 as anything else. Indeed, the vax'wxis facsimiles of it, 
 made for the benefit of the learned, are so different 
 from one another that, like Sir Hudibras, one may find 
 in it 
 
 " A leash of languages at once." 
 
 We are agreed with our author that it is very good 
 Algonquin. But the zodiac, the Tartar zodiac, which 
 M. de Humboldt has so well shown to resemble in its 
 terms those of the Aztec calendar, we cannot so easily 
 surrender. The striking coincidence established by his 
 investigations between the astronomical signs of the 
 two nations — in a similar corresponding series, more- 
 over, although applied to different uses — is, in our 
 opinion, one of the most powerful arguments yet ad- 
 duced for the affinity of the two races. Nor is Mr. 
 Bancroft wholly right in supposing that the Asiatic 
 
312 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 hieroglyphics referred only to the zodiac. Like the 
 Mexican, they also presided over the years, days, and 
 even hours. The strength of evidence, founded on 
 numerous analogies, cannot be shown without going 
 into details, for which there is scarce room in the 
 compass of a separate article, much less in the heel of 
 one. Whichever way we turn, the subject is full of 
 perplexity. It is the sphinx's riddle, and the GEdipus 
 must be called from the grave who is to solve it. 
 
 In closing our remarks, we must express our satisfac- 
 tion that the favorable notice we took of Mr. Bancroft's 
 labors on his first appearance has been fully ratified by 
 his countrymen, and that his Colonial History estab- 
 lishes his title to a place among the great historical 
 writers of the age. The reader will find the pages of 
 the present volume filled with matter not less interest- 
 ing and important than the preceding. He will meet 
 with the same brilliant and daring style, the same pic- 
 turesque sketches of character and incident, the same 
 acute reasoning and compass of erudition. 
 
 In the delineation of events Mr. Bancroft has been 
 guided by the spirit of historic faith.. Not that it 
 would be difficult to discern the color of his politics ; 
 nor, indeed, would it be possible for any one strongly 
 pledged to any set of principles, whether in politics or 
 religion, to disguise them in the discussion of abstract 
 topics, without being false to himself and giving a false 
 tone to the picture ; but, while he is true to himself, 
 he has an equally imperative duty to perform, — to be 
 true to others, to those on whose characters and con- 
 duct he sits in judgment as a historian. No pet theory 
 nor party predilections can justify him in swerving one 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 l 3 
 
 hair's-breadth from truth in his delineation of the 
 mighty dead, whose portraits he is exhibiting to us 
 on the canvas of history. 
 
 Whenever religion is introduced, Mr. Bancroft has 
 shown a commendable spirit of liberality. Catholics 
 and Calvinists, Jesuits, Quakers, and Church-of- Eng- 
 land men, are all judged according to their deeds, and 
 not their speculative tenets ; and even in the latter 
 particular he generally contrives to find something de- 
 serving of admiration, some commendable doctrine or 
 aspiration in most of them. And what Christian sect 
 — we might add, what sect of any denomination — is 
 there which has not some beauty of doctrine to ad- 
 mire? Religion is the homage of man to his Creator. 
 The forms in which it is expressed are infinitely va- 
 rious; but they flow from the same source, are directed 
 to the same end, and all claim from the historian the 
 benefit of toleration. 
 
 What Mr. Bancroft has done for the Colonial history 
 is, after all, but preparation for a richer theme, the 
 history of the War of Independence ; a subject which 
 finds its origin in the remote past, its results in the 
 infinite future; which finds a central point of unity 
 in the ennobling principle of independence, that gives 
 dignity and grandeur to the most petty details of the 
 conflict, and which has its foreground occupied by a 
 single character, to which all others converge as to a 
 centre, — the character of Washington, in war, in peace, 
 and in private life the most sublime on historical record. 
 Happy the writer who shall exhibit this theme worthily 
 to the eyes of his countrymen ! 
 
 The subject, it is understood, is to engage the atten- 
 o 27 
 
314 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 tion, also, of Mr. Sparks, whose honorable labors have 
 already associated his name imperishably with our 
 Revolutionary period. Let it not be feared that there 
 is not compass enough in the subject for two minds 
 so gifted. The field is too rich to be exhausted by a 
 single crop, and will yield fresh laurels to the skilful 
 hand that shall toil for them. The labors of Hume did 
 not supersede those of Lingard, or Turner, or Mack- 
 intosh, or Hallam. The history of the English Revo- 
 lution has called forth, in our own time, the admirable 
 essays of Mackintosh and Guizot ; and the palm of 
 excellence, after the libraries that have been written 
 on the French Revolution, has just been assigned to 
 the dissimilar histories of Mignet and Thiers. The 
 points of view under which a thing may be contem- 
 plated are as diversified as mind itself. The most 
 honest inquirers after truth rarely come to precisely 
 the same results, such is the influence of education, 
 prejudice, principle. Truth, indeed, is single, but 
 opinions are infinitely various, and it is only by com- 
 paring these opinions together that we can hope to 
 ascertain what is truth. 
 
MADAME CALDERON'S LIFE IN 
 MEXICO.* 
 
 (January, 1843.) 
 
 In the present age of high literary activity, travellers 
 make not the least importunate demands on public at- 
 tention, and their lucubrations, under whatever name, — 
 Rambles, Notices, Incidents, Pencillings, — are nearly 
 as important a staple for the " trade" as novels and 
 romances. A book of travels, formerly, was a very 
 serious affair. The traveller set out on his distant jour- 
 ney with many a solemn preparation, made his will, 
 and bade adieu to his friends like one who might not 
 again return. If he did return, the results were em- 
 bodied in a respectable folio, or at least quarto, well 
 garnished with cuts, and done up in a solid form, which 
 argued that it was no fugitive publication, but destined 
 for posterity. 
 
 All this is changed. The voyager nowadays leaves 
 home with as little ceremony and leave-taking as if it 
 were for a morning's drive. He steps into the bark 
 that is to carry him across thousands of miles of ocean 
 with the moral certainty of returning in a fixed week, 
 almost at a particular day. Parties of gentlemen and 
 ladies go whizzing along in their steamships over the 
 
 * " Life in Mexico, during a Residence of Two Years in that 
 
 Country. By Madame C de la B ." Boston: Little & 
 
 Brown. Two volumes, i2mo. 
 
 (315) 
 
3 i6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 track which cost so many weary days to the Argonauts 
 of old, and run over the choicest scenes of classic an- 
 tiquity, scattered through Europe, Asia, and Africa, in 
 less time than it formerly took to go from one end of 
 the British isles to the other. The Cape of Good Hope, 
 so long the great stumbling block to the navigators of 
 Europe, is doubled, or the Red Sea coasted, in the 
 same way, by the fashionable tourist — who glides along 
 the shores of Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, Bombay, and 
 Hindostan, farther than the farthest limits of Alexan- 
 der's conquests — before the last leaves of the last new 
 novel which he has taken by the way are fairly cut. 
 The facilities of communication have, in fact, so 
 abridged distances that geography, as we have hitherto 
 studied it, may be said to be entirely reformed. In- 
 stead of leagues, we now compute by hours, and we 
 find ourselves next-door neighbors to those whom- we 
 had looked upon as at the antipodes. 
 
 The consequence of these improvements in the means 
 of intercourse is, that all the world goes abroad, or, at 
 least, one half is turned upon the other. Nations are 
 so mixed up by this process that . they are in some 
 danger of losing their idiosyncrasy; and the Egyptian 
 and the Turk, though they still cling to their religion, 
 are becoming European in their notions and habits 
 more and more every day. 
 
 The taste for pilgrimage, however, it must be owned, 
 does not stop with the countries where it can be car- 
 ried on with such increased facility. It has begotten 
 a nobler spirit of adventure, something akin to what 
 existed in the fifteenth century, when the world was 
 new or newly discovering, and a navigator who did not 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 X 7 
 
 take in sail, like the cautious seamen of Knickerbocker, 
 might run down some strange continent in the dark ; 
 for in these times of dandy tourists and travel-mongers 
 the boldest achievements, that have hitherto defied the 
 most adventurous spirits, have been performed : the 
 Himmalaya Mountains have been scaled, the Niger 
 ascended, the burning heart of Africa penetrated, the 
 icy Arctic and Antarctic explored, and the mysterious 
 monuments of the semi-civilized races of Central Amer- 
 ica have been thrown open to the public gaze. It is 
 certain that this is a high-pressure age, and every de- 
 partment of science and letters, physical and mental, 
 feels its stimulating influence. 
 
 No nation, on the whole, has contributed so largely 
 to these itinerant expeditions as the English. Uneasy, 
 it would seem, at being cooped up in their little isle, 
 they sally forth in all directions, swarming over the 
 cultivated and luxurious countries of the neighboring 
 continent, or sending out stragglers on other more 
 distant and formidable missions. Whether it be that 
 their soaring spirits are impatient of the narrow quar- 
 ters which nature has assigned them, or that there ex- 
 ists a supernumerary class of idlers, who, wearied with 
 the monotony of home and the same dull round of 
 dissipation, seek excitement in strange scenes and ad- 
 ventures ; or whether they go abroad for the sunshine, 
 of which they have heard so much but seen so little, — 
 whatever be the cause, they furnish a far greater num- 
 ber of tourists than all the world besides. We Amer- 
 icans, indeed, may compete with them in mere loco- 
 motion, for our familiarity with magnificent distances 
 at home makes us still more indifferent to them abroad ; 
 
 27* 
 
31 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 but this locomotion is generally in the way of business, 
 and the result is rarely shown in a book, unless, indeed, 
 it be the leger. 
 
 Yet John Bull is, on many accounts, less fitted than 
 most of his neighbors for the duties of a traveller. 
 However warm and hospitable in his own home, he 
 has a cold reserve in his exterior, a certain chilling 
 atmosphere, which he carries along with him, that 
 freezes up the sympathies of strangers, and which is 
 only to be completely thawed by long and intimate 
 acquaintance. But the traveller has no time for 
 intimate acquaintances. He must go forward, and 
 trust to his first impressions, for they will also be his 
 last. Unluckily, it rarely falls out that the first im- 
 pressions of honest John are very favorable. There is 
 too much pride, not to say hauteur, in his composition, 
 which, with the best intentions in the world, will show 
 itself in a way not particularly flattering to those who 
 come in contact with him. He goes through a strange 
 nation, treading on all their little irritable prejudices, 
 shocking their self-love and harmless vanities, — in 
 short, going against the grain, and roughing up every 
 thing by taking it the wrong way. Thus he draws out 
 the bad humors of the people among whom he moves, 
 sees them in their most unamiable and by no means 
 natural aspect, — in short, looks on the wrong side of 
 the tapestry. What wonder if his notions are some- 
 what awry as to what he sees ? There are, it is true, 
 distinguished exceptions to all this, — English travellers 
 who cover the warm heart — as warm as it is generally 
 true and manly — under a kind and sometimes cordial 
 manner; but they are the exceptions. The English- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3*9 
 
 man undoubtedly appears best on his own soil, where 
 his national predilections and prejudices, or, at least, 
 the intimation of them, are somewhat mitigated in 
 deference to his guest. 
 
 Another source of the disqualification of John Bull 
 as a calm and philosophic traveller is the manner in 
 which he has been educated at home : the soft luxuries 
 by which he has been surrounded from his cradle have 
 made luxuries necessaries, and, accustomed to perceive 
 all the machinery of life glide along as noiselessly and 
 as swiftly as the foot of Time itself, he becomes mor- 
 bidly sensitive to every temporary jar or derangement 
 in the working of it. In no country since the world 
 was made have all the appliances for mere physical 
 and, we may add, intellectual indulgence been carried 
 to such perfection as in this little island nucleus of 
 civilization. Nowhere can a man get such returns 
 for his outlay. The whole organization of society 
 is arranged so as to minister to the comforts of the 
 wealthy ; and an Englishman, with the golden talis- 
 man in his pocket, can bring about him genii to do 
 his bidding, and transport himself over distances with 
 a thought, almost as easily as if he were the possessor 
 of Aladdin's magic lamp and the fairy carpet of the 
 Arabian Tales. 
 
 When he journeys over his little island, his comforts 
 and luxuries cling as close to him as round his own 
 fireside. He rolls over roads as smooth and well-beaten 
 as those in his own park ; is swept onward by sleek and 
 well-groomed horses, in a carriage as soft and elastic, 
 and quite as showy, as his own equipage ; puts up at 
 inns that may vie with his own castle in their comforts 
 
3 2 ° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and accommodations, and is received by crowds of 
 obsequious servants, more solicitous, probably, even 
 than his own to win his golden smiles. In short, 
 wherever he goes, he may be said to carry with him 
 his castle, park, equipage, establishment. The whole 
 are in movement together. He changes place, indeed, 
 but changes nothing else. For travelling as it occurs 
 in other lands, — hard roads, harder beds, and hardest 
 fare, — he knows no more of it than if he had been 
 passing from one wing of his castle to the other. 
 
 All this, it must be admitted, is rather an indifferent 
 preparation for a tour on the Continent. Of what 
 avail is it that Paris is the most elegant capital, France 
 the most enlightened country on the European terra 
 fir??ia, if one cannot walk in the streets without the 
 risk of being run over for want of a trottoir, nor move 
 on the roads without being half smothered in a lum- 
 bering vehicle, dragged by ropes at the rate of five 
 miles an hour? Of what account are the fine music 
 and paintings, the architecture and art, of Italy, when 
 one must shiver by day for want of carpets and sea-coal 
 fires, and be thrown into a fever at night by the active 
 vexations of a still more tormenting kind ? The galled 
 equestrian might as well be expected to feel nothing 
 but raptures and ravishment at the fine scenery through 
 which he is riding. It is probable he will think much 
 more of his own petty hurts than of the beauties of 
 nature. A travelling John Bull, if his skin is not 
 off, is at least so thin-skinned that it is next doer to 
 being so. 
 
 If the European neighborhood affords so many means 
 of annoyance to the British traveller, they are incal- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 321 
 
 culably multiplied on this side of the water, and that, 
 too, under circumstances which dispose him still less 
 to charity in his criticisms and constructions. On the 
 Continent he feels he is among strange races, born and 
 bred under different religious and political institutions, 
 and, above all, speaking different languages. He does 
 not necessarily, therefore, measure them by his pecu- 
 liar standard, but allows them one of their own. The 
 dissimilarity is so great in all the main features of 
 national polity and society that it is hard to institute a 
 comparison. Whatever be his contempt for the want 
 of progress and perfection in the science of living, he 
 comes to regard them as a distinct race, amenable to 
 different laws, and therefore licensed to indulge in 
 different usages, to a certain extent, from his own. If 
 a man travels in China, he makes up his mind to chop- 
 sticks. If he should go to the moon, he would not 
 be scandalized by seeing people walk with their heads 
 under their arms. He has embarked on a different 
 planet. It is only in things which run parallel to those 
 in his own country that a comparison can be instituted, 
 and charity too often fails where criticism begins. 
 
 Unhappily, in America the Englishman finds these 
 points of comparison forced on him at every step. He 
 lands among a people speaking the same language, pro- 
 fessing the same religion, drinking at the same foun- 
 tains of literature, trained in the same occupations of 
 active life. The towns are built on much the same 
 model with those in his own land. The brick houses, 
 the streets, the "sidewalks," the in-door arrangements, 
 all, in short, are near enough on the same pattern to 
 provoke a comparison. Alas for the comparison ! The 
 o* 
 
322 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 cities sink at once into mere provincial towns, the lan- 
 guage degenerates into a provincial patois, the manners, 
 the fashions, down to the cut of the clothes, and the 
 equipages, all are provincial. The people, the whole 
 nation — as independent as any, certainly, if not, as our 
 orators fondly descant, the best and most enlightened 
 upon earth — dwindle into a mere British colony. The 
 traveller does not seem to understand that he is tread- 
 ing the soil of the New World, where every thing is 
 new, where antiquity dates but from yesterday, where 
 the present and the future are all, and the past nothing, 
 where hope is the watchword, and "Go ahead!" the 
 principle of action. He does not comprehend that 
 when he sets foot on such a land he is no longer to look 
 for old hereditary landmarks, old time-honored monu- 
 ments and institutions, old families that have vegetated 
 on the same soil since the Conquest. He must be 
 content to part with the order and something of the 
 decorum incident to an old community, where the 
 ranks are all precisely and punctiliously defined, where 
 the power is deposited by prescriptive right in certain 
 privileged hands, and where the great mass have the 
 careful obsequiousness of dependants, looking for the 
 crumbs that fall. 
 
 He is now among a new people, where every thing is 
 in movement, all struggling to get forward, and where, 
 though many go adrift in their wild spirit of adven- 
 ture, and a temporary check may be sometimes felt by 
 all, the great mass still advances. He is landed on a 
 hemisphere where fortunes are to be made, and men 
 are employed in getting, not in spending, — a differ- 
 ence which explains so many of the discrepancies be 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 2 3 
 
 tween the structure of our own society and habits and 
 those of the Old World. To know how to spend is 
 itself a science ; and the science of spending and that 
 of getting are rarely held by the same hand. 
 
 In such a state of things, the whole arrangement of 
 society, notwithstanding the apparent resemblance to 
 that in his own country, and its real resemblance in 
 minor points, is reversed. The rich proprietor, who 
 does nothing but fatten on his rents, is no longer at 
 the head of the scale, as in the Old World. The man 
 of enterprise takes the lead in a bustling community, 
 where action and progress, or at least change, are the 
 very conditions of existence. The upper classes — if 
 the term can be used in a complete democracy — have 
 not the luxurious finish and accommodations to be 
 found in the other hemisphere. The humbler classes 
 have not the poverty-stricken, cringing spirit of hope- 
 less inferiority. The pillar of society, if it want the 
 Corinthian capital, wants also the heavy and superflu- 
 ous base. Every man not only professes to be, but is 
 practically, on a footing of equality with his neighbor. 
 The traveller must not expect to meet here the defer- 
 ence, or even the courtesies, which grow out of distinc- 
 tion of castes. This is an awkward dilemma for one 
 whose nerves have never been jarred by contact with 
 the profane ; who has never been tossed about in the 
 rough-and-tumble of humanity. It is little to him that 
 the poorest child in the community learns how to 
 read and write; that the poorest man can have — what 
 Henry the Fourth so good-naturedly wished for the 
 humblest of his subjects — a fowl in his pot every day 
 for his dinner; that no one is so low but that he may 
 
3 2 4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 aspire to all the rights of his fellow-men and find an 
 open theatre on which to display his own peculiar 
 talents. 
 
 As the tourist strikes into the interior, difficulties of 
 all sorts multiply, incident to a raw and unformed 
 country. The comparison with the high civilization 
 at home becomes more and more unfavorable, as he is 
 made to feel that in this land of promise it must be 
 long before promise can become the performance of 
 the Old World. And yet, if he would look beyond 
 the surface, he would see that much here too has been 
 performed, however much may be wanting. He would 
 see lands over which the wild Indian roamed as a hunt- 
 ing-ground, teeming with harvests for the consumption 
 of millions at home and abroad ; forests, which have 
 shot up, ripened, and decayed on the same spot ever 
 since the creation, now swept away to make room for 
 towns and villages thronged with an industrious popu- 
 lation ; rivers, which rolled on in their solitudes, un- 
 disturbed except by the wandering bark of the savage, 
 now broken and dimpled by hundreds of steamboats, 
 freighted with the rich tribute of a country rescued 
 from the wilderness. He would not expect to meet 
 the careful courtesies of polished society in the pio- 
 neers of civilization, whose mission has been to recover 
 the great continent from the bear and the buffalo. He 
 would have some charity for their ignorance of the 
 latest fashions of Bond Street, and their departure, 
 sometimes, even from what, in the old country, is con- 
 sidered as the decorum and, it may be, decencies of 
 life. But not so : his heart turns back to his own land, 
 and closes against the rude scenes around him; for he 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 2 5 
 
 finds here none of the soft graces of cultivation, or the 
 hallowed memorials of an early civilization ; no gray, 
 weather-beaten cathedrals, telling of the Normans; no 
 Gothic churches in their groves of venerable oaks ; 
 no moss-covered cemeteries, in which the dust of his 
 fathers has been gathered since the time of the Plan- 
 tagenets ; no rural cottages, half smothered with roses 
 and honeysuckles, intimating that even in the most 
 humble abodes the taste for the beautiful has found its 
 way; no trim gardens, and fields blossoming with haw- 
 thorn hedges and miniature culture ; no ring fences, 
 enclosing well-shaven lawns, woods so disposed as to 
 form a picture of themselves, bright threads of silvery 
 water, and sparkling fountains. All these are want- 
 ing, and his eyes turn with disgust from the wild and 
 rugged features of nature, and all her rough accom- 
 paniments, — from man almost as wild ; and his heart 
 sickens as he thinks of his own land and all its scenes 
 of beauty. He thinks not of the poor who leave that 
 land for want of bread and find in this a kindly wel- 
 come and the means of independence and advancement 
 which their own denies them. 
 
 He goes on, if he be a splenetic Sinbad, dis- 
 charging his sour bile on everybody that he comes in 
 contact with, thus producing an amiable ripple in the 
 current as he proceeds, that adds marvellously, no 
 doubt, to his own quiet and personal comfort. If he 
 have a true merry vein and hearty good nature, he gets 
 on, laughing sometimes in his sleeve at others, and 
 cracking his jokes on the unlucky pate of Brother 
 Jonathan, who, if he is not very silly, — which he very 
 often is, — laughs too, and joins in the jest, though it 
 
 28 
 
326 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 may be somewhat at his own expense. It matters little 
 whether the tourist be Whig or Tory in his own land ; 
 if the latter, he returns, probably, ten times the Con- 
 servative that he was when he left it. If Whig, or even 
 Radical, it matters not ; his loyalty waxes warmer and 
 warmer with every step of his progress among the 
 republicans ; and he finds that practical democracy, 
 shouldering and elbowing its neighbors as it "goes 
 ahead," is no more like the democracy which he has 
 been accustomed to admire in theory, than the real 
 machinery, with its smell, smoke, and clatter, under 
 full operation, is like the pretty toy which he sees as a 
 model in the Patent Office at Washington. 
 
 There seems to be no people better constituted for 
 travellers, at least for recording their travelling experi- 
 ences, than the French. There is a mixture of frivolity 
 and philosophy in their composition which is admirably 
 suited to the exigencies of their situation. They mingle 
 readily with all classes and races, discarding for the 
 time their own nationality, — at least their national 
 antipathies. Their pleasant vanity fills them with the 
 desire of pleasing others, which most kindly reacts by 
 their being themselves pleased : 
 
 " Pleased with himself, whom all the world can please." 
 
 The Frenchman can even so far accommodate him- 
 self to habits alien to his own, that he can tolerate 
 those of the savages themselves, and enter into a sort 
 of fellowship with them, without either party altogether 
 discarding his national tastes and propensities. It is 
 Chateaubriand, if we are not mistaken, who relates 
 that, wandering in the solitudes of the American 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 2 7 
 
 wilderness, his ears were most unexpectedly saluted by 
 the sounds of a violin. He had little doubt that one 
 of his own countrymen must be at hand ; and in a 
 wretched enclosure he found one of them, sure enough, 
 teaching Messieurs les sauvages to dance. It is certain 
 that this spirit of accommodation to the wild habits of 
 their copper-colored friends gave the French traders 
 and missionaries formerly an ascendency over the 
 aborigines which was never obtained by any other 
 of the white men. 
 
 The most comprehensive and truly philosophic work 
 on the genius and institutions of this country, the best 
 exposition of its social phenomena, its present con- 
 dition, and probable future, are to be found in the 
 pages of a Frenchman. It is in the French language, 
 too, that by far the greatest work has been produced 
 on the great Southern portion of our continent, once 
 comprehended under New Spain. 
 
 To write a book of travels seems to most people to 
 require as little preliminary preparation as to write a 
 letter. One has only to jump into a coach, embark on 
 board a steamboat, minute down his flying experiences 
 and hair-breadth escapes, the aspect of the country as 
 seen from the interior of a crowded diligence or a van- 
 ishing rail-car, note the charges of the landlords and 
 the quality of the fare, a dinner or two at the minister's, 
 the last new play or opera at the theatre, and the affair 
 is done. It is very easy to do this, certainly ; very easy 
 to make a bad book of travels, but by no means easy to 
 make a good one. This requires as many and various 
 qualifications as to make any other good book, — quali- 
 fications which must vary with the character of the 
 
328 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 country one is to visit. Thus, for instance, it requires 
 a very different preparation and stock of accomplish- 
 ments to make the tour of Italy, its studios and its 
 galleries of art, or of Egypt, with its immortal pyra- 
 mids and mighty relics of a primeval age, the great 
 cemetery of antiquity, from what it does to travel 
 understanding^ in our own land, a new creation, as it 
 were, without monuments, without arts, where the only 
 study of the traveller — the noblest of all studies, it is 
 true — is man. The inattention to this difference of 
 preparation demanded by different places has led many 
 a clever writer to make a very worthless book, which 
 would have been remedied had he consulted his own 
 qualifications instead of taking the casual direction of 
 the first steamboat or mail-coach that lay in his way. 
 
 There is no countrv more difficult to discuss in all 
 its multiform aspects than Mexico, or, rather, the wild 
 region once comprehended under the name of New 
 Spain. Its various climates, bringing to perfection the 
 vegetable products of the most distant latitudes; its 
 astonishing fruitfulness in its lower regions, and its 
 curse of barrenness over many a broad acre of its 
 plateau ; its inexhaustible mines, that have flooded the 
 Old World with an ocean of silver, such as Columbus 
 in his wildest visions never dreamed of, — and, unhap- 
 pily, by a hard mischance, never lived to realize him- 
 self; its picturesque landscape, where the volcanic fire 
 gleams amid wastes of eternal snow, and a few hours 
 carry the traveller from the hot regions of the lemon 
 and the cocoa to the wintry solitudes of the mountain 
 fir; its motley population, made up -of Indians, old 
 Spaniards, modern Mexicans, mestizos, mulattoes, and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 2 9 
 
 zambos ; its cities built in the clouds ; its lakes of salt 
 water, hundreds of miles from the ocean ; its people, 
 with their wild and variegated costume, in keeping, as 
 we may say, with its extraordinary scenery ; its stately 
 palaces, half furnished, where services of gold and 
 silver plate load the tables in rooms without a carpet, 
 while the red dust of the bricks soils the diamond- 
 sprinkled robes of the dancer ; the costly attire of its 
 higher classes, blazing with pearls and jewels ; the 
 tawdry magnificence of its equipages, saddles inlaid 
 with gold, bits and stirrups of massive silver, all exe- 
 cuted in the clumsiest style of workmanship ; its lower 
 classes, — the men with their jackets glittering with 
 silver buttons, and rolls of silver tinsel round their 
 caps ; the women with petticoats fringed with lace, 
 and white satin shoes on feet unprotected by a stock- 
 ing j its high-born fair ones crowding to the cockpit 
 and solacing themselves with the fumes of a cigar ; its 
 churches and convents, in which all those sombre rules 
 of monastic life are maintained in their primitive rigor 
 which have died away before the liberal spirit of the 
 age on the other side of the water ; its swarms of 
 leperos, the lazzaroni of the land ; its hordes of almost 
 legalized banditti, who stalk openly in the streets and 
 render the presence of an armed escort necessary to 
 secure a safe drive into the environs of the capital ; its 
 whole structure of society, in which a republican form 
 is thrown over institutions as aristocratic and castes as 
 nicely denned as in any monarchy of Europe; in short, 
 its marvellous inconsistencies and contrasts in climate, 
 character of the people, and face of the land, — so mar- 
 vellous as, we trust, to excuse the unprecedented length 
 
 28* 
 
330 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of this sentence, — undoubtedly make modern Mexico 
 one of the most prolific, original, and difficult themes 
 for the study of the traveller. 
 
 Yet this great theme has found in Humboldt a writer 
 of strength sufficient to grapple with it in nearly all its 
 relations. While yet a young man, or, at least, while 
 his physical as well as mental energies were in their 
 meridian, he came over to this country with an en- 
 thusiasm for science which was only heightened by 
 obstacles, and with stores of it already accumulated 
 that enabled him to detect the nature of every new 
 object that came under his eye and arrange it in its 
 proper class. With his scientific instruments in his 
 hand, he might be seen scaling the snow-covered peaks 
 of the Cordilleras, or diving into their unfathomable 
 caverns of silver; now wandering through their dark 
 forests in search of new specimens for his herbarium, 
 now coasting the stormy shores of the Gulf and pene- 
 trating its unhealthy streams, jotting down every land- 
 mark that might serve to guide the future navigator, or 
 surveying the crested Isthmus in search of a practicable 
 communication between the great seas on its borders, 
 and then, again, patiently studying the monuments 
 and manuscripts of the Aztecs in the capital, or min- 
 gling with the wealth and fashion in its saloons; fre- 
 quenting every place, in short, and everywhere at 
 home : 
 
 " Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, .... omnia novit." 
 
 The whole range of these various topics is brought 
 under review in his pages, and on all he sheds a ray, 
 sometimes a flood, of light. His rational philosophy, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3S l 
 
 content rather to doubt than to decide, points out the 
 track which other adventurous spirits may follow up 
 with advantage. No antiquary has done so much 
 towards determining the original hives of the semi- 
 civilized races of the Mexican plateau. No one, not 
 even of the Spaniards, has brought together such an 
 important mass of information in respect to the re- 
 sources, natural products, and statistics generally, of 
 New Spain. His explorations have identified more 
 than one locality and illustrated more than one cu- 
 rious monument of the people of Anahuac, which had 
 bafiied the inquiries of native antiquaries; and his 
 work, while embodying the results of profound scholar- 
 ship and art, is at the same time, in many respects, the 
 very best manuel du voyageur, and, as such, has been 
 most frequently used by subsequent tourists. It is 
 true, his pages are sometimes disfigured by pedantry, 
 ambitious display, learned obscurity, and other affecta- 
 tions of the man of letters. But what human work is 
 without its blemishes? His various writings on the 
 subject of New Spain, taken collectively, are one of 
 those monuments which may be selected to show the 
 progress of the species. Their author reminds us of 
 one of the ancient athletae, who descended into the 
 arena to hurl the discus with a giant arm, that dis- 
 tanced every cast of his contemporaries. 
 
 There is one branch of his fruitful subject which M. 
 de Humboldt has not exhausted, and, indeed, has but 
 briefly touched on. This is the social condition of the 
 country, especially as found in its picturesque capital. 
 This has been discussed by subsequent travellers more 
 fully, and Ward, Bullock, Lyons, Poinsett, Tudor, 
 
332 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Latrobe, have all produced works which have for their 
 object, more or less, the social habits and manners of 
 the people. With most of them this is not the promi- 
 nent object ; and others of them, probably, have found 
 obstacles in effecting it, to any great extent, from an 
 imperfect knowledge of the language, — the golden key 
 to the sympathies of a people, — without which a travel- 
 ler is as much at fault as a man without an eye for color 
 in a picture-gallery, or an ear for music at a concert. 
 He may see and hear, indeed, in both; but cui bono? 
 The traveller, ignorant of the language of the nation 
 whom he visits, may descant on the scenery, the roads, 
 the architecture, the outside of things, the rates and 
 distances of posting, the dress of the people in the 
 streets, and may possibly meet a native or two, half 
 denaturalized, kept to dine with strangers, at his 
 banker's. But as to the interior mechanism of society, 
 its secret sympathies, and familiar tone of thinking 
 and feeling, he can know no more than he could of 
 the contents of a library by running over the titles of 
 strange and unknown authors packed together on the 
 shelves. 
 
 It was to supply this deficiency that the work before 
 us, no doubt, was given to the public, and it was com- 
 posed under circumstances that afforded every possible 
 advantage and facility to its author. Although the 
 initials only of the name are given in the title-page, 
 yet, from these and certain less equivocal passages in 
 the body of the work, it requires no GEdipus to divine 
 that the author is the wife of the Chevalier Calderon 
 de la Barca, well known in this country during his 
 long residence as Spanish minister at Washington, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 333 
 
 where his amiable manners and high personal qualities 
 secured him general respect and the regard of all who 
 knew him. On the recognition of the independence 
 of Mexico by the mother-country, Senor Calderon was 
 selected to fill the office of the first Spanish envoy to 
 the republic. It was a delicate mission after so long 
 an estrangement, and it was hailed by the Mexicans 
 with every demonstration of pride and satisfaction. 
 Though twenty years had elapsed since they had estab- 
 lished their independence, yet they felt as a wayward 
 son may feel who, having absconded from the paternal 
 roof and set up for himself, still looks back to it with 
 a sort of reverence, and, in the plenitude of his pros- 
 perity, still feels the want of the parental benediction. 
 We, who cast off our allegiance in a similar way, can 
 comprehend the feeling. The new minister, from the 
 moment of his setting foot on the Mexican shore, was 
 greeted with an enthusiasm which attested the popular 
 feeling, and his presence in the capital was celebrated 
 by theatrical exhibitions, bull-fights, illuminations, 
 fetes public and private, and every possible demon- 
 stration of respect for the new envoy and the country 
 who sent him. His position secured him access to 
 every place of interest to an intelligent stranger, and 
 introduced him into the most intimate recesses of so- 
 ciety, from which the stranger is commonly excluded, 
 and to which, indeed, none but a Spaniard could, 
 under any circumstances, have been admitted. For- 
 tunately, the minister possessed, in the person of his 
 accomplished wife, one who had both the leisure and 
 the talent to profit by these uncommon opportunities, 
 and the result is given in the work before us, consist- 
 
334 
 
 CRITICAL M ISC EL LA ALES. 
 
 ing of letters to her family, which, it seems, since her 
 return to the United States, have been gathered to- 
 gether and prepared for publication.* 
 
 The present volumes make no pretensions to enlarge 
 the boundaries of our knowledge in respect to the min- 
 eral products of the country, its geography, its sta- 
 tistics, or, in short, to physical or political science. 
 These topics have been treated with more or less 
 depth by the various travellers who have written since 
 the great publications of Humboldt. We have had 
 occasion to become tolerably well acquainted with 
 their productions ; and we may safely assert that for 
 spirited portraiture of society, — a society unlike any 
 thing existing in the Old World or the New, — for pic- 
 turesque delineation of scenery, for richness of illus- 
 tration and anecdote, and for the fascinating graces of 
 style, no one of them is to be compared with "Life in 
 Mexico." 
 
 * The analysis of the work, with several pages of extracts from it, 
 is here omitted, as containing nothing that is not already familiar to 
 the English reader. 
 
MOLIERE.* 
 
 (October, 1828.) 
 
 The French surpass every other nation, indeed all 
 the other nations of Europe put together, in the amount 
 and excellence of their memoirs. Whence comes this 
 manifest superiority? The important Collection re- 
 lating to the History of France, commencing as early 
 as the thirteenth century, forms a basis of civil history 
 more authentic, circumstantial, and satisfactory to an 
 intelligent inquirer than is to be found among any 
 other people ; and the multitude of biographies, per- 
 sonal anecdotes, and similar scattered notices which 
 have appeared in France during the two last centuries 
 throw a flood of light on the social habits and general 
 civilization of the period in which they were written. 
 The Italian histories (and every considerable city in 
 Italy, says Tiraboschi, had its historian as early as the 
 thirteenth century) are fruitful only in wars, massacres, 
 treasonable conspiracies, or diplomatic intrigues, matters 
 that affect the tranquillity of the state. The rich body 
 of Spanish chronicles, which maintain an unbroken 
 succession from the reign of Alphonso the Wise to that 
 of Philip the Second, are scarcely more personal or 
 interesting in their details, unless it be in reference 
 to the sovereign and his immediate court. Even the 
 
 * " Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Moliere. Par J. Tasche- 
 reau." Paris. 1825. 
 
 (335) 
 
33 6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 English, in their memoirs and autobiographies of the 
 last century, are too exclusively confined to topics of 
 public notoriety, as the only subject worthy of record 
 or which can excite a general interest in their readers. 
 Not so with the French. The most frivolous details 
 assume in their eyes an importance when they can be 
 made illustrative of an eminent character; and even 
 when they concern one of less note, they become suffi- 
 ciently interesting, as just pictures of life and manners. 
 Hence, instead of exhibiting their hero only as he 
 appears on the great theatre, they carry us along with 
 him into retirement, or into those social circles where, 
 stripped of his masquerade dress, he can indulge in all 
 the natural gayety of his heart, — in those frivolities 
 and follies which display the real character much better 
 than all his premeditated wisdom ; those little nothings 
 which make up so much of the sum of French memoirs, 
 but which, however amusing, are apt to be discarded 
 by their more serious English neighbors as something 
 derogatory to their hero. Where shall we find a more 
 lively portraiture of that interesting period when feudal 
 barbarism began to fade away before the civilized in- 
 stitutions of modern times, than in Philip de Comines' 
 sketches of the courts of France and Burgundy in the 
 latter half of the fifteenth century? where a more nice 
 development of the fashionable intrigues, the corrupt 
 Machiavelian politics, which animated the little cote- 
 ries, male and female, of Paris, under the regency of 
 Anne of Austria, than in the Memoirs of De Retz? — to 
 say nothing of the vast amount of similar contributions 
 in France during the last century, which, in the shape 
 of letters and anecdotes, as well as memoirs, have made 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 337 
 
 us as intimately acquainted with the internal move- 
 ments of society in Paris, under all its aspects, literary, 
 fashionable, and political, as if they had passed in 
 review before our own eyes. 
 
 The French have been remarked for their excellence 
 in narrative ever since the times of the fabliaux and 
 the old Norman romances. Somewhat of their success 
 in this way may be imputed to the structure of their 
 language, whose general currency, and whose peculiar 
 fitness for prose composition, have been noticed from 
 a very early period. Brunetto Latini, the master of 
 Dante, wrote his Tcsoi'o in French, in preference to his 
 own tongue, as far back as the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, on the ground "that its speech was the most 
 universal and most delectable of all the dialects of 
 Europe." And Dante asserts in his treatise "on Vul- 
 gar Eloquence" that "the superiority of the French 
 consists in its adaptation, by means of its facility and 
 agreeableness, to narratives in prose." Much of the 
 wild, artless grace, the naivete, which characterized it 
 in its infancy, has been gradually polished away by 
 fastidious critics, and can scarcely be said to have sur- 
 vived Marot and Montaigne. But the language has 
 gained considerably in perspicuity, precision, and sim- 
 plicity of construction, to which the jealous labors of 
 the French Academy must be admitted to have con- 
 tributed essentially. This simplicity of construction, 
 refusing those complicated inversions so usual in the 
 other languages of the Continent, and its total want of 
 prosody, though fatal to poetical purposes, have greatly 
 facilitated its acquisition to foreigners, and have made 
 it a most suitable vehicle for conversation. Since the 
 p 29 
 
$3§ BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 time of Louis the Fourteenth, accordingly, it has be- 
 come the language of the courts and the popular me- 
 dium of communication in most of the countries of 
 Europe. Since that period, too, it has acquired a 
 number of elegant phrases and familiar turns of expres- 
 sion, which have admirably fitted it for light, popular 
 narrative, like that which enters into memoirs, letter- 
 writing, and similar kinds of composition. 
 
 The character and situation of the writers themselves 
 may account still better for the success of the French 
 in this department. Many of them, as Joinville, Sully, 
 Comines, De Thou, Rochefoucault, Torcy, have been 
 men of rank and education, the counsellors or the 
 friends of princes, acquiring from experience a shrewd 
 perception of the character and of the forms of society. 
 Most of them have been familiarized in those polite 
 circles which, in Paris more than any other capital, 
 seem to combine the love of dissipation and fashion 
 with a high relish for intellectual pursuits. The state 
 of society in France, or, what is the same thing, in 
 Paris, is admirably suited to the purposes of the memoir- 
 writer. The cheerful, gregarious temper of the inhab- 
 itants, which mingles all ranks in the common pursuit 
 of pleasure, the external polish, which scarcely deserts 
 them in the commission of the grossest violence, the 
 influence of the women, during the last two centuries, 
 far superior to that of the sex among any other people, 
 and exercised alike on matters of taste, politics, and 
 letters, the gallantry and licentious intrigues so usual 
 in the higher classes of this gay metropolis, and which 
 fill even the life of a man of letters, so stagnant in 
 every other country, with stirring and romantic adven- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 339 
 
 ture, — all these, we say, make up a rich and varied 
 panorama, that can hardly fail of interest under the 
 hand of the most common artist. 
 
 Lastly, the vanity of the French may be considered as 
 another cause of their success in this kind of writing, 
 — a vanity which leads them to disclose a thousand 
 amusing particulars which the reserve of an English- 
 man, and perhaps his pride, would discard as altogether 
 unsuitable to the public ear. This vanity, it must be 
 confessed, however, has occasionally seduced their 
 writers, under the garb of confessions and secret 
 memoirs, to make such a disgusting exposure of human 
 infirmity as few men would be willing to admit, even 
 to themselves. 
 
 The best memoirs of late produced in France seem 
 to have assumed somewhat of a novel shape. While 
 they are written with the usual freedom and vivacity, 
 they are fortified by a body of references and illustra- 
 tions that attest an unwonted degree of elaboration 
 and research. Such are those of Rousseau, La Fon- 
 taine, and Moliere, lately published. The last of these, 
 which forms the subject of our article, is a compilation 
 of all that has ever been recorded of the life of Moliere. 
 It is executed in an agreeable manner, and has the 
 merit of examining, with more accuracy than has been 
 hitherto done, certain doubtful points in his biography, 
 and of assembling together in a convenient form what 
 has before been diffused over a great variety of surface. 
 But, however familiar most of these particulars may be 
 to the countrymen of Moliere (by far the greatest comic 
 genius in his own nation, and, in very many respects, 
 inferior to none in any other), they are not so current 
 
34o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 elsewhere as to lead us to imagine that some account 
 of his life and literary labors would be altogether 
 unacceptable to our readers. 
 
 Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) was born in Paris, 
 January 15, 1622. His father was an upholsterer, as 
 his grandfather had been before him ; and the young 
 Poquelin was destined to exercise the same hereditary 
 craft, to which, indeed, he served an apprenticeship 
 until the age of fourteen. In this determination his 
 father was confirmed by the office which he had ob- 
 tained for himself, in connection with his original 
 vocation, of valet de cha??ibre to the king, with the 
 promise of a reversion of it to his son on his own 
 decease. The youth accordingly received only such 
 a meagre elementary education as was usual with the 
 artisans of that day. But a secret consciousness of his 
 own powers convinced him that he was destined by 
 nature for higher purposes than that of quilting sofas 
 and hanging tapestry. His occasional presence at the 
 theatrical representations of the Hotel de Bourgogne is 
 said also to have awakened in his mind, at this period, 
 a passion for the drama. He therefore solicited his 
 father to assist him in obtaining more liberal instruc- 
 tion ; and when the latter at length yielded to the 
 repeated entreaties of his son, it was with the reluctance 
 of one who imagines that he is spoiling a good mechanic 
 in order to make a poor scholar. He was accordingly 
 introduced into the Jesuits' College of Clermont, where 
 he followed the usual course of study for five years with 
 diligence and credit. He was fortunate enough to 
 pursue the study of philosophy under the direction of 
 the celebrated Gassendi, with his fellow-pupils, Cha- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 341 
 
 pelle the poet, afterwards his intimate friend, and 
 Bernier, so famous subsequently for his travels in the 
 East, but who, on his return, had the misfortune to 
 lose the favor of Louis the Fourteenth by replying to 
 him, that "of all the countries he had ever seen, he 
 preferred Switzerland." 
 
 On the completion of his studies, in 1641, he was 
 required to accompany the king, then Louis the Thir- 
 teenth, in his capacity of valet de chambre (his father 
 being detained in Paris by his infirmities), on an ex- 
 cursion to the south of France. This journey afforded 
 him the opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted 
 with the habits of the court, as well as those of the 
 provinces, of which he afterwards so repeatedly availed 
 himself in his comedies. On his return he commenced 
 the study of the law, and had completed it, it would 
 appear, when his old passion for the theatre revived 
 with increased ardor, and, after some hesitation, he 
 determined no longer to withstand the decided impulse 
 of his genius. He associated himself with one of those 
 city companies of players with which Paris had swarmed 
 since the days of Richelieu, — a minister who aspired 
 after the same empire in the republic of letters which 
 he had so long maintained over the state, and whose 
 ostentatious patronage eminently contributed to de- 
 velop that taste for dramatic exhibition which has dis- 
 tinguished his countrymen ever since. 
 
 The consternation of the elder Poquelin on receiving 
 the intelligence of his son's unexpected determination 
 may be readily conceived. It blasted at once all the 
 fair promise which the rapid progress the latter had 
 made in his studies justified him in forming, and it 
 
 29* 
 
342 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 degraded him to an unfortunate profession, esteemed 
 at that time even more lightly in France than it has 
 been in other countries. The humiliating dependence 
 of the comedian on the popular favor, the daily ex- 
 posure of his person to the caprice and insults of an 
 unfeeling audience, the numerous temptations incident 
 to his precarious and unsettled life, may furnish abun- 
 dant objections to this profession in the mind of every 
 parent. But in France, to all these objections were 
 superadded others of a graver cast, founded on religion. 
 The clergy there, alarmed at the rapidly-increasing taste 
 for dramatic exhibitions, openly denounced these ele- 
 gant recreations as an insult to the Deity ; and the 
 pious father anticipated, in this preference of his son, 
 his spiritual no less than his temporal perdition. He 
 actually made an earnest remonstrance to him to this 
 effect, through the intervention of one of his friends, 
 who, however, instead of converting the youth, was 
 himself persuaded to join the company then organizing 
 under his direction. But his familv were never recon- 
 ciled to his proceeding ; and even at a later period of 
 his life, when his splendid successes in his new career 
 had shown how rightly he had understood the character 
 of his own genius, they never condescended to avail 
 themselves of the freedom of admission to his theatre, 
 which he repeatedly proffered. M. Bret, his editor, 
 also informs us that he had himself seen a genealogical 
 tree in the possession of the descendants of this same 
 family, in which the name of Moliere was not even 
 admitted ! Unless it were to trace their connection 
 with so illustrious a name, what could such a family 
 want of a genealogical tree ? It was from a deference 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 343 
 
 to these scruples that our hero annexed to his patro- 
 nymic the name of Moliere, by which alone he has 
 been recognized by posterity. 
 
 During the three following years he continued play- 
 ing in Paris, until the turbulent regency of Anne of 
 Austria withdrew the attention of the people from the 
 quiet pleasures of the drama to those of civil broil and 
 tumult. Moliere then quitted the capital for the south 
 of France. From this period, 1646 to 1658, his his- 
 tory presents few particulars worthy of record. He 
 wandered with his company through the different prov- 
 inces, writing a few farces which have long since per- 
 ished, performing at the principal cities, and, wherever 
 he went, by his superior talent withdrawing the crowd 
 from every other spectacle to the exhibition of his own. 
 During this period, too, he was busily storing his 
 mind with those nice observations of men and man- 
 ners so essential to the success of the dramatist, and 
 which were to ripen there until a proper time for their 
 development should arrive. At the town of Pezenas 
 they still show an elbow-chair of Moliere's (as at Mont- 
 pellier they show the gown of Rabelais), in which the 
 poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's 
 shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching 
 the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village politi- 
 cians, who in those days, before coffee-houses were in- 
 troduced into France, used to congregate in this place 
 of resort. The fruits of this study may be easily dis- 
 cerned in those original draughts of character from the 
 middling and lower classes with which his pieces every- 
 where abound. 
 
 In the south of France he met with the Prince of 
 
344 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Conti, with whom he had contracted a friendship at 
 the college of Clermont, and who received him with 
 great hospitality. The prince pressed upon him the 
 office of his private secretary; but, fortunately for 
 letters, Moliere was constant in his devotion to the 
 drama, assigning as his reason that "the occupation 
 was of too serious a complexion to suit his taste, and 
 that, though he might make a passable author, he 
 should make a very poor secretary." Perhaps he was 
 influenced in this refusal, also, by the fate of the pre- 
 ceding incumbent, who had lately died of a fever, in 
 consequence of a blow from the fire-tongs, which his 
 highness, in a fit of ill humor, had given him on the 
 temple. However this may be, it was owing to the 
 good offices of the prince that he obtained access to 
 Monsieur, the only brother of Louis the Fourteenth, 
 and father of the celebrated regent, Philip of Orleans, 
 who, on his return to Paris in 1658, introduced him to 
 the king, before whom, in the month of October fol- 
 lowing, he was allowed, with his company, to perform 
 a tragedy of Corneille's and one of his own farces. 
 
 His little corps was now permitted to establish itself 
 under the title of the "Company of Monsieur," and 
 the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon was assigned as the 
 place for its performances. Here, in the course of a 
 few weeks, he brought out his Etourdi and Le Defiit 
 Amoureux, comedies in verse and in five acts, which 
 he had composed during his provincial pilgrimage, and 
 which, although deficient in an artful liaisofi of scenes 
 and in probability of incident, exhibit, particularly 
 the last, those fine touches of the ridiculous, which 
 revealed the future author of the Tartuffe and the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 345 
 
 Misanthrope. They indeed found greater favor with 
 the audience than some of his later pieces ; for in the 
 former they could only compare him with the wretched 
 models that had preceded him, while in the latter they 
 were to compare him with himself. 
 
 In the ensuing year Moliere exhibited his celebrated 
 farce of Les Precieuses Ridicules ; a piece in only one 
 act, but which, by its inimitable satire, effected such a 
 revolution in the literary taste of his countrymen as 
 has been accomplished by few works of a more im- 
 posing form, and which may be considered as the basis 
 of the dramatic glory of Moliere, and the dawn of 
 good comedy in France. This epoch was the com- 
 mencement of that brilliant period in French literature 
 which is so well known as the "age of Louis the Four- 
 teenth ; and yet it was distinguished by such a puerile, 
 meretricious taste as is rarely to be met with except in 
 the incipient stages of civilization or in its last decline. 
 The cause of this melancholy perversion of intellect is 
 mainly imputable to the influence of a certain coterie 
 of wits, whose rank, talents, and successful authorship 
 had authorized them in some measure to set up as the 
 arbiters of taste and fashion. This choice assembly, 
 consisting of the splenetic Rochefoucault, thj bel-esprit 
 Voiture, Balzac, whose letters afford the earliest example 
 of numbers in French prose, the lively and licentious 
 Bussy-Rabutin, Chapelain, who, as a wit has observed, 
 might still have had a reputation had it not been for his 
 "Pucelle," the poet Benserade, Menage, and others of 
 less note, together with such eminent women as Ma- 
 dame Lafayette, Mademoiselle Scuderi (whose eternal 
 romances, the delight of her own age, have been the 
 p* 
 
346 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 despair of every other), and even the elegant Sevigne, 
 was accustomed to hold its reunions principally at the 
 Hotel de Rambouillet, the residence of the marchioness 
 of that name, and which from this circumstance has ac- 
 quired such ill-omened notoriety in the history of letters. 
 Here thev were wont to hold the most solemn dis- 
 cussions on the most frivolous topics, but especially on 
 matters relating to gallantry and love, which they de- 
 bated with all the subtlety and metaphysical refinement 
 that centuries before had characterized the romantic 
 Courts of Love in the south of France. All this was 
 conducted in an affected jargon, in which the most 
 common things, instead of being called by their usual 
 names, were signified by ridiculous periphrases, which, 
 while it required neither wit nor ingenuity to invent 
 them, could have had no other merit, even in their 
 own eyes, than that of being unintelligible to the vul- 
 gar. To this was superadded a tone of exaggerated 
 sentiment, and a ridiculous code of etiquette, by which 
 the intercourse of these exclusives was to be regulated 
 with each other, all borrowed from the absurd ro- 
 mances of Calprenede an ' Scuderi. Even the names 
 of the parties underwent a metamorphosis, and Madame 
 de Rambouillet' s Christian name of Catherine, being 
 found too trite and unpoetical, was converted into 
 A?'thenice, by which she was ro generally recognized 
 as to be designated by it in Flechier's eloquent funeral 
 oration on her daughter.* These insipid affectations, 
 
 * How comes La Harpe to fall into the error of supposing that 
 Flcchier referred to Madame Montausier by this epithet of Arthenice ? 
 The bishop's style in this passage is as unequivocal as usual. See 
 Cours de Litterature, etc., tome vi. p. 167. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 347 
 
 which French critics are fond of imputing to an Italian 
 influence, savor quite as much of the Spanish cultismo 
 as of the concetti of the former nation, and may be yet 
 more fairly referred to the same false principles of 
 taste which distinguished the French Pleiades of the 
 sixteenth century, and the more ancient compositions 
 of their Provencal ancestors. Dictionaries were com- 
 piled and treatises written illustrative of this precious 
 vocabulary; all were desirous of being initiated into 
 the mysteries of so elegant a science ; even such men 
 as Corneilie and Bossuet did not disdain to frequent 
 the saloons where it was studied ; the spirit of imita- 
 tion, more active in France than in other countries, 
 took possession of the provinces ; every village had its 
 coterie of precieuses after the fashion of the capital, 
 and a false taste and criticism threatened to infect the 
 very sources of pure and healthful literature. 
 
 It was against this fashionable corruption that Mo- 
 liere aimed his wit in the little satire of the Precieuses 
 Ridicules, in which the valets of two noblemen are 
 represented as aping their masters' tone of conversa- 
 tion for the purpose of imposing on two young ladies 
 fresh from the provinces and great admirers of the new 
 style. The absurdity of these affectations is still more 
 strongly relieved by the contemptuous incredulity of 
 the father and servant, who do not comprehend a word 
 of them. By this process Moliere succeeded both in 
 exposing and degrading these absurd pretensions, as 
 he showed how opposite they were to common sense 
 and how easily they were to be acquired by the most 
 vulgar minds. The success was such as might have 
 been anticipated on an appeal to popular feeling, where 
 
348 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 nature must always triumph over the arts of affectation. 
 The piece was welcomed with enthusiastic applause, 
 and the disciples of the Hotel Rambouillet, most of 
 whom were present at the first exhibition, beheld the 
 fine fabric which they had been so painfully construct- 
 ing brought to the ground by a single blow. "And 
 these follies," said Menage to Chapelain, "which you 
 and I see so finely criticised here, are what we have 
 been so long admiring. We must go home and burn 
 our idols." "Courage, Moliere!" cried an old man 
 from the pit; "this is genuine comedy." The price 
 of the seats was doubled from the time of the second 
 representation. Nor were the effects of the satire 
 merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise 
 into one of reproach ; and a femme precieuse, a style 
 p?'ecieux, xtoii precieux, once so much admired, have 
 ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous 
 affectation. 
 
 There was, in truth, however, quite as much luck as 
 merit in this success of Moliere, whose production ex- 
 hibits no finer raillery or better-sustained dialogue than 
 are to be found in many of his subsequent pieces. It 
 assured him, however, of his own strength, and dis- 
 closed to him the mode in which he should best hit 
 the popular taste. " I have no occasion to study 
 Plautus or Terence any longer," said he: "I must 
 henceforth study the world." The world, accordingly, 
 was his study; and the exquisite models of character 
 which it furnished him will last as long as it shall 
 endure. 
 
 In 1660 he brought out the excellent comedy of the 
 Ecole des Maris, and in the course of the same month, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 349 
 
 that of the Facheux, in three acts, — composed, learned, 
 and performed within the brief space of a fortnight; an 
 expedition evincing the dexterity of the manager no 
 less than that of the author. This piece was written at 
 the request of Fouquet, superintendent of finances to 
 Louis the Fourteenth, for the magnificent fete at Vaux, 
 given by him to that monarch, and lavishly celebrated 
 in the memoirs of the period, and with yet more ele- 
 gance in a poetical epistle of La Fontaine to his friend 
 De Maucroix. This minister had been intrusted with 
 the principal care of the finances under Cardinal Maza- 
 rin, and had been continued in the same office by 
 Louis the Fourteenth, on his own assumption of the 
 government. The monarch, however, alarmed at the 
 growing dilapidations of the revenue, requested from 
 the superintendent an expose of its actual condition, 
 which, on receiving, he privately communicated to 
 Colbert, the rival and successor of Fouquet. The 
 latter, whose ordinary expenditure far exceeded that 
 of any other subject in the kingdom, and who, in ad- 
 dition to immense sums occasionally lost at play and 
 daily squandered on his debaucheries, is said to have 
 distributed in pensions more than four millions of 
 livres annually, thought it would be an easy matter 
 to impose on a young and inexperienced prince, who 
 had hitherto shown himself more devoted to pleasure 
 than business, and accordingly gave in false returns, 
 exaggerating the expenses, and diminishing the actual 
 receipts of the treasury. The detection of this pecu- 
 lation determined Louis to take the first occasion of 
 dismissing his powerful minister; but his ruin was pre- 
 cipitated and completed by the discovery of an indis- 
 
 30 
 
35 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 creet passion for Madame de la Valliere, whose fasci- 
 nating graces were then beginning to acquire for her 
 that ascendency over the youthful monarch which has 
 since condemned her name to such unfortunate celeb- 
 rity. The portrait of this lady, seen in the apartments 
 of the favorite on the occasion to which we have ad- 
 verted, so incensed Louis that he would have had him 
 arrested on the spot but for the seasonable intervention 
 of the queen-mother, who reminded him that Fouquet 
 was his host. It was for xh\s>fete at Vaux, whose palace 
 and ample domains, covering the extent of three vil- 
 lages, had cost their proprietor the sum, almost in- 
 credible for that period, of eighteen million livres, 
 that Fouquet put in requisition all the various talents 
 of the capital, the dexterity of its artists, and the in- 
 vention of its finest poets. He was particularly lavish 
 in his preparations for the dramatic portion of the 
 entertainment. Le Brun passed for a while from his 
 victories of Alexander to paint the theatrical decora- 
 tions; Torelli was employed to contrive the machinery; 
 Pelisson furnished the prologue, much admired in its 
 day, and Moliere his comedy of the Facheux. 
 
 This piece, the hint for which may have been sug- 
 gested by Horace's ninth satire, Ibam forte via Sacra, 
 is an amusing caricature of the various bores that infest 
 society, rendered the more vexatious by their interven- 
 tion at the very moment when a young lover is hasten- 
 ing to the place of assignation with his mistress. Louis 
 the Fourteenth, after the performance, seeing his mas- 
 ter of the hunts near him, M. Soyecour, a personage 
 remarkably absent, and inordinately devoted to the 
 pleasures of the chase, pointed him out to Moliere as 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 35* 
 
 an original whom he had omitted to bring upon his 
 canvas. The poet took the hint, and the following 
 day produced an excellent scene, where this Nimrod 
 is made to go through the technics of his art, in which 
 he had himself, with great complaisance, instructed the 
 mischievous satirist, who had drawn him into a conver- 
 sation for that very purpose on the preceding evening. 
 
 This play was the origin of the cojnedie-ballet, after- 
 wards so popular in France. The residence at Vaux 
 brought Moliere more intimately in contact with the 
 king and the court than he had before been ; and from 
 this time may be dated the particular encouragement 
 which he ever after received from this prince, and 
 which eventually enabled him to triumph over the 
 malice of his enemies. A few days after this magnifi- 
 cent entertainment, Fouquet was thrown into prison, 
 where he was suffered to languish the remainder of his 
 days, "which," says the historian from whom we have 
 gathered these details, "he terminated in sentiments of 
 the most sincere piety /"* a termination by no means 
 uncommon in France with that class of persons, of 
 either sex, respectively, who have had the misfortune 
 to survive their fortune or their beauty. 
 
 In February, 1662, Moliere formed a matrimonial 
 connection with Mademoiselle Bejart, a young come- 
 dian of his company, who had been educated under his 
 own eye, and whose wit and captivating graces had 
 effectually ensnared the poet's heart, but for which he 
 was destined to perform doleful penance the remainder 
 of his life. The disparity of their ages — for the lady 
 
 * Histoire de la Vie, etc., de La Fontaine, par M. Valckenaer. 
 Paris, 1824. 
 
35 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 was hardly seventeen — might have afforded in itself a 
 sufficient objection ; and he had no reason to flatter 
 himself that she would remain uninfected by the per- 
 nicious example of the society in which she had been 
 educated, and of which he himself was not altogether 
 an immaculate member. In his excellent comedy of 
 the Ecole des Fe?nmes, brought forward the same year, 
 the story turns upon the absurdity of an old man's 
 educating a young woman for the purpose, at some 
 future time, of marrying her, which wise plan is de- 
 feated by the unseasonable apparition of a young lover, 
 who in five minutes undoes what it had cost the veteran 
 so many years to contrive. The pertinency of this 
 moral to the poet's own situation shows how much 
 easier it is to talk wisely than to act so. 
 
 This comedy, popular as it was on its representation, 
 brought upon the head of its author a tempest of parody, 
 satire, and even slander, from those of his own craft who 
 were jealous of his unprecedented success, and from 
 those literary petits-maitres who still smarted with the 
 stripes inflicted on them in some of his previous per- 
 formances. One of this latter class, incensed at the 
 applauses bestowed upon the piece on the night of its 
 first representation, indignantly exclaimed, Ris done, 
 parterre ! ris done ! ''Laugh then, pit, if you will !" 
 and immediately quitted the theatre. 
 
 Moliere was not slow in avenging himself of these 
 interested criticisms, by means of a little piece entitled 
 La Critique de V Ecole des Femmes, in which he brings 
 forward the various objections made to his comedy 
 and ridicules them with unsparing severity. These 
 objections appear to have been chiefly of a verbal 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 353 
 
 nature. A few such familiar phrases as tarte a la 
 creme, enfans par V oreille, etc., gave particular offence 
 to the purists of that day, and, in the prudish spirit of 
 French criticism, have since been condemned by Vol- 
 taire and La Harpe as unworthy of comedy. One of 
 the personages introduced into the Critique is a mar- 
 quis, who, when repeatedly interrogated as to the 
 nature of his objections to the comedy, has no other 
 answer to make than by his eternal tarte a la creme. 
 The Due de Feuillade, a coxcomb of little brains but 
 great pretension, was the person generally supposed to 
 be here intended. The peer, unequal to an encounter 
 of wits with his antagonist, resorted to a coarser rem- 
 edy. Meeting Moliere one day in the gallery at Ver- 
 sailles, he advanced as if to embrace him, — a civility 
 which the great lords of that day occasionally con- 
 descended to bestow upon their inferiors. As the 
 unsuspecting poet inclined himself to receive the salute, 
 the duke, seizing his head between his hands, rubbed 
 it briskly against the buttons of his coat, repeating, at 
 the same time, ''''Tarte a la crane, Monsieur, tarte a la 
 crane." The king, on receiving intelligence of this 
 affront, was highly indignant, and reprimanded the duke 
 with great asperity. He at the same time encouraged 
 Moliere to defend himself with his own weapons ; a 
 privilege of which he speedily availed himself, in a 
 caustic little satire in one act, entitled Impromptu de 
 Versailles. "The marquis," he says in this piece, "is 
 nowadays the droll (Je plaisant) of the comedy ; and 
 as our ancestors always introduced a jester to furnish 
 mirth for the audience, so we must have recourse to 
 some ridiculous marquis to divert them." 
 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 It is obvious that Moliere could never have main- 
 tained this independent attitude if he had not been 
 protected by the royal favor. Indeed, Louis was con- 
 stant in giving him this protection ; and when, soon 
 after this period, the character of Moliere was black- 
 ened by the vilest imputations, the monarch testified 
 his conviction of his innocence by publicly standing 
 godfather to his child, — a tribute of respect equally 
 honorable to the prince and the poet. The king, 
 moreover, granted him a pension of a thousand livres 
 annually, and to his company, which henceforth took 
 the title of "comedians of the king," a pension of 
 seven thousand. Our author received his pension as 
 one of a long list of men of letters who experienced 
 a similar bounty from the royal hand. " The curious 
 estimate exhibited in this document of the relative 
 merits of these literary stipendiaries affords a striking 
 evidence that the decrees of contemporaries are not 
 unfrequently to be reversed by posterity. The ob- 
 solete Chapelain is there recorded "as the greatest 
 French poet who has ever existed;" in consideration 
 of which, his stipend amounted to three thousand 
 livres, while Boileau's name, for which his satires had 
 already secured an imperishable existence, is not even 
 noticed ! It should be added, however, on the au- 
 thority of Boileau, that Chapelain himself had the 
 principal hand in furnishing this apocryphal scale of 
 merit to the minister. 
 
 In the month of September, 1665, Moliere produced 
 his L? Amour Medecin, a comedie-ballet, in three acts, 
 which from the time of its conception to that of its 
 performance consumed only five days. This piece, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 355 
 
 although displaying no more than his usual talent for 
 caustic raillery, is remarkable as affording the earliest 
 demonstration of those direct hostilities upon the med- 
 ical faculty which he maintained at intervals during 
 the rest of his life, and which he may be truly said to 
 have died in maintaining. In this he followed the 
 example of Montaigne, who, in particular, devotes one 
 of the longest chapters in his work to a tirade against 
 the profession, which he enforces by all the ingenuity 
 of his wit and his usual wealth of illustration. In 
 this, also, Moliere was subsequently imitated by Le 
 Sage, as every reader of Gil Bias will readily call to 
 mind. Both Montaigne and Le Sage, however, like 
 most other libellers of the healing art, were glad to 
 have recourse to it in the hour of need. Not so with 
 Moliere. His satire seems to. have been without affec- 
 tation. Though an habitual valetudinarian, he relied 
 almost wholly on the temperance of his diet for the 
 re-establishment of his health. "What use do you 
 make of your physician?" said the king to him one 
 day. "We chat together, sire," said the poet: "he 
 gives me his prescriptions ; I never follow them, and 
 so I get well." 
 
 An ample apology for this infidelity may be found in 
 the state of the profession at that day, whose members 
 affected to disguise a profound ignorance of the true 
 principles of science under a pompous exterior, which, 
 however it might impose upon the vulgar, could only 
 bring them into deserved discredit with the better 
 portion of the community. The physicians of that 
 time are described as parading the streets of Paris on 
 mules, dressed in a long robe and bands, holding their 
 
356 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 conversation in bad Latin, or, if they condescended to 
 employ the vernacular, mixing it up with such a jargon 
 of scholastic phrase and scientific technics as to render 
 it perfectly unintelligible to vulgar ears. The follow- 
 ing lines, cited by M. Taschereau, and written in good 
 earnest at the time, seem to hit off most of these pecu- 
 liarities : 
 
 " Affecter un air pedantesque, 
 Cracber du Grec et du Latin, 
 Longue perruque, habit grotesque. 
 De la fourrure et du satin, 
 Tout cela reuni fait presque 
 Ce qu'on appelle un medecin."* 
 
 In addition to these absurdities, the physicians of 
 that period exposed themselves to still farther derision 
 by the contrariety of their opinions and the animosity 
 with which they maintained them. The famous con- 
 sultation in the case of Cardinal Mazarin was well 
 known in its day, — one of his four medical attendants 
 affirming the seat of his disorder to be the liver, an- 
 other the lungs, a third the spleen, and a fourth the 
 mesentery. Moliere's raillery, therefore, against em- 
 pirics, in a profession where mistakes are so easily 
 made, so difficult to be detected, and the only one in 
 which they are irremediable, stands abundantly ex- 
 cused from the censures which have been heaped upon 
 it. Its effects were visible in the reform which in his 
 own time it effected in their manners, if in nothing 
 
 * A gait and air somewhat pedantic, 
 
 And scarce to spit but Greek, or Latin; 
 
 A long peruke and habit antic, 
 
 Sometimes of fur, sometimes of satin, 
 
 Form the receipt by which 'tis showed 
 
 How to make doctors a la mode. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 357 
 
 farther. They assumed the dress of men of the world, 
 and gradually adopted the popular forms of communi- 
 cation ; an essential step to improvement, since nothing 
 cloaks ignorance and empiricism more effectually with 
 the vulgar than an affected use of learned phrase and 
 a technical vocabulary. 
 
 We are now arrived at that period of Moliere's ca- 
 reer when he composed his Misanthrope, a play which 
 some critics have esteemed his masterpiece, and which 
 all concur in admiring, as one of the noblest produc- 
 tions of the modern drama. Its literary execution, 
 too, of paramount importance in the eye of a French 
 critic, is more nicely elaborated than in any other of 
 the pieces of Moliere, if we except the Tartujfe, and 
 its didactic dialogue displays a maturity of thought 
 equal to what is found in the best satires of Boileau. 
 It is the very didactic tone of this comedy, indeed, 
 which, combined with its want of eager, animating 
 interest, made it less popular on its representation than 
 some of his inferior pieces. A circumstance which 
 occurred on the first night of its performance may be 
 worth noticing. In the second scene of the first act, 
 a man of fashion, it is well known, is represented as 
 soliciting the candid opinion of Alceste on a sonnet of 
 his own inditing, though he flies into a passion with 
 him, five minutes after, for pronouncing an unfavor- 
 able judgment. This sonnet was so artfully constructed 
 by Moliere, with those dazzling epigrammatic points 
 most captivating to common ears, that the gratified 
 audience were loud in their approbation of what they 
 supposed intended in good faith by the author. How 
 great was their mortification, then, when they heard 
 
353 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Alceste condemn the whole as puerile, and fairly ex- 
 pose the false principles on which it had been con- 
 structed ! Such a rebuke must have carried more weight 
 with it than a volume of set dissertation on the princi- 
 ples of taste. 
 
 Rousseau has bitterly inveighed against Moliere for 
 exposing to ridicule the hero of his Misanthrope, a 
 high-minded and estimable character. It was told to 
 the Due de Montausier, well known for his austere 
 virtue, that he was intended as the original of the 
 character. Much offended, he attended a representa- 
 tion of the piece, but, on returning, declared that "he 
 dared hardly flatter himself the poet had intended 
 him so great an honor." This fact, as has been well 
 intimated by La Harpe, furnishes the best reply to 
 Rousseau's invective. 
 
 The relations in which Moliere stood with his wife 
 at the time of the appearance of this comedy gave to 
 the exhibition a painful interest. The levity and ex- 
 travagance of this lady had for some time transcended 
 even those liberal limits which were conceded at that 
 day by the complaisance of a French husband, and 
 they deeply affected the happiness of the poet. As 
 he one day communicated the subject to his friend 
 Chapelle, the latter strongly urged him to confine her 
 person, — a remedy much in vogue then for refractory 
 wives, and one, certainly, if not more efficacious, at 
 least more gallant than the "moderate flagellation" 
 authorized by the English law. He remonstrated on 
 the folly of being longer the dupe of her artifices. 
 "Alas !" said the unfortunate poet to him, "you have 
 never loved!" A separation, however, was at length 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 359 
 
 agreed upon, and it was arranged that, while both par- 
 ties occupied the same house, they should never meet 
 except at the theatre. The respective parts which they 
 performed in this piece corresponded precisely with 
 their respective situations : that of Celimene, a fasci- 
 nating, capricious coquette, insensible to every re- 
 monstrance of her lover, and selfishly bent on the 
 gratification of her own appetites; and that of Alceste, 
 perfectly sensible of the duplicity of his mistress, 
 whom he vainly hopes to reform, and no less so of the 
 un worthiness of his own passion, from which he as 
 vainly hopes to extricate himself. The coincidences 
 are too exact to be considered wholly accidental. 
 
 If Moliere in his preceding pieces had hit the follies 
 and fashionable absurdities of the age, in the Tartuffe 
 he flew at still higher game, the most odious of all 
 vices, religious hypocrisy. The result showed that his 
 shafts were not shot in the dark. The first three acts 
 of the Tartuffe, the only ones then written, made their 
 appearance at the memorable fetes known under the 
 name of " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle," given 
 by Louis the Fourteenth at Versailles in 1664, and of 
 which the inquisitive reader may find a circumstantial 
 narrative in the twenty-fifth chapter of Voltaire's his- 
 tory of that monarch. The only circumstance which 
 can give them a permanent value with posterity is their 
 having been the occasion of the earliest exhibition of 
 this inimitable comedy. Louis the Fourteenth, who, 
 notwithstanding the defects of his education, seems to 
 have had a discriminating perception of literary beauty, 
 was fully sensible of the merits of this production. The 
 Tartuffes, however, who were present at the exhibition, 
 
360 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 deeply stung by the sarcasms of the poet, like the foul 
 birds of night whose recesses have been suddenly in- 
 vaded by a glare of light, raised a fearful cry against 
 him, until Louis even, whose solicitude for the interests 
 of the Church was nowise impaired by his own personal 
 derelictions, complied with their importunities for im- 
 posing a prohibition on the public performance of the 
 play. 
 
 It was, however, privately acted in the presence of 
 Monsieur, and afterwards of the great Conde. Copies 
 of it were greedily circulated in the societies of Paris; 
 and, although their unanimous suffrage was an inade- 
 quate compensation to the author for the privations he 
 incurred, it was sufficient to quicken the activity of the 
 false zealots, who, under the mask of piety, assailed 
 him with the grossest libels. One of them even ven- 
 tured so far as to call upon the king to make a public 
 example of him with fire and fagot ; another declared 
 that it would be an offence to the Deity to allow 
 Moliere, after such an enormity, " to participate in 
 the sacraments, to be admitted to confession, or even 
 to enter the precincts of a church, considering the 
 anathemas which it had fulminated against the authors 
 of indecent and sacrilegious spectacles!" Soon after 
 his sentence of prohibition, the king attended the per- 
 formance of a piece entitled Scaramouche Hermite, a 
 piece abounding in passages the most indelicate and 
 profane. "What is the reason," said he, on retiring, 
 to the Prince of Conde, " that the persons so sensibly 
 scandalized at Moliere's comedy take no umbrage at 
 this?" "Because," said the prince, "the latter only 
 attacks religion, while the former attacks themselves;" 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 361 
 
 an answer which may remind one of a remark of Bayle in 
 reference to the Decameron, which, having been placed 
 on the Index on account of its immorality, was, however, 
 allowed to be published in an edition which converted 
 the names of the ecclesiastics into those of laymen ; "a 
 concession," says the philosopher, "which shows the 
 priests to have been much more solicitous for the in- 
 terests of their own order than for those of heaven." 
 
 Louis, at length convinced of the interested motives 
 of the enemies of the Tartuffe, yielded to the importu- 
 nities of the public and removed his prohibition of its 
 performance. It accordingly was represented, for the 
 first time in public, in August, 1667, before an over- 
 flowing house, extended to its full complement of five 
 acts, but with alterations of the names of the piece, 
 the principal personages in it, and some of its most ob- 
 noxious passages. It was entitled The Impostor, and its 
 hero was styled Panulfe. On the second evening of 
 the performance, however, an interdict arrived from 
 the president of the Parliament against the repetition 
 of the performance, and, as the king had left Paris in 
 order to join his army in Flanders, no immediate re- 
 dress was to be obtained. It was not until two years 
 later, 1669, that the Tartuffe, in its present shape, was 
 finally allowed to proceed unmolested in its representa- 
 tions. It is scarcely necessary to add that these were 
 attended with the most brilliant success which its 
 author could have anticipated, and to which the in- 
 trinsic merits of the piece, and the unmerited persecu- 
 tions he had undergone, so well entitled him. Forty- 
 four successive representations were scarcely sufficient 
 to satisfy the eager curiosity of the public ; and his 
 Q 3 1 
 
362 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 grateful company forced upon Moliere a double share 
 of the profits during every repetition of its performance 
 for the remainder of his life. Posterity has confirmed 
 the decision of his contemporaries, and it still remains 
 the most admired comedy of the French theatre, and 
 will always remain so, says a native critic, "as long 
 as taste and hypocrites shall endure in France." 
 
 We have been thus particular in our history of these 
 transactions, as it affords one of the most interesting 
 examples on record of undeserved persecution with 
 which envy and party spirit have assailed a man of 
 letters. No one of Moliere's compositions is deter- 
 mined by a more direct moral aim ; nowhere has he 
 stripped the mask from vice with a more intrepid 
 hand ; nowhere has he animated his discourses with a 
 more sound and practical piety. It should be added, 
 in justice to the French clergy of that period, that the 
 most eminent prelates at the court acknowledged the 
 merits of this comedy, and were strongly in favor of 
 its representation. 
 
 It is generally known that the amusing scene in the 
 first act, where Dorine enlarges so eloquently on the 
 good cheer which Tartuffe had made in the absence of 
 his host, was suggested to Moliere some years previous 
 in Lorraine, by a circumstance which took place at the 
 table of Louis the Fourteenth, whom Moliere had ac- 
 companied in his capacity of valet de cha,77ibre. Pere- 
 fixe, bishop of Rhodez, entering while the king was at 
 his evening meal, during Lent, was invited by him to 
 follow his example ; but the bishop declined, on the 
 ground that he was accustomed to eat only once during 
 the days of vigil and fast. The king, observing one 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. ^l 
 
 of his attendants to smile, inquired of him the reason 
 as soon as the prelate had withdrawn. The latter in- 
 formed his master that he need be under no apprehen- 
 sions for the health of the good bishop, as he himself 
 had assisted at his dinner on that day, and then re- 
 counted to him the various dishes which had been 
 served up. The king, who listened with becoming 
 gravity to the narration, uttered an exclamation of 
 "Poor man !" at the specification of each new item, 
 varying the tone of his exclamation in such a manner 
 as to give it a highly comic effect. The humor was 
 not lost upon our poet, who has transported the same 
 ejaculations, with much greater effect, into the above- 
 mentioned scene of his play. The king, who did not 
 at first recognize the source whence he had derived it, 
 on being informed of it, was much pleased, if we may 
 believe M. Taschereau, in finding himself even thus 
 accidentally associated with the work of a man of 
 genius. 
 
 In 1668, Moliere brought forward his Avare, and in 
 the following year his amusing comedy of the Bow-geois 
 Gentilhomme, in which the folly of unequal alliances is 
 successfully ridiculed and exposed. This play was first 
 represented in the presence of the court at Chambord. 
 The king maintained during its performance an in- 
 scrutable physiognomy, which made it doubtful what 
 might be his real sentiments respecting it. The same 
 deportment was maintained by him during the evening 
 towards the author, who was in attendance in his ca- 
 pacity of valet de chambre. The quick-eyed courtiers, 
 the counts and marquises, who had so often smarted 
 under the lash of the poet, construing this into an 
 
364 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 expression of royal disapprobation, were loud in their 
 condemnation of him, and a certain duke boldly 
 affirmed "that he was fast sinking into his second 
 childhood, and that, unless some better writer soon 
 appeared, French comedy would degenerate into mere 
 Italian farce." The unfortunate poet, unable to catch 
 a single ray of consolation, was greatly depressed 
 during the interval of five days which preceded the 
 second representation of his piece ; on returning from 
 which, the monarch assured him that "none of his 
 productions had afforded him greater entertainment, 
 and that, if he had delayed expressing his opinion on 
 the preceding night, it was from the apprehension that 
 his judgment might have been influenced by the excel- 
 lence of the acting." Whatever we may think of this 
 exhibition of royal caprice, we must admire the supple- 
 ness of the courtiers, one and all of whom straightway 
 expressed their full conviction of the merits of the 
 comedy, and the duke above mentioned added, in par- 
 ticular, that "there was a vis co7iiica in all that Mo- 
 liere ever wrote, to which the ancients could furnish no 
 parallel!" What exquisite studies for his pencil must 
 Moliere not have found in this precious assembly! 
 
 We have already remarked that the profession of a 
 comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this 
 period. Moliere experienced the inconveniences re- 
 sulting from this circumstance even after his splendid 
 literary career had given him undoubted claims to 
 consideration. Most of our readers, no doubt, are 
 acquainted with the anecdote of Belloc, an agreeable 
 poet of the court, who, on hearing one of the servants 
 in the royal household refuse to aid the author of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 365 
 
 Tartuffe in making the king's bed, courteously re- 
 quested "the poet to accept his services for that pur- 
 pose." Madame Campan's anecdote of a similar 
 courtesy on the part of Louis the Fourteenth is also 
 well known, who, when several of these functionaries 
 refused to sit at table with the comedian, kindly in- 
 vited him to sit down with him, and, calling in some 
 of his principal courtiers, remarked that "he had re- 
 quested the pleasure of Moliere's company at his own 
 table, as it was not thought quite good enough for his 
 officers." This rebuke had the desired effect. How- 
 ever humiliating the reflection may be that genius 
 should have, at any time, stood in need of such pa- 
 tronage, it is highly honorable to the monarch who 
 could raise himself so far above the prejudices of his 
 age as to confer it. 
 
 It was the same unworthy prejudice that had so long 
 excluded Moliere from that great object and recom- 
 pense of a French scholar's ambition, a seat in the 
 Academy; a body affecting to maintain a jealous watch 
 over the national language and literature, which the 
 author of the Misanthrope and the Tartuffe, perhaps 
 more than any other individual of his age, had con- 
 tributed to purify and advance. Sensible of this merit, 
 they at length offered him a place in their assembly, 
 provided he would renounce his profession of a player 
 and confine himself in future to his literary labors. 
 But the poet replied to his friend Boileau, the bearer 
 of this communication, that "too many individuals 
 of his company depended on his theatrical labors for 
 support to allow him for a moment to think of it;" a 
 reply of infinitely more service to his memory than all 
 
 31* 
 
366 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the academic honors that could have been heaped upon 
 him. This illustrious body, however, a century after 
 his decease, paid him the barren compliment (the only 
 one then in their power) of decreeing to him an eloge, 
 and of admitting his bust within their walls, with this 
 inscription upon it : 
 
 " Nothing is wanting to his glory: he was wanting to ours." 
 
 The catalogue of Academicians contemporary with 
 Moliere, most of whom now rest in sweet oblivion, or, 
 with Cotin and Chapelain, live only in the satires of 
 Boileau, shows that it is as little in the power of acad- 
 emies to confer immortality on a writer as to deprive 
 him of it. 
 
 We have not time to notice the excellent comedy of 
 the Fe?nmes Savantes, and some inferior pieces, written 
 by our author at a later period of his life, and must 
 hasten to the closing scene. He had been long affected 
 by a pulmonary complaint, and it was only by severe 
 temperance, as we have before stated, that he- was en- 
 abled to preserve even a moderate degree of health. 
 At the commencement of the year 1673 his malady 
 sensibly increased. At this very season he composed 
 his Malade Imaginaire , — the most whimsical, and per- 
 haps the most amusing, of the compositions in which 
 he has indulged his raillery against the faculty. On 
 the seventeenth of February, being the day appointed 
 for its fourth representation, his friends would have 
 dissuaded him from appearing, in consequence of his 
 increasing indisposition ; but he persisted in his de- 
 sign, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals 
 depended for their daily bread on its performance." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 3 6 7 
 
 His life fell a sacrifice to his benevolence. The exer- 
 tions which he was compelled to make in playing the 
 principal part of Argan aggravated his distemper, and 
 as he was repeating the word juro in the concluding 
 ceremony he fell into a convulsion, which he vainly 
 endeavored to disguise from the spectators under a 
 forced smile. He was immediately carried to his house 
 in the Rue de Richelieu, now No. 34. A violent fit 
 of coughing, on his arrival, occasioned the rupture of 
 a blood-vessel ; and, seeing his end approaching, he 
 sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Eustace, 
 to which he belonged, to administer to him the last 
 offices of religion. But these worthy persons refused 
 their assistance; and before a third, who had been 
 sent for, could arrive, Moliere, suffocated with the 
 effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his 
 family. 
 
 Harlay de Champvalon, at that time Archbishop of 
 Paris, refused the rites of sepulture to the deceased 
 poet because he was a comedian and had had the 
 misfortune to die without receiving the sacraments. 
 This prelate is conspicuous, even in the chronicles of 
 that period, for his bold and infamous debaucheries. 
 It is of him that Madame de Sevigne observes, in 
 one of her letters, "There are two little inconveniences 
 which make it difficult for any one to undertake his 
 funeral oration, — his life and his death." Father Gail- 
 lard, who at length consented to undertake it, did so 
 on the condition that he should not be required to say 
 any thing of the character of the deceased. The re- 
 monstrance of Louis the Fourteenth having induced 
 this person to remove his interdict, he privately in- 
 
368 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 structed the curate of St. Eustace not to allow the 
 usual service for the dead to be recited at the inter- 
 ment. On the day appointed for this ceremony, a 
 number of the rabble assembled before the deceased 
 poet's door, determined to oppose it. ''They knew 
 only," says Voltaire, "that Moliere was a comedian, 
 but did not know that he was a philosopher and a great 
 man." They had, more probably, been collected to- 
 gether by the Tartuffes, his unforgiving enemies. The 
 widow of the poet appeased these wretches by throw- 
 ing money to them from the windows. In the evening, 
 the body, escorted by a procession of about a hundred 
 individuals, the friends and intimate acquaintances of 
 the deceased poet, each of them bearing a flambeau in 
 his hand, was quietly deposited in the cemetery of St. 
 Joseph, without the ordinary chant, or service of any 
 kind. It was not thus that Paris followed to the tomb 
 the remains of her late distinguished comedian, Talma. 
 Yet Talma was only a comedian, while Moliere, in 
 addition to this, had the merit of being the most emi- 
 nent comic writer whom France had ever produced. 
 The different degree of popular civilization which this 
 difference of conduct indicates may afford a subject of 
 contemplation by no means unpleasing to the philan- 
 thropist. 
 
 In the year 1792, during that memorable period 
 in France when an affectation of reverence for their 
 illustrious dead was strangely mingled with the perse- 
 cution of the living, the Parisians resolved to exhume 
 the remains of La Fontaine and Moliere, in order to 
 transport them to a more honorable place of interment. 
 Of the relics thus obtained, it is certain that no portion 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 369 
 
 belonged to La Fontaine, and it is extremely probable 
 that none did to Moliere. Whosesoever they may have 
 been, they did not receive the honors for which their 
 repose had been disturbed. With the usual fickleness 
 of the period, they were shamefully transferred from 
 one place to another, or abandoned to neglect, for 
 seven years, when the patriotic conservator of the 
 Monumens Fran^ais succeeded in obtaining them for 
 his collection at the Petits Augustins. On the sup- 
 pression of this institution in 181 7, the supposed ashes 
 of the two poets were, for the last time, transported to 
 the spacious cemetery of Pere de la Chaise, where the 
 tomb of the author of the Tartuffe is designated by an 
 inscription in Latin, which, as if to complete the scan- 
 dal of the proceedings, is grossly mistaken in the only 
 fact which it pretends to record, namely, the age of 
 the poet at the time of his decease. 
 
 Moliere died soon after entering upon his fifty-second 
 year. He is represented to have been somewhat above 
 the middle stature, and well proportioned ; his features 
 large, his complexion dark, and his black, bushy eye- 
 brows so flexible as to admit of his giving an infinitely 
 comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the 
 best actor of his own generation, and, by his counsels, 
 formed the celebrated Baron, the best of the succeed- 
 ing. He played all the range of his own characters, 
 from Alceste to Sganarelle, though he seems to have 
 been peculiarly fitted for broad comedy. He com- 
 posed with rapidity, for which Boileau has happily 
 complimented him : 
 
 " Rare et sublime esprit, dont la fertile vein 
 Ignore en ecrivant le travail et la peine ;" 
 Q* 
 
37° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 unlike in this to Boileau himself, and to Racine, the 
 former of whom taught the latter, if Ave may credit his 
 son, " the art of rhyming with difficulty." Of course, 
 the verses of Moliere have neither the correctness nor 
 the high finish of those of his two illustrious rivals. 
 
 He produced all his pieces, amounting to thirty, in 
 the short space of fifteen years. He was in the habit 
 of reading these to an old female domestic by the name 
 of La Foret, on whose unsophisticated judgment he 
 greatly relied. On one occasion, when he attempted 
 to impose upon her the production of a brother author, 
 she plainly told him that he had never written it. Sir 
 Walter Scott may have had this habit of Moliere's in his 
 mind when he introduced a similar expedient into his 
 " Chronicles of the Canongate." For the same reason, 
 our poet used to request the comedians to bring their 
 children with them when he recited a new play. The 
 peculiar advantage of this humble criticism in dramatic 
 compositions is obvious. Alfieri himself, as he informs 
 us, did not disdain to resort to it. 
 
 Moliere's income was very ample, probably not less 
 than twenty-five or thirty thousand francs, — an immense 
 sum for that day ; yet he left but little property. The 
 expensive habits of his wife and his own liberality may 
 account for it. One example of this is worth recording, 
 as having been singularly opportune and well directed. 
 When Racine came up to Paris as a young adventurer, 
 he presented to Moliere a copy of his first crude tragedy, 
 long since buried in oblivion. The latter discerned in it, 
 amid all its imperfections, the latent spark of dramatic 
 genius, and he encouraged its author by the present of 
 a hundred louis. This was doing better for him than 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 37 r 
 
 Corneille did, who advised the future author of Phedre 
 to abandon the tragic walk and to devote himself alto- 
 gether to comedy. Racine recompensed this benefac- 
 tion of his friend, at a later period of his life, by 
 quarrelling with him. 
 
 Moliere was naturally of a reserved and taciturn 
 temper, insomuch that his friend Boileau used to call 
 him the Contemftlateur. Strangers who had expected 
 to recognize in his conversation the sallies of wit which 
 distinguished his dramas went away disappointed. The 
 same thing is related of La Fontaine. The truth is, 
 that Moliere went into society as a spectator, not as an 
 actor ; he found there the studies for the characters 
 which he was to transport upon the stage, and he 
 occupied himself with observing them. The dreamer 
 La Fontaine lived, too, in a world of his own creation. 
 His friend Madame de la Sabliere paid to him this 
 untranslatable compliment: "En verite, mon cher La 
 Fontaine, vous seriez bien bete, si vous n'aviez pas tant 
 d'esprit." These unseasonable reveries brought him. 
 it may be imagined, into many whimsical adventures. 
 The great Corneille, too, was distinguished by the same 
 apathy. A gentleman dined at the same table with him 
 for six months without suspecting the author of the 
 "Cid." 
 
 The literary reputation of Moliere, and his amiable 
 personal endowments, naturally led him into an inti- 
 macy with the most eminent wits of the golden age in 
 which he lived, but especially with Boileau, La Fontaine, 
 and Racine ; and the confidential intercourse of these 
 great minds, and their frequent reunions for the pur- 
 poses of social pleasure, bring to mind the similar 
 
372 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 associations at the Mermaid's, Will's Coffee-house, 
 and Button's, which form so pleasing a picture in the 
 annals of English literature. It was common on these 
 occasions to have a volume of the unfortunate Chape- 
 Iain's epic, then in popular repute, lie open upon the 
 table, and if one of the party fell into a grammatical 
 blunder, to impose upon him the reading of some 
 fifteen or twenty verses of it: "a whole page," says 
 Louis Racine, "was sentence of death." La Fontaine, 
 in his Psyche, has painted his reminiscences of these 
 happy meetings in the coloring of fond regret ; where, 
 " freely discussing such topics of general literature or 
 personal gossip as might arise, they touched lightly 
 upon all, like bees passing on from flower to flower, 
 criticising the works of others without envy, and of 
 one another, when any one chanced to fall into the 
 malady of the age, with frankness. ' ' Alas that so rare 
 a union of minds, destined to live together through all 
 ages, should have been dissolved by the petty jealousies 
 incident to common men ! 
 
 In these assemblies frequent mention is made of 
 Chapelle, the most intimate friend of Moliere, whose 
 agreeable verses are read with pleasure in our day, and 
 whose cordial manners and sprightly conversation 
 made him the delight of his own. His mercurial 
 spirits, however, led him into too free an indulgence 
 of convivial pleasures, and brought upon him the re- 
 peated though unavailing remonstrances of his friends. 
 On one of these occasions, as Boileau was urging upon 
 him the impropriety of this indulgence, and its inevi- 
 table consequences, Chapelle, who received the admo- 
 nition with great contrition, invited his Mentor to 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 373 
 
 withdraw from the public street in which they were 
 then walking into a neighboring house, where they 
 could talk over the matter with less interruption. 
 Here wine was called for, and, in the warmth of dis- 
 cussion, a second bottle being soon followed by a 
 third, both parties at length found themselves in a 
 condition which made it advisable to adjourn the lec- 
 ture to a more fitting occasion. 
 
 Moliere enjoyed also the closest intimacy with the 
 great Conde, the most distinguished ornament of the 
 court Of Louis the Fourteenth; to such an extent, in- 
 deed, that the latter directed that the poet should never 
 be refused admission to him, at whatever hour he might 
 choose to pay his visit. His regard for his friend was 
 testified by his remark, rather more candid than cour- 
 teous, to an abbe of his acquaintance, who had brought 
 him an epitaph of his own writing upon the deceased 
 poet. "Would to Heaven," said the prince, "that he 
 were in a condition to bring me yours i" 
 
 We have already wandered beyond the limits which 
 we had assigned to ourselves for an abstract of Mo- 
 Here's literary labors and of the most interesting anec- 
 dotes in his biography. Without entering, therefore, 
 into a criticism on his writings, of which the public 
 stand in no need, we shall dismiss the subject with a 
 few brief reflections on their probable influence, and 
 on the design of the author in producing them. 
 
 The most distinguished French critics, with the 
 overweening partiality in favor of their own nation, 
 so natural and so universal, placing Moliere by com- 
 mon consent at the head of their own comic writers, 
 have also claimed for him a pre-eminence over those 
 
 32 
 
374 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of every other age and country. A. W. Schlegel, a 
 very competent judge in these matters, has degraded 
 him, on the other hand, from the walks of high comedy 
 to the writer of "buffoon farces, for which his genius 
 and inclination seem to have essentially fitted him;" 
 adding, moreover, that "his characters are not drawn 
 from nature, but from the fleeting and superficial forms 
 of fashionable life." This is a hard sentence, accom- 
 modated to the more forcible illustration of the pe- 
 culiar theory which the German writer has avowed 
 throughout his work, and which, however reasonable 
 in its first principles, has led him into as exaggerated 
 an admiration of the romantic models which he pre- 
 fers, as disparagement of the classical school which he 
 detests. It is a sentence, moreover, upon which some 
 eminent critics in his own country, who support his 
 theory in the main, have taken the liberty to demur. 
 
 That a large proportion of Moliere's pieces are con- 
 ceived in a vein of broad, homely merriment, rather 
 than in that of elevated comedy, abounding in forced 
 situations, high caricature, and practical jokes ; in the 
 knavish, intriguing valets of Plautus and Terence ; in 
 a compound of that good nature and irritability, 
 shrewdness and credulity, which make up the dupes 
 of Aristophanes, is very true ; but that a writer dis- 
 tinguished by his deep reflection, his pure taste, and 
 nice observation of character should have preferred 
 this to the higher walks of his art, is absolutely incred- 
 ible. He has furnished the best justification of him- 
 self in an apology which a contemporary biographer 
 reports him to have made to some one who censured 
 him on this very ground: "If I wrote simply for 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 375 
 
 fame," said he, "I should manage very differently; 
 but I write for the support of my company. I must 
 not address myself, therefore, to a few people of edu- 
 cation, but to the mob. And this latter class of 
 gentry take very little interest in a continued elevation 
 of style and sentiment." With all these imperfections 
 and lively absurdities, however, there is scarcely one 
 of Moliere's minor pieces which does not present us 
 with traits of character that come home to every heart, 
 and felicities of expression that, from their truth, have 
 come to be proverbial. 
 
 With regard to the objection that his characters are 
 not so much drawn from nature as from the local man- 
 ners of the age, if it be meant that they are not acted 
 upon by those deep passions which engross the whole 
 soul, and which, from this intensity, have more of a 
 tragic than a comic import in them, but are rather 
 drawn from the foibles and follies of ordinary life, it 
 is true ; but then these last are likely to be quite as 
 permanent, and, among civilized nations, quite as uni- 
 versal, as the former. And who has exposed them with 
 greater freedom or with a more potent ridicule than 
 Moliere ? Love, under all its thousand circumstances, 
 its quarrels and reconciliations; vanity, humbly suing 
 for admiration under the guise of modesty; whimsical 
 contradictions of profession and habitual practice; the 
 industry with which the lower classes ape, not the vir- 
 tues, but the follies of their superiors; the affectation 
 of fashion, taste, science, or any thing but what the 
 party actually possesses ; the esprit de corps, which 
 leads us to feel an exalted respect for our own profes- 
 sion and a sovereign contempt for every other; the 
 
376 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 friendly adviser, who has an eye to his own interest ; 
 the author, who seeks your candid opinion, and quar- 
 rels with you when you have given it ; the fair friend, 
 who kindly sacrifices your reputation for a jest ; the 
 hypocrite under every aspect, who deceives the world 
 or himself, — these form the various and motley pano- 
 rama of character which Moliere has transferred to his 
 canvas, and which, though mostly drawn from culti- 
 vated life, must endure as long as society shall hold 
 together. 
 
 Indeed, Moliere seems to have possessed all the 
 essential requisites for excelling in genteel comedy : a 
 pure taste, an acute perception of the ridiculous, the 
 tone of elegant dialogue, and a wit brilliant and un- 
 tiring as Congreve's, but which, instead of wasting 
 itself, like his, in idle flashes of merriment, is uniformly 
 directed with a moral or philosophical aim. This ob- 
 vious didactic purpose, in truth, has been censured 
 as inconsistent with the spirit of the drama, and as 
 belonging rather to satire ; but it secured to him an 
 influence over the literature and the opinions of his 
 own generation which has been possessed by no other 
 comic writer of the moderns. 
 
 He was the first to recall his countrymen from the 
 vapid hyperbole and puerile conceits of the ancient 
 farces, and to instruct them in the maxim which 
 Boileau has since condensed into a memorable verse, 
 that "nothing is beautiful but what is natural." We 
 have already spoken of the reformation which one of 
 his early pieces effected in the admirers of the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet and its absurdities ; and when this confed- 
 eracy afterwards rallied under an affectation of science, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 377 
 
 as it had before done of letters, he again broke it with 
 his admirable satire of the Femmes Savantes. We do 
 not recollect any similar revolution effected by a single 
 effort of genius, unless it be that brought about by the 
 Baviad and Mceviad. But Mr. Gifford, in the Della- 
 Cruscan school, but "broke a butterfly upon the wheel," 
 in comparison with those enemies, formidable by rank 
 and talent, whom Moliere assailed. We have noticed 
 in its proper place the influence which his writings had 
 in compelling the medical faculty of his day to lay 
 aside the affected deportment, technical jargon, and 
 other mummeries then in vogue, by means of the public 
 derision to which he had deservedly exposed them. 
 In the same manner, he so successfully ridiculed the 
 miserable dialectics, pedantry, and intolerance of the 
 schoolmen, in his diverting dialogues between Dr. 
 Marphurius and Dr. Pancrace, that he is said to have 
 completely defeated the serious efforts of the Uni- 
 versity for obtaining a confirmation of the decree of 
 1624, which had actually prohibited, under pain of 
 death, the promulgation of any opinion contrary to 
 the doctrines of Aristotle. The arret burlesque of his 
 friend Boileau, at a later period, if we may trust the 
 Menagiatia, had a principal share in preventing a 
 decree of the Parliament against the philosophy of 
 Descartes. It is difficult to estimate the influence of 
 our poet's satire on the state of society in general, and 
 on those higher ranks in particular whose affectations 
 and pretensions he assailed with such pertinacious hos- 
 tility. If he did not reform them, he at least deprived 
 them of their fascination and much of their mischiev- 
 ous influence, by holding them up to the contempt 
 
 32* 
 
378 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 and laughter of the public. Sometimes, it must be 
 admitted, though very rarely, in effecting this object 
 he so far transgressed the bounds of decorum as to 
 descend even to personalities. 
 
 From this view of the didactic purpose proposed by 
 Moliere in his comedies, it is obviously difficult to 
 institute a comparison between them and those of our 
 English dramatists, or, rather, of Shakspeare, who may 
 be taken as their representative. The latter seems to 
 have had no higher end in view than mere amusement : 
 he took a leaf out of the great volume of human nature 
 as he might find it ; nor did he accommodate it to 
 the illustration of any moral or literary theorem. The 
 former, on the other hand, manifests such a direct 
 perceptive purpose as to give to some of his pieces the 
 appearance of satires rather than of comedies ; argu- 
 ment takes the place of action, and the pro and con 
 of the matter are discussed with all the formality of a 
 school exercise. This essentially diminishes the inter- 
 est of some of his best plays, the Misanthrope and the 
 Femmes Savantes for example, which for this reason 
 seem better fitted for the closet than the stage, and 
 have long since ceased to be favorites with the public. 
 This want of interest is, moreover, aggravated by the 
 barrenness of action visible in many of Moliere's come- 
 dies, where he seems only to have sought an apology for 
 bringing together his coteries of gentlemen and ladies 
 for the purpose of exhibiting their gladiatorial dexterity 
 in conversation. Not so with the English dramatist, 
 whose boundless invention crowds his scene with inci- 
 dents that hurry us along with breathless interest, but 
 which sadly scandalize the lover of the unities. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 379 
 
 In conformity with his general plan, too, Shakspeare 
 brings before us every variety of situation, — the court, 
 the camp, and the cloister ; the busy hum of populous 
 cities, or the wild solitude of the forest, — presenting us 
 with pictures of rich and romantic beauty which could 
 not fall within the scope of his rival, and allowing him- 
 self to indulge in the unbounded revelry of an imagina- 
 tion which Moliere did not possess. The latter, on the 
 other hand, an attentive observer of man as he is found 
 in an over-refined state of society, in courts and crowded 
 capitals, copied his minutest lineaments with a precision 
 that gives to his most general sketches the air almost of 
 personal portraits ; seasoning, moreover, his discourses 
 with shrewd hints and maxims of worldly policy. Shak- 
 speare' s genius led him rather to deal in bold touches 
 than in this nice delineation. He describes classes rather 
 than individuals ; he touches the springs of the most 
 intense passions. The daring of ambition, the craving 
 of revenge, the deep tenderness of love, are all mate- 
 rials in his hands for comedy; and this gives to some 
 of his admired pieces — his "Merchant of Venice" and 
 his " Measure for Measure," for example — a solemnity 
 of coloring that leaves them only to be distinguished 
 from tragedy by their more fortunate termination. 
 Moliere, on the contrary, sedulously excludes from his 
 plays whatever can impair their comic interest. And 
 when, as he has done very rarely, he aims directly at 
 vice instead of folly (in the Tarluffe, for instance), he 
 studies to exhibit it under such ludicrous points of view 
 as shall excite the derision rather than the indignation 
 of his audience. 
 
 But, whatever be the comparative merits of these 
 
3 8o 
 
 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 great masters, each must be allowed to have attained 
 complete success in his way. Comedy, in the hands 
 of Shakspeare, exhibits to us man, not only as he is 
 moved by the petty vanities of life, but by deep and 
 tumultuous passion; in situations which it requires all 
 the invention of the poet to devise and the richest 
 coloring of eloquence to depict. But if the object of 
 comedy, as has been said, be "to correct the follies of 
 the age, by exposing them to ridicule," who then has 
 equalled Moliere ? 
 
ITALIAN NARRATIVE POETRY.* 
 
 (October, 1824.) 
 
 The characteristics of an Italian school are nowhere 
 so discernible in English literary history as under the 
 reign of Elizabeth. At the period when England was 
 most strenuous in breaking off her spiritual relations 
 with Italy, she cultivated most closely her intellectual. 
 It is hardly necessary to name either the contemporary 
 dramatists, or Surrey, Sidney, and Spenser, the former 
 of whom derived the plots of many of their most pop- 
 ular plays, as the latter did the forms, and frequently 
 the spirit, of their poetical compositions, from Italian 
 models. The translations of the same period were, 
 in several instances, superior to any which have been 
 since produced. Harrington's version of the "Orlando 
 Furioso," with all its inaccuracy, is far superior to the 
 cumbrous monotony of Hoole. Of Fairfax, the ele- 
 gant translator of Tasso, it is enough to say that he 
 is styled by Dryden "the poetical father of Waller," 
 and quoted by him, in conjunction with Spenser, as 
 "one of the great masters in our language." The 
 popularity of the Italian was so great even in Ascham's 
 
 * 1. "The Orlando Innamorato ; translated into prose and verse, 
 from the Italian of Francesco Berni. By W. S. Rose." 8vo, pp. 
 279. London, 1823. 
 
 2. "The Orlando Furioso; translated into verse from the Italian 
 of Ludovico Ariosto. By W. S. Rose." Vol. i., 8vo. London, 
 1823. 
 
 ( 381 ) 
 
382 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 day, who did not survive the first half of Elizabeth's 
 reign, as to draw from the learned schoolmaster much 
 peevish animadversion upon what he terms "the en- 
 chantments of Circe, fond books of late translated out 
 of Italian into English, and sold in every shop in Lon- 
 don." It gradually lost this wide authority during the 
 succeeding century. This was but natural. Before 
 the time of Elizabeth, all the light of learning which 
 fell upon the world had come from Italy, and our own 
 literature, like a young and tender plant, insensibly 
 put forth its branches most luxuriantly in the direction 
 whence it felt this invigorating influence. As it grew 
 in years and hardihood, it sent its fibres deeper into 
 its own soil, and drew thence the nourishment which 
 enabled it to assume its fair and full proportions. Mil- 
 ton, it is true, the brightest name on the poetical rec- 
 ords of that period, cultivated it with eminent success. 
 Any one acquainted with the writings of Dante, Pulci, 
 and Tasso will understand the value and extent of Mil- 
 ton's obligations to the Italian. He was far from de- 
 siring to conceal them, and he has paid many a tribute 
 "of melodious verse" to the sources from which he 
 drew so much of the nourishment of his exalted genius. 
 "To imitate, as he has done," in the language of 
 Boileau, "is not to act the part of a plagiary, but of 
 a rival." Milton is, moreover, one of the few writers 
 who have succeeded so far in comprehending the nice- 
 ties of foreign tongue as to be able to add something to 
 its poetical wealth, and his Italian sonnets are written 
 with such purity as to have obtained commendations 
 from the Tuscan critics.* 
 
 * Milton, in his treatise on The Reason of Church Government, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 383 
 
 Boileau, who set the current of French taste at this 
 period, had a considerable contempt for that of his 
 neighbors. He pointed one of his antithetical couplets 
 at the "tinsel of Tasso" (" clinqua?it du Taste"*), and 
 in another he ridiculed the idea of epics in which 
 " the devil was always blustering against the heavens, "f 
 The English admitted the sarcasm of Boileau with the 
 cold commentary of Addison ;| and the "clinquant 
 du Tasse" became a cant term of reproach upon the 
 whole body of Italian letters. The French went still 
 farther, and afterwards, applying the sarcasm of their 
 critic to Milton as well as to Tasso, rejected both the 
 poets upon the same principles. The French did the 
 English as much justice as they did the Italians. No 
 great change of opinion in this matter took place in 
 England during the last century. The Wartons and 
 Gray had a just estimation of this beautiful tongue, 
 but Dr. Johnson, the dominant critic of that day, seems 
 to have understood the language but imperfectly, and 
 not to have much relished in it what he understood. 
 
 In the present age of intellectual activity, attention 
 is so generally bestowed on all modern languages which 
 are ennobled by a literature, that it is not singular an 
 acquaintance with the Italian in particular should be 
 widely diffused. Great praise, however, is due to the 
 labors of Mr. Roscoe. There can be little doubt that 
 
 alludes modestly enough to his Italian pieces and the commendations 
 bestowed upon them : " Other things, which I had shifted in scarcity 
 of books and conveniencies to hatch up among them, were received 
 with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow 
 on men of this side the Alps." 
 
 * Satire IX. 
 
 f L'Art poetique, c. iii. X Spectator, No. VI. 
 
3§4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 his elaborate biographies of the Medici, which contain 
 as much literary criticism as historical narrative, have 
 mainly contributed to the promotion of these studies 
 among his countrymen. These works have of late met 
 with much flippant criticism in some of their leading 
 journals. In Italy they have been translated, are now 
 cited as authorities, and have received the most enco- 
 miastic notices from several eminent scholars. These 
 facts afford conclusive testimony of their merits. The 
 name of Mathias is well known to every lover of the 
 Italian tongue ; his poetical productions rank with 
 those of Milton in merit, and far exceed them in 
 quantity. To conclude, it is not many years since 
 Cary gave to his countrymen his very extraordinary 
 version of the father of Tuscan poetry, and Rose is 
 now swelling the catalogue with translations of the two 
 most distinguished chivalrous epics of Italy. 
 
 Epic romance has continued to be a great favorite 
 in that country ever since its first introduction into the 
 polished circles of Florence and Ferrara, towards the 
 close of the fifteenth century. It has held much the 
 same rank in its ornamental literature which the drama 
 once enjoyed in the English, and which historical 
 novel-writing maintains now. It hardly seems credible 
 that an enlightened people should long continue to 
 take great satisfaction in poems founded on the same 
 extravagant actions, and spun out to the appalling 
 length of twenty, thirty, nay, forty cantos of a thou- 
 sand verses each. But the Italians, like most Southern 
 nations, delight exceedingly in the uncontrolled play 
 of the imagination, and they abandon themselves to 
 all its brilliant illusions, with no other object in view 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 385 
 
 than mere recreation. An Englishman looks for a 
 moral, or, at least, for some sort of instruction, from 
 the wildest work of fiction. But an Italian goes to it 
 as he would go to the opera, — to get impressions rather 
 than ideas. He is extremely sensible to the fine tones 
 of his native language, and, under the combined influ- 
 ence produced by the coloring of a lavish fancy and 
 the music of a voluptuous versification, he seldom stoops 
 to a cold analysis of its purpose or its probability. 
 
 Romantic fiction, however, which flourished so ex- 
 uberantly under a warm Southern sky, was transplanted 
 from the colder regions of Normandy and England. It 
 is remarkable that both these countries, in which it had 
 its origin, should have ceased to cultivate it at the very 
 period when the perfection of their respective languages 
 would have enabled them to do so with entire success. 
 We believe this remark requires no qualification in 
 regard to France. Spenser affords one illustrious ex- 
 ception among the English.* 
 
 * The influence, however, of the old Norman romances may be 
 discovered in the productions of a much later period. Their incred- 
 ible length required them to be broken up into fyttes, or cantos, by 
 the minstrel, who recited them with the accompaniment of a harp, in 
 the same manner as the epics of Homer, broken into rhapsodies, were 
 chanted by the bards of Ionia. The minstrel who could thus beguile 
 the tedium of a winter's evening was a welcome guest at the baronial 
 castle and in the hall of the monastery. As Greek and Roman letters 
 were revived, the legends of chivalry fell into disrepute, and the min- 
 strel gradually retreated to the cottage of the peasant, who was still 
 rude enough to relish his simple melody. But the long romance was 
 beyond the comprehension or the taste of the rustic. It therefore 
 gave way to less complicated narratives, and from its wreck may be 
 fairly said to have arisen those Border songs and ballads which form 
 the most beautiful collection of rural minstrelsy that belongs to any 
 age or country. 
 
 R 33 
 
3 S6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 It was not until long after the extinction of this spe- 
 cies of writing in the North that it reappeared in Italy. 
 The commercial habits and the republican institutions 
 of the Italians in- the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 were most unfavorable to the spirit of chivalry, and, 
 consequently, to the fables which grew out of it. The 
 three patriarchs of their literature, moreover, by the 
 light which, in this dark period, they threw over other 
 walks of imagination, turned the attention of their 
 countrymen from those of romance. Dante, indeed, 
 who resembled Milton in so many other particulars, 
 showed a similar predilection for the ancient tales of 
 chivalry. His Commedia contains several encomiastic 
 allusions to them ; but, like the English bard, he con- 
 tented himself with these, and chose a subject better 
 suited to his ambitious genius and inflexible temper.* 
 His poem, it is true, was of too eccentric a character 
 to be widely imitated,")" and both Boccaccio and Pe- 
 
 * Milton's poetry abounds in references to the subjects of romantic 
 fable; and in his " Epitaphium Damonis" he plainly intimates his 
 intention of writing an epic on the story of Arthur. It may be 
 doubted whether he would have succeeded on such a topic. His 
 austere character would seem to have been better fitted to feel the 
 impulses of religious enthusiasm than those of chivalry ; and Eng- 
 land has no reason to regret that her most sublime poet was reserved 
 for the age of Cromwell instead of the romantic reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 "j" The best imitation of the "Divina Commedia' is probably the 
 " Cantiba in morte di Ugo Basville," by the most eminent of the 
 living Italian poets, Monti. His talent for vigorous delineation by a 
 single coup de pinceau is eminently Dantesque, and the plan of his 
 poem is the exact counterpart of that of the "Inferno." Instead of a 
 mortal descending into the regions of the damned, one of their num- 
 ber (the spirit of Basville, a Frenchman) is summoned back to the 
 earth, to behold the crimes and miseries of his native country during 
 the period of the Revolution. 
 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 387 
 
 trarch, with less talent, had a more extensive influence 
 over the taste of their nation. The garrulous graces 
 of the former and the lyrical finish of the latter are 
 still solicited in the lighter compositions of Italy. 
 Lastly, the discoveries of ancient manuscripts at home, 
 and the introduction of others from Constantinople, 
 when that rich depository of Grecian science fell into 
 the hands of the barbarian, gave a new direction to 
 the intellectual enterprise of Italian scholars, and with- 
 drew them almost wholly from the farther cultivation 
 of their infant literature. 
 
 Owing to these circumstances, the introduction of 
 the chivalrous epopee was protracted to the close of 
 the fifteenth century, when its first successful specimens 
 were produced at the accomplished court of the Me- 
 dici. The encouragement extended by this illustrious 
 family to every branch of intellectual culture has been 
 too often the subject of encomium to require from us 
 any particular animadversion. Lorenzo, especially, by 
 uniting in his own person the scholarship and talent 
 which he so liberally rewarded in others, contributed 
 more than all to the effectual promotion of an enlight- 
 ened taste among his countrymen. Even his amuse- 
 ments were subservient to it, and the national literature 
 may be fairly said at this day to retain somewhat of 
 the character communicated to it by his elegant recrea- 
 tions. His delicious villas at Fiesole and Cajano are 
 celebrated by the scholars who, in the silence of their 
 shades, pursued with him the studies of his favorite 
 philosophy and of poetry. Even the sensual pleasures 
 of the banquet were relieved by the inventions of wit 
 and fancy. Lyrical composition, which, notwithstand- 
 

 388 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ing its peculiar adaptation to the flexible movements 
 of the Italian tongue, had fallen into neglect, was re- 
 vived, and, together with the first eloquent produc- 
 tions of the romantic muse, was recited at the table 
 of Lorenzo. 
 
 Of the guests who frequented it, Pulci and Politian 
 are the names most distinguished, and the only ones 
 connected with our present subject. The latter of 
 these was received into the family of Lorenzo as the 
 preceptor of his children, — an office for which he seems 
 to have been better qualified by his extraordinary 
 attainments than by his disposition. Whatever may 
 have been the asperity of his temper, however, his 
 poetical compositions breathe the perfect spirit of har- 
 mony. The most remarkable of these, distinguished 
 as the "Verses of Politian" (Stanze di Poliziand), is a 
 brief fragment of an epic whose purpose was to cele- 
 brate the achievements of Julian de' Medici, a younger 
 brother of Lorenzo, at a tournament exhibited at Flor- 
 ence in 1468. This would appear but a meagre basis 
 for the structure of a great poem. Politian, however, 
 probably in consequence of the untimely death of 
 Julian, his hero, abandoned it in the middle of the 
 second canto, even before he had reached the event 
 which was to constitute the subject of his story. 
 
 The incidents of the poem thus abruptly terminated 
 are of no great account. We have a portrait of Julian, 
 a hunting -expedition, a love -adventure, a digression 
 into the island of Venus, which takes up about half the 
 canto, and a vision of the hero, which ends just as the 
 tournament, the subject of the piece, is about to begin, 
 and with it, like the "fabric of a vision," ends the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 389 
 
 poem also. In this short space, however, the poet has 
 concentrated all the beauties of his art, the melody of 
 a musical ear, and the inventions of a plastic fancy. 
 His island of love, in particular, is emblazoned with 
 those gorgeous splendors which have since been bor- 
 rowed for the enchanted gardens of Alcina, Armida, 
 and Acrasia. 
 
 But this little fragment is not recommended, at least 
 to an English reader, so much by its Oriental pomp 
 of imagery as by its more quiet and delicate pictures 
 of external nature. Brilliancy of imagination is the 
 birthright of the Italian poet, as much as a sober, 
 contemplative vein is of the English. This is the 
 characteristic of almost all their best and most popular 
 poetry during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 The two great poets of the fourteenth approach much 
 nearer to the English character. Dante shows not only 
 deeper reflection than is common with his country- 
 men, but in parts of his work, in the Purgatorio more 
 especially, manifests a sincere relish for natural beauty, 
 by his most accurate pictures of rural objects and 
 scenery. Petrarch cherished the recollections of an 
 unfortunate passion until, we may say, without any 
 mystical perversion of language, it became a part of 
 his intellectual existence.* This gave a tender and 
 
 * Whatever may be thought of the speculations of the Abbe de 
 Sade, no doubt can be entertained of the substantial existence of 
 Laura, or of Petrarch's passion for her. Indeed, independently of 
 the internal evidence afforded by his poetry, such direct notices of his 
 mistress are scattered through his " Letters" and serious prose com- 
 positions that it is singular there should ever have existed a skepticism 
 on these points. Ugo Foscolo, the well-known author of " Jacopo 
 Ortis," has lately published an octavo volume, entitled " Essays on 
 
3 9 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 melancholy expression to his poems, more particularly 
 to those written after the death of Laura, quite as much 
 English as Italian. Love furnishes the great theme and 
 impulse to the Italian poet. It is not too much to say 
 that all their principal versifiers have written under 
 the inspiration of a real or pretended passion. It is to 
 them what a less showy and less exclusive sensibility is 
 to an Englishman. The latter acknowledges the influ- 
 ence of many other affections and relations in life. 
 The death of a friend is far more likely to excite his 
 muse than the smiles or frowns of his mistress. The 
 Italian seldom dwells on melancholy reminiscences, but 
 writes under the impulse of a living and ardent passion. 
 
 Petrarch." Among other particulars showing the unbounded influ- 
 ence that Laura de Sade obtained over the mind of her poetical 
 lover, he quotes the following memorandum, made by Petrarch two 
 months after her decease, in his private manuscript copy of Virgil, 
 now preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan : 
 
 " It was in the early days of my youth, on the sixth of April, in 
 the morning, and in the year 1327, that Laura, distinguished by her 
 own virtues, and celebrated in my verses, first blessed my eyes, in the 
 Church of Santa Clara, at Avignon ; and it was in the same city, on 
 the sixth of the very same month of April, at the very same hour in 
 the morning, in the year 1348, that this bright luminary was with- 
 drawn from our sight, when I was at Verona, alas ! ignorant of my 
 calamity. The remains of her chaste and beautiful body were de- 
 posited in the Church of the Cordeliers on the evening of the same 
 day. To preserve the afflicting remembrance, I have taken a bitter 
 pleasure in recording it, particularly in this book, which is most fre- 
 quently before my eyes, in order that nothing in this world may have 
 any farther attraction for me ; that, this great attachment to life being 
 dissolved, I may, by frequent reflection, and a proper estimation of 
 our transitory existence, be admonished that it is high time for me to 
 think of quitting this earthly Babylon, which I trust it will not be 
 difficult for me, with a strong and manly courage, to accomplish." — 
 Page 35. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 39 1 
 
 Petrarch did both ; but in the poetry which he com- 
 posed after the death of his mistress, exalted as it is 
 by devotional sentiment, he deviated from the customs 
 of his nation, and adopted an English tone of feeling. 
 A graver spirit of reflection and a deeper sympathy for 
 the unobtrusive beauties of nature are observable in 
 some of their later writers ; but these are not primi- 
 tive elements in the Italian character. Gay, brilliant, 
 imaginative, are the epithets which best indicate the 
 character of their literature during its most flourishing 
 periods; and the poetry of Italy seems to reflect as 
 clearly her unclouded skies and glowing landscape as 
 that of England does the tranquil and somewhat melan- 
 choly complexion of her climate. 
 
 The verses of Politian, to return from our digression, 
 contain many descriptions distinguished by the calm, 
 moral beauty of which we have been speaking. Re- 
 semblances may be traced between these passages and 
 the writings of some of our best English poets. The 
 descriptive poetry of Gray and of Goldsmith, par- 
 ticularly, exhibits a remarkable coincidence with that 
 of Politian in the enumeration of rural images. The 
 stanza cxxi., setting forth the descent of Cupid into 
 the island of Venus, may be cited as having suggested a 
 much-admired simile in Gay's popular ballad, "Black- 
 eyed Susan," since the English verse is almost a meta- 
 phrase of the Italian : 
 
 " Or poi che ad ail tese ivi pervenne, 
 
 Forte le scosse, e giu calossi a piombo, 
 Tutto serrato nelle sacre penne, 
 
 Come a suo nido fa lieto Colombo." 
 
392 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 " So the sweet lark, high poised in air, 
 Shuts close his pinions to his breast, 
 If chance his mate's shrill call he hear, 
 And drops at once into her nest." 
 
 These "Stanze" were the first example of a happy 
 cultivation of Italian verse in the fifteenth century. 
 The scholars of that day composed altogether in Latin. 
 Politian, as he grew older, disdained this abortive 
 production of his youthful muse, and relied for his 
 character with posterity on his Latin poems and his 
 elaborate commentaries upon the ancient classics. Pe- 
 trarch looked for immortality to his "Africa," as did 
 Boccaccio to his learned Latin disquisition upon an- 
 cient mythology.* Could they now, after the lapse of 
 more than four centuries, revisit the world, how would 
 they be astonished, perhaps mortified, the former to 
 find that he was remembered only as the sonnetteer, 
 and the latter as the novelist ! The Latin prose of 
 Politian may be consulted by an antiquary; his Latin 
 poetry must be admired by scholars of taste; but his 
 few Italian verses constitute the basis of his high repu- 
 tation at this day with the great body of his country- 
 men. He wrote several lyrical pieces, and a short 
 pastoral drama {Orfeo), the first of a species which 
 afterwards grew into such repute under the hands of 
 Tasso and Guarini. All of these bear the same print 
 of his genius. One cannot but regret that so rare a 
 
 * " De Genealogia Deorum." — The Latin writings of Boccaccio and 
 Petrarch may be considered the foundation of their fame with their 
 contemporaries. The coronation of the latter in the Roman capitol 
 was a homage paid rather to his achievements in an ancient tongue 
 than to any in his own. He does not even notice his Italian lyrics in 
 his " Letters to Posterity." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 393 
 
 mind should, in conformity with the perverse taste 
 of his age, have abandoned the freshness of a living 
 tongue for the ungrateful culture of a dead one. His 
 "Stanze," the mere prologue of an epic, still survive 
 amid the complete and elaborate productions of suc- 
 ceeding poets ; they may be compared to the graceful 
 portico of some unfinished temple, which time and 
 taste have respected, and which remains as in the days 
 of its architect, a beautiful ruin. 
 
 Luigi Pulci, the other eminent poet whom we men- 
 tioned as a frequent guest at the table of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici, was of a noble family, and the youngest of 
 three brothers, all of them even more distinguished by 
 their accomplishments than by birth. There seems to 
 be nothing worthy of particular record in his private 
 history. He is said to have possessed a frank and 
 merry disposition, and, to judge from his great poem, 
 as well as from some lighter pieces of burlesque satire, 
 which he bandied with one of his friends whom he 
 was in the habit of meeting at the house of Lorenzo, 
 he was not particularly fastidious in his humor. His 
 Morgante Maggiore is reported to have been written at 
 the request of Lorenzo's mother, and recited at his 
 table. It is a genuine epic of chivalry, containing 
 twenty-eight cantos, founded on the traditionary de- 
 feat — the "dolorosa rotta" — of Charlemagne and his 
 peers in the Valley of Roncesvalles. It adheres much 
 more closely than any of the other Italian romances to 
 the lying chronicle of Turpin. 
 
 It may appear singular that the intention of the 
 author should not become apparent in the course of 
 eight-and-twenty cantos, but it is a fact that scholars 
 r '■ 
 
394 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 both at home and abroad have long disputed whether 
 the poem is serious or satirical. Crescimbeni styles 
 the author "modesto e moderato," while Tiraboschi 
 expressly charges him with the deliberate design of 
 ridiculing Scripture, and Voltaire, in his preface, cites 
 the Morgante as an apology for his profligate "Pu- 
 celle." It cannot be denied that the story abounds 
 in such ridiculous eccentricities as give it the air of a 
 parody upon the marvels of romance. The hero, Mor- 
 gante, is a converted infidel, " un gigante smisurato," 
 whose formidable weapon is a bell-clapper, and who, 
 after running through some twenty cantos of gigantic 
 valor and mountebank extravagance, is brought to an 
 untimely end by a wound in the heel, not from a 
 Trojan arrow, but from the bite of a crab ! We 
 doubt, however, whether Pulci intended his satirical 
 shafts for the Christian faith. Liberal allowance is to 
 be conceded for the fashion of his age. Nothing is 
 more frequent in the productions of that period than 
 such irreverent freedoms with the most sacred topics 
 as would be quite shocking in ours. Such freedoms, 
 however, cannot reasonably be imputed to profanity, 
 or even levity, since numerous instances of them occur 
 in works of professed moral tendency, as in the mys- 
 teries and moralities, for example, those solemn de- 
 formities of the ancient French and English drama. 
 The chronicle of Turpin, the basis of Pulci's epic, 
 which, though a fraud, was a pious one, invented by 
 some priest to celebrate the triumphs of the Christian 
 arms, is tainted with the same indecent familiarities.* 
 
 * This spurious document of the twelfth century contains, in a copy 
 which we have now before us, less than sixty pages. It has neither 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 395 
 
 Tempora mutantur. In a scandalous pasquinade 
 published by Lord Byron in the first number of his 
 Liberal, there is a verse describing St. Peter officiating 
 as the doorkeeper of heaven. Pulci has a similar one 
 in the Morgan te (canto xxvi., st. 91), which, no doubt, 
 furnished the hint to his lordship, who has often im- 
 proved upon the Italian poets. Both authors describe 
 St. Peter's dress and vocation with the most whimsical 
 minuteness. In the Italian, the passage, introduced 
 into the midst of a solemn, elaborate description, has 
 all the appearance of being told in very good faith. 
 No one will venture to put so charitable a construction 
 upon his lordship's motives. 
 
 Whatever may have been the intention of Pulci in 
 the preceding portion of the work, its concluding 
 cantos are animated by the genuine spirit of Christian 
 heroism. The rear of Charlemagne's army is drawn 
 into an ambuscade by the treachery of his confidant 
 Ganelon. Roncesvalles, a valley in the heart of the 
 Pyrenees, is the theatre of action, and Orlando, with 
 the flower of French chivalry, perishes there, over- 
 powered by the Saracens. The battle is told in a 
 sublime epic tone worthy of the occasion. The cantos 
 xxvi., xxvii., containing it, are filled with a continued 
 strain of high religious enthusiasm, with the varying, 
 animating bustle of a mortal conflict, with the most 
 
 the truth of history nor the beauty of fiction. It abounds in com- 
 monplace prodigies, and sets forth Charlemagne's wars and his defeat 
 in the valley of Roncesvalles, an event which probably never hap- 
 pened. Insignificant as it is in every other respect, however, it is the 
 seed from which have sprung up those romantic fictions which adorned 
 the rude age of the Normans, and which flourished in such wide lux- 
 uriance under Italian culture. 
 
396 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 solemn and natural sentiment suggested by the horror 
 of the situation. Orlando's character rises into that 
 of the divine warrior. His speech at the opening of 
 the action, his lament over his unfortunate army, his 
 melancholy reflections on the battle-field the night 
 after the engagement, are conceived with such sub- 
 limity and pathos as attest both the poetical talent of 
 Pulci and the grandeur and capacity of his subject. 
 Yet the Morgante, the greater part of which is so 
 ludicrous, is the only eminent Italian epic which has 
 seriously described the celebrated rout at Roncesvalles. 
 Pulci' s poem is not much read by the Italians. Its 
 style, in general, is too unpolished for the fastidious 
 delicacy of a modern ear, but, as it abounds in the 
 old-fashioned proverbial isms (riboboli) of Florence, it 
 is greatly prized by the Tuscan purists. These familiar 
 sayings, the elegant slang of the Florentine mob, have 
 a value among the Italian scholars, at least among a 
 large fraction of them, much like that of old coins 
 with a virtuoso : the more rare and rusty, the better. 
 They give a high relish to many of their ancient 
 writers, who, without other merit than their antiquity, 
 are cited as authorities in their vocabulary.* These 
 riboboli are to be met with most abundantly in their 
 old novelle, those especially which are made up of 
 familiar dialogue between the lower classes of citizens. 
 Boccaccio has very many such ; Sacchetti has more 
 than all his prolific tribe, and it is impossible for a 
 
 * This has been loudly censured by many of their scholars opposed 
 to the literary supremacy of the Della-Cruscan Academy. See, in 
 particular, the acute treatise of Cesarotti, " Saggio sulla Filosofia delle 
 Lingue," Parte IV. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 397 
 
 foreigner to discern or to appreciate the merits of such 
 a writer. The lower classes in Florence retain to this 
 day much of their antique picturesque phraseology,* 
 and Alfieri tells us that " it was his great delight to 
 stand in some unnoticed corner and listen to the 
 conversation of the mob in the market-place." 
 
 With the exception of Orlando, Pulci has shown no 
 great skill in delineation of character. Charlemagne 
 and Ganelon are the prominent personages. The lat- 
 ter is a parody on traitors ; he is a traitor to common 
 sense. Charlemagne is a superannuated dupe, with 
 just credulity sufficient to dovetail into all the cunning 
 contrivances of Gan. The women have neither refine- 
 ment nor virtue. The knights have none of the softer 
 graces of chivalry ; they bully and swagger like the 
 rude heroes of Homer, and are exclusively occupied 
 with the merciless extermination of infidels. We meet 
 with none of the imagery, the rich sylvan scenery, so 
 lavishly diffused through the epics of Ariosto and 
 Boiardo. The machinery bears none of the airy 
 touches of an Arabian pencil, but is made out of 
 the cold excrescences of Northern superstition, dwarfs, 
 giants, and necromancers. Before quitting Pulci, we 
 must point out a passage (canto xxv., st. 229, 230) in 
 which a devil announces to Rinaldo the existence of 
 another continent, beyond the ocean, inhabited by 
 mortals like himself. The theory of gravitation is 
 
 * " The pure language of Boccaccio, and of other ancient writers, 
 is preserved at this day much more among the lower classes of Flor- 
 entine mechanics and of the neighboring peasants than among the 
 more polished Tuscan society, whose original dialect has suffered 
 great mutations in their intercourse with foreigners." Pignotti, 
 Storia della Toscana, torn. ii. p. 167. 
 
398 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 also plainly intimated. As the poem was written 
 before the voyages of Columbus and before the phys- 
 ical discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, the predic- 
 tions are extremely curious.* The fiend, alluding to 
 the vulgar superstitions entertained of the Pillars of 
 Hercules, thus addresses his companion : 
 
 " Know that this theory is false : his bark 
 The daring mariner shall urge far o'er 
 The western wave, a smooth and level plain, 
 Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. 
 Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, 
 And Hercules might blush to learn how far 
 Beyond the limits he had vainly set, 
 The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. 
 Men shall descry another hemisphere, 
 Since to one common centre all things tend ; 
 So earth, by curious mystery divine 
 Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. 
 At our antipodes are cities, states, 
 And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. 
 But see, the sun speeds on his western path 
 To glad the nations with expected light." 
 
 The dialogues of Pulci's devils respecting free will and 
 necessity, their former glorious and their present fallen 
 condition, have suggested many hints for our greater 
 Milton to improve upon. The juggling frolics of these 
 fiends at the royal banquet in Saragossa may have been 
 the original of the comical marvels played off through 
 the intervention of similar agents by Dr. Faust. 
 
 * Dante, two centuries before, had also expressed the same belief 
 in an undiscovered quarter of the globe : 
 
 " De' vostri sensi, ch'e del rimanente, 
 Non vogliate negar l'esperienza, 
 Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente." 
 
 Inferno, canto xxvl. v. 115. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 399 
 
 Notwithstanding the good faith and poetical eleva- 
 tion of its concluding cantos, the Morgante, according 
 to our apprehension, is any thing but a serious romance. 
 Not that it shows a disposition to satire, above all, to 
 the religious satire often imputed to it ; but there is a 
 light banter, a vein of fun, running through the greater 
 portion of it, which is quite the opposite of the lofty 
 spirit of chivalry. Romantic fiction, among our Nor- 
 man ancestors, grew so directly out of the feudal re- 
 lations and adventurous spirit of the age that it was 
 treated with all the gravity of historical record. When 
 reproduced in the polite and artificial societies of Italy, 
 the same fictions wore an air of ludicrous extravagance 
 which would no longer admit of their being repeated 
 seriously. Recommended, however, by a proper sea- 
 soning of irony, they might still amuse as ingenious 
 tales of wonder. This may be kept in view in follow- 
 ing out the ramifications of Italian narrative poetry ; 
 for they will all be found, in a greater or less degree, 
 tinctured with the same spirit of ridicule.* The circle 
 
 * A distinction may be pointed out between the Norman and the 
 Italian epics of chivalry. The former, composed in the rude ages of 
 feudal heroism, are entitled to much credit as pictures of the manners 
 of that period ; while the latter, written in an age of refinement, have 
 been carried by their poets into such beautiful extravagances of fiction 
 as are perfectly incompatible with a state of society at any period. 
 Let any one compare the feats of romantic valor recorded by Frois- 
 sart, the turbulent, predatory habits of the barons and ecclesiastics 
 under the early Norman dynasty, as reported by Turner in his late 
 " History of England," with these old romances, and he will find 
 enough to justify our remark. Ste.-Palaye, after a diligent study of 
 the ancient epics, speaks of them as exhibiting a picture of society 
 closely resembling that set forth in the chronicles of the period. 
 Turner, after as diligent an examination of early historical docu- 
 
400 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 for whom Pulci composed his epic was peculiarly dis- 
 tinguished by that fondness for good-humored raillery 
 which may be considered a national trait with his 
 countrymen. 
 
 It seems to have been the delight of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici, as it was afterwards, in a more remarkable 
 degree, of his son Leo Tenth, to abandon himself to 
 the most unreserved social freedoms with the friends 
 whom he collected around his table. The satirical 
 epigrams which passed there in perfect good humor 
 between his guests show, at least, full as much merri- 
 ment as manners. Machiavelli concludes his history 
 of Florence with an elaborate portrait of Lorenzo, in 
 which he says that "he took greater delight in frivo- 
 lous pleasures, and in the society of jesters and satirists, 
 than became so great a man." The historian might 
 have been less austere in his commentary upon Lo- 
 renzo's taste, since he was not particularly fastidious 
 in the selection of his own amusements.* 
 
 ments, pronounces that the facts contained in them perfectly accord 
 with the general portraiture of manners depicted in the romances. 
 Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, torn, xx., art. sur l'Ancien Che- 
 valerie. — Turner's History of England from the Norman Conquest, 
 etc., vol. i. ch. vi. 
 
 * A letter written by Machiavelli, long unknown, and printed for 
 the first time at Milan, 1810, gives a curious picture of his daily occu- 
 pations when living in retirement on his little patrimony at a distance 
 from Florence. Among other particulars, he mentions that it was his 
 custom after dinner to repair to the tavern, where he passed his after- 
 noon at cards with the company whom he ordinarily found there, 
 consisting of the host, a miller, a butcher, and a lime-maker. Another 
 part of the epistle exhibits a more pleasing view of the pursuits of the 
 ex-secretary: " In the evening I return to my house and retire to my 
 study. I then take off the rustic garments which I had worn during 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 401 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth century Italy was divided 
 into a number of small but independent states, whose 
 petty sovereigns vied with each other not merely in the 
 poor parade of royal pageantry, but in the liberal en- 
 dowment of scientific institutions and the patronage of 
 learned men. Almost every Italian scholar was attached 
 to some one or other of these courtly circles, and a 
 generous, enlightened emulation sprang up among the 
 states of Italy, such as had never before existed in any 
 other age or country. Among the republics of ancient 
 Greece the rivalship was political. Their literature, 
 from the time of Solon, was almost exclusively Athe- 
 nian. An interesting picture of the cultivated manners 
 and intellectual pleasures of these little courts may be 
 gathered from the Cortigiano of Castiglione, which con- 
 tains in the introduction a particular account of the 
 pursuits and pastimes of the court of his sovereign, 
 the Duke of Urbino. 
 
 None of these Italian states make so shining a figure 
 in literary history as the insignificant duchy of Ferrara. 
 The foul crimes which defile the domestic annals of the 
 family of Este have been forgotten in the munificent 
 patronage extended by them to letters. The librarians 
 of the Biblioteca Estense, Muratori and Tiraboschi, 
 have celebrated the virtues of their native princes with 
 the encomiastic pen of loyalty ; while Ariosto and 
 
 the day, and, having dressed myself in the apparel which I used to 
 wear at court and in town, I mingle in the society of the great men 
 of antiquity. I draw from them the nourishment which alone is 
 suited to me, and during the four hours passed in this intercourse I 
 forget all my misfortunes, and fear neither poverty nor death. In this 
 manner I have composed a little work upon government." This little 
 work was " The Prince." 
 
 34* 
 
4-02 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Tasso, whose misfortunes furnish but an indifferent 
 commentary upon these eulogiums, offering to them 
 the grateful incense of poetic adulation, have extended 
 their names still wider by inscribing them upon their 
 immortal epics. Their patronage had the good for- 
 tune, not always attending patronage, of developing 
 genius. Those models of the pastoral drama, the 
 Aminta of Tasso, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini, 
 whose luxury of expression, notwithstanding the dic- 
 tum of Dr. Johnson,* it has been found as difficult to 
 imitate in their own tongue as it is impossible to 
 translate into any other ; the comedies and Horatian 
 satires of Ariosto ; the Secchia Rapita o? Tassoni, the 
 acknowledged model of the mock-heroic poems of 
 Pope and Boileau ; and, finally, the three great epics 
 of Italy, the Orlando Innamorato, the Furioso, and the 
 Gerusalemme Libe?-ata, were all produced, in the brief 
 compass of a century, within the limited dominions of 
 the House of Este. Dante had reproached Ferrara, in 
 the thirteenth century, with never having been illus- 
 trated by the name of a poet. 
 
 Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, the author of the 
 Orlando Innamorato, the first-born of these epics, was 
 a subject of Hercules First, Duke of Ferrara, and by 
 him appointed governor of Reggio. His military 
 conduct in that office, and his learned translations 
 from the ancient classics, show him to have been 
 equally accomplished as a soldier and as a scholar. 
 In the intervals of war, to which his active life was 
 
 * " Dione is a counterpart to Aminta and Pastor Fido, and other 
 trifles of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation." 
 Life of Gav. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 403 
 
 devoted, he amused himself with the composition of 
 his long poem. He had spun this out into the sixty- 
 seventh canto, without showing any disposition to bring 
 it to a conclusion, when his literary labors were sud- 
 denly interrupted, as he informs us in his parting 
 stanza, by the invasion of the French into Italy in 
 1494; and in the same year the author died. The 
 Orlando Innamorato, as it advanced, had been read 
 by its author to his friends ; but no portion of it was 
 printed till after his death, and its extraordinary merits 
 were not then widely estimated, in consequence of its 
 antiquated phraseology and Lombard provincialisms. 
 A rifacwiento some time after appeared, by one Do- 
 menichi, who spoiled many of the beauties, without 
 improving the style, of his original. Finally, Berni, 
 in little more than thirty years after the death of 
 Boiardo, new-moulded the whole poem,* with so much 
 dexterity as to retain the substance of every verse in 
 the original and yet to clothe them in the seductive 
 graces of his own classical idiom. Berni's version is 
 the only one now read in Italy, and the original poem 
 of Boiardo is so rare in that country that it was found 
 impossible to procure for the library of Harvard Uni- 
 versity any copy of the Innamorato more ancient than 
 the reformed one by Domenichi. 
 
 The history of letters affords no stronger example of 
 
 * Sismondi is mistaken in saying that Berni remodelled the Innamo- 
 rato sixty years after the original. He survived Boiardo only forty- 
 two years, and he had half completed his rifaci?nento at least ten 
 years before his own death, as is evident from his beautiful invocation 
 to Verona and the Po (canto xxx.), on whose banks he was then 
 writing it, and where he was living, 1526, in the capacity of secretary 
 to the Bishop of Verona. 
 
404 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the power of style than the different fate of these two 
 productions of Berni and Boiardo. We doubt whether 
 the experiment would have been attended with the 
 same result among a people by whom the nicer beauties 
 of expression are less cultivated, as with the English, 
 for example. If we may judge from the few speci- 
 mens which we have seen extracted from the Italian 
 original, Chaucer exhibits a more obsolete and exotic 
 phraseology than Boiardo. Yet the partial attempt of 
 Dryden to invest the father of English poetry with a 
 modernized costume has had little success, and the 
 little epic of "Palamon and Arcite (The Knight's 
 Tale)" is much more highly relished in the rude but 
 muscular diction of Chaucer than in the polished ver- 
 sion of his imitator. 
 
 Whatever may be the estimation of the style, the 
 glory of the original delineation of character and inci- 
 dent is to be given exclusively to Boiardo. He was the 
 first of the epic poets who founded a romance upon 
 the love of Orlando ; and a large portion of the poem 
 is taken up with the adventures of this hero and his 
 doughty paladins, assembled in a remote province of 
 China for the defence of his mistress, the beautiful 
 Angelica: 
 
 " When Agrican, with all his northern powers, 
 Besieged Albracca, as romances tell, 
 The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win 
 The fairest of her sex, Angelica 
 His daughter, sought by many prowess knights, 
 Both Paynim, and the peers of Charlemagne." 
 
 Paradise Regained. 
 
 With the exception of the midnight combat between 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 405 
 
 Agrican and Orlando, in which the conversion of the 
 dying Tartar reminds one of the similar but more af- 
 fecting death of Clorinda in the " Jerusalem Deliv- 
 ered/' there is very little moral interest attached to 
 these combats of Boiardo, which are mere gladiatorial 
 exhibitions of hard fighting, and sharp, jealous wran- 
 gling. The fairy gardens of Falerina and Morgana, 
 upon which the poet enters in the second book, are 
 much better adapted to the display of his wild and 
 exuberant imagination. No Italian writer, not even 
 Ariosto, is comparable to Boiardo for exhibitions of 
 fancy. Enchantment follows enchantment, and the 
 reader, bewildered with the number and rapidity of the 
 transitions, looks in vain for some clue, even the slen- 
 der thread of allegory which is held out by the poet, 
 to guide him through the unmeaning marvellous of 
 Arabian fiction. Ariosto has tempered his imagination 
 with more discretion. Both of these great romantic 
 poets have wrought upon the same characters, and 
 afford, in this respect, a means of accurate comparison. 
 Without going into details, we may observe, in general, 
 that Boiardo has more strength than grace; Ariosto, 
 the reverse. Boiardo's portraits are painted, or may 
 be rather said to be sculptured, with a clear, coarse 
 hand, out of some rude material. Ariosto' s are sketched 
 with the volatile graces, nice shades, and variable 
 drapery of the most delicate Italian pencil. In female 
 portraiture, of course, Ariosto is far superior to his 
 predecessor. The glaring coquetry of Boiardo's An- 
 gelica is refined by the hand of his rival into some- 
 thing like the coquetry of high life, and the ferocious 
 tigress beauties of the original Marfisa are softened 
 
406 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 into those of a more polished and courtly amazon. 
 The Innamorato contains no examples of the pure, 
 deep feeling which gives a soul to the females of the 
 Furioso, and we look in vain for the frolic and airy- 
 scenes which enchant us so frequently in the latter 
 poem.* We may remark, in conclusion, that the rapid 
 and unintermitting succession of incidents in the In- 
 namorato prevents the poet from indulging in those 
 collateral beauties of sentiment and imagery which are 
 prodigally diffused over the romance of Ariosto, and 
 which give to it an exquisite finish. 
 
 Berni's rifacimento of the Orlando Innamorato, as 
 we have already observed, first made it popular with 
 the Italians, by a magical varnish of versification, 
 which gave greater lustre to the beauties of his origi- 
 nal and glossed over its defects. It has, however, the 
 higher merit of exhibiting a great variety of original 
 reflections, sometimes in the form of digressions, but 
 more frequently as introductions to the cantos. These 
 are enlivened by the shrewd wit and elaborate artless- 
 ness of expression that form the peculiar attraction of 
 Berni's poetry. In one of the prefatory stanzas to the 
 fifty-first canto the reader may recognize a curious 
 coincidence with a well-known passage in Shakspeare, 
 — the more so as Berni, we believe, was never turned 
 into English before the present partial attempt of Mr. 
 Rose : 
 
 " Who steals a bugle-horn, a ring, a steed, 
 
 Or such-like worthless thing, has some discretion ; 
 
 * The chase of the Fairy Morgana, and the malicious dance of the 
 Loves around Rinaldo (1. ii., c. viii., xv.), may, however, be considered 
 good exceptions to this remark. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 407 
 
 'Tis petty larceny ; not such his deed 
 Who robs us of our fame, our best possession. 
 
 And he who takes our labor's worthiest meed 
 May well be deem'd a felon by profession, 
 
 Who so much more our hate and scourge deserves 
 
 As from the rule of right he wider swerves." 
 
 In another of these episodes the poet has introduced 
 a portrait of himself. The whole passage is too long 
 for insertion here ; but, as Mr. Rose has also translated 
 it, we will borrow a few stanzas from his skilful version : 
 
 " His mood was choleric, and his tongue was vicious. 
 
 But he was praised for singleness of heart ; 
 Not tax'd as avaricious or ambitious, 
 
 Affectionate and frank, and void of art ; 
 A lover of his friends, and unsuspicious, 
 
 But where he hated knew no middle part ; 
 And men his malice by his love might rate : 
 But then he was more prone to love than hate. 
 
 " To paint his person, this was thin and dry; 
 
 Well sorting it, his legs were spare and lean ; 
 Broad was his visage, and his nose was high, 
 
 While narrow was the space that was between 
 His eyebrows sharp ; and blue his hollow eye, 
 
 Which for his bushy beard had not been seen, 
 But that the master kept this thicket clear'd, 
 At mortal war with mustache and with beard. 
 
 " No one did ever servitude detest 
 
 Like him, though servitude was still his dole ; 
 
 Since fortune or the devil did their best 
 To keep him evermore beneath control. 
 
 While, whatsoever was his patron's hest, 
 To execute it went against his soul ; 
 
 His service would he freely yield unask'd, 
 
 But lost all heart and hope if he were task'd. 
 
4o8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 '' Nor music, hunting-match, nor mirthful measure, 
 Nor play, nor other pastime, moved him aught ; 
 And if 'twas true that horses gave him pleasure, 
 
 The simple sight of them was all he sought, 
 Too poor to purchase ; and his only treasure 
 His naked bed ; his pastime to do naught 
 But tumble there, and stretch his weary length, 
 And so recruit his spirits and his strength." 
 
 Rose's Innamorato, p. 48. 
 
 The passage goes on to represent the dreamy and 
 luxurious pleasures of this indolent pastime, with such 
 an epicurean minuteness of detail as puts the sincerity 
 of the poet beyond a doubt. His smaller pieces — 
 Capitoli, as they are termed — contain many incidental 
 allusions which betray the same lazy propensity. 
 
 The early part of Berni's life was passed in Rome, 
 where he obtained a situation under the ecclesiastical 
 government. He was afterwards established in a can- 
 onry at Florence, where he led an easy, effeminate life, 
 much caressed for his social talents by the Duke Ales- 
 sandro de' Medici. His end was more tragical than 
 was to have been anticipated from so quiet and un- 
 ambitious a temper. He is said to have been secretly 
 assassinated, 1536, by the order of Alexander, for re- 
 fusing to administer poison to the duke's enemy, the 
 Cardinal Hyppolito de' Medici. The story is told in 
 many contradictory ways by different Italian writers, 
 some of whom disbelieve it altogether. The imputa- 
 tion, however, is an evidence of the profligate charac- 
 ter of that court, and, if true, is only one out of many 
 examples of perfidious assassination, which in that age 
 dishonored some of the most polished societies in 
 Italy. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 409 
 
 Berni has had the distinction of conferring his name 
 on a peculiar species of Italian composition.* The 
 epithet " Bemesco" is not derived, however, as has 
 been incorrectly stated by some foreign scholars, \ from 
 his reformed version of the "Orlando," but from his 
 smaller pieces, his Capitoli more especially. It is diffi- 
 cult to convey a correct and adequate notion of this 
 kind of satirical trifling, since its chief excellence re- 
 sults from idiomatic felicities of expression that refuse 
 to be transplanted into a foreign tongue, and there is 
 no imitation of it, that we recollect, in our own lan- 
 guage. It is a misapplication of the term Bernesque 
 to apply it, as has been sometimes done, to the ironical 
 style supposed to have been introduced by Lord Byron 
 in his Beppo and Don Juan. The clear, unequivocal 
 vein of irony which plays through the sportive sallies 
 of the Italian has no resemblance to the subdued but 
 caustic sneer of the Englishman ; nor does it, in our 
 opinion, resemble in the least Peter Pindar's burlesque 
 satire, to which an excellent critic in Italian poetry 
 has compared it.| Pindar is much too unrefined in 
 versification and in diction to justify the parallel. 
 Italian poetry always preserves the purity of its ex- 
 pression, however coarse or indecent may be the topic 
 on which it is employed. The subjects of many of 
 these poems are of the most whimsical and trivial 
 
 *~ He cannot be properly considered its inventor, however. He 
 lived in time to give the last polish to a species of familiar poetry 
 which had been long undergoing the process of refinement from the 
 hands of his countrymen. 
 
 | Vide Annotazioni alia Vita di Berni, dal conte Mazzuchelli, Clas. 
 Hal., p. xxxiv. 
 
 \ Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 392, note. 
 
 s 35 
 
41 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 nature. We find some in Lode delta Peste, del Debito, 
 etc. ; several in commendation of the delicacies of the 
 table, of "jellies," "eels," or any other dainty which 
 pleased his epicurean palate. These Cafiitoli, like most 
 of the compositions of this polished versifier, furnish a 
 perfect example of the triumph of style. The senti- 
 ments, sometimes indelicate, and often puerile, may be 
 considered, like the worthless insects occasionally found 
 in amber, indebted for their preservation to the beauti- 
 ful substance in which they are imbedded. 
 
 It is a curious fact that, notwithstanding the appar- 
 ent facility and fluent graces of Berni's style, it was 
 wrought with infinite care. Some of his verses have 
 been corrected twenty and thirty times. Many of his 
 countrymen have imitated it, mistaking its familiarity 
 of manner for facility of execution. 
 
 This fastidious revision has been common with the 
 most eminent Italian poets. Petrarch devoted months 
 to the perfecting of one of his exquisite sonnets.* 
 Ariosto, as his son Virginius records of him, "was 
 never satisfied with his verses, but was continually cor- 
 
 * The following is a literal translation of a succession of memoran- 
 dums in Latin at the head of one of his sonnets: " I began this by 
 the impulse of the Lord [Domino jubente), tenth September, at the 
 dawn of day, after my morning prayers." 
 
 " I must make these two verses over again, singing them, and I 
 must transpose them. Three o'clock A.M., 19th October." 
 
 " I like this {Hoc placet). 30th October." 
 
 " No, this does not please me. 20th December, in the evening." 
 
 " February 18th, towards noon. This is now well: however, look 
 at it again." 
 
 It was generally on Friday that he occupied himself with the pain- 
 ful labor of correction, and this was also set apart by him as a day of 
 fast and penitence. Essays, cit. sup. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 4 n 
 
 recting and recorrecting them;" almost every stanza 
 in the last edition of his poem published in his lifetime 
 is altered from the original, and one verse is pointed 
 out (canto xviii., st. 142) whose variations filled many 
 pages. Tasso's manuscripts, preserved in the library 
 at Modena, have been so often retouched by him that 
 they are hardly intelligible ; and Alfieri was in the habit 
 not only of correcting verses, but of remoulding whole 
 tragedies, several of which, he tells us in his Memoirs, 
 were thus transcribed by him no less than three times. 
 It is remarkable that, in a country where the imagina- 
 tion has been most active, the labor of the file should 
 have been most diligently exerted on poetical composi- 
 tions. Such examples of the pains taken by men of 
 real genius might furnish a wholesome hint to some of 
 the rapid, dashing writers of our own day. "Avec 
 quelque talent qu'on puisse etre ne," says Rousseau, in 
 his Confessions, "Tart d'ecrire ne se prend pas tout 
 d'un coup." 
 
 We have violated the chronological series of the 
 Italian epopee, in our notice of Berni, in order to con- 
 nect his poem with the model on which it was cast. 
 We will quit him with the remark that for his fame he 
 seems to have been as much indebted to good fortune 
 as to desert. His countrymen have affixed his name to 
 an illustrious poem of which he was not the author, 
 and to a popular species of composition of which he 
 was not the inventor. 
 
 In little more than twenty years after the death of 
 Boiardo, Ariosto gave to the world his first edition 
 of the Oi'lando Furioso. The celebrity of the Inna- 
 morato made Ariosto prefer building upon this sure 
 
412 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 foundation to casting a new one of his own, and, as 
 his predecessor had fortunately left all the dramatis 
 persons of his unfinished epic alive upon the stage, he 
 had only to continue their histories to the end of the 
 drama. "As the former of these two poems has no 
 termination, and the latter no regular beginning, they 
 may both be considered as forming one complete 
 epic. ' ' * The latter half was, however, destined not 
 only to supply the deficiencies but to eclipse the glories 
 of the former. 
 
 Louis Ariosto was born of a respectable family at 
 Reggio, 1474. After serving a reluctant apprentice- 
 ship of five years in the profession of the law, his father 
 allowed him to pursue other studies better adapted to 
 his taste and poetical genius. The elegance of his 
 lyrical compositions in Latin and Italian recommended 
 him to the patronage of the Cardinal Hyppolito 
 d'Este, and of his brother Alphonso, who in 1505 
 succeeded to the ducal throne of Ferrara. Ariosto' s 
 abilities were found, however, not to be confined to 
 poetry, and, among other offices of trust, he was em- 
 ployed by the duke in two important diplomatic nego- 
 tiations with the court of Rome. But the Muses still 
 obtained his principal homage, and all his secret leisure 
 was applied to the perfecting of the great poem which 
 was to commemorate at once his own gratitude and 
 the glories of the house of Este. After fourteen years' 
 assiduous labor, he presented to the Cardinal Hyppo- 
 lito the first copy of his Orlando Furioso. The well- 
 known reply of the prelate, " Messer Lodovico, dove ??iai 
 avete trovate taiitc faiifaluche /" (" Master Louis, where 
 
 * Tasso, Discorsi Poetici, p. 29. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 413 
 
 have you picked up so many trifles?") will be remem- 
 bered in Italy as long as the poem itself.* 
 
 Ariosto, speaking of his early study of jurisprudence 
 in one of his Satires, f says that he passed five years in 
 quelle ciancie, — a word which signifies much the same 
 with the epithet fanfaluche or coglione7'ie, whichever it 
 might have been, imputed to the cardinal. Ariosto 
 was a poet ; the cardinal was a mathematician ; and 
 each had the very common failing of undervaluing a 
 profession different from his own. The courtly libra- 
 rian of the Biblioteca Estense endeavors to explain 
 away this and the subsequent conduct of Ariosto's pa- 
 tron ; \ but the poet's Satires, in which he alludes to 
 the behavior of the cardinal with the fine raillery, and 
 to his own situation with the philosophic independ- 
 ence, of Horace, furnish, abundant evidence of the 
 cold, ungenerous deportment of Hyppolito.§ 
 
 * An interrogation which might remind an Englishman of that put 
 by the great Duke of Cumberland to Gibbon: "What, Mr. Gibbon, 
 scribble, scribble, scribble still?" 
 
 t A M. Pietro Bembo Cardinale. 
 
 i Storia della Letteratura Italiana, torn. vii. pt. i. pp. 42, 43. 
 
 $ In a satire addressed to Alessandro Ariosto, he speaks openly of 
 the unprofitableness of his poetic labors : 
 
 " Thanks to the Muses who reward 
 So well the service of their bard, 
 He almost may be said to lack 
 A decent coat to clothe his back." 
 
 And soon after, in the same epistle, he adverts with undisguised 
 indignation to the oppressive patronage of Hyppolito : 
 
 " If the poor stipend I receive 
 Has led his highness to believe 
 He has a right to task my toil 
 Like any serf's upon his soil, 
 
 *"» C % 
 
414 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Notwithstanding the alienation of the cardinal, the 
 poet still continued in favor with Alphonso. The pa- 
 tronage bestowed upon him, however, seems to have 
 been of a very selfish and sordid complexion. He was 
 employed by the duke in offices most vexatious to one 
 of his studious disposition, and he passed three years 
 in reducing to tranquillity a barbarous, rebellious prov- 
 ince of the duchy. His adventure there with a troop 
 of banditti, who abandoned a meditated attack upon 
 him when they learned that he was the author of the 
 Orlando Furioso, is a curious instance of homage to 
 literary talent, which may serve as a pendatit to the 
 similar anecdote recorded of Tasso.* 
 
 The latter portion of his life was passed on his 
 own estate in comparative retirement. He refused all 
 public employment, and, with the exception of his 
 satires, and a few comedies which he prepared for the 
 
 T' enthrall me with a servile chain 
 That grinds my soul, his hopes are vain. 
 Sooner than be such household slave, 
 The sternest poverty I'll brave, 
 And, from his pride and presents free, 
 Resume my long-lost liberty." 
 
 * Ginguene, whose facts are never to be suspected, whatever credit 
 may be attached to his opinions, has related both these adventures 
 without any qualification (Histoire litteraire d'ltalie, torn. iv. p. 359, 
 torn. v. p. 291). This learned Frenchman professes to have compiled 
 his history under the desire of vindicating Italian literature from the 
 disparaging opinions entertained of it among his countrymen. This 
 has led him to swell the trumpet of panegyric somewhat too stoutly, 
 — indeed, much above the modest tone of the Italian savant who, 
 upon his premature death, was appointed to continue the work. 
 Ginguene died before he had completed the materials for his ninth 
 volume, and the hiatus supplied by Professor Sain carries down the 
 literary narrative only to the conclusion of the sixteenth century. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 415 
 
 theatre committed to his superintendence by Alphonso, 
 he produced no new work. His hours were diligently 
 occupied with the emendation and extension of his 
 great poem; and in 1532, soon after the republica- 
 tion of it in forty-six cantos, as it now stands, he died 
 of a disease induced by severe and sedentary applica- 
 tion. 
 
 Ariosto is represented to have possessed a cheerful 
 disposition, temperate habits, and their usual concomi- 
 tant, a good constitution. Barotti has quoted, in his 
 memoirs of the poet, some particulars respecting him, 
 found among the papers of Virginius, his natural son. 
 He is there said not to have been a great reader ; 
 Horace and Catullus were the authors in whom he took 
 most delight. His intense meditation upon the subject 
 of his compositions frequently betrayed him into fits 
 of abstraction, one of which is recorded. Intending, 
 on a fine morning, to take his usual walk, he set out 
 from Carpi, where he resided, and reached Ferrara late 
 in the afternoon, in his slippers and robe de chai?ibre, 
 uninterrupted by any one. His patrimony, though 
 small, was equal to his necessities. An inscription 
 which he placed over his door is indicative of that 
 moderation and love of independence which distin- 
 guished his character : 
 
 " Parva, sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non 
 Sordida, parta meo sed tamen asre domus." 
 
 It does not appear probable that he was ever married. 
 He frequently alludes in his poems to some object of 
 his affections, but without naming her. His bronze 
 inkstand, still preserved in the library at Ferrara, is 
 
4 i 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 surmounted by a rilievo of a Cupid with his finger 
 upon his lip, emblematic of a discreet silence not 
 very common in these matters with his countrymen. 
 He is said to have intended his mistress by the beauti- 
 ful portrait of Ginevra (cantos iv., v.), as Tasso after- 
 wards shadowed out Leonora in the affecting episode 
 of Sophronia. This was giving them, according to 
 Ariosto's own allusion, a glorious niche in the temple 
 of immortality.* 
 
 There still existed a general affectation among the 
 Italian scholars of writing in the Latin language, when 
 Ariosto determined to compose an epic poem. The 
 most accomplished proficients in that ancient tongue 
 flourished about this period, and Politian, Pontano, 
 Vida, Sannazarius, Sadolet, Bembo, had revived, both 
 in prose and poetry, the purity, precision, and classic 
 elegance of the Augustan age. Politian and Lorenzo 
 de' Medici were the only writers of the preceding cen- 
 tury who had displayed the fecundity and poetical 
 graces of their vernacular tongue, and their productions 
 had been too few and of too trifling a nature to estab- 
 lish a permanent precedent. Bembo, who wrote his 
 elaborate history first in Latin, and who carried the 
 complicated inversions, in fact, the idiom, of that lan- 
 guage into his Italian compositions, would have per- 
 suaded Ariosto to write his poem in the same tongue ; 
 but he wisely replied that "he would rather be first 
 among Tuscan writers than second among the Latin," 
 and, following the impulse of his own more discrimi- 
 nating taste, he gave, in the Orlando Furioso, such an 
 exhibition of the fine tones and flexible movements of 
 
 * Orlando Furioso, canto xxxv., st. 15, 16. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 417 
 
 his native language as settled the question of its pre- 
 cedence forever with his countrymen. 
 
 Ariosto at first intended to adopt the terza rima of 
 Dante; indeed, the introductory verses of his poem in 
 this measure are still preserved. He soon abandoned 
 it, however, for the ottava rima, which is much better 
 adapted to the light, rambling, picturesque narrative of 
 the romantic epic* Every stanza furnishes a little pic- 
 ture in itself, and the perpetual recurrence of the same 
 rhyme produces not only a most agreeable melody to 
 the ear, but is very favorable to a full and more power- 
 ful development of the poet's sentiments. Instances 
 of the truth of this remark must be familiar to every 
 reader of Ariosto. It has been applied by Warton, 
 with equal justice, to Spenser, whom the similar repeti- 
 tion of identical cadences often leads to a copious and 
 beautiful expansion of imagery. f Spenser's stanza dif- 
 
 * The Italians, since the failure of Trissino, have very generally- 
 adopted this measure for their epic poetry, while the terza rima is 
 used for didactic and satirical composition. The graver subjects 
 which have engaged the attention of some of their poets during the 
 last century have made blank verse {verso sciolto) more fashionable 
 among them. Cesarotti's Ossian, one of the earliest, may be cited 
 as one of the most successful examples of it. No nation is so skilful 
 in a nice adaptation of style to the subject, and iinitative harmony 
 has been carried by them to a perfection which it can never hope to 
 attain in any other living language ; for what other language is made 
 so directly out of the elements of music? 
 
 •j- The following stanza from the " Faerie Queene," describing the 
 habitation of Morpheus " drowned deep in drowsie fit," may serve as 
 an exemplification of our meaning : 
 
 "And more to lull him in his slumber soft, 
 
 A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, 
 And ever drizling raine upon the loft, 
 
 Mixt with a murmuring winde much like the sowne 
 
4 i8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 fers materially from the Italian ottava rima, in having 
 one more rhyme, and in the elongated Alexandrine 
 with which it is concluded. This gave to his verses 
 "the long, majestic march," well suited to the sober 
 sublimity of his genius; but the additional rhyme 
 much increased its metrical difficulties, already, from 
 the comparative infrequency of assonances in our lan- 
 guage, far superior to those of the Italian. This has 
 few compound sounds, but, rolling wholly upon the 
 five open vowels, a, e, i, o, u, affords a prodigious 
 number of corresponding terminations. Hence their 
 facility of improvisation. Voltaire observes that in the 
 Jerusalem Delivered not more than seven words termi- 
 nate in u, and expresses his astonishment that we do 
 not find a greater monotony in the constant recurrence 
 of only four rhymes.* The reason may be that in 
 Italian poetry the rhyme falls both upon the penultima 
 and the final syllable of each verse ; and, as these two 
 syllables in the same word turn upon different vowels, 
 a greater variety is given to the melody. This double 
 rhyming termination, moreover, gives an inexpressible 
 lightness and delicacy to Italian poetry, very different 
 from the broad comic which similar compound rhymes, 
 no doubt from the infrequency of their application to 
 serious subjects, communicate to the English. 
 
 Ariosto is commonly most admired for the inexhaust- 
 ible fertility of his fancy; yet a large proportion of his 
 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne ; 
 No other noyes nor people's troublous cryes, 
 
 As still are wont to annoy the walled towne, 
 Might there be heard; but careless quiet lyes, 
 Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enemyes." 
 
 * Lettre a Deodati di Tovazzi. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 4I g 
 
 fictions are borrowed, copied, or continued from those 
 of preceding poets. The elegant allegories of ancient 
 superstition, as they were collected or invented by 
 Homer and Ovid, the wild adventures of the Norman 
 romances, the licentious merriment of the gossiping 
 fabliaux, and the enchantments of Eastern fable, have 
 all been employed in the fabric of Ariosto's epic. But, 
 although this diminishes his claims to an inventive 
 fancy, yet, on the whole, it exalts his character as a 
 poet ; for these same fictions under the hands of pre- 
 ceding romancers, even of Boiardo, were cold and 
 uninteresting, or, at best, raised in the mind of the 
 reader only a stupid admiration, like that occasioned 
 by the grotesque and unmeaning wonders of a fairy- 
 tale. But Ariosto inspired them with a deep and living 
 interest; he adorned them with the graces of senti- 
 ment and poetic imagery, and enlivened them by a 
 vein of wit and shrewd reflection. 
 
 Ariosto's style is most highly esteemed by his coun- 
 trymen. The clearness with which it expresses the 
 most subtle and delicate beauties of sentiment may be 
 compared to Alcina's 
 
 " vel sottile e rado, 
 Che non copria dinanzi ne di dietro, 
 Piu che le rose o i gigli un chiaro vetro." — C. vii. s. 28.* 
 
 &'&' 
 
 We recollect no English poet whose manner in any 
 degree resembles him. La Fontaine, the most exqui- 
 site versifier of his nation, when in his least familiar 
 mood, comes the nearest to him among the French. 
 
 * "A thin transparent veil, 
 That all the beauties of her form discloses, 
 As the clear crystal doth th' imprison'd roses." 
 
420 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Spence remarks that Spenser must have imagined 
 Ariosto intended to write a serious romantic poem. 
 The same opinion has been maintained by some of the 
 Italian critics. Such, however, is not the impression we 
 receive from it. Not to mention the broad farce with 
 which the narrative is occasionally checkered, as the 
 adventures of Giocondo, the Enchanted Cup, etc., a 
 sly suppressed smile seems to lurk at the bottom even 
 of his most serious reflections ; sometimes, indeed, it 
 plays openly upon the surface of his narrative, but 
 more frequently, after a beautiful and sober descrip- 
 tion, it breaks out, as it were, from behind a cloud, and 
 lights up the whole with a gay and comic coloring. It 
 would seem as if the natural acuteness of his poetic 
 taste led him to discern in the magnanime jnensogne 
 of romantic fable abundant sources of the grand and 
 beautiful, while the anti-chivalric character of his age, 
 and, still more, the lively humor of his nation, led 
 him to laugh at its extravagances. Hence the delicate 
 intermixture of serious and comic, which gives a most 
 agreeable variety, though somewhat of a curious per- 
 plexity, to his style. 
 
 The Orlando Furioso went through six editions in 
 the author's lifetime, two of which he supervised, and 
 it passed through sixty in the course of the same cen- 
 tury. Its poetic pretensions were of too exalted a 
 character to allow it to be regarded as a mere fairy- 
 tale; but it sorely puzzled the pedantic critics, both of 
 that and of the succeeding age, to find out a justification 
 for admitting it, with all its fantastic eccentricities, into 
 the ranks of epic poetry. Multitudes have attacked 
 and defended it upon this ground, and justice was not 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 42 l 
 
 rendered to it until the more enlightened criticism of a 
 later day set all things right by pointing out the dis- 
 tinction between the romantic and the classical. * 
 
 The cold and precise Boileau, who, like most of his 
 countrymen, seems to have thought that beauty could 
 wear only one form, and to have mistaken the begin- 
 nings of ancient art for its principles, quoted Horace 
 to prove that no poet had the right to produce such 
 grotesque combinations of the tragical and comic as 
 are found in Ariosto.f In the last century, Voltaire, a 
 critic of a much wider range of observation, objects to 
 a narrow, exclusive definition of an epic poem, on the 
 just ground "that works of imagination depend so 
 much on the different languages and tastes of the dif- 
 ferent nations among whom they are produced, that 
 precise definitions must have a tendency to exclude all 
 beauties that are unknown or unfamiliar to us." (JEssai 
 sur la Poesie epique.') In less than forty pages farther 
 we find, however, that " the Orlando Furioso, although 
 popular with the mass of readers, is very inferior to the 
 genuine epic poem. " Voltaire's general reflections were 
 those of a philosopher ; their particular application was 
 tlrat of a Frenchman. 
 
 * Hurd and T. Warton seem to have been among the earliest Eng- 
 lish writers who insisted upon the distinction between the Gothic and 
 the classical. In their application of it to Spenser they display a 
 philosophical criticism, guided not so much by ancient rules as by 
 the peculiar genius of modern institutions. How superior this to the 
 pedantic dogmas of the French school, or of such a caviller as 
 Rymer, whom Dryden used to quote, and Pope extolled as "the best 
 of English critics" ! 
 
 | Dissertation critique sur l'Aventure de Joconde. GEuvres de 
 Boileau, torn. ii. p. 151. 
 
 16 
 
422 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 At a later period of his life he made a recantation 
 of this precipitate opinion ; and he even went so far, 
 in a parallel between the Furioso and the Odyssey, 
 which he considered the model of the Italian poem, as 
 to give a decided preference to the former. Ariosto's 
 imitations of the Odyssey, however, are not sufficient to 
 authorize its being considered the model of his epic. 
 Where these imitations do exist, they are not always 
 the happiest efforts of his muse. The tedious and 
 disgusting adventure of the Ogre, borrowed from that 
 of the Cyclops Polypheme, is one of the greatest blem- 
 ishes in the Furioso. Such "Jack the giant-killing" 
 horrors do not blend happily with the airy and eleganc 
 fictions of the East. The familiarity of Ariosto's man- 
 ner has an apparent resemblance to the simplicity of 
 Homer's, which vanishes upon nearer inspection. The 
 unaffected ease common to both resembles, in the 
 Italian, the fashionable breeding that grows out of a 
 perfect intimacy with the forms of good society. In 
 the Greek it is rather an artlessness which results 
 from never having been embarrassed by the conven- 
 tional forms of society at all. Ariosto is perpetually 
 addressing his reader in the most familiar tone of con- 
 versation ; Homer pursues his course with the unde- 
 viating dignity of an epic poet. He tells all his stories, 
 even the incredible, with an air of confiding truth. 
 The Italian poet frequently qualifies his with some sly 
 reference or apology, as, " I will not vouch for it; I 
 repeat only what Turpin has told-before me :" 
 
 " Mettendo lo Turpin, lo metto anch' io.."* 
 
 * Voltaire, with all his aversion to local prejudices, was too national 
 to relish the naked simplicity of Homer. One of his witty reflections 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 423 
 
 Ariosto's narratives are complicated and interrupted 
 in a most provoking manner. This has given offence 
 to some of his warmest admirers, and to the severe 
 taste of Alfieri in particular. Yet this fault, if indeed 
 it be one, seems imputable to the art, not to the artist. 
 He but followed preceding romancers, and conformed 
 to the laws of his peculiar species of poetry. This 
 involution of the narrative may be even thought to 
 afford a relief and an agreeable contrast, by its inter- 
 mixture of grave and comic incidents ; at least, this 
 is the apology set up for the same peculiarities of our 
 own romantic drama. But, whatever exceptions may 
 be taken by the acuteness or ignorance of critics at the 
 conduct of the Orlando Furioso, the sagacity of its 
 general plan is best vindicated by its wide and perma- 
 nent popularity in its own country. None of their 
 poets is so universally read by the Italians ; and the 
 epithet divine, which the homage of an enlightened few 
 had before appropriated to Dante, has been conferred 
 by the voice of the whole nation upon the "Homer 
 of Ferrara."* While those who copied the classical 
 models of antiquity are forgotten, Ariosto, according 
 to the beautiful eulogium of Tasso, " partendo dalle 
 vestigie degli antichi scrittori e dalle regole d'Aris- 
 totile, e letto e riletto da tutte l'eta, da tutti i sessi, 
 noto a tutte le lingue, ringiovanisce sempre nella sua 
 fama, e vola glorioso per le lingue de' mortali."*)" 
 
 may show how he esteemed him. Speaking of Virgil's obligations 
 to the Greek poet, "Some say," he observes, "that Homer made 
 Virgil; if so, this is, without doubt, the best work he ever made!" 
 si cela est, c est sans doute son plus bel otivrage. 
 
 * The name originally given to him by his rival Tasso. 
 
 f Discorsi Poetiei, p. 33. 
 
424 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The name of Ariosto most naturally suggests this of 
 Tasso, his illustrious but unfortunate rival in the same 
 brilliant career of epic poetry ; for these two seem to 
 hold the same relative rank, and to shed a lustre over 
 the Italian poetry of the sixteenth century like that 
 reflected by Dante and Petrarch upon the fourteenth. 
 The interest always attached to the misfortunes of 
 genius has been heightened, in the case of Tasso, by 
 the veil of mystery thrown over them ; and while his 
 sorrows have been consecrated by the "melodious tear" 
 of the poet, the causes of them have furnished a most 
 fruitful subject of speculation to the historian. 
 
 He had been early devoted by his father to the study 
 of jurisprudence, but, as with Ariosto, a love for the 
 Muses seduced him from his severer duties. His father 
 remonstrated; but Tasso, at the age of seventeen, pro- 
 duced his Rinaldo, an epic in twelve cantos, and the 
 admiration which it excited throughout Italy silenced 
 all future opposition on the part of his parent. In 
 1565, Tasso, then twenty-one years of age, was received 
 into the family of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este, to whom 
 he had dedicated his precocious epic'. The brilliant 
 assemblage of rank and beauty at the little court of 
 Ferrara excited the visions of the youthful poet, while 
 its richly-endowed libraries and learned societies fur- 
 nished a more solid nourishment to his understanding. 
 Under these influences, he was perpetually giving some 
 new display of his poetic talent. His vein flowed 
 freely in lyrical composition, and he is still regarded 
 as one of the most perfect models in that saturated 
 species of national poetry. In 1573 he produced his 
 Aminta, which, in spite of its conceits and pastoral 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 425 
 
 extravagances, exhibited such a union of literary finish 
 and voluptuous sentiment as was to be found in no 
 other Italian poem. It was translated into all the 
 cultivated tongues in Europe, and was followed, during 
 the lifetime of its author, by more than twenty imita- 
 tions in Italy. No valuable work ever gave birth to a 
 more worthless progeny. The Pasto?' Fido of Guarini 
 is by far the best of these imitations ; but its elaborate 
 luxury of wit is certainly not comparable to the simple, 
 unsolicited beauties of the original. Tasso was, how- 
 ever, chiefly occupied with the composition of his great 
 epic. He had written six cantos in a few months, but 
 he was nearly ten years in completing it. He wrote 
 with the rapidity of genius, but corrected with scrupu- 
 lous deliberation. His "Letters" show the unwearied 
 pains which he took to obtain the counsel of his friends, 
 and his critical "Discourses" prove that no one could 
 stand less in need of such counsel than himself. In 
 1575 he completed his "Jerusalem Delivered." Thus, 
 before he had reached his thirty-second year, Tasso, as 
 a lyric, epic, and dramatic writer, may be fairly said to 
 have earned a threefold immortality in the highest 
 walks of his art. His subsequent fate shows that 
 literary glory rests upon no surer basis than the acci- 
 dental successes of worldly ambition. 
 
 The long and rigorous imprisonment of Tasso by 
 the sovereign over whose reign his writings had thrown 
 such a lustre has been as fruitful a source of specula- 
 tion as the inexplicable exile of Ovid, and, in like 
 manner, was for a long time imputed to an indiscreet 
 and too aspiring passion in the poet. At length Tira- 
 boschi announced, in an early edition of his history, 
 
 ?6* ' 
 
 j v 
 
426 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 that certain letters and original manuscripts of Tasso, 
 lately discovered in the library of Modena, had been 
 put into the hands of the Abbe Serassi for the farther 
 investigation of the mysterious transaction. The 
 abbe's work appeared in 1785, and the facts disclosed 
 by it clearly prove that the poet's passion for Leonora 
 was not, as formerly imagined, the origin of his mis- 
 fortunes.* These may be imputed to a variety of cir- 
 cumstances, none of which, however, would have deeply 
 affected a person of a less irritable or better disciplined 
 fancy. The calumnies and petty insults which he ex- 
 perienced from his rivals at the court of Ferrara, a 
 clandestine attempt to publish his poem, but, more 
 than all, certain conscientious scruples which he enter- 
 tained as to the orthodoxy of his own creed, gradually 
 wrought upon his feverish imagination to such a degree 
 as in a manner to unsettle his reason. He fancied that 
 his enemies were laying snares for his life, and that 
 they had concerted a plan for accusing him of heresy 
 before the Inquisition. f He privately absconded from 
 Ferrara, returned to it again, but soon after, disquieted 
 
 * We are only acquainted with Serassi's " Life of Tasso" through 
 the epitomes of Fabroni and Ginguene\ The latter writer seems to 
 us to lay greater stress upon the poet's passion for Leonora than is 
 warranted by his facts. Tasso dedicated, it is true, many an elegant 
 sonnet to her charms, and distorted her name into as many ingenious 
 puns as did Petrarch that of his mistress ; but when we consider that 
 this sort of poetical tribute is very common with the Italians, that 
 the lady was at least ten years older than the poet, and that, in the 
 progress of this passion, he had four or five other well-attested sub- 
 ordinate flames, we shall have little reason to believe it produced a 
 deep impression on his character. 
 
 f His " Letters" betray the same timid jealousy. He is perpetually 
 complaining that his correspondence is watched and intercepted. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 427 
 
 by the same unhappy suspicions, left it precipitately a 
 second time, without his manuscripts, without money 
 or any means of subsistence, and, after wandering from 
 court to court, and experiencing, in the sorrowful lan- 
 guage of Dante, 
 
 " Come sa di sale 
 Lo pane altrui, e com' e duro calle 
 Lo scendere e '1 salir per l'altrui scale,"* 
 
 he threw himself once more upon the clemency of 
 Alphonso ; but the duke, already alienated from him 
 by his past extravagances, was incensed to such a de- 
 gree by certain intemperate expressions of anger in 
 which the poet indulged on his arrival at the court, 
 that he caused him to be confined in a mad-house 
 (Hospital of St. Anne). 
 
 Here, in the darkness and solitude of its meanest 
 cell, disturbed only by the cries of the wretched in- 
 mates of the mansion, he languished two years under 
 the severest discipline of a refractory lunatic. Mon- 
 taigne, in his visit to Italy, saw him in this humiliating 
 situation, and his reflections upon it are even colder 
 than those which usually fall from the phlegmatic 
 philosopher, f The genius of Tasso, however, broke 
 
 * " How salt the savor is of others' bread, 
 
 How hard the passage to descend and climb 
 Ey others' stairs." — Cary. 
 
 f " I felt even more spite than compassion to see him in so miser- 
 able a state, surviving, as it were, himself, unmindful either of him- 
 self or his works, which, without his concurrence, and before his eyes, 
 were published to the world incorrect and deformed." (Essais de 
 Montaigne, torn. v. p. 114.) Montaigne doubtless exaggerated the 
 mental degradation of Tasso, since it favored a position which, in the 
 vain love of paradox that has often distinguished his countrymen, he 
 was then endeavoring to establish, viz., the superiority of stupidity 
 and ignorance over genius. 
 
428 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 through the gloom of his dungeon, and several of the 
 lyrical compositions of his imprisoned muse were as 
 brilliant and beautiful as in the day of her prosperity. 
 The distempered state of his imagination seems never 
 to have clouded the vividness of his perceptions on the 
 subjects of his composition, and during the remaining 
 five years of his confinement at St. Anne he wrote, in 
 . the form of dialogues, several highly-esteemed disqui- 
 sitions on philosophical and moral theorems. During 
 this latter period Tasso had enjoyed a more commo- 
 dious apartment, but the duke, probably dreading some 
 literary reprisal from his injured prisoner, resisted all 
 entreaties for his release. This was at length effected, 
 through the intercession of the Prince of Mantua, in 
 1586. 
 
 Tasso quitted Ferrara without an interview with his 
 oppressor, and spent the residue of his days in the 
 south of Italy. His countrymen, affected by his un- 
 merited persecutions, received him wherever he passed 
 with enthusiastic triumph. The nobility and the citi- 
 zens of Florence waited upon him in a body, as if to 
 make amends for the unjust strictures of their academy 
 upon his poem, and a day was appointed by the court 
 of Rome for his solemn coronation in the capitol with 
 the poetic wreath which had formerly encircled the 
 brow of Petrarch. He died a few days before the 
 intended ceremony. His body, attired in a Roman 
 toga, was accompanied to the grave by nobles and 
 ecclesiastics of the highest dignity, and his temples 
 were decorated with the laurel of which his perverse 
 fortune had defrauded him when living. 
 
 The unhappy fate of Tasso has affixed a deep stain 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 429 
 
 on the character of Alphonso the Second. The eccen- 
 tricities of his deluded fancy could not have justified 
 seven years of solitary confinement, either as a medi- 
 cine or as a punishment, least of all from the man 
 whose name he had so loudly celebrated in one of the 
 most glorious productions of modern genius. What a 
 caustic commentary upon his unrelenting rigor must 
 Alphonso have found in one of the opening stanzas of 
 the Jerusalem : 
 
 " Tu, magnanimo Alfonso, il qual ritogli 
 
 Al furor di fortuna, e guidi in porto 
 Me peregrino errante, e fra gli scogli 
 
 E fra l'onde agitato, e quasi assorto ; 
 Queste mie carte in lieta fronte accogli,".etc. 
 
 The illiberal conduct of the princes of Este both 
 towards Ariosto and Tasso essentially diminishes their 
 pretensions to the munificent patronage so exclusively 
 imputed to them by their own historians and by the 
 eloquent pen of Gibbon.* A more accurate picture, 
 perhaps, of the second Alphonso may be found in the 
 concluding canto of Childe Harold, where the poet, in 
 the language of indignant sensibility, not always so 
 
 * Muratori's Antichita Estensi are expressly intended to record the 
 virtues of the family of Este. Tiraboschi's Storia della Letteratura 
 Italiana is a splendid panegyric upon the intellectual achievements 
 of the whole nation. More than a due share of this praise, however, 
 is claimed for his native princes of Ferrara. It is amusing to see by 
 what evasions the historian attempts to justify their conduct both 
 towards Tasso and Ariosto. Gibbon, who had less apology for par- 
 tiality, in his laborious researches into the " Antiquities of the House 
 of Brunswick" has not tempered his encomiums of the Alphonsos 
 with a single animadversion upon their illiberal conduct towards their 
 two illustrious subjects. 
 
43° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 judiciously directed, has rendered more than poetical 
 justice to the "antique brood of Este." 
 
 The Jerusalem was surreptitiously published, for the 
 first time, during Tasso's imprisonment, and, notwith- 
 standing the extreme inaccuracy of its early editions, 
 it went through no less than six in as many months. 
 Others grew rich on the productions of an author who 
 was himself languishing in the most abject poverty, — 
 one example out of many of the insecurity of literary 
 property in a country where the number of distinct 
 independent governments almost defeats the protection 
 of a copyright.* 
 
 Notwithstanding the general admiration which the 
 Jerusalem excited throughout Italy, it was assailed, on 
 its first appearance, with the coarsest criticism it ever 
 experienced. A comparison was naturally suggested 
 between it and the Orlando Furioso, and the Italians 
 became divided into the factions of Tassisti and Ari- 
 ostisti. The Della-Cruscan Academy, just then insti- 
 tuted, in retaliation of some extravagant encomiums 
 bestowed on the Jerusalem, entered into an accurate 
 but exceedingly intemperate analysis of it, in which 
 they degraded it not only below the rival epic, but, 
 denying it the name of a /<?<?//*, spoke of it as "a cold 
 and barren compilation." It is a curious fact that both 
 the Della-Cruscan and French Academies commenced 
 their career of criticism with an unlucky attack upon 
 
 * " Foreigners," says Denina, "who ask if there are great writers 
 in Italy now, as in times past, would be surprised at the number, were 
 they to learn how much even the best of them are brought in debt by 
 the publication of their own works." Vicende della Letteratura, torn. 
 ii. p. 326. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 43 1 
 
 two of the most extraordinary poems in their respective 
 languages.* 
 
 Although Tasso was only one-and-twenty years of 
 age when he set about writing his Jerusalem, yet it is 
 sufficiently apparent, from the sagacious criticism ex- 
 hibited in his letters, that he brought to it a mind 
 ripened by extensive studies and careful meditation. 
 He had, moreover, the advantage of an experience 
 derived both from his own previous labors and those 
 of several distinguished predecessors in the same kind 
 of composition. The learned Trissino had fashioned, 
 some years before, a regular heroic poem, with pedan- 
 tic precision, upon the models of antiquity. From 
 this circumstance, it was so formal and tedious that 
 nobody could read it. Bernardo Tasso, the father of 
 Torquato, who might apply to himself, with equal 
 justice, the reverse of the younger Racine's lament, 
 
 " Et moi pere inconnu d'un si glorieux fils," 
 
 had commenced his celebrated Amadis with the same 
 deference to the rules of Aristotle. Finding that the 
 audiences of his friends, to whom he was accustomed 
 to read the epic as it advanced, gradually thinned off, 
 he had the discretion to take the hint, and new-cast it 
 in a more popular and romantic form. Notwithstanding 
 these inauspicious examples, Tasso was determined to 
 give to his national literature what it so much wanted, 
 a great heroic poem ; his fine eye perceived at once, 
 however, all the advantages to be derived from the 
 
 * It is hardly necessary to refer to Corneille's " Cid," so clumsily 
 anatomized by the Academie Francaise at the jealous instigation of 
 Cardinal Richelieu. 
 
43 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 peculiar institutions of the moderns, and, while he 
 conformed, in the general plan of his epic, to the pre- 
 cepts of antiquity, he animated it with the popular and 
 more exalted notions of love, of chivalry, and of re- 
 ligion. His Jerusalem exhibits a perfect combination 
 of the romantic and the classical. 
 
 The subject which he selected was most happily 
 adapted to his complicated design. However gloomy 
 a picture the Crusades may exhibit to the rational his- 
 torian, they are one of the most brilliant and imposing 
 ever offered to the eye of the poet. It is surprising 
 that a subject so fruitful in marvellous and warlike ad- 
 venture, and which displays the full triumph of Chris- 
 tian chivalry, should have been so long neglected by 
 the writers of epical romance. The plan of the Jeru- 
 salem is not without defects, which have been pointed 
 out by the Italians, and bitterly ridiculed by Voltaire, 
 whose volatile sarcasms have led him into one or two 
 blunders that have excited much wrath among some of 
 Tasso's countrymen.* The conceits which occasion- 
 ally glitter on the surface of Tasso's clear and polished 
 style have afforded another and a fair ground for cen- 
 sure. Boileau's metaphorical distich, however, has 
 given to them an undeserved importance. The epi- 
 thet tinsel (clinquant), used by him without any limita- 
 tion, was quoted by his countrymen as fixing the value 
 
 * Among other heinous slanders, he had termed the musical bird 
 " di color vari" " e purpureo rostro" in Armida's gardens a "parrot," 
 and the "fatal Donzella" (canto xv.), "whose countenance was beau- 
 tiful like that of the angels," an " ola 7 woman ," which his Italian cen- 
 sor assures his countrymen " is much worse than a vecchia donna." 
 For the burst of indignation which these and similar sins brought 
 upon Voltaire's head, vide Annotazioni di Canti xv., xvi., Clas. Ital. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 433 
 
 at once of all Tasso's compositions, and afterwards, 
 by an easy transition, of that of the whole body of 
 Italian literature. Eoileau subsequently diluted this 
 censure of the Italian poet with some partial commen- 
 dations;* but its ill effects were visible in the unfavor- 
 able prejudices which it left on the minds of his own 
 countrymen, and on those of the English, for nearly 
 a century. 
 
 The affectations imputed to Tasso are to be traced 
 to a much more remote origin. Petrarch's best pro- 
 ductions are stained with them, as are those of pre- 
 ceding poets, Cino da Pistoja, Guido Cavalcanti, and 
 others,"}" and they seem to have flowed directly from 
 the Provencal, the copious fountain of Italian lyrical 
 poetry. Tiraboschi referred their introduction to the 
 influence of Spanish literature under the viceroys of 
 Naples during the latter part of the sixteenth century, 
 which provoked a patriotic replication, in seven vol- 
 umes, from the Spanish Abbe Lampillas. The Italian 
 
 * Both Ginguene and some Italian critics affect to consider these 
 commendations as an amende honorable on the part of Boileau. 
 They, however, amount to very little, and, like the Frenchman's 
 compliment to Yorick, have full as much of bitter as of sweet in 
 them. The remarks quoted by D' Olivet (Histoire de l'Academie 
 Francaise) as having' been made by the critic a short time previous 
 to his death, are a convincing proof, on the other hand, that he was 
 tenacious to the last of his original heresy. " So little," said he, 
 "have I changed, that, on reviewing Tasso of late, I regretted ex- 
 ceedingly that I had not been more explicit in my strictures upon 
 him." He then goes en to supply the hiatus by taking up all the 
 blemishes in detail which he had before only alluded to en g7~os. 
 
 f These veteran versifiers have been condensed into two volumes 
 8vo, in an edition published at Florence, 1816, under the title of Poeti 
 del Primo Secolo. 
 
 t 37 
 
434 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 had the better of his adversary in temper, if not in 
 argument. This false refinement was brought to its 
 height during the first half of the seventeenth century, 
 under Marini and his imitators, and it is somewhat ma- 
 liciously intimated by Denina that the foundation of 
 the Academy Delia Crusca corresponds with the coin- 
 mencement of the decay of good taste.* Some of their 
 early publications prove that they have at least as good 
 a claim to be considered its promoters as Tasso.f 
 
 Tasso is the most lyrical of all epic poets. This 
 often weakens the significance and picturesque delinea- 
 tion of his narrative, by giving to it an ideal and too 
 general character. His eight-line stanza is frequently 
 wrought up, as it were, into a miniature sonnet. He 
 himself censures Ariosto for occasionally indulging 
 this lyrical vein in his romance, and cites as an exam- 
 ple the celebrated comparison of the virgin and the 
 rose (canto L, s. 42). How many similar examples 
 may be found in his own epic ! The gardens of 
 
 * Vicende della Letteratura, torn. ii. p. 52. 
 
 j" A distinction seems to be authorized between the ancients and 
 the moderns in regard to what is considered purity of taste. The 
 earliest writings of the former are distinguished by it, and it fell info 
 decay only with the decline of the nation; while a vicious taste is 
 visible in the earliest stages of modern literature, and it has been 
 corrected only by the corresponding refinement of the nation. The 
 Greek language was written in classic purity from Homer until long 
 after Greece herself had become tributary to the Romans, and the 
 Latin tongue from the time of Terence till the nation had sacrificed 
 its liberties to its emperors ; while the early Italian authors, as we 
 have already seen, the Spaniards in the age of Ferdinand, the Eng- 
 lish in that of Elizabeth, and the French under Francis the First (the 
 epochs which may fix the dawn of their respective literatures), seem 
 to have been deeply infected with a passion for conceits and quibbles, 
 which has been purified only by the diligent cultivation of ages. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 435 
 
 Armida are full of them. To this cause we may per- 
 haps ascribe the glittering affectations, the clinquant, 
 so often noticed in his poetry. Dazzling and epigram- 
 matic points are often solicited in sonnets. To the 
 same cause may be referred, in part, the nicely-adjusted 
 harmony of his verses. It would almost seem as if 
 each stanza was meant to be set to music, as Petrarch 
 is known to have composed many of his odes with this 
 view.* The melodious rhythm of Tasso's verse has 
 none of the monotonous sweetness so cloying in Me- 
 tastasio. It is diversified by all the modulations of an 
 exquisitely sensible ear. For this reason, no Italian 
 poet is so frequently in the mouths of the common 
 people. Ariosto's familiar style and lively narrative 
 are better suited to the popular apprehension ; but the 
 lyrical melody of Tasso triumphs over these advantages 
 in his rival, and enables him literally virum volitare per 
 ora. It was once common for the Venetian gondoliers 
 to challenge each other and to respond in the verses 
 of the Jerusalem, and this sort of musical contest might 
 be heard for hours in the silence of a soft summer 
 evening. The same beautiful ballads, if we may so call 
 these fragments of an epic, are still occasionally chanted 
 by the Italian peasant, who is less affected by the sub- 
 limity of their sentiments than the musical flow of the 
 expression, j* 
 
 Tasso's sentiments are distinguished, in our opinion, 
 
 * Foscolo, " Essay," etc., p. 93. 
 
 "j" " The influence of metrical harmony is visible in the lower 
 classes, who commit to memory the stanzas of Tasso, and sing them 
 without comprehending them. They even disfigure the language so 
 as to make nonsense of it, their senses deceived all the while by the 
 unmeaning melody." Pignotti, Storia, etc., torn. iv. p. 192. 
 

 
 
 436 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 by a moral grandeur surpassing that of any other Italian 
 poet. His devout mind seems to have been fully inspired 
 with the spirit of his subject. We say in our opinion, 
 for an eminent German critic, F. Schlegel, is disposed 
 to deny him this merit. We think in this instance he 
 must have proposed to himself what is too frequent 
 with the Germans, — an ideal and exaggerated standard 
 of elevation. A few stanzas (st. 1 to 19) in the fourth 
 canto of the Jerusalem may be said to contain almost 
 the whole argument of the Paradise Lost. The convo- 
 cation of the devils in the dark abyss,* the picture of 
 Satan, whom he injudiciously names Pluto, his sublime 
 address to his confederates, in which he alludes to their 
 rebellion and the subsequent creation of man, were the 
 germs of Milton's most glorious conceptions. Dante 
 had before shadowed forth Satan, but it was only in the 
 physical terrors of a hideous aspect and gigantic stature. 
 The ancients had clothed the Furies in the same external 
 deformities. Tasso, in obedience to the superstitions 
 of his age, gave to the devil similar attributes, but he 
 invested his character with a moral sublimity which 
 raised it to the rank of divine intelligences : 
 
 " Ebbero i piu. felici allor vittoria 
 Rimase a noi d'invitto ardir la gloria." 
 
 " Sia destin cid ch'io voglio." 
 
 * The semi-stanza which describes the hoarse reverberations of the 
 infernal trumpet in this Pandemonium is cited by the Italians as a 
 happy example of imitative harmony: 
 
 " Chiama gli abitator dell' ombre eterne 
 II rauco suon della tartarea tromba. 
 T reman le spaziose atre caverne, 
 
 E l'aer cieco a quel romor rimbomba." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 437 
 
 In the literal version of Milton, 
 
 " What I will is fate." 
 
 Sentiments like these also give to Satan, in Paradise 
 Lost, his superb and terrific majesty. Milton, how- 
 ever, gave a finer finish to the portrait, by dispensing 
 altogether with the bugbear deformities of his person, 
 and by depicting it as a form that 
 
 " Had yet not lost 
 All its original brightness, nor appear' d 
 Less than archangel ruin'd." 
 
 It seems to us a capital mistake in Tasso to have 
 made so little use of the diablerie which he has so 
 powerfully portrayed. Almost all the machinations of 
 the infidels in the subsequent cantos turn upon the 
 agency of petty necromancers. 
 
 Tasso frequently deepens the expression of his pic- 
 tures by some skilful moral allusion. How finely has 
 he augmented the misery of the soldier perishing under 
 a consuming drought before the walls of Jerusalem, 
 by recalling to his imagination the cool and crystal 
 waters with which he had once been familiar ! 
 
 " Se alcun giammai tra frondeggianti rive 
 Puro vide stagnar liquido argento, 
 O giu precipitose ir acque vive 
 
 Per Alpe, o'n piaggia erbosa a passo lento ; 
 Quelle al vago desio forma e descrive, 
 E ministra materia al suo tormento ; 
 Che l'imagine lor gelida e molle 
 
 L'asciuga e scalda, e nel pensier ribolle."* 
 
 Canto xiii., st. 60. 
 
 * " He that the gliding rivers erst had seen 
 
 Adown their verdant channels gently roll'd, 
 Or falling streams, which to the valleys green 
 Distill'd from tops of Alpine mountains cold, 
 
438 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 In all the manifold punishments of Dante's "Hell" 
 we remember one only in which the mind is made use 
 of as a means of torture. A counterfeiter (barratiere) 
 contrasts his situation in these dismal regions with his 
 former pleasant residence in the green vale of the Arno ; 
 an allusion which adds a new sting to his anguish and 
 gives a fine moral coloring to the picture. Dante was 
 the first great Christian poet that had written ; and 
 when, in conformity with -the charitable spirit of his 
 age, he assigned all the ancient heathens a place either 
 in his hell or purgatory, he inflicted upon them corporeal 
 punishments which alone had been threatened by their 
 poets. 
 
 Both Ariosto and Tasso elaborated the style of their 
 compositions with infinite pains. This labor, however, 
 led them to the most opposite results. It gave to the 
 Furioso the airy graces of elegant conversation ; to the 
 Gerusalemme a stately and imposing eloquence. In 
 this last you may often find a consummate art carried 
 into affectation, as in the former natural beauty is 
 sometimes degraded into vulgarity, and even obscenity. 
 Ariosto has none of the national vices of style imputed 
 to his rival, but he is tainted with the less excusable 
 impurities of sentiment. It is stated by a late writer 
 that the exceptionable passages in the Furioso were 
 found crossed out with a pen in a manuscript copy of 
 the author, showing his intention to have suppressed 
 them at some future period. The fact does not appear 
 probable, since the edition as it now stands, with all 
 
 Those he desired in vain, new torments been 
 Augmented thus with wish of comforts old ; 
 Those waters cool he drank in vain conceit, 
 Which more increased his thirst, increased his heat." — Fairfax. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 439 
 
 its original blemishes, was revised and published by 
 himself the year of his death. 
 
 Tasso possessed a deeper, a more abstracted and 
 lyrical turn of thought. Ariosto infuses an active 
 worldly spirit into his poetry ; his beauties are social, 
 while those of his rival are rather of a solitary com- 
 plexion. Ariosto' s muse seems to have caught the 
 gossiping spirit of the fabliaux, and Tasso' s the lyr- 
 ical refinements of the Provencal. Ariosto is seldom 
 sublime like the other. This may be imputed to 
 his subject, as well as to the character of his genius. 
 Owing to his subject, he is more generally entertaining. 
 The easy freedom of his narrative often leads him into 
 natural details much more affecting than the ideal gen- 
 eralization of Tasso. How pathetic is the dying scene 
 of Brandi marte, with the half-finished name of his 
 mistress, Fiordiligi, upon his lip : 
 
 " Orlando, fa che ti raccordi 
 Di me nell' orazion tue grate a Dio ; 
 
 Ne men ti raccomando la mia Fiordi .... 
 Ma dir non pote ligi ; e qui finio."* 
 
 Tasso could never have descended to this beautiful 
 negligence of expression, f 
 
 * "Orlando, I implore thee 
 That in thy prayers my name may be commended, 
 And to thy care I leave my loved Fiordi — 
 Ligi he could not add ; but here he ended." 
 
 f The ideal, which we have imputed to Tasso, may be cited, how- 
 ever, as a characteristic of the national literature, and as the point in 
 which their literature is most decidedly opposed to our own. With 
 the exception of Dante and Parini, whose copies from life have all 
 the precision of proof-impressions, it would be difficult to find a pic- 
 ture in the compass of Italian poetry executed with the fidelity to na- 
 
440 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Tasso challenged a comparison with his predecessor in 
 his gardens of Armida. The indolent and languishing 
 repose of the one, the brisk, amorous excitement of the 
 other, are in some measure characteristic of their differ- 
 ent pencils. The parallel has been too often pursued 
 for us to weary our readers with it. 
 
 The Italians have a copious variety of narrative 
 poetry, and are very nice in their subdivisions of it. 
 Without attending to these, we have been guided by 
 its chronological succession. We have hardly room 
 to touch upon the " Secchia Rapita" ("Rape of the 
 Bucket") of Tassoni, the model of the mock-heroic 
 poems afterwards frequent in Italy,* of Boileau's " Lu- 
 trin/' and of the "Rape of the Lock." Tassoni, its 
 author, was a learned and noble Modenese, who, after 
 
 ture so observable in our good authors, so apparent in every page of 
 Cowper or Thomson, for example. It might be well, perhaps, for the 
 English artist, if he could embellish the minute and literal details of 
 his own school with some of the ideal graces of the Italian. Byron 
 may be considered as having done this more effectually than any 
 contemporary poet. Byron's love of the ideal, it must be allowed, 
 however, has too often bewildered him in mysticism and hyperbole. 
 
 * The Italians long disputed with great acrimony whether this or 
 the comic-heroic poem of Bracciolini (Lo Scherno degli Dei) was 
 precedent in point of age. It appears probable that Tassoni's was 
 written first, although printed last. No country has been half so 
 fruitful as Italy in literary quarrels, and in none have they been pur- 
 sued with such bitterness and pertinacity. In some instances, as in 
 that of Maririi, they have even been maintained by assassination. The 
 sarcastic commentaries of Galileo upon the "Jerusalem," quoted in 
 the vulgar edition of the " Classics," were found sadly mutilated by 
 one of the offended Tassisti, into whose hands they had fallen more 
 than two centuries after they were written ; so long does a literary 
 faction last in Italy ! The Italians, inhibited from a free discussion 
 on political or religious topics, entered with incredible zeal into those 
 of a purely abstract and often unimportant character. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 441 
 
 a life passed in the heats of literary controversies, to 
 which he had himself given rise, died 1635, aged 
 seventy-one. The subject of the poem is a war be- 
 tween Modena and Bologna, at the commencement of 
 the thirteenth century, in consequence of a wooden 
 bucket having been carried off from the market-place 
 in the latter city by an invading party of the former. 
 This memorable trophy has been preserved down to 
 the present day in the cathedral' of Modena. Tassoni's 
 epic will confer upon it a more lasting existence. 
 
 " The Bucket, which so sorely had offended, 
 
 In the Great Tower, where yet it may be found, 
 
 Was from on high by ponderous chain suspended, 
 And with a marble cope environ 'd round. 
 
 By portals five the entrance is defended ; 
 Nor cavalier of note is that way bound, 
 
 Nor pious pilgrim, but doth pause to see 
 
 The spoil so glorious of the victory." — Canto i., st. 63. 
 
 Gironi, in his life of the poet, triumphantly adduces, 
 in evidence of the superiority of. the Italian epic over 
 the French mock-heroic poem of Boileau, that the 
 subject of the former is far more insignificant than 
 that of the latter, and yet the poem has twelve cantos, 
 being twice the number of the Lutrin. He might 
 have added that each canto contains about six hundred 
 lines instead of two hundred, the average complement 
 of the French, so that Tassoni's epic has the glory of 
 being twelve times as long as Boileau' s, and all about a 
 bucket ! This is somewhat characteristic of the Italians. 
 What other people would good-humoredly endure such 
 an interminable epic i^pon so trivial an affair, which 
 had taken place more than four centuries before ? To 
 
 
442 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 make amends, however, for the want of pungency in a 
 satire on transactions of such an antiquated date, Tas- 
 soni has besprinkled his poem very liberally with allu- 
 sions to living characters. 
 
 We may make one general objection to the poem, 
 that it is often too much in earnest for the perfect 
 keeping of the mock-heroic. The cutting of throats 
 and fighting regular pitched battles are too bloody a 
 business for a joke. How much more in the genuine 
 spirit of this species of poetry is the bloodless battle 
 with the books in the Lutrin ! 
 
 The machinery employed by Tassoni is composed 
 of the ancient heathen deities. These are frequently 
 brought upon the stage, and are travestied with the 
 coarsest comic humor. But the burlesque which re- 
 duces great things to little is of a grosser and much 
 less agreeable sort than that which magnifies little 
 things into great. The "Rape of the Lock" owes its 
 charms to the latter process. The importance which 
 it gives to the elegant nothings of high life, its per- 
 petual sparkling of wit, the fairy fretwork which con- 
 stitutes its machinery, have made it superior, as a fine 
 piece of irony, to either of its foreign rivals. A 
 Frenchman would doubtless prefer the epic regularity, 
 progressive action, and smooth seesaw versification of 
 the Lutrin;* while an Italian would find sufficient in 
 the grand heroic sentiment and the voluptuous por- 
 
 * The versification of the Lutrin is esteemed as faultless as any in 
 the language. The tame and monotonous flow of the best of French 
 rhyme, however, produces an effect, at least upon a foreign ear, which 
 has been well likened by one of their own nation to " the drinking of 
 cold water." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 443 
 
 traiture with which Tassoni's unequal poem is occa- 
 sionally inlaid, to justify his preference of it. There 
 is no accounting for national taste. La Harpe, the 
 Aristarchus of French critics, censures the gossamer 
 machinery of the "Rape of the Lock" as the greatest 
 defect in the poem. "La. fable des Sylphes, que Pope 
 a tres-inutilement empruntee du Conte de Gabalis, 
 pour en faire le merveilleux de son poeme, n'y produit 
 rien d" 1 agreable, rien d' inter ess ant f 
 
 Italy, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 was inundated with crude and insipid romances, dis- 
 tributed into all the varieties of epic poetry. The last 
 one, however, of sufficient importance to require our 
 notice, namely, the Ricciardetto of Nicholas Forti- 
 guerra, appeared as late as 1738. After two centuries 
 of marvellous romance, Charlemagne and his paladins 
 became rather insipid dramatis personce. What could 
 not be handled seriously, however, might be ridiculed ; 
 and the smile half suppressed by Ariosto and Berni 
 broke out into broad buffoonery in the poem of Forti- 
 guerra. 
 
 The Ricciardetto may be considered the Don Quixote 
 of Italy; for although it did not bring about that revo- 
 lution in the national taste ascribed to the Spanish 
 romance, yet it is, like that, an unequivocal parody 
 upon the achievements of knight-errantry. It may be 
 doubted whether Don Quixote itself was not the con- 
 sequence rather than the cause of the revolution in the 
 national taste. Fortiguerra pursued an opposite method 
 to Cervantes, and, instead of introducing his crack- 
 brained heroes into the realities of vulgar life, he made 
 them equally ridiculous by involving them in the most 
 
444 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL A AW 
 
 absurd caricatures of romantic fiction. Many of these 
 adventures are of a licentious, and sometimes of a 
 disgusting, nature ; but the graceful though negligent 
 beauties of his style throw an illusive veil over the 
 grossness of the narrative. Imitations of Pulci may 
 be more frequently traced than of any other romantic 
 poet. But, although more celebrated writers are occa- 
 sionally, and the extravagances of chivalry are perpet- 
 ually, parodied by Fortiguerra, yet his object does not 
 seem to have been deliberate satire so much as good- 
 humored jesting. What he wrote was for the simple 
 purpose of raising a laugh, not for the derision or the 
 correction of the taste of his countrymen. The tend- 
 ency of his poem is certainly satirical, yet there is not 
 a line indicating such an intention on his part. The 
 most pointed humor is aimed at the clergy.* Forti- 
 guerra was himself a canon. He commenced his epic 
 at the suggestion of some friends with whom he was 
 passing a few weeks of the autumn at a hunting-seat. 
 The conversation turned upon the labor bestowed by 
 Pulci, Berni, and Ariosto on their great poems; and 
 Fortiguerra undertook to furnish, the next day, a canto 
 
 * One of the leading characters is Ferragus, who had figured in all 
 the old epics as one of the most formidable Saracen chieftains. He 
 turns hermit with Fortiguerra, and beguiles his lonely winter evenings 
 with the innocent pastime of making candles : 
 
 " E ne l'orrida bruma, 
 Quando l'aria e piu fredda, e piu crudele, 
 Io mi diverto in far delle candele." — iii. 53. 
 
 A contrast highly diverting to the Italians, who had been taught to 
 associate very lofty ideas with the name of Ferragus. The conflict 
 kept up between the devout scruples of the new saint and his old 
 heathen appetites affords perpetual subjects for the profane comi. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 445 
 
 of good poetry exhibiting some of the peculiarities of 
 their respective styles. He fulfilled his promise, and 
 his friends, delighted with its sprightly graces, per- 
 suaded him to pursue the epic to its present comple- 
 ment of thirty cantos. Any one acquainted with the 
 facilities for improvisation afforded by the flexible or- 
 ganization of the Italian tongue will be the less surprised 
 at the rapidity of this composition. The "Ricciar- 
 detto" may be looked upon as a sort of improvisation. 
 In the following literal version of the two opening 
 stanzas of the poem we have attempted to convey some 
 notion of the sportive temper of the original : 
 
 " It will not let my busy brain alone ; 
 
 The whim has taken me to write a tale, 
 In poetry, of things till now unknown, 
 
 Or if not wholly new, yet nothing stale. 
 My muse is not a daughter of the Sun, 
 
 With harp of gold and ebony ; a hale 
 And buxom country lass, she sports at ease, 
 And, free as air, sings to the passing breeze. 
 
 " Yet, though accustom'd to the wood, — its spring 
 Her only beverage, and her food its mast — 
 
 She will of heroes and of battles sing, 
 The loves and high emprizes of the past. 
 
 Then, if she falter on so bold a wing, 
 Light be the blame upon her errors cast ; 
 
 She never studied ; and she well may err, 
 
 Whose home hath been beneath the oak and fir." 
 
 Fortiguerra's introductions to his cantos are seasoned 
 with an extremely pleasant wit, which Lord Byron has 
 attentively studied, and, in some passages of his more 
 familiar poetry, closely imitated. The stanza, for exam- 
 ple, in Beppo, beginning 
 
 3§ 
 
446 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 " She was not old, nor young, nor at the years 
 Which certain people call a certain age, 
 Which yet the most uncertain age appears," etc., 
 
 was evidently suggested by the following in " Ricciar- 
 detto:" 
 
 " Quando si giugne ad una certa eta, 
 Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual e, 
 
 Bisogna stare allora a quel ch'un ha, 
 Ne d'altro amante provar piu la fe, 
 
 Perche, donne me care, la belta 
 
 Ha 1' ali al capo, alle spalle, ed a' pie ; 
 
 E vola si, che non si scorge piu 
 
 Vestigio alcun ne' visi, dove fu." 
 
 Byron's wit, however, is pointed with a keener sar- 
 casm, and his serious reflections show a finer perception 
 both of natural and moral beauty, than belong to the 
 Italian. No two things are more remote from each 
 other than sentiment and satire. In "Don Juan" they 
 are found side by side in almost every stanza. The 
 effect is disagreeable. The heart, warmed by some 
 picture of extreme beauty or pathos, is suddenly chilled 
 by a selfish sneer, a cold-blooded maxim, that makes 
 you ashamed of having been duped into a good feeling 
 by the writer even for a moment. It is a melancholy 
 reflection that the last work of this extraordinary poet 
 should be the monument alike of his genius and his 
 infamy. Voltaire's licentious epic, the "Pucelle," is 
 written in a manner, perhaps, more nearly correspond- 
 ing to that of the Italian ; but the philosophical irony, 
 if we may so call it, which forms the substratum of the 
 more familiar compositions of this witty and profligate 
 author is of somewhat too deep a cast for the light, 
 superficial banter of Fortiguerra. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 447 
 
 We have now traced the course of Italian narrative 
 poetry down to the middle of the last century. It has by 
 no means become extinct since that period, and, among 
 others, an author well known here by his history of 
 our Revolutionary War has contributed his share to the 
 epopee of his country, in his " Camillo, o Vejo Con- 
 quistata." Almost every Italian writer has a poetic 
 vein within him, which, if it does not find a vent in 
 sonnets or canzones, will flow out into more formidable 
 compositions.* 
 
 In glancing over the long range of Italian narrative 
 poems, one may be naturally led to the reflection that 
 the most prolific branch of the national literature is 
 devoted exclusively to purposes of mere amusement. 
 Brilliant inventions, delicate humor, and a beautiful 
 coloring of language are lavished upon all ; but, with 
 the exception of the "Jerusalem," we rarely meet with 
 sublime or ennobling sentiment, and very rarely with 
 any thing like a moral or philosophical purpose. 
 Madame de Stael has attempted to fasten a reproach 
 on the whole body of Italian letters, "that, with the 
 exception of their works on physical science, they 
 have never been directed to utility. "\ The imputation 
 applied in this almost unqualified manner is unjust. 
 The language has been enriched by the valuable reflec- 
 tions of too many historians, the solid labors of too 
 
 * Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Bembo, Varchi, Castiglione, Pignotti, 
 Botta, and a host of other classic prose writers of Italy, have all 
 confessed the " impetus sacer," and given birth to epics, lyrics, or 
 bucolics. 
 
 f " Tous les ouvrages des Italiens, excepte ceux qui traitent des 
 sciences physiques, n'ont jamais pour but l'utilite." De la Littera- 
 ture, etc. 
 
448 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 many antiquaries and critics, to be thus lightly desig- 
 nated. The learned lady may have found a model for 
 her own comprehensive manner of philosophizing, and 
 an ample refutation of her assertion, in Machiavelli 
 alone.* In their works of imagination, however, such 
 an imputation appears to be well merited. The Italians 
 seem to demand from these nothing farther than from 
 a fine piece of music, where the heart is stirred, the ear 
 soothed, but the understanding not a whit refreshed. 
 The splendid apparitions of their poet's fancy fade 
 away from the mind of the reader, and, like the en- 
 chanted fabrics described in their romances, leave not 
 a trace behind them. 
 
 In the works of fancy in our language, fiction is 
 almost universally made subservient to more important 
 and nobler purposes. The ancient drama, and novels, 
 the modern prose drama, exhibit historical pictures of 
 manners and accurate delineations of character. Most 
 of the English poets in other walks, from the "moral 
 Gower" to Cowper, Crabbe, and Wordsworth, have 
 made their verses the elegant vehicles of religious or 
 practical truth. Even descriptive poetry in England 
 
 * We say manner, not spirit. The " Discorsi sopra T. Livio," 
 however, require less qualification on the score of their principles. 
 They obviously furnished the model to the "Grandeur et Decadence 
 des Romains," and the same extended philosophy which Montesquieu 
 imitated in civil history, Madame de Stael has carried into literary. 
 Among the historians, antiquaries, etc., whose names are known 
 where the language is not read, we might cite Guicciardini, Bembo, 
 Sarpi, Giannone, Nardi, Davila, Denina, Muratori, Tiraboschi, Gra- 
 vina, Bettinelli, Algarotti, Beccaria, Filangieri, Cesarotti, Pignotti, 
 and many others ; a hollow muster-roll of names, that it would be 
 somewhat ridiculous to run over did not their wide celebrity ex- 
 pose in a stronger light Madame de StaeTs sweeping assertion. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 449 
 
 interprets the silence of external nature into a language 
 of sentiment and devotion. It is characteristic of this 
 spirit in the nation that Spenser, the only one of their 
 classic writers who has repeated the fantastic legends 
 of chivalry, deemed it necessary to veil his Italian 
 fancy in a cloud of allegory, which, however it may 
 be thought to affect the poem, shows unequivocally 
 the didactic intention of the poet. 
 
 These grave and extended views are seldom visible 
 in the ornamental writing of the Italians. It rarely 
 conveys useful information or inculcates moral or 
 practical truth ; but it is too commonly an elegant, 
 unprofitable pastime. Novelle, lyrical and epic poetry 
 may be considered as constituting three principal 
 streams of their lighter literature. These have con- 
 tinued to flow, with little interruption, the two first 
 from the "golden urns" of Petrarch and Boccaccio, 
 the last from the early sources we have already traced 
 down to the present day. Their multitudinous novelle, 
 with all their varieties of tragic and comic incident, the 
 last by far the most frequent, present few just portrait- 
 ures of character, still fewer examples of sound ethics 
 or wise philosophy.* In the exuberance of their son- 
 nets and canzone, we find some, it is true, animated by 
 an efficient spirit of religion or patriotism ; but too 
 frequently they are of a purely amatory nature, the 
 unsubstantial though brilliant exhalations of a heated 
 
 * The heavier charge of indecency lies upon many. The Novelle 
 of Casti, published as late as 1804, make the foulest tales of Boccac- 
 cio appear fair beside them. They have run through several editions 
 since their first appearance, and it tells not well for the land that a 
 numerous class of readers can be found in it who take delight in 
 banqueting upon such abominable offal. 
 
 38* 
 
45° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 
 
 fancy. The pastoral drama, the opera, and other 
 beautiful varieties of invention, which, under the titles 
 of Bernesco, Burlesco, Maccheronico, and the like, 
 have been nicely classed according to their different 
 modifications of style and humor, while they manifest 
 the mercurial temper and the originality of the nation, 
 confirm the justice of our position. 
 
 The native melody of the Italian tongue, by seducing 
 their writers into an overweening attention to sound, 
 has doubtless been in one sense prejudicial to their lit- 
 erature. We do not mean to imply, in conformity with 
 a vulgar opinion, that the language is deficient in en- 
 ergy or compactness. Its harmony is no proof of its 
 weakness. It allows more licenses of contraction than 
 any other European tongue, and retains more than 
 any other the vigorous inversions of its Latin original. 
 Dante is the most concise of early moderns, and we 
 know none superior to Alfieri in this respect among 
 those of our own age. Davanzati's literal 'translation 
 of Tacitus is condensed into a smaller compass than its 
 original, the most sententious of ancient histories ; but 
 still the silver tones of a language that almost sets itself 
 to music as it is spoken must have an undue attraction 
 for the harmonious ear of an Italian. Their very first 
 classical model of prose composition is an obvious ex- 
 ample of it. 
 
 The frequency of improvisation is another circum- 
 stance that has naturally tended to introduce a less 
 serious and thoughtful habit of composition. Above 
 
 a 
 
 all, the natural perceptions of an Italian seem to be 
 peculiarly sensible to beauty, independent of every 
 other quality. Any one who has been in Italy must 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 451 
 
 have recognized the glimpses of a pure taste through 
 the rags of the meanest beggar. The musical pieces, 
 when first exhibited at the theatre of San Carlo, are 
 correctly pronounced upon by the lazzaroni of Naples, 
 and the mob of Florence decide with equal accuracy 
 upon the productions of their immortal school. Cel- 
 lini tells us that he exposed his celebrated statue of 
 Perseus in the public square by order of his patron, 
 Duke Cosmo First, who declared himself perfectly sat- 
 isfied with it on learning the commendations of the 
 people.* It is not extraordinary that this exquisite 
 sensibility to the beautiful should have also influenced 
 them in literary art, and have led them astray some- 
 times from the substantial and the useful. Who but 
 an Italian historian would, in this practical age, so far 
 blend fact and fiction as, for the sake of rhetorical 
 effect, to introduce into the mouths of his personages 
 sentiments and speeches never uttered by them, as 
 Botta has lately done in his history of the American 
 War? 
 
 In justice, however, to the Italians, we must admit 
 that the reproach incurred by too concentrated an 
 attention to beauty, to the exclusion of more enlarged 
 and useful views, in their lighter compositions, does not 
 fall upon this or the last century. They have imbibed 
 a graver and more philosophical cast of reflection, for 
 which they seem partly indebted to the influence of 
 English literature. Several of their most eminent au- 
 thors have either visited or resided in Great Britain, 
 and the genius of the language has been made known 
 through the medium of skilful translations. Alfieri 
 * Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, torn. ii. p. 339. 
 
452 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 has transported into his tragedies the solemn spirit 
 and vigorous characterization peculiar to the English. 
 He somewhere remarks that "he could not read the 
 language ;" but we are persuaded his stern pen would 
 never have traced the dying scene of Saul had he not 
 witnessed a representation of Macbeth. Ippolito Pin- 
 demonte, in his descriptive pieces, has deepened the 
 tones of his native idiom with the moral melancholy 
 of Gray and Cowper. Monti's compositions, both 
 dramatic and miscellaneous, bear frequent testimony 
 to his avowed admiration for Shakspeare ; and Cesa- 
 rotti, Foscolo, and Pignotti have introduced the "se- 
 verer muses" of the North to a still wider and more 
 familiar acquaintance with their countrymen.* Lastly, 
 among the works of fancy which attest the practical 
 scope of Italian letters in the last century, we must not 
 omit the " Giorno" of Parini, the most curious and 
 nicely-elaborated specimen of didactic satire produced 
 in any age or country. Its polished irony, pointed at 
 the domestic vices of the Italian nobilitv. indicates 
 both the profligacy of the nation and the moral inde- 
 pendence of the poet. 
 
 The Italian language, the first-born of those de- 
 scended from the Latin, is also the most beautiful. It 
 is not surprising that a people endowed with an exqui- 
 
 * Both the prose and poetry of Foscolo are pregnant with more 
 serious meditation and warmer patriotism than is usual in the works 
 of the Italians. Pignotti, although his own national manner has 
 been but little affected by his foreign erudition, has contributed 
 more than any other to extend the influence of English letters among 
 his countrymen. His works abound in allusions to them, and two 
 of his principal poems are dedicated to the memory of Shakspeare 
 and of Pope. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 453 
 
 site sensibility to beauty should have been often led to 
 regard this language rather as a means of pleasure than 
 of utility. We must not, however, so far yield to the 
 unqualified imputation of Madame de Stael as to forget 
 that they have other claims to our admiration than 
 what arise from the inventions of the poet, or from 
 the ideal beauties which they have revived of Grecian 
 art; that the light of genius shed upon the world in 
 the fourteenth, and that of learning in the fifteenth 
 century, was all derived from Italy; that her writers 
 first unfolded the sublimity of Christian doctrines as 
 applied to modern literature, and by their patient 
 philological labors restored to life the buried literature 
 of antiquity; that her schools revived and expounded 
 the ancient code of law, since become the basis of so 
 important a branch of jurisprudence both in Europe 
 and our own country; that she originated literary, and 
 brought to a perfection unequalled in any other lan- 
 guage, unless it be our own, civil and political, history; 
 that she led the way in physical science and in that of 
 political philosophy; and, finally, that of the two en- 
 lightened navigators who divide the glory of adding a 
 new quarter to the globe, the one was a Genoese and 
 the other a Florentine. 
 
 In following down the stream of Italian narrative 
 poetry, we have wandered into so many details, es- 
 pecially where they would tend to throw light on the 
 intellectual character of the nation, that we have little 
 room, and our readers, doubtless, less patience, left for 
 a discussion of the poems which form the text of our 
 article. The few stanzas descriptive of Berni, which 
 we have borrowed from the Innamorato, may give some 
 
454 
 
 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 notion of Mr. Rose's manner. The translations have 
 been noticed in several of the English journals, and we 
 perfectly accord with the favorable opinion of them 
 which has been so often expressed that it needs not 
 here be repeated. 
 
 The composite style of Ariosto owes its charms to 
 the skill with which the delicate tints of his irony are 
 mixed with the sober coloring of his narrative. His 
 translators have spoiled the harmony of the composi- 
 tion by overcharging one or other of these ingredients. 
 Harrington has caricatured his original into burlesque; 
 Hoole has degraded him into a most melancholy proser. 
 The popularity of this latter version has been of infinite 
 disservice to the fame of Ariosto, whose aerial fancy 
 loses all its buoyancy under the heavy hexameters of 
 the English translator. The purity of Mr. Rose's taste 
 has prevented him from exaggerating even the beauties 
 of his original. 
 
POETRY AND ROMANCE OF THE 
 ITALIANS.* 
 
 (July, 1831.) 
 
 It is not our intention to go into an analysis, or even 
 to discuss the merits, of the works at the head of this 
 article, which we have selected only as a text for such 
 reflections on the poetry and ornamental prose-writing 
 of the Italians as might naturally suggest themselves to 
 an English reader. The points of view from which a 
 native contemplates his own literature and those from 
 which it is seen by a foreigner are so dissimilar that it 
 would be hardly possible that they should come pre- 
 cisely to the same results without affectation or servility 
 on the part of the latter. The native, indeed, is far 
 better qualified than any foreigner can be to estimate 
 the productions of his own countrymen ; but, as each 
 is subjected to peculiar influences, truth may be more 
 likely to be elicited from a collision of their mutual 
 opinions than from those exclusively of either. 
 
 * [The reader may find in this article some inadvertent repetitions 
 of what had been said in two articles written some years before, and 
 covering, in part, the same ground.] 
 
 1. " Delia Letteratura Italiana, di Camillo Ugoni." 3 torn. 121110. 
 Brescia, 1820. 
 
 2. " Storia della Letteratura Italiana, del cavaliere Giuseppe 
 Maffei." 3 torn. i2mo. Milano, 1825. 
 
 3. " Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel Secolo XVI 1 1., di Anto- 
 nio Lombardi." 3 torn. 8vo. Modena, 1827-29. 
 
 (455) 
 
45 6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The Italian, although the first modern tongue to 
 produce what still endure as classical models of com- 
 position, was, of all the Romance dialects, the last to 
 be applied to literary purposes. The poem of the Cid, 
 which, with all its rawness, exhibits the frank bearing 
 of the age in a highly poetic aspect, was written nearly 
 a century previously to this event. The northern 
 French, which even some Italian scholars of that day 
 condescended to employ as the most popular vehicle 
 of thought, had been richly cultivated, indemnifying 
 itself in anticipation, as it were, by this extraordinary 
 precocity, for the poetic sterility with which it has 
 been cursed ever since. In the South, and along the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, every remote corner was 
 alive with the voice of song. A beautiful poetry had 
 ripened into perfection there, and nearly perished, 
 before the first lispings of the Italian muse were heard, 
 not in her own land, but at the court of a foreigner, 
 in Sicily. The poets of Lombardy wrote in the Pro- 
 vencal. The histories — and almost every city had its 
 historian, and some two or three — were composed in 
 Latin, or in some half-formed, discordant dialect of 
 the country. "The Italian of that age," says Tira- 
 boschi, "more nearly resembled the Latin than the 
 Tuscan does now any of her sister dialects." It 
 seemed doubtful which of the conflicting idioms would 
 prevail, when a mighty genius arose, who, collecting 
 the scattered elements together, formed one of those 
 wonderful creations which make an epoch in the his- 
 tory of civilization, and forever fixed the destinies of 
 his language. 
 
 We shall not trouble our readers with a particular 
 
CRITICAL MISCEL LA NIBS. 
 
 457 
 
 criticism on so popular a work as the Divine Comedy, 
 but confine ourselves to a few such desultory observa- 
 tions as have been suggested on a reperusal of it. The 
 Inferno is more frequently quoted and eulogized than 
 any other portion of the Commedia. It exhibits a 
 more marked progress of the action, and, while it 
 affects us by its deepened pictures of misery, it owes, 
 no doubt, something to the piquant personalities which 
 have to this day not entirely lost their relish. Not- 
 withstanding this, it by no means displays the whole 
 of its author's intellectual power, and so very various 
 are the merits of the different portions of his epic that 
 one who has not read the whole may be truly said not 
 to have read Dante. The poet has borrowed the hints 
 for his punishments partly from ancient mythology, 
 partly from the metaphorical denunciations of Scrip- 
 ture, but principally from his own inexhaustible fancy; 
 and he has adapted them to the specific crimes with a 
 truly frightful ingenuity. We could wish that he had 
 made more use of the mind as a means of torture, and 
 thus given a finer moral coloring to the picture. This 
 defect is particularly conspicuous in his portraiture of 
 Satan, who, far different from that spirit whose form 
 had not yet lost all her original brightness, is depicted 
 in the gross and superstitious terrors of a childish imagi- 
 nation. This decidedly bad taste must be imputed to 
 the rudeness of the age in which Dante lived. The 
 progress of refinement is shown in Tasso's subsequent 
 portrait of this same personage, who, " towering like 
 Carpe or huge Atlas," is sustained by that unconquer- 
 able temper which gives life to the yet more spiritual- 
 ized conceptions of Milton. The faults of Dante were 
 u 39 
 
458 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 those of his age ; but in his elevated conceptions, in 
 the wild and desolating gloom which he has thrown 
 around the city of the dead, the world saw, for the 
 first time, the genius of modern literature fully dis- 
 played ; and in his ripe and vigorous versification it 
 beheld also, for the first time, the poetical capacities 
 of a modern idiom.* 
 
 The Purgatory relies for its interest on no strong 
 emotion, but on a contemplative moral tone, and on 
 such luxuriant descriptions of nature as bring it much 
 nearer to the style of English poetry than any other 
 part of the work. It is on the Paradise, however, that 
 Dante has lavished all the stores of his fancy. Yet he 
 has not succeeded in his attempt to exhibit there a reg- 
 ular gradation of happiness ; for happiness cannot, like 
 pain, be measured by any scale of physical sensations. 
 Neither is he always successful in the notions which he 
 has conveyed of the occupations of the blessed. There 
 was no source whence he could derive this knowledge. 
 The Scriptures present no determinate idea of such 
 occupations, and the mythology of the ancients had 
 so little that was consolatory in it, even to themselves, 
 that the shade of Achilles is made to say, in the Odys- 
 sey, that "he had rather be the slave of the meanest 
 living man than rule as a sovereign among the dead." 
 
 Dante wisely placed the moral sources of happiness 
 in the exercises of the mind. The most agreeable of 
 
 * Dante anticipated the final triumph of the Italian with a generous 
 confidence not shared by the more timid scholars of his own or the 
 succeeding age. See his eloquent apology for it in his Convito, 
 especially pp. 81, 82, torn, iv., ed. 1758. See, also, Purgatorio, canto 
 xxiv. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 45 
 
 these to himself, though, perhaps, to few of his readers, 
 was metaphysical polemics. He had, unfortunately, in 
 his youth gained a prize for successful disputation at 
 the schools ; and in every page of these gladiatorial 
 exhibitions we discern the disciple of Scotus and Aqui- 
 nas. His materiel is made up of light, music, and mo- 
 tion. These he has arranged in every possible variety 
 of combination. We are borne along from one mag- 
 nificent fete to another, and, as we rise in the scale of 
 being, the motion of the celestial dance increases in 
 velocity, the light shines with redoubled brilliancy, 
 and the music is of a more ravishing sweetness, until 
 all is confounded in the intolerable splendors of the 
 Deity. 
 
 Dante has failed in his attempt to personify the 
 Deity. Who, indeed, has not ? No such personifica- 
 tion can be effected without the aid of illustration from 
 physical objects ; and how degrading are these to our 
 conceptions of Omnipotence ! The repeated failures 
 of the Italians who have attempted this in the arts of 
 design are still more conspicuous. Even the genius 
 of Raphael has only furnished another proof of the 
 impotence of his art. The advancement of taste may 
 be again seen in Tasso's representation of the Supreme 
 Being by his attributes ;* and, with similar discretion, 
 Milton, like the Grecian artist who drew a mantle over 
 the countenance which he could not trust himself to 
 paint, whenever he has introduced the Deity has veiled 
 his glories in a cloud. 
 
 The characters and conditions of Dante and Mil- 
 ton were too analogous not to have often invited the 
 
 * Gerusalemme Liberata, c. ix., s. 56. 
 
460 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 parallel. Both took an active part in the revolutions 
 of their age ; both lived to see the extinction of their 
 own hopes and the ruin of their party ; and it was 
 the fate of both to compose their immortal poems in 
 poverty and disgrace. These circumstances, however, 
 produced different effects on their minds. Milton, in 
 solitude and darkness, from the cheerful ways of men 
 cut off, was obliged to seek inwardly that celestial light 
 which, as he pathetically laments, was denied to him 
 from without. Hence his poem breathes a spirit of 
 lofty contemplation, which is never disturbed by the 
 impurities that disfigure the page of Dante. The latter 
 poet, an exile in a foreign land, condemned to eat the 
 bread of dependence from the hands of his ancient 
 enemies, felt the iron enter more deeply into his soul, 
 and, in the spirit of his age, has too often made his 
 verses the vehicle of his vindictive scorn. Both stood 
 forth the sturdy champions of freedom in every form, 
 above all, of intellectual freedom. The same spirit 
 which animates the controversial writings of Milton 
 glows with yet fiercer heat in every page of the Divine 
 Comedy. How does its author denounce the abuses, 
 the crying abuses, of the Church, its hypocrisies and 
 manifold perversions of Scripture ! How boldly does 
 he declare his determination to proclaim the truth, 
 that he may live in the memory of the just hereafter ! 
 His Ghibelline connections were indeed unfavorable to 
 these principles ; but these connections were the result 
 of necessity, not of choice. His hardy spirit had been 
 nursed in the last stages of the republic; and it may be 
 truly said of him that he became a Ghibelline in the 
 hope of again becoming a Florentine. The love of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 461 
 
 his native soil, as with most exiles, was a vital principle 
 with him. How pathetically does he recall those good 
 old times when the sons of Florence were sure to find 
 a grave within her walls ! Even the bitterness of his 
 heart against her, which breaks forth in the very courts 
 of heaven, proves, paradoxical as it may appear, the 
 tenacity of his affection. It might not be easy to 
 rouse the patriotism of a modern Italian even into this 
 symptom of vitality. 
 
 The genius of both was of the severest kind. For 
 this reason, any display of their sensibility, like the 
 light breaking through a dark cloud, affects us the 
 more by contrast. Such are the sweet pictures of 
 domestic bliss in Paradise Lost, and the tender tale 
 of Francesca da Rimini in the Inferno. Both are 
 sublime in the highest signification of the term ; but 
 Milton is an ideal poet, and delights in generalization, 
 while Dante is the most literal of artists, and paints 
 every thing in detail. He refuses no imagery, how- 
 ever mean, that can illustrate his subject. This is too 
 notorious to require exemplification. He is, moreover, 
 eminently distinguished by the power of depicting his 
 thought by a single vigorous touch, — a manner well 
 known in Italy under the name of Dantesque. It would 
 not be easy for such a verse as the following, without 
 sacrifice of idiom, to be condensed within the same 
 compass in our language : 
 
 " Con viso, che tacendo dicea, taci." 
 
 It would be interesting to trace the similarity of 
 tastes in these great minds, as exhibited in their 
 pleasures equally with their serious pursuits; in theii 
 
 39" 
 
462 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 exquisite sensibility to music ; in their early fondness 
 for those ancient romances which they have so often 
 celebrated both in prose and verse ; but our limits will 
 not allow us to pursue the subject farther. 
 
 Dante's epic was greeted by his countrymen in that 
 rude age with the general enthusiasm with which they 
 have ever welcomed the works of genius. A chair was 
 instituted at Florence for the exposition of the Divine 
 Comedy, and Boccaccio was the first who filled it. The 
 bust of its author was crowned with laurels ; his daugh- 
 ter was maintained at the public expense ; and the fickle 
 Florentines vainly solicited from Ravenna the ashes of 
 their poet, whom they had so bitterly persecuted when 
 living. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the father of Italian verse 
 has had a much less sensible influence on the taste of 
 his countrymen than either of the illustrious triumvirate 
 of the fourteenth century. His bold, masculine diction 
 and his concentrated thought were ill suited to the 
 effeminacy of his nation. One or two clumsy imitators 
 of him appeared in his own age; and in ours a school 
 has been formed, professing to be modelled on the 
 severe principles of the trecentisti ; but no one has 
 yet arisen to bend the bow of Ulysses. 
 
 Several poets wrote in the Tuscan or Italian dialect 
 at the close of the thirteenth century with tolerable 
 purity ; but their amorous effusions would probably, 
 like those in the Provencal, have rapidly passed into 
 oblivion had the language not been consecrated by 
 some established work of genius like the Divina Corn- 
 media. It was fortunate that its author selected a 
 subject which enabled him to exhibit the peculiar 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 463 
 
 tendency of Christianity and of modern institutions, 
 and to demonstrate their immense superiority for poet- 
 ical purposes over those of antiquity. It opened a 
 cheering prospect to those who doubted the capacities 
 of a modern idiom ; and, after ages of barbarism, it 
 was welcomed as the sign that the waters had at length 
 passed from the face of the earth. 
 
 We have been detained long upon Dante, thougli 
 somewhat contrary to our intention of discussing 
 classes rather than individuals, from the circumstance 
 that he constitutes in himself, if we may so say, an 
 entire and independent class. We shall now proceed, 
 as concisely as possible, to touch upon some of the 
 leading peculiarities in the lyrical poetry of the Ital- 
 ians, which forms with them a very important branch 
 of letters. 
 
 Lyrical poetry is more immediately the offspring of 
 imagination, or of deep feeling, than any other kind 
 of verse, and there can be little chance of reaching to 
 high excellence in it among a nation whose character is 
 defective in these qualities. The Italians are, undoubt- 
 edly, the most prolific in this department, as the French 
 are the least so, of any people in Europe. Nothing 
 can be more mechanical than a French ode. Reason, 
 wit, pedantry, any thing but inspiration, find their way 
 into it ; and when the poet is in extremity, like the 
 countryman in the fable, he calls upon the pagan gods 
 of antiquity to help him out. The best ode in the 
 language, according to La Harpe, is that of J. B. Rous- 
 seau on the Count de Luc, in which Phoebus, or the 
 Fates, Pluto, Ceres, or Cybele, figure in every stanza. 
 There is little of the genuine impetus sacer in all this. 
 
 
464 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Lyrical compositions, the expression of natural sen- 
 sibility, are generally most abundant in the earlier 
 periods of a nation's literature. Such are the beautiful 
 collections of rural minstrelsy in our own tongue, and 
 the fine old ballads and songs in the Castilian ; which 
 last have had the advantage over ours of being imitated 
 down to a late day by their most polished writers. But 
 Italy is the only country in which lyrical composition, 
 from the first, instead of assuming a plebeian garb, has 
 received all the perfection of literary finish, and which, 
 amid every vicissitude of taste, has been cultivated by 
 the most polished writers of the age. 
 
 One cause of this is to be found in the circumstances 
 and peculiar character of the father of Italian song. 
 The life of Petrarch furnishes the most brilliant exam- 
 ple of the triumph of letters in a country where literary 
 celebrity has been often the path to political conse- 
 quence. Princes and pontiffs, cities and universities, 
 vied with each other in lavishing honors upon him. 
 His tour through Italy was a sort of royal progress, the 
 inhabitants of the cities thronging out to meet him, 
 and providing a residence for him at the public expense. 
 
 The two most enlightened capitals in Europe con- 
 tended with each other for the honor of his poetical 
 coronation. His influence was solicited in the princi- 
 pal negotiations of the Italian States, and he enjoyed 
 at the same time the confidence of the ferocious Vis- 
 conti and the accomplished Robert of Naples. His 
 immense correspondence connected him with the prin- 
 cipal characters, both literary and political, through- 
 out Europe, and his personal biography may be said 
 to constitute the history of his age. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 465 
 
 It must be confessed that the heart of Petrarch was 
 not insensible to this universal homage, and that his 
 writings occasionally betray the vanity and caprice 
 which indicate the spoiled child of fortune ; but, with 
 this moderate alloy of humanity, his general deport- 
 ment exhibits a purity of principle and a generous 
 elevation of sentiment far above the degenerate politics 
 of his time. He was, indeed, the first in an age of 
 servility, as Dante had been the last in an age of 
 freedom. If he was intimate with some of the petty 
 tyrants of Lombardy, he never prostituted his genius 
 to the vindication of their vices. His political nego- 
 tiations were conducted with the most generous and 
 extended views for the weal of all Italy. How inde- 
 pendently did he remonstrate with Dandolo on his war 
 with the Genoese ! How did he lift his voice against 
 the lawless banditti who, as foreign mercenaries, rav- 
 aged the fair plains of Lombardy ! How boldly, to 
 a degree which makes it difficult to account for his 
 personal safety, did he thunder his invectives against 
 the western Babylon ! 
 
 Even his failings were those of a generous nature. 
 Dwelling much of his time at a distance from his native 
 land, he considered himself rather as a citizen of Italy 
 than of any particular district of it. He contemplated 
 her with the eye of an ancient Roman, and wished to 
 see the Imperial City once more resume her supremacy 
 among the nations. This led him for a moment to 
 give in to the brilliant illusion of liberty which Rienzi 
 awakened. "Who would not," he says, appealing to 
 the Romans, "rather die a freeman than live a slave?"* 
 
 * Epist. ad Nic. Laurentii : Opera, p. 535. 
 u* 
 
466 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 But when he saw that he had been deceived, he did not 
 attempt to conceal his indignation, and, in an animated 
 expostulation with the tribune, he admonishes him that 
 he is the minister, not the master, of the republic, 
 and that treachery to one's country is a crime which 
 nothing can expiate.* 
 
 As he wandered amid the ruins of Rome, he con- 
 templated with horror the violation of her venerable edi- 
 fices, and he called upon the pontiffs to return to the 
 protection of their "widowed metropolis." He was, 
 above all, solicitous for the recovery of the intellectual 
 treasures of antiquity, sparing no expense or personal 
 fatigue in this cause. Many of the mouldering manu- 
 scripts he restored or copied with his own hand ; and 
 his beautiful transcript of the epistles of Cicero is still 
 to be seen in the Laurentian Library at Florence. 
 
 The influence of his example is visible in the generous 
 emulation for letters kindled throughout Italy, and in 
 the purer principles of taste which directed the studies 
 of the schools. f His extensive correspondence diffused 
 to the remotest corners of Europe the sacred flame which 
 glowed so brightly in his own bosom ; and it may be 
 truly said that he possessed an intellectual empire such 
 as was never before enjoyed, and probably never can 
 be again, in the comparatively high state of civilization 
 to which the world is arrived. 
 
 * Famil. Epist., lib. vii. ep. 7, p. 677, Basil ed. 
 
 t In Florence, for example, with a population which Villani, at the 
 middle of the fourteenth century, reckons at ninety thousand souls, 
 there were from eight to ten thousand children who received a liberal 
 education (Istor. Fiorent., lib. xi. cap. 93), at a time when the higher 
 classes in the rest of Europe were often uninstructed in the ele- 
 mentary principles of knowledge. 
 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 467 
 
 It is not, however, the antiquarian researches of 
 Petrarch, nor those elaborate Latin compositions which 
 secured to him the laurel wreath of poetry in the capi- 
 tol, that have kept his memory still green in the hearts 
 of his countrymen, but those humbler effusions in his 
 own language, which he did not even condescend to 
 mention in his Letter to Posterity, and which he freely 
 gave away as alms to ballad-singers. It was auspicious 
 for Italian literature that a poet like Dante should have 
 been followed by one of so flexible a character as Pe- 
 trarch. It was beauty succeeding vigor. The language 
 to which Dante had given all its compactness and energy 
 was far from having reached the full harmony of numbers 
 of which it was capable. He had, moreover, occasion- 
 ally distorted it into such Latinized inversions, uncouth 
 phrases, Hebraisms and Grecisms, as were foreign to 
 the genius of the tongue. These blemishes, of so little 
 account in Dante's extensive poem, would have been 
 fatal to the lyrical pieces of Petrarch, which, like mini- 
 atures, from their minuteness, demand the highest finish 
 of detail. The pains which the latter poet bestowed on 
 the correction of his verses are almost inconceivable. 
 Some of them would appear, from the memoranda which 
 he has left, to have been submitted to the file for weeks, 
 nay, months, before he dismissed them. Nor was this 
 fastidiousness of taste frivolous in one who was correct- 
 ing not for himself but for posterity, and who, in these 
 peculiar graces of style, was creating beautiful and per- 
 . manent forms of expression for his countrymen. His 
 acquaintance with the modern dialects, especially the 
 Spanish and the Provencal, enriched his vocabulary 
 with many exotic beauties. His fine ear disposed him 
 
468 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 to refuse all but the most harmonious combinations of 
 sound. He was accustomed to try the melody of his 
 verses by the lute, and, like the fabled Theban, built 
 up his elegant fabric by the charms of music. By these 
 means he created a style scarcely more antiquated than 
 that of the present day, and which can hardly be said 
 to contain an obsolete phrase ; an assertion not to be 
 ventured respecting any author in our language before 
 the days of Queen Anne. Indeed, even a foreigner 
 can hardly open a page of Petrarch without being struck 
 with the precocity of a language which, like the vege- 
 tation of an arctic summer, seems to have ripened into 
 full maturity at once. There is nothing analogous to 
 this in any other tongue with which we are acquainted, 
 unless it be the Greek, which, in the poems of Homer, 
 appears to have attained its last perfection ; a circum- 
 stance which has led Cicero to remark, in his Brutus, 
 that " there must, doubtless, have existed poets ante- 
 cedent to Homer, since invention and perfection can 
 hardly go together. ' ' 
 
 The mass of Petrarch's Italian poetry is, as is well 
 known, of an amorous complexion. He was naturally 
 of a melancholy temperament, and his unfortunate 
 passion became with him the animating principle of 
 being. His compositions in the Latin, as well as those 
 in the vulgar tongue, his voluminous correspondence, 
 his private memoranda or confessions, which, from their 
 nature, seem never to have been destined for the public 
 eye, all exhibit this passion in one shape or another. 
 Yet there have been those who have affected to doubt 
 even the existence of such a personage as Laura. 
 
 His Sonnets and Canzoni, chronologically arranged, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 469 
 
 exhibit pretty fairly the progress of his life and love, 
 and, as such, have been judiciously used by the Abbe 
 de Sade. The most trivial event seems to have stirred 
 the poetic feeling within him. We find no less than 
 four sonnets indited to his mistress's gloves, and three 
 to her eyes ; which last, styled, par excellence, "The 
 Three Sisters," are in the greatest repute with his coun- 
 trymen, — a judgment on which most English critics 
 would be at issue with them. Notwithstanding the 
 vicious affectation of style and the mysticism which 
 occasionally obscure these and other pieces of Petrarch, 
 his general tone exhibits a moral dignity unknown to 
 the sordid appetites of the ancients, and an earnestness 
 of passion rarely reflected from the cold glitter of the 
 Provencal. But it is in the verses written after the 
 death of his mistress that he confesses the inspiration 
 of Christianity, in the deep moral coloring which he 
 has given to his descriptions of nature, and in those 
 visions of immortal happiness which he contrasts with 
 the sad realities of the present life. He dwells rather 
 on the melancholy pleasures of retrospection than those 
 of hope ; unlike most of the poets of Italy, whose warm, 
 sunny skies seem to have scattered the gloom which 
 hangs over the poetry of the North. In this and some 
 other peculiarities, Dante and Petrarch appear to have 
 borne greater resemblance to the English than to their 
 own nation. 
 
 Petrarch's career, however brilliant, may serve rather 
 as a warning than as a model. The querulous tone of 
 some of his later writings, the shade of real sorrow 
 which seems to come across even his brightest mo- 
 ments, show the utter inefflcacy of genius and of 
 
 40 
 
47 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 worldly glory to procure to their possessor a substantial 
 happiness. It is melancholy to witness the aberrations 
 of mind into which so fine a genius was led by unfor- 
 tunate passion. The apparition of Laura haunted him 
 by night as well as by day, in society and in solitude. 
 He sought to divert his mind by travelling, by political 
 or literary occupation, by reason and religion ; but in 
 vain. His^letters and private confessions show, no less 
 than his poetry, how incessantly his imagination was 
 tortured by doubts, hopes, fears, melancholy presages, 
 regrets, and despair. She triumphed over the decay 
 of her personal charms, and even over the grave, for 
 it was a being of the mind he worshipped. There 
 is something affecting in seeing such a mind as Pe- 
 trarch's feeding on this unrequited passion, and more 
 than twenty years after his mistress's death, and when 
 on the verge of the grave himself, depicting her in all 
 the bright coloring of youthful fancy, and following 
 her in anticipation to that heaven where he hopes 
 soon to be united to her. 
 
 Petrarch's example, even in his own day, was widely 
 infectious. He sarcastically complains of the quanti- 
 ties of verses sent to him for correction, from the far- 
 thest north, from Germany and the British Isles, then 
 the Ultima Thule of civilization. The pedants of the 
 succeeding age, it is true, wasted their efforts in hope- 
 less experiments upon the ancient languages, whose 
 chilling influence seems to have entirely closed the 
 hand of the native minstrel ; and it was not until the 
 time of Lorenzo de' Medici, whose correct taste led 
 him to prefer the flexible movements of a living tongue, 
 that the sweet tones of the Italian lyre were again 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 471 
 
 awakened. The excitement, however, soon became 
 general, affecting all ranks, from the purpled prelate 
 down to the most humble artisan ; and a collection of 
 the Beauties (as we should call them) of this latter 
 description of worthies has been gathered into a re- 
 spectable volume, which Baretti assures us, with a 
 good-natured criticism, may be compared with the 
 verses of Petrarch. In all these the burden of the 
 song is love. Those who did not feel could at least 
 affect the tender passion. Lorenzo de' Medici pitched 
 upon a mistress as deliberately as Don Quixote did on 
 his Dulcinea ; and Tasso sighed away his soul to a 
 nymph so shadowy as sorely to have puzzled his com- 
 mentators till the time of Serassi. 
 
 It would be unavailing to attempt to characterize 
 those who have followed in the footsteps of the Lau- 
 reate, or we might dwell on the romantic sweetness of 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, the purity of Vittoria Colonna, 
 the elaborate polish of Bembo, the vivacity of Marini, 
 and the eloquence, the Platonic reveries, and rich 
 coloring of Tasso, whose beauties and whose defects 
 so nearly resemble those of his great original in this 
 department. But we have no leisure to go minutely 
 into the shades of difference between the imitators of 
 Petrarch. One may regret that, amid their clouds of 
 amorous incense, he can so rarely discern the religious 
 or patriotic enthusiasm which animates the similar 
 compositions of the Spanish poets, and which forms 
 the noblest basis of lyrical poetry at all times. The 
 wrongs of Italy, the common battle-field of the ban- 
 ditti of Europe for nearly a century, and at the very 
 time when her poetic vein flowed most freely, might 
 
472 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 well have roused the indignation of her children. The 
 comparatively few specimens on this theme from Pe- 
 trarch to Filicaja are justly regarded as the happiest 
 efforts of the Italian lyre. 
 
 The seventeenth century, so unfortunate for the 
 national literature in all other respects, was marked 
 by a bolder deviation from the eternal track of the 
 Petrarchists ; a reform, indeed, which may be traced 
 back to Casa. Among these innovators, Chiabrera, 
 whom Tiraboschi styles both Anacreon and Pindar, 
 but who may be content with the former of these ap- 
 pellations, and Filicaja, who has found in the Christian 
 faith sources of a sublimity that Pindar could never 
 reach, are the most conspicuous. Their salutary ex- 
 ample has not been lost on the modern Italian writers. 
 
 Some of the ancients have made a distinct division 
 of lyrical poetry, under the title of melicus* If, as it 
 would seem, they mean something of a more calm and 
 uniform tenor than the impetuous dithyrambic flow, 
 something in which symmetry of form and melody of 
 versification are chiefly considered, in which, in fine, 
 the effeminate beauties of sentiment are preferred to 
 the more hardy conceptions of fancy, the term may be 
 significant of the great mass of Italian lyrics. But we 
 fear that we have insisted too far on their defects. Our 
 criticism has been formed rather on the average than 
 on the highest specimens of the art. In this way the 
 very luxuriance of the soil is a disadvantage to it. The 
 sins of exuberance, however, are much more corrigible 
 than those of sterility, which fall upon this depart- 
 ment of poetry in almost every other nation. We must 
 
 * Ausonius, Edyl. IV., 54. — Cicero, De Opt. Gen. Oratorum, i. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 473 
 
 remember, too, that no people has exhibited the pas- 
 sion of love under such a variety of beautiful aspects, 
 and that, after all, although the amount be compara- 
 tively small, no other modern nation can probably 
 produce so many examples of the very highest lyrical 
 inspiration. 
 
 But it is time that we should return to the Romantic 
 Epics, the most important and, perhaps, the most pro- 
 lific branch of the ornamental literature of the Italians. 
 They have been distributed into a great variety of 
 classes by their own critics. We shall confine our re- 
 marks to some of their most eminent models, without 
 regard to their classification. 
 
 Those who expect to find in these poems the same 
 temper which animates the old English tales of chiv- 
 alry will be disappointed. A much more correct no- 
 tion of their manner may be formed from Mr. Ellis's 
 B ernes que (if we may be allowed a significant term) 
 recapitulations of these latter. In short, they are the 
 marvels of an heroic age, told with the fine incredulous 
 air of a polite one. It is this contrast of the dignity 
 of the matter with the familiarity of the manner of 
 narration that has occasioned among their country- 
 men so many animated disputes respecting the serious 
 or satirical intentions of Pulci, Ariosto, Berni, and the 
 rest. 
 
 The Italians, although they have brought tales of 
 chivalry to higher perfection than any other people in 
 the world, are, of all others, in their character the most 
 anti-chivalrous. Their early republican institutions, 
 which brought all classes nearly to the same level, were 
 obviously unfavorable to the spirit of chivalry. Com- 
 
 40* 
 
474 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 merce became the road to preferment. Wealth was 
 their pedigree, and their patent of nobility. The mag- 
 nificent Medici were bankers and merchants ; and the 
 ancient aristocracy of Venice employed their capital 
 in traffic until an advanced period of the republic. 
 Courage, so essential in the character of a knight, was 
 of little account in the busy communities of Italy. Like 
 Carthage of old, they trusted their defence to mer- 
 cenaries, first foreign, and afterwards native, but who 
 in every instance fought for hire, not honor, selling 
 themselves, and often their employers, to the highest 
 bidder ; and who, cased in impenetrable mail, fought 
 with so little personal hazard that Machiavelli has re- 
 lated more than one infamous encounter in which the 
 only lives lost were from suffocation under their pon- 
 derous panoplies. So low had the military reputation 
 of the Italians declined, that in the war of the Nea- 
 politan succession in 1502 it was thought necessary for 
 thirteen of their body to vindicate the national char- 
 acter from the imputation of cowardice by solemn de- 
 fiance and battle against an equal number of French 
 knights, in presence of the hostile armies. 
 
 Hence other arts came to be studied than that of 
 war, — the arts of diplomacy and intrigue. Hence 
 statesmen were formed, but not soldiers. The cam- 
 paign was fought in the cabinet instead of the field. 
 Every spring of cunning and corruption was essayed, 
 and an insidious policy came into vogue, in which, as 
 the philosopher who has digested its principles into a 
 system informs us, " the failure, not the atrocity of 
 a deed, was considered disgraceful."* The law of 
 
 * Machiavelli, Istor. Fior., 1. vi. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 475 
 
 honor became different with the Italians from what 
 it was with other nations. Conspiracy was preferred 
 to open defiance, and assassination was a legitimate 
 method of revenge. The State of Venice condescended 
 to employ a secret agent against the life of Francis 
 Sforza ; and the noblest escutcheons in Italy, those of 
 Este and the Medici, were stained with the crimes of 
 fratricide and incest. 
 
 In this general moral turpitude, the literature of 
 Italy was rapidly rising to its highest perfection. There 
 was scarcely a petty state which, in the fourteenth, fif- 
 teenth, and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, had 
 not made brilliant advances in elegant prose, poetry, 
 or the arts of design. Intellectual culture was widely 
 diffused, and men of the highest rank devoted them- 
 selves with eagerness to the occupation of letters; this, 
 too, at a time when learning in other countries was 
 banished to colleges and cloisters; when books were 
 not always essential in the education of a gentleman. 
 Du Guesclin, the flower of French chivalry in the four- 
 teenth century, could not read a word. Castiglione, 
 in his Cortegiano, has given us so pleasing a picture 
 of the recreations of the little court of Urbino, one 
 of the many into which Italy was distributed at the 
 close of the fifteenth century, as to suggest an exalted 
 notion of its taste and cultivated habits ; and Guicciar- 
 dini has described, with all the eloquence of regret, 
 the flourishing condition of his country at the same 
 period, ere the srorm had descended on her beautiful 
 valleys. In all this we see the characteristics of a 
 highly-polished state of society, but none of the hardy 
 virtues of chivalry. 
 
476 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 It was precisely in such a state of society, light, 
 lively, and licentious, possessed of a high relish for the 
 beauties of imagination, but without moral dignity or 
 even a just moral sense, that the Muse of romance first 
 appeared in Italy ; and it was not to be expected that 
 she would retain there her majestic Castilian port, or 
 the frank, cordial bearing which endeared her to our 
 Norman ancestors. In fact, the Italian fancy seems to 
 have caught rather the gay, gossiping temper of the 
 fabliaux. The most familiar and grotesque adventures 
 are mixed in with the most serious, and even these last 
 are related in a fine tone of ironical pleasantry. Mag- 
 nificent inventions are recommended by agreeable illu- 
 sions of style; but they not unfrequently furnish a 
 flimsy drapery for impurity of sentiment. The high 
 devotion and general moral aspect of our English 
 Faerie Queene are not characteristic, with a few emi- 
 nent exceptions, of Italian tales of chivalry, in which 
 we too often find the best interests of our nature ex- 
 posed to all the license of frivolous banter. Pulci, who 
 has furnished an apology for the infamous Pucelle,* and 
 Fortiguerra, with their school of imitators, may afford 
 abundant examples to the curious in these matters. 
 
 The first successful models of the romantic epic 
 were exhibited at the table of Lorenzo de' Medici, 
 that remarkable man, who, as Machiavelli says of 
 him, "seemed to unite in his person two distinct na- 
 tures," — who could pass from the severe duties of the 
 
 * See Voltaire's preface to it. Chapelain's prosy poem on the 
 same subject, La Pucelle d'Orleans, lives now only in the satire of 
 Boileau. It was the hard fate of the Heroine of Orleans to be 
 canonized in a dull epic and damned in a witty one. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 All 
 
 council-chamber to mingle in the dances of the people, 
 and from the abstractions of his favorite philosophy to 
 the broad merriment of a convivial table. Amid all 
 the elegance of the Medici, however, — of Lorenzo and 
 Leo X. , — there seems to have been a lurking appetite 
 for vulgar pleasure, at least if we may judge from the 
 coarse, satirical repartee which Franco and his friend 
 Pulci poured out upon one another for the entertain- 
 ment of their patron, and the still more bald buf- 
 foonery which enlightened the palace of his pontifical 
 son. 
 
 The Stanze of Politian, however, exhibit no trace 
 of this obliquity of taste. This fragment of an epic, 
 almost too brief for criticism, like a prelude to some 
 beautiful air, seems to have opened the way to those 
 delightful creations of the Muse which so rapidly fol- 
 lowed, and to have contained within itself their various 
 elements of beauty, — the invention of Boiardo, the 
 picturesque narrative of Ariosto, and Tasso's flush of 
 color. Every stanza is music to the ear, and affords 
 a distinct picture to the eye. Unfortunately, Politian 
 was soon seduced by the fashion of the age from the 
 culture of his native tongue. Probably no Italian poet 
 of equal promise was ever sacrificed to the manes of 
 antiquity. His voluminous Latin labors are now for- 
 gotten, and this fragment of an epic affords almost 
 the only point from which he is still contemplated by 
 posterity. 
 
 Pulci's Morgante is the first thorough-bred romance 
 of chivalry which the Italians have received as text 
 of the tongue. It is fashioned much more literally than 
 any of its successors on Turpin's Chronicle, that gross 
 

 478 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 medley of fact and fable, too barren for romance, too 
 false for history; the dunghill from which have shot 
 up, nevertheless, the bright flowers of French and Ital- 
 ian fiction. In like manner as in this, religion, not 
 love, is the principle of Pulci's action. The theo- 
 logical talk of his devils may remind one of the prosy 
 conference of Roland and Ferracute ; and, strange to 
 say, he is the only one of the eminent Italian poets 
 who has adopted from the chronicle the celebrated 
 rout at Roncesvalles. In his concluding cantos, which 
 those who have censured him as a purely satirical or 
 burlesque poet can have hardly reached, Pulci, throw- 
 ing off the vulgar trammels which seem to have op- 
 pressed his genius, rises into the noblest conceptions 
 of poetry, and describes the tragical catastrophe with 
 all the eloquence of pathos and moral grandeur. Had 
 he written often thus, the Morgan te would now be re- 
 sorted to by native purists, not merely as the well of 
 Tuscan undefiled, but as the genuine fount of epic 
 inspiration. 
 
 From the rank and military profession of Boiardo, 
 it might be expected that his poem, the Orlando Inna- 
 morato, would display more of the lofty tone of chiv- 
 alry than is usual with his countrymen ; but, with some 
 exceptions, the portrait of Ruggiero, for example, it 
 will be difficult to discern this. He, however, excels 
 them all in a certain force of characterizing, and in an 
 inexhaustible fertility of invention. His dramatis per- 
 sonce, continued by Ariosto, might afford an excellent 
 subject for a parallel, which we have not room to dis- 
 cuss. In general, he may be said to sculpture where 
 Ariosto paints. His heroes assume a fiercer and more 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 479 
 
 indomitable aspect, and his Amazonian females a more 
 glaring and less fastidious coquetry. But it is in the 
 regions of pure fancy that his muse delights to sport, 
 where, instead of the cold conceptions of a Northern 
 brain, which make up the machinery of Pulci, we are 
 introduced to the delicate fairies of the East, to gar- 
 dens blooming in the midst of the desert, to palaces 
 of crystal, winged steeds, enchanted armor, and all 
 the gay fabric of Oriental mythology. It has been 
 the singular fate of Boiardo to have had his story con- 
 tinued and excelled by one poet, and his style reformed 
 by another, until his own original work, and even his 
 name, have passed into comparative oblivion. Berni's 
 rifacimento is perhaps the most remarkable instance of 
 the triumph of style on record. Every stanza reflects 
 the sense of the original j yet such is the fascination 
 of his diction, compared with the provincial barbarism 
 of his predecessor, as to remind one of those mutations 
 in romance where some old and withered hag is sud- 
 denly transformed into a blooming fairy. It may be 
 doubted whether this could have succeeded so com- 
 pletely in a language where the beauties of style are 
 less appreciated. Dryden has made a similar attempt 
 in the Canterbury Tales ; but who does not prefer the 
 racy, romantic sweetness of Chaucer? 
 
 The Orlando Furioso, from its superior literary exe- 
 cution, as well as from its union of all the peculiarities 
 of Italian tales of chivalry, may be taken as the repre- 
 sentative of the whole species. Some of the national 
 critics have condemned, and some have endeavored 
 to justify, these peculiarities of the romantic epopee, — 
 its complicated narrative and provoking interruptions, 
 
480 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 its transitions from the gravest to the most familiar 
 topics, its lawless extravagance of fiction, and other 
 deviations from the statutes of antiquity, — but very 
 few have attempted to explain them on just and philo- 
 sophical principles. The romantic eccentricities of 
 the Italian poets are not to be imputed either to in- 
 attention or ignorance. Most of them were accom- 
 plished scholars, and went to their work with all the 
 forecast of consummate artists. Boiardo was so well 
 versed in the ancient tongues as to have made accurate 
 translations of Herodotus and Apuleius. Ariosto was 
 such an elegant Latinist that even the classic Bembo 
 did not disdain to learn from him the mysteries of 
 Horace. He consulted his friends over and over again 
 on the disposition of his fable, assigning to them the 
 most sufficient reasons for its complicated texture. In 
 like manner, Tasso shows, in his Poetical Discourses, 
 how deeply he had revolved the principles of his art, 
 and his Letters prove his dexterity in the application 
 of these principles to his own compositions. These il- 
 lustrious minds understood well the difference between 
 copying the ancients and copying nature. They knew 
 that to write by the rules of the former is not to write 
 like them ; that the genius of our institutions requires 
 new and peculiar forms of expression ; that nothing is 
 more fantastic than a modern antique ; and they wisely 
 left the attempt and the failure to such spiritless ped- 
 ants as Trissino. 
 
 The difference subsisting between the ancients and 
 moderns, in the constitution of society, amply justifies 
 the different principles on which they have proceeded 
 in their works of imagination. Religion, love, honor, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 481 
 
 — what different ideas are conveyed by these terms in 
 these different periods of history !* The love of coun- 
 try was the pervading feeling which, in the ancient 
 Greek or Roman, seems to have absorbed every other, 
 and to have obliterated, as it were, the moral idiosyn- 
 crasy of the individual, while with the moderns it is 
 the individual who stands forward in principal relief. 
 His loves, his private feuds and personal adventures, 
 form the object almost of exclusive attention. Hence, 
 in the classical fable strict unity of action and con- 
 centration of interest are demanded, while in the ro- 
 mantic the object is best attained by variety of action 
 and diversity of interest, and the threads of personal 
 adventure separately conducted, and perpetually inter- 
 secting each other, make up the complicated texture 
 of the fable. Hence it becomes so exceedingly difficult 
 to discern who is the real hero, and what the main 
 action, in such poems as the Innamorato and Furioso. 
 Hence, too, the episode, the accident, if we may so 
 say, of the classical epic, becomes the essence of the 
 romantic. On this explication, Tasso's delightful ex- 
 cursions, his adventures of Sophronia and Erminia, so 
 often condemned as excrescences, may be admired as 
 perfectly legitimate beauties. 
 
 The poems of Homer were intended as historical 
 compositions. They were revered and quoted as such 
 by the most circumspect of the national writers, as 
 
 * How feeble, as an operative principle, must religion have been 
 among people who openly avowed it to be the creation of their 
 own poets! "Homer and Hesiod," says Herodotus, " created the 
 theogony of the Greeks, assigning to the gods their various titles, 
 characters, and forms." (Herod., ii. 63.) Religion, it is well known, 
 was a principal basis of modern chivalry. 
 v 41 
 
482 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Thucydides and Strabo, for example. The romantic 
 poets, on the other hand, seem to have intended 
 nothing beyond a mere delasseme7it of the imagina- 
 tion. The old Norman epics, it is true, exhibit a 
 wonderful coincidence in their delineations of man- 
 ners with the contemporary chronicles. But this is 
 not the spirit of Italian romance, which has rarely had 
 any higher ostensible aim than that of pure amusement, 
 
 " Scritta cosi come la penna getta, 
 Per fuggir l'ozio, e non per cercar gloria," 
 
 and which was right, therefore, in seeking its materials 
 in the wildest extravagances of fiction, the magnanime 
 menzogne of chivalry, and the brilliant chimeras of the 
 East. 
 
 The immortal epics of Ariosto and Tasso are too 
 generally known to require from us any particular 
 analysis. Some light, however, may be reflected on 
 these poets from a contrast of their peculiarities. The 
 period in which Tasso wrote was one of high religious 
 fermentation. The Turks, who had so long overawed 
 Europe, had recently been discomfited in the memor- 
 able sea-fight of Lepanto, and the kindling enthusiasm 
 of the nations seemed to threaten for a moment to re- 
 vive the follies of the Crusades. Tasso's character was 
 of a kind to be peculiarly sensible to these influences. 
 His soul was penetrated with religious fervor, to which, 
 as Serassi has shown, more than to any cause of mys- 
 terious passion, are to be imputed his occasional mental 
 aberrations. He was distinguished, moreover, by his 
 chivalrous personal valor, put to the test in more than 
 one hazardous encounter; and he was reckoned the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 483 
 
 most expert swordsman of his time. Tasso's peculiari- 
 ties of character were singularly suited to his subject. 
 He has availed himself of this to the full in exhibiting 
 the resources and triumphs of Christian chivalry. The 
 intellectual rather than the physical attributes of his 
 supernatural agents, his solemn meditations on the fra- 
 gility of earthly glory, and the noble ardor with which 
 he leads us to aspire after an imperishable crown, give 
 to his epic a moral grandeur which no preceding poet 
 had ever reached. It has been objected to him, how- 
 ever, that he preferred the intervention of subordi- 
 nate agents to that of the Deity; but the God of the 
 Christians cannot be introduced like those of pagan 
 mythology. They espoused the opposite sides of the 
 contest; but wherever He appears the balance is no 
 longer suspended, and the poetical interest is conse- 
 quently destroyed. 
 
 " Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni." 
 
 This might be sublime with the ancients, but would be 
 blasphemous and absurd with the moderns ; and Tasso 
 judged wisely in availing himself of inferior and inter- 
 mediate ministers. 
 
 Ariosto's various subject — 
 
 " Le donne, i cavalier', l'arme, gli amori" — 
 
 was equally well suited with Tasso's to his own various 
 and flexible genius. It did not, indeed, admit of the 
 same moral elevation, in which he was himself perhaps 
 deficient, but it embraced within its range every va- 
 riety of human passion and portraiture. Tasso was of 
 a solitary, as Ariosto was of a social temper. He had 
 
484 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 no acquaintance with affairs, and Gravina accuses him 
 of drawing his knowledge from books instead of men. 
 He turned his thoughts inward, and matured them by 
 deep and serious meditation. He had none of the 
 volatile talents of his rival, who seems to have parted 
 with his brilliant fancies as readily as the tree gives up 
 its leaves in autumn. Ariosto was a man of the world, 
 and in his philosophy may be styled an Epicurean. 
 His satires show a familiarity with the practical con- 
 cerns of life, and a deep insight into the characters of 
 men. His conceptions, however, were of the earth ; 
 and his pure style, which may be compared with Al- 
 cina's transparent drapery, too often reveals to us the 
 grossest impurity of thought. 
 
 The muse of Tasso was of a heavenly nature, and 
 nourished herself with celestial visions and ideal forms 
 of beauty. He was a disciple of Plato, and hence the 
 source of his general elevation of thought, and, too 
 often, of his mystical abstraction. The healthful bloom 
 of his language imparts an inexpressible charm to the 
 purity of his sentiments, and it is truly astonishing that 
 so chaste and dignified a composition should have been 
 produced in an age and court so corrupt. 
 
 Both of these great artists elaborated their style with 
 the utmost care, but with totally different results. This 
 frequently gave to Tasso' s verse the finish of a lyrical, 
 or, rather, of a musical composition; for many of his 
 stanzas have less resemblance to the magnificent rhythm 
 of Petrarch than to the melodious monotony of Metas- 
 tasio. This must be considered a violation of the true 
 epic style. It is singular that Tasso himself, in one of 
 his poetical criticisms, should have objected this very 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 485 
 
 defect to his rival.* The elaboration of Ariosto, on 
 the other hand, resulted in that exquisite negligence, 
 or, rather, artlessness of expression, so easy in appear- 
 ance, but so difficult in reality to be imitated : 
 
 " Facil' versi che costan tanta pena." 
 
 The Jerusalem Delivered is placed, by the nice dis- 
 crimination of the Italian critics, at the head of .their 
 heroic epics. In its essence, however, it is strictly 
 romantic, though in its form it is accommodated to 
 the general proportions of the antique. In Ariosto's 
 complicated fable it is difficult to discern either a 
 leading hero or a predominant action. Sismondi ap- 
 plauds Ginguene for having discovered this hero in 
 Ruggiero. But, both those writers might have found 
 this discovery, where it was revealed more than two 
 centuries ago, in Tasso's own Discourses. f We doubt, 
 however, its accuracy, and cannot but think that the 
 prominent part assigned to Orlando, from whom the 
 poem derives its name, manifests a different intention 
 in the author. 
 
 The stately and imposing beauties of Tasso's epic 
 have rendered it generally the most acceptable to for- 
 eigners, while the volatile graces of Ariosto have made 
 him most popular with his own nation. Both poets 
 have had the rare felicity not only of obtaining the 
 applause of the learned, but of circulating among the 
 humblest classes of their countrymen. Fragments of 
 the Furioso are still recited by the lazzaroni of Naples, 
 as those of the Jerusalem once were by the gondoliers 
 of Venice, where this beautiful epic, broken up into 
 
 * Discorsi Poetici, iii. | Ibid., ii. 
 
 41* 
 
4&6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ballads, might be heard for miles along the canals on 
 a tranquil summer evening. Had Boileau, who so bit- 
 terly sneers at the clinquant of Tasso, "heard these 
 musical contests," says Voltaire, "he would have had 
 nothing to say." It is worthy of remark that these 
 two celebrated poems, together with the Aminta, the 
 Pastor Fido, and the Secchia Rapita, were all produced 
 within the brief compass of a century, in the petty 
 principality of the house of Este, which thus seemed 
 to indemnify itself for its scanty territory by its ample 
 acquisitions in the intellectual world. 
 
 The mass of epical imitations in Italy, both of Ari- 
 osto and Tasso, especially the former, is perfectly over- 
 whelming. Nor is it easy to understand the patience 
 with which the Italians have resigned themselves to 
 these interminable poems of seventy, eighty, or even 
 ninety thousand verses each. Many of them, it must 
 be admitted, are the work of men of real genius, and, 
 in a literature less fruitful in epic excellence, would 
 have given a wide celebrity to their authors ; and the 
 amount of others of less note, in a department so 
 rarely attempted in other countries, shows in the nation 
 at large a wonderful fecundity of fancy. 
 
 The Italians, desirous of combining as many attrac- 
 tions as possible, and extremely sensible to harmony, 
 have not, as has been the case in France and England, 
 divested their romances of the music of verse. They 
 have rarely adopted a national subject for their story, 
 but have condescended to borrow those of the old 
 Norman minstrels; and, in conformity with the char- 
 acteristic temperament of the nation, they have almost 
 always preferred the mercurial temper of the court of 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 487 
 
 Charlemagne to the more sober complexion of the 
 Round Table.* 
 
 With a few exceptions, the romantic poets, since the 
 time of Ariosto, appear to have gained as little in ele- 
 vation of sentiment as in national feeling. The nice 
 classification of their critics seems to relate only to 
 their varieties of comic character, and, as we descend 
 to a later period, the fine, equivocal raillery of the 
 older romances degenerates into a broad and undis- 
 guised burlesque. In the latter class, the Ricciardetto 
 of Fortiguerra is a jest rather than a satire upon tales 
 of chivalry. The singular union which this work ex- 
 hibits of elegance of style and homeliness of subject 
 may have furnished, especially in its introduction, the 
 model of that species of poetry which Lord Byron has 
 familiarized us with in Don Juan, where the contrast 
 of sentiment and satire, of vivid passion and chill 
 misanthropy, of images of beauty and splenetic sar- 
 casm, may remind one of the whimsical combinations 
 in Alpine scenery, where the strawberry blooms on the 
 verge of a snow-wreath. 
 
 The Italians claim to have given the first models 
 of mock-heroic poetry in modern times. The Secchia 
 Rapita of Tassoni has the merit of a graceful versifica- 
 tion, exhibiting many exquisite pictures of voluptuous 
 repose, and some passages of an imposing grandeur. 
 But these accord ill with the vulgar merriment and 
 general burlesque tone of the piece, which, on the 
 whole, presents a strange medley of beauties and blem- 
 
 * The French antiquary Tressan furnishes an exception to the gen- 
 eral criticism of his countrymen, in admitting the superiority of this 
 latter class of romances over those of Charlemagne. 
 
488 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ishes mixed up promiscuously together. Twelve cantos 
 of hard fighting and cutting of throats are far too 
 serious for a joke. The bloodless battle of the books 
 in the Lutrin, or those of the pot-valiant heroes of 
 Knickerbocker, are in much better keeping. The 
 Italians have no poetry of a mezzo carattere like our 
 Rape of the Lock,* where a fine atmosphere of irony 
 pervades the piece and gives life to every character in 
 it. They appear to delight in that kind of travesty 
 which reduces great things into little, but which is of a 
 much less spiritual nature than that which exalts little 
 things into great. Parini's exquisite Giorno, if the 
 satire had not rather too sharp an edge, might furnish 
 an exception to both these remarks. 
 
 But it is time that we should turn to the Novelle, 
 those delightful "tales of pleasantry and love," which 
 form one of the most copious departments of the na- 
 tional literature. And here we may remark two pecu- 
 liarities : first, that similar tales in France and England 
 fell entirely into neglect after the fifteenth century, 
 while in Italy they have been cultivated with the most 
 unwearied assiduity from their earliest appearance to 
 the present hour ; secondly, that in both the former 
 countries the fabliaux were almost universally exhib- 
 ited in a poetical dress, while in Italy, contrary to the 
 popular taste on all other occasions, they have been as 
 uniformly exhibited in prose. These peculiarities are 
 undoubtedly to be imputed to the influence of Boc- 
 caccio, whose transcendent genius gave a permanent 
 popularity to this kind of composition, and finally 
 determined the forms of elegant prose with his nation. 
 
 * Pignotti, Storia della Toscana, torn. x. p. 132. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 489 
 
 The appearance of the Decameron is, in some points 
 of view, as remarkable a phenomenon as that of the 
 Divine Comedy. It furnishes the only example on 
 record of the almost simultaneous development of 
 prose and poetry in the literature of a nation. The 
 earliest prose of any pretended literary value in the 
 Greek tongue, the most precocious of any of an- 
 tiquity, must be placed near four centuries after the 
 poems of Homer. To descend to modern times, 
 the Spaniards have a little work, "El Conde Luca- 
 nor," nearly contemporary with the Decameron, writ- 
 ten on somewhat of a similar plan, but far more 
 didactic in its purport. Its style, though marked by 
 a certain freshness and naivete, the healthy beauties 
 of an infant dialect, has nothing of a classical finish ; 
 to which, indeed, Castilian prose, notwithstanding its 
 fine old chronicles and romances, can make no pre- 
 tension before the close of the fifteenth century. In 
 France a still later period must be assigned for this 
 perfection. Dante, it is true, speaks of the peculiar 
 suitableness of the French language in his day for 
 prose narration, on account of its flexibility and free- 
 dom ;* but Dante had few and very inadequate stand- 
 ards of comparison, and experience has shown how 
 many ages of purification it was to undergo before 
 it could become the vehicle of elegant composition. 
 Pascal's Provincial Letters furnish, in the opinion of 
 the national critics, the earliest specimen of good 
 prose. It would be more difficult to agree upon the 
 author or the period that arrested the fleeting forms 
 of expression in our own language ; but we certainly 
 
 * De Vulgari Eloquio, lib. i. ( cap. x. 
 v* 
 
49° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 could not venture upon an earlier date than the con- 
 clusion of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The style of the Decameron exhibits the full ma- 
 turity of an Augustan age. The finish of its periods, 
 its long, Latinized involutions, but especially its redun- 
 dancy and Asiatic luxury of expression, vices imputed 
 to Cicero by his own contemporaries, as Quintilian in- 
 forms us, reveal to us the model on which Boccaccio 
 diligently formed himself. In the more elevated parts 
 of his subject he reaches to an eloquence not unworthy 
 of the Roman orator himself. The introductions to 
 his novels, chiefly descriptive, are adorned with all the 
 music and the coloring of poetry; much too poetic, 
 indeed, for the prose of any other tongue. It cannot 
 be doubted that this brilliant piece of mechanism has 
 had an immense influence on the Italians, both in se- 
 ducing them into a too exclusive attention to mere 
 beauties of style, and in leading them to solicit such 
 beauties in graver and less appropriate subjects than 
 those of pure invention. 
 
 In the celebrated description of the Plague, how- 
 ever, Boccaccio has shown a muscular energy of diction 
 quite worthy of the pen of Thucydides. Yet there is 
 no satisfactory evidence that he had read the similar 
 performance of the Greek historian, and the conjecture 
 of Baldelli to that effect is founded only on a resem- 
 blance of some detached passages, which might well 
 occur in treating of a similar disease.* In the delinea- 
 tion of its fearful moral consequences, Boccaccio has 
 undoubtedly surpassed his predecessor. It is singular 
 that of the three celebrated narratives of this distemper, 
 
 * Vita di Boccaccio, lib. ii. s. 2, note. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 491 
 
 that by the Englishman De Foe is by far the most cir- 
 cumstantial in its details, and yet that he was the 
 only one of the three historians who was not an eye- 
 witness to what he relates.* The Plague of London 
 happened in the year succeeding his birth. 
 
 The Italian novelists have followed so closely in the 
 track of Boccaccio that we may discuss their general 
 attributes without particular reference to him, their 
 beauties and their blemishes varying only in degree. 
 They ransacked every quarter for their inventions, — 
 Eastern legends, Norman fabliaux, domestic history, 
 tradition, and vulgar contemporary anecdote. They 
 even helped themselves, plenis manibus, to one an- 
 other's fancies, particularly filching from the Decam- 
 eron, which has for this reason been pleasantly com- 
 pared to a pawnbroker's shop. But no exceptions 
 seem to be taken at such plagiarism, and, as long as 
 the story could be disguised in a different dress, they 
 cared little for the credit of the invention. These 
 fictions are oftentimes of the most grotesque and im- 
 probable character, exhibiting no great skill in the 
 liaison of events, which are strung together with the 
 rude artlessness of a primitive trouveur, while most 
 promising beginnings are frequently brought up by flat 
 and impotent conclusions. Many of the novelle are 
 made up of mere personal anecdote, proverbialisms, 
 and Florentine table-talk, the ingredients of an ency- 
 clopaedia of wit. In all this, however, we often find 
 less wit than merriment, which shows itself in the most 
 
 * It seems probable, however, from a passage in Boccaccio, cited 
 by Bandelli, that he witnessed the plague in some other city of Italy 
 than Florence. 
 
49 2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 puerile practical jokes, played off upon idiots, unfortu- 
 nate pedants, and other imbeciles, with as little taste 
 as feeling. 
 
 The novelle wear the usual light and cheerful aspect 
 of Italian literature. They seldom aim at a serious or 
 didactic purpose. Their tragical scenes, though very 
 tragical, are seldom affecting. We recollect in them 
 no example of the passion of love treated with the 
 depth and tenderness of feeling so frequent in the 
 English dramatists and novelists. They can make 
 little pretension, indeed, to accurate delineation of 
 character of any sort. Even Boccaccio, who has ac- 
 quired, in our opinion, a somewhat undeserved celeb- 
 rity in this way, paints professions rather than indi- 
 viduals. The brevity of the Italian tale, which usually 
 affords space only for the exhibition of a catastrophe, 
 is an important obstacle to a gradual development of 
 character. 
 
 A remarkable trait in these novelle is the extreme 
 boldness with which the reputations of the clergy 
 are handled. Their venality, lechery, hypocrisy, and 
 abominable impositions are all exposed with a reckless 
 independence. The head of the Church himself is not 
 spared. It is not easy to account for this authorized 
 latitude in a country where so jealous a surveillance 
 has been maintained over the freedom of the press in 
 relation to other topics. Warton attempts to explain 
 it, as far as regards the Decameron, by supposing that 
 the ecclesiastics of that age had become tainted with 
 the dissoluteness so prevalent after the Plague of 1348; 
 and Madame de Stael suggests that the government 
 winked at this license as the jesting of children, who 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 493 
 
 are content to obey their masters so they may laugh 
 at them. But neither of these solutions will suffice ; 
 for the license of Boccaccio has been assumed more or 
 less by nearly every succeeding novelist, and the jests 
 of this merry tribe have been converted into the most 
 stinging satire on the clergy, in the hands of the gravest 
 and most powerful writers of the nation, from Dante to 
 Monti. 
 
 It may be truly objected to the Italian novelists that 
 they have been as little solicitous about purity of sen- 
 timent as they have been too much so about purity 
 of style. The reproach of indecency lies heavily upon 
 most of their writings, from the Decameron to the in- 
 famous tales of Casti, which, reeking with the corrup- 
 tion of a brothel, have passed into several surreptitious 
 editions during the present century. This indecency 
 is not always a mere excrescence, but deeply ingrained 
 in the body of the piece. It is not conveyed in in- 
 nuendo, or softened under the varnish of sentiment, 
 but is exhibited in all the nakedness of detail which 
 a debauched imagination can divine. Petrarch's en- 
 comiastic letter to his friend Boccaccio, written at the 
 close of his own life, in which he affects to excuse the 
 licentiousness of the Decameron from the youth of the 
 author,* although he was turned of forty when he com- 
 posed it, has been construed into an ample apology for 
 their own transgressions by the subsequent school of 
 novelists. 
 
 It is true that some of the popes, of a more fastidious 
 conscience, have taken exceptions at the license of the 
 Decameron, and have placed it on the Index; but an 
 
 * Petrarca Opera, ed. Basil., p. 540. 
 42 
 
494 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 expurgated edition, whose only alteration consisted in 
 the substitution of lay names for those of the clergy, 
 set all things right again. 
 
 Such adventures as the seduction of a friend's wife, 
 or the deceptions practised upon a confiding husband, 
 are represented as excellent pieces of wit in these 
 fictions, — in some of the best of them, even; and 
 often when their authors would be moral they betray, 
 in their confused perceptions of right and wrong, the 
 most deplorable destitution of a moral sense. Grazzini 
 (Jl Lasca), one of the most popular of the tribe of the 
 sixteenth century, after invoking, in the most solemn 
 manner, the countenance of the Deity upon his labors, 
 and beseeching Him to inspire his mind " with such 
 thoughts only as may redound to his praise and glory," 
 enters immediately, in the next page, upon one of the 
 most barefaced specimens of "bold bawdry," to make 
 use of the plain language of Roger Ascham, that is to 
 be found in the whole work. It is not easy to estimate 
 the demoralizing influence of writings many of which, 
 being possessed of the beauties of literary finish, are 
 elevated into the rank of classics and thus find their 
 way into the most reserved and fastidious libraries. 
 
 The literary execution of these tales is, however, by 
 no means equal. In some it is even neglected, and in 
 all falls below that of their great original. Still, in 
 the larger part the graces of style are sedulously cul- 
 tivated, and in many constitute the principal merit. 
 Some of their authors, especially the more ancient, as 
 Sacchetti and Ser Giovanni, derive great repute from 
 their picturesque proverbialisms (riboboli), the racy 
 slang of the Florentine mob, — pearls of little price 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 495 
 
 with foreigners, but of great estimation with their own 
 countrymen. On these qualities, however, as on all 
 those of mere external form, a stranger should pro- 
 nounce with great diffidence ; but the intellectual and 
 moral character of a composition, especially the last, 
 are open to universal criticism. The principles of taste 
 may differ in different nations; but, however often ob- 
 scured by education or habit, there can be only one 
 true standard of morality. 
 
 We may concede, then, to many of the novelle the 
 merits of a delicate work of art, gracefulness, nay, 
 eloquence of style, agreeable facility of narrative, 
 pleasantry that sometimes rises into wit, occasional 
 developments of character, and an inexhaustible nov- 
 elty of situation. But we cannot help regretting that, 
 while so many of the finest wits of the nation have 
 amused themselves with these compositions, they should 
 not have exhibited virtue in a more noble and im- 
 posing attitude, or studied a more scientific delinea- 
 tion of passion, or a more direct moral aim or prac- 
 tical purpose. How rarely do we find, unless it be in 
 some few of the last century, the didactic or even 
 satirical tone of the English essayists, who seldom 
 assume the Oriental garb, so frequent in Italian tales, 
 for any other purpose than that of better conveying a 
 prudential lesson ! Goldsmith and Hawkesworth may 
 furnish us with pertinent examples of this. How 
 rarely do we recognize in these novelle the living por- 
 traiture of Chaucer, or the philosophical point which 
 sharpens the pleasantry of La Fontaine ; both com- 
 petitors in the same walk. Without any higher object 
 than that of present amusement, these productions, 
 
496 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 like many others of their elegant literature, seem to 
 be thrown off in the mere gayety of the heart. 
 
 Chaucer, in his peculiarities, represents as faithfully 
 those of the English nation as his rival and contem- 
 porary Boccaccio represents the Italian. In a searching 
 anatomy of the human heart he as far excels the latter 
 as in rhetorical beauty he is surpassed by him. The 
 prologue to his Canterbury Tales alone contains a gal- 
 lery of portraits such as is not to be found in the whole 
 compass of the Decameron ; his friar, for example, 
 
 " That somewhat lisped from his wantonnesse 
 To make his Englishe sweete upon his tonge ;" 
 
 his worthy parson, "glad to teche and glad to lerne;" 
 his man of law, who, 
 
 " Though so besy a man as he ther n' as, 
 Yet seemed besier than he was ;" 
 
 and his inimitable wag of a host, breaking his jests, 
 like Falstaff, indiscriminately upon every one he meets. 
 Chaucer was a shrewd observer of the realities of life. 
 He did not indulge in day-dreams of visionary perfec- 
 tion. His little fragment of Sir Thopaz is a fine quiz 
 upon the incredibilia of chivalry. In his conclusion 
 of the story of the patient Griselde, instead of adopt- 
 ing the somewhat fade eulogiums of Boccaccio, he 
 good-naturedly jests at the ultra perfection of the 
 heroine. Like Shakspeare and Scott, his successors 
 and superiors in the school of character, he seems to 
 have had too vivid a perception of the vanities of 
 human life to allow him for a moment to give in to 
 those extravagances of perfection which have sprung 
 from the brain of so many fond enthusiasts. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 497 
 
 Chaucer's genius was everyway equal to that of Boc- 
 caccio, yet the direct influence of the one can scarcely 
 be discerned beyond his own age, while that of the 
 other has reached to the present generation. A prin- 
 cipal cause of this is the difference of their style ; that 
 of the former exhibiting only the rude graces of a 
 primitive dialect, while Boccaccio's may be said to 
 nave reached the full prime of a cultivated period. 
 Another cause is discernible in the new and more suit- 
 able forms which came to be adopted for that delin- 
 eation of character which constitutes the essence of 
 Chaucer's fictions, viz., those of the drama and the 
 extended novel, in both of which Italian literature has, 
 until' very recently, been singularly deficient. Boc- 
 caccio made two elaborate essays in novel-writing, but 
 his genius seems to have been ill adapted to it, and in 
 his strange and prolix narrative, which brings upon 
 the stage again the obsolete deities of antiquity, even 
 the natural graces of his style desert him. The at- 
 tempt has scarcely been repeated until our day, when 
 the impulse communicated by the English, in romance 
 and historical novel-writing, to other nations on the 
 Continent, seems to have extended itself to Italy; and 
 the extraordinary favor which has been shown there to 
 the first essays in this way may perhaps lead eventually 
 to more brilliant successes. 
 
 The Spaniards, under no better circumstances than 
 the Italians, made, previously to the last-mentioned 
 period, a nearer approach to the genuine novel. Cer- 
 vantes has furnished, amid his caricatures of chivalry, 
 many passages of exquisite pathos and pleasantry, and 
 a rich variety of national portraiture. The same, 
 
 42* 
 
498 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 though in a less degree, may be affirmed of his shorter 
 tales, Novelets exemplares, which, however inferior to 
 those of the Decameron in rhetorical elegance, cer- 
 tainly surpass them in their practical application. But 
 the peculiar property of the Spaniards is \\\€\x picaresco 
 novel, a mere chronicle of the adventures and mis- 
 chievous pranks of young pickpockets and chevaliers 
 (T Industrie, invented, whimsically enough, by a Castilian 
 grandee, one of the proudest of his caste, and which, 
 notwithstanding the glaring contrast it affords to the 
 habitual gravity of the nation, has, perhaps from this 
 very circumstance, been a great favorite with it ever 
 since. 
 
 The French have made other advances in novel- 
 writing. They have produced many specimens of wit 
 and of showy sentiment, but they seldom afford any 
 wide range of observation or searching views of char- 
 acter. The conventional breeding that universally 
 prevails in France has levelled all inequalities of rank, 
 and obliterated, as it were, the moral physiognomy of 
 the different classes, which, however salutary in other 
 respects, is exceedingly unpropitious to the purposes 
 of the novelist. Moiiere, the most popular character- 
 monger of the French, has penetrated the superficies 
 of the most artificial state of society. His spirited 
 sketches of fashionable folly, though very fine, very 
 Parisian, are not always founded on the universal prin- 
 ciples of human nature, and, when founded on these, 
 they are sure to be carried more or less into caricature. 
 The French have little of the English talent for humor. 
 They have buffoonery, a lively wit, and a naivete be- 
 yond the reach of art, — Rabelais, Voltaire, La Fon- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 499 
 
 taine, — every thing but humor. How spiritless and 
 affected are the caricatures so frequently stuck up at 
 their shop-windows, and which may be considered as the 
 popular expression in this way, compared with those 
 of the English ! It is impossible to conceive of a 
 French Goldsmith or Fielding, a Hogarth or a Wilkie. 
 They have, indeed, produced a Le Sage, but he seems 
 to have confessed the deficiency of his own nation by 
 deriving his models exclusively from a foreign one. 
 
 On the other hand, the freedom of the political and 
 social institutions, both in this country and in Eng- 
 land, which has encouraged the undisguised expansion 
 of intellect and of peculiarities of temper, has made 
 them the proper theatre for the student of his species. 
 Hence man has been here delineated with an accuracy 
 quite unrivalled in any ancient or modern nation, 
 and, as the Greeks have surpassed every later people 
 in statuary, from their familiarity with the visible 
 naked forms of manly beauty, so the English may be 
 said, from an analogous cause, to have excelled all 
 others in moral portraiture. To this point their most 
 eminent artists have directed their principal attention. 
 We have already noticed it in Chaucer. It formed the 
 essence of the drama in Elizabeth's time, as it does 
 that of the modern novel. Shakspeare and Scott, in 
 their respective departments, have undoubtedly carried 
 this art to the highest perfection of which it is capable, 
 sacrificing to it every minor consideration of proba- 
 bility, incident, and gradation of plot, which they 
 seem to have valued only so far as they might be made 
 subservient to the main purpose of a clearer exposition 
 of character. 
 
5°° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 But it is time to return from the digression into 
 which we have been led by a desire of illustrating cer- 
 tain peculiarities of Italian literature, which can in no 
 way be done so well as by comparing them with those 
 of corresponding departments in other languages. Such 
 a comparison abundantly shows how much deeper and 
 more philosophical have been the views proposed by 
 prose fiction in England than in Italy. 
 
 We have reserved the Drama for the last, as, until a 
 very recent period, it has been less prolific in eminent 
 models than either of the great divisions of Italian 
 letters. Yet it has been the one most assiduously cul- 
 tivated from a very early period, and this, too, by the 
 ripest scholars and most approved wits. The career 
 was opened by such minds as Ariosto and Machiavelli, 
 at a time when the theatres in other parts of Europe 
 had given birth only to the unseemly abortions of 
 mysteries and moralities. Bouterwek has been led 
 into a strange error in imputing the low condition of 
 the Italian drama to the small number of men of even 
 moderate abilities who have cultivated it.* A glance 
 at the long muster-roll of eminent persons employed 
 upon it, from Machiavelli to Monti, will prove the 
 contrary.f The unprecedented favor bestowed on the 
 most successful of the dramatic writers may serve to 
 show, at least, the aspirations of the people. The Me- 
 rope of MafTei, which may be deemed the first dawn 
 
 * See the conclusion of his History of Spanish Literature. 
 
 f See Allacci's Drammaturgia, passitn, and Riccoboni, Theatre 
 Ital., torn. i. pp. 187-208. Allacci's catalogue, as continued down to 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, occupies nearly a thousand 
 quarto pages. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5° l 
 
 of improvement in the tragic art, passed through sixty 
 editions. Notwithstanding all this, the Italians, in 
 comedy, and still more in tragedy, until the late ap- 
 parition of Alfieri, remained far below several of the 
 other nations of Europe. 
 
 A principal cause of their repeated failures has been 
 often referred to the inherent vices of their system, 
 which required a blind conformity with the supposed 
 rules of Aristotle. Under the cumbrous load of an- 
 tiquity, the freedom and grace of natural movement 
 were long impeded. Their first attempts were transla- 
 tions, or literal imitations, of the Latin theatre. Some 
 of these, though objectionable in form, contain the 
 true spirit of comedy. Those of Ariosto and Machia- 
 velli in particular, with even greater licentiousness of 
 detail and a more immoral conclusion than belong 
 either to Plautus or Terence, fully equal, perhaps sur- 
 pass them, in their spirited and whimsical draughts of 
 character. Ariosto is never more a satirist than in his 
 comedies ; and Machiavelli, in his Mandragola, has 
 exposed the hypocrisies of religion with a less glaring 
 caricature than Moliere has shown in his Tartuffe. The 
 spirit of these great masters did not descend to their 
 immediate successors. Goldoni, however, the Moliere 
 of Italy, in his numerous comedies or farces, has suc- 
 ceeded in giving a lively, graphic portraiture of local 
 manners, with infinite variety and comic power, but 
 no great depth of interest. He has seldom risen to 
 refined and comprehensive views of society, and his 
 pieces, we may trust, are not to be received as faith- 
 fully reflecting the national character, which they would 
 make singularly deficient both in virtue and the prin- 
 
502 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ciple of honor. The writers who have followed in the 
 footsteps of Goldoni exhibit, for the most part, similar 
 defects, with far inferior comic talent. Their pro- 
 ductions, on the whole, however, may be thought to 
 maintain an advantageous comparison with those of 
 any other people in Europe during the same period, 
 although some of them, to judge from the encomiastic 
 tone of their critics, appear to have obtained a wider 
 celebrity with their contemporaries than will be prob- 
 ably conceded to them by posterity. The comedies of 
 a?'t which Goldoni superseded, and which were, per- 
 haps, more indicative of the national taste than any 
 other dramatic performances, can hardly come within 
 the scope of literary criticism. 
 
 The Italian writers would seem not even to have 
 agreed upon a suitable measure for comedy, some 
 using the common versi sciolti, some the sdruccioli, 
 others, again, the martelliani, and many more pre- 
 ferring prose.* Another impediment to their success 
 is the great variety of dialects in Italy, as numerous 
 as her petty states, which prevents the recognition 
 of any one uniform style of familiar conversation for 
 comedy. The greater part of the pieces of Goldoni 
 are written, more or less, in the local idiom of one of 
 the extremities of Italy, — an inconvenience which can- 
 not exist and which can hardly be appreciated in a 
 country where one acknowledged capital has settled 
 the medium of polite intercourse. 
 
 * Professor Salfi affirms prose to be the most suitable, indeed the 
 only proper, dress for Italian comedy. See his sensible critiqtce on 
 the Italian comic drama, prefixed to the late edition of Alberto 
 Nota's Commedie, Paris, 1829. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 503 
 
 The progress of the nation in the tragic art, until a 
 late period, has been yet more doubtful. Some notion 
 may be formed of its low state in the last century from 
 the circumstance that when the players were in want 
 of a serious piece they could find none so generally 
 acceptable as an opera of Metastasio, stripped of its 
 musical accompaniments. The appearance of Alfieri 
 at this late season, of a genius so austere, in the midst 
 of the voluptuous, Sybarite effeminacy of the period, 
 is a remarkable phenomenon. It was as if the severe 
 Doric proportions of a Paestum temple had been sud- 
 denly raised up amid the airy forms of Palladian ar- 
 chitecture. The reserved and impenetrable character 
 of this man has been perfectly laid open to us in his 
 own autobiography. It was made up of incongruity 
 and paradox. To indomitable passions he joined the 
 most frigid exterior. With the fiercest aristocratic na- 
 ture, he yet quitted his native state that he might enjoy 
 unmolested the sweets of liberty. He published one 
 philippic against kings, and another against the people. 
 His theoretic love of freedom was far from being 
 warmed by the genuine glow of patriotism. Of all his 
 tragedies, he condescended to derive two only from 
 Italian history; and when, in his prefaces, dedications, 
 or elsewhere, he takes occasion to notice his country- 
 men, he does it in the bitterness of irony and insult. 
 
 When he first set about his tragedies, he could com- 
 pose only in a sort of French and Piedmontese /<?/<?/>. 
 He was unacquainted with any written dramatic litera- 
 ture, though he had witnessed the theatrical exhibitions 
 of the principal capitals of Europe. He was. therefore, 
 to form himself all fresh upon such models as he might 
 
504 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 prefer. His haughty spirit carried him back to the 
 trecentisti, especially to Dante, whose stern beauties he 
 sedulously endeavored to transfuse into his own style. 
 He studied Tacitus, moreover, with diligence, and 
 made three entire translations of Sallust. He was 
 greatly afraid of falling into the cantilena of Metas- 
 tasio, and sought to avoid this by sudden abruptions 
 of language, by an eccentric use of the articles and 
 pronouns, by dislocating the usual structure of verse, 
 and by distributing the emphatic words with exclusive 
 reference to the sense.* 
 
 This unprecedented manner brought upon Alfieri a 
 host of critics, and he was compelled, in a subsequent 
 edition, to soften down its most offensive asperities. 
 He imputes to himself as many different styles of com- 
 position as distinguish the works of Raphael, and it is 
 pretty evident that he considers the last as near perfec- 
 tion as he could well hope to attain. It is, indeed, 
 a noble style : with the occasional turbulence of a 
 mighty rapid, it has all its fulness and magnificent 
 flow ; and it shows how utterly impossible it is, by 
 any effort of art, to repress the natural melody of the 
 Tuscan. 
 
 Alfieri effected a still more important revolution in 
 the intellectual character of the drama, arousing it 
 from the lethargy into which it had fallen, and making 
 it the vehicle of generous and heroic sentiment. He 
 forced his pieces sometimes, it is true, by violent con- 
 trast, but he brought out his characters with a fulness 
 of relief and exhibited a dexterous combat of passion 
 
 * See a summary of these peculiarities in Casalbigi's Letter, pre- 
 fixed to the late editions of Alfieri's tragedies. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 505 
 
 that may not unfrequently remind us of Shakspeare. 
 He dismissed all supernumeraries from his plays, and 
 put into action what his predecessors had coldly nar- 
 rated. He dispensed, moreover, with the curious co- 
 incidences, marvellous surprises, and all the bet colpi 
 di scena so familiar in the plays of Metastasio. He 
 disdained even the poetical aid of imagery, relying 
 wholly for effect on the dignity of his sentiments and 
 the imposing character of his agents. 
 
 Alfieri has been thought to have made a nearer ap- 
 proach to the Greek tragedy than any of the moderns. 
 He, indeed, disclaims the imitation of any foreign 
 model, and he did not learn the Greek till late in life; 
 but the drama of his own nation had always been ser- 
 vilely accommodated to the rules of the ancients, and 
 he himself had rigorously adhered to the same code. 
 His severe genius, too, wears somewhat of the aspect 
 of that of the father of Grecian tragedy, with which 
 it has been repeatedly compared ; but any apparent 
 resemblance in their compositions vanishes on a closer 
 inspection. The assassination of Agamemnon, for ex- 
 ample, forms the subject of a tragedy with both these 
 writers; but on what different principles is it conducted 
 by each ! The larger proportion of the play of ^Es- 
 chylus is taken up with the melancholy monologues 
 of Cassandra and the chorus, which, boding the coming 
 disasters of the house of Atreus, or mourning over the 
 destiny of man, are poured forth in a lofty dithyrambic 
 eloquence that gives to the whole the air of a lyrical 
 rather than a dramatic composition. It was this lyrical 
 enthusiasm which, doubtless, led Plutarch to ascribe 
 the inspiration of ^Eschylus to the influence of the 
 w 43 
 
506 biographical and 
 
 grape.* The dialogue of the piece is of a most in- 
 artificial texture, and to an English audience might 
 sometimes appear flat. The action moves heavily, 
 and the principal — indeed, with the exception of Aga- 
 memnon, the only — attempt at character is in the part 
 of Clytemnestra, whose gigantic stature overshadows 
 the whole piece, and who appalls the spectator by 
 avowing the deed of assassination with the same ferocity 
 with which she had executed it. 
 
 Alfieri, on the other hand, refuses the subsidiary, 
 aids of poetical imagery. He expressly condemns, in 
 his criticisms, a confounding of the lyric and the dra- 
 matic styles. He elaborated his dialogue with the 
 nicest art and with exclusive reference to the final 
 catastrophe. Scenes -non levis artifex. His principal 
 aim is to exhibit the collision of passions. The con- 
 flicts between passion and principle in the bosom of 
 Clytemnestra, whom he has made a subordinate agent, 
 furnish him with his most powerful scenes. He has 
 portrayed the Iago-like features of ^Egisthus in the 
 darkest colors of Italian vengeance. The noble nature 
 of Agamemnon stands more fully developed than in 
 the Greek, and the sweet character of Electra is all his 
 own. The assassination of the king of men in his 
 bed, at the lonely hour of midnight, must forcibly 
 remind the English reader of the similar scene in Mac- 
 beth * but, though finely conceived, it is far inferior 
 to the latter in those fearful poetical accompaniments 
 
 * Sympos. LVIL, Prob. 10. In the same spirit, a critic of a more 
 polished age has denounced Shakspeare's Hamlet as the work of a 
 drunken savage ! See Voltaire's Dissertation sur la Tragedie, etc., 
 addressed to Cardinal Querini. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 507 
 
 which give such an air of breathless horror to the story. 
 In solemn, mysterious imaginings, who indeed can 
 equal Shakspeare ? He is the only modern poet who 
 has succeeded in introducing the dim torm of an ap- 
 parition on the stage with any tolerable effect. Yet 
 Voltaire accuses him of mistaking the horrible for the 
 terrible. When Voltaire had occasion to raise a ghost 
 upon the French stage (a ticklish experiment), he made 
 him so amiable in his aspect that Queen Semiramis 
 politely desires leave to " throw herself at his feet and 
 to embrace them." * 
 
 It has been a matter of debate whether Italian 
 tragedy, as reformed by Alfieri, is an improvement on 
 the French. Both are conducted on the same general 
 principles. A. W. Schlegel, a competent critic when- 
 ever his own prejudices are not involved, decides in 
 favor of the French. We must confess ourselves in- 
 clined to a different opinion. The three master-spirits 
 in French tragedy seem to have contained within them- 
 selves all the elements of dramatic creation, yet their 
 best performances have something tame and unsatis- 
 factory in them. We see the influence of that fine- 
 spun web of criticism which in France has bound the 
 wing of genius to the earth, and which no one has 
 been hardy enough to burst asunder. Corneille, after 
 a severe lesson, submitted to it, though with an ill 
 grace. The flexible character of Racine moved under 
 it with more freedom, but he was of too timid a tem- 
 per to attempt to contravene established prejudices. 
 His reply to one who censured him for making Hip- 
 poly te in love, in his Phedre, is well known : " What 
 
 * Semiramis, acte iii. s. 6. 
 
5 o8 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 would our petits-maitres have said had I omitted it?" 
 Voltaire, although possessed of a more enterprising 
 and revolutionary spirit, left the essential principles 
 of the drama as he found them. His multifarious 
 criticisms exhibit a perpetual paradox. His general 
 principles are ever at variance with their particular 
 application. No one lauds more highly the scientific 
 system of his countrymen ; witness his numerous dra- 
 matic prefaces, dedications, and articles in the ency- 
 clopaedia. He even refines upon it with hypercritical 
 acumen, as in his commentaries on Corneille. But 
 when he feels its tyrannical pressure on himself, he is 
 sure to wince ; see, for example, his lamentable protest 
 in his Preface to Brutus. 
 
 Alfieri acknowledged the paramount authority of the 
 ancients equally with the French dramatic writers. He 
 has but thrice violated the unity of place, and very 
 rarely that of time ; but, with all his deference for an- 
 tiquity, the Italian poet has raised himself far above 
 the narrow code of French criticism. He has relieved 
 tragedy from that eternal chime of love-sick damsels, 
 so indispensable in a French piece that, as Voltaire 
 informs us, out of four hundred which had appeared 
 before his time, there were not more than twelve which 
 did not turn upon love. He substituted in its place a 
 more pure and exalted sentiment. It will be difficult 
 to find, even in Racine, such beautiful personifications 
 of female loveliness as his Electra and Micol, to name 
 no others. He has, moreover, dispensed with the con- 
 fidantes, those insipid shadows that so invariably walk 
 the round of the French stage. Instead of insulated 
 axioms and long rhetorical pleadings, he has intro- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5°9 
 
 duced a brisk, moving dialogue ; and instead of the 
 ceremonious breeding, the perruque and chafieau borde, 
 of Louis the Fourteenth's court, his personages, to bor- 
 row an allusion from a sister art, are sculptured with 
 the bold natural freedom which distinguishes the school 
 of Michael Angelo. 
 
 It is true that they are apt to show too much of the 
 same fierce and sarcastic temper, too much of a family 
 likeness with himself and with one another ; that he 
 sometimes mistakes passion for poetry; that he has left 
 this last too naked of imagery and rhetorical ornament; 
 that he is sometimes stilted when he would be digni- 
 fied ; and that his affected energy is too often carried 
 into mere muscular contortions. His system has, in- 
 deed, the appearance of an aspiration after some ideal 
 standard of excellence which he could not wholly at- 
 tain. It is sufficient proof of his power, however, that 
 he succeeded in establishing it, in direct opposition to 
 the ancient taste of his countrymen, to their love of 
 poetic imagery, of verbal melody, and voluptuousness 
 of sentiment. It is the triumph of genius over the 
 prejudices, and even the constitutional feelings, of a 
 nation. 
 
 We have dwelt thus long on Alfieri, because, like 
 Dante, he seems himself to constitute a separate de- 
 partment in Italian literature. It is singular that the 
 two poets who present the earliest and the latest models 
 of surpassing excellence in this literature should bear 
 so few of its usual characteristics. Alfieri' s example 
 has effected a decided revolution in the theatrical taste 
 of his countrymen. It has called forth the efforts of 
 some of their most gifted minds. Monti, perhaps the 
 
 43* 
 
5i° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 most eminent of this school, surpasses him in the 
 graces of an easy and brilliant elocution, but falls far 
 below him in energy of conception and character. 
 The stoical system of Alfieri would seem, indeed, bet- 
 ter adapted to his own peculiar temperament than to 
 that of his nation ; and the successful experiment of 
 Manzoni in discarding the unities, and otherwise re- 
 laxing the unnatural rigidity of this system, would 
 appear to be much better suited to the popular taste 
 as well as talent. 
 
 Our limits, necessarily far too scanty for our subject, 
 will not allow us to go into the Opera and the Pastoral 
 Drama, two beautiful divisions in this department of 
 Italian letters. It is singular that the former, notwith- 
 standing the natural sensibility of the Italians to har- 
 mony, and the melody of their language, which almost 
 sets itself to music as it is spoken, should have been so 
 late in coming to its perfection under Metastasio. No- 
 thing can be more unfair than to judge of this author, 
 or, indeed, of any composer of operas, by the effect 
 produced on us in the closet. Their pieces are in- 
 tended to be exhibited, not read. The sentimental 
 a?iettes of the heroes, the romantic bombast of the 
 heroines, the racks, ropes, poisoned daggers, and other 
 fee-faw-fum of a nursery tale, so plentifully besprinkled 
 over them, have certainly, in the closet, a very fade 
 and ridiculous aspect ; but an opera should be consid- 
 ered as an appeal to the senses by means of the illu- 
 sions of music, dancing, and decorations. The poetry, 
 wit, sentiment, intrigue, are mere accessories, and of 
 value only as they may serve to promote this illusion. 
 Hence the necessity of love, — 'love, the vivifying prin- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5 11 
 
 ciple of the opera, the only passion in perfect accord- 
 ance with its voluptuous movements. Hence the pro- 
 priety of exhibiting character in exaggerated color of 
 light and shadow, the chiar -oscuro of poetry, as the 
 imagination is most forcibly affected by powerful con- 
 trast. Yet this has been often condemned in Metasta- 
 sio. On the above principle, too, the seasonable dis- 
 closures, miraculous escapes, and all the other magical 
 apparatus before alluded to, may be defended. The 
 mind of the spectator, highly stimulated through the 
 medium of the senses, requires a corresponding ex- 
 travagance, if we may so say, in the creations of the 
 poet. In this state, a veracious copy of nature would 
 fall flat and powerless ; to reach the heart, it must be 
 raised into gigantic proportions, and adorned with a 
 brighter flush of coloring than is to be found in real 
 life. As a work of art, then, but not as a purely in- 
 tellectual exhibition, we may criticise the opera, and, 
 in this view of it, the peculiarities so often condemned 
 in the artist may be, perhaps, sufficiently justified. 
 
 The Pastoral Drama, that attempt to shadow forth 
 the beautiful absurdities of a golden age, claims to be 
 invented by the Italians. It was carried to its ultimate 
 perfection in two of its earliest specimens, the poems 
 of Tasso and Guarini. Both these writers have adorned 
 their subject with the highest charms of versification 
 and imagery. With Tasso all this seems to proceed 
 spontaneously from the heart, while Guarini' s Pastor 
 Fido, on the other hand, has the appearance of being 
 elaborated with the nicest preparation. It may, in 
 truth, be regarded as the solitary monument of his 
 genius, and as such he seems to have been desirous to 
 
5" 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 concentrate within it every possible variety of excel- 
 lence. During his whole life he was employed in 
 retouching and enriching it with new beauties. This 
 great variety and finish of details somewhat impair its 
 unity, and give it too much the appearance of a cu- 
 rious collection of specimens. Yet there are those, 
 and very competent critics too, who prefer the splendid 
 patchwork of Guarini to the sweet, unsolicited beauties 
 of his rival. Dr. Johnson has condemned both the 
 Aminta and Pastor Fido as "trifles easily imitated and 
 unworthy of imitation." The Italians have not found 
 them so. Out of some hundred specimens cited by 
 Serassi, only three or four are deemed by him worthy 
 of notice. An English critic should have shown more 
 charity for a kind of composition that has given rise 
 to some of the most exquisite creations of Fletcher 
 and Milton. 
 
 We have now reviewed the most important branches 
 of the ornamental literature of the Italians. We omit 
 some others, less conspicuous, or not essentially differ- 
 ing in their characteristics from similar departments in 
 the literatures of other European nations. An excep- 
 tion may perhaps be made in favor of satirical writing, 
 which, with the Italians, assumes a peculiar form, and 
 one quite indicative of the national genius. Satire, in 
 one shape or another, has been a great favorite with 
 them, from Ariosto, or, indeed, we may say Dante, to 
 the present time. It is, for the most part, of a light, 
 vivacious character, rather playful than pointed. Their 
 critics, with their usual precision, have subdivided it 
 into a great variety of classes, among which the Ber- 
 nesque is the most original. This epithet, derived not, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 513 
 
 as some have supposed, from the rifacimento but from 
 the Capitoli of Berni, designates a style of writing 
 compounded of the beautiful and the burlesque, of 
 which it is nearly impossible to convey an adequate 
 notion, either by translation or description, in a for- 
 eign language. Even so mature a scholar as Mr. Ros- 
 coe has failed to do this, when, in one of his histories, 
 he compares this manner to that of Peter Pindar, and 
 in the other to that of Sterne. But the Italian has 
 neither the coarse diction of the former nor the senti- 
 ment of the latter. It is generally occupied with some 
 frivolous topic, to which it ascribes the most extrava- 
 gant properties, descanting on it through whole pages 
 of innocent irony, and clothing the most vulgar and 
 oftentimes obscene ideas in the polished phrase or 
 idiomatic graces of expression that never fail to disarm 
 an Italian critic. A foreigner, however, not so sensible 
 to the seductions of style, will scarcely see in it any- 
 thing more than a puerile debauch of fancy. 
 
 Historians are fond of distributing the literature of 
 Italy into masses, chronologically arranged in succes- 
 sive centuries. The successive revolutions in this lit- 
 erature justify the division to a degree unknown in that 
 of any other country, and a brief illustration of it may 
 throw some additional light on our subject. 
 
 Thus the fourteenth century, the age of the trecentisti, 
 as it is called, the age of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccac- 
 cio, is the period of high and original invention. These 
 three great writers, who are alone capable of attracting 
 our attention at this distance of time, were citizens of a 
 free state, and were early formed to the contemplation 
 and practice of public virtue. Hence their works mani- 
 w* 
 
5i4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 fest an independence and a generous self-confidence 
 that we seek in vain in the productions of a later pe- 
 riod, forced in the artificial atmosphere of a court. 
 Their writings are marked, moreover, by a depth of 
 reflection not to be discerned in the poets of a similar 
 period of antiquity, the pioneers of the civilization of 
 their times. The human mind was then in its infancy; 
 but in the fourteenth century it seemed to awake from 
 the slumber of ages, with powers newly invigorated, 
 and a memory stored with the accumulated wisdom of 
 the past. Compare, for example, the Divine Comedy 
 with the poems of Homer and Hesiod, and observe 
 how much superior to these latter writers is the Italian 
 in moral and intellectual science, as well as in those 
 higher speculations which relate to our ultimate des- 
 tiny.* The rhetorical beauties of the great works 
 of the fourteenth century have equally contributed to 
 their permanent popularity and influence. While the 
 early productions of other countries, the poems of the 
 Niebelungen, of the Cid, of the Norman trouveurs, and 
 those of Chaucer, even, have passed, in consequence of 
 their colloquial barbarisms, into a certain degree of 
 oblivion, the writings of the trecentisti are still revered 
 as the models of purity and elegance, to be forever 
 imitated, though never equalled. 
 
 The following age exhibits the reverse of all this. 
 It was as remarkable for the general diffusion of learn- 
 
 * Hesiod, it is true, has digested a compact body of ethics, won- 
 derfully mature for the age in which he wrote ; but the best of it is 
 disfigured with those childish superstitions which betray the twilight 
 of civilization. See, in particular, the concluding portion of his 
 Works and Davs. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 515 
 
 ing as the preceding had been for the concentration 
 of talent. The Italian, which had been so successfully 
 cultivated, came to be universally neglected for the 
 ancient languages. It would seem as if the soil, ex- 
 hausted by too abundant harvests, must lie fallow an- 
 other century before it could be capable of reproduction. 
 The scholars of that day disdained any other than the 
 Latin tongue for the medium of their publications, or 
 even of their private epistolary correspondence. They 
 thought, with Waller, that 
 
 " Those who lasting marble seek 
 Must carve in. Latin or in Greek." 
 
 But the marble has crumbled into dust, while the nat- 
 ural beauties of their predecessors are still green in the 
 memory of their countrymen. To make use of a simile 
 which Dr. Young applied to Ben Jonson, they "pulled 
 down, like Samson, the temple of antiquity on their 
 shoulders, and buried themselves under its ruins." 
 
 But let us not err by despising these men as a race 
 of unprofitable pedants. They lived on the theatre of 
 ancient art, in an age when new discoveries were daily 
 making of the long-lost monuments of intellectual and 
 material beauty, and it is no wonder that, dazzled with 
 the contemplation of these objects, they should have 
 been blind to the modest merits of their contempora- 
 ries. We should be grateful to men whose indefati- 
 gable labors preserved for us the perishable remains of 
 classic literature, and who thus opened a free and fa- 
 miliar converse with the great minds of antiquity; and 
 we may justly feel some degree of reverence for the 
 enthusiasm of an age in which the scholar was willing 
 
5i6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 to exchange his learned leisure for painful and perilous 
 pilgrimages, when the merchant was content to barter 
 his rich freights for a few mouldering, worm-eaten 
 folios, and when the present of a single manuscript was 
 deemed of sufficient value to heal the dissensions of 
 two rival states. Such was the fifteenth century in 
 Italy; and Tiraboschi, warming as he approaches it, 
 in his preface to the sixth volume of his history, has 
 accordingly invested it with more than his usual blaze 
 of panegyric. 
 
 The genius of the Italians, however, was sorely fet- 
 tered by their adoption of an ancient idiom, and, like 
 Tasso's Erminia when her delicate form was enclosed 
 in the iron mail of the warrior, lost its elasticity and 
 grace. But at the close of the century the Italian 
 muse was destined to regain her natural freedom in the 
 court of Lorenzo de' Medici. His own compositions, 
 especially, are distinguished by a romantic sweetness, 
 and his light popular pieces, — Carnascialeschi, Conta- 
 dineschi, — so abundantly imitated since, have a buoy- 
 ant, exhilarating air, wholly unlike the pedantic tone 
 of his age. Under these new auspices, however, the 
 Italian received a very different complexion from that 
 which had been imparted to it by the hand of Dante. 
 
 The sixteenth century is the healthful, the Augustan 
 age of Italian letters. The conflicting principles of 
 an ancient and a modern school are, however, to be 
 traced throughout almost the whole course of it. A 
 curious passage from Varchi, who flourished about the 
 middle of this century, informs us that when he was at 
 school it was the custom of the instructors to interdict 
 to their pupils the study of any vernacular writer, even 
 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5*7 
 
 Dante and Petrarch.* Hence the Latin came to be 
 cultivated almost equally with the Italian, and both, 
 singularly enough, attained simultaneously their full 
 development. 
 
 There are few phrases more inaccurately applied 
 than that of the Age of Leo X., to whose brief pon- 
 tificate we are accustomed to refer most of the magnifi- 
 cent creations of genius scattered over the sixteenth 
 century, although very few, even of those produced in 
 his own reign, can be imputed to his influence. The 
 nature of this influence in regard to Italian letters 
 may even admit of question. His early taste led him 
 to give an almost exclusive attention to the ancient 
 classics. The great poets of that century, Ariosto, 
 Sanazzaro, the Tassos, Rucellai, Guarini, and the rest, 
 produced their immortal works far from Leo's court. 
 Even Bembo, the oracle of his day, retired in disgust 
 from his patron, and composed his principal writings 
 in his retreat. Ariosto, his ancient friend, he coldly 
 neglected, f while he pensioned the infamous Aretin. 
 He surrounded his table with buffoon literati and para- 
 sitical poets, who amused him with feats of improvisa- 
 tion, gluttony, and intemperance, some of whom, after 
 expending on them his convivial wit, he turned over 
 to public derision, and most of whom, debauched in 
 morals and constitution, were abandoned, under his 
 austere successor, to infamy and death. He collected 
 about him such court-flies as Berni and Molza; but, as 
 
 * Ercolano, Ques. VIII. 
 
 f Roscoe attempts to explain away the conduct of Leo ; but the 
 satires of the poet furnish a bitter commentary upon it, not to be 
 misunderstood. 
 
 44 
 
5i8 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 if the papal atmosphere were fatal to high continued 
 effort, even Berni, like Trissino and Rucellai, could 
 find no leisure for his more elaborate performance till 
 after his patron's death. He magnificently recom- 
 pensed his musical retainers, making one an arch- 
 bishop, another an archdeacon ; but what did he do 
 for his countryman Machiavelli, the philosopher of his 
 age?* He hunted, and hawked, and caroused; every 
 thing was a jest ; and while the nations of Europe 
 stood aghast at the growing heresy of Luther, the 
 merry pontiff and his ministers found strange matter 
 of mirth in witnessing the representation of comedies 
 that exposed the impudent mummeries of priestcraft. 
 With such an example, and under such an influence, it 
 is no wonder that nothing better should have been 
 produced than burlesque satire, licentious farces, and 
 frivolous impromptus. Contrast all this with the ele- 
 gant recreations of the little court of Urbino, as de- 
 scribed in the Cortegiano ; or compare the whole 
 result on Italian letters of the so much vaunted pat- 
 ronage of this luxurious pontiff with the splendid 
 achievements of the petty state of Este alone during 
 the first half of this century, and it will appear that 
 there are few misnomers which convey grosser mis- 
 conceptions than that of the age of Leo X. 
 
 The seventeenth century {seicento is one of hu- 
 miliation in the literary annals of Italy; one in which 
 the Muse, like some dilapidated beauty, endeavored to 
 
 * Machiavelli, after having suffered torture on account of a sus- 
 pected conspiracy against the Medici, in which his participation was 
 never proved, was allowed to linger out his days in poverty and 
 disgrace. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5 J 9 
 
 supply the loss of natural charms by all the aids of 
 coquetry and meretricious ornament. It is the prodi- 
 gal use of "these false brilliants," as Boileau terms 
 them, in some of their best writers, which has brought 
 among foreigners an undeserved discredit on the whole 
 body of Italian letters, and which has made the con- 
 demned age of the seicentisti a by-word of reproach 
 even with their own countrymen. The principles of 
 a corrupt taste are, however, to be discerned at an 
 earlier period, in the writings of Tasso especially, and 
 still more of Guarini ; but it was reserved for Marin i 
 to reduce them into a system, and by his popularity 
 and foreign residence to diffuse the infection among 
 the other nations of Europe. To this source, there- 
 fore, most of these nations have agreed to refer the 
 impurities which at one time or another have disfig- 
 ured their literatures. Thus the Spaniard Lampillas 
 has mustered an array of seven volumes to prove the 
 charge of original corruption on the Italians, though 
 Marini openly affected to have formed himself upon a 
 Spanish model.* In like manner, La Harpe imputes 
 to them the sins of Jodelle and the contemporary wits, 
 though these last preceded by some years the literary 
 existence of Marini ; and the vices of the English 
 metaphysical school have been expressly referred by 
 Dr. Johnson to Marini and his followers. 
 
 A nearer inspection, however, might justify the 
 opinion that these various affectations bear too much 
 of the physiognomy of the respective nations in which 
 they are found, and are capable of being traced to too 
 high a source in each, to be thus exclusively imputed 
 
 * Obras sueltas de Lope de Vega, torn. xxi. p. 17. 
 
520 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 to the Italians. Thus the elements of the cultisi7io of 
 the Spaniards, that compound of flat pedantry and Ori- 
 ental hyperbole, so different from the fine concetti of 
 the Italian, are to be traced through some of their most 
 eminent writers up to the fugitive pieces of the fifteenth 
 century, as collected in their Cancioneros ; and, in 
 like manner, the elements of the metaphysical jargon 
 of Cowley, whose intellectual combinations and far- 
 fetched analogies show too painful a research after wit 
 for the Italian taste, maybe traced in England through 
 Donne and Ben Jonson, to say nothing of the "un- 
 paralleled John Lillie," up to the veteran versifiers of 
 the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, also, 
 some features of the style precieux of the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet, so often lashed by Boileau and laughed 
 at by Moliere, may be imputed to the malign influence 
 of the constellation of pedants celebrated in France 
 under the title of Pleiades, in the sixteenth century. 
 
 The Greek is the only literature which from the 
 first seems to have maintained a sound and healthful 
 state. In every other, the barbaric love of ornament, 
 so discernible even in the best of the earlier writers, 
 has been chastised only by long and assiduous criti- 
 cism ; but the principle of corruption still remains, 
 and the season of perfect ripeness seems to be only 
 that of the commencement of decay. Thus it was in 
 Italy in the perverted age of the seicentisti, an age 
 yet warm with the productions of an Ariosto and a 
 Tasso. 
 
 The literature of the Italians assumed in the last 
 century a new and highly improved aspect. With 
 less than its usual brilliancy of imagination, it dis- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 521 
 
 played an intensity, and, under the circumstances in 
 which it has been produced, we may add, intrepidity 
 of thought quite worthy of the great spirits of the four- 
 teenth century, and a freedom and nature in its descrip- 
 tions altogether opposed to the heartless affectations 
 of the seventeenth. The prejudicial influence of their 
 neighbors threatened at one time, indeed, to precipi- 
 tate the language into a French i?iacheronico ; but a 
 counter-current, equally exclusive, in favor of the tre- 
 centisti, contributed to check the innovation and to 
 carry them back to the ancient models of purity and 
 vigor. The most eminent writers of this period seem 
 to have formed themselves on Dante, in particular, as 
 studiously as those of the preceding age affected the 
 more effeminate graces of Petrarch. Among these, 
 Monti, who, in the language of his master, may be 
 truly said to have inherited from him " Lo bello stile, 
 che l'ha fatto onore," is thought most nearly to re- 
 semble Dante in the literary execution of his verses ; 
 while Alfieri, Parini, and Foscolo approach him still 
 nearer in the rugged virtue and independence of their 
 sentiments. There seems to be a didactic import in 
 much of the poetry of this age, too, and, in its descrip- 
 tions of external nature, a sober, contemplative vein, 
 that may remind us of writers in our own language. 
 Indeed, an English influence is clearly discernible in 
 some of the most eminent poets of this period, who 
 have either visited Great Britain in person or made 
 themselves familiar with its language.* The same in- 
 fluence may be, perhaps, recognized in the moral com- 
 
 * Among these may be mentioned Monti, Pindemonte, Cesarotti, 
 Mazza, Alfieri, Pignotti, and Foscolo. 
 
 44* 
 
522 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 plexion of many of their compositions, the most elegant 
 specimen of which is probably Parini's satire, which 
 disguises the sarcasm of Cowper in the rich, embroid- 
 ered verse which belongs to the Italians. 
 
 In looking back on the various branches of literature 
 which we have been discussing, we are struck with the 
 almost exclusive preference given to poetry over prose, 
 with the great variety of beautiful forms which the 
 former exhibits, with its finished versification, its inex- 
 haustible inventions, and a wit that never tires. But 
 in all this admirable mechanism we too often feel the 
 want of an informing soul, of a nobler, or, at least, 
 some more practical object than mere amusement. 
 Their writers too rarely seem to feel 
 
 " Divinity within them, breeding wings 
 Wherewith to spurn the earth." 
 
 They have gone beyond every other people in painting 
 the intoxication of voluptuous passion ; but how rarely 
 have they exhibited it in its purer and more ethereal 
 form ! How rarely have they built up their dramatic 
 or epic fables on national or patriotic recollections ! 
 Even satire, disarmed of its moral sting, becomes in 
 their hands a barren, though perhaps a brilliant, jest, 
 — the harmless electricity of a summer sky. 
 
 The peculiar inventions of a people best show their 
 peculiar genius. The romantic epic has assumed with 
 the Italians a perfectly original form, in which, stripped 
 of the fond illusions of chivalry, it has descended, 
 through all the gradations of mirth, from well-bred 
 raillery to broad and bald buffoonery. In the same 
 merry vein their various inventions in the burlesque 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 523 
 
 style have been conceived. Whole cantos of these 
 puerilities have been strung together with a patience 
 altogether unrivalled except by that of their indefati- 
 gable commentators.* Even the most austere intellects 
 of the nation, a Machiavelli and a Galileo, for example, 
 have not disdained to revel in this frivolous debauch 
 of fancy, and may remind one of Michael Angelo, at 
 the instance of Pietro de' Medici, employing his 
 transcendent talents in sculpturing a perishable statue 
 of snow ! 
 
 The general scope of our vernacular literature, as 
 contrasted with that of the Italian, will set the pecu- 
 liarities of the latter in a still stronger light. In the 
 English, the drama and the novel, which may be con- 
 sidered as its staples, aiming at more than a vulgar in- 
 terest, have always been made the theatre of a scientific 
 dissection of character. Instead of the romping mer- 
 riment of the novelle, it is furnished with those period- 
 ical essays which, in the form of apologue, of serious 
 disquisition or criticism, convey to us lessons of prac- 
 tical wisdom. Its pictures of external nature have 
 been deepened by a sober contemplation not familiar 
 to the mercurial fancy of the Italians. Its biting sa- 
 tire, from Pierce Plowman's Visions to the Baviad and 
 Maeviad of our day, instead of breaking into vapid 
 jests, has been sharpened against the follies or vices 
 of the age, and the body of its poetry, in general, 
 from the days of "moralle Gower" to those of Cowper 
 and Wordsworth, breathes a spirit of piety and unsul- 
 lied virtue. Even Spenser deemed it necessary to 
 
 * The annotations upon Lippi's burlesque poem of the Malmantile 
 Racquistata are inferior in bulk to those only on the Divine Comedy. 
 
5 2 4 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 shroud the eccentricities of his Italian imagination in 
 sober allegory; and Milton, while he adopted in his 
 Comus the beautiful and somewhat luxurious form of 
 the Aminta and Pastor Fido, animated it with the most 
 devotional sentiments. 
 
 The political situation of Italy may afford a key to 
 some of the peculiarities of her literature. Oppressed 
 by foreign or domestic tyrants for more than five cen- 
 turies, she has been condemned, in the indignant 
 language of her poet, 
 
 " Per servir sempre, o vincitrice o vinta." 
 
 Her citizens, excluded from the higher walks of public 
 action, have too often resigned themselves to corrupt 
 and effeminate pleasure, and her writers, inhibited from 
 the free discussion of important topics, have too' fre- 
 quently contented themselves with an impotent play 
 of fancy. The histories of Machiavelli and of Guic- 
 ciardini were not permitted to be published entire 
 until the conclusion of the last century. The writings 
 of Alemanni, from some umbrage given to the Medici, 
 were burned by the hands of the common hangman. 
 Marchetti's elegant version of Lucretius was long pro- 
 hibited on the ground of its epicurean philosophy, 
 and the learned labors of Giannone were recompensed 
 with exile. Under such a government, it is wonderful 
 that so many rather than so few writers should have 
 been found with intrepidity sufficient to raise the voice 
 of unwelcome truth. It is not to be wondered at that 
 they should have produced so few models of civil or 
 sacred eloquence, the fruit of a happier and more en- 
 lightened system ; that they should have been too ex- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5 2 5 
 
 clusively devoted to mere beauties of form, have been 
 more solicitous about style than thought, have studied 
 rather to amuse than to instruct. Hence the super- 
 abundance of their philological treatises and mere 
 verbal criticisms, of their tomes of commentaries with 
 which they have illustrated or obscured their most in- 
 significant poets, where a verse furnishes matter for a 
 lecture, and a canzone becomes the text for a volume. 
 This is no exaggeration.* Hence, too, the frequency 
 and ferocity of their literary quarrels, into which the 
 Italians, excluded too often from weightier disquisi- 
 tion, enter with an enthusiasm which in other nations 
 can be roused only by the dearest interests of humanity. 
 The comparative merit of some obscure classic, the 
 orthography of some obsolete term, a simple sonnet, 
 even, has been sufficient to throw the whole community 
 into a ferment, in which the parties have not always 
 confined themselves to a war of words. 
 
 The influence of academies on Italian literature is 
 somewhat doubtful. They have probably contributed 
 to nourish that epicurean sensibility to mere verbal 
 elegance so conspicuous in the nation. The great va- 
 riety of these institutions scattered over every remote 
 district of the country, the whimsicality of their titles, 
 and still more of those of their members, have an air 
 sufficiently ridiculous."}" Some of them have been de- 
 
 *" Benedetto of Ravenna wrote ten lectures on the fourth sonnet 
 of Petrarch ; Pico della Mirandola devoted three whole books to the 
 illustration of a canzone of his friend Benivieni ; and three Arcadians 
 published a volume in defence of the Tre Sorelle of Petrarch ! It 
 would be easy to multiply similar examples of critical prodigality. 
 
 "j* Take at hazard some of the most familiar, the "Ardent," the 
 " Frozen," the " Wet," the " Dry," the " Stupid," the " Lazy." The 
 
52 6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 voted to the investigation of science. But a license 
 refused to individuals will hardly be conceded to pub- 
 lic associations; and the persecution of some of the 
 most eminent has proved an effectual warning to con- 
 fine their speculations within the inoffensive sphere 
 of literary criticism. Hence the exuberance of prose 
 and lezioni, endless dissertations on barren rhetorical 
 topics, and those vapid attempts at academic wit, 
 which should never have transcended the bounds of 
 the Lyceum. 
 
 It is not in such institutions that the great intellec- 
 tual efforts of a nation are displayed. All that any 
 academy can propose to itself is to keep alive the 
 flame which genius has kindled ; and in more than 
 one instance they have gone near to smother it. The 
 French Academy, as is well known, opened its career 
 with its celebrated attack upon Corneille ; and the 
 earliest attempt of the Cruscan was upon Tasso's Jeru- 
 salem, which it compelled its author to remodel, or, in 
 other words, to reduce, by the extraction of its essen- 
 tial spirit, into a flat and insipid decoction. Denina 
 has sarcastically intimated that the era of the founda- 
 tion of this latter academy corresponds exactly with 
 that of the commencement of the decline of good taste. 
 More liberal critics concede, however, that this body 
 lias done much to preserve the integrity of the tongue, 
 and that a pure spirit of criticism was kept alive within 
 
 Cruscan takes its name from Crusca (bran) ; and its members adopted 
 the corresponding epithets of "brown bread," "white bread," "the 
 kneaded," etc. Some of the Italians, as Lasca, La Bindo, for in- 
 stance, are better known by their frivolous academic names than by 
 their own. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5 2 7 
 
 its bosom when it had become extinct in almost every 
 other part of Italy.* Their philological labors have, 
 in truth, been highly valuable, though perhaps not so 
 completely successful as those of the French academi- 
 cians. We do not allude to any capricious principle 
 on which their vocabulary may have been constructed, 
 — an affair of their own critics, — but to the fact that, 
 after all, they have not been able to settle the language 
 with the same precision and uniformity with which it 
 has been done in France, from the want of some great 
 metropolis, like Paris, whose authority would be re- 
 ceived as paramount throughout the country. No such 
 universal deference has been paid to the Cruscan acad- 
 emy; and the Italian language, far from being accu- 
 rately determined, is even too loose and inexact for 
 the common purposes of business. Perhaps it is for 
 this very reason better adapted to the ideal purposes 
 of poetry. 
 
 The exquisite mechanism of the Italian tongue, made 
 up of the very elements of music, and picturesque in 
 its formation beyond that of any other living language, 
 is undoubtedly a cause of the exaggerated consequence 
 imputed to style by the writers of the nation. The 
 author of the Dialogue on Orators points out, as one 
 of the symptoms of depraved eloquence in Rome, that 
 "voluptuous artificial harmony of cadence, which is 
 better suited to the purposes of the musician or the 
 dancer than of the orator." The same vice has in- 
 fected Italian prose from its earliest models, from 
 Boccaccio and Bembo down to the most ordinary 
 
 * See, in particular, the treatise of Parini, himself a Lombard, 
 De' Principi delle Belle Lettere, part ii. cap. v. 
 
52 8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 book-wright of the present day, who hopes to disguise 
 his poverty of thought under his melodious redun- 
 dancy of diction. Hence it is that their numerous 
 Letters, Dialogues, and their specimens of written elo- 
 quence are too often defective both in natural force and 
 feeling. Even in those graver productions which de- 
 rive almost their sole value from their facts, they are 
 apt to be far more solicitous about style and ingenious 
 turns of thought, as one of their own critics has ad- 
 mitted, than either utility or sound philosophy.* 
 
 A principal cause, after all, of the various pecu- 
 liarities of Italian literature, of which we have been 
 speaking, is to be traced to that fine perception of the 
 beautiful, so inherent in every order of the nation, 
 whether it proceed from a happier physical organiza- 
 tion, or from an early familiarity with those models of 
 ideal beauty by which they are everywhere surrounded. 
 Whoever has visited Italy must have been struck with 
 a sensibility to elegant pleasure, and a refinement of 
 taste, in the very lowest classes, that in other countries 
 belong only to the more cultivated. This is to be dis- 
 cerned in the most trifling particulars; in their various 
 costume, whose picturesque arrangement seems to have 
 been studied from the models of ancient statuary ; in 
 the flowers and other tasteful ornaments with which, 
 on _/?/^-days, they decorate their chapels and public 
 temples ; in the eagerness with which the peasant and 
 the artisan, after their daily toil, resort to the theatre, 
 the opera, or similar intellectual amusements, instead 
 of the bear-baitings, bull-fights, and drunken orgies so 
 familiar to the populace of other countries ; and in 
 
 * Bettinelli, Risorgimento d'ltalia, Introd., p. 14. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 5 2 9 
 
 the quiet rapture with which they listen for hours, in 
 the public squares, to the strains of an improvisatore 
 or the recitations of a story-teller, without any other 
 refreshment than a glass of water. Even the art of 
 improvisation, carried to such perfection by the Ital- 
 ians, is far less imputable to the facilities of their verse 
 than to the poetical genius of the people ; an evidence 
 of which is the abundance of i?nprovisatori in Latin in 
 the sixteenth century, when that language came to be 
 widely cultivated. 
 
 It is time, however, to conclude our remarks, which 
 have already encroached too liberally on the patience 
 of our readers. Notwithstanding our sincere admira- 
 tion, as generally expressed, for the beautiful literature 
 of Italy, we fear that some of our reflections may be 
 unpalatable to a people who shrink with sensitive deli- 
 cacy from the rude touch of foreign criticism. The 
 most liberal opinions of a foreigner, it is true, coming 
 through so different a medium of prejudice and taste, 
 must always present a somewhat distorted aspect to the 
 eye of a native. On those finer shades of expression 
 which constitute, indeed, much of the value of poetry, 
 none but a native can pronounce with accuracy; but 
 on its intellectual and moral character a foreign critic 
 is better qualified to decide. He may be more perspi- 
 cacious, even, than a native, in detecting those obli- 
 quities from a correct standard of taste, to which the 
 latter has been reconciled by prejudice and long ex- 
 ample, or which he may have learned to reverence as 
 beauties. 
 
 There must be so many exceptions, too, to the 
 sweeping range of any general criticism, that it will 
 x 45 
 
53 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 always carry with it a certain air of injustice. Thus, 
 while we object to the Italians the diluted, redundant 
 style of their compositions, may they not refer us to 
 their versions of Tacitus and Perseus, the most con- 
 densed writers in the most condensed language in the 
 world, in a form equally compact with that of the 
 originals? May they not object to us Dante and 
 Alfieri, scarcely capable of translation into any modern 
 tongue, in the same compass, without a violence to 
 idiom? And may they not cite the same hardy models 
 in refutation of an unqualified charge of effeminacy? 
 Where shall we find examples of purer and more ex- 
 alted sentiment than in the writings of Petrarch and 
 Tasso ? Where of a more chastised composition than 
 in Casa or.Caro? And where more pertinent examples 
 of a didactic aim than in their numerous poetical trea- 
 tises on husbandry, manufactures, and other useful arts, 
 which in other countries form the topics of bulky dis- 
 quisitions in prose ? This is all just. But such ex- 
 ceptions, however imposing, in no way contravene the 
 general truth of our positions, founded on the preva- 
 lent tone and characteristics of Italian literature. 
 
 Let us not, however, appear insensible to the merits 
 of a literature pre-eminent above all others for activity 
 of fancy and beautiful variety of form, or to those of 
 a country so fruitful in interesting recollections to the 
 scholar and the artist ; in which the human mind has 
 displayed" its highest energies untired through the 
 longest series of ages ; on which the light of science 
 shed its parting ray, and where it first broke again 
 upon the nations; whose history is the link that con- 
 nects the past with the present, the ancient with the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 531 
 
 modern, and whose enterprising genius enlarged the 
 boundaries of the Old World by the discovery of a 
 New; whose scholars opened to mankind the intellectual 
 treasures of antiquity; whose schools first expounded 
 those principles of law which have become the basis of 
 jurisprudence in most of the civilized nations of Eu- 
 rope; whose cities gave the earliest example of free in- 
 stitutions, and, when the vision of liberty had passed 
 away, maintained their empire over the mind by those 
 admirable productions of art that revive the bright 
 period of Grecian glory; and who, even now that her 
 palaces are made desolate and her vineyards trodden 
 down under the foot of the stranger, retains within her 
 bosom all the fire of ancient genius. It would show a 
 strange insensibility indeed did we not sympathize in 
 the fortunes of a nation that has manifested, in such 
 a variety of ways, the highest intellectual power; of 
 which we may exclaim, in the language which a modern 
 poet has applied to one of the most beautiful of her 
 
 cities, 
 
 " O Decus, O Lux 
 Ausoniae, per quam libera turba sumus, 
 Per quam Barbaries nobis non imperat, et Sol 
 Exoriens nostro clarius orbe nitet!" 
 
SCOTTISH SONG.* 
 i 
 
 (July, 1826.) 
 
 It is remarkable that poetry, which is esteemed so 
 much more difficult than prose among cultivated 
 people, should universally have been the form which 
 man, in the primitive stages of society, has adopted 
 for the easier development of his ideas. It may be 
 that the infancy of nations, like that of individuals, is 
 more taken up with imagination and sentiment than 
 with reasoning, and is thus instinctively led to verse, 
 as best suited, by its sweetness and harmony, to the 
 expression of passionate thought. It may be, too, that 
 the refinements of modern criticism have multiplied 
 rather than relieved the difficulties of the art. The 
 ancient poet poured forth his carmina incondita with 
 no other ambition than that of accommodating" them 
 to the natural music of his own ear, careless of the 
 punctilious . observances which the fastidious taste of a 
 polished age so peremptorily demands. However this 
 may be, it is certain that poetry is more ancient than 
 prose in the records of every nation, and that this 
 poetry is found in its earliest stages almost always 
 allied with music. Thus the Rhapsodies of Homer 
 
 * " The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, with an Intro- 
 duction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and the Characters of the 
 Lyric Poets. By Allan Cunningham." In four volumes. London, 
 1825. i2ino. 
 (532) 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 533 
 
 were chanted to the sound of the lyre by the wander- 
 ing bards of Ionia; thus the citharoedi of the ancient 
 Romans, the Welsh harper, the Saxon gleeman, the 
 Scandinavian scald, and the Norman minstrel, soothed 
 the sensual appetites of an unlettered age by the more 
 exalted charms of poetry and music. This precocious 
 poetical spirit seems to have been more widely diffused 
 among the modern than the ancient European nations. 
 The astonishing perfection of the Homeric epics makes 
 it probable, it is true, that there must have been pre- 
 viously a diligent cultivation of the divine art among 
 the natives.* 
 
 The introduction of the bards Phemius and Derao- 
 docus into the Odyssey shows also that minstrelsy had 
 long been familiar to Homer's countrymen. This, 
 however, is but conjecture, as no undisputed fragments 
 of this early age have come down to us. The Romans, 
 we know, were not till a very late period moved by 
 the impetus sacer. One or two devotional chants and 
 a few ribald satires are all that claim to be antiquities 
 in their prosaic literature. 
 
 It was far otherwise with the nations of modern Eu- 
 rope. Whether the romantic institutions of the age, 
 or the warmth of classic literature not wholly extin- 
 guished, awakened this general enthusiasm, we know 
 not ; but no sooner had the thick darkness which for 
 centuries had settled over the nations begun to dissi- 
 pate, than the voice of song was heard in the remotest 
 corners of Europe, where heathen civilization had never 
 ventured, — from the frozen isles of Britain and Scandi- 
 
 *" " Nee dubitari debet quin fuerint ante Homerum poetas." Cic., 
 Brut., 18. 
 
 45* 
 
534 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 navia, no less than from the fertile shores of Italy and 
 Provence. We do not mean that the light of song was 
 totally extinguished, even at the darkest period. It 
 may be faintly discerned in the barbaric festivals of 
 Attila, himself the theme of more than one venerable 
 German romance ; and, at a later period, in the com- 
 paratively refined courts of Alfred and Charlemagne. 
 
 But it was not until the eleventh or twelfth century 
 that refinement of taste was far advanced among the 
 nations of Europe ; that, in spite of all the obstacles 
 of a rude, unconcocted dialect, the foundations and 
 the forms of their poetical literature were cast, which, 
 with some modification, they have retained ever since. 
 Of these, the ballads may be considered as coming 
 more immediately from- the body o£ the people. In 
 no country did they take such deep root as in Spain 
 and Scotland, and, although cultivated more or less by 
 all the Northern nations, yet nowhere else have they 
 had the good fortune, by their own intrinsic beauty, 
 and by the influence they have exerted over the popu- 
 lar character, to constitute so important a part of the 
 national literature. The causes of this are to be traced 
 to the political relations of these countries. Spain, 
 divided into a number of petty principalities, which 
 contended with each other for pre-eminence, was 
 obliged to carry on a far more desperate struggle for 
 existence, as well as religion, with its Saracen in- 
 vaders ; who, after advancing their victorious crescent 
 from the Arabian desert to the foot of the Pyrenees, 
 had established a solid empire over the fairest por- 
 tions of the Peninsula. Seven long centuries was the 
 ancient Spaniard reclaiming, inch by inch, this con- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 535 
 
 quered territory: thus a perpetual crusade was carried 
 on, and the fertile fields of Andalusia and Granada 
 became the mimic theatre of exploits similar to those 
 performed by the martial enthusiasts of Europe, on a 
 much greater scale, indeed, on the plains of Palestine. 
 The effect of all this was to infuse into their popular 
 compositions a sort of devotional heroism, which is to 
 be looked for in vain in any other. The existence of 
 the Cid so early as the eleventh century was a fortunate 
 event for Spanish poetry. The authenticated actions 
 of that chief are so nearly allied to the marvellous 
 that, like Charlemagne, he forms a convenient nu- 
 cleus for the manifold fictions in which successive 
 bards have enveloped him. The ballads relating to 
 this doughty hero have been collected into a sort of 
 patchwork epic, whose fabrication thus resembles that 
 imputed to those ancient poems which some modern 
 critics have determined to be but a tissue of rhapsodies 
 executed by different masters. But, without comparing 
 them with the epics of Homer in symmetry of design 
 or perfection of versification, we may reasonably claim 
 for them a moral elevation not inferior, and a tone of 
 courtesy and generous gallantry altogether unknown to 
 the heroes of the Iliad. 
 
 The most interesting of the Spanish ballads are those 
 relating to the Moors. This people, now so degraded 
 in every intellectual and moral aspect, were, as is well 
 known, in the ninth and tenth centuries the principal 
 depositaries of useful science and elegant art. This is 
 particularly true of the Spanish caliphate ; and more 
 than one Christian prelate is on record who, in a 
 superstitious age, performed a literary pilgrimage to 
 
53^ 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the schools of Cordova, and drank from these pro- 
 fane sources of wisdom. The peculiarities of Oriental 
 costume, their showy military exercises, their perilous 
 bull-feasts and cane-fights, their chivalric defiance and 
 rencounters with the Christian knights on the plains 
 before the assembled city, their brilliant revels, ro- 
 mantic wooings, and midnight serenades, afforded rich 
 themes for the muse ; above all, the capture and deso- 
 lation of Granada, that "city without peer," the 
 "pride of heathendom," on which the taste and 
 treasures of the Western caliphs had been lavished 
 for seven centuries, are detailed in a tone of melan- 
 choly grandeur, which comes over us like the voice of 
 an expiring" nation.* 
 
 One trait has been pointed out in these poems most 
 honorable to the Spanish character, and in which, in 
 later times, it has been lamentably deficient, that of 
 religious toleration : we find none of the fierce bigotry 
 which armed the iron hand of the Inquisition ; which 
 coolly condemned to exile or the stake a numerous 
 native population for an honest difference of religious 
 opinion, and desolated with fire and sword the most 
 flourishing of their Christian provinces. 
 
 The ancient Spaniard, on the contrary, influenced 
 
 * An ancient Arabian writer concludes a florid eulogium on the ar- 
 chitecture and local beauties of Granada in the fourteenth century, 
 with likening it, in Oriental fashion, to " a richly-wrought vase of 
 silver, filled with jacinths and emeralds." (Historia de los Arabes de 
 Espaha, torn. iii. p. 147.) Among the ballads relating to the Moorish 
 wars, two of the most beautiful are the " Lament over Alhama," in- 
 differently translated by Byron, and that beginning with " En la 
 ciudad de Granada," rendered by Lockhart with his usual freedom 
 and vivacity. Hita, i. 464, and Depping, 240. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 537 
 
 by a more enlightened policy, as well as by humanity, 
 contracted familiar intimacies, nay, even matrimonial 
 alliances, with his Mohammedan rivals, and the proud- 
 est of their nobles did not disdain, in an honest cause, 
 to fight under the banners of the Infidel. It would 
 be a curious study to trace the progress and the causes 
 of this pitiable revolution in national feeling. 
 
 The Spaniards have good reason to cherish their 
 ancient ballads, for nowhere is the high Castilian 
 character displayed to such advantage, — haughty, it 
 is true, jealous of insult, and without the tincture of 
 letters which throws a lustre over the polished court of 
 Charles and Philip, but also without the avarice, the 
 insatiable cruelty, and dismal superstition which deface 
 the bright page of their military renown.* The Cid 
 himself, whose authentic history may vindicate the 
 hyperbole of romance, was the beau ideal of chivalry. f 
 
 * Sufficient evidence of this may be found in works of imagination, 
 as well as the histories of the period. The plays of Lope de Vega, 
 for instance, are filled with all manner of perfidy and assassination, 
 which takes place as a matter of course, and without the least com- 
 punction. In the same spirit, the barbarous excesses of his country- 
 men in South America are detailed by Ercilla, in his historical epic, 
 La Araucana. The flimsy pretext of conscience, for which these 
 crimes are perpetrated, cannot veil their enormity from any but the 
 eyes of the offender. 
 
 f The veracity of the traditionary history of the Cid, indeed, his 
 existence, discussed and denied by Masdeu, in his Historia critica de 
 Espaha, has been satisfactorily established by the learned Miiiler ; 
 and the conclusions of the latter writer are recently confirmed by 
 Conde's posthumous publication of translated Arabian manuscripts 
 of great antiquity, where the Cid is repeatedly mentioned as the chief 
 known by the name of the Warrior, el Campeador : " the Cid whom 
 Alia curse;" "the tyrant Cid;" "the accursed Cid," etc. See His- 
 toria de los Arabes de Espafia, ii. 92. 
 X* 
 
538 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The peculiarities of early Scottish poetry may also 
 be referred, in a great degree, to the political relations 
 of the nation, which for many centuries was distracted 
 by all the rancorous dissensions incident to the ill- 
 balanced fabric of feudal government. The frequent 
 and long regencies, always unfavorable to civil con- 
 cord, multiplied the sources of jealousy, and armed 
 with new powers the factious aristocracy. In the ab- 
 sence of legitimate authority, each baron sought to 
 fortify himself by the increased number of his re- 
 tainers, who, in their turn, willingly attached them- 
 selves to the fortunes of a chief who secured to them 
 plunder and protection. Hence a system of clanship 
 was organized, more perfect and more durable than 
 has existed in any other country, which is not entirely 
 effaced at the present day. To the nobles who garri- 
 soned the Marches, still greater military powers were 
 necessarily delegated for purposes of state defence, 
 and the names of Home, Douglas, and Buccleuch make 
 a far more frequent and important figure in national 
 history than that of the reigning sovereign. Hence 
 private feuds were inflamed and vindicated by national 
 antipathies, and a pretext of patriotism was never 
 wanting to justify perpetual hostility. Hence the 
 scene of the old ballads was laid chiefly on the borders, 
 and hence the minstrels of the "North Countrie" ob- 
 tained such pre-eminence over their musical brethren. 
 
 The odious passion of revenge, which seems adapted 
 by nature to the ardent temperaments of the South, 
 but which even there has been mitigated by the spirit 
 of Christianity, glowed with fierce heat in the bosoms 
 of those Northern savages. An offence to the meanest 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 539 
 
 individual was espoused by his whole clan, and was 
 expiated, not by the blood of the offender only, but 
 by that of his whole kindred. The sack of a peaceful 
 castle and the slaughter of its sleeping inhabitants 
 seem to have been as familiar occurrences to these 
 Border heroes as the lifting of a drove of cattle, and 
 attended with as little compunction. The following 
 pious invocation, uttered on the eve of an approaching 
 foray, may show the acuteness of their moral sensi- 
 bility : 
 
 " He that ordained us to be born 
 Sent us mair meat for the morn. 
 Come by right or come by wrang, 
 Christ, let us not fast owre lang, 
 But blithely spend what's gaily got. 
 Ride, Rowland, hough 's i' the pot." 
 
 When superstition usurps the place of religion, there 
 will be little morality among the people. The only 
 law they knew was the command of their chief, and 
 the only one he admitted was his sword. " By what 
 right," said a Scottish prince to a marauding Douglas, 
 "do you hold these lands?" " By that of my sword," 
 he answered. 
 
 From these causes the early Scottish poetry is deeply 
 tinged with a gloomy ferocity, and abounds in details 
 of cool, deliberate cruelty. It is true that this is fre- 
 quently set off, as in the fine old ballads of Chevy 
 Chase and Auld Mai Hand, by such deeds of rude but 
 heroic gallantry as, in the words of Sidney, "stir the 
 soul like the sound of a trumpet." But, on the whole, 
 although the scene of the oldest ballads is pitched as 
 late as the fourteenth century, the manners they ex- 
 
54o 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 hibit are not much superior, in point of refinement 
 and humanity, to those of our own North American 
 
 savages.* 
 
 From wanton or vindictive cruelty, especially when 
 exercised on the defenceless or the innocent, the culti- 
 vated mind naturally shrinks with horror and disgust: 
 but it was long ere the stern hearts of our English 
 ancestors yielded to the soft impulses of mercy and 
 benevolence. The reigns of the Norman dynasty are 
 written in characters of fire and blood. As late as 
 the conclusion of the fourteenth century, we find the 
 Black Prince, the "flower of English knighthood," 
 as Froissart styles him, superintending the butchery of 
 three thousand unresisting captives, men, women, and 
 children, who vainly clung to him for mercy. The 
 general usage of surrendering as hostages their wives 
 and children, whose members were mutilated or lives 
 sacrificed on the least infraction of their engagements, 
 is a still better evidence of the universal barbarism of 
 the so-much lauded age of chivalry. 
 
 Another trait in the old Scotch poetry, and of a very 
 opposite nature from that we have been describing, is 
 its occasional sensibility: touches of genuine pathos 
 are found scattered among the cold, appalling passions 
 of the age, like the flowers which, in Switzerland, are 
 said to bloom alongside the avalanche. No state of 
 society is so rude as to extinguish the spark of natural 
 affection ; tenderness for our offspring is but a more 
 
 * For proof of this assertion, see " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- 
 der," and in particular the ballads of "Jellon Grame," "Young Ben- 
 jie," " Lord William,' " Duel of Wharton and Stuart," " Death of 
 Featherstonehaugh," " Douglas Tragedy," etc. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 541 
 
 enlarged selfishness, perfectly compatible with the ut- 
 most ferocity towards others. Hence scenes of parental 
 and filial attachment are to be met with in these poems 
 which cannot be read without emotion. The passion 
 of love appears to have been a favorite study with the 
 ancient English writers, and by none,, in any language 
 we have read, is it managed with so much art and feel- 
 ing as by the dramatic writers of Queen Elizabeth's 
 day. The Scottish minstrels, with less art, seem to be 
 entitled to the praise of possessing an equal share of 
 tenderness. In the Spanish ballad love glows with the 
 fierce ardor of a tropical sun. The amorous serenader 
 celebrates the beauties of his Zayda (the name which, 
 from its frequency, would seem to be a general title 
 for a Spanish mistress) in all the florid hyperbole of 
 Oriental gallantry, or, as a disappointed lover, wanders 
 along the banks of the Guadalete, imprecating curses 
 on her head and vengeance on his devoted rival. The 
 calm dejection and tender melancholy which are dif- 
 fused over the Scottish love-songs are far more affect- 
 ing than all this turbulence of passion. The sensibility 
 which, even in a rude age, seems to have characterized 
 the Scottish maiden, was doubtless nourished by the 
 solemn complexion of the scenery by which she was 
 surrounded, by the sympathies continually awakened 
 for her lover in his career of peril and adventure, and 
 by the facilities afforded her for brooding over her 
 misfortunes in the silence of rural solitude. 
 
 To similar physical causes may be principally re- 
 ferred those superstitions which are so liberally diffused 
 over the poetry of Scotland down to the present day. 
 The tendency of wild, solitary districts, darkened with 
 
 46 
 
542 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 mountains and extensive forests, to raise in the mind 
 ideas of solemn, preternatural awe, has been noticed 
 from the earliest ages. "Where is a lofty and deeply- 
 shaded grove," writes Seneca, in one of his epistles, 
 "filled with venerable trees, whose interlacing boughs 
 shut out the face of heaven, the grandeur of the wood, 
 the silence of the place, the shade so dense and uni- 
 form, infuse into the breast the notion of a divinity;" 
 and thus the speculative fancy of the ancients, always 
 ready to supply the apparent void of nature, garrisoned 
 each grove, fountain, or grotto with some local and 
 tutelary genius. These sylvan deities, clothed with 
 corporeal figures and endowed with mortal appetites, 
 were brought near to the level of humanity; but the 
 Christian revelation, which assures us of another world, 
 is the "evidence of things unseen," and, while it dis- 
 sipates the gross and sensible creations of classic my- 
 thology, raises our conceptions to the spiritual and the 
 infinite. In our eager thirst for communication with 
 the world of spirits, we naturally imagine it can only 
 be through the medium of spirits like themselves, and, 
 in the vulgar creed, these apparitions never come from 
 the abodes of the blessed, but from the tomb, where 
 they are supposed to await the period of a final and 
 universal resurrection, and whence they are allowed to 
 "revisit the glimpses of the moon," for penance or 
 some other inscrutable purpose. Hence the gloomy, 
 undefined character of the modern apparition is much 
 more appalling than the sensual and social personifica- 
 tions of antiquity. 
 
 The natural phenomena of a wild, uncultivated coun- 
 try greatly conspire to promote the illusions of the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 543 
 
 fancy. The power of clouds to reflect, to distort, and 
 to magnify objects is well known, and on this principle 
 many of the preternatural appearances in the German 
 mountains and the Scottish Highlands, whose lofty 
 summits and unreclaimed valleys are shrouded in 
 clouds and exhalations, have been ingeniously and 
 philosophically explained. The solitary peasant, as 
 the shades of evening close around him, witnesses 
 with dismay the gathering phantoms, and, hurrying 
 home, retails his adventures with due amplification. 
 What is easily believed is easily seen, and the marvel- 
 lous incident is soon placed beyond dispute by a mul- 
 titude of testimonies. The appetite, once excited, is 
 keen in detecting other visions and prognostics, which 
 as speedily circulate through the channels of rustic 
 tradition, until in time each glen and solitary heath 
 has its unearthly visitants, each family its omen or 
 boding spectre, and superstition, systematized into a 
 science, is expounded by indoctrinated wizards and 
 gifted seers. 
 
 In addition to these fancies, common, though in a 
 less degree, to other nations, the inhabitants of the 
 North have inherited a more material mythology, 
 which has survived the elegant fictions of Greece and 
 Rome, either because it was not deemed of sufficient 
 importance to provoke the arm of the Church, or be- 
 cause it was too nearly accommodated to the moral 
 constitution of the people to be thus easily eradicated. 
 The character of a mythology is always intimately con- 
 nected with that of the scenery and climate in which 
 it is invented. Thus the graceful Nymphs and Naiads 
 of Greece, the Peris of Persia, who live in the colors 
 
544 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of the rainbow and on the odors of flowers, the Fairies 
 of England, who in airy circles "dance their ringlets 
 to the whistling wind," have the frail gossamer forms 
 and delicate functions congenial with the' beautiful 
 countries which they inhabit; while the Elves, Bogles, 
 Brownies, and Kelpies, which seem to have legiti- 
 mately descended, in ancient Highland verse, from 
 the Scandinavian Dvergar, Nisser, etc., are of a stunted 
 and malignant aspect, and are celebrated for nothing 
 better than maiming cattle, bewildering the benighted 
 traveller, and conjuring out the souls of new-born in- 
 fants. Within the memory of the present generation, 
 very well authenticated anecdotes of these ghostly kid- 
 nappers have been circulated and greedily credited in 
 the Scottish Highlands. But the sunshine of civiliza- 
 tion is rapidly dispelling the lingering mists of super- 
 stition. The spirits of darkness love not the cheerful 
 haunts of men, and the bustling activity of an in- 
 creasing, industrious population allows brief space for 
 the fears or inventions of fancy. 
 
 The fierce aspect of the Scottish ballad was miti- 
 gated under the general tranquillity which followed the 
 accession of James to the united crowns of England 
 and Scotland, and the Northern muse might have 
 caught some of the inspiration which fired her South- 
 ern sister at this remarkable epoch, had not the fatal 
 prejudices of her sovereign in favor of an English or 
 even a Latin idiom diverted his ancient subjects from 
 the cultivation of their own. As it was, Drummond 
 of Hawthornden, whose melodious and melancholy 
 strains, however, are to be enrolled among English 
 verse, is the most eminent name which adorns the 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 545 
 
 scanty annals of this reign. The civil and religious 
 broils, which, by the sharp concussion they gave to 
 the English intellect during the remainder of this un- 
 happy century, seemed to have forced out every latent 
 spark of genius, served only to discourage the less pol- 
 ished muse of the North. The austerity of the Re- 
 formers chilled the sweet flow of social song, and the 
 only verse in vogue was a kind of rude satire, some- 
 times pointed at the licentiousness of the Roman 
 clergy, and sometimes at the formal affectation of the 
 Puritans, but which, from the coarseness of the execu- 
 tion, and # the transitory interest of its topics, has for 
 the most part been consigned to a decent oblivion. 
 
 The Revolution in 1688, and the subsequent union 
 of the two kingdoms, by the permanent assurance 
 they gave of civil and religious liberty, and, lastly, 
 the establishment of parochial schools about the same 
 period, by that wide diffusion of intelligence among 
 the lower orders which has elevated them above every 
 other European peasantry, had a most sensible influ- 
 ence on the moral and intellectual progress of the 
 nation. Improvements in art and agriculture were 
 introduced ; the circle of ideas was expanded and the 
 feelings liberalized by a free communication with their 
 southern neighbors ; and religion, resigning much of 
 her austerity, lent a prudent sanction to the hilarity 
 of social intercourse. Popular poetry naturally reflects 
 the habits and prevailing sentiments of a nation. The 
 ancient notes of the border trumpet were exchanged 
 for the cheerful sounds of rustic revelry; and the sen- 
 sibility which used to be exhausted on subjects of 
 acute but painful interest now celebrated the temperate 
 
 46* 
 
546 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 pleasures of domestic happiness and rational though 
 romantic love. 
 
 The rustic glee which had put such mettle into the 
 compositions of James the First and Fifth, those royal 
 poets of the commonalty, as they have been aptly 
 styled, was again renewed ; ancient songs, purified 
 from their original vices of sentiment or diction, were 
 revived ; new ones were accommodated to ancient 
 melodies ; and a revolution was gradually effected in 
 Scottish verse, which experienced little variation during 
 the remainder of the eighteenth century. The existence 
 of a national music is essential to the entire success of 
 lyrical poetry. It may be said, indeed, to give wings 
 to song, which, in spite of its imperfections, is thus 
 borne along from one extremity of the nation to the 
 other, with a rapidity denied to many a nobler com- 
 position. 
 
 Thus allied, verse not only represents the present, 
 but the past; and, while it invites us to repose or to 
 honorable action, its tones speak of joys which are 
 gone, or wake in us the recollections of ancient glory. 
 
 It is impossible to trace the authors of a large por- 
 tion of the popular lyrics of Scotland, which, like its 
 native wild flowers, seem to have sprung up spon- 
 taneously in the most sequestered solitudes of the 
 country. Many of these poets, even, who are familiar 
 in the mouths of their own countrymen, are better 
 known south of the Tweed by the compositions which, 
 under the title of "Scottish Melodies," are diligently 
 thrummed by every miss in her teens, than by their 
 names ; while some few others, as Ramsay, Ferguson, 
 etc., whose independent tomes maintain higher reputa- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 547 
 
 tion, are better known by their names than their com- 
 positions, which, much applauded, are, we suspect, but 
 little read. 
 
 The union of Scotland with England was unpro- 
 pitious to the language of the former country; at least 
 it prevented it from attaining a classical perfection, 
 which some, perhaps, may not regret, as being in its 
 present state a better vehicle for the popular poetry 
 so consonant with the genius of the nation. Under 
 Edward the First the two nations spoke the same lan- 
 guage, and the formidable epics of Barbour and Blind 
 Harry, his contemporaries, are cited by Warton as 
 superior models of English versification. After the 
 lapse of five centuries, the Scottish idiom retains a 
 much greater affinity with the original stock than does 
 the English ; but the universal habit with the Scotch of 
 employing the latter in works of taste or science, and 
 of relinquishing their own idiom to the more humble 
 uses of the people, has degraded it to the unmerited 
 condition of a provincial dialect. Few persons care to 
 bestow much time in deciphering a vocabulary which 
 conceals no other treasures than those of popular fancy 
 and tradition. 
 
 A genius like Burns certainly may do, and doubtless 
 has done, much to diffuse a knowledge and a relish for 
 his native idiom. His character as a poet has been too 
 often canvassed by writers and biographers to require 
 our panegyric. We define it, perhaps, as concisely 
 as may be, by saying that it consisted of an acute 
 sensibility regulated by uncommon intellectual vigor. 
 Hence his frequent visions of rustic love and court- 
 ship never sink into mawkish sentimentality, his quiet 
 
548 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 pictures of domestic life are without insipidity, and his 
 mirth is not the unmeaning ebullition of animal spirits, 
 but is pointed with the reflection of a keen observer 
 of human nature. This latter talent, less applauded 
 in him than some others, is in our opinion his most 
 eminent. Without the grace of I^a Fontaine, or the 
 broad buffoonery of Berni, he displays the same facility 
 of illuminating the meanest topics, seasons his humor 
 with as shrewd a moral, and surpasses both in a gener- 
 ous sensibility which gives an air of truth and cor- 
 diality to all his sentiments. Lyrical poetry admits of 
 less variety than any other species; and Burns, from 
 this circumstance, as well as from the flexibility of his 
 talents, may be considered as the representative of his 
 whole nation. Indeed, his universal genius seems to 
 have concentrated within itself the rays which were 
 scattered among his predecessors, — the simple tender- 
 ness of Crawford, the fidelity of Ramsay, and careless 
 humor of Ferguson. The Doric dialect of his country 
 was an instrument peculiarly fitted for the expression 
 of his manly and unsophisticated sentiments. But no 
 one is more indebted to the national music than Burns: 
 embalmed in the sacred melody, his songs are familiar 
 to us from childhood, and, as we read them, the silver 
 sounds with which they have been united seem to 
 linger in our memory, heightening and prolonging the 
 emotions which the sentiments have excited. 
 
 Mr. Cunningham, to whom it is high time we should 
 turn, in some prefatory reflections on the condition of 
 Scottish poetry, laments exceedingly the improvements 
 in agriculture and mechanics, the multiplication of 
 pursuits, the wider expansion of knowledge, which 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 549 
 
 have taken place among the peasantry of Scotland 
 during the present century. 
 
 ''Change of condition, increase of knowledge," 
 says he, "the calling in of machinery to the aid of 
 human labor, and the ships which whiten the ocean 
 with their passing and repassing sails, wafting luxuries 
 to our backs and our tables, are all matters of delight 
 to the historian or the politician, but of sorrow to the 
 poet, who delights in the primitive glory of a people, 
 and contemplates with pain all changes which lessen 
 the original vigor of character and refine mankind till 
 they become too sensitive for enjoyment. Man has 
 now to labor harder and longer to shape out new ways 
 to riches, and even bread, and feel the sorrows of the 
 primeval curse, a hot and sweaty brow, more frequently 
 and more severely than his ancestors. All this is un- 
 congenial to the creation of song, where many of our 
 finest songs have been created, and to its enjoyment, 
 where it was long and fondly enjoyed, among the 
 peasantry of Scotland." — Preface. 
 
 These circumstances certainly will be a matter of 
 delight to the historian and politician, and we doubt 
 if they afford any reasonable cause of lamentation to 
 the poet. An age of rudeness and ignorance is not 
 the most propitious to a flourishing condition of the 
 art, which indulges quite as much in visions of the past 
 as the present, in recollections as in existing occupa- 
 tions ; and this is not only true of civilized, but of 
 ruder ages : the forgotten bards of the Niebelungen 
 and the Heldenbuch, of the romances of Arthur and 
 of Charlemagne, looked back through the vista of 
 seven hundred years for their subjects, and the earliest 
 
55 o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of the Border minstrelsy celebrates the antique feuds 
 of a preceding century. On the other hand, a wider 
 acquaintance with speculative and active concerns may 
 be thought to open a bolder range of ideas and illus- 
 trations to the poet. Examples of this may be dis- 
 cerned among the Scottish poets of the present age ; 
 and if the most eminent, as Scott, Campbell, Joanna 
 Baillie, have deserted their natural dialect and the 
 humble themes of popular interest for others better 
 suited to their aspiring genius, and for a language 
 which could diffuse and perpetuate their compositions, 
 it can hardly be matter for serious reproach even 
 with their own countrymen. But this is not true of 
 Scott, who has always condescended to illuminate the 
 most rugged and the meanest topics relating to his own 
 nation, and who has revived in his "'Minstrelsy" not 
 merely the costume but the spirit of the ancient Border 
 muse of love and chivalry. 
 
 In a similar tone of lamentation, Mr. Cunningham 
 deprecates the untimely decay of superstition through- 
 out the land. But the seeds of superstition are not 
 thus easily eradicated: its grosser illusions, indeed, 
 may, as we have before said, be scattered by the in- 
 creasing light of science ; but the principal difference 
 between a rude and a civilized age, at least as regards 
 poetical fiction, is that the latter requires more skill and 
 plausibility in working up the materiel than the former. 
 The witches of Macbeth are drawn too broadly to im- 
 pose on the modern spectator, as they probably did on 
 the credulous age of Queen Bess; but the apparition 
 in Job, or the Bodach Glass in Waverley, is shadowed 
 with a dim and mysterious portraiture that inspires a 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 55* 
 
 solemn interest sufficient for the purposes of poetry. 
 The philosophic mind may smile with contempt at 
 popular fancies, convinced that the general experience 
 of mankind contradicts the existence of apparitions ; 
 that the narratives of them are vague and ill authenti- 
 cated ; that they never or rarely appeal to more than 
 one sense, and that the most open to illusion ; that 
 they appear only in moments of excitement and in 
 seasons of solitude and obscurity; that they come for 
 no explicable purpose and effect no perceptible result ; 
 and that, therefore, they may in every case be safely 
 imputed to a diseased or a deluded imagination. But 
 if, in the midst of these solemn musings, our philoso- 
 pher's candle should chance to go out, it is not quite 
 certain that he would continue to pursue them with the 
 same stoical serenity. In short, no man is quite so 
 much a hero in the dark as in broad daylight, in soli- 
 tude as in society, in the gloom of the churchyard as 
 in the blaze of the drawing-room. The season and 
 the place may be such as to oppress the stoutest heart 
 with a mysterious awe, which, if not fear, is near akin 
 to it. We read of adventurous travellers who through 
 a sleepless night have defied the perilous nonentities of 
 a haunted chamber, and the very interest we take in 
 their exploits proves that the superstitious principle is 
 not wholly extinguished in our own bosoms. So, in- 
 deed, do the mysterious inventions of Mrs. Radcliffe 
 and her ghostly school; of our own Brown, in a most 
 especial manner ; and Scott, ever anxious to exhibit 
 the speculative as well as practical character of his 
 countrymen, has more than once appealed to the same 
 general principle. Doubtless few in this enlightened 
 
55 2 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 age are disposed boldly to admit the existence of these 
 spiritual phenomena; but fewer still there are who 
 have not enough of superstitious feeling lurking in 
 their bosoms for all the purposes of poetical interest. 
 
 Mr. Cunningham's work consists of four volumes of 
 lyrics, in a descending series from the days of Queen 
 Mary to our own. The more ancient, after the fashion 
 of Burns and Ramsay, he has varnished over with a 
 coloring of diction that gives greater lustre to their 
 faded beauties, occasionally restoring a mutilated mem- 
 ber which time and oblivion had devoured. Our au- 
 thor's prose, consisting of a copious preface and critical 
 notices, is both florid and pedantic; it continually 
 aspires to the vicious affectation of poetry, and explains 
 the most common sentiments by a host of illustrations 
 and images, thus perpetually reminding us of the chil- 
 dren's play of "What is it like ?" As a poet, his fame 
 has long been established, and the few original pieces 
 which he has introduced into the present collection 
 have the ease and natural vivacity conspicuous in his 
 former compositions. We will quote one or two, 
 which we presume are the least familiar to our readers: 
 
 " A wet sheet and a flowing sea r 
 
 A wind that follows fast, 
 And fills the white and rustling sail, 
 
 And bends the gallant mast ! 
 And bends the gallant mast, my boys, 
 
 While, like the eagle free, 
 Away the good ship flies, and leaves 
 
 Old England on the lee. 
 
 " Oh for a soft and gentle wind ! 
 I heard a fair one cry ; , 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 553 
 
 But give to me the swelling breeze, 
 
 And white waves heaving high ; 
 And white waves heaving high, my lads, 
 
 The good ship tight and free ; 
 The world of waters is our home, 
 
 And merry men are we. 
 
 " There's tempest in yon horned moon, 
 
 And lightning in yon cloud ; 
 And hark the music, mariners ! 
 
 The wind is wakening loud. 
 The wind is wakening loud, my boys, 
 
 The lightning flashes free ; 
 The hollow oak our palace is, 
 
 Our heritage the sea." — Vol. iv. p. 208. 
 
 This spirited water-piece, worthy of Campbell, is 
 one evidence among others of the tendency of the 
 present improved condition of the Scottish peasantry 
 to expand the beaten circle of poetical topics and illus- 
 trations. The following is as pretty a piece of fairy 
 gossamer as has been spun out of this skeptical age : 
 
 "SONG OF THE ELFIN MILLER. 
 
 " Full merrily rings the millstone round, 
 
 Full merrily rings the wheel, 
 Full merrily gushes out the grist, — 
 
 Come, taste my fragrant meal. 
 As sends the lift its snowy drift, 
 
 So the meal comes in a shower ; 
 Work, fairies, fast, for time flies past, — 
 
 I borrow'd the mill an hour. 
 
 " The miller he's a worldly man, 
 And maun hae double fee ; 
 So draw the sluice of the churl's dam, 
 
 And let the stream come free. 
 Shout, fairies, shout ! see, gushing out, 
 The meal comes like a river ; 
 Y 47 
 
554 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The top of the grain on hill and plain 
 Is ours, and shall be ever. 
 
 " One elf goes chasing the wild bat's wing, 
 
 And one the white owl's horn ; 
 One hunts the fox for the white o' his tail, 
 
 And we winna hae him till morn. 
 One idle fay, with the glow-worm's ray, 
 
 Runs glimmering 'mang the mosses ; 
 Another goes tramp wi' the will-o-wisp's lamp, 
 
 To light a lad to the lasses. 
 
 " O haste, my brown elf, bring me corn 
 
 From bonnie Blackwood plains ; 
 Go, gentle fairy, bring me grain 
 
 From green Dalgonar mains ; 
 But, pride of a' at Closeburn ha', 
 
 Fair is the corn and fatter; 
 Taste, fairies, taste, a gallanter grist 
 
 Has never been wet with water. 
 
 " Hilloah ! my hopper is heaped high ; 
 
 Hark to the well-hung wheels ! 
 They sing for joy ; the dusty roof 
 
 It clatters and it reels. 
 Haste, elves, and turn yon mountain burn — ■ 
 
 Bring streams that shine like siller ; 
 The dam is down, the moon sinks soon, 
 
 And I maun grind my meller. 
 
 " Ha! bravely done, my wanton elves! 
 
 That is a foaming stream ; 
 See how the dust from the mill-ee flies, 
 
 And chokes the cold moonbeam. 
 Haste, fairies fleet, come baptized feet, 
 
 Come sack and sweep up clean, 
 And meet me soon, ere sinks the moon, 
 
 In thy green vale, Dalveen." — Vol. iv. p. 327. 
 
 The last we can afford is a sweet, amorous effusion, 
 in the best style of the romantic muse of the Lowlands. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 555 
 
 It has before found a place in the " Nithsdale and 
 Galloway" collection: 
 
 " Thou hast vow'd by thy faith, my Jeanie, 
 
 By that pretty white hand of thine, 
 And by all the lowing stars in heaven, 
 
 That thou wouldst aye be mine ; 
 And I have sworn by my faith, my Jeanie, 
 
 And by that kind heart of thine, 
 By all the stars sown thick o'er heaven, 
 
 That thou shalt aye be mine. 
 
 " Foul fa' the hands wad loose sic bands, 
 
 And the heart wad part sic love ; 
 But there's nae hand can loose the band 
 
 But the finger of Him above. 
 Though the wee wee cot maun be my bield, 
 
 And my clothing e'er sae mean, 
 I should lap me up rich in the faulds of love 
 
 Heaven's armfu' of my Jean. 
 
 " Thy white arm wad be a pillow to me, 
 
 Far softer than the down, 
 And Love wad winnow o'er us his kind, kind wings, 
 
 And sweetly we'd sleep and soun'. 
 Come here to me, thou lass whom I love, 
 
 Come here and kneel wi' me, 
 The morning is full of the presence of God, 
 
 And I cannot pray but thee. 
 
 " The wind is sweet amang the new flowers, 
 
 The wee birds sing saft on the tree, 
 Our goodman sits in the bonnie sunshine, 
 
 And a blithe old bodie is he ; 
 The Beuk maun be ta'en when he comes hame, 
 
 Wi' the holie psalmodie, 
 And I will speak of thee when I pray, 
 
 And thou maun speak of me." — Vol. iv. p. 308. 
 
 Our readers may think we have been detained too 
 long by so humble a theme as old songs and ballads ; 
 
556 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 yet a wise man has said, " Give me the making of the 
 ballads, and I care not who makes the laws of a na- 
 tion." Indeed, they will not be lightly regarded by 
 those who consider their influence on the character of 
 a simple, susceptible people, particularly in a rude age, 
 when they constitute the authentic records of national 
 history. Thus the wandering minstrel kindles in his 
 unlettered audience a generous emulation of the deeds 
 of their ancestors, and while he sings the bloody feuds 
 of the Zegris and Abencerrages, the Percy and the 
 Douglas, artfully fans the flame of an expiring hos- 
 tility. Under these animating influences, the ancient 
 Spaniard and the Border warrior displayed that stern 
 military enthusiasm which distinguished them above 
 every other peasantry in Europe. Nor is this influence 
 altogether extinguished in a polite age, when the nar- 
 row attachments of feudal servitude are ripened into a 
 more expanded patriotism ; the generous principle is 
 nourished and invigorated in the patriot by the simple 
 strains which recount the honorable toils, the homebred 
 joys, the pastoral adventures, the romantic scenery, 
 which have endeared to him the land of his fathers. 
 There is no moral cause which operates more strongly 
 in infusing a love of country into the mass of the 
 people than the union of a national music with popular 
 poetry. 
 
 But these productions have an additional value in 
 the eyes of the antiquarian to what is derived from 
 their moral or political influence, as the repertory of 
 the motley traditions and superstitions that have de- 
 scended for ages through the various races of the North. 
 The researches of modern scholars have discovered a 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 557 
 
 surprising affinity between the ancient Scottish ballad 
 and the Teutonic, Scandinavian, and even Calmuck 
 romance. Some of the most eminent of the old Border 
 legends are almost literal versions of those which in- 
 flamed the martial ardor of our Danish ancestors.* 
 A fainter relationship had before been detected be- 
 tween them and Southern and Oriental fable. Thus, 
 in a barbarous age, when the nearest provinces of Eu- 
 rope had but a distant intercourse with each other, the 
 electric spark of fancy seems to have run around the 
 circle of the remotest regions, animating them with 
 the same wild and original creations. 
 
 Even the lore of the nursery may sometimes ascend to 
 as high an antiquity. The celebrated Whittington and 
 his Cat can display a Teutonic pedigree of more than 
 eight centuries; "Jack, commonly called the Giant- 
 Killer, and Thomas Thumb," says an antiquarian 
 writer, "landed in England from the very same keels 
 and war-ships which conveyed Hengist and Horsa, and 
 Ebba the Saxon;" and the nursery-maid who chants 
 the friendly monition to the "Lady-bird," or narrates 
 the "fee-faw-fum" adventure of the carnivorous giant, 
 little thinks she has purloined the stores of Teutonic 
 song and Scandinavian mythology. \ The ingenious 
 
 * Such are "The Childe of Elle," "Catharine and Janfarie," 
 " Cospatric," " Willie's Lady," etc. 
 
 f " Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, 
 
 Your house is on fire, your children will roam." 
 
 This fragment of a respectable little poem has soothed the slumbers 
 of the German infant for many ages. The giant who so cunningly 
 scented the " blood of an Englishman" is the counterpart of the per- 
 sonage recorded in the collection of Icelandic mythology made by 
 Snorro in the thirteenth century. Edda, Fabl 23. 
 
 47* 
 
558 
 
 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Blanco White, who, under the name of Doblado, has 
 thrown great light on the character and condition of 
 modern Spain, has devoted a chapter to tracing out the 
 genealogies of the games and popular pastimes of his 
 country. Something of the same kind might be at- 
 tempted in. the untrodden walks of nursery literature. 
 Ignorance and youth are satisfied at no great cost of 
 invention. The legend of one generation answers, 
 with little variation, for the next, and, within the pre- 
 cincts of the nursery, obtains that imperishable exist- 
 ence which has been the vain boast of many a loftier 
 lyric. That the mythology of one age should be aban- 
 doned to the "Juvenile Cabinet" of another, is indeed 
 curious. Thus the doctrines most venerated by man 
 in the infancy of society become the sport of infants 
 in an age of civilization, furnishing a pleasing example 
 of the progress of the human intellect, and a plausible 
 coloring for the dream of perfectibility. 
 
DA PONTE'S OBSERVATIONS.* 
 
 (July, 1825.) 
 
 The larger part of the above work is devoted to 
 strictures upon an article on "Italian Narrative Po- 
 etry," which appeared in October, 1824. The author 
 is an eminent Italian teacher at New York. His poet- 
 ical abilities have been highly applauded in his own 
 country, and were rewarded with the office of Csesarean 
 poet at the court of Vienna, where he acquired new 
 laurels as successor to the celebrated Metastasio. His 
 various fortunes in literary and fashionable life while 
 in Europe, and the eccentricities of his enthusiastic 
 character, furnish many interesting incidents for an 
 autobiography published by him two years since at 
 New York, and to this we refer those of our readers 
 who are desirous of a more intimate acquaintance with 
 the author. 
 
 We regret that our remarks, which appeared to us 
 abundantly encomiastic of Italian letters, and which 
 certainly proceeded from our admiration for them, 
 should have given such deep offence to the respectable 
 author of the Osservazioni as to compel him, although 
 a "veteran" in literature, to arm himself against us in 
 defence of his "calumniated" country. According to 
 
 * " Alcune Osservazioni sull' Articulo Quarto publicato nel North 
 American Review, il Mese d'Ottobre dell' Anno 1824. Da L. Da 
 Ponte. Nuova-Jorca. Stampatori Gray e Bunce." 1825. 
 
 (559) 
 
5 6o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 him, "we judge too lightly of the Italians, and quote 
 as axioms the absurd opinions of their insane rivals 
 (accaniti rivali) the French. We conceal some things 
 where silence has the appearance of malice ; we ex- 
 pose others which common generosity should have 
 induced us to conceal ; we are guilty of false and arbi- 
 trary accusations, that do a grievous wrong to the most 
 tender and most compassionate of nations ; we are 
 wanting in a decent reverence for the illustrious men 
 of his nation ; finally, we pry with the eyes of Argus 
 into the defects of Italian literature, and with one eye 
 only, and that, indeed, half shut (anche quello socchi- 
 uso), into its particular merits." It is true, this sour 
 rebuke is sweetened once or twice with a compliment 
 to the extent of our knowledge, and a "confession 
 that many of our reasonings, facts, and reflections 
 merit the gratitude of his countrymen ; that our in- 
 tentions were doubtless generous, praiseworthy," and 
 the like ; but such vague commendations, besides that 
 they are directly inconsistent with some of the impu- 
 tations formerly alleged against us, are too thinly scat- 
 tered over sixty pages of criticism to mitigate very 
 materially the severity of the censure. The opinions 
 of the author of the Osservazioni on this subject are 
 undoubtedly entitled to great respect ; but it may be 
 questioned whether the excitable temperament usual 
 with his nation, and the local partiality which is com- 
 mon to the individuals of every nation, may not have 
 led him sometimes into extravagance and error. This 
 seems to us to have been the case; and, as he has more 
 than once intimated the extreme difficulty of forming 
 a correct estimate of a foreign literature, "especially 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 561 
 
 of the Italian," we shall rely exclusively for the sup- 
 port of our opinions on the authorities of his own 
 countrymen, claiming one exception only in favor of 
 the industrious Ginguene, whose opinions he has him- 
 self recommended to "the diligent study of all who 
 would form a correct notion of Italian literature." * 
 
 His first objection is against what he considers the 
 unfair view which we exhibited of the influence of 
 Italy on English letters. This influence, we had stated, 
 was most perceptible under the reign of Elizabeth, but 
 had gradually declined during the succeeding century, 
 and, with a few exceptions, among whom we cited Mil- 
 ton and Gray, could not be said to be fairly discerned 
 until the commencement of the present age. Our cen- 
 sor is of a different opinion. "Instead of confining 
 himself'' (he designates us always by this humble pro- 
 noun) "to Milton," he says, "for which exception / 
 acknowledge no obligation to liim, since few there are 
 who were not previously acquainted with it, I would 
 have had him acknowledge that many English writers 
 not only loved and admired, but studiously imitated, 
 our authors, from the time of Chaucer to that of the 
 great Byron ; for the clearest evidence of which it will 
 suffice to read the compositions of this last poet, of 
 Milton, and of Gray." He then censures us for not 
 specifying the obligations which Shakspeare was under 
 to the early Italian novelists for the plots of many 
 of his pieces; "which silence" he deems "as little to 
 be commended as would be an attempt to conceal the 
 
 *" " Ma bisognava aver l'anima di Ginguene, conoscer la lingua e la 
 letteratura Italiana come Ginguene, e amar il vero come Ginguene, 
 per sentire," etc. Osservazioni, pp. 115, 116. 
 Y* 
 
562 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 light, the most beautiful prerogative of the sun, from 
 one who had never before seen it. And," he continues, 
 "these facts should, for two reasons, have been espe- 
 cially communicated to Americans: first, to animate 
 them more and more to study the Italian tongue; and, 
 secondly, in order not to imitate, by what may appear 
 a malicious silence,. the example of another nation [the 
 French], who, after drawing their intellectual nourish- 
 ment from us, have tried every method of destroying 
 the reputation of their earliest masters." — Pp. 74-79. 
 
 We have extracted the leading ideas diffused by the 
 author of the Osservazioni over half a dozen pages. 
 Some of them have at least the merit of novelty. Such 
 are not, however, those relating to Chaucer, whom we 
 believe no one ever doubted to have found in the Tus- 
 can tongue — the only one of that rude age in which 
 
 " The pure well-head of poesie did dwell" — 
 
 one principal source of his premature inspiration. We 
 acknowledged that the same sources nourished the ge- 
 nius of Queen Elizabeth's writers, among whom we 
 particularly cited the names of Surrey, Sidney, and 
 Spenser. And if we did not distinguish Shakspeare 
 amid the circle of contemporary dramatists whom we 
 confessed to have derived the designs of many of their 
 most popular plays from Italian models, it was because 
 we did not think the extent of his obligations, amount- 
 ing to half a dozen imperfect skeletons of plots, re- 
 quired any such specification ; more especially as sev- 
 eral of his great minor contemporaries, as Fletcher, 
 Shirley, and others, made an equally liberal use of the 
 same materials. The obligations of Shakspeare, such 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 563 
 
 as they were, are, moreover, notorious to every one. 
 The author of the Osservazioni expressly disclaims any 
 feelings of gratitude towards us for mentioning those 
 of Milton, because they were notorious. It is really 
 very hard to please him. The literary enterprise which 
 had been awakened under the reign of Elizabeth was 
 in no degree diminished under her successor; but the 
 intercourse with Italy, so favorable to it at an earlier 
 period, was, for obvious reasons, at an end. A Prot- 
 estant people, but lately separated from the Church of 
 Rome, would not deign to resort to what they believed 
 her corrupt fountains for the sources of instruction. 
 The austerity of the Puritan was yet more scandalized 
 by the voluptuous beauties of her lighter compositions, 
 and Milton, whose name we cited in our article, seems 
 to have been a solitary exception on the records of that 
 day, of an eminent English scholar thoroughly imbued 
 with a relish for Italian letters. 
 
 After the days of civil and religious faction had gone 
 by, a new aspect was given to things under the brilliant 
 auspices of the Restoration. The French language was 
 at that time in the meridian of its glory. Boileau, with 
 an acute but pedantic taste, had draughted his critical 
 ordinances from the most perfect models of classical 
 antiquity. Racine, working on these principles, may 
 be said to have put into action the poetic conceptions 
 of his friend Boileau ; and, with such a model to illus- 
 trate the excellence of his theory, it is not wonderful 
 that the code of the French legislator, recommended 
 as it was, too, by the patronage of the most imposing 
 court in Europe, should have found its way into the 
 rival kingdom and have superseded there every other 
 
5 6 4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 foreign influence.* It did so. "French criticism," 
 says Bishop Hurd, speaking of this period, "has car- 
 ried it before the Italian with the rest of Europe. This 
 dexterous people have found means to lead the taste, as 
 well as set the fashions, of their neighbors." Again: 
 "The exact but cold Boileau happened to say some- 
 thing of the clinquant of Tasso, and the magic of this 
 word, like the report of Astolfo's horn in Ariosto, 
 overturned at once the solid and well-built foundation 
 of Italian poetry : it became a sort of watch-word 
 among the critics." Mr. Gifford, whose acquaintance 
 with the ancient literature of his nation entitles him 
 to perfect confidence on this subject, whatever we may 
 be disposed to concede to him on some others, in his 
 introduction to Massinger remarks, in relation to this 
 period, that "criticism, which in a former reign had 
 been making no inconsiderable progress under the 
 great masters of Italy, was now diverted into a new 
 channel, and only studied under the puny and jejune 
 canons of their degenerate followers, the French-' 
 Pope and Addison, the legislators of their own and a 
 future age, cannot be exempted from this reproach. 
 The latter conceived and published the most con- 
 temptuous opinion of the Italians. In a very earJy 
 paper of the Spectator bearing his own signature (No. 
 6), he observes, "The finest writers among the modern 
 
 * Boileau's sagacity in fully appreciating the merits of Phedre and 
 of Athalie, and his independence in supporting them against the 
 fashionable factions of the day, are well known. But he conferred a 
 still greater obligation on his friend. Racine the younger tells us that 
 "his father, in his youth, was given to a vicious taste {concetti), and 
 that Boileau led him back to nature, and taught him to rhyme with 
 labor {rimer difficilement)." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 565 
 
 Italians [in contradistinction to the ancient Romans] 
 express themselves in such a florid form of words, and 
 such tedious circumlocutions, as are used by none but 
 pedants in our own country, and at the same time fill 
 their writings with such poor imaginations and con- 
 ceits as our youths are ashamed of before they have 
 been two years at the university." In the same paper 
 he adds, "I entirely agree with Monsieur Boileau, that 
 one verse of Virgil is worth all the tinsel of Tasso." 
 This is very unequivocal language, and our censor will 
 do us the justice to believe that we do not quote it 
 from any "malicious intention," but simply to show 
 what must have been the popular taste, when senti- 
 ments like these were promulgated by a leading critic 
 of the day, in the most important and widely-circu- 
 lated journal in the kingdom.* 
 
 In conformity with this anti-Italian spirit, we find 
 that no translation of Ariosto was attempted subse- 
 quent to the very imperfect one by Harrington in 
 Elizabeth's time. In the reign of George the Second 
 a new version was published by one Huggins. In his 
 preface he observes, "After this work was pretty far 
 advanced, I was informed there had been a transla- 
 tion published in the reign of Elizabeth, and dedicated 
 to that queen ; whereupon I requested a friend to ob- 
 tain a sight of that book ; for it is, it seems, very 
 scarce, and the glorious original much more so, in this 
 
 * Addison tells us, in an early number of the Spectator, that three 
 thousand copies were daily distributed ; and Chalmers somewhere 
 remarks that this circulation was afterwards increased to fourteen 
 thousand ; an amount, in proportion to the numerical population and 
 intellectual culture of that day, very far superior to that of the most 
 popular journals at the present time. 
 
 48 
 
5 66 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 country." Huggins was a learned scholar, although he 
 made a bad translation. Yet it seems he had never 
 met with, or even heard of, the version of his prede- 
 cessor Harrington. But, without encumbering our- 
 selves with authorities, a glance at the compositions 
 of the period in question would show how feeble are 
 the pretensions of an Italian influence, and we are 
 curious to know what important names, or produc- 
 tions, or characteristics can be cited by the author of 
 the Osservazioni in support of it. Dryden, whom he 
 has objected to us, versified, it is true, three of his 
 Fables from Boccaccio ; but this brief effort is the 
 only evidence we can recall, in the multitude of his 
 miscellaneous writings, of a respect for Italian letters, 
 and he is well known to have powerfully contributed 
 to the introduction of a French taste in the drama. 
 The only exception which occurs to our general re- 
 mark is that afforded by the Metaphysical School of 
 Poets, whose vicious propensities have been referred 
 by Dr. Johnson to Marini and his followers. But as 
 an ancient English model for this affectation may be 
 found in Donne, and as the doctor was not prodigal 
 of golden opinions towards Italy, we will not urge 
 upon our opponent what may be deemed an ungener- 
 ous, perhaps an unjust, imputation. The same indiffer- 
 ence appears to have lasted the greater portion of the 
 eighteenth century, and with few exceptions, enumer- 
 ated in our former article, the Tuscan spring seems to 
 have been almost hermetically sealed against the Eng- 
 lish scholar. The increasing thirst for every variety 
 of intellectual nourishment in our age has again in- 
 vited to these early sources, and, while every modern 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 567 
 
 tongue has been anxiously explored by the diligence 
 of critics, the Italian has had the good fortune to be 
 more widely and more successfully cultivated than at 
 any former period. 
 
 We should apologize to our readers for afflicting 
 them with so much commonplace detail, but we know 
 no other way of rebutting the charge, which, accord- 
 ing to the author of the Osservazioni, might be im- 
 puted to us, of a "malicious silence" in our account 
 of the influence of Italian letters in England. 
 
 But if we have offended by saying too little on the 
 preceding head, we have given equal offence on an- 
 other occasion by saying too much. Our antagonist 
 attacks us from such opposite quarters that we hardly 
 know where to expect him. We had spoken, and in 
 terms of censure, of Boileau's celebrated sarcasm upon 
 Tasso ; and we had added that, notwithstanding an 
 affected change of opinion, "he adhered until the 
 time of his death to his original heresy." "As 
 much," says our censor, "as it would have been de- 
 sirable in him [the reviewer] to have spoken on these 
 other matters, so it would have been equally proper to 
 have suppressed all that Boileau wrote upon Tasso, to- 
 gether with the remarks made by him in the latter part 
 of his life, as having a tendency to prejudice unfavor- 
 ably the minds of such as had not before heard them. 
 Nor should he have coldly styled it his 'original her- 
 esy;' but he should have said that, in spite of all the 
 heresies of Boileau and all the blunders of Voltaire, 
 the Jerusalem has been regarded for more than two 
 centuries and a half, and will be regarded, as long as 
 the earth has motion, by all the nations of the civilized 
 
5 68 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 world, as the most noble, most magnificent, most sub- 
 lime epic produced for more than eighteen centuries ; 
 that this consent and this duration of its splendor are 
 the strongest and most authentic seal of its incontro- 
 vertible merit ; that this unlucky clinquant, that de- 
 faces at most a hundred verses of this poem, and 
 which, in fact, is nothing but an excess of over- 
 wrought beauty, is but the merest flaw in a mountain 
 of diamonds ; that these hundred verses are compen- 
 sated by more than three thousand in which are dis- 
 played all the perfection, grace, learning, eloquence, 
 and coloring of the loftiest poetry." In the same 
 swell of commendation the author proceeds for half a 
 page farther. We know not what inadvertence on our 
 part can have made it necessary, by way of reproof to 
 us, to pour upon Tasso's head such a pelting of pitiless 
 panegyric. Among all the Italian poets there is no 
 one for whom we have ever felt so sincere a venera- 
 tion, after 
 
 •' quel signor dell' altissimo canto 
 Che sovra gli altri, com' aquila vola," 
 
 as for Tasso. In some respects he is even superior to 
 Dante. His writings are illustrated by a purer mo- 
 rality, as his heart was penetrated with a more genuine 
 spirit of Christianity. Oppression, under which they 
 both suffered the greater part of their lives, wrought a 
 very different effect upon the gentle character of Tasso 
 and the vindictive passions of the Ghibelline. The 
 religious wars of Jerusalem, exhibiting the triumphs 
 of the Christian chivalry, were a subject peculiarly 
 adapted to the character of the poet, who united the 
 qualities of an accomplished knight with the most un- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 569 
 
 affected piety. The vulgar distich, popular in his day 
 with the common people of Ferrara, is a homely but 
 unsuspicious testimony to his opposite virtues.* His 
 greatest fault was an ill-regulated sensibility, and his 
 greatest misfortune was to have been thrown among 
 people who knew not how to compassionate the in- 
 firmities of genius. In contemplating such a charac- 
 ter, one may without affectation feel a disposition to 
 draw a veil over the few imperfections that tarnished 
 it, and in our notice of it, expanded into a dozen 
 pages, there are certainly not the same number of 
 lines devoted to his defects, and those exclusively of a 
 literary nature. This is but a moderate allowance for 
 the transgressions of any man \ yet, according to Mr. 
 Da Ponte, "we close our eyes against the merits of 
 his countrymen, and pry with those of Argus into their 
 defects. ' ' 
 
 But why are we to be debarred the freedom of criti- 
 cism enjoyed even by the Italians themselves? To 
 read the Osservazioni, one would conclude that Tasso, 
 
 * " Colla penna e colla spada, 
 
 Nessun val quanto Torquato." 
 
 This elegant couplet was made in consequence of a victory ob- 
 tained by Tasso over three cavaliers who treacherously attacked him 
 in one of the public squares of Ferrara. His skill in fencing is noto- 
 rious, and his passion for it is also betrayed by the frequent, circum- 
 stantial, and masterly pictures of it in his "Jerusalem." See, in par- 
 ticular, the mortal combat between Tancred and Argante, canto xix., 
 where all the evolutions of the art are depicted with the accuracy of 
 a professed sword-player. In the same manner, the numerous and 
 animated allusions to field-sports betray the favorite pastime of the 
 author of Waverley; and the falcon, the perpetual subject of illustra- 
 tion and simile in the " Divina Commedia," might lead us to suspect 
 a similar predilection in Dante. 
 
 48* 
 
57° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 from his first appearance, had united all suffrages in 
 his favor; that, by unanimous acclamation, his poem 
 had been placed at the head of all the epics of the 
 last eighteen centuries, and that the only voice raised 
 against him had sprung from the petty rivalries of 
 French criticism, from which source we are more than 
 once complimented with having recruited our own 
 forces. Does our author reckon for nothing the recep- 
 tion with which the first academy in Italy greeted the 
 Jerusalem on its introduction into the world, when 
 they would have smothered it with the kindness of 
 their criticism ? Or the volumes of caustic commen- 
 tary by the celebrated Galileo, almost every line of 
 which is a satire ? Or, to descend to a later period, 
 when the lapse of more than a century may be sup- 
 posed to have rectified the caprice of contemporary 
 judgments, may we not shelter ourselves under the au- 
 thorities of Andres,* whose favorable notice of Italian 
 letters our author cites with deference ; of Metastasio, 
 the avowed admirer and eulogist of Tasso ; f of Gra- 
 vina, whose philosophical treatise on the principles of 
 poetry, a work of great authority in his own country, 
 exhibits the most ungrateful irony on the literary pre- 
 tensions of Tasso, almost refusing to him the title of a 
 poet ? \ 
 
 But, to proceed no farther, we may abide by the 
 solid judgment of Ginguene, that second Daniel, whose 
 opinions we are advised so strenuously "to study and 
 to meditate." "As to florid images, frivolous thoughts, 
 
 * Dell' Origine, etc., d'ogni Letteratura, torn. iv. p. 250. 
 f Opere postume di Metastasio, torn. iii. p. 30. 
 \ Ragion poetica, pp. 161, 162. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 571 
 
 affected turns, conceits, and jeux de mots, they are to 
 be found in greater abundance in Tasso's poem than is 
 commonly imagined. The enumeration of them would 
 be long, if one should run over the Jerusalem and cite 
 all that could be classed under one or other of these 
 heads, etc. Let us content ourselves with a few ex- 
 amples." He then devotes ten pages to these few 
 examples (our author is indignant that we should 
 have bestowed as many lines), and closes with this 
 sensible reflection: "I have not promised a blind faith 
 in the writers I admire the most ; I have not promised 
 it to Boileau, I have not promised it to Tasso ; and in 
 literature we all owe our faith and homage to the eter- 
 nal laws of truth, of nature, and of taste."* 
 
 But, in order to relieve Tasso from an undue respon- 
 sibility, we had stated in our controverted article that 
 " the affectations imputed to him were to be traced to 
 a much more remote origin;" that "Petrarch's best 
 productions were stained with them, as were those of 
 preceding poets, and that they seemed to have flowed 
 directly from the Provencal, the fountain of Italian 
 lyric poetry." This transfer of the sins of one poet 
 to the door of another is not a whit more to the ap- 
 probation of our censor, and he not only flatly denies 
 the truth of our remark, as applied to "Petrarch's best 
 productions," but gravely pronounces it "one of the 
 most solemn, the most horrible literary blasphemies 
 that ever proceeded from the tongue or pen of mor- 
 tal !" f "I maintain," says he, "that not one of those 
 
 * Histoire litteraire, torn. v. pp. 368, 378. 
 
 f " Dird essere questa una delle phi solenni, delle piu orribili lette- 
 rarie bestemmie, che sia stata mai pronunziata o scritta da lingua o 
 penna mortale." — P. 94. 
 
572 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 that are truly Petrarch's best productions, and there are 
 very many, can be accused of such a defect ; let but the 
 critic point me out a single affected or vicious expres- 
 sion in the three patriotic Canzoni, or in the Chiare 
 fresche e dolci acque, or in the Tre Sorelle" etc. (he 
 names several others), "or, in truth, in any of the 
 rest, excepting one or two only." He then recom- 
 mends to us that, "instead of hunting out the errors 
 and blemishes of these masters of our intellects, and 
 occupying ourselves with unjust and unprofitable criti- 
 cism, we should throw over them the mantle of grati- 
 tude, and recompense them with our eulogiums and 
 applause." In conformity with which, the author pro- 
 ceeds to pour out his grateful tribute on the head of 
 the ancient laureate for two pages farther, but which, 
 as not material to the argument, we must omit. 
 
 We know no better way of answering all this than 
 by taking up the gauntlet thrown down to us, and we 
 are obliged to him for giving us the means of bring- 
 ing the matter to so speedy an issue. We will take 
 one of the first Canzoni, of which he has challenged 
 our scrutiny. It is in Petrarch's best manner, and 
 forms the first of a series which has received, xar l~oyjp, 
 the title of the Three Sisters {Tre Sore lie). It is in- 
 dited to his mistress's eyes, and the first stanza con- 
 tains a beautiful invocation to these sources of a lover's 
 inspiration ; but in the second we find him relapsing 
 into the genuine Provencal heresy: 
 
 " When I become snow before their burning rays, 
 Your noble pride 
 
 Is perhaps offended with my unworthiness. 
 Oh, if this my apprehension 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 573 
 
 Should not temper the flame that consumes me, 
 
 Happy should I be to dissolve ; since in their presence 
 
 It is dearer to me to die than to live without them. 
 
 Then, that I do not melt, 
 
 Being so frail an object, before so potent afire, 
 
 It is not my own strength which saves me from it, 
 
 But principally fear, 
 
 Which congeals the blood wandering through my veins, 
 
 And mends the heart that it may btim a long time."* 
 
 This melancholy parade of cold conceits, of fire and 
 snow, thawing and freezing, is extracted, be it ob- 
 served, from one of those choice productions which is 
 recommended as without a blemish ; indeed, not only 
 is it one of the best, but it was esteemed by Petrarch 
 himself, together with its two sister odes, the very best 
 of his lyrical pieces, and the decision of the poet has 
 been ratified by posterity. Let it not be objected that 
 the spirit of an ode must necessarily evaporate in a 
 prose translation. The ideas may be faithfully tran- 
 scribed, and we would submit it to the most ordinary 
 taste whether ideas like those above quoted can ever 
 be ennobled by any artifice of expression. 
 
 We think the preceding extract from one of the 
 
 * " Quando agli ardenti rai neve divegno, 
 Vostro gentile sdegno 
 Forse ch' allor mia indegnitate ofifende. 
 O, se questa temenza 
 Non temprasse 1' arsura che m' incende, 
 Beato venir men ! che n' lor presenza 
 M' e piu caro il morir, che 1' viver senza. 
 Dunque ch' i' non mi sfaccia, 
 Si frale oggetto a si possente foco, 
 Non e proprio valor, che me ne scampi ; 
 Ma la paura un poco, 
 
 Che '1 sangue vago per le vene agghiaccia, 
 Risalda '1 cor, perche piu tempo avvampi." 
 
 Canzone vii., nell' Edizione di Muratori. 
 
574 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 "best of Petrarch's compositions" may sufficiently 
 vindicate us from the imputation of unprecedented 
 "blasphemy" on his poetical character; but, lest an 
 appeal be again made, on the ground of a diversity in 
 national taste, we will endeavor to fortify our feeble 
 judgment with one or two authorities among his own 
 countrymen, whom Mr. Da Ponte may be more inclined 
 to admit. 
 
 The Italians have exceeded every other people in 
 the grateful tribute of commentaries which they have 
 paid to the writings of their eminent men : some of 
 these are of extraordinary value, especially in verbal 
 criticism, while many more, by the contrary lights 
 which they shed over the path of the scholar, serve 
 rather to perplex than to enlighten it.* Tassoni and 
 Muratori are accounted among the best of Petrarch's 
 numerous commentators, and the latter, in particular, 
 has discriminated his poetical character with as much 
 independence as feeling. We cannot refrain from 
 quoting a few lines from Muratori's preface, as ex- 
 ceedingly pertinent to our present purpose : "Who, I 
 beg to ask, is so pedantic, so blind an admirer of Pe- 
 
 * A single ode has furnished a repast for a volume. The number 
 of Petrarch's commentators is incredible : no less than a dozen of the 
 most eminent Italian scholars have been occupied with annotations 
 upon him at the same time. Dante has been equally fortunate. A 
 noble Florentine projected an edition of a hundred volumes for the 
 hundred cantos of the " Commedia," which should embrace the dif- 
 ferent illustrations. One of the latest of the fraternity, Biagioli, in an 
 edition of Dante, published at Paris, 1818, not only claims for his 
 master a foreknowledge of the existence of America, but of the cele- 
 brated Harveian discovery of the circulation of the blood! (Tom. 
 i. p. 18, note.) After this, one may feel less surprise at the bulk of 
 these commentaries. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 575 
 
 trarch, that he will pretend that no defects are to be 
 found in his verses, or, being found, will desire they 
 should be respected with a religious silence ? Whatever 
 may be our rule in regard to moral defects, there can 
 be no doubt that in those of art and science the public 
 interest requires that truth should be openly unveiled, 
 since it is important that all should distinguish the 
 beautiful from the bad, in order to imitate the one and 
 to avoid the other."* In the same tone speaks Tira- 
 boschi (torn. v. p. 474). Yet more to the purpose is 
 an observation of the Abbe Denina upon Petrarch, 
 "who," says he, " not only in his more ordinary sonnets 
 affords obvious examples of affectation and coldness, 
 but in his most tender and jnost beautiful compositions 
 approaches the conceited and inflated style of which I 
 am now speaking." f And the "impartial Ginguene," 
 a name we love to quote, confesses that "Petrarch 
 could not deny himself those puerile antitheses of cold 
 and heat, of ice and flames, which occasionally disfigure 
 his most interesting and most agreeable pieces." 1 ' } \ It 
 would be easy to marshal many other authorities of 
 equal weight in our defence, but obviously superfluous, 
 since those we have adduced are quite competent to 
 our vindication from the reproach, somewhat severe, 
 of having uttered "the most horrible blasphemy which 
 ever proceeded from the pen of mortal." 
 
 The age of Petrarch, like that of Shakspeare, must 
 be accountable for his defects, and in this manner we 
 
 * Le Rime di F. Petrarca ; con le Osservazioni di Tassoni, Muzio, 
 e Muratori. Pref., p. 9. 
 
 f Vicende della Letteratura, torn. ii. p. 55. 
 \ Histoire litteraire, torn. ii. p. 566. 
 
576 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 may justify the character of the poet where we cannot 
 that of his compositions. The Provencal, the most 
 polished European dialect of the Middle Ages, had 
 reached its last perfection before the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. Its poetry, chiefly amatory and lyrical, may be 
 considered as the homage offered by the high-bred 
 cavaliers of that day at the shrine of beauty, and, of 
 whatever value for its literary execution, is interesting 
 for the beautiful grace it diffuses over the iron age of 
 chivalry. It was, as we have said, principally devoted 
 to love ; those who did not feel could at least affect 
 the tender passion ; and hence the influx of subtle 
 metaphors and frigid conceits that give a meretricious 
 brilliancy to most of the Provencal poetry. The 
 fathers of Italian verse, Guido, Cino, etc., seduced 
 by the fashion of the period, clothed their own more 
 natural sentiments in the same vicious forms of expres- 
 sion ; even Dante, in his admiration, often avowed, 
 for the Troubadours, could not be wholly insensible 
 to their influence ; but the less austere Petrarch, both 
 from constitutional temperament and the accidental 
 circumstances of his situation, was more deeply affected 
 by them. In the first place, a pertinacious attachment 
 to a mistress whose heart was never warmed, although 
 her vanity may have been gratified by the adulation of 
 the finest poet of the age, seems to have maintained 
 an inexplicable control over his affections, or his 
 fancy, during the greater portion of his life. In the 
 amatory poetry of the ancients, polluted with coarse 
 and licentious images, he could find no model for the 
 expression of this sublimated passion. But the Pla- 
 tonic theory of love had been imported into Italy 
 
CRITIC A L M ISC EL LA NIES. 
 
 577 
 
 by the fathers of the Church, and Petrarch, better 
 schooled in ancient learning than any of his contem- 
 poraries, became early enamored of the speculative 
 doctrines of the Greek philosophy. To this source 
 he was indebted for those abstractions and visionary 
 ecstasies which sometimes give a generous elevation, 
 but very often throw a cloud over his conceptions. 
 And, again, an intimate familiarity with the Provencal 
 poetry was the natural consequence of his residence in 
 the south of France. There, too, he must often have 
 been a spectator at those metaphysical disputations in 
 the courts of love, which exhibited the same ambition 
 of metaphor, studied antithesis, and hyperbole, as the 
 written compositions of Provence. To all these causes 
 may be referred those defects which, under favor be it 
 spoken, occasionally offend us, even "in his most per- 
 fect compositions." The rich finish which Petrarch 
 gave to the Tuscan idiom has perpetuated these defects 
 in the poetry of his country. Decipit exemplar vitiis 
 imitabile. His beauties were inimitable, but to copy 
 his errors was in some measure to tread in his foot- 
 steps, and a servile race of followers sprang up in Italy, 
 who, under the emphatic name of Petrarchists, have 
 been the object of derision or applause, as a good or 
 a bad taste predominated in their country. Warton, 
 with apparent justice, refers to the same source some 
 of the early corruptions in English poetry; and Pe- 
 trarch — we hope it is not "blasphemy" to say it — 
 becomes, by the very predominance of his genius, 
 eminently responsible for the impurities of diction 
 which disfigure some of the best productions both in 
 English literature and his own. 
 z 49 
 
578 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 We trust that the free manner in which we have 
 spoken will not be set down by the author of the Osscr- 
 vazioni to a malicious desire of "calumniating" the 
 literature of his country. We have been necessarily led 
 to it in vindication of our former assertions. After an 
 interval of nearly five centuries, the dispassionate voice 
 of posterity has awarded to Petrarch the exact measure 
 of censure and applause. We have but repeated their 
 judgment. No one of the illustrious triumvirate of 
 the fourteenth century can pretend to have possessed so 
 great an influence over his own age and over posterity. 
 Dante, sacrificed by a faction, was, as he pathetically 
 complains, a wandering mendicant in a land of stran- 
 gers; Boccaccio, with the interval of a few years in the 
 meridian of his life, passed from the gayety of a court 
 to the seclusion of a cloister ; but Petrarch, the friend, 
 the minister of princes, devoted, during the whole of 
 his long career, his wealth, his wide authority, and his 
 talents to the generous cause of philosophy and letters. 
 He was unwearied in his researches after ancient manu- 
 scripts, and from the most remote corners of Italy, from 
 the obscure recesses of churches and monasteries, he 
 painfully collected the mouldering treasures of an- 
 tiquity. Many of them he copied with his own hand, 
 — among the rest, all the works of Cicero; and his 
 beautiful transcript of the epistles of the Roman orator 
 is still preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence. 
 In his numerous Latin compositions he aspired to re- 
 vive the purity and elegance of the Augustan age ; and, 
 if he did not altogether succeed in the attempt, he may 
 claim the merit of having opened the soil for the more 
 successful cultivation of later Italian scholars. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 579 
 
 His own efforts, and the generous impulse which his 
 example communicated to his age, have justly entitled 
 him to be considered the restorer of classical learning. 
 His greatest glory, however, is derived from the spirit 
 of life which he breathed into modern letters. Dante 
 had fortified the Tuscan idiom with the vigor and se- 
 vere simplicity of an ancient language, but the grace- 
 ful genius of Petrarch was wanting to ripen it into that 
 harmony of numbers which has made it the most mu- 
 sical of modern dialects. His knowledge of the Pro- 
 vencal enabled him to enrich his native tongue with 
 many foreign beauties ; his exquisite ear disposed him 
 to refuse all but the most melodious combinations; 
 and, at the distance of five hundred years, not a word 
 in him has become obsolete, not a phrase too quaint to 
 be used. Voltaire has passed the same high eulogium 
 upon Pascal ; but Pascal lived three centuries later than 
 Petrarch. It would be difficult to point out the writer 
 who so far fixed the iitea Tzrepoevra-, we certainly could 
 not assign an earlier period than the commencement 
 of the last century. Petrarch's brilliant success in the 
 Italian led to most important consequences all over 
 Europe by the evidence which it afforded of the ca- 
 pacities of a modern tongue. He relied, however, for 
 his future fame on his elaborate Latin compositions, 
 and, while he dedicated these to men of the highest 
 rank, he gave away his Italian lyrics to ballad-mongers, 
 to be chanted about the streets for their own profit. 
 His contemporaries authorized this judgment, and it 
 was for his Latin eclogues, and his epic on Scipio 
 Africanus, that he received the laurel wreath of poetry 
 in the Capitol. But nature must eventually prevail 
 
5 So BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 over the decisions of pedantry or fashion. By one of 
 those fluctuations not very uncommon in the history 
 of letters, the author of the Latin "Africa" is now 
 known only as the lover of Laura and the father of 
 Italian song. 
 
 We have been led into this long, we fear tedious, 
 exposition of the character of Petrarch, partly from the 
 desire of defending the justice of our former criticism 
 against the heavy imputations of the author of the 
 Osservazioni, and partly from reluctance to dwell only 
 on the dark side of a picture so brilliant as that of the 
 laureate, who, in a barbarous age, with 
 
 " his rhetorike so swete 
 Enluminid all Itaile of poetrie." 
 
 Our limits will compel us to pass lightly over some 
 less important strictures of our author. 
 
 About the middle of the last century a bitter con- 
 troversy arose between Tiraboschi and Lampillas, a 
 learned but intemperate Spaniard, respecting which of 
 their two nations had the best claim to the reproach 
 of having corrupted the other's literature in the six- 
 teenth century. In alluding to it, we had remarked 
 that "the Italian had the better of his adversary in 
 temper, if not in argument." The author of the 
 Osservazioni styles this "a dry and dogmatic decision, 
 which so much displeased a certain Italian letterato 
 that he had promised him a confutation of it." We 
 know not who the indignant letterato may be whose 
 thunder has been so long hanging over us, but we must 
 say that, so far from a "dogmatic decision," if ever 
 we made a circumspect remark in our lives, this was 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 581 
 
 one. As far as it went, it was complimentary to the 
 Italians ; for the rest, we waived all discussion of the 
 merits of the controversy, both because it was imper- 
 tinent to our subject, and because we were not suffi- 
 ciently instructed in the details to go into it. One or 
 two reflections, however, we may now add. The rela- 
 tive position of Italy and Spain, political and literary, 
 makes it highly probable that the predominant influ- 
 ence, of whatever kind it may have been, proceeded 
 from Italy. 1. She had matured her literature to a 
 high perfection while that of every other nation was 
 in its infancy, and she was, of course, much more 
 likely to communicate than to receive impressions. 
 2. Her political relations with Spain were such as par- 
 ticularly to increase this probability in reference to 
 her. The occupation of an insignificant corner of 
 her own territory (for Naples was very insignificant in 
 every literary aspect) by the house of Aragon opened 
 an obvious channel for the transmission of her opinions 
 into the sister kingdom. 3. Any one, even an Italian, 
 at all instructed in the Spanish literature, will admit 
 that this actually did happen in the reign of Charles 
 the Fifth, the golden age of Italy; that not only, in- 
 deed, the latter country influenced but changed the 
 whole complexion of Spanish letters, establishing, 
 through the intervention of her high-priests, Boscan 
 and Garcilaso, what is universally recognized under 
 the name of an Italian school. This was an era of 
 good taste; but when, only fifty years later, both lan- 
 guages were overrun with those deplorable affectations 
 which, in Italy particularly, have made the very name 
 of the century (seicento) a term of reproach, it would 
 
 49* 
 
582 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 seem probable that the same country which but so 
 short a time before had possessed so direct an influ- 
 ence over the other should through the same channels 
 have diffused the poison with which its own literature 
 was infected. As Marini and Gongora, however, the 
 reputed founders of the school, were contemporaries, 
 it is extremely difficult to adjust the precise claims of 
 either to the melancholy credit of originality ; and, 
 after all, the question to foreigners can be one of little 
 interest or importance. 
 
 Much curiosity has existed respecting the source of 
 those affectations which, at different periods, have 
 tainted the modern languages of Europe. Each na- 
 tion is ambitious of tracing them to a foreign origin, 
 and all have at some period or other agreed to find 
 this in Italy. From this quarter the French critics 
 derive their style precieux, which disappeared before 
 the satire of Moliere and Boileau ; from this the Eng- 
 lish derive their metaphysical school of Cowley; and 
 the cultismo, of which we have been speaking, which 
 Lope and Quevedo condemned by precept but author- 
 ized by example, is referred by the Spaniards to the 
 same source. The early celebrity of Petrarch and his 
 vicious imitators may afford a specious justification of 
 all this ; but a generous criticism may perhaps be ex- 
 cused in referring them to a more ancient origin. The 
 Provencal for three centuries was the most popular 
 and, as we have before said, the most polished dialect 
 in Europe. The language of the people all along the 
 fertile coasts of the Mediterranean, it was also the lan- 
 guage of poetry in most of the polite courts of Europe, 
 — in those of Toulouse, Provence, Sicily, and of sev- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. ^ 
 
 eral in Italy; it reached its highest perfection under 
 the Spanish nobles of Aragon ; it passed into England 
 in the twelfth century with the dowry of Eleanor of 
 Guienne and Poictou; even kings did not disdain to 
 cultivate it, and the lion-hearted Richard, if report be 
 true, could embellish the rude virtues of chivalry with 
 the milder glories of a Troubadour.* When this pre- 
 cocious dialect had become extinct, its influence still 
 remained. The early Italian poets gave a sort of clas- 
 sical sanction to its defects; but, while their genius 
 may thus with justice be accused of scattering the 
 seeds of corruption, the soil must be confessed to have 
 been universally prepared for their reception at a more 
 remote period. 
 
 Thus the metaphysical conceits of Cowley's school, 
 which Dr. Johnson has referred to Marini, may be 
 traced through the poetry of Donne, of Shakspeare 
 and his contemporaries, of Surrey, Wyatt, and Chau- 
 cer, up to the fugitive pieces of the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries, which have been redeemed from 
 oblivion by the diligence of the antiquarian. In the 
 same manner, the religious and amatory poetry of 
 Spain at the close of the thirteenth century, as exhib- 
 
 * Every one is acquainted with Sismondi's elegant treatise on the 
 Provencal poetry. It cannot, however, now be relied on as of the 
 highest authority. The subject has been much more fully explored, 
 since the publication of his work, by Monsieur Raynouard, Secretary 
 of the French Aademy. His Poesies des Troubadours has now 
 reached the sixth volume ; and W. A. Schlegel, in a treatise of little 
 bulk but great learning, entitled Observations sur la Langue et la 
 Litterature Provencale, has pronounced it, by the facts it has brought 
 to light, to have given the coup de grace to the theory of Father 
 Andres, whom Sismondi has chiefly followed. 
 
584 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ited in their Cancio?ieros, displays the same subtleties 
 and barbaric taste for ornament, from which few of- 
 her writers, even in the riper season of her literature, 
 have been wholly uncontaminated. Perhaps the per- 
 versities of Voiture and of Scudery may find as re- 
 mote a genealogy in France. The corruptions of the 
 Pleiades may afford one link in the chain, and any 
 one who has leisure might verify our suggestions. Al- 
 most every modern literature seems to have contained 
 in its earliest germs an active principle of corruption. 
 The perpetual lapses into barbarism have at times 
 triumphed over all efforts of sober criticism; and the 
 perversion of intellect for the greater part of a century 
 may furnish to the scholar an ample field for humili-: 
 ating reflection. How many fine geniuses in the con- 
 demned age of the seicentisti, wandering after the false 
 lights of Marini and his school, substituted cold con- 
 ceits for wit, puns for thoughts, and wire-drawn meta- 
 phors for simplicity and nature ! How many, with 
 Cowley, exhausted a genuine wit in hunting out re- 
 mote analogies and barren combinations, or, with 
 Lope, and even Calderon, devoted pages to curious 
 distortions of rhyme, to echoes or acrostics, in scenes 
 which invited all the eloquence of poetry ! Prostitu- 
 tions of genius like these not merely dwarf the human 
 mind, but carry it back centuries to the scholastic 
 subtleties, the alliterations, anagrams, and thousand 
 puerile devices of the Middle Ages. 
 
 But we have already rambled too far from the author 
 of the Osservazioni. Our next rock of offence is a 
 certain inconsiderate astonishment which we expressed 
 at the patience of his countrymen under the infliction 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 585 
 
 of epics of thirty and forty cantos in length ; and he 
 reminds us of our corresponding taste, equally unac- 
 countable, for novels and romances spun out into an 
 interminable length, like those, for example, by the 
 author of Waverley [p. 82 to 85]. A liberal criti- 
 cism, we are aware, will be diffident of censuring the 
 discrepancies of national tastes. Where the value of 
 the thought is equal, the luxury of polished verse and 
 poetic imagery may yield a great superiority to poetry 
 over prose, particularly with a people so sensible to 
 melody and of so vivacious a fancy as the Italians ; 
 but, then, to accomplish all this requires a higher de- 
 gree of skill in the artist, and mediocrity in poetry is 
 intolerable. 
 
 " Mediocribus esse poetis 
 Non homines, non Di," etc. 
 
 Horace's maxim is not the less true for being some- 
 what stale. D'Alembert has uttered a sweeping denun- 
 ciation against all long works in verse, as impossible 
 to be read through without experiencing ennui ; from 
 which he does not except even the masterpieces of 
 antiquity.* What would he have said to a second-rate 
 Italian epic, wiredrawn into thirty or forty cantos, of 
 the incredibilia of chivalry ! 
 
 The English novel, if tolerably well executed, may 
 convey some solid instruction in its details of life, of 
 human character, and of passion ; but the tales of 
 chivalry — the overcharged pictures of an imaginary 
 state of society, of "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras 
 dire" — can be regarded only as an intellectual relaxa- 
 tion. In a less polished dialect, and in a simpler age, 
 
 * CEuvres philosophiques, etc., torn. iv. p. 152. 
 z* 
 
586 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 they beguiled the tedious evenings of our unlettered 
 Norman ancestors, and as late as Elizabeth's day they 
 incurred their parting malediction from the worthy 
 Ascham, as "stuff for wise men to laugh at, whose 
 whole pleasure standeth in open manslaughter and 
 bold bawdry." The remarks in our article, of course, 
 had no reference to the chef-d" ceuvres of their romantic 
 muse, many of which we had been diligently com- 
 mending. It is the prerogative of genius, we all know, 
 to consecrate whatever it touches. 
 
 Some other of our general remarks seem to have 
 been barbed arrows to the patriot breast of the author 
 of the Osservazioni. Such are our reflections " on the 
 want of a moral or philosophical aim in the ornamental 
 writings of the Italians;" on "love, as suggesting the 
 constant theme and impulse to their poets;" on the 
 evil tendency of their language, in seducing their 
 writers into "an overweening attention to sound." 
 There are few general reflections which have the good 
 fortune not to require many, and sometimes very im- 
 portant, exceptions. The physiognomy of a nation, 
 whether moral or intellectual, must be made up of 
 those features which arrest the eye most frequently 
 and forcibly on a wide survey of them ; yet how many 
 individual portraits, after all, may refuse to correspond 
 with the prevailing one ! The Boeotians were dull to a 
 proverb;* yet the most inspired, in the most inspired 
 region of Greek poetry, was a Boeotian. The most 
 amusing of Greek prose writers was a Boeotian. Or, 
 to take recent examples, when we find the "accurate 
 Ginguene" speaking of "the universal corruption of 
 
 * " Sus Boeotica, auris Boeotica, Boeoticum ingenium." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 587 
 
 taste in Italy during the seventeenth century," or Sis- 
 mondi telling us that " the abuse of wit extinguished 
 there, during that age, every other species of talent " we 
 are obviously not to nail them down to a pedantic pre- 
 cision of language, or how are we to dispose of some of 
 the finest poets and scholars Italy has ever produced, 
 — of Chiabrera, Filicaja, Galileo, and other names 
 sufficiently numerous to swell into a bulky quarto of 
 Tiraboschi ? The same pruning principle applied to 
 writers who, like Montesquieu, Madame de Stael, and 
 Schlegel, deal in general views, would go near to strip 
 them of all respect or credibility. 
 
 But it is frivolous to multiply examples. Dante, 
 Tasso, Alemanni, Guidi, Petrarch often, the generous 
 Filicaja always, with, doubtless, very many others, 
 afford an honorable exception to our remark on the 
 want of a moral aim in the lighter walks of Italian 
 letters, and to many of these, by indirect criticism, we 
 accorded it in our article. But let any scholar cast 
 his eye over the prolific productions of their romantic 
 muse, which even Tiraboschi censures as " crude and 
 insipid," * and Gravina deplores as having "excluded 
 the light of truth" from his countrymen ; f or on their 
 thousand tales of pleasantry and love, which, since 
 Boccaccio's example, have agreeably perpetuated the 
 ingenious inventions of a barbarous age;! or roun d 
 
 * Letteratura Italiana, torn. vii. part. iii. s. 42. 
 
 ■J" Ragion poetica, p. 14. 
 
 \ The Italian Novelle, it is well known, were originally suggested 
 by the French fabliaux of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It 
 may be worthy of remark that, while in Italy these amusing fictions 
 have been diligently propagated from Boccaccio to the present day, 
 in England, although recommended by a genius like Chaucer, they 
 
588 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 "the circle of frivolous extravagances," as Salfi* char- 
 acterizes the burlesque novelties with which the Italian 
 wits have regaled the laughter-loving appetite of their 
 nation ; or on their hecatombs of amorous lyrics alone ; 
 and he may accept, in these saturated varieties of the 
 national literature, a decent apology, if not an ample 
 justification, for our assertion. 
 
 But are we not to speak of "love as furnishing the 
 great impulse to the Italian poet," and "as prevailing 
 in his bosom far over every other affection or relation 
 in life" ? Have not their most illustrious writers, 
 Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sannazarius, Tasso, nay, 
 philosophic prelates like Bembo, politic statesmen like 
 Lorenzo, embalmed the names of their mistresses in 
 verse, until they have made them familiar in every 
 corner of Italy as their own ? Is not nearly half of 
 the miscellaneous selection of lyrics, in the vulgar 
 edition of "Italian classics," exclusively amatory? 
 Had Milton, Dryden, Pope, or, still more, such solid 
 personages as Bishop Warburton or Dr. Johnson (whose 
 "Tetty," we suspect, never stirred the doctor's poetic 
 feeling), dedicated, not a passing sonnet, but whole 
 volumes to their Beatrices, Lauras, and Leonoras, we 
 
 have scarcely been adopted by a single writer. The same may be 
 said of them in France, their native soil, with perhaps a solitary ex- 
 ception in the modern imitations by La Fontaine, himself inimitable. 
 * This learned Italian is now employed in completing the unfinished 
 history of M. Ginguene. With deference to the opinions of the author 
 of the " Osservazioni" (vide pp. 115, 116), we think he has shown in it 
 a more independent and impartial criticism than his predecessor. His 
 own countrymen seem to be of the same opinion, and'in a recent flat- 
 tering notice of his work they have qualified their general encomium 
 with more than one rebuke on the severity of his strictures. Vide 
 Antologia for April, 18T4. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 589 
 
 think a critic might we'll be excused in regarding the 
 tender passion as the vivida vis of the English author. 
 Let us not be misunderstood, however, as implying 
 that nothing but this amorous incense escapes from 
 the Italian lyric muse. To the exceptions which the 
 author of the Osservazioni has enumerated, he might 
 have added, had not his modesty forbidden him, as 
 inferior to none, the sacred melodies which adorn his 
 own autobiography ; above all, the magnificent can- 
 zone on the "Death of Leopold," which can derive 
 nothing from our commendation, when a critic like 
 Mathias has declared it to have "secured to its author 
 a place on the Italian Parnassus, by the side of Petrarch 
 and Chiabrera." * 
 
 As to our remark on the tendency of the soft Italian 
 tones "to seduce their writers into an overweening 
 attention to sound," we are surprised that this should 
 have awakened two such grave pages of admonition 
 from our censor. Why, we were speaking of 
 
 " The Tuscan's siren tongue, 
 That music in itself, whose sounds are song." 
 
 We thought the remark had been as true as it was old. 
 We cannot but think there is something in it, even 
 now, as we are occasionally lost in the mellifluous re- 
 dundances of Bembo or Boccaccio, those celebrated 
 
 * A letter from Mr. Mathias, which fell into our hands some time 
 since, concludes a complimentary analysis of the above canzone with 
 this handsome eulogium : "After having read and reflected much on 
 this wonderful production, I believe that, if Petrarch could have 
 heard it, he would have assigned to its author a seat very near to his 
 own, without requiring any other evidence of his vivacious, copious, 
 and sublime genius." 
 
 50 
 
59° 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 models of Italian eloquence. At any rate, our remark 
 fell far short of the candid confession of Bettinelli, 
 who, in speaking of historical writing, observes that 
 "in this, as in every other department of literature, 
 his countrymen have been more solicitous about style, 
 and ingenious turns of thought, than utility or good 
 philosophy." * 
 
 But we must hasten to the last, not by any means 
 the least, offence recorded on the roll of our enormi- 
 ties. This is an ill-omened stricture on the poetical 
 character of Metastasio, for which the author of the 
 Osservazioni, after lavishing upon him a shower of 
 golden compliments at our expense, proceeds to cen- 
 sure us as "wanting in respect to this famous man; 
 as perspicacious only in detecting blemishes ; as guilty 
 of extravagant and unworthy expressions, which prove 
 that we cannot have read or digested the works of this 
 exalted dramatist, nor those of his biographers, nor of 
 his critics." (Pp. 98-1 11.) And what, think you, 
 gentle reader, invited these unsavory rebukes, with 
 the dozen pages of panegyrical accompaniment on his 
 predecessor? "The melodious rhythm of Tasso's verse 
 has none of the monotonous sweetness so cloying in Metas- 
 tasio.'''' In this italicized line lies the whole of our 
 offending; no more. 
 
 We shall consult the comfort of our readers by 
 disposing of this point as briefly as possible. We 
 certainly do not feel, and we will not affect, that 
 profound veneration for Metastasio which the author 
 of the Osservazioni professes, and which may have 
 legitimately descended to him with the inheritance of 
 
 * Risorgimento d'ltalia, Introduz., torn. i. p. 14. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 59* 
 
 the Cesarean laurel. We have always looked upon 
 his operas as exhibiting an effeminacy of sentiment, a 
 violent contrivance of incident, and an extravagance 
 of character, that are not wholly to be vindicated by 
 the constitution of the Musical Drama. But nothing 
 of all this was intimated in our unfortunate suggestion; 
 and, as we are unwilling to startle anew the principles 
 or prejudices of our highly respectable censor, we shall 
 content ourselves with bringing into view one or two 
 stout authorities, behind whom we might have in- 
 trenched ourselves, and resign the field to him. 
 
 The author has presented his readers with an abstract 
 of about forty pages of undiluted commendation on 
 his favorite poet, by the Spaniard Arteaga. We have 
 no objection to this ; but, while he recommends them 
 as the opinions of "a learned, judicious, and indu- 
 bitably impartial critic," we think it would have been 
 fair to temper these forty pages of commendation with 
 some allusion to five-and -thirty pages of almost unmit- 
 igated censure which immediately follow them.* In 
 the course of this censorious analysis, it may be noticed 
 that the "impartial Arteaga," speaking of the com- 
 mon imputation of monotony in the structure of Metas- 
 tases verse, and of his periods, far from acquitting him, 
 expressly declines passing judgment upon it. 
 
 But we may find ample countenance for our "irrev- 
 erent opinion" in that of Ugo Foscolo, a name of 
 high consideration both as a poet and a critic, and 
 whom, for his perspicacity in the latter vocation, our 
 author, on another occasion, has himself cited and 
 eulogized as his " magnus Apollo." Speaking inci- 
 
 * Le Rivoluzioni del Teatro musicale, etc., pp. 375, 410. 
 
592 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 dentally of Metastasio, he observes, "To please the 
 court of Vienna, the musicians, and the public of his 
 day, and to gratify the delicacy of his own feminine 
 taste, Metastasio has reduced his language and versifi- 
 cation to so limited a 7iumber of words, phrases, and 
 cadences that they seem always the same, and in the end 
 produce only the effect of a flute, which conveys rather 
 delightful melody than quick and distinct sensations." * 
 To precisely the same effect speaks W. A. Schlegel, in 
 his eighth lecture on Dramatic Literature, whose ac- 
 knowledged excellence in this particular department 
 of criticism may induce us to quote him, although a 
 foreigner. These authorities are too pertinent and ex- 
 plicit to require the citation of any other, or to make it 
 necessary, by a prolix but easy enumeration of extracts 
 from the poet, more fully to establish our position. 
 
 " Hie aliquid plus 
 Quam satis est." 
 
 We believe we are quite as weary as our readers of 
 the very disagreeable office of dwelling on the defects 
 of a literature so beautiful, and for which we feel so 
 sincere an admiration, as the Italian. The severe im- 
 peachment made, both upon the spirit and the sub- 
 stance of our former remarks, by so accomplished a 
 scholar as the author of the Osservazioni, has necessa- 
 rily compelled us to this course in self-defence. The 
 tedious parade of citations must be excused by the 
 necessity of buoying up our opinions in debatable 
 matters of taste by those whose authority alone our 
 censor is disposed to admit, — that of his own country- 
 
 * Essays on Petrarch, p. 93. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 593 
 
 men. He has emphatically repeated his distrust of the 
 capacity of foreigners to decide upon subjects of liter- 
 ary taste ; yet the extraordinary diversity of opinion 
 manifest between him and those eminent authorities 
 whom we have quoted might lead us to anticipate but 
 little correspondence in the national criticism. An 
 acquaintance with Italian history will not serve to di- 
 minish our suspicions; and the feuds which, from the 
 learned but querulous scholars of the fifteenth century 
 to those of our own time, have divided her republic 
 of letters, have not been always carried on with the 
 bloodless weapons of scholastic controversy.* 
 
 That some assertions too unqualified, some errors or 
 prejudices, should have escaped, in the course of fifty 
 or sixty pages of remark, is to be expected from the 
 most circumspect pen ; but a benevolent critic, instead 
 of fastening upon these, will embrace the spirit of the 
 whole, and by this interpret and excuse any specific 
 inaccuracy. It may not be easy to come up to the 
 standard of our author's principles, it may be his par- 
 tialities, in estimating the intellectual character of his 
 country; but we think we can detect one source of his 
 dissatisfaction with us, in his misconception of our 
 views, which, according to him, were that "a, partic- 
 ular knowledge of the Italian should be widely diffused 
 
 * Take two familiar examples : that of Caro and that of Marini. 
 The adversary of the former poet, accused of murder, heresy, etc., 
 was condemned by the Inquisition, and compelled to seek his safety 
 in exile. The adversary of Marini, in an attempt to assassinate him, 
 fortunately shot only a courtier of the King of Sardinia. In both 
 cases, the wits of Italy, ranged under opposite banners, fought with 
 incredible acrimony during the greater part of a century. The sub- 
 ject of fierce dispute, in both instances, was a sonnet ! 
 
 5°* 
 
594 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 in America." This he quotes and requotes with pecu- 
 liar emphasis, objecting it to us as perfectly inconsist- 
 ent with our style of criticism. Now, in the first place, 
 we made no such declaration. We intended only to 
 give a veracious analysis of one branch of Italian let- 
 ters. But, secondly, had such been our design, we 
 doubt exceedingly, or rather we do not doubt, whether 
 the best way of effecting it would be by indiscriminate 
 panegyric. The amplification of beauties, and the 
 prudish concealment of all defects, would carry with 
 it an air of insincerity that must dispose the mind of 
 every ingenuous reader to reject it. Perfection is not 
 the lot of humanity more in Italy than elsewhere. 
 Such intemperate panegyric is, moreover, unworthy of 
 the great men who are the objects of it. They really 
 shine with too brilliant a light to be darkened by a 
 few spots ; and to be tenacious of their defects is in 
 some measure to distrust their genius. Rien rf est beau 
 que le vrai, is the familiar reflection of a critic whose 
 general maxims in his art are often more sound than 
 their particular application. 
 
 Notwithstanding the difficulty urged by Mr. Da Ponte 
 of forming a correct estimate of a foreign language, the 
 science of general literary criticism and history, which 
 may be said to have entirely grown up within the last 
 fifty years, has done much to eradicate prejudice and 
 enlarge the circle of genuine knowledge. A century 
 and a half ago, " the best of English critics," * in the 
 opinion of Pope and Dryden, could institute a formal 
 
 * " The Tragedies of the Last Age, considered and examined by 
 the Practice of the Ancients," etc. By Thomas Rymer. London, 
 1678. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 595 
 
 examination, and, of course, condemnation, of the 
 plays of Shakspeare "by the practice of the ancients." 
 The best of French critics,* in the opinion of every 
 one, could condemn the "Orlando Furioso" for wan- 
 dering from the rules of Horace ; even Addison, in 
 his triumphant vindication of the "Paradise Lost," 
 seems most solicitous to prove its conformity with the 
 laws of Aristotle ; and a writer like Lope de Vega felt 
 obliged to apologize for the independence with which 
 he deviated from the dogmas of the same school and 
 adapted his beautiful inventions in the drama to the 
 peculiar genius of his own countrymen. f The mag- 
 nificent fables of Ariosto and Spenser were stigmatized 
 as barbarous, because they were not classical ; and the 
 polite scholars of Europe sneered at "the bad taste 
 which could prefer an 'Ariosto to a Virgil, a Romance 
 to an Iliad.' "J But the reconciling spirit of modern 
 criticism has interfered ; the character, the wants of 
 
 * " Dissertation critique sur l'Aventure de Joconde." GEuvres de 
 Boileau, torn. ii. 
 f " Arte de hacer Comedias." Obras sueltas, torn. iv. p. 406. 
 
 " Y quando he de escribir una Comedia, 
 Encierro los preceptos con seis Haves ; 
 Saco a Terencio y Plauto de mi estudio, 
 Para que no me den voces, que suele 
 Dar gritos la verdad en libros mudos," etc. 
 
 \ See Lord Shaftesbury's " Advice to an Author ;" a treatise of great 
 authority in its day, but which could speak of the "Gothic Muse of 
 Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Milton as lisping with stammering tongues, 
 that nothing but the youth and rawness of the age could excuse!" 
 Sir William Temple, with a purer taste, is not more liberal. The 
 term Gothic, with these writers, is applied to much the same subjects 
 with the modern term Romantic, with this difference : the latter is 
 simply distinctive, while the former was also an opprobrious epithet. 
 
596 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 different nations and ages have been consulted; from 
 the local beauties peculiar to each, the philosophic in- 
 quirer has deduced certain general principles of beauty 
 applicable to all ; petty national prejudices have been 
 extinguished ; and a difference of taste, which for that 
 reason alone was before condemned as a deformity, is 
 now admired as a beautiful variety in the order of 
 nature. 
 
 The English, it must be confessed, can take little 
 credit to themselves for this improvement. Their re- 
 searches in literary history amount to little in their 
 own language, and to nothing in any other. Warton, 
 Johnson, and Campbell have indeed furnished an ac- 
 curate inventory of their poetical wealth; but, except 
 it be in the limited researches of Drake and of Dun- 
 lop, what record have we of all their rich and various 
 prose? As to foreign literature, while other cultivated 
 nations have been developing their views in volumi- 
 nous and valuable treatises, the English have been pro- 
 foundly mute.* Yet for several reasons they might be 
 
 ® The late translation of " Sismondi's Southern Europe" is the only- 
 one, we believe, which the English possess of a detailed literary his- 
 tory. The discriminating taste of this sensible Frenchman has been 
 liberalized by his familiarity with the languages of the North. His 
 knowledge, however, is not always equal to his subject, and the credit 
 of his opinions is not unfrequently due to another. The historian of 
 the " Italian Republics" may be supposed to be at home in treating 
 of Italian letters, and this is undoubtedly the strongest part of his 
 work; but in what relates to Spain he has helped himself " manibus 
 plenis" from Boutervvek, much too liberally, indeed, for the scanty 
 acknowledgments made by him to the accurate and learned German. 
 Page upon page is literally translated from him. Sismondi's work, 
 however, is intrinsically valuable for its philosophical illustrations of 
 the character of the Spaniards by the peculiarities of their literature. 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 597 
 
 expected to make the best general critics in the world, 
 and the collision of their judgments in this matter 
 with those of the other European scholars might pro- 
 duce new and important results. 
 
 The author of the Osservazioni has accused us of 
 being too much under the influence of his enemies the 
 French (p. 112). There are slender grounds for this 
 imputation. We have always looked upon this fas- 
 tidious people as the worst general critics possible; 
 and we scarcely once alluded to their opinions in the 
 course of our article without endeavoring to contro- 
 vert them. The truth is, while they have contrived 
 their own system with infinite skill, and are exceed- 
 ingly acute in detecting the least violation of it, they 
 seem incapable of understanding why it should not 
 be applied to every other people, however opposite 
 its character from their own. The consequence is 
 obvious. Voltaire, whose elevated views sometimes 
 advanced him to the level of the generous criticism 
 of our own day, is by no means an exception. His 
 Commentaries on Corneille are filled with the finest 
 reflections imaginable on that eminent poet, or, rather, 
 on the French drama; but the application of these 
 same principles to the productions of his neighbors 
 leads him into the grossest absurdities. "Addison's 
 Cato is the only well-written tragedy in England." 
 "Hamlet is a barbarous production, that would not be 
 
 His analysis of the national drama, as opposed to that of Schlegel, is 
 also extremely ingenious. Is it not more sound than that of the 
 German? We trust that this hitherto untrodden field in our language 
 will be entered before long by one of our own scholars, whose re- 
 searches have enabled him to go much more extensively into the 
 Spanish department than either of his predecessors. 
 
59 S BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 endured by the meanest populace in France or Italy." 
 "Lope de Vega and Calderon familiarized their coun- 
 trymen with all the extravagances of a gross and ridicu- 
 lous drama." But the French theatre, modelled upon 
 the ancient Greek, can boast "of more than twenty 
 pieces which surpass their most admirable chef-ci ' ceu- 
 vres, without excepting those of Sophocles or Euripi- 
 des." So in other walks of poetry, Milton, Tasso, 
 Ercilla, occasionally fare no better. "Who would 
 dare to talk to Boileau, Racine, Moliere, of an epic 
 poem upon Adam and Eve?" Voltaire had one addi- 
 tional reason for the exaltation of his native literature 
 at the expense of every other : he was himself at the 
 head, or aspired to be, of every department in it. 
 
 Madame de Stael is certainly an eminent exception, 
 in very many particulars, to the general character of 
 her nation. Her defects, indeed, are rather of an op- 
 posite cast. Instead of the narrowness of conventional 
 precept, she may be sometimes accused of vague and 
 visionary theory; instead of nice specific details, of 
 dealing too freely in abstract and independent propo- 
 sitions. Her faults are of the German school, which 
 she may have in part imbibed from her intimacy with 
 their literature (no common circumstance with her 
 countrymen), from her residence in Germany, and 
 from her long intimacy with one of its most distin- 
 guished scholars, who lived under the same roof with 
 her for many years. But, with all her faults, she is 
 entitled to the praise of having shown a more enlarged 
 and truly philosophical spirit of criticism than any of 
 her countrymen. 
 
 The English have never yielded to the arbitrary 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 599 
 
 legislation of academies ; their literature has at differ- 
 ent periods exhibited all the varieties of culture which 
 have prevailed over the other European tongues ; and 
 their language, derived both from the Latin and the 
 Teutonic idiom, affords them a much greater facility 
 for entering into the spirit of foreign letters than can 
 be enjoyed by any other European people, whose lan- 
 guage is derived almost exclusively from one or the 
 other of these elements. With all these peculiar facil- 
 ities for literary history and criticism, why, with their 
 habitual freedom of thought, have they remained in it 
 so far behind most other cultivated nations ? 
 
SPANISH LITERATURE.* 
 
 (January, 1852.) 
 
 Literary history is the least familiar kind of his- 
 torical writing. It is, in some respects, the most diffi- 
 cult, requiring certainly far the most laborious study. 
 The facts for civil history we gather from personal ex- 
 perience, or from the examination of a comparatively 
 few authors, whose statements the historian transfers, 
 with such modification and commentary as he pleases, 
 to his own pages. But in literary history the books 
 are the facts, and pretty substantial ones in many cases, 
 which are not to be mastered at a glance, or on the 
 report of another. It is a tedious process to read 
 through a library in order to decide that the greater 
 part is probably not worth reading at all. 
 
 Literary history must come late in the intellectual 
 development of a nation. It is the history of books, 
 and there can be no history of books till books are 
 written. It presupposes, moreover, a critical knowl- 
 edge, — an acquaintance with the principles of taste, 
 which can come only from a wide study and compari- 
 son of models. It is, therefore, necessarily the product 
 of an advanced state of civilization and mental culture. 
 
 Although criticism, in one form or another, was 
 studied and exemplified by the ancients, yet they 
 
 * " History of Spanish Literature." By George Tieknor. New 
 York : Harper & Brothers. 1849 : 3 vols. 8vo. 
 ( 600 ) 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 60 r 
 
 made no progress in direct literary history. Neither 
 has it been cultivated by all the nations of modern 
 Europe. At least, in some of them it -has met with 
 very limited success. In England, one might have 
 thought, from the free scope given to the expression 
 of opinion, it would have flourished beyond all other 
 countries. But Italy, and even Spain, with all the 
 restraint imposed on intellectual movement, have done 
 more in this way than the whole Anglo-Saxon race. 
 The very freedom with which the English could enter 
 on the career of political action has not only with- 
 drawn them from the more quiet pursuits of letters, 
 but has given them a decided taste for descriptions of 
 those stirring scenes in which they or their fathers 
 have taken part. Hence the great preponderance with 
 them, as with us, of civil history over literary. 
 
 It may be further remarked that the monastic in- 
 stitutions of Roman Catholic countries have been pe- 
 culiarly favorable to this, as to some other kinds of 
 composition. The learned inmates of the cloister have 
 been content to solace their leisure with those literary 
 speculations and inquiries which had no immediate 
 connection with party excitement and the turmoils of 
 the world. The best literary histories, from whatever 
 cause, in Spain and in Italy, have been the work of 
 members of some one or other of the religious frater- 
 nities. 
 
 Still another reason of the attention given to this 
 study in most of those countries may be found in the 
 embarrassments existing there to the general pursuit of 
 science, which have limited the powers to the more 
 exclusive cultivation of works of imagination, and 
 
 2 A 51 
 
602 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 those other productions of elegant literature that come 
 most properly within the province of taste and of 
 literary criticism. 
 
 Yet in England, during the last generation, in which 
 the mind has been unusually active, if there have been 
 few elaborate works especially devoted to criticism, the 
 electric fluid has been imperceptibly carried off from a 
 thousand minor points, in the form of essays and pe- 
 riodical reviews, which cover nearly the whole ground 
 of literary inquiry, both foreign and domestic. The 
 student who has the patience to consult these scattered 
 notices, if he cannot find a system ready made to his 
 hands, may digest one for himself by a comparison of 
 contradictory judgments on every topic under review. 
 Yet it may be doubted if the multitude of cross-lights 
 thrown at random over his path will not serve rather 
 to perplex than to enlighten him. 
 
 Wherever we are to look for the reasons, the fact 
 will hardly be disputed, that, since Warton's learned 
 fragment, no general literary history has been produced 
 in England which is likely to endure, with the excep- 
 tion of Hallam's late work, that, under the modest 
 title of an "Introduction," gives a general survey of 
 the scientific and literary culture of Europe during 
 three centuries. If the English have done so little in 
 this way for their own literature, it can hardly be ex- 
 pected that they should do much for that of their 
 neighbors. If they had extended their researches to 
 the Continent, it might probably have been in the 
 direction of Spain ; for no country has been made 
 with them the subject of so large historical investiga- 
 tion. One or two good histories devoted to Italy and 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 603 
 
 Germany, as many to the revolutionary period of France 
 — the country with which they are most nearly brought 
 into contact — make up the sum of what is of positive 
 value in this way. But for Spain, a series of writers — 
 Robertson, Watson, Dunlop, Lord Mahon, Coxe, some 
 of the highest order, all respectable — have exhibited 
 the political annals of the monarchy under the Aus- 
 trian and Bourbon dynasties. Even at the present 
 moment, a still livelier interest seems to be awakened 
 to the condition of this romantic land. Two excel- 
 lent works, by Head and by Stirling, — the latter of 
 especial value, — have made the world acquainted, for 
 the first time, with the rich treasures of art in the Pen- 
 insula. And last, not least, Ford, in his Hand-book 
 and other works, has joined to a curious erudition that 
 knowledge of the Spanish character and domestic in- 
 stitutions that can be obtained only from singular acute- 
 ness of observation combined with a long residence in 
 the country he describes. 
 
 Spain, too, has been the favorite theme of more 
 than one of our own writers, in history and romance ; 
 and now the long list is concluded by the attempt of 
 the work before us to trace the progress of intellectual 
 culture in the Peninsula. 
 
 No work on a similar extended plan is to be found 
 in Spain itself. Their own literary histories have been 
 chiefly limited to the provinces, or to particular de- 
 partments of letters. We may except, indeed, the 
 great work of Father Andres, which, comprehending 
 the whole circle of European science and literature, 
 left but a comparatively small portion to his own 
 country. To his name may also be added that of 
 
604 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Lampillas, whose work, however, from its rambling 
 and its controversial character, throws but a very par- 
 tial and unsatisfactory glance on the topics which he 
 touches. 
 
 The only books on a similar plan, which cover the 
 same ground with the one before us, are the histories 
 of Bouterwek and Sismondi. The former was written 
 as part of a great plan for the illustration of European 
 art and science since the revival of learning, — pro- 
 jected by a literary association in Gottingen. The 
 plan, as is too often the case in such copartnerships, 
 was very imperfectly executed. The best fruits of it 
 were the twelve volumes of Bouterwek, on the elegant 
 literature of modern Europe. That of Spain occupies 
 one of these volumes. 
 
 It is written with acuteness, perspicuity, and candor. 
 Notwithstanding the writer is perhaps too much under 
 the influence of certain German theories then fashion- 
 able, his judgments, in the main, are temperate and 
 sound, and he is entitled to great credit as the earliest 
 pioneer in this untrodden field of letters. The great 
 defect in the book is the want of proper materials on 
 which to rest these judgments. Of this the writer 
 more than once complains. It is a capital defect, not 
 to be compensated by any talent or diligence in the 
 author. For in this kind of writing, as we have said, 
 books are facts, the very stuff out of which the history 
 is to be made. 
 
 Bouterwek had command of the great library of 
 Gottingen. But it would not be safe to rely on any 
 one library, however large, for supplying all the ma- 
 terials for an extended literary history. Above all, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 605 
 
 this is true of Spanish literature. The difficulty of 
 making a literary collection in Spain is far greater 
 than in most other parts of Europe. The booksellers' 
 trade there is a very different affair from what it is in 
 more favored regions. The taste for reading is not, 
 or, rather, has not been, sufficiently active to create a 
 demand for the republication always of even the best 
 authors, the ancient editions of whose works have be- 
 come scarce and most difficult to be procured. The 
 impediment to a free expression of opinion has con- 
 demned many more works to the silence of manuscript. 
 And these manuscripts are preserved, or, to say truth, 
 buried, in the collections of old families, or of public 
 institutions, where it requires no ordinary interest with 
 the proprietors, private or public, to be allowed to dis- 
 inter them. Some of the living Spanish scholars are 
 now busily at work in these useful explorations, the 
 result of which they are giving, from time to time, to 
 the world in the form of livraisons or numbers, which 
 seem likely to form an important contribution to his- 
 torical science. For the impulse thus given to these 
 patriotic labors the world is mainly indebted to the 
 late venerable Navarrete, who, in his own person, led 
 the way by the publication of a series of important 
 historical documents. It is only from these obscure 
 and uncertain repositories, and from booksellers' stalls, 
 that the more rare and recondite works in which Spain 
 is so rich can be procured; and it is only under great 
 advantages that the knowledge of their places of de- 
 posit can be obtained, and that, having obtained it, 
 the works can be had, at a price proportioned to their 
 rarity. The embarrassments caused by this circum- 
 
 51* 
 
606 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 stance have been greatly diminished under the more 
 liberal spirit of the present day, which on a few oc- 
 casions has even unlocked the jealous archives of 
 Simancas, that Robertson, backed by the personal 
 authority of the British ambassador, strove in vain to 
 penetrate. 
 
 Spanish literature occupies also one volume of Sis- 
 mondi's popular work on the culture of Southern 
 Europe. But Sismondi was far less instructed in lit- 
 erary criticism than his German predecessor, of whose 
 services he has freely availed himself in the course of 
 his work. Indeed, he borrows from him not merely 
 thoughts, but language, translating from the German 
 page after page and incorporating it with his own elo- 
 quent commentary. He does not hesitate to avow his 
 obligations ; but they prove at once his own deficien- 
 cies in the performance of his critical labors as well as 
 in the possession of the requisite materials. Sismondi's 
 ground was civil history, whose great lessons no one 
 had meditated more deeply; and it is in the applica- 
 tion of these lessons to the character of the Spaniards, 
 and in tracing the influence of that character on their 
 literature, that a great merit of his work consists. He 
 was, moreover, a Frenchman, — or, at least, a French- 
 man in language and education ; and he was prepared, 
 therefore, to correct some of the extravagant theories 
 of the German critics, and to rectify some of their 
 judgments by a moral standard which they had en- 
 tirely overlooked in their passion for the beautiful. 
 
 With all his merits, however, and the additional 
 grace of a warm and picturesque style, his work, like 
 that of Bouterwek, must be admitted to afford only 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 607 
 
 the outlines of the great picture, which they have left 
 to other hands to fill up in detail and on a far more 
 extended plan. To accomplish this great task is the 
 purpose of the volumes before us; we are now to in- 
 quire with what result. But, before entering on the 
 inquiry, we will give some account of the preparatory 
 training of the writer, and the materials which he has 
 brought together. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor, who now first comes before the world 
 in the avowed character of an author, has long enjoyed 
 a literary reputation which few authors who have closed 
 their career might not envy. While quite a young man, 
 he was appointed to fill the chair of Modern Litera- 
 ture in Harvard College, on the foundation of the 
 late Abiel Smith, Esq., a distinguished merchant of 
 Boston. When he received the appointment, Mr. Tick- 
 nor had been some time in Europe pursuing studies 
 in philology. He remained there two or three years 
 afterwards, making an absence of above four years 
 in all. A part of this period was passed in diligent 
 study at Gottingen. In Paris he explored, under able 
 teachers, the difficult Romance dialects, the medium 
 of the beautiful Provencal. 
 
 During his residence in Spain he perfected himself 
 in the Castilian, and established an intimacy with her 
 most eminent scholars, who aided him in the collection 
 of rare books and manuscripts, to which he assiduously 
 devoted himself. It is a proof of the literary considera- 
 tion which, even at that early age, he had obtained in 
 the society of Madrid, that he was elected a correspond- 
 ing member of the Royal Academy of History. His 
 acquisitions in the early literature of modern Europe 
 
608 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 attracted the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who, in a 
 letter to Southey, printed in Lockhart's Life, speaks 
 of his young guest (Mr. Ticknor was then at Abbots- 
 ford) as a "wonderful fellow for romantic lore." 
 
 On his return home, Mr. Ticknor entered at once 
 on his academic labors, and delivered a series of lec- 
 tures on the Castilian and French literatures, as well 
 as on some portions of the English, before successive 
 classes, which he continued to repeat, with the occa- 
 sional variation of oral instruction, during the fifteen 
 years he remained at the University. 
 
 We well remember the sensation produced on the 
 first delivery of these Lectures, which served to break 
 down the barrier which had so long confined the stu- 
 dent to a converse with antiquity; they opened to him 
 a free range among those great masters of modern lit- 
 erature who had hitherto been veiled in the obscurity 
 of a foreign idiom. The influence of this instruction 
 was soon visible in the higher education as well as the 
 literary ardor shown by the graduates. So decided was 
 the impulse thus given to the popular sentiment that 
 considerable apprehension was felt lest modern litera- 
 ture was to receive a disproportionate share of atten- 
 tion in the scheme of collegiate education. 
 
 After the lapse of fifteen years so usefully employed, 
 Mr. Ticknor resigned his office, and, thus released from 
 his academic labors, paid a second visit to Europe, 
 where, in a second residence of three years, he much 
 enlarged the amount and the value of his literary col- 
 lection. In the more perfect completion of this he 
 was greatly assisted by the professor of Arabic in the 
 University of Madrid, Don Pascual de Gayangos, a 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 609 
 
 scholar to whose literary sympathy and assistance more 
 than one American writer has been indebted, and who 
 to a profound knowledge of Oriental literature unites 
 one equally extensive in the European. 
 
 With these aids, and his own untiring efforts, Mr. 
 Ticknor succeeded in bringing together a body of 
 materials in print and manuscript, for the illustration 
 of the Castilian, such as probably has no rival either 
 in public or private collections. This will be the more 
 readily believed when we find that nearly every author 
 employed in the composition of this great work — with 
 the exception of a few, for which he has made ample 
 acknowledgments — is to be found on his own shelves. 
 We are now to consider in what manner he has availed 
 himself of this inestimable collection of materials. 
 
 The title of the book — the "History of Spanish 
 Literature" — is intended to comprehend all that re- 
 lates to the poetry of the country, its romances, and 
 works of imagination of every sort, its criticism and 
 eloquence, — in short, whatever can be brought under 
 the head of elegant literature. Even its chronicles 
 and regular histories are included ; for, though scien- 
 tific in their import, they are still, in respect to their 
 style and their execution as works of art, brought into 
 the department of ornamental writing. In Spain, free- 
 dom of thought, or, at least, the free expression of it, 
 has been so closely fettered that science, in its strictest 
 sense, has made little progress in that unhappy coun- 
 try, and a history of its elegant literature is, more than 
 in any other land, a general history of its intellectual 
 progress. 
 
 The work is divided into three great periods, hav- 
 
 2 A* 
 
610 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 ing reference to time rather than to any philosophical 
 arrangement. Indeed, Spanish literature affords less 
 facilities for such an arrangement than the literature of 
 many other countries, as that of England and of Italy, 
 for example, where, from different causes, there have 
 been periods exhibiting literary characteristics that 
 stamp them with a peculiar physiognomy. For ex- 
 ample, in England we have the age of Elizabeth, the 
 age of Queen Anne, our own age. In Italy, the philo- 
 sophical arrangement seems to correspond well enough 
 with the chronological. Thus, the Trecentisti, the 
 Seicentisti, convey ideas as distinct and as independent 
 of each other as the different schools of Italian art. 
 But in Spain, literature is too deeply tinctured at its 
 fountain-head not to retain somewhat of the primi- 
 tive coloring through the whole course of its descent. 
 Patriotism, chivalrous loyalty, religious zeal, under 
 whatever modification and under whatever change of 
 circumstances, have constituted, as Mr. Ticknor has 
 well insisted, the enduring elements of the national 
 literature. And it is this obvious preponderance of 
 these elements throughout which makes the distribu- 
 tion into separate masses on any philosophical prin- 
 ciple extremely difficult. A proof of this is afforded 
 by the arrangement now adopted by Mr. Ticknor him- 
 self, in the limit assigned to his first period, which is 
 considerably shorter than that assigned to it in his 
 original Lectures. The alteration, as we shall take 
 occasion to notice hereafter, is, in our judgment, a 
 decided improvement. 
 
 The first great division embraces the whole time 
 from the earliest appearance of a written document in 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 611 
 
 the Castilian to the commencement of the sixteenth 
 century, the reign of Charles the Fifth, — a period of 
 nearly four centuries. 
 
 At the very outset we are met by the remarkable 
 poem of the Cid, that primitive epic, which, like the 
 Nieblungenlied or the Iliad, stands as the traditional 
 legend of an heroic age, exhibiting all the freshness 
 and glow which belong to the morning of a nation's 
 existence. The name of the author, as is often the 
 case with those memorials of the olden time, when the 
 writer thought less of himself than of his work, has 
 not come down to us. Even the date of its composi- 
 tion is uncertain, — probably before the year 1200; a 
 century earlier than the poem of Dante ; a century 
 and a half before Petrarch and Chaucer. The subject 
 of it, as its name imports, is the achievements of the 
 renowned Ruy Diaz de Bivar, — the Cid, the Campeador, 
 "the lord, the champion," as he was fondly styled by 
 his countrymen, as well as by his Moorish foes, in com- 
 memoration of his prowess, chiefly displayed against 
 the infidel. The versification is the fourteen-syllable 
 measure, artless, and exhibiting all the clmracteristics 
 of an unformed idiom, but, with its rough melody, 
 well suited to the expression of the warlike and stir- 
 ring incidents in which it abounds. It is impossible 
 to peruse it without finding ourselves carried back to 
 the heroic age of Castile; and we feel that in its simple 
 and cordial portraiture of existing manners we get a 
 more vivid impression of the feudal period than is to 
 be gathered from the more formal pages of the chron- 
 icler. Heeren has pronounced that the poems of Homer 
 were one of the principal bonds which held the Gre- 
 
612 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 cian states together. The assertion may seem extrava- 
 gant; but we can well understand that a poem like 
 that of the Cid, with all its defects as a work of art, 
 by its proud historic recollections of an heroic age 
 should do much to nourish the principle of patriotism 
 in the bosoms of the people. 
 
 From the "Cid" Mr. Ticknor passes to the review 
 of several other poems of the thirteenth and some of 
 the fourteenth century. They are usually of consider- 
 able length. The Castilian muse, at the outset, seems 
 to have delighted in works of longue haleine. Some of 
 them are of a satirical character, directing their shafts 
 against the clergy, with an independence which seems 
 to have marked also the contemporaneous productions 
 of other nations, but which, in Spain at least, was 
 rarely found at a later period. Others of these ven- 
 erable productions are tinged with the religious big- 
 otry which enters so largely into the best portions of 
 the Castilian literature. 
 
 One of the most remarkable poems of the period is 
 the Danza General, — the "Dance of Death." The 
 subject is not original with the Spaniards, and has been 
 treated by the bards of other nations in the elder time. 
 It represents the ghastly revels of the dread monarch, 
 to which all are summoned, of every degree, from the 
 potentate to the peasant. 
 
 "It is founded on the well-known fiction, so often 
 illustrated both in painting and in verse during the 
 Middle Ages, that all men, of all conditions, are sum- 
 moned to the Dance of Death ; a kind of spiritual 
 masquerade, in which the different ranks of society, 
 from the Pope to the young child, appear dancing with 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 613 
 
 the skeleton form of Death. In this Spanish version 
 it is striking and picturesque, — more so, perhaps, than 
 in any other, — the ghastly nature of the subject being 
 brought into a very lively contrast with the festive tone 
 of the verses, which frequently recalls some of the 
 better parts of those flowing stories that now and then 
 occur in the ' Mirror for Magistrates.' 
 
 "The first seven stanzas of the Spanish poem con- 
 stitute a prologue, in which Death issues his summons 
 partly in his own person, and partly in that of a 
 preaching friar, ending thus : 
 
 " ' Come to the Dance of Death, all ye whose fate 
 
 By birth is mortal, be ye great or small ; 
 And willing come, nor loitering, nor late, 
 
 Else force shall bring you struggling to my thrall : 
 
 For since yon friar hath uttered loud his call 
 To penitence and godliness sincere, 
 He that delays must hope no waiting here ; 
 
 For still the cry is, Haste ! and, Haste to all !' 
 
 "Death now proceeds, as in the old pictures and 
 poems, to summon, first the Pope, then cardinals, 
 kings, bishops, and so on, down to day-laborers ; all 
 of whom are forced to join his mortal dance, though 
 each first makes some remonstrance that indicates sur- 
 prise, horror, or reluctance. The call to youth and 
 beauty is spirited : 
 
 " ' Bring to my dance, and bring without delay, 
 
 Those damsels twain you see so bright and fair ; 
 They came, but came not in a willing way, 
 To list my chants of mortal grief and care : 
 Nor shall the flowers and roses fresh they wear, 
 Nor rich attire, avail their forms to save. 
 They strive in vain who strive against the grave ; 
 It may not be ; my wedded brides they are.' 
 52 
 
6T4 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Another poem, of still higher pretensions, but, like 
 the last, still in manuscript, is the Poema de Jose, — 
 the "Poem of Joseph." It is probably the work of 
 one of those Spanish Arabs who remained under the 
 Castilian domination after the great body of their 
 countrymen had retreated. It is written in the Cas- 
 tilian dialect, but in Arabic characters, as was not very 
 uncommon with the writings of the Moriscoes. The 
 story of Joseph is told, moreover, conformably to the 
 version of the Koran, instead of that of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The manner in which the Spanish and the Arabic 
 races were mingled together after the great invasion 
 produced a strange confusion in their languages. The 
 Christians, who were content to dwell in their old 
 places under the Moslem rule, while they retained 
 their own language, not unfrequently adopted the 
 alphabetical characters of their conquerors. Even 
 the coins struck by some of the ancient Castilian 
 princes, as they recovered their territory from the 
 invaders, were stamped with Arabic letters. Not un- 
 frequently the archives and municipal records of the 
 Spanish cities, for a considerable time after their 
 restoration to their own princes, were also written in 
 Arabic characters. On the other hand, as the great 
 inundation gradually receded, the Moors who lingered 
 behind under the Spanish sway often adopted the lan- 
 guage of their conquerors, but retained their own writ- 
 ten alphabet. In other words, the Christians kept 
 their language and abandoned their alphabetical char- 
 acters; while the Moslems kept their alphabetical char- 
 acters and abandoned their language. The contrast 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 615 
 
 is curious, and may perhaps be accounted for by the 
 fact that the superiority conceded by the Spaniards to 
 the Arabic literature in this early period led the few- 
 scholars among them to adopt, for their own composi- 
 tions, the characters in which that literature was writ- 
 ten. The Moriscoes, on the other hand, did what was 
 natural when they retained their peculiar writing, to 
 which they had been accustomed in the works of their 
 countrymen, while they conformed to the Castilian 
 language, to which they had become accustomed in 
 daily intercourse with the Spaniard. However ex- 
 plained, the fact is curious. But it is time w r e should 
 return to the Spanish Arab poem. 
 
 We give the following translation of some of its 
 verses by Mr. Ticknor, with his few prefatory remarks : 
 
 "On the first night after the outrage, Jusuf, as he 
 is called in the poem, when travelling along in charge 
 of a negro, passes a cemetery on a hill-side where his 
 mother lies buried. 
 
 " And when the negro heeded not, that guarded him behind, 
 From off the camel Jusuf sprang, on which he rode confined, 
 And hastened, with all speed, his mother's grave to find, 
 Where he knelt and pardon sought, to relieve his troubled mind. 
 
 " He cried, ' God's grace be with thee still, O Lady mother dear ! 
 O mother, you would sorrow, if you looked upon me here ; 
 For my neck is bound with chains, and I live in grief and fear, 
 Like a traitor by my brethren sold, like a captive to the spear. 
 
 " ' They have sold me ! they have sold me ! though I never did them 
 
 harm; 
 They have torn me from my father, from his strong and living arm, 
 By art and cunning they enticed me, and by falsehood's guilty 
 
 charm, 
 And I go a base-bought captive, full of sorrow and alarm.' 
 
616 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 " But now the negro looked about, and knew that he was gone ; 
 For no man could be seen, and the camel came alone ; 
 So he turned his sharpened ear, and caught the wailing tone, 
 Where Jusuf, by his mother's grave, lay making heavy moan. 
 
 " And the negro hurried up, and gave him there a blow ; 
 So quick and cruel was it, that it instant laid him low: 
 'A base-born wretch,' he cried aloud, 'a base-born thief art thou: 
 Thy masters, when we purchased thee, they told us it was so.' 
 
 " But Jusuf answered straight, ' Nor thief nor wretch am I ; 
 My mother's grave is this, and for pardon here I cry ; 
 I cry to Allah's power, and send my prayer on high, 
 That, since I never wronged thee, his curse may on thee lie.' 
 
 " And then all night they travelled on, till dawned the coming day, 
 When the land was sore tormented with a whirlwind's furious 
 
 sway; 
 The sun grew dark at noon, their hearts sunk in dismay, 
 And they knew not, with their merchandise, to seek or make their 
 way." 
 
 The manuscript of the piece, containing about twelve 
 hundred verses, though not entirely perfect, is in Mr. 
 Ticknor's hands, with its original Arabic characters 
 converted into the Castilian. He has saved it from 
 the chances of time by printing it at length in his 
 Appendix, accompanied by the following commenda- 
 tions, which, to one practised in the old Castilian 
 literature, will probably not be thought beyond its 
 deserts : 
 
 "There is little, as it seems to me, in the early 
 narrative poetry of any modern nation better worth 
 reading than this old Morisco version of the story of 
 Joseph. Parts of it overflow with the tenderest natural 
 affection ; other parts are deeply pathetic ; and every- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 617 
 
 where it bears the impress of the extraordinary state 
 of manners and society that gave it birth. From sev- 
 eral passages, it may be inferred that it was publicly 
 recited ; and even now, as we read it, we fall uncon- 
 sciously into a long-drawn chant, and seem to hear the 
 voices of Arabian camel-drivers, or of Spanish mule- 
 teers, as the Oriental or the romantic tone happens to 
 prevail. I am acquainted with nothing in the form of 
 the old metrical romance that is more attractive, — 
 nothing that is so peculiar, original, and separate from 
 every thing else of the same class." 
 
 With these anonymous productions, Mr. Ticknor en- 
 ters into the consideration of others from an acknowl- 
 edged source, among which are those of the Prince 
 Don Juan Manuel and Alfonso the Tenth, or Alfonso 
 the Wise, as he is usually termed. He was one of 
 those rare men who seem to be possessed of an almost 
 universal genius. His tastes would have been better 
 suited to a more refined period. He was, unfortu- 
 nately, so far in. advance of his age that his age could 
 not fully profit by .his knowledge. He was raised so 
 far above the general level of his time that the light 
 of his genius, though it reached to distant generations, 
 left his own in a comparative obscurity. His great 
 work was the code of the Siete Partidas, — little heeded 
 in his own day, though destined to become the basis 
 of Spanish jurisprudence both in the Old World and 
 in the New. 
 
 Alfonso caused the Bible, for the first time, to be 
 translated into the Castilian. He was an historian, 
 and led the way in the long line of Castilian writers in 
 that department, by his Crbnica General. He aspired 
 
 52* 
 
618 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 also to the laurel of the Muses. His poetry is still 
 extant in the Gallician dialect, which the monarch 
 thought might in the end be the cultivated dialect of 
 his kingdom. The want of a settled capital, or, to 
 speak more correctly, the want of civilization, had left 
 the different elements of the language contending, as 
 it were, for the mastery. The result was still uncertain 
 at the close of the thirteenth century. Alfonso him- 
 self did, probably, more than any other to settle it, by 
 his prose compositions, — by the Siete Partidas and his 
 Chronicle, as well as by the vernacular version of the 
 Scriptures. The Gallician became the basis of the 
 language of the sister-kingdom of Portugal, and the 
 generous dialect of Castile became, in Spain, the lan- 
 guage of the court and of literature. 
 
 Alfonso directed his attention also to mathematical 
 science. His astronomical observations are held in 
 respect at the present day. But, as Mariana sarcas- 
 tically intimates, while he was gazing at the stars he 
 forgot the earth, and lost his kingdom. His studious 
 temper was ill accommodated to the stirring character 
 of the times. He was driven from his throne by his 
 factious nobles; and in a letter written not long before 
 his death, of which Mr. Ticknor gives a translation, 
 the unhappy monarch pathetically deplores his fate 
 and the ingratitude of his subjects. Alfonso the Tenth 
 seemed to have at command every science but that 
 which would have been of more worth to him than 
 all the rest, — the science of government. He died in 
 exile, leaving behind him the reputation of being the 
 wisest fool in Christendom. 
 
 In glancing over the list of works which, from their 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 619 
 
 anomalous character as well as their antiquity, are ar- 
 ranged by Mr. Ticknor in one class, as introductory to 
 his history, we are struck with the great wealth of the 
 period, — not great, certainly, compared with that of 
 an age of civilization, but as compared with the pro- 
 ductions of most other countries in this portion of the 
 Middle Ages. Much of this ancient lore, which may 
 be said to constitute the foundations of the national 
 literature, has been but imperfectly known to the 
 Spaniards themselves; and we have to acknowledge 
 our obligations to Mr. Ticknor, not only for the dili- 
 gence with which he has brought it to light, but for 
 the valuable commentaries, in text and notes, which 
 supply all that could reasonably be demanded, both in 
 a critical and bibliographical point of view. To esti- 
 mate the extent of this information, we must compare 
 it with what we have derived on the same subject from 
 his predecessors ; where the poverty of original mate- 
 rials, as well as of means for illustrating those actually 
 possessed, is apparent at a glance. Sismondi, with 
 some art, conceals his poverty, by making the most of 
 the little finery at his command. Thus, his analysis 
 of the poem of the Cid, which he had carefully read, 
 together with his prose translation of no inconsider- 
 able amount, covers a fifth of what he has to say on 
 the whole period, embracing more than four centuries. 
 He has one fine bit of gold in his possession, and he 
 makes the most of it, by hammering it out into a su- 
 perficial extent altogether disproportionate to its real 
 value. 
 
 Our author distributes the productions which occupy 
 the greater part of the remainder of his first period 
 
620 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 into four great classes, — Ballads, Chronicles, Romances 
 of Chivalry, and the Drama. The mere enumeration 
 suggests the idea of that rude, romantic age, when 
 the imagination, impatient to find utterance, breaks 
 through the impediments of an unformed dialect, or, 
 rather, converts it into an instrument for its purposes. 
 Before looking at the results, we must briefly notice the 
 circumstances under which they were effected. 
 
 The first occupants of the Peninsula who left abiding 
 traces of their peculiar civilization were the Romans. 
 Six-tenths of the languages now spoken are computed 
 to be derived from them. Then came the Visigoths, 
 bringing with them the peculiar institutions of the 
 Teutonic races. And lastly, after the lapse of three 
 centuries, came the great Saracen inundation, which 
 covered the whole land up to the northern mountains, 
 and, as it slowly receded, left a fertilizing principle, 
 that gave life to much that was good as well as evil in 
 the character and literature of the Spaniards. It was 
 near the commencement of the eighth century that the 
 great battle was fought, on the banks of the Guada- 
 lete, which decided the fate of Roderic, the last of the 
 Goths, and of his monarchy. It was to the Goths — 
 the Spaniards, as their descendants were called — what 
 the battle of Hastings was to the English. The Arab 
 conquerors rode over the country, as completely its 
 masters as were the Normans of Britain. But they 
 dealt more mercifully with the vanquished. The Ko- 
 ran, tribute, or the sword were the terms offered by 
 the victors. Many were content to remain under Mos- 
 lem rule, in the tolerated enjoyment of their religion, 
 and, to some extent, of their laws. Those of nobler 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 621 
 
 metal withdrew to the rocks of the Asturias; and every 
 muleteer or water-carrier who emigrates from this bar- 
 ren spot glories in his birthplace as of itself a patent 
 of nobility. 
 
 Then came the struggle against the Saracen in- 
 vaders, — that long crusade to be carried on for centu- 
 ries, — in which the ultimate triumph of a handful of 
 Christians over the large and flourishing empire of the 
 Moslems is the most glorious of the triumphs of the 
 Cross upon record. But it was the work of eight cen- 
 turies. During the first of these the Spaniards scarcely 
 ventured beyond their fastnesses. The conquerors oc- 
 cupied the land, and settled in greatest strength over 
 the pleasant places of the South, so congenial with 
 their own voluptuous climate in the East. Then rose 
 the empire of Cordova, which, under the sway of the 
 Omeyades, rivalled in splendor and civilization the cal- 
 iphate of Bagdad. Poetry, philosophy, letters, every- 
 where flourished. Academies and gymnasiums were 
 founded, and Aristotle was expounded by commenta- 
 tors who acquired a glory not inferior to that of the 
 Stagirite himself. This state of things continued after 
 the Cordovan empire had been broken into fragments, 
 when Seville, Murcia, Malaga, and the other cities 
 which still flourished among the ruins continued to be 
 centres of a civilization that shone bright amid the 
 darkness of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Spaniards, strong in their relig- 
 ion, their Gothic institutions, and their poverty, 
 had emerged from their fastnesses in the North, and 
 brought their victorious banner as far as the Douro. 
 In three centuries more, they had advanced their line 
 
622 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of conquest only to the Tagus. But their progress, 
 though slow, was irresistible, till at length the Mos- 
 lems, of all their proud possessions, retained only the 
 petty territory of Granada. On this little spot, how- 
 ever, they made a stand for more than two centuries, 
 and bade defiance to the whole Christian power ; 
 while at the same time, though sunk in intellectual 
 culture, they surpassed their best days in the pomp of 
 their architecture and in the magnificence of living 
 characteristic of the East. At the close of the fif- 
 teenth century, this Arabian tale — the most splendid 
 episode in the Mohammedan annals — was brought to 
 an end by the fall of Granada before the arms of Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella. 
 
 Such were the strange influences which acted on the 
 Spanish character, and on the earliest development 
 of its literature, — influences so peculiar that it is no 
 wonder they should have produced results to which no 
 other part of Europe has furnished a parallel : — the 
 Oriental and the European for eight centuries brought 
 into contact with one another, yet, though brought 
 into contact, too different in blood, laws, and religion 
 ever to coalesce. Unlike the Saxons and Normans, 
 who, sprung from a common stock, with a common 
 faith, were gradually blended into one people, in Spain 
 the conflicting elements could never mingle. No length 
 of time could give the Arab a right to the soil. He 
 was still an intruder. His only right was the right of 
 the sword. He held his domain on the condition of 
 perpetual war, — the war of race against race, of re- 
 ligion against religion. This was the inheritance of 
 the Spaniard, as Avell as of the Moslem, for eight bun- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 623 
 
 drecl years. What remarkable qualities was this situa- 
 tion not calculated to call out ! — loyalty, heroism, the 
 patriotic feeling, and the loftier feeling of religious en- 
 thusiasm. What wonder that the soldier of the Cross 
 should fancy that the arm of Heaven was stretched out 
 to protect him? — that St. Jago should do battle for 
 him with his celestial chivalry? — that miracles should 
 cease to be miracles? — that superstition, in short, 
 should be the element, the abiding element, of the 
 national character? Yet this religious enthusiasm, in 
 the early ages, was tempered by charity towards a foe 
 whom even the Christian was compelled to respect for 
 his superior civilization. But as the latter gained the 
 ascendant, enthusiasm was fanned by the crafty clergy 
 into fanaticism. As the Moslem scale became more 
 and more depressed, fanaticism rose to intolerance, 
 and intolerance ended in persecution when the victor 
 was converted into the victim. It is a humiliating 
 story, — more humiliating even to the oppressors than 
 to the oppressed. 
 
 The literature all the while, with chameleon-like sen- 
 sibility, took the color of the times ; and it is for this 
 reason that we have always dwelt with greater satisfac- 
 tion on the earlier period of the national literature, 
 rude though it be, with its cordial, free, and high ro- 
 mantic bearing, than on the later period of its glory, 
 — brilliant in an intellectual point of view, but in its 
 moral aspect dark and unrelenting. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor has been at much pains to unfold these 
 peculiarities of the Castilian character, in order to ex- 
 plain by them the peculiarities of the literature, and 
 indeed to show their reciprocal action on- each other. 
 
624 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 He has devoted occasional chapters to this subject, not 
 the least interesting in his volumes, making the history 
 of the literature a running commentary on that of the 
 nation, and thus furnishing curious information to the 
 political student, no less than to the student of letters. 
 His acute, and at the same time accurate, observa- 
 tions, imbued with a spirit of sound philosophy, give 
 the work a separate value, and raise it above the ordi- 
 nary province of literary criticism. 
 
 But it is time that we should turn to the ballads, — 
 or romances, as they are called in Spain, — the first of 
 the great divisions already noticed. Nowhere does 
 this popular minstrelsy flourish to the same extent as 
 in Spain. The condition of the country, which con- 
 verted every peasant into a soldier and filled his life 
 with scenes of stirring and romantic incident, may in 
 part account for it. We have ballads of chivalry, of 
 the national history, of the Moorish wars, mere do- 
 mestic ballads, — in short, all the varieties of which 
 such simple poetical narratives are susceptible. The 
 most attractive of these to the Spaniards, doubtless, 
 were those devoted to the national heroes. The Cid 
 here occupies a large space. His love, his loyalty, his 
 invincible prowess against the enemies of God, are all 
 celebrated in the frank and cordial spirit of a prim- 
 itive age. They have been chronologically arranged 
 into a regular series, — as far as the date could be con- 
 jectured, — like the Robin Hood ballads in England, 
 so as to form a tolerably complete narrative of his life. 
 It is interesting to observe with what fondness the 
 Spaniards are ever ready to turn to their ancient hero, 
 the very type of Castilian chivalry, and linked by so 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 625 
 
 many glorious recollections with the heroic age of their 
 country. 
 
 The following version of one of these ballads, by 
 Mr. Ticknor, will give a fair idea of the original. 
 The time chosen is the occasion of a summons made 
 by the Cid to Queen Urraca to surrender her castle, 
 which held out against the arms of the warrior's sov- 
 ereign, Sancho the Brave : 
 
 " Away ! away ! proud Roderic ! 
 
 Castilian proud, away! 
 Bethink thee of that olden time, 
 
 That happy, honored day, 
 When, at St. James's holy shrine, 
 
 Thy knighthood first was won ; 
 When Ferdinand, my royal sire, 
 
 Confessed thee for a son. 
 He gave thee then thy knightly arms, 
 
 My mother gave thy steed ; 
 Thy spurs were buckled by these hands, 
 
 That thou no grace might'st need. 
 And had not chance forbid the vow, 
 
 I thought with thee to wed ; 
 But Count Lozano's daughter fair 
 
 Thy happy bride was led. 
 With her came wealth, an ample store, 
 
 But power was mine, and state : 
 Broad lands are good, and have their grace, 
 
 But he that reigns is great. 
 Thy wife is well ; thy match was wise ; 
 
 Yet, Roderic ! at thy side 
 A vassal's daughter sits by thee, 
 
 And not a royal bride !" 
 
 Our author has also given a pleasing version of the 
 
 beautiful romance of " Fonte frida, fonte /rida" — 
 
 11 Cooling fountain, cooling fountain," — which we are 
 
 glad to see rendered faithfully, instead of following 
 
 2B 53 
 
626 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the example of Dr. Percy, in his version of the fine 
 old ballad in a similar simple style, "Rio verde, rio 
 verde" which we remember he translates by "Gentle 
 river, gentle river," etc. Indeed, to do justice to 
 Mr. Ticknor's translations we should have the text 
 before us. Nowhere do we recall so close fidelity to 
 the original, unless in Cary's Dante. Such fidelity 
 does not always attain the object of conveying the 
 best idea of the original. But in this humble poetry 
 it is eminently successful. To give these rude gems a 
 polish would be at once to change their character and 
 defeat the great object of our author, — to introduce his 
 readers to the peculiar culture of a primitive age. 
 
 A considerable difficulty presents itself in finding a 
 suitable measure for the English version of the ro??iances. 
 In the original they are written in the eight-syllable 
 line, with trochaic feet, instead of the iambics usually 
 employed by us. But the real difficulty is in the pecu- 
 liarity of the measure, — the asonante, as it is called, in 
 which the rhyme depends solely on the conformity of 
 vowel sounds, without reference to the consonants, as 
 in English verse. Thus the words dedo, tiempo, viejos, 
 are all good asonantes, taken at random from one of 
 these old ballads. An attempt has been made by more 
 than one clever writer to transplant them into English 
 verse. But it has had as little success as the attempt 
 to naturalize the ancient hexameter, which neither the 
 skill of Southey nor of Longfellow will, probably, be 
 able to effect. The Spanish vowels have for the most 
 part a clear and open sound, which renders the melody 
 of the versification sufficiently sensible to the ear; 
 while the middle station which it occupies between 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 627 
 
 the perfect rhyme and blank verse seems to fit it in 
 an especial manner for these simple narrative compo- 
 sitions. The same qualities have recommended it to 
 the dramatic writers of Spain as the best medium of 
 poetical dialogue, and as such it is habitually used by 
 the great masters of the national theatre. 
 
 No class of these popular compositions have greater 
 interest than the Moorish romances, affording glimpses 
 of a state of society in which the Oriental was strangely 
 mingled with the European. Some of them may have 
 been written by the Moriscoes after the fall of Granada. 
 They are redolent of the beautiful land which gave 
 them birth, — springing up like wild flowers amid the 
 ruins of the fallen capital. Mr. Ticknor has touched 
 lightly on these in comparison with some of the other 
 varieties, perhaps because they have been more freely 
 criticised by preceding writers. Every lover of good 
 poetry is familiar with Mr. Lockhart's picturesque ver- 
 sion of these ballads, which has every merit but that 
 of fidelity to the original. 
 
 The production of the Spanish ballads is evidence 
 of great sensibility in the nation; but it must also be 
 referred to the exciting scenes in which it was engaged. 
 A similar cause gave rise to the beautiful border min- 
 strelsy of Scotland. But the adventures of robber 
 chieftains and roving outlaws excite an interest of a 
 very inferior order to that created by the great contest 
 for religion and independence which gave rise to the 
 Spanish ballads. This gives an ennobling principle to 
 these compositions which raises them far above the 
 popular minstrelsy of every other country. It recom- 
 mended them to the more polished writers of a later 
 
628 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 period, under whose bands, if they have lost some- 
 thing of their primitive simplicity, they have been 
 made to form a delightful portion of the national lit- 
 erature. We cannot do better than to quote on this 
 the eloquent remarks of our author : 
 
 "Ballads, in the seventeenth century, had become 
 the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier 
 solaced himself with them in his tent, and the muleteer 
 amid the sierras ; the maiden danced to them on the 
 green, and the lover sang them for his serenade \ they 
 entered into the low orgies of thieves and vagabonds, 
 into the sumptuous entertainments of the luxurious 
 nobility, and into the holiday services of the Church; 
 the blind beggar chanted them to gather alms, and the 
 puppet-showman gave them in recitative to explain his 
 exhibition; they were a part of the very foundation of 
 the theatre, both secular and religious, and the theatre 
 carried them everywhere, and added everywhere to 
 their effect and authority. No poetry of modern times 
 has been so widely spread through all classes of society, 
 and none has so entered into the national character. 
 The ballads, in fact, seem to have been found on every 
 spot of Spanish soil. They seem to have filled the 
 very air that men breathed." 
 
 The next of the great divisions of this long period 
 is the Chronicles, — a fruitful theme, like the former, 
 and still less explored. For much of this literature is 
 in rare books, or rarer manuscripts. There is no lack 
 of materials, however, in the present work, and the 
 whole ground is mapped out before us by a guide 
 evidently familiar with all its intricacies. 
 
 The Spanish Chronicles are distributed into several 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 629 
 
 classes, as those of a public and of a private nature, 
 romantic chronicles, and those of travels. The work 
 which may be said to lead the van of the long array is 
 the "Crbnica General" of Alfonso the Wise, written 
 by this monarch probably somewhere about the middle 
 of the thirteenth century. It covers a wide ground, 
 from the creation to the time of the royal writer. The 
 third book is devoted to the Cid, ever the representa- 
 tive of the heroic age of Castile. The fourth records 
 the events of the monarch's own time. Alfonso's 
 work is followed by the "Chronicle of the Cid," in 
 which the events of the champion's life are now first 
 detailed in sober prose. 
 
 There is much resemblance between large portions 
 of these two chronicles. This circumstance has led to 
 the conclusion that they both must have been indebted 
 to a common source, or, as seems more probable, that 
 the "Chronicle of the Cid" was taken from that of 
 Alfonso. This latter opinion Mr. Ticknor sustains by 
 internal evidence not easily answered. There seems 
 no reason to doubt, however, that both one and the 
 other were indebted to the popular ballads, and that 
 these, in their turn, were often little more than a ver- 
 sification of the pages of Alfonso's Chronicle. Mr. 
 Ticknor has traced out this curious process by bringing 
 together the parallel passages, which are too numerous 
 and nearly allied to leave any doubt on the matter. 
 
 Sepulveda, a scholar of the sixteenth century, has 
 converted considerable fragments of the "General 
 Chronicle" into verse, without great violence to the 
 original, — a remarkable proof of the near affinity that 
 exists between prose and poetry in Spain; a fact which 
 
 53* 
 
630 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 goes far to explain the facility and astonishing fecund- 
 ity of some of its popular poets. For the Spaniards, 
 it was nearly as easy to extemporize in verse as in 
 prose. 
 
 The example of Alfonso the Tenth was followed by 
 his son, who appointed a chronicler to take charge of 
 the events of his reign. This practice continued with 
 later sovereigns, until the chronicle gradually rose to 
 the pretensions of regular history; when historiogra- 
 phers, with fixed salaries, were a} pointed by the crowns 
 of Castile and Aragon; giving rise to a more complete 
 body of contemporary annals, from authentic public 
 sources, than is to be fou.xl in any other country in 
 Christendom. 
 
 Such a collection, beginning with the thirteenth 
 century, is of high value, and would be of far higher 
 were its writers gifted with any thing like a sound 
 spirit of criticism. But superstition lay too closely at 
 the bottom of the Castilian character to allow of this, 
 — a superstition nourished by the strange circumstances 
 of the nation, by the legends of the saints, by the mir- 
 acles coined by the clergy in support of the good cause, 
 by the very ballads of which we have been treating, 
 which, mingling fact with fable, threw a halo around 
 both that made it difficult to distinguish the one from 
 the other. So palpable to a modern age are many 
 of these fictions in regard to the Cid that one inge- 
 nious critic doubts even the real existence of this per- 
 sonage. But this is a degree of skepticism which, as 
 Mr. Ticknor finely remarks, "makes too great a de- 
 mand on our credulity." 
 
 This superstition, too deeply seated to be eradicated, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 631 
 
 and so repugnant to a philosophical spirit of criticism, 
 is the greatest blemish on the writings of the Castilian 
 historians, even of the ripest age of scholarship, who 
 show an appetite for the marvellous, and an easy faith, 
 scarcely to be credited at the present day. But this is 
 hardly a blemish with the older chronicles, and was 
 suited to the twilight condition of the times. They 
 are, indeed, a most interesting body of ancient litera- 
 ture, with all the freshness and chivalrous bearing of 
 the age ; with their long, rambling episodes, that lead 
 to nothing; their childish fondness for pageants and 
 knightly spectacles; their rough dialect, which, with 
 the progress of time, working off the impurities of an 
 unformed vocabulary, rose, in the reign of John the 
 Second and of Ferdinand and Isabella, into passages 
 of positive eloquence. But we cannot do better than 
 give the concluding remarks of our author on this rich 
 mine of literature, which he has now for the first time 
 fully explored and turned up to the public gaze. 
 
 "As we close it up," he says, — speaking of an old 
 chronicle he has been criticising, — "we should not 
 forget that the whole series, extending over full two 
 hundred and fifty years, from the time of Alfonso the 
 Wise to the accession of Charles the Fifth, and cover- 
 ing the New World as well as the Old, is unrivalled in 
 richness, in variety, and in picturesque and poetical 
 elements. In truth, the chronicles of no other nation 
 can, on such points, be compared to them ; not even 
 the Portuguese, which approach the nearest in original 
 and early materials ; nor the French, which, in Join- 
 ville and Froissart, make the highest claims in another 
 direction. For these old Spanish chronicles, whether 
 
632 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 they have their foundations in truth or in fable, always 
 strike farther down than those of any other nation into 
 the deep soil of the popular feeling and character. The 
 old Spanish loyalty, the old Spanish religious faith, as 
 both were formed and nourished in the long periods 
 of national trial and suffering, are constantly coming 
 out, — hardly less in Columbus and his followers, or 
 even amid the atrocities of the conquests in the New 
 World, than in the half-miraculous accounts of the 
 battles of Hazinas and Tolosa, or in the grand and 
 glorious drama of the fall of Granada. Indeed, wher- 
 ever we go under their leading, whether to the court 
 of Tamerlane or to that of Saint Ferdinand, we find 
 the heroic elements of the national genius gathered 
 around us ; and thus, in this vast, rich mass of chron- 
 icles, containing such a body of antiquities, traditions, 
 and fables as has been offered to no other people, we 
 are constantly discovering not only the materials from 
 which were drawn a multitude of the old Spanish bal- 
 lads, plays, and romances, but a mine which has been 
 unceasingly wrought by the rest of Europe for similar 
 purposes and still remains unexhausted." 
 
 We now come to the Romances of Chivalry, to 
 which the transition is not difficult from the romantic 
 chronicles we have been considering. It was, perhaps, 
 the romantic character of these compositions, as well 
 as of the popular minstrelsy of the country, which 
 supplied the wants of the Spaniards in this way, and 
 so long delayed the appearance of the true Romance 
 of Chivalry. 
 
 Long before it was seen in Spain, this kind of 
 writing had made its appearance, in prose and verse, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 633 
 
 in other lands, and the tales of Arthur and the Round 
 Table, and of Charlemagne and his Peers, had be- 
 guiled the long evenings of our Norman ancestors, 
 and of their brethren on the other side of the Chan- 
 nel. The first book of chivalry that was published in 
 Spain even then was not indigenous, but translated 
 from a Portuguese work, the Amadis de Gaula. But 
 the Portuguese, according to the account of Mr. Tick- 
 nor, probably perished with the library of a nobleman, 
 in the great earthquake at Lisbon, in 1755 ; so that 
 Montalvan's Castilian translation, published in Queen 
 Isabella's reign, now takes the place of the original. 
 Of its merits as a translation who can speak? Its 
 merits as a work of imagination, and, considering the 
 age, its literary execution, are of a high order. 
 
 An English version of the book appeared early in 
 the present century, from the pen of Southey, to whom 
 English literature is indebted for more than one val- 
 uable contribution of a similar kind. We well re- 
 member the delight with which, in our early days, we 
 pored over its fascinating pages, — the bright scenes in 
 which we revelled of Oriental mythology, the beautiful 
 portraiture which is held up of knightly courtesy in 
 the person of Amadis, and the feminine loveliness of 
 Oriana. It was an ideal world of beauty and magnifi- 
 cence, to which the Southern imagination had given a 
 far warmer coloring than was to be found in the ruder 
 conceptions of the Northern minstrel. At a later 
 period, we have read — tried to read — the same story 
 in the pages of Montalvan himself. But the age of 
 chivalry was gone. 
 
 The "Amadis" touched the right spring in the Cas- 
 
 2B* 
 
634 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tilian bosom, and its popularity was great and im- 
 mediate. Edition succeeded edition ; and, what was 
 worse, a swarm of other knight-errants soon came into 
 the world, claiming kindred with the Amadis. But 
 few of them bore any resemblance to their prototype, 
 other than in their extravagance. Their merits were 
 summarily settled by the worthy curate in " Don 
 Quixote," who ordered most of them to the flames, 
 declaring that the good qualities of Amadis should not 
 cloak the sins of his posterity. 
 
 The tendency of these books was very mischievous. 
 They fostered the spirit of exaggeration, both in lan- 
 guage and sentiment, too natural to the Castilian. 
 They debauched the taste of the reader, while the 
 voluptuous images in which most of them indulged 
 did no good to his morals. They encouraged, in fine, 
 a wild spirit of knight-errantry, which seemed to emu- 
 late the extravagance of the tales themselves. Sober 
 men wrote, preachers declaimed, against them, but in 
 vain. The Cortes of 1553 presented a petition to the 
 crown that the publication of such works might be 
 prohibited, as pernicious to society. Another petition 
 of the same body, in 1555, insists on this still more 
 strongly, and in terms that, coming as they do from so 
 grave an assembly, can hardly be read at the present 
 day without a smile. Mr. Ticknor notices both these 
 legislative acts, in an extract which we shall give. But 
 he omits the words of the petition of 1555, which 
 dwells so piteously on the grievances of the nation, 
 and which we will quote, as they may amuse the reader. 
 "Moreover," says the instrument, " we say that it is 
 very notorious what mischief has been done to young 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 635 
 
 men and maidens, and other persons, by the perusal 
 of books full of lies and vanities, like Amadis, and 
 works of that description, since young people espe- 
 cially, from their natural idleness, resort to this kind 
 of reading, and, becoming enamored of passages of 
 love or arms, or other nonsense which they find set 
 forth therein, when situations at all analogous offer, 
 are led to act much more extravagantly than they 
 otherwise would have done. And many times the 
 daughter, when her mother has locked her up safely 
 at home, amuses herself with reading these books, 
 which do her more hurt than she would have received 
 from going abroad. All which redounds not only to 
 the dishonor of individuals, but to the great detriment 
 of conscience, by diverting the affections from holy, 
 true, and Christian doctrine, to those wicked vanities, 
 with which the wits, as we have intimated, are com- 
 pletely bewildered. To remedy this, we entreat your 
 majesty that no book treating of such matters be hence- 
 forth permitted to be read, that those now printed be 
 collected and burned, and that none be published here- 
 after without special license; by which measures your 
 majesty will render great service to God, as well as to 
 these kingdoms," etc., etc. 
 
 But what neither the menaces of the pulpit nor the 
 authority of the law could effect was brought about by 
 the breath of ridicule, — 
 
 " That soft and summer breath, whose subtile power 
 Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour." 
 
 The fever was at its height when Cervantes sent his 
 knight-errant into the world to combat the phantoms 
 
6 3 6 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 of chivalry; and at one touch of his lance they dis- 
 appeared forever. From the day of the publication 
 of the "Don Quixote," not a book of chivalry was 
 ever written in Spain. There is no other such triumph 
 recorded in the annals of genius. 
 
 We close these remarks with the following extract, 
 which shows the condition of society in Castile under 
 the influence of these romances : 
 
 "Spain, when the romances of chivalry first ap- 
 peared, had long been peculiarly the land of knight- 
 hood. The Moorish wars, which had made every 
 gentleman a soldier, necessarily tended to this result ; 
 and so did the free spirit of the communities, led on 
 as they were, during the next period, by barons who 
 long continued almost as independent in their castles 
 as the king was on his throne. Such a state of things, 
 in fact, is to be recognized as far back as the thirteenth 
 century, when the Partidas, by the most minute and 
 painstaking legislation, provided for a condition of 
 society not easily to be distinguished from that set 
 forth in the Amadis or the Palmerin. The poem and 
 history of the Cid bear witness yet earlier, indirectly 
 indeed, but very strongly, to a similar state of the 
 country; and so do many of the old ballads and other 
 records of the national feelings and traditions that had 
 come from the fourteenth century. 
 
 "But in the fifteenth the chronicles are full of it, 
 and exhibit it in forms the most grave and imposing. 
 Dangerous tournaments, in some of which the chief 
 men of the time, and even the kings themselves, took 
 part, occur constantly, and are recorded among the 
 important events of the age. At the passage of arms 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 637 
 
 near Orbigo, in the reign of John the Second, eighty 
 knights, as we have seen, were found ready to risk 
 their lives for as fantastic a fiction of gallantry as is 
 recorded in any of the romances of chivalry; a folly 
 of which this was by no means the only instance. 
 Nor did' they confine their extravagances to their own 
 country. In the same reign, two Spanish knights went 
 as far as Burgundy, professedly in search of adven- 
 tures, which they strangely mingled with a pilgrimage 
 to Jerusalem, — seeming to regard both as religious ex- 
 ercises. And as late as the time of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, Fernando del Pulgar, their wise secretary, 
 gives us the names of several distinguished noblemen, 
 personally known to himself, who had gone into for- 
 eign countries 'in order,' as he says, 'to try the for- 
 tune of arms with any cavalier that might be pleased 
 to adventure with them, and so gain honor for them- 
 selves, and the fame of valiant and bold knights for 
 the gentlemen of Castile.' 
 
 "A state of society like this was the natural result 
 of the extraordinary development which the institu- 
 tions of chivalry had then received in Spain. Some 
 of it was suited to the age, and salutary; the rest 
 was knight-errantry, and knight-errantry in its wildest 
 extravagance. When, however, the imaginations of 
 men were so excited as to tolerate and maintain in 
 their daily life such manners and institutions as these, 
 they would not fail to enjoy the boldest and most free 
 representations of a corresponding state of society in 
 works of romantic fiction. But they went farther, 
 Extravagant and even impossible as are many of the 
 adventures recorded in the books of chivalry, they 
 
 54 
 
6 $8 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 still seemed so little to exceed the absurdities fre- 
 quently witnessed or told of known and living men, 
 that many persons took the romances themselves to be 
 true histories, and believed them. Thus, Mexia, the 
 trustworthy historiographer of Charles the Fifth, says, 
 in 1545, when speaking of 'the Amadises, Lisuartes, 
 and Clarions,' that ' their authors do waste their time 
 and weary their faculties in writing such books, which 
 are read by all and believed by many. For,' he goes 
 on, 'there be men who think all these things really 
 happened, just as they read or hear them, though the 
 greater part of the things themselves are sinful, pro- 
 fane, and unbecoming.' And Castillo, another chron- 
 icler, tells us gravely, in 1587, that Philip the Second, 
 when he married Mary of England, only forty years 
 earlier, promised that if King Arthur should return to 
 claim the throne he would peaceably yield to that 
 prince all his rights ; thus implying, at least in Cas- 
 tillo himself, and probably in many of his readers, 
 a full faith in the stories of Arthur and his Round 
 Table. 
 
 "Such credulity, it is true, now seems impossible, 
 even if we suppose it was confined to a moderate 
 number of intelligent persons; and hardly less so 
 when, as in the admirable sketch of an easy faith in 
 the stories of chivalry by the innkeeper and Mari- 
 tornes in Don Quixote, we are shown that it extended 
 to the mass of the people. But before we refuse our 
 assent to the statements of such faithful chroniclers as 
 Mexia, on the ground that what they relate is impos- 
 sible, we should recollect that, in the age when they 
 lived, men were in the habit of believing and asserting 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 639 
 
 every day things no less incredible than those recited 
 in the old romances. The Spanish Church then coun- 
 tenanced a trust in miracles as of constant recurrence, 
 which required of those who believed them more cre- 
 dulity than the fictions of chivalry; and yet how few 
 were found wanting in faith ! And how few doubted 
 the tales that had come down to them of the impos- 
 sible achievements of their fathers during the seven 
 centuries of their warfare against the Moors, or the 
 glorious traditions of all sorts that still constitute the 
 charm of their brave old chronicles, though we now 
 see at a glance that many of them are as fabulous as 
 any thing told of Palmerin or Launcelot ! 
 
 "But, whatever we may think of this belief in the 
 romances of chivalry, there is no question that in 
 Spain during the sixteenth century there prevailed 
 a passion for them such as was never' known else- 
 where. The proof of it comes to us from all sides. 
 The poetry of the country is full of it, from the ro- 
 mantic ballads that still live in the memory of the 
 people, up to the old plays that have ceased to be 
 acted and the old epics that have ceased to be read. 
 The national manners and the national dress, more 
 peculiar and picturesque than in other countries, long 
 bore its sure impress. The old laws, too, speak no 
 less plainly. Indeed, the passion for such fictions 
 was so strong, and seemed so dangerous, that in 1553 
 they were prohibited from being printed, sold, or read 
 in the American colonies; and in 1555 the Cortes 
 earnestly asked that the same prohibition might be 
 extended to Spain itself, and that all the extant copies 
 of romances of chivalry might be publicly burned. 
 
640 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 And, finally, half a century later, the happiest work 
 of the greatest genius Spain has produced bears witness 
 on every page to the prevalence of an absolute fanat- 
 icism for books of chivalry, and becomes at once the 
 seal of their vast popularity and the monument of their 
 fate." 
 
 We can barely touch on the Drama, the last of the 
 three great divisions into which our author has thrown 
 this period. It is of little moment, for down to the 
 close of the fifteenth century the Castilian drama 
 afforded small promise of the brilliant fortunes that 
 awaited it. It was born under an Italian sky. Al- 
 most its first lispings were at the vice-regal court of 
 Naples, and under a foreign influence it displayed few 
 of the national characteristics which afterwards marked 
 its career. Yet the germs of future excellence may be 
 discerned in the compositions of Encina and Naharro : 
 and the "Celestina," though not designed for the 
 stage, had a literary merit that was acknowledged 
 throughout Europe. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor, as usual, accompanies his analysis with 
 occasional translations of the best passages from the 
 ancient masters. From one of these — a sort of dra- 
 matic eclogue, by Gil Vicente — we extract the follow- 
 ing spirited verses. The scene represents Cassandra, 
 the heroine of the piece, as refusing all the solicita- 
 tions of her family to change her state of maiden free- 
 dom for married life : 
 
 " They say, ' 'Tis time, go, marry ! go !' 
 But I'll no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 For I would live all carelessly, 
 Amid these hills, a maiden free, 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 641 
 
 And never ask, nor anxious be, 
 
 Of wedded weal or woe : 
 Yet still they say, 'Go, marry! go!' 
 But I'll no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 
 " So, mother, think not I shall wed, 
 And through a tiresome life be led, 
 Or use in folly's ways instead 
 
 What grace the heavens bestow. 
 Yet still they say, ' Go, marry ! go !' 
 But I'll no husband ! not I ! no ! 
 The man has not been born, I ween, 
 Who as my husband shall be seen ; 
 And since what frequent tricks have been 
 
 Undoubtingly I know, 
 In vain they say, ' Go, marry ! go !' 
 For I'll no husband ! not I ! no!" 
 
 She escapes to the woods, and her kinsmen, after in 
 vain striving to bring her back, come in dancing and 
 singing as madly as herself: 
 
 " She is wild ! she is wild ! 
 Who shall speak to the child ? 
 
 On the hills pass her hours, 
 As a shepherdess free ; 
 
 She is fair as the flowers, 
 She is wild as the sea ! 
 She is wild ! she is wild ! 
 Who shall speak to the child?" 
 
 Daring the course of the period we have been con- 
 sidering there runs another rich vein of literature, the 
 beautiful Provencal, — those lays of love and chivalry 
 poured forth by the Troubadours in the little court of 
 Provence, and afterwards of Catalonia. During the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the voice of the 
 minstrel was hardly heard in other parts of Europe, 
 
 54* 
 
642 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the northern shores of the Mediterranean, on either 
 side of the Pyrenees, were alive with song. But it was 
 the melody of a too early spring, to be soon silenced 
 under the wintry breath of persecution. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor, who paid, while in Europe, much at- 
 tention to the Romance dialects, has given a pleasing 
 analysis of this early literature after it had fled from 
 the storms of persecution to the south of Spain. But 
 few will care to learn a language which locks up a lit- 
 erature that was rather one of a beautiful promise than 
 performance, — that prematurely perished and left no 
 sign. And yet it did leave some sign of its existence, 
 in the influence it exerted both on Italian and Cas- 
 tilian poetry. 
 
 This was peculiarly displayed at the court of John 
 the Second of Castile, who flourished towards the 
 middle of the fifteenth century. That prince gathered 
 around him a circle of wits and poets, several of them 
 men of the highest rank; and the intellectual spirit 
 thus exhibited shows like a bright streak in the dawn 
 of that higher civilization which rose upon Castile in 
 the beginning of the following century. In this liter- 
 ary circle King John himself was a prominent figure, 
 correcting the verses of his loving subjects, and occa- 
 sionally inditing some of his own. In the somewhat 
 severe language of Mr. Ticknor, "he turned to letters 
 to avoid the importunity of business, and to gratify 
 a constitutional indolence." There was, it is true, 
 something ridiculous in King John's most respectable 
 tastes, reminding us of the character of his contem- 
 porary, Rene of Anjou. But still it was something, 
 in those rough times, to manifest a relish for intel- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 643 
 
 lectual pleasures ; and it had its effect in weaning his 
 turbulent nobility from the indulgence of their coarser 
 appetites. 
 
 The same liberal tastes, with still better result, were 
 shown by his daughter, the illustrious Isabella the 
 Catholic. Not that any work of great pretensions for 
 its poetical merits was then produced. The poetry of 
 the age, indeed, was pretty generally infected with the 
 meretricious conceits of the Provencal and the old 
 Castilian verse. We must except from this reproach 
 the "Coplas" of Jorge Manrique, which have found 
 so worthy an interpreter in Mr. Longfellow, and which 
 would do honor to any age. But the age of Isabella 
 was in Castile what that of Poggio was in Italy. 
 Learned men were invited from abroad, and took up 
 their residence at the court. Native scholars went 
 abroad, and brought back the rich fruits of an educa- 
 tion in the most renowned of the Italian universities. 
 The result of this scholarship was the preparation of 
 dictionaries, grammars, and various philological works, 
 which gave laws to the language and subjected it to a 
 classic standard. Printing was introduced, and, under 
 the royal patronage, presses were put in active opera- 
 tion in various cities of the kingdom. Thus, although 
 no great work was actually produced, a beneficent im- 
 pulse was given to letters, which trained up the scholar 
 and opened the way for the brilliant civilization of the 
 reign of Charles the Fifth. Our author has not paid 
 the tribute to the reign of Isabella to which, in our 
 judgment, it is entitled even in a literary view. He 
 has noticed with commendation the various efforts 
 made in it to introduce a more liberal scholarship, but 
 
644 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 has by no means dwelt with the emphasis they deserve 
 on the importance of the results. 
 
 With the glorious rule of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 closes the long period from the middle of the twelfth 
 to the beginning of the sixteenth century, — a period 
 which, if we except Italy, has no rival in modern his- 
 tory for the richness, variety, and picturesque charac- 
 ter of its literature. It is that portion of the literature 
 which seems to come spontaneously like the vegetation 
 of a virgin soil, that must lose something of its natural 
 freshness and perfume when brought under a more 
 elaborate cultivation. It is that portion which is most 
 thoroughly imbued with the national spirit, unaffected 
 by foreign influences ; and the student who would fully 
 comprehend the genius of the Spaniards must turn to 
 these pure and primitive sources of their literary cul- 
 ture. 
 
 We cannot do better than close with the remarks 
 in which Mr. Ticknor briefly, but with his usual perspi- 
 cuity, sums up the actual achievements of the period : 
 
 "Poetry, or at least the love of poetry, made pro- 
 gress with the great advancement of the nation under 
 Ferdinand and Isabella ; though the taste of the court 
 in whatever regarded Spanish literature continued low 
 and false. Other circumstances, too, favored the great 
 and beneficial change that was everywhere becoming 
 apparent. The language of Castile had already as- 
 serted its supremacy, and, with the old Castilian spirit 
 and cultivation, it was spreading into Andalusia and 
 Aragon, and planting itself amid the ruins of the 
 Moorish power on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 Chronicle-writing was become frequent, and had begun 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 645 
 
 to take the forms of regular history. The drama was 
 advanced as far as the ' Celestina' in prose, and the 
 more strictly scenic efforts of Torres Naharro in verse. 
 Romance-writing was at the height of its success. And 
 the old ballad spirit — the true foundation of Spanish 
 poetry — had received a new impulse and richer mate- 
 rials from the contests in which all Christian Spain 
 had borne a part amid the mountains of Granada, and 
 from the wild tales of the feuds and adventures of rival 
 factions within the walls of that devoted city. Every 
 thing, indeed, announced a decided movement in the 
 literature of the nation, and almost every thing seemed 
 to favor and facilitate it." 
 
 The second great division embraces the long inter- 
 val between 1500 and 1700, occupied by the Austrian 
 dynasty of Spain. It covers the golden age, as gen- 
 erally considered, of Castilian literature; that in which 
 it submitted in some degree to the influences of the 
 advancing European civilization, and which witnessed 
 those great productions of genius that have had the 
 widest reputation with foreigners, — the age of Cer- 
 vantes, of Lope de Vega, and of Calderon. The con- 
 dition of Spain itself was materially changed. Instead 
 of being hemmed in by her mountain-barrier, she had 
 extended her relations to every court in Europe, and 
 established her empire in every quarter of the globe. 
 Emerging from her retired and solitary condition, she 
 now took the first rank among the states of Christen- 
 dom. Her literature naturally took the impress of 
 this change, but not to the extent — or, at least, not in 
 the precise manner — it would have done if left to its 
 natural and independent action. But, unhappily for 
 
646 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the land, the great power of its monarchs was turned 
 against their own people, and the people were assailed, 
 moreover, through the very qualities which should have 
 entitled them to forbearance from their masters. Prac- 
 tising on their loyalty, their princes trampled on their 
 ancient institutions, and loyalty was degraded into 
 an abject servility. The religious zeal of early days, 
 which had carried them triumphant through the Moor- 
 ish struggle, turned, under the influence of the priests, 
 into a sour fanaticism, which opened the way to the 
 Inquisition, — the most terrible engine of oppression 
 ever devised by man, — not so terrible for its operation 
 on the body as on the mind. Under its baneful influ- 
 ence, literature lost its free and healthy action; and, 
 however high its pretensions as a work of art, it be- 
 comes so degenerate in a moral aspect that it has far 
 less to awaken our sympathies than the productions of 
 an earlier time. From this circumstance, as well as 
 from that of its being much better known to the gen- 
 erality of scholars, we shall pass only in rapid review 
 some of its most remarkable persons and productions. 
 Before entering on this field, we will quote some im- 
 portant observations of our author on the general pros- 
 pects of the period he is to discuss. Thus to allow 
 coming events to cast their shadows before, is better 
 suited to the purposes of the literary historian than 
 of the novelist. His remarks on the Inquisition are 
 striking: 
 
 "The results of such extraordinary traits in the 
 national character could not fail to be impressed upon 
 the literature of any country, and particularly upon a 
 literature which, like that of Spain, had always been 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 647 
 
 strongly marked by the popular temperament and pe- 
 culiarities. But the period was not one in which such 
 traits could be produced with poetical effect. The 
 ancient loyalty, which had once been so generous an 
 element in the Spanish character and cultivation, was 
 now infected with the ambition of universal empire, 
 and was lavished upon princes and nobles who, like 
 the later Philips and their ministers, were unworthy of 
 its homage; so that in the Spanish historians and epic 
 poets of this period, and even in more popular writers, 
 like Quevedo and Calderon, we find a vainglorious 
 admiration of their country, and a poor flattery of 
 royalty and rank, that reminds us of the old Castilian 
 pride and deference only by showing how both had 
 lost their dignity. And so it is with the ancient re- 
 ligious feeling that was so nearly akin to this loyalty. 
 The Christian spirit, which gave an air of duty to the 
 wildest forms of adventure throughout the country 
 during its long contest with the power of misbelief, 
 was now fallen away into a low and anxious bigotry, 
 fierce and intolerant towards every thing that differed 
 from its own sharply-defined faith, and yet so per- 
 vading and so popular that the romances and tales of 
 the time are full of it, and the national theatre, in 
 more than one form, becomes its strange and grotesque 
 monument. 
 
 " Of course, the body of Spanish poetry and eloquent 
 prose produced during this interval — the earlier part 
 of which was the period of the greatest glory Spain 
 ever enjoyed — was injuriously affected by so diseased a 
 condition of the national character. That generous 
 and manly spirit which is the breath of intellectual 
 
648 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 life to any people was restrained and stifled. Some de- 
 partments of literature, such as forensic eloquence and 
 eloquence of the pulpit, satirical poetry, and elegant 
 didactic prose, hardly appeared at all ; others, like 
 epic poetry, were strangely perverted and misdirected; 
 while yet others, like the drama, the ballads, and the 
 lighter forms of lyrical verse, seemed to grow exuberant 
 and lawless, from the very restraints imposed on the 
 rest, — restraints which, in fact, forced poetical genius 
 into channels where it would otherwise have flowed 
 much more scantily and with much less luxuriant 
 results. 
 
 "The books that were published during the whole 
 period on which we are now entering, and indeed for 
 a century later, bore everywhere marks of the subjec- 
 tion to which the press and those who wrote for it were 
 alike reduced. From the abject title-pages and dedi- 
 cations of the authors themselves, through the crowd 
 of certificates collected from their friends to establish 
 the orthodoxy of works that were often as little con- 
 nected with religion as fairy-tales, down to the colo- 
 phon, supplicating pardon for any unconscious neglect 
 of the authority of the Church or any too free use of 
 classical mythology, we are continually oppressed with 
 painful proofs not only how completely the human 
 mind was enslaved in Spain, but how grievously it had 
 become cramped and crippled by the chains it had so 
 long worn. 
 
 "But we shall be greatly in error if, as we notice 
 these deep marks and strange peculiarities in Spanish 
 literature, we suppose they were produced by the direct 
 action either of the Inquisition or of the civil govern- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 649 
 
 merit of the country, compressing, as if with a phys- 
 ical power, the whole circle of society. This would 
 have been impossible. No nation would" have submit- 
 ted to it ; much less so high-spirited and chivalrous a 
 nation as the Spanish in the reign of Charles the Fifth 
 and in the greater part of that of Philip the Second. 
 This dark work was done earlier. Its foundations were 
 laid deep and sure in the old Castilian character. It 
 was the result of the excess and misdirection of that 
 very Christian zeal which fought so fervently and glo- 
 riously against the intrusion of Mohammedanism into 
 Europe, and of that military loyalty which sustained 
 the Spanish princes so faithfully through the whole of 
 that terrible contest ; both of them high and enno- 
 bling principles, which in Spain were more wrought 
 into the popular character than they ever were in any 
 other country. 
 
 cl Spanish submission to an unworthy despotism, and 
 Spanish bigotry, were, therefore, not the results of the 
 Inquisition and the modern appliances of a corrupting 
 monarchy, but the Inquisition and the despotism were 
 rather the results of a misdirection of the old religious 
 faith and loyalty. The civilization that recognized 
 such elements presented, no doubt, much that was 
 brilliant, picturesque, and ennobling; but it was not 
 without its darker side; for it failed to excite and 
 cherish many of the most elevating qualities of our 
 common nature, — those qualities which are produced 
 in domestic life and result in the cultivation of the 
 arts of peace. 
 
 " As we proceed, therefore, we shall find, in the full 
 development of the Spanish character and literature, 
 2 c 55 
 
650 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 seeming contradictions, which can be reconciled only 
 by looking back to the foundations on which they 
 both rest. We shall find the Inquisition at the height 
 of its power, and a free and immoral drama at the 
 height of its popularity, — Philip the Second and his 
 two immediate successors governing the country with 
 the severest and most jealous despotism, while Que- 
 vedo was writing his witty and dangerous satires, and 
 Cervantes his genial and wise Don Quixote. But the 
 more carefully we consider such a state of things, 
 the more we shall see that these are moral contradic- 
 tions which draw after them grave moral mischiefs. 
 The Spanish nation and the men of genius who illus- 
 trated its best days might be light-hearted because 
 they did not perceive the limits within which they 
 were confined, or did not, for a time, feel the restraints 
 that were imposed upon them. What they gave up 
 might be given up with cheerful hearts, and not with a 
 sense of discouragement and degradation ; it might 
 be done in the spirit of loyalty and with the fervor 
 of religious zeal ; but it is not at all the less true that 
 the hard limits were there, and that great sacrifices 
 of the best elements of the national character must 
 follow. 
 
 "Of this, time gave abundant proof. Only a little 
 more than a century elapsed before the government 
 that had threatened the world with a universal empire 
 was hardly able to repel invasion from abroad, or 
 maintain the allegiance of its own subjects at home. 
 Life — the vigorous, poetical life which had been 
 kindled through the country in its ages of trial and 
 adversity — was evidently passing out of the whole 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 651 
 
 Spanish character. As a people they sunk away from 
 being a first-rate power in Europe, till they became 
 one of altogether inferior importance and considera- 
 tion, and then, drawing back haughtily behind their 
 mountains, rejected all equal intercourse with the rest 
 of the world, in a spirit almost as exclusive and intol- 
 erant as that in which they had formerly refused in- 
 tercourse with their Arab conquerors. The crude and 
 gross wealth poured in from their American posses- 
 sions sustained, indeed, for yet another century the 
 forms of a miserable political existence in their gov- 
 ernment; but the earnest faith, the loyalty, the dignity 
 of the Spanish people were gone, and little remained 
 in their place but a weak subserviency to the un- 
 worthy masters of the state, and a low, timid bigotry 
 in whatever related to religion. The old enthusiasm, 
 rarely directed by wisdom from the first, and often 
 misdirected afterwards, faded away; and the poetry of 
 the country, which had always depended more on the 
 state of the popular feeling than any other poetry of 
 modern times, faded and failed with it." 
 
 The first thing that strikes us, at the very commence- 
 ment of this new period, is the attempt to subject the 
 Castilian to Italian forms of versification. This at- 
 tempt, through the perfect tact of Boscan and the 
 delicate genius of Garcilasso, who rivalled in their 
 own walks the greatest masters of Italian verse, was 
 eminently successful. It would indeed be wonderful 
 if the intimate relations now established between 
 Spain and Italy did not lead to a reciprocal influence 
 of their literatures on each other. The two languages, 
 descended from the same parent stock, the Latin, were 
 
652 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 nearest of kin to each other, — in the relation, if we 
 may so speak, of brother and sister. The Castilian, 
 with its deep Arabic gutturals, and its clear, sonorous 
 sounds, had the masculine character, which assorted 
 well with the more feminine graces of the Italian, with 
 its musical cadences and soft vowel terminations. The 
 transition from one language to the other was almost 
 as natural as from the dialect of one province of a 
 countrv to that of its neighbor. 
 
 The revolution thus effected went far below the sur- 
 face of Spanish poetry. It is for this reason that we 
 are satisfied that Mr. Ticknor has judged wisely, as we 
 have before intimated, in arranging the division-lines 
 of his two periods in such a manner as to throw into 
 the former that primitive portion of the national lit- 
 erature which was untouched, at least to any consider- 
 able extent, by a foreign influence. 
 
 Yet in the compositions of this second period it 
 must be admitted that by far the greater portion of 
 what is really good rests on the original basis of the 
 national character, though under the controlling influ- 
 ences of a riper age of civilization. And foremost of 
 the great writers of this national school we find the 
 author of "Don Quixote," whose fame seems now to 
 belong to Europe as much as to the land that gave 
 him birth. Mr. Ticknor has given a very interesting 
 notice of the great writer and of his various composi- 
 tions. The materials for this are, for the most part, 
 not very difficult to be procured ; for Cervantes is the 
 author whom his countrymen, since his death, with a 
 spirit very different from that of his contemporaries, 
 have most delighted to honor. Fortunately, the Cas- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 653 
 
 tilian romancer has supplied us with materials for his 
 own biography, which remind us of the lamentable 
 poverty under which we labor in all that relates to 
 his contemporary, Shakspeare. In Mr. Ticknor's bio- 
 graphical notice the reader will find some details 
 probably not familiar to him, and a careful discussion 
 of those points over which still rests any cloud of un- 
 certainty. 
 
 He inquires into the grounds of the imputation of 
 an unworthy jealousy having existed between Lope and 
 his illustrious rival, and we heartily concur with him in 
 the general results of his investigation : 
 
 "Concerning his relations with Lope de Vega there 
 has been much discussion to little purpose. Certain it 
 is that Cervantes often praises this great literary idol 
 of his age, and that four or five times Lope stoops 
 from his pride of place and compliments Cervantes, 
 though never beyond the measure of praise he bestows 
 on many whose claims were greatly inferior. But in 
 his stately flight it is plain that he soared much above 
 the author of Don Quixote, to whose highest merits 
 he seemed carefully to avoid all homage ; and though 
 I find no sufficient reason to suppose their relation to 
 each other was marked by any personal jealousy or ill 
 will, as has been sometimes supposed, yet I can find 
 no proof that it was either intimate or kindly. On the 
 contrary, when we consider the good nature of Cer- 
 vantes, which made him praise to excess nearly all his 
 other literary contemporaries, as well as the greatest 
 of them all, and when we allow for the frequency of 
 hyperbole in such praises at that time, which prevented 
 them from being what they would now be, we may 
 
 55* 
 
654 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 perceive an occasional coolness in his manner, when 
 he speaks of Lope, which shows that, without over- 
 rating his own merits and claims, he was not insensible 
 to the difference in their respective positions, or to the 
 injustice towards himself implied by it. Indeed, his 
 whole tone, whenever he notices Lope, seems to be 
 marked with much personal dignity, and to be singu- 
 larly honorable to him." 
 
 Mr. Ticknor, in a note to the above, states that he 
 has been able to find only five passages in all Lope de 
 Vega's works where there is any mention of Cervantes, 
 and not one of these written after the appearance of 
 the "Don Quixote," during its author's lifetime, — a 
 significant fact. One of the passages to which our 
 author refers, and which is from the " Laurel de 
 Apolo," contains, he says, "a somewhat stiff eulogy 
 on Cervantes." We quote the original couplet, which 
 alludes to the injury inflicted on Cervantes' s hand in 
 the great battle of Lepanto : 
 
 " Porque se diga que una mano herida 
 Pudo dar a su dueno eterna vida." 
 
 Which may be rendered, 
 
 " The hand, though crippled in the glorious strife, 
 Sufficed to gain its lord eternal life." 
 
 We imagine that most who read the distich — the Cas- 
 tilian, not the English — will be disposed to regard it 
 as no inelegant, and certainly not a parsimonious, 
 tribute from one bard to another, — at least, if made 
 in the lifetime of the subject of it. Unfortunately, it 
 was not written till some fourteen years after the death 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 655 
 
 of Cervantes, when he was beyond the power of being 
 pleased or profited by praise from any quarter. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor closes the sketch of Cervantes with 
 some pertinent and touching reflections on the circum- 
 stances under which his great work was composed : 
 
 ''The romance which he threw so carelessly from 
 him, and which, I am persuaded, he regarded rather 
 as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste of his time 
 for the fancies of chivalry than as any thing of more 
 serious import, has been established by an uninter- 
 rupted, and, it may be said, an unquestioned, success 
 ever since, both as the oldest classical specimen of 
 romantic fiction, and as one of the most remarkable 
 monuments of modern genius. But, though this may 
 be enough to fill the measure of human fame and glory, 
 it is not all to which Cervantes is entitled ; for, if we 
 would do him the justice that would have been dearest 
 to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves fully 
 comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, 
 we should, as we read it, bear in mind that this delight- 
 ful romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance 
 of feeling and a happy external condition, nor com- 
 posed in his best years, when the spirits of its author 
 were light and his hopes high ; but that — with all its 
 unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright 
 views of the world, and its cheerful trust in goodness 
 and virtue — it was written in his old age, at the con- 
 clusion of a life nearly every step of which had been 
 marked with disappointed expectations, disheartening 
 struggles, and sore calamities ; that he began it in a 
 prison, and that it was finished when he felt the hand 
 of death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If 
 
656 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 this be remembered as we read, we may feel, as we 
 ought to feel, what admiration and reverence are due 
 not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but to 
 the character and genius of Cervantes." 
 
 The next name that meets us in the volume is that 
 of Lope de Vega Carpio, the idol of his generation, 
 who lived, in all the enjoyment of wealth and worldly 
 honors, in the same city, and, as some accounts state, 
 in the same street, where his illustrious rival was pining 
 in poverty and neglect. If posterity has reversed the 
 judgment of their contemporaries, still we cannot with- 
 hold our admiration at the inexhaustible invention of 
 Lope and the miraculous facility of his composition. 
 His achievements in this way, perfectly well authenti- 
 cated, are yet such as to stagger credibility. He wrote 
 in all about eighteen hundred regular dramas, and four 
 hundred autos, — pieces of one act each. Besides this, 
 he composed, at leisure intervals, no less than twenty- 
 one printed volumes of miscellaneous poetry, including 
 eleven narrative and didactic poems of much length, 
 in ottava rima, and seven hundred sonnets, also in 
 the Italian measure. His comedies, amounting to be- 
 tween two and three thousand lines each, were mostly 
 rhymed, and interspersed with ballads, sonnets, and 
 different kinds of versification. Critics have some- 
 times amused themselves with computing the amount 
 of matter thus actually thrown off by him in the course 
 of his dramatic career. The sum swells to twenty-one 
 million three hundred thousand verses ! He lived to 
 the age of seventy-two, and if we allow him to have 
 employed fifty years — which will not be far from the 
 truth — in his theatrical compositions, it will give an 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 657 
 
 average of something like a play a week, through the 
 whole period, to say nothing of the epics and other 
 miscellanies ! He tells us, farther, that on one occa- 
 sion he produced five entire plays in a fortnight. And 
 his biographer assures us that more than once he turned 
 off a whole drama in twenty-four hours. These plays, 
 it will be recollected, with their stores of invention and 
 fluent versification, were the delight of all classes of 
 his countrymen, and the copious fountain of supply to 
 half the theatres of Europe. Well might Cervantes 
 call him the " monstrito de naturaleza" — the "miracle 
 of nature." 
 
 The vast popularity of Lope, and the unprece- 
 dented amount of his labors, brought with them, as 
 might be expected, a substantial recompense. This 
 remuneration was of the most honorable kind, for it 
 was chiefly derived from the public. It is said to have 
 amounted to no less than a hundred thousand ducats, 
 — which, estimating the ducat at its probable value of 
 six or seven dollars of our day, has no parallel — or 
 perhaps not more than one — upon record. 
 
 Yet Lope did not refuse the patronage of the great. 
 From the Duke of Sessa he is said to have received, 
 in the course of his life, more than twenty thousand 
 ducats. Another of his noble patrons was the Duke 
 of Alva; not the terrible Duke of the Netherlands, 
 but his grandson, — a man of some literary pretensions, 
 hardly claimed for his great ancestor. Yet with the 
 latter he has been constantly confounded, by Lord 
 Holland, in his life of the poet, by Southey, after an 
 examination of the matter, and lastly, though with 
 some distrust, by Nicholas Antonio, the learned Cas- 
 2 c* 
 
658 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 tilian biographer. Mr. Ticknor shows beyond a doubt, 
 from a critical examination of the subject, that they 
 are all in error. The inquiry and the result are clearly 
 stated in the notes, and are one among the many 
 evidences which these notes afford of the minute and 
 very accurate researches of our author into matters of 
 historical interest that have baffled even the Castilian 
 scholars. 
 
 We remember meeting with something of a similar 
 blunder in Schlegel's Dramatic Lectures, where he 
 speaks of the poet Garcilasso de la Vega as descended 
 from the Peruvian Incas, and as having lost his life 
 before Tunis. The fact is that the poet died at Nice, 
 and that, too, some years before the birth of the Inca 
 Garcilasso, with whom Schlegel so strangely confounds 
 him. One should be charitable to such errors, — 
 though a dogmatic critic like Schlegel has as little 
 right as any to demand such charity, — for we well 
 know how difficult it is always to escape them, when, 
 as in Castile, the same name seems to descend, as an 
 heir-loom, from one generation to another, if it be 
 not, indeed, shared by more than one of the same 
 generation. In the case of the Duke of Alva there 
 was not even this apology. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor has traced the personal history of Lope 
 de Vega, so as to form a running commentary on his 
 literary. It will be read with satisfaction even by those 
 who are familiar with Lord Holland's agreeable life of 
 the poet, since the publication of which more ample 
 researches have been made into the condition of the 
 Castilian drama. Those who are disposed to set too 
 high a value on the advantages of literary success may 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 659 
 
 learn a lesson by seeing how ineffectual it was to secure 
 the happiness of that spoiled child of fortune. We 
 give our author's account of his latter days, when his 
 mind had become infected with the religious gloom 
 which has too often settled round the evening of life 
 with the fanatical Spaniard : 
 
 "But, as his life drew to a close, his religious feel- 
 ings, mingled with a melancholy fanaticism, predom- 
 inated more and more. Much of his poetry composed 
 at this time expressed them ; and at last they rose to 
 such a height that he was almost constantly in a state 
 of excited melancholy, or, as it was then beginning to 
 be called, of hypochondria. Early in the month of 
 August he felt himself extremely weak, and suffered 
 more than ever from that sense of discouragement 
 which was breaking down his resources and strength. 
 His thoughts, however, were so exclusively occupied 
 with his spiritual condition that, even when thus re- 
 duced, he continued to fast, and on one occasion went 
 through with a private discipline so cruel that the walls 
 of the apartment where it occurred were afterwards 
 found sprinkled with his blood. From this he never 
 recovered. He was taken ill the same night ; and, 
 after fulfilling the offices prescribed by his Church with 
 the most submissive devotion, — mourning that he had 
 ever been engaged in any occupations but such as were 
 exclusively religious, — he died on the 25th of August, 
 1635, nearly seventy-three years old. 
 
 "The sensation produced by his death was such as 
 is rarely witnessed even in the case of those upon 
 whom depends the welfare of nations. The Duke of 
 Sessa, who was his especial patron, and to whom he 
 
660 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 left his manuscripts, provided for the funeral in a man- 
 ner becoming his own wealth and rank. It lasted nine 
 days. The crowds that thronged to it were immense. 
 Three bishops officiated, and the first nobles of the 
 land attended as mourners. Eulogies and poems fol- 
 lowed on all sides, and in numbers all but incredible. 
 Those written in Spain make one considerable volume, 
 and end with a drama in which his apotheosis was 
 brought upon the public stage. Those written in Italy 
 are hardly less numerous, and fill another. But more 
 touching than any of them was the prayer of that 
 much-loved daughter, who had been shut up from .the 
 world fourteen years, that the long funeral procession 
 might pass by her convent and permit her once more to 
 look on the face she so tenderly venerated ; and more 
 solemn than any was the mourning of the multitude, 
 from whose dense mass audible sobs burst forth as his 
 remains slowly descended from their sight into the 
 house appointed for all living." 
 
 Mr. Ticknor follows up his biographical sketch of 
 Lope with an analysis of his plays, concluding the 
 whole with a masterly review of his qualities as a dra- 
 matic writer. The discussion has a wider import than 
 at first appears. For Lope de Vega, although he built 
 on the foundations of the ancient drama, yet did this 
 in such a manner as to settle the forms of this depart- 
 ment of literature forever for his countrymen. 
 
 It would be interesting to compare the great Spanish 
 dramatist with Shakspeare, who flourished at the same 
 period, and who, in like manner, stamped his own 
 character on the national theatre. Both drew their 
 fictions from every source indiscriminately, and neither 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 66 1 
 
 paid regard to probabilities of chronology, geography, 
 or scarcely history. Time, place, and circumstance 
 were of little moment in their eyes. Both built their 
 dramas on the romantic model, with its magic scenes 
 of joy and sorrow, in the display of which each was 
 master in his own way; though the English poet could 
 raise the tone of sentiment to a moral grandeur which 
 the Castilian, with all the tragic coloring of his pencil, 
 could never reach. Both fascinated their audiences by 
 that sweet and natural flow of language, that seemed 
 to set itself to music as it was uttered. But, however 
 much alike in other points, there was one distinguish- 
 ing feature in each, which removed them and their 
 dramas far as the poles asunder. 
 
 Shakspeare's great object was the exhibition of char- 
 acter. To this every thing was directed. Situation, 
 dialogue, story, — all were employed only to this great 
 end. This was in perfect accordance with the taste 
 of his nation, as shown through the whole of its lit- 
 erature, from Chaucer to Scott. Lope de Vega, on 
 the other hand, made so little account of character 
 that he reproduces the same leading personages, in his 
 different plays, over and over again, as if they had 
 been all cast in the same mould. The galan, the damn, 
 the gracioso, or buffoon, recur as regularly as the clown 
 in the old English comedy, and their role is even more 
 precisely defined. 
 
 The paramount object with Lope was the intrigue, — 
 the story. His plays were, what Mr. Ticknor well 
 styles them, dramatic novels. And this, as our au- 
 thor remarks, was perfectly conformable to the preva- 
 lent spirit of Spanish literature, — clearly narrative, — 
 
 56 
 
662 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 as shown in its long epics of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, its host of ballads, its gossiping chronicles, 
 its chivalrous romances. The great purpose of Lope 
 was to excite and maintain an interest in the story. 
 "Keep the denouement in suspense," he says: "if it 
 be once surmised, your audience will turn their backs 
 on you." He frequently complicates his intrigues in 
 such a manner that only the closest attention can follow 
 them. He cautions his hearers to give this attention, 
 especially at the outset. 
 
 Lope, with great tact, accommodated his theatre to 
 the prevailing taste of his countrymen. "Plautus and 
 Terence," he says, "I throw into the fire when I begin 
 to write;" thus showing that it was not by accident 
 but on a settled principle that he arranged the forms 
 of his dramas. It is the favorite principle of modern 
 economists, that of consulting the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number. Lope did so, and was re- 
 warded for it not merely by the applause of the mil- 
 lion, but by that of every Spaniard, high and low, in 
 the country. In all this, Lope de Vega acted on 
 strictly philosophical principles. He conformed to 
 the romantic, although the distinction was not then 
 properly understood ; and he thought it necessary to 
 defend his departure from the rules of the ancients. 
 But, in truth, such rules were not suited to the genius 
 and usages of the Spaniards, any more than of the 
 English ; and more than one experiment proved that 
 they would be as little tolerated by the one people as 
 the other. 
 
 It is remarkable that the Spaniards, whose language 
 rests so broadly on the Latin, in the same manner as 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 663 
 
 with the French and the Italians, should have refused 
 to rest their literature, like them, on the classic models 
 of antiquity, and have chosen to conform to the ro- 
 mantic spirit of the more northern nations of the Teu- 
 tonic family. It was the paramount influence of the 
 Gothic element in their character, co-operating with 
 the peculiar and most stimulating influences of their 
 early history. 
 
 We close our remarks on Lope de Vega with some 
 excellent reflections of our author on the rapidity of 
 his composition, and showing to what extent his genius 
 was reverenced by his contemporaries : 
 
 •'Lope de Vega's immediate success, as we have 
 seen, was in proportion to his rare powers and favor- 
 able opportunities. For a long time nobody else was 
 willingly heard on the stage; and during the whole 
 of the forty or fifty years that he wrote for it, he 
 stood quite unapproached in general popularity. His 
 unnumbered plays and farces, in all the forms that 
 were demanded by the fashions of the age or per- 
 mitted by religious authority, filled the theatres both 
 of the capital and the provinces; and so extraordinary 
 was the impulse he gave to dramatic representations 
 that, though there were only two companies of stroll- 
 ing players at Madrid when he began, there were about 
 the period of his death no less than forty, comprehend- 
 ing nearly a thousand persons. 
 
 "Abroad, too, his fame was hardly less remarkable. 
 In Rome, Naples, and Milan his dramas were per- 
 formed in their original language ; in France and Italy 
 his name was announced in order to fill the theatres 
 when no play of his was to be performed; and once 
 
664 BIOGRAPHICAL AND .. 
 
 even, and probably oftener, one of his dramas was 
 represented in the seraglio at Constantinople. But 
 perhaps neither all this popularity, nor yet the crowds 
 that followed him in the streets and gathered in the 
 balconies to watch him as he passed along, nor the 
 name of Lope, that was given to whatever was es- 
 teemed singularly good in its kind, is so striking a 
 proof of his dramatic success as the fact, so often 
 complained of by himself and his friends, that multi- 
 tudes of his plays were fraudulently noted down as 
 they were acted, and then printed for profit through- 
 out Spain, and that multitudes of other plays appeared 
 under his name, and were represented all over the 
 provinces, that he had never heard of till they were 
 published and performed. 
 
 "A large income naturally followed such popularity, 
 for his plays were liberally paid for by the actors; and 
 he had patrons of a munificence unknown in our days, 
 and always undesirable. But he was thriftless and 
 wasteful, exceedingly charitable, and, in hospitality to 
 his friends, prodigal. He was, therefore, almost al- 
 ways embarrassed. At the end of his • Jerusalem,' 
 printed as early as 1609, he complains of the pressure 
 of his domestic affairs; and in his old age he ad- 
 dressed some verses, in the nature of a petition, to the 
 still more thriftless Philip the Fourth, asking the means 
 of living for himself and daughter. After his death, 
 his poverty was fully admitted by his executor; and 
 yet, considering the relative value of money, no poet, 
 perhaps, ever received so large a compensation for his 
 works. 
 
 " It should, however, be remembered that no other 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 665 
 
 poet ever wrote so much with popular effect. For, if 
 we begin with his dramatic compositions, which are 
 the best of his efforts, and go down to his epics, 
 which, on the whole, are the worst, we shall find the 
 amount of what was received with favor, as it came 
 from the press, quite unparalleled. And when to this 
 we are compelled to add his own assurance, just before 
 his death, that the greater part of his works still re- 
 mained in manuscript, we pause in astonishment, and, 
 before we are able to believe the account, demand 
 some explanation that will make it credible, — an ex- 
 planation which is the more important because it is 
 the key to much of his personal character, as well as 
 of his poetical success. And it is this. No poet of 
 any considerable reputation ever had a genius so nearly 
 related to that of an improvisator, or ever indulged his 
 genius so freely in the spirit of improvisation. This 
 talent has always existed in the southern countries of 
 Europe, and in Spain has, from the first, produced, 
 in different ways, the most extraordinary results. We 
 owe to it the invention and perfection of the old bal- 
 lads, which were originally improvisated and then pre- 
 served by tradition ; and we owe to it the seguidillas, 
 the boleros, and all the other forms of popular poetry 
 that still exist in Spain, and are daily poured forth by 
 the fervent imaginations of the uncultivated classes of 
 the people, and sung to the national music, that some- 
 times seems to fill the air by night as the light of the 
 sun does by day. 
 
 "In the time of Lope de Vega the passion for such 
 improvisation had risen higher than it ever rose be- 
 fore, if it had not spread out more widely. Actors 
 
 56* 
 
666 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 were expected sometimes to improvisate on themes 
 given to them by the audience. Extemporaneous dra- 
 mas, with all the varieties of verse demanded by a 
 taste formed in the theatres, were not of rare occur- 
 rence. Philip the Fourth, Lope's patron, had such 
 performed in his presence, and bore a part in them 
 himself. And the famous Count de Lemos, the vice- 
 roy of Naples, to whom Cervantes was indebted for so 
 much kindness, kept, as an apanage to his viceroyalty, 
 a poetical court, of which the two Argensolas were the 
 chief ornaments, and in which extemporaneous plays 
 were acted with brilliant success. 
 
 "Lope de Vega's talent was undoubtedly of near 
 kindred to this genius of improvisation, and produced 
 its extraordinary results by a similar process and in 
 the same spirit. He dictated verse, we are told, with 
 ease, more rapidly than an amanuensis could take it 
 down ; and wrote out an entire play in two days which 
 could with difficulty be transcribed by a copyist in the 
 same time. He was not absolutely an improvisator, 
 for his education and position naturally led him to 
 devote himself to written composition ; but he was 
 continually on the borders of whatever belongs to 
 an improvisator's peculiar province, — was continually 
 showing, in his merits and defects, in his ease, grace, 
 and sudden resource, in his wildness and extravagance, 
 in the happiness of his versification and the prodigal 
 abundance of his imagery, that a very little more free- 
 dom, a very little more indulgence given to his feel- 
 ings and his fancy, would have made him at once and 
 entirely, not only an improvisator, but the most re- 
 markable one that ever lived." 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 667 
 
 We pass over the long array of dramatic writers 
 who trod closely in the footsteps of their great master, 
 as well as a lively notice of the satirist Quevedo, and 
 come at once to Calderon de la Barca, the great poet 
 who divided with Lope the empire of the Spanish 
 stage. 
 
 Our author has given a full biography of this famous 
 dramatist, to which we must refer the reader ; and we 
 know of no other history in English where he can 
 meet with it at all. Calderon lived in the reign of 
 Philip the Fourth, which, extending from 1621 to 
 1665, comprehends the most flourishing period of the 
 Castilian theatre. The elegant tastes of the monarch, 
 with his gay and gracious manners, formed a contrast 
 to the austere temper of the other princes of the house 
 of Austria. He was not only the patron of the drama, 
 but a professor of the dramatic art, and, indeed, a 
 performer. He wrote plays himself, and acted them 
 in his own palace. His nobles, following his example, 
 turned their saloons into theatres; and the great towns, 
 and many of the smaller ones, partaking of the enthu- 
 siasm of the court, had their own theatres and com- 
 panies of actors, which altogether amounted, at one 
 time, to no less than three hundred. One may under- 
 stand that it required no small amount of material to 
 keep such a vast machinery in motion. 
 
 At the head of this mighty apparatus was the poet 
 Calderon, the favorite of the court even more than 
 Lope de Vega, but not more than he the favorite of 
 the nation. He was fully entitled to this high distinc- 
 tion, if we are to receive half that is said of him by 
 the German critics, among whom Schlegel particularly 
 
668 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 celebrates him as displaying the purest model of the 
 romantic ideal, the most perfect development of the 
 sentiments of love, heroism, and religious devotion. 
 This exaggerated tone of eulogy calls forth the rebuke 
 of Sismondi, who was educated in a different school of 
 criticism, and whose historical pursuits led him to look 
 below the surface of things to their moral tendencies. 
 By this standard Calderon has failed. And yet it seems 
 to be a just standard, even when criticising a work by 
 the rules of art ; for a disregard of the obvious laws 
 of morality is a violation of the principles of taste, on 
 which the beautiful must rest. Not that Calderon's 
 plays are chargeable with licentiousness or indecency 
 to a greater extent than was common in the writers of 
 the period. But they show a lamentable confusion of 
 ideas in regard to the first principles of morality, by 
 entirely confounding the creed of the individual with 
 his religion. A conformity to the established creed is 
 virtue, the departure from it vice. It is impossible to 
 conceive, without reading his performances, to what 
 revolting consequences this confusion of the moral 
 perceptions perpetually leads. 
 
 Yet Calderon should not incur the reproach of hy- 
 pocrisy, but that of. fanaticism. He was the very dupe 
 of. superstition ; and the spirit of fanaticism he shares 
 with the greater part of his countrymen — even the 
 most enlightened — of that period. Hypocrisy may 
 have been the sin of the Puritan, but fanaticism was 
 the sin of the Catholic Spaniard of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. The one quality may be thought 
 to reflect more discredit on the heart, the other on 
 the head. The philosopher may speculate on their 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 669 
 
 comparative moral turpitude ; but the pages of history- 
 show that fanaticism armed with power has been the 
 most fruitful parent of misery to mankind. 
 
 Calderon's drama turns on the most exaggerated 
 principles of honor, jealousy, and revenge, mingled 
 with the highest religious exaltation. Some of these 
 sentiments, usually referred to the influence of the 
 Arabs, Mr. Ticknor traces to the ancient Gothic laws, 
 which formed the basis of the early Spanish jurispru- 
 dence. The passages he cites are pertinent, and his 
 theory is plausible ; yet in the relations with woman 
 we suspect much must still be allowed for the long 
 contact with the jealous Arabian. 
 
 Calderon's characters and sentiments are formed 
 for the most part on a purely ideal standard. The 
 incidents of his plots are even more startling than 
 those of Lope de Vega, more monstrous than the fic- 
 tions of Dumas or Eugene Sue. But his thoughts are 
 breathed forth in the intoxicating language of passion, 
 with all the glowing imagery of the East, and in tones 
 of the richest melody of which the Castilian tongue is 
 capable. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor has enlivened his analysis of Calde- 
 ron's drama with several translations, as usual, from 
 which we should be glad to extract, but must content 
 ourselves with the concluding portion of his criti- 
 cism, where he sums up the prominent qualities of the 
 bard : 
 
 "Calderon neither effected nor attempted any great 
 changes in the forms of the drama. Two or three 
 times, indeed, he prepared dramas that were either 
 wholly sung, or partly sung and partly spoken ; but 
 
670 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 even these, in their structure, were no more operas 
 than his other plays, and were only a courtly luxury, 
 which it was attempted to introduce, in imitation of 
 the genuine opera just brought into France by Louis 
 the Fourteenth, with whose court that of Spain was 
 now intimately connected. But this was all. Cal- 
 deron has added to the stage no new form of dramatic 
 composition. Nor has he much modified those forms 
 which had been already arranged and settled by Lope 
 de Vega. But he has shown more technical exactness 
 in combining his incidents, and arranged every thing 
 more skilfully for stage effect. He has given to the 
 whole a new coloring, and, in some respects, a new 
 physiognomy. His drama is more poetical in its tone 
 and tendencies, and has less the air of truth and re- 
 ality, than that of his great predecessor. In its more 
 successful portions — which are rarely objectionable 
 from their moral tone — it seems almost as if we were 
 transported to another and more gorgeous world, where 
 the scenery is lighted up with unknown and preter- 
 natural splendor, and where the motives and passions 
 of the personages that pass before us are so highly 
 wrought that we must have our own feelings not a little 
 stirred and excited before we can take an earnest in- 
 terest in what we witness or sympathize in its results. 
 But even in this he is successful. The buoyancy of life 
 and spirit that he has infused into the gayer divisions 
 of his drama, and the moving tenderness that per- 
 vades its graver and more tragical portions, lift us un- 
 consciously to the height where alone his brilliant ex- 
 hibitions can prevail with our imaginations, — where 
 alone we can be interested and deluded when we find 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 671 
 
 ourselves in the midst not only of such a confusion of 
 the different forms of the drama, but of such a con- 
 fusion of the proper limits of dramatic and lyrical 
 poetry. 
 
 "To this elevated tone, and to the constant effort 
 necessary in order to sustain it, we owe much of what 
 distinguishes Calderon from his predecessors, and 
 nearly all that is most individual and characteristic in 
 his separate merits and defects. It makes him less 
 easy, graceful, and natural than Lope. It imparts to 
 his style a mannerism which, notwithstanding the mar- 
 vellous richness and fluency of his versification, some- 
 times wearies and sometimes offends us. It leads him 
 to repeat from himself till many of his personages 
 become standing characters, and his heroes and their 
 servants, his ladies and their confidants, his old men 
 and his buffoons, seem to be produced, like the masked 
 figures of the ancient theatre, to represent, with the 
 same attributes and in the same costume, the different 
 intrigues of his various plots. It leads him, in short, 
 to regard the whole of the Spanish drama as a form, 
 within whose limits his imagination may be indulged 
 without restraint, and in which Greeks and Romans, 
 heathen divinities, and the supernatural fictions of 
 Christian tradition, may be all brought out in Spanish 
 fashions and with Spanish feelings, and led, through a 
 succession of ingenious and interesting adventures, to 
 the catastrophes their stories happen to require. 
 
 " In carrying out this theory of the Spanish drama, 
 Calderon, as we have seen, often succeeds, and often 
 fails. But when he succeeds, his success is sometimes 
 of no common character. He then sets before us only 
 
672 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 models of ideal beauty, perfection, and splendor, — a 
 world, he would have it, into which nothing should 
 enter but the highest elements of the national genius. 
 There, the fervid yet grave enthusiasm of the old Cas- 
 tilian heroism, the chivalrous adventures of modern, 
 courtly honor, the generous self-devotion of individual 
 loyalty, and that reserved but passionate love which, 
 in a state of society where it was so rigorously with- 
 drawn from notice, became a kind of unacknowledged 
 religion of the heart, all seem to find their appropriate 
 home. And when he has once brought us into this 
 land of enchantment, whose glowing impossibilities his 
 own genius has created, and has called around him 
 forms of such grace and loveliness as those of Clara 
 and Dona Angela, or heroic forms like those of Tuzani, 
 Mariamne, and Don Ferdinand, then he has reached 
 the highest point he ever attained, or ever proposed to 
 himself; he has set before us the grand show of an 
 idealized drama, resting on the purest and noblest 
 elements of the Spanish national character, and one 
 which, with all its unquestionable defects, is to be 
 placed among the extraordinary phenomena of modern 
 poetry." 
 
 We shall not attempt to follow down the long file 
 of dramatic writers who occupy the remainder of the 
 period. Their name is legion ; and we are filled with 
 admiration as we reflect on the intrepid diligence with 
 which our author has waded through this amount of 
 matter, and the fidelity with which he has rendered 
 to the respective writers literary justice. We regret, 
 however, that we have not space to select, as we had 
 intended, some part of his lively account of the Span- 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 673 
 
 ish players, and of the condition of the stage. It is 
 collected from various obscure sources, and contains 
 many curious particulars. They show that the Spanish 
 theatre was conducted in a manner so dissimilar from 
 what exists in other European nations as perfectly to 
 vindicate its claims to originality. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the drama, though the 
 great national diversion, was allowed to go on in Spain, 
 any more than in other countries, in an uninterrupted 
 flow of prosperity. It met with considerable opposi- 
 tion more than once in its career; and, on the repre- 
 sentations of the clergy, at the close of Philip the 
 Second's reign, performances were wholly interdicted, 
 on the ground of their licentiousness. For two years 
 the theatre was closed. But on the death of that 
 gloomy monarch the drama, in obedience to the public 
 voice, was renewed in greater splendor than before. 
 It was urged by its friends that the theatre was required 
 to pay a portion of its proceeds to certain charitable 
 institutions, and this made all its performances in some 
 sort an exercise of charity. Lope de Vega also showed 
 his address by his Comedias de Santos, under which 
 pious name the life of some saint or holy man was por- 
 trayed, which, however edifying in its close, afforded, 
 too often, as great a display of profligacy in its earlier 
 portions as is to be found in any of the secular plays 
 of the capa y espada. His experiment seems to have 
 satisfied the consciences of the opponents of the drama, 
 or at least to have silenced their opposition. It reminds 
 us of the manner in which some among us, who seem 
 to have regarded the theatre with the antipathy enter- 
 tained by our Puritan fathers, have found their scru- 
 2 d 57 
 
674 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 pies vanish at witnessing these exhibitions under the 
 more reputable names of "Athenaeum," "Museum," 
 or :t Lyceum." 
 
 Our author has paid due attention to the other va- 
 rieties of elegant literature which occupy this prolific 
 period. We can barely enumerate the titles. Epic 
 poetry has not secured to itself the same rank in Cas- 
 tile as in many other countries. At the head stands 
 the "Araucana" of Ercilla, which Voltaire appears to 
 have preferred to "Paradise Lost"! Yet it is little 
 more than a chronicle done in rhyme ; and, notwith- 
 standing certain passages of energy and poetic elo- 
 quence, it is of more value as the historical record of 
 an eye-witness than as a work of literary art. 
 
 In Pastoral poetry the Spaniards have better speci- 
 mens. But they are specimens of an insipid kind of 
 writing, notwithstanding it has found favor with the 
 Italians, to whom it was introduced by a Spaniard, — 
 a Spaniard in descent, — the celebrated author of the 
 "Arcadia." 
 
 In the higher walks of Lyrical composition they 
 have been more distinguished. The poetry of Her- 
 rera, in particular, seems to equal, in its dithyrambic 
 flow, the best models of classic antiquity; while the 
 muse of Luis de Leon is filled with the genuine in- 
 spiration of Christianity. Mr. Ticknor has given a 
 pleasing portrait of this gentle enthusiast, whose life 
 was consecrated to Heaven, and who preserved a tran- 
 quillity of temper unruffled by all the trials of an 
 unmerited persecution. 
 
 We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting a 
 translation of one of his odes, as the last extract from 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 675 
 
 our author. The subject is, the feelings of the dis- 
 ciples on witnessing the ascension of their Master: 
 
 " And dost thou, holy Shepherd, leave 
 Thine unprotected flock alone, 
 Here, in this darksome vale, to grieve, 
 While thou ascend'st thy glorious throne? 
 
 " Oh, where can they their hopes now turn, 
 Who never lived but on thy love ? 
 Where rest the hearts for thee that burn, 
 When thou art lost in light above ? 
 
 " How shall those eyes now find repose 
 That turn, in vain, thy smile to see? 
 What can they hear save mortal woes, 
 Who lose thy voice's melody ? 
 
 " And who shall lay his tranquil hand 
 Upon the troubled ocean's might? 
 Who hush the wind by his command? 
 
 Who guide us through this starless night? 
 
 " For Thou art gone ! — that cloud so bright, 
 That bears thee from our love away, 
 Springs upward through the dazzling light, 
 And leaves us here to weep and pray!" 
 
 A peculiar branch of Castilian literature is its Prov- 
 erbs; those extracts of the popular wisdom, — "short 
 sentences from long experience," as Cervantes pub- 
 licly styles them. They have been gathered, more 
 than once, in Spain, into printed collections. One of 
 these, in the last century, contains no less than twenty- 
 four thousand of these sayings ! And a large number 
 was still left floating among the people. It is evidence 
 of extraordinary sagacity in the nation that its hum- 
 blest classes should have made such a contribution to 
 
676 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 its literature. They have an additional value with 
 purists for their idiomatic richness of expression, — like 
 the riboboli of the Florentine mob, which the Tuscan 
 critics hold in veneration as the racy runnings from 
 the dregs of the people. These popular maxims may 
 be rather compared to the copper coin of the country, 
 which has the widest circulation of any, and bears the 
 true stamp of antiquity, — not adulterated, as is too 
 often the case with the finer metals. 
 
 The last department we shall notice is that of the 
 Spanish Tales, — rich, various, and highly picturesque. 
 One class — the picaresco tales — are those with which 
 the world has become familiar in the specimen afforded 
 by the "Gil Bias" of Le Sage, an imitation — a rare 
 occurrence — surpassing the original. This amusing 
 class of fictions has found peculiar favor with the Span- 
 iards, from its lively sketches of character, and the 
 contrast it delights to present of the pride and the 
 poverty of the hidalgo. Yet this kind of satirical 
 fiction was invented by a man of rank, and one of the 
 proudest of his order. 
 
 Our remarks have swelled to a much greater compass 
 than we" had intended, owing to the importance of the 
 work before us, and the abundance of the topics, little 
 familiar to the English reader. We have no room, 
 therefore, for farther discussion of this second period, 
 so fruitful in great names, and pass over, though reluc- 
 tantly, our author's criticism on the historical writings 
 of the age, in which he has penetrated below the sur- 
 face of their literary forms to the scientific principles 
 on which they were constructed. 
 
 Neither can we pause on the last of the three great 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 677 
 
 periods into which our author has distributed the work, 
 and which extends from the accession of the Bourbon 
 dynasty in 1700 to some way into the present century. 
 The omission is of the less consequence, from the 
 lamentable decline of the literature, owing to the in- 
 fluence of French models, as well as to the political 
 decline of the nation under the last princes of the 
 Austrian dynasty. The circumstances which opened 
 the way both to this social and literary degeneracy are 
 well portrayed by Mr. Ticknor, and his account will 
 be read with profit by the student of history. 
 
 We regret still more that we can but barely allude to 
 the Appendix, which, in the eye of the Spanish critic, 
 will form not the least important portion of the work. 
 Besides several long poems, highly curious for their 
 illustration of the ancient literature, now for the first 
 time printed from the original manuscripts, we have, 
 at the outset, a discussion of the origin and formation 
 of the Castilian tongue, a truly valuable philological 
 contribution. The subject has too little general attrac- 
 tion to allow its appearance in the body of the text ; 
 but those students who would obtain a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the Castilian and the elements of which it is 
 compounded will do well to begin the perusal of the 
 work with this elaborate essay. 
 
 Neither have we room to say any thing of our 
 author's inquiry into the genuineness of two works 
 which have much engaged the attention of Castilian 
 scholars, and both of which he pronounces apocryphal. 
 The manner in which the inquiry is conducted affords 
 a fine specimen of literary criticism. In one of these 
 discussions occurs a fact worthy of note. An ecclesi- 
 
 57* 
 
678 BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 astic named Barrientos, of John the Second's court, 
 has been accused of delivering to the flames, on the 
 charge of necromancy, the library of a scholar then 
 lately deceased, the famous Marquis of Villena. The 
 good bishop, from his own time to the present, has 
 suffered under this grievous imputation, which ranks 
 him with Omar. Mr. Ticknor now cites a manuscript 
 letter of the bishop himself, distinctly explaining that 
 it was by the royal command that this literary auto da 
 fe was celebrated. This incident is one proof among 
 many of the rare character of our author's materials, 
 and of the careful study which he has given to them. 
 
 Spanish literature has been until now less thoroughly 
 explored than the literature of almost any other Euro- 
 pean nation. Everybody has read "Gil Bias," and, 
 through this foreign source, has got a good idea of the 
 social condition of Spain at the period to which it be- 
 longs; and the social condition of that country is slower 
 to change than that of any other country. Everybody 
 has read "Don Quixote," and thus formed, or been 
 able to form, some estimate of the high value of the 
 Castilian literature. Yet the world, for the most part, 
 seems to be content to take Montesquieu's witticism 
 for truth, — that "the Spaniards have produced one 
 good book, and the object of that was to laugh at all 
 the rest." All, however, have not been so ignorant; 
 and more than one cunning adventurer has found his 
 way into the pleasant field of Castilian letters and car- 
 ried off materials of no little value for the composition 
 of his own works. Such was Le Sage, as shown in 
 more than one of his productions ; such, too, were 
 various of the dramatic writers of France and other 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 679 
 
 countries, where the extent of the plunder can only be 
 estimated by those who have themselves delved in the 
 rich mines of Spanish lore. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor has now, for the first time, fully sur- 
 veyed the ground, systematically arranged its various 
 productions, and explored their character and proper- 
 ties. In the disposition of his immense mass of ma- 
 terials he has maintained the most perfect order, so 
 distributing them as to afford every facility for the 
 comprehension of the student. 
 
 We are everywhere made conscious of the abundance 
 not merely of these materials — though one-third of the 
 subjects brought under review, at least, are new to the 
 public — but of the writer's intellectual resources. We 
 feel that we are supplied from a reservoir that has 
 been filled to overflowing from the very fountains of 
 the Muses, which is, moreover, fed from other sources 
 than those of the Castilian literature. By his critical 
 acquaintance with the literatures of other nations, Mr. 
 Ticknor has all the means at command for illustration 
 and comparison. The extent of this various knowl- 
 edge may be gathered from his notes, even more than 
 from the text. A single glance at these will show on 
 how broad a foundation the narrative rests. They 
 contain stores of personal anecdote, criticism, and 
 literary speculation that might almost furnish mate- 
 rials for another work like the present. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor's History is conducted in a truly philo- 
 sophical spirit. Instead of presenting a barren record 
 of books, — which, like the catalogue of a gallery of 
 paintings, is of comparatively little use to those who 
 have not previously studied them, — he illustrates the 
 
68o BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 works by the personal history of their authors, and 
 this, again, by the history of the times in which they 
 lived ; affording, by the reciprocal action of one on 
 the other, a complete record of Spanish civilization, 
 both social and intellectual. It would be difficult to 
 find a work more thoroughly penetrated with the true 
 Castilian spirit, or to which the general student, or 
 the student of civil history, may refer with no less 
 advantage than one who is simply interested in the 
 progress of letters. A pertinent example of this is in 
 the account of Columbus, which contains passages 
 from the correspondence of that remarkable man, 
 which, even after all that has been written on the 
 subject, — and so well written, — throw important light 
 on his character. 
 
 The tone of criticism in these volumes is temperate 
 and candid. We cannot but think Mr. Ticknor has 
 profited largely by the former discussion of this sub- 
 ject in his academic lectures. Not that the present 
 book bears much resemblance to those lectures, — cer- 
 tainly not more than must necessarily occur in the dis- 
 cussion of the same subject by the same mind, after a 
 long interval of time. But this interval has enabled 
 him to review, and no doubt in some cases to reverse, 
 his earlier judgments, and his present decisions come 
 before us as the ripe results of a long and patient 
 meditation. This gives them still higher authority. 
 
 We cannot conclude without some notice of the 
 style, so essential an element in a work of elegant 
 literature. It is clear, classical, and correct, with a 
 sustained moral dignity that not unfrequently rises to 
 eloquence. But it is usually distinguished by a calm 
 
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 68 1 
 
 philosophical tenor that is well suited to the character 
 of the subject. It is especially free from any tendency 
 to mysticism, — from vagueness of expression, — a pretty 
 sure indication of vague conceptions in the mind of the 
 author, which he is apt to dignify with the name of 
 philosophy. 
 
 In our criticism on Mr. Ticknor's labors, we may be 
 thought to have dwelt too exclusively on his merits. It 
 may be that we owe something to the contagion of his 
 own generous and genial tone of criticism on others. 
 Or it may be that we feel more than common interest 
 in a subject which is not altogether new to us; and it is 
 only an acquaintance with the subject that can enable 
 one to estimate the difficulties of its execution. Where 
 we have had occasion to differ from our author, we 
 have freely stated it. But such instances are few and 
 of no great moment. We consider the work as one 
 that does honor to English literature. It cannot fail 
 to attract much attention from European critics who 
 are at all instructed in the topics which it discusses. 
 We predict with confidence that it will be speedily 
 translated into Castilian and into German, and that it 
 must become the standard work on Spanish literature, 
 not only for those who speak our own tongue, but for 
 the Spaniards themselves. 
 
 We have still a word to add on the typographical 
 execution of the book, not in reference to its mechan- 
 ical beauty, which is equal to that of any other that 
 has come from the Cambridge press, but in regard to 
 its verbal accuracy. This is not an easy matter in a 
 work like the present, involving such an amount of 
 references in foreign languages, as well as the publica- 
 
 2 D* 
 
682 CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. 
 
 tion of poems of considerable length from manuscript, 
 and that, too, in the Castilian. We doubt if any 
 similar work of erudition has been executed by a for- 
 eign press with greater accuracy. We do not doubt 
 that it would not have been so well executed, in this 
 respect, by any other press in this country. 
 
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