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ÉDITION DE LUXE OF THE COMPLETE
WORKS OF
WILLIA M H. PRESCOTT,
EDITED BY JOHN FOSTER KIRK.
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IN FIFT E E N V O L U M E S.
VOLUME IX.
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AVo. 2n * * * * *
BIOGRAPHICAL
AND
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES.
From a drawing in the possession ºf the Earl ºf Carlisle, HWright SmithSc

BIOGRAPHICAL
AND
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES
~\"\
*cº-
william H. PRESCOTT
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPIN COTT & CO.
Copyright, 1875,
By J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO
Aliºzncott’s Press, Philadelphia.
Yuanºc.
\- G. - 2.7
> PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT.
s THE Publishers have the pleasure of announcing,
*~
(Y) with the issue of this volume, the completion of their
% new edition of Mr. Prescott's Works, printed from
Q 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 1, 1875.
A* (v)
PRE FACE
TO THE E N G, LIS H EDIT IO N.
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been selected from contributions originally made to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)
C O N T E N T S.
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, THE AMERICAN NOVELIST
ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND . . . . .
IRVING's conquEST OF GRANADA . . .
CERVANTES . . . . . . . .
SIR WALTER SCOTT . . . . . .
CHATEAUBRIAND's ENGLISH LITERATURE. .
BANCROFT'S UNITED STATES . . . .
MADAME CALDERON's LIFE IN MEXICO . .
MOLIERE . tº g & & & ſº e
ITALIAN NARRATIVE POETRY . . . .
POETRY AND ROMANCE OF THE ITALIANS .
SCOTTISH SONG . . . . . . .
DA PONTE'S OBSERVATIONS . tº * ©
TICKNOR'S HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE .
(vii)
PAGE
53
82
II4
I63
227
272
3I5
335
381
455
532
559
6oo
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL
M IS C E L L A N I E S.
MEMOIR OF
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN,
THE AMERICAN NOVELIST.3%
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-
IlOT3.In C6.
- * From Sparks's American Biography, 1834.
A. I
2 A/O GRAAEAZCA/, AAWD
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
C/QA 7TWCAZ //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 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, 1771. He was descended from a
highly respectable family, whose ancestors were of that
estimable sect who came over with William Penn 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-
4. BIOGAEAAA/VCAL AAVD
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
CAE/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE/AAAWZZ.S. 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
I*
6 A ZOGRAAAZCA/, AAWD
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
CAE ZZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 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 A ZOGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 JBIOGRAAAZZCAA. AAVO
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 P 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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. I I
past, and excursions into lightsome futurity could
make me; for what end, what useful purposes, were
promoted by the discovery P. 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,
I 2 BIOGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. I3
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 “Alcuin, 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
I 4 BIOGRAPHICAL AAWD
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
CR/7/CA/C MYSCE/AAAWIES. I5
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,
€InSUICS. -
“She returned with a light; I led the way to the
I6 A/OGAEA PAZCA / AAVZ)
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 enabled 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 l 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 I 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 I Wieland I God grant that I am mis-
taken; but surely something is wrong. I see it; it is
CRZZYCAZ MZSCEZZANZES. - I 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 l’
“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. -
“‘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
2%
18 BrogRAPHICAL AND
that used to bewitch me into transport and subdue me
into reverence. tº
“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 I’
“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
C/C/T/CA/, MISCAE L LAAW/A.S. I9
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
IOSes.
“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 ca/m. 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
2O A ZOGACAA’AZCA Z AAVZ)
done—the sacrifice is incomplete—thy children must
be offered—they must perish with their mother l’”
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 1 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
CAE ZZYC.4/, //ZSCAE Z.Z.4AV/AE.S. 2 I
to explain the suffernaturalities, 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
22 BZOGAEAPHICAL AND
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
CAE IT/CAZ MISCAE ZZAAVIAE.S. 23
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 A ZOG/CAA’AAZCA/C A/VZ)
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
CAE ZZTACA/C A/YSCAE ZZAAVYE.S. 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 AZOGRAPHICAL 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
CRATYCA/C //ZSCAE Z.ZAAWZZ.S. 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, Memoirs 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
Poe, 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 A/O GRAPH/YCA/, AAWD
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 Monthly Magazine
and American Aceviezw, 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 Huntly; or, Zhe Adven-
tures of a Sleepzºalker, 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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE LAAAWZES. 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%
3o A3/OGAA PHYCA/, AAWD
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.
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVYA.S. 3I
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 A ZOGRAAAZCA C AAVZ)
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
CR/ ZYCA/, /M/SCAE Z.ZAAWZE.S. 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 A /OGAEA PAZZCA C AAWD
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
CAE/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAM/AE.S. 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.
36 Aff ZOGAEAAA/ZCA Z AAVZ)
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 18oo Brown published the second part of his
Arthur Merzyn, 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 l’’ Perhaps, however, all this
proceeds less from calculation than from the embarrass-
CRITICAL MISCEZZANIES. 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 dénouements 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 CZara 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
Ze zrat Zeuſ' que/guéfois n'étre Zas vraisemålable, 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 A ZOGAEAAA/ZCA/, AAV/O
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 Zhe Ziterary
Magazine and American AEegister. 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-
CAE / ZYCA/, /l/ZSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 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 A ZOGAEAA'AſſCAA. AAVZ)
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.
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCE Z.ZAAVZES. 4I
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 A/OGAEAAAEM/CAA. AAVZ)
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
CA2/T/CA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAW/A.S. 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 A/OG/CAA’A/ZCA/C A/VD
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
CA2/TYCA/C MYSCAE Z ZAAWZFS, 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
22d 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 BIOGRAPHICAZ 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
CRITYCA/C MISCAE EAAAWIES. 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 A ZOGAEAAEAEZYCA/C AAVZ)
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
CR/7/CA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAV/E.S. 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. Sº non errásset, feceraſ ille minus. If
so, we may willingly pardon the one for the sake of
the other.
C 5
5o A/O GRAAEHYCA/, AAWD
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 to it.” “His
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
CAE ZZYCA/C //ZSCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 5 I
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 deliquium, 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 A ZOG RAAAZCA C AAVZ)
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.
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAV/A.S. 53
ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND.º.
(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 A/O GRAAEA/YCA/C A/VD
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
CR/T/CAA MZSCAE ZZAAV/AES. 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 faculty 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
CR/TICAL MASCAE L LAAVIES. 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.
C#
58 P/O GRAPHYCA/C AAWD
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. Guillié, 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, ‘‘ ručenée dexterá sacras faculatus
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
Túa Il.
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVIAE.S. 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 B/OGRAPHICAL 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. Guillié 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, d ?'usage
de ceux qui votent, 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
CAE Z 7TWCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 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 A ZOG RAAEATCA L AAWD
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 P’’
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
CR/ ZYCA/ MISCAE ZIAAV/AE.S. 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 A/OGAEAA’AZCAA. AAWD
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,”
CAE ITICAL //ZSCAE Z ZAAVYES. 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 Jº ZOGAEA PAEſ/CA/C AAVO
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
CRAZYCAA /l/ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 A YOG RAAAZCAL AAWD
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 Célestines.
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 Haüy, 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. Guillié, 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,
CAE ZZT/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 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-
7o - A ZOGAEA/2/ſ/CAA. AAVZ)
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 for daily prayer; grammars in the
Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian, and Spanish
languages; a Latin selecta, 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-
CAE/T/CAM, MISCE LIAAW/ES. 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 A ZOG RAA’Aſ/CAV, AAWD
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
CR/TYCA/ MISCAE Z ZAMIES. 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 wice wersa. 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 A YOGAEA PAE//CAA. AAWD
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 manipulationa
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 Asylum 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
CR/T/CAA. A/ZSCE LIAAVZ.A.S. 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. Guillié, 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-
76 A ZOGAEA PHYCA/C AAWD
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.
CAE / 7./CAA, MISCAE Z.ZAAV/A.S. 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%
78 A/O GRAAEAE/YCA/, AAWD
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
CA2A 7TWCA C MZSCEA. MAAWAZ.S. 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
8o A ZOGRAPH/YCA/. A/VD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZA/V/AE.S. 8I
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 P
D%
82 A.YOGAEAAAEM/CAI, AAWD
IRVING'S CONQUEST OF GRANADA.”
(October, 1829.)
ALMOST as many qualifications may be demanded
for a perfect historian, indeed the Abbé 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." I829: 2 vols. I2mo. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey.
CRITICAL MVSCE L /.4/V/AES. 83
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 A/OGAEAA’AZCAA. AAVZ)
alry. 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 has assumed
in our time. We would not be understood as deter-
CR/TYCA/C MZSCAE Z ZAAWZFS. 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 A ZOGAEAAAZCAA. AAVZ)
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 inartificially, according to the regular
revolutions of the seasons; and the rear of every Sec-
tion is brought up with the same eternal repetition of
$rog rift toxégq, 3ráževra rööe, 8v 8ovxvötöm; $ovérpaſſe.
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
CR/T/CA/ MISCAE L LAAVIA.S. 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 A/O GRAAAZZCA/C AAVD
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
CAEA 7/CAM, MISCAE LIAAW/A2.S. 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,
“Cufus negotium, an otium, gloriosius ºncertum.”
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%
90 - A ZOGAEAAA/VCAL AAVZ)
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-
CAE / ZYCA/C MISCAE /, /AAV/AES. 9I
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 ſeu
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.
92 A ZOG RAAEAE/ICA/, AAWD
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
raisonné, 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
Maeurs, 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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZA/V/AES. 93
This system was subsequently so much refined upon
that Montesquieu, in his “Grandeur et Décadence 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. A/O GRAPH//CA/C AAVO
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
cminent writers of the most opposite characters, the
pragmatical Horace Walpole 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
CRIZICAI. MISCEZZAMIES. 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
96 A YOGAEA PAE//CA/C A/VD
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
CR/TYCA/C MISCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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
98 A YOGAEA PAZCAA. AAVZ)
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
CAE / TVCA Z //ZSCAE ZZAAW/AE.S. 99
imitation of the mercurial Frenchman may remind
one, to make use of a homely simile, of the ass in
AEsop'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
I OO A ZOGAEAAA/VCA / AAVZ)
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 Ducs 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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE/AAAV/AE.S. IOI
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%
IO2 A ZOGAEAAAACAA. AAWD
g
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 Córdova, between the years 755 and
Io 3o, 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-Makkarf'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.]
CAE / ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZAAVZ.A.S. Io.3
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 Córdova.” It also forms the burden of
an Italian epic, entitled “Il Conquista di Granata,”
by Girolamo Gratiani, a Florentine,—much lauded
by his countrymen. The ground, however, before the
IO4 - A/OGAEAAAEM/CAA AAVZ)
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
CR/T/CA/C MYSCAE LIAAVIES. IOS
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
E%
loé A ZOGACAA’//ZCAA. AAVO
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 wellnigh 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
C/CAT/C.4/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZ.Z.S. Io 7
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 has scattered the
Io& A/OGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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 Blas. 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
CRIZICAZ MISCEZZAMIES. Io9
it was a capital feature in the policy of the Catholic
sovereigns to counterbalance the authority 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-
IO -
I IO A ZOGA2AAA/VCA / AAV/O
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
CAEATYCA L MVSCE L LA WYZE.S. I I I
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.
II 2 A ZOGRAAEAZCAA. AAVZ)
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 savami, 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
CAE / ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z.ZAAVYA.S. II 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 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.
IO%
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 rewolutionary 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 Siam 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 clāsica, ilus-
trada con Notas históricas, gramaticales y criticas, por la Academia
Española, sus Individuos de Número Pellicer, Arrieta, y Clemencin.
Enmendada y corregida por Francisco Sales, A.M., Instructor de
Frances y Español en la Universidad de Harvard, en Cambrigia,
Estado de Massachusetts, Norte América,” 2 vols. 12mo, Boston,
1836.
(II4)
CR/TYCA/C M/SCAE / ZAAV/A.S. II 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
II & A ZOGAEAAAZC.4/. AMD
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
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCEZ LAAVYES. II 7
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
I 18 As YOGAEAAAE//CAA. AAWD
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
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE/ CAAV/A.S. II9
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-
| 2 O As ZOG RAAEA/YCA/C 4 AV/D
nate 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
Iſla IllnerS.
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
CRITYCA/C MYSCAE/, /AM/VE.S. I 2 I
later period of life. Fielding 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
I 22 A ZOGAEAA’Aſ/CA/C AAVZ)
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 littérateurs, Monsieur and Madame
Necker, the Abbé 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 Buffon 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 -
CAE / ZYCA/C //ZSC/EZZAAVZAZ.S. I 23
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 cofferie 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-
I 24 A/O GRAPHYCA/. AMD
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-
C/2/7/CA/, ///SCE Z.ZAAW/ES, I 25
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-
erality 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
II*
126 AE/OGAEA PHYCA/. AAVZ)
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,”
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE ZZAAVYES. 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-
I 28 BrogRAPHICAL AND
neous works, including five epics, written in his leisure
moments, and all now in print 1 w
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
CR/TVCAA, MISCAE ZZAAV/AES. I 29
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%
I 3o A/OGAEAA’AZCA/C A/V/O
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 1
If the suffrages of a coterie, 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
CR/7/CA/, //MSCE/, /AM/IES. I31
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 ſ’’ exclaimed one of the strangers, “is Señor
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 32 A ZOGAEAAEAE/WCA / AAVZD
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 á su dueño 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, 1615 (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-
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZA.S. I 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 of 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
I 2
134 A ZOG/&A PAE/ZCAA. AAVO
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 1615.
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-
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAZVZAZ.S. I 35
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. Tö 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,
I36 A/O GRAA’Aſ/CAA. AAV/O
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
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. I37
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,
1616. 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
I2%
I38 A/O GRAPH/CA/C A/VD
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
CAE ZZTMCA/C A/ZSCAE Z ZAZVYA.S. I39
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, or 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 Sueño 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
I4O A YOGAEAAEM/VCAF. AAWD
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
CAE Z 7TWCAZ A/ZSCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. I4I
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 ‘‘Diálogo 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 B/O GRAAAZZCAA. AAVO
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 MISCEZZAMIES. I43
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 44 A ZOGAEAAEA/VCA/C A/VO
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 fées 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 16oz, 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 fé of the
CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. I45
Don's library, where he spares the Amadis 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 I3
I46 A ZOGA2AAAZZCAA. AAWD
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
CRITYCAA, MISCE/, /AM/ES. I47.
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 dénouement—
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 AAWD
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-
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z.Z.A.AWZE.S. I49
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 P of the
condition of the Middle Ages from the single romance
of Ivanhoe than from the volumes of Hume or Hal-
lam P. 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%
I5o Aft/OGAEAAA/ZCAA. AAVZ)
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
CRYZYCA/ MISCAE ZZAAVYES. I5I
Inquisition—regards as impure sources; and a work,
popular in the Peninsula, under the name of Złzon de
Aspaña, 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
I52 AE/OGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CRATWCA V. MISCAE ZZAAV/E.S. I53
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 tom. 4to. It con-
tained the Life of the Author, written for it by the
G%
I54 A YOGAEA PH/YCA/C AAWD
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 tom. 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
CAE ZZT.C.4 Z MZSCAEAAAAV/AE.S. I 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. Bowle, 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
I56 P/O GRAPHICAL AAWD
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.
Bowle's edition was printed in six volumes quarto;
the two last contained notes, illustrations, and index,
all, as well as the text, in Castiltan. 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
acknowledgment. -
The example of the English critic led to similar
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAZWZE.S. I57
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-
I4.
158 A/O GRAPHICAL AAVZ)
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
CAEATYCA/, //ZSCE LIAAV/E.S. I59
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 f instead of h, and
retaining obsolete terminations of verbs, as haëlades
for haëlais, hab/abades for haff/abats, amades for amats,
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
16o Jº/O GRAPHYCAA. AAVD
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 à menos.”—Tom. i. p. 141.
The reading in the old editions is “poco mas à 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 juzgué 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 quedó admirado.”—Tom. i. p. I43.
Other editions read “A./ cual quedó,” 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 sucedieron cosas,” etc.—Tom. ii. p. 44.
In other editions, “sucedió;” bad grammar, since it
agrees with a plural noun.
CRITICAL MISCEZZANIES. 161
“En tan poco espacio de tiempo como ha que estuvo
allá,” etc. (tom. ii. p. 132), instead of “esid allá,”
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 Bowle, whom
he does not appear to have consulted. The Castilian
commentator Arrieta, whom he liberally uses, is largely
14% -
I62 As ZOGAEAAEAE//CA/, AAWD
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 our readers, 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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 l 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”
* I. “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G.
Lockhart. Five vols. 12mo, Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co., 1837.”
2. “Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 16mo. London:
James Fraser, 1837.”
I64 As ZOGAEAAEMſ/CA/C A/VZO
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 in 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
CRATYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAVIES. I65
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
166 A/OGAEAAAEM/CA/C AAWD
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
CAEA 7/CA/, /l/ZSCE/AAAW/E.S. 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
I 68 AºA'OGA2AAA/VCA/C AAWD
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,
1771. 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
CAE ZZZCAA. Al/ZSCAEAAAAVZZ.S. I69
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.” t
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 goût he used to creep
out of his bed, where he had been safely deposited for
H I5
I 7o A/O GRAPHYCA/C A/VD
the night, and, by the light of the fire, in puris natu-
ralibus, pöre 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
CAE IT/CA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 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
I 72 A ZOGACAA'Aſ/CAA. AAVO
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
C/CAT/CA/C MISCAE ZZAAVYES. I 73
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 scrapeguá /’’ 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
du/ce 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%
I 74 A/OGA2AAAEM/CA/C AAVZ)
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.
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE L EAAVIES. I 75
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 Bürger'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 A YOGAEAAA/VCA / AAWD
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-
CRITICAZ MISCEZZAAWIES. 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 A ZOG RAFAE/ICA/, AAWD
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. e
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
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZAAWZZ.S. I79
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 A ZOGRAPHYCA/C AAVO
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 four
déchirer.” 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 zve of the reviewer so long as no 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 MASCEZZANIES. I81
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 1811, 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' i' "
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
I6
I82 As YOGAEA PHYCA/, AAWD
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 ānd 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
CAE (7/CA/, //ZSCE/AAVZAZ.S. 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 mau-
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 Blas, 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 P
But I see how it is ; the result is given in one word,
Disappointment.’ My silence admitted his inference
to the fullest extent. His countenance certainly did
I84 Aff WOGAEAA’AZYCA/C AAVO
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
CRAT/CAM, AM/SCAE/AAAVIES. 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 sazans or
sazanfes, 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
I6%
I86 A/O GRAPHICAIC A/VD
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-
CA’/TYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAVIES. 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 ornée, 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
I88 AºAOGAEA PH/YCA/C AAVED
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,
CRATYCA/, //MSCE L LA/VIES. I89
should be included ten pounds for a pair of unfortu-
nate Cherokee Zozers, 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,
I90 A/OGAEAPHICAA. AAVO
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
C/C/T/CA/C MISCAE Z.Z.A.M/ES. I9 I
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, bi//s, 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-
I92 A/O GRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZ E.S. I93
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
zºfacimento 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
I 17
I94 A ZOG RAAEAHACAL AAVZ)
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
CAE ZZYCA/C A/ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. I95
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 As WOGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CRAT/CA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVYZ.S. I97
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%
198 A ZOG RAAEA/ICA/, AAV/O
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 personae. 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
CRIZICAL MISCAEL LAW/ES. I99
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 gourmé nor gourmand; but his social
meetings were endeared to him by the free interchange
of kindly feelings with his friends. La Bruyère 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 homme est d’un meilleur
commerce dans la société par le coeur que par l'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
2 OO A YOGAEAA’Aſ/CAA. AAVZ)
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
CR/TYCA/C MISCAE Z ZAAVIES. 2 O I
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.
I#
2O2 A/O GRAAEAE/ZCAA. AAWD
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,
watched over the education of his children, shared in
their rides, their rambles and sports, losing no oppor-
C/º/7ZCA/C /l/ZSCAE Z.ZAAV/AE.S. 2O3
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 Hogmamay 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 Daid/e 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, ‘I 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 l’ replied Hogg. “You fause, 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
2C4 A YOGAEAAEA/ICA/, AAWD
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 ; ‘now 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
CRAZYCA/, //ZSCE Z ZAAV/ES. 2O5
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 A/O GRAAEAE/ICA/, AAWD
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
CRA 7TWCA /, //ZSCE L LA/VIES. 2O7
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;
208 A/O GRAPH/YCA/. A WZO
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,
CR/TYCA/ MISCAE L LAAV/ES. 2O9
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
I8%
2 IO A ZOG RAAEAE/ICAA. AAVED
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
I’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
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 2 II
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-
2 I 2 A ZOGAEAP///CAA. AAWD
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-
CR/T/CA/C MYSCAE ZZAM/A.S. 2 I 3
less childhood, which, had they been duly registered,
might now have amused children of a larger growth P
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-
2I4. As WOGAEAA’AZCA / .4AVAD
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 projet 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 improvvisator:
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
CR/7/CAL MISCAE L LAAVIES. 2I5
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
2I 6 A ZOGRAPH/YCA/C A/VD
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
CR/TYCAA, MISCAE Z ZAAVIES. 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 I9
2 I 8 A YOGAEAA’A//CAA. AAWD
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 dazed/ing 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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/A2,S. 2I9
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 badānage; 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
22O A YOGAEA PAE/YCA/, AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZZSCAE Z.ZAAVZZ.S. 22 I
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%
2 22 BZoCAAPHICAL 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 P 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 P 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 cui àomo
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
CR/T/CAM, MISCAE ZZAAVZ.A.S. 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 A ZOGACAA’///CA/C AAVZ)
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
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SC/EZ LAAW/AE.S. 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 CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAZYZZ.S.
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 A ZOGAEAA’A/ZCA/C AAVZ)
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-
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/AE.S. 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
2O
23o AºAOGAEAAAZCAA. AAWD
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
CA2/7/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAZV/AE.S. 23 I
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 P
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 A YOG RAPH/YCAL AAWD
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 P
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZANZES. 233
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
Alenis, 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
2O3%
234 - Jº/OGAEAA’Aff YCA/, AAWD
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 Shać-
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 såance 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
CRYZYCA/, //ZSCAE/, /AAVYES. 235
to efface those startling impressions of horror which
would have damned his author in the polished theatres
of Paris I’’ 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, AWature'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 criticism 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 system. The exclusive and
unfavorable views entertained by some of their later
236 A ZOGRAPHICA/, AAWD
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
CRAZTWCA / MISCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 Azo&RAPHICAL 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 I’’ The old bard, could he raise his head from
the tomb where none might disturb his bones, would
exclaim, we imagine, “Mon fall auxiào /''
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
CRITYCA/C MYSCE/ LAAWZFS. 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 , the
critic in divesting himself of narrow and local pi Ju-
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 liter-
24O A ZOGAEA PH/YCA/, AAWD
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-
CR/TYCA/, /M/SCAE LIAAV/E.S. 24. I
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. ‘‘Vudex damnatur
cum mocens absolvitur” 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 2 I
242 Jº ZOGRAPHICAL 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
CRIZICAL 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 faith : 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’’ A-Vol. i. p.
I93.
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. A ZOGAEAA’AZC.4 Z AAVZ)
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 mozz, mosé
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. 2d I.
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
CR/T/CA/C MYSCE Z ZAAVIES. 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 - A ZOGAEAAA/VCA/C AAVZ)
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 MASCEZZANZAES. 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, to 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 A ZOG RAAEAE/ZCA / AAWD
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,
CAE /TWCA C //ZSC/EZ ZAAVZAZ.S. 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*
25o A ZOGAEAAA/VCA / AAVZ)
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.
CAE / T/CA/C A/ZSCAE Z ZAAVZA.S. 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 A WOGA2AAA/ZCAA. AAWD
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
CRYTYCA/C MYSCE/, / AAVYES. 253
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 A/O GRAAEAE/ICA/, AAWD
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 fºſſes, 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
CAE/ ZYCA/ MISCE L LAAV/A.S. 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 A ZOG RAAEAE//CA/C AAWD
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-
CR/TVCA / MYSCAE Z ZANYAZ.S. 257
tion, in the grovelling, sensual court of Charles the
Second P. 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” P 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 P. His “Life of Milton’’ is a
humiliating testimony of the power of political and
22*
258 A YOGAEA PAE//CAA. AAWD
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 “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
CR/TYCA/ MYSCAE Z/A/V/AE.S. 259
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
26o A ZOGACAA’AZCA / AAVZ)
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
CAE ZT/CAA MZSCE/ ZAAV/AE.S. 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
dramatis personae. 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
Imay 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 A ZOG RAA’AZCA Z AAVZ)
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
CRITYCA/, //ZSCE/, /AM/ES. 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
CR/TYCA/, ///SCAE Z.ZAAVYES. 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” P or
of Richard Coeur-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 P. 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 A/O GRAPH/YCA/C A/V/O
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
CRATYCA/, ///SCEL/AAWIES. 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 Camoëns. 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 BYOG RAPHYCA/. AMD
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 zalez de chamóze
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
CAE ZTWCA / Al/ZSCAE Z ZAAVZ.Z.S. 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#
27o A/OGAEAAA/VCA V, AAWD
* 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,
28o.
“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.
3O3, 3O4.
CAE ZZTACA/C A/VSCAE Z.Z.4 AV/A.S. 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, 1841.)
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 )
CR/T/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAW/AE.S. 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 A/O GRAAAZZCAA. AAVZ)
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,
CR/TICAL MISCAE ZZAAVZE.S. 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 B/O GRAPHYCA/C, AAWD
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, L-
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.
CA’ ZZTWCA / //ZSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 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 B/O GRAPHICAA. AAWD
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 Fénelon.
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
CA2/7/CAA. Al//.SCAE Z ZAAVYES. 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 mémoires four
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
28o A YOGA2AA’A/ZCA Z AAVZ)
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE / EAAV/AE.S. 28I
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 A ZOGAEAAPA/YCA/C A/VD
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 Annexation of Zexas 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.
CA’/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAA/VES. 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 efforza ; 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 A YOGAEAA’AZCA L AAWD
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 “Républiques 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
CAE ZZYCA/, //ZSCAEA. Z.A.AWZAZ.S. 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 AZOGAAPHICAZ AAWD
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
CAE/ZYCA/C //ZSCAE ZZAAV/AE.S. 287
may catch the prominent lineaments, the complexion,
the general air, the peculiar costume of his subject, L
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, Punica 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 A ZOGA2AAF/ICAL AAWD
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
orought 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,
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZZSCAE Z ZAZWZE.S. 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 25
290 A/O GRAAEA/VCAL AAWD
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 P’ 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
CA’/ ZYCA/, /l/ZSCAE Z.Z.4/V/AE.S. 29I
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 A ZOGAEAA’H/CAE AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 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%
2.94. AE/OGRAPHICAL AAWD
“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,
CRATYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVIAE.S. 295
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 Condé, are mingled with memorials of St.
Athanasius and Augustin, of St. Francis of Assisi and
Ignatius Loyola.”—//id., 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 A ZOG RAAEAEZCA.J. AAWD
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 MISCAEZZAAWIES. 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
N*
298 A WOGAEA PAE/ICA/C A/VD
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
CRITYCA/, //ZSCE / CAMIES. 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
3oo JBIOGRAPHYCA/. AAVD
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. I57–162.
The list of heroic adventurers in the path of dis-
covery is closed by La Salle, the chivalrous French-
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAWZZ.S. 3OI
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.”—ſ/id., 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.
f Ibid., pp. 84, 85.
26
3O2 A ZOGAEA PA/ZCA / AAVZ)
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
C/e/T/CA/, /M/SCAE/AAAV/A.S. 3O3
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-
3O4. Aff ZOGAEAAA/VC.4 Z. AAVZ)
complished 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
CAE / T/CA/, //ZSCE Z ZAAVYES. 3O5
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 P 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%
3oé Azo&RAPHICAz AMD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZ.A.S. 3o 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.
‘I 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
308 - Biogra PHICAZ 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
CR/ ZYCA/ MISCAE ZZAAW/ES. 3O3
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 Žons 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-
3 Io A YOGAEA PHYCA/, AAWD
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.
CR/TYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAWZZ.S. 3II
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 various fac-similes 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
3I2 BIOGRAAAZYCA/, AAWD
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
CR/TYCA/C MYSCAE L EAAVIES. 3I 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
3I4 CRA 7TWCAZ MASCAEAAAAV/A2S.
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,
IRambles, 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, 12mo.
(.315)
316 A/O GRAAAZZ CAZ AAVO
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
CAE / TVCA/, //ZSCE/.../CAAVYES. 3I 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%
318 A ZOGACAA’A/ZCAA. AAVO
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, Lin 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-
CR/7/CA/, //ZSCAE.L.A.A.AWZE.S. 3I9
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
32O A YOGAEAAA/VCAL AAWD
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
firma, 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 door to
being so.
If the European neighborhood affords so many means
of annoyance to the British traveller, they are incal-
CAE Z 7TWCA Z M/SCAE ZZAZYVA.S. 32 I
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 AZOGAEAAAZCAA. AAWD
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 I’’ 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-
CAE/ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAV/A.S. 323
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
324 A YOG RAAAZCA / A NZD
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
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCAE L LAW/ES. 325
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, Llaughs too, and joins in the jest, though it
28
326 A YOGAEAZ2A/MCA/, AAWD
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 warmel 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
CAE / ZYCA Z //ZSCAE Z/Z-4 AVXES. 327
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 A ZOGAEAAEAE/ZCAA. AAVD
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
understandingly 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 country 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
CR/T/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAWZAZ.S. 329
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 ; 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
Zéperos, 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 defined 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%
33o A ZOGAEAAAZCA Z AAVZ)
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,
CRYTYCA/, //ZSCAE L LAAWIES. 33 I
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
baffled 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 A/O GRAPHICAA. AAWD
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 cut &omo 2
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 CEdipus 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,
CAEATYCA/, ///SCE/ JCAAV/A.S. 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, Señor 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,
fêtes 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 CR/TYCA/, //ZSCAE LA/VIES.
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.*
>k >k >{< >k >}< >}: >k
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 Molière. Par J. Tasche-
reau.” Paris. I825.
(335)
336 A YOGAEAAA/VCA / AAVZ)
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 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 fač/iaux 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 Zºsoro 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 naïveté, 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
338 A YOGACAA’ſſ/ZCAA. AAWD
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-
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE/.../AAV/E.S. 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 Molière, 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 Molière.
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 Molière (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 A YOG RAAEATCA / AAVZ)
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 (Molière) 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 valef de chambre 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 Hôtel 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-
C/2/7”/CA/ MISCAE Z ZAAW/AES. 34 I
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 za/ef 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 AE ZOGAEA PAE/MCA Z 4 AVO
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 family 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 Molière 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
CA2/7/CAA, MASCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 343
to these scruples that our hero annexed to his patro-
nymic the name of Molière, 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. Molière 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 Pezénas
they still show an elbow-chair of Molière'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 A/OGAEAAA/YCA/C AAWD
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, Molière 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 Efourdi and Ze Dépit
Amoureux, comedies in verse and in five acts, which
he had composed during his provincial pilgrimage, and
which, although deficient in an artful liaison of scenes
and in probability of incident, exhibit, particularly
the last, those fine touches of the ridiculous, which
revealed the future author of the Zartuffe and the
CRITICAL MISCEZZAWIES. 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 Molière exhibited his celebrated
farce of Zes Précieuses 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 Molière, 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, the beſ-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 Bensérade, Ménage, and others of
less note, together with such eminent women as Ma-
dame Lafayette, Mademoiselle Scudéri (whose eternal
romances, the delight of her own age, have been the
P*
346 A ZOGAEAAAZCA Z 4/VD
despair of every other), and even the elegant Sévigné,
was accustomed to hold its réunions principally at the
Hôtel 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 they 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 Calprenède and Scudéri. 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
Arthénice, by which she was so generally recognized
as to be designated by it in Fléchier's eloquent funeral
oration on her daughter.” These insipid affectations,
* How comes La Harpe to fall into the error of supposing that
Fléchier referred to Madame Montausier by this epithet of Arthénice #
The bishop's style in this passage is as unequivocal as usual. See
Cours de Littérature, etc., tome vi. p. 167.
CRYTYCA/ MYSCAE ZZAAVIAE.S. 347
which French critics are fond of imputing to an Italian
influence, savor quite as much of the Spanish cultismo
as of the conceſſi 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 Provençal 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 Corneille 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 précieuses 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-
lière aimed his wit in the little Satire of the Précieuses
Acidicules, 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 Molière 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 Hôtel 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 Ménage 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, Molière!” 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 précieuse, a style
frécieux, a ſon précieux, 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 Molière, 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,
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE LIAAVIES. 349
that of the Fächeux, 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 fºie 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 exposé 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-
3O
35o A ZOGAEAA’///CA/, AAWD
creet passion for Madame de la Vallière, 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 this féfe 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 Molière his comedy of the Fêcheux.
This piece, the hint for which may have been sug-
gested by Horace's ninth satire, Zam forfe ziá Sacrá,
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 Molière as
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE/, /AM/A.S. 35 I
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 comédie-ballet, after-
wards so popular in France. The residence at Vaux
brought Molière 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
ſhe 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, Molière formed a matrimonial
connection with Mademoiselle Béjart, 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.
352 A YOG RAAEAE/ICA/C A/VD
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 AEcole des Aemmes, 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 Żefits-maîtres 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, Æis done,
Żarterre / ris done / “Laugh then, pit, if you will !”
and immediately quitted the theatre.
Molière was not slow in avenging himself of these
interested criticisms, by means of a little piece entitled
Ala Critique de l'Acole 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
C/C/T/CA/, //ZSCE//AAV/A2S. 353
nature. A few such familiar phrases as farte d la
créme, enfams far Z’orei//e, 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 farfe d la crème.
The Duc 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 Molière 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 dº la crème, Monsieur, farfed la
crème.” The king, on receiving intelligence of this
affront, was highly indignant, and reprimanded the duke
with great asperity. He at the same time encouraged
Molière to defend himself with his own weapons; a
privilege of which he speedily availed himself, in a
caustic little satire in one act, entitled Zimpromptu de
Versailles. “The marquis,” he says in this piece, “is
nowadays the droll (ſe 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 BIOGAEAPHICAL AAWD
It is obvious that Molière 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 Molière 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, Molière produced
his Z'Amour Médecin, a comédie-ballet, in three acts,
which from the time of its conception to that of its
performance consumed only five days. This piece,
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAWZZ.S. 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, Molière was subsequently imitated by Le
Sage, as every reader of Gil Blas 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
Molière. 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 P’’ 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 A/O GRAAAZCA / AAWD
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 pédantesque,
Cracher du Grec et du Latin,
Longue perruque, habit grotesque,
De la fourrure et du satin,
Tout cela réuni fait presque
Ce qu'on appelle un médecin.” +
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. Molière'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 & Za mzade.
CAE / ZYCA/C MYSCAE Z/AAW/A2.S. 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 Molière’s ca-
reer when he composed his Misanthrope, a play which
Some critics have esteemed his masterpiece, and whic
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 Molière, if we except the Zartuffe, 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 A/cesſe 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 Molière, 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
358 A ZOGA2AAA/VCAA, AAWD
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 Molière for
exposing to ridicule the hero of his Misanthrope, a
high-minded and estimable character. It was told to
the Duc 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 Molière 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 ſ” A separation, however, was at length
CRJ7:/CA/, //ZSCEA LAMIES. 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 Céliméne, 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
unworthiness of his own passion, from which he as
vainly hopes to extricate himself. The coincidences
are too exact to be considered wholly accidental.
If Molière in his preceding pieces had hit the follies
and fashionable absurdities of the age, in the Zartuffe
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 fêtes 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,
36o A ZOGAEAA’AZCA Z AAVO
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 Condé. 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
Molière, 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 1’’ 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 Condé, “that the persons so sensibly
scandalized at Molière's comedy take no umbrage at
this?” “Because,” said the prince, “the latter only
attacks religion, while the former attacks themselves;”
CA’/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE/C/AAVYZ.S. 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 Zartuffe, 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 Imposfor, and its
hero was styled Aamuffe. 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 Zartuffe, 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 2 I
362 A YOGAEA PAE/ZCAA. AAVO
grateful company forced upon Molière 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 Molière’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 Zartuffe had made in the absence of
his host, was suggested to Molière some years previous
in Lorraine, by a circumstance which took place at the
table of Louis the Fourteenth, whom Molière had ac-
companied in his capacity of valet de chamāre. 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
CR/T/CA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A2.S. 363
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 l’’ 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, Molière brought forward his Aware, and in
the following year his amusing comedy of the Bourgeois
Gemfi/homme, 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 A/O GRAAAZZCAA. AAWD
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 zi's comica in all that Mo-
lière ever wrote, to which the ancients could furnish no
parallel !” What exquisite studies for his pencil must
Molière 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. Molière 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 MISCEZZAWIES. 365.
Zartuffe 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 Molière'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 Molière 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 Zartuffe, 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 A ZOGAEAA’AZCAA. AAVZ)
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 éloge,
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
Molière, 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 Femmes Sazantes, 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
ty 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 /maginaire, 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.”
CAE/T/CA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 367
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, Molière, 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 Sévigné 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 A ZOGAEA PAH/CAA. AAVZ)
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 Molière 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 Molière, 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 Molière, in order to
transport them to a more honorable place of interment.
Of the relics thus obtained, it is certain that no portion
CAP/ZTWCA/C A/ZSCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 369
belonged to La Fontaine, and it is extremely probable
that none did to Molière. 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 Français succeeded in obtaining them for
his collection at the Petits Augustins. On the sup-
pression of this institution in 1817, the supposed ashes
of the two poets were, for the last time, transported to
the spacious cemetery of Père de la Chaise, where the
tomb of the author of the Zartuffe 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.
Molière 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 écrivant le travail et la peine;”
Q%
37 O A ZOGA2AA'A/VCA / AAWD
unlike in this to Boileau himself, and to Racine, the
former of whom taught the latter, if we may credit his
son, “the art of rhyming with difficulty.” Of course,
the verses of Molière 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 Forêt, 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 Molière'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.
Molière'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 Molière 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
CRATYCA/, ///SCE//, AAVIA.S. 37 I
Corneille did, who advised the future author of Phèdre
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.
Molière was naturally of a reserved and taciturn
temper, insomuch that his friend Boileau used to call
him the Contemplateur. 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 Molière 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 Sablière paid to him this
untranslatable compliment: “En vérité, mon cher La
Fontaine, vous seriez bien béte, 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 Molière, 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 réunions for the pur-
poses of social pleasure, bring to mind the similar
372 A/O GRAAAZZCA / AAVD
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-
lain'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 Psyché, 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 Molière, 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
CR/TYCA/, //MSCE LIAAV/A.S. 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. -
Molière enjoyed also the closest intimacy with the
great Condé, 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 abbé 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 l’’
We have already wandered beyond the limits which
we had assigned to ourselves for an abstract of Mo-
lière'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 Molière by com-
mon consent at the head of their own comic writers,
have also claimed for him a pre-eminence over those
32
374 A YOGAEAAAE/ICA/, AAWD
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 Molière’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 MISCE/AAAWIES. 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 Molière'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
Molière? 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 A YOGAEAAEAZCAA. AAVO
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 Molière has transferred to his
canvas, and which, though mostly drawn from culti-
vated life, must endure as long as society shall hold
together.
Indeed, Molière 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 Hôtel de
Rambouillet and its absurdities; and when this confed-
eracy afterwards rallied under an affectation of science,
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAW/A.S. 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
Baztad and Maziad. 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 Molière 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 arrêt àurlesque of his
friend Boileau, at a later period, if we may trust the
Menagiana, 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
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378 A ZOGAEAPHYCA/C A/VD
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
Molière 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 com
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
A'emmes Sazanſes 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 Molière'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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCEZ/AAVYES. 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 Molière 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.
Molière, 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 Zarzuffe, 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
38o CAE ZZYCA/, /l/ZSCAE Z.Z.4AVZA.S.
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 Molière P
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
* I. “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.
(381 )
I823.
382 A/OGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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,
CR/ ZYCA/ MYSCAE Z LAAW/AE.S. 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” (“clinquant du Zasse”), 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 poétique, c. iii. † Spectator, No. VI.
384 A/O GRAPH/YCA/C A/VD
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
CRAZYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAVIES. 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 ſyffes, 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
386 A YOGACAA/E/ZCA / AAVD
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,i 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.
f 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.
CRAT/CA/ MYSCAE L /AAVIAE.S. 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 A ZOGAEAAA/YCA/C A/VZD
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” (Stamze di Poliziano), 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
CR/ ZYCA/, /MZSCAE Z ZAAVIES. 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 Abbé 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
33%
390 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.
CRYTYCA/, //ZSCELLA/V/AE.S. 39 I
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 Czxi., 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 gill calossi a piombo,
Tutto Serrato nelle sacre penne,
Come a suo nido fa lieto colombo.”
392 A/O GRAPHICA / AAWD
“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.”
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZZSCAE ZZAAV/A2.S. 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
Morganſe 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 A ZOG RAAEA/ICA/, A/VD
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 I 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
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE ZZAAWIES. 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 Morgante (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 A ZOGRAPH/YCA/C AAWD
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 proverbialisms (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
riffoão/; 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.
CR/T/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAM/ES. 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, tom. ii. p. 167.
34
398 A ZOGAEAAPA/ZCAA. AAVO
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. 4.
* Dante, two centuries before, had also expressed the same belief
in an undiscovered quarter of the globe:
“De’ vostri sensi, ch’é del rimanente,
Non vogliate negar l'esperienza,
Piretro al sol, del intondo senza gente.”
Inferno, Canto xxvi. v. 115.
CAE / TECA C //ZSCAE LATA AVIAE.S. 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-
4oo 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.
Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. 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
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE/AAV/A.S. 4OT
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
aporã was “ The Prince.”
34*
4O2 A ZOGRAPHICAA. AAVO
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
Aminza of Tasso, and the Pasfor 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 of 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 Ziberata, 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 Gay.
CR/ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZAZVZAZ.S. 4C3
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
I494; 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 rifacimento 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 rifacimento 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, I526, in the capacity of secretary
to the Bishop of Verona.
4O4 A YOGAEAAA/YCA/C AAVZ)
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAW/AE.S. 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 A/O GRAAAZZCA / AAVO
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-
mess 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 (l. ii., c. viii., xv.), may, however, be considered
good exceptions to this remark.
CR/7/CA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAWIES. 4O7
'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.
408 A YOGA’AAPAE//CA/C AAVZ)
“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.”
Aºose's ſizzamorato, 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.
CR/T/CA/, //ZSCE/AAAVIAE.S. 4O9
Berni has had the distinction of conferring his name
on a peculiar species of Italian composition.* The
epithet “Aernesco’’ is not derived, however, as has
been incorrectly stated by some foreign scholars,f from
his reformed version of the “Orlando,” but from his
Smaller pieces, his Capitol; 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.
f Vide Annotazioni alla Vita di Berni, dal conte Mazzuchelli, Clas.
Ital., p. xxxiv.
f Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 392, note.
S 35
4IO A ZOGACAA’AſſCA/, AAWD
nature. We find some in Zode della Pesſe, 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 Capitoli, 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 jučente), 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 (Aſoc 2/acet). 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, stºp. -
CAE ZZTWCAZ //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 4II
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 être né,” says Rousseau, in
his Confessions, “I’art d’écrire 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 Orlando Furioso. The celebrity of the Inna-
morato made Ariosto prefer building upon this sure
4I 2 A ZOGRAPHYCA/C A/VD
foundation to casting a new one of his own, and, as
his predecessor had fortunately left all the dramatis
Žersona 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 Zodovico, dove mai
aveſe trovate famie famfaluche £’” (“Master Louis, where
* Tasso, Discorsi Poetici, p. 29.
CAE Z TVCA / MYSCAE Z ZAAWZAZ.S. 4I 3
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 famfaluche or coglionerie, 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;f 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?”
f A M. Pietro Bembo Cardinale.
f Storia della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. pt. i. pp. 42, 43.
3 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,
35*
4I4 A/O GRAPHYCA/C A/V/O
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 £endant 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
Tº 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.”
* Ginguené, whose facts are never to be suspected, whatever credit
may be attached to his opinions, has related both these adventures
without any qualification (Histoire littéraire d'Italie, tom. iv. p. 359,
tom. 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 sazazz? who,
upon his premature death, was appointed to continue the work.
Ginguené died before he had completed the materials for his ninth
volume, and the hiatus supplied by Professor Salfi carries down the
literary narrative only to the conclusion of the sixteenth century.
CRIZICAZ MISCEZZAMIES. 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 roãe de chambre,
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, sedapta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non
Sordida, parta meo Sed tamen aere 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
4I6 BIOGAEAPHICAL AAWD
surmounted by a riſievo 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. I5, 16.
CRATYCA/ MISCAE Z.ZAZWYES. 4I 7
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 offava 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 imitative 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?
f 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
S*
418 A ZOGAEAP//YCA/, AAWD
fers materially from the Italian ottava rāma, 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 moyes 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 à Deodati di Tovazzi.
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAV/AE.S. 4I9
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 nè di dietro,
Più 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.”
42O A/O GRAPHICA / AAWD
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 mensogne
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCE/.../AAV/A.S. 42 I
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.j 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.” (Essad
sur la Poésie épique.) 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
that 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”
f Dissertation critique sur l'Aventure de Joconde. CEuvres de
Boileau, tom. ii. p. I5I.
36
422 A YOGAEA PHYCA/, AAVID
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 elegant
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
CR/TYCA/, ///SCAE/, /AAV/A.S. 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, é letto e riletto da tutte l'età, da tutti i Sessi,
noto a tutte le lingue, ringiovanisce sempre nella Sua
fama, e vola glorioso per le lingue de' mortali.”f
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 1”
si cela est, c'est sans doute son plus àel ouvrage.
* The name originally given to him by his rival Tasso.
f Discorsi Poetici, p. 33.
424 A ZOGAEA PAE/ZCAA. AAVO
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
CRATYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAWZZ.S. 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 Pastor 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,
36%
426 - A/O GRAPHYCA/, AAWD
that certain letters and original manuscripts of Tasso,
lately discovered in the library of Modena, had been
put into the hands of the Abbé Serassi for the farther
investigation of the mysterious transaction. The
abbé’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 Ginguené. 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.
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE LEAAWIES. 427
loy 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 'l 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. The genius of Tasso, however, broke
* “How salt the savor is of others’ bread,
How hard the passage to descend and climb
By 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, tom. v. p. II.4.) 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 A/O GRAAEAZC.4/. AAVZ)
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
I586. -
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCE/ ZAAV/ES. 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
Efra 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.
43O A /O GRAAAZCAA. AAVAD
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 poem, 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, tom.
ii. p. 326.
CRITYCA/C MYSCAE Z ZAAWZAZ.S. 43 I
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 Académie Française at the jealous instigation of
Cardinal Richelieu.
4.32 A ZOGAEA PAE/ZCA Z AAVZ)
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 finsel (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 “old 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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAW/AES. 433
at once of all Tasso's compositions, and afterwards,
by an easy transition, of that of the whole body of
Italian literature. Boileau 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,f and they seem to have flowed directly from
the Provençal, 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 Abbé Lampillas. The Italian
* Both Ginguené 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'Académie
Française) 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 on to supply the hiatus by taking up all the
blemishes in detail which he had before only alluded to en gros.
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 A /O GRAAAZCA Z 4/VD
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 Della Crusca corresponds with the com-
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 i., S. 42). How many similar examples
may be found in his own epic | The gardens of
* Vicende della Letteratura, tom. ii. p. 52.
f 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 into
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.
CAE/7ZCAA. Al/ZSCE/ ZAAV/AE.S. 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 virizm zolitare 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.f
Tasso's sentiments are distinguished, in our opinion,
* Foscolo, “Essay,” etc., p. 93.
f “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., tom. iv. p. 192.
436 A ZOGRAPHICAL AAWD
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. I 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 più felici allor vittoria
Rimase a noi d'invitto ardir la gloria.”
“Sia destin ció 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
Il rauco suon della tartarea tromba.
Treman le spaziose atre caverne,
E l’aer cieco a quel romor rimbomba.”
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE L LANZAZ.S. 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 gill precipitose ir acque vive
Per Alpe, o'n piaggia erbosa a passo lento;
Quelle alvago 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. 6o.
* “He that the gliding rivers erst had seen
Adown their verdant channels gently roll’d,
Orfalling streams, which to the valleys green
Distill’d from tops of Alpine mountains cold,
37%
438 BZOGAEAPHICAZ AAWD
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 hel/ 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.
CAP/TYCA/, ///SCAE Z.ZAAV/A.S. 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 fab/iaux, and Tasso's the lyr-
ical refinements of the Prozençal. 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 Brandimarte, 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;
Ně men ti raccomando la mia Fiordi . . . .
Ma dir non poté ligă, 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 Fiord;—
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-
44O A ZOGAEAAA/ICAA. AAVO
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 Schermo 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 Marini, 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.
CAEITYCA/, /l/ZSCE/, /AAV/AE.S. 44I
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 upon so trivial an affair, which
had taken place more than four centuries before ? To
T}
442 A/O GRAPHYCA/C A/VD
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 très-inutilement empruntée du Conte de Gabalis,
pour en faire le merveilleux de son poème, n'y produit
zien d'agréable, riem d’intéressant /’’
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 dramafi's persona. 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 A ZOG RAA’Aſ/CAA. AAWD
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 è 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.
CRITICAZ MISCEZZAMIES. 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
38
446 A/O GRAAAZZCA L AMD
“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 età,
Ch'io non voglio descrivervi qual é,
Bisogna stare allora a quel ch'un ha,
Né d'altro amante provar più la fê,
Perchè, donne me care, la belta
Ha l'ali al capo, alle spalle, ed a' piè;
E vola si, che non si scorge più
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.
CRAZYCA/, //ZSCE/.../AAV/E.S. 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 Staël 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.”f 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, Castigione, 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.
i “Tous les ouvrages des Italiens, excepté ceux qui traitent des
sciences physiques, n'ont jamais pour but l'utilité.” De la Littéra-
ture, etc.
448 A ZOGRAPHICAL AAVD
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 Décadence
des Romains,” and the same extended philosophy which Montesquieu
imitated in civil history, Madame de Staël 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 Staël's sweeping assertion.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZA/V/E.S. 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%
45o A/OGA2AAA#7CA/, AAVZ)
fancy. The pastoral drama, the opera, and other
beautiful varieties of invention, which, under the titles
of Bernesco, Burlesco, Maccherónico, 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
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
CAPA 7/CA/, //ZSCAE Z.Z.A.AWZZ.S. 45 I
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, tom. ii. p. 339.
452 A YOGAEA PAE//CAA. AAWD
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 nobility, 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.
CAE ZZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/AE.S. 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 Staël 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 CR/T/CA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/A.S.
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.] -
I. “Della Letteratura Italiana, di Camillo Ugoni.” 3 tom. I2mo.
Brescia, I82O. - -
2. “Storia della Letteratura Italiana, del cavaliere Giuseppe
Maffei.” 3 tom. I2mo. Milano, 1825.
3. "Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel Secolo XVIII., di Anto-
nio Lombardi.” 3 tom. 8vo. Modena, I827–29.
(455)
456 A ZOGAEAAA/VCA V, AAWD
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-
vençal. 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
CR/TYCAA, MISCAE L LAW/ES. 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 A ZOGRAPHYCAA. AAWD
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, tom. iv., ed. I758. See, also, Purgatorio, canto
XXIV.
CAE / ZYCA/, ///SCE/ ZAAVYA.S. 459
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 matériel 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 fºie 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 P 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.
46o A YOGAEAPA/ZCAA. AAWD
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 1.
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAWZAZ.S. 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, he
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 Daniesque. 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 their
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462 A YOGAEAA’HZCA/C A/VD
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 frecentis/: ; 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 Provençal, have rapidly passed into
oblivion had the language not been consecrated by
some established work of genius like the Divina Com-
media. It was fortunate that its author selected a
subject which enabled him to exhibit the peculiar
CAE IT/CA/C MZSCAE ZZAAVY/ZS. 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, though
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 AZOGAEAAAZCAZ AAVZ)
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. t
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.
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAZVZAZ.S. 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 l
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 AZOGRAPHICAZ AAWD
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.
f 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.
CR/T/CA/C //ZSCAE ZZAAWZZ.S. 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 Provençal, enriched his vocabulary
with many exotic beauties. His fine ear disposed him
468 A/OGRAPHYCA L AAVD
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 Abbé
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
Provençal. 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 inefficacy of genius and of
4O
47O A YOGAEA PHYCA/. AAVZ)
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 7%ule 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
w
CAEA 7/CA/, ///SCAE//.4/V/AE.S. 47 I
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 A ZOGAEAA’AZCA Z AAVO
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.
CA’/7/CA/C /l/ZSCAE ZZAAVIAE.S. 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
Aermesgue (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 BZOGRAPHICAZ AAWD
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.
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/AES. 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 storm 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 Jº ZOG RAA’Aſ/CA/C AAWD
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
faāhaux. 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'Orléans, 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.
C/8/TYCA/, ///SCE Z ZANZE.S. 477
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, Lof 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
SOI).
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 fewf
of the ſongue. It is fashioned much more literally than
any of its successors on Turpin's Chronicle, that gross
478 A YOGAEAA’Aff/CAA. AAWD
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 Morgante 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 dramafi's per-
sona, 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
CAE ZZYCA/, ///SCE/ ZAM/ES. 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; 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 P
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,
48o A ZOGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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,
CRA 7TWCAL MVSCAE ZZAAVIES. 48I
—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 a 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 4. I
482 A/OGRAPHYCA/C A/VD
Thucydides and Strabo, for example. The romantic
poets, on the other hand, seem to have intended
nothing beyond a mere délassement 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,
Perfuggir 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
CRJ7'YCA/, //ZSCAE LAAAWYA.S. 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 passicn and portraiture. Tasso was of
a solitary, as Ariosto was of a social temper. He had
484 Jº/OGAEAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CRYTYCA/, ///SCE//AAV/AES. 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 Ginguené 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. 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 Jazzaroni of Naples,
as those of the Jerusalem once were by the gondoliers
of Venice, where this beautiful epic, broken up into
# Discorsi Poetici, iii. f Ibid., ii.
41%
486. B/OGACAA’AZCA.J. AAVIO
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
CRITICAZ MISCEZZAMIES. 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 A/OGRAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
Rnickerbocker, are in much better keeping. The
Italians have no poetry of a mezzo caraffere 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 AVozſe/le,
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, tom. x. p. 132.
CR/TICAL AM/SCE/.../CAAVYES. 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 naïveté, 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.
Bascal'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.
v3%
490 A YOGAEAA’AZCAA. AAWD
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.
CAEATYCA/, ///SCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 49 I
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 maniffus, 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
Aiaison of events, which are strung together with the
rude artlessness of a primitive trouzeur, 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-
clopædia 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. r
492 A/O GRAPHYCA/C AMD
puerile practical jokes, played off upon idiots, unfortu-
nate pedants, and other imbeciles, with as little taste
as feeling.
The move/le 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 innportant obstacle to a gradual development of
character.
A remarkable trait in these move//e 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 Stäel suggests that the government
winked at this license as the jesting of children, who
CAE Z 7TWCA Z MZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 A ZOGAEAA’AZCAA. AAVO
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
(il Zasca), 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 MISCEZZAMIES. 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 A YOGAEAA’H/CA/C A/VD
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.
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZAAVIES. 497.
Chaucer's genius was every way 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
have 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 A/O GRAPHYCA/, AAWD
though in a less degree, may be affirmed of his shorter
tales, Movelas 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 their picaresco
novel, a mere chronicle of the adventures and mis-
chievous pranks of young pickpockets and chevaliers.
d’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. Molière, 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 naïveté be-
yond the reach of art, Rabelais, Voltaire, La Fon-
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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.
5oo A YOGAEA PAHICA/, AAWD
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. 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 Maffei, which may be deemed the first dawn
#See the conclusion of his History of Spanish Literature.
f See Allacci's Drammaturgia, passim, and Riccoboni, Theatre
Ital., tom. i. pp. 187—208. Allacci's catalogue, as continued down to
the middle of the eighteenth century, occupies nearly a thousand
quarto pages.
CR/TYCA/ MISCE LIAAVIES. 5o I
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 Molière has shown in his Tartuffe. The
spirit of these great masters did not descend to their
immediate successors. Goldoni, however, the Molière
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 A YOGAEAA’AZCA/C A/VD
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
art 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 zers: sciolti, some the saruccio/,
others, again, the marte//iami, 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 critique on
the Italian comic drama, prefixed to the late edition of Alberto
Nota's Commedie, Paris, I829.
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 patois.
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
5O4 BIOGRAPHICAZ AAVD
prefer. His haughty spirit carried him back to the
£recentisti, 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 cantiſema 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.
CAE Z 7TWCA Z A/VSCE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 5o 5
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 bei coſp?
d; 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 AES-
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 AEschylus to the influence of the
W. 43
506 A YOGA'AA'HICAA. AAVD
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. Scenae 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 Ægisthus 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. LVII., Prob. Io. In the same spirit, a critic of a more
polished age has denounced Shakspeare's Hamlet as the work of a
drunken savage I See Voltaire's Dissertation sur la Tragédie, etc.,
addressed to Cardinal Querini.
CAE/TYCA/, //MSCEZ/AAV/A.S. So?
which give such an air of breathless horror to the story.
In solemn, mysterious imaginings, who indeed can
equal Shakspeare P He is the only modern poet who
has succeeded in introducing the dim form 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-
polyte in love, in his Phèdre, is well known : “What
* Semiramis, acte iii. s. 6.
508 A/OGAEA PAZCA V, AAWD
would our petits-maîtres 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-
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAV/A.S. 509
duced a brisk, moving dialogue; and instead of the
ceremonious breeding, the perruque and chapeau bordé,
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*
5 Io A/O GRAPH/CA/, AAWD
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
arieties 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-
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE//AAWZE.S. 5II
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
512 A ZOG/CAA’AZCA/, AAWD
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-
mesque is the most original. This epithet, derived not,
CAEATYCA/ MYSCE/AAAVYES. 5 13
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 frecentisti,
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*
514 BZOGRAPHICAL AAVD
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 trouzeurs, 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 Days.
CR/TYCA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 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 unarble 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
516 A/OGACAA’A/YCA/C A/VD
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCE Z ZAAVYES. 517
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.
i 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
518 Aff ZOGA2AA’AZCA/C AAVO
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 P” 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 (sezcenzo) 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.
CRITICAZ MISCAEZZAAVIES. 5 IQ
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 seicentist; 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 Marini
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, tom. xxi. p. 17.
52O A YOGACAFAE/ICA/C AAWD
to the Italians. Thus the elements of the cultismo of
the Spaniards, that compound of flat pedantry and Ori-
ental hyperbole, so different from the fine conceſt 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, may be 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 précieux of the Hôtel de
Rambouillet, so often lashed by Boileau and laughed
at by Molière, 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-
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 52I
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 machéronico; but a
counter-current, equally exclusive, in favor of the fre-
cenſisti, 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 A ZOGAEAAEA/ICA/, AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.Z.4/VIES. 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 novel/e, 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.
524 A ZOGA2AAAZZCA/C AAVO
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-
CAEATYCA/, ///SCEZ/AAV/AES. 525
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.f. 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 cazzone 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.
f Take at hazard some of the most familiar, the “Ardent,” the
“Frozen,” the “Wet,” the “Dry,” the “Stupid,” the “Lazy.” The
526 A ZOGAEAAAZZCA Z 4 AVO
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 Jezioni, 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
has 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.
CR/TYCA/C MYSCE/AAVIAE.S. 527
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.
528 A ZOGAEA PAE/ZCA Z AAVZ)
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 féfe-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'Italia, Introd., p. 14.
CR/T/CA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 529
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 improvisatori 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
53o JB /O GRAAEAZCA / AAWD
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 P And may they not cite the same hardy models
in refutation of an unqualified charge of effeminacy P
Where shall we find examples of purer and more ex-
alted sentiment than in the writings of Petrarch and
Tasso P. Where of a more chastised composition than
in Casa or Caro P 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 P This is all just. But such ex-
ceptions, however imposing, in no way contravene the
general truth of our positions, founded on the preva-
/ent 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
CRIZICAZ MISCAEZZAMIES. 53I
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 mitet!”
SCOTTISH SONG."
(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,
I825. I2mo.
(532)
CR/TYCA/ MISCAE Z ZAN/ES. 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 Demo-
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 impeius 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-
* “Nec dubitari debet quin fuerint ante Homerum poetae.” Cic.,
Brut., I8.
45%
534 A ZOGAEAAAEM/CA/, AAWD
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 of 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-
CAE/TICAL MVSCAE ZZA WZZS. 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
536 A ZOG RAA’Aſ/CA/C AAVZ)
the schools of Córdova, 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
España, tom. 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.
CR/ ZYCA/ MISCAE Z ZAAVIES. 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, L-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 idéal 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
España, has been satisfactorily established by the learned Müller;
and the conclusions of the latter writer are recently confirmed by
Condé'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
Alla curse;” “the tyrant Cid;” “the accursed Cid,” etc. See His-
toria de los Arabes de España, ii. 92.
x3%
538 A ZOG RAA’AACAA. AAVZ)
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
CAEA 7/CA/, //ZSCAE ZJCAAV/AE.S. 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 Maitland, 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 A YOGAEA PHYCA/, AAWD
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.
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE/, /AAVES. 54I
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 Jº ZOGACAPHYCA/, AAWD
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
CAE / ZYCA/, //MSCE/AAAVIES. 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 Jº/O GRAAAZZCA/, AAWD
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
CAE ZZT/CA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAWZZ.S. 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 As WOGAEA PHYCA/C A/V/D
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 MVSCAE Z/CAM//E.S. 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 A ZOGACAA’Aſ/CAV, AAWD
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 La 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 MISCEZZANIES. 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
55o A ZOGAAAPA/WCA/. AAVZ)
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 matériel 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
CR/T/CA/, ///SCAE Z.ZAAW/AE.S. 55 I
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
552 A YOGAEAA’Aff YCA/C AAVZ)
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 P” 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,
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 windl
I heard a fair one cry;
CR/T/CA/, ///SCE LA. AAVYES. 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 A YOGAA PAE/ZCAA. AAVO
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 l
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 1
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.
CR/ZT/CAM, MISCE Z ZAAVIES. 555
It has before found a place in the “Nithsdale and
Galloway” collection: r
“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 armful 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 A ZOGACAA’AZCAA. AAWD
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
C/2/7”/CA/, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/AE.S. 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.
† “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, Fable 23.
47%
558 CRITYCA/, //ZSCAE L LAAV/A2S.
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 Caesarean
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)
560 A ZOGAAA’H/CAA. AAVD
him, “we judge too lightly of the Italians, and quote
as axioms the absurd opinions of their insane rivals
(accaniff 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 Osserzazioni 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
CAE / 7./CAA, MISCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 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 Ginguené, 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
Aimself” (he designates us always by this humble pro-
noun) “to Milton,” he says, “for which exception /
acknowledge no obligation to him, 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 cleares? 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 Ginguené, conoscer la lingua e la
letteratura Italiana come Ginguené, e amar il vero come Ginguené,
per sentire,” etc. Osservazioni, pp. II.5, II6.
yż
562 A/OGACAA’///CAA. AAWD
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
CAE ZZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z ZAAV/AE.S. 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
564 A ZOGACAA/B/ZCA Z 4 AVZ)
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 early
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 Phèdre 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).”
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZAZ.S. 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 origina/ 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
566 A ZOGACAA/#/CAA. AAVZ)
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 Osserzazioni 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
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z Z.4/V/AE.S. 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
568 A YOGACAA’HZCA/C AAWD
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-
CAE XTVCA /, //ZSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 Osserzazioni, 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%
57o AZOGRAPHICAZ 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
Prench 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 P 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 Andrés,” 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?f -
But, to proceed no farther, we may abide by the
solid judgment of Ginguené, 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, tom. iv. p. 250.
f Opere postume di Metastasio, tom. iii. p. 30.
† Ragion poetica, pp. 161, 162.
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z.Z.A.V/AE.S. 57 I
affected turns, conceits, and feux 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 Provençal, 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-
tall”f “I maintain,” says he, “that not one of those
* Histoire littéraire, tom. v. pp. 368, 378.
f “Dirò essere questa una delle piti solenni, delle più orribili lette-
rarie bestemmie, che sia stata mai pronunziata o Scritta da lingua o
penna mortale.”—P. 94.
572 AE/OGA2AAA/VCA/C AAWD
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 77-e 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, xat'ééozºv,
the title of the Zhree Sisters (Tre Sorelle). 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 Provençal heresy:
“When I become snow before their burning rays,
Your noble pride
Is perhaps offended with my unworthiness.
Oh, if this my apprehension
CR/T/CA/, //ZZSCE/AAAWZE.S. 573
Should not femper the ſame 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 melº,
Being so frail an object, before so potent a fire,
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 burn 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 sciegno
Forse ch” allor mia indegnitate offende.
O, se questatemenza
Non temprasse l’arsura chem’ incende,
Beato venir men l che n’ lor presenza
M’ & più caro il morir, chel’ viver senza.
Dunque ch” iſ non misfaccia,
Si frale oggetto a si possente foco,
Non è proprio valor, cheme ne scampi;
Ma la paura un poco,
Che 'l sangue vago per le vene agghiaccia,
Risalda ‘l cor, perchè più tempo avvampi.”
Canzone vii., nell' Edizione di Muratori.
574 B/O GRAPHYCA/C A/VD
“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 l (Tom.
i. p. 18, note.) After this, one may feel less surprise at the bulk of
these commentaries.
CR/7/CA1/ MISCAE L LA M/A.S. 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 2 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 (tom. v. p. 474). Yet more to the purpose is
an observation of the Abbé Denina upon Petrarch,
“who,” says he, “not only in his more ordinary sonnets
affords obvious examples of affectation and coldness,
but in his most fender and most beautiful compositions
approaches the conceited and inflated style of which I
am now speaking.” + And the “impartial Ginguené,”
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 disſºgure
his most interesting and most agreeable pieces.” . 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, tom. ii. p. 55.
† Histoire littéraire, tom. ii. p. 566.
576 BIOGRAPHICAL AND
may justify the character of the poet where we cannot
that of his compositions. The Provençal, 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 Provençal 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
CR/TYCA/. MZSCE/, /AAVIES. 57.7
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 Provençal
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 A/O GRAAEM/ICAI, AAWD
We trust that the free manner in which we have
spoken will not be set down by the author of the Osser-
zazioni 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.
*
CR/ ZYCA/ MISCAE ZZAM/ES. 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-
vençal 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 Śrea Trepčevra ; 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
58o B/O GRAPHICAL AAVD
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. s
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
CRATYCA/ MISCAE Z CAAVIES. 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. I. 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 (seicenſo) a term of reproach, it would
49%
582 AP/O GACAA’Aſ/CAA. AAVZ)
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 précieux, which disappeared before
the satire of Molière 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
Provençal 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-
CAE / ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z ZAAV/A.S. 583
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
Provençal 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 Poésies 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
Littérature Provençale, has pronounced it, by the facts it has brought
to light, to have given the coup de grâce to the theory of Father
Andrés, whom Sismondi has chiefly followed.
584 A ZOGAEA PAE/ZCAA. AAVZ)
ited in their Cancioneros, 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 Scudéry 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 seicenſisti, 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 Osserzazioni. Our next rock of offence is a
certain inconsiderate astonishment which we expressed
at the patience of his countrymen under the infliction
CR/TYCA/C MYSCE L LAMYA.S. 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 enmui.; 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., tom. 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'oeuvres 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
Ginguené’’ speaking of “the universal corruption of
* “Sus Boeotica, auris Boeotica, Boeoticum ingenium.”
CRATICA C MISCE Z LAAWIES. 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 Staël, 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; † 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 round
* Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. part. iii. s. 42.
f Ragion poetica, p. I4.
f The Italian Movelle, it is well known, were originally suggested
by the French Faà/iaux 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 A ZOGAEA PAZCA/C A/VD.
“ 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” P 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 P. 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. Ginguené. With deference to the opinions of the author
of the “Osservazioni” (vide pp. II.5, II6), 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, 1824.
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCAE Z.ZAAVIES. 589
think a critic might well 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.”
5O
590 A YOGAEAAAZZ CAZ AAVZ)
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
Osserzazioni, 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–III.) 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-
tasto.” 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 Osserzazioni professes, and which may have
legitimately descended to him with the inheritance of
* Risorgimento d'Italia, Introduz., tom. i. p. 14.
CAE ZT/CAA, MISCAE Z.Z.A.AWYES. 59 I
the Caesarean 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 Mełas-
fasio's zerse, 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, 41o.
592 A ZOGAEAAAZZCAA. AAVZ)
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 versift-
caſion to so Æmited a number of zwords, phrases, and
cadences ſhać they seem aſzeways 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.
“Hic 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 Osserzazzoni, 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.
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCE L EAAV/AE.S. 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 /
50%
594 BIOGRAPHYCA/. A/VD
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. Riem n'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.
CR/7/CA/, //ZSCE LIAAVZAZ.S. 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 barðarous, because they were not classica/; and the
polite scholars of Europe sneered at “the bad taste
which could prefer an ‘Ariosto to a Virgil, a Romance
to an Iliad.’”f But the reconciling spirit of modern
criticism has interfered ; the character, the wants of
* “Dissertation critique sur l'Aventure de Joconde.” CEuvres de
Boileau, tom. ii.
f “Arte de hacer Comedias.” Obras sueltas, tom. iv. p. 406.
“Y quando he de escribir una Comedia,
Encierro los preceptos con seis llaves;
Saco a Terencio y Plauto de mi estudio,
Para que no me den voces, que suele
Dar gritos la verdad en libros mudos,” etc.
f 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 A^omaztic, with this difference: the latter is
simply distinctive, while the former was also an opprobrious epithet.
596 A/O GRAPHYCA/C AAVO
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
Inature.
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 Bouterwek, 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.
CRATYCA/, ///SCEL/AAWIES. 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 Osserzazioni 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.
598 A YOGA’AA’HYCA/, AAWD
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-d'oeu-
zºres, 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, Molière, of an epic
poem upon Adam and Eve P’’ 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 Staël 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
CAE / ZYCA/. MISCAE LIAAWIA.S. 5.99
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 Ticknor. New
York: Harper & Brothers. 1849: 3 vols. 8vo.
(600)
CRITICAZ MISCEZZANIES. 6or
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 5 I
602 BZOGAEAAEA/CAA. AAVZ)
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
CAE / ZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 Andrés, 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 A ZOGAEA PH/YCA/. A MZD
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 Göttingen. 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
Göttingen. 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,
CR/T/CA/C M/SCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 Złzražsons 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%
6oô A YOGAEAPH/YCA/, AAWD
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
CR/7/CAM, MISCAE Z ZAAVIES. 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 Göttingen. In Paris he explored, under able
teachers, the difficult Romance dialects, the medium
of the beautiful Provençal.
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 A/O GRAAEA/YCA/, AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE/AAAW/ES. 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*
6Io As ZOGAAA’AZCA / AAVZ)
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
CR/T/CA / MISCAE Z ZAN/ES. 6II
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 120o; 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 characteristics
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-
61.2 A YOG RAFAE/ICA/C A/VD
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
CRYTYCA/C MYSCE LLAMYES. 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, Hastel 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
614 A ZOGRAPHYCA/C A/V/O
Another poem, of still higher pretensions, but, like
the last, still in manuscript, is the Poema de José, -
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 MISCELLAMIES, 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 we 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 mel 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.’
6I6 B/O GRAPHYCA/C A/VO
“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, ‘Northief 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; r -
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-
CRAZYCA/C MYSCAE Z ZAAVYES. 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, L-
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 Crónica General. He aspired
52%
618 A ZOGACAA’A/ZCAL AAVZ)
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
CAEAZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVZA.S. 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
62O A ZOG RAAEA/YCA Z AAVZ)
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
CR/TICAI. MISCAEZLAAW/ES. 62I
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 Córdova, 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 Córdovan 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 A ZOGAEAAAAACAA. AAV/D
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 well as of the Moslem, for eight hun-
CRAT/CAM, MISCAE Z.Z.4/V/AES. 623
red 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 2–that St. Jago should do battle for
him with his celestial chivalry?—that miracles should
cease to be miracles P−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 A YOGAEAA’H/CAA. AAWD
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
g CRITICAZ MISCEZZAMIES. 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 1 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 l at thy side
A vassal's daughter sits by thee,
And not a royal bride l’’
Our author has also given a pleasing version of the
beautiful romance of “Fonſe frida, fonte frida,”—
“Cooling fountain, cooling fountain,”—which we are
glad to see rendered faithfully, instead of... following
2 B 53
626 A/O GRAPHYCA/C A/VD
the example of Dr. Percy, in his version of the fine
old ballad in a similar simple style, “A'io verde, rio
werde,” 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 romances.
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, itempo, viejos,
are all good asomanies, 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
C/C/ZYCA/, ///SCAE ZZA/V/AE.S. 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 A YOGAEAPHICA V, AAWD
period, under whose hands, 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
CRATYCA/C MISCAE/AAAV/AE.S. 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 “Crónica Genera/’’ 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%
63o A ZOG RAFAE/ICAZ, AAWD
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 appointed 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 found 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,
CAE / ZYCA/, //ZSCE/ ZAAVYA.S. 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 A ZOGAEAA’Aſ/CAA. AAVO
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,
CR/TYCA/ MISCE/ LAAVIA.S. 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:
2 Bºº
634 A ZOGACAA’AZCA V, AAWD
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
CAE/TWCAL MVSCAE Z.ZAAVIES. 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
636 B/O GRAAAZYCA/, AAWD
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
CA’/ ZYCA/C MYSCE LAAVYA.S. 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
638 A YOGAEAAAZZCAJC AAVZ)
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
CR/ ZYCA/, ///SCE LIAAV/A.S. 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.
64o A YOGAEA PH/YCA/C A/VO
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 I go l'
But I'll no husband 1 not II not
For I would live all carelessly,
Amid these hills, a maiden free,
CAE ZT/CA/ MISCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 641
And never ask, nor anxious be,
Of wedded weal or woe:
Yet still they say, ‘Go, marryl go!'
But I’ll no husband l not I l mol
“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 l not Il no l
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! gol"
For I'll no husband not I no l’’
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 1 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 seal
She is wild 1 she is wild
Who shall speak to the child?”
During the course of the period we have been con-
sidering there runs another rich vein of literature, the
beautiful Provençal,—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 A ZOG RAFAE/ICAZ AAWD
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, René of Anjou. But still it was something,
in those rough times, to manifest a relish for intel-
CAE ZZT/CA/, //ZSCEZ ZAAWZZ.S. 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 Provençal 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 A YOGAEA PHYCA/, AAWO
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 MISCE LLAAVIES. 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 15oo and 17oo, 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 BAOGAEAAAZZCA/C AAVD
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
Cº/TYCA/, ///SCE/.../A/V/AE.S. 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 A YOGAEA PHYCA/C AAWD
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-
CR/TYCA/C //ZSCAE ZZAAVZAZ.S. 649
ment 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. -
“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
65o AP/O GRAAAZCAA. AAVO
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
w
C/8/7/CA/, ///SCE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 AS YOGAEAAA/VCAA, AAWD
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
country 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-
CR/TYCA/, ///SCE L LAAW/ES. 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
654 A YOGAEA PAE//CA/, AAWZO
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 Ā su dueño eterna vida.”
Which may be rendered,
“The hand, though crippled in the glorious strife,
Sufficed to gain its lord etermal 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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE/AAAWZAZ.S. 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 A ZOGACAA’AZCA Z AAWD
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 oftaza rºma, 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
CRITICAZ MISCAEZZAMIES. 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 “monstruo 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, La 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 A ZOGACAA'Aſ/CAA. AAWD
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 noteş 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
CRAZYCA/C MYSCAE ZZAAV7/2.S. 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 A YOGAEAAEAE/ICA / A/VD
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
CAE Z 7TWCA V. Al/ZSCAE Z ZAAVYES. 66 I
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 dama,
the gracioso, or buffoon, recur as regularly as the clown
in the old English comedy, and their rôle 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 A YOGAEA PHYCA/C AAWD
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 dénouement 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
CAE ZZYCA/, //ZSCAE/./AAVZZ.S. 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 A ZOGAEAAEA/CAA. AAWD
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
CR/ ZYCA/C MYSCE/AAAV/A.S. 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 A ZOGAEAAA/YCA/, AAVZ)
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 aftanage 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.”
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCE/AAAVIES. 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 Jº ZOGA2AA’Aſ/CAV, AAWO
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 MISCEZZAMIES. 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 Eugène 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
67o A ZOGAEAA’A/CAA. AAVE)
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
CAEATYCA/ MZSCE LIAAW/A.S. 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 A/O GRAPHYCA/C AAWD
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 Doña 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-
CR/TYCA/, //ZSCE/AAAW/ES. 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 Samſos, 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
574 A ZOG/&A PAE//CA/C AAWD
ples vanish at witnessing these exhibitions under the
more reputable names of “Athenaeum,” “Museum,”
or “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” I 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
CR/TYCA/ MISCAE/.../AAV/A.S. 675
wº
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 l—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 A ZOG RAA’AZCAA. AAVZ)
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 Blas” 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
CAE ZZZCA / MYSCAE Z ZAAVZAZ.S. 677
periods into which our author has distributed the work,
and which extends from the accession of the Bourbon
dynasty in 17oo 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 A ZOG RAAEM//CA/. AAVZ)
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
Jé 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 Blas,” 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
CR/ ZYCA/, MISCAE ZZAAV/A.S. 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 A ZOGAEAA’AZYCA/C A/VZO
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
CR/ ZYCA/, //ZSCAE Z.ZAAVYES. 681
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 CR/TYCA/ MISCAE Z.Z.4 MZES.
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.
T H E E N ID.
Tversity of Michigan
º
|LIBRARY
IHENRY WIGNAUID)



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