LITERATUREE AND ART.
BY S. MARGARET FULLER,
AUTHOR OF A SUMMER ON THE LAKES, WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ETC., ETC.
iWu ~atItt in Oint  nlnmit.
CONTAINING:
PART I.-A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS  1 PART II.-POETS OF THE PEOPLE...  1
A DIALOGUE.......................    9 MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.............. 22
THE TWO HERBERTS  1................ 16 BROWNING'S POEMS.................  31
THE PROSE. WORKS OF IILTON, WITH A   LIVES OF HAYDN, MOZART, HANDEL,
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION..... 35   BACH, BEETHOVEN...............  46
THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES MIACKINTOSH 43 A RECORD OF IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED
MODERN BRITISH POETS............. 58   BY MR. ALLSTON'S PICTURES....... 108
THE MODERN DRAMA................ 100 AMERICAN LITERATURE.-1........... 12
DIALOGUE, CONTAINING SUNDRY GLOSS-    SWEDENBORGIANISM................. 160
ES ON POETIC TEXTS.............. 151 METHODISM AT THE FOUNTAIN....... 166
APPENDIX.-THE TRAGEDY OF WITCHCRAFT............ 177
MOdd  au Mntobtutctfon,
BY HORACE GREELEY.
NEWV YORK:
PUBLISHED BY FOWLERS AND WELLS,
CLINTON  HALL, 131 NASSAU  STREET.
Boston, 142 Waslington-St       1 8 5 2.                [London, No. 142 Strand








INTRODUCTION.
THE MEMOIRS OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, lately published,
have inspired many readers with'a profound regret that they had not,
during her life, made or improved the acquaintance of one whom impartial judgment must pronounce the most capable and noteworthy
American woman the world has yet known. Criticism has'not spared
the writers of that Memoir; yet no critic, so far as I am aware, has
hinted a doubt that it portrays, truly and vividly, its heroine, though
she had previously been more widely misapprehended-perhaps I
should say uncomprehended-than any of her cotemporaries. Especially is that portion of the Memoirs contributed by Ralph Waldo
Emerson entitled to the praise of being the frankest, fairest, most
effective biography of our day, exhibiting its subject exactly'as she
lived and moved among us some few years ago, with her lofty virtues
and her conspicuous faults, her conversation which charmed and her
manner that repelled; so that. she was at the same moment idolized
and shunned, reverenced and ridiculed, by different sets of cultivated
and considerate persons whom she met in society; and neither without
obvious reasons.
"She, being dead, yet speaketh."  One of the most fluent, forcible,
and brilliant of talkers, she nevertheless wrote slowly and with remarkable labor; so that, but for the eminence of her conversational
powers, it might have been supposed that her years of devotion to foreign languages and literature had impaired her mastery of her mother




ii                      INTRODUCTION.
tongue. Yet this hesitancy in writing, sometimes resulting in obscurity, or even awkwardness of style, affected the manner only, and not
the matter, of her essays. I doubt that any woman whose life was
mainly devoted to literature has written less for the public eye than
Margaret Fuller did; I believe the writings of no other woman were
ever so uniformly worthy of study and preservation.  Surcharged with
thought, their manner may sometimes repel, but their matter can
rarely or never fail to instruct. Very little that has been written by
American women could be so ill spared from our literature.
These essays were, in 1846, selected by herself from all her occasional or fugitive productions, for publication in this form. She wrote
very little afterward of any moment but that child of her heart, "Italy
in 1848-9," which was irrecoverably lost, with herself, her husband,
and child, in the shipwreck of the brig Elizabeth, off Fire Island, on the
19th of July, 1850. By these, therefore, with her Memoirs, and her
"Woman in the Nineteenth Century," she is to be judged by those
who did not know her personally; and these will amply justify her
fame, though they may not seem to warrant the lofty eulogiums of
her personal friends, based rather on what she said and was, than on
what she did and wrote. Her "Summer on the Lakes" is an admirable book of its kind, embodying the fairest and most vivid pencilings of
our noble Western prairies as they were left by the receding Indian,
and as they began to be dotted by cottages, fields, and gardens, with
widely-scattered flocks and herds, replacing'the vanishing deer and the
vanished buffalo; but its pictures of pioneer life and peculiarities are
not so full, minute, and attractive as those of Mrs. Kirkland; and,
while the book will continue to be read with pleasure by the judicious
few, I presume it will never be reprinted.
Her "Italy" cannot so easily be spared. Knowing intimately and
sympathizing thoroughly with Mazzini and the other Republican leaders in the great movement of 1848, her work would have presented
that band of heroes more justly and worthily than any thing that has
been printed. It would have been the completest refutation ever
given to the motley crew of sham republicans, priestly calumniators,




INTRODUCTION.                          iii
and pimps of despotism, who have striven most unscrupulously, and,
alas! not unsuccessfully, to cover the last army of martyrs to the
cause of Liberty and Progress with ignominy and reproach, as victims of their own boundless incapacity or criminal ambition.  Of
Italy's lost struggle for liberty and light, she might not merely say,
with the Grattan of Ireland's kindred effort, half a century earlier, "I
stood by its cradle; I followed its hearse"-she might fairly claim to
have been a portion of its incitement, its animation, its informing soul.
She bore more than a woman's part in its conflicts and its perils;
and the bombs of that ruthless army which a false and traitorous Government impelled against the ramparts of Republican Rome, could
have stilled no voice more eloquent in its exposures, no heart more
lofty in its defiance, of the villainy which so wantonly drowned in
blood the hopes, while crushing the dearest rights, of a people, than
those of Margaret Fuller.  Her last and greatest work perished irrecoverably in the wreck which closed her earthly career; but some idea
of its fire and force may be gathered firom passages of her letters from
Italy, in 1848-9, preserved and presented in her Memoirs.
Her "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" will cease to be read
only when it shall have been outgrown; and that, I apprehend, will
not be very soon. Others may have perceived as clearly the injustice
to Woman so firmly imbedded in our present social polity and ideas,
and so slowly and with difficulty dislodged piecemeal from our laws;
but rarely has there appeared a woman so qualified by thought, by culture, by position, by fearlessness, to discuss the subject thoroughly,
and present the truth in its amplest and justest proportions. That
some of her ideas are exposed to criticism, may be freely conceded
without detracting from  the merit and value of the work. Frank,
original, earnest, and suggestive, this book gave an initial impulse to
very much of the thought and action in this direction which have
since been elicited, and its influence is even now beginning to be felt
in the education of women as lecturers, physicians, etc., and in the
earnest and increasing demand that they shall be admitted to equal opportunities with men in colleges and other kindred schools of prepara



iv:INTRODUCTION.
tion for efficiency and honor in the most coveted walks of professional
life. And when the time shall have come, as-come it must, wherein
Woman shall be called calmly and authoritatively to decide for herself
the proper limits of her own sphere, and to judge whether the ballot
is too rude and perilous a weapon to be intrusted to her delicate hands,
the expositions and the counsels of Margaret Fuller will be consulted
and considered, not more deferentially, but far more widely, than they
have hitherto been.
The volume herewith presented will attract a larger number of
readers, and perhaps be less cherished.by the few, than any other.of
her published works. We find in it less of the writer's heart and
genius, but more of her study and culture, than in the others. In
this she appears less as the creator than the critic, the former being
the loftier, the latter the more readily appreciable vocation. Few of
us are creators; all are more or less critics, and so qualified, in some
degree, to appreciate and enjoy criticism. And while there are papers in this volume into the spirit of which the large number will not
enter ("The Two Herberts" conspicuous among them), yet a majority of these essays, including " Modern British Poets," " The Modern
Drama," "American Literature," etc., will fall not strangely on the
general ear.  " The Lives of the Great Composers" is the paper into
which the writer has infused most of herself, and it will probably
command a heartier approval than any thing else in the volume,
though the essays on Longfellow's Poems, "Swedenborgianism," and
"Methodism  at the Fountain," cannot be slighted. And in an age
when so many are learning to observe, to think, and to judge-when
many feel the want of a wider knowledge of what is best in our current literature, and of more reliable standards for measuring the new:
works constantly appearing-I cannot believe that the world will soon
be ready to dismiss to oblivion these Papers of MARGARET FULLER.
H. G.
NEw YORK, May 1st, 1852.




PREFACE.
IN the original plan for publishing a selection from my
essays in different kinds which have appearied in periodicals,
I had aimed at more completeness of arrangement than has
been attained in these two volumes. Selections had been
made from essays on English literature, on Continental and
American literature, and on Art. I had wished, beside, for
a department in which to insert sketches of a miscellaneous
character, in prose and verse.
It was proposed, in the critical pieces, to retain the extracts
with which they were originally adorned, as this would give
them far more harmony and interest for the general reader.
The translation, however, of the matter from  a more
crowded page to its present form has made such a difference, that I have been obliged to drop most of the extracts
from several of the pieces. Moreover, in approaching the
end of the first number, I found myself obliged to omit
more than half the essays I had proposed on the subject of
English literature, the greater part of those on Art, and
those on Continental literature and of a miscellaneous
kind entirely. I find, indeed, that the matter which I had




vi                   PREFACE.
supposed could be comprised in two of these numbers would
fill six or eight.
Had I been earlier aware of this, I should have made a
different selection, and one which would do more justice to
the range and variety of subjects which have been before
my mind during the ten years that, in the intervals allowed
me by other engagements, I have written for the public.
To those of my friends, who have often expressed a wish
that I "-could find time to write," it will be a satisfaction to
know that, though the last twenty months is the first period
in my life when it has been permitted me to make my pen
my chief means of expressing my thoughts, yet I have
written enough, if what is afloat, and what lies hid in manuscript, were put together, to make a little library, quite
large enough to exhaust the patience of the collector, if not
of the reader. Should I do no more, I have at least sent
my share of paper missives through the world.
The present selection contains some of my earliest and
some of my latest expressions. I have not put dates to any
of the pieces, though, in the earlier, I see much crudity,
which I seem to have outgrown now, just as I hope I shall
think ten years hence of what I write to-day. But I find
an identity in the main views and ideas, a substantial harmony among these pieces, and I think those who have
been interested in my mind at all, will take some pleasure
in reading the youngest and crudest of these pieces, and
will readily disown for me what I would myself disown.
Should these volumes meet with a kind reception, a more




PRE-FACE.                    vii
complete selection fiom my miscellanies will be offered to
the public in due time. Should these not seem to be objects
of interest I shall take the hint, and consign the rest to the
peaceful seclusion of the garret.
I regret omitting some pieces explanatory of foreign
authors, that would have more interest now than when
those authors become, as I hope they will, familiar
friends to the youth of my country.  It has been one
great object of my life to introduce here the works of
those great geniuses, the flower and fruit of a higher state
of development, which might give the young who are soon
to constitute the state, a higher standard in thought and action than would be demanded of them by their own time.
I have hoped that, by being thus raised above their native
sphere, they would become its instructors and the faithful
stewards of its best riches, not its tools or slaves. I feel
with satisfaction that I have done a good deal to extend the
influence of the great minds of Germany and Italy among
my compatriots. Of our English contemporaries, as yet but
partially known here, I have written notices of Milnes,
Landor, and Julius Hare, which I regret being obliged to
omit, as these writers are yet but little known. Bailey and
Tennyson have now a fair chance of circulation, therefore
my notices may sleep with the occasion that gave them
birth. Tennyson, especially, needs no usher. He has only
to be heard to command the audience of that " melodious
thunder."
Of the essays in the second volume, that on American lit



Vll                   PREFACE.
erature is the only one, which has not, before, appeared in
print. It is a very imperfect sketch; the theme was great
and difficult, the time to be spared for its consideration was
brief. It is, however, written with sincere and earnest feel
ings, and from a mind that cares for nothing but what is
permanent and essential. It should, then, have some merit,
if only in the power of suggestion. A year or two hence, I
hope to have more to say upon this topic, or the interests
it represents, and to speak with more ripeness both as to the
matter and the form.
S. M. F.




PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART,
A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS.
AN essay on Criticism were a serious matter; for, though this
age be emphatically critical, the writer would still find it necessary to investigate the laws of criticism as a science, to settle its
conditions as an art. Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.  Of these the only law  is,
"Speak the best word that is in thee."  Or they are regular articles got up to order by the literary hack writer, for the literary
mart, and the only law is to make them plausible.  There is not
yet deliberate recognition of a standard of criticism, though we
hope the always strengthening league of the republic of letters
must ere long settle laws on which its Amphictyonic council may
act. Meanwhile let us not venture to write on criticism, but, by
classifying the critics, imply our hopes and thereby our thoughts.
First, there are the subjective class, (to make use of a convenient term, introduced by our German benefactors.) These are
persons to whom writing is no sacred, no reverend employment.
They are not driven to consider, not forced upon investigation by
the fact, that they are deliberately giving their thoughts an independent existence, and that it may live to others when dead to
them. They know no agonies of conscientious research, no timidities of self-respect. They see no ideal beyond the present
hour, which makes its mood an uncertain tenure.  How things
2




2          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
affect them  now they know; let the future, let the whole take
care of itself. They state their impressions as they rise, of
other men's spoken, written, or acted thoughts.  They never
drraw  of going out of themselves to seek the motive, to trace the
law of another nature.  They never dream that there are statures
which cannot be measured from their point of view.  They love,
they like, or they hate; the book is detestable, immoral, absurd,
or admirable, noble, of a most approved scope; —these statements
they make with authority, as those who bear the evangel of pure
taste and accurate judgment, and need be tried before no human
synod. To them it seems that their present position commands
the universe.
Thus the essays on the works of others, which are called criticisms, are often, in fact, mere records of impressions.  To judge
of their value you must know where the man was brought up,
under what influences,-his nation, his church, his family even.
He himself has never attempted to estimate the value of these
circumstances, and find a law or raise a standard above all circumstances, permanent against all influence. He is content to
be the creature of his place, and to represent it by his spoken
and written word.  He takes the same ground with a savage,
who does not hesitate to -say of the product of a civilization on
which he could not stand, "' It is bad," or" It is good."
The value of such comments is merely reflex.  They characterize the critic.  They give an idea of certain influences on a
certain act of men in. a certain time or place. Their absolute,
essential value is nothing.  The long review, the eloquent article by the man of the nineteenth century, are of no value by
themselves considered, but only as samples of their kind. The
writers were content to tell what they felt, to praise or to denounce without needing to convince us or themselves.  They
sought not the divine truths of philosophy, and she prof'ers them
not if unsought.




A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS.                    3
Then there are the apprehensive. These can go out of themselves and enter fully into a foreign existence. They breathe its
life; they live in its law; they tell what it meant, and why it so
expressed its meaning. They reproduce the work of which they
speak, and make it better known to us in so far as two statements
are better than one. There are beautiful specimens in this kind.
They are pleasing to us as bearing witness of the genial sympathies of nature. They have the ready grace of love with somewhat of the dignity of disinterested friendship.  They sometimes give more pleasure than the original production of which
they treat, as melodies will sometimes ring sweetlier in the echo.
Besides there is a peculiar pleasure in a true response; it is the
assurance of equipoise in the universe. These, if not true critics, come nearer the standard than the subjective class, and the
value of their work is ideal as well as historical.
Then there are the comprehensive, who must also be apprehensive. They enter into the nature of another being and judge
his work by its own law. But having done so, having ascertained his design and the degree of his success in fulfilling it,
thus measuring his judgment, his energy, and skill, they do also
know how to put that aim in its place, and how to estimate its relations. And this the critic can only do who perceives the analogies of the universe, and how they are regulated by an absolute,
invariable principle.  He can see how far that work expresses
this principle, as well as how far it is excellent in its details.
Sustained by a principle, such as can be girt within no rule, no
formula, he can walk around the work, he can stand above it, he
can uplift it, and try its weight.  Finally, he is worthy to
judge it.
Critics are poets cut down, says some one -by way of jeer; but,
in truth, they are men with the poetical temperament to apprehend, with the philosophical tendency to investigate. The maker
is divine; the critic sees this divine, but brings it down to hu



4           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
inanity by the analytic process. The critic is the historian who
records the order of creation. In vain for the maker, who knows
without learning it, but not in vain for the mind of his race.
The critic is beneath the maker, but is his needed friend.
What tongue could speak but to an intelligent ear, and every
noble work demands its critic. The richer the work, the more
severe should be its critic; the larger its scope, the more comprehensive must be his power of scrutiny. The critic is not a
base caviller, but the younger brother of genius. Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty
the power of appreciating beauty.
And of making others appreciate it; for the universe is a
scale of infinite gradation, and, below the very highest, every
step is explanation down to the lowest.  Religion, in the two
modulations of poetry and music, descends through ran infin"ity
of waves to the lowest abysses of human nature.  Nature is the
literature and art of the divine mind'; human literature and art
the criticism on that; and they, too, find their criticism within
their own sphere.
The critic, then, should be not merely a poet, not merely a
philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three.
If he criticise the poem, he must want nothing of what constitutes
the poet, except the power of creating forms and speaking in
music.  He must have as good an eye and as fine a sense; but
if he had as fin'e an organ for expression also, he would make
the poem instead of judging it. He must be inspired by the philosopher's spirit of inquiry and need of generalization, but he
must not be constrained by the hard cemented masonry of method
to which philosophers are prone. And he must have the organic
acuteness of the observer, with a love of' ideal perfection, which
forbids him to be content with mere beauty of details in the
work or the comment upon the work.
There are persons who maintain, that there is no legitimate




A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS.                    5
criticism, except the reproductive; that we have only to say
what the work is or is to us, never what it is not. But the moment we look for a principle, we feel the need of a criterion, of
a standard; and then we say what the work is not, as well as
what it is; and this is as healthy though not as grateful and
gracious an operation of the mind as the other. We do not see&
to degrade but to classify an object by stating what it is not. We
detach the part from the whole, lest it stand between us and the
whole. When we have ascertained in what degree it manifests
the whole, we may safely restore it to its place, and love or admire it there ever after.
The use of criticism, in periodical writing is to sift, not to
stamp a work.  Yet should they not be "sieves and drainers for
the use of luxurious readers," but for the use of earnest inquirers, giving voice and being to their objections, as well as
stimulus to their sympathies. But the critic must not be an infallible adviser to his reader. He must not tell him what books
are not worth reading, or what must be thought of them when
read, but what he read in them.  Wo to that coterie where some
critic sits despotic, intrenched behind the infallible " We."  Wo
to that oracle who has infused such soft sleepiness, such a gentle
dulness into his atmosphere, that when he opes his lips no dog
will bark; It is this attempt at dictatorship in the reviewers, and
the indolent acquiescence of their readers, that has brought them
into disrepute.  With such fairness did they make out their
statements, with such dignity did they utter their verdicts, that
the poor reader grew all too submissive.  He learned his lesson
with such docility, that the greater part of what will be said at
any public or private meeting can be foretold by any one who has
read the leading periodical works for twenty years back. Scholars sneer at and would fain dispense with them altogether; and
the public, grown lazy and helpless by this constant use of props
and stays, can now  scarce brace itself even to get through a




G          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
magazine article, but reads in the daily papel laid beside the
breakfast plate a short notice of the last number of the long established and popular review, and thereupon passes its judgment
and is content.
Then the partisan spirit of many of these journals has made it
unsafe to rely upon them as guide-books and expurgatory indexes.
They could not be content merely to stimulate and suggest
thought, they have at last become powerless to supersede it.
From these causes and causes like these, the journals have lost
much of their influence. There is a languid feeling about them,
an inclination to suspect the justice of their verdicts, the value
of their criticisms. But their golden age cannot be quite past.
They afford too convenient a vehicle for the transmission of
knowledge;- they are too natural a feature of our time to have
done all their work yet.  Surely they may be redeemed from
their abuses, they may be turned to their true uses. But how?
It were easy to say what they should not do. They should
not have an object to carry or a cause to advocate, which obliges
them either to reject all writings which wear the distinctive
traits of individual life, or to file away what does not suit them,
till the essay, made true to their design, is made false to the
mind of the writer. An external consistency is thus produced,
at the expense of all salient thought, all genuine emotion of life,
in short, and all living influence. Their purpose may be of value, but by such means was no valuable purpose ever furthered
long. There are those, who have with the best intention pursued
this system of trimming and adaptation, and thought it well
and best to
"Deceive their country for their country's good."
But their country cannot long be so governed. It misses the
pure, the full tone of truth; it perceives that the voice is modulated to coax, to persuade, and it turns from the judicious man of




A SHORT ESSAY ON CRITICS.                  7
the world, calculating the effect to be produced by each of his
smooth sentences, to some earnest voice which is uttering thoughts,
crude, rash, ill-arranged it may be, but true to one human breast,
and uttered in full faith, that the God of Truth will guide them
aright.
And here, it seems to me, has been the greatest mistake in the
conduct of these journals. A smooth monotony has been attained, an uniformity of tone, so that from the title of a journal
you can infer the tenor of all its chapters. But nature is ever
various, ever new, and so should be her daughters, art and literature.  We do -not want merely a polite response to what we
thought before, but by the freshness of thought in other minds to
have new thought awakened in our own. We do not want stores
of information only, but to be roused to digest these into knowledge. Able and experienced men write for us, and we would
know what they think, as they think it not for us but for themselves. We would live with them, rather than be taught by
them how to live; we would catch the contagion of their mental
activity, rather than have them direct us how to regulate our
own.  In books, in reviews, in the senate, in the pulpit, we wish
to meet thinking men, not schoolmasters or pleaders.  We wish
that they should do full justice to their own view, but also that
they should be frank with us, and, if now our superiors, treat us
as if we might some time rise to be their equals.  It is this true
manliness, this firmness in his own position, and this power of appreciating the position of others, that alone can make the critic
our companion and friend. We would converse with him, secure that he will tell us all his thought, and speak as man to
man. But if he adapts his work to us, if he stifles what is distinctively his, if he shows himself either arrogant or mean, or,
above all, if he wants faith in the healthy action of free thought,
and the safety of pure motive, we will not talk with him, for we
cannot confide in him. We will go to the critic who trusts Genius




8           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
and trusts us, who knows that all good writing must be spontaneous, and who will write out the bill of fare for the public as he
read it'for himself," orgetting vulgar rules, with spirit free
To judge each author by his own intent,
Nor think one standard for all minds is meant."
Such an one will not disturb us with personalities, with sectarian
prejudices, or an undue vehemence in favour of petty plans or
temporary objects.. Neither will he disgust us by smooth obsequious flatteries and an inexpressive, lifeless gentleness. He
will be free and make free from the mechanical and distorting
influences we hear complained of on every side. He will teach
us to love wisely what we before loved well, for he knows the
difference between censoriousness and discernment, infatuation
and reverence; and while delighting in the genial melodies of
Pan, can perceive. should Apollo bring his lyre into audience,
that there may be strains more divine than those of his native
groves.




CRITICISM ON ENGLISH LITERATURE,








A DIALOGUE.
POET. CRITIC.
POET. Approach me not, man of cold, steadfast eye and com.
pressed lips. At thy coming nature shrouds herself in dull
mist; fain would she hide her sighs and smiles, her buds and
fruits even in a veil of snow. For thy unkindly breath, as it
pierces her mystery, destroys its creative power. The birds
draw back into their nests, the sunset hues into their clouds,
when you are seen in the distance with your tablets all ready to
write them into prose.
CRITIC. O my brother, my benefactor, do not thus repel me.
Interpret me rather to our common mother; let her not avert her
eyes from  a younger child.  I know I can never be dear to her
as thou art, yet I am her child, nor would the fated revolutions
of existence be fulfilled without my aid.
POET. How meanest thou?  What have thy measurements,
thy artificial divisions and classifications, to do with the natural
revolutions? In all real growths there is a " give and take" of
unerring accuracy; in all the acts of thy life there is falsity, for
all are negative.  Why do you not receive and produce in your
kind, like the sunbeam and the rose? Then new light would be
brought out, were it but the life of a weed, to bear witness to the
healthful beatings of the divine heart. But this perpetual analysis, comparison, and classification, never add one atom to the
sum of existence.
CRITIC. I understand you.




B12   -    PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
POET. Yes, that is always the way. You understand me,
who never have the arrogance to pretend that I understand myself.
CRITIC. Why should you?-that is my province. I am the
rock which gives you back the echo. I am the tuning-key,
which harmonizes your instrument, the regulator to your watch.
Who would speak, if no ear heard? nay, if no mind knew what
the ear heard?
POET. I do not wish to be heard in thought but in love, to be
recognised in judgment but in life.  I would pour forth my
melodies to the rejoicing winds. I would scatter my seed to the
tender earth. I do not wish to hear in prose the meaning of my
melody. I do not wish to see my seed neatly put away beneath
a paper label. Answer in new pecans to the soul of our souls.
Wake me to sweeter childhood by a fresher growth. At present you are but an excrescence produced by my life; depart,
self-conscious Egotist, I know you not.
CRITIC. Dost thou so adore Nature, and yet deny me?  Is
not Art the child of Nature, Civilization of Man?  As Religion
into Philosophy, Poetry into Criticism, Life into Science, Love
into Law, so did thy lyric in natural order transmute itself into
my review.
POET. Review! Science! the very etymology speaks. What
is gained by looking again at what has already been seen?
What by giving a technical classification to what is already assimilated with the mental life?
CRITIC. What is gained by living at all?
POET. Beauty loving itself, —Happiness!
CRITIC. Does not this involve consciousness?
POET. Yes! consciousness of Truth manifested in the individual form.
CRITIC. Since consciousness is tolerated, how will you limit it? 




A DIALOGUE.                        13
POET. By the instincts of my nature, which rejects yours as
arrogant and superfluous.
CRITIC. And the dictate of my nature compels me to the
processes which you despise, as essential to my peace. My
brother (for I will not be rejected) I claim my place in the order
of nature. The word descended and became flesh for two purposes, to organize itself, and to take cognizance of its organization. When the first Poet worked alone, he paused between the
cantos to proclaim, " It is very good." Dividing himself among
men, he made some to create, and others to proclaim the merits
of what is created.
POET. Well! if you were content with saying, "it is very
good;.' but you are always crying," it is very bad," or ignorantly prescribing how it might be better.  What do you know
of it?  Whatever is good could not be otherwise than it is.
Why will you not take what suits you, and leave the rest?
True communion of thought is worship, not criticism.  Spirit
will not flow through the sluices nor endure the locks of canals.
CRITIC. There is perpetual need of protestantism in every
church. If the church be catholic, yet the priest is not infallible. Like yourself, I sigh for a perfectly natural state, in which
the only criticism shall be tacit rejection, even as Venus glides
not into the orbit of Jupiter, nor do the fishes seek to dwell in
fire. But as you soar towards this as a Maker, so do I toil towards the same aim as a Seekel.  Your pinions will not upbear
you towards it in steady flight.  I must often stop to cut away
the brambles from my path. The law of my being is on me,
and the ideal standard seeking to be realized in my mind bids me
demand perfection from  all I see.  To say how far each object
answers this demand is my criticism.
POET. If one object does not satisfy you, pass on to another
and say nothing.
CRITIC. It is not so that it would be well with me. I must




14         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
penetrate the secret of my wishes, verify the justice of my reasonings. I must examine, compare, sift, and winnow; what can
bear this ordeal remains to me as pure gold. I cannot pass on
till I know what I feel and why. An object that defies my utmost rigor of scrutiny is a new step on the stair I am making to
the Olympian tables.
POET. I think you will not know the gods when you get
there, if I may judge from the cold presumption I feel in your
version of the great facts of literature.
CRITIC. Statement of a part always looks like ignorance,
when compared with the whole, yet may promise the whole.
Consider that a part implies the whole, as the everlasting No the
everlasting Yes, and permit to exist the shadow of your light, the
register of your inspiration.
As he spake the word he paused, for with it his. companion
vanished, and left'floating on the cloud a starry banner with the
inscription " AFFLATURI  NUMINE."  The Critic unfolded one on
whose flag-staff he had been leaning. Its heavy folds of pearly
gray satin slowly unfolding, gave to view the word NOTITIA, and
Causarum would have followed, when a sudden breeze from the
west caught it, those heavy folds folds fell back round the poor
man, and stifled him probably,-at least he has never since been
heard of.




THE TWO HERBERTS.
THE following sketch is meant merely to mark some prominent
features in the minds of the two Herberts, under a form less
elaborate and more reverent than that of criticism.
A mind of penetrating and creative power could not find a
better subject for a masterly picture. The two figures stand
as representatives of natural religion, and of that of the Son ofMan, of the life of the philosophical man of the world, and the
secluded, contemplative, though beneficent existence.
The present slight effort is not made with a view to the great
and dramatic results so possible to the plan.  It is intended
chiefly as a setting to the Latin poems of Lord Herbert, which
are known to few, a year ago, seemingly, were so to none in
this part of the world.  The only desire in translating them has
been to do so literally, as any paraphrase, or addition of words
impairs their profound meaning. It is hoped that, even in their
present repulsive garb, without rhyme or rhythm, stripped, too,
of the majestic Roman mantle, the greatness of the thoughts, and
the large lines of spiritual experience, will attract readers, who
will not find time misspent in reading them many times.
George Herbert's heavenly strain is better, though far from
generally, known.
There has been no attempt really to represent these persons
speaking their own dialect, or in their own individual manners.
The writer loves too well to hope to imitate the sprightly, fresh,
and varied style of Lord Herbert, or the quaintness and keen
sweets of his brother's,  Neither have accessories been given,




16         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
such as might easily have been taken from their works. But
the thoughts imputed to them they might have spoken, only in
better and more concise terms, and the facts —are facts.  So let
this be gently received with the rest of the modern tapestries.
We can no longer weave them of the precious materials princes
once furnished, but we can give, in our way, some notion of the
original design.
It was an afternoon of one of the longest summer days.  The
sun had showered down his amplest bounties, the earth put on
her richest garment to receive them.  The clear heavens seemed
to open themselves to the desire of mortals; the day had been
long enough and bright enough to satisfy an immortal.
In a green lane leading from the town of Salisbury, in England, the noble stranger was reclining beneath a tree. His eye
was bent in the direction of the town, as if upon some figure approaching or receding; but its inward turned expression showed
that he was, in fact, no longer looking, but lost in thought.
" Happiness!" thus said his musing mind, "it would seem at
such hours and in such places as if it not merely hovered over
the earth, a poetic presence to animate our pulses and give us
courage for what must be, but sometimes alighted. Such fulness
of expression pervades these fields, these trees, that it excites, not
rapture, but a blissful sense of peace. Yet, even were this permanent in the secluded lot, would I accept it in exchange for the
bitter sweet of a wider, freer life?  I could not if I would; yet,
methinks, I would not if I could. But here comes George, I
will argue the point with him."
He rose from his seat and went forward to meet his brother,
who at this moment entered the lane.
The two forms were faithful expressions of their several lives.
There was a family likeness between them, for they shared in
that beauty of the noble English blood, of which, in these days.




THE TWO HERBERTS.                    17
few types remain: the Norman tempered by the Saxon, the fire
of conquest by integrity, and a self-contained, inflexible habit of
mind. In the times of the Sydneys and Russells, the English
body was a strong and nobly-proportioned vase, in which shone a
steady and powerful, if not brilliant light.
The chains of convention, an external life grown out of proportion with that of the heart and mind, have destroyed, for the
most part, this dignified beauty. There is no longer, in fact, an
aristocracy in England, because the saplings are too puny to represent the old oak. But that it once existed, and did stand for
what is best in that nation, any collection of portraits from the
sixteenth century will show.
The two men who now met had character enough to exhibit in
their persons not only the stock from which they sprang, but
what was special in themselves harmonized with it. There were
ten years betwixt them, but the younger verged on middle age;
and permanent habits, as well as tendencies of character, were
stamped upon their persons.
Lord Edward Herbert was one of the handsomest men of his
day, of a beauty alike stately, chivalric and intellectual. His
person and features were cultivated by all the disciplines of a
time when courtly graces were not insignificant, because a monarch mind informed the court, nor warlike customs, rude or mechanical, for individual nature had free play in the field, except
as restrained by the laws of courtesy and honor. The steel
glove became his hand, and the spur his heel; neither can we
fancy him out of his place, for any place he would have made
his own. But all this grace and dignity of the man of the world
was in him subordinated to that of the man, for in his eye, and
in the brooding sense of all his countenance, was felt the life of
one who, while he deemed that his present honour lay in playing
well the part assigned him by destiny, never forgot that-it was




18          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
but a part, and fed steadily his forces on that within that passes
show.
It has been said, with a deep wisdom, that the figure we most
need to see before us now is not that of a saint, martyr, sage,
poet, artist, preacher, or any other whose vocation leads to a seclusion and partial use of faculty, but " a spiritual man of the
world.," able to comprehend all things, exclusively dedicate to
none.  Of this idea we need a new  expression, peculiarly
adapted to our time; but in the past it will be difficult to find
one more adequate than the life and person of Lord Herbert.
George Herbert, like his elder brother, was tall, erect, and
with the noble air of one sprung from a race whose spirit has
never been broken or bartered; but his thin form contrasted with
the -full development which generous living, various exercise, and
habits of enjoyment had given his brother.  Nor had his features
that range and depth of expression which tell of many-coloured
experiences, and passions undergone or vanquished. The depth,
for there was depth, was of feeling rather than experience. A
penetrating sweetness beamed from him on the observer, who was
rather raised and softened in himself than drawn to think of the
being who infused this heavenly fire -into his veins.  Like the
violet, the strong and subtle odour of his mind was arrayed at its
source with such an air of meekness, that the receiver blessed
rather the liberal winds of heaven than any earth-born flower
for the gift.
Raphael has lifted the transfigured Saviour only a little way
from the ground; but in the forms and expression of the feet,
you see that, though they may walk there again, they would
tread far more naturally a more delicate element. This buoyant lightness, which, by seeking, seems to tread the air, is indicated by the text: " Beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of those who come with glad tidings." And such thoughts were
suggested by the gait and gesture of George -erbert, especially




THE TWO HERBERTS.                     19
as he approached you. Through the faces of most men, even
of geniuses, the soul shines as through a mask, or, at best, a
crystal; we look behind a shield for the heart. But, with those
of seraphic nature, or so filled with spirit that translation may be
near, it seems to hover before or around, announcing or enfolding them like a luminous atmosphere. Such an one advances
like a vision, and the eye must steady itself before- a spiritual
light, to recognize him as a reality.
Some such emotion was felt by Lord Herbert as he looked on
his brother, who, for a moment or two, approached without observing him, but absorbed and radiant in his own happy thoughts.
They had not met for long, and it seemed that George had
grown from an uncertain boy, often blushing and shrinking either
from himself or others, into an angelic clearness, such as the
noble seeker had not elsewhere found.
But when he was seen, the embrace was eager and affectionate
as that of the brother and the child.
" Let us not return at once," said Lord Herbert.  "I had al.
ready waited for you long, and have seen all the beauties of the
parsonage and church."
"' Not many, I think, in the eyes of such a critic," said George,
as they seated themselves in the spot his brother had before
chosen for the extent and loveliness of prospect.' Enough to make me envious of you, if I had not early seen
enough to be envious of none. Indeed, I know not if such a
feeling can gain admittance to your little paradise, for I never
heard such love and reverence expressed as by your people foi
yOU."
George looked upon his brother with a pleased and open sweetness. Lord Herbert continued, with a little hesitation-" To tell
the truth, I wondered a little at the boundless affection they declared.  Our mother has long and often told me of your pure
and beneficent life, and I know what you have done for this place




20           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
and people, but, as I remember, you were of a choleric temper."
"And am so still!"
"Well, and do you not sometimes, by flashes of that, lose all
you may have gained?"
"It does not often now," he replied, "find open way.  My
Master has been very good to me in suggestions of restraining
prayer, which come into my mind at the hour of temptation."
Lord H.-Why do you not say, rather, that your own discerning mind and maturer will-show  you more and more the folly
and wrong of such outbreaks.
George H. —Because that would not be saying all that I think.
At such times I feel a higher power interposed, as much as I see
that yonder tree is distinct from myself.  Shall I repeat to you
some poor verses in which I have told, by means of various likenesses, in an imperfect fashion, how it is with me in this
matter?
Lord H. —Do so! I shall hear them  gladly; for I, like you,
though with less time and learning to perfect it, love-the deliberate composition of the closet, and believe we can better understand one another by thoughts expressed so, than in the more
glowing but hasty words of the moment.
George H.Prayer-the church's banquet; angel's age;
God's breath in man returning to his birth;
The soul in paraphrase; heart in pilgrimage;
The Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth.
Engine against th' Almighty; sinner's tower;
Reversed thunder; Christ's side-piercing spear;
The six-days' world transposing in an hour;
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear.
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss;
Exalted manna; gladness of the best;




THE TWO HIERBERTS.                       21
Heaven in ordinary; man well drest;
The milky way; the bird of paradise;
Church bells beyond the stars heard; the soul's blood;
The land of spices; something understood.
Lord H.-(who has listened attentively, after a moment's
thought.)-Tnere is something in the spirit of your lines which
pleases me, and, in general, I know not that I should differ; yet
you have expressed yourself nearest to mine own knowledge and
feeling, where you have left more room to consider our prayers
as aspirations, rather than the gifts of grace; as" Heart in pilgrimage;"
"A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear."
"Something understood."
In your likenesses, you sometimes appear to quibble in a way
unworthy the subject.
George H.-It is the nature of some minds, brother, to play
with what they love best. Yours is of a grander and severer
cast; it can only grasp and survey steadily what interests it.
My waik is different, and I have always admired you in yours
without expecting to keep pace with you.
Lord 1. —I hear your sweet words with the more pleasure,
George, that I had supposed you were now too much of the
churchman to value the fruits of my thought.
George H.-God forbid that I should ever cease to reverence
the mind that was, to my own, so truly that of an elder brother!
I do lament that you will not accept the banner of my Master,
and drink at what I have found the fountain of pure wisdom.
But as I would not blot from the book of life the prophets and
priests that came before Him, nor those antique sages who
knew all
That Reason hath from Nature borrowved,
Or of itself, like a good housewife spun,
In laws and policy: what the stars conspire:




22           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
What willing Nature speaks; what, freed by fire:
Both th' old discoveries, and the new found seas:
The stock and surplus, cause and history,- 
As I cannot resign and disparage these, because they have not
what I conceive to be the pearl of all knowledge, how could I
you?
Lord H. —Y ma sneak wisely, George, and, let me add, religiously. Wer.' a0i churchmen as tolerant, I had never assailed
the basis of their Delief. Did they not insist and urge upon us
their way as the one only way, not for them alone, but for all,
none would wish to put stumbling-blocks before their feet.
George H.-Nay, my brother, do not misunderstand me.
None, more than I, can think there is but one way to arrive
finally at truth.
Lord H.-I do not misunderstand you; but, feeling that you
are one who accept what you do from love of the best, and not
from fear of the worst, I am' as much inclined to tolerate your
conclusions as you to tolerate mine.
George H.-I do not consider yours as conclusions, but only
as steps to such. The progress of the mind should be from natural to revealed religion, as there must be a sky for the sun to
give light through its expanse.
Lord H.-The sky is-nothing! 
George H.-Except room for a sun, and such there is in you.
Of your own need of such, did you not give convincing proof,
when you prayed for a revelation to direct whether you should
publish a book against revelation?*
* The following narration, published by Lord Herbert, in his life, has often
been made use of by his opponents. It should be respected as an evidence of
his integrity, being, like the rest of his memoir, a specimen of absolute truth
and frankness towards himself and all other beings:Having many conscientious doubts whether or no to publish his book, De
Veritate, (which was against revealed religion, on the ground that it was improbable that Heaven should deal partially with men, revealing its will to one




THE TWO HERBERTS.                            23
Lord H. —You borrow that objection from the crowd, George;
but I wonder you have not looked into the matter more deeply.
Is there any thing inconsistent with disbelief in a partial plan of
salvation for the nations, which, by its necessarily limited working, excludes the majority of men up to our day, with belief that
each individual soul, wherever born, however nurtured, may receive immediate response, in an earnest hour, from the source of
truth.
George H.-But you believed the customary order of nature
to be deranged in your behalf. What miraculous record does
more?
Lord H. —It was at the expense of none other.  A  spirit
asked, a spirit answered, and its voice was thunder; but, in this,
there was nothing special, nothing partial wrought in my behalf,
more than if I had arrived at the same conclusion by a process
of reasoning.
George H. —I cannot but think., that if your mind were alrace and nation, not to another,) " Being thus doubtful in my chamber, one fair
day in the summer, my casement being opened to the south, the sun shining
clear and no wind stirring, I took my book, De Veritate, in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:-O, thou eternal God, author of
the light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I
do beseech thee, of thy infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a
sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this
book, De Veritate. If it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign
from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.-I had no sooner spoken these words,
but a loud, though yet gentle noise came from the heavens, (for it was like nothing on earth,) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as
granted, and that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon, also, I resolved to
print my book. This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest before the
Eternal God, is true; neither am I any way superstitiously deceived herein,
since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever I
saw, being without all cloud, did, to my thinking, see the place from whence it
came."
Lord Orford observes, with his natural sneer, "How could a man who
doubted of partial, believe individual revelation?"




24          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
lowed, by the nature of your life, its free force to search, it
would survey the subject in a different way, and draw inferences
more legitimate from  a comparison of its own experience with
the gospel.
Lord H.-My brother does not think the mind is free to -act
in courts and camps. To me it seems that the mind takes its
own course everywhere, and that, if men cannot have outward,
they can always mental seclusion. None is so profoundly lonely,
none so in need of constant self-support, as he who, living in the
crowd, thinks an inch aside from, or in advance of it. The hermitage of such an one is still and cold; its silence unbroken to a
degree of which these beautiful and fragrant solitudes give no
hint.  These sunny sights and sounds, promoting reverie rather
than thought, are scarce more favourable to a great advance in
the intellect, than the distractions of the busy street. Beside, we
need the assaults of other minds to quicken our powers, so easily
hushed to sleep, and call it peace. The mind takes a bias too
easily, and does not examine whether from tradition or a native
growth intended by the heavens.
George H. —But you are no common man. You shine, you
charm, you win, and the world presses too eagerly on you to
leave many hours for meditation.
Lord H.-It is a common error to believe that the most prosperous men love the world best. It may be hardest for them to
leave it, because they have been made effeminate and slothful by
want of that exercise which difficulty brings. But this is not the
case with me; for, while the common boons of life's game have
been too easily attained, to hold high value in my eyes, the goal
which my secret mind, from earliest infancy, prescribed, has been
high enough to task all my energies. Every year has helped to
make that, and that alone, of value in my eyes; and did I believe that life, in scenes like this, would lead me to it more
speedily than in my accustomed broader way, I would seek it




THE TWO HERBERTS.                      25
to-morrow-nay, to-day.  But is it worthy of a man to make him
a cell, in which alone he can worship? Give me rather the al.
ways open temple of the universe! To me, it seems that the
only course for a man is that pointed out by birth and fortune.
Let him  take that and pursue it with clear eyes and head erect,
secure that it must point at last to those truths which are central
to us, wherever we stand; and if my road, leading through the
busy crowd of men, amid the clang and bustle of conflicting interests and passions, detain me longer than would the still path
through the groves, the chosen haunt of contemplation, yet I incline to think that progress so, though slower, is surer. Owing
no safety, no clearness to my position, but so far as it is attained
to mine own effort, encountering what temptations, doubts and
lures may beset a man, what I do possess is more surely mine,
and less a prey to contingencies. It is a well-tempered wine
that has been carried over many seas, and escaped many ship.
wrecks.
George H.-I can the less gainsay you, my lord and brother,
that youtr course would have been mine could I have chosen.
Lord H.-Yes; I remember thy verse: —
Whereas my birth and spirits rather took
The way that takes the town;
Thou didst betray me to a lingering book,
And wrap me in a gown.
It was not my fault, George, that it so chanced.
George H.-I have long learnt to feel that it noway chanced;
that thus, and no other, was it well for me. But how I view
these matters you are, or may be well aware, through a little
book I have writ. Of you I would fain learn more than can be
shown me by the display of your skill in controversy in your
printed works, or the rumors of your feats at arms, or success
with the circles of fair ladies, which reach even this quiet nook.
Rather let us, in this hour of intimate converse, such as we have
3




26            PAPERS ON- LITERATURE AND ART.
not had for years, and may not have again, draw near in what is
nearest; and do you, my dear Lord, vouchsafe your friend and
brother some clear tokens as to that goal you say has from childhood been mentally prescribed you, and the way you have taken
to gain it.
Lord H.-I will do this willingly, and the rather that I have
with me a leaf, in which I have lately recorded what appeared
to me in glimpse or flash in my young years, and now shines upon
my life with steady ray. I brought it, with some thought that I
might impart it to you, which confidence I have not shown to
any yet; though if, as I purpose, some memoir of my life and
times should fall from my pen, these poems* may be interwoven.there as cause and comment for all I felt, and knew, and was.
The first contains my thought of the beginning and progress of
life: —
(From the Latin of Lord Herbert.)
LIFE.
First, the life stirred within the genial seed,
Seeking its properties, whence plastic power
Was born. Chaos, with lively juice pervading,
External form in its recess restraining,
While the conspiring causes might accede,
And full creation safely be essayed.
Next, movement was in the maternal field;
Fermenting spirit puts on tender limbs,
And,- earnest, now prepares, of wondrous fabric,
The powers of sense, a dwelling not too mean for mind contriving
That, sliding from its heaven, it may put on
These faculties, and, prophesying future fate,
Correct the slothful weight (of matter,) nor uselessly be manifested.
A third stage, now, scene truly great contains
The -solemn feast of heaven, the theatre of earth,
Kindred and species, varied forms of things




THE TWO PHIERBERTS.                            27
Are here discerned,-and, from its own impulse,
It is permitted to the soul to circle,
Hither and thither rove, that it may see
Laws and eternal covenants of its world,
And stars returning in assiduous course,
The causes and the bonds of life to learn,
And from afar foresee the highest will.
How he to admirable harmony
Tempers the various motions~of the world,
And Father, Lord, Guardian, and Builder-up,
And Deity on every side is styled.
Next, from this knowledge the fourth stage proceeds:
Cleansing away its stains, mind daily grows more pure,
Enriched with various learning, strong in virtue,
Extends its powers, and breathes sublimer air:
A secret spur is felt within the inmost heart,
That he who will, may emerge from this perishable state,
And a happier is sought
By ambitious rites, consecrations, religious worship,
And a new hope succeeds, conscious of a better fate,
Clinging to things above, expanding through all the heavens,
And the Divine descends to meet a holy love,
And unequivocal token is given of celestial life.
That, as a good servant, I shall receive my reward;
Or, if worthy, enter as a son, into the goods of my father,
God himself is my surety. When I shall put off this life,
Confident in a better, free in my own will,
He himself is my surety, that a fifth, yet higher state shall ensue,
And a sixth, and all, in fine, that my heart shall know how to ask.
CONJECTURES CONCERNING THE HEAVENLY LIFE.
Purified in my whole genius, I congratulate myself
Secure of fate, while neither am I downcast by any terrors,
Nor store up secret griefs in my heart,
But pass my days cheerfully in the midst of mishaps,
Despite the evils which engird the earth,
Seeking the way above the stars with ardent virtue.
I have received, beforehand, the first fruits of heavenly life



f28          PAPERS O/N  LITERATURE AND  ART.
I now seek the later, sustained by divine love,
Through which, conquering at once the scoffs of a gloomy destiny,
I leave the barbarous company of a frantic age,
Breathing out for the last time the infernal air-breathing in the supernal,
I enfold myself wholly in these sacred flames,
And, sustained by them, ascend the highest dome,
And far and wide survey the wonders of a new sphere,
And see well-known spirits, now beautiful in their proper light,
And the choirs of the higher powers, and blessed beings
With whom I desire to mingle fires and sacred bonds —
Passing from joy to joy the heaven of all,
What has been given to ourselves, or sanctioned by a common vow.
God, in the meantime, accumulating his rewards,
May at once increase our honour and illustrate his own love.
Nor heavens shall be wanting to heavens, nor numberless ages to life,
Nor new joys to these ages, such as an
Eternity shall not diminish, nor the infinite bring to an end.
Nor, more than all, shall the fair favour of the Divine be wantingConstantly increasing these joys, varied in admirable modes,
And making each state yield only to one yet happier,
And what we never even knew how to hope, is given to usNor is aught kept back except what only the One can conceive,
And what in their own nature are by far most perfect
In us, at least, appear embellished,
Since the sleeping minds which heaven prepares from the beginningOnly our labor and industry can vivify,
Polishing them with learning and with morals,
That they may return all fair, bearing back pa dowry to heaven,
When, by use of our free will, we put to rout those ills
Which heaven has neither dispelled, nor will hereafter dispel.
Thus through us is magnified the glory of God,
And our glory, too, shall resound throughout the heavens,
And what axr the due rewards of virtue, finally
Must render the Father himself more happy than his wont.
Whence still more ample grace shall be showered upon us,
Each and all yielding to our prayer,
For, if liberty be dear, it is permitted
To roam through the loveliest regions obvious to innumerable heavens,
And gather, as we pass, the delights of each,




THE TWO HERBERTS.                            29
Iffiled contemplation be chosen rather in the mind,
All the mysteries of the high regions shall be laid open to us,
And the joy will be to know the methods of God,Then it may be permitted to act upon earth, to have a care
Of the weal of men, and to bestow just laws.
If we are more delighted with celestial love,
We are dissolved into flames which glide about and excite one another
Mutually, embraced in sacred ardours,
Spring upwards, enfolded together in firmest bonds,
In parts and wholes, mingling by turns,
And the ardour of the Divine kindles (in them) still new ardours,
It will make us happy to praise God, while he commands us,
The angelic choir, singing together with sweet modulation,
Sounds through heaven, publishing our joys,
And beauteous spectacles are put forth, hour by hour,
And, as it were, the whole fabric of heaven becomes a theatre,
Till the divine energy pervades the whole sweep of the world,
And chisels out from it new forms,
Adorned with new faculties, of larger powers.
Our forms, too, may then be renewedAssume new forms and senses, till our
Joys again rise up consummate.
If trusting thus, I shall have put off this mortal weed,
Why may not then still greater things be disclosed' 
George H.-(who, during his brother's reading, has listened,
with head bowed down, leaned on his arm, looks up after a few
moments' silence)-Pardon, my lord, if I have not fit words to
answer you. The flood of your thought has swept over me like
music, and like that, for the time, at least, it fills and satisfies.
I am conscious of many feelings which are not touched upon
there,-of the depths of love and sorrow  made known to men,
through One whom you as yet know not.  But of these I will not
speak now, except to ask, borne on this strong pinion, have you
never faltered till you felt the need of a friend? strong in this
clear vision, have you never sighed for a more homefelt assurance to your faith? steady in your demand of what the soul re



30           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
quires, have you never known fear lest you want purity to re.
ceive the boon if granted?
Lord H. —I do not count those weak moments, George; they
are not my true life.
George H.-It suffices that you know  them, for, in time, I
doubt not that every conviction which a human being needs, to be
reconciled to the Parent of all, will be granted to a nature so
ample, so open, and so aspiring.  Let me answer in a strain
which bespeaks my heart as truly, if not as nobly as yours answers to your great mind,My joy, my life, my crown!
My heart was meaning all the day
Somewhat it fain would say;
And still it runneth, muttering, up and down,
With only this-my joy, my life, my crown.
Yet slight not these few words I
If truly said, they may take part
Among the best in art.
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,
Is, when the soul unto the lines accords.
He who craves all the mind
And all the soul, and strength and time;
If the words only rhyme,
Justly complains, that somewhat is behind
To make his verse or write a hymn in kind.
Whereas, if the heart be moved,
Although the verse be somewhat scant,
God doth supply the wantAs when the heart says, sighing to be approved,
" Oh, could I love!" and stops; God writeth, loved.
Lord H.-I cannot say to you truly that my mind replies to
this, although I discern a beauty in it.  You will say I lack hu.
mility to understand yours.




THE TWO HERBEIRTS.                         3]
George H.-I will say nothing, but leave you to time and the
care of a greater than I.  We have exchanged our verse, let us
now change our subject too, and walk homeward; for I trust
you, this night, intend to make my roof happy in your presence,
and the sun is sinking.
Lord H. —Yes, you know I am there to be introduced to my
new sister, whom  I hope to love, and win from her a sisterly regard in turn.
George H. —You, none can fail to regard; and for her, even
as you love me, you must her, for we are one.
Lord H.-(smiling)-Indeed; two years wed, and say that.
George H.-Will your lordship doubt it?  From  your muse
I took my first lesson.
With a look, it seem'd denied
All earthly powers but hers, yet so
As if to her breath he did owe
This borrow'd life, he thus repliedAnd shall our love, so far beyond
That low and dying appetite,
And which so chaste desires unite,
Not hold in an eternal bond.
O no, belov'd! I am most sure
Those virtuous habits we acquire,
As being with the soul entire,
Must with it evermore endure.
Else should our souls in vain elect;
And vainer yet were heaven's laws
When to an everlasting cause
They gave a perishing effect.
Lord H.-(sighing) —You  recall a happy season, when my
thoughts were as delicate of hue, and of as heavenly a perfume
as the flowers of May.




3-2         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
George H. —Have those flowers borne no fruit?
Lord H.-My experience of the world and men had made me
believe that they did not indeed bloom in vain, but that the fruit
would be ripened in some future sphere of our existence.  What
my own marriage was you know,-a family arrangement made
for me in my childhood. Such obligations as such a marriage
could imply, I have fulfilled, and it has not failed to bring me
some benefits of good-will and esteem, and far more, in the happiness of being a parent. But my observation of the ties formed,
by those whose choice was left free, has not taught me that a
higher happiness than mine was the destined portion of men.
They are too immature to form permanent relations; all that
they do seems experiment, and mostly fails for the present.
Thus I had postponed all hopes except of fleeting joys or ideal
pictures. Will you tell me that you are possessed already of
so much more'?
George. —I am indeed united in a bond, whose reality I cannot doubt, with one whose thoughts, affections, and objects every
way correspond with mine, and in whose life I see a purpose so
pure that, if we are ever separated, the fault must be mine. I
believe God, in his exceeding grace, gave us to one another, for
we met almost at a glance,: without doubt before, jar or repentance after, the vow which bound our lives together.
Lord H.-Then there is indeed one circumstance of your lot
I could wish to share with you. (After some moments' silence
on both sides)-They told me at the house, that, with all your engagements, you go twice a-week to Salisbury. How is that?
How can you leave your business and your happy home, so much
and often?
George H. —T go to hear the music; the great solemn church
music. This is, at once, the luxury and the necessity of my life.
I know not how it is with others, but, with me, there is a frequent
drooping of the wings, a smouldering of the inward fires, a lan



THE TWO HERBERTS.                     33
guor, almost a loathing of corporeal existence. Of this visible
diurnal sphere I am, by turns, the master, the interpreter, and
the victim; an ever burning lamp, to warm again the embers
of the altar; a skiff, that cannot be becalmed, to bear me again
on the ocean of hope; an elixir, that fills the dullest fibre with
ethereal energy; such, music is to me. It stands in relation to
speech, even to the speech of poets, as the angelic choir, who, in
their subtler being, may inform the space around us, unseen but
felt, do to men, even to prophetic men. It answers to the soul's
presage, and, in its fluent life, embodies all I yet know how to
desire. As all the thoughts and hopes of human souls are
blended by the organ to a stream of prayer and praise, I tune at
it my separate breast, and return to my little home, cheered and
ready for my day's work, as the lark does to her nest after her
morning visit to the sun.
Lord H.-The ancients held that the spheres made music to
those who had risen into a state which enabled them to hear it.
Pythagoras, who prepared different kinds of melody to guide and
expand the differing natures of his pupils, needed himself to hear
none on instruments made by human art, for the universal harmony which comprehends all these was audible to him. Man feels
in all his higher moments, the need of traversing a subtler element, of a winged existence. Artists have recognised wings as
the symbol of the state next above ours; but they have not been
able so to attach them to the forms of gods and angels as to make
them agree with the anatomy of the human frame.  Perhaps
music gives this instruction, and supplies the deficiency. Although I see that I do not feel it as habitually or as profoundly
as you do, I have experienced such impressions from it.
George 11.-That is truly what I mean. It introduces me into
that winged nature, and not as by way of supplement, but of inevitable transition. All that has budded in me, bursts into bloom,
under this influence. As I sit in our noble cathedral, in itself
3*




34          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
one of the holiest thoughts ever embodied by the power of man,
the great tides of song come rushing through its aisles; they pervade all the space, and my soul within it, perfuming me like incense, bearing me on like the wind, and on and on to regions of
unutterable joy, and freedom, and certainty. As their triumph
rises, I rise with them, and learn to comprehend by living them,
till at last a calm rapture seizes me, and holds me poised. The
same life you have attained in your description of the celestial
choirs. It is the music of the soul, when centred in the will of
God, thrilled by the love, expanded by the energy, with which it
is fulfilled through all the ranges of active life. From such
hours, i return through these green lanes, to hear the same tones
from the slightest flower, to long for a life of purity and praise,.
such as is manifested by the flowers.
At this moment they reached the door, and there paused to
look back.  George Herbert bent upon the scene a half-abstracted
look, yet which had a celestial tearfulness in it, a pensiveness
beyond joy. His brother looked on him, and, beneath that fading
twilight, it seemed to him a farewell look. It was so. Soon
George Herbert soared into the purer state, for which his soul
had long been ready, though not impatient.
The brothers met no more; but they had enjoyed together one:hour of true friendship, when mind drew- near to mind by the
light of faith, and heart mingled with heart in the atmosphere of
Divine love. It was a great boon to be granted two mortals.




THE PROSE WORKS OF MILTON.
WVITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION, BY R. W. GRISWO()LD.
THE noble lines of Wordsworth, quoted by -Mr. Griswold on
his title-page, would be the best and a sufficient advertisement of
each reprint:
"5Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour.
Return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the Sea:
Pure as the naked Heavens, majestic, free:
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful Godliness, and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay."
One should have climbed to as high a point as Wordsworth to
be able to review Milton, or even to view in part his high places.
From the hill-top we still strain our eyes looking up to the mountain-peak"ItselfTEarth's Rosy Star."We rejoice to see that there is again a call for an edition of
Milton's Prose Works.  There could not be a surer sign that
there is still pure blood in the nation than a call for these. The
print and paper are tolerably good; if not worthy of the matter,
yet they are, we suppose, as good as can be afforded and make
the book cheap enough for general circulation.  We- wih'iThefr




36          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
had been three volumes, instead of two clumsy ones, with that
detestably narrow inner margin of which we have heretofore
complained. But we trust the work is in such a shape that it
will lie on -the table of all poor students who are ever to be
scholars, and be the good angel, the Ithuriel warner of many a
youth at the parting of the ways. Who chooses that way which
the feet of Milton never forsook, will find in him a never failing
authority for the indissoluble union between permanent strength
and purity. May many, born and bred amid the corruptions of
a false world till the heart is on the verge of a desolate scepticism and the good genius preparing to fly, be led to recall him
and make him at home forever by such passages as we have read
this beautiful bright September morning, in the'Apology for
Smectymnuus.' We chanced happily upon them, as we were
pondering some sad narrations of daily life, and others who need
the same consolation, will no doubt detect them in a short intercourse with the volumes.
Mr. Griswold thus closes his " Biographical Introduction:""On Sunday, the eighth day of November, 1674, one month before completing his sixty-sixth year, JOHN MILTON died. He was the greatest of all
human beings: the noblest and the ennobler of mankind. He has steadily
grown in the world's reverence, and his fame will still increase with the lapse of
ages."
The absolute of this superlative pleases us, even if we do believe that there are four or five names on the scroll of history
which may be placed beside that of Milton. We love hero-worship, where the hero is, indeed, worthy the honors of a demi-god.
And, if Milton be not absolutely the greatest of human beings, it
is hard to name one who combines so many features of God's own
image, ideal grandeur, a life of spotless virtue, heroic endeavour
and constancy, with such richness of gifts.
We cannot speak worthily of the books before us. They have
been, as they will be, our friends and teachers, but to express




THE PROSE WORKS OF MILTON.                   37
with any justice what they are to us, or our idea of what they
are to the world at large-to make any estimate of the vast fund
of pure gold they contain and allow for the residuum of local and
partial judgment and human frailty-to examine the bearings
of various essays on the past and present with even that degree
of thought and justice of which we are capable, would be a work
of months.  It would be to us a careful, a solemn, a sacre.i task,
and not in anywise to be undertaken in the columns of a daily
paper. Beside, who can think of Milton without the feeling
which he himself expresses?"He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of
heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the
practice of all that which is praiseworthy."
We shall, then, content ourselves with stating three reasons
which at this moment occur to us why these Essays of Milton
deserve to be sought and studied beyond any other volumes of
English prose:
1st. He draws us to a central point whither converge the rays
of sacred and profane, ancient and modern Literature. Those who
sit at his feet obtain every hour glimpses in all directions.  The
constant perception of principles, richness in illustrations and
fullness of knowledge, make him the greatest Master we have in
the way of giving clues and impulses.  His plan tempts even
very timid students to hope they may thread the mighty maze of
the Past. This fullness of knowledge only a genius masculine
and divine like his could animate. He says, in a letter to Diodati,
written as late as his thirtieth year:  " It is well known, and
you well know, that I am naturally slow in writing and adverse
to write."  Indeed his passion for- acquisition preceded long and
far outwent, in the first part of his prime, the need of creation or
expression, and, probably, no era less grand and fervent than his




38          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
own could have made him still more the genius than the scholar.
But he was fortunate in an epoch fitted to develop him to his full
stature-an epoch rich alike in thought, action and passion, in
great results and still greater beginnings. There was fire enough
to bring the immense materials he had collected into a state of
fusion. Still his original bias infects the pupil, and this Master
nimlkCs us thirst for Learning no less than for Life.
2d. liHe affords the highest exercise at once to the poetic and
reflective faculties.  Before us move sublime presences, the types
of whole regions of creation: God, man, and elementary spirits
in multitudinous glory are present to our consciousness. But
meanwhile every detail is grasped and examined, and strong
daily interests mark out for us a wide and plain path on the earth
-a wide and plain path, but one in which it requires the most
varied and strenuous application of our energies to follow the
rapid and vigorous course of our guide. No one can read the
Essays without feeling that the glow which follows is no mere
nervous exaltation, no result of electricity from  another mind
under which he could remain passive, but a thorough and wholesome animation of his own powers.  Ve seek to know, to act,
and to be what is possible to Man.
3d. Mr. Griswold justly and wisely observes:-" Milton is
more emphatically Americanz than any author who has lived in
the United States."  He is so because in him is expressed so
much of the primitive vitality of that thought from which America is born, though at present disposed to forswear her lineage in
so many ways. He is the purity of Puritanism. He understood
the nature of liberty, of justice —what is required for the unimpeded action of conscience-what constitutes true marriage, and
the scope of a manly education.  He is one of the Fathers of this
Age, of that new Idea which agitates the sleep of Europe, and of
which America, if awake to the design of Heaven and her own




THE PROSE WORKS OF MILTON.                    39
duty, would become the principal exponent. But the Father is
still far beyond the understanding of his child.
His ideas of marriage, as expressed in the treatises on Divorce,
are high and pure. He aims at a marriage of souls. If he incline too much to the prerogative of his own sex, it was from that
mannishness, almost the same with boorishness, that is evident in
men of the greatest and richest natures, who have never known
the refining influence of happy, mutual love, as the best women
evince narrowness and poverty under the same privation. In
every line we see how much Milton required the benefit of " the
thousand decencies that daily flow" from such a relation, and how
greatly he would have been the gainer by it, both as mall and as
genius. In his mind lay originally the fairest ideal of woman;
to see it realized would have " finished his education."  His
commonwealth could only have grown from the perfecting of
individual men. The private means to such an end he rather
hints than states in the short essay to Education. They are such
as we are gradually learning to prize. Healthful diet, varied
bodily exercises, to which we no longer need give the martial
aim he proposed, fit the mind for studies which are by him arranged in a large, plastic and natural method.
Among the prophetic features of his system we may mention
the place given to Agriculture and Music:
"The next step would be to the authors on agriculture-Cato, Varro and
Columella-for the matter is most easy; and if the language be difficult so
much the better; it is not a difficulty above their years. And here will be an occasion of inciting, and enabling them hereafter to improve the tillage of their
country, to recover their bad soil, and to remedy the waste that is made of good;
for this was one of Hercules' praises."
How wise, too, his directions as to interspersing the study with
travel and personal observation of important objects. We must
have methods of our own, but the hints we might borrow from
this short essay of Milton's are endless.




40            PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
Then of music"The interim may, both with profit and delight, be taken up in recreating
and composing their travailed spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of
music heard or learned; either whilst the skillful organist plies his grave and
fancied descant in lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well-studied chords of some choice composer; sometimes the lute or soft organ-stop waiting on elegant voices, either to
religious, martial, or civil ditties; which, if wise men and prophets be not extremely out, have a great power over disposition and manners to smoothe and
make them genrle from rustic harshness and distempered passions."
He does not mention here the higher offices of music, but
that they had been fulfilled to him is evident in the whole texture
of his n~ifld and his page. The organ was his instrument, and
there is not a strain of its peculiar music that may not somewhere
be traced ill his verse or prose.  Here, too, he was prophetical
of our age, of which Music is the great and growing art, making
deeper revelations than any other mode of expression now adopted
by- the soul.
After these scanty remarks upon the glories of this sun-like
mind, let us look for a moment on the clouds which hung about
its earthly course.  Let us take some hints from his letters:" It is often a subject of sorrowful reflection to me, that those with whom I
have been either fortuitously or legally associated by contiguity of place or some
tie of little moment, are continually at hand to infest my home, to stun me with
their noise and waste me with vexation, while those who are endeared to me by
the closest sympathy of manners, of tastes and pursuits, are almost all withheld
from may embrace either by death or an insuperable distance of place; and have
for the most part been so rapidly hurried from my sight, that my prospects.eem
continually solitary, and my heart perpetually desolate."
The last letter in the volume ends thus:
"What you term policy, and which I wish that you had rather called patriotic
piety, has, if I may so say, almost left me, who was charmed with so sweet a
sound, without a country. * e *   I will conclude after first begging you,
if there be any errors in the diction or the punctuation, to impute it to the boy




THE PROSE WORKS OF MILTON.                            4L
who wrote this, who is quite ignorant of Latin, and to whom. I was, with no.ittle vexation, obliged to dictate not the zoords, but, one by one, the letters of which
they were composed."
The account of the gradual increase of his blindness is interesting, physiologically as well as otherwise-:"It is now, I think, about ten years (1654) since I perceived my vision to
grow weak and dull; and, at the same time, I was troubled with pain in my
kidneys and bowels, accompanied with flatulency. In the morning, if I began
to read, as was my custom, my eyes instantly ached intensely, but were refreshed after a little corporeal exercise. The candle which I looked at seemed as if
it were encircled by a rainbow. Not long after the sight in the left part of the
left eye (which I lost some years before the other) became quite obscured, and
prevented me from discerning any object on that side. The sight in my other
eye has now been gradually and sensibly vanishing away for about three years;
some months before it had entirely perished, though I stood motionless, every
thing which I looked at seemed in motion to and fro. A stiff cloudy vapor
seemed to have settled on my forehead and temples, which usually occasions a
sort of somnolent pressure upon my eyes, and particularly from dinner till evening. So that I often recollect what is said of the poet Phineas in the Argonautics:' A stupor deep his cloudy temples bound,
And when he waked he seemed as whirling round,
Or in a feeble trance he speechless lay.'
I ought not to omit that, while I had any sight left, as soon as I lay down
on my bed, and turned on either side, a flood of light used to gush from my closed
eyelids. Then, as my sight became daily more impaired, the colors became
more faint, and were emitted with a certain crackling sound; but, at present,
every species of illumination being, as it were, extinguished, there is diffused
around me nothing but darkness, or darkness mingled and streaked with an
ashy brown. Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually immersed seems always, both by night and day, to approach nearer to a white than black; and
when the eye is rolling in its socket, it admits a little particle of light as through
a chink. And though your physician may kindle a small ray of hope, yet I
make up my mind to the malady as quite incurable; and I often reflect, that as
the wise man admonishes, days of darkness are destined to each of us. The
darkness which I experience, less oppressive than that of the tomb, is, owing
to the singular goodness of the Deity, passed amid the pursuits of literature and




42           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
the cheering salutations of friendship. But if, as it is written, man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God
why may not any one acquiesce in the privation of his sight, when God has so
amply furnished his mind and his conscience with eyes? While He so tenderly provides for me, while He so graciously leads me by the hand and conducts
me on the way, I will, since it is His pleasure, rather rejoice than repine at being blind. And my dear Philura, whatever may be the event, I wish you adieu
with no less courage and composure than if I had the eyes of a lynx."
Though the organist was wrapped in utter darkness,'only
mingled and streaked with an ashy brown,' still the organ pealed
forth its perpetual, sublime Te Deum!  Shall we, sitting in the
open sun-light, dare tune our humble pipes to any other strain?
Thou may'st thank Him, Milton, for, but for this misfortune, thou
hadst been a benefactor to the great and strong only, but now to
the multitude and suffering also thy voice comes, bidding them
bate no jot of heart or hope,' with archangelic power and melody.




THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.
BY HIS SON; ROBERT JAMES MACKINTOSH.
"Biography is by nature the most universally profitable, universally pleasant
of all things; especially biography of distinguished individuals." [Opinion of
the sagacious Hofrath Henshrecke, as quoted in Sartor Resartus.]
IF the biography of a distinguished individual be thus especially
pleasant a matter, how most of all pleasant is it when a child is
found worthy to erect the monument with which the world esteems his father worthy to be honoured! We see that it is no
part of the plan of the universe to make nature or talent hereditary. The education of circumstances supersedes that of system, unlooked for influences disturb the natural action of the parent's character on that of the child; and all who have made
even a few observations of this sort, must feel that, here as elsewhere, planting and watering had best be done for duty or love's
sake, without any sanguine hopes as to the increase. From mistaken notions of freedom, or an ill-directed fondness for experimentalizing, the son is often seen to disregard the precepts or example of his father; and it is a matter of surprise if the scion is
found to bear fruit of a similar, not to say equal flavor, with the
parent tree.
I-ow opposed all this is to our natural wishes and expectations,
(i. e., to our ideal of a state of perfection,) is evident from the
pleasure we feel when family relations preserve their harmony,
and the father becomes to the son a master and a model- a reverend teacher and a favourite study. Such a happy state of
things makes the biography before us very attractive.  It is in




44         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
itself good, though, probably not as interesting or impressive as
one who could have painted the subject from somewhat a greater
distance might have- made it.  The affections of the writer are
nowhere obtruded upon us.  The feeling shown towards his
amiable and accomplished father is every where reverential and
tender, nowhere blind or exaggerated.  Sir James is always,
when possible, permitted to speak for himself; and we are not
teased by attempts to heighten or alter the natural effect of his
thoughts and opinions.  The impressions he produced on different
minds are given us unmutilated and unqualified. The youthful
errors, and the one great defect which had power to prevent so
rich a piece of creation from blooming into all that love or admiration could have wished, are neither dissembled nor excused.
Perhaps here Mr. Mackintosh kept in mind his faLther's admirable
remark upon Mrs. Opie's Memoir of her husband. " One passage I object to; where she makes an excuse for not exposing his
faults. She ought either to have been absolutely silent, or, with
an intrepid confidence in the character of her husband, to have
stated faults, which she was sure would not have been dust in
the balance, placed in the scale opposite to his merits."
Indeed, the defect here was not to be hidden, since it sapped
the noblest undertakings and baffled the highest aspirations of the
gentle and generous critic; but we might have been annoyed by
awkward attempts to gloss it over, which would have prevented
our enjoying in full confidence the record of so many virtues
and remarkable attainments. To these discerning and calm justice is done; more, as the son and friend felt, was not needed.
And, upon the whole, if filial delicacy has prevented the Life of
Sir J. M. from making so brilliant and entertaining a book as it
might be in the hands of one who felt at liberty to analyze more
deeply and eulogize more eloquently, our knowledge of it as history is probably more correct, and of greater permanent value.
The recollections of childhood are scanty.  We see, indeed,




LIFE OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.                  45
an extraordinary boy, but get little light as to what helped to
make him  what he was.  Generally we know, that if there be
anything of talent in a boy, a Scotch mist has wonderful power
to draw it out.  Add to this, that he lived much in solitude, and
on the banks of a beautiful lake.  To such means of intellectual
developement many a Swiss and many a Highlandcer has done no
visible, or at least so far'as this world knoweth, no immortal honour; but there be hardy striplings, who e.xpand their energies in
chasing the deer and the chamois, and act out the impulse, poetic
or otherwise, as it rises; while the little Jamie was fed on books,
and taught how thought and feeling may be hoarded and put out
at interest while he had plenty of time and means for hoarding.
Yet is the precocity natural to a boy of gellius wher his attention is so little dissipated, and the sphere of exercising his childish
energies so limited, very undesirable.  For precocity some great
price is always demanded sooner or later in life. Nature intended
the years of childhood to be spent in perceiving and playing, not
in reflecting and acting; and when her processes are hurried or
disturbed, she is sure to exact a penalty.  Bacon paid by moral
perversion for his premature intellectual developement.  Mozart
gave half a life for a first half all science and soul.  Mackintosh
brought out so wonderfully his powers of acquisition at the expense of those of creation, to say nothing of the usual fine of
delicate health.  How much he lived out of books we know not,
but he tells us of little else.  The details of his best plaything
— the boy-club at which he exercised himself, as the every-day
boy rides the great horse, or the young Indian tries his father's
bow, are interesting.  At an early age he went to Aberdeen,
where he came under the instruction of a Dr. Dunbar, who, if
he did not impart much positive knowledge, seems to have been
successful in- breathing into his pupil that strong desire of knowing and doing, which is of more value than any thing one can receive from another.  Here too, was he happy in that friendship




46         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
with Robert Hall, which probably did more for his mind, than all
the teachings of all his youthful years. They were eighteen
and nineteen years of age, an age when the mind is hoping
every thing-fearing nothing; a time when perfect freedom of
intercourse is possible; for then no community of interests is exacted between two noble natures, except that of aims which may
be carried forward into infinity. How beautiful, how purely intellectual, this friendship was, may be best felt from reading the
two letters Sir James wrote many years after to Robert Hall
upon his recovery from derangement. In these exquisite letters,
a subject which would seem almost too delicate for an angel's
touch, is in nowise profaned; and the most elevated, as well as
the most consoling view is taken with the confidence of one who
had seen into the very depths of Hall's nature.  There is no
pity, no flatteryr-no ill-advised application of the wise counsels
of calm  hours and untried spirits, but that noble and sincere
faith, which might have created beneath the ribs of death what
it expected to find there.  The trust of one who had tried the
kernel, and knew  that the tree was an oak; and, though shattered by lightning, could not lose its royalty of nature.
From the scene of metaphysical and religious discussions,
which gave such a bias to his mind and character, Sir James
went to lead a life of great animal and mental excitement in
Edinburgh.  Here he first tourneyed with the world, and came
off from the lists, not inglorious if not altogether victorious. Already he had loved once; but this seems, like his after-attachments, not to have been very deep; and as he ingenuously confesses, declined on his side, without any particular reason, except,
indeed, that his character was, at that time growing; which is
reason enough.  A  man so intellectual, so versatile, and so
easily moved as he, was formed to enjoy and need society, both
in and out of the domestic circle, but not to be the slave of -the
Passions, nor yet their master. Perhaps it may be doubted




LIFE OF' SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.             47
whether any man can become the master of the passions of
others without having some time gone through the apprenticeship,
i. e. the slavery to his own. Sir James never had power to electrify at will a large body of men-he had not stored up within
the dangerous materials for the "lightning of the mind"-and
every way there was more of the Apollo than the Jupiter
about him.
At Edinburgh he made many friends, acquired and evaporated
many prejudices, learned much, and talked more. Here was
confirmed that love, which, degenerationg into a need, of society,
took from him the power of bearing the seclusion and solitary
effort, which would have enabled him to win permanent glory
and confer permanent benefits.
Then came his London life, rather a bright page, but of not
more happy portent. Compare it with the London experiment of
the poet Crabbe, made known to us not long since by the pen of
his son. Do we not see here a comment on the hackneyed text,
" Sweet are the uses of adversity," and find reason to admire the
impartiality always in the long run to be observed in the distribution of human lots?  To view the thing superficially, Crabbe,
ill-educated, seemingly fit for no sphere, certainly unable to find
any for which he thought himself fit, labouring on poetry, which
the most thinking public (of booksellers) would not buy, reduced
to his last fourpence, and apparently for ever separated from his
Myra, was a less prosperous person than Mackintosh, on whose wit
and learning so many brilliant circles daily feasted, whose
budding genius mature statesmen delighted to honour, the husband
of that excellent woman he has so beautifully described, and the
not unsuccessful antagonist of that Burke on whom Crabbe had
been a dependant. Yet look more deeply into the matter, and
you see Crabbe ripening energy of purpose, and power of patient
endurance, into an even heroic strength; nor is there anywhere
a finer monument of the dignity to which the human soul can




48         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
rise independent of circumstances, than the letter which he wrote
to Burke from that fit of depression which could never become
abject; a letter alike honourable to the writer and him to whom
it was addressed. In that trial, Crabbe, not found wanting, tested
his powers to bear and to act-he ascertained what he would do,
and it was done-Mackintosh, squandering at every step the
treasures which he had never been forced to count, divided in his
wishes, imperfect in his efforts, wanting to himself, though so
far above the herd, might well have been glad to leave his
flowery paths for those through which Crabbe was led over a
stony soil, and beneath a parching sun, but still-upwards.
Had it been so, what a noble work might we have had instead
of the Vindicioe Gallicre! A bright star was that, but we might
have had a sun.
Yet had the publication of the Vindicie been followed by Sir
James's getting into parliament, and becoming the English great
man, the mover of the day, the minister to the hour, it had been
much; and we should not have been forward to express regret,
even though we might deem his natural vocation to be for literature and philosophy. Freedom has so often been obliged to retreat into garrison in England, that the honor of being one of her
sentinels there is sufficient for a life. But here again a broken
thread-a beginning not followed up. He goes to India, and
after that he was always to act with divided soul, and his life
could be nothing better than a fragment; a splendid firagment
indeed, but one on which it is impossible to look without sorrowful thoughts of the whole that might have been erected fircm
materials such as centuries may not again bring together.
The mind of man acknowledges two classes of benefactors —
those who suggest thoughts and plans, and those who develope
and fit for use those already suggested.  We are more ready to
be grateful to the latter, whose labours are more easily appreciated by their contemporaries; while the other, smaller class,




LIFE OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.'
really comprises intellects of the higher order, gifted with a
rapidity and fertility of conception too great to be wholly brought
out in the compass of a short human life.  As their heirs ani
pupils bring into use more and more of the wealth they bequeathel
to the world in unwrought ore, they are elevated by posterity
from the rank which their own day assigned them of visionaries
and obscure thinkers, to be revered almost as the Demigods of
literature and science.  Notwithstanding the hours of gloom and
bitter tears by which such lives are defaced, they are happy to a
degree, which those who are born to minister to the moment can
never comprehend. For theirs are hours of "' deep and uncommunicable joy," hours when the oracle within boldly predicts the
time when that which is divine in them, and which they now to
all appearance are breathing out in vain, shall become needful
as vital air to myriads of immortal spirit.
But Sir James Mackintosh belonged strictly to neither of these
classes.  Much  he learned-thought much-collected much
treasure; but the greater part of it was buried with him. Many
a prize, hung on high in the intellectual firmament, he could dis.
cern with eyes carefully purged from the films of ignorance and
grossness; he could discern the steps even by which he might
have mounted to the possession of any one which he had resolutely chosen and perseveringly sought-but this he did not.
And though many a pillar and many a stone remain to tell where
he dwelt and how he strove, we seek in vain for the temple of
perfect workmanship with which Nature meant so skilful an
architect should have adorned her Earth.
Sir James was an excellent man; a man of many thoughtsof varied knowledge-of liberal views-almost a great man; but
he did NOT become a great man, when he might by more earnest.
ness of parpose; he knew this, and could not be happy. This
M ant of earnestness of purpose, which prevented the goodly tree
4




.60         PAPERS ON L ITERATURE AND ART.
from bearing goodly fruit in due season, may be attributed in a
great measure to these two causes.
First, the want of systematic training in early life. Much has
been well-written and much ill-spoken to prove that minds of
great native energy will help themselves, that the best attainments
are made from inward impulse, and that outward discipline is
likely to impair both grace and strength. Here is some truthmore error. Native energy will effect wonders, unaided by school
or college. The best attainments are made from inward impulse,
but it does not follow that outward discipline of any liberality
will impair grace or strength; and it is impossible for any mind
fully and harmoniously to ascertain its own wants, without being
made to resound fiom some strong outward pressure.  Crabbe
helped himself, and formed his peculiar faculties to great perfection; but Coleridge was well tasked-and not without much hard
work could Southey become as 6' erudite as natural."   The
flower of Byron's genius expanded with little care of the gardener; but the greatest observer, the deepest thinker, and as the
greatest artist, necessarily the warmest admirer of Nature of our
time (we refer to Goethe), grew into grace and strength beneath
the rules and systems of a disciplinarian father. Genius will live
and thrive without training, but it does not the less-reward the
watering-pot and pruning-knife. Let the mind take its own
course, and it is apt to fix too exclusively on a pursuit. or set of
pursuits to which it will devote itself till there is not strength for
others, till the mind stands in the relation to a well-balanced
mind, that the body of the blacksmith does to that of the gladiator.
We are not in favor of a stiff, artificial balance of character, of
learning by the hour, and dividing the attention by rule and line;
but the young should be so variously called out and disciplined,
that they may be sure that it is a genuine vocation, and not an
accidental bias, which decides the course Dn reaching maturity.
Sir James Mackintosh read and talked through his early




LIFE OF SlR JAMIES MIACKINTOSH.               51
youth; had he been induced to reproduce in writing and bear
more severe mental drudgery, great deeds would have been easy
to him in after-days.  He acquired such a habit of receiving
from books and reproducing only a small part of what he
received, and this, too, in slight and daily efforts, that the stimulus of others' thoughts became necessary for his comfort to an
enervating degree. Books cease to be food, and become no better than cigars, or gin and water, when indulged in to excess after
a certain period.  It is distressing to see half the hours of such a
man as Sir James Mackintosh for so many years consumed in
reading of a desultory, though always interesting nature.  We
remember no diary that could in this respect vie with his, unless
it be Lady M. W. Montague's after she retired from the world.
For her it was very suitable, but we cannot excuse it in him, even
beneath the burning Indian sky. We cannot help wishing he
had been provided, as Mirabeau always was, with a literary
taster and crammer; or that, at least, he might have felt that a
man who means to think and write a great deal, must, after six
and twenty, learn to read with his fingers. But nothing can be
more luxuriously indolent than his style of reading. Reading
aloud too, every evening, was not the thing for a man whom
Nature had provided with so many tasks.  That his apprenticeship had not been sufficiently severe, he himself felt and sometimes laments. However, the copious journals of his reading are
most entertaining, full of penetrating remarks and delicate critical touches.  What his friend Lord Jeffrey mentions, " firmness
of mind," is remarkable here. Here, carelessly dashed off in a
diary, are the best criticisms on Madame de Stael that we have
ever seen.  She had that stimulating kind of talent which it is
hardly possible for any one to criticise calmly who has felt its
influence. And, as her pictures of life are such as to excite our
hidden sympathies, a very detailed criticism upon her resembles
a persoPal confession, while she is that sort of writer whom it is




52            PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND ART.
very easy to praise or blame in general terms.  Sir James has
seized the effect produced upon her works by the difference between her ideal and real character. This is one great secret of
her eloquence; to this mournful tone, which vibrates through all
her brilliancy, most hearts respond without liking to own it.
Here Sir James drew near to her; his feminine refinement of
thought enabled him to appreciate hers, while a less impassioned
temperament enabled him coolly to criticise her dazzling intuiL
tions.
How much is comprehended in these few words upon Priestley,
"I have just read Priestley's Life of himself. It is an honest, plain, and
somewhat dry account of a well-spent life. But I never read such a narrative,
however written, without feeling my mind softened and bettered, at least for a
time. Priestley was a good man, though his life was too busy to leave him leisure
for that refinement and ardor of 2moral sentiment, which havee been felt by men of
less blameless life. Frankness and disinterestedness in the avowal of his opinion
were his point of honor. In other respects his morality was more useful than
brilliant. But the virtue of the sentimental moralist is so over-precarious and
ostentatious, that he can seldom be entitled to look down with contempt on the
steady, though homely morals of the household."
And those upon Mirabeau, to whom it is so very difficult for a
good man to do justice. There is something of even Socratic
beauty in the following:
"The letters of this extraordinary man are all full of the highest flights of
virtuous sentiment, amidst the grossest obscenities and the constant violation of
the most sacred duties. Yet these declarations of sentiment were not insincere.
They were only useless, and perhaps pernicious, as they concealed from him
that depravity which he could scarcely otherwise have endured.
" A fair recital of his conduct must always have the air of invective. Yet his
mind had originally grand capabilities. It had many irregular sketches of high
virtue, and he must have had many moments of the noblest moral enthusiasm."
We say Socratic beauty, for we know no one since the Greek,
who seems to have so great a love for the beautiful in human nature with such a pity-(a pity how unlike the blindness of weak




LIFE OF  SIR  JA3MES MACKINTOSH.                      53
charity or hypocritical tenderness) —for the odious traits which
are sometimes so closely allied with it. Sir James, allowing for
all that was perverting in Mirabaau's position acting upon elements
so fraught with good  and ill, saw him  as he was, no demon, but
a  miserable man  become savage and  diseased  fronm  circumstances.
We should like to enrich this article with the highly finished
miniature pictures of Fox, Windham, and Francis Xavier; but
here is little room, and we will content ourselves with these
striking remarks upon the Hindoo character.
" The Rajpoots are the representatives of Hinduism. In them are seen all
the qualities of the Hindu race, unmitigated by foreign mixture, exerted with
their original energy, and displayed in the strongest light. They exhibit the
genuine form of a Hindu community, formed of the most discordant materials,
and combining the most extraordinary contrasts of moral nature, unconquerable
adherence to native opinions and usages, with servile submission to any foreign
yoke or unbelieving priesthood, ready to suffer martyrdom for the most petty
observances of their professed faith; a superstition which inspires the resolution
to inflict or to suffer the most atrocious barbarities, without cultivating any
natural sentiment or enforcing any social duty; all the stages in the progress
of society brought together in one nation, from some abject castes more brutal
than the savages of New Zealand, to the polish of manners and refinement
of character conspicuous in the upper ranks; attachment to kindred and to
home, with no friendship, and no love of country; good temper and gentle disposition; little active cruelty, except when stimulated by superstition; but little
sensibility, little compassion, scarcely any disposition to relieve suffering or relieve wrong done to'themselves or others. Timidity, with its natural attendants,
falsehood and meanness, in the ordinary relations of human life, joined with a
capability of becoming excited to courage in the field, to military enthusiasm, to
heroic self-devotion. Abstemiousness in some respects more rigorous than that
of a western hermit, in a life of intoxication; austerities and self-tortures
almost incredible, practised by those who otherwise wallow in gross sensuality,
childish levity, barefaced falsehood, no faith, no constancy, no shame, no belief
in the existence of justice."
But to return. Sir James's uncommon talents for conversation
proved no less detrimental to his glory as an author or as a




54          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
statesman, than the want of early discipline.  Evanescent as are
the triumphs, unsatisfactory as are the results of this sort. of
power, they are too intoxicating to be despised by any but minds
of the greatest strength.  Madame de Sta61 remarks: - Say what
you will, men of genius must naturally be good talkers; the full
mind delights to vent itself in every way."  Undoubtedly the
great author, whether of plans or books, will not be likely to say
uninteresting things; and unless early habits of seclusion haves
deprived him of readiness, and made it difficult for him to come
near other minds in the usual ways, he will probably talk well.
But the most eloquent talkers cannot always converse even
pleasingly;.of this Madame de Stael herself was a striking instance. To take up a subject and harangue upon it, as was her
wont, requires the same habits of mind with writing; to converse,
as could Sir J. Mackintosh, supposes habits quite dissimilar.
The ready tact to apprehend the mood of your companions and
their capacity for receiving what you can bestow, the skill to
touch upon a variety of subjects with that lightness, grace, and
rapidity, which constantly excite and never exhaust the attention,
the love for sparkling sallies, the playfulness and variety, which
make a man brilliant and attractive in conversation, are the reverse of the love of method, the earnestness of concentration,
and the onward march of thought, which are required by the
higher kinds of writing. The butterfly is no less active than
the eagle; his wings of gauze move not less swiftly than those
stronger pinions, he loses no moment, but visits every flower in
the garden, and exults in the sunlight which he enriches: meanwhile the noble, but not more beautiful, winged one is soaring
steadily upward to contemplate the source of light from the highest fields of ether.  Add to this, that writing seems dry work,
and but a languid way of transmitting thought to one accustomed
to the electric excitement of personal intercourse; as on the
other hand, conversation is generally too aimless and superficial




LIFE OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 
to suit one, whose mental training has been severe and independent of immediate action from other intellects.
Every kind of power is admirable, and indefinitely useful;
if a man be born to talk, and can be satisfied to bring out his
thoughts in conversation only or chiefly, let him. Sir James did
so much in this way, stimulated so many young, enchanted and
refined so many mature minds, blessed daily so many warm
hearts; as a husband and a father, he appears so amiable, probably so much more so than he would if his ambition had glowed
with greater intensity; what he did write, was so excellent, and
so calculated to promote the best kind of culture, that if he could
have been satisfied, we might; but he could not; we find himself in his journals perpetually lamenting that his life was one of
"projects and inactivity."  For even achievements like his will
seem mere idleness to one who has the capacity of achieving and
doing so much more. Man can never come up to his ideal standard; it is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard
higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward
and onward. Accordingly the wisest and greatest men are ever
the most modest. Yet he who feels that if he is not what he
would, he " has done what he could," is not without a serene
self-complacency, (how remote from self-sufficiency!) the want
of which embittered Sir James's latter years. Four great tasks
presented themselves to him in the course of his life, which, perhaps, no man was better able to have performed. Nature seems
to have intended him for a philosopher; since, to singular delicacy and precision of observation, he added such a tendency to
generalization. In metaphysics he would have explored far,
and his reports would have claimed our confidence; since his
candour and love of truth would have made it impossible for him
to become the slave of system.  He himself, and those who knew
him best, believed this to be his forte.  HIad he left this aside,
and devoted himself exclusively to politics, he would have been,




PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
if not of the first class of statesmen, one of the first in the second
class.
He went to India, and that large piece taken out of the best
part of his life made this also impossible.  Had he then devoted
his leisure hours to researches on Indian antiquities, how much
might he have done in that vast field, where so small a portion of
the harvest is yet gathered in. Nobody was better qualified to disregard the common prejudices with respect to the representations
of the Hindoos, to find a clue which should guide him through
the mighty maze of Indian theology, and remove the world of
rubbish, beneath which forms radiant in truth and beauty lie
concealed. His fondness for the history of opinion would here
have had full scope, and he might have cast a blaze of light
upon a most interesting portion of the annals of mankind. This
" fair occasion," too, he let slip, and returned to Europe, broken
in health and spirits, and weakened, as any man must be, who
has passed so many years in occupations which called for only so
small a portion of his powers.
Did he then fix his attention on that other noble aim which
rose before him, and labour to become for ever illustrious as
the historian of his country? No T Man may escape from every
foe and every difficulty, except what are within-himself. Sir
James, as formerly, worked with a divided heart and will; and
Farme substituted a meaner coronal for the amaranthine wreath
she had destined for his brow. Greatness was not thrust upon him
and he wanted earnestness of purpose to achieve it for himself.
Let us now turn from the sorrowful contemplation of his one
fault, to the many endearing or splendid qualities intimately connected with, or possibly fostered by this very fault. For so it is,
"what makes our virtues thrive openly, will also, if we be not
watchful, make our faults thrive in secret;" and vice versa.
Let us admire his varied knowledge, his refinement of thought,
which was such that only his truly philosophic turn could have




LIFE OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.                   57
prevented it from degenerating into sophistry; his devotion, even
nore tender than enthusiastic, to the highest interests of humanity; that beautiful fairness of' mind, in which he was unequalled, a fairness which evidenced equal modesty, generosity,
and pure attachment to truth; a fairness which made him more
sensible to every one's merits, and more ready to perceive the excuses for every one's defects than his own; a fairness not to be
disturbed by party prejudice or personal injury; a fairness in
which nobody, except Sir W. Scott, who was never deeply tried
as he was, can compare with him. In what other journal shall
we find an entry like the following, the sincerity of which no
one can doubt:"-  has, I think, a distaste for me, which I believe to be natural to the
family. I think the worse of nobody for such a feeling; indeed, I often feel a
distaste for myself; I am sure I should not esteem my own character in another
person. It is more likely that I should have disrespectable or disagreeable
qualities than that -   should have an unreasonable antipathy."
The letter to Mr. Sharpe on the changes in his own opinions,
exhibits this trait to a remarkable degree.
It has been said thkt had he been less ready to confess his own
mistakes of judgment, and less careful to respect the intentions
of others, more arrogant in his pretensions and less gentle towards his opponents, he would have enjoyed greater Influence,
and been saved from  many slights and disappointments.  Here,
at least, is no room for regret.
We have not, of course, attempted any thing like a comprehensive criticism upon the Life.  The range of Sir James's connexions and pursuits being so wide, and the history of hismind
being identical with that of the great political movement of his
day, a volume would not give more than verge enough for all the
thoughts it naturally suggests. If these few reflections excite
the attention of some readers and are acceptable to others, as
sympathy, they will attain their legitimate object.
4*




MODERN BRITISH POETS.
"Poets-dwell on earth,
To clothe whate'er the soul admires and loves,
With language and with numbers."
AKENSIDE.
NINE muses were enough for one Greece, and nine poets are
enough for one country, even in the nineteenth century. And
these nine are "a sacred nine," who, if not quite equal to
Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, are fairly initiated masters of
the wand and spell; and whose least moving incantation should
have silenced that blasphemer, who dared to say, in the pages of
Blackwood, that " all men, women, and children, are poets, saving.only-those who write verses."
First-There is CAMPBELL-a poet; simply a poet-no philosopher. His forte is strong conception, a style free and bold;
occasionally a passage is ill-finished, but the lights and shades
are so happily distributed, the touch so masterly and vigorous,
with such tact at knowing  where to stop, that we must look for
the faults in order to see them.  There is little, if any, origin.
ality of thought; no profound meaning; no esoteric charm,
which you cannot make your own on a first reading; yet *we
have all probably read Campbell many times. It is his manner
which we admire; and in him we enjoy what most minds enjoy
most, not new thoughts, new feelings, but recognition of
"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
Thus, in Campbell's best productions ~we are satisfied, not
stimulated.  "The Mariners of England" is just what it should




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                     59
be;-for we find fiee, deep tones, from  the seaman's breast,
chorded into harmony by an artist happy enough to feel naturewise enough to follow nature.  "Lochiel" is what it should be,
a wild, breezy symphony, from the romantic Highlands.  There
are, in fact, flat lines and tame passages in "Lochiel;" but I
should never have discovered them, if I had not chanced to hear
that noble composition recited by a dull schoolboy. The idealizing tendency in the reader, stimulated by the poet's real magnetic power, would prevent their being perceived in a solitary
perusal, and a bright schoolboy would have been sufficiently
inspired by the general grandeur of the piece; to have known
how to sink such lines as
"Welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock,
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock;"
or,
" Draw, dotard, around thy old, wavering sight;"
and a few other imperfections in favour of
"' Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn,"
and other striking passages.
As for the sweet tale of " Wyoming," the expression of the
dying Gertrude's lips is not more " bland, more beautiful," than
the music of the lay in which she is embalmed. It were difficult
to read this poem, so holy in its purity and tenderness, so deliciously soft and soothing in its coloring, without feeling better and
happier.
The feeling of Campbell towards women is refined and deep.
To him they are not angels-not, in the common sense, heroines;
but of a "perfect woman nobly planned," he has a better idea
than most men, or even poets. Witness one of his poems, which
has never received its meed of fame; I allude to Theodric. Who
can be insensible to the charms of Constance, the matron counterpart to Gertrude's girlhood?




60            PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
"To know her well,
Prolonged, exalted, bound enchantment's spell;
For with affections warm, intense, refined,
She mixed such calm and holy strength of mind,
That, like Heaven's image in the smiling brook,
Celestial peace was pictured in her look;
Her's was the brow in trials unperplexed,
That cheered the sad and tranquillized the vexed;
She studied not the meanest to eclipse,
And yet the wisest listened to her lips;
She sang not, knew not'Music's magic skill,
But yet her voice had tones that swayed the witl."
e      *      *      *       *      *k
"To paint that being to a grovelling mind
Were like portraying pictures to the blind.'Twas needful even infectiously to feel
Her temper's fond, and firm, and gladsome zeal,
To share existence with her, and to gain
Sparks from her love's electrifying chain,
Of that pure pride, which, lessening to her breast
Life's ills, gave all its joys a treble zest,
Before the mind completely understood
That mighty truth-how happy are the good!
Even when her light forsook him, it bequeathed
Ennobling sorrow; and her memory breathed
A sweetness that survived her living days,
As odorous scents outlast the censer's blaze.
Or if a trouble dimmed their golden joy,'Twas outward dross and not infused alloy;
Their home knew but affection's look and speech,
A little Heaven beyond dissension's reach.
But midst her kindred there was strife and gall;
Save one congenial sister, they were all
Such foils to her bright intellect and grace,
As if she had engrossed-the virtue of her race,
Her nature strove th' unnatural feuds to heal,
Her wisdom made the weak to her appeal;
And though the wounds she cured were soon unclosed,
Unwearied still her kindness interposed."




MODERN  BRITISH  POETS.                        61
The stanzas addressed to John Kemble I have never heard
admired to the fulness of my feeling. Can any thing be finer
than this?
" A majesty possessed
His transport's most impetuous tone;
And to each passion of his breast
The graces gave their zone."
or,
"Who forgets that white discrowned head,
Those bursts of reason's half-extinguished glare,
Those tears upon Cordelia's bosom shed
In doubt more touching than despair,
If'twas reality he felt I"
or,
" Fair as some classic dome,
Robust and richly graced,
Your Kemble's spirit was the home
Of genius and of taste.Taste like the silent dial's power,
That, when supernal light is given,
Can measure inspiration's hour
And tell its height in Heaven.
At once ennobled and correct,
His mind surveyed the tragic page;
And what the actor could effect,
The scholar could presage."
These stanzas are in Campbell's best style.  Had he possessea
as much lyric flow as force, his odes might have vied with those
of Collins. But, though soaring upward on a strong pinion, his
flights are never prolonged, and in this province, which earnestness and justness of sentiment, simplicity of imagery, and a picturesque turn in expression, seem to have marlred out as his own,
he is surpassed by Shelley, Coleridge, and WTordsworth, from their
greater power of continuous self-impulse.




62           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
T do not know where to class Campbell as a poet.  What he
has done seems to be by snatches, and his poems might have been
published under the title of "Leisure Hours, or Recreations of a
Great Man."  They seem  like fragments, not very heedfully
stricken off from the bed of a rich quarry; for, with all their
individual finish, there is no trace of a fixed purpose to be discerned in them. They appear to be merely occasional effusions,
like natural popular poetry; but, as they are written by an accornplished man in these modern days of design and system, we
are prompted to look for an aim, a prevading purpose.  We shall
not find it.  Campbell has given us much delight; if he has
not directly stimulated our thoughts, he has done so much to
refine -ur tastes, that eve must respectfully tender the poetic
garlan..
And thou, ANACREON MooRE, sweet warbler of Erin! What
an ecstasy of sensation must thy poetic life have been! Certainly
the dancing of the blood never before inspired so many verses.
Moore's poetry is to literature, what the compositions of Rossini
are to music. It is the hey-day of animal existence, embellished
by a brilliant fancy, and ardent though superficial affections.
The giddy flush of youthful impulse empurples the most pensive
strains of his patriotism, throbs in his most delicate touches of
pathos, and is felt as much in Tara's Halls as in the description
of the Harem.  His muse is light of step and free of air, yet not
vulgarly free; she is not a little excited, but it is with quaffing
the purest and most sparkling champagne. There is no temperance, no chastened harmony in her grief or in her joy. His
melodies are metrically perfect; they absolutely set themselves
to music, and talk of spring, and the most voluptuous breath of the
blossom-laden western breeze, and the wildest notes of the just
returning birds. For his poetic embodying of a particular stage
of human existence, and his scintillating wit, will Moore chiefly
be remembered.  He has been boon-companion and toast-master




MODERN BRITISH POETS,                    63
to the youth of his day. This could not last. When he ceased
to be young, and to warble his own verses, their fascination in a
great measure disappeared.  Many are now not more attractive
than dead flowers in a close room.  Anacreon cannot really
charm when his hair is gray; there is a time for all things, and
the gayest youth loves not the Epicurean old man. Yet he, too,
is a poet; and his works will not be suffered to go out of print,
though they are, even now, little read.  Of course his reputation
as a prose writer is another matter, and apart from our present
purpose.
The poetry of WALTER SCOTT has been superseded by his prose,
yet it fills no unimportant niche in the literary history of the
last half century, and mnay be read, at least once in life, with
great pleasure.  " Marmion," " The Lay of the Last Minstrel,"
&c., cannot, indeed, be companions of those Sabbath hours of
which the weariest, dreariest life need not be destitute, for their
bearing is not upon the true life of man, his immortal life. Coleridge felt this so deeply, that in a lately published work (Letters,
Conversations, &c., of S. T. Coleridge) he is recorded to have
said, "not twenty lines of Scott's poetry will ever reach posterity; it has relation to nothing."  This is altogether too harsh,
and proves that the philosopher is subject to narrowness and partial views, from his peculiar mode of looking at an object, equally
with the mere man of taste. These poems are chiefly remarkable for presenting pictures of particular epochs, and, considered
in that light, truly admirable. Much poetry has come down to
us, thus far, whose interest is almost exclusively of the same nature  in which, at least, moral conflict does not constitute the
prominent interest.
To one who has read Scott's novels first, and looks in his
poems for the same dramatic interest, the rich humor, the tragic
force, the highly wrought yet flowing dialogue, and the countless
minutiae in the finish of character, they must bring disappoint



i64         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART'ment. For their excellence consists in graphic descriptions of
architecture and natural scenery, a happy choice of subject, and
effective grouping of slightly sketched characters, combined with
steady march and great simplicity of narrative.  Here and there
sentiments are introduced, always just and gracefully worded,
but without that delicacy of shading, fine and harmonious as
Nature's workmanship in the rose-leaf, which delights us in his
prose works. It is, indeed, astonishing that he should lose so
much by a constraint so lightly worn; for his facility of versification is wonderful, his numbers seem almost to have coined
themselves, and you cannot detect any thing like searching
for a word to'tag a verse withal. Yet certain it is, we receive
no adequate idea of the exuberance and versatility of his genius,
or his groat knowledge of the human heart, from his poetry.
His lore is there as profusely displayed, his good sense and tact
as admirable, as in his prose works; and, if only on account of
their fidelity of description, these poems are invaluable, and must
always hold a place in English literature. They are interesting
too, -as giving a more complete idea of the character and habits of
one of our greatest and best men, than his remarkable modesty
would permit the public to obtain more directly. His modes of life,
his personal feelings, are no where so detailed, as in the epistles
perfixed to the cantos of Marmion.  These bring us close to his
side, and leading us with him through the rural and romantic
scenes he loved, talk with us by the way of all the rich associations of which he was master. His dogs are with him; he
surveys these dumb friends with the eye of a sportsman and a
philosopher, and omits nothing in the description of them which
could interest either. An old castle frowns upon the road; he
bids its story live before you with all the animation of a drama
and the fidelity of a chronicle. Are topics of the day introduced?
He states his opinions with firmness and composure, expresses
his admiration with energy, and, where he dissents from those he




MODERN  BRITISH  POETS.                       65
addresses, does so with unaffected candor and cordial benignity.
Good and great man!  More and more imposing as nearer seen;
thou art like that product of a superhuman intellect, that stately
temple, which rears its head in the clouds, yet must be studied
through and through, for months and years, to be appreciated in
all its grandeur.
Nothing surprises me more in Scott's poetry, than that a per.
son of so strong imagination should see every thing so in detail
as he does. Nothing interferes with his faculty of observation.
No minor part is sacrificed to give effect to the whole; no peculiar light cast on the picture: you only see through a wonderfully far-seeing and accurately observing pair of eyes, and all
this when he has so decided a taste for the picturesque. Take,
as a specimen, the opening description in Marmion.
THE CASTLE.
"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates, where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone;The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.
St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray
Less blight, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.




66           PAPERS ON LITERATURE  AND ART.
The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred,
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warden kept his guard,
Low humming, as he passed along,
Some ancient border gathering song."
How picturesque, yet how  minute!  Not even Wordsworth, devoted as he is to nature, and to visible as well as invisible truth,
can compare with Scott in fidelity of description.  Not even
Crabbe, that least imaginative of poets, can compare with him
for accuracy of touch and truth of colouring.  Scott's faculties
being nicely balanced, never disturbed one another; we perceive this even more distinctly in his poetry than in his prose,
perhaps because less excited while reading it.
I have said that CRABBE was the least imaginative of poets.
He has no imagination in the commonly received sense of the
term; there is nothing of creation in his works; nay, I dare affirm, in opposition to that refined critic, Sir James Mackintosh,
that there was no touch of an idealizing tendency in his mind;
yet he is a poet; he is so through his calm but deep and steady
sympathy with all that is human; he is so by his distinguished
power of observation; he is so by his graphic skill. No literature boasts an author more individual than  Crabbe.  He is
unique. Moore described him well.
"Grand from the truth that reigns o'er all,
The unshrinking truth that lets her light
Through life's low, dark, interior fall,
Opening the whole severely bright.
Yet softening, as she frowns along,
O'er scenes which angels weep to see,
Where truth herself half veils the wrong
In pity of the misery."
I could never enter into the state of a mind which could sup.




MODERN BRITISH POETS.
port viewing life and human nature as Crabbe's did, softened by
no cool shadow, gladdened by no rose-light. I wish Sir Walter
Scott, when expressing his admiration for the poetry of Crabbe,
had told us more distinctly the nature of the impressions he received from it. Sir Walter, while he observes with equal accuracy, is sure to detect something comic or something lovely, some
pretty dalliance of light and shade in the "low, dark interior"
of the most outwardly desolate hovel. Cowper saw the follies
and vices of mankind as clearly, but his Christian love is an ever
softly-murmuring under-current, which relieves the rude sounds
of the upper world. Crabbe in his view of the human mind
may be compared with Cowper or Scott, as the anatomist, in his
view of the human form, may be compared with the painter or
sculptor.  Unshrinking, he tears apart that glorious fabric which
has been called " the crown of creation;" he sees its beauty and
its strength with calm approval, its weaknesses, its liability to
disease, with stern pity or cold indignation. His nicely dissected
or undraped virtues are scarcely more attractive than vices, and,
with profound knowledge of the passions, not one ray of passionate enthusiasm casts a glow over the dramatic recitative of his
poems.
Crabbe has the true spirit of the man of science; he seeks
truth alone, content to take all parts of God's creations as they
are, if he may but get a distinct idea of the laws which govern
them.  He sees human nature as only a human being could see
it, but he describes it like a spirit which has never known human
longings; yet in no unfriendly temper-far from it; but with a
strange bleak fidelity, unbiassed either by impatience or tenderness.
The poor and humble owe him much, for he has made them
known to the upper classes, not as they ought to be, but as they
really are; and in so doing, in distinctly portraying the evils of
their condition, he has opened the way to amelioration. He is




68          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
the poet of the lower classes, though probably rather valuable to
them as an interpreter than agreeable as a household friend.
They like something more,tirnulating, they would prefer gin or
rum  to lemonade.  Indeed, that class of readers rarely like to
find themselves in print; they want something romantic, something which takes them out of their sphere; and high sounding
words, such as they are not in the habit of using, have peculiar
charms for them.  That is a high stage of culture in which simplicity is appreciated.
The same cold tints pervade Crabbe's descriptions of natural
scenery.  We can conceive that his eye was educated at the
sea-side. An east-wind blows, his colours are sharp and decided, and the glitter which falls upon land and wave has no
warmth.
It is difficult to do Crabbe justice, both because the subject is
so large a one, and because tempted to discuss it rather in admiration than in love.
I turn to one whom I love still more than I admire; the gentle, the gifted, the ill-fated Sheliey.
Let not prejudice deny him a place among the great ones of
the day. The youth of Shelley was unfortunate. He committed many errors; what else could be expected from one so
precocious?  No one begins life so early who is not at some
period forced to retrace his steps, and those precepts which are
learned so happily from a mother's lips, must be paid for by the
heart's best blood when bought from the stern teacher, Experience.  Poor Shelley!  Thou wert the warmest of philanthropists, yet doomed to live at variance with thy country and thy
time. Full of the spirit of genuine Christianity, yet ranking thyself among unbelievers, because in early life thou hadst been
bewildered by seeing it perverted, sinking beneath those precious
gifts which should have made a world thine own, intoxicated with
thy lyric enthusiasm and thick-coming fancies, adoring Nature




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                     69
as a goddess, yet misinterpreting her oracles, cut off from life
just as thou wert beginning to read it aright; 0, most musical,
most melancholy singer; who that has a soul to feel genius, a
heart to grieve over, misguided nobleness, can forbear watering
the profuse blossoms of thy too early closed spring with tears of
sympathy, of love, and (if we may dare it for one so superior in
intellect) of pity?
Although the struggles of Shelley's mind destroyed that serenity of tone which is essential to the finest poetry, and his tenderness has not always that elevation of hope which should
hallow it; although in no one of his productions is there sufficient
unity of purpose and regulation of parts to entitle it to unlimited
admiration, yet they all abound with passages of infinite beauty,
and in two particulars, he surpasses any poet of the day.
First, in fertility of Fancy.  Here his riches, from  want of
arrangement, sometimes fail to give pleasure, yet we cannot but
perceive that they are priceless riches.  In this respect parts of
his " Adonais," " Marianne's Dream," and " Medusa," are not
to be excelled, except in Shakspeare.
Second, in'sympathy with Nature.  To her lightest tones his
being gave an echo; truly she spoke to him, and it is this which
gives unequalled melody to his versification; I say unequalled,
for I do not think either Moore or Coleridge can here vie with
him, though each is in his way a master of the lyre. The rush,
the flow, the delicacy of vibration, in Shelley's verse, can only
be paralleled by the waterfall, the rivulet, the notes of the bird
and of the insect world. This is a sort of excellence not frequently to be expected now, when men listen less zealously than
of old to the mystic whispers of Nature; when little is understood that is not told in set phrases, and when even poets write
more frequently in curtained and carpeted rooms, than "' among
thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees and flowery glades," as
Shelley did.




70            PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND ART.
It were " a curious piece of work enough," to run a parallel
between the Skylark of Shelley and that of Wordsworth, and thus
illustrate mental processes so similar in dissimilitude.  The mood
of mind, the ideas, are not unlike in the two. Hear WVordsworth.
" Up with me, up with me, into the clouds," etc.
"Lift me, guide me, till I find
The spot which seems so to thy mind,
I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day mny heart is weary,
Had I now the wings of a Fairy
Up to thee would I fly;
There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine:
Joyous as morning, thou art laughing and scorning;
And though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark, thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I!
Happy, happy liver,
With a soul as strong as a mountain river,
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both."
Hear Shelley.
HIail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher,
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,




MODERN  BRITISH  POETS.
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run
Like an unbodied joy, whose race is just begun.'
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight,
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee.
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour,
With music sweet as love which overflows her bower.
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew




72           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view'.
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet, those heavy-winged thieves.
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphant chaunt,
Matched with thine would be all
But an empty vauntA thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain 2
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain.
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety."
I do not like to omit a word of it: but it is taking too mucn
room. Should we not say from the samples before us that Shel.




MODERN BRITISH  POETS.                      73
ley, in melody and exuberance cf fancy, was incalculably superior to Wordsworth?  But mark their inferences.
Shelley.
"Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen, then, as I am listening now."
Wordsworth.
"What though my course be rugged and uneven,
To prickly moors and dusty ways confined,
Yet, hearing thee and others of thy kind
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I o'er the earth will go plodding on
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done."
If Wordsworth have superiority then, it consists in greater maturity and dignity of sentiment.
While reading Shelley, we must surrender ourselves without
reserve to the magnetic power of genius; wye must not expect to
be satisfied, but rest content with being stimulated. He alone
who can resign his soul in unquestioning simplicity to the descant of the nightingale or the absorption of the sea-side, may
hope to receive from the mind of a Shelley the suggestions which,
to those who know how to receive, he can so liberally impart.
I cannot leave Shelley without quoting two or three stanzas,
in which he speaks of himself, and which are full of his peculiar
beauties and peculiar faults.
"A frail form,
A phantom among men, companionless,
As the last cloud of an expiring storm,
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
5




74           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey.
A pard-like Spirit, beautiful and swiftA love in desolation masked; a power
Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,
A breaking billow; even whilst we speak
Is it not broken.  On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly; on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.
His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
And a light spear, topped with a cypress cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest's noon-day dew,
Vibrated as the ever-beating heart
Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew
He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart."
Shelley is no longer "neglected," but I believe his works have
never been republished in this country, and therefore these ex.
tracts may be new to most readers.
Byron naturally in our hall of imagery takes place next his
friend.  Both are noble poetic shapes, both mournfu.:n thslr
beauty. The radiant gentleness of Shelley's brow and eye delight
us, but there are manks of suffering on that delicate cheek e,:d
about that sweet mouth; while a sorrowful indignation curls too
strongly the lip, lightens too fiercely in the eye, of Byron.
The unfortunate Byron, (unfortunate I call him, because
"mind and destiny are but two names for one idea,") has long
been at rest; the adoration and the hatred of which he was the
object, are both dying out. His poems have done their work; a
strong personal interest no longer gives them a factitious charm,




MODERN BRITISH  POETS.                       75
and they are beginning to find their proper level. Their value
is two-fold-immortal and eternal, as records of thoughts and
feelings which must be immortally and eternally interesting to
the mind of individual man; historical, because they are the
most complete chronicle of a particular set of impulses in the
public mind.
How much of the first sort of- value the poems of Byron possess, posterity must decide, and the verdict can only be ascertained'by degrees; I, for one, should say not much.  There are
many beautiful pictures; infinite wit, but too local and temporary in its range to be greatly prized beyond his own time; little originality; but much vigor, both of thought and expression;
with a deep, even a passionate love of the beautiful and grand.
I have often thought, in relation to him, of Wordsworth's descrip.
tion of
" A youth to whom was given
So much of Earth, so much of Heaven,
And such impetuous blood."
*     *: *      *      *
"Whatever in those climes he found,
Irregular in sight or sound,
Did to his mind impart
A kindred impulse, seemed allied
To his own powers, and justified
The workings of his heart.
Nor less to feed voluptuous thought,
The beauteous forms of nature wrought,
Fair trees and lovely flowers;
The breezes their own languor lent,
The stars had feelings which they sent
Into those gorgeous bowers.
And in his worst pursuits, I ween,
That sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high intent;




PAPERS -ON LITERATURE AND ART.
For passions linked to forms so fair
And stately, needs must have their share
Of noble sentiment."
It is worthy of remark that Byron's moral perversion never
paralyzed or obscured his intellectual powers, though it might
lower their aims.  With regard to the plan and style of his
works, he showed strong good sense and clear judgment.  The
man who indulged such narrowing egotism, such irrational scorn,
would prune and polish without mercy the stanzas in which he
uttered them; and this bewildered Idealist was a very bigot in
behoof of the commonsensical satirist, the almost peevish Realist
-Pope.
Historically these poems are valuable as recordi-   te:at strange
malady, that sickness of the soul, which has, ia ou:i:ay,.ankered so visibly the rose of youth.  It is common to speak of the
Byronic mood as morbid, false, and foolish; it is the two former,
and, if it could be avoided, would most assuredly be the latter
also. But how can it always be avoided? Like as a fever
rages in the blood before we are aware, even so creeps upon the
soul this disease, offspring of a moral malaria, an influence impalpable till we feel its results within ourselves. Since skilful
physicians are not always at hand, would it not be better to purify the atmosphere than to rail at the. patient?  Those who have
passed through this process seem to have wondrous little pity for
those who are still struggling with its horrors, and very little
care to aid them. Yet if it be disease, does it not claim pity, and
would it not be well to try some other remedy than hard knocks
for its cure? What though these sick youths do mourn and lament somewhat wearisomely, and we feel vexed, on bright May
mornings, to have them try to persuade us that this beautiful
green earth, with all its flowers and bird-notes, is no better than a
vast hospital? Consider, it is a relief to the delirious to rave
audibly, and few, like Professor Teufelsdrock, have strength to




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                       77
keep a whole Satanic school in the soul from spouting aloud.
What says the benign Uhland'?
"If our first lays too piteous have been,
And you have feared our tears would never cease,
If we too gloomily life's prose have seen,
Nor suffered hlan nor Mouse to dwell in peace,
Yet pardon us for our youth's take. The vine
Must weep from her crushed grapes the generous wine;
Not without pain the precious beverage flows;
Thus joy and power may yet spring from the woes
Which have so wearied every long-tasked ear;" &c.
There is no getting rid of the epidemic of the season, however
annoying and useless it may seem. You cannot cough down an
influenza; it will cough you down.
Why young people will just now profess themselves so very
miserable, for no better reason than that assigned by the poet to
some "inquiring friends,"
"'Nought do I mourn I e'er possessed,
I grieve that I cannot be blessed;"
I have here no room to explain. Enough that there has for some
time prevailed a sickliness of feeling, whose highest water-mark
may be found in the writings of Byron. He is the " power man"
(as the Germans call him, meaning perhaps the power-loom!)
who has woven into one tissue all those myriad threads, tearstained and dull-gray, with which the malignant spiders of speculation had filled the machine shop of society, and by so doing has,
though I admit, unintentionally, conferred benefits upon us incalculable for a long time to come. He has lived through this experience for us, and shown us that the natural fruits of indulgence
in such a temper are dissonance, cynicism, irritability, and all
uncharitableness.  Accordingly, since his time the evil has lessened.  With this warning before them, let the young examine




'78         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
that world, which seems at times so deformed by evils and end.
less contradictions,
"Control them and subdue, transmute, bereave
Of their bad influence, and the good receive."
Grief loses half its charm when we find that others have endured
the same to a higher degree, and lived through it.  Nor do I be.
lieve that the misanthropy of Byron ever made a single misanthrope; that his scepticism, so uneasy and sorrowful beneath its
thin mask of levity, ever made a single sceptic. I know those
whom it has cured of their yet half-developed errors. I believe
it has cured thousands.
As supplying materials for the history of opinion, then, Byron's
poems will be valuable. And as a poet, I believe posterity will
assign him no obscure place, though he will probably be classed
far beneath some who have exercised a less obvious or immediate
influence on their own times; beneath the noble Three of whom
I am yet to speak, whose merits are immortal, because their tendencies are towards immortality, and all whose influence must
be a growing influence; beneath Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.
Before proceeding to discuss these last, for which there is hardly
room in the present paper, I would be allowed to conclude this
division of my subject with a fine passage in which Shelley speaks
of Byron. I wish to quote it, because it is of kindred strain
with what Walter Scott and Rogers (in his "Italy") have written
about their much abused compeer. It is well for us to see great
men judging so gently, and excusing so generously, faults from
which they themselves are entirely free; faults at which men of
less genius, and less purity too, found it so easy and pleasant to
rail. I quote it in preference to any thing from Scott and Ro.
gers, because I presume it to be less generally known.
In apostrophizing Venice, Shelley says,




MODERN  BRITISH  POETS.
"Perish! let there only be
Floating o'er thy hearthless sea,
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance more sublime
Than the tattered pall of Time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;
That a tempest-cleaving swan
Of the songs of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed himn with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O'er a mighty thunder-fit
Chastening terror;-What though yet
Poesy's unfailing river,
Which through Albion winds for ever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred poet's grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled!
What though thou, with all thy dead,
Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own; —oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sun-like soul!
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander's wasting springs;
As divinest Shakspeare's might
Fills Avon and the world with light;
Like omniscient power, which he
Imaged'mid mortality:
As the love from Petrarch's urn
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly; so thou art,
Mighty spirit; so shall be
The city that did refuge thee."




so          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
IN earlier days the greatest poets addressed themselves more
to the passions or heart-emotions of their fellow-men than to their
thoughts or mind-emotions.  The passions were then in their
natural state, and held their natural places in the character.
They were not made sickly by a false refinement, or stimulated
to a diseased and incessantly craving state.  Men loved and
hated to excess, perhaps; but there was nothing factitious in
their love or hatred.  The tone of poetry, even when employed
on the most tragic subjects, might waken in the hearer's heart a
chord of joy; for in such natural sorrow there was a healthful
life, an energy which told of healing yet to come and the endless
riches of love and hope.
How different is its tone in Faust and Manfred; how false to
simple nature, yet how true to the time! As the mechanism of
society has become more complex, and must be regulated more
by combined efforts, desire after individuality brings him who
manifests it into a state of conflict with society. This is felt from
a passion, whether it be love or ambition, which seeks to make
its own world independent of trivial daily circumstances, and
struggles long against the lessons of experience, which tell it that
such singleness of effort and of possession cannot be, consistently
with that grand maxim of the day, the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. Not until equally enlightened and humble, can
the human being learn that individuality of character is not
necessarily combined with individuality of possession, but depends
alone on the zealous observance of truth. Few can be wise
enough to realize with Schiller, that " to be truly immortal one
must live in the whole."  The mind struggles long, before it
can resolve on sacrificing any thing of its impulsive nature to the
requisitions of the time. And while it struggles it mourns, and
these lamentations compose the popular poetry. Men do not now
look in poetry for a serene world, amid whose vocal groves and
green meads they may refresh themselves after the heat of action,




MODERN BRITISHI POETS.                    81
and in paradisaical quiet listen to the tales of other days. No!
dissatisfied and represt, they want to be made to weep, because,
in so doing, they feel themselves in some sense free.
All this conflict and apparently bootless fretting and wailing
mark a transition-state-a.state of gradual revolution, in which
men try all things, seeking what they hold fast, and feel that it
is good.  But there are some, the pilot-minds of the age, who
cannot submit to pass all their lives in experimentalizing.  They
cannot consent to drift across the waves in the hope of finding
somewhere a haven and a home; but, seeing the blue sky over
them, and believing that God's love is every- where, try to make
the best of that spot on which they have been placed, and, not
unfrequently, by the aid of spiritual assistance, more benign than
that of Faust's Lemures, win from the raging billows large territories, whose sands they can convert into Eden bowers, tenanted
by lovely and majestic shapes.
Such are Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. They could
not be satisfied, like Byron, with embodying the peculiar wit or
peculiar sufferings of the times; nor like Scott, with depicting
an era which has said its say and produced its fruit: nor like
Campbell, with occasionally giving a voice and a permanent
being to some brilliant moment or fair scene. Not of nobler nature, not more richly endowed than Shelley, they were not doomed
to misguided efforts and baffled strivings; much less could they,
like Moore, consider poetry merely as the harmonious expression
of transient sensations. To them Poetry was, must be, the expression of what is eternal in man's nature, through illustrations
drawn from his temporal state; a representation in letters of fire,
on life's dark curtain, of that which lies beyond; philosophy
dressed in the robes of Taste and Imagination; the voice of
Nature and of God, humanized by being echoed back from the
understanding hearts of Priests and Seers! Of course this could
not be the popular poetry of the day.  Being eminently the pro-....




82           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
duct of reflection Und experience, it could only be appreciated by
those who had thought and felt to some depth. I confess that
it is not the best possible poetry, since so exclusively adapted to
the meditative few.  In Shakspeare, or Homer, there is for minds
of every grade as much as they are competent to receive,
the shallow or careless find there amusement; minds of a higher
order, meaning which enlightens and beauty which enchants
them.
This fault which I have admitted, this want of universality is
not surprising, since it was necessary for these three poets to
stand apart from the tide of opinion, and disregard the popular
tastes, in order to attain firmness, depth, or permanent beauty.
And they being, as I have said, the pilot-minds of their time,
their works enjoy a growing, though not a rapidly growing, popularity.
Coleridge, in particular, is now very much read, nor, notwithstanding his was but occasional homage to the shrine of poesy,
was he the least valuable votary of the three, since, if he has
done least, if his works form a less perfect whole, and are therefore less satisfactory than those of the other two, he is far more
suggestive, more filled with the divine magnetism  of inta:tior,
than they.
The muse of Southey is a beautiful statue of crystal, in whose
bosom burns an immortal flame.  We hardly admire, as they deserve, the perfection of the finish, and the elegance of the contours, because our attention is so fixed on the radiance which
glows through them.
Thus Southey is remarkable for the fidelity, and still more
for the grace, of his descriptions; for his elegant manner of
expressing sentiments noble, delicate, and consistent in their tone;
for his imagination, but, more than all, for his expansive and fervent piety.
In his fidelity of description there is nothing of the minute




iMODERN BRITISH POETS.                    83
accuracy of Scott. Southey takes no pleasure in making little
dots and marks; his style is free and bold, yet always true,
sometimes elaborately true, to nature. Indeed, if he has a fault,
it is that he elaborates too much. He himself has said that poetry should be "'thoroughly erudite, thoroughly animated, and
thoroughly natural." His poetry cannot always boast of the two
last essentials.   Even itl his most brilliant passages there is
nothing of the heat of inspiration, nothing of that celestial fire
which makes us feel that the author has, by intensifying the
action of his mind, raised himself to communion with superior
intelligences. It is where he is most calm that he is most beautiful; and, accordingly, he is more excellent in the expression of
sentiment than in narration.  Scarce any writer presents to us a
sentiment with such a tearful depth of expression; but though it
is a tearful depth, those tears were shed long since, and Faith
and Love have hallowed them. You nowhere are made to feel
the bitterness, the vehemence of present emotion; but the phcenix born from  passion is seen hovering over the ashes of what
was once combined with it. Southey is particularly exquisite in
painting those sentiments which arise from the parental and filial
relation: whether the daughter looks back from  her heavenly
lover, and the opening bowers of bliss, still tenderly solicitous for
her father, whom she, in the true language of woman's heart,
recommends to favour, as
"That wretched, persecuted, poor good man;"
or the father, as in " Thalaba," shows a faith in the benignity
and holiness of his lost daughter, which the lover, who had given
up for her so high a destiny, wanted;-or, as in "Roderick," the
miserable, sinful child wanders back to relieve himself from
the load of pollution at the feet of.a sainted mother; alwaysalways he speaks from a full, a sanctified soul, in tones of thrill.
ing melody.




84           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
The imagination of Southey is marked by similar traits; there
is no flash, no scintillation about it, but a steady light as of day
itself.  As specimens of his best manner, I would mention the
-last stage of Thalaba's jour'ney to the Domdaniel Caves, and, in
the " Curse of Kehama," the sea-palace of Baly, " The Glendoveer," and " The Ship of Heaven."   As Southey's poems are
not very generally read, I will extract the two latter:
"THE SHIP OF HEAVEN.
" THE ship of heaven, instinct with thought displayed
Its living sail and glides along the sky,
On either side, in wavy tide,
The clouds of morn along its path divide;
The winds that swept in wild career on high,
Before its presence check their charmed force;
The winds that, loitering, lagged along their course
Around the living bark enamored play,
Swell underneath the sail, and sing before its way.
"That bark in shape was like the furrowed shell
Wherein the sea-nymphs to their parent king,
On festal days their duteous offerings bring;
Its hue. go watch the last green light
Ere evening yields the western sky to night,
Or fix upon the sun thy strenuous sight
Till thou hast reached its orb of chrysolite.
The sail, from end to end displayed,
Bent, like a rainbow, o'er the maid;
An angel's head with visual eye,
Through trackless space directs its chosen way;
Nor aid of wing, nor foot nor fin,
Requires to voyage o'er the obedient sky.
Smooth as the swan when not a breeze at even
Disturbs the surface of the silver stream,
Through air and sunshine sails the ship of heaven."
Southey professes to have borrowed the description of the Glen.
doveer from an old and forgotten book.  He has given the prose




MODERN  BRITISHI  POETS.                      85
extract in a note to the "Curse of Kehatna," and T think no one
can compare the two without feeling that the true alchymy has
been at work there.  His poetry is a new  and life-giving element to the very striking thoughts he borrowed. Charcoal and
diamonds are not more unlike in their effect upon the observer.
"THE GLENDOVEER.
"Of human form divine was he,
The immortal youth of heaven who floated by,
Even such as that divinest form shall be
In those blest stages of our mortal race,
When no infirmity,
Low thought, nor base desire, nor wasting care
Deface the semblance of our heavenly sireThe wings of eagle or of cherubim
Had seemed unworthy him;
Angelic power and dignity and grace
Were in his glorious pennons; from the neck
Down to the ankle reached their swelling web
Richer than robes of Tyrian dye, that deck
Imperial majesty:
Their color, like the winter's moonless sky
When all the stars of midnight's canopy
Shine forth; or like the azure deep at noon,
Reflecting back to heaven a brighter blue,
Such was their tint when closed, but when outspread,
The permeating light
Shed through their substance thin a varying hue;
Now bright as when the rose,
Beauteous as fragrant, gives to scent and sight
A like delight, now like the juice that flows
From Douro's generous vine,
Or ruby when with deepest red it glows;
Or as the morning clouds refulgent shine
When at forthcoming of the lord of day,
The orient, like a shrine,
Kindles as it receives the rising ray,
And heralding his way




PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Proclaims the presence of the power divineThus glorious were the wings
Of that celestial spirit, as he went
Disporting through his native elementNor these alone
The gorgeous beauties that they gave to vriew;
Through the broad membrane branched a pliant bone,
Spreading like fibres from their parent stem;
Its vines like interwoven silver shone;
Or as the chaster hue
Of pearls that grace some sultan's diadem.
Now with slow stroke and strong, behold him smite
The buoyant air, and now in gentler flight
On motionless wing expanded, shoot along."
All Southey's works are instinct, and replete with the experiences of piety, from that fine picture of natural religion, Joan of
Arc's confession of faith, to that as noble sermon as ever was
preached upon Christianity, the penitence of Roderi  the Goth.
This last is the most original and elevated in its design of all
Southey's poems.  In " Thalaba" and "Joan of Arc," he had
illustrated the power of faith; in " Madoc" contrasted religion
under a pure and simple form with the hydra ugliness of superstition.  In "Kehama" he has exhibited virtue struggling against
the most dreadful inflictions with heavenly fortitude, and made
manifest to us the angel-guards who love to wait on innocence
and goodness. But in Roderic the design has even a higher
scope, is more difficult of execution; and, so far as I know,
unique.  The temptations which beset a single soul have been a
frequent subject, and one sure of sympathy if treated with any
power. Breathlessly we watch the conflict, with heartfelt anguish mourn defeat, or with heart-expanding triumph hail a conquest.  But, where there has been defeat, to -lead us back with
the fallen one through the thorny and desolate paths of repentance to purification, to win not only our pity, but our sympathy,
for one crushed and degraded by his own sin; and finally,




MODERN BRITISH  POETS.                      87
through his faithful though secret effobrts to redeem the past,
secure to him, justly blighted and world-forsaken as he is, not
only our sorrowing love, but our respect;-this Southey alone
has done, perhaps alone could do.  As a scene of unrivalled excellence, both for its meaning and its manner, I would mention
that of Florinda's return with "Roderic," (who is disguised as a
monk, and whom she does not know,) to her father; when after
such a strife of heart-rending words and heart-broken tears, they,
exhausted, seat themselves on the bank of the little stream, and
watch together the quiet moon.  Never has Christianity spoken
in accents of more penetrating tenderness since the promise was
given to th:nn that be weary and heavy-laden.
Of Coleridge I shall say little. Few minds are capable of
fathoming his by their own sympathies, and he has left us no adequate manifestation of himself as a poet by which to judge him.
For his dramas, I consider them complete failures, and more like
visions than dramas. For a metaphysical mind like his to attempt that walk, was scarcely more judicious than it would be
for a blind man to essay painting the bay of Naples.  Many of
his smaller pieces are perfect in their way, indeed no writer
could excel him in depicting a single mood of mind, as Dejection,
for instance. Could Shakspeare have surpassed these lines?
" A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear.
O Lady, in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;




;88          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen;
Yon crescent moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all, so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
My genial spirits fail,
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the West,
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life whose fountains are within."
Give Coleridge a canvass, and he will paint a single mood as if
his colors were made of the mind's own atoms. Here he is very
unlike Southey.  There is nothing of the spectator about Coleridge; he is all life; not impassioned, not vehement, but searching, intellectual life, which seems " listening through the frame"
to its own pulses.
I have little more to say at present except to express a great,
though not fanatical veneration for Coleridge, and a conviction
that the benefits conferred by him on this and future ages are as
yet incalculable. Every mind will praise him for what it can
best receive from  him.  He can suggest to an infinite degree;
he can inform, but he cannot reform  and renovate.  To the unprepared he is nothing, to the prepared, every thing. Of him
may be said what he said of Nature,
"We receive but what we give,
In kind though not in measure."
I was once requested, by a very sensible and excellent personage to explain what is meant by " Christabel" and " The Ancient Mariner."  I declined the task.  I had not then seen Coleridge's answer to a question of similar tenor from Mrs. Barbauld,




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                    89
or I should have referred to that as an expression, not altogether
unintelligible. of the discrepancy which must ever exist between
those minds which are commonly styled rational, (as the received
definition of common sense is insensibility to uncommon sense,)
and that of Coleridge, As to myself, if I understand nothing beyond the execution of those " singularly wild and original poems,"
I could not tell my gratitude for the degree of refinement which
Taste has received from them. To those who cannot understand
the voice of Nature or Poetry, unless it speak in apothegms, and
tag each story with a moral, I have nothing to say.  My own
greatest obligation to Coleridge I have already mentioned. It is
for his suggestive power that I thank him.
Wordsworth! beloved friend and venerated teacher; it is
more easy and perhaps as profitable to speak of thee. It is less
difficult to interpret thee, since no acquired nature, but merely a
theory, severs thee from my mind.
Classification on such a subject is rarely satisfactory, yet I
will attempt to define in that way the impressions produced by
Wordsworth on myself.  I esteem his characteristics to be-of
Spirit,
Perfect simplicity,
Perfect truth,
Perfect love.
Of mind or talent,
Calmness,
Penetration,
Power of Analysis.
Of manner,
Energetic greatness,
Pathetic tendernesss,
Mild, persuasive eloquence.
The time has gone by when groundlings could laugh with impunity at " Peter Bell" and the " Idiot Mother."  Almost every




90          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
line of Wordsworth has been quoted and requoted; every feel.
ing echoed back, and every drop of that " cup of still and serious
thought" drunk up by some " spirit profound;" enough to satisfy the giver.
Wordsworth is emphatically the friend and teacher of mature
years.  Youth, in whose bosom  "' the stately passions burn,' is
little disposed to drink with him. from the
" urn
Of lowly pleasure."
He has not an idealizing tendency, if by this be meant the desire
of creating from materials supplied by our minds, and by the
world in which they abide for a season, a new and more beautiful world. It is the aspiration of a noble nature animated by
genius, it is allied with the resolve for self-perfection; and
few, without some of its influence, can bring to blossom the bud
of any virtue. ~ It is fruitful in illusions, but those illusions have
heavenly truth interwoven with their temporary errors. But the
mind of Wordsworth, like that of the man of science, finds enough
of beauty in the real present world.  He delights in penetrating
the designs of God, rather than in sketching designs of his own.
Generally speaking, minds in which the faculty of observation is
so prominent, have little enthusiasm, little dignity of sentiment.
That is, indeed, an intellect of the first order, which can see the
great in the little, and dignify the petty operations of Nature, by
tracing through them her most sublime principles. Wordsworth
scrutinizes man and nature with the exact and searching eye of a
Cervantes, a Fielding, or a Richter, but without any love for that
humorous wit which cannot obtain its needful food unaided by
such scrutiny; while dissection merely for curiosity's sake is his
horror. He has the delicacy of perception, the universality of
feeling which distinguish Shakspeare and the three or four other
poets of the first class, and might have taken rank with them had




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                   91
he been equally gifted with versatility of talent. Many might
reply, " in wanting this last he wants the better half."  To this
I cannot agree.  Talent, or facility in making use of thought, is
dependent, in a great measure, on education and circumstance;
while thought itself is immortal -as the soul from which it radiates.
Wherever we perceive a profound thought, however imperfectly
expressed, we offer a higher homage than we can to commonplace thoughts, however beautiful, or if expressed with all that
grace of art which it is often most easy for ordinary minds to acquire.  There is a suggestive and stimulating power in original
thought which cannot be gauged by the first sensation or temporary effect it produces. The circles grow wider and wider as
the impulse is propagated through the deep waters of eternity.
An exhibition of talent causes immediate delight; almost all of us
can enjoy seeing a thing well done; not all of us can enjoy being roused to do and dare for ourselves. Yet when the mind is
roused to penetrate the secret meaning of each human effort, a
higher pleasure and a greater benefit may be derived from the
rude but masterly sketch, than from the elaborately finished miniature. In the former case our creative powers are taxed to supply what is wanting, while in the latter our tastes are refined by
admiring what another has created.  Now, since I esteem Wordsworth as superior in originality and philosophic unity of thought,
to the other poets I have been discussing, I give him the highest
place, though they may be superior to him either in melody, brilliancy of fancy, dramatic power, or general versatility of talent.
Yet I do not place him on a par with those who combine those
minor excellencies with originality and philosophic unity of
thought. He is not a Shakspeare, but he is the greatest poet of
the day; and this is more remarkable, as he is, par excellence,
a didactic poet.
I have paid him the most flattering tribute in saying that there
is not a line of his which has not been quoted and requoted.




99           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Men have found such a response to their lightest as well as their
deepest feelings, such beautiful morality with such lucid philosophy, that every thinking mind has, consciously or unconsciously,
appropriated something from  Wordsworth.   Those who have
never read his poems have imbibed some part of their spirit from
the public or private discourse of his happy pupils; and it is, as
yet, impossible to estimate duly the effect which the balm of his
meditations has had in allaying the fever of the public heart, as
exhibited in the writings of Byron and Shelley.
But, as I said before, he is not for youth, he is too tranquil.
His early years were passed in listening to, his mature years in
interpreting, the oracles of Nature; and though in pity and in
love he sympathizes with the conflicts of life, it is not by mingling his tears with the sufferer's, but by the consolations of patient faith, that he would heal their griefs.
The sonnet on Tranquillity, to be found in the present little
volume, exhibits him true to his old love and natural religion.
"Tranquillity! the solemn aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore,
The tragic muse thee served with thoughtful vow;
And what of hope Elysium could allow
Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore
Peace to the mourner's soul; but he who wore
The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow,
Warmed our sad being with his glorious light;
Then arts which still had drawn a softening grace
From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,
Communed with that idea face to face;
And move around it now as planets run,
Each in its orbit round the central sun."
The doctrine of tranquillity does not suit the impetuous blood
of the young, yet some there are, who, with pulses of temperate
and even though warm and lively beat, are able to prize such




MODERN BRITISH POETS.                    93
poetry from their earliest days. One young person in particular
I knew, very like his own description of
"Those whose hearts every hour run wild,
But never yet did go astray;"
who had read nothing but Wordsworth, and had by him been
plentifully fed. I do not mean that she never skimmed novels
nor dipped into periodicals; but she never, properly speaking,
read, i. e. comprehended and reflected on any other book. But
as all knowledge has been taught by Professor Jacotot from the
Telemachus of Fenelon, so was she taught the secrets of the universe from Wordsworth's poems.  He pointed out to her how
"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of Man-like flowers."
He read her lectures about the daisy, the robin red-breast, and
the waterfall. He taught her to study Nature and feel God's
presence; to enjoy and prize human sympathies without needing
the stimulus of human passions; to love beauty with a faith
which enabled h. r to perceive it amid seeming ugliness, to hope
goodness so as to create it. And she was a very pretty specimen
of Wordsworthianism; so sincere, so simple, so animated and so
equable, so hopeful and so calm. She was confiding as an infant, and so may remain till her latest day, for she has no touch
of idolatry; and her trustfulness is not in any chosen person or
persons, but in the goodness of God, who will always protect those
who are true to themselves and sincere towards others.
But the young, in general, are idolaters.  They will have their
private chapels of ease in the great temple of nature; they will
ornament, according to fancy, their favorite shrines; and ah! too
frequently look with aversion or contempt upon all others. Till
this ceases to be so, till they can feel the general beauty of design, and live content to be immortal in the grand whole, they




94           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
cannot really love Wordsworth; nor can to them "' the simplest
flower" bring " thoughts that lie too deep for tears."  Happy his
pupils; they are gentle, they are calm, and they must always
be progressing in our knowledge; for, to a mind which can sympathize with his, no hour, no scene can possibly be barren.
The contents of the lately published little volume* accord perfectly, in essentials, with those of the preceding four.  The sonnets are like those he has previously written-equally unfinished
as sonnets, equally full of meaning as poems.  If it be the case
with all his poems, that scarcely one forms a perfect whole by itself, but is valuable as a leaf out of his mind, it is peculiarly so with
his sonnets. I presume he only makes use of this difficult mode
of writing because it is a concise one for the expression of a single thought or a single mood. I know not that one of his sonnets
is polished and wrought to a point, as this most artistical of all
poems should be; but neither do I know one which does not contain something we would not willingly lose. As the beautiful
sonnet which I shall give presently, whose import is so wide and
yet so easily understood, contains in the motto, what Messer Petrarca would have said in the two concluding lines.
(Miss not the occasion; by the forelock take
That subtle power, the never-halting time,
Lest a mere moment's putting off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime) -
" Wait, prithee, wait! this answer Lesbia threw
Forth to her dove, and took no further heed;
Her eyes were busy, while her fingers flew
Across the harp, with soul-engrossing speed;
But from that bondage when her thoughts were freed,
She rose, and toward the shut casement drew,
Whence the poor, unregarded favourite, true
To old affections, had been heard to plead
With flapping wing for entrance —What a shriek
* Yarrow Revisited, and other poems.




MODERN  BRITISH POETS.                        95
Forced from that voice so lately tuned to a strain
Of harmony! —a shriek of terror, pain,
And self-reproach!-for from aloft a kite
Pounced, and the dove, which from its ruthless beak
She could not rescue, perished in her sight 1"
Even the Sonnet upon Sonnets, so perfect in the details, is not
perfect as a whole.
However, I am not so fastidious as some persons about the
dress of a thought. These sonnets are so replete with sweetness
and spirit, that we can excuse their want of symmetry; and
probably should not feel it, except from comparison with more
highly-finished works of the same kind. One more let me extract, which should be laid to heart:
"Desponding father! mark this altered bough
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossom shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible! yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life; a stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings that for thanks shall call;
In all men sinful is it to be slow
To hope-in parents sinful above all."
"Yarrow Revisited" is a beautiful reverie.  It ought to be read
as such, for it has no determined aim. These are fine verses.
" And what for this frail world were all
That mortals do or suffer,
Did no responsive harp, no pen,
Memorial tribute offer?
Yea, what were mighty Nature's self?
Her features, could they win us,
lnhe]lped by the poetic voice
That hourly speaks within us.




9;6          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
" Nor deem that localized romance
Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears —made sport
For fanciful dejections;
Ah, no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling
Life as she is-our changeful life,
With friends and kindred dealing."
and this stanza,
"Eternal blessings on the Muse,
And her divine employment!
The blameless Muse, who trains her sons
For hope and calm enjoyment;
Albeit sickness, lingering yet,
Has o'er their pillow brooded;
And care waylay their steps-a sprite
Not easily eluded."
reminds us of what Scott says in his farewell to the Harp of the
North:
"Much have I owed thy strains, on life's long way,
Through secret woes the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawned wearier day,
And bitter was the grief devoured alone,
That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress, is thine own."
" The Egyptian Maid" is distinguished by a soft visionary style
of painting, and a stealthy alluring movement, like the rippling
of advancing waters, which, I do not remember elsewhere in
Wordsworth's writings.
"' The Armenian Lady's love" is a fine balled. The following
verses are admirable for delicacy of sentiment and musical sweet.
ness.
"Judge both fugitives with knowledge;
In those old romantic days
Mighty were the soul's commandments
To support, restrain, or raise.




MODERN  BRITISHI POETS.                      S9
Foes might hang upon their path, snakes rustle near,
But nothing from their inward selves had they to fear.
"Thought infirm ne'er came between them,
Whether printing desert sands
With accordant steps, or gathering
Forest fruit with social hands;
Or whispering like two reeds that in the cold moonbeam
Bend with the breeze their heads beside a crystal stream."
The Evening Voluntariis are very beautiful in manner, and full
of suggestions. The second is worth extracting as a forcible
exhibition of' one of Wordsworth's leading opinions.
"Not in the lucid intervals of life
That come but as a curse to party strife;
Not in some hour when pleasure with a sigh
Of languor, puts his rosy garland by;
Not in the breathing times of that poor slave
Who daily piles up wealth in Mammon's cave,
Is nature felt, or can be; nor do words
Which practised talent readily affords
Prove that her hands have touched responsive chords.
Nor has her gentle beauty power to move
With genuine rapture and with fervent love
The soul of genius, if he dares to take
Life's rule from passion craved for passion's sake,
Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent
Of all the truly great and all the innocent;
But who is innocent. By grace divine,
Not otherwise, O Nature! we are thine,
Through good and evil thine, or just degree
Of rational and manly sympathy,
To all that earth from pensive hearts is stealing,
And heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing:
Add every charm the universe can show
Through every change its aspects undergo,
Care may be respited, but not repealed;
No perfect cure grows on that bounded field,
6




s9i          PAPERS ON LITERATUrIEE AND ART.
Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace,
If he through whom alone our conflicts cease,
Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance,
Come not to speed the soul's deliverance;
To the distempered intellect refuse
His gracious help, or give what we abuse."
But nothing in this volume better deserves attention than "Lines
suggested by a Portrait from the pencil of F. Stone," and "Stanzas on the Power of Sound."  The first for a refinement and
justness of thought rarely surpassed, and the second for a lyric
flow, a swelling inspiration, and a width of range, which Wordsworth has never equalled, except in the " Ode on the Intimations
of Immortality," and the noble ode, or rather hymn, to Duty. It
should be read entire, and I shall not quote a line. By a singu.
lar naivete the poet has prefixed to these stanzas a table of contents. This distrust of his reader seems to prove that he had
risen above his usual level.
What more to the purpose can we say about Wordsworth, except-read him.  Like his beloved Nature, to be known he must
be loved. His thoughts may be transfused, but never adequately
interpreted. Verily,
"To paint his being to a grovelling mind,
Were like describing pictures to the blind.
But no one, in whose bosom there yet lives a spark of nature or
feeling, need despair of some time sympathizing with him; since
one of the most brilliantly factitious writers of the day, one I
should have singled out as seven-fold shielded against his gentle
influence, has paid him so feeling a tribute:
"How must thy lone and lofty soul have gone
Exulting on its way, beyond the loud
Self-taunting mockery of the scoffers grown
Tethered and dulled to Nature, in the crowd!
Earth has no nobler, no more moral sight
Than a Great Poet, whom the world disowns,




MODERN BRITISH  POETS.                      99
But stills not, neither angers; from his height
As from a star, float forth his sphere-like tones;
He wits not whether the vexed herd may hear
The music wafted to the reverent ear;
And far man's wrath, or scorn, or heed above,
Smiles down the calm disdain of his majestic love!"
[From Stanzas addressed by Bulwer to Wordsworth.]
Read him, then, in your leisure hours, and when you walk
into the summer fields you shall find the sky more blue, the
flowers more fair, the birds more musical, your minds more
awake, and your hearts more tender, for having held communion
with him.
I have not troubled myself to point out the occasional affectations of Southey, the frequent obscurity of Coleridge, or the diffuseness of Wordsworth.  I should fear to be treated like the
critic mentioned in the story Addison quotes from Boccalini,
whom Apollo rewarded forl his lalours by presenting him with a
bushel of chaff from which all the wheat had been winnowed.
For myself I think that where there is such beauty and strength,
we can afford to be silent about slight defects; and that we refine
our tastes more effectually by venerating the grand and lovely,
than by detecting the little and mean.




THE MODERN DRAMA.*
A TRAGEDY in five acts!-what student of poetry,-(for, admire, O Posterity, the strange fact, these days of book-craft produce not only inspired singers, and enchanted listeners, but students of poetry,)-what student in this strange sort, I say, has
not felt his eye rivetted to this title, as it were written in letters
of fire? has not heard it whispered in his secret breast?-In this
form alone canst thou express thy thought in the liveliness of life,
this success alone should satisfy thy ambition!
Were all these ardours caught from a genuine fire, such as,
in favouring eras, led the master geniuses by their successive efforts to perfect this form, till it afforded the greatest advantages
in the smallest space, we should be glad to warm and cheer us
at a very small blaze. But it is not sb. The drama, at least
the English drama of our day, shows a reflected light, not a
spreading fire. It is not because the touch of genius has roused
genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has
made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.
This is not an observation to which there are no exceptions,
some we shall proceed to specify, but those who have, with any
care, watched this ambition in their own minds, or analyzed its
* The Patrician's Daughter, a tragedy, in five acts, by J. Westland Marston:
London: C. Mitchel, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1841.
Athelwold, a tragedy in five acts, by W. Smith, Esq.; William Blackwood
and Sons. London and Edinburgh, 1842.
Strafford, a tragedy, by John Sterling..London; Edward Moxon, Dover
Street, 1-843.




THE MODERN DRAMA.   -                 101
results in the works of others, cannot but feel that the drama is
not a growth native to this age, and that the numerous grafts produce little fruit, worthy the toil they cost.'Tis indeed, hard to believe that the drama, once invented,
should cease to be a habitual and healthy expression of the mind.
It satisfies so fully the wants both of sense and soul, supplying
both deep.and light excitements, simple, comprehensive, and various, adapted either to great national and religious subjects, or to
the private woes of any human breast. The space and the time
)ccupied, the vehicle of expression, fit it equally for the entertainment of an evening, or the closet theme of meditative years.
iEdipus, Macbeth, Wallenstein, chain us for the hour, lead us
_hrough the age.
Who would not covet this mirror, which, like that of the old
wizards, not only reflects, but reproduces the whole range of
forms, this key, which unlocks the realms of speculation at the
hour when the lights are boldest and the shadows most suggestive, this goblet, whose single sparkling draught is locked from
common air by walls of glittering ice?  An artful wild, where
nature finds no bound to her fertility, while art steadily draws to
a whole its linked chain.
Were it in man's power by choosing the best, to attain the
best in any particular kind, we would not blame the young poet,
if he always chose the drama.
But by the same law of faery which ordains that wishes shall
be granted unavailingly to the wisher, no form of art will suc-e
ceed with him to whom it is the object of deliberate choice.
It must grow from his nature in a certain position, as it first did
from the general mind in a certain position, and be no garment
taken from -the shining store to be worn at a banquet, but a
real body gradually woven and assimilated from the earth and
sky which environed the poet in his youthful years. He may




102    -    PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
learn from the old Greek or -Hindoo, but he must speak in his
mother-tongue.
It was a melancholy praise bestowed on the German Iphigenia,
that it was an echo of the Greek mind. 0 give us something
rather than Greece more Grecian, so new, so universal, so indi?
vidual!
An "After Muse," an appendix period must come. to every
kind of greatness.  It is the criticism of the grandchild upon the
inheritance bequeathed by his ancestors.  It writes madrigals
and sonnets, it makes Brutus wigs, and covers old chairs with
damask patch-work, yet happy those who have no affection towards such virtue and entertain their friends with a pipe cut from
their own grove, rather than display an ivory lute handed down
from the old time, whose sweetness we want the skill to draw
forth.
The drama cannot die out: it is too naturally born of certain
periods of national development.  It is a stream that will sink in
one place, only to rise to light in another.  As it has appeared
successively in Hindostan, Greece, (Rome we cannot count,)
England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, so has it yet to appear
in New Holland, New Zealand, and among ourselves, when we
too shall be made new by a sunrise of our own, when our population shall have settled into a homogeneous, national life, and we
have attained vigour to walk in our own way, make our own
world, and leave off copying Europe.
At present our attempts- are, for the most part, feebler than
those of the British " After Muse," for our play-wrights are not
from youth so fancy-fed by the crumbs that fall from the tables
of the lords of literature, and having no relish for the berries of
our own woods, the roots of our own fields, they are meagre, and
their works bodiless; yet, as they are pupils of the British school,
their works need not be classed apart, and I shall mention one or
two of the most note-worthy by-and by.




THE MODERN DRAMA.                      103
England boasts one Shakspeare-ah! that alone was more than
the share of any one kingdom,-such a king! There Apollo
himself tended sheep, and there is not a blade of the field but
glows with a peculiar light. At times we are tempted to think
him the only genius earth has ever known, so beyond compare is
he, when looked at as the myriad-minded; then he seems to sit
at the head of the stream of thought, a lone god beside his urn;
the minds of others, lower down, feed the current to a greater
width, but they come not near him.  Happily, in the constructive
power, in sweep of soul, others may be named beside him: he is
not always all alone.
Historically, such isolation was not possible. Such a being
implies a long ancestry, a longer posterity. We discern immortal vigour in the stem that rose to this height.
But his children should not hope to walk in his steps. Prospero gave Miranda a seeptre, not his wand.  His genius is too
great for his followers, they dwindle in its shadow. They see
objects so early with his eyes, they can hardly learn to use their
own.  "They seek to produce from  themselves, but they only
reproduce him."
He is the cause why so much of England's intellect tends towards the drama, a cause why it so often fails.  His works bring
despair to genius, they are the bait and the snare of talent.
The impetus he has given, the lustre with which he dazzles,
are a chief cause of the dramatic efforts, one cause of failure, but
not the only one, for it seems probable that European life tends
to new languages, and for a while neglecting this form of representation, would explore the realms of sound and sight, to make
to itself other organs, which must for a time supersede the
drama.
There is, perhaps, a correspondence between the successions
of literary vegetation with those of the earth's surface, where, if
you burn or cut down an ancient wood, the next offering of the




104         PAPERS ON- L1TLRATURE AND ART.
soil will not be in the same kind, but raspberries and purple
flowers will succeed the' oak, poplars the pine. Thus, beneath
the roots of the drama, lay seeds of the historic novel, the romantic epic, which were to take its place to the reader, and for the
scene, the oratorios, the opera, and ballet.
Music is the great art of the time.  Its dominion is constantly
widening, its powers are more profoundly recognized.  In the
forms it has already evolved, it is equal to representing any subject, can address the entire range of thoughts and emotions.
These forms have not. yet attained their completeness, and already we discern many others hovering in the vast distances of
the Tone-world.
The opera is in this inferior to the drama, that it produces its
effects by the double method of dialogue and song. So easy
seems it to excite a feeling, and by the orchestral accompaniments to sustain it to the end, that we have not the intellectual
exhilaration Which accompanies a severer enjoyment. For the
same reasons, nothing can surpass the mere luxury of a fine
opera.
The oratorio, so great, so perfect in itself, is limited in its
subjects; and these, though they must be of the graver class, do
not properly admit of tragedy. Minds cannot dwell on special
griefs and seeming partial fates, when circling the universe on
the wings of the great chorus, sharing the will of the Divine,
catching the sense of humanity.
Thus much, as has been given, we demand from music yet
another method, simpler and more comprehensive than these.
In instrumental music this is given by the symphony, but we
want another that shall admit the voice, too, and permit the association of the spectacle.
The ballet seems capable of an infinite perfection. There is
no boundary here to the powers of design and expression, if only
fit artists can be formed mentally and practically. What could




THE MODERN DRAMA.                     105
not a vigorous imagination do, if it had delicate Ariels to enact
its plans, with that facility and completeness which pantomine
permits? There is reason to think we shall see the language of
the eye, of gesture and attitude carried to a perfection, body made
pliant to the inspirations of spirit, as it can hardly be where
spoken words are admitted to eke out deficiencies.  From our
America we hope some form entirely new, not yet to be predicted, while, though the desire for dramatic representation exists, as it always must where there is any vigorous life, the habit
of borrowing is so pervasive, that in the.lately peopled prairies
of the'West, where civilization is but five years old, we find the
young people acting plays, indeed, and " on successive nights to
overflowing audiences,"-but what? Some drama, ready made
to hand by the fortunes of Boon, or the defeats of Black Hawk?
Not at all, but-Tamerlane and the like-Bombastes Furioso,
and King Cambyses vein to the " storekeepers" and labourers of
republican America.
In this connection let me mention the drama of Metamora, a
favourite on the boards in our cities, which, if it have no other
merit, yields something that belongs to this region, Forrest having studied for this part the Indian gait and expression with some
success. He is naturally adapted to the part by the strength and
dignity of his person and outline.
To return to Britain.
The stage was full of life, after the drama began to decline,
and the actors, whom Shakspeare should have had to represent
his parts, were born, after his departure, from the dignity given to
the profession by the existence of such occasion for it. And
again, out of the existence of such actors rose hosts of playwrights, who wrote not to embody the spirit of life, in forms
shifting and interwoven in the space of a spectacle, but to give
room for display of the powers of such and such actors. A
little higher stood those, who excelled in invention of plots, preg6*




106         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
nant crises, or brilliant point of dialogue, but both degraded the
drama, Sheridan scarcely less than Cibber; and Garrick and the
Kembles, while they lighted up the edifice, left slow fire for its
destruction.
A partial stigma rests, as it has always rested, on the profession
of the actor. At first flash, we marvel why. Why do not men
bow in reverence before those, who hold the mirror up to nature,
and not to common nature, but to her most exalted, profound, and
impassioned hours?
Some have imputed this to an association with the trickeries
and coarse illusions of the scene, with pasteboard swords and
crowns, mock-thunder and tinfoil moonshine.  But in what profession are not mummeries practised, and ludicrous accessories
interposed?  Are the big wig of the barrister, the pen behind the
ear of the merchant, so reverend in our eyes?
Some say that it is because we pay the actor for amusing us;
but we pay other men for all kinds of service, without feeling
them degraded thereby. And is he, who has administered an
exhilarating draught to my mind, in less pleasing associations
there, than he who has administered a febrifuge to the body?
Again, that the strong excitements of the scene and its motley
life dispose to low and sensual habits.
But the instances, where all such temptations have been resisted, are so many, compared with the number engaged, that
every one must feel that here, as elsewhere, the temptation is determined by the man.
Why is it then that to the profession, which numbers in its
ranks Shakspeare and Moliere, which is dignified by such figures
as Siddons, Talma, and Macready, respect is less willingly conceded than applause? Why is not discrimination used here as
elsewhere?  Is it the same thing to act the ".Lady in Cornus,"
and the Lady in " She stoops to Conquer," Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark, and Sir Lucius O'Trigger?  Is not the actor, accord



THE MODERN  DRAMA.                          107
ing to his sphere, a great artist or a poor buffoon, just as a lawyer may become a chancellor of the three kingdoms, or a base
pettifogger?
Prejudice on this score. must be the remnant of a barbarism
which saw  minstrels the pensioned guests at barons' tables, and
murdered Correggio beneath a sack of copper.  As man better
understands that his positive existence is only effigy of the ideal,
and that nothing is useful or honourable which does not advance
the reign of Beauty, Art and Artists rank constantly higher, as
one with Religion.  Let Artists also know their calling, let the
Actor live and die a Roman Actor,* more than Raphael shall be
* We may be permitted to copy, in this connection, the fine plea of Massinger's "Roman Actor."
PAnRIS. If desire of honor was the base
On which the building of the Roman empire
Was raised up to this height; if; to inflame
The noble youth, with an ambitious heat,
To endure the posts of danger, nay, of death,
To be thought worthy the triumphal wreath,
By glorious undertakings, may deserve
Reward, or favor from the commonwealth;
Actors may put in for as large a share,
As all the sects of the philosophers:
They with cold precepts (perhaps seldom read)
Deliver what an honorable thing
The active virtue is: but does that fire
The blood, or swell the veins with emulation,
To be both good and great, equal to that
Which is presented on our theatres?
Let a good actor, in a lofty scene,
Show great Alcides, honored in the sweat
Of his twelve labors; or a bold Camillus,
F,;bidding Rome to be redeemed with gold
From' the insulting Gauls, or Scipio,
After his victories, imposing tribute
On conquered Carthage; if done to the life,




c108        - PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
elected Cardinals, and of a purer church; and it shall be ere
long remembered as dream and fable, that the representative of
"my Cid" could not rest in consecrated ground.
As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,
And (lid partake with them in their rewards,
All that have any spark of Roman in them,
The slothful arts laid by, contend to be
-Like those they see presented.
SECOND SENATOR. He has put
The consuls to their whisper.
PARIS. But'tis urged
That we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.
When do we bring a vice upon the stage,
That does go off unpunished? Do we teach,
By the success of wicked undertakings,
Others to tread in their forbidden steps?
We show no arts of Lydian panderism,
Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,
But mulcted so in the conclusion, that
Even those spectators, that were so inclined,
Go home changed men. And for traducing such
That are above us, publishing to the world
Their secret crimes, we are as innocent
As such as are born dumb. When we present
An heir, that does conspire against the life
Of his dear parent, numbering every hour
He lives, as tedious to him; if there be
Among the auditors one, whose conscience tells him
He is of the same mould,-WE CANNOT HELP IT.
Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,
That does maintain the riotous expense
Of her licentious paramour, yet suffers
The lawful pledges of a former bed
To starve the while for hunger; if a matron,
However great in fortune, birth, or titles,
Cry out,'Tis writ for me!-WE CANNOT IHELP IT,
Or, when a covetous man's expressed, whose wealth




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                          109
In Germany these questions have already been fairly weighed,
and those who read the sketches of her great actors) as given by
Tieck, know that there, at least, they took with the best minds of
their age and country their proper place.
And who, that reads Joanna Baillie's address to Mrs. Siddons,
but feels that the fate, which placed his birth in another age from
her, has robbed him of full sense of a kind of greatness whose
absence none other can entirely supply.
The impassioned changes of thy beauteous face,
Thy arms impetuous tost, thy robe's wide flow,
And the dark tempest gathered on thy brow,
"-hat time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn
Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne;
Remorseful musings sunk to deep dejection,
The fixed and yearning looks of strong affection;
Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships
A falcon in one day cannot fly over;
Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping
As not to afford himself the necessaries
To maintain life, if a patrician,
(Though honored with a consulship) find himself
Touched to the quick in this,-WE CANNOT HELP IT.
Or, when we show a judge that is corrupt,
And will give up his sentence, as he favors
The person, not the cause; saving the guilty
If of his faction, and as oft condemning
The innocent, out of particular spleen;
If any in this reverend assembly,
Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image
Of absent Caesar, feel something in your bosom
That puts you in remembrance of things past,
Or things intended,-'TIs NOT IN US TO HELP IT.
I have said, my lord, and now, as you find cause,
Or censure us, or free us with applause.




110          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
The actioned turmoil of a bosom rending,
Where pity, love, and honor, are contending;
*      e     e      e      *      *
Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow,
Loud rage, and fear's snatch'd whisper, quick and low,
The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief,
And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief;
The change of voice and emphasis that threw
Light on obscurity, and brought to view
Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood,
Or mingled humors, terse and new, elude
Common perception, as earth's smallest things
To size and form the vesting hoar-frost brings.
*     *      *       *   *   *   *
* * * Thylight   *   *   *   *
* from the mental world can never fade,
Till all, who've seen thee, in the grave are laid.
Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams
And what thou wert to the rapt sleeper seems,
While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace
Within her curtained couch thy wondrous face;
Yea, and to many a wight, bereft and lone,
In musing hours, though all to thee unknown,
Soothing his early course of good and ill,
With all thy potent charm thou actest still.
Perhaps the effect produced by Mrs. Siddons is still more
vividly shown in the character of Jane de Montfort, which seems
modelled from  her.  We have no such  lotus cup  to drink.
Mademoiselle Rachel indeed seems to possess as much electric
force as Mrs. Siddons, but not the same imposing individuality.
The Kembles and Talma were cast in the royal mint to commemorate the victories of genius.   That Mrs. Siddons even
added somewhat of congenial glory to Shakspeare's own conceptions, those who compare the engravings of her in Lady Macbeth
and Catherine of Arragon, with the picture drawn in their own
minds from acquaintance with these beings in the original, cannot
doubt; the sun is reflected with new glory in the majestic river.




THE MODERN DRAMA.                    111.
Yet, under all these disadvantages there have risen up often, in
England, and even in our own country, actors who gave a reason
for the continued existence of the theatre, who sustained the
ill-educated, flimsy troop, which commonly fills it, and. provoked both the poet and the playwright to turn their powers in
that direction.
The plays written for them, though no genuine dramas, are
not without value as spectacle, and the opportunity, however
lame, gives freer play to the actor's powers, than would the simple recitation, by which some have thought any attempt at acting
whole plays should be superseded. And under the starring system it is certainly less painful, on the whole, to see a play of
Knowles's than one of Shakspeare's; for the former, with its
frigid diction, unnatural dialogue, and academic figures, affords
scope for the actor to produce striking effects, and to show a
knowledge of the passions, while all the various beauties of
Shakspeare are traduced by the puppets who should repeat them,
and the being closer to nature, brings no one figure into such bold
relief as is desirable when there is only one actor. Virginius,
the Hunchback, Metamora, are plays quite good enough for the
stage at present; and they are such as those who attend the
representations of plays will be very likely to write.
Another class of dramas are those written by the scholars and
thinkers, whose tastes have been formed, and whose ambition
kindled, by acquaintance with the genuine English dramatists.
These again may be divided into two sorts. One, those who
have some idea to bring out, which craves a form more lively
than the essay, more compact than the narrative, and who therefore adopt (if Hibernicism  may be permitted) the dialogued
monologue to very good purpose. Such are Festus, Paracelsus,
Coleridge's Remorse, Shelley's Cenci; Miss Baillie's plays,
though meant for action, and with studied attempts to vary them
by the lighter shades of common nature, which, from her want




112          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
of lively power, have no effect, except to break up the interest,
and Byron's are of the same class; they have no present life, no
action, no slight natural touches, no delicate lines, as of one who
paints his portrait firom the fact; their interest is poetic, nature
apprehended in her spirit; philosophic, actions traced back to
their causes; but not dramatic, nature reproduced in actual presence. This, as a form for the closet, is a very good one, and
well fitted to the genius of our time. Whenever the writers of
such fail, it is because they have the stage in view, instead of considering the dramatis personae merely as names for classes of
thoughts. Somewhere betwixt these and the mere acting plays
stand such as Maturin's Bertram, Talfourd's Ion, and (now before
me) Longfellow's Spanish Student. Bertram is a good acting
play, that is, it gives a good opportunity to one actor, and its
painting, though coarse, is effective. Ion, also, can be acted,
though its principal merit is in the nobleness of design, and in details it is too elaborate for the scene.  Still it does move and melt,
and it is honorable to us that a piece constructed on so high a
motile, whose tragedy is so much nobler than the customary forms
of passion, can act on audiences long unfamiliar with such religion.  The Spanish Student might also be acted, though with no
great effect, for there is little movement in the piece, or development of character; its chief merit is in the graceful expression
of'single thoughts or fancies; as here,
All the means of action
The shapeless masses, the materials,
Lie every where about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.




THE MODERN DRAMA.                            113
He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand,
And by the magic of his touch at once
Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine,
And in the eyes of the astonished clown,
It gleams a diamond. Even thus transformed,
Rude popular traditions and old tales
Shine as immortal poems, at the touch
Of some poor houseless, homeless, wandering bard,
Who had but a night's lodging for his pains.
But there are brighter dreams than those of fame,
Which are the dreams of love! Out of the heart
Rises the bright ideal of these dreams,
As from some woodland fount a spirit rises
And sinks again into its silent deeps,
Ere the enamoured knight can touch her robe!'T is this ideal, that the soul of man,
Like the enamoured knight beside the fountain,
Waits for upon the margin of life's stream;
Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters
Clad in a mortal shape! Alas! how many
Must wait in vain! The stream flows evermore,
But from its silent deeps no spirit rises.
Or here,
I will forget her t All dear recollections
Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book,
Shall be torn out, and scattered to the winds;
I will forget her! But perhaps hereafter,
When she shall learn how heartless is the world,
A voice within her will repeat my name,
And she will say,'He was indeed my friend.'
Passages like these would give great pleasure in the chaste and
carefully-shaded recitation of Macready or Miss Tree. The style
of the play is, throughout, elegant and simple. Neither the plot
nor characters can boast any originality, but the one is woven
with skill and taste, the others very well drawn, for so slight handling.
We had purposed in this place to notice some of the modern




114         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
French plays, which hold about the same relation to the true
drama, but this task must wait a more convenient season.
One of the plays at the head of this notice also comes in here,
The Patrician's Daughter, which, though a failure as a tragedy,
from an improbability in the plot, and a want of power to touch
the secret springs of passion, yet has the merits of genteel comedy in the unstrained and flowing dialogue, and dignity in the
conception of character.  A piece like this pleases, if only by the
atmosphere of intellect and refinement it breathes.
But a third class, of higher interest, is the historical, such as
may well have been suggested to one whose youth was familiar
with Shakspeare's Julius Caesar, and Kings of England.  Who
that wears in his breast an English heart, and has feeling to appreciate the capabilities of the historic drama, but must burn with
desire to use the occasions offered in profusion by the chronicles
of England and kindred nations, to adorn the inherited halls with
one tapestry more. It is difficult to say why such an attempt
should fail, yet it does fail, and each effort in this kind shows
plainly that the historic novel, not the historic drama, is the formn
appropriate to the genius of our day. Yet these failures come so
near success, the spent arrows show so bold and strong a hand in
the marksman, that we would not, for much, be without them.
First and highest in this list comes Philip Van Artevelde, of
which we can say that it bears new fruit on the twentieth reading. At first it fell rather coldly on the mind, coming as it did,
not as the flower of full flushed being, but with the air of an experiment made to verify a theory.  It came with wrinkled critic's
brow, consciously antagonistic to a tendency of the age, and we
looked on it with cold critic's eye, unapt to weep or glow at its
bidding. But, on closer acquaintance, we see that this way of
looking, though induced by the author, is quite unjust. It is really
a noble work that teaches us, a genuine growth that makes us
grow, a reflex of nature from the calm depths of a large soul.




THE MODERN DRAMA.                     115
The grave and comprehensive character of the ripened man, of
him whom fire, and light, and earth have tempered to an intelligent delegate of humanity, has never been more justly felt, rarely
more life-like painted, than by this author. The Flemish blood
and the fiery soul are both understood. Philip stands among his
compatriots the man mature, not premature or alien.  He is
what they should be, his life the reconciling word of his age and
nation, the thinking head of an unintelligent and easily distempered body, a true king.  The accessories are all in keeping, saplings of the same wood. The eating, drinking, quarrelling citizens, the petulant sister, the pure and lovely bride, the sorrowful
and stained, but deep-souled mistress, the monk, much a priest,
but more a man, all belong to him and all require him. We cannot think of any part of this piece without its centre, and this fact
proclaims it a great work of art.  It is great, the conception of
the swelling tide of fortune, on which this figure is upborne serenely eminent, of the sinking of that tide with the same face
rising from the depths, veiled with the same cloud as the heavens,
in its sadness calmer yet. Too wise and rich a nature he, too
intelligent of the teachings of earth and heaven to be a stoic, but
too comprehensive, too poetic, to be swayed, though he might be
moved, by chance or passion. Some one called him Philip the
Imperturbable, but his greatness is, that he is not imperturbable,
only, as the author announces, " not passion's slave."  The gods
would not be gods, if they were ignorant, or impassive; they must
be able to see all that men see, only from a higher point of view.
Such pictures make us willing to live in the widest sense, to
bear all that may be borne, for we see that virgin gold may be
fit to adorn a scabbard, but the good blade is made of' tempered
steel.
Justice has not been done by the critics to the admirable conduct of the Second Part, because our imaginations were at first so
struck by the full length picture of the hero in the conquering.




116         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
days of the First Part, and it was painful to see its majesty veiled with crape, its towering strength sink to ruins in the second.
Then there are more grand and full passages in the First which
can be detached and recollected; as,
We have not time to mourn; the worse for us,
He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend;
Eternity mourns that.'T is an ill cure
For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
Where sorrow's held intrusive and turned out,
There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
Nor aught that dignifies humanity.
That beginning,
To bring a cloud upon the summer day,
or this famous one,
Nor do I now despond, &c.
or the fine scene between Clara, Van Artevelde, and Father John,
where she describes the death scene at Sesenheim's, beginning,
Much hast thou merited, my sister dear.
The second part must be taken as a whole, the dark cloud widening and blackening as it advances, while ghastly flashes of
presage come more and more frequent as the daylight diminishes.
But there is far more fervor of genius than in the First, showing
a mind less possessing, more possessed by, the subject, and finer
touches of nature. Van Artevelde's dignity overpowers us more,
as he himself feels it less; as in the acceptance of Father John's
reproof.
VAN ARTEVELDE.
Father John!
Though peradventure fallen in your esteem,
I humbly ask your blessing, as a man,
That having passed for more in your repute
Than he could justify, should be content,
Not with his state, but with the judgment true




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          117
That to the lowly level of his state
Brings down his reputation.
FATHER JOHN.
Oh, my son!
High as you stand, I will not strain my eyes
To see how higher still you stood before.
God's blessing be upon you. Fare you well.
[Exit.
ARTEVELDE.
The old man weeps.
But he reverts at once to the topic of his thought,
Should England play me false, &c.
as he always does, for a mind so great, so high, that it cannot fail
to look over and around any one object, any especial emotion, returns to its habitual mood with an ease of which shallow and excitable natures cannot conceive. Thus his reflection, after he lias
wooed Elena, is not that of heartlessness, but of a deep heart.
How little flattering is a woman's love!
And is in keeping with
I know my course
And be it armies, cities, people, priests,
That quarrel with my love, wise men or fools,
Friends, foes, or factions, they may swear their oaths,
And make their murmur; rave, and fret, and fear,
Suspect, admonish; they but waste their rage,
Their wits, their words, their counsel; here I stand
Upon the deep foundations of my faith,
To this fair outcast plighted; and the storm
That princes from their palaces shakes out,
Though it should turn and head me, should not strain
The seeming silken texture of this tie.
And not less with
Pain and grief
Are transitory things no less than joy;




lidi        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
And though they leave us not the men we were,
Yet they do leave us.
With the admirable passages that follow.
The delicate touches, with which Elena is made to depict her
own character, move us more than Artevelde's most beautiful de.
scription of Adriana.
I have been much unfortunate, my lord,
I would not love again.
Shakspeare could not mend the collocation of those words.
When he is absent I am full of thought,
And fruitful in expression inwardly,
And fresh, and free, and cordial, is the flow
Of my ideal and unheard discourse,
Calling him in my heart endearing names,
Familiarly fearless. But alas!
No sooner is he present than my thoughts
Are breathless and bewitched, and stunted so
In force and freedom, that I ask myself
Whether I think at all, or feel, or live,
So senseless am I.
Would that I were merry
Mirth have I valued not before; but now
What would I give to be the laughing front
Of gay imaginations ever bright,
And sparkling fantasies! Oh, all I have,
Which is not nothing, though I prize it not;
My understanding soul, my brooding sense,
My passionate fancy, and the gift of gifts
Dearest to woman, which deflowering Time,
Slow ravisher, from clenchedest fingers wrings,
My corporal beauty would I barter now
For such an antic and exulting spirit
As lives in lively women.
Your grave, and wise,
And melancholy men, if they have souls,




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          119
As commonly they have, susceptible
Of all impressions, lavish most their love
Upon the blithe and sportive, and on such
As yield their want, and chase their sad excess,
With jocund salutations, nimble talk,
And buoyant bearing.
All herself is in the line,
Which is not nothing, though I prize it not.
And in her song,
Down lay in a nook my lady's brach.
This song I have heard quoted, and applied in such a way as
to show that the profound meaning, so simply expressed, has sometimes been understood.
See with what a strain of reflection Van Artevelde greets the
news that makes sure his overthrow.
It is strange, yet true,
That doubtful knowledge travels with a speed
Miraculous, which certain cannot match;
I know not why, when this or that has chanced,
The smoke should come before the flash;. yet't is so.
The creative power of a soul of genius, is shown by bringing
out the poetic sweetness of Van Artevelde, more and more, as the
scene assumes a gloomier hue. The melancholy music of his
speech penetrates the heart more and more up to the close.
The gibbous moon was in a wan decline,
And all was silent as a sick man's chamber,
Mixing its small beginnings with the dregs
Of the pale moonshine, and a few faint stars,
The cold uncomfortable daylight dawned;
And the white tents, topping a low-ground fog,
Showed like a fleet becalmed.
At the close of the vision:
And midmost in the eddy and the whirl,
My own face saw I, which was pale and calm
As death could make it,-then the vision passed,




120         e PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
And I perceived the river and the bridge,
The mottled sky, and horizontal moon,
The distant camp and all things as they were.
Elena, think not that I stand in need
Of false encouragement; I have my strength,
Which, though it lie not in the sanguine mood,
Will answer my occasions. To yourself,
Though to none other, I at times present
The gloomiest thoughts that gloomy truths inspire,
Because I love you. But I need no prop!
Nor could I find it in a tinsel show
Of prosperous surmise. Before the world
I wear a cheerful aspect, not so false
As for your lover's solace you put on;
Nor in my closet does the oil run low,
Or the light flicker.
ELENA.
Lo, now! you are angry
Because I try to cheer you.
VAN ARTEVELDE.
No, my love,
Not angry; that I never was with you;
But as I deal not falsely with my own,
So would I wish the heart of her I love,
To be both true and brave; nor self-beguiled,
Nor putting on disguises for my sake,
As though I faltered. I have anxious hours;
As who in like extremities has not?
But I have something stable here within,
Which bears their weight.
In the last scenes:
CECILEo
She will be better soon, my lord.
VAN ARTEVELDE.
Say worse;'T is better for her to be thus bereft.
One other kiss on that bewitching brow,




THE  MODERN DRAMA.                        121
Pale hemisphere of charms. Unhappy girl!
The curse of beauty was upon thy birth,
Nor love bestowed a blessing. Fare thee well!
How clear his voice sounds at the very last.
The rumor ran that I was hurt to death,
And then they staggered. Lo! we're flying all!
Mount, mount, old man; at least let one be saved!
Roosdyk! Vauclaire! the gallant and the kind!
Who shall inscribe your merits on your tombs!
May mine tell nothing to the world but this:
That never did that prince or leader live,
Who had more loyal or more loving friends!
Let it be written that fidelity
Could go no farther. Mount, old friend, and fly!.VAN RYK.
With you, my lord, not else. A fear-struck throng,
Comes rushing fiom Mount Dorre. Sir, cross the bridge.
ARTEVELDE.
The bridge! my soul abhors-but cross it thou;
And take this token to my love, Van Ryk;
Fly, for my sake in hers, and take her hence!
It is my last command. See her conveyed
To Ghent by Olsen, or what safer road
Thy prudence shall descry. This do, Van Ryk.
Lo! now they pour upon us like a flood!Thou that didst never disobey me yetThis last good office render me. Begone!
Fly whilst the way is free.
What commanding sweetness in the utterance of the name,
Van Ryk, and what a weight of tragedy in the broken sentence
which speaks of the fatal bridge. These are the things that actors rarely give us, the very passages to which it would be their
Toza ion to do justice; saying out those tones we divine from the
order of the words.
Yet Talma's Pas encore set itself to music in the mind of the
7




122          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
hearer; and Zara, you weep, was so spoken as to melt the whole
French nation into that one moment.
Elena's sob of anguish:
Arouse yourself, sweet lady: fly with me,
I pray you hear; it was his last command
That I should take you hence to Ghent by Olsen.
ELENA.
I cannot go on foot.
VAN RYK.
No, lady, no,
You shall not need; horses are close at hand,
Let me but take you hence. I pray you come.
ELENA.
Take hint then too.
VAN RYE.
The enemy is near,
In hot pursuit; we cannot take the body.
ELENA.
The body! Oh!
In this place Miss Kemble alone would have had force of passion to represent her, who
Flung that long funereal note
Into the upper sky.
Though her acting was not refined enough by intellect and culture for the more delicate lineaments of the character. She also
would have given its expression to the unintelligent, broken-hearted,
I cannot go on foot.
The body-yes, that temple could be so deserted by its god,
that men could call it so! That form so instinct with rich gifts,
that baseness and sloth seemed mere names in its atmosphere,
could lie on the earth as unable to vindicate its rights, as any
other clod. The exclamation of Elena, better bespoke the trag.
edy of this fact, than any eulogium of a common observer, though
that of Burgundy is fitly worded.




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                         123
Dire rebel though he was,
Yet with a noble nature and great gifts
Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit,
An equal temper and an ample soul,
Rock-bound and fortified against assaults
Of transitory passion, but below
Built on a surging subterraneous fire,
That stirred and lifted him to high attempts,
So prompt and capable, and yet so calm;
He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right,
Nothing in soldiership except good fortune.
That was the grandeur of the character, that its calmness had
nothing to do with slowness of blood, but was " built on a surging
subterranean fire."
Its magnanimity is shown with a fine simplicity. To blame
one's self is easy, to condemn one's own changes and declensions
of character and life painful, but inevitable to a deep mind. But
to bear well the blame of a lesser nature, unequal to seeing what
the fault grows from, is not easy; to take blame as Van Artevelde does, so quietly, indifferent from whence truth comes, so it
be truth, is a trait seen in the greatest only.
ELENA.
Too anxious, Artevelde,
And too impatient are you grown of late;
You used to be so calm and even-minded,
That nothing ruffled you.
ARTEVELDE.
I stand reproved;'T is time and circumstance that tries us all;
And they that temperately take their start,
And keep their souls indifferently sedate,
Through much of good and evil at the last,
May find the weakness of their hearts thus tried.
My cause appears more precious than it did
In its triumphant days.
I have ventured to be the more lavish of extracts that, although




124        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
the publication of Philip Van Artevelde at once placed Mr. Taylor
in the second rank of English poets, a high meed of glory, when
we remember who compose the first, we seldom now hear the
poem mentioned, or a line quoted from it, though it -is a work
which might, from all considerations, well make a part of habitual reading, and habitual thought.  Mr. Taylor has since published another dramatic poem, " Edwin the Fair," whose excellencies, though considerable, are not of the same commanding
character with those of its predecessor. He was less fortunate in
his subject. There is no great and noble figure in the foreground
on which to concentrate the interest, from which to distribute the
lights.  Neither is the spirit of an era seized with the same
power. The figures are modern English under Saxon names,
and affect us like a Boston face, tricked out in the appurtenances
of Goethe's Faust. Such a character as Dunstan's should be subordinated in a drama; its interest is that of intellectual analysis,
mere feelings it revolts.  The main character of the piece should
attract the feelings, and we should be led to analysis, to understand, not to excuse its life.
There are, however, fine passages, as profound, refined, and
expressed with the same unstrained force and purity, as those in
Philip Van Artevelde.
Athelwold, another of the tragedies at the head of this notice,
takes up some of the same characters a few years later. Without poetic depth, or boldness of conception, it yet boasts many
beauties from the free talent, and noble feelings of the author.
Athelwold is the best sketch in it, and the chief interest consists
in his obstinate rejection of Elfrida, whose tardy penitence could
no way cancel the wrong, her baseness of nature did his faith.
This is worked up wvthh the more art, that there is justice in her
plea, but love, shocked from its infinity, could not stop short of
despair.  Here deep feeling rises to poetry.




rHIE MODERN DRAMA.                    125
Dunstan and Edgar are well drawn sketches, but show not the
subtle touches of a life-like treatment.
This, we should think, as well as the Patrician's Daughter,
might be a good acting play.
We come now to the work which affords the most interesting
theme for this notice, from its novelty, its merits, and its subject,
which is taken from that portion of English history with which
we are most closely bound, the time preceding the Commonwealth.
Its author, Mr. Sterling, has many admirers among us, drawn
to him by his productions, both in prose and verse, which for a
time enriched the pages of Blackwood. Some of these have been
collected into a small volume, which has been republished in this
country.
These smaller pieces are of very unequal merit; but the best
among them are distinguished by vigor of conception and touch,
by manliness and modesty of feeling, by a depth of experience,
rare in these days of babbling criticism and speculation. His
verse does not flow or soar with the highest lyrical inspiration,
neither does he enrich us by a large stock of original images, but
for grasp and picturesque presentation of his subject, for frequent
bold and forceful passages, and the constantly fresh breath of character, we know few that could be named with him. The Sexton's
Daughter is the longest and best known, but not the best of the
minor poems. It has, however, in a high degree, the merits we
have mentioned. The yew tree makes a fine centre to the whole
picture. The tale is told in too many words, the homely verse
becomes garrulous, but the strong, pure feeling of natural relations endears them all.
His Aphrodite is fitly painted, and we should have dreamed it
so from all his verse.
Tae high immortal queen from heaven,
The calm Olympian face;




126           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND ART.
Eyes pure from human tear or smile,
Yet ruling all on earth,
And limbs whose garb of golden air
Was Dawn's primeval birth.
With tones like music of a lyre,
Continuous, piercing, low,
The sovran lips began to speak,
Spoke on in liquid flow,
It seemed the distant ocean's voice,
Brought near and shaped to speech,
But breathing with a sense beyond
What words of man may reach.
Weak child! Not I the puny power
Thy wish would have me be,
A roseleaf floating with the wind
Upon a summer sea.
If such thou need'st, go range the fields,
And hunt the gilded fly,
And when it mounts above thy head,
Then lay thee down and die.
The spells which rule in earth and stars,
Each mightiest thought that lives,
Are stronger than the kiss a child
In sudden fancy gives.
They cannot change, or fail, or fade,
Nor deign o'er aught to sway,
Too weak to suffer and to strive,
And tired while still't is day.
And thou with better wisdom learn
The ancient lore to scan,
Which tells that first in Ocean's breast
Thy rule o'er all began;
And know that not in breathless noon
Upon the glassy main,
The power was born that taught the world
To hail her endless reign.




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                          127
The winds were loud, the waves were high,
In drear eclipse the sun
Was crouched within the caves of heaven,
And light had scarce begun;
The Earth's green front lay drowned below,
And Death and Chaos fought
O'er all the tumult vast of things
Not yet to severance brought.'T was then that spoke the fateful voice,
And'mid the huge uproar,
Above the dark I sprang to life,
A good unhoped before.
My tresses waved along the sky,
And stars leapt out around,
And earth beneath my feet arose,
And hid the pale profound.
A lamp amid the night, a feast
That ends the strife of war,
To wearied mariners a port,
To fainting limbs a car,
To exiled men the friendly roof,
To mourning hearts the lay,
To him who long has roamed by night
The sudden dawn of day.
All these are mine, and mine the bliss
That visits breasts in woe,
And fills with wine the cup that once
With tears was made to flow.
Nor question thou the help that comes
From Aphrodite's hand;
For madness dogs the bard who doubts
Whate'er the gods command.
Alfred the Harper has the same strong picture and noble beat
of wing. One line we have heard so repeated by a voice, that
could give it itcs full meaning, that we should be very grateful to
the poet for that alone.
Still lives the song though Regnar dies.




128  PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
Dedalus we must quote.
DXEDALUS.'Wail for Daedalus all that is fairest!
All that is tuneful in air or wave!
Shapes, whose beauty is truest and rarest,
Haunt with your lamps and spells his grav!i
2.
Statues, bend your heads in sorrow,
Ye that glance'mid ruins old,
That know not a past, nor expect a morrow,
On many a moonlight Grecian wold i
3.
By sculptured cave and speaking river,
Thee, Dmdalus, oft the Nymphs recall;
The leaves with a sound of winter quiver,
Murmur thy name, and withering fall.
4.
Yet are thy visions in soul the grandest
Of all that crowd on the tear-dimmed eye,
Though, Daedalus, thou no more commandest
New stars to that ever-widening sky.
5.
Ever thy phantoms arise before us,
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
With looks of beauty and words of Good.
6.
Calmly they show us mankind victorious
O'er all that's aimless, blind, and base;
Their presence has made our nature glorious,
Unveiling our night's illumined face.
7.
Thy toil has won them a godlike quiet,
Thou hast wrought their path to a lovely sphere;
Their eyes to peace rebuke our riot,
And shape us a home of refuge here.




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                           129,
8.
For DThdalus breathed in them his spirit;
In them their sire his beauty sees;
We too, a younger brood, inherit
The gifts and blessing bestowed on these.
9.
But ah! their wise and graceful seeming
Recalls the more that the sage is gone;
Weeping we wake from deceitful dreaming,
And find our voiceless chamber lone.
10.
Dadalus, thou from the twilight fleest,
Which thou with visions hast made so bright;
And when no more those shapes thou seest,
Wanting thine eye they lose their light.
1I.
E'en in' the noblest of Man's creations,
Those fresh worlds round this old of ours,
When the seer is gone, the orphaned nations
See but the tombs of perished powers.
12.
Wail for Doedalus, Earth and Ocean'!
Stars and Sun, lament for him!
Ages, quake in strange commotion!
All ye realms of life be dim!
13.
Wail for Dwedalus, awful voices,
From earth's deep centre Mankind appall!
Seldom ye sound, and then Death rejoices,
For he knows that then the mightiest fall.
Also the following, whose measure seems borrowed from Goethe,
and is worthy of its source.  We insert a part it.
THE WOODED MOUNTAINS.
Woodland mountains in your leafy walks,
Shadows of the Past and Future blend;'Mid your verdant windings flits or stalks
Many a loved and disembodied friend.
7*




1O0           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
With your oaks and pine-trees, ancient brood,
Spirits rise above the wizard soil,
And with these I rove amid the wood;
Man may dream on earth no less than toil.
Shapes that seem my kindred meet the ken;
Gods and heroes. glimmer through the shade;
Ages long gone by from haunts of men
Meet me here in rocky dell and glade.
There the Muses, touched with gleams of light,
Warble yet from yonder hill of trees,
And upon the huge and mist-clad height
Fancy sage a clear Olympus sees.'Mid yon utmost peaks the elder powers
Still unshaken hold their fixed abode,
Fates primeval throned in airy towers,
That with morning sunshine never glowed.
Deep below, amid a hell of rocks,
Lies the Cyclops, and the Dragon coils,
Heaving with the torrent's weary shocks,
That round the untrodden region boils.
But more near to where our thought may climb,
In a mossy, leaf-clad, Druid ring,
Three gray shapes, prophetic Lords of Time,
Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, sit and sing.
Each in his turn his descant frames aloud,
Mingling new and old in ceaseless birth,
While the Destinies hear amid their cloud,
And accordant mould the flux of earth.
Oh! ye trees that wave and glisten round,
Oh [ ye waters gurgling down the dell,
Pulses throb in every sight and sound,
Living Nature's more than magic spell.
Soon amid the vista still and dim,
Knights, whom youth's high heart forgetteth not,
Each with scars and shadowy helmet grim,
Amadisi Orlando, Launcelot.




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                           131
Stern they pass along the twilight green,
While within the tangled wood's recess
Some lorn damsel sits, lamenting keen,
With a voice of tuneful amorousness.
Clad in purple weed, with pearly crown,
And with golden hairs that waving play,
Fairest earthly sight for King and Clown,
Oriana or Angelica.
But in sadder nooks of deeper shade,
Forms more subtle lurk from human eye,
Each cold Nymph, the rock or fountain's maid,
Crowned with leaves that sunbeams never dry.
And while on and on I wander, still
Passed the plashing streamlet's glance and foam,
Hearing oft the wild-bird pipe at will,
Still new openings lure me still to roam.
In this hollow smooth by May-tree walled,
White and breathing now with fragrant flower,
Lo! the fairy tribes to revel called,
Start in view as fades the evening hour.
Decked in rainbow roof of gossamer,
And with many a sparkling jewel bright,
Rose-leaf faces, dew-drop eyes are there,
Each with gesture fine of gentle sprite.
Gay they woo, and dance, and feast, and sing,
Elfin chants and laughter fill the dell,
As if every leaf around should ring
With its own aerial emerald bell.
But for man'tis ever sad to see
Joys like his that he must not partake,'Mid a separate world, a people's glee,
In whose hearts his heart no joy could wake.
Fare ye well, ye tiny race of elves;
May the moonbeam ne'er behold your tomb;
Ye are happiest childhood's other selves,
Bright to you be always evening's gloom.




132           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
And thou, mountain-realm of ancient wood,
Where my feet and thoughts have strayed so long,
Now thy old gigantic brotherhood
With a ghostlier vastness round me throng.
Mound, and cliff, and crag, that none may scale
With your serried trunks and wrestling boughs,
Like one living presence ye prevail,
And o'erhang me with Titanian brows.
In your Being's mighty depth of Power,
Mine is lost and melted all away.
In your forms involved I seem to tower,
And with you am spread in twilight grey.
In this knotted stem whereon I lean,
And the dome above of countless leaves,
Twists and swells, and frowns a life unseen,
That my life with it resistless weaves.
Yet, O nature, less is all of thine
Than thy borrowings from our human breast;
Thou, O God, hast made thy child divine,
And for him this world thou hallowest.
The Rose and the Gauntlet we much admire as a ballad, and
the tale is told in fewest words, and by a single picture; but we
have not room  for it here.   In  Lady Jane Grey, though this
again is too garrulous, the picture of the princess at the begin.
ning is fine, as she sits in the antique casement of the rich old
room.
The lights through the painted glass
Fall with fondest brightness o'er the form
Of her who sits, the chamber's lovely dame,
And her pale forehead in the light looks warm,
And all these colors round her whiteness flame.
Young is she, scarcely passed from childhood's years,
With grave, soft face, where thoughts and smiles may play,
And unalarmed by guilty aims or fears,
Serene as meadow flowers may meet the day.




THE MODERN  DR.AMA.                        133
No guilty pang she knows, though many a dread
Hangs threatening o'er her in the conscious air,
And'mid the beams from that bright casement shut,
A twinkling crown foreshows a near despair.
The quaint conciseness of this last line pleases me.
He always speaks in marble words of Greeco.  But I must
make no more quotations.
Some part of his poem on Shakspeare is no unfit prelude to a
few remarks on his own late work. With such a sense of greatness none could wholly fail.
With meaning won from him for ever glows
Each air that England feels, and star it knows;
And gleams from spheres lie first conjoined to earth
Are blent with rays of each new morning's birth,
Amid the sights and tales of common things,
Leaf, flower, and bird, and wars, and deaths of kings,
Of shore, and sea, and nature's daily round
Of life that tills, and tombs that load the ground,
His visions mingle, swell, command, pass by,
And haunt with living presence heart and eye,
And tones from him, by other bosoms caught,
Awaken flush and stir of mounting thought,
And the long sigh, and deep, impassioned thrill,
Rouse custom's trance, and spur the faltering will.
Above the goodly land, more his than ours,
He sits supreme enthroned in skyey towers.
And sees the heroic blood of his creation
Teach larger life to his ennobled nation.
O! shaping brain! 0! flashing fancy's hues!
O! boundless heart kept fresh by pity's dews!
O! wit humane and blythe! O! sense sublime
For each dim oracle of mantled Time!
Transcendant form of man! in whom we read,
Mankind's whole tale of Impulse, Thought, and Deed.
Such is his ideal of the great dramatic poet. It would not be
fair to measure him, or any man, by his own ideal; that affbrds a
standard of spiritual and intellectual progress, with which the ex.




134         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
ecutive powers may not correspond. A clear eye may be associated with a feeble hand, or the reverse. The mode of measurement proposed by the great thinker of our time is not inapplicable.
First, show me what aim a man proposes to himself; next, with
what degree of earnestness he strives to attain it. In both regards
we can look at Mr. Sterling's work with pleasure and admiration.
He exhibits to us a great crisis, with noble figures to represent its
moving springs. His work is not merely the plea for a principle,
or the exposition of a thought, but an exhibition of both at work
in life.  He opens the instrument and lets us see the machinery
without stopping the music.  The progress of interest in the piece
is imperative, the principal character well brought out, the style
clear and energetic, the tone throughout is of a manly dignity,
worthy great times. Yet its merit is of a dramatic sketch, rather
than a drama. The forms want the roundness, the fulness of life,
the thousand charms of spontaneous expression.  In this last particular Sterling is as far inferior to Taylor, as Taylor to Shakspeare.
Hlis characters, like Miss Baillie's or Talfourd's, narrate rather
than express their life. Not elaborately, not pedantically, but yet
the effect is that, while they speak we look on them as past, and
Sterling's view of them interests us more than themselves. In
his view of relations again we must note his inferiority to Taylor,
who in this respect is the only contemporary dramatist on whom
we can look with complacency. Taylor's characters really meet,
really bear upon one another.  In contempt and hatred, or esteem, reverence, and melting tenderness, they challenge, bend,
and transfuse one another.
Strafford never alters, never is kindled by or kindles the life of
any other being, never breathes the breath of the moment. Before us, throughout the play, is the view of his greatness taken by
the mind of the author; we are not really made to feel it by those
around him; it is echoed from their lips, not from their lives.
Lady Carlisle is the only personage, except Strafford, that is




THE  IODERN DRAMA.                       135
brought out into much relief.  Everard is only an accessory, and
the king, queen, and parliamentary leaders, drawn with a few
strokes to give them their historical position. Scarcely more can
be said of Hollis; some individual action is assigned him, but not
so as to individualize his character. The idea of the relation at
this ominous period between Strafford and Lady Carlisle is noble.
In these stern times he has put behind him the flowers of tenderness, and the toys of passion.
Lady, believe me, that I loved you truly,
Still think of you with wonder and delight,
Own you the liveliest, noblest heart of woman
This age, or any, knows; but for love ditties
And amorous toys, and kisses ocean-deep,
Strafford and this old Earth are all too sad.
But when the lady had a soul to understand the declaration,
and show herself worthy of his friendship, there is a hardness in
his action towards her, a want of softness and grace, how different
from Van Artevelde's:
My Adriana, victim that thou art.
The nice point indeed, of giving the hero manly firmness, and
an even stern self-sufficiency, without robbing him of the beauty
of gentle love, was touched with rare success in Van Artevelde.
Common men may not be able to show firmness and persistency,
without a certain hardness and glassiness of expression; but we
expect of the hero, that he should combine the softness with the
constancy of Hector.
This failure is the greater here, that we need a private tie to
Strafford to give his fall the deepest tragic interest.
Lady Carlisle is painted with some skill and spirit. The name
given her by St. John of " the handsome vixen," and the willing.
ness shown by her little page to die, rather than see her after failing to deliver her letter, joined with her own appearance, mark




136          PAPERS ON LITER ATURE AND  ART.
her very well. The following is a prose sketch of her as seen in
common life.
SIR TOBY MATTHEW'S PORTRAIT OF LUCY PERCY, COUNTESS OF CARLISLE.
"She is of too high a mind and dignity, not only to seek, but almost to wish
the friendship of any creature: they, whom she is pleased to choose, are such
as are of the most eminent condition, both for power and employment; not
with any design towards her own particular, either of advantage or curiosity,
but her nature values fortunate persons as virtuous. She prefers the conversation of men to that of women; not but she can talk on the fashions with her
female friends, but she is too soon sensible that she can set them as she wills;
that pre-eminence shortens all equality. She converses with those who are
most distinguished for their conversational powers.
"Of love freely will she discourse, listen to all its faults, and mark all its
power. She cannot herself love in earnest, but she will play with love, and will
take a deep interest for persons of condition and celebrity."-See Life of Pyom;
in Lardner Cabinet Cyclopcedia; Vol. xci., p. 213.
The noblest trait, given her in the play, is the justice she is
able to do Charles, after his treachery has consigned Strafford to
the Tower.
LADY CARLISLE.
And he betrayed you.
STRAFFORD,
He! it cannot be,
There's not a minion in his court so vile,
Holland nor Jermyn, would deceive a trust
Like that I placed in him, nor would belie
So seeming heart felt words as those he spake.
LADY CARLISLE.
He's not entirely vile, and yet he did it.
This, seen in unison with her outpouring of contempt upon the
king when present, makes out a character. As a whole, that
given her by the poet is not'only nobler than the one assigned her
in history, but opposed to it in a vital point.
The play closes after Strafford has set forth for the scaffold




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          137
with the ejaculation from her left in the Tower, where she has
waited on his last moments,
"Alone, henceforth forever 1"
While history makes her transfer her attachment to Pym, who
must have been, in her eyes, Strafford's murderer, on the score
of her love of intellectual power, in which all other considerations
were merged. This is a character so odious, and in a woman, so
unnatural, that we are tempted rather to suppose it was hatred of
the king for his base and treacherous conduct towards Strafford,
that induced her to betray to Pym the counsels of the court, as
the best means of revenge. Such a version of her motives would
not be inconsistent with the character assigned her in the play.
It would be making her the agent to execute her own curse, so
eloquently spoken after she finds the king willing to save himself
by the sacrifice of Strafford's life.
KING CHARLES.
The woman's mad; her passion braves the skies!
LADY CARLISLE.
I brave them not; I but invoke their justice
To rain hot curses on a tyrant's head;
Henceforth I set myself apart for mischief,
To find and prompt men capable of hate,
Until some dagger, steeled in Strafford's blood,
Knocks at the heart of Strafford's murderer.
KING CHARLES.
His murderer! O God! —no, no, —not that!
(Sinks back irto a seat.)
LADY CARLISLE.
And here I call on all the powers above us
To aid the deep damnation of my curse,
And make this treason to the noblest man,
That moves alive within our English seas,
Fatal to him and all his race, whose baseness
Destroys a worth it ne'er could understand.
Stars in your glory, vital air and sun,




138         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
And thou, dark earth, our cradle, nurse, and grave,
And more than all, free truth and penal justice,
Conspire with all your dreadful influence
Against his blood, whose crime ye now behold!
Make him a byeword, and a name of woe,
A conquered warrior, and a throneless outcast,
To teach all kings the law of evil power,
Till by an end more friendless and abhorred
Than his great victim's, and with heavier pain,
Let him slink off to a detested grave!
And now I give your majesty leave to go,
And may you carry from my house away,
That fixed incurable ulcer of the heart,
Which I have helped your thoughts to fasten there.
If these burning words had as much power to kindle her own
heart, as they must that of the hearer, we only realize our anticipations, when we find her sending to the five members the news
of the intention of Charles to arrest them, thus placing him in a
position equally ridiculous and miserable, having incurred all the
odium of this violent transaction to no purpose. That might well
be a proud moment of gratified vengeance to her, when he stood
amid the sullen and outraged parliament, baffled like a schoolboy,
loathed as a thief;, exclaiming, "The birds are flown," and all
owing to " the advices of the honorable ILady Carlisle."
The play opens with Strafford's return to London.  He is made
to return in rather a different temper from what he really did, not
only trusting the king, but in his own greatness fearless of the
popular hatred. The opening scenes are very good, compact,
well wrought, and showing at the very beginning the probable
fortunes of the scene, by malking the characters the agents of
their own destinies. A weight of tragedy is laid upon the heart,
and at the same time we are inspired with deep interest as to how
it shall be acted out.
Strafford appears before us as he does in history, a grand and
melancholy figure, whose dignity lay in his energy of will, and




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          139
large scope of action, not in his perception of principles, or virtue
in carrying them out. For his faith in the need of absolute sway
to control the herd, does not merit the name of a principle.
In my thought, the promise of success
Grows to the self-same stature as the need,
Which is gigantic. There's a king to guide,
Three realms to save, a nation to control,
And by subduing to make blest beyond
Their sottish dreams of lawless liberty.
This to fulfil Strafford has pledged his soul
In the unfaltering hands of destiny.
Nor can we fail to believe, that the man of the world might
sincerely take this view of his opponents.
No wonder they whose life is all deception,
A piety that, like a sheep-skil drum,
Is loud because'tis hollow,-thus can move
Belief in others by their swollen pretences.
Why, man, it is their trade; they do not stick
To cozen themselves, and will they stop at you 
The court and council scenes are good. The materials are
taken from history, with Shakspearean adherence to the record,
but they are uttered in masculine cadences, sinewy English, worthy this great era in the life of England.
The king and queen and sycophants of the court are too careessly drawn. Such unmitigated baseness and folly, are unbearable in poetry. The master invests his worst characters with
redeeming traits, or at least, touches them with a human interest,
that prevents their being objects of disgust rather than contempt
or aversion. This is the poetic gift, to penetrate to the truth below the fact. We need to hear the excuses men make to them.
selves for their worthlessness.
The council of the parliamentary leaders is far better. Here
the author speaks his natural language from the lips of grave en.
thusiastic men. Pym's advice to his daughter is finely worded




140           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
and contains truths, which, although they have been so often expressed, are not like to find so large reception, as to dispense with
new and manifold utterance.
The Lord has power
To guard his own: pray, Mary, pray to Him,
Nor fear what man can do. A rule there is
Above all circumstance, a current deep
Beneath all fluctuations. This who knows,
Though seeming weakest, firmly as the sun
Walks in blind paths where earthly strongest fall,
Reason is God's own voice to man, ordains
All holy duties, and all truth inspires:
And he who fails, errs not by trusting it,
But deafening to the sound his ear, from dread
Of the stern roar it speaks with. 0, my child,
Pray still for guidance, and be sure'twill come.
Lift up your heart upon the knees of God;
Losing yourself, your smallness, and your darkness,
In his great light, who fills and moves the world,
Who hath alone the quiet of perfect motionSole quiet, not mere death.
The speech of Vane is nobly rendered.
The conversations of the populace are tolerably well done.
Only the greatest succeed in these; nobody except Goethe in,modern times. Here they give, not the character of the people,
but the spirit of the time, playing in relation to the main action
the part of chorus.
SECOND WOMAN.
There's Master St. John has a tongue
That threshes like a flail.
THIRD WOMAN.
And Master Fiennes
That's a true lamb! He'd roast alive the Bishop.
CITIZEN.
I was close by the coach, and with my nose




THE MODERN  DRAMA.                         141
Upon the door, I called out, Down with Strafford!
And then just so he fixed his eyes on mine,
And something seemed to choke me in the throat;
In truth, I think it must have been the devil!
THIRD CITIZEN.
I saw him as he stept out of the House,
And then his face was dark, but very quiet;
It seemed like looking down the dusky mouth
Of a great cannon.
Everard says with expressive bitterness as they shout "Down
with Strafford,"
I've heard this noise so often, that it seems
As natural as the howling of the wind.
And againFor forty years I've studied books and men,
But ne'er till these last days have known a jot
Of the true secret madness in mankind.
This morn the whispers leapt from each to each,
Like a petard alight, which every man
Feared might explode in his own hands, and therefore
Would haste to pass it onward to his friend.
Even in our piping times of peace, nullification and the Rhode
Island difficulties have given us specimens of the process of fermentation, the more than Virgilian growth of Rumor.
The description of the fanatic preacher by Everard is very
good.  The poor secretary, not placed in the prominent rank to
suffer, yet feeling all that passes, through his master, finds vent to
his grief, not in mourning, but a strong causticity:
The sad fanatic preacher,
In whom one saw, by glancing through the eyes,
The last grey curdling dregs of human joy,
Dropped sudden sparks that kindled where they fell.
Strafford draws the line between his own religion and that of




142           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND  ART.
the puritans, as it seemed to him, with noble phrase in his last advices to his son.
Say it has ever been his father's mind,
That perfect reason, justice, government,
Are the chief attributes of Him who made,
And who sustains the world, in whose full being,
Wisdom and power are one; and I, his creature,
Would fain have gained authority and rule,
To make the imagined order in my soul
Supreme o'er all, the proper good of man.
But Him to love who shaped us, and whose breast
Is the one home of all things, with a passion
Electing Him amid all other beings,
As if he were beside them, not their all,
This is the snug and dozing deliration
Of men, who filch from woman what is worst,
And cannot see the good. Of such beware.
This is the nobler tone of Strafford's spirit.*   That more habitual to him is heard in his presumptuous joy before entering the
parliament, into which he went as a conqueror, and came out a
prisoner. His confidence is not noble to us, it is not that of Brutus or Van Artevelde, who, knowing what is prescribed by the
law of right within the breast, can take no other course but that,
whatever the consequences; neither like the faith of Julius Caesar or Wallenstein in their star, which, though less pure, is not
without religion; but it is the presumption of a strong character
* His late biographer says well in regard to the magnanimity of his later days,
of so much nobler a tone than his general character would lead us to expect.
" It is a mean as well as a hasty judgment, which would attribute this to any
unworthy compromise with his real nature. It is probably a juster and more
profound view of it, to say that, into a few of the later weeks of his life, new
knowledge had penetrated from the midst of the breaking of his fortunes. It
was well and beautifully said by a then living poet,'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made."'
Forster's Life of Strafford, Lau7 gner's Cabinet Cyclopcedia.




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          143
which, though its head towers above those of its companions when
they are on the same level, yet has not taken a sufficiently high
platform, to see what passes around or above it. Strafford's
strength cannot redeem his infatuation, while he struggles; vanquished, not overwhelmed, he is a majestic figure, whose features*
are well marked in various passages.
Compared with him, whom I for eighteen years
Have seen familiar as my friend, all men
Seem but as chance-born flies, and only he
Great Nature's chosen and all-gifted son.
tVan Artevelde also bears testimony to the belief of the author,
that familiarity breeds no contempt, but the reverse in the service
of genuine nobility. A familiarity of eighteen years will not
make any but a stage hero, other than a hero to his valet de
chambre.
King Charles says,
To pass the bill,Under his eye, with that fixed quiet look
Of imperturbable and thoughtful greatness,
I cannot do it.
Strafford himself says, on the final certainty of the king's desertion,
Dear Everard, peace! for there is nothing here
I have not weighed before, and made my own.
* "A poet, who was present, exclaimed,
On thy brow
Sate terror mixed with wisdom, and at once
Saturn and Hermes in thy countenance."
Life of Stratford, p. 338.
Certainly there could not be a more pointed and pregnant account given of
the man than is suggested by this last line.
t That with familiarity respect
Doth slacken, is a word of common use;
I never found it so.
Philip Van Artevelde, 2d Part, p. 29.




144          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
And this, no doubt, was true, in a sense. Historians, finding
that Strafford expressed surprise, and even indignation, that the
king had complied with Strafford's own letter releasing him from
all obligation to save his life, have intimated that the letter was
written out of policy. But this is a superficial view; it produces
very different results from giving up all to another to see him take
it; and, though Strafford must have known Charles's weakness
too well to expect any thing good from him, yet the consummation
must have produced fresh emotion, for a strong character cannot
be prepared for the conduct of a weak one; there is always in
dishonour somewhat unexpected and incredible to one incapable
of it.
The speeches in parliament are well translated from  the page
of history. The poet, we think, has improved upon it in Strafford's mention of his children; it has not the theatrical tone of
the common narrative, and is, probably, nearer truth, as it is more
consistent with the rest of his deportment.
He has made good use of the fine anecdote of the effect produced on Pym by meeting Strafford's eye at the close of one of
his most soaring passages.
PYM.
The King is King, but as he props the State,
The State a legal and compacted bond,
Tying us all in sweet fraternity,
And that loosed off by fraudful creeping hand,
Or cut and torn by lawless violence,
There is no King because the State is gone;
And in the cannibal chaos that remains
Each man is sovereign of himself alone.
Shall then a drunken regicidal blow
Be paid by forfeit of the driveller's head,
And he go free, who, slaying Law itself,
Murders all royalty and all subjection?
He who, with all the radiant attributes
That most, save goodness, can adorn a man,




THE MODERN DRAMA.                          145
Would turn his kind to planless brutishness.
His knavery soars, indeed, and strikes the stars,
Yet is worse knavery than the meanest felon's.
(Strafford ftxes his eyes on Pym, who hesitates.)
Oh! no, my Lords, Oh! no,
(Aside to Hampden.) His eye confounds me; he* was once my
friend.
(Aloud.) Oh! no, my Lords, the very self-same rule, &c.
The eloquence of this period could not be improved upon; but
it is much to select from and use its ebullitions with the fine effect
we admire in this play. Whatever view be taken of Strafford,
whether as condemnatory as the majority of writers popular among
us, the descendants of the puritans, would promote, or that more
lenient and discriminating, brought out in this play, for which
abundant grounds may be discovered by those who will seek, we
cannot view him at this period but with the interest of tragedy as
of one suffering unjustly. For however noble the eloquence of
the parliamentary leaders in appealing to a law above the law, to
an eternal justice in the breast, which afforded sufficient sanction
to the desired measure, it cannot but be seen, at this distance of
time, that this reigned not purely in their own breasts, that his
doom, though sought by them from patriotic, not interested, mo.
tives, was, in itself, a measure of expediency. He was the victim, because the most dreaded foe, because they could not go on
with confidence, while the only man lived, who could and would
sustain Charles in his absurd and wicked policy. Thus, though
e Through the whole of the speech Strafford is described to have been closely
and earnestly watching Pym, when the latter suddenly turning, met the fixed
and faded eyes and haggard features of his early associate, and a rush of feelings from other days, so fearfully contrasting the youth and friendship of the
past with the love-poisoned hate of the present, and the mortal agony impending in the future, for a moment deprived the patriot of self-possession. "I His
papers he looked on," says Baillie, " but they could not help him, so he behooved to pass them." For a moment only; suddenly recovering his dignity and
aelf-command, he told the court, &c.-Lijfe of Pym, Cabinet Cyclopeedia.




146         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
he might deserve that the people on whom he trampled should
rise up to crush him, that the laws he had broken down should
rear new and higher walls to imprison him, though the shade of
Eliot called for vengeance on the counsellor who alone had so
long saved the tyrant from a speedier fall, and the victims of his
own oppressions echoed with sullen murmur to the " silver trumpet" call,* yet the greater the peculiar offences of this man, the
more need that his punishment should have been awarded in an
absolutely pure spirit.  And this it was not; it may be respected
as an act of just retribution, but not of pure justice.
Men who had such a cause to maintain, as his accusers had,
should deserve the praise awarded by Wordsworth to him who,
In a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
Yet fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumnph that he knows.
The heart swells against Strafford as we read the details of
his policy. Even allowing that his native temper, prejudices of
birth, and disbelief in mankind, really inclined him to a despotic
government, as the bad best practicable, that his early espousal
of the popular side was only a stratagem to terrify the court, and
that he was thus, though a deceiver, no apostate, yet, he had
been led, from whatever motives, to look on that side; his great
intellect was clear of sight, the front presented by better principles in that time commanding. We feel that he was wilful in
the course he took, and self-aggrandizement his principal, if not
his only motive. We share the hatred of his time, as we see
him so triumphant in his forceful, wrongful measures. But we
would not have had him hunted down with such a hue and cry,
*" I will not repeat, Sirs, what you have heard from that silver trumpet."
One of the parliament speaking of Rudyard.




THE MODE.RN DRAMA.                       147
that the tones of defence had really no chance to be heard. We
would not have had papers stolen, and by a son from a father
who had entrusted him with a key, to condemn him. And what
a man was this thief, one whose high enthusiastic hope never
paused at good, but ever rushed onward to the best.
Who would outbid the market of the world,
And seek a holier than a common prize,
And by the unworthy lever of to-day
Ope the strange portals of a better morn.
Begin to-day, nor end till evil sink
In its due grave; and if at once we may not
Declare the greatness of the work we plan,
Be sure, at least, that ever in our eyes
It stand complete before us, as a dome
Of light beyond this gloom; a house of stars,.Encompassing these dusky tents; a thing
Absolute, close to all, though seldom seen,
Near as our hearts, and perfect as the heavens.
Be this our aim and model, and our hands
Shall not wax faint until the work is done.
He is not the first, who, by looking too much at the stars has
lost the eye for severe fidelity to a private trust. He thought
himself "obliged in conscience to impart the paper to Master
Pym." Who that looks at the case by the code of common rectitude can think it was ever his to impart?
What monstrous measures appear the arbitrary construction
put on the one word in the minutes which decided the fate of
Strafford, the freeing the lords of council from the oath of secrecy
under whose protection he had spoken there, the conduct of the
House towards Lord Digby, when he declared himself not satisfied that the prisoner could with justice be declared guilty of treason; the burning his speech by the common hangman when he
dared print it, to make known the reasons of his course to the
world, when placarded as Straffordian, held up as a mark for




148         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
popular rage fci speaking it.1   Lord Digby was not a man of
honour, but they did not know that, or if they did, it had nothing
to do with his right of private judgment. What could Strafford,
what could Charles do more high-handed?  If they had violated
the privileges of parliament, the more reason parliament should
respect their privileges, above all the privilege of the prisoner, to
be supposed innocent until proved guilty. The accusers, obliged
to set aside rule, and appeal to the very foundations of equity,
could only have sanctioned such a course by the religion and
pure justice of their proceedings. Here the interest of the accusers made them not only demand, but insist upon, the condemnation; the cause was prejudged by the sentiment of the people,
and the resentments of the jury, and the proceedings conducted.
beside, with the most scandalous disregard to the sickness and
other disadvantageous circumstances of Strafford. He was called
on to answer "if he will come," just at the time of a most dangerous attack from his cruel distemper; if he will not come, the
cause is still to be pushed forward. He was denied the time and
means he needed to collect his evidence. The aid to be given
him by counsel, after being deprived of his chief witness " by a
master stroke of policy," was restricted within narrow  limits.
While he prepared his answers, in full court, for he was never
allowed to retire, to the points of accusation, vital in their import,
requiring the closest examination, those present talked, laughed,
ate, lounged about.  None of this disturbed his magnanimous patience; his conduct indeed is so noble, through the whole period,
that he and his opponents change places in our minds; at the
time, he seems the princely deer, and they the savage hounds.t
* See Parliamentary History, volume ix.
t Who can avoid a profound feeling, not only of compassion, but sympathy,
when he reads of Strafford obliged to kneel in Westminster Hall. True, he
would, if possible, have brought others as low; but there is a deep pathos in the
contrast of his then, and his former state, best shown by the symbol of such an




THE MODERN DRAMA.                        149
Well, it is all the better for the tragedy, hut as we read the sublime appeals of Pym to a higher state of being, we cannot but
wish that all had been done in accordance with them. The art
and zeal, with which the condemnation of Strafford was obtained,
have had high praise as statesmanlike; we would have wished
for them one so high as to preclude this.
No doubt great temporary good was effected for England by
the death of Strafford, but the permanence of good is ever in proportion with the purity of the means used to obtain it. This act
would have been great for Strafford, for it was altogether in accordance with his views. He met the parliament ready to do
battle to the death, and might would have been right, had he made
rules for the lists; but they proposed a different rule for their government, and by that we must judge them. Admit the story of
Vane's pilfering the papers not to be true, that the minutes were
obtained some other way. This measure, on the supposition of
its existence, is defended by those who defend the rest.
Strafford would certainly have come off with imprisonment and
degradation from office, had the parliament deemed it safe to leave
him alive. When we consider this, when we remember the threat
of Pym, at the time of his deserting the popular party, " You have
left us, but I will never leave you while your head is on your
shoulders," we see not, setting aside the great results of the act,
and looking at it by its merits alone, that it differs from the administration of Lynch law in some regions of our own country.
act. Just so we read of Bonalarte's green coat being turned at St. Helena, after it had faded on the right side. He who had overturned the world, to end
with having his old coat turned! There is something affecting, Belisarius-like
in the picture. When Warren Hastings knelt in Westminster Hall, the chattering but pleasant Miss Burney tells us, Wyndham, for a moment struck, half
shrunk from the business of prosecuting him. At such a sight, whispers in
every breast the monition, Had I been similarly tempted, had I not fallen as low,
or lower'




150         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Lynch law, with us, has often punished the gamester and the rob.
ber, whom it was impossible to convict by the usual legal process;
the evil in it is, that it cannot be depended upon, but, while with
one hand it punishes a villain, administers with the other as summary judgment on the philanthropist, according as the moral sentiment or prejudice may be roused in the popular breast.
We have spoken disparagingly of the capacities of the drama
for representing what is peculiar in our own day, but, for such a
work as this, presenting a great crisis with so much clearness,
force, and varied beauty, we can only be grateful, and ask for
more acquaintance with the same mind, whether through the
drama or in any other mode.
Copious extracts have been given, in the belief that thus, better than by any interpretation or praise of ours, attention would
be attracted, and a wider perusal ensured to Mr. Sterling's
works.
In his mind there is a combination of reverence fobr the Ideal,
with a patient appreciation of its slow workings' in the actual
world, that is rare in our time. He looks religiously, he speaks
philosophically, nor these alone, but with that other faculty which
he himself so well describes.
You bear a brain
Discursive, open, generally wise,
But missing ever that excepted point
That gives each thing and hour a special oneness.
The little key-hole of the infrangible door,
The instant on which hangs eternity,
And not in the dim past and empty future,
Waste fields for abstract notions.
Such is the demonology of the man of the world. It may rule
in accordance with the law of right, but where it does not, the
strongest man may lose the battle, and so it was with Strafford.




DIALOGUE
CONTAINING SUNDRY GLOSSES ON POETIC TEXTS
SCENE is in a chamber, in the upper story of 3 city boarding house. The room
is small, but neat and furnished with some taste. There are books, a few
flowers, even a chamber organ. On the wall hangs a fine engraving from
one of Dominichino's pictures. The curtain is drawn up, and shows the
moonlight falling on the roofs and chimnies of the city and the distant water,
on whose bridges threads of light burn dully.
To Aglauron enter Laurie. A kindly greeting having been
interchanged,
Laurie. It is a late hour, I confess, for a visit, but coming
home I happened to see the light from your window, and the remembrance of our pleasant evenings here in other days came so
strongly over me, that I could not help trying the door.
Alglauron. I do not now see you here so often, that I could
afford to reject your visits at any hour.
L. (Seating himself, looks round for a moment with an expression of some sadness.) All here looks the same, your fire
burns bright, the moonlight I see you like to have come in as
formerly, and we,-we are not changed, Aglauron?
A. I am not.
L.  Not towards me?
A.  You have elected other associates, as better pleasing or
more useful to you than I. Our intercourse no longer ministers
to my thoughts, to my hopes. To think of you with that habitual affection, with that lively interest I once did, would be as if
the mutilated soldier should fix his eyes constantly on the empty




152         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
sleeve of his coat.  My right hand being taken from me, I use
my left.
L.  You speak coldly, Aglauron; you cannot doubt that my
friendship for you is the same as ever.
A.  You should not reproach me for speaking coldly.  You
have driven me to subdue my feelings by reason, and the tone of'
reason seems cold because it is calm.
You say your friendship is the same. Your thoughts of your
friend are the same, your feelings towards him are not.  Your
feelings flow now in other channels.
L. Am I to blame for that?
A. Surely not. No one is to blame; if either were so, it
would be I, for not possessing more varied powers to satisfy the
variations and expansions of your nature.
L. But have I not seemed heartless to you at times?
A. In the moment, perhaps, but quiet thought always showed
me the difference between heartlessness and the want of a deep
heart.
Nor do I think this will eventually be denied you. You are
generous, you love truth.  Time will make you less restless, because less bent upon yourself, will give depth and steadfastness
to that glowing heart.  Tenderness will then come of itself.
You will take upon you the bonds of friendship less easily and
knit them firmer.
L. And you will then receive me?
A.  I or some other; it matters not.
L. Ah! you have become indifferent to me.
A.  What would you have?  That gentle trust, which seems
to itself immortal, cannot be given twice. What is sweet and
flower-like in the mind is very timid, and can only be tempted
out by the wooing breeze and infinite promise of spring. Those
flowers, once touched by a cold wind, will not revive again.
L. But their germs lie in the earth.




DIALOGUE.                       153
A. Yes, to await a new spring! But this conversation is
profitless. Words can neither conceal nor make up for the want
of flowing love. I do not blame you, Laurie, but I cannot afford to love you as 1 have done any more, nor would it avail
either of us, if I could. Seek elsewhere what you can no longer
duly prize from me. Let us not seek to raise the dead from
their tombs, but cherish rather the innocent children of to-day.
L. But I cannot be happy unless there is a perfectly good
understanding between us.
A. That, indeed, we ought to have. I feel the power of understanding your course, whether it bend my way or not. I
need not communication from you, or personal relation to do
that,
" Have I the human kernel first examined,
Then I know, too, the future will and action."
I have known you too deeply to misjudge you, in the long run.
L. Yet you have been tempted to think me heartless.
A. For the moment only; have I not said it? Thought always convinced me that I could not have been so shallow as to
barter heart for anything but heart. I only, by the bold play
natural to me, led you to stake too high for your present income.
I do not demand the forfeit on the friendly game. Do you understand me?
L. No, I do not understand being both friendly and cold.
A. Thou wilt, when thou shalt have lent as well as borrowed.
I can bring forward on this subject gospel independent of our
own experience. The poets, as usual, have thought out the subject for their age. And it is an age where the complex and sub.
tle workings of its spirit make it not easy for the immortal band,
the sacred band of equal friends, to be formed into phalanx, or
march with equal step in any form.
8*




154          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
Soon after I had begun to read some lines of our horoscope, I
found this poem in Wordsworth, which seemed to link into meaning many sounds that were vibrating round me.
A COMPLAINT.
There is a change, and I am poor;
Your Love hath been, nor long ago,
A Fountain at my fond Heart's door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count,
Blest was I then all bliss above;
Now, for this consecrated Fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I. shall I dare to tell! 
A comfortless and hidden WELL.
A Well of love, it may be deep,
I trust it is, and never dry;
What matter. if the Waters sleep
In silence and obscurity,
Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
This, at the time, seemed unanswerable; yet, afterwards I
found among the writings of Coleridge what may serve as a sufficient answer.
A SOLILOQUY.
Unchanged within to see all changed without
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at other's wanings shouldst thou fret!
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love, or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight,
O wiselier, then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou mayst, shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite;




DIALOGUE.                          155
And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
L. Do you expect to be able permanently to abide by such
solace?
A.  I do not expect so Olympian a calmness, that at first,
when the chain of intercourse is broken, when confidence is dismayed, and thought driven back upon its source, I shall not feel
a transient pang, even a shame, as when
"The sacred secret hath flown out of us,
And the heart been broken open by deep care."
The wave receding, leaves the strand for the moment forlorn,
and weed-bestrown.
L. And is there no help for this? Is there not a pride, a
prudence, identical with self-respect, that could preserve us from
such mistakes?
A. If you can show me one that is not selfish forethought of
neglect or slight, I would wear it and recommend it as the desired amulet. As yet, I know no pride, no prudence except love
of truth.
Would a prudence be desirable that should have hindered our
intimacy?
L. Ah, no! it was happy, it was rich.
A. Very well then, let us drink the bitter with as good a
grace as the sweet, and for to-night talk no more of ourselves.
L. To talk then of those other, better selves, the poets. I
can well understand that Coleridge should have drunk so deeply
as he did of this bitter-sweet.  His nature was ardent, intense,
variable in its workings, one of tides, crises, fermentations.  Fie
was the flint from which the spark must be struck by violent collision. His life was a mass in the midst of which fire glowed,
but needed time to transfuse it, as his heavenly eyes glowed




156         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
amid such heavy features. The habit of taking opium was but
an outward expression of the transports and depressions to which
he was inly prone. In him glided up in the silence, equally
vivid, the  Christabel, the Geraldine.  Through  his various
mind
"Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."
He was one of those with whom
" The meteor offspring of the brain
Unnourished wane,
Faith asks her daily bread,
And fancy must be fed."
And when this was denied,
" Came a restless state,'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fixed, his heart all ebb and flow;
Or like a bark, in some half-sheltered bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro."
Thus we.cannot wonder that he, with all his vast mental resources and noble aims, should have been the bard elect to sing
of Dejection, and that the pages of his prose works should be
blistered by more painful records of personal and social experiences, than we find in almost any from a mind able to invoke
the aid of divine philosophy, a mind touched by humble piety.
But Wordsworth, who so early knew, and sought, and found the
life and the work he wanted, whose wide and equable thought
flows on like a river through the plain, whose verse seemed to
come daily like the dew to rest upon the flowers of home affections, we should think he might always have been with his friend,
as he describes two who had grown up together,
"Each other's advocate, each other's stay,
And strangers to content, if long apart,
Or more divided than a sportive pair




DIALOGUE.                            157
Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth
Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight."
And that we should not find in him traces of the sort of wound,
nor the tone of deep human melancholy that we find in this Complaint, and in the sonnet, " Why art thou silent."
A. I do not remember that.
L. It is in the last published volume of his poems, though
probably written many years before.
"Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair.
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grantS
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant,
(As would my deeds have been) with hourly care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For naught but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak, though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold,
Than a forsaken bird's nest filled with snow,
Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine;
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know."
A.  That is indeed the most pathetic description of the speechless palsy that precedes the death of love.
"Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?"
But Laurie, how could you ever fancy a mind of poetic sensibility would be a stranger to this sort of sadness?
What signifies the security of a man's own position and
choice?   The peace and brightness of his own lot?  If he has
this intelligent sensibility can he fail to perceive the throb that
agitates the bosom of all nature, or can his own fail to respond
to it?




158         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
In the eye of man, or in the sunset clouds, from the sobs of
literature, or those of the half-spent tempest, can he fail tb read
the secrets of fate and time, of an over-credulous hope, a too
much bewailed disappointment? Will not a very slight hint
convey to the mind in which the nobler faculties are at all developed, a sense of the earthquakes which may in a moment upheave his vineyard and whelm his cottage beneath rivers of fire.
Can the poet at any time, like the stupid rich man, say to his
soul, "Eat, drink, and be merry."  No, he must ever say to his
fellow man, as Menelaus to his kingly brother,
"Shall my affairs
Go pleasantly, while thine are full of woe?"
Oh, never could Wordsworth fail, beside his peaceful lake, to
know the tempests of the ocean. And to an equable temperament sorrow seems sadder than it really is, for such know less
of the pleasures of resistance.
It needs not that one of deeply thoughtful mind be passionate,
to divine all the secrets of passion. Thought is a bee that cannot miss those flowers.
Think you that if Hamlet had held exactly the position best
fitted to his nature, had his thoughts become acts, without any
violent willing of his own, had a great people paid life-long homage to his design, had he never detected the baseness of his
mother, nor found cause to suspect the untimely fate of his father, had that "rose of May, the sweet Ophelia," bloomed safely
at his side, and Horatio always been near, with his understand.
ing mind and spotless hands, do you think all this could have
preserved Hamlet from the astounding discovery that
"A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
That line, once written on his tables, would have required the
commentary of many years for its explanation.




DIALOGUE.                         159
L.  He was one by nature adapted to " consider too curiously,"
for his own peace.
A. All thoughtful minds are so.
L. All geniuses have not been sad.
A.  So far as they are artistic, merely, they differ not from instinctive, practical characters, they find relief in work. But so
far as they tend to evolve thought, rather than to recreate the
forms of things, they suffer again and again the pain of death,
because they open the gate to the next, the higher realm of being. Shakspeare knew both, the joy of creation, the deep pang
of knowledge, and this last he has expressed in Hamlet with a
force that vibrates almost to the centre of things.
L. It is marvellous, indeed, to hear the beautiful young
prince catalogue"The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, * * * *
* * The whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, * * *
~ * * * The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes."
To thee, Hamlet, so complete a nature,
"The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The noble and most sovereign reason,
The unmatched form and feature of blown youth,"
could such things come so near? Who then shall hope a refuge,
except through inborn stupidity or perfected faith?
A.  Ay, well might he call his head a globe! It was fitted to
comprehend all that makes up that " quintessence of dust, how
noble in reason; how infinite in faculties; in form, and moving,
how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god; the beauty of the world, the paragon
of animals!" yet to him, only a quintessence of dust!
L. And this world only " a sterile promontory."




160         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
A. Strange, that when from it one can look abroad into the
ocean, its barrenness should be so depressing. But man seems
to need some shelter, both from wind and rain.
L. Could he not have found this in the love of Ophelia?
A. Probably not, since that love had so little power to disenchant the gloom of this period. She was to him a flower to wear
in his bosom, a child to play the lute at his feet. We see the
charm of her innocence, her soft credulity, as she answers her
brother,
"No more, but so'l "
The exquisite grace of her whole being in the two lines
"And I of ladies most deject and wretched
That sucked the honey of his music vows."
She cannot be made to misunderstand him; his rude wildness
crushes, but cannot deceive her heart. She has no answer to his
outbreaks but
"0  help him, you sweet Heavens!"
But, lovely as she was, and loved by him, this love could have
been only the ornament, not, in any wise, the food of his life.
The moment he is left alone, his thoughts revert to universal topics; it was the constitution of his mind, no personal relation could
have availed it, except in the way of suggestion. He could not
have been absorbed in the present moment. Still it would have
been
"Heaven and earth!
Must I remember. "
L. Have you been reading the play of late?
A.  Yes; hearing Macready, one or two points struck me
that have not before, and I was inclined to try for my thousandth
harvest from a new study of it.
Macready gave its just emphasis to the climax



DIALOGUE.                          161': I'11 call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane,"
so unlike in its order to what would have been in any other mind,
as also to the two expressions in the speech so delicately charac
teristic,
"The glimpses of the moon."
and
"With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
I think I have in myself improved, that I feel more than ever
what Macready does not, the deep calmness, always apparent beneath the delicate variations of this soul's atmosphere.
" The readiness is all."
This religion from the very first harmonizes all these thrilling
notes, and the sweet bells, even when most jangled out of tune,
suggest all their silenced melody.
From Hamlet I turned to Timon and Lear; the transition was
natural yet surprising, from the indifference and sadness of the
heaven-craving soul to the misanthropy of the disappointed affections and wounded trust. Hamlet would well have understood
them both, yet what a firmament of spheres lies between his
"pangs of despised love," and the anguish of Lear.
" 0 Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you allO that way madness lies, let me shun that,
No more of that,
*       *        e *     *        *
"I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, called you children."
It rends the heart only; no grief would be possible from a
Hamlet, which would not, at the same time, exalt the soul.
The outraged heart of Timon takes refuge at once in action, in
curses, and bitter deeds. It needs to be relieved by the native




l62         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
baseness of Apemantus's misanthropy, baseness of a soul that
never knew how to trust, to make it dignified in our eyes.  Timon,
estranged from men, could only die; yet the least shade of wrong
in this heaven-ruled world would have occasioned Hamlet a deeper pain than Timon was capable of divining. Yet Hamlet could
not for a moment have been so deceived as to fancy man worthless, because many men were; he knew himself too well, to feel
the surprise of Timon when his steward proved true.
" Let me behold
Thy face.-Surely this man was born of woman.Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man."
He does not deserve a friend that could draw higher inferences
from his story than the steward does.
" Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,
When man's worst sin is, he does too much good!
Who then dares to be half so kind again!
For bounty that makes gods, doth still mar men."
Timon tastes the dregs of' the cup.  He persuades himself that
he does not believe even in himself.
" His semblable, even himself, Timon disdains."
*      *       e * *         *
"Who dares, who dares
In purity of manhood to stand up
And say this man's aflatterer, if one be
So are they all."
L.  You seem to have fixed your mind, of late, on the subject
of misanthropy!
A.  I own that my thoughts have turned of late on that low
form which despair assumes sometimes even with the well disposed. Yet see how inexcusable would it be in any of these be.
ings. Hamlet is no misanthrope, but he has those excelling gifts,




DIALOGUE.                       163
least likely to find due response from those around him. Yet he
is felt, almost in his due sense, by two or three.
Lear has not only one faithful daughter, whom he knew not
how to value, but a friend beside.
Timon is prized by the only persons to whom he was good,
purely from kindliness of nature, rather than the joy he expected
from their gratitude and sympathy, his servants.
Tragedy is always a mistake, and the loneliness of the deepest
thinker, the widest lover, ceases to be pathetic to us, so soon as
the sun is high enough above the mountains.
Were I, despite the bright points so numerous in their history
and the admonitions of my own conscience, inclined to despise
my fellow men, I should have found abundant argument against
it during this late study of Hamlet. In the streets, saloons, and
lecture rooms, we continually hear comments so stupid, insolent,
and shallow on great and beautiful works, that we are tempted to
think that there is no Public for anything that is good; that a work
of genius can appeal only to the fewest minds in any one age,
and that the reputation now awarded to those of former times is
never felt, but only traditional. Of Shakspeare, so vaunted a
name, little wise or worthy has been written, perhaps nothing so
adequate as Coleridge's comparison of him to the Pine-apple; yet
on reading Hamlet, his greatest work, we find there is not a pregnant sentence, scarce a word that men have not appreciated, have
not used in myriad ways. Had we never read the play, we should
find the whole of it fiom quotation and illustration familiar to us
as air. That exquisite phraseology, so heavy with meaning,
wrought out with such admirable minuteness, has become a part
of literary diction, the stock of the literary bank; and what set
criticism can tell like this fact how great was the work, and that
men were worthy it should be addressed to them?
L. The moon looks in to tell her assent. See, she has just




164          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
got above that chimney. Just as this happy certainty has with
you risen above the disgusts of the day.
A. She looks surprised as well as complacent.
L.  She looks surprised to find me still here.  I must say
good night. My friend, good night.
A. Good night, and farewell.
L.  You look as if it were for some time.
A.  That rests with you.  You will generally find me here,
and always I think like-minded, if not of the same mind.
An ancient sage had all things deeply tried,
And, as result, thus to his friends he cried,
" 0 friends, there are no friends."  And to this day
Thus twofold moves the strange magnetic sway,
Giving us love which love must take away.
Let not the soul for this distrust its right,
Knowing when changeful moons withdraw their light,
Then myriad stars, with promise not less pure,
New loves, new lives to patient hopes assure,
So long as laws that rule the spheres endure.




LITERATURE AND ART.
PART II.








PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART,
POETS OF THE PEOPLE.
RHYMES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAND-LOOM WEAVER.
BY WILLIAM THOM, OF IVERURY.' An' syne whan nichts grew cauld an' lang,
Ae while he sicht-ae while he sang."
Second Edition, with Additions. London, 1845.
WE cannot give a notion of the plan and contents of this little
volume better than by copying some passages from the Preface:
"The narrative portion of these pages," says Thom, " is a record of scenes
and circumstances interwoven with my experience-with my destiny. * * The
feelings and fancies, the pleasure and the pain that hovered about my aimless
existence were all my own-my property. These aerial investments I held
and fashioned into measured verse. * * The self-portraiture herein attempted
is not altogether Egotism neither, inasmuch as the main lineaments of the sketch
are to be found in the separate histories of a thousand families in Scotland
within these last ten years. That fact, however, being contemplated in mass,
and in reference to its bulk only, acts more on the wonder than on the pity of
mankind, as if human sympathies, like the human eye, could not compass an
object exceedingly large, and, at the same time, exceedingly near. It is no
small share in the end and aim of the present little work, to impart to one portion of the community a glimpse of what is sometimes going on in another; and
even if only that is accomplished, some good service will be done. I have long
had a notion that many of the heart-burnings that run through the SOCIAL
WHOLE spring not so much from the distinctiveness of classes as their mutual
ignorance of each other. The miserably rich look upon the miserably poor
with distrust and dread, scarcely giving them credit for sensibility sufficient to
feel their own sorrows. That is ignorance with its gilded side. The poor, in
PART II.                        1




2           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
turn foster a hatred of the wealthy as a sole inheritance-look on grandeur as
their natural enemy, and bend to the rich man's rule in gall and bleeding scorn.
Shallows on the one side and Demagogues on the other, are the portions that
come oftenest into contact. These are the luckless things that skirt the great
divisions, exchanging all that is offensive therein.'MAN KNOW THYSELF.'
should be written on the right hand; on the left,' Men, know EACH OTHER.' "
In this book, the recollections are introduced for the sake of
the " Rhymes," and in the same relationship as parent and child,
one the offspring of the other; and in that association alone can
they be interesting.  "I write no more ins either than what I
knew-and not all of that-so Feeling has left Fancy little to
do in the matter."
There are two ways of considering Poems, or the products of
literature in general. We may tolerate only what is excellent,
and demand that whatever is consigned to print for the benefit of
the human race should exhibit fruits perfect in shape, colour, and
flavour, enclosing kernels of permanent value.
Those who demand this will be content only with the Iliads
and Odysseys of the mind's endeavour.-They can feed no
where but at rich men's tables; in the wildest recess of nature
roots and berries will not content them.  They say, " If you can
thus satiate your appetite it is degrading; we, the highly refined in taste and the tissue of the mind, can nowhere be appeased, unless by golden apples, served up on silver dishes."
But, on the other hand, literature may be regarded as the great
mutual system of interpretation between all kinds and classes of
men. It is an epistolary correspondence between brethren of one
family, subject to many and wide separations, and anxious to remain in spiritual presence one of another. These letters may
be written by the prisoner in soot and water, illustrated by rude
sketches in charcoal;-by nature's nobleman, free to use his inheritance, in letters of gold, with the fair margin filled with exquisite miniatures;-to the true man each will have value, first,




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                      3
in proportion to the degree of its revelation as to the life of the
human soul, second, in proportion tc the perfection of form in
which that revelation is expressed.
In like manner are there two modes of criticism. One which
tries, by the highest standard of literary perfection the critic is
capable of conceiving, each work which comes in his way; rejecting all that it is possible to reject, and reserving for toleration
only what is capable of standing the severest test. It crushes to
earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the
plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects,
or have suffered by drouth. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe, that the weed in its native soil, may be a pretty, graceful plant.
There is another mode which enters into the natural history of
every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to
be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and
object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in each
natural form, if its law and purpose be understood. It does not
consider a literature merely as the garden of the nation, but as
the growth of the entire region, with all its variety of mountain,
forest, pasture, and tillage lands.  Those who observe in this
spirit will often experience, from some humble offering to the
Muses, the delight felt by the naturalist in the grasses and lichens
of some otherwise barren spot.  These are the earliest and humblest efforts of nature, but to a discerning eye they indicate the
entire range of her energies.
These two schools have each their dangers. The first tends
to hypercriticism and pedantry, to a cold restriction on the unstudied action of a large and flowing life. In demanding that
the stream should always flow transparent over golden sands,
it tends to repress its careless majesty, its vigour, and its fertilizing power.
The other shares the usual perils of the genial and affectionate;



4          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
it tends to indiscriminate indulgence and a leveling of the
beautiful with what is merely tolerable.  For indeed the vines
need judicious pruning if they are to bring us the ruby wine.
In the golden age to which we are ever looking forward, these
two tendencies will be harmonized. The highest sense of ful.
filled excellence will be found to consist with the largest appre.
ciation of every sign of life. The eye of man is fitted to range
all around no less than to be lifted on high.
Meanwhile the spirit of the time, which is certainly seeking,
though by many and strange ways, the greatest happiness for the
greatest number, by discoveries which facilitate mental no less
than bodily communication, till soon it will be almost as easy to
get your thought printed or engraved on a thousand leaves as to
drop it from the pen on one, and by the simultaneous bubbling up
of rills of thought in a thousand hitherto obscure and silent
places, declares that the genial and generous tendency shall have
the lead, at least for the present.
We are not ourselves at all concerned, lest excellent expression should cease because the power of speech to some extent
becomes more general. The larger the wave and the more fish
it sweeps along, the likelier that some fine ones should enrich the
net. It has always been so.  The great efforts of art belong to
artistic regions, where the boys in the street draw sketches on the
wall and torment melodies on rude flutes; shoals of sonneteers
follow in the wake of the great poet. The electricity which
flashes with the thunderbolts of Jove must first pervade the whole
atmosphere.
How glad then are we to see that such men as Prince and
Thom, if they are forced by' poortith cauld' to sigh much in the
long winter night, which brings them neither work nor pleasure,
can also sing between.
Thom passed his boyhood in a factory, where, beside the disadvantage of ceaseless toil and din, he describes himself as being




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.
under the worst moral infiuences.   These, however, had  no
power to corrupt his native goodness and sweetness. One of the
most remarkable things about him is his disposition to look on the
bright side, and the light and gentle playfulness with which he
enlivened, when possible, the darkest pages of his life.
The only teachers that found access to the Factory were some
works of contemporary poets.  These were great contemporaries
for him.  Scott, Byron, Moore, breathed  full enough to fan a
good blaze.-But still more important to the Scotsman and the
craftsman were the teachings of those commemorated in the following passage which describes the first introduction of them to
the literary world, and gives no unfair specimen both of his prose
and his poetry:
"-Nearer and dearer to hearts like ours was the Ettrick Shepherd, then in his
full tide of song and story; but nearer and dearer still than he, or any living
songster-to us dearer-was our ill-fated fellow-craftsman, Tannahill, who had
just then taken himself from a neglecting world, while yet that world waxed
mellow in his lay. Poor weaver chiel! What we owe to thee! Your " Braes
o' Balquidder,".and "Yon Burnside," and " Gloomy Winter," and the "Minstrel's" wailing ditty, and the noble " Gleneifer." Oh! how they did ring above
the rattling of a hundred shuttles! Let me again proclaim the debt we owe
those Song Spirits, as they walked in melody from loom to loom, ministering to
the low-hearted; and when the breast was filled with everything but hope and
happiness, and all but scared, let only break forth the healthy and vigorous
chorus "A man's aman for a' that," the fagged weaver brightens up. His very
shuttle skytes boldly along, and clatters through in faithful time to the tune of
his merrier shopmates!
"Who dare measure in doubt the restraining influences of these very Songs?
To us they were all instead of sermons. Had one of us been bold enough to
enter a church he must have been ejected for the sake of decency. His forlorn
and curiously patched habiliments would have contested the point of attraction
with the ordinary eloquence of that period. So for all parties it was better that
he kept to his garret, or wandered far " in the deep green wood." Church bells
rang not for us. Poets were indeed our Priests. But for those, the last relicof
our moral existence would have surely passed away i
" Song was the dew-drops that gathered during the long dark night of despon



6              PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
dency, and were sure to glitter in the very first blink of the sun.: * * *
To us Virtue, in whatever shape, canme only in shadow, but even by that we
saw her sweet proportions, and sometimes fain would have sought a kind acquaintance with her. —Thinking that the better features of humanity could not
be utterly defaced where song and melody were permitted to exist, and that
where they were not all crushed, Hope and Mercy might yet bless the spot, some
waxed bold, and for a time took leave of those who were called to "sing ayont
the moon," groping amidst the material around and stringing it up, ventured on
a home-made lilt.-Short was the search to find a newly kindled love, or some
old heart abreaking. Such was aye amongst us and not always unnoticed, nor
as ye shall see, unsung.
"It was not enough that we merely chaunted, and listened; but some more
ambitious, or idle if ye will, they in time would try a self-conceived song. Just
as if some funny little boy, bolder than the rest, would creep into the room where
laid Neil Gow's fiddle, and touch a note or two he could not name. How proud
he is! how blest! for he had made a sound, and more, his playmates heard it,
faith I Here I will introduce one of these early touches, not for any merit of its
own, but it will show that we could sometimes bear and even seek for our
minds a short residence, though not elegant at least sinless,-a fleeting visit
of healthy things, though small they were in size and few in number. Spray
from a gushing "linn," if it slackened not the thirst, it cooled the brow.
"The following ditty had its foundation in one of those luckless doings which
ever and aye follow misguided attachments; and in our abode of freedom these
were almost the only kind of attachments known; so they were all on the
wrong side of durability or happiness.
AIR-" Less, gin you loVe me, tell me noo."
We'll meet in yon wood,'neath a starless sky,
When wrestling leaves forsake ilk tree;
We mauna speak mair o' the days gane by,
Nor o' friends that again we never maun see:
Nae weak word o' mine shall remembrance gie
O' vows that were made and were broken to me:
I'll seem in my silence to reckon them dead,
A' wither'd and lost as the leaves that we tread,
Alane ye maun- meet me, when midnight is near,
By yon blighted auld bush that we fatally ken;
The voice that allured me, O! let me nae hear,
For my heart maun K beat to its music again.




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                          7
In darkness we'll meet, and in silence remain,'
Ilk word now and look now, were mockful or vain;
Ae mute moment morne the dream that misled,
Syne sinder as cauld as the leaves that we tread.
"This ditty was sung in the weaving shops, and when in the warbling of
one who could lend a good voice to the occasion, and could coax the words and
air into a sort of social understanding, then was it a song."
Thom  had no furtherance for many years after this first appearance. It was hard work at all times to win bread; when
work failed he was obliged to wander on foot elsewhere to procure it, losing his youngest child in a barn from the hardships
endured one cold night of this untimely "' flitting;" his admirable wife too died prematurely from the same cause. At one time
he was obliged to go with his little daughter and his flute, (on
which he is an excellent performer,) into the streets as a mendi.
cant, to procure bread for his family. This last seems to have
been far more cruel than any hardship to the honest pride native
to the Scotchman. But there is another side. Like Prince, he
was happy, as men in a rank more favoured by fortune seldom
are, in his choice of a wife. He had an equal friend, a refined
love, a brave, gentle, and uncomplaining companion in every sorrow, and wrote from his own experience the following lines:
THEY SPEAK O' WYLES.
AIR-" Gin a bodie meet a bodie."
They speak o' wyles in woman's smiles,
An' ruin in her e'eI ken they bring a pang at whiles
That's unco sair to dree;
But mind ye this, the half-ta'en kiss,
The first fond fa'in' tear,
Is, Heaven kens, fu' sweet amends
An' tints o' heaven here.




8           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
When twa leal hearts in fondness meet,
Life's tempests howl in vainThe very tears o' love are sweet
When paid with tears again.
Shall sapless prudence shake its pow,
Shall cauldrife caution fear'.
Oh, dinna, dinna droun the lowe
That lichts a heaven here!
He was equally happy in his children, though the motherless
bairns had to be sent, the little girl to tend cows, the darling boy
to a hospital (where his being subjected, when alone, to a surgical operation, is the occasion of one of the poor Poet's most
touching strains.) They were indeed his children in love and
sympathy, the source of thought and joy, such as is never known
to the rich man who gives up for banks and ships all the immortal riches domestic joys might bring him, leaving his children
first to the nursery-maid, then to hired masters, and last to the
embrace of a corrupt world. He was also most happy in his
" aerial investments," and like Prince, so fortunate, midway in
life before his power of resistance was exhausted, and those bitterest of all bitter words Too LATE, stamped upon his brow, as to
secure the enlightened assistance of one generous journal, the
timely assistance of one generous friend, which, though little in
money, was large in results. So Thom is far from an unfortunate man, though the portrait which we find in his book is marked
with wrinkles of such premature depth.  Indeed he declares that
while work was plenty and his wife with him, he was blest for
"nine years with such happiness as rarely falls to the lot of a
human being."
Thom has a poetical mind, rather than is a poet. He has a
delicate perception of relations, and is more a poet in discerning
good occasions for poems than in using them.  Accordingly his
prefaces to, or notes upon, his verses, are often, as was the case
with Sir Walter Scott, far more poetical than the verses them



POETS AND  THE  PEOPLE.                          9
selves.  This is the case as to those which followed this little
sketch:
". For a period of seventeen years, I was employed in a great weaving factory
in Aberdeen. It contained upwards of three hundred looms, worked by as
many male and female weavers.'Twas a sad place, indeed, and many a curiosity sort of man and woman entered that blue gate. Amongst the rest, that
little sly fellow Cupid would steal past'Willie, the porter' (who never dreamed
of such a being)-steal in amongst us, and make a very harvest of it. Upon
the remembrance of one of his rather grave doings, the song of' Mary' is composed. One of our shopmatcs, a virtuous young woman, fairly though unconsciously, carried away the whole bulk and value of a poor weaver's heart. He
became restless and miserable, but could never muster spirit to speak his flame.
" rHe never told his love"-yes, he told it to me. At his request, I told it to
Mary, and she laughed. Five weeks passed away, and I saw him to the churchyard. For many days ere he died, Mary watched by his bedside, a sorrowful
woman, indeed. Never did widow's tears fall more burningly. It is twenty
years since then. She is now a wife and a mother; but the remembrance of
that, their last meeting, still haunts her sensitive nature, as if she had done a
deed of blood."
The charming little description of one of the rural academies
known by the name of a " Wifie's Squeel," we reserve to reprint
in another connexion.-As we are overstepping  all limits, we
shall give, in place of farther comments, three specimens of how
the Muse sings while she throws a shuttle. They are all interesting in different ways.  "One of the Heart's Struggles" is a
faithful transcript of the refined feelings of the craftsman, how
opposite to the vulgar selfishness which so often profanes the
name of Love!  "A  Chieftain  Unknown  to the Queen," expresses many thoughts that arose in our own mind as we used to
read the bulletins of the Royal Progress through Scotland so
carefully  transferred  to the  columns of American  journals.
" Whisper Low" is perhaps the best specimen of song as song,
to be found in this volume.
1*




10          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
PRINCE'S POEMS.
BY signs too numerous to be counted, yet some of them made
fruitful by specification, the Spirit of the Age announces that she
is slowly, toilsomely, but surely, working that revolution, whose
mighty deluge rolling back, shall leave a new aspect smiling on
earth to greet the'most ancient heavens.' The wave rolls fbrward slowly, and may be as long in retreating, but when it has
retired into the eternal deep, it will leave behind it a refreshed
world, in which there may still be many low and mean men, but
no lower classes; for it will be understood that it is the glory of
a man to labour, and that all kinds of labour have their poetry, and
that there is really no more a lower and higher among the world
of men with their various spheres, than in the world of stars. All
kinds of labour are equally honorable, if the mind of the labourer
be only open so to understand them.  But as
"The glory'tis of Man's estate,For this his dower did he receive,
That he in mind should contemplate
What with his hands he doth achieve."
*       *       *       e       *
"Observe we sharply, then, what vantage,
From conflux of weak efforts springs;
He turns his craft to small advantage
Who knows not what to light it brings."
It is this that has made the difference of high and low, that cer
tain occupations were supposed to have a better influence in liberalizing and refining the higher faculties than others.  Now, the
tables are turning.  The inferences and impressions to be gained
from the pursuits that have ranked highest are, for the present,
exhausted. They have been written about, prated about, till they
have had their day, and need to lie in the shadow and recruit their
energies through silence.  The mind of the time has detected the




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                     11
truth that as there is nothing, the least, effected in this universe,
which does not somehow represent the whole, which it is again
the whole scope and effort of human Intelligence to do, no deed,
no pursuit can fail, if the mind be'divinely intended' upon it, to
communicate divine knowledge. Thus it is seen that all a man
needs for his education is to take whatsoever lies in his way to do,
and do it with his might, and think about it with his might, too; for
"He turns his craft to small advantage,
Who knows not what to light it brings."
And, as a mark of this diffusion of the true, the poetic, the philosophic education, we greet the emergence more and more of poets
from the working classes-men who not only have poet hearts
and eyes, but use them to write and print verses.
Beranger, the man of the people, is the greatest poet, and, in
fact, the greatest literary genius of modern France.  In other
nations if " the lower classes" have not such an one to boast, they
at least have many buds and shoots of new talent.  Not to speak of
the patronized ploughboys and detected merits, they have now an
order, constantly increasing, able to live by the day labor of that
good right hand which wields the pen at night; with aims,
thoughts, feelings of their own, neither borrowing from nor aspiring to the region of the Rich and Great. Elliott, Nicol, Prince,
and Thom find enough in the hedge-rows that border their everyday path;-they need not steal an entrance to padlocked flowergardens, nor orchards guarded by man-traps and spring-guns.
Of three of these it may be said, they
"Were cradled into Poesy by Wrong,
And learnt in Suffering what they taught in Song."
But of the fourth-Prince, we mean-though he indeed suffered
enough of the severest hardships of work-day life, the extreme
hardships of life when work could not be got, yet he was no flint
that needed such nard blows to strike out the fire, but an easily




-12         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
bubbling naphtha-spring that would have burned much the same,
through whatever soil it had reached the open air.
He was born of the poorest laboring people, taught to read and
write imperfectly only by means of the Sunday Schools, discouraged in any taste for books by his father lest his time, if any portion were that way bestowed, should not suffice to win his bread,with no friends of the mind, in youthful years, except a volume
of Byron, and an old German who loved to tell stories of his native land;-married at nineteen, in the hope of mingling some
solace with his cup; plunged by the birth of children into deeper
want, going forth to foreign lands a beggar in search of employment, returning to his own country to be received as a pauper,
having won nothing but mental treasure which no man wished to
buy; he found his wife and children in the workhouse, and
took them thence home to lie with him on straw in an unfurnished
garret.  Thus passed the first half of the span allotted on earth
to one made in God's image. And during those years Prince
constantly wrote into verse how such things struck him. But
we cannot say that his human experiences were deep; for all
these things, that would have tortured other men, only pained him
superficially.  Into the soul of Elliott, the iron has entered; the
lightest song of Beranger echoes to a melancholy sense of the defects of this world with its Tantalus destinies, a melancholy which
touches it at times with celestial pathos. But life has made but
little impression on Prince. Endowed by Nature with great purity of instincts, a healthy vigor of feeling more than of thought,
he sees, and expresses in all his works, the happiness natural to
Man. He sees him growing, gently, gradually, with no more of
struggle and labour than is wanted to develope his manly strength,
learning his best self from the precious teachings of domestic affections, fully and intelligently the son, the lover, the husband,
the father. He sees him walking amid the infinite fair shows of
Nature, kingly, yet companionable, too. He sees him offering to




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                     13
his God no sacrifice of blood and tears, whether others' or his
own, but the incense of a grateful and obedient heart, ever ready
for love and good works.
It is this childishness, rather this virginity of soul, that makes
Prince's poems remarkable. He has no high poetic power, not
even a marked individuality of expression.  There are no lines,
verses, or images that strike by themselves; neither human nor
external nature are described so as to make the mind of the poet
foster-father to its subject.  The poems are only easy expression
of the commonl mood of a healthy mind and tender heart, which
needs to vent itself in words and metres. Every body should be
able to write as good verse,-every body has the same simple,
substantial things to put into it.  On such a general basis the high
constructive faculty, the imagination, might rear her palaces, unafraid of ruin from war or time.
This being the case with Prince, we shall not make detailed remarks upon his poems, but merely substantiate what we have said
by some extracts.
1st. We give the description of his Journey and Return.  This,
to us, presents a delightful picture; the man is so sufficient to
himself and his own improvement; so unconquerably sweet and
happy.
2d. The poem' Land and Sea,' as giving a true presentment
of the riches of this poor man.
3d. A poem to his Child, showing how a pure and refined sense
of the beauty and value of these relations, often unknown in palaces, may make a temple of an unfurnished garret.
4th. In an extract from' A Vision of the Future,' a presentation of the life fit for man, as seen by a' reed-maker for weavers;'
such as we doubt Mrs. Norton's Child of the Islands would not
have vigor and purity of mental sense even to sympathize with,
when conceived, far less to conceive.
These extracts speak for themselves; they show the stream of'




14          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
the poet's mind to be as clear as if it had flowed over the sands
of Pactolus. But most waters show the color of the soil through
which they had toforce their passage; this is the case with Elliott, and with Thom, of whose writings we shall soon give some
notice.
Prince is an unique, as we sometimes find a noble Bayard, born
of a worldly statesman —a sweet shepherdess or nun, of a heartless woman of fashion. Such characters are the direct gift of
Heaven, and symbolize nothing in what is now called Society.
THE CHILD OF THE ISLANDS: By the Hon. Mrs. NORTON. London:
Chapman and Hull. 1845.
HOURS WITH THE MUSES: By JOHN CRITCALEY PRINCE. Second
Edition. London. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1841.
THE Hon. Mrs. Norton and Prince, "a reed-maker for weavers," meet upon a common theme-the existing miseries and possible relief of that most wretched body, England's poor: most
wretched of the world's sufferers in being worse mocked by pretensions of freedom and glory, most wretched in having minds
more awakened to feel their wretchedness.
Mrs. Norton and Prince meet on the same ground, but in
strongly contrasted garb and expression, as might be expected
from the opposite quarters from which they come.  Prince takes
this truly noble motto:
"Knowledge and Truth and.Virtue were his theme,
And lofty hopes of Liberty divine."-Shelley.
Mrs. Norton prefaces a poem on a subject of such sorrowful
earnestness, and in which she calls the future sovereign of a
groaning land to thought upon his duties, with this weak wish
couched in the verse of Moore:




POETS OF THE PEOPLE..         5
"As, half in shade and half in sun,
This world along its course advances,
May that side the sun's upon
Be all that shall ever meet thy glances."
Thus unconsciously showing her state of mind.  It is a very different wish that a good friend,' let alone' a good angel, would
proffer to the Prince of Wales at this moment. Shame indeed
will it be for him if he does wish to stand in the sun, while the
millions that he ought to spend all his blood to benefit are shivering in the cold and dark. The position of the heirs of fortune
in that country, under present circumstances, is one -of dread,
which to a noble soul would bring almost the anguish of crucifixion. How can they enjoy one moment in peace the benefit of
their possessions? And how can they give them up, and be sure
it will be any benefit to others?  The causes of ill seem so
deeply rooted in the public economy of England, that, if all her
rich men were to sell all they have and give to the poor, it would
yield but a temporary relief.  Yea! all those heaped-up gems,
the Court array of England's beauty; the immense treasures of
art, enough to arouse old Greece from her grave; the stately
parks, full of dewy glades and bosky dells, haunted by the
stately deer and still more thickly by exquisite memories; the
enormous wealth of episcopal palaces, might all be given up for
the good of the people at large, and not relieve their sufferings
ten years. It is not merely that sense of right usually dignified
by the name of generosity that is wanted, but wisdom —a deeper
wisdom by far as to the conduct of national affairs than the world
has ever yet known. It is not enough now for prince or noble to
be awakened to good dispositions. Let him not hope at once to
be able to do good with the best dispositions; things have got too
far from health and simplicity for that; the return must be tedious, and whoever sets out on that path must resign himself to
be a patient student, with a painfully studying world for his com



16          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
panion.  In work he can for a long time hope no shining results;
the miners dig in the dark as yet for the ransom of the suffering
million.
Hard is the problem for the whole civilized world at present,
hard fobr bankrupt Europe, hard for endangered America.  We
say bankrupt Europe, for surely nations are so who have not
known how to secure peace, education, or even bodily sustenance
for the people at large. The lightest lore of fairy tale is wise
enough to show that such nations must be considered bankrupt,
notwithstanding the accumulation of wealth, the development of
resources, the prodigies of genius and science they have to boast.
Some successes have been achieved, but at what a price of blood
and tears, of error and of crime!
And, in this hard school-time, hardest must be the lot of him
who has outward advantages above the rest, and yet is at all
awakened to the wants of all. Has he mind? how shall he learn?
time-how  employ it? means-where apply them?  The poor
little " trapper," kept in the dark at his automaton task twelve
hours a day, has an easy and happy life before him, compared
with the prince on the throne, if that prince possesses a conscience that can be roused, a mind that can be developed.
The position of such a prince is indicated in the following extract which we take from the Schnellpost.  Laube says in his
late work, called " Three royal cities of the North," "King
Oscar still lives in the second story of the castle at Stockholm,
where he lived when he was crowned prince. He was out, and
his dressing gown thrown upon an elbow chair before the writing
table: all was open, showing how he was occupied. I found
among the books, that seemed in present use, many in German,
among them  the  "Staats Lexicon," "Julius upon Prisons,"
s" Rotteck's History of the World." It is well known that King
Oscar is especially interested in studies for the advantage of the
most unhappy classes of citizens, the poor and the prisoners, and




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                    17
has, himself, written upon the subject.  His apartment shows
domestic habits like those of a writer.  No fine library full of
books left to accumulate dust, but what he wants, chosen with
judgment, ready for use around him. A hundred little things
showed what should be the modern kingly character, at home in
the intellectual life of our time, earnest fbr a general culture.
Every thing in his simple arrangements showed the manly democratic prince. He is up, early and late, attending with zealous
conscientiousness to the duties of his office."
Such a life should England's prince live, and then he would be
only one of the many virtuous seekers, with a better chance to try
experiments. The genius of the time is working through myriad
organs, speaking through myriad mouths, but condescends chiefly
to men of low estate. She is spelling a new and sublime spell;
its first word we know is brotherhood, but that must be well pronounced and learnt by heart before we shall hear another so clearly.
One thing is obvious, we must cease to worship princes even in
genius. The greatest geniuses will in this day rank themselves as
the chief servants only. It is not even the most exquisite, the highest, but rather the largest and deepest experience that can serve
us.  The Prince of Wales, like his poetess, will not be so able a
servant on account of the privileges she so gracefully enumerates
and cannot persuade herself are not blessings. But they will
keep him, as they have kept her, farther from the truth and
knowledge wanted than he would have been in a less sheltered
position.
Yet we sympathize with Mrs. Norton in her appeal. Every
boy should be a young prince; since it is not so, in the present
distorted state of society, it is natural to select some one cherished
object as the heir to our hopes. Children become the angels of
a better future to all who attain middle age without losing from
the breast that chief jewel, the idea of what man and life should
be. They must do what we hoped to do, but find time, strength,




18          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
perhaps even spirit, failing. They show not yet their limitations;
in their eyes shines an infinite hope; we can imagine it realized
in their lives, and this consoles us for the deficiencies in our own,
for the soul, though demanding the beautiful and good every
where, can yet be consoled if it is found some where.'Tis an
illusion to look for ithin these children more than in ourselves,
but it is one we seem to need, being the second strain of the music that cheers our fatiguing march through this part of the scene
of life.
There was a good deal of prestige about Queen Victoria's
coming to the throne. She was young, " and had what in a
princess might be styled beauty." She wept lest she should not
reign wisely, and that seemed as if she might. Many hoped she
might prove another Elizabeth, with more heart, using the privileges of the woman, her high feeling, sympathy, tact and quick
penetration in unison with, and as corrective of, the advice of experienced statesmen. We hoped she would be a mother to the
country. But she has given no signs of distinguished character;
her walk seems a private one. She is a fashionable lady and
the mother of a family.  We hope she may prove the mother of
a good prince, but it will not do to wait for him; the present
generation must do all it can. If he does no harm, it is more
than is reasonable to expect from a prince —does no harm and is
the keystone to keep the, social arch from falling into ruins till
the time be ripe to construct a better in its stead.
Mrs. Norton, addressing herself to the Child of the Islands,
goes through the circling seasons of the year and finds plenty of
topics in their changes to subserve her main aim.  This is to
awaken the rich to their duty. And, though the traces of her
education are visible, and weak prejudices linger among newly
awakened thoughts, yet, on the whole, she shows a just sense of
the relationship betwixt man and man, and musically doth she
proclaim her creed in the lines beginning




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                          19
The stamps of imperfection rests on all
Our human intellect has power to plan.
After an eloquent enumeration of the difficulties that beset our
path and our faith, she concludesLo! out of chaos was the world first called,
And Order out of blank Disorder came,
The feebly-toiling heart that shrinks appalled,
In dangers weak, in difficulties tame,
Hath lost the spark of that creative flame
Dimly permitted still on earth to burn,
Working out slowly Order's perfect frame;
Distributed to those whose souls can learn,
As labourers under God, His task-work to discern.
"To discern," ay! that is what is needed.  Only these "labourers under God" have that clearness of mind that is needed,
and though in the present time they walk as men in a subterranean passage where the lamp sheds its light only a little way
onward, yet that light suffices to keep their feet from stumbling
while they seek an outlet to the blessed day.
The above presents a fair specimen of the poem. As poetry
it is inferior to her earlier verses, where, without pretension to
much thought, or commanding view, Mrs. Norton expressed simply the feelings of the girl and the woman.  Willis has described
them well in one of the most touching of his poems, as being a
tale
-" of feelings which in me are cold,
But ah! with what a passionate sweetness told!"
The best passages in the present poem are personal, as where
a mother's feelings are expressed in speaking of infants and
young children, recollections of a Scotch Autumn, and the description of the imprisoned gipsey.*
* This extract was inserted in the original notice, but must be omitted here
for want of room.




20          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
In the same soft and flowing style, and with the same unstudied
fidelity to nature, is the grief of the gipsey husband painted
when he comes and finds her dead. After the first fury of rage
and despair is spent, he " weepeth like a child"And many a day by many a sunny bank,
Or forest pond, close fringed with rushes dank,
He wails, his clench'd hands on his eyelids prest;
Or by lone hedges, where the grass grows rank,
Stretched prone, as travelers deem, in idle rest,
Mourns for that murdered g'rl, the dove of his wild nest.
To such passages the woman's heart lends the rhetoric.
Generally the poem is written with considerable strength, in a
good style, sustained, and sufficiently adorned, by the flowers of
feeling. It shows an expansion of mind highly honourable to a
lady placed as Mrs. Norton has been, and for which she, no
doubt, is much indebted to her experience of sorrow. She has
felt the need of faith and hope, of an enlargement of sympathy.
The poem may be read through at once and without fatigue;
this is much to say for an ethical poem, filling a large volume.
It is, however, chiefly indebted for its celebrity to the circumstances of its authorship. A beautiful lady, celebrated in aristocratic circles, joins the democratic movement, now so widely
spreading in light literature, and men hail the fact as a sign of
the times. The poem is addressed to the " upper classes," and,
even from its defects, calculated to win access to their minds.
Its outward garb, too, is suited to attract their notice.  The book
is simply but beautifully got up, the two stanzas looking as if
written for the page they fill, and in a pre-existent harmony with
the frame-work and margin. There is only one ugly thing, and
that frightfully ugly, the design for the frontispiece by Maclise.
The Child of the Islands, represented by an infant form to whose
frigid awkwardness there is no correspondence in the most degraded models that can be found in Nature for that age, with the




POETS OF THE PEOPLE.                   21
tamest of angels kneeling at his head and feet. angels that have
not spirit and sweetness enough to pray away a fly, forms the
centre. Around him are other figures of whom it is impossible
to say whether they are goblins or fairies, come to curse or bless.
The accessories are as bad as the main group, mean in conception, tame in execution. And the subject admitted of so beautiful and noble an illustration by Art! We marvel that a person
of so refined taste as Mrs. Norton, and so warmly engaged in
the subject, should have admitted this to its companionship.
We intended to have given some account of Prince and his
poems, in this connection, but must now wait till another numberl, for we have spread our words over too much space already.




MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.
A DRAMA OF EXILE: AND OTHER POEMS. By ELIZABETII B. BAR.
RETT, author of THE SERAPHIM AND OTHER POEMS. New-York: Henry G.
Langley, No. 8 Astor House, 1845
WHAT happiness for the critic when, as in the present instance,
his task is, mainly, how to express a cordial admiration; to indicate an intelligence of beauties, rather than regret for defects!
We have read these volumes with feelings of delight far
warmer than the writer, in her sincerely modest preface, would
seem to expect from any reader, and cannot hesitate to rank her,
in vigour and nobleness of conception, depth of spiritual experience, and command of classic allusion, above any female writer
the world has yet known.
In the first quality, especially, most female writers are deficient. They do not grasp a subject with simple energy, nor
treat it with decision of touch.  They are, in general, most remarkable for delicacy of feeling, and brilliancy or grace in
manner.
In delicacy of perception, Miss Barrett may vie with any of
her sex.  She has what is called a true woman's heart, although
we must believe that men of a fine conscience and good organization will have such a heart no less.  Signal instances occur
to us in the cases of Spenser, Wordsworth and Tennyson. The
woman who reads them will not find hardness or blindness as to
the subtler workings of thoughts and affections.
If men are often deficient on this score; women, on the other
hand, are apt to pay excessive attention to the slight tokens, the




MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.                      23
little things of life. Thus, in conduct or writing, they tend to
weary us by a morbid sentimentalism.  From  this fault Miss
Barrett is wholly free.  Personal feeling is in its place; enlightened by Reason, ennobled by Imagination. The earth is no despised resting place for the feet, the heaven bends wide above,
rich in starry hopes, and the air flows around exhilarating and
free.
The mournful, albeit we must own them tuneful, sisters of the
lyre might hush many of their strains at this clear note from one
who has felt and conquered the same difficulties.
PERPLEXED MUSIC.
"Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand:
Whence harmonies we cannot understand
Of God's will in his worlds the strain unfolds,
In sad perplexed minors. Deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy land,
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur-' Where is any certain tune,
Or measured music in such notes as these.'
But angels leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded; their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences;
And smiling down the stars, they whisper-swEET."
We are accustomed now to much *verse on moral subjects,
such as follows the lead of Wordsworth and seeks to arrange
moral convictions as melodies on the harp. But these tones are
never deep, unless the experience of the poet, in the realms of
intellect and emotion, be commensurate with his apprehension of
truth. Wordsworth moves us when he writes an " Ode to Duty,"
or " Dion," because he could also write "Ruth," and the exquisitely tender poems on Matthew, in whom nature
"-for a favorite child
Had tempered so the clay,




f~24        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
That every hour the heart ran wild,
Yet never went astray."
The trumpet call of Luther's'Judgment Hymn' sounds from
the depths of a nature capable of all human emotions, or it could
not make the human ear vibrate as it does. The calm convictions expressed by Miss Barrett in the sonnets come with poetic
force, because she was also capable of writing' The Lost Bower,''The Romaunt of the Page,'' Loved Once,'' Bertha in the
Lane,' and' A Lay of the Early Rose.' These we select as the
finest of the tender poems.
In the' Drama of Exile' and the'Vision of Poets,' where she
aims at a Miltonic flight or Dantesque grasp-not in any spirit
of rivalry or imitation, but because she is really possessed of a
similar mental scope-her success is far below what we find ip
the poems of feeling and experience; for she has the vision of E
great poet, but little in proportion of his plastic power.  She is
at home in the Universe; she sees its laws; she sympathises
with its motions.  She has the imagination all compact-the
healthy archetypal plant from which all forms may be divined,
and, so far as now existent, understood. Like Milton, she sees
the angelic hosts in real presence; like Dante, she hears the
spheral concords and shares the planetary motions. But she
cannot, like Milton, marshal the angels so near the earth as to
impart the presence other than by sympathy.  He who is near
her level of mind may, through the magnetic sympathy, see the
angels with her. Others will feel only the grandeur and sweetness she expresses in these forms. Still less can she, like Dante,
give, by a touch, the key which enables oumselves to play on the
same instrument.  She is singularly deficient in the power of
compression. There are always far more words and verses than
are needed to convey the meaning, and it is a great proof of her
strength, that the thought still seems strong, when arrayed in a
form so Briarean clumsy and many-handed.




MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.                    25
We compare her with those great poets, though we have read
her preface and see how sincerely she deprecates any such comparison, not merely because her theme is the same as theirs, but
because, as we must again repeat, her field of vision and nobleness of conception are such, that we cannot forbear trying her
by the same high standard to see what she lacks.
Of the "Drama of Exile" and other poems of the same character, we may say that we shall never read them again, but we
are very glad to have read them  once, to see how the grand
mysteries look to her, to share with her the conception and outline of what would, in the hands of a more powerful artist, have
come forth a great poem.  Our favorite, above anything we
have read of hers, is the " Rhyme of-the Duchess May," equally
admirable in thought and execution, in poetic meaning and ro~mantic grace.
Were there room here, it should be inserted, as a sufficient
evidence of the writer's high claims; but it is too long, and does
not well bear being broken. The touches throughout are fine
and forcible, but they need the unison of the whole to give them
their due effect.
Most of these poems have great originality in the thought and
the motive powers.  It is these, we suppose, that have made
" The Brown Rosarie" so popular. It has long been handed
about in manuscript, and hours have been spent in copying it,
which would have been spared if the publication of these volumes in America had been expected so soon. It does not please
us so well as many of the others. The following, for instance,
is just as original, full of grace, and, almost, perfectly simple:
THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST.e
How sweetly natural! and how distinct is the picture of the
* Several poems mentioned in these articles, and published in the first instance, are omitted now on account of their length.
PART II.                   2




26            PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND ART.
little girl, as she sits by the brook. The poem cannot fail to
charm all who have treasured the precious memories of their
own childhood, and remember how romance was there interwoven
with reality.
Miss Barrett makes many most fair and distinct pictures, such
as this of the Duchess May at the fatal moment when her lord's
fortress was giving way:
Low she dropt her head and lower, till her hair coiled on the floor.
Toll slowly!
And tear after tear you heard, fall distinct as any word
Which you might be listening for.
" Get thee in, thou soft ladie!-here is never a place for thee."
Toll slowly!
"Braid thy hair and clasp thy gown, that thy beauty in its moan
May find grace with Leigh of Leigh."
She stood up in bitter case, with a pale yet steady face,
Toll slowly!
Like a statue thunderstruck, which, though quivering, seems to look
Right against the thunder-place,
And her feet trod in, with pride, her own tears i' the stone beside.
Toll slowly!
Go to, faithful friends, go to!-Judge no more what ladies do,
No, nor how their lords may ride.
and so on.  There are passages in that poem beyond praise.
Here are descriptions as fine of another sort of person from
LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP.
Her foot upon the new-mown grass-bareheaded-with the flowing
Of the virginal white vesture, gathered closely to her throat;
With the golden ringlets in her neck, just quickened by her going,
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float,With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her,
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies,As she turned her face in going, thus she drew me on to love her,
And to study the deep meaning of the smile hid in her eyes.




MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.                           27
For her eyes alone smiled constantly- her lips had serious sweetness,
And her front was calm-the dimple rarely rippled on her cheek:
But her deep blue eyes smiled constantly,-as if they had by fitness
Won the secret of a happy dream, she did not care to speak.
How fine are both the descriptive  and critical touches in the
following passage:
Ay, and sometimes on the hill-side, while we sat down in the gowans,
With the forest green behind us, and its shadow cast before;
And the river running under; and across it, from the rowens,
A brown partridge whirring near us, till we felt the air it boreThere, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems
Made by Tuscan flutes, or instruments, more various, of our own;
Read the'pastoral parts of Spenser-or the subtle interflowings
Found in Petrarch's sonnets —here's the book-the leaf is folded down!
Or at times a modern volume- Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl,
Ilowitt's ballad-dew, or Tennyson's god-vocal reverie,Or from Browning some " Pomegranate," which, if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within, blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
Or I'read there, sometimes, hoarsely, some new poem of my makingOh, your poets never read their own best verses to their worth,
For the echo, in you, breaks upon the words which you are speaking,
And the chariot-wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them forth.
After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round us flinging
A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the breast,She would break out, on a sudden, in a gush of woodland singing,
Like a child's emotion in a god-a naiad tired of rest.
Oh, to see, or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinestFor her looks sing too-she modulates her gestures on the tune;
And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are finest,'Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light, and seem to swell them on.
Then we talked-oh, how we talked! her voice so cadenced in the talking,
Made another singing-of the soul! a music without barsWhile the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were walking,
Brought interposition worthy-sweet,-as skies about the stars.




28           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always thought themAnd had sympathies so ready, open-free like bird on branch,
Just as ready to fly east as west, which ever way besought them,
In the birchen wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the grange.
In her utmost lightness there is truth-and often she speaks lightly;
And she has a grace in being gay, which mourners even approve;
For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck so rightly,
As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above."
We must copy yet one other poem to give some idea of the
range of Miss Barrett's power.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
If it be said that the poetry, the tragedy here is in the facts,
yet how rare is it to find a mind that can both feel and upbear
such facts.
We have already said, that, as a poet, Miss Barrett is deficient
in plastic energy, and that she is diffuse.  We must add many
blemishes of overstrained and constrained thought and expression.
The ways in which words are coined or forced from their habitual meanings does not carry its excuse with it. We find no
gain that compensates the loss of elegance and simplicity.  One
practice which has already had its censors of using the adjective
for the noun, as in the cases of " The cry of the Human,"
" Leaning from the Golden," we, also, find offensive, not only to
the habitual tastes, but to the sympathies of the very mood
awakened by the writer.
We hear that she has long been an invalid, and, while the knowledge of this increases admiration for her achievements and delight at the extent of the influence,-so much light flowing from
the darkness of the sick room,-we seem  to trace injurious results, too. There is often a want of pliant and glowing life.
The sun does not always warm the marble. We have spoken
of the great book culture of this mind. We must now say that
this culture is too great in proportion to that it has received from




MISS BARRETT'S POEMS.                     - 29
actual life.  The lore is not always assimilated to the new form;
the illustrations sometimes impede the attention rather than help
its course; and we are too much and too often reminded of other
minds and other lives.
Great variety of metres are used, and with force and facility.
But they have not that deep music which belongs to metres which
are the native growth of the poet's mind. In that case, others
may have used them, but we feel that, if they had not, he must
have invented them; that. they are original with him.   Miss
Barrett is more favoured by the grand and thoughtful, than by the
lyric muse.
We have thus pointed out all the faults we could find in Miss
Barrett, feeling that her strength and nobleness deserves this act
of high respect.  She has no need of leniency, or caution.  The
best comment upon such critiques may be made by subjoining
this paragraph from her Preface:
" If it were not presumptuous language on the lips of one to whom life is
more than usually uncertain, my favourite wish for this work would be, that it
be received by the public as a deposite, ambitious of approaching to the nature of
a security for a future offering of more value and acceptability. I would fain
do better, and I feel as if I lmoight do better: I aspire to do better. In any case,
my poems, while full of faults, as I go forward to my critics and confess, have
my life and heart in them. They are not empty shells. If it must be said of
me that I have contributed unworthy verses, I also to the many rejected by the
age, it cannot, at least be said that I have done so in a light or irresponsible
spirit. Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been
a very serious thing; there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I
never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour of
the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work; not as mere hand and head
work apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that
being to which I could attain; and, as work, I offer it to the public, feeling its
faultiness more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height
of my aspiration, but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which
the work was done should protect it in the tho;aghts of the reverent and sincere."




30          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Of the greatest of Grecian sages it was said that he acquired
such power over the lower orders of nature, through his purii,
and intelligence, that wild beasts were abashed and reformed by
his admonitions, and that, once, when walking abroad with his
disciples, he called down the white eagle, soaring above him, and
drew from her willing wing a quill for his use.
We have seen women use with skill and grace, the practical
goose-quill, the sentimental crow-quill, and even the lyrical, the
consecrated feathers of the swan. But we have never seen one to
whom the white eagle would have descended; and, for a while,
were inclined to think that the hour had now, for the first time,
arrived. But, upon full deliberation, we will award to Miss
Barrett one from the wing of the sea-gull. That is also a white
bird, rapid, soaring, majestic, and which can alight with ease,
and pise itself upc.- the stormiest wave.




BROWNING'S POEMS.
ROBERT BROWNING is scarcely known in this country, as, indeed, in his own, his fame can spread but slowly, from the nature
of his works. On this very account,-of the peculiarity of his
genius,-we are desirous to diffuse the knowledge that there is
such a person, thinking and writing, so that those who, here and
there, need just him, and not another, may know where to turn.
Our first acquaintance with this subtle and radiant mind was
through his " Paracelsus," of which we cannot now obtian a copy,
and must write from a distant memory.
It is one of those attempts, that illustrate the self-consciousness
of this age, to represent the fever of the soul pining to embrace
the secret of the universe in a single trance. Men who are once
seized with this fever, carry thought upon the heart as a cross,
instead of finding themselves daily warmed and enlightened to
more life and joy by the sacred fire to which their lives daily
bring fresh fuel.
Sometimes their martyrdoms greatly avail, as to positive
achievements of knowledge for their own good and that of all
men; but, oftener, they only enrich us by experience of the
temporary limitations of the mind, and the inutility of seeking to
transcend, instead of working within them.
Of this desire, to seize at once as a booty what it was intended
we should legitimately win by gradual growth, alchemy and the
elixir vita were, in the middle ages, apt symbols. In seeking
how to prolong life, men wasted its exquisite spring-time and




32          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
splendid summer, lost the clues they might have gained by initiation to the mysteries of the present existence.  They sought to
make gold in crucibles, through study of the laws which govern
the material world, while within them was a crucible and a fire
beneath it, which only needed watching, in faith and purity, and
they would have turned all substances to treasure, which neither
moth nor rust could corrupt.
Paracelsus had one of those soaring ambitions that sought the
stars and built no nest amid the loves or lures of life. Incapable
of sustaining himself in angelic force and purity, he tainted, after
a while, his benefits, by administering them with the arts of a
charlatan, seeking too ambitiously the mastery of life, he missed
its best instructions.
Yet he who means nobleness, though he misses his chosen aim,
cannot fail to bring down a precious quarry from the clouds.
Paracelsus won deep knowledge of himself and his God. Love
followed, if it could not bless him, and the ecstacies of genius
wove music into his painful dreams.
The holy and domestic love of Michal, that Ave Maria Stella
of his stormy life, the devotion of a friend, who living, for himself, in the humility of a genuine priest, yet is moved by the
pangs of sympathy, to take part against and "wrestle with"
Heaven in his behalf, the birth and bud of the creative spirit
which blesses through the fulness of forms, as expressed in
Aprile, all are told with a beauty and, still more, a pregnancy,
unsurpassed amid the works of contemporary minds.
"Sordello" we have never seen, and have been much disappointed at not being able to obtain the loan of a copy now existent
in New England.  It is spoken of as a work more thickly enveloped in refined obscurities than ever any other that really had
a meaning; and no one acquainted with Browning's mind can
doubt his always having a valuable meaning, though sometimes
we may not be willing to take the degree of trouble necessary to




BROWNING'S POEMS.                      33
ferret it out. His writings have, till lately, been clouded by obscurities, his riches having seemed to accumulate beyond his
mastery of them. So beautiful are the picture gleams, so full of
meaning the little thoughts that are always twisting their parasites over his main purpose, that we hardly can bear to wish them
away, even when we know their excess to be a defect. They
seem, each and all, too good to be lopped away, and we cannot
wonder the mind fiom which they grew was at a loss which to
reject. Yet, a higher mastery in the poetic art must give him
skill and resolution to reject them. Then, all true life being condensed into the main growth, instead of being so much scattered
in tendrils, off-shoots and flower-bunches, the effect would be
more grand and simple; nor should we be any loser as to the
spirit; it would all be there, only more concentrated as to the
form, more full, if less subtle, in its emanations. The tendency
to variety and delicacy, rather than to a grasp of the subject and
concentration of interest, are not so obvious in Browning's minor
works as in Paracelsus, and in his tragedy of' Strafford.' This
very difficult subject for tragedy engaged, at about the same time,
the attention of Sterling.  Both he and Browning seem to have
had it brought before their attention by Foster's spirited biography of Strafford.  We say it is difficult-though we see how it
tempted the poets to dramatic enterprise. The main character
is one of tragic force and majesty; the cotemporary agents all
splendid figures, and of marked individuality; the march of action necessarily rapid and imposing; the events induced of universal interest.  But the difficulty is, that the materials are even
too rich and too familiar to every one.  We cannot bear any violation of reality, any straining of the common version of this
story.  Then the character and position of Strafford want that
moral interest which is needed to give full pathos to the catastrophe. We admire his greatness of mind and character, we loathe
the weakness and treachery of the King; we dislike the stern
2*




34          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
hunters, notwithstanding their patriotic motives, for pursuing to
the death the noble stag; and yet we feel he ought to die. We
wish that he had been killed, not by the hands of men, with their
spotted and doubtful feelings, but smitten direct by pure fire from
heaven. Still we feel he ought to die, and our grief wants the
true tragic element which hallows it in the Antigone,. the Lear,
and even Schiller's " Mary Stuart," or "Wallenstein."
But of the two, Sterling's conception of the character and
conduct of the drama is far superior to that of Browning.  Both
dramas are less interesting and effective than the simple outline
history gives, but Browning weakens the truth in his representation of it, while Sterling at least did not falsify the character of
Strafford, bitter, ruthlessly ambitious, but strong and majestic
~throughout. Browning loses, too, his accustomed originality and
grace in the details of this work, through a misplaced ambition.
But believing that our poet has not reached that epoch of mastery, when he can do himself full justice in a great work, we
would turn rather to the consideration of a series of sketches,
dramatic and lyric, which he has been publishing for several
years, under the title of" Bells and Pomegranates."  We do not
know whether this seemingly affected title. is assumed in conformity with the catch-penny temper of the present day, or whether
these be really in the mind of Robert Browning no more than the
glittering fringe of his priestly garment.  If so, we shall cherish
high hopes, indeed, as to the splendors that will wait upon the
unfolding of the main vesture.
The plan of these sketches is original, the execution in many
respects, admirable, and the range of talent and perception they
display, wider than that of any contemporary poet in England.:
"Pippa Passes" is the title of the first of these little two shilling volumes, which seem to contain just about as much as a
man who lives wisely, might, after a good summer of mingled




BROWNING'S POEMS.                    35
work, business and pleasure, have to offer to the world, as the
honey he could spare from his hive.
Pippa is a little Italian girl who works in a silk mill. Once a
year the workpeople in these mills have an entire day given them
for their pleasure.  She is introduced at sunrise of such a day,
singing her morning thoughts. She then goes forth to wander
through the town, singing her little songs of childish gayety and
purity. She passes, not through, but by, different scenes of life,
passes by a scene of guilty pleasure, by the conspiracies of the
malicious, by the cruel undeception of the young sculptor who
had dared trust his own heart more fully than is the wont of the
corrupt and cautious world. Every where the notes of her song
pierce their walls and windows, awakening them to memories of
innocence and checking the course of misdeed.  The plan of this
work is, it will be seen, at once rich and simple. It admits of an
enchanting variety, and an unobtrusive unity.  Browning has
made the best use of its advantages. The slides in the magic
lantern succeed one another with perfect distinctness, but, through
them all shines the light of this one beautiful Italian day, and thc
little silk winder, its angel, discloses to us as fine gleams of garden, stream and sky, as we have time to notice while passing suchvarious and interesting groups of human beings.
The finest sketch of these is that of Jules, the sculptor, and
his young bride. Jules, like many persons of a lofty mould, in
the uncompromising fervour of youth, makes all those among his
companions whom he thinks weak, base and vicious, his enviers
and bitter enemies.  A set of such among his fellow-students
have devised this most wicked plan to break his heart and pride
at Qnce. They write letters as from a maiden who has distinguished him from the multitude, and knows how to sympathize
with all his tastes and aims. They buy of her mother a beautiful young girl, who is to represent the character.  Th~ letters
assume that she is of a family of rank who will not favour the




36            PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
alliance, and when Jules, enchanted by the union of the beauty
of intellect in the letters and the beauty of person of which he
has gained glimpses, presses his suit as a lover, marriage is con
sented to on condition that he shall not seek to converse with her
till after the ceremony. This is the first talk of Jules after he
has brought his silent bride to his studio:
Thou by me
And I by thee-this is thy hand in mineAnd side by side we sit-all's true. Thank God!
I have spoken-speak thou!
-O, my life to come!
My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay,
And how be carved with you about the chamber.
Where must I place you? When I think that once
This room full of rough block-work seemed my heaven
Without you! Shall I ever work againGet fairly into my old ways againBid each conception stand while trait by trait
My hand transfers its lineaments to stone?
Will they, my fancies, live near you, my truthThe live truth-passing and repassing me —
Sitting beside me?
-Now speak!
Only, first,
Your letters to me-was't not well contrived?
A hiding place in Psyche's robe-there lie
Next to her slkin your letters; which comes foremost?
Good-this that swam down like a first moonbeam
Into my world.
Those? Books I told you of.
Let your first word to me rejoice them, too,This minion of Coluthus, writ in red
Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribeRead this line-no, shame-Homer's be the Greek!
My Odyssey in coarse black vivid type
With faded yellow blossoms'twixt page and page;
" He said, and on Antirnus directed
A bitter shaft"-then blots a flower the rest!




BROWNING'S POEMS.                           37
-Ah, do not mind that-better that will look
When cast in bronze-an Almaign Kaiser that,
Swart-green and gold with truncheon based on hipThis rather, turn to-but a check alreadyOr you had recognized that here you sit
As I imagined you, Hippolyta
Naked upon her bright Numiidian horse!
-Forgot you this then  " carve in bold relief,"So you command me-" carve against I come
A Greek, bay filleted and thunder free,
Rising beneath the lifted myrtle-branch,
Whose turn arrives to praise Harmodius."-Praise him!
Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms
Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides,
Only consenting at the branches' end
They strain towards, serves for frame to a sole face(Place your own face)-the Praiser's, who with eyes
Sightless, so bend they back to light inside
His brain where visionary forms throng up,
(Gaze-I am your IIarmodius dead and gone,)
Sings, minding not the palpitating arch
Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine
From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor who cast off
Their violet crowns for him to trample onSings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve,
Devoutly their unconquerable hymnBut you must say a " well" to that-say "well"
Because you gaze —am I fantastic, sweet.
Gaze like my very life's stuff, marble-marbly
Even to the silence-and before I found
The real flesh Phene, 1 inured myself
To see throughout all nature varied stuff
For better nature's birth by means of art:
With me, each substance tended to one form
Of beauty —to the human ArchetypeAnd every side occurred suggestive germs
Of that-the tree, the flower-why, take the fruit,
Some rosy shape, continuing the peach,
Curved beewise o'er its bough, as rosy limbs




38            PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
Depending nestled in the leaves-and just
From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprung!
But of the stuffs one can be master of,
How I divined their capabilities
From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk
That yields your outline to the air's embrace,
Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure
To cut its one confided thought clean out
Of all the world: but marble!-'neath my tools
More pliable than jelly-as it were
Some clear primordial creature dug from deep
In the Earth's heart where itself breeds itself
And whence all baser substance may be worked;
Refine it off to air you may-condense it
Down to the diamond;-is not metal there
When o'er the sudden specks my chisel trips'
-Not flesh-as flake off flake I scale, approach,
Lay bare these bluish veins of blood asleep.
Lurks flame in no strange windings where surprised
By the swift implements sent home at once,
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover
About its track.The girl, thus addressed, feels the wings budding within her,
that shall upbear her from  the birth-place of pollution in whose
mud her young feet have been imprisoned. Still, her first words
reveal to the proud, passionate, confiding genius the horrible deception that has been practised on him. After his first anguish,
one of Pippa's songs steals in to awaken consoling thoughts.
He feels that only because his heart was capable of noble trust
could it be so deceived; feels too that the beauty which had enchanted him could not be a mere mask, but yet might be vivified
by a soul worthy of it, and finds the way to soar above his own
pride and t'ne opinions of an often purblind world.
Another song, with which Pippa passes, contains, in its first
stanza, this grand picture:




BROWNING'S POEMS.                            39
A king lived long ago,
In the morning of the world,
When Earth was nigher Heaven than now:
And the King's locks curled
Disparting o'er a forehead full
As the milk-white space'twixt horn and horn
Of some sacrificial bull.
Only calm as a babe new-born;
For he has got to a sleepy mood,
So safe from all decrepitude.
Age with its bane so sure gone by,
(The gods so loved him while he dreamed)
That, having lived thus long there seemed
No need the King should ever die.
Luigi-No need that sort of King should ever die.
Among the rocks his city was;
Before his palace, in the sun,
He sat to see his people pass;
And judge them every one,
From its threshold of smooth stone.
This picture is as good as the Greeks.
Next came a set of Dramatic Lyrics, all more or less good,
from which we select
ITALY.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive; I call
That piece a wonder, now; Frh Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her' I said
" Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of that earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so not the first




40           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir,'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek; perhaps
Frk Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps' Over my Lady's wrist too much," or " Paint
" Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart-how shall I say-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went every where.
Sir,'twas all one! My favour at her b'east,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace-all and each
Would draw from her alike the forward speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men-good; but thanked
Some how-I know not how-as if she ranked
My gift of a nine hundred years' old name
With any body's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling! Even had you skill
In speech-(which I have not)-could make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, " Just this
"Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the lark" —and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping, and I chuse
Never to stoop. Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile  This grew; I gave commands,'
Then all smiles stopped together. Ther, she stands
As if,alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed




BROWNING'S POEMS.                      41
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, Sir! Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.
CRISTINA.
To this volume succeeded "King Victor and King Charles,"
"The Return of the Druses," " A Blot in the'Scutcheon," and' Colombe's Birthday."
The' first we do not so much admire, but the other three have
all the same originality of conception, delicate penetration into
the mysteries of human feeling, atmospheric individuality, and
skill in picturesque detail. All four exhibit very high and pure
ideas of Woman, and a knowledge very rare in man of the ways
in which what is peculiar in her office and nature works.  Her
loftiest elevation does not, in his eyes, lift her out of nature.  She
becomes not a mere saint, but the goddess-queen of nature. Her
purity is not cold lilke marble, but the healthy, gentle energy of
the flower, instinctively rejecting what is not fit for it, with no need
of disdain to dig a gulf between it and the lower forms of creation. Her office to man is that of the Muse, inspiring him to all
good thoughts and deeds. The passions that sometimes agitate
these maidens of his verse, are the surprises of noble hearts, unprepared for evil, and even their mistakes cannot cost bitter tears
to their attendant angels.
The girl in the " Return of the Druses" is the sort of nature
Byron tried to paint in Myrrha. But Byron could only paint
women as they were to him. Browning can show what they are
in themselves.
In " A Blot in the'Scutcheon" we see a lily, storm-struck,
half broken, but still a lily. In " Colombe's Birthday" a queenly
rosebud, which expands into the full glowing rose before our
eyes.  This is marvelous in this drama, how the characters are
unfolded before us by the crisis, which not only exhibits, but calls




:42         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
to life, the higher passions and thoughts which were latent within
them.
We bless the poet for these pictures of women, which, however
the common tone of society, by the grossness and levity of the
remarks bandied from tongue to tongue, would seem to say the
contrary, declare there is still in the breasts of men a capacity
for pure and exalting passion,-for immortal tenderness.
But we must hasten to conclude with some extracts from another
number of " Dramatic Lyrics" lately received. These seemn to
show that Browning is attaining a more masterly clearness in expression, without seeking to popularize, or omitting to heed the
faintest whisper of his genius.  He gains without losing as he
advances-a rare happiness.
In the former number was a poem called " The Cloister," and
in this are two, " The Confessional" and the " Tomb at St. Praxed's," which are the keenest yet a wisely true satire on the forms
that hypocrisy puts on in the Romish church. This hateful weed
grows rank in all cultivated gardens, but it seems to hide itself,
with great care and adroitness, beneath the unnumbered forms
and purple gauds of that elaborate system. Accordingly, the
hypocrites do not seem so bad, individually, as in other churches,
and the satire is continually softening into humour in the " Tomb
of St. Praxed's," with its terrible naturalness as to a life-long deception. Tennyson has described the higher kind with a force
that will not be surpassed in his Simeon Stylites, but in this piece
of Browning's, we find the Flemish school of the same vice.
The "Flight of the Duchess," in its entrancing revelations of
the human heart, is a boon to think of. We were, however,
obliged to forbear further extracts, with the exception of two from
the " Garden Fancies." We regret that these poems, with several others which have been circulated in "The Tribune," could
not find room in the present volume.




BROWNING'S POEMS.                          43
BELLS AND POMEGRANATES: By ROBERT BROWNING. NO. VIII and
last. Luria and a Soul's Tragedy. London: Moxon, Dover-st. 1846.
IN closing this series of dramatic and lyrical sketches, Browning explains his plan and title thus:
" Here ends my first series of' Bells and Pomegranates,' and I take the opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that title to indicate an endeavour toward something like an alternation or mixture of music
with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought, which looks too.ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little to the purpose
that such is actually one of the most familiar of the Rabbinical (and Patristic)
acceptations of the phrase; because I confess that letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words in such juxtaposition would sufficiently convey the desired
meaning.' Faith and good works' is another fancy for instance, and perhaps
no easier to arrive at; yet Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of
Dante, and Raffaelle crowned his Theology with blossoms of the same."
That the poet should have supposed the symbol would be understood at once, marks the nature of his mind, a mind which
soars in the creative element, and can only be understood by those
who are in a state of congenial activity.
The two pieces before us display, or rather betray, a deep and
growing acquaintance with the mysteries of the breast. If one
tithe of what informs this little pamphlet were brought out into
clear relief by the plastic power of a Shakspeare, the world would
stand transfixed before the sad revelation.
In the first piece, Luria, a Moor, is put in command of the
Florentine army against Pisa; but spies are set around him, and
the base mistress sits in trial on the hero she has won by smiles
to fight her battles. His great, simple, fiery nature is captivated
by the grace, deep sagacity and self-possession of the Florentines.
He glows with delight at feeling in himself the birth of a more
intellectual life beneath their influence.  But when he finds the
treachery hid beneath all this beautiful sculptured outside, he
stands amazed, not lost, not overwhelmed, but unable to meet or




44           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
brave what is so opposite to his own soul. HIe is, indeed, too noble to resent or revenge, or look on the case other than as God
may
Luria —In my own East-if you would stoop to help
My barbarous illustration-it sounds ill,
Yet there's no wrong at bottom-rather praise.
Dom.-Well!
Luria.-   We have creatures there which if you saw
The first time, you would doubtless marvel at,
For their surpassing beauty, craft and strength,
And tho' it were a lively moment's shock
Wherein you found the purpose of their tonguesThat seemed innocuous in their lambent play,
Yet, once made known, such grace required a guard,
Your reason.soon would acquiesce, I think,
In th' Wisdom which made all things for the best,
So take them, good with ill, contentedlyThe prominent beauty -with the secret sting.
I am glad to have seen you, wondrous Florentines.
And having seen them, and staked his heart entirely on the
venture, he went through with them-and lost.  He cannot survive the shock of their treachery. He arranges all things nobly
in their behalf; and dies, for he was of that mould, the " precious
porcelain of human clay" which
" Breaks with the first fall,"
but not without first exercising a redeeming power upon all the
foes and traitors round him. His chivalric antagonist, Tiburzio,
needed no conversion, for he is one of the noble race who
"joy to feel
A foeman worthy of their steel,"
and are the best friends of such a foeman.  But the shrewd,
worldly spy, the supplanted rival, the woman who was guilty of
that lowest baseness of wishing to make of a lover the tool of her
purposes, all grow better by seeing the action of this noble crea



BROWNING'S POEMS.                   45
ture under the crucifixion they have prepared for him; especially
the feelings of the rival, who learns from his remorse to understand genius and magnanimity, are admirably depicted. Such
repentance always comes too late for the one injured; men kill
him first, then grow wiser and mourn; this dreadful and frequent
tragedy is shown in Luria's case with its full weight of dark significance, spanned by the rainbow beauty that springs from the
perception of truth and nobleness in the victim.
The second piece, " A Soul's Tragedy," is another of the deepest tragedies-a man fancying himself good because he was
harsh, honourable because he was not sweet, truer than the lovely
and loving natures, because unskilled to use their winning ways.
His self-deception is revealed to him by means the most original
and admirably managed. Both these dramas are full of genius;
both make the heart ache terribly.  A text might well suit the
cover-a text we must all of us learn ever more and more deeply
to comprehend: "Let him who thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall."
We hope these eight numbers of "Bells and Pomegranates"
will now be reprinted here. They would make one volume of
proper size to take into the woods and fields.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS;
HAYDN, MOZART, HANDEL, BACH, BEETHOVEN.
THE lives of the musicians are imperfectly written for this obvious reason. The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music. This language is so much more ready, flexible, full, and rapid than any other, that we can never expect
the minds of those accustomed to its use to be expressed by act
or word, with even that degree of adequacy, which we find in
those of other men.  They are accustomed to a higher stimulus,
a more fluent existence.  We must read them in their works;
this, true of artists in every department, is especially so of the
high-priests of sound.
Yet the eye, which has followed with rapture the flight of the
bird till it is quite vanished in the blue serene, reverts with pleasure to the nest, which it finds of materials and architecture, that,
if wisely examined, correspond entirely with all previously imagined of the songster's history and habits. The biography of
the artist is a scanty gloss upon the grand text of his works, but
we examine it with a deliberate tenderness, and could not spare
those half-effaced pencil marks of daily life.
In vain the healthy reactions of nature have so boldly in our
own day challenged the love of greatness, and bid us turn from
Boswellism to read the record of the village clerk. These obscure men, you say, have hearts also, busy lives, expanding'souls. Study the simple annals of the poor, and you find there,




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                  4
only restricted and stifled by accident, Milton, Calderon, or
Michel Angelo. Precisely for that, precisely because we might be
such as these; if temperament and position had seconded the soul's
behest, must we seek with eagerness this spectacle of the occasional manifestation of that degree of development which we call
hero, poet, artist, martyr.  A sense of the depths of love and
pity in i" our obscure and private breasts" bids us demand to see
their sources burst up somewhere through the lava of circumstance, and Peter Bell has no sooner felt his first throb of penitence and piety, than he prepares to read the lives of the saints.
Of all those forms of life which in their greater achievement
shadow forth what the accomplishment of our life in the ages
must be, the artist's life is the fairest in this, that it weaves its
web most soft and full, because of the material most at command. Like the hero, the statesman, the martyr, the artist differs from  other men only in this, that the voice of the demon
within the breast speaks louder, or is more early and steadily
obeyed than by men in general.  But colors, and marble, and
paper scores are more easily found to use, and more under command, than the occasions of life or the wills of other men, so
that we see in the poet's work, if not a higher sentiment, or a
deeper meaning, a more frequent and more perfect fulfilment
than in him who builds his temple from the world day by day, or
makes a nation his canvass and his pallette.
It is also easier to us to get the scope of the artist's design and
its growth as the area where we see it does not stretch vision beyond its power.  The Sybil of Michel Angelo indeed shares the
growth of centuries, as much as Luther's Reformation, but the
first apparition of the one strikes both the senses and the soul,
the other only the latter, so we look most easily and with liveliest impression at the Sybil.
Add the benefits of rehearsal and repetition. The grand Napoleon drama could be acted but once, but Mozart's Don Gio.




48          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
vanni presents to us the same thought seven times a week, if we
wish to yield to it so many.
The artists too are the young children of our sickly manhood,
or wearied out old age. On us life has pressed till the form is
marred and bowed down, but their youth is immortal, invincible,
to us the inexhaustible prophecy of a second birth. From the
naive lispings of their uncalculating lives are heard anew the
tones of that mystic song we call Perfectibility, Perfection.
Artist biographies, scanty as they are, are always beautiful.
The tedious cavil of the Teuton cannot degrade, nor the surley
superlatives of the Italian wither them. If any fidelity be preserved in the record, it always casts new light on their works.
The exuberance of Italian praise is the better extreme of the
two, for the heart, with all its blunders, tells truth more easily
than the head. The records before us of the great composers
are by the patient and reverent Germans, the sensible, never to
be duped Englishman, or the sprightly Frenchman; but a Vasari
was needed also to cast a broader sunlight on the scene. All artist lives are interesting. And those of the musicians, peculiarly
so to-day, when Music is the living, growing art. Sculpture,
Painting, Architecture are indeed not dead, but the life they exhibit is as the putting forth of young scions from an old root.
The manifestation is hopefill rather than commanding. But music, after all the wonderful exploits of the last century, grows and
towers yet. Beethoven towering far above our heads, still with
colossal gesture points above. Music is pausing now to explain,
arrange, or explore the treasures so rapidly accumulated; but
how great the genius thus employed, how vast the promise for
the next revelation! Beethoven seems to have chronicled all the
sobs, the heart-heavings, and god-like Promethean thefts of the
Earth-spirit. Mozart has called to the sister stars, as Handel and
Haydn have told to other spheres what has been actually performed
in this; surely they will answer through the next magician.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                49
The thought of the law that supersedes all thoughts, which
pierces us the moment we have gone far in any department of
knowledge or creative genius, seizes and lifts us from the ground
in music.  "Were but this known all would be accomplished,",is sung to us ever in the triumphs of harmony. What the other
arts indicate and philosophy infers, this all-enfolding language
declares, nay publishes, and we lose all care for to-morrow or
modern life in the truth averred of old, that all truth is comprised in music and mathematics.
By one pervading spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As sages taught where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old.
WORDSWORTH. " Stanzas on the power of sound."
A very slight knowledge of music makes it the best means of
interpretation. We meet our friend in a melody as in a glance
of the eye, far beyond where words have strength to climb; we
explain by the corresponding tone in an instrument that trait in
our admired picture, for which no sufficiently subtle analogy had
yet been found. Botany had never touched our true knowledge
of our favourite flower, but a symphony displays the same attitude and hues; the philosophic historian had failed to explain
the motive' of our favourite hero, but every bugle calls and every
trumpet proclaims him. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
Of course we claim  for music only a greater rapidity, fullness, and, above all, delicacy of utterance. All is in each and
each in all, so that the most barbarous stammering of the Hottentot indicates the secret of man, as clearly as the rudest
zoophyte the perfection of organized being, or the first stop on
the reed the harmonies of heaven. But music, by the ready
medium, the stimulus and the upbearing elasticity it offers for the
inspirations of thought, alone seems to present-a living form
rather than a dead monument to the desires of Genius.
PART II.                  3




50          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
The feeling naturally given by an expression so facile of the
identity and universality of all thought, every thought, is beauti
fully expressed in this anecdote of Haydn.
When about to compose a symphony he was in the habit of
animating his genius by imagining some little romance. An
interesting account of one of these is given in Bombet's life of
Haydn, p. 75.
"But when his object was not to express any particular affection, or to
paint any particular images, all subjects were alike to him.'The whole
art consists,' said he,' in taking up a subject and pursuing it.' Often
when a friend entered as he was about to compose a piece, he would say
with a smile,' Give me a subject,' —' Give a subject to Haydn! who would
have the courage to do so?'' Come, never mind,' he would say,' give me
anything you can think of,' and you were obliged to obey."
" Many of his astonishing quartettes exhibit marks of this (piece of dexterity, the French Chevalier is pleased to call it.) They commence with
the most insignificant idea, but, by degrees, this idea assumes a character;
it strengthens, increases, extends itself, and the dwarf becomes a giant before our wondering eyes."
This is one of the high delights received from a musical composition more than from any other work of art, except perhaps
the purest effusions of lyric poetry, that you feel at once both the
result and the process. The musician enjoys the great advantage of being able to excite himself to compose by his instrument.
This gives him a great advantage above those who are obliged to
execute their designs by implements less responsive and exciting.
Bach did not consider his pupils as at all advanced, till they
could compose from the pure mental harmony, without the out.
ward excitement of the instrument; but, though in the hours of
inspiration the work grows of itself, yet the instrument must be
of the greatest use to multiply and prolong these hours. We
find that all these great composers were continually at the piano.
Haydn seated himself there the first thing in the morning, and
Beethoven, when so completely deaf, that he could neither tune




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                    51
his violin and piano, nor hear the horrible discords he made upon
them, stimulated himself' continually by the manual utterance to
evolution of the divine harmonies which were lost forever to his
bodily ear.
It is mentioned by Bombet, as another advantage which the
musician possesses over other artists, that" His productions are finished as soon as imagined. Thus Haydn, who
abounded in such beautiful ideas, incessantly enjoyed the pleasure of
creation. The poet shares this advantage with' the composer; but the
musician can work faster. A beautiful ode, a beautiful symphony, need
only be imagined, to cause, in the mind of the author, that secret admiration, which is the life and soul of artists; But in the studies of the military man, of the architect, the sculptor, the painter, there is not invention
enough for them to be fully satisfied with themselves; further labors are
necessary. The best planned enterprise may fail in the execution; the
best conceived picture may be ill painted; all this leaves in the mind of
the inventor all obscurity, a feeling of uncertainty, which renders the
pleasure of creation less complete. Haydn, on the contrary, in imagining
a symphony, was perfectly happy; there only remained the physical
pleasure of hearing it performed, and the moral pleasure of seeing it
applauded."
Plausible as this comparison appears at first; the moment you
look at an artist like Michel Angelo, who, by deep studies and
intensity of survey, had attained such vigor of conception and
surety of hand, that forms sprang forth under his touch as fresh,
as original, and as powerful, as on the first days when there was
light upon the earth, so that he could not turn his pencil this way
or that, but these forms came upon the paper as easily as plants
fiom  the soil where the fit seed falls,-at Raphael, who seemed
to develop at once in his mind the germ of all possible images, so
that shapes flowed from his hand plenteous and facile as drops of
water from the open sluice, we see that the presence of the highest genius makes all mediums alike transparent, and that the
advantages of one over the other respect only the more or less




52           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
rapid growth of the artist, and the more or less lively effect on
the mind of the beholder.  All high art says but one thing; but
this is said with more or less pleasure by the artist, felt with
more or less pleasure by the beholder, according to the flexibility
and fulness of the language.
As Bombet's lives of Haydn and Mozart are accessible here
through an American edition, I shall not speak of these masters
with as much particularity as of the three other artists. Bombet's book, though superficial, and in its attempts at criticism
totally wanting in that precision which can only be given by a
philosophical view of the subject, is lively, informed by a true
love for beauty, and free from exaggeration as to the traits of
life which we most care for. The life of Haydn is the better
of the two, for the calm and equable character of this great man
made not much demand on insight. It displays throughout the
natural decorum and freedom from servile and conventional restraints, the mingling of dignity and tenderness, the singleness
of aim, and childlike simplicity in action proper to the artist life.
It flowed a gentle, bounteous river, broadening ever beneath the
smiles of a " calm pouring sun. "  A manly uniformity maltes his
life intelligible aliketo the genius and the citizen. Set the picture
in its proper frame, and we think of him with great pleasure, sitting down nicely dressed, with the diamond on his finger given
him by the King of Prussia, to compose the Creation, or the
Seven Words.  His life was never little, never vehement, and an
early calm  hallowed the gush of his thoughts.  We have no
regret, no cavil, little thought for this life of Haydn.  It is simply the fitting vestibule to the temple of his works.
The healthy energy of his nature is well characterized by
what is said of his " obstinate joys"
"'The magic of his style seems to me to consist in a predominating
character of liberty and joy. This joy of Haydn is a perfectly natural,
pure, and continual exaltation; it reigns in the allegros, it is perceptible
even in the grave parts, and pervades the andantes in a sensible degree




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                   63
"In these compositions, where it is evident from the rhythm, the tone,
and the general character, that the author intends to inspire melancholy,
this obstinate joy, being unable to show itself openly, is transformed into
energy and strength. Observe, this sombre gravity is not pain; it is joy
constrained to disguise itself which might be called the concentrated joy
of a savage; but never sadness, dejection, or melancholy. Haydn has
never been really melancholy more than two or three times; in a verse of
his Stabat.Mater, and in two of the adagios of the Seven Words.
" This is the reason why he has never excelled in dramatic music.
Without melancholy, there can be no impassioned music."
All the traits of Haydn's course, his voluntary servitude to
Porpora, his gratitude shown at so dear a rate to his Meecenas,
the wig-maker, his easy accommodation to the whims of the
Esterhazies, and his wise views of the advantage derived to his
talent from being forced to compose nightly a fresh piece for the
baryton of Prince Nicholas, the economy of his time, and content
with limited means, each and all show the man moderate because so rich, modest because so clear-sighted, robust, ample,
nobly earnest, rather than fiery and aspiring.  It is a great
character, one that does not rouse us to ardent admiration, but
always commands, never disappoints. Bombet compares him in
his works to Ariosto, and the whole structure of his character
reminds us of the "Ariosto of the North," Walter Scott.  Both
are examples of that steady and harmonious action of the faculties all through life, so generally supposed inconsistent with gifts
like theirs; both exhibit a soil fertile from the bounties of its
native forests, and unaided by volcanic action.
The following passage is (to say nothing of its humor) very
significant on the topic so often in controversy, as to whether
the descriptive powers of music are of the objective or subjective
character.
Of an opera, composed by Haydn to Curtz's order, at the age
of nineteen



54            PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND  ART.
"Haydn often says, that he had more trouble in finding out a mode of
representing the waves in a tempest in this opera, than he afterwards had
in writing fugues with a double subject. Curtz, who had spirit and taste,
was difficult to please; but there was also another obstacle. Neither of
the two authors had ever seen either sea or storm. How can a man describe what he knows nothing about? If this happy art could be discovered, many of our great politicians would talk better about virtue.
Curtz, all agitation, paced up and down the room, where the composer
was seated at the piano forte.' Imagine,' said he,' a mountain rising, and
then a valley sinking; and then another mountain, and then another
valley; the mountains and the valleys follow one after another, with rapidity, and at every moment, alps and abysses succeed each other.'
" This fine description was of no avail. In vain did harlequin add the
thunder and lightning.' Come describe for me all these horrors,' he repeated incessantly,' but particularly represent distinctly these mountains
and valleys.'
"Haydn drew his fingers rapidly over the key board, ran through the
semitones, tried abundance of sevenths, passed from  the lowest notes of
the bass to the highest of the treble. Curtz was still dissatisfied. At
last, the young man, out of all patience, extended his hands to the two
ends of the harpsichord, and, bringing them rapidly together, exclaimed' The devil take the tempest.'' That's it, that's it,' cried the harlequin,
springing upon his neck and nearly stifling him. Haydn added, that when
he crossed the Straits of Dover, in bad weather, many years afterwards,
he laughed during the whole of the passage in thinking of the storm in
The Devil on two Sticks.
"' But how,' said I to him,' is it possible, by sounds, to describe a tempest, and that distinctly too? As this great man is indulgence itself, I
added, that, by imitating the peculiar tones of aman in terror or despair,
an author of genius may communicate to an auditor the sensations
which the sight of a storm would cause; but,' said I,' music - can no
more represent a tempest, than say' Mr. Hadyn lives near the barrier of
Schonbrunn.'' You may be right,' replied he,' but recollect, nevertheless,
that words and especially scenery guide the imagination of the spectator."'
Let it be an encouragement to the timidity of youthful genius
to see that an eaglet like Haydn has ever groped and flown so
sidewise from the aim.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                      55
In later days, though he had the usual incapacity of spontanevus genius, as to giving a reason for the faith that was in him, he
had also its perfect self reliance.  He, too, would have said,
when told that the free expression of a thought was contrary to
rule, that he would make it a rule then, and had no reason to
give why he put a phrase or note here, and thus, except " It was
best so.  It had the best effect so."  The following anecdote exhibits in a spirited manner the contrast between the free genius
and the pedant critic.
"Before Hadyn had lost his interest in conversation, he related with
pleasure many anecdotes respecting his residence in London. A nobleman passionately fond of music, according to his own account, came to
him one morning, and asked him to give him some lessons in counterpoint, at a guinea a lesson. Haydn, seeing that he had some knowledge
of music, accepted his proposal.' When shall we begin?''Immediately, if you please,' replied the nobleman; and he took out of his pocket a
quartett of Haydn's.' For the first lesson,' continued he,' let us examine
this quartett, and tell me the reason of certain modulations, and of the
general management of the composition, which I cannot altogether approve, since it is contrary to the rules.'
"Haydn, a little surprised, said, that he was ready to answer his questions. The nobleman began, and, from the very first bar, found something
to remark upon every note. Haydn, with whom invention was a habit,
and who was the opposite of a pedant, found himself a good deal embarrassed, and replied continually,' I did so because it has a good effect; I
have placed this passage here, because I think it suitable.' The Englishman, in whose opinion these replies were nothing to the purpose, still
returned to his proofs, and demonstrated very clearly, that his quartett was
good for nothing.' But, my Lord, arrange this quartett in your own way;
hear it played, and you will then see which of the two is best.'' How
can yours, which is contrary to the rules be the best'' Because it is
the most agreeable.' My Lord still returned to the subject. Haydn
replied as well as he was able; but, at last, out of patience,' I see, my
Lord,' said he,' that it is you who are so good as to give lessons to me, and
I am obliged to confess, that I do not merit the honour of having such a
master.' The advocate of the rules went away, and cannot to this day




i56' PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
understand how an author, who adheres to them, should fail of producing
a.Matrimonio Segreto."
I must in this connexion, introduce a passage from the life of
Handel.  " The highest effort of genius here (in music) consists
in direct violations  of rule.   The very first answer of thte
fugue in the overture to Mucius Scoevola affords an instance of
this kind.   Geminiani, the strictest observer of rule, was so
charmed with this direct transgression of it, that, on hearing its
effect. he cried out, Quel semitono (meaning the f sharp) vale un
mondo. That semitone is worth a world."
I should exceedingly like to quote the passage on Haydn's
quartetts, and the comparison between the effect produced by one
of his and one of Beethoven's. But room always fails us in this
little magazine. I cannot, however, omit a passage, which gave
me singular pleasure, referring to Haydn's opinion of the importance of the air. For the air is the thought of the piece, and
ought never to be disparaged from a sense of the full flow of concord.
" Who would think it? This great man, under whose authority our
miserable pedants of musicians, without genius, would fain shelter themselves, repeated incessantly;' Let your air be good, and your composition, whatever it be, will be so likewise, and will assuredly please.'
"' It is the soul of music,' continued he;' it is the life, the spirit, the
essence of a composition. Without this, Tartini may find out the most
singular and learned chords, but nothing is heard but a labored sound;
which, though it may not offend the ear, leaves the head empty and the
heart cold.'"
The following passage illustrates happily the principle.
"Art is called Art, because it is not Nature."
" In music the best physical imitation is, perhaps, that which only just
indicates its object; which shows it to us through a veil, and abstains from
scrupulously representing nature exactly as she is. This kind of imitation is the perfection of the descriptive department. You are aware, my
friend, that all the arts are founded to a certain degree on what is not




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                     57
true; an-obscure doctrine, notwithstanding its apparent clearness, but
from which the most important principles are derived. It is thus that
from a dark grotto springs the river, which is to water vast provinces.
You have more pleasure in seeing a beautiful picture of the garden of the
Tuilleries, than in beholding the same garden, faithfully reflected from one
of the mirrors of the chateau; yet the scene displayed in the mirror has
far more variety of colouring than the painting, were it the work of Claude
Lorraine; the figures have motion; everything is more true to nature;
still you cannot help preferring the picture. A skilful artist never departs
from that degree of falsity which is allowed in the art he professes. Hie
is well aware, that it is not by imitating nature to such a degree as to produce deception, that the arts give pleasure; he makes a distinction between those accurate daubs, called eye-traps, and the St. Cecilia of
Raphael. Imitation should produce the effect which the object imitated
would have upon us, did it strike us in those fortunate moments of sensibility and enjoyment, which awaken the passions."
The fault of this passage consists in the inaccurate use of the
words true and false.  Bomnbet feels distinctly that truth to the
ideal is and must be above truth to the actual; it is only because
he feels this, that he enjoys the music of Haydn at all; and yet
from  habits-of conformity and complaisance he well nigh mars
his thought by use of the phraseology of unthinking men, who
apprehend no truth beyond that of facts apparent to the senses.
Let us pass to the life of Handel.  We can but glance at these
great souls, each rich enough in radiating power to be the centre
of a world; and can only hope to indicate, not declare, their
different orbits and relations. Haydn and Mozart both looked to
Handel with a religious veneration. Haydn was only unfolded
to his greatest efforts after hearing, in his latest years, Handel's
great compositions in England.
"One day at Prince Schwartzenberg's, when Handel's Messiah was
performed, upon expressing my admiration of one of the sublime choruses of that work, Haydn said to me thoughtfully, This man is the father of us all.
"I am convinced, that, if he had not studied Handel, he would never
3*




58            PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
have written the Creation; his genius was fired by that of this master.
It was remarked by every one here, that, after his return from London,
there was more grandeur in his ideas; in short, he approached, as far as
is permitted to human genius, the unattainable object of his songs. Handel is simple; his accompaniments are written in three parts only; but,
to use a Neapolitan phrase of Gluck's, There is not a note that does not
draw blood."-Bombet, p. 180.
"Mozart most esteemed Porpora, Durante, Leo, and Alessandro Scarlatti, but he placed Handel above them all. He knew the principal works
of' that great master by heart. He was accustomed to say, Handel knows
best of all of us what is capable of producing a great effect. When he
chooses, he strikes like the thunderbolt." —Ibid. p. 291.
Both these expressions, that of Gluck and that of Mozart, happily characterize Handel in the vigor and grasp of his genius, as
I-aydn, in the amplitude and sunny majesty of his career, is
well compared to the gazing, soaring eagle.
I must insert other beautiful tributes to the genius of Handel.
After the quarrel between Handel and many of the English
nobles, which led to their setting up an opera in opposition to his,
they sent to engage Hasse and Porpora, as their composers.
When Hasse was invited over, the first question he asked was,
whether Handel was dead.  Being answered in the negative,
he long refused to come, thinking it impossible that a nation,
which might claim  the benefit of Handel's genius, could ask aid
from any other.
When Handel was in Italy, Scarlatti saw him first at the carnival, playing  on  the  harpsichord, in  his mask.   Scarlattl
immediately affirmed it could be none but the famous Saxon or
the devil.
Scarlatti, pursuing the acquaintance, tried Handel's powers
in every way.
" When they came to the organ, not a doubt remained as to which the
preference belonged. Scarlatti himself declared the superiority of his antagonist, and owned that until he had heard him upon this instrument, he




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                   59
had no conception of his powers. So greatly was he struck with his peculiar way of playing, that he followed him all over Italy, and was never
so happy as when he was with him. And ever afterwards, Scarlatti, as
often as he was admired for his own great execution, would mention ]Handel, and cross himself in token of veneration." —Life of Handel.
These noble rivalries, this tender enthusiastic conviction of
the superiority of bnother, this religious
— " joy to feel
A foeman worthy of our steel,"
one instance of which delights us more than all the lonely
achievements of intellect, as showing the twofold aspect of the
soul, and linking every nature, generous enough for sympathy, in the golden chain, which upholds the earth and the heavens, are found everywhere in the history of high genius. Only
the little men of mere talent deserve a place at Le Sage's supper of the authors.  Genius cannot be forever on the wing; it
craves a home, a holy land; it carries reliquaries in the bosom;
it craves cordial draughts from the goblets of other pilgrims.  It
is always pious, always chivalric; the artist, like the Preux,
throws down his shield to embrace the antagonist, who has been
able to pierce it; and the greater the genius, the mnore do we glow
with delight at his power of feeling,-need of feeling reverence
not only for the creative soul, but for its manifestation through
fellow  men.  What melody of Beethoven's is more melodious,
than his letter of regal devotion to Cherubini, or the transports
with which he calls out on first hearing the compositions of
Schubert; " Wahrlich in dem  Schubert wohnt ein gottlicher
Funke." Truly in Schubert dwells a divine fire.*
But to return to Handel.  The only biography of him I have
* As Schubert's music begins to be known among ourselves, it may be
interesting to record the names of those songs, which so affected Beethoven. They are Ossian's Gesange, Die Burgschaft, Die junge Nonne, and
Die Grenze der Menschheit.




60          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
seen is a little volume from the library of the University at
Cambridge, as brief, and, in the opinion of the friend who brought
it to me, as dry and scanty as possible.  I did not find it so. It
is written with the'greatest simplicity, in the style of the days of
Addison and Steele; and its limited technology contrasts strongly
with the brilliancy of statement and infinite " nuances" of the
present style of writing on such subjects.  But the writer is free
from exaggeration, without being timid or cold; and he brings
to his work the requisites of a true feeling of the genius of
Handel, and sympathy with his personal character..This lies,
indeed, so deep, that it never occurs to him to give it distinct
expression; it is only implied in his selection, as judicious as
simple, of anecdotes to illustrate it.
For myself, I like a dry book, such as is written by men who
give themselves somewhat tamely to the task in hand.  I like to
read a book written by one who had no higher object than mere
curiosity, or affectionate sympathy, and never draws an inference. Then I am sure of the facts more nakedly true, than
when the writer has any theory of his own, and have the excitement all the way of putting them into new relations.  The present
is the gentle, faithful narrative of a private friend.  He does not
give his name, nor pretend to anything more than a slight essay
towards giving an account of so great a phenomenon as Handel.
The vigour, the ready decision, and independence of Handel's
character are displayed in almost every trait of his youthful years.
At seven years old he appears as if really inspired by a guardian
genius. His father was going to Weissenfels, to visit an elder
son, established at court there. He refused to take the little
Handel, thinking it would be too much trouble. The boy, finding tears and entreaties of no avail, stole out and followed the
carriage on foot. When his father perceived him persist in this,
he could resist no longer, but took him into the carriage and
carried him to Weissenfels.  There the Duke, hearing him play




LIVES OF THE.GREAT COM3POSERS.                61
by accident in the chapel, and finding it was but a little child,
who had been obliged too to cultivate his talent by stealth, in
opposition to the wishes of his father, interfered, and removed all
obstruction from the course of his destiny.
Like all the great musicians he was precocious. This necessarily results from the more than usually delicate organization
they must possess, though, fortunately for the art, none but Mozart has burnt so early with that resplendence that prematurely
exhausted his lamp of life. At nine years of age Handel composed in rule, and played admirably on more than one instrument. At fifteen he insisted on playing the first harpsichord at
the Hamburg opera house, and again his guardian genius interfered in a manner equally picturesque and peculiar.
"The elder candidate was not unfit for the office, and insisted on the
right of succession. Handel seemed to have nb plea, but that of natural
superiority, of which he was conscious, and from which he would not
recede."
Parties ran high; the one side unwilling that a boy should
arrogate a place above a much older man, one who had a prior
right to the place, the other maintaining that the opera-house
could not afford to lose so great a composer as Handel gave
promise of becoming, for a punctilio of this kind. Handel at last
obtained the place.
"Determined to make Handel pay dear for his priority, his rival stifled
his rage for the present, only to wait an opportunity of giving it full vent.
One day,: as they were coming out of the orchestra, he made a push at
Handel with a sword, which being aimed full at his heart, would forever
have removed him from the office he had usurped, but for the friendly
score which he accidentally carried in his bosom, and through which to
have forced the weapon would have demanded the might of Ajax himself.
Had this happened in the early ages, not a mortal but would have been
persuaded that Apollo himself had interfered to preserve him, in the
shape of a music-book."




62          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
The same guardian demon presided always over his outward
fortunes. His life, like that of Haydn, was one of prosperity.
The only serious check he ever experienced (at a very late day
in England) was only so great as to stimulate his genius to manifest itself by a still higher order of efforts, than before (his oratorios.) And these were not only worthy of his highest aspirations, but successful with the public of his own day.
It is by no means the case in the arts, that genius must not
expect sympathy fiom  its contemporaries.  Its history shows it
in many instances, answering as much as prophesying. And
Haydn,  Handel, and Mozart seemed to culminate to a star-gazing
generation.
While yet in his teens, Handel met the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was very desirous to send him to Italy, at his own expense, that he might study the Italian music in its native land.
1" But he refused to accept the Duke's offer, though determined to
go as soon as he could make up a privy purse for the purpose.
And this noble independency he preserved through life," and we
may add the twin sister, liberality, for we find scattered through
his life numerous instances of a wise and princely beneficence.
When he at last went to Italy, he staid six years, a period of
inestimable benefit to his growth. I pause with delight at this
rare instance of a mind obtaining the food it craves, just at the
time it craves it. The too early and too late, which prevent so
many "trees from growing up into the heavens," withered no
hour of Handel's life.'True, the compensating principle showe.
itself in his regard, for he had neither patience nor fortitude,
which the usual training might have given. But it seems as if
what the man lost, the genius gained, and we cannot be displeased at the exception which proves the rule.
The Italians received him with that affectionate enthusiasm,
which they show as much towards foreign as native talent. The
magnanimous delight with which they greeted West, and, as it is




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMIPOSERS.                   63:said, now greet our countryman Powers, which not many years
since made their halls resound with the cry, "there is no tenor
like Braham," was heard in shouts of " Viva il caro Sassone!"
at every new composition given by Handel on their stage.  The
people followed him with rapture; the nobles had musical festivals prepared in his honour; Scarlatti's beautiful homage has
been mentioned above; and the celebrated Corelli displayed the
same modest and noble deference to his instructions. He too,
addressed him as " Caro Sassone."
A charming anecdote of Corelli is not irrelevant here.
"A little incident relating to Corelli shows his character so strongly,
that I shall be excused for reciting it, though foreign to our present purpose. He was requested one evening to play, to a large and polite company, a fine solo which he had lately composed. Just as he was in the
midst of his performance, some of the number began to discourse together
a little unseasonably; Corelli gently lays down his instrument. Being
asked whether anything was the matter with him; nothing, he replied, he
was only afraid that he interrupted the conversation, The elegant propriety of this silent censure, joined with his genteel and good-humoured
answer, afforded great pleasure, even to the persons who*occasioned it.
They begged him to resume his instrument, assuring him at the same
time, that he might depend on all the attention which the occasion required, and which his merit ought before to have commanded." —Life of
Handel.
His six years' residence in Italy educated Handel's genius into
a certainty, vigour and command of resources that made his after
career one track of light. The forty years of after life are one
continued triumph, a showering down of life and joy on an expectant world.
Although Germany offered every encouragement both from
people and princes, England suited him best, and became the
birthplace of his greatest works. For nine years after he began
to conduct the opera-house, his success with the public and happiness in his creative life appears to have been perfect.  Then




64           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
he came for brief space amid the breakers.  It is, indeed, rather
wonderful that he kept peace so long with those most refractory
subjects, the singers, than that it should fail at last.  Fail at last
it did! Handel was peremptory in his requisitions, the singingbirds obstinate in their disobedience; the public divided, and the
majority went against Handel.  The following little recital of
one of his many difficulties, with his prima-donnas, exhibits his
character with amusing fidelity.
" Having one day some words with Cuzzoni on her refusing to sing Cara
Immagine in Ottone,' Oh Madame,' said he,'je sais bien que vous 6tes
une veritable Diable, mais je vous ferai s9avoir, moi, que je suis Beelzebub le Chef des diables.' With this he took her up by the waist, swearing that, if she made any more words, he would fling her out of the window. It is to be noted, (adds the biographer with Counsellor Pleydel-like
facetiousness,) that this was formerly one of the methods of executing
criminals in Germany, a process not unlike that of the Tarpeian rock, and
probably derived from it." —Life of Handel.
Senesino, too, was one of Handel's malcontent aids, the same
of whom the famous anecdote is told, thus given in the Life of
Haydn.' Senesino was to perform on a London theatre the character of a tyrant, in I know not what opera; the celebrated Farinelli sustained that
of an oppressed prince. Farinelli, who had been giving concerts in the
country, arrived only a few hours before the representation, and the unfortunate hero and the cruel tyrant saw one another for the first time on
the stage. When Farinelli came to his first air, in which he supplicates
for mercy, he sung it with such sweetness and expression, that the poor
tyrant, totally forgetting himself, threw himself upon his neck and repeatedly embraced him."
The refined sensibility and power of free abandonment to the
life of the moment, displayed in this anecdote, had made Senesino
the darling, the spoiled child of the public, so that they were
ungrateful to their great father, Handel.  But he could not bow
to the breeze.  He began life anew at the risk of the wealth he




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                 65
had already acquired, and these difficulties only urged him to
new efforts.  The Oratorio dawned upon his stimulated mind,
and we may, perhaps, thank the humours of Senesino and Faustina for the existence of the Messiah.
The oratorios were not brought forward without opposition.
That part of the public, which in all ages, walks in clogs on the
green-sward, and prefers a candle to the sun, which accused Socrates of impiety, denounced the Tartuffe of Moliere as irreligious, which furnishes largely the Oxford press in England, and
rings its little alarm bell among ourselves at every profound and
universal statement of religious experience, was exceedingly distressed, that Handel should profane the details of biblical history
by wedding them to his God-given harmonies. Religion, they
cried, was lost; she must be degraded, familiarized; she would
no longer speak with authority after she had been sung. But,
happily, owls hoot in vain in the ear of him whose soul is possessed by the muse, and Handel, like all the great, could not even
understand the meaning of these petty cavils. Genius is fearless; she never fancies herself wiser than God, as prudence
does. She is faithful, for she has been trusted, and feels the
presence of God in herself too clearly to doubt his government
of the world.
Handel's great exertions at this period brought on an attack of
paralysis, which he cured by a course that shows his untamed,
powerful nature, and illustrates in a homely way the saying,
Fortune favors the brave.
Like Tasso, and other such fervid and sanguine persons, if he
could at last be persuaded to use a remedy for any sickness, he
always overdid the matter. As for this palsied arm," It was thought best for him to have recourse to the vapor baths at Aixla-Chapelle, over which he sat three times as long as hath ever been the
practice. Whoever knows anything of the nature of these baths, will,
from this instance, form some idea of his surprising constitution. His




66          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
sweats were profuse beyond what can well be imagined. His cure, from
the manner as well as the quickness with which it was wrought, passed
with the nuns for a miracle. When, but a few hours from the time of his
leaving the bath, they heard him at the organ in the principal church, as
well as convent, playing in a manner so much beyond what they had ever
heard or even imagined, it is not wonderful, that they should suppose the
interposition of a higher power."
He remained, however, some weeks longer at the baths to confirm the cure, thus suddenly effected by means that would have
destroyed a frame of less strength and energy. The more cruel
ill of blindness fell upon his latest years, but he had already run
an Olympian course, and could sit still with the palm and oak
crowns upon his brows.
Handel is a Greek in the fullness and summer glow of his nature, in his directness of action and unrepentant steadfastness.  I
think also with a pleasure, in which I can hardly expect sympathy, since even his simple biographer shrinks from it with the air
of "a person of quality," on the fact that he was fond of good
eating, and also ate a great deal. As he was neither epicure nor
gourmand, I not only accept the excuse of the biographer, that a
person of his choleric nature, vast industry and energy, needed
a great deal of sustenance; but it seems to me perfectly in character for one of his large heroic mould. I am aware that these
are total abstinence days, especially in the regions of art and romance; but the Greeks were wiser and more beautiful, if less
delicate than we; and I am strongly reminded by all that is said
of Handel, of a picture painted in their golden age. The subject was Hercules at the court of Admetus; in the background
handmaids are mourning round the corpse of the devoted Alceste,
while in the foreground the son of Jove is satisfying what seem
to his attendants an interminable hunger. They are heaping
baskets, filling cans, toiling up the stairs with huge joints of
meat; the hero snaps his fingers, impatient for the new course,
though many an empty trencher bears traces of what he has




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                    67
already devoured.  For why; a journey to Tartarus and conquest of gloomy Dis would hardly, in the natural state of society,
be undertaken on a biscuit and a glass of lemonade. And when
England was yet fresh from her grand revolution, and John Bull
still cordially enjoyed his yule logs and Christmas feasts, " glorious John Dryden" was not ashamed to write thus of the heroes,"And when the rage of hunger was appeased."
Then a man was not ashamed of being not only a man in mind,
but every inch a man.  And Handel surely did not neglect to
labour after he had feasted. Beautiful are the upward tending,
slender stemmed plants!  Not less beautiful and longer lived,
those of stronger root, more powerful trunk, more spreading
branches  Let each be true to his law; concord, not monotony,
is music.  We thank thee, Nature, for Handel, we thank thee for
Mozart!  Yet one story from the Life of Handel ere we pass on.
It must interest all who have observed the same phenomenon of a
person exquisitely alive to the music of verse, stupified and bewildered by other music.
" Pope often met Handel at the Earl of Burlington's. One day after
Handel had played some of the finest things he ever composed, Mr. Pope
declared that they gave him no sort of pleasure; that his ears were of that
untoward make, and reprobate cast, as to receive his music, which he was
persuaded was the best that could be, with as much indifference as the
airs of a common ballad. A person of his excellent understanding, it is
hard to suspect of affectation. And yet it is as hard to conceive how an
ear, so perfectly attentive to all the delicacies of rhythm and poetical
numbers, should be totally insensible to the charm of musical sounds. An
attentiveness, too, which was as discernible in his manner of reading, as
it is in his method of writing."-Life of Handel.
The principal facts of that apparition which bore the name of
Mozart, are well known.  His precocious development was far
more precocious than that of any other artist on record.  (And
htire let us observe another correspondence between music and




68         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
mathematics, that is, the early prodigies in childish form, which:
seem to say that neither the art nor the science requires the slow
care of the gardener, Experience, but are plants indigenous to the
soil, which need only air and light to lure them up to majestic
stature.) Connected with this is his exquisite delicacy of organization, unparalleled save in the history of the fairy Fine Ear, so
that at six years old he perceived a change of half a quarter of
a note in the tuning of a violin, and fainted always at sound of
the trumpet. The wonderful exploits which this accurate perception of and memory for sounds enabled him to pertform, are
known to every one, but I could read the story a hundred times
yet, so great is its childish beauty.  Again, allied with this are
his extreme tenderness and loving nature. In this life (Schlichtegroll's, translated by Bombet) it is mentioned, "' He would say
ten times a day to those about him,' Do you love me well 2' and
whenever in jest they said' No,' the tears would roll down his
cheeks." I rememeber to have read elsewhere an anecdote of the
same engaging character.  "One day, when Mozart, (then in
his seventh year,) was entering the presence chamber of the empress, he fell and hurt himself.  The other young princesses
laughed, but Marie Antoinette took him  up, and consoled him
with many caresses.  The little Mozart said to her, "You are
good; I will marry you." Well for the lovely princess, if common men could have met and understood her lively and genial
nature as genius could, in its childlike need of love.
With this great desire for sympathy in the affections was
linked, as by nature it should be, an entire self-reliance in action.
Mozart knew nothing but music; on that the whole life of his
soul was shed, but there he was as unerring and undoubting, as
fertile and aspiring.
"At six years of age, sitting down to play in presence of the emperor
Francis, he addressed himself to his majesty and asked;' Is not M.
Wagenseil here? I'e must send for him; he understands the thing.'




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                     69
The emperor sent for Wagenseil, and gave up his place to him by the
side of the piano.'Sir,' said Mozart to the composer,' I am going to
play one of your concertos; you must turn over the leaves for me.' The
emperor said, in jest, to the little Wolfgang;' It is not very difficult to
play with all one's fingers, but to play with only one, without seeing the
keys, would indeed be extraordinary.' Without manifesting the least surprise at this strange proposal, the child immediately began to play with a
single finger, and with the greatest possible precision and clearness. He
afterwards desired them to cover the keys of the piano, and continued to
play in the same manner, as if he had long practiced it.
From his most tender age, Mozart, animated with the true feeling of his
art, was never vain of the compliments paid him by the great. He only
performed insignificant trifles when he had to do with people unacquainted
with music. He played, on the contrary, with all the fire and attention
of which he was capable, when in the presence of connoisseurs; and his
father was often obliged to have recourse to artifice, in order to make the
great men, before whom he was to exhibit, pass for such with him."
Here, in childlike soft unconsciousness, Mozart acts the same
part that Beethoven did, with cold imperial sarcasm, when the
Allied Sovereigns were presented to him  at Vienna.  " I held
myself' vornehm,' " said Beethoven, that is, treated them with
dignified affability; and his smile is one of saturnine hauteur, as
he says it; for the nature, so deeply glowing towards man, was
coldly disdainful to those who would be more than men, merely
by the aid of money and trappings. Mozart's attitude is the
lovelier and more simple; but Beethoven's lion tread and shake
of the mane are grand too.
The following anecdote shows, that Mozart (rare praise is this)
was not less dignified and clear-sighted as a man than in his
early childhood.
"The Italians at the court of the Emperor, Joseph the Second, spoke
of Mozart's first essays (when he was appointed chapel-master) with more
jealousy than fairness, and the emperor, who scarcely ever judged for him
self, war easily carried away by their decisions. One day after hearing the
rehearsal of a comic opera, which he had himself demanded of Mozart,




70          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART
he said to the composer,' My dear Mozart, that is too fine for my ears;
there are too many notes there.'' I ask your majesty's pardon,' replied
Mozart, dryly;' there are just as many notes as there should be.' The
emperor said nothing, and appeared rather embarrassed by the reply; but
when the opera was performed, he bestowed on it the greatest encomiums."
This anecdote certainly shows Joseph the Second to be not a
mean man, if neither a sage nor a connoisseur.
Read in connexion with the foregoing, the traits recorded of
the artist during his wife's illness, (Life of Mozart, p. 309,) and
you have a sketch of a most beautiful character.
Combined with this melting sweetness, and extreme delicacy,
was a prophetic energy of deep-seated fire in his genius. He
inspires while he overwhelms you. The vigour, the tenderness,
and far-reaching ken of his conceptions, were seconded by a
range, a readiness, and flexibility in his talents for expression,
which can only be told by the hackneyed comparison between
him and Raphael. A life of such unceasing flow and pathetic
earnestness must at any rate have early exhausted the bodily
energies. But the high-strung nerves of Mozart made him ex.
cessive alike in his fondness for pleasure, and in the melancholy
which was its reaction. His life was too eager and keen to last.
The gift of presentiment, as much developed in his private history as in his works, offers a most interesting study to the philosophic observer, but one of too wide a scope for any discussion
here.
I shall not speak of Mozart as a whole man, for he was not so;
but rather the exquisite organ of a divine inspiration.  He scarce
ly took root on the soil; not knowing common purposes, cares,
or discretions, his life was all crowded with creative efforts, and
vehement pleasures, or tender feelings between. His private
character was that of a child, as ever he loved to be stimulated
to compose by having fairy tales told to him by the voice of




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                71
affection.  And when we consider how any art tends to usurp.
the whole of a man's existence, and music most of all to unfit for
other modes of life, both from its stimulus to the senses and exaltation of the soul, we have rather reason to wonder that the
other four great ones lived severe and manlike lives, than that this
remained a voluptuary and a fair child. The virtues of a child
he had,-sincerity, tenderness, generosity, and reverence.  In
the generosity with which he gave away the precious works of his
genius, and the princely sweetness with which he conferred
these favours, we are again reminded of Raphael. There are
equally fine anecdotes of Haydn's value for him, and his for
Haydn.  Haydn answered the critics of " Don Giovanni," "I
am not a judge of the dispute; all that I know is, that Mozart is
the greatest composer now existing."   Mozart answered the
critic on Haydn, "Sir, if you and I were both melted down
together, we should not furnish materials for one Haydn."
Richard Cceur de Lion and Saladin!
We never hear the music of Mozart to advantage, yet no one
can be a stranger to the character of his melodies. The idea
charms me of a symbolical correspondence, not only between
the soul of man and the productions of nature, but of a like harmony, pervading every invention of. his own. It seems he has
not only "builded better than he knew," when following out the
impulse of his genius, but in every mechanical invention, so that
all the furniture of man's life is necessarily but an aftergrowth
of nature. It seems clear that not only every hue, every gem,
every flower, every tree, has its correspondent species in the race
of man, but the same may be said of instruments, as obviously
of the telescope, microscope, compass. It is clearly the case
with the musical instruments. As a child I at once thought of
Mozart as the Flute, and to this day, cannot think of one without
the other.  Nothing ever occurred to confirm this fancy, till a




72           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
year or two since, in the book now before me, I found with de.
light the following passage.
"The most remarkable circumstance in his music, independently of
the genius displayed in it, is the novel way in which he employs the
orchestra, especially the wind instruments. He draws surprising effect
from the flute, an instrument of which Cimarosa hardly ever made any
use'
Ere bidding adieu to Mozart, to whom I have only turned your
eyes, as the fowler directs those of the by-standers to the bird
glancing through the heavens, which he had not skill to bring
down, and consoles himself with thinking the fair bird shows
truer, if farther, on the wing, I will insert three sonnets, so far
interesting as showing the degree of truth with which these objects appear to one, who has enjoyed few opportunities of hearing
the great masters, and is only fitted to receive them by a sincere
love of music, which caused a rejection of the counterfeits that
have been current among us. They date some years back, and
want that distinctness of expression, so attainable to-day; but, if
unaided by acquaintance with criticism on these subjects, have
therefore the merit of being a pure New  England growth, and
deserve recording like Sigismund Biederman's comparison of
Queen Margaret to his favourite of the Swiss pasture.  " The
queen is a stately creature. The chief cow of the herd, who
carries the bouquets and garlands to the chalet, has not a statelier
pace."-Anne of Geierstein.
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
The charms of melody, in simple airs,
By human voices sung, are always felt;
With thoughts responsive, careless hearers melt,
Of secret ills, which our frail nature bears.
We listen, weep, forget. But when the throng
Of a great Master's thoughts, above the reach
Of words or colors, wire and wood can teach




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                        73
By laws which to the spirit-world belong,When several parts, to tell one mood combined,
Flash meaning on us we can ne'er express,
Giving to matter subtlest powers of Mind,
Superior joys attentive souls confess.
The harmony which suns and stars obey,
Blesses our earth-bound state with visions of supernal day,
BEETHOVEN.
Most intellectual master of the art,
Which, best of all, teaches the mind of man
The universe in all its varied plan, —
What strangely mingled thoughts thy strains impart!
Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart,
There the rich bass the Reason's balance shows;
Here breathes the softest sigh that Love e'er knows;
There sudden fancies, seeming without chart,
Float into wildest breezy interludes;
The past is all forgot,-hopes sweetly breathe,
And our whole being glows, —when lo! beneath
The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes!
Startled, we strive to free us from the chain, —
Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again!
MOZART.
If to the intellect and passions strong
Beethoven speak, with such resistless power,
Making us share the full creative hour,
When his wand fixed wild Fancy's mystic throng,
Oh nature's finest lyre! to thee belong
The deepest, softest tones of tenderness,
Whose purity the listening angels bless,
With silvery clearness of seraphic song.
Sad are those chords, oh, heavenward striving soul!
A love, which never found its home on earth,
Pensively vibrates, even in thy mirth,
And gentle laws thy lightest notes control;
Yet dear that sadness! Spheral concords felt
Purify most those hearts which most they melt.
PART II.                       4




74. PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
We have spoken of the widely varying, commanding, yet,
bright and equable life of Haydn; of the victorious procession,
and regal Alexandrine aspect of Handel; of the tender, beloved,
overflowing, all too intense life of Mozart. They are all great
and beautiful; look at them from what side you will, the foot
stands firm, the mantle falls in wide and noble folds, and the eye
flashes divine truths. But now we come to a figure still more
Roman, John Sebastian Bach, all whose names we give to distinguish him from a whole family of geniuses, a race through
which musical inspiration had been transmitted, without a break,
for six generations; nor did it utterly fail, after coming to its full
flower in John Sebastian; his sons, though not equal to their
father, were not unworthy their hereditary honours.
The life of Bach which I have before me, (translated from
the German of J. N. Forkel, author also of the " Complete History of Music,") is by far the best of any of these records. It is
exceedingly brief and simple, very bare of facts, but the wise,
quiet enthusiasm of its tone, and the delicate discrimination of the
remarks on the genius of Bach, bring us quite home to him and
his artist-life. Bach certainly shines too lonely in the sky of his
critic, who has lived in and by him, till he cannot see other souls
in their due places, but would interrupt all hymns to other deities
with " Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"  But his worship is
true to the object, if false to the All, and the pure reverence of
his dependence has made him fit to reproduce the genius which
has fed his inmost life. All greatness should enfranchise its admirers, first from all other dominions, and then from its own.
We cannot but think that Forkel has seen, since writing this
book, that he deified Bach too exclusively, but he can never feel
the shame of blind or weak obsequiousness. His, if idolatry, was
yet in the spirit of true religion.
The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of the
spirit in which the whole book is written.




LIVES OF THE  GREAT COMPOSERS.                      75
"How do I wish I were able to describe, according to its merit, the
sublime genius of this first of all artists, whether German or foreign!
After the honour of being so great an artist, so preeminent above all as he
was, there is perhaps no greater than that of being able duly to appreciate
so entirely perfect an art, and to speak of it with judgment. He who can
do the last, must have a mind not wholly uncongenial to that of the artist
himself, and has therefore, in some measure, the flattering probability in
his favour, that he might perhaps have been capable of the first, if similar
external relations had led him into the proper career. But I am not so
presumptuous as to believe, that I could ever attain to such an honour. I
am, on the contrary, thoroughly convinced, that no language in the world
is rich enough to express all that might and should be said of the astonishing extent of such a genius. The more intimately we are acquainted with
it, the more does our admiration increase. All our eulogiums, praises,
and admiration, will always be, and remain no more than well-meant prattle. Whoever has had an opportunity of comparing together the works of
art, of several centuries, will not find this declaration exaggerated; he will
rather have adopted the opinion, that Bach's works cannot be spoken of,
by him who is fully acquainted with them, except with rapture, and some
of them even with a kind of sacred awe. We may indeed conceive and
explain his management of the internal mechanism of the art; but how
he contrived at the same time to inspire into this mechanic art, which he
alone has attained in such high perfection, the living spirit which so powerfully attaches us even in his smallest works, will probably be always
felt and admired only, but never conceived."
Of the materials for this narrative he says,
" I am indebted to the two eldest sons of J. S. Bach. I was not only
personally acquainted with both, but kept up a constant correspondence
with them for many years, chiefly with C. Ph. Emanuel.  The world
knows that they were both great artists; but it perhaps does not know that
to the last moment of their lives they never spoke of their father's genius
without enthusiasm and admiration. As I had from my early youth felt
the same veneration for the genius of their father, it was a frequent theme
of discussion with us, both in our conversations and correspondence. This
made me by degrees so acquainted witi everything relative to J. S. Bach's
life, genius, and works, that I may now hope to be able to give to the public not only some detailed, but also useful information on the subject.
" I have no other object whatever than to call the attention of the pub



76           PAPERS ON LIT 1ERATURE AND ART.
lic to an undertaking, the sole aimn of which is to raise a worthy monument to German art, to furnish the true artist with a gallery of the most
instructive models, and to open to the friends of musical science an inexhaustible source of the sublimest enjoyment."
The deep, tender repose in the contemplation of genius, the
fidelity in the details of observation, indicated in this passage, are
the chief requisites of the critic. But he should never say of
any object, as Forkel does, it is the greatest that ever was or
ever will be, for that is limiting the infinite, and making himself
a bigot, gentle and patient perhaps, but still a bigot. All are
so who limit the divine within the boundaries of their present
knowledge.
The founder of the Bach family (in its musical phase) was a
Thuringian miller.  " In his leisure hours he amused himself
with his guitar, which he even took with him into the mill, and
played upon it amidst all the noise and clatter."  The same love
of music, for its-own sake, continued in the family for six generations. After enumerating the geniuses who illustrated it before the time of John Sebastian, Forkel says,
" Not only the above-mentioned, but many other able composers of the
earlier generations of the family might undoubtedly have obtained much
more important musical offices, as well as a more extensive reputation, and
a more brilliant fortune, if they had been inclined to leave their native
province, and to make themselves known in other countries. But we do
not find that any one of them ever felt an inclination for such an emigration. Temperate and frugal by nature and education, they required but
little to live; and the intellectual enjoyment, which their art procured
them, enabled them not only to be content without the gold chains, which
used at that time to be given by great men to esteemed artists, as especial
marks of honour, but also without the least envy to see them worn by others,
who perhaps without these chains would not have been happy."
Nothing is more pleasing than the account of the jubilee which
this family had once a year. As they were a large family, and
scattered about in different cities, they met once a year and had
this musical festival.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                      77
"Their amusements during the time of their meeting were entirely musical. As the company wholly consisted of chanters, organists, and town
musicians, who had all to do with the Church, and as it was besides a general custom to begin everything with religion, the first thing they did,
when they were assembled, was to sing a hymn in chorus. From this pipus commencement they proceeded to drolleries, which often made a very
great contrast with it. They sang, for instance, popular songs, the contents of which are partly comic and partly licentious, all together, and extempore, but in such a manner that the several songs thus extemporized
made a kind of harmony together, the words, however, in every part being
different. They called this kind of extemporary chorus'a Quodlibet,'
and not only laughed heartily at it themselves, but excited an equally
hearty and irresistible laughter in every body that heard them.  Some
persons are inclined to consider these facetike as the beginning of comic
operettas in Germany; but such quodlibets were usual in Germany at a
much earlier period. I possess myself a printed collection of them, which
was published at Vienna in 1542."
In perfect harmony with what is intimated of the family, of
their wise content, loving art, purely and religiously for its own
sake, unallured by ambition or desire for excitement, deep and
true, simple and modest in the virtues of domestic life, was the
course of the greatest of them, John Sebastian.  No man of
whom we read has lived more simply the grand, quiet, manly
life, "without haste, without rest."  Its features are few, its outline large and tranquil. His youth was a steady aspiration to
the place nature intended him to fill; as soon as he was in that
place, his sphere of full, equable activity, he knew  it, and was
content. After that he was known by his fruits. As for outward occasions and honours, it was with him  as always with the
" Happy Warrior," who must
" In himself possess his own desire
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;




78           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all."
A pretty story of his childhood shows that he was as earnest
in the attainment of excellence, as indifferent to notoriety.
" J. S. Bach was left an orphan at ten years of age, and was obliged to
have recourse to an elder brother, John Christopher, who was organist at
Ordruff. From him he received the first instructions in playing on the
clavichord. But his inclination and talent for music must have been already very great at that time, since the pieces which his brother gave him
to learn were so soon in his power, that he began with much eagerness to
look out for some that were more difficult. He had observed that his
brother had a book, in which were pieces by the most famous composers
of the day, such as he wanted, and earnestly begged him to give it him.
But it was constantly denied. His desire to possess the book was increased'
by the refusal, so that he at length sought means to get possession of it
secretly. As it was kept in a cupboard, which had only a lattice door, and
his hands were still small enough to pass through, so that he could roll up
the book, which was merely stitched in paper, and draw it out, he did
not long hesitate to make use of these favorable circumstances. But, for
want of a candle, he could only copy it in moonlight nights; and it took
six whole months before he could finish his laborious task. At length,
when he thought himself safely possessed of the treasure, and intended to
make good use of it in secret, his brother found it out, and took from him,
without pity, the copy which had cost him so much pains; and he did not
recover it till his brother's death, which took place soon after."
Without pity indeed! What a tale is told by these few words
of all the child suffered from disappointment of the hopes and
plans, which had been growing in his heart all those six months
of secret toil; hopes and plans too, so legitimate, on which a true
parent or guardian would have smiled such delighted approval 
One can scarcely keep down the swelling heart at these instances
of tyranny to children, far worse than the knouts and Siberia
of the Russian despot, in this, that the domestic tyrant cannot be
wholly forgetful of the pain he is inflicting, though he may be too
stupid or too selfish to forsee lhe consequences of these early




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                79
wrongs, through long years of mental conflict. A nature so
strong and kindly as that of Bach could not be crushed in such
ways. But with characters of less force the consequences are
more cruel. I have known an instance of life-long injury from
such an act as this. An elder brother gave a younger a book;
then, as soon as the child became deeply interested in reading it,
*tore out two or three leaves. Years after the blood boiled, and
the eyes wept bitter tears of distrust in human sympathy, at remembrance of this little act of wanton wrong. And the conduct
of Bach's brother is more coldly cruel.
The facts of his life are simple. Soon his great abilities displayed themselves, so as to win for him all that he asked from life,
a moderate competency, a home, and a situation in which he could
cultivate his talents with uninterrupted perseverance.  A silent
happiness lit up his days, deliberately, early he grew to giant
stature, deeply honoured wherever known, only not more widely
known because indifferent to being so. No false lure glitters on
his life from any side. He was never in a hurry, nor did he
ever linger on the syren shore, but passed by, like Orpheus, not
even hearing their songs, so rapt was he in the hymns he was
singing to the gods.
Haydn is the untouched green forest in the fulness of a June
day; Handel the illuminated garden, where splendid and worldly
crowds pause at times in the dark alleys, soothed and solemnized
by the white moonlight; with Mozart the nightingale sings, and
the lonely heron waves his wings, beside the starlit, secret lake,
on whose bosom gazes the white marble temple. Bach is the
towering, snowy mountain, " itself earth's Rosy Star," and the
green, sunny, unasking valley, all in one. Earth and heaven
are not lonely while such men live to answer to their meaning.
I had marked many passages which gi've a clear idea of Bach's
vast intellectual comprehension, of the happy balance between




80          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
the intuitive and the reasoning powers in his nature, the depth
of his self-reliance, the untiring severity of his self-criticism, and
the glad, yet solemn religious fulness of his mental life. But already my due limits are overstepped, and I am still more desirous to speak at some length of Beethoven. I shall content myself with two or three passages, which not only indicate the peculiar scope of this musician, but are of universal application to
whatever is good in art or literature.
Bombet mentions this anecdote of Jomelli.
On arriving at Bologna, he went to see the celebrated Father Martini,
without making himself known, and begged to be received into the number of his pupils. Martini gave him a subject for a fugue; and finding
that he executed it in a superior manner,'Who are you?' said he,'are
you making game of me? It is I who need to learn of you.''I am
Jomelli, the professor, who is to write the opera to be performed here
next autumn, and I am come to ask you to teach me the great art of never
being embarrassed by my own ideas.'"
There seems to have been no time in Bach's life when he
needed to ask this question, the great one which Genius ever
asks of Friendship. He did not need to flash out into clearness
in another atmosphere than his own. Always he seems the master, possessing, not possessed by, his idea. These creations did
not come upon him as on the ancient prophets, dazzling, unexpected, ever flowing from the centre of the universe. He was
not possessed by the -muse; he had not intervals of the second
sight. The thought and the symbol were one with him, and like
Shakspeare, he evolved from  his own centre, rather than was
drawn to the centre. He tells the universe by living a self-centred world.
As becomes the greatest, he is not hasty, never presumptuous.
We admire it in the child Mozart, that he executed at once the
musical tour de force prepared by the Emperor Francis. We
admire still more Bach's manly caution and sense of the impor.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMIPOSERS.                    81
tance of his art, when visiting, at an advanced age, the grea
Frederic, who seems to have received him king-like.
"The musicians went with him from room to room, and Bach was in
vited everywhere to try and to play unpremeditated compositions. Afte
he had gone on for some time, he asked the King to give him a subject
for a fugue, in order to execute it immediately, without any preparation.
The King admired the learned manner in which his subject was thus
executed extempore; and, probably to see how far such art could be carried, expressed a wish to hear a fugue with six obligato parts. But as it is
not every subject that is fit for such full harmony, Bach chose one himself, and immediately executed it, to the astonishment of all present, in
the same magnificent and learned manner as he had done that of the
King."
The following anecdote shows the same deeply intellectual
modesty and candour, and when compared with the inspired rapidity of Mozart, marks the distinction made by the French between
" une savante originalite" and " une rayonnante oiginalit6."
" He at length acquired such a high degree of facility, and, we may
almost say, unlimited power over his instrument in all the modes, that
there were hardly any more difficulties for him. As well in his unpremeditated fantasies, as in executing his other compositions, in which it is
well known that all the fingers of both hands are constantly employed.
and have to make motions which are as strange and uncommon as the
melodies themselves; he is said to have possessed such certainty that he
never missed a note. He had besides such an admirable facility in reading
and executing the compositions of others, (which, indeed, were all easier
than his own,) that he once said to an acquaintance, that he really believed he could play everything, without hesitating, at the first sight. He
was, however, mistaken; and the friend, to whom he had thus expressed his
opinion, convinced him of it before a week was passed. He invited him
one morning to breakfast, and laid upon the desk of his instrument, among
other pieces, one which at the first glance appeared to be very trifling.
Bach came, and, according to his custom, went immediately to the instrument, partly to play, partly to look over'the music that lay on the desk.
While he was turning over and playing them, his friend went into the
next room to prepare breakfast. In a few minutes, Bach got to the piece
4*




82           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
which was destined to make him change his opinion, and began to play
it. But he had not proceeded far when he came to a passage at which he
stopped. He looked at it, began anew, and again stopped at the same
passage.'No,' he called out to his friend, who was laughing to himself
in the next room, at the same time going away from the instrument,' one
cannot play everything at first sight; it is not possible.'"
A few more extracts which speak for themselves.
"The clavichord and the organ are nearly related, but the style and
mode of managing both instruments are as different as their respective
destination. What sounds well, or expresses something on the clavichord,
expresses nothing on the organ, and vice versa. The best player on the
clavichord, if he is not duly acquainted with the difference in the destination and object of the two instruments, and does not know constantly how
to keep it in view, will always be a bad performer on the organ, as indeed
is usually the case. Hitherto I have met with only two exceptions. The
one is John Sebastian himself, and the second his eldest son, William
Friedemann. Both were elegant performers on the clavichord; but, when
they came to the organ, no trace of the harpsichord player was to be perceived. Melody, harmony, motion, all was different; that is, all was
adapted to the nature of the instrument and its destination. When I heard
Will Friedemann on the harpsichord, all was delicate, elegant, and agreeable. When I heard him on the organ, I was seized with reverential awe.
There, all was pretty, here, all was grand and solemn. The same was the
case with John Sebastian, but both in a much higher degree of perfection.
W. Friedemann was here but a child to his father, and he most frankly
concurred in this opinion. The organ compositions of this extraordinary
man are full of the expression of devotion, solemnity, and dignity; but his
unpremeditated voluntaries on the organ, where nothing was lost in writing down, are said to have been still more devout, solemn, dignified, and
sublime. What is it that is most essential in this art? I will say what I
know; much, however, cannot be said, but must be felt."
Then after some excellent observations upon the organ, he
says,
"Bach, even in his secular compositions, disdained every thing common; but in his compositions for the organ, he kept himself far more distant from it; so that here he does not appear like a man, but as a true disembodied spirit, who soars above everything mortal."




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                     83
It does indeed seem, from all that is said of Bach on this score,
that, as the organ was his proper instrument, and represents him,
as the flute or violin might Mozart, so he that heard him on it
enjoyed  the sense of the true Miltonic Creation, thought too
plenteous to be spoken of as rill, or stream, or fountain, but rolling and surging like a tide, marking its course by the large
divisions of seas and continents.
I wish there was room to quote the fine story of the opera house
at Berlin, p. 34, which shows how rapid and comprehensive was
his intellectual sight in his own department; or the remarks on
the nature of his harmony in that it was a multiplied melody, pp.
42, 43, or on the severe truth and dignity of his conduct to his
pupils and the public, p. 76.  But I must content myself with
the following passages, which, beside, lose much by mutilation.
" The ideas of harmony and modulation can scarcely be separated, so
nearly are they related to eacl other. And yet they are different. By
harmony we must understand the concord or coincidence of the various
parts; by modulation, their progression.
" In most composers you find that their modulation, or if you will, their
harmony, advances slowly. In musical pieces to be executed by numerous performers, in large buildings, as, for example, in churches, where a
loud sound can die away but slowly, this arrangement indisputably shows
the prudence of a composer, who wishes to have his work produce the
best possible effect. But in instrumental or chamber music, that slow progress is not a proof of prudence, but, far oftener, a sign that the composer
was not sufficiently rich in ideas. Bach has distinguished this very well.
In his great vocal compositions, he well knew how to repress his fancy,
which, otherwise, overflowed with ideas; but, in his instrumental music
this reserve was not necessary. As he, besides, never worked for the
crowd, but always had in his mind his ideal of perfection, without any
view to approbation or the like, he had no reason whatever for giving less
than he had, and could give, and in fact he has never done this. Hence
in the modulation of his instrumental works, every advance is a new
thought, a constantly progressive life and motion, within the circle of the
modes chosen, and those nearly related to them. Of the harmony which
he adopts he retains the greatest part, but, at every advance he mingle4




84           PAPERS ON  LITERATURE AND ART.
something related to it; and in this manner he proceeds to the end of a
piece, so softly, so gently, and gradually, that no leap, or harsh transition
is to be felt; and yet no bar (I may almost say, no part of a bar,) is like
another. With him, every transition was required to have a connexion
with the preceding idea, and appears to be a necessary consequence of it.
He knew not, or rather he disdained those sudden sallies, by which many
composers attempt to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatics, the
advances are so soft and tender, that we scarcely perceive their distances,
though often very great."
"In other departments he had rivals; but in the fugue, and all the
kinds of canon and counterpoint related to it, he stands quite alone, and so
alone, that all around him, is, as it were, desert and void.  *    *   *
It (his fugue) fulfils all the conditions which we are otherwise accustomed
to demand, only of more free species of composition. A highly characteristic theme, an uninterrupted principal melody, wholly derived from it,
and equally characteristic from the beginning to the end; not mere accompaniment in the other parts, but in each of them an independent melody,
according with the others, also from the beginning to the end; freedom,
lightness, and fluency in the progress of the whole, inexhaustible variety
of modulation combined with perfect purity; the exclusion of every arbitrary note, not necessarily belonging to the whole; unity and diversity in
the style, rhythmus, and measure; and lastly, a life diffused through the
whole, so that it sometimes appears to the performer or hearer, as if every
single note were animated; these are the properties of Bach's fugue,properties which excite admiration and astonishment in every judge, who
knows what a mass of intellectual energy is required for the production of
such works. I must say still more. All Bach's fugues, composed in the
years of his maturity, have the above-mentioned properties in common;
they are all endowed with equally great excellencies, but each in a different manner. Each has his own precisely defined character; and dependent upon that, its own turns in melody and harmony. When we know
and can perform one, we really know only one, and can perform but one;
whereas we know and can play whole folios full of fugues by other composers of Bach's time, as soon as we have comprehended and rendered familiar to our hand, the turns of a single one.'
He disdained any display of his powers. If they were made
obvious otherwise than in the beauty and fullness of what was
produced, it was in such a way as this.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                      85
" In musical parties, where quartettes or other fuller pieces of instrumental music were performed, he took pleasure in playing the tenor.
With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the middle of the harmony,
whence he could both hear and enjoy it, on both sides. When an opportunity offered, in such parties, he sometimes accompanied a trio or other
pieces on the harpsichord. If he was in a cheerful mood, and knew that
the composer of the piece, if present, would not take it amiss, he used
to make extempore out of the figured bass a new trio, or of three single
parts a quartette. These, however, are the only cases in which he proved
to others how strong he was.
"He was fond of hearing the music of other composers. If he heard
in a church a fugue for a full orchestra, and one of his two eldest sons
stood near him, he always, as soon as he had heard the introduction to
the theme, said beforehand what the composer ought to introduce, and
what possibly might be introduced. If the composer had performed his
work well, what he had said happened; then he rejoiced, and jogged his
son to make him observe it."
He did not publish a work till he was forty years of age. He
never laid aside the critical file through all his life, so that an
edition of his works, accompanied by his own corrections, would
be the finest study for the musician.
This severe ideal standard, and unwearied application in realizing it, made his whole life a progress, and the epithet old, which
too often brings to our minds associations of indolence or decay,
was for him the title of honour.  It is noble and imposing when
Frederic the Second says to his courtiers, " with a kind of agita.
tion,' Gentlemen, Old Bach has come.' "
"1 He laboured for himself, like every true genius; he fulfilled his own
wish, satisfied his own taste, chose his subjects according to his own
opinion, and lastly, derived the most pleasure from nis own approbation.
The applause of connoisseurs could not then fail him, and, in fact, never
did fail him. How else could a real work of art be produced? The artist,
who endeavours to make his works so as to suit some particular class of
amateurs, either has no genius, or abuses it. To follow the prevailing
taste of the many, needs, at the most, some dexterity in a very partial
manner of treating tones. Artists of this description may be compared to




86          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
the mechanic, who must also make his goods so that his customers can
make use of them. Bach never submitted to such conditions. He thought
the artist may form the public, but that the public does not form the
artist."
But it would please me best, if I could print here the whole of
the concluding chapter of this little book.  It shows a fulness
and depth of feeling, objects are seen from a high platform of culture, which make it invaluable to those of us who are groping in
a denser atmosphere after the beautiful.  It is a slight scroll,
which implies ages of the noblest effort, and so clear a perception
of laws, that its expression, if excessive in the particular, is never
extravagant on the whole; a true and worthy outpouring of
homage, so true that its most technical details suggest the canons
by which all the various exhibitions of man's genius are to be
viewed, and silences, with silver clarion tone, the barking of
partial and exclusive connoisseurship. The person who should
republish such a book in this country would be truly a benefactor.
Both this and the Life of Handel I have seen only in the London
edition.  The latter is probably out of print; but the substance
of it, or rather the only pregnant traits from it have been given
here.  This life of Bach should be read, as its great subject
should be viewed, as a whole.
The entertaining memoir of Beethoven by Ries and Wegeler
has been, in some measure, made known to us through the
English periodicals.  I have never seen the book myself.  That to
which I shall refer is the life of' Beethoven by Schindler, to wholm
Beethoven confided the task of writing it, in case of the failure
of another friend, whom he somewhat preferred.
Schindler, if inadequate to take an observation of his subject
from any very high point of view, has the merit of simplicity,
fidelity, strict accuracy according to his power of discerning,
and a devout reverence both for the art, and this greatest ex.
emplar. of the art.  He is one of those devout Germans who can




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                 t7
cling for so many years to a single flower, nor feel that they have
rifled all its sweets. There are in Rome, Germans who give
their lives to copy the great masters in the art of painting, nor
ever feel that they can get deep enough into knowledge of the
beauty already produced to pass out into reproduction. They
would never weary through the still night of tending the lights
for the grand Mass. Schindler is of this stamp; a patient student, most faithful, and, those of more electric natures will perhaps say, a little dull.
He is very indignant at the more sprightly sketches of Ries
and Bettina Brentano.  Ries, indeed, is probably inaccurate in
detail, yet there is a truth in the whole impression received from
him. It was in the first fervour of his youth that he knew Beethoven; he was afterwards long separated from him; in his book
we must expect to see rather Ries, under the influence of Beethoven, than the master's self.  Yet there is always deeper truth in
this manifestation of life through life, if we can look at it aright,
than in any attempt at an exact copy of the original. Let only
the reader read poetically, and Germany by Madame de Stal,
Wallenstein by Schiller, Beethoven by Ries, are not the less true
for being inaccurate. It is the same as with the Madonna by
Guido, or by Murillo.
As for Bettina, it was evident to every discerning reader that
the great man never talked so; the whole narration is overflowed
with Bettina rose-colour. Schindler grimly says, the good Bettina makes him  appear as a  VWord Hero; and we cannot but
for a moment share his contempt, as we admire the granite laconism of Beethoven's real style, which is beyond any other, the short
hand of Genius.  Yet " the good Bettina" gives us the soul of the
matter. Her description of his manner of seizing a melody
and then gathering together from every side all that belonged to
it, and the saying, " other men are touched by something good.
Artists are fiery; they do not weep," are Beethoven's, whether




88          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
he really said them or not.  "You say that Shakspeare never
meant to express this! What then? his genius meant it!"
The impression Schindler gives of Beethoven differs from that
given by Ries or Bettina only in this, that the giant is seen
through uncoloured glass; the lineaments are the same in all the
three memoirs.
The direction left by Beethoven himself to his biographer is as
follows.  " Tell the truth with severe fidelity of me and all connected with me, without regard to whom it may hit, whether
others or myself."
He was born 17th Dec. 1770.  It is pleasing to the fancy to
know that his mother's name was Maria Magdalena. She died
when he was seventeen, so that a cabalistic number repeats itself
the magical three times in the very first statement of his destiny.
The first thirty years of his life were all sunshine.  His genius was early acknowledged, and princely friends enabled him
to give it free play, by providing for his simple wants in daily
life. Notwithstanding his uncompromising democracy, which,
from the earliest period, paid no regard to rank and power, but
insisted that those he met should show themselves worthy as men
and citizens, before he would have anything to do with them, he
was received with joy into the highest circles of Vienna. Van
Swieten, the emperor's physician, one of those Germans, who,
after the labors of the day, find rest in giving the whole night to
music, and who was so situated that he could collect round him
all that was best in the art, was one of his firmest friends.  Prince
and Princess Lichnowsky constituted themselves his foster-parents, and were not to be deterred from their wise and tender
care by the often perverse and impetuous conduct of their adopted
son, who indeed tried them severely, for he was (ein gewaltig
natur) "a vehement nature," that broke through all limits and
always had to run his head against a barrier, before he could be
convinced of its existence.  Of the princess, Beethoven says:




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                89
"With love like that of a grandmother, she sought to educate and
foster me, which she carried so far as often to come near having
a glass bell put over me, lest somewhat unworthy should touch or
even breathe on me."  Their house is described as "eine freihafen der Humanitat und feinem sitte," the home of all that is
genial, noble and refined.
In these first-years, the displays of his uncompromising nature
affect us with delight, for they have not yet that hue of tragedy,
which they assumed after he was brought more decidedly into opposition with the world. Here wildly great and free, as afterwards sternly and disdainfully so, he is, waxing or waning, still
the same orb; here more fairly, there more pathetically noble.
He early took the resolution, by which he held fast through
life, " against criticisms or attacks of any kind, so long as they
did not touch his honour, but were aimed solely at his artist-life,
never to defend himself.  He was not indifferent to the opinion of
the good, but ignored as much as possible the assaults of the bad,
even when they went so far as to appoint him a place in the mad
house." For that vein in human nature, which has flowed unexhausted ever since the days of " I am not mad, most noble Festus," making men class as magic or madness all that surpasses
the range of their comprehension and culture, manifested itself
in full energy among the contemporaries of Beethoven. When
he published one of his greatest works, the critics declared him." now (in the very meridian of his genius) ripe for the mad-house."
For why?  "WE do not understand it; WE never had such
thoughts; we cannot even read and execute them."  Ah men!
almost your: ingratitude doth at times convince that you are
wholly unworthy the visitations of the Divine!
But Beethoven " was an artist-nature;" he had his work to do,
and could not stop to weep, either pitying or indignant tears.
4" If it amuses those people to say or to write such things of me,




90          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
do not disturb them," was his maxim, to which he remained true
through all the calamities of his " artist-life."
Gentleness and forbearance were virtues of which he was incapable.  His spirit was deeply loving, but stern.  Incapable him.
self of vice or meanness, he could not hope anything from men
that were not so. He could not try experiments; he could not
pardon. If at all dissatisfied with a man, he had done with him
forever. This uncompromising temper he carried out even in
his friendliest relations. The moment a man ceased to be important to him or he to the man, he left off seeing him, and they did
not meet again, perhaps for twenty years. But when they did
meet, the connexion was full and true as at first. The inconveniences of such proceedings in the conventional world are obvious, but Beethoven knew only the world of souls.' In man he saw only the man. Rank and'wealth were to him mere
accidents, to which he attached no importance. To bow before Mammon
and his ministers he considered absolute blasphemy; the deepest degradation to the man who had genius for his dower. The rich man must
show himself noble and beneficent, if he would be honoured by the least
attention from Beethoven."  " He thought that the Spirit, the Divine in
man, must always maintain its preeminence over the material and temporary; that, being the immediate gift of the Creator, it obliged its possessor to go before other men as a guiding light."
How far his high feeling of responsibility, and clear sight of
his own position in the universe were from arrogance, he showed
always by his aversion to servile- homage.  He left one of his
lodging houses because the people would crowd the adjacent
bridge to gaze on him as he went out; another because the aristocratic proprietor, abashed- before his genius, would never meet
him without making so many humble reverences, as if to a domesticated god.  He says, in one of the letters to Julietta,' I am
persecuted by kindness, which I think I wish to deserve as little
as I really do deserve it.  Humility of man before man,-it pain<
me; and when I regard myself in connexion with the universe,




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                     91
what am I? and what is he whom  they name Greatest?  And
yet there is the godlike in man."'
"Notwithstanding the many temptations to which he was exposed, he,
like each other demigod, knew how to preserve his virtue without a stain.
Thus his inner sense for virtue remained ever pure, nor could he suffer
anything about him of dubious aspect on the moral side. In this respect
he was conscious of no error, but made his pilgrimage through life in untouched maidenly purity. The serene muse, who had so highly gifted and
elected him to her own service, gave in every wise to his faculties the upward direction, and protected him, even in artistical reference, against the
slightest contact with vulgarity, which, in life as in art, was to him a torture."-" Ah, had he but carried the same clearness into the business
transactions of his life!"
So sighs the friend, who thinks his genius was much impeded
by the transactions, in which his want of skill entangled him with
sordid, contemptible persons.
Thus in unbroken purity and proud self-respect, amid princely
bounties and free, manly relations, in the rapid and harmonious
development of his vast powers, passed the first thirty years of
his life. But towards the close of that period, crept upon him
the cruel disorder,, to him of all men the most cruel, which immured him a prisoner in the heart of his own kingdom, and beggared him for the rest of his life of the delights he never ceased
to lavish on others.
After his fate was decided he never complained, but what lay
in the secret soul is shown by the following paper.
" During the summer he lived at Heiligenstadt, by the advice of his
physician, and in the autumn wrote the following testament:"For moy brothers Carl and -   eethoven.
" O ye men, who esteem or declare me unkind, morose, or misanthropic,
what injustice you do me; you know not the secret causes of that which
so seems. My heart and my mind were from childhood disposed to the
tender feelings of good will. Even to perform  great actions was I ever
disposed. But think only that for six years this ill has been growing upon




92           PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
me, made worse by unwise physicians; that from year to year I have been
deceived in the hope of growing better; finally constrained to the survey
of this as a permanent evil, whose cure will require years, or is perhaps
impossible. Born with a fiery, lively temperament, even susceptible to
the distractions of society, must I early sever myself, lonely pass my life.
If I- attempted, in spite of my ill, intercourse with others, O how cruelly
was I then repulsed by the doubly gloomy experience of my bad hearing;
and yet it was not possible for me to say to men, speak louder, scream, for
I am deaf! Ah, how would it be possible for me to make known the
weakness of a sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others,
a sense which I once possessed in the greatest perfection, in a perfection
certainly beyond most of my profession.  O I cannot do it  Therefore
pardon, if you see me draw back when I would willingly mingle with
you. My misfortune is a double woe, that through it I must be misunderstood. For me the refreshment of companionship, the finer pleasures of
conversation, mutual outpourings can have no place. As an exile must
I live! If I approach a company, a hot anguish falls upon me, while I
fear to be put in danger of exposing my situation. So has it been this
half year that I have passed in the country. The advice of my friendly
physician, that I should spare my hearing, suited well my present disposition, although many times I have let myself-be misled by the desire for
society. But what humiliation, when some one stood near me, and from
afar heard the flute, and I heard nothing, or heard the Shepherd sing,*
and I heard nothing. Such occurrences brought me near to despair; little was wanting that I should, myself, put an end to my life. Only she,
Art, she held me back! Ah! it seemed to me impossible to leave the
world before I had brought to light all which laytin my mind. And so I
lengthened out this miserable lifa, so truly miserable, as that a swift
change can throw me from the best state into the worst. Patience, it is
said, I must now take for my guide. I have so. Constant, I hope, shall
my resolution be to endure till the inexorable Fates shall be pleased to
break the thread. Perhaps goes it better, perhaps not, I am prepared.
Already in my twenty-eighth year constrained to become a philosopher.
It is not easy, for the artist harder than any other man. 0 God, thou
lookest down upon my soul, thou knowest that love to man and inclination
to well-doing dwell there. 0 men, when you at some future time read
this, then think that you have done me injustice, and the unhappy, let' See Ries.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                       93
him be comforted by finding one of his race, who in defiance of all
hindrances of nature has done all possible to him to be received in the
rank of worthy artists and men. You, my brothers, Carl and — *, so
soon as I am dead, if Professor Schmidt is yet living, pray him in my
name that he will describe my disease, and add this writing to the account
of it, that at least as much as possible the world may be reconciled with
me after my death. At the same time 1 declare you two the heirs of my little
property, (if I may call it so). Divide it honourably, agree, and help one
another. What you have done against me has been, as you know, long
since pardoned. Thee, brother Carl, I especially thank for thy lately
shown attachment. My wish is that you may have a better life, freer from
care than mine. Recommend to your children virtue, that alone can
make happy, not gold. I speak from experience. For this it was that
raised up myself from misery; this and my art I thank, that I did not end
my life by my own hand. Farewell and love one another. All friends I
thank, especially Prince Lichnowsky and, Professor Schmidt. I wish the
instruments given me by Prince L. to be preserved with care by one of
you, yet let no strife arise between you on that account. So soon as
they are needed for some more useful purpose, sell them. Joyful am I
that even in the grave I may be of use to you. Thus with joy may I greet
death; yet comes it earlier than I can unfold my artist powers, it will,
notwithstanding my hard destiny, come too early, and I would wish it delayed; however I would be satisfied that it freed me from a state of endless suffering. Come when thou wilt, I go courageously to meet thee.
Farewell, and forget me not wholly in death; I have deserved that you
should not, for in my life I thought often of you, and of making you
happy; be so.
" LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
"Heiligenstadt, 6th October, 1802."
"Postscript. 10th October, 1802.
" So take I then a sad farewell of thee. Yes! the beloved hope, which
I brought hither, to be cured at least to a certain point, must now wholly
leave me. As the leaves fall in autumn, are withered, so has also this
withered for me. Almnostas I came hither, so go I forth, even the high
courage, which inspired me oft in the fair summer days, is vanished. 0
Providence, let once again a clear day of joy shine for me, so long already
* He seems to have forgotten at the moment the name of his younger brother.




94          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
has the inward echo of true joy been unknown to me. When, when, O
God, can I feel it again in the temple of nature and of man?-Never?
No! that would be too cruel!"
The deep love shown in these words, love such as only proud
and strong natures know, was not only destined to be wounded
in its general relations with mankind through this calamity.
The woman he loved, the inspiring muse of some of his divinest
compositions, to whom he writes, "Is not our love a true heavenly
palace, also as firm  as the fortress of heaven," was unworthy.
In a world where millions of souls are pining and perishing for
want of an inexhaustible fountain of love and grandeur, this soul,
which was indeed such an one, could love in vain. This eldest
son, this rightful heir of nature, in some secret hour, writes at
this period, " Only love, that alone could give thee a happier
life. O my God, let me only find at last that which may strengthen me in virtue, which to me is lawful. A love which is permitted, (erlaubt)."
The prayer was unheard.  He was left lonely, unsustained,
unsolaced, to wrestle with, to conquer his fate.  Pierced here in
the very centre of his life, exposed both by his misfortune and a
nature which could neither anticipate nor contend with the designs of base men, to the anguish of meeting ingratitude on every
side, abandoned to the guardianship of his wicked brothers, Beethoven walked in night, as regards the world, but within, the
heavenly light ever overflowed him more and more.
Shall lesser beings repine that they do not receive their dues
in this short life with such an example before them, how large
the scope of eternal justice must:be? Who can repine that
thinks of Beethoven? His was indeed the best consolation of life.
" To him a God gave to tell what he suffered," as also the deep
joys of knowledge that spring from suffering. As he descends
to "the divine deeps of' sorrow," and calls up, with spells known
only to those so initiated, forms so far more holy, radiant, and




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                 95
commanding than are known in regions of cheerful light, can we
wish him a happier life? He has been baptized with fire, others
only with water.  He has given all his life and won the holy
sepulchre and a fragment, at least, of the true cross. The solemn
command, the mighty controul of various forces which makes
us seem to hear
"Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things (rushing) to the day of doom,"
the searching through all. the caverns of life for the deepest
thought, and the winged uprise of feeling when it is attained;
were not these wonders much aided by the calamity, which took
this great genius from the outward world, and forced him to concentrate just as he had attained command of his forces?
Friendly affection, indeed, was not wanting to the great
master; but who could be his equal friend?  It was impossible;
he might have fbund a love, but could not a friend in the same
century with himself.  But men were earnest to serve and women to venerate him. Schindler, as well as others, devoted
many of the best years of life to him.  A beautiful trait of aifecs
tion is mentioned of the Countess Marie Erdody, a friend dear to
Beethoven, who, in the park which surrounds her Hungarian palace, erected a temple which she dedicated to him.
Beethoven had two brothers. The one, Johann, seems to have
been rather stupid and selfish than actively bad. The character
of his mind is best shown by his saying to the great master,
" you will never succeed as well as I have." We have all, probbably, in memory instances where the reproving angel of the
family, the one whose thinking mind, grace, and purity, may possibly atone for the worthless lives of all the rest, is spoken of as
the unsuccessful member, because he has not laid up treasures
there where moth or rust do. corrupt, and ever as we hear such remarks, we are tempted to answer by asking, " what is the news
from Sodom and Gomorrah?"  But the farce of Beethoven's not




96          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
succeeding is somewhat broad, even in a world where many such
sayings echo through the streets. At another time Johann, having become proprietor of a little estate, sent into Beethoven's
lodging a new year card on which was written Johann van Beethoven Gutsbesitzer, (possessor of an estate,) to which the Master
returned one inscribed Ludwig van Beethoven Hirnbesitzer,
(possessor of a brain.)  This Gutsbesitzer refused his great
brother a trifling aid in his last illness, applied for by the friends
who had constituted themselves his attendants, and showed towards him systematic selfishness and vulgarity of feeling.  Carl,
the other brother, under the mask of affectionate attention, plundered him both of his gains and the splendid presents often made
him, and kept away by misrepresentations and falsehood all those
who would have sincerely served him. This was the easier, in
that the usual unfortunate effect of deafness of producing distrust
was increased in Beethoven's case by signal instances of treachery, shown towards him in the first years of incapacity to manage his affairs as he had done before his malady. This sad distrust poisoned the rest of his life; but it was his only unworthiness; let us not dwell upon it.  This brother, Carl, was Beethoven's evil genius, and his malignant influence did not cease with
his life. He bequeathed to his brother the care of an only son,
and Beethoven assumed the guardianship with that high feeling
of the duties it involved, to be expected from one of his severe and
pure temper. The first step he was obliged to take was to withdraw the boy from the society and care of his mother, an unworthy woman, under whose influence no good could be hoped
from anything done for him. The law-suit, instituted for this
purpose, which lasted several years, was very injurious to Beethoven's health, and effectually impeded the operations of his poetic power.  For he was one " who so abhorred vice and meanness that he could not bear to hear them spoken of, much less suffer them near him; yet now was obliged to think of them, nay,




LIVES OF THIE GREAT COMPOSERS.                97
carefully to collect evidence in proof of their existence, and that
in the person of a near connexion." This quite poisoned the atmosphere of his ideal world, and destroyed for the time all creative glow. On account of the van prefixed to his name, the cause
was, at first, brought before the tribunal of nobility. They called
on Beethoven to show them his credentials of noble birth.
"Here!" he replied, putting his hand to head and heart.  But
as these nobles mostly derived their titles from the head and heart
of some remote ancestor, they would not recognize this new peerage, and Beethoven, with indignant surprise, found himself referred to the tribunal of the common burghers.
The lawsuit was spun out by the obstinate resistance of his
sister-in-law for several years, and when Beethoven at last obtained possession of the child, the seeds of vice were already
sown in his breast.  An inferior man would have been more
likely to eradicate them than Beethoven, because a kindred consciousness might have made him patient.  But the stern Roman
spirit of Beethoven could not demand less than virtue, less than
excellence, from the object of his care. For the youth's sake he
made innumerable sacrifices, toiled for him as he would not for
himself, was lavish of all that could conduce to his true good,
but imperiously demanded from him truth, honour, purity and aspiration. No tragedy is deeper than the perusal of his letters to
the young man, so brief and so significant, so stern and so tender.
The joy and love at every sign of goodness, the profound indignation at failure and falsehood, the power of forgiving but not of
excusing, the sentiment of the true value of life, so rocky calm,
that with all its height it never seems exalted, make these letters
a biblical chapter in the protest of modern days against the backslidings of the multitude. The lover of man, the despiser of
men, he who writes, "Recommend to your children virtue; that
alone can make happy, not gold; I speak from experience," is
fully painted in these letters.
PART IT.                   5




98          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
In a lately published novel, "Night and Morning," Bulwer has
well depicted the way in which a strong character overshoots its
mark in the care of a weak one. The belief of Philip that his
weaker brother will abide by a conviction or a promise, with the
same steadfastness that he himself could; the unfavourable action of his disinterested sacrifices on the character of his charge,
and the impossibility that the soft, selfish child should sympathize
with the conflicts or decisions of the strong and noble mind; the
undue rapidity with which Philip draws inferences, false to the
subject because too large for it; all this tragedy of common life
is represented with Rembrandt power of shadow in the history of
Beethoven and his nephew. The ingratitude of the youth is unsurpassed, and the nature it wronged was one of the deepest capacity for, suffering from the discovery of such baseness. Many
years toiled on the sad drama; its catastrophe was the death of
this great master, caused by the child of his love neglecting to
call a physician, because he wanted to play at billiards.
His love was unworthy; his adopted child unworthy; his
brothers unworthy. Yet though his misfortunes in these respects
seem singular, they sprang from no chance.  Here, as elsewhere,
" mind and destiny are two names for one idea." His colossal
step terrified those around him; they wished him away from the
earth, lest he should trample down their mud-hovels; they bound
him in confiding sleep, or, Judas-like, betrayed with a base kiss
of fealty.  His genius excited no respect in narrow minds; his
entire want of discretion in the economy of life left him, they
thought, their lawful prey. Yet across the dark picture shines a
gleam  of almost unparalleled lustre, for "she, Art, she held
him up."
I will not give various instances of failure in promises from
the rich and noble, piracy from publishers, nor even some details
of his domestic plagues, in which he displays a breadth of humour, and stately savage sarcasm, refreshing in their place.  But




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                99
I will not give any of these, nor any of his letters, because the
limits forbid to give them all, and they require light from one another. In such an account as the present, a mere sketch is all
that can be attempted.
A few passages will speak for themselves. Goethe neglected
to lend his aid to the artist for whom he had expressed such admiration, at a time when he might have done so without any inconvenience. Perhaps Beethoven's letter (quoted No. V. of the
Dial, Essay on Goethe) may furnish an explanation of this. Cherubini omitted to answer Beethoven's affectionate and magnanimous letter, though he complied with the request it contained.
But " the good Bettina" was faithful to her professions, and of essential use to Beethoven, by interesting her family in the conduct
of his affairs.
He could not, for any purpose, accommodate himself to courts,
or recognize their claims to homage. Two or three orders given
him for works, which might have secured him the regard of the
imperial family, he could not obey. Whenever he attempted to
compose them, he found that the degree of restriction put upon
him by the Emperor's taste hampered him too much. The one
he did compose for such a purpose, the " Glorreiche Augenblick,"
Schindler speaks of as one of the least excellent of his works.
He could not bear to give lessons to the Archduke Rudolph,
both because he detested giving regular lessons at all, and because he could not accommodate himself to the ceremonies of a
court. Indeed it is evident enough from a letter of the Archduke's, quoted by Schindler as showing most condescending regard, how unfit it was for the lion-king to dance in gilded chains
amid these mummeries.
Individuals in that princely class he admired, and could be just
to, for his democracy was very unlike that fierce vulgar radicalism which assumes that the rich and great must be bad. His was
only vindication of the rights of man; he, could see merit if




100        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
seated on a throne, as clearly as if at a cobbler's'stall. The
Archduke Karl, to whom Korner dedicated his heroic muse, was
the object of his admiration also. The Empress of Russia, too,
he admired.
"Whoever wished to learn of him was obliged to follow his
steps everywhere, for to teach, or say anything, at an appointed
time was to him impossible.  Also he would stop immediately, if
he found his companion not sufficiently versed in the matter to
keep step with him." He could not harangue; he must always
be drawn out.
Amid all the miseries of his housekeeping or other disturbances, (and here, did space permit, I should like to quote his humourous notice of his " four bad days," when he was almost
starved,) he had recourse to his art.  "He would be fretted a little while; then snatch up the score and write' noten im nothen,'
as he was wont to call them, and forget the plague."
-When quite out of health and spirits he restored himself by
the composition of a grand mass.  This "great, solemn mass,"
as he calls it in his letter to Cherubini, was offered to the different
courts of Europe for fifty ducats. The Prussian ambassador in
a diplomatic letter attempted to get it for an order and ribbon.
Beethoven merely wrote in reply, "fifty ducats."  He indeed
was as disdainful of gold chains and orders as Bach was indifferent to them.
Although thus haughty, so much so that he would never receive a visit from Rossini, because, though he admitted that the
Italian had genius, he thought he had not cultivated it with
that devout severity proper to the artist, and was, consequently,
corrupting the public taste, he was not only generous in his joy
at any exhibition of the true spirit from others, but tenderly
grateful fbr intelligent sympathy with himself, as is shown in the
following beautiful narratives.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                  101
"Countess S. brought him on her return from —, German words by
Herr Scholz, written for his first mass. He opened the paper as we were
seated together at the table. When he came to the'Qui tollis,' tears
streamed from hi3 eyes, and he was obliged to stop, so deeply was he
moved by the inexpressibly beautiful words. He cried,'Ja! so habe ich
gefiihlt, als ich dieses schrieb,'' yes, this was what I felt when I wrote it.'
It was the first and last time I ever saw him in tears."
They were such tears as might have been shed on the jubilee
of what he loved so much, Schiller's Ode to Joy.
"Be welcome, millions,
This embrace for the whole world."
Happy the man, who gave the bliss to Beethoven of feeling his
thought not only recognised, but understood. Years of undiscerning censure, and scarcely less undiscerning homage, are obliterated by the one true vibration from the heart of a fellow-man.
Then the genius is at home on earth, when another soul knows
not only what he writes, but what he felt when he wrote it.
"The music is not the lyre nor the hand which plays upon it,
but when the two meet, that arises which is neither, but gives
each its place."
A pleasure almost as deep was given him on this occasion.
Rossini had conquered the German world also; the public had
almost forgotten Beethoven. A band of friends, in whose hearts
the care for his glory and for the high, severe culture of art was
still living, wrote him a noble letter, in which they entreated him
to give to the public one of his late works, and, by such a musical festival, eclipse at once these superficial entertainments. The
spirit of this letter is thoughtful, tender, and shows so clearly the
German feeling as to the worship of the beautiful, that it would
have been well to translate it, but that it is too long. It should
be a remembrancer of pride and happiness to those who signed
their names to it.  Schindler knev -when it was to be sent, and
after Beethoven had time to read it, he went to him.




102         PAPEPRS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
"I found Beethoven with the memorial in his hand. With an air of
unwonted serenity, he reached it to me, placing himself at the window to
gaze at the clouds drawing past. His inly deep emotion could not escape
my eye. After I had read the paper I laid it aside, and waited in silence
for him to begin the conversation. After a long pause, during which his
looks constantly followed the clouds, he turned round, and said, in an elevated tone that betrayed his deep emotion,' Es ist doch recht schon. Es
freut mich.'' It is indeed right fair. It rejoices me.' I assented by a
motion of the head. He then said,' Let us go into the free air.' When
we were out he spoke only in monosyllables, but the spark of desire to
comply with their requests glimmered visibly in him."
This musical festival at last took place after many difficulties,
caused by Beethoven's obstinacy in arranging all the circumstances in his own way. He could never be brought to make
allowance anywhere for ignorance or incapacity. So it must be
or no how! He could never be induced to alter his music on
account of the incapacity of the performers, (the best, too, on that
occasion, anywhere to be had,) for going through certain parts.
So that they were at last obliged to alter parts in their own fashion,
which was always a great injury to the final effect of his works.
They were at this time unwearied in their efforts to please him,
though Sontag playfully told him he was "a very tyrant to the
singing organs."
This festival afforded him a complete triumph. The audience
applauded and applauded, till, at one time, when the acclamations rose to their height, Sontag perceiving that Beethoven did
not hear, as his face was turned from the house, calleli his attention. The audience then, as for the first time realizing the extent
of his misfortune, melted into tears, then all united in a still
more rapturous expression of homage.  For once at least the
man excited the tenderness, the artist the enthusiasm he deserved.
His country again- forgot one who never could nor would call
attention to himself; she forgot in the day him for whom she in
the age cherishes an immortal reverence, and the London Phil.




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                 103
harmonic Society had the honour of ministering to the necessities
of his last illness. The generous eagerness with which they
sent all that his friendly attendants asked, and offered more whenever called for, was most grateful to Beethoven's heart, which
had in those last days been frozen by such ingratitude. It roused
his sinking life to one last leap of flame; his latest days were
passed in revolving a great work which he wished to compose for
the society, and which those about him thought would, if finished, have surpassed all he had done before.
No doubt, if his situation had been known in Germany, his
country would have claimed a similar feeling from him.  For she
was not to him a step-dame; and, though in his last days taken
up with newer wonders,: would not, had his name been spoken,
have failed to listen and to answer.
Yet a few more interesting passages. He rose before daybreak
both in winter and summer, and worked till two or three o'clock,
rarely after. He would never correct, to him the hardest task,
as, like all great geniuses, he was indefatigable in the use of the
file, in the evening. Often in the midst of his work he would
run out into the free air for half an hour or more, and return
laden with new thoughts. When he felt this impulse he paid no
regard to the weather.
Plato and Shakspeare were his favourite authors; especially
he was fond of reading Plato's Republic.  He read the Greek
and Roman classics much, but in translations, for his education,
out of his art, was limited. He also went almost daily to coffeehouses, where he read the newspapers, going in and out by the back
door.  If he found he excited observation, he changed his haunt.
"He tore without ceremony a composition submitted to him by the
great Hummel, which he thought bad. Moscheles, dreading a similar
fate for one of his which was to pass under his criticism, wrote at the
bottom of the last page,' Finis. With the help of God.' Beethoven
wrote beneath,' Man, help thyself.' "




104         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Obviously a new edition of Hercules and the Wagoner.
" He was the most open of men, and told unhesitatingly all he thought,
unless the subject were art and artists. On these subjects he was often inaccessible, and put off the inquirer with wit or satire." " On two subjects
he would never talk, thorough bass and religion. He said they were both
things complete within themselves, (in sich abgeschlossene dinge,) about
which men should dispute no farther."
" As to the productions of his genius, let not a man or a nation, if yet
in an immature stage, seek to know them. They require a certain degree
of ripeness in the inner man to be understood.
" From the depth of the mind arisen, she, (Poesie,) is only to the depth
of the mind either useful or intelligible."
I cannot conclude more forcibly than by quoting Beethoven's
favourite maxim.   It expresses what his life was, and what
the life must be of those who would become worthy to do him
honour.
"The barriers are not yet erected which can say to aspiring
talent and industry, thus far and no farther."
Beethoven is the only one of these five artists whose life can
be called unfortunate.  They all found early the means to unfold
their-powers, and a theatre on which to display them. But Beethoven was, through a great part of his public career, deprived
of the satisfaction of guiding or enjoying the representation of his
thoughts.  He was like a painter who could never see his pictures after they are finished. Probably, if he could himself have
directed the orchestra, he would have been more pliable in making
corrections with an eye to effect.  Goethe says that no one can
write a successful drama without familiarity with the stage, so
as to know what can be expressed, what must be merely indicated.  But in Beethoven's situation, there was not this reaction,
so that he clung more perseveringly to the details of his work
than great geniuses do, who live in more immediate contact with
the outward world. Such an one will, indeed, always answer
like Mozart to an ignorant criticism, " There are just as many




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                  105
notes as there should be."  But a habit of intercourse with the
minds of men gives an instinctive tact as to meeting them, and
Michel Angelo, about to build St. Peter's, takes into consideration, not only his own idea of a cathedral, but means, time, space,
and prospects.
But the misfortune, which fettered the outward energies, deep.,
ened the thought of Beethoven. He travelled inward, downward,
till downward was shown to be the same as upward, for the centre
was passed.
Like all princes, he made many ingrates, and his powerful
lion nature, was that most capable of suffering from  the amazement of witnessing baseness.  But the love, the -pride, the faith,
which survive such pangs are those which make our stair to heaven. Beethoven was not only a poet, but a victorious poet, for
having drunk to its dregs the cup of bitterness; the fount of
inward nobleness remained undefiled.   Unbeloved, he  could
love; deceived in other men, he yet knew himself too well to
despise human nature; dying from ingratitude, he could still be
grateful.
Schindler thinks his genius would have been far more productive, if he had had a tolerably happy home, if instead of the cold
discomfort that surrounded him, he had been blessed, like Mozart,
with a gentle wife, who would have made him a sanctuary in her
unwearied love. It is, indeed, inexpressibly affecting to find the
"vehement nature," even in his thirty-first year, writing thus;' At my age one sighs for an equality, a harmony of outward
existence," and to know that he never attained it. But the lofty
ideal of the happiness which his life could not attain, shone forth
not the less powerfully from his genius.  The love of his choice
was not " firm as the fortress of heaven," but his heart remained
the gate to that fortress.  During all his latter years, he never
complained, nor did Schindler ever hear him advert to past sorrows, or the lost objects of affection.  Perhaps we are best con5*~




106        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
tented that earth should not have offered him a home; where is
the woman who would have corresponded with what we wish
from his love?  Where is the lot in which he could have reposed with all that grandeur of aspect in which he now appears
to us? Where Jupiter, the lustrous, lordeth, there may be a
home for thee, Beethoven.
We will not shrink from the dark clouds which became to his
overflowing light cinctures of pearl and opal; we will not, even
by a wish, seek to amend the destiny through which a divine
thought glows so clearly. Were there no CEdipuses there would
be no Antigones.
Under no other circumstances could Beethoven have ministered
to his fellows in the way he himself indicates.
"The unhappy man, let him be comforted by finding one of
his race who in defiance of all hinderances of' nature, has done
all possible to him to be received in the rank of worthy artists
and men."
In three respects these artists, all true artists, resemble one
another.  Clear decision.  The intuitive faculty speaks clear in
those devoted to the worship of' Beauty. They are not subject
to mental conflict, they ask not counsel of experience. They
take what they want as simply as the bird goes in search of its
proper food, so soon as its wings are grown.
Like nature they love to work for its own sake. The philosopher is ever seeking the thought through the symbol, but the artist is happy at the implication of the thought in his work. He
does not reason about " religion or thorough bass."  His answer
is Haydn's,' I thought it best so." From each achievement
grows up a still higher ideal, and when his work is finished, it is
nothing to the artist who has made of it the step by which he
ascended, but while he was engaged in it, it was all to him, and
filled his soul with a parental joy.
They do not criticise, but affirm. They have no need to deny




LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.                107
aught, much less one another. All excellence to them was genial; imperfection only left room for new creative power to display itself. An everlasting yes breathes from the life, from the
work of the artist. Nature echoes it, and leaves to society the
work of saying no, if it will. But it will not, except for the moment. It weans itself fobr the moment, and turns pettishly away
from genius, but soon stumbling, groping, and lonely, cries aloud
for its nurse. The age cries now, and what an answer is prophesied by such harbinger stars as these at which we have been
gazing. We will engrave their names on the breastplate, and
wear them as a talisman of hope.




A RECORD OF IMPRESSIONS
PRODUCED BY THE EXHIBITION OF MR. ALLSTON'S PICTURES IN THE
SUMMER OF 1839.
THIS is a record of impressions.  It does not aspire to the dignity of criticism. The writer is conscious of an eye and taste,
not sufficiently exercised by study of the best works of art,
to take the measure of one who has a claim  to be surveyed
from the same platform. But, surprised at finding that an exhibition, intended to promote thought and form the tastes. of our
public, has called forth no expression* of what it was to so many,
who almost daily visited it; and believing that comparison and
discussion of the impressions of individuals is the best means to
ascertain the sum of the whole, and raise the standard of taste, I
venture to offer what, if not true in itself, is at least true to the
mind of one observer, and may lead others to reveal more valuable experiences.
Whether the arts can ever be at home among us; whether the
desire now manifested to cultivate them be not merely one of our
modes of imitating older nations; or whether it springs from a
need of balancing the bustle and care of daily life by the unfolding of our calmer and higher nature, it is at present difficult to
decide.  If' the latter, it is not by unthinking repetition of the
technics of foreign connoisseurs, or by a servile reliance on the
judgment of those; who assume to have been formed by a few
* Since the above was written, we see an article on the Exhibition in the
North American Review for April, 1840.




WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                    109
hasty visits to the galleries of Europe, that we shall effect an object so desirable, but by a faithful recognition of the feelings
naturally excited by works of art, not indeed flippant, as if our
raw, uncultivated nature was at once competent to appreciate
those finer manifestations of nature, which slow growths of ages
and peculiar aspects of society have occasionally brought out, to
testify to us what we may and should be.  We know it is not so;
we know that if such works are to be assimilated at all by those
who are not under the influences that produced them, it must be
by gradually educating us to their own level.  But it is not blind
faith that will educate us, that will open the depths and clear the
eye of the mind, but an examination which cannot be too close,
if made in the spirit of reverence and love.
It was as an essay in this kind that the following pages were
written. They are pages of a journal, and their form has not been
altered, lest any attempt at a more fair and full statement should
destroy that freshness and truth of feeling, which is the chief
merit of such.
July, 1839.
On the closing of the Allston exhibition, where I have spent so
many hours, I find myself less a gainer than I had expected, and
feel that it is time to look into the matter a little, with such a
torch or penny rush candle as I can command.
I have seen most of these pictures often before; the Beatrice
and Valentine when only sixteen. The effect they produced upon
me was so great, that I suppose it was not possible for ma to avaoi
expecting too large a benefit from the artist.
The calm and meditative cast of these pictures, the ideal
beauty that shone through rather than in them, and the harmony
of colouring were as unlike anything else I saw, as the Vicar of
Wakefield to Cooper's novels. I seemed to recognise in painting
that self-possessed elegance, that transparent depth, which I most
admire in literature; I thought with delight that such a man as




110        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
this had been able to grow up in our bustling, reasonable community, that he had kept his foot upon the ground, yet never lost
sight of the rose-clouds of beauty floating above him. I saw, too,
that he had not been troubled, but possessed his own soul with
the blandest patience; and I hoped, I scarce knew what; probably the mnot d'enigme for which we are all looking. How the
poetical mind can live and work in peace and good faith! how
it may unfold to its due perfection in an unpoetical society!
From time to time I have seen other of these pictures, and they
have always been to me sweet silvery music, rising by its clear
tone to be heard above the din of life; long forest glades glimmering with golden light, longingly eyed from the window of
some crowded drawing room.
But now, seeing so many of them together, I can no longer be
content merely to feel, but must judge these works. I must try
to find the centre, to measure the circumference; and I fare
somewhat as I have done, when I have seen in periodicals detached thoughts by some writer, which seemed so full of meaning
and suggestion, that I would treasure them up in my memory, and
think about them, till I had made a picture of the author's mind,
which his works when I found them collected would not justify.
Yet the great writer would go beyond my hope and abash my
fancy; should not the great painter do the same?
Yet, probably, I am  too little aware of the difficulties the
artist encounters, before he can produce anything excellent, fully
to apprecia.te the greatness he has shown. Here, as elsewhere.
I suppose the first question should be, What ought we to expect
under the circumstances?
There is no poetical ground-work ready for the artist in our
country and time.  Good deeds appeal to the understanding.
Our religion is that of the understanding. We have no old
established faith, no hereditary romance, no such stuff as Catholic
cismn, Chivalry afforded1. What is most dignified in the Puritanic




WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                     111
modes of thought is not favourable to beauty. The habits of an
industrial community are not propitious to delicacy of sentiment.
He, who would paint human nature, must content himself with
selecting fine situations here and there; and he must address
himself, not to a public which is not educated to prize him, but
to the small circle within the circle of men of taste.
If, like Wilkie or Newton, he paints direct from nature, only
selecting and condensing, or choosing lights and draperies, I suppose he is as well situated now as he could ever have been; but
if, like Mr. Allston, he aims at the Ideal, it is by no means the
same. He is in danger of being sentimental and picturesque,
rather than spiritual and noble.  Mr. Allston has not fallen
into these faults; and if we can complain, it is never of blemish
or falsity, but of inadequacy. Always he has a high purpose in
what he does, never swerves from his aim, but sometimes fails to
reach it.
The Bible, familiar to the artist's youth, has naturally furnished subjects for his most earnest efforts.  I will speak of four
pictures on biblical subjects, which were in this exhibition.
Restoring the dead man by the touch of the Prophet's Bones.
I should say there was a want of artist's judgment in the very
choice of the subject.
In all the miracles where Christ and the Apostles act a part,
and which have been favourite subjects with the great painters,
poetical beauty is at once given to the scene by the moral dignity,
the sublime exertion of faith on divine power in the person of
the main actor.  He is the natural centre of the picture, and the
emotions of all present grade from  and cluster round him.  So
in a martyrdom, however revolting or oppressive the circumstances, there is room in the person of the sufferer for a similar
expression, a central light which shall illuminate and dignify all
round it.
But a miracle effected by means of a relique, or dry bones,




112         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
has the disagreeable effect of mummery.  In this picture the
foreground is occupied by the body of the patient in that state of-,
deadly rigidity and pallor so offensive to the sensual eye. The
mind must reason the eye out of an instinctive aversion, and
force it to its work, —always an undesirable circumstance.
In such a picture as that of the Massacre of the Innocents,
painful as the subject is, the beauty of forms in childhood, and
the sentiment of' maternal love, so beautiful even in anguish,
charm so much as to counterpoise the painful emotions. But
here, not only is the main figure offensive to the sensual eye, thus
violating one principal condition of art; it is incapable of any
expression at such a time beyond that of physical anguish during
the struggle of life suddenly found to re-demand its dominion.
Neither can the assistants exhibit any emotions higher than those
of surprise, terror, or, as in the case of the wife, an overwhelming anxiety of suspense.
The grouping and colouring of this picture are very good,
and the individual figures managed with grace and discrimination, though without much force.
The subjects of the other three pictures are among the finest
possible, grand no less than beautiful, and of the highest poetical
interest.  They present no impediment to the manifestation of
genius.  Let us look first at Jeremiah in prison dictating to
Baruch.
The strength and dignity of' the Jew physique, and the appropriateness of the dress, allowed fair play to the painter's desire
to portray inspiration manifesting itself by a suitable organ. Asfar as the accessories and grouping of the figures nothing can be
better. The form of the prophet is brought out in such noble
relief; is in such fine contrast to the pale and feminine sweetness of the scribe at his feet, that for a time you are satisfied.
But by and by you begin to doubt, whether this picture is not
rather imposing than majestic.  The dignity of the prophet's ap



WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                   113
pearance seems to lie rather in the fine lines of the form and
drapery, than in the expression of the face. It was well observed
by one who looked on him, that, if the eyes were cast down, he
would become an ordinary man. This is true, and the expression of the bard must not depend on a look or gesture, but beam
with mild electricity from every feature. Allston's Jeremiah is
not the mournfully indignant bard, but the robust and stately
Jew, angry that men will not mark his word and go his way.
But Baruch is admirable! His overwhelmed yet willing submission, the docile faith which turns him pale, and trembles almost
tearful in his eye, are given with infinite force and beauty. The
aoup d'eil of this picture is excellent, and it has great merit, but
not the highest.
Miriam.  There is hardly a subject which, for the combination of the sublime with the beautiful could present greater advantages than this. Yet this picture also, with all its great merits,
fails to satisfy our highest requisitions.
I could wish the picture had been larger, and that the angry
clouds and swelling sea did not need to be looked for as they do.
For the whole attention remains so long fixed on the figure of
Miriam, that you cannot for some time realize who she is. You
merely see this bounding figure, and the accessories are so kept
under, that it is difficult to have the situation full in your mind,
and feel that you see not merely a Jewish girl dancing, but the representative of Jewry rescued and triumphant! What a figure this
might be! The character of Jewish beauty is so noble and profound!  This maiden had been nurtured in a fair and highly
civilized country, in the midst of wrong and scorn indeed, but
beneath the shadow of sublime institutions.  In a state of abject bondage, in a catacomb as to this life, she had embalmed
her soul in the memory of those days, when God walked with
her fathers, and did for their sakes such mighty works. Amid
all the pains and penances of slavery, the memory of Joseph, the




PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
presence of Moses, exalt her soul to the highest pitch of' national
)pride.  The chords had of late been strung to their greatest tension, by the series of prodigies wrought in behalf of the nation of
which her family is now the head.  Of these the last and giandest had just taken place before her eyes.
Imagine the stately and solemn beauty with which such nurLure and such a position might invest the Jewish Miriam.  Imagine her. a.t the moment when her soul would burst at last the
shackles in which it had learned to move freely and proudly,
vwhen her lips were unsealed, and she was permitted before her
brother, deputy of the Most High, and chief of their assembled
nation, to sing the song of deliverance.  Realize this situation,
and oh, how far will this beautiful picture fall short of your demands!
The most unimaginative observers complain of a want of depth
in the eye of Miriam.  For myself, I make the same complaint,
as much as I admire the whole figure.  How truly is she upborne, what swelling joy and pride in every line of her form!
And the face, though inadequate, is not false to the ideal. Its
beauty is mournful, and only wants the heroic depth, the cavernous flame of eye, which should belong to such a face in such a
place.
The Witch of Endor is still more unsatisfactory. What a tragedy was that of the stately Saul, ruined by his perversity of will,
despairing, half mad, refusing to give up the sceptre which he
feels must in a short time be wrenched from his hands, degrading
himself to the use of means he himself had forbid as unlawful
and devilish, seeking the friend and teacher of his youth by means
he would most of all men disapprove. The mournful significance
of the crisis, the stately aspect of Saul as celebrated in the history, and the supernatural events which had filled his days, gave
authority for investing him with that sort of beauty and majesty
proper to archangels ruined.  What have we here?  I don't




WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                     115
know what is generally thought about the introduction of a ghost
on canvass, but it is to me as ludicrous as the introduction on the
stage of the ghost in Hamlet (in his night-gown) as the old play
book direction was. The effect of such a representation seems
to me unattainable in a picture. There cannot be due distance
and shadowy softness.
Then what does the picture mean to say?  In the chronicle,
the witch, surprised and affrighted at the apparition, reproaches the
king, "Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul."
But here the witch (a really fine figure, fierce and prononce as
that of a Norna should be) seems threatening the king, who is in
an attitude of theatrical as well as degrading dismay.  To me
this picture has no distinct expression, and is wholly unsatisfactory, maugre all its excellencies of detail.
In fine, the more I have looked at these pictures, the more I
have been satisfied that the grand historical style did not afford
the scope most proper to Mr. Allston's genius.  The Prophets
and Sibyls are for the Michael Angelos. The Beautiful is Mr.
Allston's dominion. There he rules as a Genius, but in attempts
such as I have been considering, can only show his appreciation
of the stern and sublime thoughts he wants force to reproduce.
But on his own ground we can meet the painter with almost
our first delight.
A certain bland delicacy enfolds all these creations as an atmosphere.  Here is no effort, they have floated  across the
painter's heaven on the golden clouds of phantasy.
These pictures (I speak here only of figures, of the landscapes
a few words anon) are almost all in repose.  The most beautiful
are Beatrice, The Lady reading a Valentine, The Evening
Hymn, Rosalie, The Italian Shepherd Boy, Edwin, Lorenzo and
Jessica. The excellence of these pictures is subjective and even
feminine. They tell us the painter's ideal of character. A
graceful repose, with a fitness for moderate action.  A capacity




116         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
of emotion, with a habit of reverie.  Not one of these beings is
in a state of epanchement, not one is, or perhaps could be, thrown
off its equipoise. They are, even the softest, characterized by
entire though unconscious self-possession.
While looking at them would be always coming up in my
mind the line,
" The genius loci, feminine and fair."
Grace, grace always.
Mr. Allston seems to have an exquisite sensibility to colour, and
a great love for drapery.  The last sometimes leads him  to
direct our attention too much to it, and sometimes the accessories
are made too prominent; we look too much at shawls, curtains,
rings, feathers, and carcanets.
I will specify two of these pictures, which seem to me to indicate Mr. Allston's excellences as well as any.
The Italian Shepherd boy is seated in a wood.  The form is
almost nude, and the green glimmer of the wood gives the flesh
the polished whiteness of marble. He is very beautiful, this
boy; and the beauty, as Mr. Allston loves it best, has not yet
unfolded all its leaves. The heart of the flower is still a perfumed secret. He sits as if he could sit there forever, gracefully
lost in reverie, steeped, if we may judge from his mellow brown
eye, in the present loveliness of nature, in the dimly anticipated
ecstasies of love.
Every part of nature has its peculiar influence. On the hilltop one is roused, in the valley soothed, beside the waterfall absorbed.  And in the wood, who has not, like'this boy, walked as
far as the excitement of exercise would carry him, and then,
with " blood listening in his frame." and heart brightly awake,
seated himself on such a bank. At first he notices everything,
the clouds doubly soft, the sky deeper blue, as seen shimmering
through the leaves, the fyttes of golden light seen through the




WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                    117
long glades, the skimming of a butterfly ready to light on some
starry wood-flower, the nimble squirrel peeping archly at him,
the flutter and wild notes of the birds, the whispers and sighs of
the trees,-gradually he ceases to mark any of these things, and
becomes lapt in the Elysian harmony they combine to form.
Who has ever felt this mood understands why the observant
Greek placed his departed great ones in groves. While, during
this trance, he hears the harmonies of Nature, he seems to become
her and she him; it is truly the mother in the child, and the
Hamadryads look out with eyes of tender twilight approbation
from their beloved and loving trees. Such an hour lives for us
again in this picture.
Mr. Allston has been very fortunate in catching the shimmer
and glimmer of the woods, and tempering his greens and browns
to their peculiar light.
Beatrice. This is spoken of as Dante's Beatrice, but I should
think can scarcely have been suggested by the Divine Comedy.
The painter merely having in mind how the great Dante loved a
certain lady called Beatrice, embodied here his own ideal of a
poet's love.
The Beatrice of Dante was, no doubt, as pure, as gentle, as
high-bred, but also possessed of much higher attributes than this
fair being.
How fair, indeed, and not unmeet for a poet's love.  But
there lies in her no germ of the celestial destiny of Dante's
saint. What she is, what she can be, it needs no Dante to discover.
She is not a lustrous, bewitching beauty, neither is she a high
and poetic one. She is not a concentrated perfume, nor a flower,
nor a star; yet somewhat has she of every creature's best. She
has the golden mean, without any touch of the mediocre. She
can venerate the higher and compassionate the lower, and do to
all honour due with most grateful courtesy and nice tact. She is




118         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
velvet-soft, her mild and modest eyes have tempered all things
round her, till no rude sound invades her sphere; yet, if need
were, she could resist with as graceful composure as she can favour or bestow.
No vehement emotion shall heave that bosom, and the tears
shall fall on those cheeks more like dew than rain.  Yet are her
feelings delicate, profound, her love constant and tender, her resentment calmi but firm.
Fair as a maid, fairer as a wife, fairest as a lady mother and
ruler of a household, she were better suited to a prince than a
poet. Even if no prince could be found worthy of her, I would
not wed her to a poet, if he lived in a cottage.  For her best
graces demand a splendid setting to give them their due lustre,
and she should rather enhance than cause her environment.
There are three pictures in the comic kind, which are good.
It is genteel comedy, not rich, easily taken in and left, but having the lights and shades well marked.  They show a gentlemanlike playfulness.  In Catharine and Petruchio, the Gremio is
particularly good, and the tear-distained Catharine, whose head
shoulder, knee, and foot seem to unite to spell the word Pout,
is next best.
Tile Sisters-a picture quite unlike those I have named-does
not please mie much, though I should suppose the execution remarkably good. It is not in repose nor in harmony, nor is it rich
in suggestion, like the others. It aims to speak, but says little,
and is not beautiful enough to fill the heart with its present moment. To me it makes a break in the chain of thought the other
pictures had woven.
Scenefrom Gil Blas-also unlike the other in being perfectly
objective, and telling all its thought at once.  It is a fine painting.
Mother and Child. A lovely little picture. But there is to
my taste an air of got up naivete and delicacy in it. It seems




WASHINGTON ALLSTON.                    119
selected, arranged by "an intellectual effort.' It did not flow
into the artist's mind like the others.  But persons of better taste
than I like it better than I do!
Jews-full of character.  Isaac is too dignified and sad; gold
never rusted the soul of the man that owned that face.
7'he Landscapes. At these I look with such unalloyed delight,
that I have been at moments tempted to wish that the artist had
concentrated his powers on this department of art, in so high a
degree does he exhibit the attributes of the master; a power of
sympathy, which gives each landscape a perfectly individual
character. Here the painter is merged in his theme, and these
pictures affect us as parts of nature, so absorbed are we in contemplating them, so difficult is it to remember them as pictures.
How the clouds float! how the trees live and breathe out their
mysterious souls in the peculiar attitude of every leaf. Dear
companions of my life, whom yearly I know better, yet into
whose heart I can no more penetrate than see your roots, while
you live and grow, I feel what you have said to this painter;
I can in some degree appreciate the power he has shown in repeating here the gentle oracle.'The soul of the painter is in these landscapes, but not his character.  Is not that the highest art?  Nature and the soul combined; the former freed from slight crudities or blemishes, the
latter from its merely human aspect.
These landscapes are too truly works of art, their language is
too direct, too lyrically perfect, to be translated into this of words,
without doing them an injury.
To those, who confound praise with indiscriminate eulogium,
and who cannot understand the mind of one; whose highest expression of admiration is a close scrutiny, perhaps the following lines
Nwill convey a truer impression, than the foregoing remarks, of
the feelings of the writer. They were suggested by a picture
painted by Mr. Allston for a gentleman of Boston, which has




120          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
never yet been publicly exhibited. It is of the same class with
his Rosalie and Evening flymn, pictures which were not particularized in the above record, because they inspired no thought
except of their excelling beauty, which draws the heart into itself:
These two sonnets may be interesting, as showing how similar trains of thought were opened in the minds of two observers.
"To-day I have been to see Mr. Allston's new picture of The
Bride, and am more convinced than ever of the depth and value
of his genius, and of how much food for thought his works contain. The face disappointed me at first by its want of beauty.
Then I observed the peculiar expression of the eyes, and that of
the lids, which tell such a tale, as well as the strange complexion, all heightened by the colour of the background, till the impression became very strong. It is the story of the lamp of love,
lighted, even burning with full force in a being that cannot yet
comprehend it. The character is domestic, far more so than that
of the ideal and suffering Rosalie, of which, nevertheless, it reminds you.
"C TO W. ALLSTON, ON SEEING HIS'BRIDE.'
" Weary and slow and faint with heavy toil,
The fainting traveller pursues his way,
O'er dry Arabian sands the long, long day,
Where at each step floats up the dusty soil;
And when he finds a green and gladsome isle,
And flowing water in that plain of care,
And in the midst a marble fountain fair,
To tell that others suffered too erewhile,
And then appeased their thirst, and made this fount
To them a sad remembrance, but a joy
To all who follow-his tired spirits mount
At such dim-visioned company-so I
Drink of thy marble source, and do not count
Weary the way in which thou hast gone by."




WASHINGTON  ALLSTON.                          12
TO ALLSTON'S PICTURE,'THE BRIDE.'
Not long enough we gaze upon that face,
Not pure enough the life with which we live,
To be full tranced by that softest grace,
To win all pearls those lucid depths can give;
Here Phantasy has borrowed wings of Even,
And stolen Twilight's latest, sacred hues,
A Soul has visited the woman's heaven,
Where palest lights a silver sheen diffuse,
To see aright the vision which he saw,
We must ascend as high upon the stair,
Which leads the human thought to heavenly law,
And see the flower bloom in its natal air;
Thus might we read aright the lip and brow,
Where Thought and Love beam too subduing for our senses now,
PART II.                        6




AMERICAN LITERATURE;
ITS- POSITION IN THE PRESENT TIME, AND PROSPECTS- FOR THE
FUTURE.
SOME thinkers may object to this essay, that we are about to
write of that which has, as yet, no existence.
For it does not follow because many books are written by persons Dorn in America tfiat there exists an American literature.
Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of
Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such
can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh
currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores.
We have no sympathy with national vanity. We are not
anxious to prove that there is as yet much American literatnre.
Of those who think and write among us in the methods and of the
thoughts of Europe, we are not impatient; if their minds are still
best adapted to such food and such action. If their books express
life of mind and character in graceful forms, they are good and
we like them. We consider. them as colonists and useful schoolmasters to our people in a transition state; which lasts rather
longer than is occupied in passing, bodily, the ocean which
separates the new from the old world.
We have been accused of an undue attachment to foreign
continental literature, and, it is true, that in childhood, we had
well nigh " forgotten our English,'" while constantly reading in
other languages. Still, what we loved in the literature of continental Europe was the range and force of ideal manifestation in




AMERICAN LITERAT JRE.                  123
forms of national and individual greatness. A model was before
us in the great Latins of simple masculine minds seizing upon
life with unbroken power. The stamp both of nationality and
individuality was very strong upon them; their lives and thoughts
stood out in clear and bold relief. The English character has the
iron force of the Latins, but not the frankness and expansion.
Like their fruits, they need a summer sky to give them more
sweetness and a richer flavour. This does not apply to Shakspeare,
who has all the fine side of English genius, with the rich colouring, and more fluent life, of the Catholic countries. Other
poets, of England also, are expansive more or less, and soar
freely to seek the blue Aky, but take it as a whole, there is in
English literature, as in English character, a reminiscence of
walls and ceilings, a tendency to the arbitrary and conventional
that repels a mind trained in admiration of the antique spirit. It
is only in later days that we are learning to prize the peculiar
greatness which a thousand times outweighs this fault, and which
has enabled English genius to go forth from its insular position
and conquer such vast dominion in the realms both of matter and
of mind.
Yet there is, often, between child and parent, a reaction from
excessive influence having been exerted, and such an one we
have experienced, in behalf of our country, against England.
We use her language, and receive, in torrents, the influence of
her thought, yet it is, in many respects, uncongenial and injurious
to our constitution.  What suits Great Britain, with her insular
position and consequent need to concentrate and intensify her
life, her limited monarchy, and spirit of trade, does not suit a
mixed race, continually enriched with new blood from other
stocks the most unlike that of our first descent, with ample field
and verge enough to range in and leave every impulse free, and
abundant opportunity to develope a genius, wide and full as our
rivers, flowery, luxuriant and impassioned as our vast prairies,




124         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
rooted in strength as the rocks on which the Puritan fathers
landed.
That such a genius is to rise and work in this hemisphere we
are confident; equally so that scarce the first faint streaks of
that day's dawn are yet visible. It is sad for those that foresee, to know they ilay not live to share its glories, yet it is
sweet, too, to know that every act and word, uttered in the light
of that foresight, may tend to hasten or ennoble its fulfilment.
That day will not rise till the fusion of races among us is
more complete.  It will not rise till this nation shall attain sufficient moral and intellectual dignity to prize moral and intellectual, no less highly than political, freedam, not till, the physical
resources of the country being explored, all its regions studded
with towns, broken by the plow, netted together by railways and
telegraph lines, talent shall be left at leisure to turn its energies
upon the higher department of man's existence.  Nor then shall it
be seen till from the leisurely and yearning soul of that riper
time national ideas- shall take birth, ideas craving to be clothed
in a thousand fresh and original forms.
Without such ideas all attempts to construct a national literature must end in abortions like the monster of Frankenstein,
things with forms, and the instincts of forms, but soulless, and
therefore revolting. We cannot have expression till there is
something to be expressed.
The symptoms of such a birth may be seen in a longing felt
here and there for the sustenance of such ideas.  At present, it
shows itself, where felt, in sympathy with the prevalent tone of
society, by attempts at external action, such as are classed under
the head of social reform. But it needs to go deeper, before we
can have poets, needs to penetrate beneath the springs of action,
to stir and remake the soil as by the action of fire.
Another symptom is the need felt by individuals of being even
sternly sincere.  This is the- one great means by which alone




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                    125
progress can be essentially furthered.  Truth is the nursing
mother of genius. No man can be absolutely true to himself,
eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation, and complaisance,
without becoming original, for there is in every creature a fountain of life which, if not choked back by stones and other dead
rubbish, will create a fresh atmosphere, and bring to life fresh
beauty. And it is the same with the nation as with the individual man.
The best work we do for the future is by such truth. By use
of that, in whatever way, we harrow the soil and lay it open to
the sun and air. The winds from all quarters of the globe bring
seed enough, and there is nothing wanting but preparation of the
soil, and freedom in the atmosphere, for ripening of a new and
golden harvest.
We are sad that we cannot be present at the gathering in of
this harvest. And yet we are joyous, too, when we think that
though our name may not be writ on the pillar of our country's
fame, we can really do far more towards rearing it, than those
who come at a later period and to a seemingly fairer task. Now,
the humblest effort, made in a noble spirit, and with religious
hope, cannot fail to be even infinitely useful. Whether we introduce some noble model from another time and clime, to encourage aspiration in our own, or cheer into blossom the simplest
wood-flower that ever rose from the earth, moved by the genuine
impulse to grow, independent of the lures of money or celebrity;
whether we speak boldly when fear or doubt keep others silent,
or refuse to swell the popular cry upon an unworthy occasion,
the spirit of truth, purely worshipped, shall turn our acts and
forbearances alike to profit, informing them with oracles which
the latest time shall bless.
Under present circumstances the amount of talent and labour
given to writing ought to surprise us. Literature is in this dim
and struggling state, and its pecuniary results exceedingly




126         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
pitiful.  From  mlany well known causes it is impossible for
ninety-nine out of the hundred, who wish tc use the pen, to
ransom, by its use, the time they need. This state of things will
have to be changed in some way. No man of genius writes for
money; but it is essential to the free use of his powers, that he
should be able to disembarrass his life from care and perplexity.
This is very difficult here; and the state of things gets worse and
worse, as less and less is offered in pecuniary meed for works
demanding great devotion of time and labour (to say nothing of the
ether engaged) and the publisher, obliged to regard the transaction as a matter of business, demands of the author to give him
only what will find an immediate market, for he cannot afford to
take any thing else. This will not do! When an immortal
poet was secure only of a few copyists to circulate his works,
there were princes and nobles to patronize literature and the arts.
Here is only the public, and the public must learn how to cherish
the nobler and rarer plants, and to plant the aloe, able to wait
a hundred years for its bloom, or its garden will contain, presently, nothing but potatoes and pot-herbs.  We shall have, in the
course of the next two or three years, a convention of authors to
inquire into the causes of this.state of things and propose measures for its remedy.  Some have already been thought of that
look promising, but we shall not announce them till the time be
ripe; that date is not distant, for the difficulties increase from
day to day, in consequence of the system of cheap publication,
on a great scale.
The ranks that led the way in the first half century of this
republic were far better situated than we, in this respect. The
country was not so deluged with the dingy page, reprinted from
Europe, and patriotic vanity was on the alert to answer the question, "Who reads an American book?" And many were the
books written, worthy to be read, as any out of the first class in




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   127
England.  They were, most of them, except in their subject
matter, English books.
The list is large, and, in making some cursory comments, we
do not wish to be understood as designating all who are worthy
of notice, but only those who present themselves to our minds
with some special claims. In history there has been nothing
done to which the world at large has not been eager to award
the full meed of its deserts.  Mr. Prescott, for instance, has been
greeted with as much warmth abroad as here.  We are not
disposed to undervalue his industry and power of clear and elegant arrangement. The richness and freshness of his materials
is such that a sense of enchantment must be felt in their
contemplation. We must regret, however, that they should have
been first presented to the public by one who possesses nothing
of the higher powers of the historian, great leading views, or
discernment as to the motives of action and the spirit of an era.
Considering the splendour of the materials the books are wonderfully tame, and every one must feel that having once passed
through them and got the sketch in the mind, there is nothing
else to which it will recur.  The absence of thought, as to that
great picture of Mexican life, with its heroisms, its terrible but
deeply significant superstitions, its admirable civic refinement,
seems to be quite unbroken.
Mr. Bancroft is a far more vivid writer; he has great resources
and great command of them, and leading thoughts by whose aid he
groups his facts. But we cannot speak fully of his historical
works, which we have only read and referred to here and there.
In the department of ethics and philosophy, we may inscribe
two names as likely to live and be blessed and honoured in the
later time. These are the names of Channing and of Emerson.
Dr. Channing had several leading thoughts which corresponded with the wants of his time, and have made him in it a father
of thought.  His leading idea of "the dignity of human nature"




12.S  ~    PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND JART
is one of vast results, and the peculiar form in which he advocated
it had a great work to do in this new world.  The spiritual
beauty of his writings is very great; they are all distinguished
for sweetness, elevation, candour, and a severe devotion to truth.
On great questions, he took middle ground, and sought a panoramic view; he wished also to stand high, yet never forgot what
was above more than what was around and beneath him.  He
was not well acquainted with man on the impulsive and passionate side of his nature, so that his view of character was
sometimes narrow, but it was always noble. He exercised an
expansive and purifying power on the atmosphere, and stands a
godfather at the baptism of this country.
The Sage of Concord has a very different mind, in every
thing except that he has the same disinterestedness and dignity
of purpose, the same purity of spirit. He is a profound thinker.
He is a man of ideas, and deals with causes rather than effects.
His ideas are illustrated from  a wide range of literary culture
and refined observation, and embodied in a style whose melody
and subtle fragrance enchant those who stand stupified before the
thoughts themselves, because their utmost depths do not enable
them to sound his shallows. His influence does not yet extend
over a wide space; he is too far beyond his place and his time,
to be felt at once or in full, but it searches deep, and yearly
widens its circles. He is a harbinger of the better day. His
beautiful elocution has been a great aid to him in opening the
way for the reception of his written word.
In that large department of literature which includes descriptive sketches, whether of character or scenery, we are already
rich. Irving, a genial and fair nature, just what he ought to be,
and would have been, at any time of the world, has drawn the
scenes amid which his youth was spent in their primitive linea.
ments, with all the charms of his graceful jocund humour. He




AMERICAN  LITERATURE.                        129
has his niche and need never be deposed; it is not one that
another could occupy.
The first enthusiasm about Cooper having subsided, we remember more his faults than his merits. His ready resentment and
way of showing it in cases which it is the wont of gentlemen to
pass by in silence, or meet with a good humoured smile, have
caused unpleasant associations with his name, and his fellow
citizens, in danger of being tormented by suits for libel, if they
spoke freely of him, have ceased to speak of him  at all.  But
neither these causes, nor the baldness of his plots, shallowness of
thought, and poverty in the presentation of character, should
make us forget the grandeur and originality of his sea-sketches,
nor the redemption from oblivion of our forest-scenery, and the
noble romance of the hunter-pioneer's life. Already, but for
him, this fine page of life's romance would be almost forgotten. He has done much to redeem these irrevocable beauties
froim the corrosive acid of a semi-civilized invasion.*
* Since writing the above we have read some excellent remarks by Mr. W.
G. Simms on the writings of Cooper. We think the reasons are given for the
powerful interest excited by HEawk Eye and the Pilot, with great discrimination
and force.
" They both think and feel, with a highly individual nature, that has been
taught, by constant contemplation, in scenes of solitude. The vast unbroken
ranges of forest to its one lonely occupant press upon the mind with the same
sort of solemnity which one feels condemned to a life of partial isolation upon
the ocean. Both are permitted that degree of commerce with their fellow beings,
which suffices to maintain in strength the sweet and sacred sources of their
humanity. *   *   The very isolation to which, in the most successful of his
stories, Mr. Cooper subjects his favourite personages, is, alone, a proof of his
strength and genius. While the ordinary writer, the man of mere talent, is
compelled to look around him among masses for his material, he contents himself with one man, and flings him upon the wilderness. The picture, then
which follows, must be one of intense individuality. Out of this one man's nature, his moods and fortunes, he spins his story. The agencies and dependencies are few. With the self-reliance which is only found in true genius, ho




130          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Miss Sedgwick and others have portrayed, with skill and feel.
ing, scenes and personages from the revolutionary time. Such
have a permanent value in proportion as their subject is fleeting.
The same charm attends the spirited delineations of Mrs. Kirkland, and that amusing book, "A New Purchase."  The features
of Hoosier, Sucker, and Wolverine life are worth fixing; they
are peculiar to the soil, and indicate its hidden treasures; they
have, also, that charm which simple life, lived for its own sake,
always has, even in rude and all but brutal forms.
What shall we say of the poets? The list is scanty; amazingly
so, for there is nothing in the causes that paralyze other kinds
of literature that could affect lyrical and narrative poetry. Men's
hearts beat, hope, and suffer always, and they must crave such
means to vent them; yet of the myriad leaves garnished with
smooth stereotyped rhymes that issue yearly from our press, you
will not find, one time in a million, a little piece written from any
such impulse, or with the least sincerity or sweetness of tone.
They are written for the press, in the spirit of imitation or vanity,
the paltriest offspring of the human brain, for the heart disclaims, as the ear is shut against them. This is the kind of
verse which is cherished by the magazines as a correspondent to
the tawdry pictures of smiling milliners' dolls in the frontispiece.
Like these they are only a fashion, a fashion based on no reality
of love or beauty. The inducement to write them consists in a
little money, or more frequently the charm of seeing an anonyYmous name printed at the top in capitals.
We must here, in passing, advert also to the style of story
goes forward into the wilderness, whether of land or ocean; and the vicissitudes of either region, acting upon the natural resources of one man's mind,
furnish the whole material of his work-shop. This mode of performance is
highly dramatic, and thus it is that his scout, his trapper, his hunter, his pilot,
all live to our eyes and thoughts, the perfect ideals of moral individuality."
No IX. Wiley and Putnamn's Library of American books.-Views and Reviews by W. G. Simms.




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   131
current in the magazines, flimsy beyond any texture that was
ever spun or even dreamed of by the mind of man, in &ny other
age and country. They are said to be " written for the seamstresses," but we believe that every way injured class could
relish and digest better fare even at the end of long days of
exhausting labour. There are exceptions to this censure; stories
by Mrs. Child have been published in the magazines, and now
and then good ones by Mrs. Stephens and others; but, take them
generally, they are calculated to do a positive injury to the public mind, acting as an opiate, and of an adulterated kind, too.
But to return to the poets.  At their head Mr. Bryant stands
alone. His range is not great, nor his genius fertile. But his
poetry is purely the language of his inmost nature, and the simple lovely garb in which his thoughts are arranged, a direct gift
from the Muse. He has written nothing that is not excellent,
and the atmosphere of his verse refreshes and composes the
mind, like leaving the highway to enter some green, lovely,
fragrant wood.
Halleck and Willis are poets of society. Though the former
has written so little, yet that little is full of fire,-elegant, witty,
delicate in sentiment.  It is an honour to the country that these
occasional sparks, struck off from  the flint of commercial life,
should have kindled so much flame as they have. It is always a
consolation to see one of them sparkle amid the rubbish of daily
life. One of his poems has been published within the last year,
written, in fact, long ago, but new to most of us, and it enlivened
the literary thoroughfare, as a green wreath might some dusty,
musty hall of legislation.
Willis has not the same terseness or condensed electricity.
But he has grace, spirit, at times a winning pensiveness, and a
lively, though almost wholly sensuous, delight in the beautiful.
Dana has written so little that he would hardly be seen in a
more thickly garnished galaxy. But the masculine strength of




132        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
feeling, the solemn tenderness and refined thought displayed in
such pieces as the " Dying Raven," and the " Husband and
Wife's Grave," have left a deep impression on the popular mind.
Longfellow is artificial and imitative. He borrows incessantly, and mixes what he borrows, so that it does not appear to the
best advantage.  He is very faulty in using broken or mixed
metaphors. The ethical part of his writing has a hollow, secondhand sound. He has, however, elegance, a love of the beautiful,
and a fancy for what is large and manly, if not a full sympathy
with it. His verse breathes at times much sweetness; and, if
not allowed to supersede what is better may promote a taste for good
poetry. Though imitative, he is not mechanical.
We cannot say as much for Lowell, who, we must declare it,
though to the grief of some friends, and the disgust of more, is
absolutely wanting in the true spirit and tone of poesy. His interest in the moral questions of the day has supplied the want of
vitality in himself; his great facility at versification has enabled
him to fill the ear with a copious stream of pleasant sound.
But his verse is stereotyped; his thought sounds no depth, and
posterity will not remember him.
R. W. Emerson, in melody, in subtle beauty of thought and
expression, takes the highest rank upon this list. But his poems
are mostly philosophical, which is not the truest kind of poetry.
They want the simple force of nature and passion, and, while
they charm the ear and interest the mind, fail to wake far-off
echoes in the heart. The imagery wears a symbolical air, and
serves rather as illustration, than to delight us by fresh and glowing forms of life.
We must here mention one whom the country has not yet
learned to honour, perhaps never may, for he wants artistic skill
to give complete form to his inspiration. This is William Ellery
Channing, nephew and namesake of Dr. C., a volume of whose
poems, published three or four years ago in Boston, remains un.




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                       133
known, except to a few friends, nor, if known, would they probably, excite sympathy, as those which have been published in the
periodicals have failed to do so. Yet some of the purest tones of
the lyre are his, the finest inspirations as to the feelings and passions of men, deep spiritual insight, and an entire originality in
the use of his means. The frequently unfinished and obscure
state of his poems, a passion for forcing words out of their usual
meaning into one which they may appropriately bear, but which
comes upon the reader with an unpleasing and puzzling surprise,
may repel, at first glance, from many of these poems, but do not
mar the following sublime description of the beings we want,
to rule, to redeem, to re-create this nation, and under whose
reign alone can there be an American literature, for then only
could we have life worth recording. The simple grandeur of
this poem as a whole, must be felt by every one, while each line
and thought will be found worthy of earnest contemplation and
satisfaction after the most earnest life and thought.
Hearts of Eternity! hearts of the deep!
Proclaim from land to sea your mighty fate;
How that for you no living comes too late;
How ye cannot in Theban labyrinth creep;
How ye great harvests from small surface reap;
Shout, excellent band, in grand primeval strain,
Like midnight winds that foam along the main,
And do all things rather than pause to weep.
A human heart knows naught of littleness,
Suspects no man, compares with no man's ways,
Hath in one hoar most glorious length of days,
A recompense, a joy, a loveliness;
Like eaglet keen, shoots into azure far,
And always dwelling nigh is the remotest star.
A series of poems, called " Man in the Republic," by Cornelius Mathews, deserves a higher meed of sympathy than it has
received. The thoughts. and views are strong and noble, the ex



134         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
hibition of them imposing. In plastic power this writer is deficient. His prose works sin in exuberance, and need consolidating and chastening.  We find fine things, but not so arranged
as to be seen in the right places and by the best light.  In his
poems Mr. Mathews is unpardonably rough and rugged; the poetic
substance finds no musical medium in which to flow. Yet there
is poetic substance which makes full chords, if not a harmony.
He holds a worthy sense of the vocation of the poet, and worthily
expresses it thusTo strike or bear, to conquer or to yield
Teach thou! O topmost crown of duty, teach,
What fancy whispers to the listening ear,
At hours when tongue nor taint of care impeach
The fruitful calm of greatly silent hearts;
When all the stars for happy thought are set,
And, in the secret chambers of the soul,
All blessed powers of joyful truth are met;
Though calm and garlandless thou mayst appear,
The world shall know thee for its crowned seer.
A considerable portion of the hope and energy of this country
still turns towards the drama, that greatest achievement when
wrought to  perfection of human power.   For ourselves, we
believe the day of the regular drama to be past; and, though we
recognize the need of some kind of spectacle and dramatic representation to be absolutely coincident with an animated state of
the public mind, we have thought that the opera, ballet, pantomine and briefer, more elastic forms, like the vaudeville of the
French theatre, or the proverb of the social party, would take the
place of elaborate tragedy and comedy.
But those who find the theatres of this city well filled all the
year round by an audience willing to sit out the heroisms of
Rolla, and the sentimentalism and stale morality of such a piece
as we were doomed to listen to while the Keans were here,
("Town and Country" was its name,) still think there is room




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                     135
for the regular drama, if genius should engage in its creation.
Accordingly there have been in this country, as well as in England, many attempts to produce dramas suitable for action no less
than  fbr the  closet.  The  actor, Murdoch, about to devote
himself with enthusiasm and hope to prop up a falling profession,
is to bring out a series of plays written, not merely for him, but
because his devotion is likely to furnish fit occasion for their
appearance.   The  first of' these, " Witchcraft, a tragedy,"
brought out successfully upon the boards at Philadelphia, we
have read, and it is a work of strong and majestic lineaments; a
fine originality is shown in the conception, by which the love of
a son for a mother is made a sufficient motiv (as the Germans
call the ruling impulse of a work) in the production of tragic
interest; no less original is the attempt, and delightful the success, in making an aged woman a satisfactory heroine to the
piece through the greatness of her soul, and the magnetic influence it exerts on all around her, till the ignorant and superstitious
fancy that the sky darkens and the winds wait upon her as she
walks on the lonely hill-side near her hut to commune with the
Past, and seek instruction from  Heaven.  The working of her
character on the other agents of the piece is depicted with force
and nobleness. The deep love of her son for her, the little tender, simple ways in which he shows it, having preserved the
purity and poetic spirit of childhood by never having been weaned
from his first love, a mother's love, the anguish of his soul when
he too becomes infected with distrust, and cannot discriminate
the natural magnetism of a strong nature from the spells and
lures of sorcery, the final triumph of his faith, all offered the
highest scope to genius and the power of moral perception in the
actor. There are highly poetic intimations of those lowering days
with their veiled skies, brassy light, and sadly whispering winds,
very common in Massachusetts, so ominous and brooding seen from
any point, but from the idea of witchcraft, invested with an awful




136         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
significance. We do not know, however, that this could bring
it beyond what it has appeared to our own sane mind, as
if the air was thick with spirits, in an equivocal and surely sad
condition, whether of purgatory or downfall; and the air was
vocal with all manner of dark intimations. We are glad to see
this mood of nature so fitly characterized.
The sweetness and naivete with which the young girl is made
to describe the effects of love upon her, as supposing them to
proceed from a spell, are also original, and there is no other way
in which this revelation could have been induced that would not
have injured the beauty of the character and position.  Her
visionary sense of her lover, as an ideal figure, is of a high
order of poetry, and these facts have very seldom been brought
out from the cloisters of' the mind into the light of open day.
The play is very deficient as regards rhythm; indeed, we
might say there is no apparent reason why the lines should begin
with capital letters. The minor personages are mere caricatures,
very coarsely drawn; all the power is concentrated on the main
characters and their emotions.  So did not Shakspeare, does not
ever the genuine dramatist, whose mind teems with " the fulness
of forms." As Raphael in his most crowded groups can put
in no misplaced or imperfect foot or hand, neither neglect to in.
vest the least important figure of his backgrounds with every
characteristic trait, nor could spare the invention of the most
beautiful coiffure and accessories for the humblest handmaid of
his Madonnas, so doth the great artist always clothe the whole
picture with full and breathing life, for it appears so before his
mental eye. But minds not perfectly artistical, yet of strong
conceptions, subordinate the rest to one or two leading figures,
and the imperfectly represented life of the others incloses them,
as in a frame.
In originality of conception and resting the main interest upon
force of character in a woman, this drama naturally leads us to




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                    137
revert to a work in the department of narrative fiction, which, on
similar grounds, comes to us as a harbinger of the new era.
This book is " Margaret, or the Real and Ideal," a work which
has appeared within the past year; and, considering its originality and genuineness, has excited admiration and sympathy
amazingly soon. Even some leading reviews, of what Byron
used to speak of as the "garrison " class, (a class the most
opposite imaginable to that of Garrison abolitionists,) have discussed its pretensions and done homage to its merits.  It is a
work of great power and richness, a genuine disclosure of the
life of mind and the history of character.  Its descriptions of
scenery and the common people, in the place and time it takes
up, impart to it the highest value as a representative of transient
existence, which had a great deal of meaning. The beautiful
simplicity of action upon and within the mind of Margaret,
Heaven lying so clearly about her in the infancy of the hut of
drunkards, the woods, the village, and their ignorant, simply
human denizens, her unconscious growth to the stature of womanhood, the flow of' life impelled by her, the spiritual intimations
of her dreams, the prophecies of music in the character of
Chilion, the naive discussion of the leading reform movements of
the day in their rudimental forms, the archness, the humour, the
profound religious faith, make of this book an aviary from which
doves shall go forth to discover and report of all the green spots
of promise in the land. Of books like this, as good, and still
better, our new literature shall be full; and, though one swallow
does not make a summer, yet we greet, in this one'" Yankee
novel," the sufficient earnest of riches that only need the skill
of competent miners to be made current for the benefit of man.
Meanwhile, the most important part of our literature, while
the work of diffusion is still going on, lies in the journals, which
monthly, weekly, daily, send their messages to every corner of




-138        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
this great land, and form, at present, the only efficient instrument
for the general education of the people.
Among these, the Magazines take the lowest rank.  Their
object is principally to cater for the amusement of vacant hours,
and, as there is not a great deal of wit and light talent in this
country, they do not even this to much advantage. More wit,
grace, and elegant trifling, embellish the annals of literature in
one day of France than in a year of America.
The Reviews are more able. If they cannot compare, on equal
terms, with those of France, England, and Germany, where, if
genius be rare, at least a vast amount of talent and culture are
brought to bear upon all the departments of knowledge, they are
yet very creditable to a new country, where so large a portion of
manly ability must be bent on making laws, making speeches,
making rail-roads and canals. They are, however, much injured by a partisan spirit, and the fear of censure from their own
public.  This last is always slow death to a journal; its natural
and only safe position is to lead; if, instead; it bows to the will
of the multitude, it will find the ostracism of democracy far more
dangerous than the worst censure of a tyranny could be. It is
not half so dangerous to a man to be immured in a dungeon alone
with God and his own clear conscience, as to walk the streets
fearing the scrutiny of a thousand eyes, ready to veil, with anxious care,, whatever may not suit the many-headed monster in its
momentary mood.  Gentleness is dignified, but caution is debasing; only a noble fearlessness can give wings to the mind, with
which to soar beyond the common ken, and learn what may be of
use to the crowd below.  Writers have nothing to do but to love
truth fervently, seek justice according to their ability, and then
express what is in the mind; they have nothing to do with consequences, God will take care of those. The want of such noble
courage, such faith in the power of truth and good desire, paralyze
mind greatly in this country.  Publishers are aftiaid; authors




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   139
are afraid; and if a worthy resistance is not made by religious
souls, there is danger that all the light will soon be put under
bushels, lest some wind should waft from it a spark that may
kindle dangerous fire.
For want of such faith, and the catholic spirit that flows from
it, we have no great leading Review.  The North American was
once the best.  While under the care of Edward Everett, himself a
host in extensive knowledge, grace and adroitness in applying it,
and the power of enforcing grave meanings by a light and flexible satire that tickled while it wounded, it boasted more force,
more life, a finer scope of power. But now, though still exhibiting ability and information upon special points, it is entirely deficient in great leadings, and the vivida vis, but ambles and jogs
at an old gentlemanly pace along a beaten path that leads to no
important goal.
Several other journals have more life, energy and directness
than this, but there is none which occupies a truly great and
commanding position, a beacon light to all who sail that way. In
order to this, a journal must know how to cast aside all local and
temporary considerations when new convictions command, and
allow free range in its columns, to all kinds of ability, and all
ways of viewing subjects. That would give it a life, rich, bold
various.
The life of intellect is becoming more and more determined to
the weekly and daily papers, whose light leaves fly so rapidly
and profusely over the land.  Speculations are afloat, as to the
influence of the electric telegraph upon their destiny, and it seems
obvious that it should raise their character by taking from them in
some measure, the office of gathering and dispersing the news,
and requiring of them rather to arrange and interpret it.
This mode of communication is susceptible of great excellence
in the way of condensed essay, narrative, criticism, and is the
natural receptacle for the lyrics of the day. That so few good




140         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
ones deck the poet's corner,, is because the indifference or unfitness of editors, as to choosing and refusing, makes this place, at
present, undesirable to the poet.  It might be otherwise.
The means which this organ affords of diffusing knowledge and
sowing the seeds of thought where they may hardly fail of an
infinite harvest, cannot be too highly prized by the discerning and
benevolent.  Minds of the first class are generally indisposed
to this kind of writing; what must be done on the spur of the
occasion and cast into the world so incomplete, as the hurried offspring of a day or hour's labour must generally be, cannot satisfy
their judgment, or do justice to their powers. But he who looks
to the benefit of others, and sees with what rapidity and ease instruction and thought are assimilated by men, when they come
thus, as it were, on the wings of the wind, may be content, as an
unhonoured servant to the grand purposes of Destiny, to work in
such a way at the Pantheon which the Ages shall complete, on
which his name may not be inscribed, but which will breathe the
life of his soul.
The confidence in uprightness of intent, and the safety of truth,
is still more needed here than in the more elaborate kinds of writing, as meanings cannot be fully explained nor expressions revised.  Newspaper writing is next door to conversation, and
should be conducted on the same principles. It has this advantage: we address, not our neighbour, who forces us to remember
his limitations and prejudices, but the ideal presence of human
nature as we feel it ought to be and trust it will be.  We address
America rather than Amlericans.
A worthy account of the vocation and duties of the journalist,
is given by Cornelius Mathews.  Editors, generally, could not
do better than every New Year's day to read and insert the following verses.
As shakes the canvass of a thousand ships,
Struck by a-heavy land-breeze, far at sea,




AMERICAN  LITERATURE.                        141
Ruffle the thousand broad sheets of the land,
Filled with the people's breath of potency.
A thousand images the hour will take,
From him who strikes, who rules, who speaks, who sings,
Many within the hour their grave to make,
Many to live, far in the heart of things.
A dark-dyed spirit he, who coins the time,
To virtue's wrong, in base disloyal lies,
Who makes the morning's breath, the evening's tide,
The utterer of his blighting forgeries.
How beautiful who scatters, wide and free,
The gold-bright seeds of loved and loving truth!
By whose perpetual hand, each day supplied,
Leaps to new life the empire's heart of youth.
To know the instant and to speak it true,
Its passing lights of joy, its dark, sad cloud,
To fix upon the unnumbered gazers' view,
Is to thy ready hand's broad strength allowed.
There is an inwrought life in every hour,
Fit to be chronicled at large and told.'Tis thine to pluck to light its secret power,
And on the air its many-colored heart unfold.
The angel that in sand-dropped minutes lives,
Demands a message cautious as the ages,
Who stuns, with dusk-red words of hate his ear,
That mighty power to boundless wrath enrages.
This feeling of the dignity of his office, honour and power in
fulfilling it, are not common in the journalist, but, where they
exist, a mark has been left fully correspondent to the weight of
the instrument.  The few editors of this country who, with mental ability and resource, have combined strength of purpose and
fairness of conduct, who have never merged the man and the,
gentleman in the partisan, who have been willing to have all sides
fully heard, while their convictions were clear on one, who have
disdained groundless assaults or angry replies, and have valued




142         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
wha' was sincere, characteristic and free, too much to bend to
popular errors they felt able to correct, have been so highly
prized that it is wonderful that more do not learn the use of this
great opportunity. It will be learned yet; the resources of this
organ of thought and instruction begin to be understood, and
shall yet be brought out and used worthily.
We see we have omitted honoured names in this essay. We
have not spoken of Brown, as a novelist by far our first in point
of genius and instruction as to the soul of things.  Yet his works
have fallen almost out of print. It is their dark, deep gloom
that prevents their being popular, for their very beauties are grave
and sad. But we see that Ormond is being republished at this
moment.  The picture of Roman character, of the life and resources of a single noble creature, of Constantia alone, should
make that book an object of reverence.  All these novels should
be republished; if not favorites, they should at least not be lost
sight of, for there will always be some who find in such powers
of mental analysis the only response to their desires.
NVe have not spoken of Hawthorne, the best writer of the day,.n  similar range with Irving, only touching many more points
and discerning far more deeply. But we have omitted many
things in this slight sketch, for the subject, even in this stage, lies
as a volume in our mind, and cannot be unrolled in completeness
unless time and space were more abundant. Our object. was to
show that although by a thousand signs, the existence is foreshown
of those forces which are to animate an American literature. that
faith, those hopes are not yet alive which shall usher it into a homogeneous or fully organized state of being.  The future is
glorious with certainties for those who do their duty in the present, and, lark-like, seeking the sun, challenge its eagles to an
earthward flight, where their nests may be built in our mountains,
and their young raise their cry of triumph, unchecked by dullness
in the echoes.




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   143
Since finishing the foregoing essay, the publication of some
volumes by Hawthorne and Brown have led to notices in " The
Tribune,' which, with a review of Longfellow's poems, are subjoined to eke out the statement as to the merits of those authors.
MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE: By NATHANIEL HAWTIIORNE. —In
Two Parts. New-York: Wiley and Putnam. 1846.
WE have been seated here the last ten minutes, pen in hand,
thinking what we can possibly say about this book that will not
be either superfluous or impertinent.
Superfluous, because the attractions of Hawthorne's writings
cannot fail of one and the same effect on all persons who possess
tihe common sympathies of men. To all who are still happy in
some groundwork of unperverted Nature, the delicate, simple,
human tenderness, unsought, unbought and therefore precious
morality, the tranquil elegance and playfulness, the humour which
never breaks the impression of sweetness and dignity, do an inevitable message which requires no comment of the critic to make
its meaning clear.  Impertinent, because the influence of this
mind, like that of some loveliest aspects of Nature, is to induce
silence from a feeling of repose.  We do not think of any thing
particularly worth saying about this that has been so fitly and
pleasantly said.
Yet it seems unfit that we, in our office of chronicler of intellectual advents and apparitions, should omit to render open and
audible honour to one whom we have long delighted to honour.
It may be, too, that this slight notice of ours may awaken the attention of those distant or busy who might not otherwise search
fc.r the volume, which comes betimes in the leafy month of June.
So we will give a slight account of it, even if we cannot say




144        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
much of value. Though Hawthorne has now a standard reputation,
both for the qualities we have mentioned and the beauty of the
style in which they are embodied, yet we believe he has not been
very widely read. This is only because his works have not been
published in the way to ensure extensive circulation in this new,
hurrying world of ours.  The immense extent of country over
which the reading (still very small in proportion to the mere
working) community is scattered, the rushing and pushing of our
life at this electrical stage of development, leave no work a chance
to be speedily and largely known that is not trumpeted and placarded. And, odious as are the features of a forced and artificial
circulation, it must be considered that it does no harm in the end.
Bad books will not be read if they are bought instead of good,
while the good have an abiding life in the log-cabin settlements
and Red River steamboat landings, to which they would in no
other way penetrate. Under the auspices of Wiley and Putnam,
Hawthorne will have a chance to collect all his own public about
him, and that be felt as a presence which before was only a
rumor.
The volume before us shares the charms of Hawthorne's earlier tales; the only difference being that his range of subjects is
a little wider. There is the same gentle and sincere companionship with Nature, the same delicate but fearless scrutiny of the
secrets of the heart, the same serene independence of petty and
artificial restrictions, whether on opinions or conduct, the same
familiar, yet pensive sense of the spiritual or demoniacal influences that haunt the palpable life and common walks of men, not
by many apprehended except in results. We have here to regret that Hawthorne, at this stage of his mind's life, lays no more
decisive hand upon the apparition-brings it no nearer than in
former days. We had hoped that we should see, no more as in
a glass darkly, but face to face.  Still, still brood over his page
the genius of revery and the nonchalance of Nature, rather than




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                    145
the ardent earnestness of the human soul which feels itself born
not only to see and disclose, but to understand and interpret such
things. Hawthorne intimates and suggests, but he does not lay
bare the mysteries of our being.
The-introduction to the " Mosses," in which the old manse, its
inhabitants and visitants are portrayed, is written with even more
than his usual charm of placid grace and many strokes of his admirable good sense. Those who are not, like ourselves, familiar
with the scene and its denizens, will still perceive how true that
picture must be; those of us who are thus familiar will best
know how to prize the record of objects and influences unique in
our country and time.
"The Birth Mark" and "Rapaccini's Daughter," embody
truths of profound importance in shapes of aerial elegance. In
these, as here and there in all these pieces, shines the loveliest
ideal of love, and the beauty of feminine purity (by which we
mean no mere acts or abstinences, but perfect single truth felt and
done in gentleness) which is its root.
"' The Celestial Railroad," for its wit, wisdom, and the grace.
ful adroitness with which the natural and material objects are interwoven with the allegories, has already won its meed of admiration.  " Fire-worship" is a most charming essay for its domestic sweetness and thoughtful life.  "Goodman Brown" is one of
those disclosures we have spoken of, of the secrets of the breast.
Who has not known such a trial that is capable indeed of sincere
aspiration toward that only good, that infinite essence, whichmen
call God. Who has not known the hour when even that best beloved image cherished as the one precious symbol left, in the
range of human nature, believed to be still pure gold when all the
rest have turned to clay, shows, in severe ordeal, the symptoms
of alloy.  Oh, hour of anguish, when the old familiar faces grow
dark and dim in the lurid light-when the gods of the hearth,
honoured in childhood, adored in youth, crumble, and nothing,
rART. II.                   7




146         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
nothing is left which the daily earthly feelings can embrace-can
cherish with unbroken faith! Yet some survive that trial more
happily than young Goodman Brown. They are those who have
not sought it —have never of their own accord walked forth with
the Tempter into the dim shades of Doubt. Mrs Bull-Frog is an
excellent humourous picture of what is called to be "content at
last with substantial realities!!" The " Artist of the Beautiful"
presents in a form that is, indeed, beautiful, the opposite view as
to what are the substantial realities of life. Let each man choose
between them according to his kind. Had Hawthorne written
"Roger Malvin's Burial" alone, we should be pervaded with the
sense of the poetry and religion of his soul.
As a critic, the style of Hawthorne, faithful to his mind, shows
repose, a great reserve of strength, a slow secure movement.
Though a very refined, he is also a very clear writer, showing,
as we said before, a placid grace, and an indolent command of
language.
And now, beside the full, calm yet romantic stream of his mind,
we will rest. It has refreshment for the weary, islets of fascination no less than dark recesses and shadows for the imaginative,
pure reflections for the pure of heart and eye, and like the Concord he so well describes, many exquisite lilies for him who
knows how to get at them.
ORMOND; OR, THE SECRET WITNESS.
WIELAND; OR, THE TRANSFORMATION. By CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN.
Library of Standard Romance. W. Taylor & Co., 2 Astor House.
Wx rejoice to see these reprints of Brown's novels, as we have
long been ashamed that one who ought to be the pride of the
country, and who is, in the higher qualities of the mind, so far in




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                  147
advance of our other novelists, should have become almost in.
accessible to the public.
It has been the custom to liken Brown to Godwin. But there
was no imitation, no second-hand in the matter. They were
congenial natureds and whichever had come first might have lent
an impulse to the other.  Either mind might have been conscious
of the possession of that peculiar vein of ore without thinking of
working it for the mint of the world, till the other, led by accident, or overflow of feeling, showed him how easy it was to put
the reveries of his solitary hours into words and upon paper for
the benefit of his fellow men.
"My mind to me a kingdom is."
Such a man as Brown or Godwin has a right to say that. It
is no scanty, turbid rill, requiring to be daily fed from a thousand
others or from the clouds! Its plenteous source rushes from a
high mountain between bulwarks of stone. Its course, even and
full, keeps ever green its banks, and affords the means of life and
joy to a million gliding shapes, that fill its deep waters, and
twinkle above its golden sands.
Life and Joy! Yes, Joy! These two have been called the
dark masters, because they disclose the twilight recesses of the
human heart. Yet their gravest page is joy compared with the
mixed, shallow, uncertain pleasures of vulgar minds. Joy! be.
cause they were all alive and fulfilled the purposes of being. No
sham, no imitation, no convention deformed or veiled their native
lineaments, checked the use of their natural force. All alive
themselves, they understood that there is no joy without truth, no
perception of joy without real life. Unlike most men, existence
was to them not a tissue of words and seemings, but a substantial
Dossession.
Born Hegelians, without the pretensions of science, they sought
God in their own consciousness, and found him.  The heart,




148         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
because it saw itself so fearfully and wonderfully made, did not
disown its Maker. With the highest idea of the dignity, power
and beauty of which human nature is capable, they had courage
to see by what an oblique course it proceeds, yet never lose faith
that it would reach its destined aim. Thus their darkest disclosures are not hobgoblin shows, but precious revelations.
Brown is great as ever human writer was in showing the selfsustaining force of which a lonely mind is capable. He takes
one person, makes him brood like the bee, and extract from the
common life before him all its sweetness, its bitterness, and its
nourishment.
We say makes him, but it increases our own interest in Brown
that, a prophet in this respect of a better era, he has usually
placed this thinking royal mind in the body of a woman. This
personage too is always feminine, both in her character and
circumstances, but a conclusive proof that the term feminine is
not a synonym for weak.  Constantia, Clara Wieland, have loving
hearts, graceful and plastic natures, but they have also noble
thinking minds, full of resource, constancy, courage.  The
Marguerite of Godwin, no less, is all refinement, and the purest
tenderness, but she is also the soul of honour, capable of deep
discernment and of acting in conformity with the inferences she
draws. The man of Brown and Godwin has not eaten of the flruit
of the tree of knowledge and been driven to sustain himself by
sweat of his brow for nothing, but has learned the structure and
laws of things, and become a being, rational, benignant, various,
and desirous of supplying the loss of innocence by the attainment
of virtue. So his woman need not be quite so weak as Eve,
the slave of feeling or of flattery: she also has learned to guide
her helm amid the storm across the troubled waters.
The horrors which mysteriously beset these persons, and
against which, so far as outward facts go, they often strive in
vain, are but a representation of those powers permitted to work




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                    149
in the same way throughout the affairs of this world. Their demoniacal attributes only represent a morbid state of the intellect,
gone to excess from  want of balance with the other p wers.
There is an intellectual as well as a physical drunkenness, and
which no less impels to crime. Carwin, urged on to use his ventriloquism, till the presence of such a strange agent wakened the
seeds of fanaticism  in the breast of Wieland, is in a state no
more foreign to nature than that of the wretch executed last
week, who felt himself drawn as by a spell to murder his victim
because he had thought of her money and the pleasures it might
bring him, till the feeling possessed his brain that hurls the gamester to ruin. The victims of such agency are like the soldier of
the Rio Grande, who, both legs shot off and his life-blood rushing
out with every pulse, replied serenely to his pitying comrades
that " he had now that for which the soldier enlisted." The end
of the drama is not in this world, and the fiction which rounds off
the whole to harmony and felicity before the curtain falls, sins
against truth, and deludes the reader.  The Nelsons of the human race are all the more exposed to the assaults of fate that they
are decorated with the badges of well-earned glory. Who, but
feels as they fall in death, or rise again to a mutilated existence,
that the end is not yet?  Who, that thinks, but must feel that the
recompense is, where Brown places it, in the accumulation of
mental treasure, in the severe assay by fire that leaves the gold
pure to be used sometime-somewhere.
Brown, man of the brooding.eye, the teeming brain, the deep
and fervent heart; if thy country prize thee not and has almost
lost thee out of sight, it is that her heart is made,hallow and
cold, her eye dim, by the pomp of circumstance, the love of gross
outward gain. She cannot long continue thus, for it takes a great
deal of soul to keep a huge body from  disease and dissolution.
As there is more soul thou wilt be more sought, and many will
yet sit down with thy Constantia to the meal and water rn which




150         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
she sustained her full and thoughtful existence, who could not en.
dure the ennui of aldermanic dinners, or find any relish in the
imit ition of French cookery.  To-day many will read the words,
and some have a cup large enough to receive the spirit, before it
is lost in the sand on which their feet are planted.
Brown's high standard of the delights of intellectual communion and of friendship correspond with the fondest hopes of early
days.  But in the relations of real life, at present, there is rarely
more than one of the parties ready fbr such intercourse as he describes. On the one side there will be dryness, want of perception or variety, a stupidity unable to appreciate life's richest boon
when offered to its grasp, and the finer nature is doomed to retrace its steps, unhappy as those who having force to raise a spirit
cannot retain or make it substantial, and stretch out their arms
only to bring them back empty to the breast.
POEMS. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; with Illustrations by
D. HUNTINGTON. Philadelphia; Carey & Hart, Chesnut-st. 1845.
POETRY is not a superhuman or supernatural gift. It is, on
the contrary, the fullest and therefore most completely natural
expression of what is human. It is that of which the rudiments lie
in every human breast, but developed to a more complete existence
than the obstructions of daily life permit, clothed in an adequate
form, domesticated in nature by the use of apt images, the perception of grand analogies, and set to the music of the spheres
for the delight of all who have ears to hear.  We have uttered
these remarks, which may, to many of our readers, seem truisms,
for the sake of showing that our definition of poetry is large
enough to include all kinds of excellence. It includes not only
the great bards, but the humblest minstrels. The great bards




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   151
bring to light the more concealed treasures, gems which centuries
have been employed in forming and which it is their office to reveal, polish, and set for the royal purposes of man; the wandering minstrel with his lighter but beautiful office calls the attention
of men to the meaning of the flowers, which also is hidden from
the careless eye, though they have grown and bloomed in full
sight of all who chose to look.  All the poets are the priests of
Nature, though the greatest are also the prophets of the manhood
of man. For, when fully grown, the life of man must be all
poetry; each of his thoughts will be a key to the treasures of
the universe; each of his acts a revelation of beauty, his language will be music, and his habitual presence will overflow
with more energy and inspire with a nobler rapture than do the
fullest strains of lyric poetry now.
Meanwhile we need poets; men more awakened to the wonders of life, and gifted more or less with a power to express what
they see, and to all who possess, in any degree, those requisites
we offer and we owe welcome and tribute, whether the place of
their song be in the Pantheon, from  which issue the grand decrees of immortal thought, or by the fireside, where hearts need
kindling and eyes need clarifying by occasional drops of nectar
in their tea.
But this-this alone we claim, and can welcome none who
cannot present this title to our hearing; that the vision be genuine, the expression spontaneous. No imposition upon our young
fellow citizens of pinchbcck for gold! they must have the true
article, and pay the due intellectual price, or they will wake
from a life-long dream of folly to find themselves beggars.
And never was a time when satirists were more needed to
scourge from Parnassus the magpies who are devouring the food
scattered there for the singing birds. There will always be a
good deal of mock poetry in the market with the genuine; it
grows up naturally as tares among the wheat, and, while there




152         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
is a fair proportion preserved, we abstain from severe weeding
lest the two come up together; but when the tares have almost
usurped the field, it is time to begin and see if the field cannot
be freed from them and made ready for a new seed-time.
The rules of' versification are now understood and used by
those who have never entered into that soul from which metres
grow as acorns from  the oak, shapes as characteristic of the
parent tree, containing in like manner germs of limitless life for
the future. And as to the substance of these jingling rhymes,
and dragging, stumbling rhythms, we might tell of bombast, or
still worse, an affected simplicity, sickly sentiment, or borrowed
dignity; but it is sufficient to comprise all in this one censure.
The writers did not write because they felt obliged to relieve
themselves of the swelling thought within, but as an elegant
exercise which may win them rank and reputation above the
crowd. Their lamp is not lit by the sacred and inevitable lightning from above, but carefully fed by their own will to be seen
of men.
There are very few now rhyming in England, not obnoxious
to this censure, still fewer in our America.  For such no laurel
blooms.- May the friendly poppy soon crown them and grant us
stillness to hear the silver tones of genuine music, for, if such
there be, they are at present almost stifled by these fifes and
gongs.
Yet there is a middle class, composed of men of little original
poetic power, but of much poetic taste and sensibility, whom we
would not wish to have silenced. They do no harm, but much
good, (if only their minds are not confounded with those of a higher
class,) by educating in others the faculties dominant in themselves. din this class we place the writer at present before us.
We must confess to a coolness towards Mr. Longfellow, in
consequence of the exaggerated praises that have been bestowed
upon him. When we see a oerson of moderate powers receive




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                   153
honours which should be reserved for the highest, we feel somewhat like assailing him and taking from him the crown which
should be reserved for grander brows. And yet this is, perhaps
ungenerous. It may be that the management of publishers, the
hyperbole of paid or undiscerning reviewers, or some accidental
cause which gives a temporary interest to productions beyond
what they would permanently command, have raised such an one
to a place as much above his wishes as his claims, and which he
would rejoice, with honourable modesty, to vacate at the approach
of one worthier.  We the more readily believe this of Mr. Longfellow, as one so sensible to the beauties of other writers and so
largely indebted to them, must know his own comparative rank
better than his readers have known it for him.
And yet so much adulation is dangerous. Mr. Longfellow, so
lauded on all hands-now able to collect his poems which have
circulated so widely in previous editions, and been paid for so
handsomely by the handsomest annuals, in this beautifiul volume,
illustrated by one of the most distinguished of our younger artists
— has found a flatterer in that very artist. The portrait which
adorns this volume is not merely flattered or idealized, but there is
an attempt at adorning it by expression thrown into the eyes with
just that which the original does not possess, whether in face or
mind.  We have often seen faces whose usually coarse and
heavy lineaments were harmonized at times into beauty by the
light that rises from the soul into the eyes.  The intention Nature had with regard to the face and its wearer, usually eclipsed
beneath bad habits or a bad education, is then disclosed, and we
see what hopes Death has in store for that soul. But here the
enthusiasm thrown into the eyes only makes the rest of the face
look more weak, and the idea suggested is the anomalous one of
a dandy Pindar.
Such is not the case with Mr. Longfellow himself. He is
never a Pindar, though he is sometimes a dandy even in the




154         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
clean and elegantly ornamented streets and trim gardens of his
verse.  But he is still more a man of cultivated taste, delicate
though not deep feeling, and some, though not much, poetic force.
Mr. Longfellow has been accused of plagiarism.  We have
been surprised that any one should have been anxious to fasten
special charges of this kind upon him, when we had supposed it
so obvious that the greater part of his mental stores were derived
from the works of others.  He has no style of his own growing
out of his own experiences and observations of nature.  Nature
with him, whether human or external, is always scent hrough the
windows of literature.  There are in his poems sweet and tender
passages descriptive of his personal feelings, but very few showing him as an observer, at first hand, of the passions within, or
the landscape without.
This want of the free breath of nature, this perpetual borrowing of imagery, this excessive, because superficial, culture which
he has derived from an acquaintance with the elegant literature
of many nations and men out of proportion to the experience of
life within himself prevent Mr. Longfellow's verses from ever
being a true refreshment to ourselves. He says in one of his
most graceful verses:
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,
From those deep cisterns flows.
Now this is just what we cannot get from Mr. Longfellow. No
solitude of the mind reveals to us the deep cisterns.
Let us take, for example of what we do not like, one of his
worst pieces, the Prelude to the Voices of the NightBeneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                     155
His hoary arins uplifted be,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee
With one continuous sound.
What an unpleasant mixture of images! Such never rose in
a man's mind, as he lay on the ground and looked up to the tree
above him.  The true poetry for this stanza would be to give us
an image of what was in the writer's mind as he lay there and
looked up.  But this idea of the leaves clapping their little hands
with glee is taken out of some book; or, at any rate; is a book
thought, and not one that came in the place, and jars entirely with
what is said of the tree uplifting its hoary arms.  Then take this
other stanza from a man whose mind should have grown up in
familiarity with the American genius loci.
Therefore at Pentecost, which brings
The Spring clothed like a bride,
When nestling buds unfold their wings,
And bishop's caps have golden rings,
Musing upon many things,
I sought the woodlands wide.
Musing upon many things-ay! and upon many books too, or
we should have nothing of Pentecost or bishop's caps with their
golden rings. For ourselves, we have not the least idea what
bishop's caps are;-are they flowers?-or what?  Truly, the
schoolmaster was abroad in the woodlands that day! As to the
conceit of the wings of the buds, it is a false image, because one
that cannot be carried out.  Such will not be found in the poems
of poets; with such the imagination is all compact, and their
works are not dead mosaics, with substance inserted merely because pretty, but living growths, homogeneous and satisfactory
throughout.
Such instances could be adduced every where throughout the
poems, depriving us of any clear pleasure from any one piece,
and placing his poems beside such as those of Bryant in the same




156         PAPERS ON LITERATURE  TND ART.
light as that of the prettiest made shell, beside those whose every
line and hue tells a history of the action of winds and waves and
the secrets of one class of organizations.
But, do we, therefore esteem Mr. Longfellow a wilful or conscious plagiarist?  By no means.  It is his misfortune that other
men's thoughts are so continually in his head as to overshadow
his own.  The order of fine development is for the mind the same
as the body, to take in just so much food as will sustain it in its
exercise and assimilate with its growth. If it is so assimilatedif it becomes a part of the skin, hair and eyes of the man, it is his
own, no matter whether he pick it up in the woods, or borrow
frorm the dish of a fellow man, or receive it in the form of manna
direct from Heaven.  " Do you ask the genius," said Goethe, " to
give an account of what he has taken from others. As well
demand of tile hero an account of the beeves and loaves which
have nourished him to such martial stature."
But Mr. Longfellow  presents us, not with a new  product in
which all the old varieties are melted into a fresh form, but rather
with a tastefully arranged Museum, between whose glass cases
are interspersed neatly potted rose trees, geraniums and hyacinths,
grown by himself with aid of in-door heat. Still we must acquit
him of being a willing or conscious plagiarist. Some objects in
the collection are his own; as to the rest, he has the merit of
appreciation, and a re-arrangement, not always judicious, but the
result of feeling on his part.
Such works as Mr. Longfellow's we consider injurious only if
allowed to usurp the place of better things. The reason of his
being overrated here, is because through his works'breathes the
air of other lands, with whose products the public at large is but
little acquainted. He will do his office, and a desirable one, of
promoting a taste for the literature of these lands before his
readers are aware of it. As a translator he shows the same
qualities as in his own writings; what is forcible and compact




AMERICAN  LITERATURE.                      157
he does not render adequately; grace and sentiment he appre.
ciates and reproduces. Twenty years hence, when he stands upon
his own merits, he will rank as a writer of elegant, if not always
accurate taste, of great imitative power, and occasional felicity
in an original way, where his feelings are really stirred. He
has touched no subject where he has not done somewhat that is
pleasing, though also his poems are much marred by ambitious
failings. As instances of his best manner we would mention
"The. Reaper and the Flowers," " Lines to the Planet Mars,"
" A Gleam  of Sunshine;" and " The Village Blacksmith."  His
two ballads are excellent imitations, yet in them is no spark of
fire.   In "Nuremberg" are charming passages.  Indeed, the
whole poem is one of the happiest specimens of Mr. L.'s poetic
feeling, taste and tact in making up a rosary of topics and images.
Thinking it may be less known than most of the poems we
will quote it. The engraving which accompanies it of the rich
old architecture is a fine gloss on its contents.
NUREMBERG.
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic-quaint old town of art and songMemories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng;
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the Emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunda's hand.
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days,
Sat the poet Melchior, singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Every where I see around me rise the wondrous world of ArtFountains wrought with richest sculpture, standing in the common mart;
And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust 




158           PAPERS  ON  LITERATURE  AND  ART.
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a Pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.
Here, when Art was still Religion, with a simple reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albert Durer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
Enmigrcravit is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies;
Dead he is not, but departed, for the Artist never dies.
Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement-that he once has breathed its air!
Through those streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.
As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he to the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom
In the forge's dust and cinders-in the tissues of the loom.
Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.
But his house is novw an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;
Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Paschman's song,
As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.
And at night the swarth mechanic comes to drown his cank and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards in the master's antique chair.
Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.
Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;
But thy painter, Albert Durer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard.
Thus, oh, Nuremberg! a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay;
Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a flow'ret of the soil,
The nobility of labour, the long pedigree of toil.
This image of the thought gathered like a flower from  the
crevice of the pavement, is truly natural and poetical.
Here is another image which came into the mind of the writer
as he looked at the subject of his verse, and which pleases accor.




AMERICAN  LITERATURE.                      159
dingly.  It is from one of the new poems, addressed to Driving
Cloud, " chief of the mighty Ornahaws."
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket I see thee stalk through the city's
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their foot-prints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the foot-prints.
Here is another very graceful and natural simile:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles rain.
AnotherI will forget her! All dear recollections,
Pressed in my heart like flowers within a book,
Shall be torn out and scattered to the winds.
The drama from  uwhich this is taken is an elegant exercise of
the pen, after the fashion of the best models. Plans, figures, all
are academical.  It is a faint reflex of the actions and passions
of men, tame in the conduct and lifeless in the characters, but
not heavy, and containing good meditative passages.
And now farewell to the handsome book, with its Preciosos
and Preciosas, its Vikings and knights, and cavaliers, its flowers
of all climes, and wild flowers of none. We have not wished to
depreciate these writings below their current value more than
truth absolutely demands.  We have not forgotten that, if a man
cannot himself sit at the feet of the muse, it is much if he prizes
those who may; it makes him a teacher to the people. Neither
have we forgotten that Mr. Longfellow has a genuine respect for
his pen, never writes carelessly, nor when he does not wish to,
nor for money alone. Nor are we intolerant to those who prize
hot-house bouquets beyond all the free beauty of nature; that
helps the gardener and has its uses.  But still let us not forget —
Excelsior!




SWEDENBORGIANISM.
NOBLE'S APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE VIEWS HELD BY THE NEW (or Swe.
denborgian) CHURCH. Second edition, 1845. Boston: T. H. Carter &
Co.-Otis Clapp.
ESSAYS BY THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston: Otis Clapp, School-st. 1845.
THE CORNER STONE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, by B. F. BARRETT. New
York: Bartlett and Wellford, Astor House; John Allen, 139 Nassau-street,
1845.
THE claim to be the New Church, or peculiarly the founders
of a New Jerusalem, is like exclusive claims to the title of Orthodox. We have no sympathy with it. We believe that all
kinds of inspiration and forms of faith have been made by the
power that rules the world to cooperate in the development of
mental life with a view to the eventual elucidation of truth.
That ruling power overrules the vanity of men, or just the contrary would ensue.  For men love the letter that killeth better
than the spirit that continually refreshes its immortal life. They
wish to compress truth into a nut-shell that it may be grasped in
the hand. They wish to feel sure that they and theirs hold it
all. In vain! More incompressible than light, it flows forth anew,
and, while the preacher was finishing the sermon in which he
proclaimed that now the last and greatest dispensation had arrived,
and that all the truth could henceforward be encased within the
walls of a church-it has already sped its way to unnumbered
zones, planted in myriad new-born souls the seeds of life, and
wakened in myriads more a pulse that cannot be tamed down by
dogma or doctrine, but must always throb at each new revelation of the glories of the infinite.




SWEDENBORGIANISM.                    161
Were there, indeed, a catholic church which should be based
on a recognition of universal truths, simple as that proposed by
Jesus, Love God with all thy soul and strength, thy neighbour as
thyself; such a church would include all sincere motions of the
spirit, and sects and opinions would no more war with one another than roses in the garden, but, like them, all contentedly
grace a common soil and render their tribute to one heaven.
Then we should hear no more of the church, creed, or teacher,
but of a church, creed or teacher. Each man would adopt contentedly what best answered his spiritual wants, lovingly granting
the same liberality to others. Then the variety of opinions would
produce its natural benefit of testing and animating each mind
in its natural tendency, without those bitter accompaniments
that make theological systems so repulsive to religious minds.
Religious tolerance will, probably, come last in the progress
of civilization, for, in those interests which search deepest, the
weeds of prejudice have struck root deepest, too. But it will
come; for we see its practicability sometimes proved in the intercourse between friends; and so shall it be between parties
and groups of men, when intercourse shall have been placed on
the same basis of mutual good-will and respect for one another's
rights. Then those ugliest taints of spiritual arrogance and
vanity shall begin to be washed out of this world.
As with all other cases, so with this! We believe in no new
church par excellence.  Swedenborgians are to us those taught
of Swedenborg, a great, a learned, a wise, a good man-also one
instructed by direct influx from a higher sphere, but one of a
constellation, and needing the aid of congenial influences to confirm and illustrate his.
That the body of his followers do not constitute a catholic
church would be sufficiently proved to us by the fact, asserted
by all who come in contact with them, that they attach an exaggerated importance to the teachings of their master, which




162        PAPERS ON LITERt.TURE AND ART.
shuts them in a great measure from the benefit of other teach.
ings, and threatens to make them bigots, though of such mild
strain as shows them to be the followers of one singularly mild
and magnanimous.
For Swedenborg was one who, though entirely open and steadfast in the maintenance of his pretensions, knew how to live with
kings, nobles, clergy, and people, without being the object of
persecution to any.  They viewed with respect, if not with confidence, his conviction that he was " in fellowship with angels.'
They knew the deep discipline and wide attainments of his
mind. They saw that he forced his convictions on no one, but
relied for their diffusion upon spiritual laws.  They saw that he
made none but an incidental use of his miraculous powers, and
that it was not to him a matter of any consequence whether
others recognized them or not; fbr he knew that those whom truth
does not reach by its spiritual efficacy cannot be made to believe
by dint of signs and wonders.
Thus his life was, for its steady growth, its soft majesty, and
exhibition of a faith never fierce and sparkling, never dim, a
happy omen for the age. Thus gently and gradually may new
organizations of great principles be effected now! May it prove
that, at least in the more advanced part of the world, revolutions
may be effected without painful throes! Such a life was in correspondence with his system, which is one of gradation and harmony.
I have used the word system, and yet it is not the right one.
The works of Swedenborg contain intimations of a system, but
it is one whose full development must be coincident with the
perfection of al', things.  Some great rules he proffers, some
ways of thinking opens; we have centre and radii, but the circumference is not closed in.
This is to us the greatness of Swedenborg and the ground of
our pleasure in his works, that in them we can expatiate freely;
there is room enough.  We can take what does us good, and de.




SWEDEN BORGIANISM.                    163
dine the rest: we may delight in his theory of forms or of correspondences, may be aided in tracing the hidden meanings of
symbols, or animated by the poetic energy of his vision, without
being bound down to things that seem to us unimportant. We
can converse with him without acquiescing in the declaration
that all angels have, at some time, been men, or the like, which
seem to us groundless and arbitrary. It is not so with his followers; they are like the majority of disciples; if you do not
know the master before knowing them, his true face will be
hidden from you forever. Their minds being smaller, they lay
the chief stress on what is least important in his instructions,
and do not know how to express the best even of what they have
received; being too mighty for them to embrace they cannot
reproduce it, though it acts upon their lives.
So it is with all the books at the head of this notice.  Noble's
Appeal has been, we understand, a famous book among the followers of Swedenborg. We did not find it sufficiently interesting
to give it a thorough reading.  It is addressed to those who object
to Swedenborg from a low platform. It arrays arguments and
evidences with skill, and in a good spirit, and contains particulars, as to matters of fact, that will interest those who have not
previously met with them. It quotes Swedenborg's letter to Mr.
Hartley, written with such a beautiful dignity, and giving so
distinct an idea of the personal presence of the writer, also the
letter of Kant with regard to one of Swedenborg's revelations as
to a' matter of fact, (the fire at Stockholm.) The letter has been
quoted a hundred times before, but it always remains interesting
to see the genuine candour with which a great mind can treat one
so opposite to its own, and pleasant to see how far such an one is
above the necessity felt by lesser minds of denying what they
cannot explain.
We have often been asked what we thought of these pretensions in Swedenborg. We think, in the first place, none can




1:64       PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
doubt his sincerity, and in few cases could we have so little reason to doubt the correctness of perception in the seer.  Swedenborg must be seen by any one acquainted with his mind to be in
an extraordinary degree above the chance of self-delusion. As
to the facts, the evidence which satisfied Kant might satisfy most
people, one would suppose.  As to the power of holding inter.
course with spirits enfranchised from our present sphere, we see
no reason why it should not exist, and do see much reason why
it should rarely be developed, but none why it should not sometimes. Those spirits are, we all believe, existent somewhere,
somehow, and there seems to be no good reason why a person in
spiritual nearness to them, Whom such intercourse cannot agitate,
or engross so that he cannot walk steadily in his present path,
should not enjoy it, when of use to him.  But it seems to us that
the stress laid upon-such a fact, for or against, argues a want of
faith in the immortality of souls. Why should those who believe in this care so very much whether one can rise from the
dead to converse with his friend! We see that Swedenborg
esteemed it merely as a condition of a certain state of mind, a
great privilege as enlarging his means of attaining knowledge
and holiness. For ourselves, it is not as a seer of ghosts, but as
a seer of truths that Swedenborg interests us.
But to return to the books. They show the gradual extension
of the influence of Swedenborg, and the nature of its effects. In
Mr. Parsons's case they are good. His mind seems to have been
expanded and strengthened by it. Parts of his book we have
read with pleasure, and think it should be a popular one among
the more thoughtful portion of the great reading public.  As to
Mr. Barrett's discourse, the basis of Swedenborgianism had
seemed to us broader than such a corner stone would lead us to
suppose.  Generally, we would say, read Swedenborg himself
before you touch his interpreters.  In him you will find a great
life, far sight, and a celestial spirit. You will be led to think,




AMERICAN LITERATURE.                 165
and great and tender sympathies be gratified in you. Then, if
you wish to prop yourself by doctrines taken from his works,
and hasten to practical conclusions, you can do so for yourself,
and from Swedenborg himself learn how to be a Swedenborgian;
but we hope he may teach you rather to become an earnest
student of truth as he was, for it is so, and not by crying; "Lord,
Lord," that you can know him or any other great and excelling
mind. But, whatever the result be, read him first, and then you
may profit by comparison of your own observations with those
of other scholars; but, if you begin with them, it is, even
more than usual, in such cases, the blind leading the blind.
Confucius had among the host one perfect disciple; others
have been, in some degree, thus favoured, but Swedenborg
had none such, and he is not far enough off yet for the
common sense of mankind to have marked out what is of leading importance in his thoughts.  Therefore, search for yourselves; it is a mighty maze, but not without a plan, and the
report of all guide-books, thus far, is partial,




METHODISM AT THE FOUNTAIN.
THE LIFE OF CHARLES WESLEY. Comprising a Review of his Poetry,
and Sketches of the Rise and Progress of MIethodism, with Notices of Contemporary Events and Characters. By THOMAS JACKSON. New-York, 1844.
THIs is a reprint of a London work, although it does not so appear on the title-page.  We have lately read it in connection with
another very interesting book, Clarke's "' Memoirs of the Wesley
Family," and have been led to far deeper interest in this great
stream of religious thought and feeling by a nearer approach to
its fountain-head.
The world at large takes its impression of the Wesleys from
Southey. A humbler historian has scarce a chance to be heard
beside one so rich in learning and talent.  Yet the Methodists.
themselves are not satisfied with this account of their revered
shepherds, which, though flair in the intention, and tolerably fair
in the arrangement of facts, fails to convey the true spiritual sense,
and does not, to the flock, present a picture of the fields where
they were first satisfied with the food of immortals.
A better likeness, if not so ably painted, may indeed be found
in chronicles written by the disciples of these great and excellent
men, who, as characters full of affection no less than intellect,
need also to be affectionately, no less than intellectually, discerned, in order to a true representation of their deeds and their influence.
The books we have named, and others which relate to the Wesleys, are extremely interesting, apart from a consideration of the




METHODISM AT THE FOUNTAIN.                 167
men and what theiir lives were leading to, from the various and
important documents they furnish, illustrative of the symptoms
and obscurer meanings of their times.
In the account of the family life of the rectory of Epworth,
where John and Charles Wesley passed their boyish years, we
find a great deal that is valuable condensed. And we look upon
the picture of home and its government with tenfold interest, because the founders of the Methodist church inherited, in a straight
line, the gifts of the Spirit through their parentage, rather than
were taught by angels that visited them now and then unawares,
or received the mantle firom some prophet who was passing by, as
we more commonly find to have been the case in the histories of
distinguished men. This is delightful; for we long to see parent
and child linked to one another by natural piety-kindred in mind
no less than by blood.
The father of the Wesleys was worthy so to be in this, that he
was a fervent lover of the right, though often narrow and hasty
in his conceptions of it. He was scarce less, however, by nature
a lover of having his own will. The same strong will was tempered in the larger and deeper character of his son John, to that
energy and steadfastness of purpose which enabled him to carry
out a plan of operations so extensive and exhausting through so
long a series of years and into extreme old age.
This wilfulness, and the disposition to tyranny which attends it,
the senior Mr. Wesley showed on the famous occasion when he
abandoned his wife because her conscience forbade her to assent
to his prayers for the then reigning monarch, and was only saved
from the consequences of his rash resolve by the accident of King
William happening to die shortly after. Still more cruel, and this
time fatal, was the conduct it induced in marrying one of his
daughters, against her will and judgment, to a man whom she did
not love, and who proved to be entirely unworthy of her. The
sacrifice of this daughter, the fairest and brightest of his family,




168        PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
seems most strangely and wickedly wilful; and it is impossible
to read the letter she addressed to him on the subject without great
indignation against him, and sadness to see how, not long ago, the
habit of authority and obedience could enable a man to dispense
with the need and claim of genuine reverence.
Yet he was, in the main, good, and his influence upon his children good, as he sincerely sought, and encouraged them to seek,
the one thing needful. He was a father who would never fail
to give noble advice in cases of conscience; and his veneration
for intellect and its culture was only inferior to that he cherished
for piety.
As has been generally the case, however, with superior men,
the better part, both of inheritance and guidance, came from the
mother. Mrs. Susannah Wesley was, as things go in our puny
society, an extraordinary woman, though, we must believe, precisely what would be, in a healthy and natural order, the ordinary
type of woman. She was endowed with a large understanding,
the power of reasoning and the love of truth, animated by warm
and generous affections. Her mental development began very
early, so that, at the age of thirteen, she had made, and on
well-considered grounds, a change in her form of theological
faith. The progress so early begun, did not, on that account,
stop early, but was continued, and with increasing energy,
throughout her whole life. The manifold duties of a toilsome
and difficult outward existence, (of which it is enough to say
that she was the mother of nineteen children, many of whom
lived to grow up, the wife of a poor man, and one whose temper
drew round him many difficulties) only varied and furthered her
improvement by the manifold occasions thus afforded for thought
and action.  In her prime she was the teacher and cheerful
companion of her children, in declining years at once their
revered monitor and willing pupil. Indeed, she was one that
never ceased to grow while she stayed upon this earth, nor to




METHODISM  AT THE FOUNTAIN.                169
foster and sustain the growth of all around her. Even the little
pedantries of her educational discipline did more good than harm,
as they were full of her own individuality. And it would seem
to be from the bias thus given that her sons acquired the tendency
which, even in early years, drew to them the name of Methodists.
How much too may not be inferred from the revival effected by
her in her husband's parish during his absence, in so beautiful
and simple a manner! How must impressions of that period
have been stamped on the minds of her children, sure to recur
and aid them whenever on similar occasions the universal voice
should summon them to deviate from the usual and prescribed
course, and the pure sympathies awakened by their efforts be
the sole confirmation of their wisdom! How wisely and temperately she defends herself to her husband, winning the assent even
of that somewhat narrow and arbitrary mind! With wisdom,
even so tempered by a heart of charity and forbearance, did John
and Charles Wesley maintain against the world of customs the
bold and original methods which the deep emotions of their souls
dictated to them, and won its assent; at least we think there is
no sect on which the others collectively look with as little intolerance as on Methodism.
(It may be remarked par parenthese that the biographer, Mr.
Jackson, who shows himself, in many ways, to be a weak man, is
rather shocked at Mrs. Wesley on those occasions where she
shows so much character. His opinions however, are of no consequence, as he fairly lays before the reader the letters and other
original documents which enable him to judge of this remarkable woman, and of her children, several of them no less remarkable-As we shall not again advert to Mr. Jackson, but only
consider him as a cup in which we have received the juice of
the Wesleyan grape, we will mention here his strange use of
the work superior in ways such ~s these: "This book will be
PART II.                   9




170         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
read with superior interest".; Lady  -  met him  with superior
sympathy," &c.)
The children of the Epworth Rectory were, almost without
exception, of more than usual dignity and richness of mind and
character. They all were aspiring, and looked upon a human
life chiefly as affording materials to fashion a temple for the service of God. But, though alike in the main purpose and tendency, their individualities were kept distinct in the most charming
freshness.  A noble sincerity and mutual respect marked all
their intercourse, nor were the weaker characters unduly influenced by the stronger. In proportion to their mutual affection
and reverence was their sincerity and decision in opposing one
another, whenever necessary; so that they were friendly indeed.
The same real love which made Charles Wesley write on a
letter assailing  John, " Left unanswered by John Wesley's
brother," made himself the most earnest and direct of critics
when he saw or thought he saw any need of criticism or monition.
The children of this family shared, many of them, the lyric
vein, though only in Charles did it exhibit itself with much
beauty. It is very interesting to see the same gift taking another
form in the genius for Music of his two sons. The record kept
by him of the early stages of development in them is full of
valuable suggestions, and we hope some time to make use of them
in another connection. It is pleasant to see how the sympathies
of the father melted away the crust of habitual opinions.  It
was far otherwise with the uncle, where the glow of sympathy
was less warm.
The life of the two brothers was full of poetic beauty in its
incidents and conduct. The snatching of the child, destined to
purposes so important, "as a brand from the burning;" their
college life; Charles's unwillingness to be " made a saint of all
at once;" and his subsequent yielding to the fervour of his




METHODISM AT THE FOUNTAIN.                  171
brother's spirit,-John Wesley's refusal to bind himself to what
seemed at the time a good work, even for his mother's sake,
because the Spirit within, if it did not positively forbid, yet did
not say " I am ready," thus sacrificing the outward to the inward
duty with a clear decision rare even in great minds,-their voyage
to America, intercourse with the Moravians and Indians,-the
trials to which their young simplicity and credulity there subjected
them, but from which they were brought out safe by obeying the
voice of Conscience, -their relations with Law, Bohler and Count
Zinzendorf,-the manner of their marriages, their relations with
one another and with Whitfield,-all are narrated with candour
and fullness, and all afford subjects for much and valuable
thought.  As the mind of John Wesley was of stronger mould
and in advance of his brother's, difference of opinion sometimes
arose between them, and Charles, full of feeling, protested in a
way calculated to grieve even a noble friend.-His conduct with
regard to his brother's marriage seems to have been perfectly
unjustifiable, and his heart to have remained strangely untaught
by what he had felt and borne at the time of his own. Even
after death his prejudices acted to prevent his mortal remains
from resting beside those of his brother. In all those cases where
John Wesley found his judgment interfered with, his affections
disappointed or even deeply wounded, as was certainly the case
in the breaking off his first engagement, while he felt the superior
largeness and clearness of his own views, as he did in exercising
the power of ordination, and when he wrote on the disappointment
of his wish that the body of his brother should be interred in his
own  cemetery, because it was not regularly "consecrated
earth;" "That ground is as holy as any in England," still the
heart of John Wesley was always right and noble; still he
looked at the motives of the friend, and could really say and
wholly feel in the spirit of Christian love, " Be they forgiven
fior they know not what they do."




172         PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
This same heart of Christian love was shown in the division
that arose between the brothers and Whitfield; and owing to
this it was that division of opinion did not destroy unity ef spirit,
design and influence in the efforts of these good men to make
their fellows good also.  "The threefold cord," as they loved to
call it, remained firm through life, and the world saw in them
one of the best fruits of the religious spirit, mutual reverence in
conscientious difference.  This rarest sight alone would have
given them a claim to instruct the souls of men.
We wish indeed that this spirit had been still better understood
by them, and that, in ceasing to be the pupils of William Law,
they had not felt obliged to denounce his mode of viewing religious' truth as "poisonous mysticism."  It is human frailty
that requires to react, thus violently, against that we have left
behind.  The divine spirit teaches better, shows that the child
was father of the man, and that which we were before has prepared us to be what we now are.
One of the deepest thinkers of our time believes that the exaggerated importance which each man and each party attaches to
the aims and ways which engage him or it, and the far more
odious depreciation of all others, are needed to give sufficient
impetus and steadiness to their action. He finds grand correspondence in the laws of matter with this view of the laws of mind
to illustrate and sustain his belief. Yet the soul craves and
feels herself fit for something better, a wisdom that shall look
upon the myriad ways in which men seek their common end-the
development and elevation of their natures,-with calmness, as
the Eternal does. For ourselves, in an age where it is still the
current fallacy that he who does not attach this exaggerated
importance to some doctrinal way of viewing spiritual infinities,
and the peculiar methods of some sect of enforcing them in practice, has no religion, we see dawning here and there a light that
predicts a better day-a day when sects and parties shall be




METHODISM  AT THE FOUNTAIN.                  173
regarded only as schools of thought and life, and while a man
perfers one for his own instruction, he may yet believe it is more
profitable for his brethren differently constituted to be in others.
It will then be seen that God takes too good care of his children
to suffer all truth to be confined to any one church establishment,
age, or constellation of minds, and it will be not only assented to
in words, but believed in soul, that the Laws and Prophets may
be condensed, as Jesus said, into this simple law, " Love God
with all thy soul, thy fellow-man as thyself;" and that he who
is filled with this spirit and strives to express it in life, however
narrow cut be his clerical coat, or distorting to outward objects,
no less than disfiguring to himself, his theological spectacles; has
not failed both to learn and to do some good in this earthly section
of existence. When this much has once been granted; when it
is seen that the only true, the only Catholic Church, the Church
whose communion, invisible to the outward eye, is shared by all
spirits that seek earnestly to love God and serve Man, has its
members in every land, in every Church, in every sect; and
that they who have not this, in whatever tone and form they cry
out, "Lord, Lord," have in truth never known Him; then may
we hope for less narrowness and ignorance in the several sects,
also, for all and each will learn of one another, and dwelling
together in unity still preserve and unfold their life in individual
distinctness.  Such a platform we hope to see ascended by the
men of this earth, of this or the coming age.  At any rate, disengagement from present bonds, must lead to it? and thus we
trust, the Wesleys have embraced William Law and found that
his "poisonous mysticism" had its truth and its meaning also,
while he rejoices that their minds, severing from his, took a different bias and reached a different class for which his teachings
were not adapted. And thus, passing from section to section of
the truth, the circle shall be filled at last, and it shall be seen
that each had need of the other and of all,




174          PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.
Charles and John Wesley seemed to fulfil toward their great
fhmily of disciples the offices commonly assigned to Woman and
Man. Charles had a narrower, tamner, less reasoning mind, but
great sweetness, tenderness, facility and lyric flow, "When successful in effecting the spiritual good of the most abject, his feelings rose to rapture."  Soft pity filled his heart, and none seemed
so near to him as the felon and the malefactor, because for none
else was so much to be done.
His habitual flow of sacred verse was like the course of a full
fed stream.  In extreme old age, his habits of composition are
thus pleasingly described:
"He rode every day (clothed for Winter, even in Summer,) a little horse,
grey with age. When he mounted, if a subject struck him, he proceeded to expand and put it in order. He would write a hymn thus given him on a card
(kept for that purpose) with his pencil in short hand. Not unfrequently he has
come to the house on the City road, and having left the pony in the garden in
front, he would enter, crying out'Pen and ink! pen and ink!' These being
supplied, he wrote the hymn he had been composing. When this was done, he
would look round on those present, and salute them with much kindness, ask
after their health, give out a short hymn, and thus put all in mind of eternity.
He was fond of that stanza upon these occasions,
" There all the ship's company meet," &c.
His benign spirit is, we believe, gratified now by finding that
company larger than he had dared to hope.
The mind of John Wesley was more masculine; he was more
of a thinker and leader. He is-spoken of as credulous, as hoping
good of men naturally, and able to hope it again from those that
had deceived him. This last is weakness unless allied with wise
decision and force, generosity when it is thus tempered.  To the
character of John Wesley it imparted a persuasive nobleness,
and hallowed his earnestness with mercy. He had in a striking
degree another of those balances between opposite forces which
mark the great manr He kept himself open to new inspirations,
was bold in apprehending and quick in carrying them out.  Yet




METHODISM  AT THE FOUNTAIN.                  175
with a resolve once taken he showed a steadiness of purpose beyond what the timid scholars of tradition can conceive.
In looking at the character of the two men, and the nature of
their doctrine we well understand why their spirit has exercised
so vast a sway, especially with the poor, the unlearned and those
who had none else to help them. They had truth enough
and force enough to uplift the burdens of an army of poor pilgrims and send them on their way rejoicing.  We should delight
to string together, in our own fashion, a rosary of thoughts and
anecdotes illustrative of their career and its consequences, but,
since time and our limits in newspaper space forbid, cannot end
better than by quoting their own verse, for they are of that select
corps, "the forlorn hope of humanity," to whom shortcoming in
deeds has given no occasion to blush for the lofty scope of their
words.
"Who but the Holy Ghost can make
A genuine gospel minister,
A bishop bold to undertake
Of precious souls the awful care.
The Holy Ghost alone can move
A sinner sinners to convert,
Infuse the apostolic love
And bless him  with a pastor's heart."








APPENDIX
THE TRAGEDY OF WITCHCRAFT.
As the tragedy of Witchcraft has not been published, nor is likely to be, while
the dramatic interests of the country are unprotected by any copyright law, it
may not be amiss to afford the reader a further opportunity of passing his judgment on this production by a few extracts, and the publication of a contemporary comment on the play, with a letter in the Evening Post, giving an account
of its first performance.
"The curtain rises in the new play upon a scene in a wood, and we are immediately introduced to the witch-haunted atmosphere of the era, for the spirit
of that great persecution was abroad, as it were, in the air, and surrounded
everything as a mysterious Presence. The first words between two of the yeomanry are tinctured with the popular superstition. We feel from the very moment that there is a general blight, a tendency to evil that cannot be resisted.
This is the perfection of the Tragic interest, and it never leaves us through the
piece. It was a time of Superstition, when the Prince of the Powers of the
Air set up his throne in Salemrn, clung to the skirts of the dark wood, hung
threatening in the blackness of the cloud, interpreted his mysteries in the flight
of birds, hung out his inscriptions in the withered folds of old women's faces,
to be read by conceited interpreters of Heaven's law, and hypocritical men of
cruelty. A fearful time that. In the play all this is felt, as the talk of the
characters keeps continually approaching, by a species of fascination, as it were,
the fatal subject. Day by day it gathers strength. From  distant regions Jt is
heard of in the neighbouring villages, and gradually approaches, like some fell
disease, closing in upon the life-the devoted town of Salem, and within that
town of Salem, at its very heart, the lives and persons of a man and woman of
no ordinary mould among those townspeople, the hero and heroine of the play
-the Mother and Son of the story. There are several passions at work in the
Drama-there is Bigotry seeking its victim, Christianity borrowing weapons
from Hell to circumvent the Devil-the jealousy of the lover serving God and
his passion, too, at the same time, and calling Revenge-Religion-there are
petty cowardice and curiosity, but far above them all, striking a root in nature
deeper even than the miscalled devotion of those times, the relation between a
mother and her son-the untaught emotion of boyhood rising up bolder and
stronger than the inveterate hardihood and selfish hypocrisy of manhood. By
this simple element of strength one human being at least is saved, and the expedients of that miserable age shattered and almost driven back from their
strongholds.
How all this and more is done those who have seen or will soon witness this
8"




I TM-                        APPENDIU.
tragedy, will be at no loss to understand. Mr. Murdoch is labouring to a purpose and with the author. The play is a beautiful example of development,
All is elaborately wrought out, the details are numerous, and the result simplicity.
The plot is simply this. A proud woman of great independence and superior
education, retires, when age and trouble have begun to set their marks upon
her, to the comparative solitude of Salem.  She bore trouble in her heart, was
among the townspeople, but not of them, loved lonely walks on the hill side,
gathered old Indian relics, which she kept out of reverence for the past. "The
tee grief due to her single breast" was remorse for an act of pride, by which
her husband had fallen in a duel. A word from her might have prevented the
calamity, and she had not spoken it.
With such elements, and the material the meddlesome town naturally afforded,
and the vile poison of witchcraft already introduced into the land, how easily
was this woman implicated.  She walked alone and talked much with herselfit was a trick of' witchcraft. She possessed little Indian figures, which she
called after the names of the local characters of the town-the magistrates and
constables, whose religion was to be set at work either through fear or the insult-these were the instruments of incantation, like the waxen images of ancient necromancy.  She laughed at the folly of her persecutors-it was of
course hardened wickedness. The atmosphere is so choking, that the son yields
and for a moment believes his mother's guilt, but when he listens to her explanation of the silent grief, the lonely walks, he spurns the whole brood in language
and acts of unmeasured indignation.  This is the triumph of the actor, as well
as of the moral element in the fifth act. But evil mlen have had their counsel
and completed their deed. The Witch is condemned to die!
"Gideon. The deed is done! Ruin upon a sacred head
Is piled, and ye are evermore accursedWhat have ye done-thou sepulchre of all belief
(To Deacon Gidney.)
And truth, stares not this lie you have enacted
Stark and o'erwhelming as a dead man's face
Against your path! What have ye proven
To drive this penalty against a venerable breast!
Some solitary walks, sacred as night,
Familiar love for hills and woods and fields,
A way through life out of your beaten path
But ever in the road to the pure Truth
And goodness of a hearttroubled too much
In conscience for a deed that would have been
A feather's weight upon your brutish souls.
(To the People.)
Ye are the most accursed deceivers,
Most pitiful deluded men, this clime
Or century hath hatched. Ye have enfogged,
Darkened, and led astray my childish love,
Made this aged mother seem a horror and a hag
To one, who, drop by drop, would once have died-and willTo save or serve her! Blasted this blest place
And made its men and women beasts of prey,
Hunting each other to chains and flames and deaths.
This passage tells much of the story. Theme are other incidents and person.
ages. The Deacon is strongly mnarked, so is that feeble little shadow of him ant)
the justice, petty officer Pudeater. The Deacon is described




APPENDIX.                               179
A sturdy gentleman of solerin port,
Whose eyes are lobster-like in gaze, whose paunch
Is full and hungry ever, his step
Demure and confident as though he trod
On holy pavements always.
The little official is the type of timid, obsequious sextons, who hang upon the
eyelids of the vestry and the clergyman, or any in authority. He always appears in character, and is sure of being laughed at. He bears about him with
the best grace in the world the utmost extent of the ridiculous.
As a specimen of the dialogue, we give the first scene between the Deacon
and Ambla, in which he seeks to entrap her.
"Deacon. I should be sorry to know your age was racked
With pains, and vexed with old unquietness:
Sleep you well o' nights.
Amnbla. I'm thankful for the rest
I find, and if the other villagers take
What I lose I'm thankful still.
Deacon. You seek your bed
Early, I hope, as doth become your age.
Ambla. A little walk on Maple Hill, a meditation
At the down-fitlling of the sun, and I
Am lapped in sleep.
Deacon.  Dream you much now,
My aged friend-we at our age, that is, at yours,
Sometimes forego our dreams.
Ambla. I have not dreamed
A dream, for three and twenty years,
Except awake.
Deacon. Was there no vision in your sleep last night?
You heard of Margaret Purdy's death at Groton.
Her spectre,'tis given out, passed over this house
Of yours-in a white flame at midnight.
Ambla. An angel, she, to honor so this low
Unworthy roof!
Deacon. You think well, then, of her, do you.
She was no praying woman, I am told.
Ambla. There is a silent service, sir, I've heard
It said, keeps up its worship at the heart
Although the lips be closed.
Deacon. What! prayer irregular and chance begot!
Sad orthodoxy! I, Deacon Perfect Gidney,A humble pattern to this lowly parish,
Am used to have a different wayI snuff my candle with a prayer,
And with a prayer wind up my watch,
And go to prayer at striking of the clock,
The great one, my learned grandfather's gift,
In the Hall; and kindle with a prayer
My morning fire.
This is compact and straightforward, nothing wanting, nothing superfluous.
The American writer who can sustain five acts of a play at this standard is an
acquisition!




APPENDIX.
The scattered poetic beauties of single lines and figures, exercises of an original fancy, are numerous and always aid the dranatic element.
Passages like the following are sufficient proofs of a new poet and dramatist
somewhere among us.
(A Lover.)
I would not give its balmy pains,
For calmest health: its pangs delicious
Troubles full of joy, wakenings electrical
At dead of night, its dreams by day,
These are its bounties( Gideon, of his Mother.)
With what a smile she used, when shouting to her,
I came back from my first childish strayings
To the woods-to open wide her garden gate,
Young Salem's first of gardens tending,
And bring me in.
Chief was she in her majestical mild port
Of all women; guide to the lost and sad,
Helper to all poor neighbourhoodKindling her welcome fire, earliest
In this lone place, for wayfarers,
Of all creeds, all colours, and all climes.
(A son's watchlful guardianship).
Yes, yes-we know his weapon
Plays about that low-roofed house, free
And familiar as the breaking day.
(Gideon's affection for his nwther.)
Ambla. Be calm, my son, nor love me too much!
Gid. Too much! the universe can hold it not!When from your hand I go, I die a death
At every step; you seem to hold' the roof-tree
With your arm, to hang above the fields and whiten them:
Nor could I through the noon-day harvest toil,
Knew I your lap would not reteive
My weary head when night draws on.
Gid. Then there's calamity at hand that colors everything.
(No evil spirits in the New World).
Believe it not!
Believe it not! —Clear, crystal and unstained,
The gracious Power upholds this round of Earth
New found and beautiful: no foul nor ugly thing,
Hath power, I'm sure, in this new landGoblin nor witch!




APPENDIX.
He sweeps apast me
With his glittering scythe and victor-arm.
If she be not, and these are hunters
For the sport's sake, if they pursue her,
Panther-like for the wild beauty
Of her ways.
Though I could see an hundred witches'Gainst the white moon flying.
( Te Spirit of Witchcraft).
There have been doings dark as night,
And close as death: murders and deadliest crimes
Which the clear eye of day has seen not!
Acts to outface the bloody wolf, and scare
The ravernous lionz with his unappeasable mane!
Night's ear hath many counsels of the dark,
She hears the whispers of the self-reproached,
And blacker grows!
When boy and girl pluck flowers together,
Together wade, white-ankled in the shining stream.
Gid. (of his mother.)
Some silent place will miss her;
Out of these woods and from these stillnesses
A power with her may pass, bearing a light away I
Who reverences not the Past, Hereafter
Shall not reverence, nor hold to have had
A present time.
MUST is a lion that turns back
To tear its driver, you know, no less than hunt
What goes before.
What say you to a great-antlered elk
Tangling his horns amid the branches
Of the hemlock wood'  to speckled swimmers
In still-water streamS
The Earth hath foothold
For the unsubstantial dark alone.




~182                          APPENDIX.
She passes and with th' invisible spirit talks,
And dailies with the hands of unfamiliar things.
Crid. What wonder now is this
Ambla. Sometimes it wanders the wood, sometimes
The free-flowered air: come softly on!-&c. &c.
From the Evening Post, New York, May 6th.
THE NEV  DRAMA OF WITCHCRAFT.-We have received a letter from a correspondent in Philadelphia, touching the new play produced in that city on
Monday evening last:
PHILADELPIHIA, Tuesday, May 5, 1846.
Mr. Murdoch's new  play of Witchcraft was performed last evening at the
Walnut street theatre, to one of the most crowded houses of the season. The play
had been prominently announced and spoken of in several of the morning papers.
and had evidently created great expectation in advance. Tier above tier, from
the orchestra to the gallery, rose the vast surface of heads. Here we thought
was the material to try fully the new play. If it could hold the attention of this
crowded body, it would be a success far beyond the approval of the few packed
critical friends who generally attend on such occasions. The critics were not
wanting either; the intellect of Philadelphia was well represented on the occasion. The curtain rose on a woodland scene in old Salem, and presently Mr.
Murdoch appeared in his character of Gideon Bodish. He was never dressed
or looked to greater advantage than in his closely fitting russet coat; his attitudes were after his manner exceedingly graceful, his voice music itself. In
scene after scene, in every act, he drew down repeated applause, as he delivered
one passage after another of singular poetic beauty, or fierce indignant eloquence.
It was evident from the first moment that the play was wholly unlike the
ordinary efforts under the name of the " American Drama." It was bold, confident, original in illustration, and in the incidents and developments of the plot.
The stage situations were new. The confirmation of Gideon's doubts of his
mother's guilt of witchcraft at the crisis of the play by a species of sacred divination, an augury from a chance opened passage of the Bible, and the solemn
introduction of a child to confront the accused in the grand trial scene, as they
were managed, were proofs of undoubted genius on the part of the author.The play was sown all over with the happiest poetical expressions, not merely
in the leading parts, but with an unaccustomed prodigality on the part of a
modern dramatist were thrown away, for stage purposes, on the lips even of the
supernumeraries.  Take such lines as these in the mouth of the mother, as she
solves one of the perplexities of the piece her apparent guilt; not that of witchcraft, but the life-long remorse for the murder of her husband in a duel, whom
she might have saved by declaring her innocencc, which she was too proud to
prove:
-He thought that I had sinned
Against his love with that gay paramour,
Who was no more than birds are to the tree
They hover o'er. to mne who lived in emine
Own thoughts above suspicion's climbing,
or this illustration, finely delivered by Murdoch, of the dark silent approach of
the superstition upon the soul —




APPENDIX.                                183
The night sits on this gloomy heartI see an Indian on a hill top standing,
Part of the silent fixedness of things;
He breaks the mighty calm, wherein he stood
Slow striding down the niountain's side.
Swifter and darker as he nears us we regard him,
Flashing and red, woe's living thunder cloud,
And now, and now, he bends above usDusk murder in the very person of itselfSo creeps this hideous witchcraft on mre.
Or such bits of description as the following, a perfect picture in the limits of a
sentence;
You recollect old Tituba, the shrivelled squaw,
Who wigwamed gloomily by the wood's edge
Some summers pastor so perfect an illustration as this of the gathering suspicions of his mother's
life in Gideon's conversation —
Ever in his speech
There lived and moved as in the river stream
The fish, darkly and yet swift gliding
Old J.smbla's forsm,
Yet these were not the chief merits, but accessories only to the dramatic action;
they never came to interrupt, but to aid the character and story.  The longer
single passages, or any just exhibition of the dialogue, would lead me beyond
the limits of a letter.
In the general style of the acting-leading parts were taken by Mrs. Wallack,
our old favourite Richings, and a very successful comical tipstaff by Chapman
-and especially in the grouping and stage appointments no American play
that we have seen has appeared to equal advantage. The scenery had been
drawn on the spot at Salem, and Mr. Murdoch had been accompanied in his
researches for the dress and costume of the period by Rev. Mr. Upham, the author of a book on the Salem Witchcraft. The bill states the costumes to have
been " taken from portraits, paintings, &c. in possession of the Salem Historical Library association." The Deacon, a Justice, an old goodwife were admirable.
We have rarely witnessed a performance where the interest excited was better sustained.  The uproarious elements in the pit and galleries, of which we
were fearful, were subdued to perfect silence; the laugh at the comic characters,
the Deacon's bloated presumption and Chapman's comicalities, was quickly
changed to the earnest or pathetic as Gideon or the Mother entered the scene.
It was a long and satisfactory study. At the close, Mr. Murdoch was loudly
called for, made a short speech to the effect that he rejoiced in the warm reception he had received that evening; that he attributed this solely to the merits
of the unknown American author, who did not wish to be known as a dramatic
writer, and for whom he had pledged to maintain, and would strictly, the anonymlious.