The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1
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Title: The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Editor: Henry Nelson Coleridge
Release date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #8488]
Most recently updated: February 13, 2015
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8488
Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, David Widger
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY REMAINS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, David Widger
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE LITERARY REMAINS
OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ. M. A.
TO
JOSEPH HENRY GREEN, ESQ.
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS,
THE APPROVED FRIEND
OF
COLERIDGE
THESE VOLUMES
ARE
GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE
Mr. Coleridge by his will, dated in September, 1829, authorized his
executor, if he should think it expedient, to publish any of the notes
or writing made by him (Mr. C.) in his books, or any other of his
manuscripts or writings, or any letters which should thereafter be
collected from, or supplied by, his friends or correspondents. Agreeably
to this authority, an arrangement was made, under the superintendence of
Mr. Green, for the collection of Coleridge's literary remains; and at
the same time the preparation for the press of such part of the
materials as should consist of criticism and general literature, was
entrusted to the care of the present Editor. The volumes now offered to
the public are the first results of that arrangement. They must in any
case stand in need of much indulgence from the ingenuous reader;--'multa
sunt condonanda in opere postumo'; but a short statement of the
difficulties attending the compilation may serve to explain some
apparent anomalies, and to preclude some unnecessary censure.
The materials were fragmentary in the extreme--Sibylline leaves;--notes
of the lecturer, memoranda of the investigator, out-pourings of the
solitary and self-communing student. The fear of the press was not in
them. Numerous as they were, too, they came to light, or were
communicated, at different times, before and after the printing was
commenced; and the dates, the occasions, and the references, in most
instances remained to be discovered or conjectured. To give to such
materials method and continuity, as far as might be,--to set them forth
in the least disadvantageous manner which the circumstances would
permit,--was a delicate and perplexing task; and the Editor is painfully
sensible that he could bring few qualifications for the undertaking, but
such as were involved in a many years' intercourse with the author
himself, a patient study of his writings, a reverential admiration of
his genius, and an affectionate desire to help in extending its
beneficial influence.
The contents of these volumes are drawn from a portion only of the
manuscripts entrusted to the Editor: the remainder of the collection,
which, under favourable circumstances, he hopes may hereafter see the
light, is at least of equal value with what is now presented to the
reader as a sample. In perusing the following pages, the reader will, in
a few instances, meet with disquisitions of a transcendental character,
which, as a general rule, have been avoided: the truth is, that they
were sometimes found so indissolubly intertwined with the more popular
matter which preceded and followed, as to make separation impracticable.
There are very many to whom no apology will be necessary in this
respect; and the Editor only adverts to it for the purpose of obviating,
as far as may be, the possible complaint of the more general reader. But
there is another point to which, taught by past experience, he attaches
more importance, and as to which, therefore, he ventures to put in a
more express and particular caution. In many of the books and papers,
which have been used in the compilation of these volumes, passages from
other writers, noted down by Mr. Coleridge as in some way remarkable,
were mixed up with his own comments on such passages, or with his
reflections on other subjects, in a manner very embarrassing to the eye
of a third person undertaking to select the original matter, after the
lapse of several years. The Editor need not say that he has not
knowingly admitted any thing that was not genuine without an express
declaration, as in Vol. I. p. 1; and in another instance, Vol. II. p.
379, he has intimated his own suspicion: but, besides these, it is
possible that some cases of mistake in this respect may have occurred.
There may be one or two passages--they cannot well be more--printed in
these volumes, which belong to other writers; and if such there be, the
Editor can only plead in excuse, that the work has been prepared by him
amidst many distractions, and hope that, in this instance at least, no
ungenerous use will be made of such a circumstance to the disadvantage
of the author, and that persons of greater reading or more retentive
memories than the Editor, who may discover any such passages, will do
him the favour to communicate the fact.
The Editor's motive in publishing the few poems and fragments included
in these volumes, was to make a supplement to the collected edition of
Coleridge's poetical works. In these fragments the reader will see the
germs of several passages in the already published poems of the author,
but which the Editor has not thought it necessary to notice more
particularly. 'The Fall of Robespierre', a joint composition, has been
so long in print in the French edition of Coleridge's poems, that,
independently of such merit as it may possess, it seemed natural to
adopt it upon the present occasion, and to declare the true state of the
authorship.
To those who have been kind enough to communicate books and manuscripts
for the purpose of the present publication, the Editor and, through him,
Mr. Coleridge's executor return their grateful thanks. In most cases a
specific acknowledgement has been made. But, above and independently of
all others, it is to Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, and to Mr. Green himself,
that the public are indebted for the preservation and use of the
principal part of the contents of these volumes. The claims of those
respected individuals on the gratitude of the friends and admirers of
Coleridge and his works are already well known, and in due season those
claims will receive additional confirmation.
With these remarks, sincerely conscious of his own inadequate execution
of the task assigned to him, yet confident withal of the general worth
of the contents of the following pages--the Editor commits the reliques
of a great man to the indulgent consideration of the Public.
Lincoln's Inn, August 11, 1836.
L'ENVOY.
He was one who with long and large arm still collected precious armfulls
in whatever direction he pressed forward, yet still took up so much more
than he could keep together, that those who followed him gleaned more
from his continual droppings than he himself brought home;--nay, made
stately corn-ricks therewith, while the reaper himself was still seen
only with a strutting armful of newly-cut sheaves. But I should
misinform you grossly if I left you to infer that his collections were a
heap of incoherent 'miscellanea'. No! the very contrary. Their variety,
conjoined with the too great coherency, the too great both desire and
power of referring them in systematic, nay, genetic subordination, was
that which rendered his schemes gigantic and impracticable, as an
author, and his conversation less instructive as a man.
'Auditorem inopem ipsa copia fecit'.--Too much was given, all so weighty
and brilliant as to preclude a chance of its being all received,--so
that it not seldom passed over the hearer's mind like a roar of many
waters.
CONTENTS
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
POEMS.
"Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace"
"------------I yet remain"
To the Rev. W. J. Hort
To Charles Lamb
To the Nightingale
To Sara
To Joseph Cottle
Casimir
Darwiniana
"The early year's fast-flying vapours stray"
Count Rumford's Essays
Epigrams.
On a late Marriage between an Old Maid and a French Petit Maître
On an Amorous Doctor
"There comes from old Avaro's grave"
"Last Monday all the papers said"
To a Primrose, (the first seen in the season)
On the Christening of a Friend's Child
Epigram, "Hoarse Maevius reads his hobbling verse"
Inscription by the Rev. W. L. Bowles, in Nether Stowey Church
Translation
Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie
Epilogue to the Rash Conjuror
Psyche
Complaint
Reproof
An Ode to the Rain
Translation of a Passage in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the
Gospel
Israel's Lament on the Death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales
Sentimental
The Alternative
The Exchange
What is Life?
Inscription for a Time-piece
A COURSE OF LECTURES.
Prospectus
Lecture I. General character of the Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages
II. General Character of the Gothic Literature and Art
III. The Troubadours--Boccaccio--Petrarch--Pulci--Chaucer--Spenser
IV-VI. Shakspeare (not included in the original text)
VII. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger
VIII. 'Don Quixote'. Cervantes
IX. On the Distinctions of the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and the
Humorous; the Nature and Constituents of Humour; Rabelais, Swift,
Sterne
X. Donne, Dante, Milton, 'Paradise Lost'
XI. Asiatic and Greek Mythologies, Robinson Crusoe, Use of Works of
Imagination in Education
XII. Dreams, Apparitions, Alchemists, Personality of the Evil Being,
Bodily Identity
XIII. On Poesy or Art
XIV. On Style
Notes on Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici
Notes on Junius
Notes on Barclay's 'Argenis'
Note in Casaubon's 'Persius'
Notes on Chapman's Homer
Note in Baxter's 'Life of Himself'
Fragment of an Essay on Taste
Fragment of an Essay on Beauty
Poems and Poetical Fragments
OMNIANA.
The French Decade
Ride and Tie
Jeremy Taylor
Criticism
Public Instruction
Picturesque Words
Toleration
War
Parodies
M. Dupuis
Origin of the Worship of Hymen
Egotism
Cap of Liberty
Bulls
Wise Ignorance
Rouge
Hasty Words
Motives and Impulses
Inward Blindness
The Vices of Slaves no excuse for Slavery
Circulation of the Blood
'Peritura Parcere Chartae'
To have and to be
Party Passion
Goodness of Heart Indispensable to a Man of Genius
Milton and Ben Jonson
Statistics
Magnanimity
Negroes and Narcissuses
An Anecdote
The Pharos at Alexandria
Sense and Common Sense
Toleration
Hint for a New Species of History
Text Sparring
Pelagianism
The Soul and its Organs of Sense
Sir George Etherege, &c.
Evidence
Force of Habit
Phoenix
Memory and Recollection
'Aliquid ex Nihilo'
Brevity of the Greek and English compared
The Will and the Deed
The Will for the Deed
Sincerity
Truth and Falsehood
Religious Ceremonies
Association
Curiosity
New Truths
Vicious Pleasures
Meriting Heaven
Dust to Dust
Human Countenance
Lie useful to Truth
Science in Roman Catholic States
Voluntary Belief
Amanda
Hymen's Torch
Youth and Age
December Morning
Archbishop Leighton
Christian Honesty
Inscription on a Clock in Cheapside
Rationalism is not Reason
Inconsistency
Hope in Humanity
Self-love in Religion
Limitation of Love of Poetry
Humility of the Amiable
Temper in Argument
Patriarchal Government
Callous self-conceit
A Librarian
Trimming
Death
Love an Act of the Will
Wedded Union
Difference between Hobbes and Spinosa
The End may justify the Means
Negative Thought
Man's return to Heaven
Young Prodigies
Welch names
German Language
The Universe
Harberous
An Admonition
To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry
Definition of Miracle
Death, and grounds of belief in a Future State
Hatred of Injustice
Religion
The Apostles' Creed
A Good Heart
Evidences of Christianity
'Confessio Fidei
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
AND OTHER POEMS.
TO H. MARTIN, ESQ.
OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
DEAR SIR,
Accept, as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following
Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting
form, the fall of a man, whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous
lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot
could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts,
it has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative
language of the French Orators, and to develope the characters of the
chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
Yours fraternally,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Jesus College, September 22, 1794.
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.
AN HISTORIC DRAMA. 1794. [1]
[Footnote 1: The origin and authorship of "The Fall of Robespierre" will
be best explained by the following extract from a letter from Mr.
Southey to the Editor:
"This is the history of The Fall of Robespierre. It originated in
sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an
act by the next evening;--S. T. C. the first, I the second, and Lovell
the third. S. T. C. brought part of his, I and Lovell the whole of ours;
but L.'s was not in keeping, and therefore I undertook to supply the
third also by the following day. By that time, S. T. C. had filled up
his. A dedication to Mrs. Hannah More was concocted, and the notable
performance was offered for sale to a bookseller in Bristol, who was too
wise to buy it. Your Uncle took the MSS. with him to Cambridge, and
there rewrote the first act at leisure, and published it. My portion I
never saw from the time it was written till the whole was before the
world. It was written with newspapers before me, as fast as newspaper
could be put into blank verse. I have no desire to claim it now, or
hereafter; but neither am I ashamed of it; and if you think proper to
print the whole, so be it."--
"The Fall of Robespierre, a tragedy, of which the first act was written
by S. T. Coleridge." Mr. C.'s note in the Conciones ad Populum, 1795.
Ed.]
ACT I.
SCENE--'The Tuilleries'.
BARRERE.
The tempest gathers--be it mine to seek
A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.
But where? and how? I fear the tyrant's soul--
Sudden in action, fertile in resource,
And rising awful 'mid impending ruins;
In splendour gloomy, as the midnight meteor,
That fearless thwarts the elemental war.
When last in secret conference we met,
He scowl'd upon me with suspicious rage,
Making his eye the inmate of my bosom.
I know he scorns me--and I feel, I hate him--
Yet there is in him that which makes me tremble!
[Exit.]
[Enter TALLIEN and LEGENDRE.]
TALLIEN.
It was Barrere, Legendre! didst thou mark him?
Abrupt he turn'd, yet linger'd as he went,
And tow'rds us cast a look of doubtful meaning.
LEGENDRE.
I mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance;
It menac'd not so proudly as of yore.
Methought he would have spoke--but that he dar'd not--
Such agitation darken'd on his brow.
TALLIEN.
'Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting
Th'imprison'd secret struggling in the face:
E'en as the sudden breeze upstarting onwards
Hurries the thunder cloud, that pois'd awhile
Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen.
LEGENDRE.
Perfidious traitor!--still afraid to bask
In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent
Lurks in the thicket of the tyrant's greatness,
Ever prepar'd to sting who shelters him.
Each thought, each action in himself converges;
And love and friendship on his coward heart
Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice:
To all attach'd, by turns deserting all,
Cunning and dark--a necessary villain!
TALLIEN.
Yet much depends upon him--well you know
With plausible harangue 'tis his to paint
Defeat like victory--and blind the mob
With truth-mix'd falsehood. They, led on by him,
And wild of head to work their own destruction,
Support with uproar what he plans in darkness.
LEGENDRE.
O what a precious name is liberty
To scare or cheat the simple into slaves!
Yes--we must gain him over: by dark hints
We'll show enough to rouse his watchful fears,
Till the cold coward blaze a patriot.
O Danton! murder'd friend! assist my counsels--
Hover around me on sad memory's wings,
And pour thy daring vengeance in my heart.
Tallien! if but to-morrow's fateful sun
Beholds the tyrant living--we are dead!
TALLIEN.
Yet his keen eye that flashes mighty meanings--
LEGENDRE.
Fear not--or rather fear th'alternative,
And seek for courage e'en in cowardice--
But see--hither he comes--let us away!
His brother with him, and the bloody Couthon,
And, high of haughty spirit, young St. Just.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter ROBESPIERRE, COUTHON, ST. JUST, and ROBESPIERRE Junior.]
ROBESPIERRE.
What! did La Fayette fall before my power--
And did I conquer Roland's spotless virtues--
The fervent eloquence of Vergniaud's tongue,
And Brissot's thoughtful soul unbribed and bold!
Did zealot armies haste in vain to save them!
What! did th' assassin's dagger aim its point
Vain, as a dream of murder, at my bosom;
And shall I dread the soft luxurious Tallien?
Th' Adonis Tallien,--banquet-hunting Tallien,--
Him, whose heart flutters at the dice-box!
Him, Who ever on the harlots' downy pillow
Resigns his head impure to feverish slumbers!
ST. JUST.
I cannot fear him--yet we must not scorn him.
Was it not Antony that conquer'd Brutus,
Th' Adonis, banquet-hunting Antony?
The state is not yet purified: and though
The stream runs clear, yet at the bottom lies
The thick black sediment of all the factions--
It needs no magic hand to stir it up!
COUTHON.
O, we did wrong to spare them--fatal error!
Why lived Legendre, when that Danton died,
And Collot d'Herbois dangerous in crimes?
I've fear'd him, since his iron heart endured
To make of Lyons one vast human shambles,
Compar'd with which the sun-scorch'd wilderness
Of Zara were a smiling paradise.
ST. JUST.
Rightly thou judgest, Couthon! He is one,
Who flies from silent solitary anguish,
Seeking forgetful peace amid the jar
Of elements. The howl of maniac uproar
Lulls to sad sleep the memory of himself.
A calm is fatal to him--then he feels
The dire upboilings of the storm within him.
A tiger mad with inward wounds!--I dread
The fierce and restless turbulence of guilt.
ROBESPIERRE.
Is not the Commune ours? the stern Tribunal?
Dumas? and Vivier? Fleuriot? and Louvet?
And Henriot? We'll denounce a hundred, nor
Shall they behold to-morrow's sun roll westward.
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Nay--I am sick of blood! my aching heart
Reviews the long, long train of hideous horrors
That still have gloom'd the rise of the Republic.
I should have died before Toulon, when war Became the patriot!
ROBESPIERRE.
Most unworthy wish!
He, whose heart sickens at the blood of traitors
Would be himself a traitor, were he not
A coward! 'Tis congenial souls alone
Shed tears of sorrow for each other's fate.
O, thou art brave, my brother! and thine eye
Full firmly shines amid the groaning battle--
Yet in thine heart the woman-form of pity
Asserts too large a share, an ill-timed guest!
There is unsoundness in the state--to-morrow
Shall see it cleansed by wholesome massacre!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Beware! already do the Sections murmur--
"O the great glorious patriot, Robespierre--
The tyrant guardian of the country's freedom!"
COUTHON.
'Twere folly sure to work great deeds by halves!
Much I suspect the darksome fickle heart Of cold Barrere!
ROBESPIERRE.
I see the villain in him!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
If he--if all forsake thee--what remains?
ROBESPIERRE.
Myself! the steel-strong rectitude of soul
And poverty sublime 'mid circling virtues!
The giant victories, my counsels form'd,
Shall stalk around me with sun-glittering plumes,
Bidding the darts of calumny fall pointless.
[Exeunt. Manet Couthon.]
COUTHON.
So we deceive ourselves! What goodly virtues
Bloom on the poisonous branches of ambition!
Still, Robespierre! thou'l't guard thy country's freedom
To despotize in all the patriot's pomp.
While conscience, 'mid the mob's applauding clamours,
Sleeps in thine ear, nor whispers--blood-stain'd tyrant!
Yet what is conscience? superstition's dream
Making such deep impression on our sleep--
That long th' awaken'd breast retains its horrors!
But he returns--and with him comes Barrere.
[Exit Couthon.]
[Enter ROBESPIERRE and BARRERE.]
ROBESPIERRE.
There is no danger but in cowardice.--
Barrere! we make the danger, when we fear it.
We have such force without, as will suspend
The cold and trembling treachery of these members.
BARRERE.
Twill be a pause of terror.--
ROBESPIERRE.
But to whom?
Rather the short-lived slumber of the tempest,
Gathering its strength anew. The dastard traitors!
Moles, that would undermine the rooted oak!
A pause!--a moment's pause!--'Tis all their life.
BARRERE.
Yet much they talk--and plausible their speech.
Couthon's decree has given such powers, that--
ROBESPIERRE.
That what?
BARRERE.
The freedom of debate--
ROBESPIERRE.
Transparent mask!
They wish to clog the wheels of government,
Forcing the hand that guides the vast machine
To bribe them to their duty.--English patriots!
Are not the congregated clouds of war
Black all around us? In our very vitals
Works not the king-bred poison of rebellion?
Say, what shall counteract the selfish plottings
Of wretches, cold of heart, nor awed by fears
Of him, whose power directs th' eternal justice?
Terror? or secret-sapping gold? The first.
Heavy, but transient as the ills that cause it;
And to the virtuous patriot render'd light
By the necessities that gave it birth:
The other fouls the fount of the Republic,
Making it flow polluted to all ages;
Inoculates the state with a slow venom,
That once imbibed, must be continued ever.
Myself incorruptible I ne'er could bribe them--
Therefore they hate me.
BARRERE.
Are the Sections friendly?
ROBESPIERRE.
There are who wish my ruin--but I'll make them
Blush for the crime in blood!
BARRERE.
Nay--but I tell thee,
Thou art too fond of slaughter--and the right
(If right it be) workest by most foul means!
ROBESPIERRE.
Self-centering Fear! how well thou canst ape Mercy!
Too fond of slaughter!--matchless hypocrite!
Thought Barrere so, when Brissot, Danton died?
Thought Barrere so, when through the streaming streets
Of Paris red-eyed Massacre, o'er wearied,
Reel'd heavily, intoxicate with blood?
And when (O heavens!) in Lyons' death-red square
Sick fancy groan'd o'er putrid hills of slain,
Didst thou not fiercely laugh, and bless the day?
Why, thou hast been the mouth-piece of all horrors,
And, like a blood-hound, crouch'd for murder! Now
Aloof thou standest from the tottering pillar,
Or, like a frighted child behind its mother,
Hidest thy pale face in the skirts of--Mercy!
BARRERE.
O prodigality of eloquent anger!
Why now I see thou'rt weak--thy case is desperate!
The cool ferocious Robespierre turn'd scolder!
ROBESPIERRE.
Who from a bad man's bosom wards the blow,
Reserves the whetted dagger for his own.
Denounced twice--and twice I sav'd his life!
[Exit.]
BARRERE.
The Sections will support them--there's the point!
No! he can never weather out the storm--
Yet he is sudden in revenge--No more!
I must away to Tallien.
[Exit.]
[SCENE changes to the House of Adelaide. ADELAIDE enters, speaking to a
Servant.]
ADELAIDE.
Didst thou present the letter that I gave thee?
Did Tallien answer, he would soon return?
SERVANT.
He is in the Tuilleries--with him, Legendre--
In deep discourse they seem'd: as I approach'd
He waved his hand, as bidding me retire:
I did not interrupt him.
[Returns the letter.]
ADELAIDE.
Thou didst rightly.
[Exit Servant.]
O this new freedom! at how dear a price
We've bought the seeming good! The peaceful virtues
And every blandishment of private life,
The father's cares, the mother's fond endearment,
All sacrificed to liberty's wild riot.
The winged hours, that scatter'd roses round me,
Languid and sad drag their slow course along,
And shake big gall-drops from their heavy wings.
But I will steal away these anxious thoughts
By the soft languishment of warbled airs,
If haply melodies may lull the sense
Of sorrow for a while.
[Soft Music.]
[Enter TALLIEN.]
TALLIEN.
Music, my love? O breathe again that air!
Soft nurse of pain, it soothes the weary soul
Of care, sweet as the whisper'd breeze of evening
That plays around the sick man's throbbing temples.
SONG.
Tell me, on what holy ground
May domestic peace be found?
Halcyon daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wing she flies,
From the pomp of sceptred state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottag'd vale she dwells,
List'ning to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless honour's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.
TALLIEN.
I thank thee, Adelaide! 'twas sweet, though mournful.
But why thy brow o'ercast, thy cheek so wan?
Thou look'st as a lorn maid beside some stream,
That sighs away the soul in fond despairing,
While sorrow sad, like the dank willow near her,
Hangs o'er the troubled fountain of her eye.
ADELAIDE.
Ah! rather let me ask what mystery lowers
On Tallien's darken'd brow. Thou dost me wrong--
Thy soul distemper'd, can my heart be tranquil?
TALLIEN.
Tell me, by whom thy brother's blood was spilt?
Asks he not vengeance on these patriot murderers?
It has been borne too tamely. Fears and curses
Groan on our midnight beds, and e'en our dreams
Threaten the assassin hand of Robespierre.
He dies!--nor has the plot escaped his fears.
ADELAIDE.
Yet--yet--be cautious! much I fear the Commune--
The tyrant's creatures, and their fate with his
Fast link'd in close indissoluble union.
The pale Convention--
TALLIEN.
Hate him as they fear him,
Impatient of the chain, resolved and ready.
ADELAIDE.
Th' enthusiast mob, confusion's lawless sons--
TALLIEN.
They are aweary of his stern morality,
The fair-mask'd offspring of ferocious pride.
The Sections too support the delegates:
All--all is ours! e'en now the vital air
Of Liberty, condens'd awhile, is bursting
(Force irresistible!) from its compressure--
To shatter the arch chemist in the explosion!
[Enter BILLAUD VARENNES and BOURDON L'OISE.]
[Adelaide retires.]
BOURDON L'OISE.
Tallien! was this a time for amorous conference?
Henriot, the tyrant's most devoted creature,
Marshals the force of Paris: The fierce club,
With Vivier at their head, in loud acclaim
Have sworn to make the guillotine in blood
Float on the scaffold.--But who comes here?
[Enter BARRERE abruptly.]
BARRERE.
Say, are ye friends to freedom? I am hers!
Let us, forgetful of all common feuds,
Rally around her shrine! E'en now the tyrant
Concerts a plan of instant massacre!
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Away to the Convention! with that voice
So oft the herald of glad victory,
Rouse their fallen spirits, thunder in their ears
The names of tyrant, plunderer, assassin!
The violent workings of my soul within
Anticipate the monster's blood!
[Cry from the street of
--No tyrant! Down with the tyrant!]
TALLIEN.
Hear ye that outcry?--If the trembling members
Even for a moment hold his fate suspended,
I swear by the holy poniard, that stabbed Caesar,
This dagger probes his heart!
[Exeunt omnes.]
ACT II.
SCENE--The Convention.
[ROBESPIERRE mounts the Tribune.]
ROBESPIERRE.
Once more befits it that the voice of truth,
Fearless in innocence, though leaguer'd round
By envy and her hateful brood of hell,
Be heard amid this hall; once more befits
The patriot, whose prophetic eye so oft
Has pierc'd thro' faction's veil, to flash on crimes
Of deadliest import. Mouldering in the grave
Sleeps Capet's caitiff corse; my daring hand
Levell'd to earth his blood-cemented throne,
My voice declared his guilt, and stirr'd up France
To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave
Where sleep the Girondists, detested band!
Long with the show of freedom they abused
Her ardent sons. Long time the well-turn'd phrase,
The high fraught sentence, and the lofty tone
Of declamation thunder'd in this hall,
Till reason, midst a labyrinth of words,
Perplex'd, in silence seem'd to yield assent.
I durst oppose. Soul of my honour'd friend,
Spirit of Marat, upon thee I call--
Thou know'st me faithful, know'st with what warm zeal
I urged the cause of justice, stripp'd the mask
From faction's deadly visage, and destroy'd
Her traitor brood. Whose patriot arm hurl'd down
Hebert and Rousin, and the villain friends
Of Danton, foul apostate! those, who long
Mask'd treason's form in liberty's fair garb,
Long deluged France with blood, and durst defy
Omnipotence! but I, it seems, am false!
I am a traitor too! I--Robespierre!
I--at whose name the dastard despot brood
Look pale with fear, and call on saints to help them
Who dares accuse me? who shall dare belie
My spotless name? Speak, ye accomplice band,
Of what am I accused? of what strange crime
Is Maximilian Robespierre accused,
That through this hall the buzz of discontent
Should murmur? who shall speak?
BILLAUD VARENNES.
O patriot tongue,
Belying the foul heart! Who was it urged
Friendly to tyrants that accurst decree,
Whose influence brooding o'er this hallow'd hall,
Has chill'd each tongue to silence. Who destroy'd
The freedom of debate, and carried through
The fatal law, that doom'd the delegates,
Unheard before their equals, to the bar
Where cruelty sat throned, and murder reign'd
With her Dumas coequal? Say--thou man
Of mighty eloquence, whose law was that?
COUTHON.
That law was mine. I urged it--I proposed--
The voice of France assembled in her sons
Assented, though the tame and timid voice
Of traitors murmur'd. I advised that law--
I justify it. It was wise and good.
BARRERE.
Oh, wondrous wise, and most convenient too!
I have long mark'd thee, Robespierre--and now
Proclaim thee traitor--tyrant!
[Loud applauses.]
ROBESPIERRE.
It is well;--I am a traitor! oh, that I had fallen
When Regnault lifted high the murderous knife;
Regnault, the instrument, belike of those
Who now themselves would fain assassinate,
And legalize their murders. I stand here
An isolated patriot--hemm'd around
By faction's noisy pack; beset and bay'd
By the foul hell-hounds who know no escape
From justice' outstretch'd arm, but by the force
That pierces through her breast.
[Murmurs, and shouts of
--Down with the tyrant!]
ROBESPIERRE.
Nay, but I will be heard. There was a time
When Robespierre began, the loud applauses
Of honest patriots drown'd the honest sound.
But times are changed, and villany prevails.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
No--villany shall fall. France could not brook
A monarch's sway;--sounds the dictator's name
More soothing to her ear?
BOURDON L'OISE.
Rattle her chains
More musically now than when the hand
Of Brissot forged her fetters; or the crew
Of Hebert thunder'd out their blasphemies,
And Danton talk'd of virtue?
ROBESPIERRE.
Oh, that Brissot
Were here again to thunder in this hall,--
That Hebert lived, and Danton's giant form
Scowl'd once again defiance! so my soul
Might cope with worthy foes.
People of France,
Hear me! Beneath the vengeance of the law
Traitors have perish'd countless; more survive:
The hydra-headed faction lifts anew
Her daring front, and fruitful from her wounds,
Cautious from past defects, contrives new wiles
Against the sons of Freedom.
TALLIEN.
Freedom lives!
Oppression falls--for France has felt her chains,
Has burst them too. Who, traitor-like, stept forth
Amid the hall of Jacobins to save
Camille Desmoulins, and the venal wretch
D'Eglantine?
ROBESPIERRE.
I did--for I thought them honest.
And Heaven forefend that vengeance e'er should strike,
Ere justice doom'd the blow.
BARRERE.
Traitor, thou didst.
Yes, the accomplice of their dark designs,
Awhile didst thou defend them, when the storm
Lour'd at safe distance. When the clouds frown'd darker,
Fear'd for yourself, and left them to their fate.
Oh, I have mark'd thee long, and through the veil
Seen thy foul projects. Yes, ambitious man,
Self-will'd dictator o'er the realm of France,
The vengeance thou hast plann'd for patriots,
Falls on thy head. Look how thy brother's deeds
Dishonour thine! He, the firm patriot;
Thou, the foul parricide of Liberty!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Barrere--attempt not meanly to divide
Me from my brother. I partake his guilt,
For I partake his virtue.
ROBESPIERRE.
Brother, by my soul,
More dear I hold thee to my heart, that thus
With me thou dar'st to tread the dangerous path
Of virtue, than that nature twined her cords
Of kindred round us.
BARRERE.
Yes, allied in guilt,
Even as in blood ye are. Oh, thou worst wretch,
Thou worse than Sylla! hast thou not proscrib'd,
Yea, in most foul anticipation slaughter'd
Each patriot representative of France?
BOURDON L'OISE.
Was not the younger Caesar too to reign
O'er all our valiant armies in the south,
And still continue there his merchant wiles?
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
His merchant wiles! Oh, grant me patience, heaven!
Was it by merchant wiles I gain'd you back
Toulon, when proudly on her captive towers
Wav'd high the English flag? or fought I then
With merchant wiles, when sword in hand I led
Your troops to conquest? fought I merchant-like,
Or barter'd I for victory, when death
Strode o'er the reeking streets with giant stride,
And shook his ebon plumes, and sternly smil'd
Amid the bloody banquet? when appall'd
The hireling sons of England spread the sail
Of safety, fought I like a merchant then?
Oh, patience! patience!
BOURDON L'OISE.
How this younger tyrant
Mouths out defiance to us! even so
He had led on the armies of the south,
Till once again the plains of France were drench'd
With her best blood.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Till once again display'd
Lyons' sad tragedy had call'd me forth
The minister of wrath, whilst slaughter by
Had bathed in human blood.
DUBOIS CRANCE.
No wonder, friend,
That we are traitors--that our heads must fall
Beneath the axe of death! when Caesar-like
Reigns Robespierre, 'tis wisely done to doom
The fall of Brutus. Tell me, bloody man,
Hast thou not parcell'd out deluded France
As it had been some province won in fight
Between your curst triumvirate. You, Couthon,
Go with my brother to the southern plains;
St. Just, be yours the army of the north;
Meantime I rule at Paris.
ROBESPIERRE.
Matchless knave!
What--not one blush of conscience on thy cheek--
Not one poor blush of truth! most likely tale!
That I, who ruin'd Brissot's towering hopes,
I, who discover'd Hebert's impious wiles,
And sharp'd for Danton's recreant neck the axe,
Should now be traitor! had I been so minded,
Think ye I had destroy'd the very men
Whose plots resembled mine? bring forth your proofs
Of this deep treason. Tell me in whose breast
Found ye the fatal scroll? or tell me rather
Who forged the shameless falsehood?
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Ask you proofs?
Robespierre, what proofs were ask'd when Brissot died?
LEGENDRE.
What proofs adduced you when the Danton died?
When at the imminent peril of my life
I rose, and, fearless of thy frowning brow,
Proclaim'd him guiltless?
ROBESPIERRE.
I remember well
The fatal day. I do repent me much
That I kill'd Caesar and spared Antony.
But I have been too lenient. I have spared
The stream of blood, and now my own must flow
To fill the current.
[Loud Applauses.]
Triumph not too soon, Justice may yet be victor.
[Enter ST. JUST, and mounts the Tribune.]
ST. JUST.
I come from the committee--charged to speak
Of matters of high import. I omit
Their orders. Representatives of France,
Boldly in his own person speaks St. Just
What his own heart shall dictate.
TALLIEN.
Hear ye this,
Insulted delegates of France? St. Just
From your committee comes--comes charged to speak
Of matters of high import--yet omits
Their orders! Representatives of France,
That bold man I denounce, who disobeys
The nation's orders.--I denounce St. Just.
[Loud Applauses.]
ST. JUST.
Hear me!
[Violent Murmurs.]
ROBESPIERRE.
He shall be heard!
BURDON L'OISE.
Must we contaminate this sacred hall
With the foul breath of treason?
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Drag him away!
Hence with him to the bar.
COUTHON.
Oh, just proceedings!
Robespierre prevented liberty of speech--
And Robespierre is a tyrant! Tallien reigns,
He dreads to hear the voice of innocence--
And St. Just must be silent!
LEGENDRE.
Heed we well
That justice guide our actions. No light import
Attends this day. I move St. Just be heard.
FRERON.
Inviolate be the sacred right of man,
The freedom of debate.
[Violent Applauses.]
ST. JUST.
I may be heard then! much the times are changed,
When St. Just thanks this hall for hearing him.
Robespierre is call'd a tyrant. Men of France,
Judge not too soon. By popular discontent
Was Aristides driven into exile,
Was Phocion murder'd! Ere ye dare pronounce
Robespierre is guilty, it befits ye well,
Consider who accuse him. Tallien,
Bourdon of Oise--the very men denounced,
For that their dark intrigues disturb'd the plan
Of government. Legendre, the sworn friend
Of Danton fall'n apostate. Dubois Crance,
He who at Lyons spared the royalists--
Collot d'Herbois--
BOURDON L'OISE.
What--shall the traitor rear
His head amid our tribune, and blaspheme
Each patriot? shall the hireling slave of faction--
ST. JUST.
I am of no one faction. I contend
Against all factions.
TALLIEN.
I espouse the cause
Of truth. Robespierre on yester morn pronounced
Upon his own authority a report.
To-day St. Just comes down. St. Just neglects
What the committee orders, and harangues
From his own will. O citizens of France,
I weep for you--I weep for my poor country--
I tremble for the cause of Liberty,
When individuals shall assume the sway,
And with more insolence than kingly pride
Rule the Republic.
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Shudder, ye representatives of France,
Shudder with horror. Henriot commands
The marshall'd force of Paris. Henriot,
Foul parricide--the sworn ally of Hebert
Denounced by all--upheld by Robespierre.
Who spared La Valette? who promoted him,
Stain'd with the deep die of nobility?
Who to an ex-peer gave the high command?
Who screen'd from justice the rapacious thief?
Who cast in chains the friends of Liberty?
Robespierre, the self-styled patriot, Robespierre--
Robespierre, allied with villain Daubignè--
Robespierre, the foul arch tyrant, Robespierre.
BOURDON L'OISE.
He talks of virtue--of morality--
Consistent patriot! he Daubignè's friend!
Henriot's supporter virtuous! preach of virtue,
Yet league with villains, for with Robespierre
Villains alone ally. Thou art a tyrant!
I style thee tyrant, Robespierre!
[Loud Applauses.]
ROBESPIERRE.
Take back the name. Ye citizens of France--
[Violent Clamour. Cries of
--Down with the tyrant!]
TALLlEN.
Oppression falls. The traitor stands appall'd--
Guilt's iron fangs engrasp his shrinking soul--
He hears assembled France denounce his crimes!
He sees the mask torn from his secret sins--
He trembles on the precipice of fate.
Fall'n guilty tyrant! murder'd by thy rage,
How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd
Fair freedom's altar! Sylla-like thy hand
Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed,
Perpetual Dictator thou might'st reign,
And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom!
Long time in timid guilt the traitor plann'd
His fearful wiles--success embolden'd sin--
And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem
Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd,
Lest France awaked, should rouse her from her dream,
And call aloud for vengeance. He, like Caesar,
With rapid step urged on his bold career,
Even to the summit of ambitious power,
And deem'd the name of King alone was wanting.
Was it for this we hurl'd proud Capet down?
Is it for this we wage eternal war
Against the tyrant horde of murderers,
The crowned cockatrices whose foul venom
Infects all Europe? was it then for this
We swore to guard our liberty with life,
That Robespierre should reign? the spirit of freedom
Is not yet sunk so low. The glowing flame
That animates each honest Frenchman's heart
Not yet extinguish'd. I invoke thy shade,
Immortal Brutus! I too wear a dagger;
And if the representatives of France
Through fear or favour should delay the sword
Of justice, Tallien emulates thy virtues;
Tallien, like Brutus, lifts the avenging arm;
Tallien shall save his country.
[Violent Applauses.]
BILLAUD VARENNES.
I demand
The arrest of all the traitors. Memorable
Will be this day for France.
ROBESPIERRE.
Yes! Memorable
This day will be for France--for villains triumph.
LEBAS.
I will not share in this day's damning guilt.
Condemn me too.
[Great cry
--Down with the tyrants!
The two Robespierres, Couthon, St. Just, and Lebas are led off.]
ACT III.
SCENE continues.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Caesar is fallen! The baneful tree of Java,
Whose death-distilling boughs dropt poisonous dew,
Is rooted from its base. This worse than Cromwell,
The austere, the self-denying Robespierre,
Even in this hall, where once with terror mute
We listen'd to the hypocrite's harangues,
Has heard his doom.
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Yet must we not suppose
The tyrant will fall tamely. His sworn hireling
Henriot, the daring desperate Henriot
Commands the force of Paris. I denounce him.
FRERON.
I denounce Fleuriot too, the mayor of Paris.
[Enter DUBOIS CRANCE.]
DUBOIS CRANCE.
Robespierre is rescued. Henriot, at the head
Of the arm'd force, has rescued the fierce tyrant.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Ring the tocsin--call all the citizens
To save their country--never yet has Paris
Forsook the representatives of France.
TALLIEN.
It is the hour of danger. I propose
This sitting be made permanent.
[Loud Applauses.]
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
The national Convention shall remain
Firm at its post.
[Enter a MESSENGER.]
MESSENGER.
Robespierre has reach'd the Commune. They espouse
The tyrant's cause. St. Just is up in arms!
St. Just--the young, ambitious, bold St. Just
Harangues the mob. The sanguinary Couthon
Thirsts for your blood.
[Tocsin rings.]
TALLIEN.
These tyrants are in arms against the law:
Outlaw the rebels.
[Enter MERLIN OF DOUAY.]
MERLIN.
Health to the representatives of France!
I pass'd this moment through the armed force--
They ask'd my name--and when they heard a delegate,
Swore I was not the friend of France.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
The tyrants threaten us as when they turn'd
The cannon's mouth on Brissot.
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
SECOND MESSENGER.
Vivier harangues the Jacobins--the club
Espouse the cause of Robespierre.
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
THIRD MESSENGER.
All's lost--the tyrant triumphs. Henriot leads
The soldiers to his aid.--Already I hear
The rattling cannon destin'd to surround
This sacred hall.
TALLIEN.
Why, we will die like men then.
The representatives of France dare death,
When duty steels their bosoms.
[Loud Applauses.]
TALLIEN [addressing the galleries.]
Citizens! France is insulted in her delegates--
The majesty of the Republic is insulted--
Tyrants are up in arms. An armed force
Threats the Convention. The Convention swears
To die, or save the country!
[Violent Applauses from the galleries.]
CITIZEN [from above.]
We too swear
To die, or save the country. Follow me.
[All the men quit the galleries.]
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
FOURTH MESSENGER.
Henriot is taken!--
[Loud Applauses.]
Henriot is taken. Three of your brave soldiers
Swore they would seize the rebel slave of tyrants,
Or perish in the attempt. As he patroll'd
The streets of Paris, stirring up the mob,
They seized him.
[Applauses.]
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Let the names of these brave men
Live to the future day.
[Enter BOURDON L'OISE, sword in hand.]
BOURDON L'OISE.
I have clear'd the Commune.
[Applauses.]
Through the throng I rush'd,
Brandishing my good sword to drench its blade
Deep in the tyrant's heart. The timid rebels
Gave way. I met the soldiery--I spake
Of the dictator's crimes--of patriots chain'd
In dark deep dungeons by his lawless rage--
Of knaves secure beneath his fostering power.
I spake of Liberty. Their honest hearts
Caught the warm flame. The general shout burst forth,
"Live the Convention--Down with Robespierre!"
[Applauses. Shouts from without
--Down with the tyrant!]
TALLIEN.
I hear, I hear the soul-inspiring sounds,
France shall be saved! her generous sons attach'd
To principles, not persons, spurn the idol
They worshipp'd once. Yes, Robespierre shall fall
As Capet fell! Oh! never let us deem
That France shall crouch beneath a tyrant's throne,
That the almighty people who have broke
On their oppressors' heads the oppressive chain,
Will court again their fetters! easier were it
To hurl the cloud-capt mountain from its base,
Than force the bonds of slavery upon men
Determined to be free!
[Applauses.]
[Enter LEGENDRE, a Pistol in one hand, Keys in the other.]
LEGENDRE, [flinging down the Keys.]
So--let the mutinous Jacobins meet now In the open air.
[Loud Applauses.]
A factious, turbulent party,
Lording it o'er the state since Danton died,
And with him the Cordeliers.--A hireling band
Of loud-tongued orators controll'd the club,
And bade them bow the knee to Robespierre.
Vivier has 'scap'd me. Curse his coward heart--
This fate-fraught tube of Justice in my hand,
I rush'd into the hall. He mark'd mine eye,
That beam'd its patriot anger, and flash'd full
With death-denouncing meaning. 'Mid the throng
He mingled. I pursued--but staid my hand,
Lest haply I might shed the innocent blood.
[Applauses.]
FRERON.
They took from me my ticket of admission--
Expell'd me from their sittings.--Now, forsooth,
Humbled and trembling re-insert my name.
But Freron enters not the club again
Till it be purged of guilt--till, purified
Of tyrants and of traitors, honest men
May breathe the air in safety.
[Shouts from without.]
BARRERE.
What means this uproar! if the tyrant band
Should gain the people once again to rise--
We are as dead!
TALLIEN.
And wherefore fear we death?
Did Brutus fear it? or the Grecian friends
Who buried in Hipparchus' breast the sword,
And died triumphant? Caesar should fear death,
Brutus must scorn the bugbear.
[Shouts from without:
Live the Convention--Down with the tyrants!]
TALLIEN.
Hark! again
The sounds of honest Freedom!
[Enter DEPUTIES from the SECTIONS.]
CITIZEN.
Citizens! representatives of France!
Hold on your steady course. The men of Paris
Espouse your cause. The men of Paris swear
They will defend the delegates of Freedom.
TALLIEN.
Hear ye this, colleagues? hear ye this, my brethren?
And does no thrill of joy pervade your breasts?
My bosom bounds to rapture. I have seen
The sons of France shake off the tyrant yoke;
I have, as much as lies in mine own arm,
Hurl'd down the usurper.--Come death when it will,
I have lived long enough.
[Shouts without.]
BARRERE.
Hark! how the noise increases! through the gloom
Of the still evening--harbinger of death
Rings the tocsin! the dreadful generale
Thunders through Paris--
[Cry without
--Down with the tyrant!]
[Enter LECOINTRE.]
LECOINTRE.
So may eternal justice blast the foes
Of France! so perish all the tyrant brood,
As Robespierre has perish'd! Citizens,
Caesar is taken.
[Loud and repeated Applauses.]
I marvel not, that, with such fearless front,
He braved our vengeance, and with angry eye
Scowl'd round the hall defiance. He relied
On Henriot's aid--the Commune's villain friendship,
And Henriot's boughten succours. Ye have heard
How Henriot rescued him--how with open arms
The Commune welcomed in the rebel tyrant--
How Fleuriot aided, and seditious Vivier
Stirr'd up the Jacobins. All had been lost--
The representatives of France had perish'd--
Freedom had sunk beneath the tyrant arm
Of this foul parricide, but that her spirit
Inspired the men of Paris. Henriot call'd
"To arms" in vain, whilst Bourdon's patriot voice
Breathed eloquence, and o'er the Jacobins
Legendre frown'd dismay. The tyrants fled--
They reach'd the Hotel. We gather'd round--we call'd
For vengeance! Long time, obstinate in despair,
With knives they hack'd around them. Till foreboding
The sentence of the law, the clamorous cry
Of joyful thousands hailing their destruction,
Each sought by suicide to escape the dread
Of death. Lebas succeeded. From the window
Leap'd the younger Robespierre; but his fractur'd limb
Forbade to escape. The self-will'd dictator
Plung'd often the keen knife in his dark breast,
Yet impotent to die. He lives, all mangled
By his own tremulous hand! All gash'd and gored,
He lives to taste the bitterness of death.
Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon,
The fierce St. Just, even now attend their tyrant
To fall beneath the axe. I saw the torches
Flash on their visages a dreadful light--
I saw them whilst the black blood roll'd adown
Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye
Scowl round contemptuous, dying as they lived,
Fearless of fate!
[Loud and repeated Applauses.]
BARRERE [mounts the Tribune.]
For ever hallow'd be this glorious day,
When Freedom, bursting her oppressive chain,
Tramples on the oppressor. When the tyrant,
Hurl'd from his blood-cemented throne by the arm
Of the almighty people, meets the death
He plann'd for thousands. Oh! my sickening heart
Has sunk within me, when the various woes
Of my brave country crowded o'er my brain
In ghastly numbers--when assembled hordes,
Dragg'd from their hovels by despotic power,
Rush'd o'er her frontiers, plunder'd her fair hamlets,
And sack'd her populous towns, and drench'd with blood
The reeking fields of Flanders.--When within,
Upon her vitals prey'd the rankling tooth
Of treason; and oppression, giant form,
Trampling on freedom, left the alternative
Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day,
When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced
The doom of injured France, has faction rear'd
Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd
Of mercy--the uxorious, dotard Roland,
The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire
To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue,
And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honey'd tongue
Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction.
We triumph'd over these. On the same scaffold
Where the last Louis pour'd his guilty blood,
Fell Brissot's head, the womb of darksome treasons,
And Orleans, villain kinsman of the Capet,
And Hebert's atheist crew, whose maddening hand
Hurl'd down the altars of the living God,
With all the infidel's intolerance.
The last worst traitor triumph'd--triumph'd long,
Secured by matchless villany. By turns
Defending and deserting each accomplice
As interest prompted. In the goodly soil
Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck
Its deep-fix'd roots, and dropt the dews of death
On all who slumber'd in its specious shade.
He wove the web of treachery. He caught
The listening crowd by his wild eloquence,
His cool ferocity that persuaded murder,
Even whilst it spake of mercy!--never, never
Shall this regenerated country wear
The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail,
And with worse fury urge this new crusade
Than savages have known; though the leagued despots
Depopulate all Europe, so to pour
The accumulated mass upon our coasts,
Sublime amid the storm shall France arise,
And like the rock amid surrounding waves
Repel the rushing ocean.--She shall wield
The thunder-bolt of vengeance--she shall blast
The despot's pride, and liberate the world!
POEMS
--medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid.--- LUCRET.
"JULIA WAS BLEST WITH BEAUTY, WIT AND GRACE..."
Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace:
Small poets loved to sing her blooming face.
Before her altars, lo! a numerous train
Preferr'd their vows; yet all preferr'd in vain:
Till charming Florio, born to conquer, came,
And touch'd the fair one with an equal flame.
The flame she felt, and ill could she conceal
What every look and action would reveal.
With boldness then, which seldom fails to move,
He pleads the cause of marriage and of love;
The course of hymeneal joys he rounds,
The fair one's eyes dance pleasure at the sounds.
Nought now remain'd but "Noes"--how little meant--
And the sweet coyness that endears consent.
The youth upon his knees enraptur'd fell:--
The strange misfortune, oh! what words can tell?
Tell! ye neglected sylphs! who lap-dogs guard,
Why snatch'd ye not away your precious ward?
Why suffer'd ye the lover's weight to fall
On the ill-fated neck of much-loved Ball?
The favourite on his mistress cast his eyes,
Gives a short melancholy howl, and--dies!
Sacred his ashes lie, and long his rest!
Anger and grief divide poor Julia's breast.
Her eyes she fix'd on guilty Florio first,
On him the storm of angry grief must burst.
That storm he fled:--he wooes a kinder fair,
Whose fond affections no dear puppies share.
'Twere vain to tell how Julia pined away;--
Unhappy fair, that in one luckless day
(From future almanacks the day be crost!)
At once her lover and her lap-dog lost!
1789. [1]
[Footnote 1: This copy of verses was written at Christ's Hospital, and
transcribed, 'honoris causa', into the book kept by the head-master, Mr.
Bowyer, for that purpose. They are printed by Mr. Trollope in p. 192 of
his 'History of the Hospital', published in 1834. Ed.]
"I YET REMAIN..."
--I yet remain
To mourn the hours of youth (yet mourn in vain)
That fled neglected: wisely thou hast trod
The better path--and that high meed which God
Assign'd to virtue, tow'ring from the dust,
Shall wait thy rising, Spirit pure and just.
O God! how sweet it were to think, that all
Who silent mourn around this gloomy ball
Might hear the voice of joy;--but 'tis the will
Of man's great Author, that through good and ill
Calm he should hold his course, and so sustain
His varied lot of pleasure, toil, and pain!
1793. [1]
[Footnote 1: These lines were found in Mr. Coleridge's hand-writing in
one of the Prayer Books in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. Ed.]
TO THE REV. W. J. HORT. [1]
Hush! ye clamorous cares, be mute!
Again, dear harmonist! again
Through the hollow of thy flute
Breathe that passion-warbled strain;
Till memory back each form shall bring
The loveliest of her shadowy throng,
And hope, that soars on sky-lark wing,
Shall carol forth her gladdest song!
O skill'd with magic spell to roll
The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul!
Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again,
While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild;
And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.
In freedom's undivided dell,
Where toil and health with mellow'd love shall dwell--
Far from folly, far from men,
In the rude romantic glen,
Up the cliff, and through the glade,
Wand'ring with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,
And ponder on thee far away;--
Still as she bids those thrilling notes aspire
(Making my fond attuned heart her lyre),
Thy honour'd form, my friend! shall reappear,
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear!
1794.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Hort was a Unitarian clergyman, and in 1794 second
master in Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Estlin's school on St. Michael's Hill,
Bristol. Ed.]
TO CHARLES LAMB,
WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM.
Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling;--yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I, too, a sister had, an only sister--[1]
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,)
And of the heart those hidden maladies--
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed.
O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept
Because she was not!--Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year;
Such warm presages feel I of high hope!
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've view'd--her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind!) [2]
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,--
Prepared, when He his healing ray vouchsafes,
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart,
And praise him gracious with a brother's joy!
1794.
[Footnote 1: This line and the six and a half which follow are printed,
by mistake, as a fragment in the first volume of the 'Poetical Works',
1834, p. 35. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: "I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the line
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to 'implore' were impotence of mind,--
it being written in Scripture, 'Ask,' and it shall be given you! and my
human reason being, moreover, convinced of the propriety of offering
'petitions' as well as thanksgivings to Deity." S. T. C. 1797. "I will
add, at the risk of appearing to dwell too long on religious topics,
that on this my first introduction to Coleridge, he reverted with strong
compunction to a sentiment which he had expressed in earlier days upon
prayer. In one of his youthful poems, speaking of God, he had said,--
--'Of whose all-seeing eye
Aught to demand were impotence of mind.'
This sentiment he now so utterly condemned, that, on the contrary, he
told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the
highest energy of which the human heart was capable--praying, that is,
with the total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass of
worldly men and of learned men he pronounced absolutely incapable of
praying." 'Mr. De Quincey in Tait's Magazine, September, 1834, p.515.'
"Mr. Coleridge, within two years of his death, very solemnly declared to
me his conviction upon the same subject. I was sitting by his bed-side
one afternoon, and he fell--an unusual thing for him--into a long
account of many passages of his past life, lamenting some things,
condemning others, but complaining withal, though very gently, of the
way in which many of his most innocent acts had been cruelly
misrepresented. 'But I have no difficulty,' said he, 'in forgiveness;
indeed, I know not how to say with sincerity the clause in the Lord's
Prayer, which asks forgiveness 'as we forgive'. I feel nothing answering
to it in my heart. Neither do I find, or reckon, the most solemn faith
in God as a real object, the most arduous act of the reason and will;--O
no! my dear, it is 'to pray', to pray as God would have us; this is what
at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all
your heart and strength, with the reason and the will, to believe
vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do
the thing he pleaseth thereupon--this is the last, the greatest
achievement of the Christian's warfare on earth. 'Teach' us to pray, O
Lord!' And then he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray
for him. O what a sight was there!" 'Table Talk,' vol. i. p. 162. Ed.]
TO THE NIGHTINGALE.
Sister of lovelorn poets, Philomel!
How many bards in city garret spent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of watchmen,
(Those hoarse, unfeather'd nightingales of time!)
How many wretched bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd queen, that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moou-mellow'd foliage hid,
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd, hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft
I hymn thy name; and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, minstrel of the moon,
Most musical, most melancholy bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Though sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
Are not so sweet, as is the voice of her,
My Sara--best beloved of human kind!
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness,
She thrills me with the husband's promised name!
1794.
TO SARA.
The stream with languid murmur creeps
In Lumin's flowery vale;
Beneath the dew the lily weeps,
Slow waving to the gale.
"Cease, restless gale," it seems to say,
"Nor wake me with thy sighing:
The honours of my vernal day
On rapid wings are flying.
"To-morrow shall the traveller come,
That erst beheld me blooming,
His searching eye shall vainly roam
The dreary vale of Lumin."
With eager gaze and wetted cheek
My wonted haunts along,
Thus, lovely maiden, thou shalt seek
The youth of simplest song.
But I along the breeze will roll
The voice of feeble power,
And dwell, the moon-beam of thy soul,
In slumber's nightly hour.
1794
TO JOSEPH COTTLE,
Unboastful Bard! whose verse concise, yet clear,
Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense,
May your fame fadeless live, as never-sere
The ivy wreathes yon oak, whose broad defence
Embowers me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless rivulet stealing by,
Your modest verse to musing quiet dear,
Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd;--the charm'd eye
Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky.
Circling the base of the poetic mount,
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from oblivion's fount:
The vapour-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet
Beneath the mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,
A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlabouring feet.
Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That, like some giant king, o'er-glooms the hill;
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! but th' unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill,
Murmurs sweet undersong mid jasmine bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd--there collecting flowers
Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers!
There for the monarch-murder'd soldier's tomb
You wove th' unfinish'd wreath of saddest hues;
And to that holier chaplet added bloom,
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your Henderson awakes the Muse--
His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain, and soar'd mid richer views.
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of night!
Still soar, my friend! those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent, flashing fancy's beam!
Virtue and truth shall love your gentler song;
But poesy demands th' impassion'd theme.
Wak'd by heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam,
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around!
But if the vext air rush a stormy stream,
Or autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound,
With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest-honour'd ground!
1795.
CASIMIR.
If we except Lucretius and Statius, I know no Latin poet, ancient or
modern, who has equalled Casimir in boldness of conception, opulence of
fancy, or beauty of versification. The Odes of this illustrious Jesuit
were translated into English about 150 years ago, by a G. Hils, I think.
[1] I never saw the translation. A few of the Odes have been translated
in a very animated manner by Watts. I have subjoined the third Ode of
the second Book, which, with the exception of the first line, is an
effusion of exquisite elegance. In the imitation attempted, I am
sensible that I have destroyed the effect of suddenness, by translating
into two stanzas what is one in the original. 1796.
AD LYRAM.
Sonora buxi filia sutilis,
Pendebis alta, barbite, populo,
Dum ridet aer, et supinas
Solicitat levis aura frondes.
Te sibilantis lenior halitus
Perflabit Euri: me juvet interim
Collum reclinasse, et virenti
Sic temere [2] jacuisse ripa.
Eheu! serenum quæ nebulæ tegunt
Repente cælum! quis sonus imbrium!
Surgamus--heu semper fugaci
Gaudia præteritura passu!
IMITATION.
The solemn-breathing air is ended--
Cease, O Lyre! thy kindred lay!
From the poplar branch suspended,
Glitter to the eye of day!
On thy wires, hov'ring, dying,
Softly sighs the summer wind:
I will slumber, careless lying,
By yon waterfall reclin'd.
In the forest hollow-roaring,
Hark! I hear a deep'ning sound--
Clouds rise thick with heavy low'ring!
See! th' horizon blackens round!
Parent of the soothing measure,
Let me seize thy wetted string!
Swiftly flies the flatterer, pleasure,
Headlong, ever on the wing!
[Footnote 1: The Odes of Casimire translated by G.H. [G. Hils.] London,
1646. 12mo. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Had Casimir any better authority for this quantity than
Tertullian's line,--
Immemor ille Dei temere committere tale--?
In the classic poets the last syllable is, I believe, uniformly cut off.
Ed.]
DARWINIANA.
THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. (COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN
ABSENCE.)
Dim Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar,
O rise, and yoke the turtles to thy car!
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove,
And give me to the bosom of my love!
My gentle love! caressing and carest,
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest;
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs;
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek.
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day:
Young Day returning at her promised hour,
Weeps o'er the sorrows of the fav'rite flower,--
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs,
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels:
His pitying mistress mourns, and mourning heals!
1796.
In my calmer moments I have the firmest faith that all things work
together for good. But, alas! it seems a long and a dark process:--
"THE EARLY YEAR'S FAST-FLYING VAPOURS STRAY..."
The early year's fast-flying vapours stray
In shadowing trains across the orb of day;
And we, poor insects of a few short hours,
Deem it a world of gloom.
Were it not better hope, a nobler doom,
Proud to believe, that with more active powers
On rapid many-colour'd wing,
We thro' one bright perpetual spring
Shall hover round the fruits and flowers,
Screen'd by those clouds, and cherish'd by those showers!
1796.
COUNT RUMFORB'S ESSAYS.
These, Virtue, are thy triumphs, that adorn
Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born
For loftiest action;--not to gaze and run
From clime to clime; or batten in the sun,
Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower,
Like summer insects in a gaudy hour;
Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range,
And cry, ''Tis pitiful,'tis passing strange!'
But on life's varied views to look around,
And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:--
And he--who thus hath borne his part assign'd
In the sad fellowship of human kind,
Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain
Of a poor brother--has not lived in vain.
1796
EPIGRAMS.
ON A LATE MARRIAGE BETWEEN AN OLD MAID AND A FRENCH PETIT MAîTRE.
Tho' Miss----'s match is a subject of mirth
She consider'd the matter full well,
And wisely preferr'd leading one ape on earth
To perhaps a whole dozen in hell.
1796.
ON AN AMOROUS DOCTOR.
From Rufa's eye sly Cupid shot his dart,
And left it sticking in Sangrado's heart.
No quiet from that moment has he known,
And peaceful sleep has from his eyelids flown;
And opium's force, and what is more, alack!
His own orations cannot bring it back.
In short, unless she pities his afflictions,
Despair will make him take his own prescriptions.
1796.
"THERE COMES FROM OLD AVARO'S GRAVE..."
There comes from old Avaro's grave
A deadly stench;--why, sure, they have
Immured his soul within his grave!
1796.
"LAST MONDAY ALL THE PAPERS SAID..."
Last Monday all the papers said
That Mr.---- was dead;
Why, then, what said the city?
The tenth part sadly shook their head,
And shaking sigh'd, and sighing said,
"Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"
But when the said report was found
A rumour wholly without ground,
Why, then, what said the city?
The other nine parts shook their head,
Repeating what the tenth had said,
"Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"
1796.
TO A PRIMROSE,
(THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON.)
--nitens, et roboris expers Turget et insolida est: at spe delectat.
(Ovid).
Thy smiles I note, sweet early flower,
That peeping from thy rustic bower,
The festive news to earth dost bring,
A fragrant messenger of spring!
But tender blossom, why so pale?
Dost hear stern winter in the gale?
And didst them tempt th' ungentle sky
To catch one vernal glance and die?
Such the wan lustre sickness wears,
When health's first feeble beam appears;
So languid are the smiles that seek
To settle on the care-worn cheek,
When timorous hope the head uprears,
Still drooping and still moist with tears,
If, through dispersing grief, be seen
Of bliss the heavenly spark serene.
1796.
ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.
This day among the faithful placed,
And fed with fontal manna,
O with maternal title graced
Dear Anna's dearest Anna!--
While others wish thee wise and fair,
A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer--
May'st thou deserve thy name!
Thy mother's name--a potent spell,
That bids the virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell
Confess'd to fancy's eye;--
Meek quietness without offence;
Content in homespun kirtle;
True love; and true love's innocence,
White blossom of the myrtle!
Associates of thy name, sweet child!
These virtues may'st thou win;
With face as eloquently mild
To say, they lodge within.
So, when her tale of days all flown,
Thy mother shall be mist here;
When Heaven at length shall claim its own,
And angels snatch their sister;
Some hoary-headed friend, perchance,
May gaze with stifled breath;
And oft, in momentary trance,
Forget the waste of death.
Ev'n thus a lovely rose I view'd,
In summer-swelling pride;
Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude
Peep'd at the rose's side.
It chanced, I pass'd again that way
In autumn's latest hour,
And wond'ring saw the selfsame spray
Rich with the selfsame flower.
Ah, fond deceit! the rude green bud
Alike in shape, place, name,
Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud,
Another and the same!
1796.
EPIGRAM.
Hoarse Maevius reads his hobbling verse
To all, and at all times;
And finds them both divinely smooth,
His voice, as well as rhymes.
Yet folks say--"Maevius is no ass:"--
But Maevius makes it clear,
That he's a monster of an ass,
An ass without an ear.
1797.
INSCRIPTION BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES
IN NETHER STOWEY CHURCH.
Lætus abi! mundi strepitu curisque remotus;
Lætus abi! cæli qua vocat alma quies.
Ipsa Fides loquitur, lacrymamque incusat inanem,
Quae cadit in vestros, care pater, cineres.
Heu! tantum liceat meritos hos solvere ritus,
Et longum tremula dicere voce, Vale!
TRANSLATION.
Depart in joy from this world's noise and strife
To the deep quiet of celestial life!
Depart!--Affection's self reproves the tear
Which falls, O honour'd Parent! on thy bier;--
Yet Nature will be heard, the heart will swell,
And the voice tremble with a last Farewell!
INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.
The following poem is intended as the introduction to a somewhat longer
one. The use of the old ballad word 'Ladie' for Lady, is the only piece
of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times,
I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity, as Camden
says, will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a
force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against
the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties
explode around us in all directions, he should presume to offer to the
public a silly tale of old-fashioned love: and five years ago, I own I
should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But alas!
explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases
to appear new; and it is possible that now, even a simple story, wholly
uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention amid
the hubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time by
the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinctly audible.
1799.
O leave the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.
A cypress and a myrtle-bough
This morn around my harp you twin'd,
Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a tale of love and woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs
And trembles on the string.
But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come and hear the cruel wrongs
Befell the Dark Ladie! [1]
...
And now once more a tale of woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,
And trembles on the string.
When last I sang the cruel scorn
That craz'd this bold and lovely knight,
And how he roam'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day or night;
I promised thee a sister tale
Of man's perfidious cruelty;
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong
Befell the Dark Ladie.
[Footnote 1: Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published separately
under the title "Love." (Poet. Works, vol. i. p. 145. Pickering, 1834.)
and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole
forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that
exists is to be found ibid. p. 150. Ed.]
EPILOGUE TO THE RASH CONJUROR.
AN UNCOMPOSED POEM.
We ask and urge--(here ends the story!)
All Christian Papishes to pray
That this unhappy Conjuror may,
Instead of Hell, be but in Purgatory,--
For then there's hope;--Long live the Pope!
1805.
PSYCHE
The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name--
But of the soul, escap'd the slavish trade
Of mortal life!--For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.
1808.
COMPLAINT
How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth, with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
REPROOF.
For shame, dear Friend! renounce this canting strain!
What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place--titles--salary--a gilded chain--
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?--
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man?--three treasures, love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;--
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
1809.
AN ODE TO THE RAIN
Composed Before Day-Light on the Morning Appointed for the Departure of
a Very Worthy, But Not Very Pleasant Visitor, Whom It Was Feared The
Rain Might Detain.
I know it is dark; and though I have lain
Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain,
I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes,
But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies.
O Rain! that I lie listening to,
You're but a doleful sound at best:
I owe you little thanks, 'tis true,
For breaking thus my needful rest!
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain! you will but take your flight,
I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,
Though sick and sore for want of sleep.
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!
You know, if you know aught, that we,
Both night and day, but ill agree:
For days, and months, and almost years,
Have limped on through this vale of tears,
Since body of mine, and rainy weather,
Have lived on easy terms together.
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow;
Though stomach should sicken, and knees should swell--
I'll nothing speak of you but well.
But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say
You're a good creature in your way.
Nay, I could write a book myself,
Would fit a parson's lower shelf,
Showing, how very good you are.--
What then? sometimes it must be fair!
And if sometimes, why not to-day?
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy,
Take no offence! I'll tell you why.
A dear old Friend e'en now is here,
And with him came my sister dear;
After long absence now first met,
Long months by pain and grief beset--
With three dear friends! in truth, we groan
Impatiently to be alone.
We three, you mark! and not one more!
The strong wish makes my spirit sore.
We have so much to talk about,
So many sad things to let out;
So many tears in our eye-corners,
Sitting like little Jacky Horners--
In short, as soon as it is day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away.
And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain!
Whenever you shall come again,
Be you as dull as e'er you could;
(And by the bye 'tis understood,
You're not so pleasant, as you're good;)
Yet, knowing well your worth and place,
I'll welcome you with cheerful face;
And though you stay'd a week or more,
Were ten times duller than before;
Yet with kind heart, and right good will,
I'll sit and listen to you still;
Nor should you go away, dear Rain!
Uninvited to remain.
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away.
1809.
TRANSLATION
Of a Passage in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the Gospels.
"This Paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, is by no means
deficient in occasional passages of considerable poetic merit. There is
a flow, and a tender enthusiasm in the following lines (at the
conclusion of Chapter V.), which even in the translation will not, I
flatter myself, fail to interest the reader. Ottfried is describing the
circumstances immediately following the birth of our Lord."--'Biog.
Lit.' vol. i. p. 203.
She gave with joy her virgin breast;
She hid it not, she bared the breast,
Which suckled that divinest babe!
Blessed, blessed were the breasts
Which the Saviour infant kiss'd;
And blessed, blessed was the mother
Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes,
Singing placed him on her lap,
Hung o'er him with her looks of love,
And soothed him with a lulling motion.
Blessed! for she shelter'd him
From the damp and chilling air;--
Blessed, blessed! for she lay
With such a babe in one blest bed,
Close as babes and mothers lie!
Blessed, blessed evermore,
With her virgin lips she kiss'd,
With her arms, and to her breast,
She embraced the babe divine,
Her babe divine the virgin mother!
There lives not on this ring of earth
A mortal that can sing her praise.
Mighty mother, virgin pure,
In the darkness and the night
For us she bore the heavenly Lord.
1810
"Most interesting is it to consider the effect, when the feelings are
wrought above the natural pitch by the belief of something mysterious,
while all the images are purely natural: then it is that religion and
poetry strike deepest."--'Biog. Lit.' vol. i. p. 204.
ISRAEL'S LAMENT
ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES. FROM THE HEBREW OF
HYMAN HURWITZ.
Mourn, Israel! Sons of Israel, mourn!
Give utterance to the inward throe,
As wails of her first love forlorn
The virgin clad in robes of woe!
Mourn the young mother snatch'd away
From light and life's ascending sun!
Mourn for the babe, death's voiceless prey,
Earn'd by long pangs, and lost ere won!
Mourn the bright rose that bloom'd and went,
Ere half disclosed its vernal hue!
Mourn the green bud, so rudely rent,
It brake the stem on which it grew!
Mourn for the universal woe,
With solemn dirge and falt'ring tongue;
For England's Lady is laid low,
So dear, so lovely, and so young!
The blossoms on her tree of life
Shone with the dews of recent bliss;--
Translated in that deadly strife
She plucks its fruit in Paradise.
Mourn for the prince, who rose at morn
To seek and bless the firstling bud
Of his own rose, and found the thorn,
Its point bedew'd with tears of blood.
Mourn for Britannia's hopes decay'd;--
Her daughters wail their dear defence,
Their fair example, prostrate laid,
Chaste love, and fervid innocence!
O Thou! who mark'st the monarch's path,
To sad Jeshurun's sons attend!
Amid the lightnings of thy wrath
The showers of consolation send!
Jehovah frowns!--The Islands bow,
And prince and people kiss the rod!
Their dread chastising judge wert Thou--
Be Thou their comforter, O God!
1817.
SENTIMENTAL.
The rose that blushes like the morn
Bedecks the valleys low;
And so dost thou, sweet infant corn,
My Angelina's toe.
But on the rose there grows a thorn
That breeds disastrous woe;
And so dost thou, remorseless corn,
On Angelina's toe.
1825.
THE ALTERNATIVE.
This way or that, ye Powers above me!
I of my grief were rid--
Did Enna either really love me,
Or cease to think she did.
1826.
THE EXCHANGE.
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,--
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.
Her father's love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man--in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
1826
WHAT IS LIFE?
Resembles life what once was deem'd of light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute self--an element ungrounded--
All that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?--
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?
1829.
INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE.
Now! It is gone.--Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:--
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee--an eternal Now!
1830.
EPITAPHION AUTOGRAPHTON
Quae linquam, aut nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt mea;--
Do Morti;--reddo caetera, Christe! tibi. [sordes.]
A COURSE OF LECTURES
PROSPECTUS.
There are few families, at present, in the higher and middle classes of
English society, in which literary topics and the productions of the
Fine Arts, in some one or other of their various forms, do not
occasionally take their turn in contributing to the entertainment of the
social board, and the amusement of the circle at the fire side. The
acquisitions and attainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to hold a
very inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral worth, or even to
professional and specific skill, prudence, and industry. But why should
they be opposed, when they may be made subservient merely by being
subordinated? It can rarely happen, that a man of social disposition,
altogether a stranger to subjects of taste, (almost the only ones on
which persons of both sexes can converse with a common interest) should
pass through the world without at times feeling dissatisfied with
himself. The best proof of this is to be found in the marked anxiety
which men, who have succeeded in life without the aid of these
accomplishments, shew in securing them to their children. A young man of
ingenuous mind will not wilfully deprive himself of any species of
respect. He will wish to feel himself on a level with the average of the
society in which he lives, though he may be ambitious of distinguishing
himself only in his own immediate pursuit or occupation.
Under this conviction, the following Course of Lectures was planned. The
several titles will best explain the particular subjects and purposes of
each: but the main objects proposed, as the result of all, are the two
following.
1. To convey, in a form best fitted to render them impressive at the
time, and remembered afterwards, rules and principles of sound judgment,
with a kind and degree of connected information, such as the hearers
cannot generally be supposed likely to form, collect, and arrange for
themselves, by their own unassisted studies. It might be presumption to
say, that any important part of these Lectures could not be derived from
books; but none, I trust, in supposing, that the same information could
not be so surely or conveniently acquired from such books as are of
commonest occurrence, or with that quantity of time and attention which
can be reasonably expected, or even wisely desired, of men engaged in
business and the active duties of the world.
2. Under a strong persuasion that little of real value is derived by
persons in general from a wide and various reading; but still more
deeply convinced as to the actual mischief of unconnected and
promiscuous reading, and that it is sure, in a greater or less degree,
to enervate even where it does not likewise inflate; I hope to satisfy
many an ingenuous mind, seriously interested in its own development and
cultivation, how moderate a number of volumes, if only they be
judiciously chosen, will suffice for the attainment of every wise and
desirable purpose; that is, in addition to those which he studies for
specific and professional purposes. It is saying less than the truth to
affirm, that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good
of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well chosen and well tended fruit
tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural
intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the
same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return
to it with the same healthful appetite.
The subjects of the Lectures are indeed very different, but not (in the
strict sense of the term) diverse; they are various, rather than
miscellaneous. There is this bond of connexion common to them all,--that
the mental pleasure which they are calculated to excite is not dependent
on accidents of fashion, place, or age, or the events or the customs of
the day; but commensurate with the good sense, taste, and feeling, to
the cultivation of which they themselves so largely contribute, as being
all in kind, though not all in the same degree, productions of genius.
What it would be arrogant to promise, I may yet be permitted to
hope,--that the execution will prove correspondent and adequate to the
plan. Assuredly, my best efforts have not been wanting so to select and
prepare the materials, that, at the conclusion of the Lectures, an
attentive auditor, who should consent to aid his future recollection by
a few notes taken either during each Lecture or soon after, would rarely
feel himself, for the time to come, excluded, from taking an intelligent
interest in any general conversation likely to occur in mixed society.
'Syllabus of the Course'.
I. January 27, 1818.--On the manners, morals, literature, philosophy,
religion, and the state of society in general, in European Christendom,
from the eighth to the fifteenth century, (that is from A.D. 700, to
A.D. 1400), more particularly in reference to England, France, Italy and
Germany; in other words, a portrait of the so called dark ages of
Europe.
II. January 30.--On the tales and metrical romances common, for the most
part, to England, Germany, and the north of France, and on the English
songs and ballads, continued to the reign of Charles I. A few selections
will be made from the Swedish, Danish, and German languages, translated
for the purpose by the Lecturer.
III. February 3.--Chaucer and Spenser; of Petrarch; of Ariosto, Pulci,
and Boiardo.
IV. V. VI. February 6, 10, l3.--On the dramatic works of Shakspeare. In
these Lectures will be comprised the substance of Mr. Coleridge's former
courses on the same subject, enlarged and varied by subsequent study and
reflection.
VII. February l7.--On Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger;
with the probable causes of the cessation of dramatic poetry in England
with Shirley and Otway, soon after the restoration of Charles II.
VIII. February 20.--Of the life and all the works of Cervantes, but
chiefly of his Don Quixote. The ridicule of knight errantry shewn to
have been but a secondary object in the mind of the author, and not the
principal cause of the delight which the work continues to give to all
nations, and under all the revolutions of manners and opinions.
IX. February 24.--On Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne: on the nature and
constituents of genuine Humour, and on the distinctions of the Humorous
from the Witty, the Fanciful, the Droll, and the Odd.
X. February 27.--Of Donne, Dante, and Milton.
XI. March 3.--On the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and on the romantic
use of the supernatural in poetry, and in works of fiction not poetical.
On the conditions and regulations under which such books may be employed
advantageously in the earlier periods of education.
XII. March 6.--On tales of witches, apparitions, &c. as distinguished
from the magic and magicians of Asiatic origin. The probable sources of
the former, and of the belief in them in certain ages and classes of
men. Criteria by which mistaken and exaggerated facts may be
distinguished from absolute falsehood and imposture. Lastly, the causes
of the terror and interest which stories of ghosts and witches inspire,
in early life at least, whether believed or not.
XIII. March 10.--On colour, sound, and form in Nature, as connected with
poesy: the word "Poesy" used as the generic or class term, including
poetry, music, painting, statuary, and ideal architecture, as its
species. The reciprocal relations of poetry and philosophy to each
other; and of both to religion, and the moral sense.
XIV. March 13.--On the corruptions of the English language since the
reign of Queen Ann, in our style of writing prose. A few easy rules for
the attainment of a manly, unaffected and pure language, in our genuine
mother tongue, whether for the purpose of writing, oratory, or
conversation.
LECTURE I. [1]
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE GOTHIC MIND IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Mr. Coleridge began by treating of the races of mankind as descended
from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and therein of the early condition of man in
his antique form. He then dwelt on the pre-eminence of the Greeks in Art
and Philosophy, and noticed the suitableness of polytheism to small
insulated states, in which patriotism acted as a substitute for
religion, in destroying or suspending self. Afterwards, in consequence
of the extension of the Roman empire, some universal or common spirit
became necessary for the conservation of the vast body, and this common
spirit was, in fact, produced in Christianity. The causes of the decline
of the Roman empire were in operation long before the time of the actual
overthrow; that overthrow had been foreseen by many eminent Romans,
especially by Seneca. In fact, there was under the empire an Italian and
a German party in Rome, and in the end the latter prevailed.
He then proceeded to describe the generic character of the Northern
nations, and defined it as an independence of the whole in the freedom
of the individual, noticing their respect for women, and their
consequent chivalrous spirit in war; and how evidently the participation
in the general council laid the foundation of the representative form of
government, the only rational mode of preserving individual liberty in
opposition to the licentious democracy of the ancient republics.
He called our attention to the peculiarity of their art, and showed how
it entirely depended on a symbolical expression of the infinite,--which
is not vastness, nor immensity, nor perfection, but whatever cannot be
circumscribed within the limits of actual sensuous being. In the ancient
art, on the contrary, every thing was finite and material. Accordingly,
sculpture was not attempted by the Gothic races till the ancient
specimens were discovered, whilst painting and architecture were of
native growth amongst them. In the earliest specimens of the paintings
of modern ages, as in those of Giotto and his associates in the cemetery
at Pisa, this complexity, variety, and symbolical character are evident,
and are more fully developed in the mightier works of Michel Angelo and
Raffael. The contemplation of the works of antique art excites a feeling
of elevated beauty, and exalted notions of the human self; but the
Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a sense of
self-annihilation; he becomes, as it were, a part of the work
contemplated. An endless complexity and variety are united into one
whole, the plan of which is not distinct from the execution. A Gothic
cathedral is the petrefaction of our religion. The only work of truly
modern sculpture is the Moses of Michel Angelo.
The Northern nations were prepared by their own previous religion for
Christianity; they, for the most part, received it gladly, and it took
root as in a native soil. The deference to woman, characteristic of the
Gothic races, combined itself with devotion in the idea of the Virgin
Mother, and gave rise to many beautiful associations.
Mr. C. remarked how Gothic an instrument in origin and character the
organ was.
He also enlarged on the influence of female character on our education,
the first impressions of our childhood being derived from women. Amongst
oriental nations, he said, the only distinction was between lord and
slave. With the antique Greeks, the will of every one conflicting with
the will of all, produced licentiousness; with the modern descendants
from the northern stocks, both these extremes were shut out, to reappear
mixed and condensed into this principle or temper;--submission, but with
free choice,--illustrated in chivalrous devotion to women as such, in
attachment to the sovereign, &c.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note taken at the delivery. Ed.]
LECTURE II. [1]
GENERAL CHARACTER OP THE GOTHIC LITERATURE AND ART.
In my last lecture I stated that the descendants of Japhet and Shem
peopled Europe and Asia, fulfilling in their distribution the prophecies
of Scripture, while the descendants of Ham passed into Africa, there
also actually verifying the interdiction pronounced against them. The
Keltic and Teutonic nations occupied that part of Europe, which is now
France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, &c. They were in general a
hardy race, possessing great fortitude, and capable of great endurance.
The Romans slowly conquered the more southerly portion of their tribes,
and succeeded only by their superior arts, their policy, and better
discipline. After a time, when the Goths,--to use the name of the
noblest and most historical of the Teutonic tribes,--had acquired some
knowledge of these arts from mixing with their conquerors, they invaded
the Roman territories. The hardy habits, the steady perseverance, the
better faith of the enduring Goth rendered him too formidable an enemy
for the corrupt Roman, who was more inclined to purchase the subjection
of his enemy, than to go through the suffering necessary to secure it.
The conquest of the Romans gave to the Goths the Christian religion as
it was then existing in Italy; and the light and graceful building of
Grecian, or Roman-Greek order, became singularly combined with the massy
architecture of the Goths, as wild and varied as the forest vegetation
which it resembled. The Greek art is beautiful. When I enter a Greek
church, my eye is charmed, and my mind elated; I feel exalted, and proud
that I am a man. But the Gothic art is sublime. On entering a cathedral,
I am filled with devotion and with awe; I am lost to the actualities
that surround me, and my whole being expands into the infinite; earth
and air, nature and art, all swell up into eternity, and the only
sensible impression left, is, 'that I am nothing!' This religion, while
it tended to soften the manners of the Northern tribes, was at the same
time highly congenial to their nature. The Goths are free from the stain
of hero worship. Gazing on their rugged mountains, surrounded by
impassable forests, accustomed to gloomy seasons, they lived in the
bosom of nature, and worshipped an invisible and unknown deity. Firm in
his faith, domestic in his habits, the life of the Goth was simple and
dignified, yet tender and affectionate.
The Greeks were remarkable for complacency and completion; they
delighted in whatever pleased the eye; to them it was not enough to have
merely the idea of a divinity, they must have it placed before them,
shaped in the most perfect symmetry, and presented with the nicest
judgment; and if we look upon any Greek production of art, the beauty of
its parts, and the harmony of their union, the complete and complacent
effect of the whole, are the striking characteristics. It is the same in
their poetry. In Homer you have a poem perfect in its form, whether
originally so, or from the labour of after critics, I know not; his
descriptions are pictures brought vividly before you, and as far as the
eye and understanding are concerned, I am indeed gratified. But if I
wish my feelings to be affected, if I wish my heart to be touched, if I
wish to melt into sentiment and tenderness, I must turn to the heroic
songs of the Goths, to the poetry of the middle ages. The worship of
statues in Greece had, in a civil sense, its advantage, and
disadvantage; advantage, in promoting statuary and the arts;
disadvantage, in bringing their gods too much on a level with human
beings, and thence depriving them of their dignity, and gradually giving
rise to scepticism and ridicule. But no statue, no artificial emblem,
could satisfy the Northman's mind; the dark wild imagery of nature,
which surrounded him, and the freedom of his life, gave his mind a
tendency to the infinite, so that he found rest in that which presented
no end, and derived satisfaction from that which was indistinct.
We have few and uncertain vestiges of Gothic literature till the time of
Theodoric, who encouraged his subjects to write, and who made a
collection of their poems. These consisted chiefly of heroic songs, sung
at the Court; for at that time this was the custom. Charlemagne, in the
beginning of the ninth century, greatly encouraged letters, and made a
further collection of the poems of his time, among which were several
epic poems of great merit; or rather in strictness there was a vast
cycle of heroic poems, or minstrelsies, from and out of which separate
poems were composed. The form of poetry was, however, for the most part,
the metrical romance and heroic tale. Charlemagne's army, or a large
division of it, was utterly destroyed in the Pyrenees, when returning
from a successful attack on the Arabs of Navarre and Arragon; yet the
name of Roncesvalles became famous in the songs of the Gothic poets. The
Greeks and Romans would not have done this; they would not have recorded
in heroic verse the death and defeat of their fellow-countrymen. But the
Goths, firm in their faith, with a constancy not to be shaken,
celebrated those brave men who died for their religion and their
country! What, though they had been defeated, they died without fear, as
they had lived without reproach; they left no stain on their names, for
they fell fighting for their God, their liberty, and their rights; and
the song that sang that day's reverse animated them to future victory
and certain vengeance.
I must now turn to our great monarch, Alfred, one of the most august
characters that any age has ever produced; and when I picture him after
the toils of government and the dangers of battle, seated by a solitary
lamp, translating the holy scriptures into the Saxon tongue,--when I
reflect on his moderation in success, on his fortitude and perseverance
in difficulty and defeat, and on the wisdom and extensive nature of his
legislation, I am really at a loss which part of this great man's
character most to admire. Yet above all, I see the grandeur, the
freedom, the mildness, the domestic unity, the universal character of
the middle ages condensed into Alfred's glorious institution of the
trial by jury. I gaze upon it as the immortal symbol of that age;--an
age called indeed dark;--but how could that age be considered dark,
which solved the difficult problem of universal liberty, freed man from
the shackles of tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision of
twelve of his fellow countrymen? The liberty of the Greeks was a
phenomenon, a meteor, which blazed for a short time, and then sank into
eternal darkness. It was a combination of most opposite materials,
slavery and liberty. Such can neither be happy nor lasting. The Goths on
the other hand said, You shall be our Emperor; but we must be Princes on
our own estates, and over them you shall have no power! The Vassals said
to their Prince, We will serve you in your wars, and defend your castle;
but we must have liberty in our own circle, our cottage, our cattle, our
proportion of land. The Cities said, We acknowledge you for our Emperor;
but we must have our walls and our strong holds, and be governed by our
own laws. Thus all combined, yet all were separate; all served, yet all
were free. Such a government could not exist in a dark age. Our
ancestors may not indeed have been deep in the metaphysics of the
schools; they may not have shone in the fine arts; but much knowledge of
human nature, much practical wisdom must have existed amongst them, when
this admirable constitution was formed; and I believe it is a decided
truth, though certainly an awful lesson, that nations are not the most
happy at the time when literature and the arts flourish the most among
them.
The translations I had promised in my syllabus I shall defer to the end
of the course, when I shall give a single lecture of recitations
illustrative of the different ages of poetry. There is one Northern tale
I will relate, as it is one from which Shakspeare derived that strongly
marked and extraordinary scene between Richard III. and the Lady Anne.
It may not be equal to that in strength and genius, but it is,
undoubtedly, superior in decorum and delicacy.
A Knight had slain a Prince, the lord of a strong castle, in combat. He
afterwards contrived to get into the castle, where he obtained an
interview with the Princess's attendant, whose life he had saved in some
encounter; he told her of his love for her mistress, and won her to his
interest. She then slowly and gradually worked on her mistress's mind,
spoke of the beauty of his person, the fire of his eyes, the sweetness
of his voice, his valour in the field, his gentleness in the court; in
short, by watching her opportunities, she at last filled the Princess's
soul with this one image; she became restless; sleep forsook her; her
curiosity to see this Knight became strong; but her maid still deferred
the interview, till at length she confessed she was in love with
him;--the Knight is then introduced, and the nuptials are quickly
celebrated.
In this age there was a tendency in writers to the droll and the
grotesque, and in the little dramas which at that time existed, there
were singular instances of these. It was the disease of the age. It is a
remarkable fact that Luther and Melancthon, the great religious
reformers of that day, should have strongly recommended for the
education of children, dramas, which at present would be considered
highly indecorous, if not bordering on a deeper sin. From one which they
particularly recommended, I will give a few extracts; more I should not
think it right to do. The play opens with:
Adam and Eve washing and dressing their children to appear before the
Lord, who is coming from heaven to hear them repeat the Lord's Prayer,
Belief, &c. In the next scene the Lord appears seated like a
schoolmaster, with the children standing round, when Cain, who is behind
hand, and a sad pickle, comes running in with a bloody nose and his hat
on. Adam says, "What, with your hat on!" Cain then goes up to shake
hands with the Almighty, when Adam says (giving him a cuff), "Ah, would
you give your left hand to the Lord?" At length Cain takes his place in
the class, and it becomes his turn to say the Lord's Prayer. At this
time the Devil (a constant attendant at that time) makes his appearance,
and getting behind Cain, whispers in his ear; instead of the Lord's
Prayer, Cain gives it so changed by the transposition of the words, that
the meaning is reversed; yet this is so artfully done by the author,
that it is exactly as an obstinate child would answer, who knows his
lesson, yet does not choose to say it. In the last scene, horses in rich
trappings and carriages covered with gold are introduced, and the good
children are to ride in them and be Lord Mayors, Lords, &c.; Cain and
the bad ones are to be made cobblers and tinkers, and only to associate
with such.
This, with numberless others, was written by Hans Sachs. Our simple
ancestors, firm in their faith, and pure in their morals, were only
amused by these pleasantries, as they seemed to them, and neither they
nor the reformers feared their having any influence hostile to religion.
When I was many years back in the north of Germany, there were several
innocent superstitions in practice. Among others at Christmas, presents
used to be given to the children by the parents, and they were delivered
on Christmas day by a person who personated, and was supposed by the
children to be, Christ: early on Christmas morning he called, knocking
loudly at the door, and (having received his instructions) left presents
for the good and a rod for the bad. Those who have since been in Germany
have found this custom relinquished; it was considered profane and
irrational. Yet they have not found the children better, nor the mothers
more careful of their offspring; they have not found their devotion more
fervent, their faith more strong, nor their morality more pure. [2]
[Footnote 1: From Mr. William Hammond's note taken at the delivery. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: See this custom of Knecht Rupert more minutely described in
Mr. Coleridge's own letter from Germany, published in the 2nd vol. of
the 'Friend', p. 320. Ed.; also in the 1st vol. of the 'Bibliographia
Epistolaris', currently also available in .txt and .html form, free for
download from Project Gutenberg
http://promo.net/pg,
(text Ed.)]
LECTURE III.
THE TROUBADOURS--BOCCACCIO--PETRARCH--PULC--CHAUCER--SPENSER.
The last Lecture was allotted to an investigation into the origin and
character of a species of poetry, the least influenced of any by the
literature of Greece and Rome,--that in which the portion contributed by
the Gothic conquerors, the predilections and general tone or habit of
thought and feeling, brought by our remote ancestors with them from the
forests of Germany, or the deep dells and rocky mountains of Norway, are
the most prominent. In the present Lecture I must introduce you to a
species of poetry, which had its birth-place near the centre of Roman
glory, and in which, as might be anticipated, the influences of the
Greek and Roman muse are far more conspicuous,--as great, indeed, as the
efforts of intentional imitation on the part of the poets themselves
could render them. But happily for us and for their own fame, the
intention of the writers as men is often at complete variance with the
genius of the same men as poets. To the force of their intention we owe
their mythological ornaments, and the greater definiteness of their
imagery; and their passion for the beautiful, the voluptuous, and the
artificial, we must in part attribute to the same intention, but in part
likewise to their natural dispositions and tastes. For the same climate
and many of the same circumstances were acting on them, which had acted
on the great classics, whom they were endeavouring to imitate. But the
love of the marvellous, the deeper sensibility, the higher reverence for
womanhood, the characteristic spirit of sentiment and courtesy,--these
were the heir-looms of nature, which still regained the ascendant,
whenever the use of the living mother-language enabled the inspired poet
to appear instead of the toilsome scholar.
From this same union, in which the soul (if I may dare so express
myself) was Gothic, while the outward forms and a majority of the words
themselves, were the reliques of the Roman, arose the Romance, or
romantic language, in which the Troubadours or Love-singers of Provence
sang and wrote, and the different dialects of which have been modified
into the modern Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; while the language of
the Trouveurs, Trouveres, or Norman-French poets, forms the intermediate
link between the Romance or modified Roman, and the Teutonic, including
the Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and the upper and lower German, as being the
modified Gothic. And as the northernmost extreme of the Norman-French,
or that part of the link in which it formed on the Teutonic, we must
take the Norman-English minstrels and metrical romances, from the
greater predominance of the Anglo-Saxon Gothic in the derivation of the
words. I mean, that the language of the English metrical romance is less
romanized, and has fewer words, not originally of a northern origin,
than the same romances in the Norman-French; which is the more
striking, because the former were for the most part translated from the
latter; the authors of which seem to have eminently merited their name
of Trouveres, or inventors. Thus then we have a chain with two rings or
staples:--at the southern end there is the Roman, or Latin; at the
northern end the Keltic, Teutonic, or Gothic; and the links beginning
with the southern end, are the Romance, including the Provençal, the
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with their different dialects, then
the Norman-French, and lastly the English.
My object in adverting to the Italian poets, is not so much for their
own sakes, in which point of view Dante and Ariosto alone would have
required separate Lectures, but for the elucidation of the merits of our
countrymen, as to what extent we must consider them as fortunate
imitators of their Italian predecessors, and in what points they have
the higher claims of original genius. Of Dante, I am to speak elsewhere.
Of Boccaccio, who has little interest as a metrical poet in any respect,
and none for my present purpose, except, perhaps, as the reputed
inventor or introducer of the octave stanza in his 'Teseide', it will be
sufficient to say, that we owe to him the subjects of numerous poems
taken from his famous tales, the happy art of narration, and the still
greater merit of a depth and fineness in the workings of the passions,
in which last excellence, as likewise in the wild and imaginative
character of the situations, his almost neglected romances appear to me
greatly to excel his far famed 'Decameron'. To him, too, we owe the more
doubtful merit of having introduced into the Italian prose, and by the
authority of his name and the influence of his example, more or less
throughout Europe, the long interwoven periods, and architectural
structure which arose from the very nature of their language in the
Greek writers, but which already in the Latin orators and historians,
had betrayed a species of effort, a foreign something, which had been
superinduced on the language, instead of growing out of it; and which
was far too alien from that individualizing and confederating, yet not
blending, character of the North, to become permanent, although its
magnificence and stateliness were objects of admiration and occasional
imitation. This style diminished the control of the writer over the
inner feelings of men, and created too great a charm between the body
and the life; and hence especially it was abandoned by Luther.
But lastly, to Boccaccio's sanction we must trace a large portion of the
mythological pedantry and incongruous paganisms, which for so long a
period deformed the poetry, even of the truest poets. To such an
extravagance did Boccaccio himself carry this folly, that in a romance
of chivalry, he has uniformly styled God the Father Jupiter, our Saviour
Apollo, and the Evil Being Pluto. But for this there might be some
excuse pleaded. I dare make none for the gross and disgusting
licentiousness, the daring profaneness, which rendered the 'Decameron'
of Boccaccio the parent of a hundred worse children, fit to be classed
among the enemies of the human race; which poisons 'Ariosto'--(for that
I may not speak oftener than necessary of so odious a subject, I mention
it here once for all)--which interposes a painful mixture in the humour
of Chaucer, and which has once or twice seduced even our pure-minded
Spenser into a grossness, as heterogeneous from the spirit of his great
poem, as it was alien to the delicacy of his morals.
PETRARCH.
Born at Arezzo, 1304.--Died 1374.
Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours. See
Biog. Lit. vol. ii. p.27, &c.
NOTES ON PETRARCH'S [1] SONNETS,
CANZONES, &c.
VOL. I.
Good:
SONNET. 1. Voi, ch' ascoltate, &c.
7. La gola, e 'l sonno, &c.
11. Se la mia vita, &c.
12. Quando fra l'altre, &c.
18. Vergognando talor, &c.
25. Quanto più m' avvicino, &c.
28. Solo e pensoso, &c.
29. S' io credessi, &c.
CANZ. 14. Sì è debile il filo, &c.
Pleasing:
BALL. 1. Lassare il velo, &c.
CANZ. 1. Nel dolce tempo, &c.
This poem was imitated by our old Herbert; [2] it is ridiculous in the
thoughts, but simple and sweet in diction.
Dignified:
CANZ. 2. O aspettata in ciel, &c.
9. Gentil mia Donna, &c.
The first half of this ninth canzone is exquisite; and in Canzone 8, the
nine lines beginning:
O poggi, o valli, &c.
to 'cura', are expressed with vigour and chastity.
CANZ. 9.
Daquel dì innanzi a me medesmo piacqui,
Empiendo d'un pensier' alto, e soave
Quel core, "ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave."
Note. O that the Pope would take these eternal keys, which so for ever
turn the bolts on the finest passages of true passion!
VOL. II.
CANZ. 1. Che debb' io far? &c.
Very good; but not equal, I think, to Canzone 2,
Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni, &c.
though less faulty. With the omission of half-a-dozen conceits and
Petrarchisms of 'hooks, baits, flames,' and 'torches', this second
canzone is a bold and impassioned lyric, and leaves no doubt in my mind
of Petrarch's having possessed a true poetic genius.
'Utinam deleri possint sequentia':--
L. 17-19.
--e la soave fiamma
Ch' ancor, lasso! m' infiamma
Essendo spenta, or che fea dunque ardendo?
L. 54-56.
--ov' erano a tutt' ore
Disposti gli ami ov' io fui preso, e l'esca
Ch' i' bramo sempre.
L. 76-79.
--onde l' accese
Saette uscivan d' invisibil foco,
E ragion temean poco;
Chè contra 'l ciel non val difesa umana.
And the lines 86, 87.
Poser' in dubbio, a cui
Devesse il pregio di più laude darsi
--are rather flatly worded.
[Footnote 1: These notes, by Mr. C., are written in a Petrarch in my
possession, and are of some date before 1812. It is hoped that they will
not seem ill placed here. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: If George Herbert is meant, I can find nothing like an
imitation of this canzone in his poems. Ed.]
LUIGI PULCI.
Born at Florence, 1431.--Died about 1487.
Pulci was of one of the noblest families in Florence, reported to be one
of the Frankish stocks which remained in that city after the departure
of Charlemagne:--
Pulcia Gallorum soboles descendit in urbem,
Clara quidem bello, sacris nec inhospita Musis.
Verino 'De illustrat. Cort. Flor.' III. v. 118.
Members of this family were five times elected to the Priorate, one of
the highest honours of the republic. Pulci had two brothers, and one of
their wives, Antonia, who were all poets:--
Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles;
Quis non hanc urbem Musarum dicat arnicam,
Si tres producat fratres domus una poetas?
'Ib.' II. v. 241.
Luigi married Lucrezia di Uberto, of the Albizzi family, and was
intimate with the great men of his time, but more especially with Angelo
Politian, and Lorenzo the Magnificent. His Morgante has been attributed,
in part at least,[1] to the assistance of Marsilius Ficinus, and by
others the whole has been attributed to Politian. The first conjecture
is utterly improbable; the last is possible, indeed, on account of the
licentiousness of the poem; but there are no direct grounds for
believing it. The 'Morgante Maggiore' [2] is the first proper romance;
although, perhaps, Pulci had the 'Teseide' before him. The story is
taken from the fabulous history of Turpin; and if the author had any
distinct object, it seems to have been that of making himself merry with
the absurdities of the old romancers. The 'Morgante' sometimes makes you
think of Rabelais. It contains the most remarkable guess or allusion
upon the subject of America that can be found in any book published
before the discovery. [3] The well known passage in the tragic Seneca is
not to be compared with it. The 'copia verborum' of the mother
Florentine tongue, and the easiness of his style, afterwards brought to
perfection by Berni, are the chief merits of Pulci; his chief demerit is
his heartless spirit of jest and buffoonery, by which sovereigns and
their courtiers were flattered by the degradation of nature, and the
'impossibilification' of a pretended virtue.
[Footnote: 1 Meaning the 25th canto. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: The 'Morgante' was printed in 1488. Ed.]
[Footnote 3: The reference is, of course, to the following stanzas:--
Disse Astarotte: un error lungo e fioco
Per molti secol non ben conosciuto,
Fa che si dice d' Ercol le colonne,
E che più là molti periti sonne.
Sappi che questa opinione è vana;
Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,
Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana,
Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote:
Era più grossa allor la gente humana;
Falche potrebbe arrosirne le gote
Ercule ancor d' aver posti que' segni,
Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.
E puossi andar giù ne l' altro emisperio,
Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime;
Sì che la terra per divin misterio
Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,
E là giù son città, castella, e imperio;
Ma nol cognobbon quelle genti prime:
Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,
Dove io ti dico che là giù s' aspetta.
E come un segno surge in Oriente,
Un altro cade con mirabil arte,
Come si vede qua ne l' Occidente,
Però che il ciel giustamente comparte;
Antipodi appellata è quella gente;
Adora il sole e Jupiterre e Marte,
E piante e animal come voi hanno,
E spesso insieme gran battaglie fanno.
C. XXV. st. 228, &c.]
CHAUCER.
Born in London, 1328.--Died 1400. [1]
Chaucer must be read with an eye to the Norman-French Trouveres, of whom
he is the best representative in English. He had great powers of
invention. As in Shakspeare, his characters represent classes, but in a
different manner; Shakspeare's characters are the representatives of the
interior nature of humanity, in which some element has become so
predominant as to destroy the health of the mind; whereas Chaucer's are
rather representatives of classes of manners. He is therefore more led
to individualize in a mere personal sense. Observe Chaucer's love of
nature; and how happily the subject of his main work is chosen. When you
reflect that the company in the Decameron have retired to a place of
safety from the raging of a pestilence, their mirth provokes a sense of
their unfeelingness; whereas in Chaucer nothing of this sort occurs, and
the scheme of a party on a pilgrimage, with different ends and
occupations, aptly allows of the greatest variety of expression in the
tales.
...
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]
SPENSER.
Born in London, 1553.--Died 1599.
There is this difference, among many others, between Shakspeare and
Spenser:--Shakspeare is never coloured by the customs of his age; what
appears of contemporary character in him is merely negative; it is just
not something else. He has none of the fictitious realities of the
classics, none of the grotesquenesses of chivalry, none of the allegory
of the middle ages; there is no sectarianism either of politics or
religion, no miser, no witch,--no common witch,--no astrology--nothing
impermanent of however long duration; but he stands like the yew tree in
Lorton vale, which has known so many ages that it belongs to none in
particular; a living image of endless self-reproduction, like the
immortal tree of Malabar. In Spenser the spirit of chivalry is entirely
predominant, although with a much greater infusion of the poet's own
individual self into it than is found in any other writer. He has the
wit of the southern with the deeper inwardness of the northern genius.
No one can appreciate Spenser without some reflection on the nature of
allegorical writing. The mere etymological meaning of the word,
allegory,--to talk of one thing and thereby convey another,--is too
wide. The true sense is this,--the employment of one set of agents and
images to convey in disguise a moral meaning, with a likeness to the
imagination, but with a difference to the understanding,--those agents
and images being so combined as to form a homogeneous whole. This
distinguishes it from metaphor, which is part of an allegory. But
allegory is not properly distinguishable from fable, otherwise than as
the first includes the second, as a genus its species; for in a fable
there must be nothing but what is universally known and acknowledged,
but in an allegory there may be that which is new and not previously
admitted. The pictures of the great masters, especially of the Italian
schools, are genuine allegories. Amongst the classics, the multitude of
their gods either precluded allegory altogether, or else made every
thing allegory, as in the Hesiodic Theogonia; for you can scarcely
distinguish between power and the personification of power. The 'Cupid
and Psyche' of, or found in, Apuleius, is a phenomenon. It is the
Platonic mode of accounting for the fall of man. The 'Battle of the
Soul' [1] by Prudentius is an early instance of Christian allegory.
Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality from
symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between person and
personification. Where it is too strongly individualized, it ceases to
be allegory; this is often felt in the 'Pilgrim's Progress', where the
characters are real persons with nick names. Perhaps one of the most
curious warnings against another attempt at narrative allegory on a
great scale, may be found in Tasso's account of what he himself intended
in and by his 'Jerusalem Delivered'.
As characteristic of Spenser, I would call your particular attention in
the first place to the indescribable sweetness and fluent projection of
his verse, very clearly distinguishable from the deeper and more inwoven
harmonies of Shakspeare and Milton. This stanza is a good instance of
what I mean:--
Yet she, most faithfull ladie, all this while
Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd,
Far from all peoples preace, as in exile,
In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd
To seeke her knight; who, subtily betrayd
Through that late vision which th' enchaunter wrought,
Had her abandond; she, of nought affrayd,
Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought,
Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought.
F. Qu. B. I. c. 3. st. 3.
2. Combined with this sweetness and fluency, the scientific construction
of the metre of the 'Faery Queene' is very noticeable. One of Spenser's
arts is that of alliteration, and he uses it with great effect in
doubling the impression of an image:--
In _w_ildernesse and _w_astful deserts,--
Through _w_oods and _w_astnes _w_ilde,--
They passe the bitter _w_aves of Acheron,
Where many soules sit _w_ailing _w_oefully,
And come to _fi_ery _fl_ood of _Ph_legeton,
Whereas the damned ghosts in torments _f_ry,
And with _sh_arp _sh_rilling _sh_rieks doth bootlesse cry,--&c.
He is particularly given to an alternate alliteration, which is,
perhaps, when well used, a great secret in melody:--
A _r_amping lyon _r_ushed suddenly,--
And _s_ad to _s_ee her _s_orrowful constraint,--
And on the grasse her _d_aintie _l_imbes _d_id _l_ay,--&c.
You cannot read a page of the Faery Queene, if you read for that
purpose, without perceiving the intentional alliterativeness of the
words; and yet so skilfully is this managed, that it never strikes any
unwarned ear as artificial, or other than the result of the necessary
movement of the verse.
3. Spenser displays great skill in harmonizing his descriptions of
external nature and actual incidents with the allegorical character and
epic activity of the poem. Take these two beautiful passages as
illustrations of what I mean:--
By this the northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfol teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;
And chearefull chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery carre
In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,
Full envious that Night so long his roome did fill;
_When_ those accursed messengers of hell,
That feigning dreame, and that faire-forged spright
Came, &c.
B. I. c. 2. st. 1.
...
At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest Heaven gan to open fayre;
And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,
Came dauncing forth, shaking his deawie hayre;
And hurld his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.
Which when the wakeful Elfe perceiv'd, streightway
He started up, and did him selfe prepayre
In sunbright armes and battailons array;
For with that Pagan proud he combat will that day.
Ib. c. 5. st. 2.
Observe also the exceeding vividness of Spenser's descriptions. They are
not, in the true sense of the word, picturesque; but are composed of a
wondrous series of images, as in our dreams. Compare the following
passage with any thing you may remember 'in pari materia' in Milton or
Shakspeare:--
His haughtie helmet, horrid all with gold,
Both glorious brightnesse and great terrour bredd
For all the crest a dragon did enfold
With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd
His golden winges; his dreadfull hideous hedd,
Close couched on the bever, seemd to throw
From flaming mouth bright sparkles fiery redd,
That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show;
And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full low.
Upon the top of all his loftie crest
A bounch of haires discolourd diversly,
With sprinkled pearle and gold full richly drest,
Did shake, and seemd to daunce for jollitie;
Like to an almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone,
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily,
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At everie little breath that under heaven is blowne.
Ib. c. 7. st. 31-2.
4. You will take especial note of the marvellous independence and true
imaginative absence of all particular space or time in the Faery Queene.
It is in the domains neither of history or geography; it is ignorant of
all artificial boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in land of
Faery, that is, of mental space. The poet has placed you in a dream, a
charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor have the power, to inquire
where you are, or how you got there. It reminds me of some lines of my
own:--
Oh! would to Alla!
The raven or the sea-mew were appointed
To bring me food!--or rather that my soul
Might draw in life from the universal air!
It were a lot divine in some small skiff
Along some ocean's boundless solitude
To float for ever with a careless course
And think myself the only being alive!
Remorse, Act iv. sc. 3.
Indeed Spenser himself, in the conduct of his great poem, may be
represented under the same image, his symbolizing purpose being his
mariner's compass:--
As pilot well expert in perilous wave,
That to a stedfast starre his course hath bent,
When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have
The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent,
And coverd Heaven with hideous dreriment;
Upon his card and compas firmes his eye,
The maysters of his long experiment,
And to them does the steddy helme apply,
Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly.
B. II. c. 7. st. 1.
So the poet through the realms of allegory.
5. You should note the quintessential character of Christian chivalry in
all his characters, but more especially in his women. The Greeks,
except, perhaps, in Homer, seem to have had no way of making their women
interesting, but by unsexing them, as in the instances of the tragic
Medea, Electra, &c. Contrast such characters with Spenser's Una, who
exhibits no prominent feature, has no particularization, but produces
the same feeling that a statue does, when contemplated at a distance:--
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,
And layd her stole aside: her angels face,
As the great eye of Heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.
B. I. c. 3. st. 4.
6. In Spenser we see the brightest and purest form of that nationality
which was so common a characteristic of our elder poets. There is
nothing unamiable, nothing contemptuous of others, in it. To glorify
their country--to elevate England into a queen, an empress of the
heart--this was their passion and object; and how dear and important an
object it was or may be, let Spain, in the recollection of her Cid,
declare! There is a great magic in national names. What a damper to all
interest is a list of native East Indian merchants! Unknown names are
non-conductors; they stop all sympathy. No one of our poets has touched
this string more exquisitely than Spenser; especially in his chronicle
of the British Kings (B. II. c. 10.), and the marriage of the Thames
with the Medway (B. IV. c. 11.), in both which passages the mere names
constitute half the pleasure we receive. To the same feeling we must in
particular attribute Spenser's sweet reference to Ireland:--
Ne thence the Irishe rivers absent were;
Sith no lesse famous than the rest they be, &c.
Ib.
...
And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep.
Ib.
And there is a beautiful passage of the same sort in the Colin Clout's
'Come Home Again':--
"One day," quoth he, "I sat, as was my trade, Under the foot of Mole,"
&c.
Lastly, the great and prevailing character of Spenser's mind is fancy
under the conditions of imagination, as an ever present but not always
active power. He has an imaginative fancy, but he has not imagination,
in kind or degree, as Shakspeare and Milton have; the boldest effort of
his powers in this way is the character of Talus.[2] Add to this a
feminine tenderness and almost maidenly purity of feeling, and above
all, a deep moral earnestness which produces a believing sympathy and
acquiescence in the reader, and you have a tolerably adequate view of
Spenser's intellectual being.
[Footnote 1: 'Psychomachia'. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: B. 5. 'Legend of Artegall'. Ed.]
LECTURE VII.
BEN JONSON, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, AND MASSINGER.
A contemporary is rather an ambiguous term, when applied to authors. It
may simply mean that one man lived and wrote while another was yet
alive, however deeply the former may have been indebted to the latter as
his model. There have been instances in the literary world that might
remind a botanist of a singular sort of parasite plant, which rises
above ground, independent and unsupported, an apparent original; but
trace its roots, and you will find the fibres all terminating in the
root of another plant at an unsuspected distance, which, perhaps, from
want of sun and genial soil, and the loss of sap, has scarcely been able
to peep above the ground.--Or the word may mean those whose compositions
were contemporaneous in such a sense as to preclude all likelihood of
the one having borrowed from the other. In the latter sense I should
call Ben Jonson a contemporary of Shakspeare, though he long survived
him; while I should prefer the phrase of immediate successors for
Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, though they too were Shakspeare's
contemporaries in the former sense.
BEN JONSON. [1] Born, 1574.--Died, 1637.
Ben Jonson is original; he is, indeed, the only one of the great
dramatists of that day who was not either directly produced, or very
greatly modified, by Shakspeare. In truth, he differs from our great
master in every thing--in form and in substance--and betrays no tokens
of his proximity. He is not original in the same way as Shakspeare is
original; but after a fashion of his own, Ben Jonson is most truly
original.
The characters in his plays are, in the strictest sense of the term,
abstractions. Some very prominent feature is taken from the whole man,
and that single feature or humour is made the basis upon which the
entire character is built up. Ben Jonson's 'dramatis personae' are
almost as fixed as the masks of the ancient actors; you know from the
first scene--sometimes from the list of names--exactly what every one of
them is to be. He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only
to observe what was external or open to, and likely to impress, the
senses. He individualizes, not so much, if at all, by the exhibition of
moral or intellectual differences, as by the varieties and contrasts of
manners, modes of speech and tricks of temper; as in such characters as
Puntarvolo, Bobadill, &c.
I believe there is not one whim or affectation in common life noted in
any memoir of that age which may not be found drawn and framed in some
corner or other of Ben Jonson's dramas; and they have this merit, in
common with Hogarth's prints, that not a single circumstance is
introduced in them which does not play upon, and help to bring out, the
dominant humour or humours of the piece. Indeed I ought very
particularly to call your attention to the extraordinary skill shown by
Ben Jonson in contriving situations for the display of his characters.
In fact, his care and anxiety in this matter led him to do what scarcely
any of the dramatists of that age did--that is, invent his plots. It is
not a first perusal that suffices for the full perception of the
elaborate artifice of the plots of the Alchemist and the Silent
Woman;--that of the former is absolute perfection for a necessary
entanglement, and an unexpected, yet natural, evolution.
Ben Jonson exhibits a sterling English diction, and he has with great
skill contrived varieties of construction; but his style is rarely sweet
or harmonious, in consequence of his labour at point and strength being
so evident. In all his works, in verse or prose, there is an
extraordinary opulence of thought; but it is the produce of an amassing
power in the author, and not of a growth from within. Indeed a large
proportion of Ben Jonson's thoughts may be traced to classic or obscure
modern writers, by those who are learned and curious enough to follow
the steps of this robust, surly, and observing dramatist.
[Footnote: 1: From Mr. Green's note. 'Ed.']
Beaumont. Born, 1586.--Died, 1616.
Fletcher. Born, 1576.--Died, 1625.
Mr. Weber, to whose taste, industry, and appropriate erudition we owe, I
will not say the best, (for that would be saying little,) but a good,
edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, has complimented the Philaster, which
he himself describes as inferior to the Maid's Tragedy by the same
writers, as but little below the noblest of Shakspeare's plays, Lear,
Macbeth, Othello, &c. and consequently implying the equality, at least,
of the Maid's Tragedy;--and an eminent living critic,--who in the manly
wit, strong sterling sense, and robust style of his original works, had
presented the best possible credentials of office as 'chargé d'affaires'
of literature in general,--and who by his edition of Massinger--a work
in which there was more for an editor to do, and in which more was
actually well done, than in any similar work within my knowledge--has
proved an especial right of authority in the appreciation of dramatic
poetry, and hath potentially a double voice with the public in his own
right and in that of the critical synod, where, as 'princeps senatus',
he possesses it by his prerogative,--has affirmed that Shakspeare's
superiority to his contemporaries rests on his superior wit alone, while
in all the other, and, as I should deem, higher excellencies of the
drama, character, pathos, depth of thought, &c. he is equalled by
Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Massinger! [1]
Of wit I am engaged to treat in another Lecture. It is a genus of many
species; and at present I shall only say, that the species which is
predominant in Shakspeare, is so completely Shakspearian, and in its
essence so interwoven with all his other characteristic excellencies,
that I am equally incapable of comprehending, both how it can be
detached from his other powers, and how, being disparate in kind from
the wit of contemporary dramatists, it can be compared with theirs in
degree. And again--the detachment and the practicability of the
comparison being granted--I should, I confess, be rather inclined to
concede the contrary;--and in the most common species of wit, and in the
ordinary application of the term, to yield this particular palm to
Beaumont and Fletcher, whom here and hereafter I take as one poet with
two names,--leaving undivided what a rare love and still rarer
congeniality have united. At least, I have never been able to
distinguish the presence of Fletcher during the life of Beaumont, nor
the absence of Beaumont during the survival of Fletcher.
But waiving, or rather deferring, this question, I protest against the
remainder of the position in 'toto'. And indeed, whilst I can never, I
trust, show myself blind to the various merits of Jonson, Beaumont and
Fletcher, and Massinger, or insensible to the greatness of the merits
which they possess in common, or to the specific excellencies which give
to each of the three a worth of his own,--I confess, that one main
object of this Lecture was to prove that Shakspeare's eminence is his
own, and not that of his age;--even as the pine-apple, the melon, and
the gourd may grow on the same bed;--yea, the same circumstances of
warmth and soil may be necessary to their full development, yet do not
account for the golden hue, the ambrosial flavour, the perfect shape of
the pine-apple, or the tufted crown on its head. Would that those, who
seek to twist it off, could but promise us in this instance to make it
the germ of an equal successor!
What had a grammatical and logical consistency for the ear,--what could
be put together and represented to the eye--these poets took from the
ear and eye, unchecked by any intuition of an inward impossibility;--
just as a man might put together a quarter of an orange, a quarter of an
apple, and the like of a lemon and a pomegranate, and make it look like
one round diverse-coloured fruit. But nature, which works from within by
evolution and assimilation according to a law, cannot do so, nor could
Shakspeare; for he too worked in the spirit of nature, by evolving the
germ from within by the imaginative power according to an idea. For as
the power of seeing is to light, so is an idea in mind to a law in
nature. They are correlatives, which suppose each other.
The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are mere aggregations without unity;
in the Shakspearian drama there is a vitality which grows and evolves
itself from within,--a key note which guides and controls the harmonies
throughout. What is Lear?--It is storm and tempest--the thunder at first
grumbling in the far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length
bursting in fury over our heads,--succeeded by a breaking of the clouds
for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing in of night, and the
single hope of darkness! And Romeo and Juliet?--It is a spring day,
gusty and beautiful in the morn, and closing like an April evening with
the song of the nightingale;--whilst Macbeth is deep and
earthy,--composed to the subterranean music of a troubled conscience,
which converts every thing into the wild and fearful!
Doubtless from mere observation, or from the occasional similarity of
the writer's own character, more or less in Beaumont and Fletcher, and
other such writers will happen to be in correspondence with nature, and
still more in apparent compatibility with it. But yet the false source
is always discoverable, first by the gross contradictions to nature in
so many other parts, and secondly, by the want of the impression which
Shakspeare makes, that the thing said not only might have been said, but
that nothing else could be substituted, so as to excite the same sense
of its exquisite propriety. I have always thought the conduct and
expressions of Othello and Iago in the last scene, when Iago is brought
in prisoner, a wonderful instance of Shakspeare's consummate judgment:--
'Oth.' I look down towards his feet;--but that's a fable. If that thou
be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.
'Iago.' I bleed, Sir; but not kill'd.
'Oth.' I am not sorry neither.
Think what a volley of execrations and defiances Beaumont and Fletcher
would have poured forth here!
Indeed Massinger and Ben Jonson are both more perfect in their kind than
Beaumont and Fletcher; the former in the story and affecting incidents;
the latter in the exhibition of manners and peculiarities, whims in
language, and vanities of appearance.
There is, however, a diversity of the most dangerous kind here.
Shakspeare shaped his characters out of the nature within; but we cannot
so safely say, out of his own nature as an individual person. No! this
latter is itself but a 'natura naturata',--an effect, a product, not a
power. It was Shakspeare's prerogative to have the universal, which is
potentially in each particular, opened out to him, the 'homo generalis',
not as an abstraction from observation of a variety of men, but as the
substance capable of endless modifications, of which his own personal
existence was but one, and to use this one as the eye that beheld the
other, and as the tongue that could convey the discovery. There is no
greater or more common vice in dramatic writers than to draw out of
themselves. How I--alone and in the self-sufficiency of my study, as all
men are apt to be proud in their dreams--should like to be talking
'king'! Shakspeare, in composing, had no 'I', but the 'I'
representative. In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptions of
characters by the poet rather than the characters themselves; we are
told, and impressively told, of their being; but we rarely or never feel
that they actually are.
Beaumont and Fletcher are the most lyrical of our dramatists. I think
their comedies the best part of their works, although there are scenes
of very deep tragic interest in some of their plays. I particularly
recommend Monsieur Thomas for good pure comic humor.
There is, occasionally, considerable license in their dramas; and this
opens a subject much needing vindication and sound exposition, but which
is beset with such difficulties for a Lecturer, that I must pass it by.
Only as far as Shakspeare is concerned, I own, I can with less pain
admit a fault in him than beg an excuse for it. I will not, therefore,
attempt to palliate the grossness that actually exists in his plays by
the customs of his age, or by the far greater coarseness of all his
contemporaries, excepting Spenser, who is himself not wholly blameless,
though nearly so;--for I place Shakspeare's merit on being of no age.
But I would clear away what is, in my judgment, not his, as that scene
of the Porter [2] in Macbeth, and many other such passages, and abstract
what is coarse in manners only, and all that which from the frequency of
our own vices, we associate with his words. If this were truly done,
little that could be justly reprehensible would remain. Compare the vile
comments, offensive and defensive, on Pope's
Lust thro' some gentle strainers, &c.
with the worst thing in Shakspeare, or even in Beaumont and Fletcher;
and then consider how unfair the attack is on our old dramatists;
especially because it is an attack that cannot be properly answered in
that presence in which an answer would be most desirable, from the
painful nature of one part of the position; but this very pain is almost
a demonstration of its falsehood!
[Footnote 1: See Mr. Gifford's introduction to his edition of Massinger.
Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Act ii. sc. 3.]
MASSINGER.
Born at Salisbury, 1584.--Died, 1640.
With regard to Massinger, observe,
1. The vein of satire on the times; but this is not as in Shakspeare,
where the natures evolve themselves according to their incidental
disproportions, from excess, deficiency, or mislocation, of one or more
of the component elements; but is merely satire on what is attributed to
them by others.
2. His excellent metre--a better model for dramatists in general to
imitate than Shakspeare's,--even if a dramatic taste existed in the
frequenters of the stage, and could be gratified in the present size and
management, or rather mismanagement, of the two patent theatres. I do
not mean that Massinger's verse is superior to Shakspeare's or equal to
it. Far from it; but it is much more easily constructed and may be more
successfully adopted by writers in the present day. It is the nearest
approach to the language of real life at all compatible with a fixed
metre. In Massinger, as in all our poets before Dryden, in order to make
harmonious verse in the reading, it is absolutely necessary that the
meaning should be understood;--when the meaning is once seen, then the
harmony is perfect. Whereas in Pope and in most of the writers who
followed in his school, it is the mechanical metre which determines the
sense.
3. The impropriety, and indecorum of demeanour in his favourite
characters, as in Bertoldo in the Maid of Honour, who is a swaggerer,
talking to his sovereign what no sovereign could endure, and to
gentlemen what no gentleman would answer without pulling his nose.
4. Shakspeare's Ague-cheek, Osric, &c. are displayed through others, in
the course of social intercourse, by the mode of their performing some
office in which they are employed; but Massinger's 'Sylli' come forward
to declare themselves fools 'ad arbitrium auctoris,' and so the diction
always needs the 'subintelligitur' ('the man looks as if he thought so
and so,') expressed in the language of the satirist, and not in that of
the man himself:--
'Sylli.' You may, madam,
Perhaps, believe that I in this use art
To make you dote upon me, by exposing
My more than most rare features to your view;
But I, as I have ever done, deal simply,
A mark of sweet simplicity, ever noted
In the family of the Syllis. Therefore, lady,
Look not with too much contemplation on me;
If you do, you are in the suds.
'Maid of Honour', act i. sc. 2.
The author mixes his own feelings and judgments concerning the presumed
fool; but the man himself, till mad, fights up against them, and
betrays, by his attempts to modify them, that he is no fool at all, but
one gifted with activity and copiousness of thought, image and
expression, which belong not to a fool, but to a man of wit making
himself merry with his own character.
5. There is an utter want of preparation in the decisive acts of
Massinger's characters, as in Camiola and Aurelia in the Maid of Honour.
Why? Because the 'dramatis personae' were all planned each by itself.
Whereas in Shakspeare, the play is 'syngenesia;' each character has,
indeed, a life of its own, and is an 'individuum' of itself, but yet an
organ of the whole, as the heart in the human body. Shakspeare was a
great comparative anatomist.
Hence Massinger and all, indeed, but Shakspeare, take a dislike to their
own characters, and spite themselves upon them by making them talk like
fools or monsters; as Fulgentio in his visit to Camiola, (Act ii. sc.
2.) Hence too, in Massinger, the continued flings at kings, courtiers,
and all the favourites of fortune, like one who had enough of intellect
to see injustice in his own inferiority in the share of the good things
of life, but not genius enough to rise above it, and forget himself.
Beaumont and Fletcher have the same vice in the opposite pole, a
servility of sentiment and a spirit of partizanship with the monarchical
faction.
6. From the want of a guiding point in Massinger's characters, you never
know what they are about. In fact they have no character.
7. Note the faultiness of his soliloquies, with connectives and
arrangements, that have no other motive but the fear lest the audience
should not understand him.
8. A play of Massinger's produces no one single effect, whether arising
from the spirit of the whole, as in the As You Like It; or from any one
indisputably prominent character as Hamlet. It is just "which you like
best, gentlemen!"
9. The unnaturally irrational passions and strange whims of feeling
which Massinger delights to draw, deprive the reader of all sound
interest in the characters;--as in Mathias in the Picture, and in other
instances.
10. The comic scenes in Massinger not only do not harmonize with the
tragic, not only interrupt the feeling, but degrade the characters that
are to form any part in the action of the piece, so as to render them
unfit for any tragic interest. At least, they do not concern, or act
upon, or modify, the principal characters. As when a gentleman is
insulted by a mere blackguard,--it is the same as if any other accident
of nature had occurred, a pig run under his legs, or his horse thrown
him. There is no dramatic interest in it.
I like Massinger's comedies better than his tragedies, although where
the situation requires it, he often rises into the truly tragic and
pathetic. He excells in narration, and for the most part displays his
mere story with skill. But he is not a poet of high imagination; he is
like a Flemish painter, in whose delineations objects appear as they do
in nature, have the same force and truth, and produce the same effect
upon the spectator. But Shakspeare is beyond this;--he always by
metaphors and figures involves in the thing considered a universe of
past and possible experiences; he mingles earth, sea and air, gives a
soul to every thing, and at the same time that he inspires human
feelings, adds a dignity in his images to human nature itself:--
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye;
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy, &c.
(33rd Sonnet.)
'Note.'--Have I not over-rated Gifford's edition of Massinger?--Not,--if
I have, as but just is, main reference to the restitution of the text;
but yes, perhaps, if I were talking of the notes. These are more often
wrong than right. In the Maid of Honour, Act i. sc. 5. Astutio describes
Fulgentio as "A gentleman, yet no lord." Gifford supposes a
transposition of the press for "No gentleman, yet a lord." But this
would have no connection with what follows; and we have only to
recollect that "lord" means a lord of lands, to see that the after lines
are explanatory. He is a man of high birth, but no landed property;--as
to the former, he is a distant branch of the blood royal;--as to the
latter, his whole rent lies in a narrow compass, the king's ear! In the
same scene the text stands:
'Bert'. No! they are useful
For your 'imitation;'--I remember you, &c.;--
and Gifford condemns Mason's conjecture of 'initiation' as void of
meaning and harmony. Now my ear deceives me if 'initiation' be not the
right word. In fact,'imitation' is utterly impertinent to all that
follows. Bertoldo tells Antonio that he had been initiated in the
manners suited to the court by two or three sacred beauties, and that a
similar experience would be equally useful for his initiation into the
camp. Not a word of his imitation. Besides, I say the rhythm requires
'initiation,' and is lame as the verse now stands.
LECTURE VIII.
'DON QUIXOTE'.
CERVANTES.
Born at Madrid, 1547;-Shakspeare, 1564; both put off mortality on the
same day, the 23rd of April, 1616,--the one in the sixty-ninth, the
other in the fifty-second, year of his life. The resemblance in their
physiognomies is striking, but with a predominance of acuteness in
Cervantes, and of reflection in Shakspeare, which is the specific
difference between the Spanish and English characters of mind.
I. The nature and eminence of Symbolical writing;--
II. Madness, and its different sorts, (considered without pretension to
medical science);--
To each of these, or at least to my own notions respecting them, I must
devote a few words of explanation, in order to render the after critique
on Don Quixote, the master work of Cervantes' and his country's genius
easily and throughout intelligible. This is not the least valuable,
though it may most often be felt by us both as the heaviest and least
entertaining portion of these critical disquisitions: for without it, I
must have foregone one at least of the two appropriate objects of a
Lecture, that of interesting you during its delivery, and of leaving
behind in your minds the germs of after-thought, and the materials for
future enjoyment. To have been assured by several of my intelligent
auditors that they have reperused Hamlet or Othello with increased
satisfaction in consequence of the new points of view in which I had
placed those characters--is the highest compliment I could receive or
desire; and should the address of this evening open out a new source of
pleasure, or enlarge the former in your perusal of Don Quixote, it will
compensate for the failure of any personal or temporary object.
I. The Symbolical cannot, perhaps, be better defined in distinction from
the Allegorical, than that it is always itself a part of that, of the
whole of which it is the representative.--"Here comes a sail,"--(that
is, a ship) is a symbolical expression. "Behold our lion!" when we speak
of some gallant soldier, is allegorical. Of most importance to our
present subject is this point, that the latter (the allegory) cannot be
other than spoken consciously;--whereas in the former (the symbol) it
is very possible that the general truth represented may be working
unconsciously in the writer's mind during the construction of the
symbol;--and it proves itself by being produced out of his own mind,--as
the Don Quixote out of the perfectly sane mind of Cervantes, and not by
outward observation, or historically. The advantage of symbolical
writing over allegory is, that it presumes no disjunction of faculties,
but simple predominance.
II. Madness may be divided as--
1. hypochondriasis; or, the man is out of his senses.
2. derangement of the understanding; or, the man is out of his wits.
3. loss of reason.
4. frenzy, or derangement of the sensations.
Cervantes's own preface to Don Quixote is a perfect model of the gentle,
every where intelligible, irony in the best essays of the Tatler and the
Spectator. Equally natural and easy, Cervantes is more spirited than
Addison; whilst he blends with the terseness of Swift, an exquisite flow
and music of style, and above all, contrasts with the latter by the
sweet temper of a superior mind, which saw the follies of mankind, and
was even at the moment suffering severely under hard mistreatment;[1]
and yet seems every where to have but one thought as the undersong--
"Brethren! with all your faults I love you still!"--or as a mother that
chides the child she loves, with one hand holds up the rod, and with the
other wipes off each tear as it drops!
Don Quixote was neither fettered to the earth by want, nor holden in its
embraces by wealth;--of which, with the temperance natural to his
country, as a Spaniard, he had both far too little, and somewhat too
much, to be under any necessity of thinking about it. His age too,
fifty, may be well supposed to prevent his mind from being tempted out
of itself by any of the lower passions;--while his habits, as a very
early riser and a keen sportsman, were such as kept his spare body in
serviceable subjection to his will, and yet by the play of hope that
accompanies pursuit, not only permitted, but assisted, his fancy in
shaping what it would. Nor must we omit his meagerness and entire
featureliness, face and frame, which Cervantes gives us at once: "It is
said that his surname was 'Quixada' or 'Quesada,'" &c.--even in this
trifle showing an exquisite judgment;--just once insinuating the
association of 'lantern-jaws' into the reader's mind, yet not retaining
it obtrusively like the names in old farces and in the Pilgrim's
Progress,--but taking for the regular appellative one which had the no
meaning of a proper name in real life, and which yet was capable of
recalling a number of very different, but all pertinent, recollections,
as old armour, the precious metals hidden in the ore, &c. Don Quixote's
leanness and featureliness are happy exponents of the excess of the
formative or imaginative in him, contrasted with Sancho's plump
rotundity, and recipiency of external impression.
He has no knowledge of the sciences or scientific arts which give to the
meanest portions of matter an intellectual interest, and which enable
the mind to decypher in the world of the senses the invisible
agency--that alone, of which the world's phenomena are the effects and
manifestations,--and thus, as in a mirror, to contemplate its own
reflex, its life in the powers, its imagination in the symbolic forms,
its moral instincts in the final causes, and its reason in the laws of
material nature: but--estranged from all the motives to observation from
self-interest--the persons that surround him too few and too familiar to
enter into any connection with his thoughts, or to require any
adaptation of his conduct to their particular characters or relations to
himself--his judgment lies fallow, with nothing to excite, nothing to
employ it. Yet,--and here is the point, where genius even of the most
perfect kind, allotted but to few in the course of many ages, does not
preclude the necessity in part, and in part counterbalance the craving
by sanity of judgment, without which genius either cannot be, or cannot
at least manifest itself,--the dependency of our nature asks for some
confirmation from without, though it be only from the shadows of other
men's fictions.
Too uninformed, and with too narrow a sphere of power and opportunity to
rise into the scientific artist, or to be himself a patron of art, and
with too deep a principle and too much innocence to become a mere
projector, Don Quixote has recourse to romances:--
His curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived at that pitch,
that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase books of
knight-errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands on of that
kind! (C.I.)
The more remote these romances were from the language of common life,
the more akin on that very account were they to the shapeless dreams and
strivings of his own mind;--a mind, which possessed not the highest
order of genius which lives in an atmosphere of power over mankind, but
that minor kind which, in its restlessness, seeks for a vivid
representative of its own wishes, and substitutes the movements of that
objective puppet for an exercise of actual power in and by itself. The
more wild and improbable these romances were, the more were they akin to
his will, which had been in the habit of acting as an unlimited monarch
over the creations of his fancy! Hence observe how the startling of the
remaining common sense, like a glimmering before its death, in the
notice of the impossible-improbable of Don Belianis, is dismissed by Don
Quixote as impertinent:--
'He had some doubt' [2] as to the dreadful wounds which Don Belianis
gave and received: for he imagined, that notwithstanding the most
expert surgeons had cured him, his face and whole body must still be
full of seams and scars. 'Nevertheless' [3] he commended in his author
the concluding his book with a promise of that unfinishable adventure!
C. 1.
Hence also his first intention to turn author; but who, with such a
restless struggle within him, could content himself with writing in a
remote village among apathists and ignorants? During his colloquies with
the village priest and the barber surgeon, in which the fervour of
critical controversy feeds the passion and gives reality to its
object--what more natural than that the mental striving should become an
eddy?--madness may perhaps be denned as the circling in a stream which
should be progressive and adaptive: Don Quixote grows at length to be a
man out of his wits; his understanding is deranged; and hence without
the least deviation from the truth of nature, without losing the least
trait of personal individuality, he becomes a substantial living
allegory, or personification of the reason and the moral sense, divested
of the judgment and the understanding. Sancho is the converse. He is the
common sense without reason or imagination; and Cervantes not only shows
the excellence and power of reason in, Don Quixote, but in both him and
Sancho the mischiefs resulting from a severance of the two main
constituents of sound intellectual and moral action. Put him and his
master together, and they form a perfect intellect; but they are
separated and without cement; and hence each having a need of the other
for its own completeness, each has at times a mastery over the other.
For the common sense, although it may see the practical inapplicability
of the dictates of the imagination or abstract reason, yet cannot help
submitting to them. These two characters possess the world, alternately
and interchangeably the cheater and the cheated. To impersonate them,
and to combine the permanent with the individual, is one of the highest
creations of genius, and has been achieved by Cervantes and Shakspeare,
almost alone.
Observations on particular passages,
(B. I. c. 1.)
But not altogether approving of his having broken it to pieces with so
much ease, to secure himself from the like danger for the future, he
made it over again, fencing it with small bars of iron within, in such
a manner, 'that he rested satisfied of its strength; and without
caring to make a fresh experiment on it, he approved and looked upon
it as a most excellent helmet.'
His not trying his improved scull-cap is an exquisite trait of human
character, founded on the oppugnancy of the soul in such a state to any
disturbance by doubt of its own broodings. Even the long deliberation
about his horse's name is full of meaning;--for in these day-dreams the
greater part of the history passes and is carried on in words, which
look forward to other words as what will be said of them.
(Ib.)
Near the place where he lived, there dwelt a very comely country lass,
with whom he had formerly been in love; though, as it is supposed, she
never knew it, nor troubled herself about it.
The nascent love for the country lass, but without any attempt at
utterance, or an opportunity of knowing her, except as the hint--the
[Greek (transliterated): oti esti]--of the inward imagination, is
happily conceived in both parts;--first, as confirmative of the
shrinking back of the mind on itself, and its dread of having a
cherished image destroyed by its own judgment; and secondly, as showing
how necessarily love is the passion of novels. Novels are to love as
fairy tales to dreams. I never knew but two men of taste and feeling who
could not understand why I was delighted with the Arabian Nights' Tales,
and they were likewise the only persons in my knowledge who scarcely
remembered having ever dreamed. Magic and war--itself a magic--are the
day-dreams of childhood; love is the day-dream of youth and early
manhood.
(C. 2.)
"Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus spread the golden tresses of his beauteous
hair over the face of the wide and spacious earth; and scarcely had
the little painted birds, with the sweet and mellifluous harmony of
their forked tongues, saluted the approach of rosy Aurora, who,
quitting the soft couch of her jealous husband, disclosed herself to
mortals through the gates of the Mauchegan horizon; when the renowned
Don Quixote," &c.
How happily already is the abstraction from the senses, from
observation, and the consequent confusion of the judgment, marked in
this description! The knight is describing objects immediate to his
senses and sensations without borrowing a single trait from either.
Would it be difficult to find parallel descriptions in Dryden's plays
and in those of his successors?
(C. 3.)
The host is here happily conceived as one who from his past life as a
sharper, was capable of entering into and humouring the knight, and so
perfectly in character, that he precludes a considerable source of
improbability in the future narrative, by enforcing upon Don Quixote the
necessity of taking money with him.
(C. 3.)
"Ho, there, whoever thou art, rash knight, that approachest to touch
the arms of the most valorous adventurer that ever girded sword," &c.
Don Quixote's high eulogiums on himself--"the most valorous
adventurer!"--but it is not himself that he has before him, but the idol
of his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is acting. And this,
that it is entirely a third person, excuses his heart from the otherwise
inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself he
preserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural by which he, the
first person, deserves it.
(C. 4.)
Andres and his master. The manner in which Don Quixote redressed this
wrong, is a picture of the true revolutionary passion in its first
honest state, while it is yet only a bewilderment of the understanding.
You have a benevolence limitless in its prayers, which are in fact
aspirations towards omnipotence; but between it and beneficence the
bridge of judgment--that is, of measurement of personal
power--intervenes, and must be passed. Otherwise you will be bruised by
the leap into the chasm, or be drowned in the revolutionary river, and
drag others with you to the same fate.
(C. 4.)
Merchants of Toledo.
When they were come so near as to be seen and heard, Don Quixote
raised his voice, and with arrogant air cried out: "Let the whole
world stand; if the whole world does not confess that there is not in
the whole world a damsel more beautiful than," &c.
Now mark the presumption which follows the self-complacency of the last
act! That was an honest attempt to redress a real wrong; this is an
arbitrary determination to enforce a Brissotine or Rousseau's ideal on
all his fellow creatures.
Let the whole world stand!
'If there had been any experience in proof of the excellence of our
code, where would be our superiority in this enlightened age?'
"No! the business is that without seeing her, you believe, confess,
affirm, swear, and maintain it; _and if not, I challenge you all to
battle_." [4]
Next see the persecution and fury excited by opposition however
moderate! The only words listened to are those, that without their
context and their conditionals, and transformed into positive
assertions, might give some shadow of excuse for the violence shown!
This rich story ends, to the compassion of the men in their senses, in a
sound rib-roasting of the idealist by the muleteer, the mob. And happy
for thee, poor knight! that the mob were against thee! For had they been
with thee, by the change of the moon and of them, thy head would have
been off.
(C. 5.) first part--The idealist recollects the causes that had been
accessary to the reverse and attempts to remove them--too late. He is
beaten and disgraced.
(C. 6.) This chapter on Don Quixote's library proves that the author did
not wish to destroy the romances, but to cause them to be read as
romances--that is, for their merits as poetry.
(C. 7.)
Among other things, Don Quixote told him, he should dispose himself to
go with him willingly;--for some time or other such an adventure might
present, that an island might be won, in the turn of a hand, and he be
left governor thereof.
At length the promises of the imaginative reason begin to act on the
plump, sensual, honest common sense accomplice,--but unhappily not in
the same person, and without the 'copula' of the judgment,--in hopes of
the substantial good things, of which the former contemplated only the
glory and the colours.
(C. 7.)
Sancho Panza went riding upon his ass, like any patriarch, with his
wallet and leathern bottle, and with a vehement desire to find himself
governor of the island which his master had promised him.
The first relief from regular labour is so pleasant to poor Sancho!
(C. 8.)
"I no gentleman! I swear by the great God, thou liest, as I am a
Christian. Biscainer by land, gentleman by sea, gentleman for the
devil, and thou liest: look then if thou hast any thing else to say."
This Biscainer is an excellent image of the prejudices and bigotry
provoked by the idealism of a speculator. This story happily detects the
trick which our imagination plays in the description of single combats:
only change the preconception of the magnificence of the combatants, and
all is gone.
(B. II. c. 2.)
"Be pleased, my lord Don Quixote, to bestow upon me the government of
that island," &c.
Sancho's eagerness for his government, the nascent lust of actual
democracy, or isocracy!
(C. 2.)
"But tell me, on your life, have you ever seen a more valorous knight
than I, upon the whole face of the known earth? Have you read in story
of any other, who has, or ever had, more bravery in assailing, more
breath in holding out, more dexterity in wounding, or more address in
giving a fall?"--"The truth is," answered Sancho, "that I never read
any history at all; for I can neither read nor write; but what I dare
affirm is, that I never served a bolder master," &c.
This appeal to Sancho, and Sancho's answer are exquisitely humorous. It
is impossible not to think of the French bulletins and proclamations.
Remark the necessity under which we are of being sympathized with, fly
as high into abstraction as we may, and how constantly the imagination
is recalled to the ground of our common humanity! And note a little
further on, the knight's easy vaunting of his balsam, and his quietly
deferring the making and application of it.
(C. 3.) The speech before the goatherds:
"Happy times and happy ages," &c. [5]
Note the rhythm of this, and the admirable beauty and wisdom of the
thoughts in themselves, but the total want of judgment in Don Quixote's
addressing them to such an audience.
(B. III. c. 3.) Don Quixote's balsam, and the vomiting and consequent
relief; an excellent hit at 'panacea nostrums', which cure the patient
by his being himself cured of the medicine by revolting nature.
(C. 4.)
"Peace! and have patience; the day will come," &c.
The perpetual promises of the imagination!
(Ib.)
"Your Worship," said Sancho, "would make a better preacher than knight
errant!"
Exactly so. This is the true moral.
(C. 6.)
The uncommon beauty of the description in the commencement of this
chapter. In truth, the whole of it seems to put all nature in its
heights and its humiliations, before us.
(Ib.) Sancho's story of the goats:
"Make account, he carried them all over," said Don Quixote, "and do
not be going and coming in this manner; for at this rate, you will not
have done carrying them over in a twelvemonth." "How many are passed
already?" said Sancho, &c.
Observe the happy contrast between the all-generalizing mind of the mad
knight, and Sancho's all-particularizing memory. How admirable a symbol
of the dependence of all 'copula' on the higher powers of the mind, with
the single exception of the succession in time and the accidental
relations of space. Men of mere common sense have no theory or means of
making one fact more important or prominent than the rest; if they lose
one link, all is lost. Compare Mrs. Quickly and the Tapster. [6] And
note also Sancho's good heart, when his master is about to leave him.
Don Quixote's conduct upon discovering the fulling-hammers, proves he
was meant to be in his senses. Nothing can be better conceived than his
fit of passion at Sancho's laughing, and his sophism of
self-justification by the courage he had shown.
Sancho is by this time cured, through experience, as far as his own
errors are concerned; yet still is he lured on by the unconquerable awe
of his master's superiority, even when he is cheating him.
(C. 8.)
The adventure of the Galley-slaves. I think this is the only passage of
moment in which Cervantes slips the mask of his hero, and speaks for
himself.
(C. 9.)
Don Quixote desired to have it, and bade him take the money, and keep
it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, &c.
Observe Sancho's eagerness to avail himself of the permission of his
master, who, in the war sports of knight-errantry, had, without any
selfish dishonesty, overlooked the 'meum' and 'tuum.' Sancho's
selfishness is modified by his involuntary goodness of heart, and Don
Quixote's flighty goodness is debased by the involuntary or unconscious
selfishness of his vanity and self-applause.
(C. 10.)
Cardenio is the madman of passion, who meets and easily overthrows for
the moment the madman of imagination. And note the contagion of madness
of any kind, upon Don Quixote's interruption of Cardenio's story.
(C. 11.)
Perhaps the best specimen of Sancho's proverbializing is this:
"And I (Don Q.) say again, they lie, and will lie two hundred times
more, all who say, or think her so." "I neither say, nor think so,"
answered Sancho: "let those who say it, eat the lie, and swallow it
with their bread: whether they were guilty or no, they have given an
account to God before now: I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I
am no friend to inquiring into other men's lives; 'for' he that buys
and lies shall find the lie left in his purse behind; 'besides,' naked
was I born, and naked I remain; I neither win nor lose; if they were
guilty, what is that to me? Many think to find bacon, where there is
not so much as a pin to hang it on: 'but' who can hedge in the cuckoo?
'Especially,' do they spare God himself?"
(Ib.)
"And it is no great matter, if it be in another hand; for by what I
remember, Dulcinea can neither write nor read," &c.
The wonderful twilight of the mind! and mark Cervantes's courage in
daring to present it, and trust to a distant posterity for an
appreciation of its truth to nature.
(P. II. B. III. c. 9.)
Sancho's account of what he had seen on Clavileno is a counterpart in
his style to Don Quixote's adventures in the cave of Montesinos. This
last is the only impeachment of the knight's moral character; Cervantes
just gives one instance of the veracity failing before the strong
cravings of the imagination for something real and external; the picture
would not have been complete without this; and yet it is so well
managed, that the reader has no unpleasant sense of Don Quixote having
told a lie. It is evident that he hardly knows whether it was a dream or
not; and goes to the enchanter to inquire the real nature of the
adventure.
[Footnote 1: 'Bien como quien se engendrò en una carcel, donde toda
incomodidad tiene su assiento, y todo triste ruido hace su
habitacion.' Like one you may suppose born in a prison, where every
inconvenience keeps its residence, and every dismal sound its
habitation. Pref. Jarvis's Tr. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: 'No estaba muy bien con'. Ed.]
[Footnote 3: Pero con todo. Ed.]
[Footnote 4: 'Donde no, conmigo sois en batalla, gente descomunal!'
Ed.]
[Footnote 5: 'Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos, &c.' Ed.]
[Footnote 6: See the 'Friend', vol. iii. p. 138. Ed.]
SUMMARY ON CERVANTES.
A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman, true to religion, and true
to honour.
A scholar and a soldier, and fought under the banners of Don John of
Austria, at Lepanto, lost his arm and was captured.
Endured slavery not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and by the
superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian owner.
Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny, the awful task of
achieving fame; and for that reason died poor and a prisoner, while
nobles and kings over their goblets of gold gave relish to their
pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the inventor of
novels for the Spaniards, and in his Persilis and Sigismunda, the
English may find the germ of their Robinson Crusoe.
The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of poverty and
sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth. He painted only
what he knew and had looked into, but he knew and had looked into much
indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the
world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled, yet with stainless
virtue.
LECTURE IX.
ON THE DISTINCTIONS OF THE WITTY, THE DROLL, THE ODD, AND THE HUMOUROUS;
THE NATURE AND CONSTITUENTS OF HUMOUR;--RABELAIS--SWIFT--STERNE.
I. Perhaps the most important of our intellectual operations are those
of detecting the difference in similar, and the identity in dissimilar,
things. Out of the latter operation it is that wit arises; and it,
generically regarded, consists in presenting thoughts or images in an
unusual connection with each other, for the purpose of exciting pleasure
by the surprise. This connection may be real; and there is in fact a
scientific wit; though where the object, consciously entertained, is
truth, and not amusement, we commonly give it some higher name. But in
wit popularly understood, the connection may be, and for the most part
is, apparent only, and transitory; and this connection may be by
thoughts, or by words, or by images. The first is our Butler's especial
eminence; the second, Voltaire's; the third, which we oftener call
fancy, constitutes the larger and more peculiar part of the wit of
Shakspeare. You can scarcely turn to a single speech of Falstaff's
without finding instances of it. Nor does wit always cease to deserve
the name by being transient, or incapable of analysis. I may add that
the wit of thoughts belongs eminently to the Italians, that of words to
the French, and that of images to the English.
II. Where the laughable is its own end, and neither inference, nor moral
is intended, or where at least the writer would wish it so to appear,
there arises what we call drollery. The pure, unmixed, ludicrous or
laughable belongs exclusively to the understanding, and must be
presented under the form of the senses; it lies within the spheres of
the eye and the ear, and hence is allied to the fancy. It does not
appertain to the reason or the moral sense, and accordingly is alien to
the imagination. I think Aristotle has already excellently defined the
laughable,[Greek (transliterated): tho geloion], as consisting of, or
depending on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet without
danger or pain. Here th'impropriety'--[Greek (transliterated): tho
ahtopon]--is the positive qualification; the 'dangerlessness'--[Greek
(transliterated): tho akindunon]--the negative. Neither the understanding
without an object of the senses, as for example, a mere notional error,
or idiocy;--nor any external object, unless attributed to the
understanding, can produce the poetically laughable. Nay, even in
ridiculous positions of the body laughed at by the vulgar, there is a
subtle personification always going on, which acts on the, perhaps,
unconscious mind of the spectator as a symbol of intellectual character.
And hence arises the imperfect and awkward effect of comic stories of
animals; because although the understanding is satisfied in them, the
senses are not. Hence too, it is, that the true ludicrous is its own
end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious,
however comically drest, free and genuine laughter ceases; it becomes
sardonic. This you experience in reading Young, and also not
unfrequently in Butler. The true comic is the blossom of the nettle.
III. When words or images are placed in unusual juxta-position rather
than connection, and are so placed merely because the juxta-position is
unusual--we have the odd or the grotesque; the occasional use of which
in the minor ornaments of architecture, is an interesting problem for a
student in the psychology of the Fine Arts.
IV. In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion between a
definite act and a definite purpose or end, or a disproportion of the
end itself to the rank or circumstances of the definite person; but
humour is of more difficult description. I must try to define it in the
first place by its points of diversity from the former species. Humour
does not, like the different kinds of wit, which is impersonal, consist
wholly in the understanding and the senses. No combination of thoughts,
words, or images will of itself constitute humour, unless some
peculiarity of individual temperament and character be indicated
thereby, as the cause of the same. Compare the comedies of Congreve with
the Falstaff in Henry IV. or with Sterne's Corporal Trim, Uncle Toby,
and Mr. Shandy, or with some of Steele's charming papers in the Tatler,
and you will feel the difference better than I can express it. Thus
again, (to take an instance from the different works of the same
writer), in Smollett's Strap, his Lieutenant Bowling, his Morgan the
honest Welshman, and his Matthew Bramble, we have exquisite
humour,--while in his Peregrine Pickle we find an abundance of drollery,
which too often degenerates into mere oddity; in short, we feel that a
number of things are put together to counterfeit humour, but that there
is no growth from within. And this indeed is the origin of the word,
derived from the humoral pathology, and excellently described by Ben
Jonson:
So in every human body,
The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part, and are not continent,
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far
It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour. [1]
Hence we may explain the congeniality of humour with pathos, so
exquisite in Sterne and Smollett, and hence also the tender feeling
which we always have for, and associate with, the humours or
hobby-horses of a man. First, we respect a humourist, because absence of
interested motive is the ground-work of the character, although the
imagination of an interest may exist in the individual himself, as if a
remarkably simple-hearted man should pride himself on his knowledge of
the world, and how well he can manage it:--and secondly, there always is
in a genuine humour an acknowledgement of the hollowness and farce of the
world, and its disproportion to the godlike within us. And it follows
immediately from this, that whenever particular acts have reference to
particular selfish motives, the humourous bursts into the indignant and
abhorring; whilst all follies not selfish are pardoned or palliated. The
danger of this habit, in respect of pure morality, is strongly
exemplified in Sterne.
This would be enough, and indeed less than this has passed, for a
sufficient account of humour, if we did not recollect that not every
predominance of character, even where not precluded by the moral sense,
as in criminal dispositions, constitutes what we mean by a humourist, or
the presentation of its produce, humour. What then is it? Is it
manifold? Or is there some one humorific point common to all that can be
called humourous?--I am not prepared to answer this fully, even if my
time permitted; but I think there is;--and that it consists in a certain
reference to the general and the universal, by which the finite great is
brought into identity with the little, or the little with the finite
great, so as to make both nothing in comparison with the infinite. The
little is made great, and the great little, in order to destroy both;
because all is equal in contrast with the infinite. "It is not without
reason, brother Toby, that learned men write dialogues on long
noses."[2] I would suggest, therefore, that whenever a finite is
contemplated in reference to the infinite, whether consciously or
unconsciously, humour essentially arises. In the highest humour, at
least, there is always a reference to, and a connection with, some
general power not finite, in the form of some finite ridiculously
disproportionate in our feelings to that of which it is, nevertheless,
the representative, or by which it is to be displayed. Humourous
writers, therefore, as Sterne in particular, delight, after much
preparation, to end in nothing, or in a direct contradiction.
That there is some truth in this definition, or origination of humour,
is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourous man who does not give
some disproportionate generality, or even a universality to his
hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy; or at least there is an
absence of any interest but what arises from the humour itself, as in my
Uncle Toby, and it is the idea of the soul, of its undefined capacity
and dignity, that gives the sting to any absorption of it by any one
pursuit, and this not in respect of the humourist as a mere member of
society for a particular, however mistaken, interest, but as a man.
The English humour is the most thoughtful, the Spanish the most
etherial--the most ideal--of modern literature. Amongst the classic
ancients there was little or no humour in the foregoing sense of the
term. Socrates, or Plato under his name, gives some notion of humour in
the Banquet, when he argues that tragedy and comedy rest upon the same
ground. But humour properly took its rise in the middle ages; and the
Devil, the Vice of the mysteries, incorporates the modern humour in its
elements. It is a spirit measured by disproportionate finites. The Devil
is not, indeed, perfectly humourous; but that is only because he is the
extreme of all humour.
[Footnote 1: Every Man Out Of His Humour. Prologue.]
[Footnote 2: Trist. Sh. Vol. iii. c. 37.]
RABELAIS. [1]
Born at Chinon, 1483-4.--Died 1553.
One cannot help regretting that no friend of Rabelais, (and surely
friends he must have had), has left an authentic account of him. His
buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which contained a rod of
gold; it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and bigots. Beyond
a doubt, he was among the deepest as well as boldest thinkers of his
age. Never was a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less
appropriate line than the thousand times quoted,
Rabelais laughing in his easy chair--
of Mr. Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyism proves how fully he
both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could write a
treatise in proof and praise of the morality and moral elevation of
Rabelais' work which would make the church stare and the conventicle
groan, and yet should be the truth and nothing but the truth. I class
Rabelais with the creative minds of the world, Shakspeare, Dante,
Cervantes, &c.
All Rabelais' personages are phantasmagoric allegories, but Panurge
above all. He is throughout the [Greek (transliterated):
panourgia],--the wisdom, that is, the cunning of the human animal,--the
understanding, as the faculty of means to purposes without ultimate
ends, in the most comprehensive sense, and including art, sensuous
fancy, and all the passions of the understanding. It is impossible to
read Rabelais without an admiration mixed with wonder at the depth and
extent of his learning, his multifarious knowledge, and original
observation beyond what books could in that age have supplied him with.
(B. III. c. 9.)
How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel, whether he should marry, yea
or no.
Note this incomparable chapter. Pantagruel stands for the reason as
contradistinguished from the understanding and choice, that is, from
Panurge; and the humour consists in the latter asking advice of the
former on a subject in which the reason can only give the inevitable
conclusion, the syllogistic 'ergo', from the premisses provided by the
understanding itself, which puts each case so as of necessity to
predetermine the verdict thereon. This chapter, independently of the
allegory, is an exquisite satire on the spirit in which people commonly
ask advice.
[Footnote 1: No note remains of that part of this Lecture which treated
of Rabelais. This seems, therefore, a convenient place for the reception
of some remarks written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy of Rabelais,
about the year 1825. See Table Talk, vol. i. p. 177. Ed.]
SWIFT. [1]
Born in Dublin, 1667.--Died 1745.
In Swift's writings there is a false misanthropy grounded upon an
exclusive contemplation of the vices and follies of mankind, and this
misanthropic tone is also disfigured or brutalized by his obtrusion of
physical dirt and coarseness. I think Gulliver's Travels the great work
of Swift. In the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag he displays the
littleness and moral contemptibility of human nature; in that to the
Houyhnhnms he represents the disgusting spectacle of man with the
understanding only, without the reason or the moral feeling, and in his
horse he gives the misanthropic ideal of man--that is, a being virtuous
from rule and duty, but untouched by the principle of love.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]
STERNE.
Born at Clonmel, 1713.--Died 1768.
With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so
seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a
sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends--1st, on the modesty it
gives pain to; or, 2dly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over
which it triumphs; or, 3dly, on a certain oscillation in the
individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching
evil of his nature--a sort of dallying with the devil--a fluxionary act
of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with
his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that
trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea urn, because it
has been forbidden; so that the mind has in its own white and black
angel the same or similar amusement, as may be supposed to take place
between an old debauchee and a prude,--she feeling resentment, on the
one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a
character, and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have
only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of
wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound because
exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence
against the good manners of human nature itself.
This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit,
drollery, fancy, and even humour, and we have only to regret the
misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may
be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality of the
characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all
antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of Tristram
Shandy, and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three
callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be
too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature
as the panders and condiments for the basest.
The excellencies of Sterne consist--
1. In bringing forward into distinct consciousness those minutiae of
thought and feeling which appear trifles, yet have an importance for the
moment, and which almost every man feels in one way or other. Thus is
produced the novelty of an individual peculiarity, together with the
interest of a something that belongs to our common nature. In short,
Sterne seizes happily on those points, in which every man is more or
less a humourist. And, indeed, to be a little more subtle, the
propensity to notice these things does itself constitute the humourist,
and the superadded power of so presenting them to men in general gives
us the man of humour. Hence the difference of the man of humour, the
effect of whose portraits does not depend on the felt presence of
himself, as a humourist, as in the instances of Cervantes and
Shakspeare--nay, of Rabelais too; and of the humourist, the effect of
whose works does very much depend on the sense of his own oddity, as in
Sterne's case, and perhaps Swift's; though Swift again would require a
separate classification.
2. In the traits of human nature, which so easily assume a particular
cast and colour from individual character. Hence this excellence and the
pathos connected with it quickly pass into humour, and form the ground
of it. See particularly the beautiful passage, so well known, of Uncle
Toby's catching and liberating the fly:
"Go,"--says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had
buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and
which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by
him;--"I'll not hurt thee," says my Uncle Toby, rising from his chair,
and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--"I'll not hurt a
hair of thy head:--Go," says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his
hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--"go, poor devil, get thee gone,
why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both
thee and me." (Vol. ii. ch. 12.)
Observe in this incident how individual character may be given by the
mere delicacy of presentation and elevation in degree of a common good
quality, humanity, which in itself would not be characteristic at all.
3. In Mr. Shandy's character,--the essence of which is a craving for
sympathy in exact proportion to the oddity and unsympathizability of
what he proposes;--this coupled with an instinctive desire to be at
least disputed with, or rather both in one, to dispute and yet to
agree--and holding as worst of all--to acquiesce without either
resistance or sympathy. This is charmingly, indeed, profoundly
conceived, and is psychologically and ethically true of all Mr.
Shandies. Note, too, how the contrasts of character, which are always
either balanced or remedied, increase the love between the brothers.
4. No writer is so happy as Sterne in the unexaggerated and truly
natural representation of that species of slander, which consists in
gossiping about our neighbours, as whetstones of our moral
discrimination; as if they were conscience-blocks which we used in our
apprenticeship, in order not to waste such precious materials as our own
consciences in the trimming and shaping of ourselves by
self-examination:--
Alas o'day!--had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman!) had but her wi
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