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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
ESSAYS
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S ESSAYS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
G. K. C H EST E R TON
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REFERENCE
ROMANCE
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FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION
REPRINTED
19 06
19 0 7, Igog, IgII, 19 1 4
CONTENTS
.A.G.
I. 'fHE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT
TIME I
National Review, N av. 1864.
II. THE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIES . 26
Cornlzi/l Mag., August 1864.
III. MAURICE DE GUÉRIN . . . 51
Fraser's Mag., January 1863.
IV. EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN . . . 7 8
Cornlzill Mag., June 1863.
V. HEINRICH HEINE . . e 102
Coynlzil/ Mag., August 1863-
VI. PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 12 7
Cornlzil/ Mag., April 1864.
VII. JOUBERT; OR A FRENCH COLERIDGE .. 14 6
National Review, January 1864.
VIII. A WORD MORE ABOUT SPINOZA ç 17+
MacMillan', Mag., Ðec. 1863.
IX. MARCUS AURELIUS . . . 186
Pictoria Mag., Nov. 1863.
X. ON TRANSLATING HO!l.tER .. . II 210
XI. NEWMAN'S REPLY . . 27 6
XII. LAST \V ORDS ON TRANSLATING HOMEa. . . 337
'\'11
INTRODUCTION
OUR actual obligations to Matthew Arnold are almost beyond ex-
pression. His very faults reforn1ed us. The chief of his services
may perhaps be stated thus, that he discovered (for the
modern English) the purely intel1ectual importance of humility.
He had none of that hot humility which is the fascination of
saints and good men.
ut he had a cold humility which he
had discovered to be a mere essential of the intelligence. To
see things clearly, he said, you must" get yourself out of the
way." The weakness of pride lies after all in this; that oneseH
is a window. It can be a colourcd window, if you win; but
the more thickly you lay on the colours the less of a window
it will be. The two things to be done with a window are to
wash it and then forget it. So the truly pious have always
said the two things to ùo personally are to cleanse and to for-
get oneself.
f'vlatthew Arnold found the window of the English soul
opaque with its own purple. The Englishman had painted his
own image on the pane so gorgeously that it was practically a
dead panel; it had no opening on the world without. He
could not see the most obvious and enormous objects outside
his own door. The Englislunan could not see (for instance)
that the French Revolution was a far-reaching, fundamental
and 1110st practical and successful change in the whole structure
of Europe. He really thought that it was a bloody and futile
episode, in weak imitation of an English General Election.
The Englishman could not see that the Catholic Church was
(at the very least) an immense and enduring Latin civilisation,
linking us to the lost civilisations of the Mediterranean. He
really thought it was a sort of sect. The Englishman could
not see that the Franco-Prussian war was the,entrance of a
new and menacing military age, a terror to England and to
all. He really thought it was a little lesson to Louis Napoleon
for not reading the TÙnes. The most enormous catastrophe
was only some kind of symbolic compiiment to England. If
the sun fell from Heaven it only showed how wise England
IX
Introduction
was in not having much sunshine. If the waters were turned
to blood it was only an advertisement for Bass's Ale or Fry's
Cocoa. Such was the weak pride of the English then. One
cannot say that is wholly undiscoverable now.
But Arnold made war on it. One excellent point which he
made in many places was to this effect j that those very
foreign tributes to England which Englishmen quoted as
showing their own mel it were examples of the particular
foreign merit which we did not share. Frenchmen bragged
about France and Germans about Germany, doubtless; but
they retained just enough of an impartial interest in the mere
truth itself to remark upon the more outstanding and obvious
of the superiorities of England. Arnold justly complained
that when a Frenchman wrote about English political liberty
we always thought it a tribute simply to English political
liberty. We never thought of it as a tribute to French
philosophical liberty. Examples of this are still relevant. A
Frenchman wrote some time ago a book called A quoi /lent la
suþeriorl/é des Anglo-Saxons 1 What Englishman dare write
a book called" What causes the Superiority of Frenchmen"?
But this iucid abnegation is a power. \Vhen a Frenchman
calls a book "\Vhat is the Superiority of Englishmen?" we
ought to point to that book and say-" this is the superiority of
Frenchmen."
This humility, as I say, was with Arnold a mental need.
He was not naturally a humble man; he might even be called
a supercilious one. But he was driven to preaching humility
merely as a thing to clear the head. He found the virtue
which was just then being flung in the mire as fit only for nuns
and slaves: and he saw that it was essential to phi1osophers.
The most unpractical merit of ancient piety became the most
practical merit of modern investigation. I repeat, he did not
understand that headlong and happy humility which belongs
to the more beautiful souls of the simpler ages. He did not
appreciate the force (nor perhaps the hUITIOur) of St. Francis of
Assisi when he caned his own body" my brother the donkey}'
That is to say, he did not realise a certain feeling deep in all
mystics in the face of the dual destiny. He did not realise
their feeling (full both of fear and laughter) that the body is
an animal and a very comic animal. Matthew Arnold could
never have felt any part of himself to be purely comic-not
x
Introduction
even his singular whiskers. He would never, like Father
Juniper, have "played see-saw to abase himself." In a word,
he had little sympathy with the old ecstasies of self-effacement.
But for this very reason it is all the more important that his
main work was an attempt to preach some kind of self-efface-
ment even to his own self-assertive age. He realised that the
saints had even understated the case for humility. They had
always said that without humility we should never see the
better world to come. He realised that without humility we
could not even see this world.
Nevertheless, as I have said, a certain tincture of pride was
natural to him and prevented him from appreciating some
things of great human value. I t prevented him for instance
from having an adequate degree of popular sympathy. He
had (what is so rare in England) the sense of the state as one
thing, consisting of all its citizens, the Senatus Populusque
Ron1anus. But he had not the feeling of familiarity with the
loves and hungers of the common man, which is the essence
of the egalitarian sentiment. He was a republican, but he was
not a democrat. He contemptuously dismissed the wage-
ealning, beer-drinking, ordinary labourers of England as
U merely populace." They are not populace; they are merely
mankind. If you do not like them you do not like mankind.
And when all the f'ðle of Arnold's real glories has been told,
there always does remain a kind of hovering doubt as to
whether he did like mankind.
But of course the key of Arnold in most matters is that he
deliberately conceived himself to be a corrective. He prided
himself not upon telling the truth but upon telling the un-
popular half-truth. He blamed his contemporaries, Carlyle
for instance, not for telling falsehoods but simply for telling
popular truths. And certainly in the case of Carlyle and
others he was more or less right. Carlyle professed to be a
Jeremiah and even a misanthrope. But he was really a
demagogue and, in one sense, even a flatterer. He was
entirely si cere as all good demagogues are; he merely shared
all the peculiar vanities and many of the peculiar illusions of
the people to whom he spoke. He told Englishmen that they
were Teutons, that they were Vikings, that they were practical
politicians-all the things they like to be told they are, all the
things that they are not. He told them, indeed, with a dark
Xl
I n trod uction
reproachfulness, that their strengths were lying neglected or
Inert. Still he reminded them of their strengths; and they
liked him. But they did not like Arnold, who placidly reminded
theIn of their weaknesses.
Arnold suffered, however, from thus consenting merely to
correct; from thus consenting to tell the half-truth that was
neglected. He reached at times a fanaticism that was all the
more extraordinary because it was a fanaticism of moderation,
an intemperance of temperance. This may be seen, I think,
In the admirable argument for classical supremacy to which so
much of this selection is devoted. He saw and very rightly
asserted that the fault of the Mid-Victorian English was that
they did not seem to have any sense of definite excellence.
Nothing could be better than the way in which he points out
In the very important essay on "The Function of Criticism at
the Present Time" that the French admit into intellectuaf
problems the same principle of clearly stated and generally
admitted dogmas which aU of us in our daily lives admit into
moral problems. The French, as he puts it in a good
summarising phrase, have a conscience in literary matters.
Upon the opposite English evil he poured perpetual satire.
That any man who had money enough to start a paper could
start a paper and say it was as good as the Alhcl1æZl1n,/ that
anyone who had money enough to run a school could
run a school and say it was as good as \Vinchester; these
marks of the English anarchy he continually denounced. But
he hardly sufficiently noticed that if this English extreme of a
vulgar and indiscriminate acceptance be most certainly an
extreme and something of a madness, it is equally true tllat
his own celebration of excellence when carried past a certain
point might become a very considerable madness also; indeed
has become such a madness in SOlne of the artistic epochs of
the world. It is true that a man is in some danger of be-
coming a lunatic if he builds a stucco house and says it is as
fine as the Parthenon. But surely a man is equally near to a
lunatic if he refuses to live in any house except the Parlhenon.
A frantic hunger for all kinds of inappropriate food lnay be a
mark of a lunatic; but it is a1so the mark of a lunatic to be
fast idious about food.
One of the immense benefits conferred on us by Matthew
Arnold Jay in the fact that he recalled to us the vital fact that
XlI
Introduction
we are Europeans. He had a consciousness of Europe much
fuller and finner than that of any of the great men of his great
epoch. For instance, he admired the Germans as Carlyle
admired the Germans; perhaps he admired the Germans too
much as Carlyle admired the Germans too much. But he was
not deluded by any separatist follies about the superiority of a
Teutonic race. If he admired the Germans it was for being
European, signally and splendidly European. He did not, like
Carlyle, admire the Germans for being German. Like Carlyle,
he relied much on the sagacity of Goethe. But the sagacity of
Goethe upon which he relied was not a rugged or cloudy
sagacity, the German element in Goethe. It was the Greek
element in Goethe: a lucid and equalised sagacity, a modera-
tion and a calm such as Carlyle could not bave admired, nay,
could not even have imagined. Arnold did indeed wish, as
every sane European wishes, that the nations that make up
Europe should continue to be individual; that the contribu-
tions from the nations should be national. But he did wish
that the contributions should be contributions, parts, that is, of
a common cause and unity, the cause and unity of European
civilisation. He desired that Germany should be great, so as
to make Europe great. He would not have desired that
Germany should grow great so as to make Europe small.
Anything, however big and formidable, which tended to divide
us from the common culture of our continent he would have
regarded as a crotchet.. Puritanism he regarded at bottom as
only an enormous crotchet. The Anglo-Saxon race most
certainly he would have regarded as an enormous crotchet.
In this respect it is curious to notice how English public
opinion has within our own time contrived to swing from one
p05ition to the contrary position without her touching that
central position which Arnold loved. He found the English
people in a mood which seemed to him unreal and un.
European, but this mood was one of smug Radical mediocrity,
contemptuous of arts and aims of high policy and of national
honour. Ten years after his death the Englis'1 people were
waving Union Jacks and shouting for "La Revanche." Yet
though they had passed thus rapidly from extreme anti-
militarism to extreme tnilitarism they had never touched on the
truth that Arnold had to tell. Whether as anti;militarists or as
militdrists, they were alike ignorant of the actualities of our
Xlll
I n trod. uction
Aryan civilisation. They have passed from tameness to violence
without touching strength. Whenever they really touch strength
they will (with their wonderful English strength) do a number of
things. One of the things may be to save the world. Another
of the things will certainly be to thank Matthew Arnold.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
19 06 .
.
xiv
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)
Alaric at Rome (Rugby Prize Poem), 1840; Cromwell
(Newdigate Prize), 1843; The Strayed Reveller, and other
Poems (Forsaken Merman, l\1ycerinus, etc.), 1849; En1pedoc1es
on Etna, and other Poems (Tristram and Iseult, etc.), 1852;
Poems, with Prefatory Essay (Sohrab and Rustum, Scholar
Gipsy, etc.), 1853, 1854, 1857; Poems: Second Series (Balder
Dead, etc.), 1855 j IVlerope: A Tragedy, 1858; England and
the Italian Question, 1859; On Translating Homer (Three
Lectures), 1861; Popular Education of France, 1861; On
Translating Homer: Last Words, 1862 ; A French Eton, 1864;
Essays in Criticism, 1865, 1869, 1889 j New Poems (Thyrsis,
A Southern Night, etc.), 1867; 5t Brandan (Poem), 1869; On
the Study of Celtic Literature, 1867; Schools and Universities
on the Continent, 1868 j Culture and Anarchy (from Cornhill),
1869; St Paul and Protestantism (from Cornhill) , 1870;
Friendship's Garland, 1871; Literature and Dogma, 1873:
God and the Bible, 1875; Last Essays on Church and Re-
ligion, 1877; Mixed Essays, 1879; Irish Essays, and Others,
1882; Discourses in America, 1885; Special Report on Ele-
mentary Education Abroad, 1886; Civilisation in the United
States from Nineteenth and Murray's Magazine, 1888 j Essays
in Criticism: Second Series, 1888; Report on Eletnentary
Schools (Ed. by Sir Francis Sandford, 1889), on Home Rule
for Ireland (privately printed from two letters to the TÙnes,
1891); Poems: Collected Ed., 1869, 1877, 1
85, 1890; Works
(with Bibliography), 15 vols., 1903 j Letters: ed. G. W. E.
Russell, 1895 j Life: George Saintsbury (Modern English
\Vriters) j H. W. Paul (English 1\1en of Letters) j W. C.
Brownell in Victorian Prose Masters j G. W. E. Russell
(Literary Lives).
xv
CRI'fICAL ESSAYS
I
TI-IE FUNCTION OF CRITICIS1\l AT TIlE
PRESENT TIl'vIE
11ANY objections have been made to a proposition which,
in SOll1e relnarks of Inine on translating lIomer, I ventured
to put forth; a proposition about criticislll, and its import-
ance at the present day. I s:lid that" of the literature of
France and Gern1any, as of the intellect of Europe in
general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a
critical effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge,
theology, phi10sophy, history, art, science, to see the object
as in itself it really is." . I added, that owing to the operation
in English literature of certain causes, "ahnost the last thing
for which onc woulù con1e to English literature is just that
very thing which now Europe most desires,-criticislll;"
and that the power and \ralue of English literature was
thereby Í1npaired. !\lore than one rejoinder declared that
the ilnportance I here assigned to criticislll was excessive,
anù asserted the inherent superiority of the creative effort of
the hunlan spirit over its critical effort. And the other day,
having been led by an excellent notice of \Vordsworth,
published in the iVorth British Reviezv, to turn again to his
biography, I found, in the words of this great Inan, whom I,
for one, nlust always listen to with the profoundest respect,
a sentence passed on the critic's business, which seenlS to
justify every possible disparageluent of it. \Vordsworth says
in one of his letters :-
"The writers in these publications" (the Rev
ews), "while
they prosecute their inglorious en1ployment, cannot be sup-
posed to be in a state of 111ind very favourable for being affected
by the finer influences of a thing so pure as genuine poetry."
And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a
more elaborate judgment to the same effect ;-
A
2
Critical Essays
"\Vordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely
lower than the inventive; and he said to-day that if the
quantity of titne consumed in writing critiques on the works
of others were given to original composition, of whatever
kind it n1ight be, it woulù be much better employed; it
would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it
would do infinitely less mischief. A false or rnalicious
criticism may do much injury to the minds of others; a
stupid invention, either in prose or verse, is quite harnlless."
It is alnlost too much to expect of poor hUlllan nature,
that a n1an capable of producing some effect in one line of
literature, should, for the greater good of society, voluntarily
doom hinlself to inlpotence and obscurity in another. Still
less is this to be expected from nlen addicted to the com.
position of the "false or malicious criticisill" of which
\Vordsworth speaks. IIowever, everybody would admit
that a false or malicious criticisn1 had better never have
been written. Everybody, too, would be willing to adllli
,
as a general proposition, that the critical faculty is lower
than the inventive. But is it true that criticislll is really, in
itself, a baneful and injurious employment? is it true that
all time given to writing critiques on the works of others
would be much better enlployed if it were given to original
composition, of whatever kind this may be? Is it true that
Johnson had better have gone on producing more Irene.r
instead of writing his Lives of the Poets? nay, is it certain
that \V ordsworth hinlself was better en1ployed in making
his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated
}treface, so full of criticisnl, and criticism of the works of
others? \V ordsworth was himself a great critic, and it is to
be sincerely regretted that he has not left us more criticism;
Goethe was one of the greatest of critics, and we may
sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us so l1luch
criticism. 'Vithout wa
ting tinle over the exaggeration
which \V ordsworth's judglllent on criticism clearly contains,
cr over an attempt to trace the causes,-eot difficult, I
think, to bt traced,-which may haye led \Vordswonh to
this exaggeration, a critic n1ay with advantage seize an
occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking hin1-
self of what real service, at any gi\.en moment, the practice
of criticism either is, or nlay be nladc, to his own mind and
spirit, and to the minds and spirits of others.
TIle 1-1'unction of Criticisnl 3
The critical power is of lower rank than the creative.
True; but in assenting to this proposition, one or two things
are to be kept in n1Ïnd. It is undeniable that the exercise
of a creative power, that a free creative activity, is the true
function of man; it is proved to be so by man's finding in
it his true happiness. nut it is undeniable, also, that nlen
may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity
in other ways than in producing great works of literature or
art; if it were not so, all but a very few men would be shut
out fron1 the true happiness of all men; they may have it
in well-doing, they may have it in learning, they nlay ha\re
it even in criticising. 1'his is one thing to be kept in n1Ìnd.
,Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in the
production of great works of literature or art, however higb
this exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under
all conditions possible; and that therefore labour may be
vainly spent in attempting it, and may with more fruit be
used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible. rrhis
creative power works with elements, with nlaterials; what
if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its
use? In that case it must surely wait till they are ready.
Now, in literature,-I willlÍlllit myself to literature, for it is
about literature that the question arises,-the elements with
which the creatiye power works are ideas; the best ideas on
every matter which literature touches, current at the time;
at any rate we n1ay lay it down as certain that in lllodem
literature no manifestation of the creative power not working
with these can be very inlportant or fruitful. And I say
current at the tin1e, not merely accessible at the tin1e j for
creative literary genius does not principally show itself in
discovering new ideas, that is rather the business of the
philosopher; the grand work of literary genius is a work of
synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its
gift lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain
intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of
ideas, when it finds itself in then1; of dealing divinely with
these ideas, presenting thC1TI in the 1110st 'effective and
attractive combinations, n1aking beautiful works with them,
in short. nut it must have the atn10sphere, it nlust find
itself an1idst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and
these it is 110t so easy to conlnland. 1"his is why great
creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why the.re
4
Cri tical Essa)'s
is so rouch that is unsati5factory in the productions of man}'
men of real genius; because, for the creation of a nutster-
work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the
11lan and the power of the rnonlent, and the 111an is not
enough without the n10nlcnt; the creative Í)ower has, for its
happy exercise, appointed elements, and those elenlents are
not in its own control.
Nay, they are ITIOre within the control of the critical
power. It is the business of the critical power, as I said in
the words already quoted, "in all branches of knowledge,
theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object
as in itself it really is." 1'hus it tends, at last, to make an
intellectual situation of which the creative power can profit-
ably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if
not absolutely true, yet true by cornparison with that which
it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail. Present]y
these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth is th
touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere;
out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of
literature.
Or, to narrow our range, and quit these consideratio115 of
the general march of genius and of society,-consideratio:i-:s
which are apt to become too abstract and in1palpable,-
everyone can see that a poet, for instance, ought to know
life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and
life and the world being in modern times, very compl
x
things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth Dluch,
inlplies a great critical effort behind it; else it would be a
comparatively poor, barren, and short-lived affair. This is
why Byron's poetry had so little endurance in it, and
Goethe's so inuch; both had a great prüductive power, but
Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effort providing
the true nlaterials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew
life and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, rnuch nlore
c0111prehensively and thoroughly than Byron. l-le knew a
great deal more of theIn, and he knew then} nl uch 1110re as
they really arc.
It has long seerned to nle that the burst of creative activity
in our literature, through the first quarter of this century,
had about it in fact sonlething premature; and that frOIn
this cause its productions are doomed, most of them, in spite
of the
anguine hopes which accompanied and do still acconl-
The Function of Criticism 5
Dany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the produc-
tions of far less splendid epochs. And this prel11ature-
ness conles from its having proceeded without having its
proper data, without sufficient materials to work with. In
other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this
century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did
not know enough. This makes Byron so elnpty of matter,
Shelley so incoherent, 'Vordsworth even, profound as he is,
yet so wanting in con1pleteness and variety. \Vordsworth
cared little for books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire
'Vordsworth, as he is, so much that I cannot wish hin1 differ-
ent; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine such a DJan
different from what he is, to suppose that he could have been
dilTerent j but surely the one thin
wanting to make \V ords-
worth an even greater poet than he is,-his thought richer,
and his influence of wider application,-\vas that he should
have read n10re books, among them, no doubt, those of that
Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. But to
speak of books and reading rnay easily lead to a misunder-
standing here. It was not really books and reading that
lacked to our poetry at this epoch j SheJIey had plenty of
reading, Coleridge had Í1nmense reading. Pindar and
SophùcJes-as we all say so gliLly, and often with so little
discernn1ent of the real in1port of what we are saying-had
not many books; Shakspeare was no deep reader. True;
but in the Greece of Pindar and Sophocles, in the England
of Shakspeare, the poet lived in a current of ideas in the
bighest degree animating and nourishing to the creative
power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by
fresh thought, intelligent and alive; and this state of things
is the true basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it
tì.nds its data, its materials, truly ready for its hand; all the
books and reading in the world are only valuable as they are
heJps to this. Even when this does not actually exist,
books and reading may enable a man to construct a kind of
semblance of it in his OWIl mind, a world of knowledge and
intelligence in which he may live and work, this is by no
means an equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused
life and thought of the epochs of Sophocles or Shakspeare;
but, besides that it may be a means of preparation for such
epochs, it does really constitute, if D1any share in it, a
quickening and sustaining
.tmosphere of great value. Such
6
Cri tical Essays
an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and
widely-combined critical effort of Germany formed for
Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national
glow of life and thought there, as in the Athens of Pericles
or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness.
But there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete
culture and unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans.
That was his strength. In the England of the first quat ter
of this century there was neither a national glow of life and
thought, such as we had in the age of Elizabeth, nor yet a
culture and a force of learning and criticism such as were to
be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of
poetry wanted, for success in the highest sense, nlaterÍr1.1s
and a basis; a thorough interpretation of the world was
necessaril y denied to it.
At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense
stir of the French Revolution and its age should not nave
come a crop of works of genius equal to that which came
out of the stir of the great productive time of Greece, or ûut
vf that of the Renaissance, with its powerful episode the
Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French
Revolution took a character which essentially distinguishp.d
it frOln such movements as these. These were, in the maJn,
disinterestedly intellectual and spiritual movements; move-
ments in which the human spirit looked for its satisfaction
in itself and in the increased play of its own activity: the
French Revolution took a political, practical character.
This Revolution-the object of so 111uch blind love and
so much blind hatred,-found indeed its 111otive-power i'L1
the intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense ;-
this is what distinguishes it from the English Revolution
of Charles the First's time; this is what lnakes it a nlore
spiritual event than our Revolution, an event of much
more powerful and world-wide interest, though practically
less successful-it appeals to an order of ideas which are
universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it
rational? 1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it
went furthest, Is it according to conscience? This is the
English fashion, a fashion to be treated, within its own
sphere, with the highest respect; for its success, within its
o\..-n sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in one
place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not
The Function of Criticism 7
law even here to-n10rrow; and as for conscience, what is
binding on one man's conscience is not binding on another's,
the old woman who threw her stool at the head of the sur-
pI iced minister in the Tron Church at EàinLurgh obeyed
an impulse to which n1Îllions of the human race may be
permitted to renl3.in strangers. Dut the prescriptions of
reason are absolute, unchanging, of uniyersal yalidity; to
count by te1lS is the easiest u'ay of counting -that is a pro-
position of which everyone, from here to the Antipodes,
feels the force; at least I should say so if we did not live
in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we
may find a letter in the 7ïmes declaring that a decimal coin-
age is an absurdity. That a whole nation should have been
penetrated with an enthusiasln for pure reason, and with an
ardent zeal for making its prescriptions triumph, is a very
remarkable thing, when we consider how little of 111ind, or
anything so worthy and quickening as nlind, comes into the
motives which alone, in general, impel great ll1asses of
men. In spite of the extravagant direction given to this
enthusiasDl, in spite of the crimes and fonies in which it lost
itself, the French Revolution derives from the force, truth,
and universality of the ideas which it took for its law, and
from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for
these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is-it will
proLably long remain-the greatest, the most animating
event in history. And as no sincere passion for the things
of the mind, even though it turn out in many respects an
unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite
barren of good, France has reaped froll1 hers one fruit, the
natural and legitin1ate fruit, though not precisely the grand
fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where the
petìþle is lTIOst alive.
But the mania for giving an in1mediate political and
practical app1ication to all these fine ideac; of the reason
was fata1. I [ere an Engìishn1an is in his element: on this
then1e we can all go for hours. And all we are in the habit
of s:lying on it has undoubtedly a great èeal of truth.
Ideas cannot be too n1uch prized in anù for themselves,
cannot be too much lived with; but to transport then1
abruptly into the world of politics and practice. violently to
rcyolutionise this world to their bidding,-that is quite
another thing. '"fhere is the world of ideas and there is tbe
8
Critical Essays
world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the
one and the English the other; but neither is to be
suppressed. A member of the flouse of C0111mOnS said to
me the other day: "That a thing is an anomaly, I consid
r
to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to think he
was wrong; tha.t a thing is an anomaly is an objection to it,
but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not
necessarily, under such and such circunlstances, or at such
and such a nloment, an objection to it in the sphere of
politics and practice. Joubert has said beautifully: "C'est
130 force et Ie droit qui réglent toutes choses dans le Inonde ;
Ia fùrce en attendant Ie droit." Force and right are the
goven.1ors of this world; force tin right is ready. Force till
rig-ht -is 1'ead)'; and till right is ready, force, the existing
order of things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But
right is something moral, and implies inward recognition,
free assent of the will; we are not ready for right,-rzght,
so far as we are concerned, -is not rea{
',-.until we have
attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. 'T'he way in
which for us it may change and transform force, the existing
order of things, and becon1e, in its turn, the legitinlate ruler of
the wor1d, will depend on the way in which, when our tÍl11e
comes, we see it and win it. Therefore for other people
enanloured of their own newly discerned right, to atten1pt
to Ï1npose it upon us as ours, and violently to substitute
their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be
re.5Ísted. It sets at nought the second great half of our
maxinl, force till right is 1
eadì" This was the grand error
of the French Revolution; and its movetnent of ideas, by
quitting the intellectual sphere and rushing furiously into
the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious and
mernorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit
as the movement of ideas of the Renaissance, and created,
in opposition to itself, what I nlay call an eþoch of concentra-
tion. The great force of that epoch of concentration was
England; and the great voice of that epoch of concentration
was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Durke's writings on
the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered by
the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of
bigotry and prejudice. I win not deny that they are often
disfigured by the violence and passion of the monlent, and
that in sonle directions Burke's view was bounded, and his
'"fhe Function of Criticis111 9
observation therefore at fault, but on the whole, and for
those who can make the needful corrections, ,vhat dis-
tinguishes these writings is their profound, pennanent,
fruitful, philosophical truth, they contain the true philosophy
of an epoch of concentration, dissipate the heavy atn10sphere
which its own nature is apt to engender round it, and make
its resistance rational instead of Inechanical.
But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England,
he brings thought to bear upon politics, he saturates
politics with thought; it is his accident that his ideas were
at the service of an epoch of concentration, not of an epoch
of expansion; it is his characteristic th
t he so lived by
ideas, and had such a source of them welling up within
him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration
and English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt
hirn that Dr Price and the Liberals were displeased with him;
it does not even hurt him that George the Third and the
Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness is that he
lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor
EngEsh Toryism is apt to enter j-the world of ideas, not
the world of catchwords and party habits. So far is it from
being really true of him that he "to party gave up what
was Inea:lt for 111ankind," that at the very end of his fierce
struggle with the French Revolution, after all his invectives
against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, with
his sincere conviction of its mischievousness, he can close
a men10randum on the best Ineans of COIn bating it, SOine of
thei last pages he ever wrote,-the Thoughts on French
Affairs, in December I 79I,-with these striking words :-
U The evil is stated, in nlY opinion, as it exists. The
renledy n1ust be where power, wisdom, and infonnation, I
hope, are more united with good intentions than they can
be with file. I have done with this subject, I believe, for
ever. It has gh'en me many anxious moments for the last
two years. If a great change z"s to be made in human affairs,
the minds of men will be jitted to it j the general opinions and
feelings will draw that 'way. EvelY fear, e'l:ery hope will
forward it,. and tlzen they 'li}ho persist in oþposzng thz"s mighty
curren'! in human affairs, will ajpear rather to resist the decrees
of Providence itself, than tlle mere desl:
ns of men. The;' will
not be resolute and finn, but perverse and obstinate."
That return of Burke upon hinlself has always seemed to
10
Critical Essavs
n1e one of the finest things in English literature, or indeed
in any literature. 'rhat i
what I call living by ideas: when
one side of a question has long had your earnest support,
when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear all round
you no language but one, when your party talks this lan-
guage like a steam-engine and can inlagine no other,-still
to be able to think, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by
the current of thought to the opposite side of the question,
and, like Balaam, to be unable to speak anything but what the
Lord has þut ill your mOlt!ll. I know nothing more striking,
and I must add that I know nothing more un-Engl:sh.
For the Englishman in general is like 01Y friend the
1f ember of Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for
a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely no objection to it
whatever. I-Ie is like the Lord ,A.uckland of Burke's day,
who, in a n1en10ranàunl on the French Revolution, talks..
of "certain Iniscreants, assun1ing the na01e of philosophers,
who have presumed then1selves capable of establishing a
new system of society." The Englishlnan has been called
a political anilnal, and he values what is political and
practical so DUlch that ideas easily become objects of
dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," because idea:)
and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and practice.
'fhis would be all very well if the dislike and neglect con-
fined thenlselves to ideas transported out of their own
sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are
inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life
of intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the
Inind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the n1ind
upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object
of desire, being an essential provider of elements without
which a nation's spirit, whatever compensations it n1ay ha,'e
for then1, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly
enters into an Englishman's thoughts. It is noticeable that
the word curiosilJ', which in other languages is used in a
good sense, to nlean, as a high and fine quality of man's
nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind
on all subjects, for its own sake,-it is noticeable, I say,
that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no
sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism,
real criticisln, is essentially the exercise of this very quality;
it obe}"s an instinct prompting it to try to know the best
The I
unction of Criticis111 I I
that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of
practice, politics, anà c,-crything of the kind; and to value
knowledge and thought as thc}' approach this best, without
the intrusion of any other considerations whatever. 1-'his is
an instinct for which there is, I think, little original S}'In-
pathy in the practical English nature, and what there was of
it has undergone a long benumbing period of check and
suppression in the epoch of concentration wh
ch followed
tbe French Revolution.
nut epochs of concentration cannot well endure for ever;
epochs of expansion, in the due course of things, follow
them. Such an epoch of expansion seems to be opening in
this country. In the first place all danger of a hostile
forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice has long
disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, we
begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with
a long peace the ideas of Europe steal gradually and ami-
cably in, and mingle, though in infinitesinlally small
quantities at a time, with our own notions. 1'hen, too, in
spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutalising
influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me
indisputabìe that this progress is likely, thOUg
l not certain,
to lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and
that nlan, after he has nlade himself perfectly comfortable
and has now to deten11ine what to do with himself next,
may begin to remelllber that he has a mind, and that the
mind [nay be I11ade the source of great pleasure. I grant
it is nlainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this
end to our railways, our business, and our fortune-nlaking;
but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, faith is not in the
eud the true prophet. Our ease, our travelling, and our
un bounded liberty to hold just as hard and securely as we
plcase to the practice to which our notions have given birth>>
all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely
with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to
penetrate a little into their real nature. Flutterings of
curiosity, in the foreign sense of the word, appear Rrnongst
us, and it is in these that criticism lnust look to fInd its
account. Criticism first; a tin1e of true creative activity,
perhaps,-which, as I have said, must inevitably be pre-
ceded amongst us by a time of criticism,-hereafter, when
criticism has done its work.
12
Critical Essays
It is of the last importance that English criticism should
clearly discern what rules for its course, in order to avail
itself of the field now opening to it, and to produce fruit for
the future, it ought to take. 1'he rules may be given in
one word; by being disinterested. And how is it to be
disinterested? By keeping aloof from practice; by
resolutely following the law of its own nature, which is to be
a free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches; by
steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those ulterior,
political, practical considerations abo:Jt ideas, which plenty
of people will be sure to attach to then], which perhaps
ought often to be attached to them, which in this country at
any rate are certain to be attached to then1 quite sufficiently,
but which criticisnl has really nothing to do with. Its
business is, as 1 have said, simply to know the best that is
known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making
this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its
business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due
ability; but its business is to do no more, and to leave alone
all questions of practical consequences and applications,
questions which will never fail to have due pron1Ínence given
to them. Else criticism, besides being really false to its
own nature, n1erely continues in the old rut which it has
hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly Inis5 th
chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of
criticisG1 in this country? It is that practical considerations
cling to it and stifle it; it subserves interests not its o'l.rn;
our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having
practical ends to serve, and with then1 those practical ends
are the first thing and the play of n1Ïnd the second; so
n1ucb play of mind as is conlpatible with the prosecution of
those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the
I?evue des Deux .AIondes, having for its main function to
understand and utter the best that is known and thought in
the world, exi.sting, it n1ay be said, as just an organ for a
free play of the nlÍnd, we have not; but we have the
EdiJlburgh RevieuI, existing as an organ of the old 'Vhigs,
and for as n1 uch play of the Inind as may suit its being
that; we have the Quarterly Revie'iv, existing as an organ
of the rfories, and for as much play of mind as n]ay suit its
being that; we have the British Quarterly Re'l)ieuJ, existing
as :ton organ of the political Dissenters, and for as much
The Function of Criticism 13
play of mind as 11lay suit its being that; we have the Times,
exihting as an organ of the COnll1l0n, satisfied, well-to-do
Englishman, and for as much play of mind as Dla}' suit its
being that. And so on through all the ,.arious factions,
political and reli 6 rjous, of our society; every faction has, as
such, its organ of criticism, but the notion of cornbining all
fractions in the common pleasure of a free disinterested play
of rnind 111eets with no favour. Directly this play of mind
wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of
practical considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to
feel the chain. \Ve saw this the other day in the extinction,
so much to be regretted, of the .FIo111e and Foreign RevÙ'iv;
perhaps in no organ of criticisD1 in this country was there
so much knowledge, so much play of Dlind; but these could
not save it. The DZlblin Review subonlinates play of
rnind to the practical business of Roman Catholicisnl, and
lives. It must needs be that men should act in sects and
parties, that each of these sects and parties should have its
organ, and should make this organ subserve the interests
of its action; but it would be well, too, that there should be
a criticisnl, not the minister of these interests, not their
enemy, but absolutely and entircly independent of them.
No other criticis1l1 will ever attain any real authority or nlake
any real way towards its end,-the creating a current of true
and fresh ideas.
It is because criticisD1 has so little kept in the pure
intellectual sphere, has so little detached itself from practice,
has been so directly polemical and controyersial, that it has
so ill acconlplished, in this country, its best spiritual work;
which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is
retarding and yulgarising, to lead him towards perfection, by
n1aking his mind dwell uron what is excellent in itself, and
the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical
practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal in1-
perfection of their practice, makes them willingly assert its
ideal perfection, in order the better to secure it against
attack; and clearly this is narrowing and babeful for thein.
If they were reassured on the practical side, speculative
considerations of ideal perfection they might be brought to
entertain, and thcir spiritual horizon would thus gradually
widen. IHr .Adderley says to the \" arwickshire fanners :-
"Talk of the in1provement of breed! 'Yhy, the race
14
Critical Essays
we ourselves represent, the men and women, the old
i\.nglo-Saxon race, arc the best breed in the whole world.
. . . 1
he absence of a too enervating climate, too
unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced
so vigorous a race of people, and has renùered us so
superior to all the world.))
lVlr Roebuck says to the Sheffield cutlers:-
U I look around me and ask what is the state of England?
Is not property safe? Is not every man able to say what
he likes? Can you not walk from one end of England to
the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, the
world over or in past history, there is anything like it?
Nothing. I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last."
Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in
words and thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction,
until we find ourselves safe in the streets of the Celestial
City.
U Das wenige verschwinc1et leicht clem Blicke
Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt-
says Goethe; U the little that is done seen1S nothing whc:n
we look forward and see how much we have yet to do."
Clearly this is a better line of reflection for weak humanity,
so long as it remains on this earthly field of labour and
trial. But neither 1fr Adderley nor Mr Roebuck is by
nature inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They
only lose sight of them owing to the controversial life we all
lead, and the practical forn1 which all speculation takes
with us. They have in view opponents whose aim is not
ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own
practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to
attribute to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody
has been wanting to introduce a six-pound franchise, 01 to
abolish church-rates, or to collect agricultural statistics by
force, or to diminish local self-government. How natural,
in reply to such proposals, very like]y improper or ill-timed,
to go a little beyond the mark and to say stoutly, "Such a
race of people as we stand, so superior to all the world!
1-'he old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole
world! I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last!
I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there
is anything like it ? " And so long as criticism answers this
The Function of Criticisn1 15
dithyramb by insisting that the old Anglo-Saxon race
would be still more superior to all others if it had no
church-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last
yet longer with a six-pound franchise, so long will the
strain, "The best breed in the whole world!" swell louder
and louder, everything ideal and refining will be lost out of
sight, and both the assailed and their critics will ren1ain in
a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unintelligent, a sphere in
which spiritual progression is ilnpossible. But let criticisnl
leave church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most
candid spirit, without a single lurking thought of practical
innovation, confront with our dithyramb this paragraph on
which I stun1bled in a newspaper immediately after reading
l\lr Roebuck ;-
" A shocking child murder has just been committed at
Nottingham. A girl nmned 'Vragg left the workhouse there
on Saturday n10rning with her young illegitimate child.
The child was soon afterwards found dead on l\lapperly
Hills, having been strangled. 'Vragg is in custody."
Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute
eulogies of :r"lr Adderley and l\Ir Roebuck, how eloquent,
how suggestive are those few lines! H Our old Anglo-
Saxon breed, the best in the whole world! "-how much
that is harsh and ill-favoured there is in this best! IVragg!
If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the
whole world," has anyone reflected what a touch of gross-
ness in our race, what an original shortcoming in the n10re
delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth
amongst us of such hideous nan1es,-I-Iigginbottom, Stiggins,
Bugg ! In Ionia and Attica they were luckier in this
respect than "the best race in the world;" by the Ilissus
there was no 'Vr
.
g, poor thing! And "our unrivalled
happiness; "-what an element of grÏ1nness, bareness, and
hideousness nlixes with it Rnd blurs it; the workhouse, the
disl11al l\iapperly Hills,-how disn1al those who have seen
then1 will ren1en1ber ;-the glool11, the slnoke, the cold, the
strangled illegitin1ate child! "I ask you v'bether, the world
over or in past history, there is anything like it ? " It may
be so, one is inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that
case, the world is very much to be pitied. And the final
touch,-short, bleak and inhuman: IVragg z"s Ùz CZtslod)'.
The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalled happiness j
16
Critical Essa)?s
or shall I say, the superfluous Christi3.n name lopped ofT by
the straightforward vigour of our old Anglo-Saxon breed?
There is profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this i
criticism serves the cause of perfection by establishing then1.
By eluding sterile conflict, by refusing to renlaÎn in the
sphere where alone narrow and relative conceptions have
any worth and validity, criticism may din1Ìnish its nlonlentary
inlportance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining
admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to
which all its duty is really owed. Mr Roebuck will have a
poor opinion of an adversary who replies to his defiant songs
of triumph only by murnluring under his breath, 1Vrag({ is
in clIstod.y,. but in no other way will these songs of triunlph be
inèuced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid of what
in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer
and truer key.
It will be said that it is a veïy subtle and indirect action
which I am thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by
embracing in this nlanner the Indian virtue of detachment
and abandoning the sphere of practical life, it condemns itself
to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be,
but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of
n1ankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as
they are; very inadequate ideas win always satisfy them.
On these inadequate ideas reposes, and In ust repose, the
general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that
whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find
hitnself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this
sffi3.11 cirde resolutely doing its own work that adequate
ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and roar
of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting
effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw
hinl into its vortex; most of all will this be the case where
that life is so powerful as it is in England. Dut it is only by
rel11aining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the
point of view of the practical man, that the critic can
do the practical man any service; and it is only by the
greatest sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last
convincing even the practical man of his sincerity, that he
CfU1 escape l11isunderstandings which perpetually threaten
hin1.
:F'or the practical man is not apt for tine distinctions, and
The Function of Criticisn1 17
yet in these distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly
find their account. But it is not easy to lead a practical
man,-unless you reassure him as to your practical intentions,
you have no chance of leading hin1,-to see that a thing
which he has always been used to look at from one side
only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from
that side, more than deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and
admiring which he bestows upon it,-that this thing, looked
at from another side, may appear much less beneficent and
beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical
allegiance. '''here shall we find language innocent enough,
how shall we n)ake the spotless purity of our intentions
evident enough, to enable us to say to the political English-
rnan that the British constitution itself, which, seen from
the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of progress
and virtue, seen from the speculative side,-with its
compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its
studied avoidance of clear thoughts,-that, seen fron1 this
side, our august constitution sometimes looks,-forgive me,
shade of Lord Son1ers !-a colossal machine for the manu-
facture of Philistines? HOl\. is Cobbett to say this and not
be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a
Ijfelong conflict in the field of political practice? how
is
Ir Carlyle to say it and not be n1isunderstood, after his
furious raid into this field with his Latter-day Pamþhlets 1
how is 1fr Ruskin, after his pugnacious political economy?
I say, the critic must keep out of the region of immediate
practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if
he wants to n1ake a beginning for that more free speculative
treatment of things, which may perhaps one day nlake its
benefits felt even in this spher
, but in a natural and thence
irresistible n1anncr.
Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain
exposed to frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so
much as in this country. For here people are particularly
indisposed even to comprehend that without this free dis-
interested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture
are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical
life, so accustomed to take all their notions from this life
and its processes, that they are apt to think that truth and
culture themselves can be reached by the processes of this
life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of
18
Cri tical Essays
reaching theln in any other. " \Ve are all terræ jilzi
J' crìe:!
their eloquent advocate; "all Philistines together. Away
with the notion of proceeding by any other way than the
,"yay dear to the Philistines; let us have a social move-
ment, let us organise and combine a party to pursue truth
jlnd new thought, let us call it the liberal parIJ', and let us
all stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us
have no nonsense about independent criticism, and in-
tellectual delicacy, and the few and the many. Don't let
us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall invent
the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us
speaks well, applaud hinl; if one of us speaks ill, applaud
hinl too; we are all in the same moven1ent, we are all
liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth." In this way the
pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, plcasurabJe
affair, aln10st requiring a chairman, a secretary, and adver-
tisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an
occasional scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty
overCOlne; but, in general, plenty of bustle and very little
thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe says; to think is so
hard! It is true that the critic has many temptations to go
with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one
of these terræ jilzï; it seems ungracious to refuse to
be a terræ jilius, when so many excellent people are; but
the critic's duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at
least to cry with Obennann: I J érÙsolls en rÓista1lt.
How serious a nlattcr it is to try and resist, I had ample
opportunity of experiencing when I ventured some time ago
to criticise the celebrated fIrst volume of Bishop Colenso.
The echoes of the storn1 'which was then raised I still, from
time to time, hear grumbling round me. rrhat storm arose
out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result
of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science
and religion are two wholly different things; the n1ultitude
will for ever confuse thenl; but happily that is of no great
real importance, for ,....hile it in1agines itself to live by its
false science, it does really live by its true religion. Dr
Colenso, however, in his first volume did all he could to
strengthen the confusion, and to make it dangerous. He
did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and with
the n10st candid ignorance that this was the natural effect
of what he was doing; but, says Joubert, (( Ignorance, which
The Function of Criticism 19
in matters of n10rals extenuates the crime, is itself, in
intellectual matters, a crime of the first order." I criticised
Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. Immediately there
was a cry raised: "'Vhat is this? here is a liberal attacking
a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not
you a friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colen so in pursuit of
truth? then speak with proper respect of his book. Dr
Stanley is another friend of truth, and you speak with
proper respect of his book; why make these invidious
differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal j
Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most, because it is the
boldest, and will have the best practical consequences for
the liberal cause. Do you want to encourage to the attack
of a brother liberal his, and your, and our implacable
enenlies, the Church alld Stale Review or the Record,-the
High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyæna? Be
silent, therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you
can! and go into ecstasies over the eight hundred and odd
pigeons." But criticism cannot follow this coarse and
indiscriminate method. It is unfortunately possible for a
man in pursuit of truth to write a book which reposes upon
a false conception. Even the practical consequences of a
book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if
the book is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a
lady who herself, too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes
with great ability, hut a little too much, perhaps, under the
influence of the practical spirit of the English liberal move-
ment, classes Dishop Colenso's book and 1'1. Renan's
together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as
facts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great
importance;" "great ability, power, and skill;" Bishop
Colen so's, perhaps, the most powerful; at least, 1Iiss Cobbe
gives special expression to her gratitude that to Bishop
Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and the
courage to teach, truths of such deep inlport." In the same
way, more than one popular writer has compared hin1 to
Luther. Now it is just this kind of false t.stimate which
the critical spirit is, it seems to Ine, bound to resist. It is
really the strongest possible proof of the low ebb at which,
in England, the critical spirit is, that while the critical hit
in the religious literature of Gennany is Dr Strauss's book,
in that of France I\L Renan's book, the book of Bishop
20
Critical Essays
Colenso is the critical hit in the religious literature of
England. Bishop Colen so's book reposes on a total mis-
conception of the essential elements of the religious problem,
as that problelTI is now presented for solution. To criticism
therefore, which seeks to have the best that is known and
thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no
importance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new
synthesis of the elements furnished to us by the Four
Gospels. It attempts, in nlY opinion, a synthesis, perhaps
premature, perhaps inlpossible, certainly not successful.
Perhaps we shall always have to acquiesce in Fleury's
sentence on such recastings of the Gospel-story: Quiconque
s'il1lagl:ne la pouvoir mÙux !(rire, ne l'en/end þas. 1\1. Renan
had himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his
own work, when he said: "If a new presentation of the
character of Jesus were offered to IDe, I would not have it;
its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the best proof
of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect truth
rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual
scene of the Gospel-story, all the current of M. Renan's
thoughts nlay have naturally changed, and a new casting of
that story irresistibly suggested itself to him; and that this
is just a case for applying Cicero's maxim: Change of mind
is not inconsistency-ne1no doc/us zuzqua?Jl 1l11tla/ionem consilii
inconstanliam dixit esse. Nevertheless, for criticism, -1\1.
Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long as
his new casting so fails more fully to comnlend itself, more
fully (to use Coleridge's happy phrase about the Bible) to
find us. Still 1\1. Renan's attempt is, for criticisnl, of the
most real interest and importance, since, with aU its diffi-
culty, a fresh synthesis of the New Testament data, is the
very essence of the religious problem, as now presented;
and only by efforts in this direction can it receive a solution.
Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop
Colen so, I\Iiss Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our
practical race, both here and in America, herself sets
vigorously about a positive re-construction of religion, about
making a religion of the future out of hand, or at least setting
about making it, we nlust not rest, she and they are always
thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be
creative and constructive; hence we have such works as her
recent ReNgious Duty, and works still more considerable,
The Function of Criticisrll 2 I
perhaps, by others, which will be in everyone's mind.
These works often have much ability; they often spring out
of sincere conyictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and
they sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may
be pern1Ïtted to say so) one which they have in common
with the l
ritish College of Health, in the New Road.
Everyone knows the British College of Health; it is that
building ,yith the lion and the statue of the Goddess H ygeia.
before it: at least I am sure about the lion, though I am
not absolutely certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This
building doe3 credit, perhaps, to the resources of Dr
110rrison and his disciples; but it falls a g('od deal short of
one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to be.
In England, where we hate public interference and love
individual enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like
the British College of Health; the grand name without the
gand thing. Unluckily, creditable to individual enterprise
as they are, they tend to impair our taste by 111aking us
forget what nlore grandiose, noble, or beautiful character
properly belongs to a public institution. 1'he same Inay be
said of the religions of the future of l\fiss Cobbe and others.
Creditable, like the British College of I-Iealth, to the re,
sources of their authors, they yet tend to make us forget
what nlore grandiose, noble, or beautiful character properly
belongs to religious constructions. The historic religions,
with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to
the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this;
and we in1poverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the
future without it. 'Vhat then is the duty of criticisn1 here?
To take the practical point of view, to appìaud the liberal
moyemt::nt and all its works,-its New Road religions of the
future into the bargain,-for their general utility's sake?
By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these
works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect
ideal.
In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never
can be popular, and in this country they have been very
little follo\\""ed, and one meets with inllnense obstacles in
following them. That is a reason for asserting them again
and again. Criticislu must maintain its independence of
the practical spirit and its aÎ1us. Even with well-meant
eflorts of the practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction.
22
Critical Essays
if in the sphere of the ideal they seern impoverishing and
lin1iting. It must not hurry on to the goal because of its
practical importance. It must be patient, and know how to
wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things
and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study
and praise elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfec-
tion are wanted, even though they belong to a power which
in the practical sphere may be Inaleficent. It must be apt
to discern the spiritual shortcomings or illusions of powers
that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. .And this
without any notion of favouring or injuring, in the practical
sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of
playing off, in this sphere. one power against the other.
'Vhen one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court,
-an institution which perhaps has its practical conveniences,
but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an institution
which neither n1akes divorce impossible nor makes it
decent, which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife
of her husband, but Inakes them drag one another first, for
the public edification, through a n1Íre of unutterable infamy,
-when one looks at this charming institution, I say, with
its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and its money
compensations, this institution in which the gross unregener-
ate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of
hinlself,-one may be permitted to find the marriage theory
of Catholicisln refreshing and elevating. Or when Pro-
testantism, in virtue of its supposed rational and intellectual
origin, gives the law to criticism too n1agisterially, criticism
nlay and must relnind it that its pretensions, in this respect,
are illusive and do it harnl; that the Refornlation was a
nloral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's theory
of grace no l110re exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than
Bossuet's philosophy of history reflects it; and that there is
no more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durhanl's
stock of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason than of
Pope Pius the Ninth's. But criticism will not on that
account forget the achievements of Protestantislll in the
practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in the intellectual
sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stunlbling
manner, carried forward the IZenaissance, while CatholicisIll
threw itself violently across its path.
I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting
The Function of Criticism 23
the want of ardour and movement which he now found
amongst young men in this country with what he remelllbered
in his own youth, twenty years ago. U "
hat reformers we
were then!" he exclaimed; "what a zeal we had! how we
canvassed every institution in Church and State, and were
prepared to remodel them all on first principles! " He was
inclined to regret, as a spiritual flagging, the lull which he
saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which
the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being ac-
com plished. Everything was long seen, by the young and
ardent amongst us, in inseparable connection with politics
and practical life. 'Ve have pretty well exhausted the
benefits of seeing things in this connection, we have got all
that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a ll10re dis-
interested lllode of seeing them; let us betake ourstlves
more to the serener life of the mind and spirit. This life,
too, may have its excesses and dangers; but they are not for
lIS at present. Let us think of quietly enlarging our stock
of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon us we get an idea
or half an idea, be running out with it into the street, and
trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end,
shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps
in fifty years' time it will in the English House of Commons
be an objection to an institution that it is an anolllaly, and
my friend the
Iember of Parlianlcnt will shudder in his
grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather endeayour that
in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be an
objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a
change so vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it.
Ab integro sæCIOnt71Z nascitur onto.
If I have insisted so much on the course which criticisu'l
must take where politics and religion are concerned, it is
because, where these burning matters are in question, it is
most likely to go astray. In general, its course is determined
for it by the idea which is the law of its being; the idea of
a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best
that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish
a current of fresh and true ideas. By the very nature of
things, as England is not all the world, n1uch of the best
that is known and thought in the world cannot be of English
growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it
is just this tbat we are least likely to know, while English
24
Critical Essays
thought is streaming in upon us from all sides, and takc9
excellent care that we shall not be ignorant of its exist-
ence; the English critic, therefore, must d ,veIl much on
foreign thought, and with particular heed on any p
nt of
it, which, while significant and fruitful in itself, is for any
reason specially likely to escape him. Judging is often
spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in some sense
it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself
in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the
valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge,
must be the critic's great concern for himself; and it is by
cOlnmunic:lting fresh knowledge, and letting his own judg-
ment pass along with it,-but insensibly, and in the second
place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as
an abstract lawgiver,-that he will generally do most good
to his readers. Sometinles, no doubt, for the sake of estab-
lishing an author's place in literature, and his relation to a
central standard (and if this is not donE', how are we to get
at our best in the world 7) criticism nlay have to deal with a
subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge is out of the
question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation
and detailed application of principles. I-Iere the great safe-
guard is never to let oneself becollle abstract, always to
retain an intimate and lively consciousness of the truth of
what one is saying, and, the moment this fails us, to be sure
that something is wrong. Still, under all circumstances,
this mere judgment and application of principles is, in itself,
not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathema-
tics, it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh
learning, the sense of creative activity. 1'0 have this
sense is, as I said at the beginning, the great happi-
ness and the great proof of being alive, and it is not
denied to criticisnl to have it; but then criticism must be
sincere, sinlple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its know-
ledge. Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a
joyful sense of creative activity; a sense which a man of
insight and conscience will prefer to what he might derive
from a poor, starved, fragn1entary, inadequate creation.
And at some epochs no other creation is possible.
Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs
only to genuine creation; in literature we must never forget
that. But what true man of letters ever can forget it? It
1'he Function of Criticisnl 25
is no such common matter for a gifted nature to come into
posse
sion of a current of true and living ideas, and to
produce anlidst the inspiration of them, that we arc likely
to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakspeare
make us feel their pre-eminence. In an epoch like those
is, no doubt, the true life of literature; thE're is the promised
land, towards which criticism can only beckon. That
promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die
in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have
saluted it fronl afar, is already: perhaps, the best distinction
among contenlporaries; it will certainly be the best title to
esteem with posterity_
liBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
II
'fHE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF
ACADElVIIES
I T is impossible to put down a book like the history of the
French Academy, by Pellisson and D
Olivet, which 11.
Charles Livet has lately re-edited, without being led to
reflect upon the absence, in our own country, of any in-
stitution like the French Acaden1Y, upon the probable
causes of this absence, and upon its results. A thousand
voices will be ready to tell us that this absence is a signal
Inark of our national superiority; that it is in great part
owing to this absence that the exhilarating words of Lord
1\1acaulay, lately given to the world by his very clever
nephew, 1\1:1' Trevelyan, are so profoundly true: "It may
safely be said that the literature now extant in the English
language is of far greater value than all the literature which
three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together." I daresay this is so; only, remen1ber-
ing Spinoza's maxim that the two great banes of humanity
are self-conceit and the laziness coming from self-conceit,
I think it may do us good, instead of resting in our pre-
en1inence with perfect security, to look a little more closely
why this is so, and whether it is so without any limitations.
But first of all I must give a very few words to the out-
ward history of the French Academy. About the year 1629,
seven or eight persons in Paris, fond of literature, forn1ed
themselves into a sort of little club to meet at one another's
houses and discuss literary matters. Their n1cetings got
talked of, and Cardinal Richelieu, then n1Înister and all-
powerful, heard of them. I-Ie hin1self had a noble passion
for letters, and for all fine culture; he was interested by
what he heard of the nascent society. Himself a man in
the grand style, if ever man was, he had the insight to
perceiye what a potent instrument of the grand style was
here to his hand. It was the beginning of a great century
26
Literary Influence of Acaùen1ies 27
for France, the seventeenth; men's minds were working,
the French language was forming. Richelieu sent to ask
the l11embers of the new society whether they would be
willing to become a body with a public character holding
regular meetings. Not without a little hesitation,-for
apparently they found then1selves very well as they were,
and these seven or eight gentlemen of a social and literary
turn were not perfectly at their ease as to what the great and
terrible minister could want with them,-they consented.
The favours of a man like Richelieu are not easily refused,
whether they are honestly meant or no; but, this favour of
Richelieu's was meant quite honestly. The Parlian1ent,
however, had its doubts of this. The Parliament had none
of Richelieu's enthusiasm about letters and culture; it was
jealous of the apparition of a new public body in the State;
above all, of a body called into existence by Richelieu.
The K.ing's letters-patent, establishing and authorising the
new society, were granted early in 1635; but, by the old
constitution of France, these letters-patent required the
verification of the Parliament. It was two years and a half-
towards the autumn of I637-before the Parlian1ent would
give it; and it then gave it only after pressing solicitations,
and earnest assurances of the innocent intentions of the
young Academy. Jocose people said that this society, with
its mission to purify and embellish the language, filled with
terror a body of lawyers like the French Parliament, the
stronghold of barbarous jargon and of chicane.
This improvement of the language was in truth the
d
clared grand aim for the operations of the Academy.
Its statutes of foundation, approved by Richelieu before the
royal edict establishing it was issued, say expressly: "The
Academy's principal function shall be to work with all the
care and all the diligence possible at giving sure rules to our
language, and rendering it pure, eloquent, and capable of
treating the arts and sciences." This zeal for making a
nation's great instrument of thought,-its language,-correct
and worthy, is undoubtedly a sign full of' promise,-a
wejghty earnest of future power. It is said that Richelieu
had it in his mind that French should succeed Latin in its
general ascendency, as Latin had succeeded Greek; if it
was so, even this wish has to some extent been fulfilled.
But, at any rate, the ethical influences of st}'1e in language,
28
Critical Essays
--its close relations, so often pointed out, with character,
-are most important. Richelieu, a man of high culture,
and, at the same time, of great character, felt them pro-
foundly; and that he should have sought to rcgularise,
strengthen, and perpetuate them by an institution for
perfecting language, is alone a striking proof of his governing
spirit and of his genius.
1"his was not all he h3.d in his lnind, however. The new
.A.cademYJ now en1a.rged to a body of forty rnenlbers, and
meant to contain all the chief literary n1cn of France, ,vas to
be a literary tribunal. The works of its 'members were to
be brought before it previous to publication, were to be
criticised by it, and finally, if it saw fit, to be published
with its declared approbation. The works of other writers,
not Inembers of the Academy, might also, at the'request of
these \vriters thenlselves, be passed under the .l\caclemy's
review. Besides this, in essays and discussions the Academy
examined and judged works already published, whether by
living or dead authors, and literary matters in general. rrhe
celebrated opinion on Corneil1e's Cid, delivered in 1637 by
the Acaden1Y at Richelieu's urgent request, when this poem,
which strongly occupied public attention, had been attacked
by IVL de Scudéry, shows how fully Riche1ieu designed his
new creation to do duty as a supreme court of literature,
and how early it in fact began to exercise this function.
One I who had known Richelieu declared, after the
Cardinal's death, that he had projected a yet greater
institution thån the Academy, a sort of grand European
college of art, science, and literature, a Prytaneum, where
the chief authors of all Europe should be gathered together
in one central hon1e, there to live in security, leisure, and
honour ;-that was a dream which will not bear to be pulled
about too roughly. But the project of forming a hjgh court
of letters for France was no dream; Richelieu in great
Ineasure fulfilled it. This is what the Academy, by its idea,
really is; this is what it has always tended to becorne; this
is what it has, frorn tinle to time, really been; by being, or
tending to be this, far more than even by what it has done
for the language, it is of such Ï1nportance in Fr
nce. To
giye the law, the tone to literature, and that tone a high one,
is its business. h Richelieu meant it," says 1vI. Sainte-
· La Mesnardière.
Literary Influence of Academies 29
Beuve, "to be a haut jU1J',"-a jury the most choice and
authoritatiyc that could be found on all important literary
matters in question before the public; to be, as it in fact
became in the latter half of the eighteenth century, "a
sovereign organ of opinion." "The duty of the Academy
is," says I\L Renan, "lllaintenir la délicatesse de "esprit
frallçais "-to keep the fine quality of the French spirit
unin1paired; it represents a kind of "1llaÍtrise en fait de
I bon tOil "-the authority of a recognised master in nl
tters of
I tone and taste. "All ages," says 1\1. Renan again, "have
: had their inferior literature; but the great danger of our
I time is that this inferior literature tenùs n10re and n10re to
get the upper place. No one has the saIne ad vantage as the
Academy for fighting against this mischief;" the Academy,
which, as he says elsewhere, has even special facilities for
" creating a form of intellectual culture u'hich shall in2fose
iÓ"cif 011 all arvulld." ß
. Sainte-Beuve and 1\1. H.enan are,
both of thenl, very keen-sighted critics; and they show it
signally by seizing and putting so prominently forward this
character of the French ...t\cademy.
Such an effort to set up a recognised authority, imposing
on us a high standard in nlatters of intellect and taste, has
nlany ellenlies in hUlllan nature. 'Ve all of us like to go
our own way, and not to be forced out of the ato1osphere of
comnlonplace habitual to n10st of us ;-" 'was uns a/If
bà"ndigt,JJ says Goethe, "das Gemeille." 'Ve like to be
suffered to lie comf,Jrtably in the old straw of our habits,
especially of our intellectual habits, even though this stra \,
may not be very clean and fine. But ii the effort to limit
this freedonl of our lower nature finds, as it does and must
find, enemies in hunlan nature, it finds also auxiliaries in it.
Out of the four great parts, says Cicero, of the hOllesft<t1n,
or good, "hich forms the matter on which otJicium, cr
hurnan duty, finds en1ployment, one is the fixing of a modus
and an ordo, a nleasure and an order, to fashion and \Yhole-
s0111el y constrain our action, in order to lift it above the
level it keeps if left to itself, and to briiJ.g it nearer to
perfection. 1\lan alone of living creatures, he says, goes
feeling after "quid sit ordo, quid sit quod deceat, in Jactis
dÙ:tisque qui 1110dus "-the discovery of an order, a law of
good taste, a measure for his words and actions. Other
creatures subnlÌssively follow the law of their nature; man
3 0
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alone has an impulse leading hirn to set up some other law
to control the bent of his nature.
1
his holds good, of course, as to moral matters, as well
as intellectual ll1atters: and it is of moral matters that we
are generally thinking when we affirn1 it. But it holds good
as to intellectual matters too. Now, probably, 1\1. Sainte-
Beuve had not these words of Cicero in his nlind when he
111ade, about the French nation, the assertion I anl going to
quote; but, for all that, the assertion leans for support, one
111ay say, upon the truth conveyed in those words of Cicero,
and wonderfully illustrates and confirnls thenl. "In France,JJ
says 1L Sainte-Beuve, "the first consideration for us is not
whether we are amused and pleased by a work of art or
mind, nor is it whether we are touched by it. 'Vhat we
seek above all to learn is, whether 'ltle were right in being
anl used with it, and in applauding it, and in being nloyed
by it." Those are very remarkable words, and they are, I
believe, in the nlain quite true. A Frenchman has, to a
considerable degree, what one may call a conscience in
intellectual matters; he has an active belief that there is a
fight and a wrong in them, that he is bound to honour and
obey the right, that he is disgraCe(l by cleaving to the wrong.
All the world has, 01 professes to have, this conscience in
moral matters. 1'he word conscience has becon1e aln10st
confined, in popular use, to the nIoral sphere, because this
lively susceptibility of feeling is, in the moral sphere, so far
nlore comnlon than in the intellectual sphere; the livelier,
in the nIoral sphere, this susceptibility is, the greater becolnes
a man's readiness to admit a high standard of action, an
ideal authoritatively correcting his everyday moral habits;
here, such willing admission of authority is due to sensitive-
ness of conscience. And a like deference to a standard
higher than one's own habitual standard in intellectual
ll1atters, a like respectful recognition of a superior idea], is
caused, in the intellectual sphere, by sensitiveness of
intelligence. l'hose whose intelligence is quickest, openest,
n10st sensitive, are readiest with this deference; those whose
intelligence is less delicate and sensitive are less disposed to
it. \Vell, now we are on the road to see why the French
have their Acadelny and we have nothing of the kind.
\Yhat are the essential characteristics of the spirit of our
nalion? Not, certainly, an open and clear mind, not a
Literary Influence of Academies 31
quick and flexible intelligence. Our greatest admirers
would not claim for us that we have these in a pre-en1Ïnent
degree; they might say that we had more of them than oar
detractors gave us credit for; but they would not assert
them to be our essential characteristics. They would rather
allege, as our chief spiritual characteristics, energy and
honesty; and, if we are judged favourably and positively,
net invidiously and negatively, our chief characteristics are
no doubt, these :-energy and honesty, not an open and
c
ear nlind, not a quick and flexible intelligence. Openness
of ll1ind and flexibility of inte11igence were very signal
characteristics of the .Athenian people in ancient times;
evei\'body will feel that. Openness of mind and flexibility
of Intelligence are ren1arkable characteristics of the French
people in modern times; at any rate, they strikingly
characterise then1 as compared with us; I think everybody,
or aimost everybody, will feel that. I will not now ask what
more the Athenian or the French spirit has than this, nor
what shortcomings either of thenl may have as a set-off
against this; all I want now to point out is that they have
this, and that we haye it in a much lesser degree. Let me
remark, however, that not only in the moral sphere, but
also in the intellectual and spiritual sphere, energy and
honesty are most important and fruitful qualities; that, for
instance, of what we call genius energy is the most essential
part. So, by assigning to a nation energy and honesty as
its chief spiritual characteristics,-by r(fusing to it, as at all
eminent characteristics, openness of mind and flexibility of
intelligence,-we do not by any means, as some people
might at first suppose, relegate its importance and its power
of manifesting itself with effect from the intellectual to the
moral sphere. 'Ve only indicate its probable special line of
successful activity in the intellectual sphere, and, it is true,
certain imperfections and failings to which, in this sphere,
it will always be subject. Genius is n1ainly an affair of
energy, and poetry is mainly an affair of genius; therefore
a nation whose spirit is characterised by energy may well be
eminent in poetry ;-and we have Shakspeare. Again, the
highest reach of science is, one may say, an inventive power,
a faculty of divination, akin to the highest power exercised
in poetry; therefore, a nation whose spirit is characterised
by energy may well be eminent in science j-and we have
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Newton. Shakspeare and Newton: in the intelJectual
sphere there can be no higher names. And what that
energy, which is the life of genius, above everything dc-mands
and insists upon, is freedolll; entire independence of all
authority, prescription, and routine,-the fullest room to
expand as it will. Therefore, a nation whose chief spiritual
characteristic is energy, will not be very apt to set up, in
intellectual matters, a fixed standard, an authority, like an
acaden1Y. By this it certainly escapes certain real incoll-
veniences and dangers, and it can, at the sanle ti111e, as we
have seen, reach undeniably splendid heights in poetry and
science. On the other hand, some of these requisites of
intellectual work are specially the affair of quickness of n1Ïnd
and flexibility of intelligence. l'he fonn, the method of
evolution, the precision, the proportions, the relations of the
parts to the whole, in an intellectual work, depend -mainly
upon then1. And these are the elen1er1ts of an intellectual
work which are really most conul1unicable fronl it, which
can nlost be learned and adoptcd from it, which have,
therefore, the greatest elTect upon the intellectual perform-
ance of others. Even in poetry, these requisites are very
important; ånd the poetry of a nation, not enlinent for the
gifts on which they depend, will, nlore or less, suffer by this
shortcoming. In poetry, however, they are, after all,
secondary, and energy is the first thing; but in prose they
are of first-rate importance. In its prose literature, there-
fore, and in the routine of intellectual work generally, a
nation with no particular gifts for these will not be so
successful. These are what, as I have said, can to a certain
degree be learned and appropriated, while the free activity
of genius cannot. Acadelnies consecrate and nlaintain
theIn, and, therefore, a nation with an en1Ïnent turn for
them naturally establis
les acade1l1ies. So far as routine
and authority tend [0 embarrass energy and in\"entive genius,
academies rnay be said to be obstructive to energy and
Inventive genius, and, to this extent, to the hUll1an spirit's
general advance. But then this evil is so rnuch con1-
pensated by the propagation, on a large scale, of the mental
aptitudes and demands which an open n1ind and a flexible
intelligence naturally engender, genius itself, in the long
run, so greatly finds its account in this propagation, and
bodies like the French Acaden1Y have such power for pro-
I-,iterary Influence of Academies 33
moting it, that the general advance of the hunlan spirit is
perhaps, on the whole, rather furthered than impeded by
their existence.
I-Iow Inuch greater is our nation in poetry than prose!
how much better, in general, do the productions of its
spirit show in the qualities of genius than in the qualities of
; intelligence! One may constant]y remark this in the work
I of individuals; how 11luch more striking, in general, does
any Englishman,-of some vigour of mind, but by no Ineans
a poet,-seenl in his verse than in his prose! No doubt
I his verse suffers from the sanle defects which impair his
prose, and he cannot express hilTIself with real success in it ;
but how much n10re powerful a personage does he appear
in it, by dint of feeling, and of originality and n10velnent
of ideas, than when he is writing prose! 'Vith a Frenclunan
of like stanlp, it is just the reverse: set hinl to write
poetry, he is limited, artificial, and impotent; set him to write
prose, he is free, natural, and effective. 1"he power of
"Irench literature is in its prose-writers, the power of English
literature is in its poets. Nay, many of the celebrated
French poets depend wholly for their fame upon the
qualities of intelligence which they exhibit,-qualities which
are the distinctive support of prose; many of the celt;brated
English prose-writers depend wholly for their fanle upon the
qualities of genius and imagination which they exhibit,-
qualities which are the distinctive support of poetry. But,
as I have said, the qualities of genius are less transferable
than the qualities of intelligence; less can be inlmediately
barned and appropriated fronl their product; they are less
direct and stringent intellectual agencies, though they may
be more beautiful and divine. Shakspeare and our great
Elizabethan group were certainly Inore gifted writers than
Corneille and his group; but what was the sequel to this
great literature, this literature of genius, as we filay call it,
stretching from 11arlo\ve to 1Iilton? \Vhat did it lead up
to in English literature? 1'0 our provincial and second-
rate literature of the eighteenth century. \Vhat, on the
other hand, was the sequel to the literature of the French
"great century," to this literature of intelligence, as, by
comparison with our Elizabethan literature, we nlay call it;
what did it lead up to? 1'0 the French literature of the
eighteenth century, one of the most powerful and pervasive
B
34
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intellectual agencies that have ever existed,-the gr
atest
European force of the eighteenth century. In SCIence,
again, we had Newton, a genius of the very highest order,
a type of genius in science, if ever there was one. On the
continent, as a sort of counterpart to Newton, there was
Leibnitz; a man, it seems to me (though on these matters
I speak under correction), of much less creative energy of
genius, n1uch less power of divination than Newton, but
rather a man of adn1irable intelligence, a type of intelligence
in science, if ever there was one. 'Vell, and what did they
each directly lead up to in science? \Vhat was the
intellectual generation that sprang from each of them? I
only repeat what the men of science have themselves
pointed out. The rnan of genius was continueù by the
English analysts of the eighteenth century, comparatively
powerless and obscure followers of the renowned master;
the man of intelligence was continued by successors like
Bernouilli, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace, the greatest
names in -modern mathematics.
'\Vhat I want the reader to see is, that the question as to
the utility of acaden1Ïes to the intellectual life of a nation
is not settled when we say, for instance: "Oh, we have
never had an academy, and yet we have, confessedly, a very
great literature." It still remains to be asked: U 'Vhat sort
of a great literature? a literature great in the special
quali ties of genius, or great in the special qualities of
intelligence? )J If in the former, it is by no n1cans
sure that either our literature, or the general intellectual
life of our nation, has got already, without acaden1Ïes,
all that academies can give. Both the one and the other
nlay very well be s0111ewhat wanting in those quaJities
of intelligence, out of a lively sense for which a body like
the French Academy, as I have said, springs, and which such
a body does a great deal to spread and confirm. Our
literature, in spite of the genius n)anifested in it, may fall
short in fornl, lnethod, precision, proportions, arrangell1ent,
-all of them, I have said, things where intelligence proper
COines in. It may be cOlnparatively weak in prose, that branch
of literature where intelligence proþer is, so to speak, all in
all. In this branch it may show many grave faults to which
the want of a quick flexible intelligence, and of the strict
standard which such an intelligence tends to impose, makes
Literary Influence of Acadenlies 35
it liable; it may be full of haphazard, crudeness, pro-
vincialism, eccentricity, violence, blundering. It Inay be a
less stringent and effective intellectual agency, both upon
our own nation and upon the world at large, than other
literatures which show less genius, perhaps, Lut rnore
in telligence.
The right conclusion certainly is that we should try,
so far as we can, to make up our shortcomings; and that to
this end, instead of always fixing our thoughts upon the
poinls in which our literature, and our intellectual life
generally, are strong, we should, fro111 tinle to time, fix then1
upon those in which they are weak, and so learn to perceive
clearly what we have to amend. \Yhat is oUF second great
I spiritual characteristic,-our honesty,-good for, if it is not
good for this? But it will,-I am sure it will,-nlore and
nlore, as tilne goes on, be found good for this.
'Yell, then, an institution like the French Acaden1y,-an
institution owing its existence to a national bent towards
the things of the n1Ïnd, towards culture, towards clearness,
correctness and propriety in thinking and speaking, and, in
its turn, promoting this bent,-sets standards in a nUll1ber
cf directions, and creates, in all these directions, a force of
educated opinion, checking and rebuking those who fall
below these standards, or who set them at nought. Educated
opinion exists here as in France; but in France the
Academy serves as a sort of centre and rallying-point to it,
and gives it a force \,hich it has not got here. 'Vhy is
all the journeyman-work of literature, as I nlay call it, so
much worse dune here than it is in France? 1 do not v..-ish
to hurt anyone's feelings; but surely this is so. Think of
the difference between our books of reference and those of
the French, between our biographical dictionaries (to take a
striking instance) and theirs; think of the difference between
the translations of the classics turned out for 1\Ir Hohn's
library and those turned out for 11. Nisard's collection!
As a general rule, hard!}' anyone amongst us, who knows
French and German well, would use an English book
of reference when he could get a French or Gennan one j
cr would look at an English prose translation of an ancient
author when he could get a French or Gernlan one. It is
not that there do not exist in England, as in France, a
nUlnber of people perfectly well able to discern what
3 6
Critical Essays
is good, in these things, fronl what is bad, and preferring
what is good; but they are isolated, they form no powerful
body of opinion, they are not strong enough to set a
standard, up to which even the journeynlan-work of
literature nlust be brought, if it is to be venùible. Ignorance
and charlatanisnl in work of this kind are always trying to
pass off their wares as excellent, and to cry down criticisln
as the voice of an insignificant, over fastidious minority;
they easily persuade the n1ultituc1e that this is so when the
minority is scattered about as it is here, not so easily when
it is banded together as in the French AcadenlY. So, again,
with freaks in dealing with language; certainly all such
freaks tend to iIl1 pair the power and beauty of language;
and how far rnore COll1ffion they are with us th3.n with the
French! 1'0 take a very familiar instance. Everyone has
noticed the way in which the 7'Ùlles chooses to spell the
word "diocese;" it always spells it U diocess" deliving
it, I suppose, from Zeus and census. The Journal des
Débats mJght just a5 well write U diocess" instead of
" diocése," but iInagine the Jourllal des Débals doing so I
Imagine an educated Frenchman indulging himself in an
orthographical antic of this sort, in face of the grave respect
with which the Academy and its dictionary invest the
French language! Some people will say these are little
things; they are not; they are of bad exanlple. They
tend to spread the baneful notion that there is no such
thing as a high correct standard in intellectual matters;
that everyone may as well take his own way; they are at
variance with the severe discipline necessary for all real
culture; they confirm us in habits of wilfulness and
eccentricity, which hurt our minùs, and dan1age our credit
with serious people. rrhe late 1Ir Donaldson was certainly
a man of great ability, a'1d I, who am not an Orientalist, do
not pretend to judge his Jashar: but let the reader observe
the fonn which a foreign Orientalist's judglllent of it
naturally takes. M. Renan calls it a tentative 'ilzalheureuse,
a failure, in short; this it may be, or it nlay not be; laIn
no judge. But he goes on: "It is astonishing that a
recent article" (in a French periodical, he means) "should
have brought forward as the last word of Gern1an exegesis a
work like this, composed by a doctor of the University of
Cambridge, and universally condemned by German critics."
Ijterary Influence of Acaùenlies 37
You see what he means to inlply: an extravaga.nce of this
J sort could never have come fron1 Gennany, where there is a
great force of critical opinion controlling a learned 111an's
v3
Rries, and keeping him straight; it comes from the
n:ttÎye home of intellectual eccentricity of all kinds,-from
England-from a doctor of the University of Can1bridge:-
and I daresay he would not expect much better things from
a doctor of the University of Oxford. Again, after speaking
of what Gern1any and France have done for the history of
I l\fahomet: "America and England," 1V1. Renan goes on,
U have also occupied themselves with 1\lahomet." lIe
mentions ,,, ashington's Irving's Lift of l'rfaho1Jzet, which
does not, he says, evince much of an historical sense, a
sentiment historique fort élè'l)é; U but," he proceeds, "this
book shows a real progress, when one thinks that in 1829
:!vIr Charles Forster published two thick volumes, which
enchanted the English révérellds, to make out that l\fahomet
was the little horn of the he-goat that figures in the eighth
chapter of Daniel, and that the l)ope was the great horn.
l\Ir Forster founded on this ingenious parallel a whole
philosophy of history, according to which the Pope
represented the 'Vestern corruption of Christianity, and
lahomet the Eastern; thence the striking resemblances
between lVlahometanism and Popery." And in a note
M. Renan adds: "This is the saIne 1Ir Charles Forster
who is the author of a mystification about the Sinaitic
inscriptions, in which he declares he finds the primitive
language." As much as to say: "It is an Englishlnan, be
surprised at no extravagance." If these innuendoes had no
ground, and were made in hatred and malice, they would
not be worth a mon1ent's attention; but they come fron1 a
grave Orientalist, on his own subject, and they point to a
real fact ;-the absence, in this country, of any force
of educated literary and scientific opinion, n1aking aber-
rations like those of the author of The 01le IJrimeval
Language out of the question. Not only the author of
such aberrations, often a very clever nlan, suffers by the
want of check, by the not being kept straight, and spends
force in vain on a false road, which, under better discipline,
he might have used with profit on a true one; but all his adher-
ents, both "reverends" and others, suffer too, and the general
rate of information and judgn1ent is in this way kept low.
3 8
Cri tical Essa)ys
In a production which we have all been rcading lately, a
production stamped throughout with a literary quality very
rare in this country, and of which I shall have a word to say
presently-urbanilj'; in this production, the work of a man
never to be named by any son of Oxford without synlpathy,
a 01an who alone in Oxford of his generation, alone of many
generations, conveyed to us in his genius that same charm,
that same ineffable sentiment which this exquisite place
itself conveys,-I mean Dr Ne\vman,-an expression is
frequently used which is more common in theological than
in literary language, but which seenlS to nle fitted to be of
general service; the note of so and so, the note of catholicity,
the note of antiquity, the note of sanctity, and so on.
Adopting this expressive word, I say that in the bulk of the
intellectual work of a nation which has no cel;tre, no intel-
lectual metropolis like an academy, like l\I. Sainte-Beuve's
" sovereign organ of opinion," like 1'1. Renan's U recognised
authority in nlatters of tone and taste,"-there is observable
a twit of provinciality. Now to get rid of provinciality is a
certain stage of culture; a stage the positive result of which
we must not make of too much importance, but which is,
nevertheless, indispensable; for it brings us on to the plat-
fonn where alone the best and highest intellectual work can
be said fairly to begin. ,V ork done after Inen have reached
this platform is classical,. and that is the only work which,
in the long run, can stand. All the scoriæ in the work of
men of great genius who have not lived on this platform are
due to their not having lived on it. Genius raises them to
it by moments, and the portions of their work which are
immortal are done at these moments; but more of it would
have been immortal if they had not reached this platform
at moments only, if they had had the culture which makes
men live there.
1"he less a literature has felt the influence of a supposed
centre of correct information, correct judgment, correct
taste, the more we shall find in it this note of provinciality.
I have shown the note of provincia]ity as caused by
remoteness from a centre of correct information. Of
course the note of provinciality front the want of a
centre of correct taste is still more visible, and it is also still
more common. For here great-even the greatest-powers of
mind most fail a man. Great powers of n1Înd will make
Literary Influence of Academies 39
him inform himself thoroughly, great powers of mind will
make him think profound]y, even with ignorance and platitude
all round him; but not even great powers of mind will keep
his taste and style perfectly sound and sure, if he is left too
much to himself, with no "sovereign organ of opinion " in
these matters near him. Even men like Jeremy Taylor and
Burke suffer here. Take this passage from Taylor's funeral
I sermon on Lady Carbery:-
" So have I seen a river, deep and smooth, passing with
f a still foçt and a sober face, and paying to the fiscus, the
great exchequer of the sea, a tribute large and full; and
I hard by it a little brook, skipping and rnaking a noise upon
its unequal and neighbour bottom; and after all its talk-
ing and bragged motion, it paid to its common audit no
ITIOre than the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible
vessel: so have I sometimes compared the issues of her
religion to the solemnities and famed outsides of another's
piety. "
That passage has been much admired, and, indeed, the
genius in it is undeniable. I should say, for my part, that
genius, the ruling divinity of poetry, had been too busy in
it, and intelligence, the ruling divinity of prose, not busy
enough. But can anyone, with the best models of style in
his head, help feeling the note of provinciality there, the
want of simplicity, the want of measure, the want of just
the qualities that make prose classical? If he does not feel
what I mean, let him place beside the passage of Taylor
this passage fron} the Panegyric of 8t Paul, by Taylor's
contemporary, Bossuet:-
"11 ira, cet ignorant dans l'art de bien dire, avec cette
locution rude, avec cette phrase qui sent l'étranger il ira en
cette Grèce polie, la mère des philosophes et des orateurs j
et n1algré la résistance du monde, il y établira plus d'Eglises
que Platon n'ya gagné de disciples par cette éloquence
qu'on a crue divine. U
There we have prose without the note of provinciality-
classical prose, prose of the centre.
Or take Burke, our greatest English prose-writer, as I
think; take expressions like this :-
"Blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their eyes
when they push, they drive, by the point of their bayonets,
their slaves, blindfolded, indeed, no worse than their lords.
4 0
Critical Essays
to take their fictions for currencies, and to swallow down
paper pills by thirty-four millions sterling at a dose."
Or this :-
"They used it" (the royal name) U as a sort of navel-
string, to nourish their unnatural offspring from the bo\vels
of royalty itself. N ow that the monster can purvey for its
own subsistence, it win only carry the mark about it, as a
token of its having torn the womb it came from."
Or this:-
"\Vithout one natural pang, he" (Rousseau) U casts away,
as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful
amours, and sends his children to the hospital of foundlings."
Or this :-
" I confess I never liked this continual talk of resistance
and revolution, or the practice of making the extreme
medicine of the constitution its daily bread. It renders the
habit of society dangerously valetudinary; it is taking
periodical doses of mercury sub1imate, and swallowing down
repeated provocatives of cantharides to our love of liberty."
I say that is extravagant prose; prose too much suffered
to indulge its caprices; prose at too great a distance from
the centre of good taste; prose, in short, with the note of
provinciality. People may reply, it is rich and inlaginative;
yes, that is just it, it is Asiatic prose, as the ancient critics
would have said; prose somewhat barbarously rich and
over-loaded. But the true prose is Attic prose.
\Vell, but Addison's prose is Attic prose. \Vhere, then,
it may be asked, is the note of provinciality in Addison? I
answer, in the commonplace of his ideas. This is a matter
worth remarking. Addison clailTIs to take leading rank as
a n1oralist. To do that, you must have ideas of the first
order on your subject-the best ideas, at any rate, attain-
able in your tinle-as well as be able to express them in a
perfectly sound and sure style. Else you show your distance
from the centre of ideas by your matter; you are provincial
by your matter, though you may not be provincial by your
style. It is comparatively a sman l11atter to express oneself
well, if one win be content with not expressing much, with
expressing only trite ideas; the problem is to express new
and profound ideas in a perfectly sound and classical style.
He is the true classic, in every age, who does that. Now
AdùÌson has not, on his subject of morals, the force of ideas
Literary Influence of Academies 41
of the moralists of the first class-the classical moralists j
he has not the best ideas attainable in or about his time,
and which were, so to speak, in the air then, to be seized
by the finest spirits; he is not to be compared for power,
searchingness, or delicacy of thought to Pascal or La
Bruyère or Vauvenargues; he is rather on a level, in this
. respect, with a man like l\larmontel; therefore, I say, he
has the note of provinciality as a moralist; he is provincial
by his nlatter, though not by his style.
To illustrate what I mean by an example. Addison,
writing as a moralist on fixedness in religious faith, says :-
"1
hose who delight in reading books of controversy do
very seldom arrive at a fixed and settled habit of faith. The
doubt which was laid revives again, and shows itself in new
difficulties; and that generally for this reason,-because the
Ini nd, which is perpetually tossed in controversies and dis-
putes, is apt to forget the reasons which had once set it at
rest, and to be disquieted with any former perplexity when
it appears in a new shape, or is started by a difíerent
hand."
It may be said, that is classical English, perfect in lucidity,
measure, and propriety. I make no objection; but, in my
turn, I say that the idea expressed is perfectly trite and
barren, and that it is a note of provinciality in Addison, in
a man whom a nation puts forward as one of its great
nloralists, to have no profounder and more striking idea to
produce on this great subject. Compare, on the same sub-
ject, these words of a moralist really of the first order, really
at the centre by his ideas,-Joubert:-
"L'expérience de beaucoup d'opinions donne à l'esprit
beaucoup de fiexibilité et l'affel'mit dans celles qu'il croit les
nleil1eures."
'Vith what a flash of light that touches the subject! how
it sets us thinking! what a genuine contribution to moral
science it is !
In short, where there is no centre like an academy, if you
have genius and powerful ideas, you are apt not to have the
best style going; if you. have precision of style and not
genius, you are apt not to have the best ideas going.
1'he provincial spirit, again, exaggerates the value of its
ideas for want of a high standard at hand by which to try
them. Or rather, for want of such a standard, it gives one
4 2
Critical Essays
idea too much prominence at the expense of others; it
orders its ideas amiss; it is hurried away by fancies; it
likes and dislikes too passionately, too exclusively. Its ad-
miration weeps hysterical tears, and its disapprobation îoanls
at the mouth. So we get the eruþtive and the aggressive
manner in literature; the former prevails most in our
criticism, the latter in our newspapers. For, not having the
lucidity of a large and centrally placed intelligence, the pro-
vincial spirit has not its graciousness; it does not persuade,
it makes war; it has not urbanity, the tone of the city, of
the centre, the tone which always aims at a spiritual and in-
tellectual effect, and not excluding the use of banter, never
disjoins banter itself from politeness, from felicity. But the
provincial tone is more violent, and seems to ainl rather at
an effect upon the blood and senses than upon the spirit
and intellect; it loves hard-hitting rather than persuading.
The newspaper, with its party spirit, its thorough-goingness,
its resolute avoidance of shades and distinctions, its short,
highly-charged, heavy-shotted articles, its style so unlike that
style lenis mininzèque þertÙlax-easy and not too violently
insisting,-which the ancients so much admired, is its true
literature; the provincial spirit likes in the newspaper just
what makes the newspaper such bad food for it,-just what
made Goethe say, when he was pressed hard about the iln-
morality of Byron's poems, that, after all, they were not so
immoral as the newspapers. The French talk of the
brutalité des jOltrnaux anglais. 'Vhat strikes them comes
from the necessary inherent tendencies of newspaper-writing
not being checked in England by any centre of intelligent
and urbane spirit, but rather stimulated by coming in con-
tact with a provincial spirit. Even a newspaper like the
Saturday Review, that old friend of all of us, a newspaper
expressly aiming at an immunity from the comlnon news-
paper-spirit, aiming at being a sort of organ of reason,-anù,
by thus aiming, it merits great gratitude and has done great
good,-even the Sarurday Revie'lv, rep
ying to son1e foreign
criticism on our precautions against invasion, falls into a
strain of this kind:-
U To do this" (to take these precautions) "seems to us
eminently worthy of a great nation, and to talk of it as un-
worthy of a great nation, seems to us eminently worthy of a
great fool. n
Literary Influence of Acad
n1ies 43
There is what the French nlean ,,-hen they talk of the
brutalité des jourllaux a71glais; there is a style certainly us
far renloved from urbanity as possible,-a style with what I
call the note of provinciality. And the same note may not
unfrequently be observed even in the ideas of this news-
paper, full as it is of thought and cleverness: certain ideas
allowed to become fixed ideas, to prevail too absolutely. I
will not speak of the inlmediate present, but, to go a little
while back, it had the critic who so disliked the Emperor of
the French; it had the critic who so disliked the subject of
Iny present remarks-academies; it had the critic who was
so fond of the Genl1an element in our nation, and, indeed,
everywhere; who ground his teeth if one said Charlemagn
instead of Charles the Great, and, in short, sawall things in
TeutonislTI, as 1Ialebranche sawall things in God. Cer-
tainly anyone In:ty fairly find faults in the El11peror
Napoleon or in aCadC111ies, and nlerit in the Gernlan
elelnent; but it is a note of the provincial spirit not to hold
ideas of this kind a little more easily, to be so devoured by
them, to suffer them to beC0111e crotchets.
In England there needs a miracle of genius like Shak-
speare's to produce balance of mind, and a miracle of intel-
lectual delicacy like Dr N ewnlan's to produce urbanity of
style. lIow prevalent all round us is the want of balance
of nlind and urbanity of style! Ilow nluch, doubtless, it is
to be found in ourselves,-in each of us! but, as human
nature is constituted, everyone can see it clearest in his
contemporaries. There, above all, we should consider it,
because they and we are exposed to the same influences;
and it is in the best of one's contenlporaries that it is nlost
worth considering, because one then most feels the hanll it
does, when one sees what they would be without it. Think
of the difference between 1fr Ruskin exercising his genius,
and 11r Ruskin exercising his intelligence j consider the
truth and beauty of this :-
"Co out, in the spring-time, among the n1eadows that
slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their
lower mountains. 1"here, 111ingled with the taller gentians
and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and
as you follow the windin
mountain paths, beneath arching
boughs an veiled and dim with blossom,-paths that for
ever droop and rise ovcr the grecn banks and 1110unds
44
Critical Essays
sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue
water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling
all the air with fainter sweetness,-look up towards the
higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll
silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the
. >>
pInes. . . . . .
There is what the genius, the feeling, the temperanlent in
Mr Ruskin, the original and incommunicable part, has to do
with; and how exquisite it is! All the critic could possibly
suggest, in the way of objection, would be, perhaps, that l\
i"
Ruskin is there trying to make prose do n10re than it can
perfectly do; that what he is there attempting he will never,
except in poetry, be able to accomplish to his own entire
satisfaction: but he accomplishes so much that the critic
may well hesitate to suggest even this. Place beside this
charnling passage another,-a passage about Shakspeare's
names, where the intelligence and judglnent of lYIr Ruskin,
the acquired, trained, communicable part in him, are brought
into play,-and see the difference :-
" Of Shakspeare's names I will afterwards speak at more
length; they are curiously-often barbarously-mixed out
of various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest
in meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona-
'ðUðða.lfJJo\lía,' miserable fortune-is also plain enough.
Othello is, I believe, 'the careful;' all the calamity of the
tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnifi-
cently collected strength. Ophelia,' serviceableness,' the
true, lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek nan1e
by that of her brother, Laertes; and its signification is once
exquisitely alluded to in that brother's last word of her,
where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness
of the churlish clergy :-' A 1nÙzÚterillg angel shall my sister
be, when thou liest ho\vling.' Harnlet is, I believe, con-
nected in some way with' homely,' the entire event of the
tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione
(Ëpp,a) , 'pillar-like' (ñ tiòo, ËX& XPUlf
6' t A
pfJòí7''lJr;); Titania
(9"'I'r
1J), 'the queen;' Benedick and Beatrice, 'blessed and
blessing; , Valentine and Proteus, 'enduring or strong'
(valens), and' changeful.' Iago and Iachin10 have evidently
the same root-probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, 'the
supplanter.' "
Now, really, wbat a piece of extravagance all that is! I
Literary I nfluence of Acaden1ies 45
I will not say that the meaning of Shakspeare's names (I put
aside the question as to the c<?rrectness of 1\1r Ruskin's
etymologies) has no effect at an, may be entirely lost sight
of; but to give it that degree of prominence is to throw the
reins to one's whim, to forget all moderation and proportion,
to lose the balance of one's n1ind altogether. It is to show
I in one's criticisnl, to the highest excess, the note of pro-
vinciality.
Again, there is
fr Pal grave, certainly endowed with a
very fine critical tact: his Golden Treasury abundantly
proves it. The plan of arrangement which he devised for
that work, the mode in which he followed his plan out, nay,
one might even say, merely the juxtaposition, in pursuance
of it, of two such pieces as those of 'Vordsworth and Shelley
which form the 285th and 286th in his collection, show a.
delicacy of feeling in these matters which is quite indisput-
able and very rare" And his notes are full of remarks which
show it too. All the more striking, conjoined with so much
justness of preception, are certain freaks and violences in
1\lr Palgrave's criticism, mainly in1putable, I think, to the
critic's isolated position in this country, to his feeling himself
too much left to take his own way, too much without any
central authority representing high culture and sound judg-
ment, by which he may be, on the one hand, confirmed as
against the ignorant, on the other, held in respect when he
himself is inclined to take liberties. I n1ean such things as
this note on !\1ilton's line,-
"The great En1athian conqueror bade spare" . . .
"'Vhen Thebes was destroyed, Alexander ordered the house
of Pindar to be spared. He was as Ùlcaþable of aÞPreciating
the poet as Louis )(IV. of appreciating Racine,. but even tlu
narrow and barbarian mind of Alexander could understand
the advantage of a showy act of homage to poetry." A note
like that I call a freak or a violence; if this disparaging
view of Alexander and Louis XIV., so unlikE the current
view, is wrong,-if the current view is, after all, the truer one
of then1,-the note is a freak. But, even if its disparag-
ing view Ís right, the note is a violence; for abandoning
the true mode of intellectual action-persuasion, the instil-
nlent of conviction,-it simpiy astounds and irritates the
hearer by contradicting without a word of proof or prepara-
,
4 0
Critical Essa)Ts
tion, his fixed and familiar notions; and this is n1ere
violence. In either casç, the fitness, the n1easure, the
centrality, which is the soul of all good criticis111, is lost, and
the note of provinciality shows itself.
1'hus, in the famous .E-.Iandbooh, marks of a fine power of
perception are everywhere discernible, but so, too, are marks
of the want of sure balance, of the check and support afforded
by knowing one speaks before good and severe judges.
'Vhen
rr Palgrave dislikes a thing, he feels no pressure
constraining hinl either to try his dislike closely or to ex-
press it moderately; he does not mince matters, he gives his
dislike all its own way; both his judgment and his style
would gain if he were under nlore restraint. "rrhe style
which has filled London with the dead monotony of Gower
or llarley Streets, or the pale commonplace of Belgravia,
Tyburnia, and Kensington; which has pierced Paris and
Madrid with the feeble frivolities of the Rue Rivoli and the
Strada de Toledo." He dislikes the architecture of the Rue
Rivoli, and he puts it on a level with the architecture of
Belgravia and Gower Street; he lumps them all together in
one condemnation, he loses sight of the shade, the distinc-
tion, which is everything here; the distinction, name!y, that
the architecture of the Rue Rivoli expresses show, splendour,
pleasure,-unworthy things, perhaps, to express alone and
for their own sakes, but it expresses thenl; whereas the
architecture of Gower Street and Belgravia merely expresses
the impotence of the architect to express anything. Then,
as to style: "sculpture which stands in a contrast with
Woolner hardly more shan1eful than diverting." . . . "pass-
ing from Davy or Faraday to the art of the mountebank or
the science of the spirit-rapper." . . . "it is the old, old
story with 1:Iarochetti, the frog trying to blow himself out to
bull dimensions. tIe may puff and be puffed, but he will
never do it." \Ve all relnember that shower of amenities on
poor M. 11arochetti. N ow, here l\Ir Palgrave himself
enables us to form a contrast which lets us see just what the
presence of an acaden1Y does for style; for he quotes a
criticisnl by 11. Gustave Planche on this very 1V1. J\farochetti.
]\.1. Gustave Planche was a critic of the very first order, a
man of strong opinions, which he expressed with severity;
he, too, conden1ns ?vI. !\Iarochetti's work, and 1VIr Pal grave
calls him as a witness to back what he has himself said;
Literary Influence of Acadctnies 47
certainly Mr Palgrave's translation win not exaggerate 11.
Planche's urbanity in dealing with
L !\Iarochetti, but, even
in this translation, see the difference in sobriety, in measure,
bctween the critic writing in Paris and the critic writing in
London :-
"These conditions
re so elementary, that I am at a
perfect loss to con1prehend how 1\1. 1\Iarochctti has neglected
. them. There are soldiers here like the leaden playthings of
the nursery: it is almost impossible to guess whether there
is a body beneath the dress. \Ve have here no question of
style, not even of granlmar; it is nothing beyond mere matter
of the alphabet of art. To break these conditions is the
saine as to be ignorant of spelling."
That is reallymore formidable criticism than l\fr Palgrave's,
and yet in how perfectly temperate a style! 1\1. Planche's
advantage is, that he feels himself to be speaking before
competent judges, that there is a force of cultivated opinion
for him to appeal to. Therefore, he must not be extrava-
gant, and he need not storm; he must satisfy the reason
and taste,-that is his business. Mr Palgrave, on the other
hand, feels himself to be speaking before a promiscuous
tllultitude, with the few good judges so scattered through it
as to be powerless; therefore, he has no calm confidence
and no self-control; he relies on the strength of his lungs;
he knows that big words impose on the mob, and that, even
if he is outrageous, n105t of his audience are apt to be a great
deal nlore so.
Again, the most successful English book of last season
was certainly l'rlr K.inglake's Invasion of the Crimea. Its
style was one of the most renowned things about it,
and yet how conspicuous a fault in 1\lr Kil1glake's style
in this overcharge of which I have been speaking! 1\lr
Jalnes Gordon Bennett, of the .l-lcw }'ork IIerald, says,
I believe, that the highest achievenlent of the human
intellect is what he cal1s "a good editoriaL" This is
not quite so; but, if it were so, on what a' height
would these two volumes by l\Ir Kinglake stand! I
haye already spoken of the Attic and the Asiatic styles;
besides these, there is the Corinthian style. That is the
stylc for "a good editorial," and 1Ir Kinglake has really
reached perfection in it. It has not the wann glow, blithe
n10\-eUlent, and soft plianc}' oî life, as the Attic st}-le has;
4 8
Critical Essays
it has not the over-heavy richness and encumbered gait of
the Asiatic style; it has glitter without warn1th, rapidity
without ease, effectiveness without charm. Its characteristic
is, that it has no soul; all it exists for, is to get its ends, to
make its points, to darnage its adversaries, to be admired,
to triulnph. " His features put on that glow which, seen in
men of his race-race known by the kindling gray eye, and
the light stubborn, crisping hair-discloses the rapture of
instant fight." How glittering that is, but how perfectly
frosty
"There was a salient point of difference between
the boulevards and the hill sides of the Alma. The Russians
v 7 ere armed." I-Iow trenchant that is, but how perfectly
unscrupulous! This is the Corinthian style; the glitter of
the East with the hardness of the \Vest; "the passion for
tinsel,"-some one, himsèlf a Corinthian, said of
lr l{ing-
lake's style,-U of a sensuous Jew, with the savage spleen of
a dyspeptic Englishman." I do not say this of Mr Kinglake's
style-I am very far from saying it. To say it is to fall into
just that cold, brassy, over-stretched style which IVlr I{ing1ake
himself elnploys so far too much, and which I, for my part,
reprobate. But when a brother Corinthian of
fr Kinglake's
says it, I feel what he means.
A style so bent on effect at the expense of soul, simplicity,
and delicacy; a style so little studious of the charm
of the great models; so far from classic truth and grace,
must surely be said to h1.ve the note of provinciality. Yet
1\ir I<'inglake's talent is a really en1inent one, and so in har-
mony with our intellectual habits and tendencies, that, to
the great bulk of English people, the faults of his style seem
its merits; all the more needful that criticism should not be
dazzled by theIn, but should try closely this, the form of his
work. 1"he matter of the work is a separate thing; and,
indeed, this has been, I believe, withdrawn from discussion.
!VIr Kinglake declaring that this must and shall stay as it is,
and that he is resolved, like Pontius Pilate, to stand by what
he has written. And here, I must say, he seen1S to me to
be quite right. On the breast of that huge l\Iississippi of
falsehood called hisfolY, a foam-bell more or less is of no
consequence. But he may, at any rate, ease and soften his
style.
\Ve must not compare a man of Mr Kinglake's literary
talent with writers like M. de Bazancourt. 'Ve must
Literary Influence of j-\cademies 49
compare him with M. Thiers. And what a superiority in
style has M. Thiers from being formed in a good school,
with severe traditions, wholesome restraining influences!
Even in this age of 1Ir James Gordon Bennett, his style has
nothing Corinthian about it, its lightness and brightness
make it almost Attic. It is not quite Attic, however; it has
not the infallible sureness of Attic taste. Sometimes his
head gets a little hot with the fun1es of patriotislll, and then
he crosses the line, he loses perfect measure, he declaims,
he raises a momentary smile. France condemned "à être
l'effroi du monde doni elle þourrait être l'amour,"-Cæsar,
whose exquisite simplicity l\L Thiers so much adn1Ïres,
would not have written like that. There is, if I may be
allowed to say so, the slightest possible touch of fatuity in
such language,-of that failure in good sense which comes
frOlll too warlll a self satisfaction. But compare this lan-
guage with :rvlr Kinglake's l\Iarshal 8t Arnaud-" dismissed
from the presence" of Lord Raglan or Lord Stratford,
" cowed and pressed down" under their "stern reproofs,"
or under" the majesty of the great Elchi's Canning brow and
tight, merciless lips! " The failure in good sense and good
taste there reaches far beyond what the French mean by
jatuzï)'; they would call it by another word, a word ex-
pressing blank defect of intelligence, a word for which we
have no exact equivalent in English,-bêle. It is the
difference between a venial, momentary, good-tempered
excess, in a man of the world, of an amiable and social
weakness,-vanity; and a serious, settled, fierce, narrow,
provincial misconception of the whole relative value of one's
own things and the things of others. So baneful to the
style of even the cleverest man may be the total want of
checks
In all I have said, I do not pretend that the examples
given prove my rule as to the influence of academies; they
only illustrate it. Examples in plenty might very likely be
found to set against them; the truth of the 'rule depends,
no doubt, on whether the balance of all the examples is in
its favour or not; but actually to strike this balance is
always out of the question. Here, as everywhere else, the
rule, the idea, if true, comlllends itself to the judicious, and
then the examples n1ake it clearer still to them. This is the
real use of exalnples, and this alone is the purpose which I
50
Cri tical Essays
.I
have meant mine to serve. 'rhere is also another side to
the whole question,-as to the limiting and prejudicial
operation which academies may have; but this side of the
question it rather behoves the French, not us, to study.
1'he reader will ask for some practical conclusion about
the establishment of an Academy in this country, and per-
haps I shall hardly give hilTI the one he expects. But
né.Hions have their own modes of acting, and these modes
are not easily changed; they are even consecrated, when
great things have been done in them. \Vhen a literature
has produced Shakspeare and l\Iilton, when it has even
produced Barrow and Burke, it cannot well abandon its
traditions; it can hardly begin, at this late time of day, with
an institution like the French Acaden1Y. I think acaden1ies
with a limited, special, scientific scope, in the various lines
of intellectual work,-acaden1ies like that of Berlin, for
instance,-we with tin1e n1ay, and probably shaH, establish.
And no doubt they will do good; no doubt the presence of
such influential centres of correct inforn1ation will tend to
raise the standard amongst us for what I have called the
journeyman-work of literature, and to free us from the
scandal of such biographical dictionaries as Chalmers's, or
such translations as a recent one of Spinoza, or perhaps,
such philological freaks as Mr Forster's about the one primeval
language. But an acadenlY quite like the French Acaden1Y,
a sovereign organ of the highest literary opinion, a recog-
nised authority in n1atters of intellectual tone and taste, we
shall hardly have, and perhaps we ought not to wish to have
it. But then everyone aillongst us with any turn for litera-
ture will do well to remenlber to what shortconlings and
excesses, which such an academy tends to correct, we are
liable; and the more liable, of course, for not having it.
He will do well constantly to try himself in respect of these,
steadily to widen his culture, severely to check in himself
the provincial spirit; and he ,,;ill do this the better the
more he keeps in nlind that all ruere glorification by our-
selves of ourselves, or our literature, in the strain of what,
at the beginning of these renlarks, I quoted fronl I Jord
lacaulay, is both vulgar, and, besides being vulgar, retarding.
III
l\lAURICE DE GUERIN
I WILL not presume to say that I now know the French
language well; but at a time when I knew it eVE1n less well
than at present,-some fifteen years ago,-I rell1enlber
pestering those about nle with this sentence, the rhythm of
which had lodged itself in my head, and which, with the
strangest pronunciation possible, I kept perpetually decla;m-
ing: "LtS dieux jaloux on/ enJoui que/que part les
téll101K'Ilages de la descendance des clLOses,' mats au bOl'd de
quet Océa1l on/-its rOlll; la pierre qui les couv;e, Ô ld acarfe ! "
These words come from a short composition called the
Centaur, of which the author, Georges-1Iaurice de Guérin,
died in the year 1839, at the age of twenty-eight without
having published anything. In 1840, I\Iadame Sand brought
out the Centaur in the Revue des Deux lJ.fondes, with a short
notice of its author, and a few extracts from his letters. 1\
year or two afterwards she reprinted these at the enù of a
volume of her novels; and there it was that I fell in with
them. I was so much struck with the Centaur that I waited
anxiously to hear something more of its author, and of what
he had left; but it was not till the other day-twenty years
after the first publication of the Centaur in the Re'[,Iue des
Deux Mondt's, that n1Y anxiety was satisfied. At the end of
1860 appeared two volumes witl
the title .ðfaurlæ de
Guérin, Reliquiæ, containing the Centaur, several poetus of
Guérin, his journals, and a nUlnber of his letters, collected
and edited by a devoted friend, !\f. Trebutien, and preceded
by a notice of Guérin by the first of living critics, 1\1.
Sainte- Beuve.
The grand power of poetry is its interpretative power; by
which I mean, not a power of drawing out in black and
white an explanation of the n1ystery of the universe, but the
power of so dealing with things as to awaken in us a
wonderfuHy fuH, new, and intimate sense of thenl, and of
our relations with them. 'Vhen this sense is awakened 10
51
52
Critical Essays
us, as to objects without us, we feel ourselves to be in
contnct with the essential nature of those objects, to be no
longer bewildered and oppressed by them, but to have their
secret, and to be in harmony with thern; and this feeling
cahns and satisfies us as no other can. Poetry, indeed,
interprets in another way besides this; but one of its two
ways of interpreting, of exercising its highest power, is by
awakening this sense in us. I will not now inquire whether
this sense is illusive, whether it can be proved not to be
illusive, whether it does absolutely make us possess the real
nature of things; all I say is, that poetry can awaken it in
us, and that to awaken it is one of the highest powers of
poetry. The interpretations of science do not give us this
intinlate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry
give it; they appeal to a limited faculty, and not to the
whole man. It is not Linnæus or Cavendish or Cuvier who
gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who
seizes their secret for us, who makes us participate in their
life; it is Shakspeare, with his
" daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March of beauty ;
,
it is ,V ordsworth, with his
",'oice . . . . heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
An10ng the farthest Hebrides;"
it is Keats, with his
"mo\Ïng waters at their priestlike task
Of cold ablution round Earth's human shores;"
it is Chateaubriand, with his, "cînze z"ndéterl1zÙzée des forêts;"
it is Senancour, with his Inountain birch-tree: "CelIe écoree
ólanche, lisse et erevassée,. celie tige agreste,. ces branches qut:
s
Ùlclinent vers fa terre,. fa 1110bilité des fiuilles, et tout eet
abandon, sÍ1Jlþlicité de la nature, attitude des déserls."
Eminent manifestations of this magical power of poetry
are very rare and very precious: the conlpositions of Guérin
manifest it, I think, in singular en1inence. Not his poems,
strictly so called,-his verse,-so much as his prose; his
poems in general take for their vehicle that favourite metre
!vlaurice de Guérin
53
of French poetry, the Alexandrine; and, in my judgment, I
confess they have thus, as compared with his prose, a great
dis3.dvantage to start with. In prose, the character of the
vehicle for the conlposer's thoughts is not determined
beforehand; every compo
er has to Inake his own "ehicle;
and who has ever done this l1l0re adnlirably than the great
prose-writers of France,-Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, Voltaire?
But in verse the cOIn poser has (with comparatively narrow
liberty of ulodification) to accept his vehicle ready-made; it
is therefore of vital importance to hinl that he should find
at his disposal a vehicle adequate to convey the highest
matters of poetry. \Ve may even get a decisive test of the
poetical po\ver of a language and nation by ascertaining how
far the principal poetical vehicle which they have employed,
how far (in plainer words) the established national metre for
high poetry, is adequate or inadequate. It seems to nle
that the established metre of this kind in France,-the
Alexandrine,-is inadequate; that as a vehicle for high
poetry it is greatly inferior to the hexameter or to the
iambics of Greece (for exanlple), or to the blank verse of
England. Therefore the man of genius who uses it is at a
disadvantage as compared with the man of genius who has
for conveying his thoughts a more adequate vehicle, metrical
or not. Racine is at a disadvantage as cOlnpared with
Sophocles or Shakspeare, and he is likewise at a disad van-
tage as conlpared with Bossuet. The same may be said of
our own poets of the eighteenth century, a century which
gave thenl as the nlain vehicle for their high poetry a nletre
inadequate (as much as the French ..A.lexandrine, and nearly
in the same way) for this poetry,-the ten syllable couplet.
It is worth remarking, that the English poet of the eighteenth
century whose conlpositions wear best and give one the
most entire satisfaction,-Gray,-hardly uses that couplet at
all: this abstinence, however, lin1its Gray's productions to a
few short compositions, and (exquisite as these are) he is a
poetical nature repressed and without freè issue. For
English poetical production on a great scale, for an English
poet deploying all the forces of his genius, the ten-syllable
couplet was, in the eighteenth century, the established, one
n1ay alnlost say the inevitable, channel. N ow this couplet,
adn1Írable (as Chaucer uses it) for story-telling not of the
epic pitch, and often admirable for a few lines even in
54
Cri tical Essays
poetry of a very high pitch, is for continuous use in poetry
of this latter kind inadequate. IJ ope , in his Essay on .Afall,
is thus at a disadvantage compared with Lucretius in his
poem on Nature: Lucretius has an adequate vehicle, Pope
has not. Nay, though Pope's genius for didactic poetry was
not less than that of IIorace, while his satirical power was
certainly greater, still one's taste rccei\'es, I cannot but think,
a certain satisfaction when one reads the Epistle and Satires
of Horace, which it fails to receive when one reads the
Satires and Epistles of Pope. Of such avail is the superior
adeq uacy of the vehicle used to cOlllpensate even an in-
feriority of genius in the user! In the saIne way Pope is
at a disadvantage as compared with Addison: the best of
Addison's composition (the "Coverley Papers" in the
...":,teclato r , for instance) wears better than the best of Pope's,
because Addi"on has in his prose an intrinsically better
vehicle for his genius than Pope in his couplet. But Bacon
has no such advantage over Shakspeare; nor has 1\lilton,
writing prose (for no contemporary English prose-writer
nlust be 11latched with 1\[ilton except Milton himself), any
such advantage over I\Iilton writing verse: indeed, the
ad vantage here is all the other way.
It is in the prose remains of Guérin,-his journals, his
letters, and the striking composition which I have already
mentioned, the Centaur,-that his extraordinary gift mani-
fests itself. He has a truly interpretative faculty; the most
profound and delicate sense of the life of Nature, and the
nlost exquisite felicity in finding expressions to render that
sense. Brief notices of hirn the reader rnav have seen of
hirll here and there in English or in foreign periodicals;
but it is not likely that the two volumes of his relnains will
have filet the eye of more than a very few of those who read
this or that they will ever be widely circulated in this
country. 1'0 all who love poetry, Guérin desen'es to be
sonlething lllore that a nalne; and I shall try, in spite of the
Ï1upossibility of doing justice to such a nl3.ster of expression
by translations, to make my English readers see for them-
selves how gifted an organisation his was, and how few
artists have recei\'ed from Nature a Inore Inaöical facu]ty
of interpreting her.
I n the winter of the year 1832 there was collected in
Brittany, around the well known Abbé Lanlennais, a
Maurice de Guérin
55
singular gathering. At a lonely place, La Chênaie, he had
founded a religious retreat, to which disciples, attracted by
his powers or by his reputation, repaired. Some came with
the intention of preparing themselves for the ecclesiastical
profession; others merely to profit by the society and dis-
course of so distinguished a master. Among the inmates
were men whose nan1es have since become known to all
Europe,-Lacordaire and 1\1:. de 1Vlonta]embert; there were
others, who have acquired a reputation, not European,
indeed, but considerable,-the Abbé Gerbet, the
Abbé
Rohrbacher; others, who have never quitted the shade of
private life. The winter of 1832 was a period of crisis in
the religious world of France: Lamennais's rupture with
Rome, the condemnation of his opinions by the Pope, and
his revolt against that condemnation, were imminent. Some
of his followers, like Lacordaire, had already resolved not to
cross the Rubicon with their leaùer, not to go into rebellion
against Rome; they were preparing to separate from him.
The Society of La Chênaie was soon to dissolve; but, such
as it is shown to us for a moment, with its voluntary
character, its simple and severe life in common, its mixture
of lay and derical members, the genius of its chiefs the
sincerity of its disciple
,-above an, its paramount fervent in-
terest in matters of spiritual and religious concernment,-it
offers a most instructive spectacle. It is not the spectacle we
most of us think to finù in France, the France we have imag..
ined from common English notions, from the streets of Paris,
from novels; it shows us how, wherever there is greatness
like that of France, there are, as its foundation, treasures
of fcrvour, pure-mindedness, and spirituality somewhere,
whether we know of thern or not ;-a store of that which
Goethe caUs Halt j- since greatness can never be foundcd
upon frivolity and corruption.
On the evening of the 18th of December in this re:tr
1832, 11. de Lan1cnnais was talking to those asselnbled in
the sitting-room of La Chênaie of his re
en
journey to
Italy. lIe talked with all his usual anin1ation; "but,"
writes one of his hearers, a Breton gentlelnan, 1\1. de
:rvrarzan
"I soon became inattentive and absent, being
struck with the reserved attitude of a young stranger some
twenty-two years old, pale in face, his black hair already
thin over his teroples, with a southern eye, in which bright-
56
Critical Essays
ness and nlclancholy were n1Ïngled. He kept himself
sùnlewhat aloof, seell1ing to avoid notice rather than to
court it. .All the old faces of friends which I found about
l11e at this DIY re-entry into the circle of La Chênaie [ailed
to occupy file so much as the sight of this stranger, looking
on, listening, observing, and saying nothing."
'rhe unknown was 11aurice de Guérin. Of a noble but
poor fatuily, having lost his l1Iother at six years old, he had
been brought ulJ by his father, a 111an saddened by his wife's
death, and austerely religious, at the château of Le Cayla,
in Languedoc. His childhood was not gay; he had not the
society of other boys; and solitude, the sight of his father's
gloom, and the habit of accompanying the curé of the
parish on his rounds among the sick and dying, nlade him
prenlaturely grave and familiar with sorrow. He went to
-school first at 1'ou}ouse, then at the College Stanislas at
Paris, with a temperament almost as unfit as Shelley's for
Conl1110n school life. His youth was ardent, sensitive, agi-
tated, and unhappy. In 1832 he procured admission to La
Chênaie to brace his spirit by the teaching of Lamennais,
and to decide whether his religious feelings would determine
themselves into a distinct religious vocation. Strong and
<Ìeep religious feelings he had, implanted in hilTI by nature,
developed in hÏ1n by the circunIstances of his childhood;
but he had also (and here is the key to his character) that
telnperan1ent which opposes itself to the fixedness of a
religious vocation, or to any vocation of which fixedness is
an essential attribute-a ten1perament mobile, inconstant,
eager, thirsting for new inlpressions, abhorring rules,
aspiring to a "renovation without end; JJ a temperanlent
con11non enough :unong artists, but with which few artists,
who have it to the sanle degree as Guérin, unite a serious-
ness and a sad intensity like his. After leaving school, and
before going to La Chênaie, he had been at home at Le
Cayla with his sister Eugénie (a wonderfully gifted person,
whose genius so competent a judge as 1\1. Sainte-Beuve is
inclined to pronounce even superior to her brother's) and
his sister Eugénie's friends. 'Vith one of these friends he
had fallen in love,-a slight and transient fancy, but which
had already called his poetical powers into exercise; and
his poems and fraglnents, in a certain green note-book (Ie
.Cahier Vert) which he long continued to make the deposi-
!\,iaurice de Guérin
57
tory of his thoughts, and which becanle famous among hi!
friends, he brought with him to La Chênaie. There he
found among the younger members of the Society severgl
\vho, like himself, had a secret passion for poetry and
literature; with these he became intimate, and in his
letters and journal we find him occupied, now with a literary
commerce established with these friends, now with the
fortunes, fast coming to a crisis, of the Society, and now
with that for the sake of which he came to La Chênaie,-
his religious progress and the state of his soul.
On Christmas-day, 1832, having been then three weeks
at La Ch
naie, he writes thus of it to a friend of his family,
:rv1. de Bayne:-
" La Chênaie is a sort of oasis in the midst of the steppes
of Brittany. In front of the château stretches a very large
garden cut in two by a terrace with a lime avenue, at the
end of which is a tiny chapel. I am extremely fond of this
little oratory, where one breathes a twofold peace,-the
peace of solitude and the peace of the Lord. \Vhen spring
comes we shall walk to prayers between two borders of
flowers. On the east side, and only a few yards from the
château, sleeps a small mere between two woods, where the
birds in warm weather sing all day long; and then,-right J
left, on all sides,-woods, woods, everywhere woods. It
looks desolate just now that all is bare and the woods are
rust-colour, and under this Brittany sky, which is always
clouded and so low that it seenlS as if it were going to fall
on your head; but as soon as spring comes the sky raises
itself up, the woods come to life agaIn, and everything will
be full of charm."
Of what La Chênaie will be when spring comes he has a
foretaste on the 3rd of l\larch.
"To-day" (he writes in his journal) "has enchanted me.
For the first time for a long while the sun has shown him-
self in all his beauty. He has made the buds of the leaves
and flowers swell, and he has waked up in me a thousand
happy thoughts. The clouds assume more and more their
light and graceful shapes, and are sketching, over the blue
sky, the most charming fancies. The woods have not yet
got their leaves, but they are taking an indescribable air of
life and gaiety, which gives them quite a new physiognomy.
Everything is getting ready for the great festival of Nature."
58
Critic
l Essays
Storm and snow adjourn this festival a little longer. On
the 11th of l'Iarch he writes:-
"It has snowed all night. I have been to look at our
primroses; each of them has its snlallload of snow, and was
bowing its head under its burden. These pretty flowers,
with their rich yellow colour, had a charming effect under
their white hoods. I saw whole tufts of them roofed over
by a single block of snow; all these laughing flowers thus
shrouded and leaning one upon another, Iliade one think of
a group of young girls surprised by a wave, and sheltering
under a white cloth."
The burst of spring comes at last, though late. On the
5th of April we find Guérin "sitting in the sun to penetrate
himself to the very marrow with the divine spring." On the
3rd of
lay, "one can actually see the progress of the green;
it has made a start fron1 the garden to the shrubberies, it
is getting the upper hand all along the mere; it leaps, one
may say, from' tree to tree, from thicket to thicket, in the
fields and on the hill-sides; and I can see it already arrived
at the forest edge and beginning to spread itself over the
broad back of the forest. Soon it will have over-run every-
thing as far as the eye can reach, and all those wide spaces
between here and the horizon will be moving and sounding
like one vast sea, a sea of emerald."
Finally, on the I 6th of J\lay, he writes to M. de Bayne
that" the gloonlY and bad days,-bad because they bring
temptation by their gloom,-are, thanks to God and the
spring, over; and I see approaching a long file of shining
and happy days, to do n1e all the good in the world. This
Brittany of ours," he continues, "gives one the idea of the
grayest and most wrinkled old woman possible suddenly
changed back by the tcuch of a fairy's wand into a girl of
twenty, and one of the loveliest in the world; the fine
weather has so decked and beautified the dear old country."
He felt, however, the cloudiness and cold of the" dear old
country" with all the sensitiveness of a child of the South.
.. \Vhat a difference," he cries, U between the sky of Brittany,
even on the finest day, and the sky of our South! lIere
the summer has, even on its high days and holidays, some-
thing mournful, overcast, and stinted about it. It is like a
n1iser who is Inaking a show; there is a niggardliness in his
magnificence. Give me our Languedoc sky, so bountiful
ß,laurice de Guérin
59
:)f light, so blue, so largely vaulted! " And somewhat later,
:onlplaining of the short and dinl sunlight of a Febru
ry
day in Paris, "\Vhat a sunshine," he exclaims, "to gladden
eyes accustomed to all the wealth of light of the South !-
aux larges et li/7érales
óu.fions de IU1/lière du del du l1fidi:'
In the long winter of La Ch
naie his great resource was
literature. One has often heard that an educated French-
n1an's reading seldom goes much beyond French and
Latin, and that he makes the authors in these two languages
his sole literary standard. This mayor may not be true of
Frenchmen in general, but there can be no question as to
the width of the reading of Guérin and his friends, and as
to the range of their literary sympathies. One of the circle,
Hippolyte In. I\Iorvonnais,-a poet who published a volume
of verse, and died in the prime of life,-had a passionate
admiration for ,V ordsworth, and had even, it is said, made
a pilgrimage to Rydal l\10unt to visit him; and in Guérin's
own reading I find, besides the French names of Bernardin,
de St Pierre, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Victor II ugo,
the names of Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, l\lilton, and
Goethe; and he quotes both from Greek and from English
authors in the original. His literary tact is beautifully fine
and true. "Every poet," he writes to his sister, "has his
own art of poetry written on the ground of his own soul;
there is no other. Be constantly observing Nature in her
smallest details, and then write as the current of your
thoughts guides you j-that is all." But with all this
freedolTI fronl the bondage of forms and rules, Guérin marks
with perfect precision the faults of the free French literature
of his time,-the littérature facile,-and judges the romantic
school and its prospects like a master: "that youthful
literature which has put forth all its blossom prematurely,
and has left itself a helpless prey to the returning frost,
stimulated as it has been by the burning sun of our century,
by this atmosphere charged with a perilous heat, which has
over-hastened every sort of development, and will most
likely reduce to a handful of grains the harvest of our age."
And the popular authors,-those "whose nanlC appears
once and disappears for ever, whose books, unwelcome to
all serious people, welcome to the rest of the world, to
novelty-hunters and novel-readers, fin with vanity these vain
souls, and then, falling from hands heavy with the langu:)r
60
Critical Essays
of satiety, drop for ever into the gulf of oblivion;" and
those, more noteworthy, "the writers of books celebrated,
and, as works of art, deserving celebrity, but which have in
them not one grain of that hidden ll1anna, not one of those
sweet and wholesonle thoughts which nourish the human
soul and refresh it when it is weary,"-these he treats with
such severity that he may in sOlne sense be described, as he
describes hi 111 self, as "invoking with his whole heart a
classical restoration." lIe is best described, however, not
as a partisan of any school, but as an ardent seeker for
that mode of expression which is the 1110st natural, happy,
2.nd true. lIe writes to his sister Eugénie :-
"I want you to reform your system of composition; it is
too loose, too vague, too LaUlartinian. Your verse is too
sing-song; it does not talk enough. Form for yourself a
style of your own, which shaH be your real expression.
Study the French language by attentive reading, making it
your care to remark constructions, turns of expression,
delicacies of style, but without ever adopting the rnanner of
any lnaster. In the works of these Inasters we must learn
our language, but we must use it each in our own fashion." I
It was not, however, to perfect his literary judgment that
Guérin came to La Chênaie. The religious feeling, which
was as much a part of his essence as the passion for Nature
and the literary instinct, shows itself at moments Jealous of
these its rivals, and alarmed at their predominance. Like
all powerful feelings, it wants to exclude every other feeling
and to be absolute. One Friday in April, after he has been
delighting hinlself with the shapes of the clouds and the
progress of the spring, he suddenly bethinks himself that the
day is Good Friday, and exclaims in his diary :-
" 11y God, what is my soul about that it can thus go
running after such fugitive delights on Good Friday, on this
day all filled with Thy death and our redemption. There is
in nlC I know not what damnable spirit, that awakens in me
strong discontents, and is for ever prompting ll1e to rebel
against the holy exercises and the devout collectedness of
soul which are the meet preparation for these great
solemnities of our faith. Oh how well can I trace here
1 Part of these extracts date from a time a little after Guérin's
residence at La Chênaie; but already, amidst the readings and con-
versations of La Chênaie, his literary judgment was perfectly formed.
1Iaurice de Guérin
61
the old leaven, froin which I have not yet perfectly cleared
n1Y soul! "
l\.nd again, in a letter to 11. de
farzan: "Of what, my
God, are we 111ade," he cries, "that a little verdure and a
few trees should be enough to rob us of our tranquillity and
to distract us from Thy love?" And writing, three days
after Easter Sunday, in his journal, he records the reception
at La Chênaie of a fervent neophyte, in words which SeelTI
to convey a covert blame of his own want of fervency:-
"Three days have passed over our heads since the great
festival. One anniversary the less for us yet to spend of the
death and resurrection of our Saviour! Every year thus
bears away with it its solelnn festivals; when will the ever-
lasting festival be here? I have been witness of a most
touching sight; François has brought us one of his friends
whom he has gained to the faith. This neophyte joined us
in our exercises during the Holy week, and on Easter day
he received the con1munion with us. François was in
raptures. It is a truly good work which he has thus done.
François is quite young, hardly twenty years old;
L de la
1\1. is thirty, and is married. There is something most
touching and beautifully sÏ1nple in :1\1. de la
I. letting
himself thus be brought to God by quite a young man; and
to see friendship, on François's side, thus doing the work of
an Apostle, is not less beautiful and touching."
Adn1iration for Lamennais worked in the san1e direction
with this feeling. Lamennais never appreciated Guérin;
his con1bative, rigid, despotic nature, of which the character-
istic was energy, had no affin 1 .ty with Guérin's elusive, un-
dulating, impalpable n
ture, of which the characteristic was
delicacy. He set little store by his new disciple, and could
hardly bring himself to understand what others found so
reinarkable in hint, his own genuine feeling towards him
being one of indulgent compassion. But the intuition of
Guérin, more discerning than the logic of his master, in-
stincti vely felt what there was comnlanding ànd tragic in
Laolcnnais's character, different as this was from his own j
and some of his notes are anlong the most interesting
records of Lmllennais which remain.
" 'Do you know what it is,' 1-1:. Féli I said to us on the
I The familiar name given to M. de Lamennais by hi;) followecs at
La Chênaie.
62
Critical ESSa)TS
evening of the day before yesterday, 'which makes nlan the
most suffering of all creatures? It is that he has one foot
in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is
torn asunder, not by four horses, as in the horrible old
tin1es, but between two worlds.' Again he said to us as we
heard the clock strike: 'if that clock knew that it was to be
destroyed the next instant, it would still keep
tI iking its
hour until that instant arrived. l\ly children, be as thè
clock; \\ hatever may be going to happen to you, strike
alwa}Ts your hour.'"
Another time Guérin writes:
"1"0-day
1. Féli startled us. He was sIttIng behind
the chapel, under the two Scotch firs; he took his stick and
nlarked out a grave on the turf, and said to Elie, 'It is there
I wish to be buried, but 110 t01l1bstone! only a sinlple
hillock of grass. Oh, how well I shall be there!' Elie
thought he had a presentinlent that his end was near.
rrhis is not the first tin1e he has been visited by such a
pre
entinlent; when he was setting out for R.ome, he said to
those here: 'I do not expect ever to come back to you;
)'ou must do the good which I have failed to do.' He is
impatient for death."
Overpowered by the ascendency of Lanlennais, Guérin,
in spite of his hesitations, in spite of his confession to him-
self that: "after three weeks' close scrutiny of his sou], in
the hope of finding the pearl of a religious vocation hidden
in SOine corner of it," he had failed to find what he sought,
took, at the end of August 1833, a decisive step. lIe
joined the religious order which Latl1ennais had founded.
But at this very moment the deepening displeasure of Rome
with Lamenl1ais determined the Bishop of Rellnes to break
up, in so far as it was a religious congregation, the Society
of La Chên:1Ïe, to transfer the novices to Ploërmel, and to
place them under other superintendence. In September,
Lan1ennais, "who had not )'et ceased," writes 11. de
1\larzan, a fervent Catholic, "to be a Christian and a priest,
took leave of his beloved colony of La Chênaie, with the
anguish of a general who disbands his arn1Y down to the
last recruit, and withdraws annihilated fron1 the field of
battle." Guérin went to I>loërn1el. But here, in the
seclusion of a real religious house, he instantly perceived
hùw alien to a spirit like his,-a spirit which, as he hil11self
l\laurÌce de Guérin
63
says somewhere, "had need of the open air, wanted to see
the sun and the flowers,"-was the constraint and monotony
of a monastic life, when Lamennais's genius was no longer
present to enliven this life for him. On the 7th of October
he renounced the novitiate, believing himself a partisan of
Lamennais in his quarrel with Rome, reproaching the life
he had left with demanding passive obedience instead of
trying" to put in practice the admirable alliance of order
with liberty, and of variety with unity," and declaring that,
for his part, he preferred taking the chances of a life of
adventure to subnlitting himself to be "garot/é jar un
réglemuzt,-tied hand and foot by a set of rules." In real
truth, a life of adventure, or rather a life free to wander at
its own will, was that to which his nature irresistibly im-
pel1ed him.
For a career of adventure, the inevitable field was Paris.
But before this career began, there came a stage, the
smoothest, perhaps, and the most happy in the short life of
Guérin. 1\1. la l\10rvonnais, one of his La Chênaie friends,
-some years older than Guérin, and married to a wife of
singular sweetness and charm,-had a house by the seaside
at the mouth of one of the beautiful rivers of Brittany, the
Arguenon. lIe asked Guérin, when he left Ploërmel, to
conle and stay with hinl at this place, called Le Val de
l'Arguenon, and Guérin spent the winter of 1833-4 there.
I grudge every word about Le Val and its inmates which is
not Guérin's own, so charn1Ïng is the picture he draws of
them, so truly does his talent find itself in its best vein as
be dray,'s it.
"How full of goodness" (he writes in his journal of the
7th of Deccnl ber) "is Providence to me! For fear the
sudden passa 6 e froln the mild and temperate air of a
religious life to the torrid clÎ1ne of the world should be too
trying for nlY soul, it has conducted me, after I have left
my sacred shelter, to a house planted on the frontier
between the two regions, where, without being in solitude,
one is not yet in the world; a house whose windows look
on the one side towards the plain where the tumult of men
is rocking, on the other towards the wilderness where the
servants of God are chanting. I intend to write down the
record of my sojourn here, ror the days here spent are full
of happiness, and I know that in the tinle to come I shall
64
Critical Essays
often turn back to the story of these past felicities. A man,
pious, and a poet; a won1an, who')e spirit is in such perfect
syn1pathy with his that you would say they had but one
being between them; a child, called l\1arie like her mother,
and who sends, like a star, the first rays of her love and
thought through the white cloud of infancy; a simple life
in an old-fashioned house; the ocean, which comes n10rning
and evening to bring us its harmonies; and lastly, a
wanderer who descends frOin Carnlel and is going on to
Babylon, and who has laid down at this threshold his staff
and his sandals, to take his seat at the hospitable table ;-
here is matter to Inake a biblical poem of, if I could only
describe things as I can feel them! "
Every line written by Guérin during this stay at Le Val
is worth quoting, but I have only room for one extract
more :-
" Never" (he writes, a fortnight later, on the 20th of
December), "never have I tasted so inwardly and deeply
the happiness of home-lite. All the little details of this life,
which in their succession make up the day, are to me so
many stages of a continuous charm carried from one end of
the day to the other. 1'he lnorning greeting, which in some
sort renews the pleasure of the first arrival, for the words
with which one l11eets are almost the same, and the separa-
tion at night, through the hours of darkness and uncertainty,
does not ill represent longer separations; then breakfast,
during which you have the fresh enjoyment of having met
together again; the stroll afterwards, when we go out and
bid Nature good-morning; the return and setting to work
in an old panelled chamber looking out on the sea, inac-
cessible to all the stir of the house, a perfect sanctuary of
labour; dinner, to which we are called, not by a bell, which
ren1Ïnds one too much of school or a great house, but by a
pleasant voice; the gaiety, the merriment, the talk flitting
from one subject to another and never dropping so long as
the meal lasts ; the crackling fire of dry branches to which
we draw our chairs directly afterwards, the kind words that
are spoken round the warm flame which sings while we talk;
and then, if it is fine, the walk by the seaside, when the sea
has for its visitors a lllother with her child in her arnlS, this
child's father and a stranger, each of these two last with a
stick in his hand; the rosy lips of the little girl, which k
ep
11aurice de Guérin
65
talking at the same time with the waves,-no\V and then
tears shed by her and cries of childish fright at the edge of
the sea; our thoughts, the father's and Dline, as we st3.nd
and look at the nlother and child s1l1iling at one another, or
at the child in tears and the mother trying to con1fort it by
her caresses and exhortations; the Ocean, going on all the
while rolling up his waves and noises; the dead boughs
which we go and cut, here and there, out of the copse-wood,
to make a quick and bright fire when we get home,-this
little taste of the woodman's calling which brings us closer
to Nature and makes us think of 11. Féli's eager fondness
for the san1e work; the hours of study and poetical flow
which carry us to supper-time; this meal, which summons
us by the same gentle voice as its predecessor, and which is
passed amid the same joys, only less loud, because evening
sobers everything, tones everything down; then our evening,
ushered in by the blaze of a cheerful fire, and which with its
alternations of reading and talking brings us at last to bed-
time :-to all tite charn1s of a day so spent add the dreams
which follow it, and your in1agination will still fall far short
of these hOlne-joys in their delibhtful reality."
I said the foregoing should be my last e>..tract, but who
could resist this picture of a January evening on the coast
of Brittany?-
" All the sky is covered over with grey clouds just silvered
at the edges. 1'he sun, who departed a few minutes ago,
has left behind him enough light to ten1per for awhile the
black shadows, and to soiten down, as it were, the approach
of night. The winds are hushed, and the tranquil Ocean
sends up to me, when I go out on the doorstep to listen,
only a Dlelodious murn1ur, which dies away in the soul like
a beautiful wave on the beach. The birds, the first to obey
the nocturnal influence, 111ake their way towards the woods,
and you hear the rustle of their wings in the clouds. The
copses which cover the whole hill-side of Le Val, which all
the day-lÎ1ne are alive with the chirp of the wren, the
laughing whistle of the woodpecker, I and the different notes
of a multitude of birds, have no longer any sound in their
paths and thickets, unless it be the prolonged high call of
the blackbirds at play with one another and chasing one
I .. The woodpecker laughs," says \Vhite of Selborne; and here is
Guérin, in Brittan>", confirming his tcstirnonr.
C
66
Critical Essays
another, after all the other birds have their heads safe under
their wings. rrhe noise of man, always the last to be silent,
dies gradually out over the face of the fields. The general
lTIUrmUr fades away, and one hears hardly a sound except
what cOlnes from the villages and hamlets, in which, up till
far into the night, there are cries of children and barking of
dogs. Silence wraps me round; everything seeks repose
except this pen of mine, which perhaps disturbs the rest of
some living atom asleep in a crease of my note-book, for it
makes its light scratching as it puts down these idle thoughts.
Let it stop, then! for all I write, have written, or shall write,
vill never be worth setting against the sleep of an atom."
On the 1St of February we find him in a lodging at Paris.
H I enter the world JJ (such are the last words written in his
journal at Le Val) "with a secret horror." His outward
history for the next five years is soon told. He found him-
self in Paris, poor, fastidious, and with health which already,
no doubt, felt the obscure presence of the malady of which
he died-consulnption. One of his Brittany acquaintances
introduced hinl to editors, tried to engage hin1 in the
periodical literature of Paris; and so unmistakable was
Guérin's talent that even his first essays were imlnediately
accepted. But Guérin's genius was of a kind which unfitted
him to get his bread in this n1anner. At first he was pleased
with the notion of living by his pen; "je n'al: qu'à fcrire,JJ
he says to his sister,-" I have only got to write." But to
a nature like his, endued with the passion for perfection,
the necessity to produce, to produce constantly, to produce
whether in the vein or out of the vein, to produce son1ething
good or bad or n1iddling, as it may happen, but at all events
SOlJletllillg,-is the n10st intolerable of tortures. To escape
from it he betook himself to that conlmon but most per-
fidious refuge of men of letters, that refuge to which Gold-
snlÎth and poor I-Iartley Coleridge had betaken themselves
before hin1,-the profession of teaching. In September 18 34
he procured an engagement at the Collège Stanislas, where
he had hiu1self been educated. It was vacation-tinle, and
all he had to do was to teach a sn1all class COIn nosed of
boys who did not go horne for the holidays,-in lhis own
words, "scholars left like sick sheep in the f01d, while the
rest of the flock are frisking in the fields." After the vaca-
tion he was kept on at the college as a sUpen1UJDcrary.
/Iaurice de Guérin
67
U The master of the fifth class has asked for a month's leave
of absence; I am taking his place, and by this work I get
one hundred francs (;64). I have been looking about for
pupils to give private lessons to, and I have found three or
four. Schoolwork and private lessons together fill my day
from half-past seven in the morning till half-past nine at
night. 1'he college dinner serves me for breakfast, and I
go and dine in the evening at twenty-four sous, as a young
man beginning life should." To better his position in the
hierarchy of public teachers it was necessary that he should
take the degree of ag1"égé esfel/res, corresponding to our
degree of 1Iaster of Arts; and to his heavy work in teaching,
there was thus added that of preparing for a severe examina-
tion. 'rhe drudgery of this life was very irksome to him,
although less insupportable than the drudgery of the profes-
sion of letters; inasn1uch as to a sensitive nlan like Guérin,
to silence his genius is more tolerable than to hackney it.
Still the yoke wore hinl deeply, and he had nlonlents of
bitter revolt; he continued, however, to bear it with resolu-
tion, and on the whole with patience, for four years. On
the 15th of 1\oven1ber 1838 he" married a young Creole 1ady
of some fortune, 1Iadenloiselle Caroline de Gervain,
"whom," to use his OW11 words, "Destiny, who loves these
surprises, has wafted from the farthest Indies into nlY arms. J '
rrhe nlarriage was happy, aqd it ensured to Guérin liberty
and leisure; Lut now "the blind Fury with the abhorred
shears" was hard at hand. Consumption declared itself in
hinl: "I pass my life," he writes, with his old playfulness
and calln, to his sister on the 8th of April 1839, "within nlY
bed-curtains, and wait patiently enough, thanks to Caro's I
goodness, books, and dreams, for the recoyery which the
sunshine is to bring with it." In search of this sunshine he
was taken to his native country, Languedcc, but in ,'ain.
I-Ie died at Le Cayla on the 19th of July 1839.
1'he vicissitudes of his inward life during these five years
were more considerable. Ilis opinions and tastes under-
went great, or what seelU to be great, changes. fIe çame
to Paris the ardent partisan of Lanlennais: even in April
18 34, after Ron1e had finally condelnned Lan1enna.is,-
"To-night there will go forth froln Paris," h
writes, U with
bis face set to the East, a man whose every step 1 would fain
I lIis wife.
68
Critical Essays
follow, and who returns to the desert for which I sigh. 1\1.
Féli departs this evening for La Chênaie." But in October
1835,-" I assure you," he writes to his sister, "I am at last
weaned from 1\1. de Lan1ennais; one does not renlain a
babe and suckling for eyer; I am perfectly freed from his
influence." 1'here was a greater change than this. In
1834 the main cause of Guérin's aversion to the literature of
the French romantic school, was that this literature, having
had a religious origin, had ceased to be religious: "it has
forgotten," he says, "the house and the adn1onitions of its
Father." But his friend IV!. de i\larzan tells us of a "deplor-
able revolution" which, by 1836, had taken place in him.
Guérin had become intimate with the chiefs of this very
literature; he no longer went to church; "the bond of a
common faith, in which our friendship had its birth, existed
between us no longer." Then, again, "this interregnum
was not destined to last." Reconverted to his old faith by
suffering and by the pious efforts of his sister Eugénie,
Guérin died a Catholic. His feelings about society under-
went a like change. After" entering the world with a
secret horror, U after congratulating hÎ1nself when he had
been some months at Paris on being" disengaged from the
social tumu1t, out of the reach of those blows which, when
I live in the thick of the world, bruise me, irritate me, or
utterly crush nle," 1\1. Sainte-Beuve tell us of hin1, two years
afterwards, appearing in Society "a man of the world,
elegant, even fashionable; a talker who could hold his own
against the most brilliant talkers of Paris."
In few natures, however, is there really such essential
consistency as in Guérin's. He says of himself, in the very
beginning of his journal: "I owe everything to poetry, for j
there is no other name to give to the SUlll total of n1Y'
thoughts; I owe to it whatever I :
ow have pure, lofty, and
solid in my soul; I owe to it all IllY cons01ations in the
past; I shall probably owe to it l11Y future." l)oetry, the
poetical instinct, was indeed the basis of his nature; but to
say so thus absolutely is not quite enough. One aspect of
poetry fascinated Guérin's imagination and held it prisoner_I
Poetry is the interprelress of the natural world, and she is
the interpretress of the moral world; it was as the interpre- I
tress of the natural world that she had Guérin for her
mouthpiece. To make magically near and real the life 011
1
1faurice de Guérin
69
Nature, and man's life only so far as it is a part of that
Nature, was his faculty; a faculty of naturalistic, not of
moral interpretation. This faculty always has for its basis a
peculiar temperament, an extraordinary delicacy of organisa-
tion and susceptibility to in1pressions; in exercising it the
poet is in a great degree passive <\Vordsworth thus speaks
of a 'il.1ise passiveness); he aspires to be a sort of hurnan
Æolian harp, catching and rendering every rustle of Nature.
To assist at the evolution of the whole life of the world is
his craving: and intimately to feel it all :
. . . "the glow, the thrilJ of life,
Where, where do these abound?"
is what he asks: he resists being riveted and held stationary
by any single impression, but would be borne on for ever
down an enchanted stream. He goes into religion and out
of religion, into society and out of society, not from the
motives which inlpel 111en in general, but to feel what it is
all like ; he is thus hardly a moral agent, and, like the pas-
sive and ineffectual Uranus of Keats's poenl, he Inay say:
. . . . . . "I am but a voice;
1\1 y life is but the life of winds and tides;
No more than winds and tides can I avaiI."
He hoyers over the tunlult of life, but does not really put his
hand to it.
Noone has expressed the aspirations of this ten1peranlent
better than Guérin hin1self. In the last year of his life he
writes :-
"I return, as you see, to my old brooding over the world
of Nature, that line which my thoughts irresistibly take; a
sort of passion which gives me enthusiasm, tears, bursts of
joy, and an eternal food for musing; and yet I an1 neither
philosopher nor naturalist, nor anything learned whatsoever.
There is one word which is the God of my imagination, the
tyrant, I ought rather to say, that fascinate:) it, lures it on-
ward, gives it work to do without ceasing, and will finally
carry it I know not where; the word l
fe."
And in one place in his journal he says :-
u
1 y in1agination welcomes every dream, every impression,
without attaching itself to any, and goes on for ever seeking
something neYI."
7 0
Critical Essa,?s
And again in a.nother :-
II 1"he longer I live, and the clearer I discern between
tn1e and false in society, the more does the inclination to
live, not as a savage or a misanthrope, but as a solitary man
on the frontiers of society, on the outskirts of the world, gain
strength and grow in TIle. The birds come and go and make
nests around our habitations, they are fellow-citizens of our
farms and hamlets with us; but they take their flight in a
heaven which is boundless, but the hand of God alone gives
and nleasures to them their daily food, but they build their
nests in the heart of the thick bushes, or hang them in the
height of the trees. So would I, too, live, ho,yering round
society, and having always at my back a field of liberty vast
as the sky."
In the same spirit he longed for travel. " 'Yhen one is
a wanderer," he writes to his sister, "one feels that one ful-
fils the true condition of humanity." And the last entry in
his journal is,-" The stream of travel is full of delight.
Oh, who will set me adrift on this Nile! "
Assuredly it is not in this ten1perament that the active
\yirtues have their rise. On the contrary, this temperanlent,
considered in itself alone, indisposes for the discharge of
them. Something morbid and excessive, as manifested in
Guérin, it undoubtedly has. In him, as in Keats, and as in
another youth of genius, whose came, but the other day un-
heard of, is henceforth written in the history of English
poetry,-David Gray,-the temperament, the talent itself,
is deeply influenced by their mysterious malady; the tem-
perament is d
ollring,. it uses vital power too hard and too
fast, paying the penalty in long hours of unutterable exhaus-
tion and in premature death. 'rhe intensity of Guérin's de-
pression is described to us by Guérin himself with the same
incomparable touch with which he. describes happier feel-
ings; far oftener than any pleasurable sense of his gift he
has U the sense profound, near, immense, of nlY nlisery, of
my inward poverty." And again: "
fy inward 1uisery gains
upon me; I no longer dare look within." And on another
day of gloom he does look within, and here is the terrible
analysis :-
Ie Craving, unquiet, seeing only by glimpses, my spirit is
stricken by all those ins which are the sure fruit of a youth
doomed never to ripen into nlanhood. I grow old and
1Iaurice de Guérin
7 1
wear myself out in the most futile mental strainings, and
make no progress. l\Iy head seems dying, and when the
wind blows I fancy I feel it, as if I were a tree, blowing
through a number of withered branches in my top. Study
is intolerable to me, or rather it is quite out of my power.
rental work brings on, not drowsiness, but an irritable and
nervous disgust which drives me out, I know not where,
into the streets and public places. The Spring, whose de-
lights used to come every year stealthily and nlysteriously
to charm me in my retreat, crushes me this year under a
weight of sudden hotness. I should be glad of any event
which delivered me from the situation in which I am. If I
were free I 'would embark for some distant country where I
could begin life anew."
Such is this temperalnent in the frequent bours when the
sense of its own weakness and isolation crushes it to the
ground. Certainly it was not for Guérin's happiness, or for
Keats's, as men count happiness, to be as they were. Still
the very excess and predolllinance of their temperament has
given to the fruits of their genius a unique brilliancy and
flavour. I have said that poetry interprets in two ways; it
interprets by expressing with magical felicity the physiognomy
and movement of the outward world, and it interprets by
expressing, with inspired conviction, the ideas and laws of
the inward world of luan's moral and spiritual nature. In
other words, poetry is interpretative both by having natural
1nagze in it, and by having moral þrofundz't)I. In both ways
it illun1inates man; it gives him a satisfying sense of reality;
it reconciles him with himself and the universe. 'rhus
Æschylus's "ÒPÚt!CM'f" waUf:llI" and his "ä.'I'f;pID{.J.o'i "IÊ')..a(f
a. JJ
are alike interpretative. Shakspeare interprets both when
he sa }'s,
U Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovran e)'e ; >>
and when he says,
U There's a divinity that shapes our end
Rough-hew them as we will.')
These gre..'1.t poets unite in themselves tbe faculty of both
kinds of interpretation, the naturalistic and the moral. But
it is observable that in the poets who unite both kinds, the
7 2
Critical Essays
latter (the moral) usually ends by making itself the master.
In Shakspeare the two kinds seem wonderfully to balance
one another; but even in him the balance leans; his ex-
pression tends to becon1e too little sensuous and simple, too
much intellectualised. The same thing may be yet more
strongly affirmed of Lucretius and of ,V ordsworth. In
Shelley there is not a balance of the two gifts, nor even a
co-existence of them, but there is a passionate straining after
them both, and this is what makes Shelley, as a man, so in-
teresting: I will not now inquire how much Shelley achieves
as a poet, but wh3.tever he achieves, he in general fails to
achieve natural magic in his expression; in Mr Palgrave's
charming Treasury may be seen a gallery of his failures. I
But in Keats and Guérin, in whom the faculty of naturalistic
interpretation is overpoweringly predominant, the natural
magic is perfect; when they speak of the world they speak
like Adam naming by divine inspiration the creatures; their
expression corresponds with the thing's essential reality.
Even between Keats and Guérin, however, there is a dis-
tinction to be drawn. Keats has, above all, a sense of what
is pleasurable and open in the life of nature; for him she is
the Abna Parens: his expression has, therefore, more than
Guérin's, son1ething genial, outward, and sensuous. Guérin
has, above all, a sense of what there is adorable and secret
in the life of Nature; for him she is the lIIagna Parens;
his expression has, therefore, more than Keats's, something
n1ystic, inward, and profound.
So he lived like a man possessed; with his eye not on
his own career, not on the public, not on fan1e, but on the
Isis whose veil he had uplifted. He published nothing:
U There is more power and beauty," he writes, "in the well-
kept secret of one's-self and one's thoughts, than in the
display of a whole heaven that one may have inside one."
u l\ly spirit," he answers the friends who urge him to write,
r Compare, for example, his" Lines'Vritten in the Euganean Hills,"
with Keats's "Ode to Autumn" (Golden TreaslllJ', pp. 25 6 , 28 4).
The latter piece renders Nature; the former tries to render her. I will
not deny, however, that Shelley has natural magic in his rhythm; what
I deny is, that he has it in his language. It always seems to me
that the right sphere for Shetley's genius was the sphere of music, not
of poetry; the medium of sounds he can master, but to master the more
difficult merlium of words he has neither intellectual force enough nor
sanity enough.
l\'iaurice de Guérin
73
"is of the home-keeping order, and has no fancy for
adventure; literary adventure is above all distastefuÌ to it ;
for this, indeed (let me say so without the least self-
sufficiency), it has a contempt. The literary career seems
to me unreal, both in its own essence and in the rewards
which one seeks from it, and therefore fatally Inarred by a
secret absurdity." His acquaintances, and alTIOng them
distinguished men of letters, full of adnÜration for the
originality and delicacy of his talent, laughed at his self-
depreciation, warnlly assured hin1 of his powers. He
received their assurances with a mournful incredulity, which
contrasts curiously with the self-assertion of poor David
Gray, whom I just now mentioned. "It seenlS to me
intolerable," he writes, "to appear to nlen other than one
appears to God. 1\1 y worst torture at this moment is the
over-estimate which generous friends form of 111e. 'Ve are
told that at the last judgment the secret of all consciences
will be laid bare to the universe; would that mine were so
this day, and that every passer-by could see me as I am! JJ
c. High above my head," he says at another time, "far, far
away, I seem to hear the munnur of that world of thought
and feeling to which I aspire so often, but where I can
never attain. I think of those of nlY own age who have
wings strong enough to reach it, but I think of them without
jealousy, and as men on earth contemplate the elect and
their felicity." And, criticising his own composition,
"\Vhen I begin a subject, my self-conceit" (says this
I exquisite artist) "imagines I am doing wonders; and when
I I have finished, I see nothing but a wretched made-up
imitation, composed of odds and ends of colour stolen
frorri other people's palettes, and tastelessly mixed together
on mirle." Such was his þassion for þeifection, his disdain
for all poetical work not perfectly adequate and felicitous.
The magic of expression, to which by the force of this
passion he won his way, will make the nan1e of
Iaurice de
Guérin remembered in literature. ,
I have already mentioned the Centaur, a sort of prose
pOelTI by Guérin, which l\Iadan1e Sand published after his
death. The idea of this composition canle to him 1\1.
Sainte-Beuve says, in the course of some yisits which he
Dlade with his [rien?,
I: T
ebutien, a learned antiquarian, to
the 1'Iuseum of AntIquItIes In the Louvre. The free and wild
74
Critical. Essays
life which the Greeks expressed by such creations as the Cen-
taur had
as we might well expect, a strong charm for him;
under the same inspiration he cOlnposed a Baccha1zte, which
is lost, and which was Ineant by hin1 to form part of a prose
poem on the adventures of Bacchus in India. I(eal as was
the affinity which Guérin's nature had for these subjects, I
doubt whether, in treating them, he would have found the
full and final employment of his talent. Rut the beauty of
his Centaur is extraordinary; in its \vhole conception and
expression this piece has in a wonderful degree that natural
n1agic of which I have said so much, and the rhythm has a
charm which bewitches even a foreigner. An old Centaur
on his mountain is supposed to relate to Nlelampus, a human
questioner, the life of his youth. Untranslatable as the
piece is, I shall conclude with some extracts from it:-
" I had my birth in the caves of these mountains. Like
the stream of this valley, whose first drops trickle from S0111e
weeping rock in a deep cavern, the first Inoment of my life
fel1 in the darkness of a remote abode, and without break-
ing the silence. "'hen our mothers draw near to the time
of their delivery, they withdraw to the caverns, and in the
depth of the loneliest of then1, in the thickest of its gloom,
bring forth, without uttering a plaint, a fruit silent as thenl-
selves. Their puissant milk Inakes us surmount, without
weakness or dubious struggle, the first difficulties of life;
and yet we leave our caverns later than you your cradles.
The reason is that we have a doctrine that the early days
of existence should be kept apart and enshrouded, as days
filled with the presence of the gods. N early the whole
term of my growth was passed in the darkness where I was
born. The recesses of my dwelling ran so far under the
mountain that I should not have known on which side was
the exit, had not the winds, when they sometinles ll1ade
their way through the opening, sent fresh airs in, and a
sudden trouble. SOITJetilnes, too, my nlother ca01C back to
Ole, having about her the odours of the valleys, or streaming
from the waters which were her haunt. Her returning thus,
without a word said of the valleys or the rivers, but with
the emanations frotTI thenl hanging about her, troubled my
spirit, and I n10ved up and down restlessly in my darkness.
, 'Vhat is it,' I cried, 'this outside world whither IllY n10ther
is borne, and what reigns there in it so potent as to attract
Maurice de Guérin
75
her so often? ' At these moments my own force began to
n1ake me unquiet. I felt in it a power which could not
rernain idle; and betaking Inyself either to toss my arn1S or
to gallop backwards and forwards in the spacious darkness
of the cavern, I tried to make out from the blows which 1
dealt in the empty space, or from the transport of my course
through it, in what direction n1Y arn1S were meant to reach
or ll1Y feet to bear ll1e. Since that day, I have wound my
arms round the bust of Centaurs, and round the body of
heroes, and round the trunks of oaks; my hands bave
assayed the rocks, the waters, plants without nunlber, and
the subtlest impressions of the air,-for I uplift theln in the
dark and still nights to catch the breaths of wind, and to
draw signs whereby I may augur my road; ll1Y feet,-look,
o
lelampus, how worn they are! And yet, all benumbeà
as I am in this extren1ity of age, there are days when, in
broad sunlight, on the mountain-tops, I renew these gallop-
ings of my youth in the cavern, and with the same object,
brandishing my arms and employing all the fleetness which
yet is left to me.
. . .
"0 1Ielan1pus, thou who wouldst know the life of the
Centaurs, wherefore have the gods willed that thy steps
should lead thee to me, the oldest and Inost forlorn of then}
all? It is long since I have ceased to practise any part of
their life. I quit no more this 1l10untain summit, to which
age has confined file. The point of my arrows now serves
Ine only to uproot some tough fibred plant; the tranquil
lakes know me still, but the rivers have forgotten n1e. I
will tell thee a little of my youth; but these recollections,
issuing from a worn 111en1ory, con1e like the drops of a
niggardly libation poured fronl a danlaged urn.
"rrhe course of my youth was rapid and full of agitation.
foVClnent was my life, and n1Y steps knew no bound.
One day when I was following the course of a valley seldom
entered by the Centaurs, I discovered a n1an n1aking his
way up the strealll-side on the opposite bank. I Ie was the
first w honl my eyes had lighted on: I despised hin1. ' De-
hold,' I cried, 'at the utnlost but the half of what laIn!
Doubtless he is a Centaur overthrown by the gods, and
reduced bi' then1 to drag himself along thus.'
7 6
Critical Essays
" \Vandering along at my own will like the rivers, feeling
wherever I went the presence of Cybele, whether in the
bed of the valleys, or on the height of the mountains, I
bounded whither I would, like a blind and chainless life.
But when Night, filled with the charm of the gods, overtook
me on the slopes of the mountain, she guided me to the
mouth of the caverns, and there tranquillised me as she
tranquillises the billows of the sea. Stretched across the
threshold of my retreat, my flanks hidden within the cave,
and my head under the open sky, I watched the spectacle
of the dark. The sea-gods, it is said, quit, during the hours
of darkness their palaces under the deep; they seat them-
selves on the prolnontories, and their eyes wander over the
expanse of the waves. Even so I kept watch, having at my
feet an expanse of life like the hushed sea. 11y regarùs had
free range, and travelled to the most distant points. Like
sea-beaches which never lose their wetness, the line of
mountains to the west retained the imprint of gleams not
perfectly wiped out by the shadows. In that quarter still
survived, in pale clearness, mountain-sumrnits naked and
pure. There I beheld at one tin1e the god Pan descend,
ever solitary; at another, the choir of ll1YStic divinities; or
I saw pass some mountain nyn1ph charm-struck by the
night. Sometin1es the eagles of l\lount Olympus traversed
the upper sky, and were lost to view an10ng the far-off
constellations, or in the shade of the dreaming forests.
"Thou pursuest after wisdom, 0 I\Ielampus, which is the
science of the will of the gods; and thou rOalTIest from
people to people like a mortal driven by the destinies. In
the times when I kept my night-watches before the caverns,
I have sometilues believed that I was about to surprise the
thought of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the
gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall son1e of her
secrets; but I have never made out more than sounds
which faded away in the murmur of night, or words
inarticulate as the bubbling of the rivers.
" (0 l\Iacareus,' one day said the great Chiron to me,
whose old age I tended; 'w"e are, both of us, Centaurs of
the mountain; but how different are our lives! Of n1Y
days all the study is (thou seest it) the search for plants;
thou, thou art like those mortals who have picked up on
the waters or in the woods, and carried to their lips, sonle
1iaurice de Guérin
77
pieces of the reed-pipe thrown away by the god Pan. From
that hour these mortals, having caught from their relics of
the god a passion for wild life, or perhaps smitten with some
secret madness, enter into the wilderness, plunge among
the forests, follow the course of the streams, bury themselves
in the heart of the mountains, restless, and haunted by an
unknown purpose. The mares beloved of the winds in the
farthest Scythia are not wilder than thou, nor morc cast
down at nightfall, when the North 'Vind has departed.
Seek est thou to know the gods, 0 l\[acarcus, and from what
source men, aninlals, and the e1enlcnts of the universal fire
have their origin? But the aged Ocean, the father of all
things, keeps locked within his own breast these secrets;
and the nymphs, who stand around, sing as they weave
their eternal dance before him, to cover any sound which
might escape from his lips half-opened by slumber. The
mortals, dear to the gods for their virtue, have received
frOl11 their hands lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds
of new plants to make him rich; but from their inexorable
lips, nothing!'
"Such were the lessons which the old Chiron gave me.
'Yaned to the very extren1Íty of life, the Centaur yet nourished
in his spirit the most lofty discourse.
. .
" For me, 0 I\lelanlpus, I decline into my last days, calm
as the setting of the constellations. I still retain enterprise
enough to climb to the top of the rocks, and there I linger
late, either gazing on the wild and restless clouds, or to see
come up from the horizon the rainy Hyades, the Pleiades,
or the great Orion; but I feel nlyself perishing and passin a
quickly away, like a snow-wreath floating on the strea!n
and soon shall I be nlingled with the waters which flow in-
the vast bosoln of Earth."
IV
EUGJ
NIE DE GUÉRIN
'VHO that had spoken of 1faurice de Guérin could refrain
from speaking of his sister Eugénie, the most devoted of
sisters, one of the rarest and most beautiful of souls?
"There is nothing fixed, no duration, no vitality in the
sentiments of women towards one another; their attach-
ments are mere pretty knots of ribbon, and no more. In
an the friendships of WOlnen I observe this slightness of
the tie. I know no instance to the contrary, even in
history. Orestes and Pylades have no sisters." So she
speaks of the friendships of her own sex. But Electra can
attach herself to Orestes, if not to Chrysothemis. And to
her brother
-1aurice, Eugénie de Guérin was Pylades and
Electra in one.
The name of 1Iaurice de Guérin,-that young n1an
so gifted, so attractive, so careless of fame, and so early
snatched away; who died at twenty-nine; who, says
his sister, "let what he did be lost with a carelessness
so unjust to himself, set 110 value on any of his own
productions, and departed hence without reaping the rich
harvest which seemed his due;" who, in spite of his
immaturity, in spite of his fragility, exercised such a charm,
"furnished to others so much of that whiçh all live by,"
that some years after his death his sister found in a country-
house where he used to stay, in the journal of a young girl
who had not known him, but who heard her falnily speak
of him, his name, the date of his death, and these words,
"it flait leur vie" (he was their life); whose talent, ex- _
qui site as that of I<.eats, with less of sunlight, abundance,
and facility in it than that of K.eats, but with more of
distinction and power, had U that winning, delicate, and
beautifully happy turn of expression" which is the stamp
of the master, - is beginning to be well known to aU
78
Eugénie de Guérin
79
lovers of literature. rrhis establishnlent of 1faurice's name
was an object for which his sister Eugénie passionately
laboured. \Vhile he was alive, she placed her whole joy in
the flowering of this gifted nature; when he was dead, she
had no other thought than to make the world know hin1 as
she knew him. She outlived him nine years, and her
cherished task for those years was to rescue the fragl11ents
of her brother's cOIn position, to collect theIn, to get them
published. In pursuing this task she had at first cheer-
ing hopes of success; she had at last baffling and bitter
disappoin
ment. I-Ier earthly business was at an end; she
died. 1'en years afterwards, it was permitted to the love of
a friend, 11. rrrebutien, to effect for i\'Iaurice's memory what
the love of a sister had failed to acco1l1plish. But those
who read, with delight and admiration, the journal and
letters of 11 aurice de Guérin, could not but be attracted
and touched by this sister Eugénie, who met theln at every
page. She seemed hardly less gifted, hardly less interesting,
than i\faurice hin1self. And now 1\1. T'rebutien has done
for the sister what he had done for the brother. He
published the journal of l\Idlle. Eugénie de Guérin, and a
few (too few, alas !) of her letters. The book has made a
profound ÏInpression in France; and the fame which she
sought only for her brother now crowns the 'sister also.
Parts of 1\Idlle. de Guérin's journal were several years
ago printed for private circulation, and a writer in the
National Review had the good fortune to fall in with them.
î"he bees of our English criticism do not often roam so fur
afield for their honey, and this critic deserves thanks for
havinJ flitted in his quest of blossonl to foreign parts, and
for having settled upon a beautiful flower found there. I-Ie
had the discernnlent to see that l\fdlle. de Guérin was well
worth speaking of, and he spoke of her with feeling and
.appreciation. But that, as I have said, was several years
ago; even a true and feeling homage needs to be fron1 time
to tin1e renewed, if the memory of its object is to endure;
and criticisnl must not lose an occasion like the present,
when I\Idlle. de Guérin's journal is for tbe first tÎlne
published to the world, of directing notice once more
to this religious and beautiful character.
Eugénie de Guérin was born in 1805, at the château of
Le Cayla, in Languedoc. Her falnily, though reduced in
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circumstances was noble; and even when one is a saint one
cannot quite forget that one comes of the stock of the
Guarini of Italy, or that one counts anlong one's ancestors
a Bishop of Senlis, who had the nlarshalling of the French
order of battle on the day of Bouvines. Le Cayla was a
solitary place, with its terrace looking down upon a stream-
bed and valley; "one may pass days there without seeing
any living thing but the sheep, without hearing any liying
thing but the birds." 1\1. de Guérin, Eugénie's father, lost
his wife when Eugénie was thirteen years old, and :f\faurice
seven; he was left with four children, - Eugénie, lVlarie,
Erell1bert, and l\laurice,-of whom Eugénie was the eldest,
and l\faurice was the youngest. This youngest child whose
beauty and delicacy had made him the object of his
mother's lnost anxious fondness, was commended by her
in dying to the care of his sister Eugénie. l\-1aurice at
eleven years old went to school at Toulouse; then he went
to the Col1ège Stanislas at Paris; then he became a member
of the religious society which 1\1:. de Lanlennais had formed
at La Chênaie in Brittany; afterwards he lived chiefly
at Paris, returning to Le Cayla, at the age of twenty-nine,
to die. Distance, in those days, was a great obstacle
to frequent meetings of the separated menlbers of a French
faIl1ily of narrow nleans. Maurice de Guérin was seldoln
at Le Cayla after he had once quitted it, though his few
visits to his home were long ones; but he passed five years,
-the period of his sojourn in Brittany, and of his first
settlement in Paris,-without coming home at all. In
spite of the check from these absences, in spite of the more
serious check fronl a temporary alteration in Maurice's
religious feelings, the union between the brother and sister
\vas wonderfully close and firm. For they were knit
together, not only by the tie of blood and early attachment,
but also by the tie of a C0l1lnl0n genius. "\Ve were," says
Eugénie, '
two eye3 looking out ot one forehead." She, on
her part, brought to her love for her brother the devotedness
of a WOll1an, the intensity of a recluse, alnlost the solicitude
of a mother. Her home duties prevented her fronl following
the wish which often arose in her, to join a religious sister-
hood. 'rhere isa tracc,-just a trace,-ofan early attachnlent
to a cousin; but he died when she was twenty-four. After that,
she lived for l\Iaurice. It was for l\1aurice that, in addition
Eugénie de Guérin
81
to her constant correspondence with him by letter, she
began in 1834 her journal, which was sent to him by
portions as it was finished. After his death she tried to
continue it, addressing it to "1\.faurice in heaven." But
the effort was beyond her strength; gradual1y the entries
become rarer and rarer; and on the last day of December
1840 the pen dropped from her hand: the journal
ends.
Other sisters have loved their brothers, and it is not her
affection for Maurice, admirable as this was, which alone
could have made Eugénie de Guérin celebrated. I have
said that both brother and sister had genius: M. Sainte-
Reuve goes so far as to say that the sister's genius was equal,
if not superior, to her brother's. No one has a more pro-
found respect for l\I. Sainte- Beuve's critical judgments than
1 have, but it seems to me that this particular judgment
needs to be a little explained and guarded. In ]\:Iaurice's
special talent, which was a ta"lent for interpreting nature, for
finding words which incomparably render the subtlest im-
pressions which nature Inakes upon us, which bring the
intimate life of nature wonderfully near to us, it seems to
me that his sister was by no means his equal. She never,
indeed, expresses herself without grace and intelligence;
but her words, when she speaks of the life and appearances
of nature, are in general but intellectual signs; they are not
like her brother's-synlbols equivalent with the thing sym-
bolised. They bring the notion of the thing described to
the Inind, they do not bring the feeling of it to the imagina-
tion. 'Yriting from the Nivernais, that region of vast wood-
lands in the centre of France: "It does one good," says
Eugénie, "to be going about in the midst of this enchanting
nature, with flowers, birds, and verdure all round one..
under this large and blue sky of the Nivernais. How I lo,pe
the gracious form of it, and those little white clouds here
and there, like cushions of cotton, hung aloft to rest the eye
in this immensity!" It is pretty and graceful, but how
different from the grave and pregnant strokes of Ivlaurice's
pencil! "I have been along the Loire, and seen on its
banks the plains where nature is puissant and gay; I have
seen royal and antique dwellings, aU marked by memories
\\ hich have their place in the mournful legend of humanity,
-Chambord, .Blois, An1boise, Chenonceaux; then the towns
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Critical Essays
on the two banks of the river,-Orleans, Tours, Saun1ur,
Nantes; and at the end of it all, the Ocean rUlnbling.
Froln these I passed back into the interior of the country, as
far as Bourges and Nevers, a region of vast woodlands, in
which nlurnlurs of an in1mense range and fulness" (ee beau
torrent de rumeurs, as, with an expression worthy of
'Vordsworth, he elsewhere calls them) "prevail and never
cease." 'Vorùs whose charm is like that of the sounds
of the munnuring forest itself, and whose reverbera-
tions, like theirs, die a wa y in the infinite distance of the
soul.
l\1:aurice's life was in the life of nature, and the passio
for it consuoled him; it would have been strange if his
accent had not caught more of the soul of Nature than
Eugénie's accent, whose life was elsewhere. "You will
find in hÏ1n,"
raurice says to his sister of a friend" hon1 he
was recommending to her, "you will find in him that which
you love, and which su:ts you better than anything else,-
lone/ion, l'effusion, fa nzys/ici/é." Unction, the pouring out
of the soul, the rapture of the mystic, were dear to l\'[aurice
also; but in him the bent of his genius gave even to those
a special direction of its own. In Eugénie they took the
direction most native and familiar to them; their object
was the religious life.
And yet, if one analyses this beautiful and most interesting
character quite to the bottom, it is not exactly as a saint
that Eugénie de Guérin is remarkable. The ideal saint is a
nature like Saint François de Sales or Fénelon; a nature of
ineffable sweetness and serenity, a nature in which struggle
and revolt is over, and the whole man (so far as is possible
to human infirmity) swallowed up in love. Saint Theresa
(it is Mdlle. de Guérin
erself who reminds us of it) endured
twenty years of unacceptance and of repulse in her prayers;
yes, but the Saint Theresa whom Christendom knows is
Saint Theresa repulsed no longer! it is Saint Theresa ac-
cepted, rejoicing in love, radiant with ecstasy. 1vldlle. de
Guérin is not one of these saints arrived at perfect sweet-
ness and caln1, steeped in ecstasy; there is something primi-
tive, indomitable in her, which she governs, indeed, but
which chafes, which revolts; somewhere in the depths of
that strong nature there is a struggle, an impatience, an in-
quietude, an ennui, which endures to the end, and which
Eugénie de Guérin
83
leaves one, when one finally closes her journal, with an im-
pression of profound melancholy. "There are days," she
writes to her brother, "when one's nature rol1s itself up,
and becomes a hedgehog. If I had you here at this moment,
nere close by me, how I should prick you! how sharp and
hard! " " Poor soul, poor soul," she cries out to herself
another day, "what is the matter, what would you have?
\rhere is that which will do you good? Everything is green,
everything is in bloom, all the air has a breath of flowers.
How beautiful it is! well, I will go out. No, I should be
alone, and all this beauty, when one is alone, is worth
nothing. \Vhat shall I do then? Read, write, pray, take
a basket of sand on my head like that hermit-saint, and
walk with it? Yes, work, work! keep busy the body which
does mischief to the soul! I have been too little occupied
to-day, and that is bad for one, and it gives a certain ennui
which I have in me time to ferment."
A certain ennui which I have in 1Jle: her wound is there.
In vain she follows the counsel of Fénelon: "If God tires
)
Ou, tell Hint that He tires you." No doubt she obtained
great and frequent solace and restoration from prayer: "This
morning I was suffering; well, at present I am calm, and
tlâs I owe to faith, simply to faith, to an act of faith. I can
think of death and eternity without trouble, without alarm.
Over a deep of sorrow there floats a divine calm, a suavity
which is the work of God only. In vain have I tried other
things at a time like this: nothing human comforts the soul,
nothing human upholds it :-
, A l'enfant il faut sa mère,
A mOD âme il faut man Dieu.'"
Still the ennui reappears, bringing with it hours of unutter-
able forlornness, and making her cling to her one great
e
rth1y happiness,-her affection for her brother,-with an
intenseness, an anxiety, a desperation in \vhich there is
something morbid, and by which she is occasIonally carried
into an irritability, a jealousy which she herself is the first
indeed, to censure, which she severely represses, but which
nevertheless leaves a sense of pain.
1\Idl1e. de Guérin's achnirers have compared her to Pascal,
p..nd in some respects the comparison is just. But she can.
not exactly be classed with Pascal, any more than with
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Critical Essay's
Saint François de Sales. Pascal is a man, and the inex-
haustible power and activity of his mind leave him no leisure
for ennui.' He has not the sweetness and serenity of the
perfect saint; he is, perhaps, "der strenge, kranke Pascal-
the severe, 1110rbid Pascal,"-as Goethe (and, strange to say,
Goethe at twenty-three, an age which usually feels Pascal's
charn1 most profoundly) calls him; but the stress and nlove-
ment of the lifelong conflict waged in him between his soul
and his reason keep him full of fire, full of agitation, nud
keep his reader, who witnesses this conflict, anill1ated and
excited; the sense of forlornness and dejected weariness
which clings to Eugénie de Guérin does 110t belong to
Pascal. Eugénie de Guérin is a worn an, and longs for a
state of firm happiness, for an affection in which she may
repose; the inward bliss of Saint Theresa or Fénelon
would have satisfied her; denied this, she cannot rest sJ.tis-
fied with the triun1phs of self-abasement, with the sombre
joy of tranlpling the pride of life and of reason underfoot,
of reducing all human hope and joy to insignificance; she
repeats the magnificent words of Bossuet, words which both
Catholicism and ProtestantiS111 have uttered with inde-
fatigable iteration: "0:1 trouve au fond de tout Ie vide et
Ie néant-at the bOtt0111 of evelythÙzg one finds e1Jlþtiness and
nothÙlgness," but she feels, as everyone but the true 111ystic
must ever feel, their incurable sterility.
She resenl bies Pascal, however, by the clearness and firm-
ness of her intelligence, going straight and instinctively to
the bottom of any matter she is dealing with, and express-
ing herself about it with incomparable precision; never
funlbling with what she has to say, never imperfectly seizing
or imperfectly presenting her thought. And to this adulir-
able precision she joins a lightness of touch, a feminine ease
and gr
ce, a flowing facility which are her own. " I do not
say," writes her brother l\faurice. an excellent judge, "that
I find in myself a dearth of expression; but I have not this
abundance of yours, this productiveness of soul which strean1S
forth, which courses along without ever failing, and always
with an infinite charm." And writing to her of sonle conl-
position of hers, produced after her religious scruples had
for a long time kept her fronl the exercise of her talent:
" You see, my dear Tortoise," he writes, "that your talent
is no illusion, since after a period, I know not how long, of
Eugénie de Guérin
85
poetical inaction, -a trial to which any half-talent would
have succumbed,-it rears its head again more vigorous
than ever. It is really heart-breaking to see you repress
and bind down, with I know not what scruples, your spirit,
which tends with all the force of its nature to deyelop itself
in this direction. Others have made it a case of conscience
for you to resist this impulse, and I make it one for you to
follow it." And she sa ys oÎ herself, on one of her freer
days: "It is the instinct of lllY life to write, as it is the
instinct of the fountain to flow." The charm of her ex-
pression is not a sensuous and imaginative charm like that of
1Iaurice, but rather an intellectual charn1; it comes from
the texture of the style rather than from its elements; it is
not so n1uch in the words as in the turn of the phrase, in
the happy cast and flow of the sentence. Recluse as she
was, she had a great correspondence: everyone wished to
have letters from her; and no wonder.
To this strength of intelligence and talent of expression
she joined a great force of character. Religion had early
possessed itself of this force of character, and reinforced it :
in the shadow of the Cevennes, in the sharp and tonic
nature of this region of Southern France, which has seen
the Albigcnsians, which has seen the Camisards, Catholicism
too is fervent and intense. Eugénie de Guérin was brought
up alnidst strong religious influences, and they found in her
a nature on which they could lay firm hold. I have said
that she was not a saint of the order of Saint François de
Sales or Fénelon; perhaps she had too keen an intelligence
to suffer her to be this, too forcible and impetuous a character.
But I did not mean to imply the least doubt of the reality,
the profoundness, of her religious life. She was penetrated
by tbe power of religion; religion was the master-influence
of her life; she derived immense consolations from religion,
she earnestly strove to confonn her ,'thole nature to it; if
there was an elen1ent in her which religion could not
perfectly reach, perfectly transmute, she groaned over this
elen1ent in her, she chid it, she made it bow. Ahnost every
thought in her was brought into harmony with religion; and
what few thoughts were not thus brought into hannony were
brought into subjection.
Then she had her affection for her brother; and this,
too, though perhaps there might be in it something a little
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Critical Essays
over-eager, a little too absolute, a little too susceptible, was
a pure, a devoted affection. It was not only passionate, it
was tender. It was tender, pliant, and self-sacrificing to a
degree that not in one nature out of a thousand,-of natures
with a mind and will like hers,-is found attainable. She
thus united extraordinary power of intelligence, extraordinary
force of character, and extraordinary strength of affec-
tion; and all these under the control of a deep religious
feeling.
This is what makes her so remarkable, so interesting. I
shall try and n1ake her speak for herself, that she nla y show
us the characteristic sides of her rare nature with her own
ininlitable touch.
It must be remenlbered that ber journal is written for
1Iaurice only; in her lifetime no eye but his ever saw it.
U Cee; n'est þas þour Ie þublic/' she writes; "èest de [Í1:.timt,
rest de l'âme, c'est þour UIl. u "rrhis is not for the public;
it contains my inmost thoughts, my very soul; it is for one."
..A.nd l\.faurice, this one, was a kind of second self to her.
" 'Ye see things with the same eyes; what you find beautiful,
I find beautiful; God has made our souls of one piece."
Al1d this genuine confidence in her brother's sympathy
gives to the entries in her journal a naturalness and
simple freedom rare in such cOlnpositions. She felt that
be would understand her, and be interested in all that she
wrote.
One of the first pages of her journal relates an incident
of the home-life of Le Cayla, the snlallest detail of which
l.laurice liked to hear; and in relating it she brings this
simple life before us. She is writing in Novenlber 1834 :-
" I am furious with the gray cat. 1'he nlischievous beast
has made away with a little half-frozen pigeon, which I was
trying to thaw by the side of the fire. The poor little
thing was just beginning to conle round; I rneant to tan1e
hinl; he would have grown fond of me; and there is my
whole scheme eaten up by a cat! This event, and all the
rest of to-day's history, has passed in the kitchen. Here I
take up my abode all the morning and a part of the even-
ing, ever since I anl without l\Iin1Í. 1 I have to superintend
the cook; sometimes papa comes down, and I read to hiJn
by the oven, or by the fireside, some. bits out of the AntJ"-
1 The familiar name of her sister :Marie.
Eugénie de Guérin
87
qui/its of tht Anglo-Saxon Church. This book struck
Pierril ( with astonishn1cnt. 'Que de 1110uts aqlli dfdin.r I
\Vhat a lot of words there are inside it !' This boy is a
real original. One evening he asked me if the soul wa5 im-
111ortal; then afterwards, what a philosopher was? 'Ve had
got upon great questions, as you see. 'Vhen I told him
that a philosopher was a person who was wise and learned:
'Then, madelnoiselle, you are a philosopher.' This was
said with an air of simplicity and sincerity which might have
made eyen Socrates take it as a compliment; but it 1nade
n1e laugh so much that my gravity as catechist was gone for
that evening. A day or two ago Pierril left us, to his great
sorrow: his tin1e with us \yas up on Saint Brice's day.
l'
ow he goes about with his little dog, truffle-hunting. If
he comes this way I shall go and ask him if he still thinks I
look like a philosopher."
Her good sense and spirit made her discharge with
alacrity her household tasks in this patriarchal life of Le
Cayla, and treat them as the most natural thing in the world.
She sometimes complains, to be sure, of burning her fingers
at the kitchen-fire. But when a literary friend of her
brother expresses enthusiasnl about her and her poetical
nature: "The poetess," she says, "whom this gentleman
believes me to be, is an ideal being, infinitely removed from
the life which is actually mine-a life of occupations, a life
of household business, which takes up all my time. flow.
could I 111ake it otherwise? I am sure I do not know; and,
besides, my duty is in this sort of life, and I have no wish
to escape from it."
Among these occupations of the patriarchal life of the
châtelaíne of Le Cayla intercourse with the poor fills a
prolllinent place :-
H To-day," she writes on the 9th of December 1834, "I
have been warming myself at every fireside in the village.
It is a round which 1\limi and I often make, and in which I
take pleasure. To-.day we have been seeing sick people,
and holding forth on doses and sick-rooln drinks. ' Take
this, do that; J and they attend to us just as if we were the
doctor. \Ve prescribed shoes for a little thing who was
amiss from having gone barefoot; to the brother, who, with
a bad headache, was lying quite flat, we prescribed a pillow;
I A servant-boy at Le Cayla.
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Critical Essays
the pillow did him good, but I am afraid it will hardly
cure him. lIe is at the beginning of a bad feverish
cold: and these poor people live in the filth of their
hovels like aninlals in their stable; the bad air poisons
them. 'Vhen I conle home to Le Cayla I seem to be in a
palace. "
She had books, too; not in abundance, not for the
fancying them; the list of her library is sInall, and it is
enlarged slowly and with difficulty. The Letters of Saint
Theresa, which she had long wished to get, she sees in the
hands of a poor servant girl, before she can procure them
for herself. "'Yhat then?" is her comment: "very likely
she makes a better use of them than I could," but she has
the Imitatio1Z, the Spiritual H 7 0rks of Bossuet and Fénelon,
the Lives of the Saints, Corneille, Racine, André Chénier,
and Lamartine; 11adame de Staël's book on Gern1any, and
French translations of Shakspeare's plays, Ossian, the ri
4a,.
of IVakejield, Scott's Old Mortality and Redgauntlet, and the
Promessi SpOSI: of 11anzoni. Above all, she has her own
mind; her meditations in the lonely fields, on the oak-grown
hill-side of U 1'he Seven Springs;" her meditations anù
writing in her own room, her cha1Jzbrette, her délz"cieux chez 1noi,
where every night, before she goes to bed, she opens the
window to look out upon the sky,-the balmy moonlit sky
of Languedoc. 'rhis life of reading, thinking, and writing
was the life she liked best, the life that most truly suited her,
" I find writing has become alnlost a necessity to me.
'''hence does it arise, this impulse to give utterance to the
voice of one's spirit to pour out lllY thoughts before God and
one hunlan being? I say one human being, because I
always imagine that you are present, that you see what I
write. In the stillness of a life like this my spirit is happy,
and, as it were, dead to all that goes 011 upstairs or down-
stairs, in the house or out of the house. But this does not
last long. 'Conle, n1Y poor spirit,' I then say to myself,
'we must go back to the things of this world.' And I
take Iny spinning, or a book, or a saucepan, or I play
with \V olf or 'Trilby. Such a life as this I call heaven
upon earth."
Tastes like these, joined with a talent like Mdlle. de
Guérin's, naturally inspire thoughts of literary composition.
Such thoughts she had, and perhaps she would ha ve been
Eugénie de Guérin 89
happier if she had followed them; bu
she n
ver co
ld
satisfy herself that to follow them was qUIte consI
t.ent WIth
the religious life, and her projects of compositIon were
gradually relinquished :-
" \V ould to God that my thoughts, my spirit, had never
taken their flight beyond the narrow round in which it is my
lot to live! In spite of all that people say to the contrary,
I feel that I cannot go beyond my needlework and my
spinning without going too far: I feel it, I believe it: well,
then, I will keep in 111Y proper sphere; however much I am
tempted, my spirit shall not be allowed to occupy itself
with great matters until it occupies itself with them in
Heaven."
And again :-
"l\Iy journal has been untouched for a long while. Do
YOll want to know why? It is because the tin1C seen1S to
me misspent which I spend in writing it. "Te owe God
an account of every minute; and is it not a wrong use of
our n1inutes to employ them in writing a history of our
transitory days? "
She overcomes her scruples, and goes on writing the
journal; but again and again they return to her. Her
brother tells her of the pleasure and comfort something she
has written gives to a friend of his in affliction. She
answers :-
" It is frorn the Cross that those thoughts come, which
your friend finds so soothing, so unspeakably tender. None
of them C001e fron1 me. I feel my own aridity; but I feel,
too, that God, when I-Iè will, can make an ocean flow upon
this bed of sand. It is the same with so many simple souls,
from which proceed the most admirable things; because
they are in direct relation with God, without false science
and without pride. And thus I am gradually losing my
taste for books; I say to myself: "Vhat can they teach
me which I shaH not one day know in Heayen? let God be
my n1aster and my study here! ' I try to ....'ake IIim so, and
I find myself the better for it. I read little; I go out
little; I plunge myself in the inward life. How infinite are
the sayings, doings, feelings, events of that life! Oh, if you
could but see thCIll! But what avails it to make them
known? God alone should be admitted to the sanctuary
of the sou!."
9 0
Critical ESSa)7S
Beautifully as she says all this, one cannot, I think, read
it without a sense of disquietude, without a presentin1ent
that this ardent SpiTi t is forcing itself from its natural bent,
that the beatitude of the true nlystic wiI] neyer be its earthly
portion. And yet how simple and charming is her picture
of the life of religion which she chose as her ark of refuge,
and in which she desired to place all her happiness :-
"Cloaks, clogs, umbrellas, all the apparatus of winter,
went with us this morning to Andillac, where we have passed
the whole day; some of it at the curé's house, the rest in
church. How I like this life of a country Sunday, with its
activity, its journeys to church, its liveliness ! You find all
your neighbours on the road; you have a curtsey from every
woman you meet, and then, as you go along, such a talk
about the poultry, the sheep and cows, the good man and
the children! 1Iy great delight is to give a kiss to these
children, and see them run away and hide their blushing
faces ill their mother's gown. They are alarnled at las
d01t1J?aisélos,l as at a being of another world. One of these
little things said the other day to its grandmother, who was
talking of cOlning to see us: 'lJJÙzino, you mustn't go to
that castle; there is a black hole there' 'Vhat is the reason
that in all ages the noble's château has been an object of
terror? Is it because of the horrors that were committed
there in old times? I suppose so."
This vague horror of the château, still lingering in the
mind of the French peasant fifty years after he has stornled
it, is indeed curious, and is one of the thousand indi-
cations how unlike aristocracy on the Continent has
been to aristocracy in England. But this is one of the
great matters with which l\fdlle. de Guérin would not
have us occupied; let us pass to the subject of Christmas
in Languedoc :-
"Christn1as is come; the beautiful festival, the one I love
most, and which gives n1e the same joy as it gave the
shepherds of Bethlehem. In real truth, one's \-,,'hole soul
sings with joy at this beautiful coming of God upon earth,-
a coming which here is announced on all sides of us by
music and by our charming lladal
t.2 Nothing at Paris can
I The young lady.
2 A peculiar peal rung at Chlistmas- time by tbe church bells of
Languedoc.
Eugénie de Guérin
9 1
give you a notion of what Christmas is with us. You have
not even the midnight-nlass. ,,, e all of us went to it, papa
at our head, on the most perfect night possible. N ever was
there a finer sky than ours was that midnight ;-50 fine that
papa kept perpetually throwing back the hood of his cloak,
that he might look up at the sky. The ground was white
\vith hoar-frost, but we were not cold; besides, the air, as we
met it, was warmed by the bundles of blazing torch wood
which our servants carried in front of us to light us on our
way. It was delightful, I do assure you; and I should like
rou to have seen us there on our road to church, in those
lanes with the bushes along their backs as white as if they
were in flower. The hoar-frost makes the most lovely
flowers. \Ye saw a long spray so beautiful that we wanted
to take it with us as a garland for the communion-table,
but it melted in our hands: an flowers fade so soon!
I was very sorry about my garland; it was mournful to
see it drip away. and get smaller and smaller every
minute. "
The religious life is at bottom everywhere alike; but it is
curious to note the variousncss of its setting and outward
circumstance. Catholicisn1 has these so different from
Protestantism! and in Catholicism these accessories have.
it cannot be denied, a nobleness and amplitude which in
Protestantism is often wanting to then1. In Catholicism
they have, from the antiquity of this form of religion, from
its pretensions to universality, from its really widespread
prevalence, from its sensuousness, something European,
august, and imaginative: in Protestantism they often have,
from its inferiority in all these respects, something provincial.
mean, and prosaic. In revenge, Protestantism has a future
before it, a prospect of growth in alliance with the vital
movement of modern society; while Catholicism appears to
be bent on widening the breach behveen itself and the
modern spirit, to be fatally losing itself in the multiplication
I of dognlas, 1\lariolatry, and miracle-mongering. But the
( style and circumstance of actual Catholicism is grander than
its present tendency, and the style and circumstance of
Protestantism is meaner than its tendency. \Vhile I was
reading the journal of 1\-Idlle. de Guérin there came into n1Y
, hands the memoir and poems of a young Englishwoman,
1\Iiss Emma Tatham; and one could not but be struck with
9 2
Critical Essays
the singular contrast which the two lives in their setting
rather than in their inherent quality, present. l\fiss Tatham
had not, certainly, Mdlle. de Guérin's talent, but she had a
sincere vein of poetic feeling, a genuine aptitude for com-
position. Both were fervent Christians, and, so far, the two
lives had a real resell1blance; but, in the setting of them,
what a difference! The Frenchwoman is a Catholic in
Languedoc; the Englishwoman is a Protestant at Margatø;
1vlargate, that brick-and-mortar image of English Protestant-
iSln, representing it in all its prose, all its uncomeliness,-
let me add, all its salubrity. Between the external form and
fashion of these two lives, between the Catholic Mdlle. de
Guérin's 1ladalet at the Languedoc Christmas, her chapel of
n10SS at Easter-time, her daily reading of the life of a saint,
carrying her to the most diverse times, places, and peoples,
-her quoting, when she wants to fix her mind upon the
satunchness which the religious aspirant needs, the words of
Saint l\'lacedonius to a hunter whom he met in the moun-
tains, "I pursue after God, as you pursue after game, "-her
quoting, when she wants to break a village girl of dis-
obedience to her mother, the story of the ten disobedient
children whom at I-lippo Saint Augustine saw palsied;-
between all this and the bare, blank, narrowly English
setting of 11:iss Tatham's Protestantism, her "union in
church-fellowship with the worshippers at I-Iawley Square
Chapel, 11:atrgate;" her" singing with soft, sweet voice, the
animating lines-
II' l\fy Jesus to know, and feel His b!ood flow,
'Tis life everlasting, 'tis heaven below;' U
h::;r cc young female teachers belonging to the Sunday-school,"
and her" l\Ir 'I'homas Rowe, a venerable class-Ieader,"-
what a dissilnilarity! In the ground of the two lives, a
likeness; in all their circumstance, what unlikeness! An
unlik:eness, it will be said, in that which is non-essential and
indifferent. Non-essential,-yes; indifferent,-no. The
signal want of grace and charn1 in English Protestantism's
setting of its religious life is not an indifferent n1atter; it is
a real weakness. 7ïus ought ye to have done, and not to have
lift the other undone.
I have said that the present tendency of Catholicism,-
the Catholicism of the main body of the Catholic clergy and
Eugénie de Guérin
93
laity,-seems likely to exaggerate rather than to remove all
that in this form of religion is most repugnant to reason;
but this Catholicism was not that of
ldlle. de Guérin.
The insufficiency of her Catholicism comes from a doctrine
which Protestantism, too, has adopted, although Protestant-
ism, from its inherent element of freedom, may find it easier
to escape from it; a doctrine with a certain attraction for all
noble natures, but, in the modern world at any rate, incur-
ably sterile,-the doctrine of the emptiness and nothingness
of hun1an life, of the superiority of renouncement to activity,
of quietism to energy; the doctrine which D1akes effort for
things on this side of the grave a folly, and joy in things on
this side of the grave a sin. But her Catholicism is renlark-
ably free frol11 the faults which Protestants comn1only think
inseparable from Catholicisl11; the relation to the priest, the
practice of confession, assume, when she speaks of them, an
aspect which is not that under which Exeter IIall knows
them, but which,-unless one is of the number of those who
prefer regarding that by which men and nation s die to
regarding that by which they live,-one is glad to study.
" La confession," she says twice in her journal, " ll'est qu'uJle
c.J.-'þansioll tlu rejeJltir dans l'amouT,." and her weekly
journey to the confessional in the little church of Cahuzac
is her "cher þé!erinage,." the little church is the place
where she has" laissé tant de 11lisères."
"This morning," she writes one 28th of Novell1ber, "I was
up before daylight, dressed quickly, said my prayers, and
started with 1\-Iarie for Cahuzac. \Yhen we got there, the
chapel was occupied, which I was not sorry for. I like not
to be hurried, and to have time, before I go in, to lay bare
n1Y whole soul before God. This oilen takes nle a long time,
because my thoughts are apt to be flying about like these
autumn leaves. At ten o'clock I was on my knees, listen-
ing to words the most salutary that were eyer spoken; and
I w
nt away, feeìing myself a better being. Every burden
thrown off leaves us with a sense of brightness; and when
the soul has laid down the load of its sins at God's feet, it
feels as if it had wings. 'Vhat an admirable thing is con-
fession! \Vhat comfort, what light, what strength is given
me every tin1e after I have said, I have sinned."
This blessing of confession is the greater, she says, "the
more the heart of the priest to whom we confide our
94
Critical Essays
repentance is like that divine heart which 'has so loved
us.' rrhis is what attaches me to 11. Bories." 11. Bories
was the curé of her parish, a nlan no longer young, and
of whose loss, when he was about to leave thenl, she thus
speaks :-
" \ Vhat a grief for me? how nl uch I lose in losing this
fa:thful guide of 1l1Y conscience, heart, and mind, of my
whole self, which God has appointed to be in his charge,
and which let itself be in his charge so gladly! lIe knew
the resolves which God had put in IllY heart, and I had
need of his help to follow them. Our new curé cannot
supp1,! his place: he is so young! and then he seCll1S so
iuexperienced, so undecided! It needs firmness to pluck
a soul out of the midst of the world, and to uphold it against
the assaults of flesh and blood. It is Saturday, ll1Y day for
going to Cahuzac; I am just going there, perhaps I shall
come back Inore tranquil. God has always given nle some
good thing there, in that chapel where I have left behind
IHe so n1an y miseries."
Such is confession for her when the priest is worthy: and,
when he is not worthy, she knows how to separate tbe man
froln the office :-
"To-day I aln going to do sOlnething which I dislike;
but I will do it, with God's help. Do not think I am on
CD y \Va y to the stake; it is only that I an1 going to confess
to a priest in whom I have not confidence, but who is the
only one here. In this act of religion the man Inust always
be separated fro111 the priest, and sOl1letinles the 11lan 111 u:st
be annihilated."
1"he same clear sense, the same freedom from superstition
shows itself in all her religious life. She tells us, to be sure,
how once, when she was a little girl, she stained a new frock,
and on praying, in her alann, to an image of the Virgin
which hung in her rOOD1, saw the stains vanish: even the
austerest Protestant will not judge such 1fariolatry as this
very harshly. But, in general, the 'Virgin 11ary fills, in the
religious parts of her journal, no pron1Ïnent place; it is
Jesus, not 1Iary. "Oh, how well has Jesus said: 'Colne
unto n1e, all ye that labour and are hea\"y laden.' It is only
there, only in the bOSOlll of God, that we can rightly weep,
right1}' rid ourselves of our burden." And again; "1'he
m)"stery of suffering n1akes one grasp the belief of SOlll
thing
Eugénie de Guérin
95
to be expiated, something to be won. I see it in Jesus
Christ, the l\fan of Sorrow. It 'lOllS necessary that the Son oj
J,Ian should suffir. That is all we know in the troubles and
calamities of life."
And who has ever spoken of justification more impressively
and piously than !\.Idlle. de Guérin speaks of it, when, after
reckoning the nunlber of minutes she has lived, she
exclaims :-
" !vI y God, what have we done with all these minutes of
ours, which Thou, too, wilt one day reckon? 'Vill there be
any of them to count for eternal life? will there be many of
thClTI? will there be one of them? 'If thou, 0 Lord, will
be extreme to mark what is done al11iss, 0 Lord, who nlay
abide it !' This close scrutiny of our time may well Inake
us trelnble, all of us who have advanced more than a few
steps in life; for God will judge us otherwise than as he
judges the lilies of the field. I have never been able to
understand the security of those who placed their whole
reliance, in presenting thenlselves before God, upon a good
conduct in the ordinary relations of hUlnan life. As if all
our duties were confined within the narrow sphere of this
world! To be a good parent, a good child, a good citizen,
a good brother or sister, is not enough to procure entrance
into the kingd
)m of heaven. God denlands other things
besiòes these kindly social virtues of him WhOlll he means
to crown with an eternity of glory."
And, with this zeal for the spirit and power of religion,
what prudence in her counsels of religious practice; what
discernment, what measure! She has been speaking of
the charm of the Lives of the Saints, and she goes
on:-
"Notwithstanding this, the Lives 0.1 the Saints SeelTI to
me, for a great Inany people, dangerous reading. I would
not reconln1end them to a young girl, or even to some
women who are no longer young. 'Vhat one reads has such
power over one's feelings; and these, even in ::::eeking God,
sometimes go astray. Alas, ,ve haye seen it in poor C.'s
case. 'Vhat care one ought to take with a young person;
with what she reads, what she writes, her society, her
prayers,--all of then1 matters which denland a mother's
tender \\atchfulness! I remeinber n1any things I did at
fourteen, which my mother, had she lived, would not have
9 6
Critical Essays
let me do. I would have done anything for God's sake; I
would have cast l11yself into an oven, and assuredly things
like that are not God's will; He is not pleased by the hurt
one does to one's health through that ardent but ill-regulated
piety which, while it impairs the body, often leaves many a
fault flourishing. And, therefore, Saint François de Sales
used to say to the nuns who asked his leave to go bare-foot:
, Change your brains and keep your shoes.'"
l\leanwhile l\laurice, in a five years' absence, and amid
the distractions of Paris, lost, or seemed to his sister to
lose, something of his fondness for his home and its ininates :
he certainly lost his early religious habits and feelings. It
is on this latter loss that
1dlle. de Guérin's journal
oftenest touches,-with infinite delicacy, but with infinite
anguish :-
"Oh, the agony of being in fear for a soul's salvatiol
who can describe it! That which caused our Saviour the
keenest suffering, in the agony of his I)assion, was not so
much the thought of the torments he was to endure, as the
thought that these torn1ents would be of no avail for a
multitude of sinners; for all those who set themselves
against their redemption, or who do not care for it. rrhe
mere anticipation of this obstinacy and th:s heedlessness
had power to make sorrowful, even unto death, the divine
Son of l\Ian. And this feeling all Christian souls, according
to the measure of faith anù love granted them, more or less
share. "
1\laurice returned to Le Cayla in the sunl111er of 1837,
and passed six months there. 1--his meeting entirely restored
the union between him and his fan1ily. "These six 111011ths
with us," writes his sister, "he ill, and finding himself so
loved by us all, had entirely reattached him to us. Five
years without seeing us, had perhaps made him a líttle lose
sight of our affection for him; having found it again, he
met it with all the strength of his o\\'n. lIe had so firn1ly
renewed, before he left us, all family-ties, that nothing but
death could have broken thein." 1--he separation in religious
l1ìatters between the brother and sister gradually diluinished,
and before
1aurice died it had ceased. I have elsewhere
spoken of 11aurice's religious feeling and his character. It
is probable that his divergence fronl his sister in this sphere
of religion was never so wide as she feared, and that his re-
Eugénie de Guérin
97
union with her was never so complete as she hoped. "His
errors were passed," she says, "his illusions were cleared
away; by the call of his nature, by original disposition, he
had COlne back to sentÏ1nents of order. I knew aU, I
followed each of his steps; out of the fiery sphere of the
passions (which held him but a little m0l11ent) I saw hin1
pass into the sphere of the Christian life. It was a beautiful
soul, the soul of 1Iaurice." But the illness which had
caused his return to Le Cayla reappeared after he got back
to Paris in the winter of 1837-8. Again he seenled to
recover; and his nIarriage with a young Creole lady, l\fdlle.
Caroline de Gervain, took place in the autumn of 1838.
At the end of Septelnber in that rear l\Idlle. de Guérin had
joined her brother in Paris; she ,vas present at his marriage,
and stayed with hiln and his wife for sonIe months after-
wards. lIer journal rCC0111menCes in April 1839 ; zealously
as she had promoted her brother's marriage, cordial as were
her relations with her sister-in-law, it is evident that a sense
of loss, of loneliness, invades her, and s0111etinles weighs
her down. She ,,,rites in her journal on the 4th of
1\Iay:-
"God knows when we shall see one another again! My
own 11aurice, must it be our lot to live apart, to find that
this marriage which I had so ll1uch share in bringing about,
which 1 hoped would keep us so much together, leaves us
more asunder than en:r? For the present and for the
future, this trouLles n1C Olore than I can say. l\[y synlpathie
',
my inclinations, carry nle more towards you than towards
any other 11le01ber of our falnily. I have the misfortune to
be fonder of you than of anything else in the world, and my
heart had from of old built in you its happiness. Youth
gone and lite d
clining, I looked forward to quitting the
scene with l\Iaurice. At\t any time of life a great affection is
a great happiness; the spirit comes to take refuge in it
entirely. 0 delight and joy which will never be your
sister's portion! Only in the direction of God shall I find
an issue for nIY heart to love as it has the notion of loving.
as it has the power of loving."
Fronl such conlplainings, in which there is undoubtedlv
something morbid,-complainings which she herself blalned,
to which she seldom gave way, but which, in presenting her
character, it is not just to put wholly out of sight,-she was
D
9 8
Critical Essays
caned by the news of an alarnling return of her brother's
illness. For sonle days the entries in the jounlal show her
agony of apprehension. "He coughs, he coughs still!
1"hose words keep echoing for ever in my ears, and pursue
nle wherever I go; I cannot look at the leaves on the trees
\vithout thinking that the winter will come, and then the
consumptive die." 1'hcn she went to him and brought him
back by slow stages to Le Cayla, dying. He died on the
19 th of July 1839.
Thenceforward the energy of life ebbed in her; but the
main chords of her being, the chord of affection, the chord
of religious longing, the chord of intelligence, the chord of
sorrow, gave, so long as they answered to the touch at all, a
deeper and finer sound than ever. Always she saw before
her, "that beloved pale face;" "that beautiful head, with
all its different expressions, snliling, speaking, suffering,
dying," regarded her always:-
"I have seen his coffin in the same room, in the same
spot where I remember seeing, when I was a very little girl,
his cradle, when I was brought home from Gaillac, where I
was then staying, for his christening. This christening was
a grand one, full of rejoicing, more than that of any of the
rest of us; specially marked. I enjoyed myself greatly, and
went back to Gaillac next day, charmed with my new little
brother. Two years afterwards I came home, and brought
with nle a frock for him of my own nlaking. I dressed hin1
in the frock, and took hinl out with me along by the warren
at the north of the house, and there he walked a few steps
alone,-his first walking alone,-and I ran with delight to
tell my mother the news: '!\1aurice, l\1aurice has begun to
walk by himself! '-Recollections which, coming back to-day,
break one's heart."
rfhe shortness and suffering of her brother's life filled her
with an agony of pity. "Poor beloved soul, you have had
hardly any happiness here below; your life has been so
short, your repose so rare. 0 God, uphold me, establish
my heart in thy faith! Alas, I have too little of this support-
ing me! How we have gazed at him, and loved him, and
kissed him,-his wife, and we, his sisters; he lying lifeless
in his bed, his head on the pillow as if he were asleep!
Then we followed him to the churchyard, to the grave, to
his last resting-placc, and prayed over hiIn, and wept over
Eugénie de Guérin
99
hiln; and we are here again, and I am writing to him again,
as if he were staying away from hOlue, as if he were in Paris.
r y beloved one, can it be, shall we never see one another
agaÜ1 on earth?"
But in heaven ?-and here, though love and hope finally
prc\'ailed, the very passion of the sister's longing S0111etÎ1nes
inspired torturing inquietudes :-
"I an1 brol
en down with misery. I want to see him.
Every n10111cnt I pray to God to grant Inc this grace.
I-Ic:lven, the world of spirits, is it so far froin us? 0 depth,
o mystery of the other life which separates us! I, who
was so eagerly anxious about him, who wanted so to know
an that happened to him,-wherever he Inay be now, it is
over! I follow hiI11 into the three abodes; I stop \yistfuily
before the place of bliss, I pass on to the place of 3u[[eril1g,
-to the gulf of fire. l\Iy God, my God, 110! Not there
let n1Y brother be! not there! And he is not: his soul, the
soul of 1Iaurice, among the lost . . . horrible fear, no!
But in purgatory, where the soul is cleansed by suffering,
,.. here the failings of the heart are expiated, the doubtings
of the spirit, the halí-yieldings to evil? Perhaps l11Y brother
is there and suffers, and calls to us amidst his anguish of
repentance, as he used to call to us alnidst his bodily
suffering: 'Help nle, you who love ole.' Yes, beloved one,
by prayer. I will go and pray; prayer has been such a
power to me, and I will pray to the end. Pr
yer! Oh!
and prayer for the dead; it is the dew of purgatory."
Often, alas, the gracious dew would not fall; the air of
her soul was parched; the arid \vind, which was sorne-
where in the depths of her being, blew. She marks in
hE:r journal the 1St of
Iay, "this ret\,lrn of the loveliest
nlonth in the year," only to keep up the old habit; even the
nlonth of l\Iay can no long
r give her any pleasure: "Tout
est cha;zgE-all is changed." She is crushed by "the n1isery
which has nothing good in it, the tearless, dry luisery, which
bruises the heart like a hanln1er." ..
" I aIll dying to everything. I am dying of a slow moral
agony, a condition of unutterable suffering. Lie there, nlY
poor journal! be forgotten with all this world which is
fading away fronl Ine. I will write here no more until I
conle to liCe again, until God re-awakens Inc out of this
tomb in which nlY soul lies buried.
Iaurice, nlY beloved!
100
Critical ESSa)TS
it was not thus with me when I had J'OU I The thought
of 1-Iaurice could revive me from the most profound de-
pression: to have him in the world was enough for me.
\Vith 1vlaurice, to be buried alive would have not seemed
dull to me."
And, as a burden to this funereal strain, the old vide et
néant of Bossuet, profound, solemn, sterile :-
"So beautiful in the morning, and in the evening, that I
how the thought disenchants one, and turns one from the
world! I can understand that Spanish grandee who, after
lifting up the winding-sheet of a beautiful queen, threw him-
elf into the cloister and became a great saint. I would
have all my friends at La Trappe, in the interest of their
eternal welfare. Not that in the world one cannot be saved,
not that there are not in the world duties to be discharged
as sacred and as beautiful as there are in the cloister
but . . . ."
And there she stops, and a day or two afterwards her
journal comes to an end. A few fragments, a few letters
carry us on a little later, but after the 22nd of August 1845
there is nothing. To make known her brother's genius to
the world was the one task she set herself after his death;
in 1840 came 1fadame Sand's noble tribute to him in the
Revue des Deux lIfolldes,. then fol1owed projects of raising
a yet more enduring monunlent to his fame, by collecting
and publishing his scattered compositions; these projects I
have already said, were baffled ;-lVldlle. de Guérin's letter
of the 22nd of August 1845 relates to this disappointment.
In silence, during nearly three years more, she faded away
at Le Cayla. She died on the 31st of May 1848.
!\1. rrrebutien has accomplished the pious task in which
Idlle. de Guérin was bJ.ffled, and has established Maurice's
fame; by publishing this journal he has established Eugénie's
also. She was very different fron1 her brother; but she too,
like him, had that in her which preserves a reputation.
Her soul had the same characteristic quality as his talent,-
distinction. Of this quality the world is ilnpatient; it chafes
against it, rails at it, insults it, hates it ;-it ends by receiv-
ing its influence, and by undergoing its law. This quality
at last inexorably corrects the world's blunders, and fixes the
world's ideals. It procures that the popular poet shan not
finally pass for a Pindar, nor the popular historian for a
Eugénie de Guérin
101
Tacitus, nor the popular preacher for a Bossuet. To the
circle of spirits marked by this rare quality, I\laurice and
Eugénie de Guérin be1ong; they will take their p1ace in the
sky which these inhabit, and shine close to one another
lucida sidera.
v
JIEINRICH HEINE
H I KNO'V not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one
day be laid on mr coffin. Poetry, òeariy as I have loved
it, has always been to me but a divine plaything. I have
never attached any great value to poetical fame; and I
trouble n1yself very little whether people praise my verses or
blame them. But lay on my coffin a s'lvord; for I was a
brave soldier in the war of liberation of humanity."
Heine had his full share of love of falne, and cared quite
as lnuch as his brethren of the genus irrilabi/e whether
people praised his verses or blamed them. And he was
very 1ittle of a hero. Posterity will certainly decorate his
tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with the
emblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us,
for the Europe of the present century, he is significant
chiefly for the reason which he himself in the words just
quoted assigns. He is significant because he was, if not
pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a most effective soldier
in the war of liberation of humanity.
To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an
epoch, and to distinguish this from all minor currents, is
the critic's highest functions; in discharging it he shows
how far he possesses the most indispensable quality of his
office,-justness of spirit. The living writer who has clone
most to make England acquainted with German authors, a
lnan of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of
justness of spirit is perhaps wanting,-l mean 1fr Carlyle,
-seems to me in the result of his labours on German litera-
ture to afford a proof how very necessary to the critic this
quality is. ?vIr Carlyle has spoken admirably of Goethe;
but then Goethe stands before all men's eyes, the manifest
centre of German literature; and from this central source
many rivers flow. \Vhich of these rivers is the main stream?
102
I-Ieinrich Heine
10 3
which of the courses of spirit which we see active in Goethe
is the course which will most influence the future, and
attract and be continued by the most powerful of Goethe
s
successors ?-that is the question. 1lr Carlyle attaches, it
seen1S to me, far too much importance to the romantic
school of Germany,-Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter,-
and gives to these writers, really gifted as two, at any rate,
of them are, an undue prominence. These writers, and
others with ainls and a general tendency the same as theirs,
are not the real inheritors and continuators of Goethe's power;
the current of their activity is not the main current of German
literature after Goethe. Far nlore in Heine's works flows
this main current; Heine, far n10re than Tieck or Jean Paul
Richter, is the continuator of that which, in Goethe's varied
activity, is the most powerful and vital; on I-Ieine, of all
Gern1an authors who survived Goethe, incolnparably the
largest portion of Goethe's mantle fell. I do not forget that
when I\Ir Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine,
though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone
forth with all his strength; I do not forget, too, that after
ten or twenty years many things may come out plain before
the critic which before were hard to be discerned by hin1 ;
and assuredly no one would dream of imputing it as a fault
to l\lr Carlyle that twenty years ago he 111istook the central
current in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine,
and attached undue Ï1nportance to that romantic school
which Heine was to destroy; one may rather note it as a
misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicate chastisenlent to a
critic, who,-nlan of genius as he is, and no one recognises
his genius more admirably than I do,-has, for the functions
of the critic, a little too n1uch of the self-will and eccentri-
city of a genuine son of Great Britain.
I-Ieine is noteworthy, because he is the most important
German successor and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's
most important line of activity. And which of Goethe's
lines of activity is this ?-His line of activity as "a soldier
in the war of liberation of hunlanity/'
lIeine himself would hardly have adlnitted this affiliation,
though he was far too powerful-minded a man to decry,
with some of the vulgar Gernutn liberals, Goethe's genius.
II The wind of the Paris Revolution," he writes after the
three days of 1830, "blew about the candles a little in the
10 4
Critical Essays
dark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German
throne or two caught fire; but the old watcllln
n, who do
the police of the German kingdonls, are already bringing
out the fire engines, and will keep tbe candles closer
snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound Gennan people,
lose not all heart in th y bonds! The fashionable coating
of ice melts off from my heart, my soul quivers and my
eyes burn, and that is a disadvantageous state of things for
a writer, who should control his subject-matter and keep
himself beautifully objective, as the artistic school would
have us, and as Goethe has done; he has C0111e to be
eighty years old doing this, and minister, and in good
condition :-poor German people! that is thy greatest
man ! "
But hear Goethe himself: "If I were to say what I had
really been to the Germans in general, and to the young
German poets in particular, I should say I had been their
LiberattJr. "
Modern times find themselves with an immense system
of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs,
rules, \vhich have con1e to them from times not modern.
In this system their life has to be carried forward; yet they
have a sense that this system is not of their own creation,
that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of
their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational.
The awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern
spirit. l"he nlodern spirit is now awake almost cyerywhere;
the sense of want of correspondence between the for111s of
nlodern Europe and its spirit, between the new wine of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the old bottles of
the eleventh and twelfth cer
turies, or even of the sixteenth
and se\rentecnth, almost everyone now perceives; it is no
longer dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence
exists; people are even beginning to be shy of denying it.
To relnove this want of correspondence is beginning to be
the settled endeayour of most persons of good sense. Dis-
solvents of the old European system of don1Ìnant ideas and
facts we must aU be, all of us who have any power of
working; what we have to study is that we may not be
acrid dissolvents of it.
And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in an age
when there were fe\ver of them than at present, proceed in
I-Ieinrich I-Ieine
10 5
his task of dissolution, of liberation of the modern European
fron1 the old routine? He shall tell us himself.
"Through me the German poets have become aware that,
as man nlust live from within outwards, so the artist
must work from within outwards, seeing that, make what
contortions he will, he can only bring to light his own
individuality. I can clearly ll1ark where this influence of
mine has Inade itself felt; there arises out of it a kind
of poetry of Nature, and only in this way is it possib
e to be
original. JI
I y voice shall never be joined to those which decry
Goethe, and if it is said that the foregoing is a lame and
impotent conclusion to Goethe's declaration that he had
been the liberator of the Germans in general, and of the
young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe's
profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all
routine thinking; he puts the standard, once for all, inside
every man instead of outside him; when he is told, such a
thing must be so, there is inlmense authority and custom in
favour of its being so, it has been held to be so for a
thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, U But
is it so? is it so to me? 11 Nothing could be l1lore really
subversive of the foundations on which the old European
order rested; and it lllay be remarked that no persons are
so radically detached from this order, no persons so
thoroughly Illodern, as those who have felt Goethe's in-
fluence most deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to
have in this way deeply influenced but a few persons, and
those persons poets, one rr.ay answer that he could have
taken no better way to secure, in the end, the ear of the
world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, hnpressive,
and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its
importance. Nevertheless the process of liberation, as
Goethe worked it, though sure, is undoubtedly slow; he
came, as I-Ieine says, to be eighty years old in thus working
it, and at the end of that time the old 11iddle-Age machine
was still creaking on, the thirty Gernlan courts and their
chamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself
was a minister, and the visible triumph of the modern
spirit over prescription and routine seemed as far off as ever.
It was the year 1830 j the German sovereigns had passed
the preceding fifteen years in breaking the promises of
106
Critical Essays
freedolll they had nlade to their subjects when they wanted
their help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great
events were happening in France; the revolution, defeated
in 1815, had arisen from its defeat, and was wresting from
its adversaries the power. Heinrich Heine, a young nlan
of genius, born at Hamburg, I and with all the culture of
Germany, but by race a Jew; with wann sympathies for
France, ,vhose revolution had given to his race the rights of
citizenship, and whose rule had been, as is well kno'wn,
popular in the R.hine provinces, where he passed his youth;
with a passionate admiration for the great French Emperor,
with a passionate conten1pt for the sovereigns who had
overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy,-
lleinrich Heine was in 1830 in 110 humour for any such
gradual process of liberation from the old order of things as
that which Goethe had followed. His counsel was for open
war. 'Vith that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his
hand, he passed the renlainder of his life in one fierce
battle. 'Vhat was that battle? the reader will ask. It was
a life and death battle with Philistinisln.
Philistinisl1ll-we have not the expression in English.
Perhaps we have 110t the word because we have so much
of the thing. At Soli, I imagine, they did not talk of
solecis111s; and here, at the very headquarters of Goliath,
nobody talks of Philistinism. 1"he French have adopted
the term éþicÙr (grocer), to designate the sort of being
whon1 the Germans designate by the term Philistine; but
the French term,-besides that it casts a slur upon a
respectable class, composed of living and susceptible
members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried
long ago,-is really, I think, in itself 111uch less apt and
expressive than the Gerr
lan tenn. Efforts have been made
to obtain in English some term equivalent to Philister or
éþicier; 1\1r Carlyle has made several such efforts: "respect-
ability with its thousand gigs," he says ;-well, the occupant
of everyone of these gigs is, 1v1r Carlyle means, a Philistine.
IIowever, the word resþectable is far too valuable a word to
be thus perverted from its proper 11leaning; if the English
are ever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of,-
and so prodigious are the changes which the modern spirit
is introducing, that even we English shall perhaps one day
j He was born at Düsseldort.
Heinrich I-Ieine
10 7
come to want such a word,-I think we had much better
take the tern1 PhilÙtille itself.
Phz"listille must have originaHy meant, in the mind of
those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged.
unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the
children of the light. The party of change, the would-be
remodellers of the old traditional European order, the
invokers of reason against custoln, the representatives of the
n10dern spirit in every sphere where it is applicable,
regarded themselves, with the robust self-confidence natural
to reforn1crs as a chosen people, as children of the light.
They regarded their adversaries as humdrum people, slaves
to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but at
the same time very strong. 1'his explains the love which
I-Ieine, that Paladin of the nlodern spirit, has for France;
it explains the preference which he gives to France
over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the chosen
people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas
have been dra\vn up in their language; Paris is the new
Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the Jordan which divides the
consecrated land of freedom from the land of the Philistines."
lIe nleans that the French, as a people, have shown more
accessibility to ideas than any other people; that pre-
scription and routine have had less hold upon thenl than
upon any other people; that they have shown n108t
readiness to move and to alter at the bidding (real or
supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the detestation
which I-Ieine had for the English: "I might settle in
England, J) he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should
find there two things, coal-snloke and Englishmen; I
cannot abide either. u \Vhat he hated in the English was the
II ächtbrittische Beschränktheit, J) as he calls it,-the genuine
British narrowness. In truth, the English, profoundly as
they have n10dified the old l\liddle-Age order, great as is
the liberty which they have secured for thenlselves, have in
all their changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by
the rule of thun1b; what was intolerably inconvenient to
them they have suppressed, and as they have suppressed it,
ot because it was irrational, but because it was practically
Inconvenient, they have seldon1 in suppressing it appealed
to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or
fOrI11, or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for
108
Critical Essays
their purpose, and which saved them from the necessity of
recurring to general principles. rrhey have thus becon1e,
in a certain sense, of all people the most inaccessible
to ideas and the 010st impatient of them; inaccessible to
them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and
impatient of them because they have got on so well without
them, that they despise those who, not having got on
as well as themselves, still make a fuss for what they
themselves have done so well without. But there has
certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat
of a g
neral depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has
COOle to be thought by us the true Land of Promise, and it
is anything but that; the born lover of ideas, the born
hater of conlmonplaccs, must feel in this country, that the
sky over his head is of brass and iron. 1'he enthusiast for
the idea, for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for
thetnselves; he values them, irrespectively of the practical
conveniences which their triunlph filay obtain for him; and
the man who regards the possession of these practical
conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something
which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea,
of reason, is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why I-Ieine
so often and so Inercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he
hates conservatisnl he hates Philistinism even more, and
whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, not as a child
of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. Our
Cobbett is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy
and aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six
fingers on every hand and on e\"ery foot six toes, four-and-
twenty in number: a l)hilistine, the staff of whose spear is
like a weaver's beam. Thus he speaks of him :-
"\Vhile I translate Cobbett's words, the man himself
conles bodily before my mind's eye, as I saw him at that
uproarious dinner at the Crown and Anchor 1'avern, with
his scolding red face and his radical laugh, in which
venonlOUS hate mingles with a n10cking exultation at his
enemies' surely approaching downfal1. lie is a chained cur,
who falls with equal fury on everyone WhOlll he does not
know, often bites the best friend of the house in his calves,
barks incessantly, and just because of this incessantness of
his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barks at a
real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder
1-1 einrich II eine
10 9
)f
I
I
I
I
i'
I
!
I
England do not think it necessary to throw the growling
Cobbett a bone to stop his 1110uth. This l11akes the dog
furiously savage, and he shows all his hungry teeth. Poor
old Cobbett! Englanò's dog! I have no love for thee,
for every vulgar nature my soul abhors j but thou touch est
me to the Ínn10st soul with pity, as I see how thou strain est
in vain to break loose and to get at those thieves, who nlake
off with their booty before thy very eyes, and mock at thy
fruitless springs and thine in1potent howling."
nut, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines
of the German governments were too much for his direct
efforts at incendiarism. "\Vhat demon drove me," he cries,
"to write my Reisebilder, to edit a newspaper, to plague
myself with our time and its interests, to try and shake the
poor German Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep in his
hole? \Vhat good did I get by it? Hodge opened his
eyes, only to shut them again immediately; he yawned, only
to begin snoring again the next n1Ínute louder than ever j
he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only to sink down
again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead llian in the
old bed of his accustolned habits. I must have rest; but
where am I to find a resting-place? In Germany I can no
longer stay."
This is Heine's jesting account of his own efforts to rouse
Germany: now for his pathetic account of them; it is
because he unites so rnuch wit with so much pathos that he
is so effective a writer :-
"The Emperor Charles the Fifth sate in sore straits, in
the 'ryrol, encompassed by his enelnies. All his knights
and courtiers had forsaken him; not one canle to his help.
I know not if he had at that time the cheese face with which
Holbein has painted him for us. But I am sure that under
lip of his with its contempt for nlankind, stuck out even
more than it does in his portraits. flow could he but
contemn the tribe which in the sunshin
o( his prosperity
had fawned on him so devotedly, and now, in his dark
distress, left hinl all alone? 1'hen suddenly his door
opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he
threw back his cloak, the lZaiser recognised in him his
faithful Conrad von der Rosen, the court jester. This man
brought hint comfort and counsel, and he was the court
jester!
110
Critical Essays
" , 0 German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy
Conrad von der Rosen. The man whose proper business
was to amuse thee, and who in good times should have
catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy prison
in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy
sceptre and crown; dost thou not recognise me, my Kaiser?
If I cannot free thee, I will at least comfort thee, and thou
shalt at least have one with thee who will prattle with thee
about thy sorest affliction, and whisper courage to thee, and
love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall be at
thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the
true lord of the land! thy will is sovereign, and more
legitinlate far than that purple Tel est 1lolre þlaisir, which
invokes a divine right with no better warrant than the
anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy will, my
people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now
thou liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy right-
ful cause prevail; the day of deliverance is at hand, a new
time is beginning. My ICaiser, the night is over, and out
there glows the ruddy dawn.'
'" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art lllistaken;
perhaps thou takest a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun,
and the red of dawn is only blood.'
" , No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the
,vest; these six thousand years it has always risen in the
east; it is high time there should come a change.'
'" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the
bells out of thy red cap, and it has now such an odd look,
that red cap of thine! '
" 'Ah, my ICaiser, thy distress has made me shake my
head so hard and fierce, that the fool's bells have dropped
off my cap; the cap is none the worse for that.'
" 'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of
breaking and cracking outside there?'
" , Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter"s axe, and
soon the doors of thy prison will be burst open, and thou
wilt be free, my l{aiser ! '
" , Am I then really l{aiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool
who tells me so ! '
" 'Oh, sigh not my dear master, the air of thy prison
makes thee so desponding! when once thou hast got thy
fights again, thou wilt feel once more the bold imperial
Heinrich Heine
I I I
blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud like a IZaiser,
and violent, and gracious, and unjlliìt, and snÚling, and un-
grater ul, as princes are.'
'" Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what
wilt thou do then?'
" · I win then sew new bells on to my cap.'
" , And how shall I reconlpense thy fidelity? '
" 'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a
ditch! ' "
I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European
literature, the scope of his activity, and his value. 1 cannot
attempt to give here a detailed account of his life, or a
description of his separate works. In l\Iay 1831 he went
over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his new
Jerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going ill
general to some French watering-place in the SUlnnler, but
111aking only one or two short visits to Germany during the
rest of his life. His works, in verse and prose, succeeded
each other without stopping; a collected edition of them,.
filling seven closely-printed octavo volun1es, has been pub-
lished in Alnerica; in the collected editions of few people's
works is there so little to skip. Those who wish for a
single good specin1en of him should read his first important
work, the work which made his reputation, the Reisebi/der,
or "'rravelling Sketches: " prose and verse, wit and serious-
ness, are mingled in it, and the n1Îngling of these is
characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen
practised Inore naturally and happily than in his Reisebilder.
In 1847 his health, which till then had always been per-
fectly good, gave way. He had a kind of paralytic stroke.
I-lis n1alady proved to be a softening of the spinal Inarrow:
it was incurable; it n1ade rapid progress. In l\lay 1848,
not a year after his first attéìck, he went out of doors for the
last time; but his disease took n10re than eight years to kill
him. For nearly eight years he lay helpless on a couch,
with the use of his limbs gone, wasted alm0st to the pro-
portions of a child, wasted so that a won1an could cÐxry him
about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly
dimn1ed, and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have
the palsied eyelid lifted and held up by the finger; all this,
and suffering, besides this, at short intervals, paroxysnlS of
nervous agony. 1 have said he was not pre-eminently
112
Critical Essays
brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which he
retained his activity of nlind, even his gaiety, alnid all his
suffering, and went on composing with undiminished fire to
the last, he was truly brave. Nothing could clog that
aërial lightness. "Pouvez-vous siffier?" his doctor asked
him one day, when he was almost at his last gasp;-
" siffier," as everyone knows, has the double meaning of
to 71Jhistle and to hùs :-" HéJas! non," was his whispered
answer; "pas mênle une comédie de 1\'1. Scribe!" l\I.
Scribe is, or was, the favourite dramatist of the French
Philistine. "Ivly nerves," he said to sonle one who asked
him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in
Paris, "my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable
miserableness of nature, that 1 am convinced they would
get at the exhibition the grand medal for pain and rnisery."
lIe read all the medical books which treated of his com-
plaint. " But," said he to S01l1e one who found hil'll thus
engaged, "what good this reading is to do Ole I don"t know,
except that it will qualify nle to givc lectures in heaven on
the ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the
spinal marrow." '\That a matter of gril'll seriousness are
our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gaiety IIeine
treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came
at last. Heine died on the 17th of February 1856, at the
age of fifty-eight. By his will he forbade that his remains
should be transported to Germany. He lies buried in the
cemetery of :J\Iontnlartre, at Paris.
I-lis direct political action was null, and this is neither to
be wondered at nor regretted; direct political action is not
the true function of literature, and Heine was a born 111an
of letters. Even in his favourite France the turn taken by
public affairs was not at all what he wished, though he read
French politics by no means as we in England, l'llOst of us,
read thenl. He thought things were tending there to the
triul'llph of conl111unism; and to a champion of the idea like
Heine, what there is gross and narrow in COl'llnlUnism was
very repulsive. " It is all of no use," he cried on his death-
bed, "the future belongs to our enenlies, the C01l1munists,
and Louis Napoleon is their John the Baptist." "And
yet,"-he added with all his old love for that remarkable
entity, so full of attraction for him, so profoundly unknown
in England, the French people,-" do not believe that God
I-Ieinrich I-Ieine
113
lets all this go lorward merely as a grand comedy. Even
though the Communists deny him to-day, he knows better
than they do, that a time will come when they will learn to
believe in him." After 183 I, his hopes of soon upsetting
the German governments had died away, and his propagan-
dis1l1 took another, a more truly literary, character. It took
the character of an intrepid application of the modern spirit
to literature. To the ideas with which the burning questions
of n10dern life filled hin1, he made all his subject-matter
minister. He touched all the great points in the career of
the hun1an race, and here he but followed the tendency of
the wide culture of Gern1any; but he touched them with a
wand which brought theln all under a light where the modern
eye cares most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the
culture of Germany,-so wide, so il'llpartial, that it is apt to
become slack and powerless, and to lose itself in its materials
for want of a strong central idea round which to group
an its ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of
Germany lost itself in the !\Iiddle Ages, was overpowered by
their influence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing
them. Heine, with a far profounder sense of the mystic and
ron1antic charm of the 1\Iidd1e Age than Görres, or Bren-
tano, or Arnim, Heine the chief romantic poet of Germany,
is yet also much more than a ron1antic poet; he is a great
modern poet, he is not conquered by the !\Iiddle Age, he
has a talisn1an by which he can feel,-along with but above
the power of the fascinating 1liddle Age itself,-thc power
of modern ideas.
A French critic of IIeine thinks be has said enough in
saying that IIeine proclaimed in German countries, with
beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, and that at the cheerful
noise of his druIH the ghosts of the I\Iiddie Age took to
flight. nut this is rather too French an account of the
matter. Germany, that vast n1ine of ideas, had no need to
import ideas, as such, frOl'll any foreign country; and if
Heine had carried ideas, as such, from France into Gern13,ny,
he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. But
that for which France, far less n1editative than Gern1any, is
eminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of
an idea, when she seizes it, in all departments of hUlnan
activity which admit it. And that in which Gennany n10st
fails, and by failing in which she appears so helpless and
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Critical Essays
impotent, is just the practical applîcation of her innumerable
ideas. "'Vhen Candide," says Heine himself, "caIne to
Eldorado, he saw in the streets a nun1ber of boys who were
playing with gold-nuggets instead- of n1arbles. This degree
of luxury made hiln imagine that they must be the king's
children, and he was not a little astonished when he found
that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no more value than
marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them.
A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner,
when he calue to Germany and first read Gennan books.
He was perfeçtly astounded at the wealth of ideas which he
found in then1; but he soon ren1arked that ideas in Gern1any
are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and that those
writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in
reality only comn10n schoolboys." Heine was, as he calls
hilllself, a "Child of the French Revolution," an " Initiator,'"
because he vigorously assured the Germans that ideas were
not counters or marbles, to be played with for their own
sake; because he exhibited in literature modern ideas applied
with the utn10st freedonl, clearness, and originality. And
therefore he declared that the great task of his life had beeD
the endeavour to establish a cordial relation between France
and Gernlany. It is because he thus operates a junction
between the French spiri t, and Gennan ideas and Gernlan
culture, that he founds sOlneth ing new, opens a fresh period,
and deserves the attention of criticism far 1110re than the
German poets his contenlporaries, who merely continue an
old period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the
literature of other countries, too, the French spirit is destined
to make its influence felt as an element, in alliance with
the native spirit, of novelty and mOVe111ent,-as it has ll1ade
its influence felt in German literature; fifty years hence a
-critic will be denlonstrating to our grandchildren how this
phenomenon has come to pass.
\Ve in England, in our great burst of literature during the
first thirty years of the present century, had no nlanifestation
of the modern spirit, as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe's
works or Heine's. And the reason is not far to seek. \Ve
had neither the Gennan wealth of ideas, nor the French
enthusiasnl for applying ideas. 1"'here reigned in the mass
of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that
Philistinism,-to use the German nicknan1e
-which reacts
Heinrich Heine
I IS
eyen on the individual genius that is exempt from it. In
our greatest literary epoch, that of the Elizabethan age,
English society at large was accessible to ideas, was per-
meated by them, was vivified by them, to a degree which
has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique
greatness in English literature of Shakspeare and his con-
temporaries; they were powerfully upheld by the intellectual
life of their nation; they applied freely in literature the then
modern ideas,-the ideas of the Renaissance and the Re-
fornlation. A few years afterwards the great English middle
class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose intelligent
sympathy had upheld a Shakspeare, entered the prison of
Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for
two hundred years. He enlargeth a 'Ilation, says Job, and
straiteneth it again. In the literary nlovement of the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century the signal attempt to apply
freely the modern spirit was made in England by two
members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley.
Aristocracies are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas;
but their individual members have a high courage and a
turn for breaking bounds; and a man of genius, who is the
born child of the idea, happening to be born in the aristo-
cratic ranks, chafes against the' obstacles which prevent
him from freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did
not succeed in their attenlpt freely to apply the modern
spirit in English literature; they could not succeed in it;
the resistance to baffle them, the \vant of intelligent sympathy
to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their literary
creation, conlpared with the literary creation of Shakspeare
and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe
and I-Ieine, is a failure. T-he best literary creation of that
tinle in England proceeded from men who did not make the
same bold atternpt as Byron and Shelley. 'Vhat, in fact, was
the career of the chief English 111en of letters, their con-
temporaries? The greatest of them, ,V 0rdsworth, retired
(in 1fiddle-Age phrase) into a ll10nastery. I n1ean, he
plunged himself in the inward life, he ,'oluntarily cut him-
self off from the D10dern spirit. Coleridge took to OpiUll1.
Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. K.cats
passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his
faculty for interpreting nature; and he died of consumption
at twenty-five. \Y ordsworth, Scott, and Keats ha \-e left
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Critical EsSa)Ts
admirable works; far more solid and complete works than
those which Byron and Shelley have left. But their works
have this defect,-they do not belong to that which is the
main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not
apply Inodcrn ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, 1ninor
currents, and all other literary work of our day, however
popular, which has the saIne defect, also constitutes out a
minor current. Byron and Shelley will long be renIcnlbered,
long after the inadequacy of their actual work is clearly
recognised for their passionate, their 1'itanic effort to flow
in the main streanl of modern literature; their nanles
wi
l b
gTeater than their writings; stat 1nagnl nonlillis
ulnbra.
I reine's literary good fortune was greater than that of Byron
and Shelley. His theatre of operations was Gernlany, whose
Philistinisln does not consist in her want of ideas, or in her
inaccessibility to ideas, for she teems with them and loves
them, but, as I have said, in her feeble and hesitating
application of modern ideas to life. Ileine's intense
modernisl11, his absolute freedonl, his utter rejection of
stock classicism and stock romanticism, his bringing all
things under the point of view of the nineteenth century,
were understood and laid to heart by Germany, through
virtue of her inl1nense, tolerant intellectualism, much as
there was in all I-Ieine said to affront and wound Germany.
The wit and ardent modern spirit of France I-Ieine joined
to the culture, the sentiment, the thought of Genuany. 1
his
is what makes him so remarkable; his wonderful clearness,
lightness, and freedol11, united with such power of feeling,
and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in
his story of the French abbé who was his tutor, and
who wanted to get froiTI him that la t'eligion is French for
der Glaube: "Six times did he ask me the question:
, Henry, what is der Glaubt in French?' and six tinIes, and
each tinle with a greater burst of tears, did I answer hinl-
, It is Ie crédit.' And at the seventh time, his face purple
with rage, the infuriated questioner screamed out: 'It is
la religioJ'; and a rain of cuffs descended upon me, and all
the other boys burst out laughing. Since that day I have
never been able to hear la religio1J nlentioned, without
feeling a tremor run through rny back, and DIY cheeks grow
red with shalne." Or in that conlment on the fate of
I-Ieinricll I-I eine
117
Professor Saalfeld, who had been addicted to writing furious
pamphlets against Napoleon, and who was a professor at
Göttingen, a great seat, according to Heine, of pedantry
and PhiJistinism: "It is curious," says I-Ieine, "the three
greatest ad\'ersaries of Napoleon have all of them ended
miserably. Castlereagh cut his own throat; Louis the
Eighteenth rotted upon his throne; and Professor Saalfeld
is still a professor at Göttingen." It is in1possible to
go beyond that.
\Vhat wit, again, in that saying which everyone has
heard: U The Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife,
the Frenchman loves her like his mistress, the GenTIan loves
her like his old grandmother." But the turn Heine gives
to this incomparable saying is not so well known; and it
is by that turn he shows hitnself the born poet he is,-full
of delicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource,
infinitely new and striking !-
" And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things nlay
turn out. The grulllpy Englishman, in an ill-tell1per with
his wife, is capable of some day putting a rope round her neck,
and taking her to be sold at Smithfield. The inconstant
Frer..chman may becoll1e unfaithful to his adored mistress,
and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another.
But the German will never ljuite abandon his old grand-
mother; he will always keep for her a nook by the chimney-
corner, where she can tell her fairy stories to the listening
children."
Is it possible to touch n10re delicately and happily
both the weakness and the strength of Germany;-
pedantic, sinlple, enslaved, free, ridiculous, adlnirable
Germany?
And Heine's verse,-his Lieder? Oh, the comfort, after
dealing with French people of genius, irresistibly impelled
to try and express themselves in verse, launching out into
a deep which destiny has sown with so many rocks for
them,-the comfort of coming to a man of genius, who
finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose
voyage over the deep of poetry destiny nlakes s1l100th!
After the rhythm, to us, at any rate, wilh the Gernlan paste
in our composition, so deeply unsatisfying, of-
" Ah ! que n1e clites-valls, et que vaus dit man âme 7
Que dit Ie ciel à l'aube et la flamme à la fiamme ? JJ
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Critical Essays
what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like-
" Take, oh, take those lips away,
Tl1at so sweetly were fors\Vorn- JJ
or-
"Siehst sehr sterbeblässlich aus,
Doch getrost! du bist zu HallS- U
in which one's soul can take pleasure! rrhe 111agic of
IIeine's poetical form is incomparable; he chiefly uses a
fonn of old Gern1an popular poetry, a ballad-fornl which
has n10re rapidity and grace than any ballad-form of ours;
he elnploys this fornl with the most exquisite lightness and
ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness,
pathos, and old-world charm of all true [onus of popular
poetry. Thus in Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually
blends the impression of French modernis111 and clearness,
with that of Gernlan sentiment and fulness; and to give
this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's great
characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it
in his form as well as in his contents, and by translation I
can only reproduce it so far as his contents give it. But
even the contents of many of his poems are capable of
giving a certain sense of it. I-Iere, for instance, is a poem
in which he rnakes his profession of faith to an inno-
cent beautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of SOlne
sinlple rnining people having their hut among the pines
at the foot of the Hartz l\Iountains, who reproaches
hinl with not holding the old articles of the Christian
creed :-
" Ah, lTIY child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet
sate upon my n10ther's knee, I believed in God the Father,
who rules up there in Heaven, good and great;
" \Vho created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful n1en
and women thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and
stars their courses.
"\Vhen I got bigger, my child, I con1prehended yet a
reat deal III ore than this, and con1prehendeù, and grew
intelligent; and I believe on the Son also;
"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love
to us; and, for his reward, as always happens, was crucified
by the people.
" Now, when I an1 grown up, have read much, ha.,,-e
I-Ieinrich Heine
119
trave11ed Inuch, my heart s\YeIIs within me, and with
111Y whole heart I believe on the I-Ioly Ghost.
"The greatest ll1iracles were of his working, and still
greater ll1iracles doth he even now work; he burst in
sunder the oppressor's stronghold, and he burst in sunder
the bondsman's yoke.
" I-Ie heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right;
aU nlankind are one race of noble equals before hirn.
"I-Ie chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs
of the brain, which have spoilt love and joy for us, which
day and night have loured on us.
"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the I-loly
Ghost chosen out to fulfil his will, and he has put courage
into their souls.
H'Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave;
what, thou wouldst give much, my child, to look upon such
gallant knights?
" \Vell, on me, 111 y child, look! kiss me, and look
boldly upon Ine! onc of those knights of the Holy Ghost
am I."
One has only to turn over the pages of his Roma71cero,-
a collection of poelns written in the first years of his illness,
with his whole power and charm still in them, and not, like
his latest poems of all, painfully touched by the air of his
llfatraZZetl- gruff, his "mattress - grave "-to see Heine's
width of range; the most varied figures succeed one another,
-Rhampsinitus, Edith with the Swan Neck, Charles the
First, !\1:arie Antoinette, I{ing David, a heroine of lJfabille,
Melisanda of Tripoli, Richard Cæur de Lion, Pedro the
Cruel, Firdusi, Cortes, Dr Döllinger ;-but never does Heine
attelnpt to be hübsch objectiv, "beautifully objecti,'e," to
become in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old Hebrew, or a
liddle-Age knight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English
royalist; he always remains Heinrich Heine, a son of the
nineteenth century. To give a notion of hi" tone, I will
quote a few stanzas at the end of the Sþallish Atridæ, in
which he describes, in the character of a visitor at the court
of Henry of Transtalnare at Segovia, J-Ienry's treatment of
the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego
Albuquerque, his neighbour, strolls after dinner through the
castle with him:
"In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels
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Critical Essavs
J
where are kept the king's hounds, that with their growling
and yelping let you know a long way off where they are,
"There I saw, built into the wal1, and ,,'ith a strong iron
grating for its outer face, a cell like a cage.
U Two hunlan figures sate therein, two young boys; chained
by the leg, they crouched in the dirty straw.
U I-Iardly twelve years old seeoled the one, the other not
much older; their faces fair and noLle, but pale and wan
with sickness.
"They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean
bodies showed wounds, the nlarks of ill-usage; both of thenl
shivered with fever.
"They looked up at 01e out of the depth of their lTIisery ;
, who,' I cried in horror to Don Diego, 'are these pictures
of wretchedness? '
"Don Diego seemed eal barrasscd; he looked round to
see that no one was listening; then he gave a deep sigh;
and at last, putting on the easy tone of a Ulan of the world,
he said:
" 'These are a pair of king's sons, who were early left
orphans; the nanle of their father was I(ing Pedro, the
naOle of their nlother, J..laria de Padil1a.
" '.After the great battle of Navarette, when IIenry of
1"ranstanlare had relieved his brother, l{ing Pedro, of the
troublesome burden of the crown,
" 'And likewise of that still tnore troublesome burden,
which is caned 1ife, then l)on IIenry's victorious Dlagna-
nimity had to deal with his brother's children.
" , He has adopted theIn, as an uncle should; and he has
given them free quarters in his own castle.
" 'The room which he has assigned to them is certainly
rather snlall, but then it is cool in SUl1uner, and not in-
tolerably cold in winter.
" 'Their fare is rye-bread, w hlch tastes as sweet as if the
goddess Ceres had baked it express for her beloved
Proserpine.
" 'Not un frequently, too, he sends a scullion to thcln
with garbanzos, and then the young gentlenlen know that it
is Sunday in Spain.
" , But it is 110t Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not
conle every day; and the master of the hounds gives them
tbe treat of his whip.
Heinricl1 Heine
121
U 'For the master of the hounds, who has under his
superintendence the kennels and the pack, and the nephews'
cage also,
" , Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman
with the white ruft: whom we remarked to-day at dinner.
u, And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband
snatches his whip, and rushes down here, and gives it to the
dogs and to the poor little boys.
" 'But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such
proceedings, and has given orders that for the future his
nephews are to be treated differently from the dogs.
" , He has deternlined no longer to entrust the disciplin-
ing of his nephews to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it
out with his own hands.'
"Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the
castle joined us, and politely expressed his hope that we
had dined to our satisfaction."
Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing
with the grim innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at
once truly masterly and truly modern.
No account of Heine is complete which does not notice
the Jewish element in him. His race he treated with the
same freedom with which he treated everything else, but he
deriyed a great force from it, and no one knew this better
than he himself. lIe has excellently pointed out how in
the sixteenth century there was a double renaissance,-a
f-Iellenic renaissance and a I-Icbrew renaissancc,-and how
both have been great powers ever since. He himself had
in hin) both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of J udæa j
both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal
of all poetry and all art,-the Greek spirit by beauty, the
I-Iebrcw spirit by sublin1Ìty. By his perfection of literary
form, by his love of clearness, by his love of beauty, lIeine
is Greek; by his intensity, by his untamableness, by his
"longing which cannot be uttereù," he is lIe brew. Yet
what I-Iebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews like
this ?-
"There lives at I-Ian1 burg, in a one-roomed lodging in
the Baker's Broad 'Valk, a man whose nan1e is rvIoses
Lump; all the week he goes about in wind and rain, with
his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings; but when
on Friday evening he con1es honle, he finds the candlestick
122
Critical Essays
with seven candles lighted, and the table covered with a
fair white cloth, and he puts away froln hinl his pack and
his cares, and he sits down to table with his squinting wife
and yet more squinting daughter, and eats fish with them,
fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlic sauce,
sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices
with his whole heart over the deliverance of the children of
Israel out of Egypt, rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones
\vho have done the children of Israel hurt, have ended by
taking thelnselves off; that I(ing Pharaoh, N ebuchadnezzar,
Hanlan, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, are well
dead, while he, Moses LUl1lp, is yet alive, and eating fish
with wife and daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the
fish is delicate and the man is happy, he has no call tc
torment hilnself about culture, he sits contented in his
religion and in his green bed-gown, like Diogenes in his
tub, he conten1plates with satisfaction his ca.ndles, which he
on no account will snuff for hinlself; and I can tell you, if
the candles burn a little dim, and the snufferS-W0111an, whose
business it is to snuff theIn, is not at hand, and Rothschild
the Great were at that monlent to come in, with all his
brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chief clerks, with whom
he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say: 'J\foses
Lump, ask of me what favour you will, and it shall be
granted you;' - Doctor, I am convinced, 1\Ioses Lump
would quietly answer: 'Snuff me those candles!' and
Rothschild the Great would exclaim with admiration: 'If
I were not Rothschild, I would be J\loses LUlllp.' "
1'here Heine shows us his own people by its comic side;
in the poem of the Princess Sabbath he shows it to us by a
lTIOre serious side. The Princess Sabbath, "the tranquil
Princess, pearl and flower of all beauty, fair as the Queen of
Sheba, Solomon's boson1 friend, that blue stocking frOln
Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by ber eSþrit, and with her
wise riddles nlade herself in the long run a bore" (with
Heine the sarcastic turn is never far oft), this princess has
for her betrothed a prince whom sorcery has transforn1ed
into an anÌ1nal of lower race, the Prince Israel.
" A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week
long in the filth and refuse of life, an1idst the jeers of the
boys in the street.
" But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly
Heinrich Heine
12 3
the n1agic passes off, and the dog becomes once more a
human being.
"A 111an with the feelings of a man, with head and heart
raised aloft, in festal garb, in almost clean garb, he enters
the halls of his Father.
ee Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of
Jacob, I kiss with my lips your holy door-posts!"
Still nlore he shows us this serious side in his beautiful
poem on J ehuda ben IIalevy, a poet belonging to "the great
golden age of the Arabian, Old-Spanish, Jewish school of
poets," a contemporary of the troubadours:-
"I-Ie, too,-the hero whom we sing,- J ehuda ben Halevy,
too, had his lady-love; but she was of a special sort.
"She was no Laura, whose eyes, mortal stars, in the
cathedral on Good Friday kindled that world-renowned
flan1e.
"She was no châtelaine, who in the bloon1ing glory of
her youth presided at tourneys, and awarded the victor's
crown.
"No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady doc-
trinaire, who delivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber
of a Court of Love.
"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woebegone poor
àarling, a mourning picture of desolation . . . and her name
was Jerusalem."
J ehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pil-
grimage to Jerusalem; and there, an1id the ruins, sings a
song of Sian \vhich has became famous among his people :-
"That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament,
which is sung in all the scattered tents of Jacob throughout
the world.
" On the ninth day of the D10nth which is cal1ed Ab, on
the. anniversary of J erusaleD1's destruction by Titus Ves-
paSlanus.
" Yes, that is the song of Sion, which J ehuda ben I-Ialevy
sang with his dying breath amid the holy ruins'of Jerusalem.
"Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sate there upon
the fragment of a fallen column; down to his breast fell,
"Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on
the face which looked out through it,-his troubled pale face,
with the spiritual eyes.
"So he sate and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime
12 4
Critical Essays
to look upon; J erelniah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen
out of his grave.
"But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his
barb, lolling in his saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin;
" Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly
shaft, and shot away like a winged shadow.
"Quietly flowed the Rabbi's life-blood, quietly he sang
his sang to an enù; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem! "
Nor n1ust Heine's sweetest note be unheard,-his plaintive
note, his note of melancholy. IIere is a strain which canle
fron1 hinl as he lay, in the winter night, on his" DIattress-
grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts wander home to Ger-
nlany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her
Christmas-tree." II rrhou tookest,"-he cries to the Gern1an
exile,-
"rrhou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness;
naked and poor return est thou back. German truth,
Gennan shirts,-one gets thenI worn to tatters in foreign
parts.
" Deadly pale are thy looks, but take conlfort, thou art at
home! one lies wanu in Gernlan earth, warnI as by the old
pleasant fireside.
" l\1any a one, alas, became crippled, and could get honle
no nlore! longingly he stretches out his arnIS; God have
mercy upon him! "
God have nlercy upon him; for what remain of the days
of the years of his life are few and evil. "Can it be that I
still actually exist? 1\fy body is so shrunk that there is
hardly anything of me left but nIY voice, and my bed nlakes
file think of the melodious grave of the enchanter 1\ferlin,
which is in the forest of Droceliand in Brittanr, under high
oaks whose tops shine like green flanles to heaven. Ah, I
envy thee those trees, brother 11erlin, and their fresh
waving! for over my nlattress-grave here in Paris no green
]eaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but the
rattle of carriages, hamn1ering, scolding, and the jingle of
the piano. A grave without rest, death without the privi-
leges of the departed, who have no longer any need at spend
money, or to write letters, or to conlpase Looks. 'Vhat a
melancholy situation! U
He died, and has left a blelnished nan1e; with his crying
faults,-his intemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness
I-Ieinrich I-I ei ne
12 5
in passion, his inconceivable att
cks on his cnerrlÎes, his still
more inconceivable attacks on his friends, his want of
generosity, his sensuality, his incessant n10cking,-how
could it be otherwise? Not only was he not one of l\fr
Carlyle's "respectable" people, he was profoundly dis-
respectable; and not even the merit of not being a Philis-
tine can make up for a n1an's being that. 1'0 his intellectual
deliverance there was an addition of something else wanting,
and that son1ething else was something immense; the old-
fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral deliverance.
Goethe says that he was deficient in loz'e; to me his weak-
ness seems to be not so n1uch a deficiency in love as a
deficiency in self-respect, in true dignity of character. But
on this negative side of one's criticism of a man of great
genius, I for my part, when I have on
e clearly marked that
this negative side is and n1ust be there, have no pleasure in
dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine s0I11cthing positive.
He is not an adequate interpreter of the modern world.
lIe is only a brilliant soldier in the 'Var of liberation of
humanity. But, such as he is, he is (and posterity too, I
aiD quite sure, win say this), in the European literature of
that quarter of a century which follows the death of Goethe,
incomparably the most ilnportant figure.
'Vhat a spendthrift, one is ten1pted to cry, is Nature!
'Vith what prodigality, in the march of generations, she
employs human power, content to gather almost always little
result from it, sometin1cs none! Look at Brron, that Byron
whom the present generation of Englishmen are forgetting;
I
}'ron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary
power, I cannot but think, which has appeared in our litera-
ture since Shakspeare. And what became of this wonderful
production of nature? He shattered himself, he inevitably
shattered himself to pieces against the huge, black, cloud-
topped, interminable precipice of British Philistinisn1. nut
Dyron, it may be said, was cminent only by his genius, only
by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual
equipment of a supren1e modern poet; except for his genius
he was an ordinary nineteenth
century English noblen1an,
with little culture and with no ideas. 'V ell , then, look at
IIeine. Heine had all the culture of Gern1any; in his head
fenl1ented
ll the ideas of n10dern Europe. And what have
we got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral
126
Critical Essays
balance, and of nobleness of soul and character. That is
what I say; there is so much power, so many seelll able to
run well, so many give promise of running well; so few
reach the goal, so few are chosen. .1IallY are (aIled, few
chosen.
VI
P..:\GAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS
SENTI!\IENT
I READ the other day in the DublÍ7z Review :-" V{ e
Catholics are apt to be cowed and scared by the lordly
oppression of public opinion, and not to bear ourselves as
men in the face of the anti-Catholic society of England. It
is good to have an habitual consciousness that the public
opinion of Catholic Europe looks upon Protestant England
with a mixture of impatience and compassion, which l110re
than balances the arrogance of the English people towards
the Catholic Church in these countries."
Th
Holy Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman, can
take very good care of herself, and I an1 not going to
defend her against the scorns of Exeter IIall. Catholicism
is not a great visible force in this country, and the nlass of
n1ankind will always treat lightly even things the most
venerable, if they do not present themselves as visible
forces before its eyes. In Catholic countries, as the Dublin
Review itself says with triu111ph, they make very little account
of the greatness of Exeter I-Iall. The majority has eyes
only for the things of the majority, and in England the in1-
n1ense majority is Protestant. And yet, in spite of all the
shocks which the feeling of a good Catholic, like the writer
in the Dublin I
evie'iv, has in this Protestant countrr
inevitably to undergo, in spite of the contemptuous
insensibility to the grandeur of Rome which he finds so
general and so hard to bear, how ll1uch h
s he to console
him, how many acts of homage to the greatness of his
religion may he see if he has his eyes open! I will tell him
of one of them. Let him go in London to that delightful
spot, that I-Iappy Island in Bloomsbury, the reading-room
of the British 1'1 useUffi. Let him visit its sacred quarter,
the region where its theological books are placed. I am
almost afraid to say what he will find there, for fear Mr.
J27
128
Critical Essays
Spurgeon, like a second Caliph Gmar, should give the library
to the flalnes. lIe will find an immense Catholic work, the
collection of the Abbé 1ligne, lording it over that whole
region, reducing to insignificance the feeble Protestant
forces which hang upon its skirts. Protestantis111 is dulyrepre-
sented; indeed 1\lr Panizzi knows his business too well to
suffer it to be otherwise; all the varieties of Protestantism
are there; there is the library of Anglo-Catholic Theology,
learned, decorous, exen1plary, but a little uninteresting;
there are the works of Calvin, rigid, militant, menacing;
there are the works of ])r Cha1tners, the Scotch thistle
valiantly doing duty as the rose of Sharon, but keeping
something very Scotch about it all the time; there are the
works of Dr Channing, the last word of religious philosophy
in a land where everyone has some culture, and where
superiorities are discountenanced,-the flower of moral and
intelligent nlediocrity. But how are all these divided
against one another, and how, though they were all united,
are they dwarfed by the Catholic Leviathan, their neighbour !
l\Iajestic in its blue and gold unity, this fills shelf after shelf
and compartment after compartment, its right nlounting up
into heaven an10ng the white folios of the Acta Sa llc!orulIl,
its left plunging down into hell an10ng the yellow octavos
of the Law Digest. Everything is there, in that i01n1cnse
Palrol9gÙ:e G'ursus CO/J/þle/us, in that IEnC)'clopédie Théologique,
that Nouvelle EnCJ'clotfdie Thiologiqltt', that l"roisièllZt
E'IlC)'clopédie :I'hfologique j religion, philosophy, history, I
biography, arts, sciences, bibliography, gossip. The work I
enlbraces the whole range of hUlnan in
erests; like one of
the great
-fiddle-Age Cathedrals, it is in itself a study for a I
life. Like the net in Scripture, it drags everything to land,
bad and good, lay anù ecclesiastical, sacred and profane,
so that it be but mattcr of hUl11an concern. \Vide-elubracing
as the power whose product it is! a power, for history at
any rate, eminently the Church j not, I think, the Church
of the future, but indisputably the Church of the past and,
.in the past, the Church of the multitude.
1'his is why the man of ilnagination-nay, and the
-philosopher too, in spite of her propensity to burn hiln-
will always have a weakness for the Catholic Church; be-
,.cause of the rich treasures of human life which have been
; stored within her pale. 1'he mention of other religious
Religious Sentiment
12 9
bodies: or of their leaders, at once calls up in our ll1ind the
thought of men of a definite type as their adherents; the
mention of Catholicislll suggests no such special following.
Anglicanism suggests the English episcopate; Calvin's
nan1e suggests 1)r Candlish; Chalmers's, the Duke of
Argy Ie; Channing's, Boston society; but Catholicislll
suggests,-what shall I say?-all the pell-nlell of the men
and ,,"Olllen of Shakspeare's plays. This abundance the
Abbé l\Iigne's collection faithfully reflects. People talk of
this or that work which they would choose, if they were to
pass their life with only one; for n1Y part I think I would
choose the Abbé Migne's collection. Quicquid agunt
ìLOmiiles,-everything, as I have said, is there. Do not seek
in it splendour of forn1, perfection of editing; its paper is
COllllll0n, its type ugly, its editing indifferent, its printing
careless. The greatest and n105t baffling crowd of misprints
I ever n1et with in my life occurs in a very important page
of the introduction to the Dictionnaire des Apocryphes. But
this is just what you have in the world,-quantity rather
than quality. Do not seek it in impartiality, the critical
spirit; in reading it you n1ust do the criticism for yourself;
it loves criticisI11 as little as the world loves it. Like the
world, it chooses to have things all its own way, to abuse its
adversary, to back its own notion, through thick and thin,
to put forward all the þros for its own notion, to suppress
all the conlras; it does just all that the world does, and all
that the critical shrinks froln. Open the Dictionnaire des
Errä/1s Sociales: Cc The religious persecutions of Henry the
Eighth's and Edward the Sixth's time abated a little in the
reign of 1\Iary, to break out again with new fury in the reign
of ElÏzabeth." rrhere is a 5uinn1ary of the history of religious
persecution under the 1'udors ! But how unreasonable to
reproach the .l\.bbé 11igne's work with wanting a criticislTI,
which, by the very nature of things, it cannot have, and not
rather to be grateful to it for its abundance, its variety, its
infinite suggestiveness, its happy adoption, in many a
delicate circUlnstance, of the urbane tone and ten1per of
the man of the world, instead of the acrid tone and tenlper
of the fanatic.
Still, in spite of their fascinations, the contents of this
::ollection son1etimes rouse the critical spirit within one.
It happened that lately, after I had been thinking much of
E
13 0
Critical Essays
?viarcus Aurelius and his times, I took down the Dictionnaire
des Origines du Christia1lisme, to see what it had to say
about paganism and pagans. I found much what I ex-
pected. I read the article, Révélalion É7}angélique, sa
Nécissite. There I found what a sink of iniquity was the
whole pagan world; how one Roman fed his oysters on his
slaves, how another put a slave to death that a curious
friend might see what dying was like; how Galen's mother
tore and bit her waiting-wolnen when she was in a passion
with them. I found this account of the religion of pagan-
ism: Ie Paganism invented a mob of divinities with the
most hateful character, and attributed to them the most
monstrous and abominable crimes. It personified in them
drunkenness, incest, kidnapping, adultery, sensuality,
knavery, cruelty, and rage." And I found that from this
religion there followed such practice as was to be expected:
"\Vhat must naturally have been the state of morals under
the influence of such a religion, which penetrated with its
own spirit the public life, the family life, and the individual
life of antiquity? "
The colours in this picture are laid on very thick, and I
for n1Y part cannot believe that any human societies, with
a religion and practice such as those just described, could
ever have endured as the societies of Greece and Rome
endured, still less have done what the societies of Greece
and Rome did. \Ve are not brought far by descriptions of
the vices of great cities, or even of individuals driven mad
by unbounded means of self-indulgence. Feudal and
aristocratic life in Christendom has produced horrors of
selfishness and cruelty not surpassed by the noble of
pagan Rome; and then, again, in antiquity there is J\Iarcus
Aurelius's 1110ther to set against Galen's. Eminent exall1ples
of vice and virtue in individuals prove little as to the state
of societies. 'Vhat, under the first emperors, was the con-
dition of the Roman poor upon the Aventine con1pared with
that of our poor in Spital
elds and Bethnal Green? 'Vhat,
in comfort, morals, and happiness were the rural population
of the Sabine country under Augustus's rule, compared with I
the rural population of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire
under the rule of Queen Victoria?
But these great questions are not now for me. 'Vithout
trying to answer them, I ask myself, when I read such
Religious Sentiment 13 1
declamation as the foregoing, if I can find anything that
will give n1e a near, distinct sense of the real difference in
spirit and sentiment between paganism and Christianity,
and of the natural effect of this difference upon people in
general. I take a representative religious poem of paganism
-of the pa
anism which all the world has in its mind,
when it speaks of paganism. To be a representative poenl.
It must be one for popular use, one that the multitude
listens to. Such a religious poem may be found at the end
of one of the best and happiest of 1'heocritus's idylls, the
fifteenth. In order that the reader may the better go along
with me in the line of thought I aIn following, I will trans-
late it; and, that he may. see the medium in which
religious poetry of this sort is found existing, the society
out of which it grows, the people who fonn it and are
formed by it, I will translate the whole, or nearl y th
whole, of the idyll (it is not long) in which the poem
occurs.
The idyll is dramatic. Son1ewhere about two hundreà
and eighty years before the Christian era, a couple of
Syracusan women, staying at Alexandria, agreed on the
occasion of a great religious solemnity,-the feast of Adonis,
-to go together to the palace of King Ptolemy Phila-
delphus, to see the image of Adonis, which the queen
Arsinoe, Ptolen1Y's wife, had had decorated with peculiar
nlagnificence. A hyn1n, by a celebrated performer, was to
be recited over the image. The names of the two women
are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their maids, who are Inentioned
in the poeOl, are caned Eunúe and Eutrchis. Corgo con1es
by appointment to Praxinoe's house to fetch her, and there
the dialogue begins :-
Gorgo.-Is Praxinoe at home?
p,.a:
illoe.-ß1y dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am.
Eunoe, find a chair,-get a cushion for it.
Gorgo.-It will do beautifully as it is.
Praxinoe.- Do sit down.
GOl:g'o.-Oh, this gad-about spirit! I could hardly get to
you, Praxinoe, through all the crowd and all the carriages.
Nothing but heavy boots, nothing but men in uniform.
And what a journey it is! 11y dear child, you really live
too far off.
Praxltzoe.-It is all that insane husband of mine. He
13 2
Cri tical ESS;l)TS
has chosen to conle out here to the end of the world, and
take a hole of a place,-for a house it is not,-on purpose
that you and I might not be neighbours. He is always
ju
t the same ;-anything to quarrel with one! anything for
spIte!
Gorgo.-l\fy dear, don't talk so of your husband before
the little fellow. Just see ho\" astonished he looks at you.
Never mind Zopyrio, my pet, she is not talking about papa.
Praxinoe.-Good heavens! the child does really under-
stand.
Gorgo.-Pretty papa!
PraxÙlOe.-1"hat pretty papa of his the other day
(though I told hilTI beforehanQ to mind what he was about),
when I sent him to a shop to buy soap and rouge, brought
me home salt instead ;-stupid, great, big, interminable
animal!
Gorgo.-
:Iine is just the fellow to him . . . But never
n1Înd now, get on your things and let us be off to the
palace to see the Adonis. I hear the Queen's decorations
are sOlnething splendid.
Pra.'t'inoe.-In grand people's houses everything is grand.
'Vhat things you have seen in Alexandria! \Vhat a deal
you will ha.Ye to tell to anyboòy who has never been here!
Gorgo.-Con1e, we ought to be going.
PraxÙlOe.-Every day is holiday to people who have
nothing to do. Eunoe, pick up your work; and take care,
lazy girl, how you leave it lying about again; the cats find
it just the b("d they like. Come, stir yourself, fetch nle
some water, quick! I wanted the water first, and the girl
brings me the soap. Never mind; give it n1e. Not all that,
extravagant! Now pour out the water ;-stupid! why òon't
you take care of my dres
1 That will do. I have got my
hands washed as it pleased God. \Vhcre is the key of the
large wardrobe? Bring it here ;-quick !
Go,:(o.-Praxinoe, yuu can't think hûw well that dress,
n1ade íull, as you have got it, suits you. 1'ell n1e, how
luuch did it cost ?-the dress by itself, I Inean.
Praxilloe.-Ðon't talk of it, Gorgo; Inore than ei
ht
guineas of good hard money. And about the work on it I
have almost worn my life out.
Gorgo.-\Vel1, you couldn't have done better.
J-}raxÙlOe.- Thank you. Bling me n1Y shawl, and put
Religious Sentin1ent 133
my hat properly on my head ;-proper1y. No, child (to
her little bo)'), I an1 not going to take you; there's a bogy
on horseback, who bites. Cry as much as you like; I'm
not going to have you lamed for life. Now, we'll start.
Nurse, take the little one and anluse him; call the dog in,
and shut the street door. (They go out.) Good hea T,,-ens !
\"hat a crowd of people! I-Iow on earth are we evc.r to get
through all this? They are like ants: you can't count
then1. 11y dearest Gorgo, what will become of us? here
are the royal Horse Guards. 1fy good man, don't r:de
over me! Look at that bay horse rearing bolt upright;
what a vicious one! Eunoe, you mad girl, do take care!-
that horse will certainly be the death of the nlan on his
back. How glad I am now, that I left the child safe at
home!
G01:g-o.-.All right Praxinoe, we are safe behind them;
and they have gone on to where they are stationed.
Praxinoe.- \Vell, yes, I begin to revive again. From the
time I was a little girl I have had more horror of horses and
snakes than of anything in the world. Let us get on; here's
a great crowd coming this way upon us.
Gor..
o (to an old woman).-1\lother, are you from the
palace?
Old Woman.- Yes, my dears.
Gorgo.- Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?
Old fVoman.-"Nly pretty young lady, the Creeks got to
Troy by dint of trying hard; trying will do anything in this
world.
Gorgo.- The old creature has delivered herself of an
oracle and departed.
PraxÙlOe.- "10men can tell you everything about every-
thing, Jupiter's marriage with Juno not excepted.
Gorgo.-Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace
gates !
Praxi1loe.- Tren1endous ! Take hold of me, Gorgo;
and you, Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis !-tight hold, or
you'll be lost. Here we go in altogether. Hold tight to us,
Eunoe ! Oh, dear! oh, dear! Gorgo, there's nlY scarf
torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you
hope to be saved, take care of n1Y dress!
Strange1".-I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon
me.
134
Critical Essays
Praxlnoe.- 'Vhat heaps of people! They push like a
drove of pigs.
Stranger.-Don't be frightened, ma'am, we are an right.
Praxinoe.-1'Iay you be all right, my dear sir, to the last
day you live, for the care you have taken of us! 'Vhat a
kind, considerate man! There is Eunoe jammed in a
squeeze. Push, you goose, push! Capital! 'Ve are all of
us the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when
he had locked himself in with the bride.
Gorgo.- Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that
work, how delicate it is I-how exquisite! \Vhy, they might
wear it in heaven.
Praxinoe.-Heavenly patroness of needlewomen, what
hands were hired to do that work? \"ho designed those
beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and l110ve
about, as if they were real ;-as if they were living things,
and not needlework. \Vell, man is a wonderful creature!
And look, look, how charming he lies there on his silver
couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, that beloved
Adonis,-Adonis, whom one loves even though he is dead!
Another Stranger.- Y ou wretched women, do stop your
incessant chatter! Like turtles, you go on for ever. They
are enough to kill one with their broad lingo,-nothing but
- - -
a, a, a.
Gorgo.-Lord, where does the man come from? What
is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Order about your own
servants! Do you give orders to Syracusan won1en? IC
you want to know, we came originally from Corinth, as
Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose
Dorian women may be allowed to have a Dorian accent.
PraxÙzoe.-O, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no
more masters than the O'1e we've got! 'Ve don't the least
care for you,' pray don't trouble yourself for nothing.
Gorgo.-Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the
Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis
hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge
last year. 'Ve are sure to have something first-rate from her.
She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.
So tar the dialogue; and as it stands in the original, it
can hardly be praised too highly. It is a page torn fresh
out of the book of hun1an life. 'Vhat freedom! 'Vhat
animation! What gaiety! What naturalness! It is said
Re]igious Sentiment
135
that Theocritus in composing this poem, borrowed from a
work of Sophron, a poet of an earlier and better time; but,
even if this is so, the form is still Theocritus's own, and
how excellent is that form, how masterly! And this in a
Greek poem of the decadence I-for Theocritus's poetry,
after all, is poetry of the decadence. \Vhen such is Greek
poetry of the decadence, what must be Greek poetry of the
prime?
Then the singer begins her hymn :-
" l\Iistress, who loveth the haunts of Golgi, and ldalium,
and high-peaked Eryx, Aphrodite that playest with gold!
how have the delicate-footed Hours, after twelve months,
brought thy Adonis back to thee from the ever-flowing
Acheron! Tardiest of the immortals are the boon Hours,
but all mankind wait their approach with longing, for they
ever bring something with them. 0 Cypris, Dione's child!
thou didst change-so is the story among men-Berenice
from mortal to immortal, by dropping ambrosia into her
fair bosom; and in gratitude to thee for this, 0 thou
of many names and n1any temples! Berenice's daughter,
Arsinoe, lovely Helen's living counterpart, makes much of
Adonis with all manner of braveries.
6' All fruits that the tree bears are laid before him, all
treasures of the garden in silver baskets, and alabaster boxes,
gold-inlaid, of Syrian ointlnent; and all confectionery that
cunning women make on their kneading-tray, kneading up
every sort of flowers with white meal, and all that they 111ake
of sweet honey and delicate oil, and all winged and creeping
things are here set before him. And there are built for him
green bowers with wealth of tender anise, and little boy-
loves flutter about over them, like young nightingales trying
their new wings on the tree, from bough to bough. Oh,
the ebony, the gold, the eagle of white ivory that bears aloft
his cup-bearer to I(ronos-born Zeus! And up there, see!
a second couch strewn for lovely Adonis, scarlet coverlets
softer than sleep itself (so I\liletus and the Samian wool-
grower will say); Cypris has hers, and the rosy-armed
Adonis has his, that eighteen or nineteen-year-old bridegroom.
His kisses will not wound, the hair on his lip is yet light.
"Now, Cypris, good-night, we leave thee with thy bride-
groom; but to-lnorro\V morning, with the earliest dew, we
will one and all bear him forth to where the waves splash
13 6
Critical Essays
upon the sea-strand, and letting loose our locks, and letting
fall our robes, with bosoms bare, we will set up this, our
melodious strain:
'" Beloved Adonis, alone of the demigods (so men say)
thou art permitted to visit both us and Acheron! This lot
had neither Agamemnon, nor the mighty moon-struck hero
Ajax, nor Hector the first-born of Hecuba's twenty children,
nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus who came home fronl Troy, nor
those yet earlier Lapithæ and the sons of Deucalion, nor the
Pelasgians, the root of Argas and of Pelop's isle. Be
gracious to us now, loved Adonis, and be favourable to us
for the year to come! Dear to us hast thou been at this
coming, dear to us shalt thou be when thou comest again.' "
The poem concludes with a characteristic speech from
Corgo :-
" Praxinoe, certainly WOIllen are wonderful things. That
luckv woman to know all that! and luckier still to have
sud; a splendid voice! And no-w we must see about getting
home. My husband has not had his dinner. That nlan is
all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting
for his dinner, he's dangerous to go near. Adieu, precious
Adonis, and lTIay you find us all well when you come next
vear ! "
" So, with the hymn still in her ears, says the incorrigible
Gorgo.
But what a hynln that is! Of religious emotion, in our
acceptation of the words, and of the comfort springing from
religious emotion, not a particle. And yet many elements
of religious en10tiol1 are contained in the beautiful story of
Adonis. Synlbolically treated, as the thoughtful nlan might
treat it, as the Greek mysteries undoubtedly treated it, this
story was capable of a noble and touching application, and
could lead the soul to elevating and consoling thoughts.
Adonis was the sun in his sunlmer and in his winter course,
in his time of triumph and his time of defeat; but in his
tin1e of triumph still moving towards his defeat, in his tinle
of defeat still returning towards his triumph. Thus he
became an emblem of the power of life and the bloom of
beauty, the power of hunlan life and the bloon1 of human
beauty, hastening inevitably to diminution and decay, )'et
in that very decay finding
" IIope, and a renovation without end. JI
Religious Sentin1ent
137
But nothing of this appears in the story as prepared for
popular religious use, as presented to the 111ultitude !n a
popular religious ceremony. Irs treatment is not devoId of
a certain grace and beauty, but it has nothing whatever that
is elevating, nothing that is consoling, nothing that is in our
sense of the word religious. The religious cerelnonies of
Christendom, even on occasion of the most joyful and mun-
dane matters, present the multitude with strains of pro-
foundly religious character, such as the .A.yrie eleÙoll and
the Te Deul1l. But this Greek hymn to Adonis adapts
itself exactly to the tone and tenlper of a gay and pleasure-
loving multitude,-of light-hearted people, like Gorgo and
Praxinoe, whose nloral nature is llluch of the same calibre
as that of Phillina in Goethe's
Vilhebn .11Ieister, people who
seem never made to be serious, never made to be sick or
sorry. And, if they happen to be sick or sorry, what ,viII
they do then? But that we have no right to ask. Phillina,
within the enchanted bounds of Goethe's novel, Gorgo and
Praxinoe, within the enchanted bounds of Theocritus's poem,
never will be sick and sorry, never can be sick and sorry.
The ideal, cheerful, sensuous, pagan life is not sick or
sorry. No; yet its natural end is in the sort of life which
Pompeii and Herculaneu111 bring so vividly before uS,-a
life which by no means in itself suggests the thought of
horror and misery, which even, in 111any ways, gratifies the
senses and the understanding; but by the very intensity and
unremittingness of its appeal to the senses and the under-
standing, by its stinlulating a single side of us too absolutely,
ends by fatiguing and revolting us; ends by leaving us
with a sense of tightness, of oppression,-with a desire for
an utter change, for clouds, storms, effusion, and relief.
In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the
clouds and stor111S had C0111e, when the gay sensuous pagan
life was gone, when men were not living by the senses and
understanding, when they were looking for the speedy cOIning
of Antichrist, there appeared in Italy, to the north of Rome,
in the beautiful Un1brian country at the foot of the Apen-
nines, a figure of the most magical power and charm, St
Francis. I-lis century is, I think, the most interesting in
the history of Christianity after its primitive age, nlore
interesting than even the century of the Reformation; and
one of the chief figures, perhaps the very chief, to which
13 8
Critical Essays
this interest attaches itself, is St Francis. And why?
Because of the profound popular instinct which enabled him,
more than any man since the priInitive age, to fit religion
for popular use. He brought religion to the people. He
founded the most popular body of ministers of religion that
has ever existed in the Church. He transformed mona-
chism by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him
from the bondage of property, and sending hinI, as a
mendicant friar, to be a stranger and sojourner, not in the
wilderness, but in the most crowded haunts of men, to con-
sole them and do them good. This popular instinct of his
is at the bottom of his famous marriage with poverty.
Poverty and suffering are the condition of the people, the
multitude, the immense majority of rnankind; and it was
towards this peoþle that his soul yearned. "He listens," it
was said of hin1, "to those to whom God himself will not
listen. "
So in return, as no other man he was listened to. 'Vhen
an Umbrian town or village heard of his approach, the whole
population went out in joyful procession to meet him, with
green boughs, flags, music, and songs of gladness. The
master, who began with two disciples, could in his own
lifetime (and he died at forty-four) collect to keep 'Vhit-
suntide with him, in presence of an inlmense multitude,
five thousand of his !\1inorites. I-Ie found fulfilment to his
prophetic cry: "I hear in my ears the sound of the tongues
of all the nations who shall come unto us; Frenchmen,
Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of
us a great people, even unto the ends of the earth."
Prose could not satisfy this ardent soul, and he made
poetry. Latin was too learned for this simple, popular
nature, and he composed in his mother tongue, in Italian.
The beginnings of the mundane poetry of the Italians are
in Sicily, at the court of kings; the beginnings of their
religious poetry are in Umbrian, with St Francis. I-lis are
the humble upper waters of a mighty stream; at the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century it is St Francis, at the end,
Dante. N ow it happens that St Francis, too, like the
Alexandrian songstress, has his hymn for the sun, for Adonis.
Canticle of the Sun, Canticle of the Creatllres,-the poem
goes by both names. Like the Alexandrian hymn, it is
designed for popular use, but not for use by King Ptolelny's
Religious Sentiment
139
people; artless in language, irregular in rhythm, it matches
with the childlike genius that produced it, and the simple
natures that loved and repeated it :-
"0 1110st high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong
praise, glory, honour and all blessing!
"Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures; and
specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day, and
who brings us the light; fair is he, and shining with a very
great splendour: 0 Lord, he signifies to us thee!
H Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for
the stars, the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
"Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for
air and cloud, calms and all weather, by the which thou
upholdest in life all creatures.
"Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very
serviceable unto us, and hunlblc, and precious, and clean.
cc Praised be my lord for our brother fire, through whom
thou givest us light in the darkness j and he is bright, and
pleasant, and very mighty, and strong.
" Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which
doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits,
and flowers of nlany colours, and grass.
" Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another
for his love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribula-
tion; blessed are they who peaceably shall endure, for
thou, 0 most Highest, shalt give them a crown!
"Praised be iny Lord for our sister, the death of the
body, from whonl no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth
in nlortal sin! Blessed are they who are found walking by
thy most holy win, for the second death shall have no power
to do them harm.
" Praise ye, and bless ye the Lord, and give thanks unto
hÏ111, and serve him with great hun1Îlity."
I t is natural that man should take pleasure in his senses.
It is natural, also, that he should take refuge in his heart
and inlagination from his nlisery. \Vhen one thinks what
hun1an life is for the vast nlajority of mankind, how little of
a feast for their senses it can possibly be, one understands
the charm for them of a refuge offered in the heart and
imagination. Above an, when one thinks what human life
was in the !\liddle Ages, one understands the charm of such
a refuge.
14 0
Critical Essays
NO'w, the poetry of Theocritus's hymn is poetry treating
the world according to the demand of the senses; the poetry
of 8t Francis's hynln is poetry treating the world according
to the demand of the heart and inlagination. The first takes
the world by its outward, sensible side; the second by its
inward, symbolical side. The first admits as much of the
world as is pleasure-giving; the second admits the whole
world, rough and smooth, painful and pleasure-giving, all
alike, but all transfigured by the power of a spiritual enlotion,
all brought under a law of supernatural love, having its seat
in the soul. It can thus even say: "Praised be 11lY Lord
for our sister, the death 0.1 the body."
But these very words are an indication that we are
touching upon an extreme. 'Vhen we see Pompeii, we
can put our finger upon the pagan sentiment in its extreme.
And when we read of Monte .f\lverno and the stig111ata;
when we read of the repulsive, because self-caused, suffer-
ings of the end of St Francis's life; when we find him even
saying, "I have sinned against my brother the ass," meaning
by these words that he had been too hard upon his own
body; when we find him doubting" whether he who had
destroyed himself by the severity of his penances could find
mercy in eternity," we can put our finger on the mediæval
Christian sentinlent in its extrenle. Human nature is
neither all senses and understanding, nor all heart and
imagination. Pompeii was a sign that for humanity at large
the n1easure of sensualism had been overpassed; St Francis ' s
doubt was a sign that for humanity at large the measure of
spiritualism had been overpassed. Humanity, in its violent
rebound fronl one extreme, had swung from Pompeii to
Monte ...\lverno; but it was sure not to stay there.
The R.enaissance is, in part, a return towards the pagan
spirit, in the special sense in which I have been using the
word pagan; a return towards the life of the senses and the
understanding. The Reformation, on the other hand, is the
very opposite to this; in Luther there is nothing Greek ør ·
pagan; vehemently as he attacked the adoration of 8t
Francis, Lu ther had hinlself son1ething of 8t Francis in
him; he was a thousand times more akin to St Francis
than to Theocritus or to V olta.ire. The real Reformation,
Luther's Reformation, the Gennan Reronnation, was a
reaction of the n10ral and spiritual sense against the carnal
Relie-iollS Sentiment
'
14 1
and pagan sense; it was a religious revival like St Francis's,
but this time against the Church of Rome, not within her;
for the carnal and pagan sense had now, in the government
of the Church of Rome herself, its prirne representative.
The grand reaction against the rule of the heart and imagina-
tion, the strong return towards the rule of the senses and
understanding, is in the eighteenth century. And this re-
action has had no rnore brilliant champion than a man of
the nineteenth, of whom I have already spoken; a man who
could feel not only the pleasurableness but the poetry of the
life of the senses (and the life of the senses has its deep
poetry;) a rnan who, in his very last poem, divided the
wholewor1d into "barbarians and Greeks,"-Heinrich Heine.
No man has reproached the
ionte Alverno extreme in
sentiment, the Christian extreme, the heart and imagination
subjugating the senses and understanding, more bitterly
than Heine; no man has extolled the Pompeii extreme, the
pagan extreme, more rapturously.
" All through the 1vIiddle Age these sufferings, this fever,
this over-tension lasted; and we moderns still feel in all our
limbs the pain and weakness from them. Even those of us
who are cured have still to live with a hospital atmosphere
all around us, and find ourselves as \vretched in it as a
strong man among the sick. Some day or other, when
humanity shall have got quite well again, when the body and
soul shall have made their peace together, the factitious
quarrel which Christianity has cooked up between them will
appear son1ething hardly comprehensible. The fairer and
happier generations, offspring of unfettered unions, that will
rise up and bloom in the atmosphere of a religion of pleasure,
will smile sadly when they think of their poor ancestors,
whose life was passed in melancholy abstinence from the
joys of this beautiful earth, and who faded away into
spectres, from the mortal compression which they put upon
the warm and glowing emotions of sense. Yes, with assur.
ance I say it, our descendants will be íairer and happier
than we are; for I am a believer in progress, and I hold
God to be a kind being who has intended n1an to be
happy."
That is 1-Ieine's sentin1ent, in the prin1e of life, in the
glow of activity, arnid the brilliant whirl of Paris. I will no
more blame it than I blanled the sentiment of the Greek
14 2
Critical Essays
hymn to Adonis. I wish to decide nothing as of nlyown
authority; the great art of criticism is to get oneself out ot
the way and to let humanity decide. \Vell, the sentiment
of the cc religion of pleasure" has much that is natural in it;
humanity will gladly accept it if it can live by it; to live by
it one must never be sick or sorry, and the old, ideal,
lin1ited, pagan world never, I have said, uJas sick or sorry,
never at least shows itself to us sick or sorry :-
"What pipes and timbrels! what wild ecstasy!"
:For our imagination, Gorgo and Praxinoe cross the human
stage chattering in their blithe Doric,-like turtles, as the
cross stranger said,-and keep gaily chattering on till they
disappear. But in the new, real, immense, post-pagan
world,-in the barbarian world,-the shock of accident is
unceasing, the serenity of existence is perpetually troubled,
not even a Greek like Heine can get across the mortal stage
without bitter calamity. How does the sentin1ent of the
U religion of pleasure" serve then? does it help, does it
console? Can a man live by it? Heine again shall
answer; I-Ieine just twenty years older, stricken with in-
curable disease, waiting for death :-
"The great pot stands smoking before me, but I have no
spoon to help myself. \Vhat does it profit me that my
health is drunk at banquets out of gold cups and in most
exquisite wines, if I myself, while these ovations are going
on, lonely and cut off from the pleasures of the world, can
only just wet my lips with barley-water? 'Vhat good does
it do me that all the roses of Shiraz open their leaves and
burn for me with passionate tenderness? Alas! Shiraz is
some two thousand leagues from the Rue d' Amsterdam,
where in the solitude of I11Y sick chamber all the perfume I
srnell is that of hot towels. Alas! the mockery of God is
heavy upon me! 'rhe great Author of the universe, the
Aristophanes of Heaven, has determined to make the petty
earthly author, the so-called Aristophanes of Germany, feel
to his heart's core what pitiful needle-pricks his cleverest
sarcasms have been, comp:.tred with the thunderbolts which
his divine humour can launch against feeble mortals I . . .
"In the year 1340, says the' Chronicle of Limburg,' all
over Gern1any everybody was strumn1ing and hun1n1Íng
certain songs more lovely and delightful than any which had
Religious Sentilnent
143
ever yet been known in German countries: and all people,
old and young, the women particularly, were perfectly mad
about them, so that from morning till night you heard
nothing else. Only, the C Chronicle' adds, the author of these
songs happened to be a young clerk, afflicted with leprosy,
and living apart from all the world in a desolate place.
The excellent reader does not require to be told how
horrible a complaint was leprosy in the Middle Ages, and
how the poor wretches who had this incurable plague were
banished from society, and had to keep at a distance from
every human being. Like living corpses, in a grey gown
reaching down to the feet, and with the hood brought over
their face, they went about, carrying in their hands an
enormous rattle, called Saint Lazarus's rattle. \Vith this
rattle they gave notice of their approach, that everyone
might have time to get out of their way. This poor clerk,
then, whose poetical gift the C Limburg Chronicle' extols, was
a leper, and he sate moping in the dismal deserts of his
misery, whilst all Germany, gay and tuneful, was praising
his songs.
"Son1etimes, in my sombre visions of the night, I imagine
that I see before me the poor leprosy-stricken clerk of the
'Limburg Chronicle,' and fron1 under his grey hood his
distressed eyes look out upon me in a fixed and strange
fashion; but the next instant he disappears, and I hear
dying away in the distance, like the echo of a dream, the
dull creak of Saint Lazarus's rattle."
\Ve have C0111e a long way from Theocritus there: the
expression of that has nothing of the clear, positive, happy,
pagan character; it has much more the character of one of
the indeterminate grotesques of the suffering l\Iiddle Age.
Profoundness and power it has, though at the same tinle it
is not truly poetical; it is not natural enough for that, there
is too nluch waywardness in it, too much bravado. But as
a condition of sentiment to be popular,-to be a conlfort
for the nlass of mankind, under the pressure of calan1Ïty, to
live by,-what a manifest failure is this last word of the
religion of pleasure! One man in nlany millions, a Heine,
may console himself, and keep himself erect in suffering, by
a colossal irony of this sort, by covering himself and the
universe with the red fire of this sinister n10ckery: but the
many millions cannotJ-cannot if they would. That is
144
Critical Essays
where the sentiment of a religion of sorrow has such a vast
advantage over the sentiment of a religion of pleasure; in
its power to be a general, popular, religious sentin1ent, a
stay for the mass of mankind, whose lives are full of hard-
ship. It really succeeds in conveying far more joy, far
more of what the mass of mankind are so much without,
than its rival. I do not mean joy in prospect only, but joy
in possession, actual enjoyn1ent of the world. 11ediæval
Christianity is reproached with its gloom and austerities; it
assigns the material world, says Heine, to the devil. But
yet what a fulness of delight does 8t Francis manage to
d:-aw from this material world itself, and from its COlnmonest
and most universally enjoyed elements,-sun, air, earth.
water, plants! His hymn expresses a far more cordial sense
of happiness, even in the material world, than the hymn of
1'heocritus. It is this which made the fortune of mediæval
Christianity,-its gladness, not its sorrow; not its assigning
the spiritual world to Christ, and the material world to the
devil, but its drawing from the spiritual world a source of
joy so abundant that it ran over upon the material world
and transfigured it.
I have said a great deal of harm of paganism; and, taking
paga-nisin to mean a state of things which it is con1lnonly
taken to mean, and which did really exist, no 1110re harm
than it wel] deserved. Yet I ITIUst not end without rernind-
ing the reader, that before this state of things appeared,
there was an epoch in Greek life,-in pagan life,-of the
highest possible beauty and value, an epoch which alone
goes far towards making Greece the Greece we mean when
we speak of Greece,-a country hardly less in1portant to
mankind than Judæa. The poetry of later paganism lived
by the senses and understanding; the poetry of mediæval
Christianity lived by the heart and imagination. But the
main element of the modern spirit's life is neither the senses
and understanding, nor the heart and imagination; it is the
imaginative reason. And there is a century in Greek life,
-the century preceding the Peloponnesian war, from about
the year 530 to the year 430 B.c.,-in which poetry made,
it seems to me, the noblest, the most successful effort she
has ever made as the priestess of the imaginative reason, of
the elen1ent by which the modern spirit, if it would live
right, has chiefly to live. Of this effort, of which the four
Religious Sentiment
145
great names are Simonides, Pindar, Æschylus, Sophocles, I
must not now attempt more than the bare nlention; but it
is right, it is necessary, after all I have said, to indicate it.
No doubt that effort was imperfect. Perhaps everything,
take it at what point in its existence you will, carries within
itself the fatal law of its own ulterior development. Perhaps,
even of the life of Pindar's time, Pornpeii was the inevitable
bourne. Perhaps the life of their beautiful Greece could
not afford to its poets all that fulness of varied experience,
all that power of emotion, which
". . . the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,"
affords the poet of after-times. Perhaps in Sophocles the
thinking-power a little overbalances the religious sense, a!)
in Dante the religious sense overbalances the thinking-
power. The present has to make its own poetry, and not
even Sophocles and his COll1peers, any n10re than Dante
and Shakspeare, are enough for it. That I will not dispute.
But no other poets so well show to the poetry of the
present the way it must take; no other poets have lived so
much by the illlaginative reason; no other poets have lnade
their work so well balanced; no other poets, who have so
well satisfied the thinking-power, have so well satisfied the
religious sense :-
C& Oh! that my lot may lead me in the path of holy
innocence of word and deed, the path which august laws
ordain, laws that in the highest empyrean had their birth, of
which Heaven is the father alone, neither did the race of
mortal lllen beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them to
sleep. The power of God is mighty in them, and groweth
not old."
Let Theocritus or St Francis beat that!
VII
JOUBERT; OR A FRENCH COLERIDGE
WHY should we ever treat of any dead authors but the
fanlous ones? rVlainly for this reason; because, from these
fatuous personages, home or foreign, whom we all know so
well, and of whoin so n1uch has been said, the alTIOunt of
stimulus which they contain for us has been in a great
Ineasure disengaged; people have formed their opinion
about them, and do not readily change it. One may write
of them afresh, combat received opinions about them, even
interest one's readers In so doing; but the interest one=s
readers receive has to do, in general, rather with the treat-
ment than with the subject; they are susceptible of a lively
impression rather of the course of the discussion itself,-its
turns, vivacity, and novelty,-than of the genius of the
author who is the occasion of it. And yet, what is really
precious and inspiring, in all that we get from literature,
except this sense of an -immediate contact with genius itself,
and the stimulus towards what is true and excellent which
we derive from it? N ow in literature, besides the erninent
men of genius who have had their deserts in the way of
fanle, besides the eminent men of ability who have often
had far more than their deserts in the way of fame, there are
a certain number of personages who have been real men of
genius,-by which we nlean, that they have had a genuine
organ for what is true and excellent, and are therefore
capable of elnitting a life-giving stin1ulus,-but who, for
son1e reason or other, in most cases for very valid reasons,
have remained obscure, nay, beyond a narrow circle in their
own country, unknown. It is salutary from time to time to
come across a genius of this kind, and to extract his honey.
Often he has n10re of it for us, as we have already said, than
greater men; for, though it is by no means true that from
what is new to us there is nlost to be learnt, it i
}'et indis-
146
Joubert; or a French C.oleridge 147
putably true that frOOl what is new to us we in generalleacn
most.
Of a genius of this kind, Joseph J aubert, we are now
going to speak. His name is, we believe, almost unknown in
England j and even in France, his native country, it is not
famous. 11. Sainte-Beuve bas given of him one of his
incomparable portraits; but,-besides that even 11. Sainte-
Beuve's writings are far less known amongst us than they
deserve to be,-every country has its own point of view from
which a remarkable author may most profitably be seen and
studied.
Joseph Joubert was born (and his date should be re-
marked) in 1754, at 1vlontignac, a little town in Périgord.
His father was a doctor with small means and a large fatnily;
and Joseph, the eldest, had his own way to n1ake in the
world. He was for eight years, as pupil first, and afterwards
as an assistant-master, in the public school of Toulouse, then
managed by the Jesuits, who seem to have left in him a
most favourable opinion, not only of their tact and address,
but of their really good qualities as teachers and directors.
Compelled by the weakness of his health to give up, at
twenty-two, the profession of teaching, he passed two impor-
tant years of his life in hard study, at home at Montignac;
and came in 1778 to try his fortune in the literary world of
Paris, then perhaps the most tempting field which has ever
yet presented itself to a young man of letters. He knew
Diderot, D'.L-\lembert, Marmontel, Laharpe j he became
intimate with one of the celebrities of the next literary
generation, then, like himseJf, a young man,-Chateau-
briand's friend, the future Grand 1Iaster of the University,
Fontanes. But, even then, it began to be remarked of him,
that 11. Joubert c, s'lnquiétait de þeifecti'on bien þlus que de
gloire-cared far more about perfecting himself than about
making himself a reputation." His severity of morals may
perhaps have been rendered easier to him by the delicacy
of his health j but the delicacy of his health will not by
itself account for his changeless preference of being to
seeo1ing, knowing to showing, studying to pub1ishing; for
what terrible public performers have some invalids been!
This preference he retained all through his life, and it is by
this that he is char:1cterised. U lIe has chosen," Chateau-
briand (adopting Epicurus's famous words) said of him) U to
14 8
Critical Essays
hide his lift." Of a life which its owner was bent on hiding
there can be but little to tell. Yet the only two public
incidents of Joubert's life, slight as they are, do all concerned
in them so n1uch credit that they deserve mention. In
1790 the Constituent Assen1bly made the office of justice of
the peace elective throughout France. The people of
Iontignac retained such an impression of the character of
their young townsman,-one of Plutarch's men of virtue, as
he had lived amongst them, simple, studious, severe,-that,
though he had left them for years, they elected him in his
absence without his knowing anything about it. The ap-
pointment little suited Joubert's wishes or tastes; but at such
a moment he thought it wrong to decline it. He held it for
two years, the legal term, discharging its duties with a firnl-
ness and integrity which were long remembered; and then,
when he went out of office, his fellow-townsmen re-elected
him. But Joubert thought that he had now accomplished
his duty towards them, and he went back to the retirement
which he loved. That seems to me a little episode of the
great French Revolution worth rernembering. The sage
who was asked by the king, why sages were seen at the doors
of kings, but not kings at the doors of sages, replied, that it
was because sages knew what was good for them, and kings
did not. But at Montignac the king-for in 1790 the
people in France was king with a vengeance-knew what
was good for him, and came to the door of the sage.
The other incident was this. 'Vhen Napoleon, in 1809,
reorganised the public instruction of France, founded the
University, and made M. de Fontanes its Grand 11aster,
Fontanes had to submit to the Emperor a list of persons to
form the councilor governing body of the new University..
Third on his list, after two distinguished names Fontanes
placed the unknown nan1e of Joubert. "This name," he
said in his accon1panying memorandum to the Emperor,
"is not known as the two first are; and yet this is the
nomination to which I attach most importance. I have
known M. Joubert all my life. His character and intelli-
gence are of the very highest order. I shall rejoice if
your
fajesty will accept my guarantee for him." Napoleon
trusted his Grand 1 1 Iaster, and Joubert became a councillor
of the University. It is something that a man, elevated to
the highest posts of State, should not forget his obscure
Joubert; or a Frencll Coleridge 149
friends; or that, if he remembers and places them, he
should regard in placing them their merit rather than their
obscurity. It is n10re, in the eyes of those whom the
necessities, real or supposed, of a political system have
long familiarised with such cynical disregard of fitness in the
distribution of office, to see a minister and his master alike
zealous, in giving away places, to give them to the best men
to be found.
Between 1792 and 1809 Joubert had n1arried. His life
was passed between Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where his wife's
family lived,-a pretty little Burgundian town, by which the
Lyons railroad now passes,-and Paris. Here, in a house
in the Rue St.-Honoré, in a room very high up, and ad-
mitting plenty of the light which he so loved,-a room from
which he saw, in his own words, "a great deal of sky and
very little earth,"-arnong the treasures of a library collected
with infinite pains, taste, and skill, from which every book
he thought ill of was rigidly excluded,-he never would
possess either a complete Voltaire or a complete Rousseau,
-the happiest hours of his life were passed. In the circle
of one of those women who leave a sort of perfume in
literary history, and who have the gift of inspiring successive
generations of readers with an indescribable regret not to
have known them,-Pauline de lvlontmorin, 1\-1adame de
]Je
nllnont,-he had become intimate with nearly all which
at that time, in the Paris world of letters or of society, was
n10st attractive and promising. Amongst his acquaintances
one only misses the names of lVladame de Staël and Benjamin
Constant; neither of them '.vas to his taste, and with
l\Iadame de Staël he always refused to become acquainted j
I he thought she had more vehenlence than truth, and more
I heå.t than light. Years went on, and his friends became
I conspicuous authors or statesmen; but Joubert remained
in the shade. His constitution was of such fragility that
how he lived so long, or accomplished so nluch as he did,
is a wonder: his soul had, for its basis of operations, hardly
any body at all: both from his stomach and from his chest
he seen1S to have had constant suffering, though he lived by
rule, and was as abstemious as a Hindoo. Often, after
overwork in thinking, reading, or talking, he remained for
days together in a state of utter prostration,-condemned
to absolute silence and inaction; too happy if the agitation
15 0 Critical Essays
of his Inind would beconle quiet also, and let him have the
repose of which he stood in so much need. \Vith this
weakness of health, these repeated suspensions of energy,
he was incapable of the prolonged contention of spirit
necessary for the creation of great works; but he read and
thought immensely; he was an unwearied note-taker, a
channing letter-writer; above all, an excellent and delight-
ful talker. 1
he gaiety and amenity of his natural disposition
were inexhaustible; and his spirit, too, was of astonishing
elasticity; he seemed to bold on to life by a s
ngle thread
only, but that single thread was very tenacious. :i\[ore and
more, as his soul and knowledge ripened more and Ul0re,
his friends pressed to his rOOln in the Rue St.-Honoré;
often he received them in bed, for he seldon1 rose before
three o'clock in the afternoon; and at his bedroom-door, on
his bad days, 1Iadame Joubert stood sentry, trying, not
always with success, to keep back the thirsty comers froin
the fountain which was forbidden to flow. Fontanes did
nothing in the University without consulting hinl, and
Joubert's ideas and pen were ahvays at his friend's service.
When he was in the country, at Villeneuve, the young
priests of his neighbourhood used to resort to him, in order
to profit by his library and by his conversation. lIe, like
our Coleridge, was particularly qualified to attract men of
this kind and to benefit them: retaining perfect inùepen-
dence of mind, he was religious; he was a religious
philosopher. As age caIne on, his infirnlities became nlore
and 1110re overwhelming; some of his friends, too, died;
others became so iUImersed in politics, that Joubert, who
hated politics, saw them seldomer than of old; but the
moroseness of age and infirrnity never touched hinl, and he
never quarrelled with a friend or lost one. From these
miseries he was preserved by that quality in bin1 of which we
have already spoken; a quality which is best expressed by
a word, not of common use in English,-alas, we have too
little in our national character of the quality which this
word expresses,-his inborn, his constant amenity. He
lived till the year 1824. On the 4th of Ivlay in that year he
died, at the age of seventy. A day or two after his death
M. de Chateaubriand inserted in the Journal des Débats a
short notice of him, perfect for its feeling, grace, and
propriety. On ,ze flil dans la fJlétnoire du monde, he says
Joubert; or a French Coleridge ISI
and says truly, que jar des travaux þour Ie m01lde,-" a man
can live in the world's memory only by what he has done
for the world." But Chateaubriand used the privilege which
his great name gave him to assert, delicately but firmly,
Joubert's real and rare merits, and to tell the world what
manner of man had just left it.
Joubert's papers were accumulated in boxes and drawers.
He had not meant them for publication; it was very
difficult to sort them and to prepare them for it. 1YIadame
Joubert, his widow, had a scruple about giving them a
publicity which her husband, she felt, would never have
permitted. But, as her own end approached, the natural
desire to leave of so remarkable a spirit some enduring
memorial, some memorial to outlast the adn1Ìring recollec-
tion of the living who were so fast passing away, made her
yield to the entreaties of his friends, and allow the printing,
but for private circulation only, of a volume of his frag-
ments, Chateaubriand edited it; it appeared in 1838,
fourteen years after Joubert's death. The yolun1e attracted
the attention of those who were best fitted to appreciate it,
and profoundly impressed then1. 11. Sainte-Beuve gave of
it, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, the adn1irable notice of
which we have already spoken; and so much curiosity was
excited about Joubert, that the collection of his fragments,
enlarged by many additions, was at last published for the
benefit of the world in general. It has since been twice
reprinted. The first or preliminary chapter has some
fancifulness and affectation in it; the reader should begin
with the second.
\Ve have likened Joubert to Coleridge; and, indeed the
points of resemblance between the two men are numerous.
Both of them great and celebrated talkers, Joubert attracting
pilgrims to his upper chamber in the Rue St.-Honoré, as
Coleridge attracted pilgrin1s to Mr Gilman's at I-lighgate;
both of thetll desultory and incomplete writers,-here they
had an outward likeness with one another. Both of them
passionately devoted to reading in a class of books, and to
thinking on a class of subjects, out of the beaten line of
the reading and thought of their day; both of them ardent
students and critics of old literature, poetry, and the
metaphysics of religion; both of them curious explorers of
words, and of the latent significance hidden under the
IS2
Critical Essays
popular use of them; both of them, in a certain sense,
conservative in religion and politics, by antipathy to the
narrow and shallow foolishness of vulgar modern liberalism;
-here they had their inward and real likeness. But that
in which the essence of their likeness consisted is this,-that
they both had from nature an ardent impulse for seek-
ing the genuine truth on all nlatters they thought about,
and an organ for finding it and recognising it when it was
found. To have the impulse for seeking this truth is much
rarer than lnost people think; to have the organ for finding
it is, we need not say, very rare indeed. By this they have
a spiritual relationship of the closest kind with one another,
and they becoille, each of thenl, a source of stimulus and
progress for all of us.
Coleridge had less delicacy and penetration than
Joubert, but more richness and power; his production,
though far inferior to what his nature at first seeilled to
promise, was abundant and yaried. Yet in aU hig
production how much is there to dissatisfy us! How lllany
reserves must be made in praising either his poetry, or his
criticism, or his philosophy! How little either of his
poetry, or of his criticism, or of his philosophy, can we
expect pernlanently to stand! But that which will stand of
Coleridge is this: the stilllulus of his continual effort,-not
a moral effort, for he had no morals,-but of his continuai
instinctive effort, crowned often with rich success, to get at
and to lay bare the real truth of his 111atter in hand, whether
that nlatter were literary, or philosophical, or political, or
religious; and this in a country where at that moment such
an effort was ahnost unknown; where the most powerful
minds threw theillseives upon poetry, which conveys truth,
indeed, but conveys it intfirectly; and where ordinary nlinds
were so habituated to do without thinking altogether, to
regard considerations of established routine and practical
conven
ence as p3.ranlount, that any attempt to introduce
within the donlain of these the disturbing element of thought
they were prompt to resent as an outrage. Coleridge's great
usefulness lay in his supplying in England, for n1any years
and under critical circulnstances, by the spectacle of this
effort of his, a stinlulus to all n1inds, in the generation which
grew up around hinl, capable of profiting by it; his action
will still be felt as long as the need for it continues; when,
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 153
with the cessation of the need, the action too has ceased,
Coleridge's memory, in spite of the disesteem-nay,
repugnance-which his character may and must inspire,
will yet for ever remain invested with that interest and
gratitude which invests the memory of founders.
11. de Rémusat, indeed, reproaches Coleridge with h1S
jugements SGugrellus,. the criticism of a gifted truth-finder
ought not to be saugrenu, so on this reproach we must
pause for a n10ment. Saug1'enu is a rather vulgar French
,,'ord, but, like many other vulgar words, very expressive;
used as an epithet for a judgment, it means something like
imþudently abslu'd. The literary judgments of one rjation
abeut another are very apt to be saugretllls" it is certainly
true, as 1\1. Sainte-Beuve remarks in answer to Goethe's
complaint against the French that they have undervalued
Du Bartas, that as to the estimate of its own authors every
nation is the best judge; the þositive estimate pf them, be
it understood, not, of course, the estimate of them in COil1-
rarison with the authors of other nations. Therefore, a
foreigner's judgments about the intrinsic merit of a nation's
authors will generally, when at complete variance with that
nation's own, be wrong; but there is a pern1Íssible wrong-
ness in these matters, and to that permissible wrongness
there is a lin1it. 'Vhen that lin1it is exceeded, the wrong
judgment becon1es more than wrong, it becolnes saugrellU,
or impudently absurd. For instance, the high estimate
which the French have of Racine is probably in great
measure deserved; or, to take a yet stronger case, even the
high estin1ate which Joubert had of the Abbé l)elille is
probably in great n1eaSl1re deserved; but the common
òisparaging judgment passed on Racine by English readers
is not sa'll.RrellU, still less is that passed by them on the
Abbé Delille saugre1lU, because the beauty of Racine, and
of Delille too, so far as Delille's beauty goes, is eminentlY in
their language, and this is a beauty which a foreigner cannot
perfectly seize ;-this beauty of diction, aþicibus verborum
It.:!(ala, as 1'1. Saint-Reuve, quoting Quintilian, says of
Chateau bri:1nd's. As to Chateaubriand himself, again,
the comn10n English judgment, which stamps him as a
nlere shallow rhetorician, all froth and vanity, is certainly
wrong, one lllay even wonder thFtt we English should judge
Chateaubriand so wrongly, for his power goes far bèyond
154
Critical Essays
beauty of diction; it is a power, as wen, of passion and
sentin1cnt, and this sort of power the English can perfectly
well appreciate. One production of Chateau briand's,
Rtné, is akin to the most popular productions of Byron,-
to the Chi/de .Harold or JJfanfred,-in spirit, equal to them in
power, superior to them in form. But this work, we hardly
know why, is almost unread in England. And only let us con-
sider this criticism of Chateau briand's on the true pathetic:
" It is a dangerous mistake, sanctioned, like so many other
dangerous mistakes, by Voltaire, to suppose that the best
works of imagination are those which draw most tears. One
could name this or that melodran1a, which no one would
like to own having written, and which yet harrows the
feelings far more than the Æneid. The true tears are those
which are called forth by the beauty of poetry; there must
be as much admiration in them as sorrow. They are the
tears which come to our eyes when Priam says to Achilles,
E7'ì
"l1 ò., oì" OU'7l'W . . .-' And I have endured,-the like
whereof no soul upon the earth hath yet endured,-to carry
to nlY lips the hand of hin1 who slew my child; J or when
Joseph cries out: 'I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold
into Egypt. J JJ \Vho does not feel that the Dlan who wrote
that was no shallow rhetorician, but a born man of genius,
with the true instinct of genius for what is really adn1irable ?
Nay, take these words of Chateau briand, an old man of
eighty, dying, amidst the noise and bustle of the ignoble
revolution of February 1848: "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, quand
done, quand done serai-je délivré de tout ce monde, ce bruit;
quand done, quand done cela finira-t-il ?" \Vho, with any ear,
does not feel that those are not the accents of a trumpery
rhetorician, but of a rich and puissant nature,-the cry of the
dying lion? 'Ve repeat it, Chateaubriand is most ignorantly
underrated in England; and the English are capable of
rating him far n1ùre correctly if they knew him better. Still
Chateaubriand has such real and great faults, he falls so
decidedly beneath the rank of the truly greatest authors,
that the depreciatory judgment passed on hin1 in England,
though ignorant and wrong, can hardly be said to transgress
the lilnits of permissible ignorance; it is not a jugemenf
saugre1lu. But when a critic denies genius to a literature
which has produced Bossuet and 1\Iolière, he passes the
bounds; and Coleridge's judgments on French literature
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 155
and the French genius are undoubtedly, as :!vI. de Rémusat
calls them, saugrenus.
And yet, such is the impetuosity of our poor human
nature, such its proneness to rush to a decision with
imperfect knowledge, that his having delivered a saug1.enu
judgment or two in his life by no means proves a man not
to have had, in comparison with his fel1ow-men in general,
a remarkable organ for truth, or disqualifies him for being,
by virtue of that organ, a source of vital stimulus for us.
Joubert had far less smoke and turbid vehemence in him
than Coleridge; he had also a far keener sense of what was
absurd. But Joubert can write to 11. Molé (the
L 1\Iolé
who was afterwards Louis Philippe's well-known n1Ïnister) :
"As to your Milton, whom the merit of the Abbé Delille 11
(the Abbé Delille translated Paradise Lost) "makes me
admire, and with whom I have nevertheless still plenty of
fault to find, why, I should like to know, are you scandalised
that I have not enabled n1yself to read him? I don't
understand the language in which he writes, and I don't
much care to. If he is a poet one cannot put up ,vith,
even in the prose of the younger Racine, am I to blame for
that? If by force you mean beauty manifesting itself with
power, I maintain that the Abbé Delille has more force
than 1Iilton." That, to be sure, is a petulant outburst in
a private letter; it is not, like Coleridge's, a deliberate
proposition in a printed philosophical essay. But is it
possible to imagine a more perfect specimen of a saugrenu
judgment? It is even worse than Coleridge's, because it is
saugrenu with reasons. That, however, does not prevent
Joubert from having been really a man of extraordinary
ardour in the search for truth, and of extraordinary fineness
in the perception of it; and so was Coleridge.
Joubert had around him in France an atmosphere of
literary, philosophical, and religious opinion as alien to him
as that in England was to Coleridge. This is what makes
Joubert, too, so remarkable, and it is on this account that
we begged the reader to remark his date. He was born in
1754; he died in 1824. He was thus in the fulness of his
powers at the beginning of the present century, at the epoch
of Napoleon's consulate. The French criticism of that
day-the criticism of Laharpe's successors, of Geoffrov and
bis colleagues in the .Journal des Dibats-had a d;yness
f5 6
Critical Essays
very unlike the telling vivacity of the early Edinburgh
reviewers, their contenlporaries, but a fundatnental narrow-
ness, a want of genuine insight, nluch on a par with theirs.
Joubert, like Coleridge, had no respect for the dominant
oracle; he treats his Geoffroy with about as little deference
as Coleridge treats his Jeffrey. " Geoffroy, " he says in an
article in the Journal des Dibats criticising Chateaubriand's
Génie du Christiallisnle-" Geoffroy in this article begins by
holding out his paw prettily enough; but he ends by
a volley of kicks, which lets the whole world see but too
clearly the four iron shoes of the four-footed animal."
There is, however, in France a sympathy with intellectual
activity for its own sake, and for the sake of its inherent
pleasurableness and beauty, keener than any which exists
in England; and Joubert had more effect in Paris,-
though his conversation was his only weapon, and Coleridge
wielded besides his conversation his pen,-than Coleridge
had or could have in London. \Ve nlean, a more immediate,
appreciable effect; an effect not only upon the young and
enthusiastic, to whom the future belongs, but upon formed
and important personages to whom the present belongs
and who are actually moving society. I-Ie owed this partiy
to his real advantages over Coleridge. If he had, as we have
already said, less power and richness than his English
parallel, he had more tact and penetration. He was 1110re
possible than Coleridge; his doctrine was more intelligible
than Coleridge's, more receivable. And yet with Joubert,
the striving after a consumn1ate and attractive clearness of
expression came from no mere frivolous dislike of labour
and inability for going deep, but was a part of his native
love of truth and perfection. rrhe delight of his life he
found in truth, and in the satisfaction which the enjoying
of truth gives to the spirit; and he thought the truth was
never really and worthily said, so long as the least cloud,
clunlsiness, and repulsiveness hung about the expression of it.
SOl1le of his best passages are those in which he upholds
this doctrine. Even metaphysics he would not allow
to re111ain difficult anà abstract: so long as they spoke a
professional jargon, the language of the schools, he
maintained,-and who shall gainsay him ?-that metaphysics
were imperfect; or, at any rate, had not yet reached theu
ideal perfection.
Joubert; or a f'rench Coleridge 157
"The true science of metaphysics," he says, "consists
pot in rendering abstract that which is sensible, but in
rendering sensi ble that which is abstract; apparent that
which is hidden; imaginable, if so it may be, that which is
only intelligible; and intelligible, finally, that which an
ordinary attention fails to seize."
And therefore
"distrust, in books on n1etaphysics, words which have
not been able to get currency in the world, and are
only ca1culated to form a special language."
Nor would he suffer common words to be employed in a
special sense by the schools :-
""Thich is the best, if one wants to be t:seful and to be
really understood, to get one's words in the world, or to get
them in the schools. I maintain that the good plan is to
employ words in their popular sense rather than in their
philosophical sense; and the better plan still, to en1ploy
them in their natural sense rather than in their popular
sense. By their natural sense, I mean the popular and
universal accept3.tion of them brought to that which in this
is essential and invariable. To prove a thing by definition
proves nothing, if the definition is purely philosophical;
for such definitions only bind him who makes then1. To
prove a thing by definition, when the definition expresses
the necessary, inevitable, and clear idea which the world at
large attaches to the object, is, on the contrary, all in all ;
because then what one does is sin1ply to show people what
they do really think, in spite of then1selves and without
knowing it. The rule that one is free to give to words
what sense one wiH, and that the only thing needful is to be
agreed upon the sense one gives them, is v
ry well for the
mere purposes of arglunentation, and Inay be allowed in
the schools where this sort of fencing is to be practised;
but in the sphere of the true-born and noble science of
D1etaphysics, and in the genuine world of literature, it
is good for nothing. One n1ust never quit sight' of realities,
and one must en1ploy one's expressions sinlply as media,
-as glasses, through which one's thoughts can be best
made evident. I know, by my own experience, how hard
this rule is to follow; but I judge of its importance by the
failure of every system of metaphysics. Not one of thelTI
has succeeded; for the simplc reason, that in everyone
15 8
Cri tical Essays
ciphers have been constantly used instead of values,
artificial ideas instead of native ideas, jargon instead of
idiom. "
\Ve do not know whether the metaphysician will ever
adopt Joubert's rules; but we are surc that the man of letters,
whenever he has to speak of metaphysics, will do well to
adopt them. He, at any rate, must remember
"it is by means of familiar words that style takes hold
of the reader and gets possession of him. It is by means
of these that great thoughts get currency and pass for true
nletal, like gold and silver which have had a recognised
stamp put upon them. 1'hey beget confidence in the man
who, in order to make his thoughts more clearly perceived,
uses them; for people feel that such an employment of the
language of COUlmon human life betokens a man who knows
that life and its concerns, anù who keeps himself in contact
with them. Besides, these words make a style frank and
easy. 'rhey show that an author has long made the
thought or the feeling expressed his mental food; that he
has so assimilated them and familiarised them, that the
most common expressions suffice hitn in order to express
ideas which have becolne every-day ideas to hin1 by the
length of time they have been in his n1ind. And lastly,
what one says in such words looks more true; for, of all the
words in use, none are so clear as those which we call
con1mon words; and clearness is so en1inently one of the
characteristics of truth, that often it even passes for truth
itself. "
These are not, in Joubert, mere counsels of rhetoric;
they come from his accurate sense of perfection, from his
having clearly seized the fine and just idea that beauty and
light are properties of truth, and that truth is incompletely
exhibited if it is exhibited without beauty and light.
"Be profound with clear terms and not with obscure
terms. \Vhat is difficult will at last become easy; but as
one goes deep into things, one nlust still keep a charm, and
one must carry into these dark depths of thought, into which
speculation has only recently penetrated, the pure and
antique clearness of centuries less learned than ours, but
with more light in thenl."
.And elsewhere he speaks of those" spirits, lovers of light,
who, when they have an idea to put forth, brood long over
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 159
it first, and wait patiently till it shines, as Buffon enjoined,
when he defined genius to be the aptitude for patience;
spirits who know by experience that the driest matter and
the dullest words hide within them the germ and spark of
some brightness, like those fairy nuts in which were found
diamonds if one broke the shell and was the right person;
spirits who maintain that, to see and exhibit things in
beauty, is to see and show things as in their essence they
really are, and not as they exist for the eye of the careless,
who do not look beyond the outside; spirits hard to satisfy,
because of a keen-sightedness in them, which makes them
discern but too clearly both the models to be followed and
those to be shunned; spirits active though meditative, who
cannot rest except in solid truths, and whom only beauty
can make happy; spirits far less concerned for glory than
for perfection, who, because their art is long and life is
short, often die without leaving a monument, having had
their own inward sense of life and fruitfulness for their best
reward. JJ
No doubt there is something a little too ethereal in all
this, something which reminds one of Joubert's physical
want of body and substance; no doubt, if a man wishes to
be a great a.uthor, it is "to consider too curiously, to con-
sider J) as Joubert did-it is a mistake to spend so o1uch of
one's time in setting up one's ideal standard of perfection,
and in contemplating it. Joubert himself knew this very
well: "I cannot build a house for my ideas," said he; cc I
have tried to do without words, and words take their
revenge on me by their difficulty." "If there is a man
upon earth tormented by the cursed desire to get a whole
book into a page, a whole page into a phrase, and this phrase
into one word,-that man is myself. J1 "I can sow but I
cannot build." Joubert, however, makes no c1aim to be a
great author; by renouncing all ambition to be this, by not
trying to fit his ideas into a house, by making no com-
promise with words in spite of their difficulty, by being
quite single-minded in his pursuit of perfection, perhaps he
is enabled to get closer to the truth of the objects of his
study, and to be of more service to us by setting before us
ideals, than if he had composed a celebrated work. \Ve doubt
whether, in an elaborate work on the philosophy of religion,
he would have got his ideas about religion to shine, to use
160
Critical Essays
his own expression, as they shine when he utters them in
perfect freedom. Penetration in these matters is valueless
without soul, and soul is valueless without penetration;
both of these are delicate qualities, and, even in those who
have them, easily lost; the charm of Joubert is, that he has
and keeps both.
" One should be fearful of being wrong in poetry when
one thinks differently from the poets, and in religion when
one thinks differently fro1l1 the saints.
"rrhere is a great difference between taking for idols
lahon1et and Luther, and bowing down before l
ousseau
and Voltaire. People at any rate irnagined they were obey-
ing God when they followed 1\Iahomet, and the Scriptures
when they hearkened to Luther. ,And perhaps one ought
not too much to disparage that inclination which leads
mankind to put into the hands of those whom it thi
ks the
friends of God the direction and governnlent of his heart
and n1Ïnd. It is the subjection to irreligious spirits which
alone is fatal, and, in the fullest sense of the word,
depraving.
" !\fay I say it? It is not hard to know God, provided
one will not force oneself to define hin1.
" Do not bring into the domain of reasoning that which
belongs to our innenuost feeling. State truths of sentiment,
and do not try to prove then1. There is a danger in such
proofs; for in arguing it is necessary to treat that which is
in question as something problematic: now that which we
accuston1 ourselves to treat as problematic ends by appear-
ing to us as really doubtful. In things that are visible and
palpable, never prove what is believed already; in things
that are certain and mysterious,-nlysterious by their great-
ness and by their nature,-make people believe them, and do
not prove them; in things that are 111atters of practice and
duty, command, and do not explain. 'Fear God/ has 111ade
many men pious; the proofs of the existence of God has
n1ade n1any n1en atheists. FrOIn the defiance springs the
attack; the advocate begets in his hearer a wish to pick
holes; and men are almost al ways led on, frorn the desire
\0 contradict the doctor, to the desire to contradict the
doctrine.
lake truth lovely, and do not try to arm her;
mankind will then be far less inclined to contend with
her.
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 161
"'Yhy is even a bad preacher almost always heard by the
pious with pleasure? Because he talks to them, about 'what
t/uy ltJve. But you who have to expound religion to the
children of this world, you who have to speak to then1 of
that which they once loved perhaps, or which they would
be glad to love,-relneln her that they do not love Ü yet,
and to n1ake them love it take heed to speak with power.
" You olay do what you like, mankind will believe no
one but God; and he only can persuade 111ankind \\ ho
believes that God has spoken to hin1. No one can give
faith unless he hD.s faith j the persuaded persuade, as the
indulgent disann.
"The only happy people in the world are the good l1lan,
the sage, and the saint; but the saint is happier than either
of the olhers, so much is man by his nature fornled for
sanctity. J)
The sanle delicacy and penetration which he here shows
in speaking of the inward essence of religion, Joubert shows
also in speakin
of its outward fonn, and of its nlani1estation
in the world:-
h Piety is not a religion, though it is the soul of all
religions. A Inan has not a religion sinlply by having pious
inclinations, any more than he has a country sinlply by
having philanthropy. A man has not a country until he is
a citizen in a state, until he undertakes to follow and uphold
certain laws, to obey certain mat;istrates, and to adopt
certain ways of living and acting.
"R.eligion is neither a theology nor a theosophy; it is
more than all this; it is a ùiscipline, a law, a yoke, an in-
dissoluble engagernent."
\Vho, again, ha
ever shown with n10re truth and beauty
the good and Î1nposing side of the wealth and splendour of
the Catholic Church, than Joubert in the following
passage ?-
"1.'he ponlps and 11lagniÜcence with which the Church is
reproached are in truth the result and the' proof of her
incon1parable excellence. Fronl whence, let nle ask, have
con1e this power of hers and these excessive riches, except
froin the enchantment into which she threw all the world?
Ravished with her beauty, 111illions of ll1en from age to age
kept loading her with gifts, bequests, cessions. She had the
tr..!ent of n1aking herself loved, and the talent of Iuaking
F
162
Critical Essavs
J
luen happy. It is that which wrought prodigies for her; it
is from thence that she drew her power."
U She had the talent of making herself feared, "-one
should add that too, in order to be perfectly just; but
J aubert, because he is a true child of light, can see that the
wonderful success of the Catholic Church Inust have been
due really to her good rather than to her bad qualities; to
her n1aking herself loved rather than to her nlaking herself
feared.
How striking and suggestive, again, is this remark on the
Old and New 'restaments :-
"The Old Testament teaches the knowledge of good and
evil; the Gospel, on the other hand, seems written for the
predestinated; it is the book of innocence. The one is
made for earth, the other seen1S l11ade for heaven. Accord-
ing as the one or the other of these books takes hold of a
nation, what may be called the religious humours of nations
differ."
So the British and North An1erican Puritans are the
children of the Old Testan1ent, as Joachim of Flora and St
Francis are the children of the New. And docs not the
follováng n1axim exactly fit the Church of England, of which
Joubert certainly never thought when he was writing it?-
"The austere sects excite the n10st enthusiasm at first; but
the tenlperate sects have always been the most durable."
lU1d these remarks on the ] ansenists and Jesuits,
interesting in themselves, are still n10re interesting because
they touch matters we cannot well know at first-hand, and
which Joubert, an in1partial observer, had had the means of
studying closely. 'Ve are apt to think of the Jansenists as
having failed by reason of their Inerits; Joubert shows us
how far their failure was due to their defects :-
U'Ve ought to lay stress upon what is clear in Scripture,
and to pass quickly over what is obscure; to light up what
in Scripture is troubled, by what i
serene in it; what
puzzles and checks the reason, by what satisfies the reason.
'rhe Jansenists have done just the reverse. They lay stress
upon what is uncertain, obscure, afflicting, and they pass
lightly over all the rest; they eclipse the luminous and con-
soling truths of Scripture, by putting between us and then1
its opaque and dis111al truths. For example, 'Many are
called;' there is a clear truth: 'Few are chosen;' there is
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 16 3
an obscure truth. ' \Ve are children of wrath;' there is a
sOl11bre, cloudy, terriîying truth: '\Ve are all the children
of God;' 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance;' there are truths which are full of clearness,
mildness, serenity, light. The J ansenists trouble our cheer-
fulness, and shed no cheering rayon our trouble. They
are not, however, to be conden1ned for what they say,
because what they say is true; but they are to be con-
demned for what they fail to say, for that is true too,-
truer, even, than the other; that is, its truth is easier for
us to seize, fuller, rounder, and more conlplete. Theo-
I02"Y, as the J anscnÍsts exhibit her, has but the half of her
disk."
Again :-
"1"he J ansenists erect 'grace' into a kind of fourth
person of the Trinity. They are, without thinking or
intending it, Quaternitarians. 8t Paul and 8t Augustine,
too exclusively studied, have done all the mischief. In-
stead of 'grace,' say help, succour, a òivine influence, a
dew of heaven; then one can COD1e to a right under-
standing. The word 'grace' is a sort of ta!is1l1an, aU the
baneful spell of which can be broken by translating it.
The trick of personifying words is a fatal source of
mischief in thf'ology.u
Once n10ie :-
"The Jansenists tell n1en to love God; the Jesuits nlake
men love him. The doctrine of these last is full of loose-
nesses, or if you will, of errors; still,-singular as it may
seenl, it is undeniable,-they are the better directors of
souls.
H The Jansenists have carried into religion more thought
than the Jesuits, and they go deeper; they are faster bound
with its sacred bonds. They have in their way of thinking
an austerity which incessantly constrains the will to keep the
path of duty; all the habits of their understanding, in short,
are. more Chri"itian. But they seem to love God without
affection, and solely from reason, fronl duty, from justice.
The Jesuits, on the other hand, seem to love hinl fronl pure
inclination; out of adn1iration, gratitude, tenderness; for
the pleasure of loving him, in short. In their books of de-
votion you find joy, because with the Jesuits nature and
religion go hand in hand. In the books of the J ansenists
16 4
Critical ESSa)TS
there is a sadness and a moral constraint, because with the
] ansenists religion is for ever trying to put nature in bonds."
1'he Jesuits have suffered, and deservedly sufíered, plenty
of discredit from what Joubert gently calls their "loosenesses;"
let them have the n1erit of their anliability.
1'he most ch3.racteristic thoughts one can quote from any
writer are always his thoughts on n1atters like these; but
the maxims of Joubert on purely literary subjects also,
haye the same purged and subtle delicacy; they show the
same sedulousness in hin1 to preserve perfectly true the
balance of his soul. Let us begin with this, which contains
a truth too n1any people fail to perceive :-
" Ignorance, which in rnatters of lllorals extenuates the
crin1e, is itself, in Illatters of literature, a crime of the first
order. "
.A.!ld here is another sentence, worthy of Goethe, to clear
the air at one's entrance into the region of literature :-
"\Vith the fever of the senses, the delirium of the
passions, the weakness of the spirit; with the storms of the
passing time and with the great scourges of human life,-
hunger, thirst, dishonour, diseases, and death,-authors
olay as long as they like go on making novels which shall
harrow our hearts; but the soul says all the while, ' You
hurt nle.'"
And again:-
" Fiction has no business to exist unless it is more beauti-
ful than reality. Certainly the monstrosities of fiction n1ay
be found in the booksellers' shops; you buy then1 there for
a certain nunl ber of francs, and you talk of them for a
certain nUlnber of days; but they have no place in
literature, because in literature the one aim of art is the
beautiful. Once lose sight of that, and you have the mere
frightful reality.JJ
1'hat is just the right criticism to pass on these" mon-
strosities :" they have no þlace in literature, and those who
produce then1 are not really nlen of letters. One would
think that this was enough to deter from such production
any man of genuine ambition. But most of us, alas! are
what we must be, not what we ought to be,-not even what
we know we ought to be.
The following, of ,yhich the first part reminds one of
,r ordsworth's sonnet, "If thou indeed derive thy light
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 16 5
from heaven," excellently defines the true salutary function
of literature, and the IÎ1nits of this function :-
"'Yhether one is an eagle or an ant, in the intellectual
world, seems to me not to matter much; the essential thing
is to have one's place nlarked there, one:s station assigned,
and to belong decidedly to a regular and wholesome order.
A snlall talent, if it keeps within its limits and rightly fulfils
its task, may reach the goal just as well as a greater one.
To accustom mankind to pleasures which depend neither
upon the bodily appetites nor upon money, by giving them
a taste for the things of the mind, seems to me, in fact, thE:"
one proper fruit which nature has mean t our literary pro-
ductions to have. \Vhen they have other fruits, it is by
accident, and, in general, not for good. Books which
absorb our attention to such a degree that they rob us of
all fancy for other books, are absolutely pernicious. In this
v;ay they only bring fresh crotchets and sects into the world;
they multiply the great variety of weights, rules, and
measures already existing; they are morally and politically
a nuisance."
\Vho can read these words and not think of the limiting
effect exercised by certain works in certain spheres and for
certain periods; exercised even by the works of men of
genius or virtue,-by the works of Rousseau, the works of
\Vesley, the works of Swedenborg? And what is it \vhich
makes the Bible so adlllirable a book, to be the one book
of those who can have only one, but the miscellaneous
character of the contents of the Bible?
Joubert was all his life a passionate lover of Plato j we
hope other lovers of Plato will forgive us for saying that
their adored object has never been more truly described
than he is here :-
"Plato shows us nothing, but he brings brightness with
nin1; he puts light into our eyes, and fills us with a clear-
ness by which all objects afterwards become illuminated. He
teaches us nothing; but he. prepares us, fashions us, and
makes us ready to know all. SOluehowor other, the habit
of reading hiln augments in us the capacity for discerning
and entertaining whatever fine truths may afterwards present
thc.cfiselves. Like 111ountain-air, it sharpens our organs, and
gives us an appetite for wholesome food."
"Plato loses himself in the void" (he says again); "but
166
Critical Essays
one sees the play of his wings, one hears their rustle."
And the conclusion is: "It is good to breathe his air, but
not to live upon him."
As a pendant to the criticism on Plato, this on the
French n10ralist Nicole is excellent :-
" Nicole is a Pascal without style. It is not what he says
which is sublime, but what he thinks; he rises, not by the
na.tural elevation of his own spirit, but by that of his
doctrines. One must not look to the form in him, but to
the Inatter, which is exquisite. He ought to be read with a
direct view of practice."
English people have hardly ears to hear the praises of
Bossuet, and the Bossuet of Joubert is Bossuet at his very
best; but this is a far truer Bossuet than the "declaimer JJ
Bossuet of Lord IVlacaula}", hilnself a born rhetorician, if
ever there was one :-
" Bossuet employs all our idioms, as Homer employed all
the dialects. rfhe language of kings, of statesmen, and of
warriors; the language of the people and of the student;
of the country and of the schools, of the sanctuary and of
the courts of law; the old and the new, the trivial and the
stately, the quiet and the resounding,-he turns aU to his
use; and out of all this he makes a style, simple, grave,
majestic. His ideas are, like his words, varied,-common
and sublime together. Times and doctrines in all their
multitude were ever before his spirit, as things and words
in all their multitude were ever before it. He is not so much
a man as a human nature, with the temperance of a saint,
the justice of a bishop, the prudence of a doctor, and the
nlight of a great spirit."
After this on Bossuet, we must quote a criticism on Racine,
to show that Joubert did not indiscrin1inately worship all
the French gods of the grand century:-
"Those who find Racine enough for them are poor souls
and poor wits; they are souls and wits which have neyer
got beyond the callow and boarding-school stage. Admir-
able, as no doubt he is, for his skill in having rnade poetical
the most hun1drum sentiments and the Inost middling sort
of passions, he can yet stand us in stead of nobody but
hin1self. I-Ie is a superior writer; and, in literature, that
at once puts a man on a pinnacle. But he is not an inimi
table writer. JJ
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 167
And again: "The talent of Racine is in his works, but
R
cine hÌInself is not there. That is why he himself becan1e
disgusted with them. u " Of Racine, as of his ancients, the
genius lay in taste. His elegance is perfect, but it is not
supreme, like that of Virgil. u And, indeed, there is some-
thing suþrem,e in an elegance which exercises such a fas-
cination as Virgil's does; which makes one return to his
poems again and again, long after one thinks one has done
with theln; which makes them one of those books that, to
use Joubert's words, "lure the reader back to them, as the
proverb says good wine lures back the wine-bibber." And
the highest praise Joubert can at last find for Racine is this,
that he is the Virgil of the ignorant j-" Racine est Ie V'irgile.
des iJ{1lorants."
Of Boileau, too, Joubert says; "Boileau is a powerful
poet, but only in the world of half poetry." How true is
that of Pope also! And he adds: "N either Boileau's
poetry nor Racine's flows fron1 the fountainhead." .N" 0
Englishman, controverting the exaggerated French estin1ate
of these poets, could desire to use fitter words.
\Ve will end with some remarks on Voltaire and Rous-
seau, ren1arks in which Joubert eminently shows his prilne
merit as a critic,-the soundness and completeness of his
judgments. \Ye mean that he has the faculty of judging with
all the powers of his mind and soul at work together in due
con1bination; and how rare is this faculty! how seldom is
it exercised towards writers who so powerfully as V olt2.ire
and Rousseau stimulate and call into activity a single side
in us !
" Voltaire's wits came to their maturity twenty } ears
sooner than the wits of other men, and remained in full
vigour thirty years longer. 1'he charn1 which our style in
general gets from our ideas, his ideas get fr0111 his style.
Voltaire is sometÍn1es afflicted, sOll1etinles strongly moved;
but serious he never is. His very graces have an effrontery
about them. He had correctness of judgment, liveliness of
imagination, nimble wits. quick taste, and a moral sense in
ruins. tIe is the nlost debauched of spirits, and the worst
of bin1 is that one gets debauched along with him. If he
bad been a wise man, and had had the self-discipline of
wisdolTI, beyond a doubt half his wit would have been gone;
it needed an atn10sphere of licellce in order to play freely.
168
Cri tical Essays
Those people who read him every day, create for them-
sel y es, by an invincible law, the necessity of liking him.
But those people who, having give:1 up reading him, gaze
steadily down upon the influences which his spirit has shed
abroad, find themselves in simple justice and duty COIl1-
pelled to detest him. It is in1possible to be satisfied with
him, and irrlpossible not to be fascinated by hin1."
'rhe literary sense in us is apt to rebel against so severe
a judgment on such a charmer of the literary sense as
Voltaire, and perhaps we English are not very liable to
catch Voltaire's vices, while of son1e of his merits, we haye
signal need; still, as the real definitive judgment on "... oltaire,
Joubert's is undoubtedly the true one. It is nearly identical
with that of Goethe. Joubert's sentence on Rou
seau is in
SOD1e respects more favourable :-
"That weight in the speaker (a'llctoritas) which the
ancients talk of, is to be found in Bossuet rllore than in any
other French author; Pascal, too, has it, and La Bruyère;
even Rousseau has something of it, but Voltaire not a
particle. I can understand how a Rou
seau-I lTIean a
Rousseau cured of his faults-might at the present day do
much good, and may even come to be greatly wanted;
but under no circumstances can a Voltaire be of any use."
The peculiar power of Rousseau's style has never been
better hit off than in the following passage :-
" Rousseau imparted, if I may so speak, bozl'els of _feeli1lg
to the words he used (donna des entrailles à tOllS les l1lOtS),
and poured into them such a charm, sweetness so pene-
trating, energy so puissant, that his writings have an effect
upon the soul something like that of those illicit pleasures
which steal away our taste and intoxicate our reason."
The final judgn1ent, however, is severe, and justly
severe :-
"Life without actions; life entirely resolved into affec-
tions and half-sensual thoughts; do-nothingness setting up
for a virtue; cowardliness with voluptuousness; fierce pride
with nullity underneath it; the strutting phrase of the most
sensual of vagabonds, who has made his system of phiio-
sophy and can give it eloquently forth: there is Rousseau!
A piety in which there is no religion; a severity which
brings corruption with it; a dogmatism which serves to ruin
all authority: there is Rousseau's philosophr! To aU
Joubert; or a French Coleridge
16 9
tender, ardent, and elevated natures, I say: Only Rousseau
can detach you from religion, and only true religion can
cure you of R.ousseau.))
\Ve must yet find room, before we end, for one at least of
Joubert's sayings on political n1atters; here, too, the whole
lnan shows hiulself; and here, too, his affinity with Cole-
ridge is very reularkable. flow true, how true in France
especially, is this relnark on the contrasting direction taken
by the aspirations of the cODìnlunity in ancient and in n10dern
states :-
"The ancients \\i ere attached to their country by three
things,-their temples, their tombs, and their forefathers.
'I'he two great bonds which united then] to their govern-
Inent were the bonds of habit and antiquity. \Vith the
moderns, hope and the love of novelty have produced a total
change. The ancients said our forefathers, we say þosteri
v.-
we dü not, like then1, love our patria, that is to say, the
country and the laws of our fathers, rather we love the laws
and the country of our children; the charm we are most
sensible to is the charm of the future, and not the cbarnl of
th e past."
And how keen and true is this criticisn1 on the changed
sense of the word "liberty":-
" A great many words have changed their meaning. The
word liberty, for example, had a bottonl anlong the ancients
the same nlearung as the word dominz.on. I would be free
n1eant, in the mouth of the ancient, I would lake þart in
goverllÙzg or atÙnÙlisterillg tlu State; in the mouth of a
1110dern it n1eans, I would be independellt. The word liberty
has with us a 1110ral sense; with them its sense was purely
politica1."
Joubert had lived through the French Revolution, and to
the modern cry for liberty he was prone to answer :-
" Let your cry be for free souls rather even than for free
nH;n. 1'1 oral liberty is the one vitally inlportant liberty, the
one liberty which is indispensable; the other liberty is good
and salutary only so far as it favours this. Subordination
is in itself a better thing than independence. The one
inlplies order and arrangement; the other implies only self-
sufficiency with isolation. The one means harmony, the
other a single tone; the one is the whole, the other is but
the part. U
17 0
Critical Essays
" Liberty! liberty!" he cries again; "in aU things let us
have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty."
Let us have justice, and thell 'Zve sllall ha7'e enough
liberty! The wise man will never refuse to echo those
words; but then, such is the imperfection of human govern-
ments, that almost always, in order to get justice, one has
first to secure liberty.
\Ve do not hold up Joubert as a very astonishing and
powerful genius, but rather as a delightful and edifying
genius. \Ve have not cared to exhibit him as a sayer of
brilliant epigramu1atic things, such things as "Notre vie est
du vent tissu . . . les dettes abrégent la vie . . . celui qui
a de l'imagination sans érudition a des ailes et n'a pas de
pieds (Our 1{1e is woven 'ZvÍ1zd. . . debts take froln lift
. . . the 1JZG1Z of imagination without learning lIas 'ZiJings and
no fiet) , " though for such sayings he is famous. In the first
place, the French language is in itself so favourable a
vehicle for such sayings, that the making them in it has the
less merit; at least half the u1erit ought to go, not to the
maker of the saying, but to the French language. In the
second place, the peculiar beauty of Joubert is not there;
it is not in what is exclusively intellectual,-it is in the
union of soul with intellect, and in the delightful, satisfying
result which this union produces. "Vivre, c'est penser et
sentir son âme . . . Ie bonheur est de sentir son âme
bonne . . . toute vérité nue et crue n'a pas assez passé par
l'âme . . . les hommes ne sont justes qu'envers ceux qu'ils
aiment (The essence of lift lies in t/
inking and being consciolts
of one's soul . . . lzaþþiness is the sense of one's soul being
good . . . if a trutll is nude and crude, that is a proof it has
not been steeþed long enough in tIle soul,. . . . man canttot
even be just to his neighbour, unless he loves hÙll),.)1 it is
much rather in sayings like these that Joubert's best and
innermost nature manifests itself. He is the most pre-
possessing and convincing of witnesses to the good of loving
light. Because he sincerely loved light, and did not prefer
to it any little private darkness of his own, he found light;
his eye was single, and therefore his whole body was full of
light. And because he was full of light, he was also full of
happiness. In spite of his infirn1ities, in spite of his suffer-
ings, in spite of his obscurity, he was the happiest nlan
alive; his life was as charming as his thoughts. For
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 17 1
certainly it is natural that the love of light, which is already,
in sonle l11easure, the possession of light, should irradiate
and beatify the whole life of hiln who has it. There is
son1ething unnatural and shocking where, as in the case of
Joubert's English parallel, it does not. Joubert pains us by
no such contradiction; "the same penetration of spirit
which D1ade hinl such delightful company to his friends,
served also to make hint perfect in his own personal life, by
enabling him always to perceive and do what was right;"
he loved and sought light till he became so habituated to it,
so accustomed to the joyful testimony of a good conscience,
that, to use his own words, "he could 110 longer exist with-
out this, and was obliged to live without reproach if he
would live without misery.n
Joubert was not fanlous while he lived, and he will not be
fanlOUS now that he is dead. But, before we pity him for
this, let us be sure what we mean, in literature, by famous.
There are the fatnous men of genius in literature,-the
Homers, Dantes, Shakspeares: of thenl we need not speak;
their praise is for e\'cr and ever. Then there are the famous
Dlen of ability in literature: their praise is in their own
generation. Aud what nlakes this àifference? The work
of the two orders of n1en is at the bottom the same,-a
cn"tÙ:ism of lijë. The end and ailn of all literature, if one
considers it attentively, is, in truth, nothing but that. But
the criticisn1 which the l1lf'n of genius pass upon human life
is permanently acceptable to n1ankind; the criticism which
the n1en of ability pass upon human life is transitorily
acceptable. Between Shakspeare's criticism of hUlnan life
and Scribe's the difference is there ;-the one is pcrn1anently
acceptable, the other transitorily. 'Vhy then, we repeat, this
difference? It is that the acceptableness of Shakspeare's
criticism depends upon its inherent truth: the acceptable-
ness of Scribe's upon its suiting itself, by its subject-nlatter,
ideas, n10de of treatment, to the taste of the generation that
hears it. But the taste and ideas of on
generation are not
those of the next. This next generation in its turn arrives;
-first its sharpshooters, its quick-witted, audacious light
troops; then the elephantine main body. The imposing
array of its predecessor it confidently assails, riddles it with
bullets, passes over its body. It goes hard then with many
once popular reputations, with many authorities once
17 2
Critical Essays
oracular. Only two kinds of authors are safe in the genera]
havoc. rfhe first kind are the great abounding fountains of
truth, whose criticism of life is a source of illumination and
joy to the whole human race for ever,-the I-Io111ers: the
Shakspeares. 'rhese are the sacred personages, whom all
civilised l\"arfare respects. The second are those whom the
out-skirmishers of the new generation, its forerunners,-
quick-witted soldiers, as we have said, the select of the army,
-recognise, though the bulk of their comrades behind
might not, as of the same fan1 ily and character with the
sacred personages, exercising like them an immortal func-
tion, and like theln inspiring a pernlanent interest. 'I'hey
snatch them up, and set them in a place of shelter, where
the on-con1ing multitude may not overwhehu them. 1'hese
are the Jouberts. 'I'hey will never, like the Shakspeares,
comnland the homage of the multitude; but they are safe;
the multitude will 110t trample them down. Except these
two kinds, no author is safe. Let us consider, for exalnple,
Joubert's famous contemporary, Lord Jeffrey. All his
vivacity and accomplishment avail him nothing; of the true
critic he had in an ell1inent degree no quality, except one,
-curiosity. Curiosity he had, but he had no organ for truth;
he cannot illuminate and rejoice us; no intelligent out-
skirmisher of the new generation cares about hinI, cares to
put him in safety; at this mon1ent we are all passing over
his body. Let us consider a greater than Jeffrey, a critic
whose reputation still stands firm,-wil1 stand, many people
think, for ever,-the great apostle of the Philistines, Lord
l\'lacaulay. Lord Macaulay was, as we have already said, a
born rhetorician; a splendid rhetorician doubtless, and,
beyond that, an English rhetorician also, an hOliest rhetori-
cian; still, beyond the apparent rhetorical truth of things
he never could penetrate; for their vital truth, for what the
French call the vraie vérité, he had absolutely no organ;
therefore his reputation, brilliant as it is, is not secure.
Rhetoric so good as his excites and gives pleasure; but by
pleasure alone you cannot permanently bind men's spirits to
you. rfruth illuminates and gives joy, and it is by the bond
of joy, not of pleasure, that n1en's spirits are indissolubly held.
As Lord 1\facaulay's own generation dies out, as a new
generation arrives, without those ideas and tendencies of its
predecessor which Lord :ì\1:acnulay so deepl}' shared and so
Joubert; or a French Coleridge 173
happily satisfied, will he give the same pleasure? and, if he
cea::;es to give this, has he enough of light in him to n1ake
him safe? Pleasure the new generation will get from its own
novel ideas and tendencies; but light is another and a
rarer thing, and must be treasured wherever it can be
found. 'Vill :ßlacaulay be sav
d, in the sweep and pressure
of tinle, for his light's sake, as Johnson has already been
saved by two generations, Joubert by one? 'Ve think it very
doubtful. But for a spirit of any delicacy and dignity,
what a fate, if he cou]d foresee it! to be an oracle for one
generation, and then of little or no account fÒr ever. How
far better, to pass with scant notice through one's own
generation, but to be singled out and preserved by the very
iconoclasts of the next, then in their turn by those of the
next, and so, like the lamp of life itself, to be handed on
from generation to generation in safety! This is Joubert's
lot, and it is a very enviable one. rrhe new men of the
new generations, while they let the dust deepen on a
thousand Laharpes, will say of him: ,. He lived in the
Philistines' day, in a place and time when almost every idea
current in literature had the Inark of Bel and Dagon upon
it, and not the 111ark of the children of light. Nay, the
children of light were as yet hardly so 111uch as heard of:
the Canaanìte was then in the land. Stil1, there were even
then a few, who, nourished on some secret tradition, or
illurnined, perhaps, by a divine inspiration, képt aloof froln
the reigning superstitions, never bowed the knee to the
gods of Canaan; and one of these few was c3.lled/oltbe,.I."
VIII
/1 \VORD 1IORE ABOUT SPINOZA
U Bv the sentence of the angels, by the decree of the saints,
we anathematise, cut off, curse, and execrate Baruch
Spinoza, in the presence of these sacred books with the six
hundred and thirteen precepts which are written therein,
with the anathema wherewith Joshua anathcmatised
Jericho; with the cursing wherewith Elisha cursed the
children; and with all the cursings which are written in
the Book of the Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed by
night; cursed when he lieth down, and cursed when he riseth
up; cursed when he goeth out, and cursed when he con1eth
in; the Lord pardon him never; the wrath and fury of the
Lord burn upon this man, and bring upon him all the
curses which are written in the Rook of the Law. 1'he
Lord blot out his nanle under heaven. The Lord set him
apart for destruction from all the tribes of Israel, with all
the curses of the firmanlent which are written in the Book
of this Law. . .. There shall no man speak to hinl, no
Ulan write to him, no man show hiln any kindness, no nlan
stay under the sanle roof with him, no man come nigh
him."
'Vith these amenities, the current compliments of theo-
logical parting, the Jews of the Portuguese synagogue at
AlTIsterdam took in 1656 (and not in 1660, as has till now
been conln1only supposed) their leave of their erring
brother, Baruch or l1enedict Spinoza. rfhey remained
children of Israel, and he became a child of modern
Europe.
1'hat was in 1656, and Spinoza died in J677, at the early
age of forty-four. Glory had not found hin1 out. His
short life-a life of unbroken diligence, kindliness, and
purity-was passed in seclusion. Rut in spite of that
seclusion, in spite of the shortness of his career, in spite of
174
A \\lord more about Spinoza 175
the hostility of the dispensers of renown in the 18th cen-
tury,-of Voltaire's disparagement and Bayle's detraction,-
in spite of the repellent form which he has given to his
principal work, in spite of the exterior semblance of a rigid
dogmatiso1 alien to the most essential tendencies of modern
philosophy, in spite, final1y, of the immense weight of dis-
favour cast upon him by the long-repeated charge of
atheism, Spinoza's naOle has silently risen in importance,
the man and his work have attracted a steadily increasing
notice, and b
d fair to become soon what they deserve to
become,-in the history of modern philosophy, the central
point of interest. An avowed translation of one of his
works,-his Traclalus Theologico-Politicus of which I spoke
here some months ago,-has at last Inade its appearance in
English. It is the principal work which Spinoza published
in his lifetime; his book on ethics, the work on which his
fame rests, is posthumous.
The English translator has not done his task wen. Of
the character of his version there can, I am afraid, be no
doubt; one such passage as the following is decisive :-
" I confess that, 'll}hi/e 'with thUll (the theologians) I have
?lever been able sujjÙ-ie1lt/y 10 adJnire the unfathomed 1n)'sterÏt:s
of Scripture, I have still found them giving utterance to
nothing but Aristotelian and Platonic speculatioJls, artfully
dressed up and cunningly accommodated to Holy \Vrit,
lest the speakers should show thelTIselves too plainly to
belong to the sect of the Grecian heathens. l\'or was ,--,
enough for these men 10 discourse with the Greeks; they ha'l)t
further taken to raving with the IIebrew prophets."
This professes to be a translation of these words of
Spinoza: "Fateor, eos nunquam satis mirari potuisse
Scripturæ profundissima mysteria; attamen præter Aristote-
licorurn vel Platonicorum speculationes nihil docuisse
video, atque his, ne gentiles sectari viderentur, ScripturaIll
aCC01111nodaverunt. Non satis his fuit cum Graecis in-
sanire, sed prophetas cunl iisdeln deliravisse voluerunt/'
After one such specimen of a translator's force, the
experienced reaàer has a sort of instinct that he may as well
close the book at once, with a smile or a sigh, according as
he happens to be a follower of the weeping or of the laugh-
ing philosopher. If, in spite of this instinct, he persists in
going on with the English version of the Traclatus Theo-
17 6
Critical Essays
1()..
..tco.Politicll.ç, he will find nlany more such specin1cns. It
is not, however, my intention to fill my space with these,
or with strictures upon their author. I prefer to remark,
that he renders a service to literary history by pointing out,
in his preface, how" to Bayle may be traced the distavour
in which the n:une of Spinoza was so long held;" that, in
his observations on the system of the Church of England,
he shows a laudable freedom from the prejudices of ordinary
English Liberals of that advanced school to which he
clearly belongs; and lastly, that, though he nlanifests little
familiarity with Latin, he seems to have considerable
familiarity with philosophy, and to be well able to follow
and comprehend speculative reasoning. Let me advise
him to unite his forces with those of S01ne one who has
that accurate knowledge of Latin which he hin1self has not,
and then, perhaps, of that union a real1y good translation of
Spinoza will be the result. And, having gl\"cn him this
advice, let me again return, for a little, to the Zractatus
Theologico- Politz"cll s itself.
This work, as I have alre2.dy said, is a work on the inter-
pretation of Scripture,-it treats of the Bible. \Vhat was
it exactly which Spinoza thought about the Bible and its
inspiration? That will be, at the present moment, the
central point of interest for the English readers of hi:.!
'freatise. Now I wish to observe-what it was irrelevant to
nlY purpose to observe when I before spoke of the Tracla-
Ius Theologt"co-Politz"cus-that just on this very point the
Treatise, interesting and ren1arkable as it is, will fail to
satisfy the reader. It is in1portant to seize this notion quite
firmly, and not to quit hold of it while one is reading
Spinoza's work. The scope of that work is this. Spinoza
sees that the life and practi
e of Christian nations professing
the religion of the Bible, are not the due fruits of the religion
oÍ the Bible; he sees only hatred, bitterness, and strife, where
he might have expected to see love, joy, and peace in believ-
ing; and he asks hhnself the reason of this. 1'he reason
is, he says, that these people misunderstand their Bible.
Well, then, is his conclusion, I will write a Tractatus Theo-
logico-Politiczts. I will show these people, that, taking the
Bible for granted, taking it to be all which it asserts itself
to be, taking it to have all the authority which it claims, it
is not what they i01agine it to be, it does not sa}? what they
i\.. \\Yard l1lore about Spinoza 177
imaaine it to sa v . I win show then1 what it rC:llJv does
.::>.J .-
say, and I win show them that they wIll do well to accept
this real teaching of the Bible, instead of the phantonl with
which they have so long been cheated. I win show their
Governments that they will do well to renlodel the !
ational
Churches, to make of them institutions informed with the
spirit of the true Bible, instead of institutions informed
with the spirit of this false phantom.
Such is really the scope of Spinoza's work. I-Ie pursues
a great object, and pursues it with signal ability; but it is
important to observe that he does not give us his o\,\'n
opinion about the Bible's fundalnental character. He takes
the Bible as it stands
as he might take the phenomena of
nature, and he discusses it as he finLls it. ReveJation
differs from natural knowledge, he says, not by being more
divine or more certain than natural knowledge, but by
being conveyed in a different way; it differs from it because
it is a knowledge" of which the laws of human nature con-
sidered in themselves alone cannot be the cause." \Vhat is
really its cause, he says, we need not here inquire ('l.'el1lm
nee ?lobÙ /a'l1: OpltS eJt þrophetieæ eog71itionis causaln scire),
for we take Scriptlire, which contains this revelation, as it
stands, and do not ask how it arose (dOCl/7Jientorum eallSc.,s
Ilihil eltra11/lIs).
Proceeding on this principte, Spinoza leaves the attentive
reader son1ewhat baffled and disappointed, dear as is his
way of tre::tting his subject, and remarkable as are the con-
clusions ,\'ith which he presents us. He starts, we feel,
frOlTI what is to hiln a hypothesis, and we want to know
what he really thinks about this hypothesis. H.is greatest
novelties are aU within limits fixed for hin1 by this hypo-
thesis. I-Ie says that the voice which called Sanluel was an
imaginary voice; he says that the waters of the Red Sea
retreated before a strong wind; he says that the Shunam-
mite's son was revived by the natural heat of
lisha's body;
he says that the rainbow which was made a sign to Noah
appeared in the ordinary course of nature. Scripture itself,
rightly interpreted, says, he affirms, all this. But he asserts
that the Voice which uttered the commandnlcnts on Mount
Sinai was a real ,-oice, a vera vox. lIe says, indeed, that
this voice could not really give to the Israelites that proof
which they imagined it gave to them of the existence
17 8
Cri tical ESSa)7S
of God, and that God on Sinai was dealing with the
Israe]itcs only according to their imperfect knowledge.
Still he asserts the voice to have been a real one; and
for this reason, that we do violence to Scripture if we do
not adrnit it to have been a real one (nisi ,Scripturæ vi1JZ
Ùiferre velÙJZ2ts, 011Znzno concedendul1l est, Israëlitas '[)era1f'
VOCe/I/' audivisse). The attentive reader wants to know what
Spinoza himself thought about this vera 'l}OX and its possi-
bility; he is much more interested in knowing this than in
knowing what Spinoza considered Scripture to affirm about
the nlatter.
The feeling of perplexity thus caused is not diminished
by the language of the chapter on miracles. In this chapter
Spinoza bro3.dly affirms a rniracle to be an impossibility.
But he himself contrasts the n1ethod of demonstration à
priori, by \vhich he claims to have established this proposi-
tion, with the nlethod which he has pursued in treating of
prophetic revelation. "'This revelation," he says, "is a
matter out of hun1an reach, and therefore I was bound to
take it as I found it." .Afollere volo, nle afiâ þrorsus methodo
circa mira.:ula þrocessrSse, quatn circa þroþhetiatll. . . . quod
etialn consulto feci, quia de þroplletiâ, qua1ldoquide1n ipsa
caþ/u1n hU1Jzallullz suþcrat et quæslio nlere theologica est, flihil
affiY'JJzare, nequt etiam scire þotera?n in quo iþsa þotissÙnuJn
C011stiterit, 1ZÙi ex fiozdameJltis revelatis. The reader feels
that Spinoza, proceeding on a hypothesis, has presented him
with the assertion of a miracle, and afterwards, proceeding
à þriorl
has presented hin1 with the assertion that a miracle
is impossible. lIe feels that Spinoza does not adequately
reconcile these two assertions by declaring that any event
really 111iraculous, if found recorded in Scripture, 01USt be
"a spurious addition n1.:lde to Scripture by s
crilegious
men." Is, then, he asks, the 'l.Jtra vox of 1fount Sinai in
Spinoza's opinion a spurious addition Inade to Scripture by
sacrilegious men; or, if not, how is it not miraculous?
Spinoza, in his own rnind, regarded the Bible as a vast
collection of nliscellaneous dOCU111ents, n1any of them quite
disparate and not at all to be hanl10nised with others;
documents of unequal value and of varying applicability,
sonle of thelTI conveying ideas salutary for one tin1e, others
for another. But in the T,.atlatus Theologico-Politicus he
by no means always deals in this free spirit with the Bible.
A \\""orJ. more about Spinoza 179
Sometimes he chooses to deal with it in the spirit of the
veriest worshipper of the lettcr; sometin1es he chooses to
treat the Bible as if all its parts were (so to speak) equipol-
lent; to snatch an isolated text which suits his purpose,
without caring '.vhether it is annulled by the context, by the
general drift of Scripture, or by other passages of more
weight and authority. The great critic thus voluntarily
becomes as uncritical as Exeter Hall. The epicurean
Solomon, whose Ecclesiastes the Hebrew doctors, even after
they had received it into the canon, forbade the young and
weak-minded among their community to read, Spinoza.
quotes as of the same authority with the severe 1\Ioses; he
uses promiscuously, as documents of identical force, with-
out discriminating between their essentially different
character, the softened cosn10politan teaching of the
prophets of the captivity and the rigid national teaching
of the instructors of Israel's youth. lIe is capable of
extracting, from a chance expression of J erem jah, the asser-
tion of a speculative idea which J eren1iah certainly never
entertained, and from which he would have recoiled in
dismay,-the idea, nalnely, that miracles are impossible;
just as the ordinary Englishman can extract from God's words
to Noah, Be .fruitful and multiply, an exhortation to hin1se]f
to have a large family. Spinoza, I repeat, knew perfectly
well what this verbal mode of dealing with the Bible was
worth: but he son1etimes uses it because of the hypothesis
from which he set out; because of his having agreed" to
take Scripture as it stands, and not to ask how it arose."
No doubt the sagacity of Spinoza's rules for biblical
interpretation, the po\ver of his analysis of the contents of
the Bible, the interest of his reflections on Jewish history,
are, in spite of this, very great, and have an absolute worth
of their own, independent of the silence or ambiguity of
their author upon a point of cardinal in1portance. Few
candid people will read his rules of interpreta.tion without
exclaiming that they are the very dictates of good sense,
that they have always believed in them; and without adding,
.after a monlent's reflection, that they have passed their lives
in violating them. And what can be n10re interesting, than
to find that perhaps the main cause of the decay of the
Jewish polity ,yas one of which from our English Bible,
which entirely mistranslates the 26th verse of the 20th
180
Critical Essays
chapter of Ezekiel, we hear nothing,-the perpetual re-
proach of ilnpurity and rejection cast upon the mass of
the I-Iebrew nation by the exclusive priesthood of the tribe
of Levi? \Vhat can be more suggestive, after !vir l\.Iill
and Dr Stanley have been telling us how great an element
of strength to the Hebrew nation was the institution of
prophets, than to hear from the ablest of l-lebrews how this
institution seenlS to hinl to have been to his nation one of
her n1ain elelnents of weakness ? No intelligent Inan can
read the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus without being pro-
foundly instructed by it: but neither can he read it without
feeling that, as a speculative work, it is, to use a French
rnilitary expression, in the air,. that, in a certain sense, it is
in want of a base and in want of supports; that this base
an.1 these supports are, at any rate, not to be found in the
work itself, and, if they exist, must be sought for in other
works of the author.
'-fhe genuine specu1ative opinions of Spinoza, which the
Trac/atus Theologico-Politicus but imperfectly reveals, may
in his Ethics and in his Letters be found set forth clearly.
It is, however, the business of criticism to deal with every
independent work as with an independent whole, and-
instead of establishing between the 7rac/atus Theo!()gico-
Politicus and the Ethics of Spinoza a relation which
Spinoza himself has not established,-to seize, in dealing
with the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, the important fact
that this work has its source, not in the axio111s and defini-
tion of the Ethics, but in a hypothe5is. The Ethics are not
yet translated into English, and I have not here to speak
of them. Then wil1 be the right time for criticis111 to try
anà seize the special character and tendencies of that
renlarkable work, when it is dealing with it directly. 1'he
criticism of the Ethics is far too serious a task to be
undertaken incidentally, and merely as a supplenlent to the
criticisrl1 of the Trac/atus Theologico-Politicus. N everthe-
less, on certain governing ideas of Spinoza, which receive
their systernatic expression, indeed, in the Ethics, and on
which the Tractatus 7'heologico-Politicus is not formally
based, but which are yet never absent from Spinoza's mirid
in the composition of any work, which breathe through all
his works, and fill them with a peculiar effect and power, I
wish before concluding these remarks, to say a few words.
A \\'ord more about Spinoza 181
A philosopher's real power over mankind resides not ill
his metaphysical formulas, but in the spirit and tendencies
which have led him to adopt those formulas. Spinoza's
critic, therefore, has rather to bring to light that spirit and
those tendencies of his author, than to exhibit his meta-
physical formulas. Propositions about substance pass by
n1ankind at large like the idle winù, which ll1ankind at
large regards not; it will not even listen to a word about
these propositions, unless it first learns what their author
was driving at with then1, and finds that this object of his
is one with which it sY111pathises, one, at any rate, which
C0111mands its attention. And mankind is so far right that
this object of the author is really, as has been said, that
which is most important, that which sets all his work in
motion, that \, hich is the secret of his attraction for other
n11nds, which, by different ways, pursue the san1e object.
1fr 11aurice
seeking for the cause of Goethe's great ad-
miration for Spinoza, thinks that he finds it in Spinoza's
I-Iebrew genius. " He spoke of God," says
lr 11aurice,
"as an actual being, to those who had fancied hÎ1u a nan1e
in a book. The child of the circumcision had a message
for Lessing and Goethe which the pagan schools 'Of
philosophy could not bring. n 1'his seems to me, I confess,
fanciful. An intensity and impressiveness, which call1e to
hirn fron1 his Hebrew nature, Spinoza no doubt has; but
the two things which are most remarkable about him,
and by \llhich, as I think, he chiefly Ì1npressed Goethe,
seeln to ll1e not to come to hitu from his lIe brew nature at
all,-I mean his denial of fin3.1 causes, and his stoicisln, a
stoicism not passive, but active. For a 111ind like Goethe's,
-a mind profoundly inlpartial and passionately aspiring
after the science, not of men only, but of universal nature,-
the popular philosophy which explains all things by reference
to ll1an, and regards universal nature as existing for the sake
of lllan, and even of certain classes of men l was uttelly
repulsive. Unchecked, this philosophy would gladly n1ain-
tain that the donkey exists in order that the invalid Christian
111ay have donkey's milk before breakfast; and such
views of nature as this were exactly what Goethe's whole
soul abhorred. Creation, he thought, should be n1ade of
sterner stuff; he desired to rest the donkey's existence on
larger grounds. 1\lore than any philosopher who has e\-er
182
Cri tical Essays
lived, Spinoza satisfied him here. rrhe full eXpositIon of
the counter-doctrine to the popular doctrine of final causes
is to be found in the Ethics; but this denial of final causes
was so essential an elen1cnt of all Spinoza's thinking that
we shall, as has been said already, find it in the work with
which we are here concerned, the Traclatus T'heologzco-
j}o!iticlts, and, indeed, pern1eating that work and all his
works. Froin the 7ractatus Theoloxico-Politicus one may
take as good a general stateIl1ent of this denial as any which
is to be found in the Ethics :-
" Deus naturam dirigit, prout ejus leges universales, non
auten1 prout humanæ naturæ particulares leges exigunt,
adcoqu
Deus non soli us hun1ani generis, sed totius naturæ
rationenl habet. (God directs 1latltre, at-cording as the uni-.
versa I la71Js of llatu;'e, but ?lot according as the particular
la'if)s of human nature require,. and so God h:.1s 1'egarJ, 110/
of the human rate only, but 0.1 entire nature.)"
And, as a pendant to this denial by Spinoza of final
causes, comes his stoicism :-
U Non studelllus, ut natura nobis, sed contra ut nos
naturæ parealnus. (Our desire is !lot that flature may obey
UI, but, on tlle contrar)' that 'll'e JJlay obey nature.)"
Here is the second source of his attractiveness for Goethe;
and Goethe is but the eIninent representative of a whole
order of minds whose admiration has Inade Spinoza's fame.
Spinoza first in1presses Goethe and any Ulan like Goethe, and
then he COll1poses him; first he fills and satisfies his
in1agination by the width and grandeur of his view of nature,
and then he fortifies and stills his n1übile, straining, pas-
sionate poetic temperament by the Inoral lesson he draws
[ronl his view of nature. And a nloral lesson not of mere
resigned acquiescence, not of Inelancholy quietisIl1, but of
joyful activity within the limits of man's true sphere :-
"Ipsa hon1inis essentia est conatus quo unusquis que suunl
esse conservare conatur. . . . Virtus homiilis est ipsa hon1 inis
essentia, quatenus a solo conatu suum esse conservandi
definitur. . . . Felicitas in eo consistit quod homo SUU111
esse conservare potest. . . . Lætitia est hominis transitio ad
majoren1 perfectionem. . . . rrristitia est hominis transitio ad
luinorelTI perfectionelTI. (.JI.Iall's very essence is the effort
w/zerewith eac/l nzan s!n'ves to 11laÙztain his O7.tJn being, . . .
J.
Ialls virtue is thlS very essence, so far as it is dljilled by thz's
A '\lord more about Spinoza 183
szngle effort to maintain his own being. . . . Haþpiness
consists ill a man's beillg able to maÙztaÙz his own being. . . .
Joy is maIl's passage to a greater þeifection. . . . Sorrow z:s
man's passage to a lesser perfection.)"
It seems to me that by neither of these, his grand char-
acteristic doctrines, is Spinoza truly lIebrew or truly
Christian. I-lis denial of final causes is essentially alien to
the spirit of the Old 'restament, and his cheerful and self-
sufficing stoicism is essentially alien to the spirit of the N cw.
The doctrine that "God directs nature, not according as
the particular laws of human nature, but according as
the universal laws of nature require," is at utter variance
with that Hebrew mode of representing God's dealings,
.which makes the locusts visit Egypt to punish Pharaoh's
hardness of heart, and the falling dew avert itself from the
fleece of Gideon. 1'he doctrine that "all sorrow is a passage
to a lesser perfection" is at utter variance with the Christian
recognition of the blessedness of sorrow, working "repent-
ance to salvation not to be repented of; JJ of sorrow, ,vhich,
in Dante's words, "remarries us to God." Spinoza's re-
peated and earnest assertions that the love of God is man's
summum bonum do not remove the fundan1cntal diversity
between his doctrine and the I-Iebrew and Christian
doctrines. By the love of God he does not mean the same
thing as the I-Iebrew and Christian religions mean by the
love of God. I-Ie makes the love of God to consist in
the knowledge of God; and, as we know God only through
his n1anifestation of himself in the laws of all nature, it is
by knowing these laws that we love God, and the n10re we
know them the more we love him. 1
his may be true, but
this is not what the Christian means by the loyc of God.
Spinoza's ideal is the intellectual life; the Christian's ideal
is the religious life. Between the two states there is all
the difference which there is between the being in love,
and the following, with delighted comprehension, a deillon-
stration of Euclid. For Spinoza, undoubtedly, the crown of
the intellectual life is a transport, as for the saint the crown
of the religious life is a transport; but the two transports
are not the same.
1'his is true; yet it is true, also, that by thus crowning
the intellectual life with a sacred transport, by thus retaining
in philosophy, amid the discontented murmurs of all the
1811
ï
Critical Essays
anny of atheisnl, the nanle of God, Spinoza maintains a
profound affinity with that which is truest in religion, and
inspires an ind
structible interest. "It is true," one may
say to the wise and devout Christian, "Spinoza's conception
of beatituùe is not yours, and cannot satisfy you, but whose
conception of beatitude would you accept as satisfying? l
ot
even that of the devoutest of your fellow..Christians. Fra
Angelico, the sweetest and ITIOst inspired of devout souls,
has given us, in his great picture of the Last J udglnent, his
conception of beatitude. 1-'he elect are f)oing round in a
ring on long grass under laden fruit-trees; two of thein,
more restless than the others, are flying up a battle:l1ented
street,-a street blank with all the ennui of the l\Iiddle
Ages. Across a gulf is visible, for the delectation of the
saints, a blazing caldron in which Bcelzebub is sousing the
damned. 1"his is hardly more your conception of beatitude
than Spinoza's is. But C in illY Father's house are n1any
mansions;' only, to reach anyone of these n1ansions, are
needed the wings of a genuine sacred transport, of an
'immortal loncrin g .'" 1"hese wino's S p inoza had' and
b . 0 "
because he had them he horrifies a certain school of his
adAnirers by talking of "God " where they talk of "forces,"
and by talking of "the love of God" where they talk of
'a rational curiosity."
One of his adnlirers, 1\!. Van Vloten, has recently
published at Amsterdanl a supplementary volume to Spinoza's
works, containing the interesting docunlent of Spinoza's
sentence of excolTIn1unication, frOITI wh
ch I have already
quoted, and containing, besides, severallai.ely found works
alleged to be Spinoza's, which seen1 to me to be of doubt-
ful authenticity, and, even if authentic, of no great import-
ancc. M. Van Vloten (who, let nJe be permitted to say in
passing, writes a Latin which would make one think that
the art of writing Latin must be now a lost art in the country
of Lipsil1s) is very anxious that Spinoza's unscientific reten-
tion of the name of God should not afflict his readers with
any doubts as to his perfect scientific orthodoxy :-
" It is a great n1istake," he cries, "to disparage Spinoza
as merely one of the dognlatists before Kant. By keeping
the name of God, while he did away with his person and
character, he has done hÍ1nself injustice. Those who
ook to the bottOlTI of things will see, that, long ago as he
1\ \\lord more about Spinoza 18 5
lived, he had even then reached the poi.,t to which the
post-I-Iegeljan philosophy and the study of natural science
has only just brought our own tinlcs. Leibnitz expressed
his apprehension lest those who did away with final causes
should do away with God at the same tinle. But it is in
his having done away with fin
1.1 causes, and 'with God along
'll'ith them, that Spinoza's true nlerit consists."
Now it must be remarked that to u
e Spinoza's denial of
fi!lal causes in order to identify him with the Coryphæi of
atheism, is to make a false use of Spinoza's denial of fiT'al
causes, just as to use his assertion of the all-importance of
10viDg God to identify him with the saints would be to
make a false use of his assertion of the all-importance of
]oving God. I-Ie is no nlore to be identified with the post-
I-Iegelian philosophers than he is to he identified with St
Augustine. Nay, when 11. Van \Tloten violently presses the
parallel with the post-Hegelians, one feels that the pa.rallel
with 5t Augustine is the far truer one. Compared with the
soldier of irreligion 11:. Van Vloten would have him to be,
Spinoza is religious. I-lis own ]anguage about himself,
about his aspirations and his course, are true.; his foot is
in the fJera vita, his eye on tbe beatific vision.
IX
MARCUS AURELIUS
l\-IR MILL says, in his book on Liberty, that cc Christian
morality is in great part merely a protest against paganism;
its ideal is negative rather than positive, passive rather
than active." He says, that, in certain most important
respects, "it falls far below the best morality of the
ancients." The object of systems of morality is to take
possession of hUlnan life, to save it from being abandoned
to passion or allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness
by establishing it in the practice of virtue; and this object
they seek to attain by prescribing to human life fixed
principles of action, fixed rules of conduct. In its unin-
spired as well as in its inspired moments, in its days of
languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and
energy, human ïife has thus always a clue to follow, and
ma y al ways be making way towards its goal. Christian
n10rality has not failed to supply to human life aids of this
sort. It has supplied them far nlore abundantly than many
of its critics imagine. rrhe most exquisite document after
those of the N ew
restalnent, of all the documents the
Christian spirit has ever inspired,-the Illzitatiolz,-by no
n1eans contains the whole of Christian Inorality; nay, the
disparagers of this morality would think themselves sure of
triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the Inzitation only.
But even the Imitation is full of passages like these: "Vita
sine proposito languida et vaga est; "-" OInni die renovare
debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodiè per-
fectè incipianlus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus; u_
U Secundum propositum nostrum est cursus proÍectûs
nùstri ; "-" Raro etiam UnU111 vitiurl1 perfectè vinci mus, et
ad quotidianum profectum non accendilnur; u_" Semper
aliquid certi proponendum est; u_" Tibi ipsi violentiam
frequenter fae:" (A life 'lvithout a þurþose is a languid,
drifting tlzÙlg j-E7Jery day 71Je ought to renew our furpose,
186
1\'1 arcus j-\urelius
18 7
sa..ying 10 Ollrsclz'es: This day let us InaÁ'e a sound beginning,
for 'what u'e have hitherto done is nought i-Our imþrovement
is ill þr%rtitJ1! to our þurþose ;-1-Ve hardlJ' ever 11lanage to
get comþletely rid even of Olle fault, and do flot set our h-earts
011 daily imþro'l'ement ;-Alzva)'s Place a definite purþose before
thee /-Get the habit of 1nasterÙzg thine inclination.) These
are moral precepts, and moral precepts of the best kind. As
rules to hold possession of our conduct, and to keep us in
the right course through outward troubles and inward per-
plexity, they are equal to
he best ever furnished by the
great masters of nlorals-Epictetus or :\Iarcus Aurelius.
But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then
rigorously followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage
only. The mass of mankind have neither force of intellect
enough to apprehend them clearly as ideas, nor force of
character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass
of mankind can be carried ålong a course full of hardship
for the natural man, can be borne over the thousand im-
pediments of the narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful
and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from read-
ing Epictetus or !\Iarcus Aurelius without a sense of con-
straint and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid
upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honour
to the sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it!
Yet, even for the sage, this sense of labour and sorrow in
his march towards the goal constitutes a relative inferiority;
the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan .Empedocles
as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the necessity
of an inspiration, a living emotion, to make moral action
perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one
drop of truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the
controversy on justification by faith has flooded the world.
But, for the ordina.ry IJ1an, this sense of labour and sorrow
constitutes an absolute disqualification; it paralyses hinl;
under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the
goal at all. The paranlount virtue of religion is, that it has
lighted uþ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and
inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow
way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man along it at all.
Even the religions with nlost dross in them have had some-
thing of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests
it with unexampled splendour. "Lead me, Zeus and
188
Critical Essavs
J
Destiny!" says the prayer of Epictetus, cc whithersoever I
anl appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; even
though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow
all the same.)) The fortitude of that is for the strong, for
the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which
it surrounds thenl is bleak and gray, But," Let Thy loving
spirit leè
d nle forth into the land of righteousness; :'-" rfhe
Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God
thy glory; "-" Unto you that fear My Na111e shall the Sun
of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings," says the
Old l'estanlent; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; "-" Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdoln of God;"-
"'Vhatsoever is born of God, overconleth the world," says
the New. T'he ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine
wanuth ;-the austerity of the sage melts away under it, the
paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is vivified by it
renews his strength; "all things are possible to Him;" "he
is a new creature."
Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of
which will bear taking hold of, the other not, If thy
brother sin against thee, lay not hold of the 111atter by this,
that he sins against thee; for by this handle the matter will
not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of it by this,
that he is thy brother, thy born mate;
,nd thou wilt take
hold of it by what will bear handling." Jesus, being asked
whether a man is bound to forgive his brother as often as
seven tin1es, answers: "I say not unto thee, until seven
tÏ1nes, but until seventy times seven." Epictetus here suggests
to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which] esus
does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that
account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warn1th, the
elnotion, of J esus's ans
er fires His hearer to the practice of
forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's
leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general:
its distinction is not that it propounds the n1axim, "Thou
shalt love God and thy neighbour," with Illore developnlent,
closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other moral systen1s ;
it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration which
wonderfully catches the hearer and nlakes him act upon it.
It is because 1vlr 11ill has attained to the perception of
truths of this nature, that he is,-instead of being, like the
larcus }\urelius
18 9
school frol11 which he proceeds, doonled to sterility,-a
writer of distinguished 111ark and influence, a writer deserv-
ing all attention and respect; it is (1 nlust be pardoned for
saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with thenl,
that he falls just short of being a great writer.
That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor
:ßlarcus Aurelius their peculiar character and charm, is
their being suffused and softened by something of this very
sentÌn1cnt whence Christian morality draws its best power.
Ir Long has recently published in a convenient fonn a
translation of these writing-s, and has thus enabled English
readers to judge !\Iarcus Aurelius for then1selves; he has
rendered his countrymen a real service by so doing.
fr
Long's reputation as a scholar is a sufficient guarantee of
the general fidelity and accuracy of his translation; on these
n1atters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, and my
praise is of no value. But that for ,,,,hich I and the rest of
the unlearned n1ay venture to praise
Ir Long is this; that
he treats
Iarcus Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the
other renlains of Greek and Ron1an antiquity which he
tou:..:hes, not as a dead and dry matter of learning, but as
doculnents with a side of nlodern applicability and living
interest, and valuable n1ainly so far as this side in thenl can
be Inade clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's RODIan
Lives he deals with the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero,
not as food for schoolboys, but as food for men, and nlell
engaged in the current of contemporary life and action, so
in his relTIarks and essays on ßlarcus Aurelius he treats
this trulv n10dern stri ve; and thinker not as a Classical
l)ictiona
y hero, but as a present source frol11 which to draw
"cxan1ple of life, and instruction of n1anners." 'Vhy Inay
not a son of Dr Arnold say, what might naturally here be
said by any other critic, that in this lively and fruitful \\ay
of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and
l\.orne, 1fr Long resen1bles Dr 4
rnold?
One or two little complaints, however, I have against rvIr
Long, and I will get thenl off lllY ll1ind at once. In the
first place, why could he not have found gentler and juster
tern1S to describe the translation of his predecessor, Jeremy
Collier,-the redoubtable enenìY of stage plays,-than
hese: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?"
As a matter of taste. a translator should deal leniently with
19 0
Critical ESSa)lS
his predecessor; but putting that out of the question, 1\h
Long's language is a great deal too hard. 110st English
people who knew J\Iarcus Aurelius before
lr Long appeared
as his introducer, knew him through J erenlY Collier. And
the acquaintance of a man like }'-1arcus Aurelius is such an
imperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar
sense of obligation towards the nlan who confers it. Apart
from this claim upon one's tenderness, however, J ere01}'
Collier's version deserves respect for its genuine spirit and
vigour, the spirit and vigour of the age of Dryden. J eren1Y
Collier too, like I\lr Long, regarded in :rvlarcus Aurelius the
living Inoralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth
of feeling gave to his style an in1petuosity and rhythm which
from filr Long's style (1 do not blan1e it on that account)
are absent. Let us place the two side by side. The im-
pressive opening of l\Iarcus Aurelius's fifth book, 11r Long
translates thus :-
"In the 1110rning when thou risest unwillingly, let this
thought be present: I arn rising to the work of a hun1an
being. 'Vhy then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the
things for which I exist and for which I was brought into
the world? Or have I been m
de for this, to lie in the
bedclothes and keep n1yself wann ?-But this is more
pleasant.-Dost thou exist then to take any pleasure, and
not at all for action or exertion?"
Jeremy Collier has :-
H \Vhen you find an unwillingness to rise early in the
morning, make this short speech to yourself: 'I am getting
up now to do the business of a man; and an1 lout of
hunlour Íor going about that which I was made for, and for
the sake of which I was sent into the world? 'Vas I then
designed for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the
countcrpane ? I thought action had been the end of your
being.' "
In another striking passage, again, 1tr Long has:-
" No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read
thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and
Hellenes, and the selections from books which thou wast
reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end which
thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, conle
to thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is
in thy power."
Marcus Aurelius
19 1
Here his despised predecessor has :-
" Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself.
Alas, you have no time left to peruse your diary, to read
over the Greek and l{oman history: con1e, don't flatter and
deceive yourself; look to the main chance, to the end and
design of reading, and mind life more than notion: I say, if
you have a kindness for your person, drive at the practice
and help yourself, for that is in your own power."
It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier
can (to say the least) perfectly stand comparison with 1\1r
Long. Jeremy Collier's real defect as a translator is not his
coarseness and vulgarity, but his imperfect acquaintance
with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal one; it rendered
a translation like 1\1r Long's necessary. Jeremy Collier's
work will now be forgotten, and 1fr Long stands master of
the field; but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his
predecessor's grave unharn1ed, even if he will not throw upon
it, in passing, a handful of kindly earth.
Another complaint I have against 11r Long is, that he is
not quite idiomatic and sin1ple enough. It is a little formal,
at least, if not pedantic, to say Ethic and Dialectic, instead of
Ethics and Dialectics, and to say U Hellenes and Ron1ans "
instead of "Greeks and Romans." And why, too,-the
name of Antoninus being preoccupied by Antoninus Pius,
-will 1\lr Long call his author 1\1arcus AntoniJZ2Is instead
of 11arcus AU1'elius? Small as these n1atters appear, they
are important when one has to deal with the general public,
and not with a small circ1e of scholars; and it is the general
public that the translator of a short masterpiece on
n10rals, such as is the book of 11arcus Aurelius, should have
in view; his aim should be to 111ake ìvlarcus Aurelius's work
as popular as the Imitation, and Marcus Aurelius's name as
fan1iliar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, there-
fore, punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be
sought as accessibility and currency; everything which may
best enable the Elnperor and his precepts volitare þer ora
Virûl1Z. It is essential to render him in language perfectly
plain and unprofessional, and to call him by the name by
which he is best and n10st distinctly known. 1"'he trans-
lators of the Bible talk of þence and not de1larÙ: and the
admirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the naille
of Arouet.
19 2
Critical Essays
But, after these trifling cOlnp1aints are Inade, one nlust
end, as one began, in unfeigned gratitude to Nlr Long for
his excellent and substantial reproduction in English of an
invaluable work. 111 general the substantiality, soundness,
and precision of l\tIr Long's rendering are (I cannot but
think) as conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats
antiq
iÏty; and these qualities are particularly desirable in
the translator of a work like that of 11arcus ,l\.unJius, of
which the language is often corrupt, alnlost always hard and
obscure. Anyone who wants to appreciate 1fr Long's
nlerits as a translator 111ay read, in the original and in 1'lr
Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book:
he will see how, through all the dubiousness and involved
nlanner of the Greek, 11r Long has finnly seized upon the
clear thought which is certain] y at the bottoln of that
troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this thought,
has at the same time thrown round its expression a character-
istic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it.
And Ivlarcus Aurelius's book is one which, ,....hen it is
rendered so accurately as 1Ir Long renders it, even those
who know Greek tolerably well may choose to read rather
in the translation than in the original. For not only are the
contents here inconlparably nlore valuable than the external
fonn, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly
one of those styles which have a physio b '110nlY, which are an
essential part of their author, which stan1p an indelible
Ï1npression of hin1 on the reader's mind. An old Lyons
conlnlentator finds, indeed, in IVfarcus Aurelius's Greek,
son1ething characteristic, something specially firm and
imperial; but I think an ordinary 1110rtal will hardly find
this: he will find crabbed Greek, without any great chann
of distinct physiognonlY. 'j'he Greek of 'rhucydides and
I'lato has this chann, ar:d he ,vho reads then1 in a trans-
lation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing
it; but the Greek of 1iarcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the
New Testament, and even more than the Greek of the New
'restament, is wanting in it. If one could be assured that the
English Testalnent were nlade perfectly accurate, one 111ight
be almost content never to open a Greek Testament again;
and, Mr Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is,
an Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read,
may henceforth let the Greek original repose upon its shelf:
Marcus Aurelius
193
The man whose thoughts 1\[r Long has thus faithfully
reproduced, is perhaps the Illost beautiful figure in history.
He is one of those consoling and hope-inspiring marks,
which stand for ever to remind our weak and easily dis-
couraged race how high human goodness and perseverance
have once been carried, and may be carried again. The
interest of rnankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of
signal goodness in high places; for that testimony to the
worth of goodness is the most striking which is borne by
those to whon1 all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence
lay open, by those who had at their con1mand the kingdon1s
of the world and the glory of then1. 1Iarcus Aurelius was
the ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the
best of men. Besides him, history presents one or two
sovereigns eminent for their goodness, such as Saint Louis
or ,Alfred. But l\larcus Aurelius has, for us moderns, this
great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, tha.t
he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essen-
tial characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a
brilliant centre of civilisation. 1'rajan talks of "our en-
lightened age" just as glibly as the Times talks of it.
l\Iarcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man like ourselves,
a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis inhabits
an atlnosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the nlan of
the nineteenth century n1ay adn1Ïre, indeed, may even
passionately wish to inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he
cannot really inhabit. Alfred belongs to a state of society
(I say it with all deference to the SaturdaJ' .f
eview critic
who keeps such jealous watch over the honour of our Saxon
ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint Louis
can be moral1)' and intellectuall)' as near to us as l\larcus
Aurelius.
The record of the outward life of this admirable n1an has
in it little of striking incident. He was born at l
ome on
the 26th of April, in the year 121 of the Chri<;tian era. lie
was nephew and son-in-law to his predecessor on the throne,
Antoninus Pius. \Vhen Antoninus died, he was forty years
old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had
assisted in adu1inistering public affairs. 1'hen, after his
uncle's death in 16 I, for nineteen years he reigned as em-
peror. The barbarians were pressing on the Roman frontier,
and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's nineteen years of
G
194
Critical Essays
reign was passed in can1paigning. IIis absences from Rome
were numerous and lor.g. \Ve hear of him in Asia !\1inor,
Syria, Egypt, Greece; but, above all, in the countries on
the Danube, where the war with the barbarians was going
on,-in Austria rv1oravia, Hungary. In these countries
much of his Journal seen1S to have been written; parts of
it are dated from then1; and there, a few weeks before his
fifty-ninth birlhday, he fen sick and died. 1 1'he record of
hilTI on which his falTIe chietly rests is the record of his
inward ]jfe,-his Joltl'wal, or C01n men taries, or iJletlilatioJlS,
or Thoughts, for by an these names has the work been
called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of his
outward life is that which the first book o[this work supplies,
where he gives an account of his education, recites the
nan1CS of those to whon1 he is indebted for it, and enumerates
his obligations to each of then1. It is a refreshing and con-
soling picture, a priceless treasure for those, who, sick of
the" wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," which
seems to be nearly the whole that history has to offer to
our view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking
and wen-doing which in aU ages must surely have somewhere
existed, for wîthout it the continued. life of humanity would
have been ilnpossible. U From my mother I learnt piety
and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds
but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my
way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.') L
t
us ren1en1ber that, the next time we are reading the sixth
satire of J uvenal. "Fron1 nlY tutor I learnt)J (hear it. ye
tutors of princes!) "endurance of labour, and to want
little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle
with other people's afEÚrs, and not to be ready to listen to
slander." 'rhe vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or
rhetorician-the Gnecullts esuriells-are in every hod y's nlind;
but he who reads f\Iarcus Aurelius's account of his Greek
teachers and masters, will understand how it is that, in spite
of the vices and foibles of individual Græcu!i, the education
of the human race owes to Greece a debt whlrh can never
be overrated. The vague and colourless pn... s
of history
leaves on the n1ind hardly any impression of Antoninus
Pius: it is only from the private memoranda of his nephew
that we learn that a disciplined, hard-working. gentle, WI3e.
1 lIe died on the 17th of :March, A.D. 180.
lVlarcus Aurelius
195
virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, interests man-
kind less than his irnmortal nephew only because h-
has
left in writing no record of his inner life,-caret quia vale
sacro. Of the outward life aad clrcunu,tances of 1farcus
Aurelius, beyond these notices which he has hirrlself sup-
plied, there are few of 111uch interest and importance. rrhere
is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard of the
assassination of the revolted i\.vidius Cassius, against whon1
he was Inarching; he 'was sorry, he said, 10 be deþri
'ed oj
the .þluuure of jardoniilg hl1Jl. And there are one or two
n10re anecdotes of hÌ1n which show the same spirit. But
the great record for the outward life of a man who has left
such a record of his lofty inward aspirations as that which
1Iarcus ...t\.urelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of
all his contenlporaries,-high and low, friend and enemy,
pagan and Christian,-in praise of his sincerity, justice, and
gooJness. The world's charity does not err on the side of
excess, and here was a man occupying the most conspicuous
station in the world, and professing the highest possible
standard of conduct ;-yet the world was obliged to declare
that he waJked worthily of his profession. Long aíter his
death, his bust was to be seen in the houses of private Inen
through tbe wide Roman empire; it nlay be the vulgar part
of hurnan nature which busies itself with the senlbb.nce and
Goings of living sovereigns, it is its nobler part which busies
itself with those of the dead; these busts oÍ 1filrcus Aurelius,
in the h0111eS of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bore witness, not
to the inn1
tes' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces,
but to their reverential l11elnory of the passage of a great
lnan upon the earth.
Two things, however, before one turns from the outward
10 the inward life of 1Iarcus ..A.urelius, force thenlselves upon
one's notice, and delnand a word of cOlun1ent; he per-
secuted the Christia.ns, and he had for his son the vicious
and bruî.al Commodas. The persecution at Lyons, in
which .Attalus and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at
Smyrll
1., in which Polycarp suffered, took place in his reign.
Of his hunlanity, of his tolerance, of his horror of cruelty
and violence, of his w
$h to refrain from severe meaSUh
S
against the Christians, of his anxiety to ten1per the severity
of these nleasures when they appean.
d to hin1 indispensable,
there is no doubt
but, on the one hand, it is certain that
19 6
Critical Essays
the letter, attributed to hil11, directing that no Christian
should be punished for being a Christian, is spurious; it is
almost certain that his alleged answer to the authorities of
Lyons, in which he directs that Christians persisting in their
profession shall be dealt with according to the law, is
genuine. Mr Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt
over the persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the
letter of the Lyons Christians relating it, alleges it to have
been attended by n1iraculous and incredible incidents.
" A n1an," he says, " can only act consistently by accepting
all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blan1e him
for either." But it is contrary to all experience to say that
because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and
embellishments, therefore it probably never happened at
all; or that it is not, in general, easy for an impartial mind
to distinguish between the fact and the em bellishments.
I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took place, and
that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was
sanctioned by 1vlarcus Aurelius. But then I n1ust add that
nine modern readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I
believe, have a perfectly false notion of what the moral
action of
larcus Aurelius, in sanctioning that punishn1ent,
really was. They in1agine Trajan, or Antoninus Pius, or
Iarcus Aurelius, fresh fro111 the perusal of the Gospel,
fuHy aware of the spirit and ho1iness of the Christian sair..t:s
ordering their extern1ination because he loved darkness
rather than light. Far from this, the Christianity which
these emperors aimed at repressing was, in their conception
of it, J something philosophicaUy conten1ptible, politically
subversive, and morally abo111inable. As n1en, they sin-
cerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us,
regard IVlonnonisn1; as rulers, they regarded it much as
Liberal statesmen, with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of
1\lormonism, constituted as a vast secret society, with
obscure aims of political and social subversion, was what
Antoninus Pius and l\1arcus Aurelius believed thelnselves
to be repressing when they punished Christians. The early
Christian apo
ogists again and again declare to us under
what odious imputations the Christians lay, how general was
the belief that these imputations were wen-grounded, how
sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. The
multitude, convinced that the Christians were athe]';)ts who
1\1arcus Aurelius
197
ate human flesh and thought incest no crime, rli
played
against them a fury so passionate as to embarrass and alarm
their rulers. The severe expressions of 1"acitus, exitiabt'lis
suþerstitio-odio human; generis convictt, show how deeply
the prejudices of the multitude imbued the educated class
also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a doctrine
so benign as that of Christ can have incurred misrepresen-
tation so monstrous. The inner and nloving cause of the
n1isrepresentation lay, no doubt, in this,-that Christianity
was a new spirit in the Ron1an world, destined to act in
that world as its dissolvent; and it was inevitable that
Christianity in the Roman world, like democracy in the
modern world, like every new spirit with a similar mission
assigned to it, should at its first appearance occasion an
instinctive shrinking and repugl
ance in the world which it
was to dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the
misrepresentation were, for the Roman public at large, the
confounding of the Christians with the J eV
Ts, that isolated,
fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, fierceness,
and isolation, real as they were, the fancy of a civilised
Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of mystery
and novelty which surrounded the Christian rites; the very
simplicity of Christian theism; for the ROlnan statesman,
the character of secret assemblages which the meetings of
the Christian community wore, under a State-system as
jealous of unauthorised éJssociations as the Code Napoleon.
A Roman of 1Iarcus Aurelius's tilne and position could
not well see the Christians except through the n1ist of these
prejudices. Seen through such a mist, the Christians
appeared with a thousand faults not their own; but it has
not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their own
many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults
especially likely to strike such an observer as 1\Iarcus
Aurelius, and to confirnl him in the prejud!ce
of his race,
station, and rearing. \Ve look back upon Christianity after
it has proved what a future it bore within it, anå for us the
sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure and
devoted spirits through whonl it proved this;
larcus
Aurelius saw it with its future yet unshown, and with the
tares among its professed progeny not less conspicuous than
the wheat. 'Vho can doubt that among the professing
Christians of the second century, as among the professing
19 8
Critical I
ssaý.s
Christians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of fony, plenty
of rabid nonsense, plenty of gross fanaticis111? who will even
venture to affirn1 that, separated in great meascre from the
intellect and civilisation of the world for one or two
centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been its fruits,
had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable
germ? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of
Christianity with the virtue and intelligence of men like the
...L\.ntonines,-of the best product of Greek a.nd Rornan
civilisation, while Greek and Rorrtan civiiisation had yet
life and povw'er,-Christianity and the worlù, as well as the
Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? r[hat
alliance was not tb be. The i\ntonines lived and died wit.h
an utter misconception of Christianity; Christjanity grew
up in the CataC0I11 bs, not on the ra.latine. Marcus Aure1ins
incurs no moral reproach by having authorised the puni
Jh-
n1ent of the Christians; he does not thereby become in the
least what we mean by a þersecutor. One may concede that
it was impossible for hirn to see Christianity as it real]y
was ;-as impossible as for even the n10deratc and sensible
Fleury to see the Antonines as they really were ;-one may
concede that the Doint of view fron1 which Christianitv
appeared sonlethi
g anti-civil and anti-social, which the
State had the f
lCtIlty to judge and the duty to suppress, was
inevitably his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage,
who rnade perfection his aim, and reason his law, did
Christianity an immense injustice and rested in an idea of
State-attributes which was illusive. And this is, in truth,
characteristic of rvlarcus Aurelius, that he is blameless, yet,
in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character. beautiful
as it is, there is something nlelancholy, circunlscribed t and
ineffectual.
For of his having such a son as COIllmodus, too, one:
must say that he is not to be blamed on that account, but
that he is unfortunate. l)isposition and teolperanlCl1t are
inexp1icahle things; there are natures on which the best
education and example are thrown away; excellent fathers
may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious
sons. It is to be ren1embered also, that Comnlodus was
left, at the perilous age of nineteë:n, nlaster of the wor1d j
while his father, at that age, was but beginning a twenty
years' apprenticeship to wisdom, ]abour, and self-comnland,
Ivlarcus Aurelius
199
under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus.
Con1modus was a prince apt to be led by favourites; and
if the story is true which says that he left, all through his
reign, the Chri:.tians untroubled, and a
críbes this lenIty to
the influence of his mistress !\1arcia, it shows that he could
be led to good as well as to evil; for such a nature to be
left at a critical age with absolute power, and wholly without
good counsel and direction, was the rnore fatal. Still one
cannot help wishing that the example of l\f arcus Aurelius
could have availed Inore with his own only son. One can-
not uut think tbat with such virtue as his there should go,
too, the ardour which removes mountains, and that the
anlour which removes n10untains might have even won
Comrnodus; the word ineffectual again rises to one's
mÜ1d; 11arcus Aurelius saved his own soul by his righteous-
ness, and he could do no 11l0re. IIappy they who can do
this! but still happier, who can do more 1
Yet, when one passes froln his outward to his inward
life, when one turns over the pages of his llfeditatio1ZS,-
entl ics jotted down from day to day, amid the business of
the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his own guidance
and support, n1e
nt for no eye but his own, w'ithout the
s1ightest atten
pt at style, with no care, even, for correct
writing, not to be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity,-
all disposition to carp and cavil dies away, and one is over-
po\vered by the charrn of a character of such purity,
delicacy, and virtue. lIe fails neither in sn1all things nor
in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great
springs of action may be right in hinI, and that the minute
details of action fDay be right also, how admirable in a hard-
tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, with a passion for thinking
and reading, is such a nlenlorandun1 as the following:-
"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to anyone,
or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continu-
ally to excuse the neglect of àuties required 1JY our relation
to those with whom \ve live, by alleging urgent occupation."
And, when that ruler is a Roman elnperor, what an
" idea" is this to be written down and n1editated by
him :-
" The idea of a polity in ,vhich there is the same law for
all, a polity adrninistered with regard to equal rights and
equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly govern-
200
Critical Essays
ment which respects most of all the freedom of the
governed. "
And, for all men who U drive at practice," what practical
rules may not one accumulate out of these .iJ1'editatiolls:-
"1"he greatest part of what we say or do being un-
necessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more
leisure and less uneasiness. .Accordingly, on every occasion,
a man should ask hin1self: 'Is this one of the unnecessary
things? ' N ow a man should take away not only un-
necessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus
superfluous acts will not follow after."
And again :-
" \Ve ought to check in the series of our thoughts every-
thing that is without a purpose and useless, but most of all
the over curious feeling and the malignant; and a man
should use himself to think of those things only about which
if one should suddenly ask, '\Vhat hast thou now in thy
thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately
answer, 'This or That;' so that from thy words it should
be plain that everything in thee is simple and benevolent,
and such as befits a social animal, and one that cares not
for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry or
envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst
blush if thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy lnind."
So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he
discourses on his favourite text, Let nothing be done 'lVit/lOll!
a þurpose. But it is when he enters the region where
Franklin cannot follow him, when he utters his thoughts
on the ground-motives of human action, that he is most
interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable
l\Iarcus Aurelius. Chri5tianity uses language very liable to
be lnisunderstood when it seems to tell men to do good,
not, certainly, from the vulgar nlotives of worldly interest,
or vanity, or love of human praise, but "that their Father
which seeth in secret lllay reward them openly." 1'he
nlotives of reward and punishment have come, from the
misconception of language of this kind, to be strangely
overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the deteriora-
tion and disfigurement of Christianity. 1farcus Aurelius
says, truly and nobly :-
"One man, when he has done a service to another, is
ready to set it down to his account as a favour conferred.
Marcus Aurelius
201
Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind
he thinks of the nlan as his debtor, and he knows what he
has done. .A third in a nlanner does not even know what
he has done, but he is like a vine which has þroduced grapes,
and seeks jor nothing 1nore after it has once produced its
proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he
has caught the game, a bee when it has made its honey, so
a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for
others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as
a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.
Must a man, then, be one of these, who in a manner acts
thus without observing it? Yes."
.And agaín :-
"\Yhat more dost thou want when thou hast done a man
a service? 1\rt thou not cont
nt that thou hast done some,
thing conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be
paid for it, just as if the eye demanded a reCOlnpense for seez'ng,
or the feet for walkÙlg? "
Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has
to correct its apparent offers of external reward, and to say:
The kingdom of God is u,i/hill )'OU.
I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the
morality of l\Iarcus Aurelius acquires a special character,
and renlinds one of Christian morality. The sentences of
Seneca are stimulating to the intellect; the sentences of
Epictetus dre fortifying to the character; the sentences of
l\larcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said that
religious enlotion has the power to light up morality: the
emotion of l\Iarcus Aurelius does not quite light up his
lnorality, but it suffuses it; it has not power to melt the
clouds of effcrt and austerity quite away, but it shines
through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not so much
of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a
delicate and tender sentinlent, which is less than joy and
lnore than resignation. He says that in his youth he learned
ironl l\laximus, one of his teachers, "cheerfulness in aU
circumstances as well as in illness; and a just admixture in
the moral character of sweetness and àignity:" and it is this
very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which nlakes
him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even
into his observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a
srmpathetic tenderness, worth}' of 'Vordsworth; the spir
t
202
Critical Essays
of such a remark as the following seems to me to ha".e
no par
l1d in the whole range of Greek and Ronlan
literature :-
" Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the
ripe olives the very circumstance of their being near to
rot.tennes
adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears
of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the
foam which flows from the nlouth of wild boars, and Inany
other things,-though they arc far from being beautiful, in
a certain sense,-still, because they cOlne in the course of
nat 1 1re, have a beauty in them, and they please the mind;
so that if a man should have a feeling and a deeper insight
with respect to the things which are produced in the uni-
verse, there is hardly anything which conH
S in the course of
nature which will nut seen) to him to be in a nlanner
disposed so as to give pleasure."
Rut it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects
that his delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charo1.
Let those who can feel the beauty of spiritual refinement
read this, the reflection of an ernperor who prized nlental
superiority highly:-
"'fhou <.;ayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy
wits.' Be it so; hut there are lnany other things of which
thou canst not say, 'I am not formed for thern by nature.'
Show those qualities, then, which are altogether in thy
power,-sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to
pleasure, contentmpnt with thy portion and with few things,
benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from
trifling, nmgnanimity. Dost thou not see how mr1ny
qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there
is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet
thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art
thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by
nature, to murnlur, and to be rnean, and to flatter, and to
find fault with thy poor body, and to try to plca.se Inen, nnd
to Inake great display, and to be so restless in thy nllnd?
No, inùeed; but thou mightest have been deli,,'ered [IOn)
these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be
charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehensIon,
thou Inust exert thyself about this also, not neglecting nor
yet taking pleasure in thy dulness."
1'he S
Ulle sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when
ftlarcus Aurelius
20
""
he sees the isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on
the cheer:ess thought of the nlisery of this condition, but on
the inspiriting thought that n1an is blest with the power to
escape from it :-
U Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the
natl1rai unity,-for thou wast n1aàe by nature a part, but
now thou hast cut thyself off,-yet here is this beautiful
provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself.
God has allowed this to no other part,-aftcr it has been
separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But
consider the goodness with wh:ch he has privileged man;
for he has put it in his powcr, when he has ueen separated,
to return and to be united and to resume his place."
It enables hi111 to control even the passion for retreat and
soJitude, so strùng in a soul like his, to which the world
could offer no abiding ci ty :-
" l\Ien seck retreat for then1seIyes, houses in the country,
seashores, and mountains; and thou, too, art \vont to desire
such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of
the most conlIl1on sort of n1en, for it is in thy power when-
ever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere
either with more quiet or more Íreedonl frOIn trouble does
a lllan retire than into his own soul, particularly when he
has within hiru such thoughts that by looking into them he
is immediately in perfect tranquillity. Constantly, then, give
to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy
principlçs be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou
shalt recur to thellJ, will be sufficient to c1eanse the soul
conlpletely, anù to send thee back free from all discontent
with the things to which thou returnest."
Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural
to the great for \\Thon1 there seen1S nothing left to desire or
to strive after, but 50 enfeebling to them, so deteriorating,
l\larcus l\urelills never ceased to struggle. \Vith resolute
thankfulness he kept in ren1en1brance the blessings of his
lot; the true blessings of it, not the false :-
U I have to thank I-Icaven that I was subjected to a ruler
and a father (.Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away
all pride frorn l11e, and to bring me to the knowledge that it
is possible for a tHan to live in a palace without either
guards. or en1broidered dresses, or any show of this kind;
but that it is in such a man's power to bring biln5elf very
20 4
Critical Essays
near to the fashion of a private person, without being fOI
this reason either meaner in thought or more remiss in
action with respect to the things which must be done for
public interest. . .. I have to be thankful that my children
have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did not
nlake more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other
studies, by which I should perhaps have been completely
engrossed, if I had seen that I was making great progress in
them; . . . that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus,
1aximus;
. . . that I received clear and frequent in1pressioDs about
living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is,
so that, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help,
and inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living
according to nature, though I still fall short of it through
my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions
of I-leaven, and, I may almost say, its direct instructions;
that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life as
mine; that though it was my mother's lot to die young, she
spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I
wished to help any man in his need, I was never told that I
had not the nleans of doing it; that, when I had an inclina-
tion to philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of a
sophist. "
And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and
blessings vouchsafed to him, his mind (so, at least, it
seems to me) would sometimes revert with awe to the perils
and ten1ptations of the lonely height where he stood, to the
lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their hideous
blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself
such a warning entry as this, significant and terrible in its
abruptness :-
U A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn
character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit,
3currilous, fraudulent, tyrannical!"
Or this :-
U About what am I now en1ploying my soul? On every
occasion I must ask myself this question, and enquire,
'Vhat have I now in this part of me which they call the
ru'.ing principle, and whose soul have I now?-that of a
child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a
tyrant, or of one of the lower animals in the service of man,
or of a wild beast?
Marcus Aurelius
20 5
The character he wished to attain he knew well, and
beautifully he has marked it, and marked, too, his sense of
shortcoming :-
"'Vhen thou hast assumed these names,-good, modest,
true, rational, equal-lninded, n1agnanimous,-take care that
thou dost not change these nan1es; and, if thou shoulùst
lose thenl, quickly return to them. If thou nlaintainest
thyself in possession of these names without desiring that
others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being,
and wilt enter on another life. For to continue to be such
as thou hast hitherto been, and to be torn in pieces and
defiled in such a life, is the character of a very stupid nlan,
and one overfond of his life, and like those half-devoured
fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds
and gore still entreat to be kept to the fonowing day,
though they will be exposed in the same state to the
same claws and bites. Therefore fix thyself in the
possession of these few names: and if thou art able to
abide in them, abide as if thou wast renloved to the
lIappy Islands."
For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point
of life "between two infinities " (of that expression Jvlarcus
Aurelius is the real owner) was to hinl anything but a
Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw through
no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general n10re gloomy
and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and
transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too,
the great charm of l\{arcus .l\urelius, his emotion, comes in
to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloon1 ;
and even on this eternally used topic he is inlaginative,
fresh, and striking:-
"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou
wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up
children, sick, dying, warring, feasting. trafficking, cultivat-
ing the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting,
plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grunlbling about the
present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls
or kings. \Vell then that life of these people no longer
exists at all. Again, go to the times of l'rajan. All is again
the same. Their life too is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst
think of those whom thou hast thyself known distracting
then1selves about idle things, negJecting to do what was in
206
Critical Essays
acordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly
to this and to be content with it."
Again :-
"The things which are rnuch valued in life are enlpty,
a.nd rotten, and trifling; and people are like little dogs,
biting one another, and little children qu
rrel1ing, crying,
and then straightway laughing. But fidelity, and modesty,
and justice, and truth are fled
CC , Up to OIympus from the wide-spread earth. J
What then is there which still detains thee here?"
.A.nd once rnore :-
"Look down from above on the countless herds of n1en,
and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied
voyagings in storn1S and callns, and the differences among
those who are born, who live together, and die. And con-
sider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the
life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many
know not even thy nalTIe, and how many will soon forget it,
and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very
soon blame thee, and that neither a posthun10us name is of
any value, nor reputation, nor anything else."
He recognised, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the
prime principle in 01an's constitution is the social;" and he
laboured sincere]yto make not only his acts towards his fellow-
men, but his thoughts also, suitable to this conviction :-
U \Vhen thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues
of those who live with thee; for instance, the activity of
one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a
third, and sonle other good quality of a fourth.'J
Stin, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in
a state of rapture at the spectacle afforded to hinl by his
fellow-creatures; above all it is hard, when such a man is
placed as l'vlarcus Aurelius was placed, and has had the
meanness and perversity of his fellow-cre3.tures thrust, in
no con1mon lneasure, upon his notice,--has had, time after
time, to experience how" within ten days thou wilt SeelTI a
god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape."
Iris true strain of thoue'ht as to his relations with his
fellow-men is rather the foÏlowing. He has been enulnerat.-
ing the higher consolations which may support a man at the
approach of death, and he goes on :-
Ivlarcus Aurelius
20 7
U But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort
which shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made best re-
conciled to death by observing the objects from which thou
art goinO" to be removed, and the morals of those with whom
thy sout win no longer be mingled. For it is no way right
to be offended with rnen, but it is thy duty to care for them
and to bear with them gently; and yet to remen1ber that
thy departure will not be fron1 men who have the same
principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there be
any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to
life, to be permitted to live with those who have the s[tme
principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is
the distress caused by the difference of those who live
'together, so that thou mayest say: 'Come quick, 0 death,
lest perchance I too should forget myself.'"
o faithless alzd þerverse gelzeration J how long shall I be
with YOII? how long shall I suffer J'ou? SOllletillles this
strain rises even to passion :-
"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live
as on a mountain. Let men see, let theln know, a real
man, who lives as he was n1eant to live. If they cannot
.endure him, let then1 kill hilll. For that is better than to
live as nlen do."
It is rernarkable how little of a nlerely local and tem-
porary character, how little of those scoriæ which a reader
has to clear away before he gets to the precious ore, how
little that even admits of doubt or question, the morality of
1\Iarcus l\ureiius exhibits. I In general, the action he pre-
I Perhaps there is one exception. He is fond of urging as a motive
for man's cheerful acquiescence in whate\'er befalls him, that" what-
.ever happens to e'-ery man is f01- the interest oj the universal;" that
the wh01e contains nothing 7
.'hich z"s flOt for its advantage,' that
everything v. hich happens to a man is to be accepted, "even if it seems
:Hsagreeable, becrzu.r;e it ltads to the health of the uuiverse." And the
v. hole course of the univer5e. he adds, has a pruvid
ntiaJ reference to
man's welfare: "all other thi1l
!(s ha'lle been made for th
sake of rational
beings." Religion has in all ages freely used this language, and it is not
rdigion which will object to
larcus Aurelius's use of it; but science
("an hard1y accept as severely accurate this employment of the terms
interest and at'vallta,t;e. Even to a sound nature and a clear reason the
pwposition that things happen" for the interest of the universal, JJ r.s
men conceive of interest, may seem to have no meaning at all, and the
proposition that Ie all things have been made for the sake of rational
!>eings" may seem. to. be fai
e. Yet even to this language, not irresist-
Ibly cogent when It IS thus absolutely used, 1Vlarcus Aurelius gives a
208
Critical Essay
s
scribes is action which every sound nature must recognise
as right, and the motives he assigns are motives which
every clear reason must recognise as valid. And so he
remains the especial friend and comforter of scrupulous and
difficult, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving souls, in those
ages most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but
yet have no open vision; he cannot give such souls, perhaps,
all they yearn for, but he gives them much; and what he
gives them, they can receive.
Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such
souls love him most! it is rather because of the emotion
which gives to his voice so touching an accent, it is because
he too yearns as they do for something unattained by him.
\\
hat an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor of the
Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, its
happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which
his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he
touched them, he passed them by. One feels, too, that
the l\farcus Aurelius one knows must still have remained,
even had they presented themselves to him, in a great
measure himself; he would have been no Justin ;-but how
would they have affected him? in what measure would it.
have changed him? Granted that he Inight have found,
like the A logi of n10dern times, in the most beautiful of the
Gospels, the Gospel which has leavened Christendom most
powerfully, the Gospel of St John. too much Greek
metaphysics, too much ?,1l0S1S; granted that this Gospel
might have looked too like what he knew already to be e.
turn which makes it true and useful, when ne says: ee The ruling part
of man can m3.ke a materia) fur itself lIut of that which opposcs it, as
fire lays hold of wnat falls into it, and rises higher by means of this
very material; "-when he says: "\Vhat eJse are all things except
exercises for the reason? Persevere then until thou shah have made
all things thine own, as the stomach which is strengthened makes all
things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of
everything that is thrown into it ; "-when he says: "Thon wilt not
cease to be miserable till thy mind is in such a condition, that, what
luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall be to thee, in every
matter which presents itself, the doing of the things which are con-
formable to man's constitution; for a man ought to consider as an
enjoyment everything which it is in his power to do accordin
to his
own nature,-and it is in his power evc-rywhere." J n this sense it is,
indeed, most true that "all things have been made for the sake of
rational beings; " that U all things work together for good."
1\1arcus Aurelius
20 9
total surprise to him: what, then, would he have said to the
Sermon on the 1fount, to the twenty-sixth chapter of St
1vlatthew? "That would have become of his notions of the
exitz"abilis suþers/ilio, of the "obstinacy of the Christians"?
Vain question! yet the greatest charm of l\Iarcus Aurelius
is that he makes us ask it. \Ve see him wise, just, self.
governed, tender, thankful, blameless; yet, with all this,
agitated, stretching out his arms for something beyond.-
tendentemque manus npæ ulten'on's amort.
LIBRARY S1. MARY'S COLLEGE
x
ON TRANSL.ATING HOl\IER
N unq uamne reponam ?
I
IT has more than once been suggested to me that I should
translate Homer. 1"hat is a task for which I have neither
the time nor the courage; but the suggestion led me to
regard yet more closely a poet whom I had already long
studied, and for one or two years the works of Homer were
seldoIn out of my hands. The study of classical literature
is probably on the decline; but, whatever nlay be the fate
of this study in general, it is certain that, as instruction
spreads and the number of readers increases, attention will
be n10re and more directed to the poetry of Homer, not
indeed as part of a classical course, but as the most im-
portant poetical n10nument existing. Even within the last
ten years two fresh transla.tions of the Iliad have appeared
in England: one by a man of great ability and genuine
learning, Professor Newman; the other by l\Ir \V right, the
conscientious and painstaking translator of l)ante. It may
safely be asserted that neither of these works win take rank
as the standard translation of HOlner; that the task of
rendering him will still be attempted by other translators.
It may perhaps be possible to render to these SOllIe service,
to save then1 some loss of labour, by pointing out rocks on
which their predecessors have split, and the right objects on
which a translator of Homer should fix his attention.
It is disputed what aim a translator should propose to
himself in dealing with his original. Even this prelinljnary
is not yet settled. On one side it is said that the transla-
tion ought to be such" that the reader should, if possible,
forget that it is a translation at all, and be lulled into the
.illusion that he is reading an original work-something
210
On Translating I-Ion1er 2 I I
original" (if the translation be in English), "from an English
hand." 1'he real original is in this case, it is said, "taken
as a b
sis on which to rear a poem that shall affect our
countryu1en as the original may be conceived to have
affected its natural hearers." On the other hand, l\Ir N ew-
man, who states the foregoing doctrine only to condemn it,
declares that he "aims at precisely the opposite: to retain
every peculiarity of the original, so far as he is able, "If.Jitlt
the greater care the more foreign it maJ' haþþC?l to be"; so
that it may" never be forgotten th
t he is in1itating, and
imitating in a different material. U 1'he translator's " first
duty," says
IrNewman, "is a historical one, to be faithful!'
Probably both sides would agree that the translator's " tirst
duty is to be faithful" ; but the question at issue between
them is, in what faithfulness consists.
fy one object is to give practical advice to a translator;
and I shall not the least concern myself with theories of
translation as such. But I advise the translator not to try
"to rear on the basis of the Iliad, a poem that shall affect
our countrymen as the original may be conceived to have
affected its natural hearers" ; and for this simple reason, that
we cannot possibly tell how the Iliad" affected its natural
hearers." It is probably meant merely that he should try
to affect Englishn1en powerfully, as Homer affected Greeks
powerfully; but this direction is not enough, and can give
no real guidance. For all great poets affect their hearers
powerfully, but the effect of one poet is one thing, that of
another poet another thing: it is our translator's business
to reproduce the effect of Hon1er, and the most powerful
emotion of the unlearned English reader can never assure him
whether he has reproduced this, or whether he has produced
sOlnething else. So, again, he n1ay foHow 1\Ir Newman's
directions, he may try to be " faithful," he may" retain every
peculiarity of his original"; but who is to as
ure him, who is
to assure
lr Newman himself, that, when he has done this,
he has done that for which l\fr Newman enjoins this to be
done, "adhered closely to HOIner's manner and habit of
thought )1? Evidently the translator needs some more
practical directions than these. Noone can tell hirn how
Homer affected the Greeks; but there are those who can
tell him how IIomer affects the?Jl. These are scholars; who
possess, at the same tinle with knowledge of Greek, adequate
212
Critical Essays
poetical taste and feeling. No translation WIll seem to them
of much worth compared with the original; but they alone
can say whether the translation produces more or less the
same effect upon them as the original. 1'hey are the only
competent tribunal in this matter: the Greeks are dead;
the unlearned Englishman has not the data for judging;
and no man can safely confide in his own single judgment
of his own work. Let not the translator, then, trust to his
notions of what the ancient Greeks would have thought of
him; he will lose himself in the vague. Let him not trust
to what the ordinary English reader thinks of him; he
will be taking the blind for his guiàe. Let him not trust
to his own judglllent of his own work; he may be misled
by individual caprices. Let him ask how his work affects
those who both know Greek and can appreciate poetry;
whether to read it gives the Provost of Eton, or Professor
Thompson at Cambridge, or Professor Jowett here in Oxford,
at all the same feeling which to read the original gIves them.
I consider that when Bentley said of Pope's translation, "It
was a pretty poem, but nlust not be called Homer," the
work, in spite of all its power and attractiveness, was judged.
'.0., èl
Ó
p61J1,t.J.O' ipídElH, "as the judicious would deter-
mine," that is a test to which everyone professes himself
willing to sublnit his works. Unhappily, in most cases, no
two persons agree as to who "the judicious" are. In the
present case, the ambiguity is removed: I suppose the
translator at one with ll1e as to the tribunal to which alone
he should look for judgment; and he has thus obtained a
practical test by which to estimate the real success of his
work. How is he to proceed, in order that his work, tried
by this test, may be found most successful?
First of aU, there are certain negative counsels which I
will give him. HOlller has occupied Inen's minds so much,
such a literature has arisen about him, that everyone who
approaches hin1 should resolve strictly to limit himself to
that which may directly serve the object for which he
approaches him. I advise the translator to have nothing
to do with the questions, whether Homer ever existed;
whether the poet of tbe Iliad be one or 111any; whether the
Iliad be one poem or :in Achilleis and an Iliad
tuck
together; whether the Christian doctrine of the Atoncrnent
is shadowed forth in the I-Iolneric nlythology; whether the
On Translating I-Ion1er 21 3
Goddess Latona in any way prefigures the Virgin 1fary, and
so on. 1'hese are questions which have been discussed
with learning, with ingenuity, nay, with genius; but they
have two inconveniences,-one general for all who approach
them, one particular for the translator. The general in-
convenience is that there rea1Jy exist no data for determining
them. The particular inconv'enience is that their solution
by the translator, even were it possible, could be of no
benefit to his translation.
I advise him, again, not to trouble hinlself with construct-
ing a special vocabulary for his use in translation; with
excluding a certain class of English words, and with con-
fining himself to another class, in obedience to any theory
about the peculiar qualities of Homer's style. nIr Newman
says that U the entire dialect of flomer being essentially
archaic, that of a translator ought to be as much Saxo-
Norman as possible, and owe as little as possible to the
elements thrown into our language by classical learning."
1Ir Newman is unfortunate in the observance of his 0\'\'11
theory; for I continually find in his translation words of
Latin origin, which seen1 to me quite alien to the simplicity
of Homer,-" responsive," for instance, which is a favourite
word of Mr Newman, to represent the Homeric åp.uß6p.eJID' :
Grear. Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her responst"ve.
Butt
1Us resjon'ì,,"ve!y to him spake godlike Alexander.
And the word "celestial," again, in the grand address of
Zeus to the horses of Achilles,
You, who are born celestial from Eld and Death exempted
seems to me in that place exactly to jar upon the feeling as
too bookish. But, apart fronl the question of !\lr Newman's
fidelity to his own theory, such a theory seems to me both
dangerous for a translator and false in itself. Dangerous
for a translator; because, wherever one find
such a theory
announced (and one finds it pretty often), it is generally
followed by an explosion of pedantry; and pedantry is of
all things in the world the most UIl- Homeric. False in
itself; because, in fact, we owe to the Latin element in our
language most of that very rapidity and clear decisiveness
by which it is contradistinguished from the German, and in
sympathy with the languages of Greece and Rome: so that
to limit an English translator of Homer to words of Saxon
21 4
Critical Essays
origin is to deprive him of one of his sf'ecial advantages for
translating Homer. In Voss's well-known translation of
l-Iomer, it is precisely the qualities of his Gern1an ]anguage
itself, sOlnething heavy and trailing both in the structure of
its sentences and in the words of which it is con1posed,
which prevent his translation, in spite of the hexameters,
in spite of the fidelity, from creating in us the Î1npression
created by the Greek. 1\1r Newman's prescription, if
followed, would just strip the English translator of the
advantage which he has over ,r oss.
rrhe frame of mind in which we approach an author
influences our correctness of appreciation of him; and
I-Iomer should be approached by a translator in the simplest
frame of mind possible. 1'lodern sentiment tries to make
the ancient not less than the n10dern world its own; but
against 1110dcrn sentiment in its applications to I-Iolner the
translator, if he would feel Homer truly-and unless he feels
hinl truly, how can he render him truly?-cannot be too
ltluch on his guard. For exan1ple: the writer of an
interesting article on English translations of Horner, in the
last number of the National Revic'i.t-., quotes, I see, with
admiration, a criticism of 1\Ir Ruskin on the use of the
epithet rpU(Jí
ooç, "life. giving," in that beautiful passage
in the third book of the INad, which follows Helen's
n1ention of her brothers Castor and Pollux as alive, though
they were in truth dead:
II , ' ò ' " Ò ' '1'''
, rpU'1'o. TCJVÇ ., 1J zaTEXEv í{JutJJsoor; ala
iw D.axsòaíp..olJl a
al, (þíì
r;È'i '7faTpíðl ')'aí'fJ. (
U The poet," says Mr Ruskin, "has to speak of the earth
in sadness; but he will not let that sadness affect or change
his thought of it. No; though Castor and Pollux be dead,
yet the earth is our mother still,-fruitful, life-giving."
rhis
is a just specilnen of that sort of application of modern
sentiment to the ancients, against which a student, who
wishes to feel the ancients truly, cannot too resolutely
defend hin1self. It ren1inds one, as, alas! so n1uch of
fr
Ruskin's writing renlinds one, of those words of the most
delicate of living critics: "Colnnle tout genre de con1-
position a son écueil particulier, eelui du Kellre romallfsque,
,)fst Ie faux." ï'he reader nlay feel moved as he reads it;
1 Iliad, iii. 243.
On Translating I-Ionlcr 215
but it is not the less an example of "Ie faux" in criticism;
it is false. It is not true, as to that particular passage, that
Jlomer called the earth
UO'/
(jOÇ, because, "though he had to
speak of the earth in sadness, he would not let that sadness
change or affect his thought of it," but consoled himself by
considering that "the earth is our mother still, - fruitful,
life-giving." It is not true, as a matter of general criticism,
that this kind of sentimentality, eminently modern, inspires
I-Iomer at all. "FraIn HOIner and Polygnotus I every day
learn more clearly," says Goethe, "that in our life here
above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell" I:
-if the student must absolutely have a keynote to the
Iliad, let him take this of Goethe, and see what he can do
with it; it will not, at any rate, like the tender pantheism
of 11r Ruskin, f2.lsify for him the whole strain of flomer.
1"hese are negative coun
els; I come to the positive.
'Vhen I say, the translator of I-Iomer should ahove all be
penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author ;-that
he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct,
both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of
it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is
eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that
is, in his rnatter and ideas; and, finally that he is em'inently
noble ;--1 probably seem to be saying what is ton general
to be of much service to anybody. Yet it is strictly true
that, for want of duly penetrating themselves with the first-
D3.n1ed quality of J-Iomer, his rapidity, Cowper and :\fr
'\Vright have failed in rendering hiln; that, for want of duly
appreciating the second-named quality, his p1ainness and
directness of style and diction, Pope and I\1r Sotheby
have failed in rendering hiln; that for want of appreciating
the third, his plainness and directness of ideas, Chapman
has failed in rendering him; while for want of appreciating
the fourth, his nobleness, 1\fr N eWlnan, who has clearly seen
some of the faults of his predecessors, has yet failed more
conspicuously than any of them.
Coleridge says, in his strange language, speaking of the
union of the human soul with the divine essence, that this
takes place
'V'nene'
r the mist, which stands 'twixt God and thee,
Defecates to a pure transparency;
J Briifwecksel swiscken Schiller und Goethe, vi. 23 0 .
216
Critical Essays
and so, too, it maybe said of that union of the translator
with his original, which alone can produce a good tr'lnsla-
tion, that it takes place when the Inist which stands between
them-the mist of alien modes of thinking, speaking, and
feeling on the translator's part-" defecates to a pure trans-
parency," and disappears. But between Cowper and l-Iomer
-( Mr \V right repeats in the main Cowper's manner, as 1-Ir
Sotheby repeats Pope's manner, and neither Ivír 'rright's
translation nor I\Ir Sotheby's has, I 111ust be forgiven for
saying, any proper reason for existing)-between Cowper
and Ifomer there is interposed the Inist of Cowper's e]a-
borate Ivliltonic manner, entirely alien to the flowing
rapidity of Homer; between Pope and IIol11er there is
interposed the mist of Pope's literary artificial nlanner,
entirely alien to the plain naturalness of I-Iorner's manner;
between Chapman and IIonler there is interposed the mist
of the fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, entirely alien to
the plain directness of Hon1er's thought and feeling; while
between
Ir Newman and IIonler is interposed a cloud
lof n10re than Egyptian thickness,-namely, a manner, in
Ir Newman's version, eminently ignoble, while fIonler's
manner is eminently noble.
I do not despair of making all these propositions clear to
a student who approaches I-{omer with a free mind. First,
. Homer is enlinently rapid, and to this rapidity the elaborate
movelnent of 1\1iltonic blank verse is alien. The reputation
of Cowper, that most interesting man and excellent poet,
does not depend on his translation of Homer; and in his
preface to the second edition, he hin1self tells us that he
felt,-he bad too much poetical taste not to feel,-on re-
turning to his own version after six or seven years, "1110re
dissatisfied with it hin1self than the nlost difficult to be
pleased of all his judges." And he was dissatisfied with it
for the ricrht reason,-that "it seemed to hill1 deficient in
the grace if ease." Yet he seen1S to have originally rniscon-
ceived the n1anner of Homer so much, that it is no wonder
he rendered hiln amiss. "The similitude of l\Iilton's n1an-
ner to that of I-Iomer is such," he says, "that no person
familiar with both can read either without being reminded
of the other' and it is in those breaks and pauses to which
the nun1ber
of the English poet are so n1uch indebted,
both for their dignity and variety, that he chiefly copies the
On Translating Homer
21 7
Grecian." It would be more true to say: "The unlikeness
of l\1ilton's manner to that of Homer is such, that no person
familiar with both can read either without being struck with
his difference from the other; and it is in his breaks and
pauses that the English poet is Inost unlike the Grecian."
The inversion and pregnant conciseness of
lilton or
Dante are, doubtless, most impressive qualities of style;
but they are the very opposites of the directness and flow-
ingness of Homer, which he keeps alike in passages of the
silnplest narrative, and in those of the deepest emotion.
Not only, for example, are these lines of Cowper un-
Homeric:
So numerous seemed those fires the banks between
Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece
In prospect all of Troy;
where the position of the word "blazing" gives an entirely
un-Homeric movement to this simple passage, describing
the fires of the Trojan camp outside of Troy; but the
following lines, in that very highly-wrought passage where
the horse of .Achilles answers his master's reproaches for
havjng left Patroclus on the field of battle, are equally un-
I-Iomeric :
For not through sloth or tardiness on us
Aught chargeable, have Ilium's son
thine arm
Stript from Patroclus' shoulders; but a God
Iatchles5 in battle, offspring of bright-haireà
Latona, him contending in the van
Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy.
Here even the first inversion, "have Ilium's sons thine
arms Stript from Patroclus' shoulders," gives the reader a
sense of a movement not Homeric; and the second in-
version, (( a God him contending in the van Slew," gives this
sense ten tin1es stronger. Instead of moving on without
check, as in reading the original, the reader twice finds
himself, in reading the translation, brought up and checked.
Homer moves with the same simplicity and rapidity in the
highly-wrought as in the simple passage.
!t is in ,:,ain that Cowper insists on his fidelity: U my
chIef boast IS that I have adhered closely to my original J' :--_
"the n1atter found in me, whether the reader like it or not
is found also in Homer j and the n1atter not found in me:
218
Critical Essays
how much soever the reader o1ay adln:re it, is found only
in 1fr Pope. 7J To suppose that it is fidelity to an origiDal to
give its matter, unless you at the san1e tirne give its manner;
or, rather, to suppose that you can really give its matter at
all, unless you can give its manner, is just the mistake of
our pre- Raphaelite school of painters, who do not under-
stand that the peculiar effect of nature resides in the whole
and not in the parts. So the peculiar effect of a poet
reSlces in his manner and movement, not in his words
taken separately. It is well known how conscient.iously
literal is Cowper in his translation of l-loIn er. It is well
known how extravagantly free is Pope.
So let it be !
Portents and prodigies are lost on me ;
that is Pope's rendering of the words,
2'tchD;;, 'T'í P.OI ðáya'T'oy fJ;allnÚf:UI; oùðÉ rí ere X,P
.[ .
Xanthus. why prophesicst thou my death to me?
thou neede::st not at an :
yet, on the whole, Pope's translation of the Iliad is more
Homeric than Cowper's, for it is more rapid.
Pope's nlovement, however, though rapid, is not of the
same kind as Homer's; and here I come to the real objec-
tion to rhyme in a translation of HOlner. It is coolmonly
said that rhyme is to be abandoned in a translation of
Houler, because "the exigencies of rhyme," to quote Mr
t-l eWlllan, "positively forbid faithfulness"; because" a just
translation of any ancient poet in rhynle,)) to quote Cowper,
U is impossible.)) 1'h1S, however, is merely an accidental
objection to rhyme. If this were all, it might be supposed
that if rhvlnes were Illore abundant H0111er could be
adequately" translated in rhyme. But this is not so; there
is a deeper, a substantial objection to rhynle in a translation
of Homer. It is, that rhyme inevitably tends to pair lines
which in the original are independent, and thus the ITIOVe-
ment of the poenl is changed. In these lines of Chapman,
for instance, fron1 Sarpedon's speech to Glaucus, in the
twelfth book of the Iliad:
o friend, if keeping back
'","ould keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack
) iliad, xix. 420.
On Translating Homer
21 9
In this life's human sea at all, but that deferring now
\Ve shunned death ever,-n0r would I half this vain valor show,
1\or glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance;
But since we must go, though not here, and that besides the chance
PI'oposed now, there are infinite fates, etc.
Here the necessity of n1aking the line,
Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance,
rhyme with the line which follows it, entirely changes and
spoils the movement of the passage.
)l .,
", ,
()
c;'f XEII (tU'l"v, fill tirPW";'OltJl IU':" XfJJ/J-";',
()Ûl"
xÉ O'E (f'rÉì
^OII.u /J.áX'1Jv È; xUòlávElpav"I
Neither would I myself go forth to fight with the foremost,
Nor would I nrge thee on to enter the glorious battle.
says Homer; there he stops, and begins an opposed move-
ment :
- ò '" ,"""'!' "'V A'
VVlI -flJ/ir1jÇ, rap K1}PE' Eý)EO'TCJ..ffJV uava'iO/f)--
But-for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always-
This line, in which I-lomer wishes to go away with the most
n1arked rapidity from the line before, Chapnlan is forced, by
the necessity of rhyming, intimately to connect with the line
before.
But since we mllst go, though not here, and that, besides the chnnce.
The nI0l11ent the word chance strikes our ear, we are irre-
sistibly carried back to advance and to the whole previous
line, which, according to Homer's own feeling, we ought to
have left behind us entirely, and to be moving farther and
farther away from.
Rhyme certainly, by intensifying antithesis, can intensif)?
separation, and this is precisely what Pope does; but th:s
balanced rhetorical antithesis, though very effective, is
entirely un-HoIl1eric. .A.nd this is what I mean by saying
that Pope fails to render Homer, because he does not
render his plainness and directness of style and diction.
"\Vhere I-Ionler marks separation by nloving away, Pope
marks it by antithesis. No passage could show this better
than the passage I have just quoted, on which I will pause
for a monlent.
J: Iliad, xii. 3 2 4.
220
Critical Essays
Robert ,,, ood, whose Essa.,v on tlxe G(Jlius of Homer is
mentioned by Goethe as one of the books which fell into
his hands when his powers were first developing themselves,
and strongly interested him, relates of this passage a striking
story. He says that in I ï62, at the end of the Seven
Years' 'Yar, being then Under-Secretary of State, he was
directed to wait upon the President of the Council, Lord
Granville, a few days before he died, with the preliminary
articles of the Treaty of Paris. (( I found him," he con-
tinues, "so languid, that I proposed postponing my business
for another time; but he insisted that I should stay, saying,
it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty; and
repeating the following passage out of Sarpedon's speech,
he dwelled with particular emphasis on tbe third line, which
recalled to his mind the distinguishing part he had taken in
public affairs:
'7r
'i'fOIl, Ei /iJèll ràp, "'ÓÀE,UOII tï.epl r:-ó
òe
tJr&
ft
, J !- \ '. ":I " " J1 '
(ue rJ1} fLE^^OllkSJI CI..'17iPCI) '1" (,(.vCUa'1"ld 'Ie
ËtSdHfO', OÜ':"t Xiii aù'1"ò
ÈII} '7rpW't'Oldl lUX xoip.'I",IIJ [
OÜ'rE xi df: d'rÉÀÀ.OI/u !U;.X/l
' È
XUÒIrJ.IIE1pa.II'
- ò '" ,--.. I
A'
IJII -Ep.'7rr;; "lap K1]pE
E;PEdr:-affH "Cf.I/CJ.'1"O/(}
tJpíCJ.l, Ü, OÚX Êd'il
vrEÌv ßp
'iOI/, OÙò' ÍJ'7rCJ.À.Ú;CU-
"
1 O/iJi lJ .
I-lis Lordship repeated the last word several times with a
caIn) and det
rn1Ïnate resignation; and, after a serious pause
of son1e nlinutes, he desired to hear the Treaty read, to
which he listened with great attention, and recovered spirits
enough to declare the approbation of a dying statesman (1
use his own words) "on the most glorious war, and most
honourable peace this nation evt:r saw.' " 1
J quote this story, first, because it is interesting as
exhibiting the English aristocracy at its very height of
eu It ure, lofty spirit, and greatness, towardi the middle of
the 18th century. I quote it, secondly, because it seems to
me to illustrate Goethe's saying which I mentioned, that
our life, in Homer's view of it, represents a conflict and a
hell; and it brings out, too, \vhat there is tonic and fortify-
) These are the words on which Lord Granville "dwelled with
particular empha
is."
Z Robert \Vood, Essay 0" Ilu Origillal Genius and fVritin.;s Ø)
Homer, London, 1775, p. vii.
On Translating- I-IoI11er 221
ing in this doctrine. I quote it, lastly) because it shows
that the passage is just one of those in translating which
Pope will be at his best, a passage of strong emotion and
oratorical movement, not of simple narrative or description.
Pope translates the passage thus:
Could all our care elude the gloomy grave
\Vhich claims no less the fearful than the brave)
For lust of fame I should not vainlv dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy souÍ to war:
But since, alas! ignoble age must come,
Disease, and death's inexorable doom;
The life which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe.
Nothing could better exhibit Pope's prodigious talent; and
nothing, too, could be better in its own way. But, as
Bentley said, "You must not call it Homer. H One feels
that Homer's thought has passed through a literary and
rhetorical crucible, and come out highly intellectualised;
come out in a form which strongly impresses us, indeed, but
which no longer impresses us in the same way as when it
was uttered by Homer. The antithesis of the last two lines-
The life which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe
is excellent, and is just suited to Pope's heroic couplet; but
neither the antithesis itself, nor the couplet which conveys
it, is suited to the feeling or to the n10vement of the
Homeric lofJ..EII.
A literary and intellectualised language is, however, in its
own way well suited to grand Inatters; and Pope, with a
language of this kind and his own admirable talent, COlnes
off \vell enough as long as he has passion, or oratory, or a
great crisis to deal with. Even here, as I have been
pointing out, he does not render IIol11er; but he and his
style are in themselves strong. It is when he con1es to level
passages, passages of narrative or description, that he and
his style are sorely tried, and prove themselves weak. A
perfectly plain direct style can of course convey the simplest
matter as naturally as the grandest; indeed, it must be
harder for it, one would say, to convey a grand matter
worthily and nobly, than to convey a con1mon matter as.
alone such a matter should be conveyed, plainly and sinlply.
222
Critical Essays
But the style of Rasselas is inconlparably better fitted to
describe a sage philosophising than a soldier lighting his
camp-fire. The style cf Pope is not the style of Rasselas;
but it is equally a literary style, equally unfitted to describe
a siolp]e nlatter with the plain naturalness of florner.
Everyone knows the passage at the end of the eighth
book of the Iliad, where the fires of the 1'rojan encanlp-
ment are likened to the stars. It is very far from rny wish
to hold Pope up to ridicule, so I shall not quote the com-
mencernent of the passage, which in the original is of great
and cdebrated beauty, and in translating which Pope has
been singularly and notoriously fortunate. But the latter
part of the passage, where I-Iolller leaves the stars, and
comes to the 1'rojan fires, treats of the plainest, [nost
nu\tter-of-fact subject possible, and deals with this, as }-Ionler
always deals with every subject, in the plainest and niost
straightforward style. "So Inany in nurnber, betweèn the
ships and the streams of Xanthus, shone forth in front of
1'roy the fires kindled by the 'frojans. There were kindled
a thousand fires in the plain; and by each one there sat
fifty men in the light of the blazing fire. And the horses,
munching white barley and rye, and standing by the
chariots, waited for the bright-throned 110rning." (
In ])ope's translation) this plain story beconlcs the
following:
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And brighten giimmering Xanthus with their rays;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and trt:mLle on the spires.
A thousand piles the du!'ky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the fielà.
Full fifty guards each t1aming pile attend,
'Vho3e umbered arms, bv fits, thick t1ashes send;
Loud Tleigh the coursers .o'er their heaps of corn,
Anù ardent warriors wait the rising morn.
It is for passages of this sort, which, after all, form the bulk
of a narrative poem, that Pope's style is so bad. In elevated
passages he is powerful, as HorDer is powerful, though not
in the sanle way; but in plain narrative, where Ilorner is
still powerful and delightful, Pope, by the inherent fault of
his style, is ineffective and out of taste. ,rordsworth says
somewhere, that wherever Virgil seems to have conlposed
I INad, viii. 5 60 .
On Translating Homer
223
"with his eye on the object," Dryden [ai]s to render hiw.
Homer invariably composes" with his eye on the object,"
whether the object be a moral or a materia.l one: Pope
C001poses with his eye on his style, into which he translates
his object, whatever it is. That, therefore, which Ilomer
conveys to us immediately, Pope conveys to us through a
nledium. He aims at turning flomer's sentiments pointedly
and rhetorically; at investing I-Iomer's description with orna-
DIent :lnd dignity. .
sentiment may be changed by being
put into a pointed and oratorical form, yet may still be very
effective in that form; but a description, the moment it
takes its eyes off that which it is to describe, and begins to
think of ornanlenting itself, is worthless.
Therefore, I say, the translator of Homer should pene-
trate hin1self with a sense of the plainness and directness of
Homees style; of tbe simplicity with which I-iomer:s
thought is evolved and expressed. He has Pope's fate
before his eyes, to show him what a divorce may be created
even between the n10st gifted translator and Homer by an
artificial evolution of thought and a literary cast of style.
Chaplnan's style is not artificial and literary like Pope's
nor his movement elaborate and self retarding like the
Iiltonic movement of Cowper. He is plain-spoken, fresh,
vigorous, and, to a certain degTee, rapid; and all these are
Iloineric qualities. I cannot say that I think the movenlent
of his fourteen-syllable line, which has been so much
commendf'd, Homeric; but on this point I shaH have more
to say by and by, when I conle to speak of I\lr Newman's
Inetrical exploits. But it is not distinctly anti-Homeric, like
the movement of Mihon's blank verse; and it has a
rapidity of its own. Chapman's diction, too, is general]y
òood. that is, appropriate to I-Iomer; above all, the syn-
tactical character of his style is appropriate. 'Vith these
merits, what prevents his translation from beirg a satisfactory
version of Homer? Is it nlere]r the want of literal faith-
fulness to his original, imposed upon him, it is said, by the
exigencies of rhyme? Has this celebrated version, which
has so many advantages, no other and deeper defcct than
that? It.. author is a poet, and a poet, too, of the Eliza-
bethan age; the golden age of English literature as it is
caJlt>d, and on the whole truly called; for, whalever be the
defects of Elizabtthan literature (and they are great), we
224
Critical ESSa)TS
have no development of our literature to compare with it
for vigour and richness. This age, too, showed what it
could do in translating, by producing a 111aster-piece, its
version of the Bible.
Chaplnan's translation has often been praised as eminently
I-Iomeric. !(eats's fine sonnet in its honour everyone
knows; but l(eats could not read the original, and therefore
could not really judge the translation. Coleridge, in prais-
ing Chapman's version, says at the same tirne, "It will give
you small idea of Homer." But the grave authority of 1Ir
I-Iallum pronounces this translation to be "often exceedingly
HOIneric ;" and its latest editor boldly declares that by
what, with a deplorable style, he calls "his own innative
I-Iomeric genius," Chaplua.n "has thoroughly identified
hilTIself with I-lon1er;" and that "we pardon hin1 even for
his digressions, for they are such as we feel Honler hinlself
would have written."
I confess that I can never read twenty lines of Chapnlan's
version without recurring to Bentley's cry, "This is not
Homer!" and that from a deeper cause than any unfaith-
fulness occasioned by the fetters of rhyule.
I said that there were four things which en1Ínently
distinguished H onler, and with a sense of which IIomer's
translator should penetrate hinlself as fully as possible.
One of these four things was, the plainness and directness
of HOluer's ideas. I have just been speaking of the plain-
ness and directness of his style; but the plainness and
directness of the contents of his style, of his ideas them-
selves, is not less remarkable. But as enlinently as I-Ionler
is plain, so eminently is the Elizabethan literature in
general, and Chapnlan in particular, fanciful. Steeped in
hUl1l0UrS and fantasticality up to its very lips, the EliLa-
bethan age, newly arrived at the free use of the hun1an
faculties after their long tcnn of bondage, and delighting to
exerdse then1 freely, suffers fron1 its own extravagance in
this first exercise of them, can hardly bring itself to see an
object quietly or to describe it tenlperately. I-Iappily, in
the translation of the Bible, the sacred character of their
original inspired the translators wi th such respect that they
did not dare to give the rein to their own fancies in dealing
with it. nut, in dealing with works of profane literature,
in dealing with poetkal works above a1l, which highJy
On Translating Homer
225
stimulated them, one may say that the minds of the
Elizabethan translators were too active; that they could
not forbear importing so much of their own, and this oi a
most peculiar and Elizabethan character, into their original,
that they effaced the character of the original itself.
Take merely the opening pages to Chapman's translation,
the introductory verscs, and the dedications. You will
find:
An Anagram of the name of our Dread Prince,
1.-fy most gracious and sacred :Mæcenas,
Henrv, Prince of \Vales,
Our Sunn, Heyr, Peace, Life,
I-Ienry, son of James the First, to whom the work 18
ded icated. Then comes an address,
To the sacred Fountain of Princes,
Sole Empress of Beauty and Virtue, Anne, Queen of England, etc.
All the
Iiddle Age, with its grotesqueness, its conceits,
its irrationality, is still in these opening pages; they by
themselves are sut1ìcient to indicate to us what a gulf
divides Chapman fron1 the U clearest-souled II of poets, frorn
Honler, ahl10st as great a gulf as that which divides hÍ1n
froIn 'T oltaire. Pope has been sneered at for saying that
Chapnlan writes" sonlcwhat as one nlight imagine llomer
himself to have written before he arrived at years of dis-
cretion." But the remark is excellent: HOiner expresses
himself like a man of adult reason, Chapn1an like a nlan
whose reas' m has not yet cleared itself. For instance, if
HOll1er had had to say of a poet, that he hoped his n1erit
was now about to be fully established in the opinion of
good judges, he was as incapable of saying this as Chapn1an
says it,-" Though truth in her very nakedness sits in so
deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora, and Ganges, few
eyes can sound her, I hope yet those fe\v here will so dis-
cover and confirnl that the date being out of her darkness
in this n10rning of our poet, he shall now gird his temples
with the sun,"-I say, IIo1l1er was as incapable of saying
this in that manner, as ,r oltaire hÎll1self would have been.
Homer, indeed, has actually an affinity with " oltaire in the
unrivalled clearness and straightforwardness of his think-
ing; in the way in which he keeps to one thought at a time,
and puts that thought forth in its complete natural plain-
H
226
Critical Essays
ness, instead of being led away from it by some fancy
striking him in connection with it, and being beguiled to
wander off with this fancy till his original thought, in its
natural reality, knows him no more. \Vhat could better
show us how gifted a race was this Greek race? The sanle
men}ber of it has not only the power of profoundly touch-
ing that natural heart of hUlnanity which it is Voltaire's
weakness that he cannot reach, but can also address the
understanding with all Voltaire's admirable simplicity and
rationa1í ty.
!\1y linlits will not allow me to do more than shortly
illustrate, from Chapman's version of the iliad, what I Ine
n
when I speak of this vital difference between I-Iomer and an
Elizabethan poet in the quality of their thought; between
the plain simplicity of the thought of the one, and the
curious conlplexity of the thought of the other. As in
Pope's case, I carefully abstain fron1 choosing passages for
the express purpose of making Chapman appear ridiculous;
Chapman, like Pupe, merits in himself all respect, though
he too, like Pope, fails to render I-Iomer.
In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of which I have said so
much, Homer, you may remember, has:
, \ \',\ , ., Ò '
EI /lÆÞ rap, 47Z'(u..Ep_OIJ tïrEp' '1"(J1J S (þ1J'YOIJTS,
, , Ò \ ',\
., .. ", " iI'
CX/E1 1) fJ-=^^OIp.,SV (J,/,/'1iPW 'T' UuCOCi.TW Ti H!(fëúu--
if indeed, but once this battle avoidcc!,
We were for ever to live without growing old and immortal-
Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but must add a fancy
to it :
if keeping back
Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might net
wrack
In this lift's humatl. sea at all;
and so on. Again; in another passage which I have before
quoted, where Zeus says to the horses of Peieus.
Tí úcp'Wi" Ò6/J-H D'ìÀr,ï cháX"1
A"" " ò " , " ., '" (
f1V1JTCfJ; vfJ.-SI ; EtrTO
(J,ì'YJPW 'T' (J,u.'X.IiU'r(N ra-
Why gave we you to royal Peleus, to a mortal? but ye are without
old age, anù immortal.
\ Iliad, xvii. 443.
On Translating H0111er
Chapman sophisticates this into:
\Vhy gave we you t' a mortal king, when immortality
And incapacity oj age so dignifies your states?
Again; in the speech of Achilles to his horses, where
Achilles, according to HOiner, says simply" Take heed that
I ye bring your master safe back to the host of the Danaans,
in some other sort than the last tirne, when the battle is
ended," Chaprnan sophisticates this into:
227
IVhe1t with blood, for this day's fast observed, 1 evellge shall yield
Our heart satÙty, bring us off.
In Hector's famous speech, again, at his parting from
Andromache, Homer makes him say: "Nor does nlY own
heart so bid me" (to keep safe behind the walls), "since I
ha.ve learned to be staunch always, and to fight among the
foremost of the Trojans, busy on behalf of my father's great
i:,\ory, and my own." I In Chapman's hands this becomes:
The spiri t I first did breathe
Did never teach me that; much less, since the contempt of death
Was settled il1 me, and my mind knew wlzat a worthy was,
IVhose tiflice is to lead itz fight, and gwe no dan..E;er þass
Without imþrovement. .111- this fire must Hecto";s tn"a/ shine:
Here must his coulltry,father,frietzàs, be in him made d,:vÙ,e.
You see how ingeniously Homer's plain thought is IOrJllented,
as the French would say, here. !-Iomer goes on: "For
wen I know this in my mind and in my heart, the day will
be, when sacred Troy shall perish-"
N ... " ", , .,
'
., . ,
e(f(ff.'l'1/,1 'YJ/J.ap, or GGII 'lrOT O^wr
l" lA/O; IP1J.
Chapman makes this:
And such a stormy day shaH come, in mind and soul I know,
\Vhen sacred Troy s/zall shed her towers,for tears of overthrow.
I n1ight go on for ever, but I could not give'you a better
illustration than this last, of what I mean by saying that the
Elizabethan poet fails to render Hon1er because he cannot
forbear to interpose a play of thought between his object
and its expression. Chapman translates his object into
Elizabethan, as Pope trans]ates it into the Augustan of
Queen .Anne; both convey it to us through a nlediun1.
J Iliad, vi. 444.
228
Critical Essays
Homer, on the other hand, sees his object and conveys it
to us imn1ediately.
.And yet, in spite of this perfect plainness and directness
of floIner's style, in spite of this perfect plainness and
directness of his ideas, he is eminently flOble,. he works as
entirely in the grand style, he is as grandiose, as Phidias, or
Dante, or l\lichael Angelo. This is what nlakes his trans-
lators despair. "To give relief," says Cowper, "to prosaic
subjects" (such as dressing, eating, drinking, harnessing,
travelling, going to bed), that is to treat such subjects
nobly, in the grand style, "without seeming unreasonably
tumid, is extremely difficult." It is difficult, but I-Iomer
has done it. l-Ionler is precisely the incornparable poet he
is, because he has done it. I-lis translator must not be
tumid, must not be artificial, lnust not be literary; true:
but then also he must not be conlnlonplace, m nst not be
ignoble. I have shown you how translators of Hon1er fail
by wanting rapidity, by wanting sinlplicity of style, by want-
ing plainness of thought: in a second lecture I will show
you how a translator fails by wanting nobility.
II
I MUST repeat what I said in beginning, that the translator
of I-Iomer ought steadily to keep in mind where lies the real
test of the success of his translation, what judges he is to I
try to satisíy. He is to try to satisfy scholars, because
scholars alone have the I11eanS of really judging him. 1\.
scholar may be a pedant, it is true, and then his judgment
will be worthless; but a scholar may also have poetical
feeling, and then he can judge him truly; whereas all the!
poetical feeling in the world will not enable a man who is
not a scholar to judge him truly. For the translator is to
reproduce l-Ionler, and the scholar alone has the means of'
knowing that Homer who is to be reproduced. He knows
him but imperfectly, for he is separated from him by tirne,
race, and language; but he alone knows him at all. Yet
people speak as if there were twù real tribunals in this
rnatter,-the scholar's tribunal, and that of the general I
public. They speak as if the scholar's judgment was one'
I
I On Translating Homer 229
thing, and the general public's judgment another; both
with their shortcomings, both with their liaLility to error;
but both to be regarded by the translator. The translator
who Inakes verbal literalness his chief care "will," says a
writer in the Piational Review WhOlll I have already quoted,
"be appreciated by the scholar accuston)ed to test a
translation rigidly by comparison with the original, to look
perhaps with excessive care to finish in detail rather than
boldness and general effect, and find pardon even for a
version that seeIns bare and bold, so it be scholastic and
faithfuL" But, if the scholar in judging a translation looks
to detail rather than to general effect, he judges it pedan-
tically and ill. rfhe appeal, however, lies not from the
pedantic scholar to the general public, which can only like
or dislike Chapman's version, or Pope's, or l\Ir Newrnan
s,
but cannot judge them; it lies froln the pedantic scholar to
the scholar who is not pedantic, who knows that Homer is
HODler by his general effect, and not by his single words,
and wl10 demands but one thing in a translation-that it
shall, as nearly as possible, reproduce for him the general
effect of flomer. This, then, remains the one proper aim
of the translator: to reproduce on the intelligent scholar, as
nearly as possibìe, the general effect of H OITIer. Except so
far as he reproduces this, he loses his labour, even though
he may make a spirited Iliad of his own, like Pope, or
translate l-lomer's Iliad word for word, like l\-Ir Newman.
If his proper ainl were to stinlulate in any manner possible
the general public, he might ÌJe right in following Pope's
exan1ple; if his proper aim were to he]p schoolboys to
construe I--IOlner, he might be right in following 11r N ev;-
man's. nut it is not: his proper ainl is, I repeat it yet
once more, to reproduce on the intelligent scholar, as
nearly as he can, the general effect of I-Iomer.
\Vhen, therefore, Cowper says, " l\Iy chief boast is that I
have adhered closely to nlY original J'; when 1fr Newman
says, II i\ly aim is to retain every peculiarity of the original,
to be faitl;/itl, exactly as is the case with the draughtsnlan
()f the Elgin n1arbles "; their real judge only replies: " It
In
y b
so: reproduce then upon us, reproduce the efrect
of I-lamer, as a good copy reproduces the efíect of the Elgin
u)arbles. JJ
'''hen, a
ain, 1\fr Newman tells us that U by an exhaustive
23 0
Critical Essays
process of argument and experiment" he has found a metre
which is at once the metre of "the modern Greek epic, J7 and
a metre" like in moral genius" to Homer's metre, his judge
has still but the saIne answer for him: "It may be so:
reproduce then on our ear something of the effect produced
by the movement of I-Iomer."
But what is the general effect which Homer produces on
!\lr Newman himself? because, when we know this, we shall
know whether he and his judges are agreed at the outset,
whether we lna.y expect him, if he can reproduce the effect
he feels, if his hand does not betray him in the execution,
to satisfy his judges and to succeed. If, ho\vever, l\Ir
Newman's impression from HOIner is something quite
different from that of his judges, then it can hardly be
expected that any amount of labour or talent will enable him
to reproduce for them their Homer.
1fr Newman 90es not leave us in doubt as to the general
effect which Homer makes upon him. As I have told you
what is the general effect which Homer makes upon rne,-
that of a most rapidly n10ving poet, that of a poet most
plain and direct in his style, that of a poet most plain and
direct in his ideas, that of a poet eminently noble,-so l\Ir
Newman tells us his general impression of Homer.
"Homer's style," he says, "is direct, popular, forcible,
quaint, flowing, garrulous." ...
gain : U Horner rises and
sinks with his subject, is prosaic when it is tame, is low
when it is mean."
I lay my finger on four words in these two sentences of
Mr Newman, and I say that the man who could apply those
words to Homer can never render Homer truly. 'The four
words are these: qua,,'nt, garrulous, þ1
osaic, low. Search
the English language for a word which does not apply to
IIomer, and you could not fix on a better than quaint,
unless perhaps you fixed on one of the other three.
Again; "to translate Homer suitably," says
rr Newman,
U we need a diction sufficiently antiquated to obtain pardon
of the reader for its frequent homeliness." "I am con-
cerned," he says again, U with the artistic problem of obtain-
ing a plausible aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining
easily intelligible." And again, he speaks of "the more
antiquated style suited to this subject." Quaint! antiquated!
-but to whom? Sir Thomas Browne is quaint, and the
On Translating I-Iomer
2
I
"
diction of Chaucer is antiquated: does :rvlr N ewn1an suppose-
that Homer seemed quaint to Sophocles, when he read
hiln, as Sir Thomas Browne seems quaint to us, when we
read him? or that Homer's diction seemed antiquated to
Sophocles, as Chaucer's diction seems antiquated to us?
But we cannot really know, I confess, how Homer seelned
to Sophodes: well then, to those who can tell us bow he
seems to them, to the Jiving scholar, to our only present
witness on this matter,-does Hoo1er make on the Provost
of Eton, when he reads him, the impression of a poet quaint
and antiquated? does he make this irnpression on Professor
Thon1pson or Professor Jowett. 'Vhen Shakspeare says,
Ie The princes orgulolts/' o1eaning "the proud princess,"
we say, "This is antiquated "; when he says of the Trojan
gates, that they
With massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts
Sperr up the sons of Troy,
we say, "This is both quaint and antiquated." But does
Hon1er ever compose in a language which produces on the
scholar at all the san1e impression as this language which I
have quoted from Shakspeare? Never once. Shakspeare
is quaint and antiquated in the lines which I have just
quoted; but Sh
kspeare-need I say it ?-can con1pose,
when he likes, when he is at his best, in a language perfectly
simple, perfectly intelligible; in a language which, in spite
of the two centuries and a half which part its author from
us, stops us or surprises us as little as the language of a
contemporary. And Homer has not Shakspeare's varia-
tions: Hoo1er always composes as Shakspeare con1poses at
his best; Homer is always sin1ple and intelligible, as
Shakspeare is often; Homer is never quaint and antiquated,
as Shakspeare is sOfiletimes.
\Vhen
\'lr Newulan says that Horner is garrulous, he
seems, perhaps, to depart less widely from the C001mon
opinion than w-hen he calls hÌ1n quaint; for is there not
l-lorace's authority for asserting that "the good I-Iorner
sOll1etin1es nods," bonus dormitat Honzerus? and a great
many people have COOle, froill the currency of this well-
known criticism, to represent I-Iomer to themselves as a
difiuse old man, with the full-stocked mind, but also with
23 2
Critical Essa)'s
the occasional slips and weaknesses of old age. T-Iorace has
said better things than his" bonus dormitat Honlcrus "; but
he never meant by this, as I need not remind anyone who
knows the passage, that Iromer was garrulous, or anything
of the kind. Instead, however, of either discussing what
IIorace meant, or discussing trolner's garrulity as a general
question, I prefer to bring to rny nlind SOllle style which is
garrulous, and to ask myself, to ask you, whether anything
at all of the impression made by that style is ever n1ade by
the style of IIoD1er. rrhe mediæval rornancers, for instance,
are garrulous; the following, to take out of a thousand
instances the first which COllles to hand, is in a garrulous
nlanner. It is from the rorna-nce of Richard Cæur de Lion.
Oi my tale be not a-wonde;"{'d !
The French says he slew an l,undr cd
(Whereof is m
de this Engli:5h saw)
Or he rested him any lhraw.
IIim followed many an English knight
That eager1}' holp him for to fight
and so on. Now the manner of that composition I call
garrulous; everyone will feel it to be garrulous; everyone
will understand what is meant when it is caned garrulous.
'Then I ask the scholar,-does I-Iolller's manner ever make
upon you, I do not say, the saOle impression of its garrulity
as that passage, but does it make, even for one mOlnent, an
impression in the slightest way resembling, in the ren10test
degree akin to, the impression made by that passage of the
Illcdiæval poet? I have no fear of the answer.
I fonow the same method with l\Ir Newman's two other
epithets, proJaÎc and low. " Homer rises and sinks with his
subject," says !\Ir Newrnan; "is prosaic when it is tao)e, is
low when it is mean." First I say, Homer is never, in any
sense, to be with truth called prosaic; he is never to be
called low. I-Ie does not- rise anè sink with his subject; on
the cO!1trary, his manner invests his subject, whate\ger his
subject be, with nobleness. Then I look for an author of
whom it may with truth he said, that he "rises and sinks with
his subject, is prosaic when it is tame, is low when it is
mean." Defoe is eminently such an author; of Defoe's
Inanner it may with perfect precision be said, that it follows
his matter; his lifelike composition takes its character from
the facts which it conveys, not fr0111 the nobleness of the
On Translating HOlner
233
composer. In .JIoll Flanders and Colonel Jack, Defoe is
undoubtedly prosaic when his subject is tame, low when his
subject is nlean. Does Homer's manner in the Iliad, I ask
the scholar, ever make upon him an Í1Tlpression at all like
the impression Inade by Defoe's manner in Afoll Flanders
and Colonel Jack 7 Does it not, on the contrary, leave binI
with an impression of nobleness, even when it deals with
Thersites or with Irus?
'VeIl then, IIomer is neither quaint, nor garrulûus, nor
prosaic, nor mean: and
Ir N ewnlan, in seeing hin1 so, sees
him differently fronl those who are to judge Mr Newman's
rendering of him. By pointing out how a wrong conception
of HOlner affects 1Ir N ewnlan's translation, I hope to place
in still clearer light those four cardinal truths which I
pronounce essential for him who would have a right
conception of Horner: that Homer is rapid, that he is plain
and direct in word and style, that he is plain and direct in
his ideas, and that he is noble.
Ir Newman says that in fixing on a style for suitably
rendering I-Iolner, as he conceives him, he "alights on the
delicate line which separates the quaint from the grotesque."
"I ought to be quaint," he says, "I ought not to be grotesque."
This is a most unfortunate sentence. l\Ir N ewrnan is
grotesque, which he himself says he ought not to be; and
he ought not to be quaint, which he hin1self says he ought
to be.
"No two persons will agree," says 1fr Newman, "as to
where the quaint ends and the grotesque begins;" and
perhaps this is true. But, in order to avoid all ambiguity
in the use of the two words, it is enough to say, that most
persons would call an expression which produced on them
a very strong sense of its incongruity, and which violently
surprised thenl, grotesque; and an expression, which pro-
duced on them a slighter sense of its incongruity, and which
more gently surprised them, quaint. U sing the two words
in this manner, I say, that when l\Ir N ewnlan translates
Helen's words to I-Iector in the sixth book,
....,
. ", I
Aai.p EJLEI 0, "tJ\I(JS' "a"O,U'íxa\l
tJ, OXPtJOE667j;,
0, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen,
A numl.ing horror,
1 Iliad, vi. 344.
234
Critical Essays
he is grotesque; that is, he expresses himself in a manner
which produces on us a very strong sense of its incongruity,
and which violently surprises us. I say, again, that when
Mr N ewrnan translates the comrI1on line,
T
II ò.
/kEíßer. f<7rEJ'rCG I.LÉ"Ia
xopuðaioÀoç "Ex':"CtJp,
Great I lector of the motley helm then spake to her responsive,
or the common expression, EijXJl
/NJÒE' · AX'I.I/)í, "dapper-
greaved Achaians," he is quaint; that is, he expresses him-
self in a manner which produces on us a slighter sense of
incongruity, and which Inore gently surprises us. But
violent and gentle surprise are alike far from the scholar's
spirit when he reads in I-Ionler XUIiÒÇ x,/.-xú/J/Y;XÚiJOU, or
"opu
'J.Í()^O;; ., Ex'T'wp, or, fÜ X"'í;lLIÒ
· A XrJ.I(;/. 1'bese ex-
pressions no more seem odd to him than the sirrlplest
expressions in English. He is not rnore checked by any
feeling of strangeness, strong or weak, when he reads them,
than when he reads in an English book" the painted savage,"
or, "the phlegmatic I)utchman." l\lr Newman's renderings
of them must, therefore, be wrong expressions in a transla-
tion of Homer, because they excite in the scholar, their
only competent judge, a feeling quite alien to that excited
in him by what they profess to render.
11r N eWIYlan, by expressions of this kind, is false to his
original in two ways. He is false to him inasn1uch as he
is ignoble; for a noble air, and a grotesque air, the air of
the address
"" ,,.,,.. , 9 ,
ð..asp E/.LeJ 0, xuvoç xcxY.,o/.L1iXCGJlOU, OX.piJOEtJtJ1JÇ,
and the air of the address,
0, brother thou of me, wha am a mischief-working vixen,
A numbing horror,
are just contrary the one to the other: and he is false to
hirn inasmuch as he is odd; for an odd diction like !vIr
Newman's and a perfectly plain natural diction like Homer's,
-" dapper-greaved Achaians)J and ÈÜXIi;'l.kIÒE
'AXa1oí,-are
also just contrary the one to the other. \Vhere, indeed,
11r Newman got his diction, with whom he can havt lived,
what can be his test of antiquity and rarity for words, are
questions which I ask myself with bewilderment. He has
On Translating Homer
235
prefixed to his translation a list of what he calls "the more
antiquated or rarer words " which he has used. In this list
appear, on the one hand, such words as doughty, grisly,
lusty, lwisonle, ravin, which are familiar, one would think,
to all the world; on the other hand such words as bragly,
Ineaning,
rr Newman tells us, "proudly fine"; bulkin, "a
calf" ; plump, a " mass"; and so on. " I anI concerned,"
says 1fr N eW111an, "with the artistic probleln of attaining a
plausible aspect of moderate antiquity, while remaining
easily intelligible." But it seems to me that lusty is not
antiquated: and that bragly is not a word readily understood.
That this word, indeed, and bulkÍ1z, may have" a plausible
aspect of moderate antiquity," I adrnit; but they are " easily
intelligible," I deny.
1Ir Newman's syntax has, I say it with pleasure, a much
more Homeric ca5t than his vocabulary; his syntax, the
nlode in which his thought is evolved, although not the
actual words in which it is expressed, seems to me right in
its general character, and the best feature of his version.
It is not artificial or rhetorical like Cowper's syntax or
Pope's: it is simple, direct, and natural, and so far it is like
H0111er's. It fails, however, just where, from the inherent
fault of 1Ir N eWn13.n'S conception of Hon1er, one might
expect it to fai],-it fails in nobleness. It presents the
thought in a way which is son1ething more than uncon-
strained,-over-fan1iliar; something n10re than easy,-free
and easy. In this respect it is like the movement of !vIr
Newman's version, like his rhythm; for this, too, fails, in
spite of sorne qualities, by not being noble enough; this,
while it avoids the faults of being slow and elaborate, falls
into a fault in the opposite direction, and is slip-shod. I-Iorner
presents his thought naturally; but when 11r Newll1an has.
A thousand fires along the plain, I say, that night were burning,
he presents his thought familiarly; in a style which nlay
be the genuine style of ballad-poetry, but which is not the
style of Homer. Homer Inoves freely; but when 1\Ir
Newman has,
Infatuate! 0 that thou wert lord to some other army,K
I }!
rom the reproachful answer of Ul}psses to Agamemnon.. who had
"23 6
Cri tical Essays
he gives hims
lf too 111uch freedom; he leaves us too mucb
to do for his rhythrn ourselves, instead of giving to us a
rhythn1 like f{omer's, easy indeed, but ll1astering our ear
with a fulness of power which is irresistible.
I said that a certain style might be the genuine style of
ballad-poetry, but yet not the style of Homer. The ana.logy
of the ballad is ever present to lVlr Newman's thoughts in
considering I-Iolller; and perhaps nothing has more caused
his faults than this analogy,-this popular, but, it is tirne to
say, this erroneous analogy. "The moral qualities of
Homer's style," says 1fr Newman, "being like to those of
the English ballad, we need a metre of the same genius.
Only those metres, which by the very possession of these I
qualities are liable to degenerate into doggerel, are suitable
to reproduce the ancient epic." "The style of HOIner," he
says, in a passage which I have before quoted, "is direct,
popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, garrulous: in all these
respects it is similar to the old English ballad." l\Ir
Newman, I need not say, is by no means alone in this
opinion. "The most really and truly Horneric of all the
creations of the English muse is," says NIr N ewmall's critic
in the ,t{ational Re'lliew, "the ballad-poetry of ancient times;
and the association between metre and subiect is one that
it would be true wisdoln to preserve." "-It is confessed,"
says Chapman's last editor, !VIr I-Iooper, "that the fourteen-
syllable verse U (that is, a ballad-verse) "is peculiarly fitting
for Homeric translation." And the editor of Dr l\'laginn's I
clever and popular Homeric Ballads assumes it as one of
his author's greatest and most undisputable merits, that he
was" the first who consciously realised to himself the truth
that Greek ballads can be really represented in English only
by a simi1ar n1easure."
This proposition that Homer's poetry is ballad-poetry,
analogous to the well-known ballad-poetry of the English
and other nations, has a certain small portion of truth in it,
and at one time probably served a useful purpose, when it
proposed an abandonment of their expedition. This is one of the
U tonic II passages of the Iliad, so I quote it:
Ah, unworthy king, some other inglorious army
Should'st thou command, not rule over ttS, whose portion for ever
Zeus hath made it, from youth right up to age, to be winding
Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of us perish. . .
IIÙzd, XIV. 84.
On 'rranslating Homer
237
was employed to discredit the artificial and literary Inanner
in which Pope and his school rendered I-Iolner. But it has
been so extravagantly over-used, the mistake which it was
useful in c0111bating has so entirely lost the public favour,
that it is now 111uch more Î1nportant to insist on the large
part of error contained in it, than to extol its small part of
truth. It is time to say plainly that, whatevcr the admirers
of our old ballads Inay think, the supreme [orn1 of epic
poetry, the genuine I-Iomeric lllould, is not the fOI m of the
Ballad of Lord Batell1an. I haye myself shown the broad
difference between !\Iilton's nlanner and Homer's j but,
after a course of 1Ir N ewn1an and Dr l\laginn, I turn round
in desperation upon them and upon the balladists who have
misled theIn, and I exclaim: "Compared with you, 1filtun
is lIolner's double; there is, whatever you n1ay think, ten
thousand tilHes 1110re of the real strain of Homer in
Blind Thamyris, and blind
Iæonidcs,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old,
than in
Now Christ thee save, thou proud portèr,
Now Christ thee save and see,1
or In
\Yhile the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine. 2
For Homer is not only rapid in movement, silllple in
style, plain in language, natural in thought; he is also, and
above all, noble. I have advised the translator not to go
into the vexed question of IIomer's identity. Yet I will
just ren1Ïnd hinI that the grand argument-or rather, not
argulnent, for the matter affords no data for arguing, but
the grand source from which conviction, as we read the
llz'ad, keeps pressing in upon us, that there is one poet of
the Iliad, one lIonler-is precisely this nobleness of the
poet, this grand luanner; ,ve feel that the analogy drawn
from other joint compositions does not hold good here,
because those works do not bear, like the Iliad, the n1agic
stamp of a master; and the mOluent you have al
J,thiJlg less
than a masterwork, the co-operation or consolidation of
several poets beconlcs possible, for talent is not unconl111on ;
I From the ballad of I(ing Est1J1er
, in Percy's Rd-iqlllS of AllcÍr:lIf
English PoebJ', i. 69 (edit. of (767).
2. Reliques, i. 241.
23 8
Critical Essays
the moment you have much less than a masterwork, they
become easy, for 111ediocrity is everywhere. I can imagine
fifty Bradies joined with as many "fates to make the :N ew
Version of the Psalms. I can imagine several poets having
contributed to anyone of the old English ballads in Percy's
collection. I can imagine several poets, possessing, like
Chapman, the Elizabethan vigour and the Elizabethan
n1annerism, united with Chapman to produce his version of
the Iliad. I can inlagine several poets, with the literary
knack of the twelfth century, united to produce the l'''ibelungen
Lay in the fornl in which we have it,-a work which the
Germans, in their joy at discovering a national epic of their
own, have rated vastly higher than it deserves. And lastly,
though :rvlr Newman's translation of I-Iomer bears the strong
mark of his own idiosyncrasy, yet I can inlagine 1Ir Newman
and a school of adepts trained by hinl in his art of poetry,
jointly producing that work, so that Aristarchus himself
should have difficulty in pronouncing which line was the
master's, and which a pupil's. But I cannot imagine several
poets, or one poet, joined with Dante in the conlPosition of
his Jnferno, though many poets have taken for their subject
a descent into Hell. Many artists, again, have represented
Moses; but there is only one 1\1:oses of Michael Angelo. So
the insurmountable obstacle to believing the Iliad a con-
solidated work of several poets is this: that the work of
great masters is unique; and the Iliad has a great master's
genuine stamp, and that stamp is the grand style.
Poets who cannot work in the grand style instinctively
seek a style in which their comparative inferiority may feel
itself at ease, a manner which nlay be, so to speak, indul-
gent to their inequalities. The ballad-style offers to an epic
poet, quite unable to fill the canvas of HOiner, or Dante, or
Milton, a canvas which he is capable of filling. The ballad-
measure is quite able to give due effect to the vigour and
spirit which its employer, when at his very best, may be able
to exhibit; and, when he is not at hIS best, when he is a
little trivial, or a little dun, it will not betray him, it will not
bring out his weakness into broad relief. This is a con-
venience; but it is a convenience which the ballad-style
purchases by resigning aU pretensions to the highest, to the
grand manner. It is true of its movement, as it is not true
of Homer's, that it is "liable to degenerate into doggerel."
On Translating Horner
239
It is true of its" moral qualities," as it is ?lot true of Horner's,
that U quaintness" and" garrulity" are among them. It is
true of its employers, as it is 'Izot true of Homer, that they
U rise and sink with their subject, are prosaic when it is
tame, are Jow when it is mean." For this reason the ballad-
style and the ballad-measure are eminently inappropriate to
render Homer. Horner's manner and movement are
always both noble and powerful: the ballad-manner and
movement are often either jaunty and smart, so not noble;
or jog-trot and humdrum, so not powerful.
The Nibelungen Lay affords a good illustration of the
qualities of the ballad-manner. Based on grand traditions,
which had found expression in a grand lyric poetry, the
German epic poem of the Nibelungen Lay, though it is in-
teresting, and though it has good passages, is itself anything
rather than a grand poem. I t is a poem of which the
composer is, to speak the truth, a very ordinary mortal, and
often, therefore, like other ordinary mortals, very prosy. It
is in a measure which eminently adapts itself to this
commonplace personality of its composer, which has much
the movement of the well-known measures of Tate and
Brady, and can jog on, for hundreds of lines at a time, with
a level ease which reminds one of Sheridan's saying that
easy writing may be often such hard reading. But, instead
of occupying myself with the Nibelunguz Lay, I prefer to
look at the ballad-style as directly applied to Homer, in
Chapman's version and 1Ir N e\vman's, and in the H0111em
Ballads of Dr 1\faginn.
First I take Chapman. I have already shown that Chap-
man's conceits are un-I-Iorneric, and that his rhyme is un-
Homeric; I will now show how his manner and movement
are un-Homeric. Chapman's diction, I have said, is
generally good; but it must be called good with this reserve,
that, though it has Homer's plainness and' directness, it
often offends hilTI who knows Homer, by wanting Homer's
nobleness. In a passage which I have already quoted, the
address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, where IIomer has,
ò "\' ...... ò ' ,......"
a E/^W, 'T'I tJ(þlAJ/ D fk:IJ II7J^"i/ avo X
I
A - .
" , " ., A' ,
I7LJ1í';'
; L,",U '(J E()'1"nl! arr;p
'r a(1a
a,;,
l"E .
'r'J
, , , Ò ", N I
"'1 Lva {JLI
':"''l'JI!()ldl fJJST a
pd/JI aì...,e
X7'j1"OÞ;
1 Iliad, xvii. 443,
24 0
Critical Essays
Chapman has,
Poor wretched beasts, said he,
'Vhy gave we you to a mortal king, when immortality
And incapacity of age so dignifies your states?
'Vas it to haste 1 the miseries poured out on human fates 1
There are n1any faults in this rendering of Chapman's, but
what I particularly wish to notice in it is the expression
"Poor wretched beasts," for á ðHÀ.W. This expression just
illustrates the difference between the ballad-manner and
Homer's. The ballad-nlanner-Chapman's manner-is, I
say, pitched sensibly lower than Homer's. The ballad-
111anner requires that an expression shall be plain and
natural, and then it asks no more. I-Iomer's manner
requires that an expression shall be plain and natural,
but it also requires that it shall be noble. .,. A ðElÀw is
as plain, as sin1ple as "Poor wretched beasts"; but it is
also noble, which "Poor wretched beasts" is not. " Poor
wretched beasts" is, in truth, a little over-familiar, but this
is no objection to it for the balb,d-manner; it is good
enough for the old EngIish ballad, good enough for the
Nibelungen Lay, good enough for Chapman's Iliad, good
enough for .l\lr Newman's Iliad, good enough for Dr
ìvf aginn's Hotlleric Ba//ads j but it is not good enough for
Homer.
'T 0 feel that Chapman's measure, though natural, is not
Homeric; that, though tolerably rapid, it has not I-Iomer's
rapidity; that it has a jogging rapidity rather than a flowing
rapidity; and a movement familiar rather than nobly easy,
one has only, I think, to read half a dozen lines in any part
of his version. I prefer to keep as much as possible to
passages which I have already noticed, so I will quote the
conclusion of the nineteenth book, where l\chil1es answers
his horse Xanthus, who has prophesied his death to him. 2
Achi11es, far in rage,
Thus answered him :-It fits not thee thus proudly to presage
l\Iyoverthrow. I know myself it is my fate to fall
Thu
far from Phthia; yet that fate shall fail to vent her gall
Till mine vent thousands.-These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,
Ga\'e dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed steeds.
I All the editions which I have seen have "haste," but the right
reading must certainly be "taste."
a Iliad, xix. 4 I 9.
On 1'ranslating I-Iolller 241
For what regards the manner of this passage, the words,
" Achilles Thus answered him," and" I know myself it is my
fate to fall Thus far from Phthia," are in Homer's manner,
and all the rest is out of it. But for what regards its move-
ment, who, after being jolted by Chapman through such
verse as this,
These words said, he fell to horrid deeds,
Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed stc
ds,
"ho does not feel the vital difference of the movement of
Homer,
.,. I , , , , , " , PI ?
" fa., "-(Xl n '7õ'fW'r'O/
/a %IIJY , XI I"WIIUXp.Ç 1'l:t;;O u;
To pass from Chapman to Dr I\faginn. I-lis Homeric
Ballads are vigorous and genuine poems in their own way;
they are not one continual falsetto, like the pinchbeck
Roman Ballads of Lord 1Iacaulay; but just because they
are ballads in their manner and movement, just because, to
use the words of his applauding editor, Dr 1faginn has
"consciously realised to himself the truth that Greek
bal1ads can be reany represented in English only by a
similar Inanner,"-just for this very reason they are not at all
IIomeric, they have not the least in the world the manner
of Jlomer. There is a celebrated incident in the nine-
teenth book of the Odyssey, the recognition by the old
nurse Eurycleia of a scar on the leg of her master Ulysses,
who has entered his own hall as an unknown wanderer, and
whose feet she has been set to wash. "Then she came
near,1J says Ilomer, "and began to wash her master; and
straightway she recognised a scar which he had got in
former days frol11 the white tusk of a wild boar, when he
went to Parnassus unto Autolycus and t
1e sons of Autolycus,
his mother's father and brethren." 1 This, "really re-
presented" by Dr 1\1 aginn, in "a mcasu"e simiJar JJ to
Ilomer's, becomes:
And scarcely had she begun to wash
Ere she was aware of the grisly gash
Above his knee that lay.
It was a wound from a wild boar's tooth,
A n on Parnassus' slope,
\V!1ere .he went to hunt in the days of his youlh
\Vllh hIS mother's sire,
I Odyssey, xix. 39 2 .
24 2
Critical ESSa)TS
.and so on. That is the true ballad-manner, no one can
deny; "all on Parnassus' slope" is, I was going to say, the
true ballad-slang; but never again shall I be able to read
'7 Ò ' "..,. " " /I'. , .., Ò '"
v,
s ap UlflfO'i IOUlf(/.,. avaxu sOV. rJ.,unx,a srVfß
OÙ^
II,
without having the detestable dance of Dr 1Iaginn's
And
carceIy had she begun to wash
Ere she was aware of the grisly gash,
jigging in my ears, to spoil the effect of Homer, and to
torture n1e. To apply that manner and that rhythm to
Honler's incidents, is not to imitate Homer, but to travesty
him.
Lastly I COine to Mr N eWlnan. His rhythnl, like Chap-
tl1an's and Dr l\faginn's, is a ballad-rhythm, but with a
modification of his own. "Holding it," he tells us, "as
an axiom, that rhYll1e nlust be abandoned," he found, on
.abandoning it, "an unpleasant void until he gave a double
ending to tbe verse." In short, instead of saying
Good people all with one accord
Gi ve ear unto my tale.
I"fr Newman would say
Good people aU with one accord
Give ear unto my story.
A recent American writer 1 gravely observes that for his
countrymen this rhythm has a disadvantage in beinrs like
the rhythm of the American national air Yankee Doodle,
and thus provoking ludicrous associations. Jla1lke
Doodl
is not our national air: for us Mr Newman's rhythm
has not this disadvantage. He himself gives us several
plausible reasons why this rhythm of his really ought to
be successful. let us examine how far it is successful.
1fr Newman joins to a bad rhythrn so bad a diction that
it is difficult to distinguish exactly whether in any given
passage it is his words or his nlcasure which produces a
total impression of such an unpleasant kind. But with a
little attention we nlay analyse our total inlpression, and find
I Mr Marsh, in his Lectures on the English Lan.gua.re, New Yark,
c86o, p. 520.
On Translating Homer 243
the share which each element has in producing it. To take
the passage which I have so often mentioned, Sarpedon's
speech to Glaucus. Mr Newman translates this as follows:
o gentle friend! if thou and I, (rom this encounter 'scaping,
Hereafter might for ever be from Eid and Death exempted
As heavenly gods, not I in sooth would fight among the foremost,
Nor Hefty thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle.
Now,-sith ten thousand shapes of Death do anygait pursue us
V\.7hich never mortal may evade, the-ugh sly of foot and nimble ;-
Onward J and glory let us earn, or glory yield to someone.
CÆ>u1d all our care elude the gloomy grave
Which claims no less the fearful than tbe brave.
I am not going to quote Pope's version over again, but I
must remark in passing, how much more, with all Pope's
radical difference of manner fron1 Homer, it gives us of the
real effect of
I ' " ) 1 0'
-#
. p.ev "lap. 'i':(j .',UO' r,;fp <;&11(."
tJ'lotl.r..
than 1vlr Newman's lines. And now, why are IVIr Newman's
lines faulty? They are faulty, first, because, as a matter of
diction, the expressions "0 gentle friend," "eld," "in
soot h" " li e flv " " advance" " man-ennoblinO' " "sith " " an y -
, .I , , b"
gait," and" sly of foot," are all bad; some of then1 worse
than others, but all bad: that is, they all of them as here
used excite in the scholar, their sole judge,-excite, I win
boldly affirm, in Professor Thompson or Professor Jowett,
-a feeling totally different from that excited in them by the
words of HOlTIer which these expressions profess to render.
The lines are faulty, secondly, because, as a matter of
rhythm, any and every line among them has to the ear of
the same judges (1 affirm it with equal boldness) a nlove-
ment as unlike I-Iomer's mOVelTIent in the corresponding
line as the single words are unlike I-Iomel's words. O
'1'f
"é ds (f'T'
^^O'f.LI
rJ.X1JV È; IC,uò,cí.vslpav,-"Nor liefly thee
would I advance to n1an-ennobling battle; "-for whose
ears do ,hose two rhythms produce impressions of, to use
1\'lr Newman's own words, "similar moral genius?"
I will by no means make search in Mr Newman's version
for passages likely to raise a laugh; that search, alas!
would be far too easy I will quote but one other passage
from him, and that a passage where the diction is com-
244
Critical Essays
paratively inoffensive, in order that disapproval of the words
may not unfairly heighten disapproval of the rhythrn. The
end of the nineteenth book, the answer of Achilles to his
horse Xanthus, 1-.1r Newman gives thus:
Chestnut J why oodest death to me? from thee this was not needed.
!v'fyself right surely know alsó, that 'tis my doom to pcrish,
.From mother and from father dear apart, in Troy; but ne\'er
Pause will I ma1..e of war, until the Trojans be glutted.
He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses.
Here Mr N ewnlan calls Xanthus Chestnut, indeed, as he
calls Balius Sþolled, and l)odarga S.þr)'1oot i which is as if a
Frenchtl1an were to call J\1iss Nightingale lJIdlle. ROSS(
.1IOi,
or
lr Bright AI. Clair. And several other expressions,
too, "yelling," "held afront," "single- hoofed,"-leavc, to
say the very least, nluch to be desired. Still, for 1\lr N
w-
man, the diction of this passage is pure. All the n1f)re
clearly appears the prolo
nù vice of a rhythln, which, wIth
comparatively few faults of words, can leave a sense of such
incurable alienation [rorn IIolner's Inanner as, " !vlyself right
surely know also that 'tis tHY doon1 to perish," cornpared
with the iG 'It; '1'01 oj' ða xed UÜ7ÒG, Õ }LOI p.6po, Ë
Báò' òì...ÉatJcu of
Horner.
But so deeply seated is the difference between the ballad-
manner and IIoIuer's, that even a rnan of the highest
powers, even a luan of the greatest vigour of spirit and of
true genius-the Coryphæus of bal1adists, Sir 'Valter Scott
--fails with a manner of this kind to produce an effect at an
like the effect of I-Iomer. " I am not so rash," declares 1\11'
Ne\Vnlan, "as to say that if freedo?11 be given to rhyn1e as in
,V alter Scott's poetry,"-" 'Valter Scott, by far the Inost
HOITleric of our poets, " as in another place he calls hinl,--
" a genius may not arise who will translate I-Iotner into the
nlelodies of .Afar1nion." "1'he truty classical and truly
romantic," says Dr J\laginn, "are one; the nloss-trooping
Nestor reappears in the moss-trooping heroes of Percy's
Re/iqlles,." and a description by Scott, which he quotes, he
calls "graphic, and therefore HOIIleric." He forgets our
fourth axioln,-that IIomer is not only graphic; he is also
noble, and has the grand style. I-Iulnan nature under like
circurnstances is probably in all stages much the same; and
so far it n1ay be said that "the truly classical and the truly
ronlantic are one;:' but it is of little use to tell us this.
On Translating I-Iolner
245
because we know the human nature of other ages only
through the representations of them which have come down
to us, and the classical and the ronlantic nlodes of repre-
sentation are so far fro1l1 being "one," that they remain
eternally distinct, and hJ.ve created for us a separation
between the two worlds which they respectively represent
Therefore to call Nestor \.he "moss-trooping Nestor:' is
absurd, because, though Nestor may possibly have been
nluch the satne sort of man as many a moss-trooper, he has
yet conle to us through a mode of representation so unlike
that of Percy's Reliques, that instead of "reappearing in the
moss-trooping heroes" of these poems, he exists in our
inlagination as something utterly unlike them, and as
belonging to another world. So the Greeks in Shakspeare's
T?
oil1JS and Cresszda are no longer the Greeks whom we
have known in Honler, because they come to us through a
mode of representation of the romantic world. But I nllist
not forget Scott.
I suppose that when Scott is in what m:a.y be ca11ed full
bal1ad swing, no one will hesitate to pronOU
1ce his 111anner
neither Homeric nor the grand n1anner. 'Vhen he says,
for instance,
I do not rhyme to that dull elf
\Vho cannot image to himself, I
and so on, any scholar will feel that thÙ is not flomer's
111anner. But let us take Scott's poetry at its best; and
when it is at its best, it is unùoubtedly vcry good indeE.d:
Tunsta11 lies dead upon the field,
His l;[e-blood stains the spotless shield;
Edmund is down,-my life is reft,-
The Ad miral alone is left.
Let Stanley charge with spur of fire.-
With Chester charge, and Lancash
ret
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory anù England's 10st. 2
That is, no doubt, as vigorous as possible, as spirjted as
po
:;ible; it is exceedingly fine poetry. And still I say, it
is not in the grand manner, and therefore it is not like
Homer's poetry. Now, how shall I make him who doubts
I .J.Jla
m':oll, canto vï. 3 8 .
2 A/anl/io11, canto vi. 29.
24 6
Critical Essays
this feel that I say true; that these lines of Scott are essenti-
any neither in I-Iorner's style nor in the grand style? I may
point out to hiln that the movement of Scott's lines, v.-hile
it is rapid, is also at the sarne time what the French call
sac(:adé, its rapidity is "jerky"; whereas Homer's rapidity is
a flowing rapidity. But this is something external and
Inaterial; it is but the outward and visible sign of an inward
and spiritual diversity. I l1Jay discuss what, in the abstract,
constitutes the grand style; but that sort of general discus-
sion never much helps our judglnent of particular instances.
I rrw.y say that the presence or absence of the grand style
can only be spiritually discerned; and this is truè, but to
plead this looks like evading the difficulty. 1rly best way is
to take erninent specinlens of the grand style, and to put
them side by side with this of Scott. For example, when
tIorner says:
. "\, "\,' .... " I
". ...' .,
U^^U j CPI r.O
, vUVg %(1.1 (fu. rl71 OAlJ<þupsal ():J7"W
;
xáT
a:te :;((Xi llc(.'rpoxÀ()S', Ö'7rSp 0'50 o;';"(IÀÀÒV àf.iJ'éív
v, I
that is in the grand style. 'Vhen Virgil says:
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem.
Fortunarn ex aliis,.z
that is in the grand style. 'Vhen Dante says:
Lascio 10 fele, et vo pei dolci pomi
Promessi a me per 10 verace Duca;
!\oIa fino al centro pria convien ch' io tomi. S
that is in the grand style. vVhen 1\Iilton says:
His form had yet not lost
An her original brightnc'ss, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured,4
that, finally, is in the grand style. N ow let anyone after
repeating to hinlself these four passages, repe3.t again the
1 "Be content, good friend, die also thou! why lamentest thou thy-
self on this wise? Patroclus, too, died, who was a far better than
thou. "-iliad, xxi. 106.
· "From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul and true effort:
learn success from others."-..I'..Elleid, xii. 435.
3 "I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the apples of sweetness
promised unto me by my faithful Guide; but far as the centre it behoves
me first to fall. "-Hell. xvi. 61.
" Paradise Lost, i. 591.
On Translating HOlner
247'
passage of Scott, and he win perceive that there is son1ething
in style which the four first have in common, and which the-
last is without; and this sornething is precisely the grand
n1anner. It is no disrespect to Scott to say that he does
not attain to this manner in his poetry; to say so, is merely
to say that he is not among the tìve or six suprenle poets of
the world. Among these he is not; but, being a man of far
greater powers than the ballad-poets, he has tried to give to
their instrument a compass and an elevation which it does
not naturally possess, in order to enable him to COOle nearer
to the effect of tbe instrunlent used by the great epic poets
-an instrument which he felt he could not truly use,-and
in this attempt he has but imperfectly succeeded. rrhe
poetic style of Scott is-(it becómes necessary to say so
when it is proposed to "translate Homer into the melodies
of .AIarmion ")-it is, tried by the highest standard, a bastard
epic style; and that is why, out of his own powerful hands,
it has had so little success. It is a less natural, and there-
fore a less good stylc, than the original ballad-style; while
it shares with the ballad-style the inherent incapacity of
rising into the grand style, of adequately rendering HOiner.
Scott is certainly at his best in his battles. Of l-1unler you
could not say this; he is not better in his battles than else-
where; but even bctween the battle-pieces of the two there.
exists an the dIfference which there is between an able work-
and a masterpiece.
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down,-my life is ceft-
The Admiral alone is left.
-" For not in the hands of Diomede the son of Tydeus
rages the spear, to ward off destruction froo1 the !)anaans;
neither as yet have I heard the voice of the son of Atreus,
shouting out of his hated mouth; but the voice of Hector
the slayer of men bursts round me, as he cheers on the
Trojans; and they with their yellings fill all the plain, over-
conling the Achaians in the battle."-I protest that, to my
feeling, IIomer's perfonnance, even through that pale and
far-off shadow of a prose translation, still has a hundred
times more of the grand manner about it, than the original
poetry of Scott.
24 8
Critical Essays
'V ell, then, the ballad-manner and the ballad-measure,
whether in the hands of the old ballad-pacts, or arranged by
ChapnIan, or arranged by l\lr Newman, or, even, arranged
by Sir 'Valter Scott, cannot worthily render }-Iomer. And
for one reason: I-Iomer is plain, so are they; tromer is
natural, so are they; IIon1er is spirited, so are they; but
Honler is sustaluedly noble, and they are not. 1 J orner and
they are both of theln natural, and therefore touch iug and
stirring; but the grand style, which is IIorner's, is sornething
more than touching and stirring; it can form the character,
it is edifying. 1"'he old English balladist Inay stir Sir Philip
Sidney's heart like a trU111pet, and this is much: but I-lamer,
but the few artists in the grand style, can do more; they
can refine the raw natural 01an, they can transnlllte hinI.
So it is not without cause that I say, and say again, to the
translator of l-1oHler: "Never for a 1110111ent suffer yourself
to forget our fourth fundamental proposition, llomtr is
#toble." For it is seen how large a share this nobleness has
in producing that genera.l effect of his, which it is the llwin
business of a translator to reproduce.
I shall have to try your patience yet once Inore upon this
subject, and then nlY task will be conlpleted. I have shown
what the four axioms respecting Horner which I have laid
<1own, exclude, what they bid a translator not to do.; I have
still to show what they supply, what positive hclp they can
give to the translator in his work. I will even, with their
.aid, 111yself try my fortune with some of those passages of
llomer which I have already noticed; not indeed with any
.confidence that I lnore than others can succeed in ade-
-quately rendering I-Iolner, but in the hope of satisfying
COlllpetent judges, in the hope of lnaking it clear to the
future translator, that I at any rate [oUow a right method,
and that, in cOIning short, I come short from weakness of
execution, not from original vice of design. 1'his is why I
have so long occupied myself with l\fr Newman's version;
that, apart from all faults of execution, his original design
was wrong, and that he has done us the good service of
declaring that design in its naked wrongness. To bad
practice he has prefixed the bad theory, which nlade the
practice bad; he has given us a false theory in his preface,
and he has exemplified the bad effects of that false theory
jn his translqtion. It is because his starting-point is so bad
On Translating flomer
249
that he runs so badly; and to save others from taking so
false a starting-point, may be to save then1 from running so
futile a course.
Ir Newman, indeed, says in his preface, that if anyone
dislikes his translation, "he has his easy remedy; to keep
aloof from it." But 1fr Newrnan is a writer of considerable
and deserved reputation; he is also a Professor of the
University of London, an institution which by its position
and by its u1erits acquires every year greater importance.
It would be a very grave thing if the authority of so en1Ínent
a Professor led his students to misconceive entirely the chief
work of the Greek world; that work which, whatever the
other works of classical antiquity have to give us, gives it
more abundantly than they all. The eccentricity too, the
arbitrariness, of which 1Ir N eWIIlan's conception of Homer
offers so signal an example, are not a peculiar failing of l\fr
Newman's own; in varying degrees they are the great deÍect
of English intellect, the great blemish of English literature.
Our literature of the eighteenth century, the literature of the
school of Dryden, Addison, Pope, Johnson, is a long reaction
ag3.inst this eccentricity, this arbitrariness; that reaction
perished by its own faults, and its enelnies are left once
n10re masters of the field. It is n11.1ch more likely that any
new English version of H001er will have
'rr N eWIIlan's faults
than Pope's. Our present literature, which is very far,
certainly, frOOl having the spirit and power of Elizabethan
genius, yet has in its own .way these faults, eccentricity, and
arbitrariness, quite as much as the Elizabethan literature
ever had. They are the cause that, while upon none,
perhaps, of the modern literatures has so great a SUln of
force been expended as upon the English literature, at the
present hour this literature, regarded not as an object of
mere literary interest but as a living intellectual instrurnent,
ranks only third in European effect and ;rnportance among
the literatures of Europe; it ranks after the literatures of
France and Gernlany. Of these two literatures, as of the
intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many
years, has been a critical effort; the endeavour, in all
branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art,
science,-to see the object as in itself it really is. But,
owing to the presence in English literature of this eccentric
and arbitrary spirit, owing to the strong tendency of English
25 0
Critical Essays
writers to bring to the consideration of their object some in-
dividual fancy, almost the last thing for which one would come
to English literature is just that very thing which now Europe
n10st desires-criticism. It is useful to notice any signal
manifestation of those faults, which thus limit and impair
the action of our literature. And therefore I have pointed
out how widely, in translating Horr..er, a man even of real
ability and learning may go astray, unless he brings to the
study of this clearest of poets one quality in which our
English authors, with all their great gifts, are apt to be
somewhat wanting-sinlple lucidity of mind.
III
HOMER is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his
words and style, Homer is sÍ1nple in his ideas, Homer is
noble in his manner. Cowper renders him ill because he
is slow in his movement, and elaborate in his style; Pope
renders him ill because he is artificial both in his style and
in his words; Chapman renders him ill because he is
fantastic in his ideas; Mr Newman renders him ill because
he is odd in his words and ignoble in his nlanner. All four
translators diverge from their original at other points besides
those named; but it is at the points thus named that their
divergence is greatest. For instance, Cowper's diction is
not as l-lomer's diction, nor his nobleness as Hon1er's
nobleness; but it is in movement and gramll1atical style
that he is 1110st unlike Homer. Pope's rapidity is not of
the same sort as I-lomer's rapidity, nor are his plainness of
ideas and his nobleness as Homer's plainness of ideas and
nobleness: but it is in the artificial character of his style
and diction that he is most unlike I-Iomer. Chapn1an's
movement, words, style, and manner, are often far enough
from resembling Homer's movement, words, style, and
manner; but it is the fantasticality of his ideas which puts
him farthest frol11 resc111bling Homer. ß,lr N eW111an'S
movement, granul1atical style, and ideas, are a thousand
times in strong contra.st with Horner's; still it is by the
oddness of his diction and the ignobleness of his manner
that he contrasts with I-lamer the most violently.
On Translating Hon1er 25 1
Therefo
the translator must not say to himself: cc Cowper
is noble, Pope is rapid, Chaplnan has a g00d diction,
Ir
Newman has a good cast of sentence; I will avoid Cowper's
slowness, Pope's artificiality, Chapman's conceits, I\fr
Newman's oddity; I will take Cowper's dignified manner,
Pope's Ï1npetuous movement, Chapman's vocabulary, !\Ir
N e
Nman's syntax, and so make a perfect translation of
I-Ionler." Undoubtedly in certain points the versions of
Chapman, Cowper, Pope, and "i'
1r Newman, all of them
have merit; some of thenl very high merit, others a lower
nlerit; but even in these points they have none of them
precisely the san1e kind of merit as Homer, and therefóre
the new translator, even if he can imitate thenl in their good
points, will still not satisfy his judge, the scholar, who asks
hin1 for Homer and I-Iolller's kind of merit, or, at least, for
as much of them as it is possible to give.
So the translator really has no good model before him for
any part of his work, and has to invent everything for him-
self. He is to be rapid in movement, plain in speech,
sinlple in thought, and noble; and h01lJ he is to be either
rapid, or plain, or simple, or noble, no one yet has shown
him. I shall try to-day to establish some practical sugges-
tions which may help the translator of Homer's poetry to
conlply with the four grand requirenlents which we make of
hinl.
I-Iis version is to be rapid; and of course, to make a
man's poetry rapid, as to make it noble, nothing can serve
him so much as to have, in his own nature, rapidity and
nobleness. It is the sþz"nï that quickellelh,. and no one will
so well render Homer"s swift-flowing movement as he
who has himself something of the swift-moving spirit of
Homer. Yet even this is not quite enough. Pope certainiy
had a quick and darting spirit, as he had, also, real noble-
ness; yet Pope does not render the movement of Homer.
To render this the translator must have, besides his natural
qualifications, an appropriate metre.
I ha,,-e sufficiently shown why I think all forms of our
ballad-metre unsuited to Homer. It seems to me to be
beyond question that, for epic poetry, only three metres
can seriously claim to be accounted capable of the grand
style. Two of these will at once occur to everyone,-the
ten-syllable, or so-called heroic, couplet, and blank verse. I
25 2
Critical Essays
do not add to these the Spenserian stanza., although Dr
1\1aginn, whose metrical eccentricities I have already
criticised, pronounces this stanza the one right measure for
a translation of IIomer. It is enough to observe that if
Pope's couplet, with the simple system of correspondences
that its rhynlcs introduce, changes the movement of Hon1cr,
in which no such correspondences are found, and is therefore
a bad measure for a translator of Homer to employ,
Spenser's stanza, with its far n10re intricate system of
correspondences, must change IIomer's movement far more
profoundly, and must therefore be for the translator a far
worse tllcasure than th
couplet of Pope. Yet I will say,
at the same time, that the verse of Spenser is n10re fluid,
slips more easily and quickly along, than the verse of
aln10st any other English poet.
By this the northern wagoner had set
I I is sevenÞfold team behind the steadfast star
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firm is fixt, and senàeth light from far
To all that in the wide deep wandering are. l
One cannot but feel that English yerse has not often moyed
with the fluidity and sweet ease of these lines. It is possible
that it may have been this quality of Spenser's poetry whicb
111ade Dr 11aginn think that the stanza of The jt"aery QueeJ'
ßlust be a good Ineasure for rendering Homer. 1"his it is
not: Spenscr's verse is fluid and rapid, no dOUQt, but there
are Illore ways than one of being fluid and rapid, and
HOllIer is fluid and rapid in quite another way than Spenser.
Spenser's manner is no more lIon1cric than is the nlanner
of the one 1110dern inheritor of Spenser's beautiful gift,-
the poet, who evidently caught fronl Spenser his sweet and
easy slipping movement, and who has exquisitely en1ployeù
it; a Spenserian genius, nay, a genius by natural cnàow-
Illcnt richer probably than even Spenser; that light which
shines so unexpecteàlyand without fellow in our century, an
Elizabethan born too late, the early lost and adlnirably
gifted Keats.
I say then that there are really but three metres,-the ten-
syllable couplet, blank verse, and a third nletre which I wi11
not yet nall1e, but which is neither the Spenserian stanza
I The Faery Queell, canto ii. sta!"!za I.
On 'rranslating fIolner
253
nor any form of ballad-verse,-between which, as ,-ehicles
for Homer's poetry, the translator has to make his choice.
Everyone will at once remember a thousand passages in
which both the ten-syllable couplet and blank verse prove
themselves to have nobleness. Undoubtedly the mo\-ement
and Ioanner of this,
Sti1l raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to lIeaven the measure and the choice,
are noble. Undoubtedly, the rnovement and manner of
this :
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of InJ,
are noble also. But the first is in a rhymed metre; and the
unfitness of a rhymed metre for rendering Homer I have
already shown. I will observe too, that the fine couplet
which I have quoted comes out of a satire, a didactic poem;
and that it is in didactic poetry that the ten-syllable couplet
has most successfully essayed the grand style. In narrative
poetry this metre has succeeded best when it essayed
a sensibly lower style, the style of Chaucer, for instance;
whose narrative manner, though a very good and sound
manner, is certainly neither the grand manner nor the
manner of Homer.
The rhymed ten-syl1able couplet being thus excluded,
blank verse offers itself for the translator's use. The first
kind of blank verse which naturally occurs to us is the blank
verse of
\filton, which has been employed, with more or
less n1odification, by
Ir Cary in translating Dante, by
Cowper, and by l\Ir 'Vright in translating I-Iomer. How
noble this Inetre is in l\lilton's hands, how con1pletely it
shows itself capable of the grand, nay, of the grandest, style,
I need not say. To this n1etre, as used in the .fJaraaìse
Lost, our country owes the glory of having produced one of
the only two poetical works in the grand style which are to
be found in the modern langu
ges; the Divine Come.l,,y of
Dante is the other. England and Italy here stand alone;
Spain, France, and Germany, have produced great poets,
but neither Calderon, nor Corneille, nor Schiller, nor even
Goethe, has produced a body of poetry in the true grand
254
Critical Essays
style, in the sense in which the style of the body of Homer's
poetry, or Pindar's, or Sophocles's, is grand. But Dante
has, and so has
1ilton; and in this respect !\'lilton pos-
sesses a distinction which even Shakspeare, undoubtedly
the supreme poetical power in our literature, does not share
with him. Not a tragedy of Shakspeare but contains
passages in the worst of all styles, the affected style; and
the grand style, although it Inay be harsh, or obscure, or
Clln1 brous, or over-laboured, is never affected. In spite,
therefore, of objections which nlay justly be urged ag:lÌnst
the plan and treatment of the Paradise Lost, in spite of its
pvsscssing, certainly, a far less enthralling force of interest
to attract and to carry forward the reader than the Iliad or
the Divine C0111ed)', it fully deserves, it can never lose, its
in1n1ense reputation; for, like the Iliad and the Divine
COtlledy, nay, in some respects to a higher degree than
either of thenl, it is in the grand style.
But the grandeur of l\Iilton is one thing, and the grandeur
of HOlner is another. HOlller's movelllent, I have said
again and a
ain, is a ftowing
a rapid movement;
1ilton's,
on the other hand, is a laboureà, a self-retarding movement.
In each case, the movement, the metrical cast, corresponds
with the mode of evolution of the thought, with the syn-
tactical cast, and is indeed determined by it. 11ilton
charges hin1self so full with thought, io]agination, know-
1eòge, that his style will hardly contain them. He is too
full-stored to show us in ll1uch detail one conception, one
piece of knowledge; he just shows it to us in a pregnant
allusive way, and then he presses on to another; and all
this fulness, this pressure, this condensation, this self-
constnjnt, enters into his n10vement, and m3.kes it what
it is,-noble, but difficult and austere. flollter is quite
different; he says a thing, and says it to the end, and then
begins another, while :Nlilton is trying to press a thousand
things into one. So that whereas, in reading 11ilton, you
never lose t.he sense of laborious and condensed fulness, in
reading I-Iolller you never lose the sense of flowing and
abounding ease. \Vith
tilton line runs into line, and all is
straitly bound together: with H0111er line rUllS off frolH line,
and all hurries away onward. flomer begins, l\I
Hv ãélve,
It?Eá,-at the second word announcing the proposed actioIl:
1Iilton Legins:
On Translating flamer
255
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, who
e mortal taste
]houO'ht death into the world, and all our woe,
\Vit h'
loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly muse.
So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute not to let it escape
him till he has crowded into it all he can, that it is not tin
the thirty-ninth word in the sentence that he will give us the
key to it, the word of action, the verb. l\lilton says:
o for that warning voice, which he, "ho saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud.
fIe is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, an in one sentence,
and without permitting himself to actually mention the
name, that the man who had the warning voice was the same
man who saw the Apocalypse. Horner would have said,
"0 for that warning voice, which John heard "-and if it
had suited him to say that John also saw the Apocalypse,
he would have given us that in another sentence. The
effect of this allusive and compressed manner of
Iilton i
,
I need not say, often very powerful; and it is an effect
which other great poets have often sought to obtain much
in the same way: Dante is full of it, Horace is full of it ;
but wherever it exists, it is always an un-Homeric effect.
U The losses of the heavens," says Horace, "fresh moons
speedily repair; we, when we have gone down where the
pious Æneas, where the rich Tullus and Ancus are,-puhJis
et u111,bra sumus." 1 I-Ie never actually says 'where we go to j
he only indicates it by saying that it is that place where
.E.ineas, TuUus, and Aneus are. But IIomer, when he has
to speak of going down to the grave, says definitely, È
'H^
O'lCi
'7I'
ðIüV-&.tJcí.lla"(j1 1rÉl'..+ÚtJO'IV 2_" 'I'he immortals shall
send thee to the El.ysiall plain; " and it is not till after he
has delìnitely said this, that he adds, that it is there that
the abode of departed worthies is placed:
a,
a,Sò;
'}>aðú,u..a"BlJç-" \Vhere the yel1ow-haired RhadaInanthus is."
Again; lIorace, having to say that punishnlent sooner or
later overtakes crime, says it thus:
Raro antecedentem sce1estum
Deseruit pede Prena c1audo.3
lOdes, IV. vii. 13.
2 Odyssey, iv. 5 6 3.
3 Odes, III. ü. 3 1 .
25 6
Critical Essays
rrhe thought itself of these lines is familiar enough to
lIolner and Hesiod; but neither Homer nor Hesiod.
in expressing it, could possibly have so complicated
its expression as Horace c0111plicates it, and purposely
con1p1icatcs it, by his use of the word deseruit. I
say that this complicated evolution of the thought neces-
sarily complicates the nlovenlent and rhythn1 of a poet;
3.nd that the 11iltonic blank verse, of course the first 1l10dcl
of blank verse which suggests itself to an English trans-
lator of IIomer, bears the strongest marks of such c0111pli-
cation, and is therefore entirely unfit to render I-Iolner.
If blank verse is used in translating Homer, it must be a
blank verse of which English poetry, naturally swayed much
by 1\lilton's treatrnent of this Inetre, offers at present hardly
any exanlples. It must not be Cowper's blank verse, who
has studied 1\lilton's pregnant Inanner with such effect,
that, having to say of Mr Throckmorton that he spares his
avenue, although it is the fashion with other people to cut
down theirs, he says that Denevolus " reprieves 'The obsolete
prolixity of shade." It nlust not be l\-Ir Tennyson's blank
'\ierse.
For all experience is an arch, wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose distance fades
F or ever and for ever, as we gaze.
It is no blame to the thought of those lines, which belongs
to another order of ideas than Homer's, but it is true, that
l-lonler would certainly have said of them, "It is to con-
sider too curiously to consider so." It is no blame to their
rhythn1, which belongs to another order of n10ven1ent than
Honler's, but it is true that these three lines by themselves
take up nearly as much tÎn1e as a whole book of the Iliad.
No; the blank verse used in rendering Hon1er must be a
blank verse of which perhaps the best specimens are to be
found in some of the most rapid passages of Shakspeare's
plays,-a blank verse which does not dovetail its lines into
-one another, and which habitually ends its lines with mono-
syllables. Such a blank verse might no doubt be very
rapid in its movement, and might perfectly adapt itself to a
thought plainly and directly evolved; and it would be in-
teresting to see it well applied to l-Ioll1er. But the trans-
lator who determines to use it, must not conceal from him-
. 'self that in order to pour Homer into the mould of this
On Translating I-Ioll1er 257
metre, he will have entirely to break him up and melt him
down, ,\ ith the hope of then successfully conlposing hÜn
afresh; and this is a process which is full of risks. It may,
no doubt, be the real Homer that issues new from it; it is
not certain beforehand that it cannot be the real Homer, as it
is cE;rtaln that fronl the mould of Pope's couplet or Cowper's
11iltonic verse it cannot be the real Homer that will issue;
still, the chances of disappointlnent are great. The result
of such an attempt to renovate the old poet may be an
Æson; but it may also, and more probably will be a
Pelias.
\Yhen I say this, I point to the metre which seems to
me to give the translator the best chance of preserving the
general effect of ROIner,-that third metre which I have
not yet expressly nained, the hexameter. I know all that
is said against the use of hexameters in English poetry; but
it comes only to this, that, among us, they have not yet been
used on any considerable scale with success. SolvituT
ambulando: this is an objection which can best be met by
þrodudng good English hexanleters. .lind there is no reason
in the nature of the English language why it should not
adapt it
elf to hexameters as well as the Gernlan language
does; nay, the English language, from its greater rapidity,
is in itself better suited than the German for them. The
hexanleter, whether alone or with the pentan1eter, possesses
a moven1ent, an expression, which no metre hitherto in
COl1lmOn use amongst us possesses, and which I am con-
vinced English poetry, as OUI mental wants multiply, will
not always be content to forego. Applied to Homer, this
metre affords to the translator the il1lmenSe support of
keeping him nlore nearly than any other metre to ROiner's
movement; and, since a poet's movement 111akes so large a
part of his general effect, and to reproduce this general
effect is at once the translator's indispens2)}le business and
so difficult for hÍ1u, it is a great thing to have this part of
your model's general effect already given you in your metre,
instead of having to get it entirely for yourself.
These are general considerations; but there are also one
or two particular considerations which confirm me in the
opinion that for translating Homer into English verse the
hexameter should be used. The most successful attelupt
hitherto made at rendering Hon1er into English, the
I
25 8
Critical Essays
attelnpt in which Homer's general effect has been best
retained, is an attempt made in the hexameter measure. It
is a version of the falnous lines in the third book of the
Iliad, which end with that mention of Castor and Pollux
from which Mr Ruskin extracts the sentÏ1nental consolation
already noticed by me. The author is the accomplished
Provost of Eton, Dr Hawtrey; and this perfornlance of his
must be my excuse for having taken the liberty to single
him out for nlention, as one of the natural judges of a
translation of Homer, along with Professor 1'holnpson and
Professor Jowett, whose connection with Greek literature is
official. 'l'he passage is short 1; and Dr Hawtrey's version
1 So short, that I quote it entire I
Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia;
Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember;
Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders,
Castor fleet in the car,-Polydcukes brave with the cestus,-
Own dear brethren of mine,-one parent loved us as infants.
Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Laccdæmon,
Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the
1Vaters,
Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes,
All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime h:!s awakened?
So said she ;-they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing,
There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Laccdæmon.
English Hexameter Translations, London, 1847, p. 242.
I have changed Dr Hawtrey's "Kastor," "Lakedaimon," back to
tbe familiar "Castor," "Lacedæmon," in obedience to my own rule
that everything odd is to be avoided in rendering Homer, the most
natural and least odd of poets. I see 1Ir Newman's critic in the
l\'alÍonal Review urges our generation to bear with the unnatural effect
of these rewritten Greek names, in the hope that by this means the
effect of them may have to the next generation become natural. For
my part, I feel no disposition to pa
s all my own life in the wilderness
of pedantry, in order that a posterity which I shall never see may one
day enter an orthographical Canaan; and, after aU, the real question is
this: whether our liying apprehension of the Greek world is more
checked by meeting in an English book about the Greeks, names not
spelt letter for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting names
which make us rub our eyes anù call out, " How exceedingly odd! "
The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most cases the idea of
quite distinct personages from the personages whose idea is raised by t
the Greek names. Hera and Juno are actually, to every scholar's
imagination, two different people. So in all these cases the Latin
names must, at any inconvenience, be abandoned when we are dealing
with the Greek wOIld. But I think it can be in the sensitive imagina.
tion of
fr Grote only, that" Thucydides" raises the idea of a different
maD frvm eovKvðlð1]S.
On Translating Homer 259
of it is suffused with a pensive grace which is, perhaps,
rather more Virgilian than Homeric; still it is the one
version of any part of the Iliad which in some degree re-
produces for llle the original effect of Homer: it is the best,
and it is in hexameters.
This is one of the particular considerations that incline
me to prefer the hexameter, for translating Homer, to our
"established metres. There is another. 1105t of you,
probably, have some knowledge of a poenl by
Ir Clough,
The ßothÙ of Toper-na-fuosiclt, a long-vacation pastoral, in
hexameters. The general merits of that poem I am not
going to discuss: it is a serio-comic poem, and, therefore,
of essentially different nature from the Iliad. Still in two
things it is, more than any other English poem which I can
call to mind) like the Iliad: in the rapidity of its movement,
and the plainness and directness of its style. The thought
of this poem is often curious and subtle, and that is not
Homeric; the diction is often grotesque, and that is not
Homeric. Stin by its rapidity of movement, and plain and
direct manner of presenting the thought however curious in
itself, this poem, which, being as I say a serio-comic poem,
has a right to be grotesque, is grotesque truly, not, like l\Ir
Newman's version of the Iliad, falsely. 1fr Clough's odd
epithets, "The grave nlan nicknamed Adam,u "The hairy
Aldrich," and so on, grow vitally and appear naturally in
their place; while 1Ir Newman's" dapper-greaved Achaians,"
and "lTIotley-helmed Hector," have all the air of being
mechanically elaborated and artificially stuck in. Mr
Clough's hexameters are excessively, needlessly rough; still
owing to the native rapidity of this measure, and to the
directness of style which so well allies itself with it, his
composition produces a sense in the reader which Homer's
composition also produces, and which Homer's translator
ought to re-produce,-the sense of having, within short
linlits of time, a large portion of human life presented to
hinl, instead of a small portion.
1\Ir Clough's hexameters are, as I have just said, too
rough and irregular; and indeed a good nlodel, on any
considerable scale, of this metre, the English translator ,,,ill
nowhere find. He must not follow the model offered by 1Ir
Longfellow in his pleasing and popular poem of Evangeline;
for the merit of the manner and movement of Evangeline}
260
Critical ESSa)7S
when they are at their best, is to be tenderly elegant; and
their fault, when they are at their worst, is to be lumbering;
but Homer's defect is not IUlllberingness, neither is tender
elegance his excellence. The lumbering effect of nlost
Eng]ish hexanleters is caused by their being llluch too
dactylic; I the translator must learn to use spondees freely.
fr Clough has done this, but he has not sufficiently
observed another rule which the trans]ator cannot follow
too strictly; and that is, to have no lines which will not, as
it is familiarly said, read themselves. This is of the last
importance for rhythms with which the ear of the English
public is not thoroughly acquainted. Lord Redesdale, in
two papers on the subject of Greek and Roman metres, has
some good renlarks on the outrageous disregard of quantity
in which English verse, trusting to its force of accent, is
apt to indulge itself. The predominance of accent in our
language is so great, that it would be pedantic not to
avail oneself of it; and Lord Redesdale suggests rules
which might easily be pushed too far. Still: it is undeniable
that in English hexanleters we generally force the quantity
far too much; we rely on justification by accent with a
security which is excessive. But not only do we abuse
accent by shortening long syllables and lengthening short
ones; we perpetually comlllit a far worse fault, by requiring
the removal of the accent from its natural place to an
unnatural one, in order to make our line scan. This is a
fault, even when our metre is one which every English
reader knows, and when we can see what we want and can
correct the rhythn1 according to our wish; although it is a
fault which a great master may sometimes cOlnnlit knowingly
to produce a desired effect, as :rvIilton changes the natural
accent on the word Tiresias in the line:
And Tíresias and Phincus, prophets old j
and then it ceases to be a fault, and becomes a beauty.
But it is a real fault, when Chapman has:
By him the golden-throned Queen slept, the Queen of Deities;
1 For instance; in a version (I belieye, by the late Mr Lockhart) of
Homer's description of the parting of Hector and Andromache, there
occurs, iri the first five lines, but one spondee besides the necessary
spondees in the sixth place; in the corresponding five lines of Ilomer
tLcre occur ten. See English Hexameter Transiatio1Zs, 244.
On Translating Homer 261
for in this line, to make it scan, you have to take away the
accent from the word Queen, on which it naturally falls,
and to place it on throned, which would naturally be unac-
cented; and yet, after all, you get 'no peculiar effect or
beauty of cadence to reward you. It is a real fault, when
l\Ir Newman has:
Infatuate! 0 that thou wert lord to some other army-
for here again the reader is required, not for any special
advantage to himself, but simply to save 1\1:r N ewrnan
trouble, to place the accent on the insignificant word wert,
where it has no business whatever. But it is still a greater
fault, when Spenser has (to take a striking instance) :
"\V ot ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?
for a hexameter; because here not only is the reader cause-
lessly required to make havoc with the natural accentuation
of the line in order to get it to run as a hexameter; but
also he, in nine cases out of ten, will be utterly at a loss
how to perform the process required, and the line will
remain a mE;re monster for him. I repeat, it is advisable to
construct all verses so that by reading them naturally-that
is, according to the sense and legitimate accent,-the reader
gets the right rhythm; but, for English hexameters, that
they be so constructed is indispensable.
If the hexameter best helps the translator to the Homeric
rapidity, what style may best help him to the Homeric
plainness and directness? It is the merit of a metre appro-
priate to your subject, that it in some degree suggests and
carries with itself a style appropriate to the subject; the
elaborate and self-retarding style, which comes so naturally
when your nletre is the Ivliltonic blank verse, does not come
naturally with the hexameter; is, indeed alien to it. On
the other hand, the hexameter has a natural dignity which
repe]s both the jaunty style and the jog-trot style, to both
of which the ballad-measure so easily lends itself. These
are great advantages; and, perhaps, it is nearly enough to
say to the translator who uses the hexan1eter that he cannot
too religiously follow, in style, the inspiration of his metre.
I-Ie will find that a loose and idiomatic grammar-a
grammar which follows the essential rather than the formal
logic of the thought-allies itself excellently with the
262
Critical Essays
hexameter; and that, while this sort of gramn1ar ensures
plainness and naturalness, it by no means comes short in
nobleness. It is difficult to pronounce, certainly, what is
idiomatic in the ancient literature of a language which,
though still spoken, has long since entirely adopted, as
modern Greek has adopted, modern idion1s. Still one
may, I think, clearly perceive that Homer's grammatical
style is idiomatic,-that it may even be called, not im-
properly, a loose grammatical style. I Exanlples, however,
of what I mean by a loose grammatical style, will be of
more use to the translator if taken fronl English poetry than
if taken from Homer. I call it, then, a loose and idiornatic
grammar which Shakspeare uses in the last line oÍ the
following three:
He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both agaz"nst the deed;
cr in this :-
'Vit, whither wilt'
'''hat Shakspeare means is perfectly clear, clearer, probably,
than if he had said it in a more formal and regular manner;
but his grammar is loose and idiomatic, because he leaves
out the subject of the ,-erb "wilt" in the second passage
quoted, and because, in the first, a prodigious addition to
the sentence has to be, as we used to say in our old Latin
gramnlar days, understood, before the word "both" can be
properly parsed. So, again, Chapman's grammar is loose
and idionlatic where he says,
Even share hath he that keeps hjs tent, and he to .field doth go,
because he leaves out, in the second clause, the relative
which in formal writing would be required. But Chapman
here does not lose dignity by this idiolnatic way of expressing
himself, any more than Shakspeare loses it by neglecting to
confer on "both" the blessings of a regular government:
neither loses dignity, but each gives that impression of a
J See for instance, in the Iliad, the loose construction of bLTf, xyii.
65 8 ; that of rÖO'TO, xvii. 681; that of OfTE, xviii. 209; and the
eHiptical construction at xix. 42, 43; also the idiomatic construction of
(YWJI ðÖE 1rapa(]'XEÌ.JI, xix. 140. These instances are all taken within a
range of or thousand lines; anyone may easily multiply them for
himself.
On Translating H0111er
26 3
pbin, direct, and natural mode of speaking, which lIomer,
too, giyes, and which it is so important, as I say, that
Horner's translator should succeed in giving. Cowper calls
blank yerse U a style further removed than rhyme from the
vernacl:lar idiom, both in the language itself and in the
arrangelncnt of it "; and just in proportion as blank verse
is reuloved from the vernacular idiom, from that idiolnatic
style which is of all styles the plainest and roost natura],
blank verse is unsuited to render l-Ion1er.
Shakspeare is not only idiomatic in his gramn1ar or style,
he is also idiolnatic in his words or diction; and here too,
his exal11ple is valuable for the translator of Homer. The
translator must not, indeed, allow himself all the liberty
that Shakspeare allows himself; for Shakspeare son1etimes
uses expressions which pass perfectly well as he uses them,
because Shakspeare thinks so fast and so powerfully, that in
reading him we are borne over single words as by a Inighty
current; but, if our mind were less excited,-and who Inay
rely on exciting our mind like Shakspeare ?-t
ey would
check us. "To grunt and sweat under a weary load" ;-
that does perfectly well where it C0111eS in Shakspeare; but
if the translator of Homer, who will hardly have wound our
minds up to the pitch at which these words of HanJlet finù
then1, wer.e to employ, when he has to speak of one of
Homer's heroes under the load of calamity, this figure of
U grunting" and U sweating" we should say, He PleU.11l1anÚtS,
and his diction would offend us. For he is to be noble;
and no plea of wishing to be plain and natural can get hin1
excuseù from being this: only, as he is to be also, like
Homer, perfectly simple and free from artificiality, and as
the use of idiomatic expressions undoubtedly gives this
effect, I he should be as idiomatic as he can be without ceas-
ing to be noble. Therefore the idiomatic language of
Shakspeare-such language as, U prate of his whereabout" ;
J Our knowledge of Homer's Greek is hanì1y such as to enab1e 11S to
pronO\mce quite confidently what is idiomatic in his diction, and what
is not, any more than in his grammar; but I seem to myself clearl}' to
recognise an idiomatic staron in such expressions as TOÀJl7rfÚWI 7roÀlp.oJls,
xiv. 86; rþáos i
JlT;EUUL'II 6
TJs, xyi. 94; TV' orw å.u1rao-i.ws aÌir{;:v À6pI/
Ká,tt.1þHJI, xix. 7 I ; KÀor01rfÚf.LlI, xix. 149; and many others. The first.
Guot
d expression, TOÀV1I"EVELV dfYY(J.""ovs 1rOÀÉ/-LOVf, seems to me to have
j'Jst about the same degree of freedom as the" jumþ the life to come,"
or the" shu./flt t#' this mortaJ coil," of Shakspeare.
26 4
Critical Essa)Ts
"jumþ the life to come"; cc the damnation of his taking-
off"; "his quietus make with a bare bodkin "-should be
carefully observed by the translator of I-Iomer, a1though in
every case he will have to decide for himself whether the
use, by him, of Shakspeare's liberty, will or will not clash
with his indispensable duty of nobleness. He win find one
English book and one only, where, as in the IHad itself,
perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness.;
and that book is the Bible. No one could see this more
clearly than Pope saw it: "This pure and noble simplicity,"
he says, "is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture
and Homer": yet even with Pope a woman is a "fair," a
father is a H sire" and an old man a "reverend sage," and
so on through all the phrases of that pseudo-Augustan, and
most unbiblical, vocabulary. The Bible, however, is un-
doubtedly the grand mine of diction for the translator of
Homer; and, if he knows how to discriminate tru1y between
what will suit him and what will not, the Bible n1ay afford
him also invaluable lessons of style.
I said that Homer, besides being plain in style and
diction, was plain in the quality of his thought. It is
possible that a thought may be expressed ,vith idiomatic
plainness, and yet not be in itself a plain thought. For
example, in 1\.lr Clough's poem, already mentioned, the
style and diction is almost always idion1atic and. plain, but
the thought itself is often of a quality which is not plain; it
is curious. But the grand instance of the union of idiomatic
expression with curious or difficult thought is in Shakspeare's
poetry. Such, indeed, is the force and power of Shak-
speare's idiomatic expression, that it gives an effect of clear-
ness and vividness even to a thought which is imperfect
and incoherent; for instance, when Hamlet says,
To take arms against a sea of troubles,
the figure there is undoubtedly most faulty, it by no
means runs on four legs; but the thing is said so freely and
idiomatically, that it passes. This, however, is not a point
to which I now want to call your attention; I want you to
remark, in Shakspeare and others, only that which we may
directly apply to Homer. I say, then, that in Shakspeare
the thought is often, while most idiomatically uttered, nay,
while good and sound in itself, yet of a quality which is
On Translating Homer 26 5
curious and difficult; and that this quality of thought is
something entirely un-Homeric. For example, when Lady
!\iacbeth says:
Iemory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only,
this figure is a perfectly sound and correct figure, no doubt;
1Ir Knight even calls it a "happy" figure; but it is a diffi-
cull figure: Homer would not have used it. Again, when
LaJy 1Iacbeth says,
'Vhen you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man,
the thought in the two last of these lines is, when you seize
it, a perfectly clear thought, and a fine thought; but it is a
curious thought: Honler would not have used it. These are
favourable instances of the union of plain style and words with
a thought not plain in quality; but take stronger instances
of this union,-let the thought be not only not plain in
quality, but highly fanciful: and you have the Elizabethan
conceits; you have, in spite of idiomatic style and idiomatic
diction, everything which is most un-Hon1eric; you have
such atrocities as this of Chapman:
Fate shall {ail to vent her gall
Till mine vent thousands.
I say, the poets of a nation which has produced such
conceit as that, must purify themselves seven times in
the fire before they can hope to render Homer. They
must expel their nature with a fork, and keep crying
to one another night and day: It Honler not only moves
rapidly, not only speaks idionlatically; he is, also, free fro1n
fancifulness."
So essentially characteristic of Homer is his plainness
and naturalness of thought, that to the preservation of this
in his own version the translator must without scruple
sacrifice, where it is necessary, verbal fidelity to his original,
rather than run any risk of producing, by literalness, an odd
and unnatural effect. 1'he double epithets so constantly
occurring in Homer must be dealt with according to this
rule; these epithets come quite naturally in Hon1er's
266
Cri tical Essays
poetry; in English poetry they, in nine cases out of ten.
come, when literally rendered, quite unnaturally. I will
not now discuss why this is so, I aSSUlne it as an inàisput-
able fact that it is so; that Homer's
fp6'7f(>>Y åvBpw'7fwli con1es
to the reader as sOlnething perfectly natural, while l\Ir N ew-
nlan's "voice-dividing Inortals " comes to him as sonlething
perfectly unnatural. 'V ell then, as it is I-Iomer's general
effect which we are to reproduce, it is to be false to H0111er
to be so verbally faithful to him as that we lose this effect:
and by the English translator Homer's double epithets 111USt
be, in Il1any places, renounced altogether; in all places
where they are rendered, rendered by equivalents which
conIC naturally. Instead of rendering e
'1"1 'ravú'7rEtJrì
! by 11r
Newrnan's "1"hetis trailing-robed," y.hich brings to one's
mind long petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement, the trans-
lator Inust render the Greek by English words which come
as naturaliy to us as :!\1ilton's words when he says, "Let
gorgeous 'I'ragedy 'Vith sceptred pall come sweeping by."
Instead of rendering
WYUX,a5 i''ir'iffJUç by Chapman's "one-
hoofed steeds," or 1vlr Newman's" single-hoofed horses," he
nlust speak of horses in a way which surprises us as little as
Shakspeare surprises when he says, "Gallop apace, you
fiery-footed steeds." Instead of rendering
S^''rJÒÉ(J., O'J
óv by
"life as honey pleasant," he must characterise life with the
sill1ple pathos of Gray's" warm precincts of the cheerful day."
Instead of converting 'iffJitv tfe f'ifOS'
Úrf1i ËPi!O, ÒÒÛVT(JJV; into the
portentous remonstrance, "Bet\vixt the outwork of thy teeth
what word hath split?" he must remonstrate in English as
straíghtforward as this of 8t Peter, "Be it far from thee,
Lord: this shall not be unto thee"; or as this of the dis-
ciples, "'Vhat is this that he s:1Íth, a little while? we cannot
tell what he saith." I-Iomer's Greek, in each of the places
quoted, reads as naturally as any of those English passages:
the expression no more calls away the attention from the
sense in the G-reek than in the English. ]3ut when, in ordel
to render literally in English one of I-lamer's double epithets,
a strange unfamiliar adjective is invented,-such as "voice
diyiding" for
Épo+ç,-an ÎInproper share of the reader's
attention is necessarily diverted to this ancillary word, to
this word which Homer never intended should receive so
much notice; and a total effect quite different frOITI Homer's
is thus produced. Therefore Mr Newman, though he does
On Translating Honler 267
not purposely i01port, like Chapman, conceits of his own
into the IHad, does actually import then1; for the result of
his singular diction is to raise ideas, and odd ideas, not
raised by the corresponding diction in HOlìler; and Chap-
man hin1self does no more. Cowper says: "I have
cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an
abundJ.nce of which persons of more ingenuity than judg-
n1ent have not enriched our language but encumbered it " ;
and this criticism so exactly hits the diction of l\lr Newman
that one is irresistibly led to imagine his present appearance
in the flesh to be at least his second.
,A translator cannot well have a Homeric rapidity, style,
diction, and quality of thought, without at the same time
having what is the result of these in Homer,-nobleness.
Therefore I do not attempt to lay down any rules for
obtaining this effect of nobleness,-the effect, too, of all
others the nlost impalpable, the most irreducible to rule,
and which most depends on the individual personality of
the artist. So I proceed at once to give you, in conclusion,
one or two passages in which I have tried to follow those
principles of Homeric translation which I have laid down.
I give theIn, it must be remelubered, not as specimens of
perfect translation, but as specimens of an attelnpt to trans-
late I-lolner on certain principles; specimens which may
very aptly illustrate those principles by falling short as well
as by succeeding.
I take first a passage of which I have already spoken, the
cOlnparison of the Trojan fires to the stars. The first part
of that passage is, I have said, of splendid beauty; and to
begin with a lame version of that would be the height of
imprudence in me. It is the last and more level part with
which I shall concern myself. I have already quoted
Cowper's version of this part in order to show you how
unlike his stiff and Miltonic manner of telling a plain story
is to Homer's easy and rapid manner:
So numerous seemed those fires the bank between
Of Xantbus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece,
In prospect an of Troy-
I need not continue to the end. I have also quøted Pope's
version of it, to show you how unlike his ornate and artificial
manner is to lIomer's plain and naturalluanner:
268
Critical Essays
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays;
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires,
and much more of the same kind. I want to show you
that it is possible, in a plain passage of this sort, to keep
Homer's simplicity without being heavy and dull; and to
keep his dignity without bringing in pomp and ornament.
U As numerous as are the stars on a clear night," says
Homer,
So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus,
Between that and the ships, the Trojans' numerous fires.
In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires : by ea::h one
There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire:
By their chariots stood the steeds, and champed the white barley
\Vhile their masters sat by the fire, and waited for 1Iorning.
Here, in order to keep Homer's effect of perfect plainness
and directness, I repeat the word "fires" as he repeats 'If'Upá.
without scruple; although in a more elaborate and literary
style of poetry this recurrence of the same word would be
a fault to be avoided. I omit the epithet of
forning, and
whereas Homer says that the steeds" waited for Morning/'
I prefer to attribute this expectation of Morning to the
master and not to the horse. Very likely in this particular,
as in any other single particular, I may be wrong: what I
wish you to remark is my endeavour after absolute plain-
ness of speech, my care to avoid anything which may the
least check or surprise the reader, whom Homer does not
check or surprise. Homer's lively personal familiarity with
war, and with the war-horse as his master's companion, is
such that, as it seems to me, his attributing to the one the
other's feelings comes to us quite naturally; but, from a
poet without this familiarity, the attribution strikes as a little
unnatural; and therefore, as everything the least unnatural
is un-Homeric, I avoid it.
Again, in the address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles,
Cowper has :
Jove saw their grief with pity, and his brows
Shaking, within himself thus, pensive, said.
"Ah, hapless pair! wherefore by gift divine
Were ye to Peleus given, a mortal king,
Yourselves immortal and from age exempt? J'
On Translating Homer
26 9
There is no want of dignity here, as in the versions of
Chapman and 1-Ir Newman, which I have already quoted:
but the whole effect is much too slow. Take Pope:
Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look
\Vhile thus relenting to the steeds he spoke.
" Unhappy coursers of immortal strain I
Exempt from age and death less now in vain;
Did we your race on mortal man bestow
Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?"
Here there is no want either of dignity or rapidity, but all
is too artificial. " Nor Jove disdained," for instance, is a very
artificial and literary way of rendering Homer's words and
so is, "coursers of immortal strain."
M ' Ò '" ,
ò \ ,"\. ' K '
up OfLSY(JJ apa ,:,w rs I
V, E^E1jO'S eO\llwv.
And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,
And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom.
" Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you,
To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.
"ras it that ye, with man, might have your thousands of sorrows 1
For than man, indeed, there breathes no wretcheder creature,
Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving."
Here I will observe that the use of "own," in the second
line for the last syllable of a dactyl, and the use of" To a,"
in the fourth, for a complete spondee, though they do not,
I think, actually spoil the run of the hexameter, are yet un-
doubtedly instances of that over-reliance on accent, and too
free àisregard of quantity, which Lord Redesdale visits with
just reprehension. 1
1 It must be remembered, however, that, if we disregard quantity too
much in constructing English hexameters. we also disregard accent too
much in reading Greek hexameters. V\"'e read every Greek dactyl so
as to make a pure dactyl of it; but, to a Greek, the accent must have
hindered many dactyls from sounding as pure dactyls. When we read
a16Àos '11"11"os. {or instance, or al'YLóXOLO, the dactyl in each of these
cases is made by us as pure a dactyl as "Tityre," or "dignity"; but
to a Greek it was not so. To him aló7\.os must have been nearly as im-
pure a dactyl as "death-destined" is to us ; and al'Y'ÓX nearly as impure
as the" dressed his own" of my text. Nor, I think, does this right
mode of pronouncing the two words at all spoil the run of the line as a
hexameter. The effect of al6ÀÀos t'11"7rOS (or something like that).
though not our effect, is not a disagreeable one. On the other hand,
lCoplI(JatóÀos as a paroxytonon, although it has the respectable authority
or Liddell and Scott's Lexicol1. (following Heyne), is certainly wrong;
for then the word cannot be pronounced without throwing an accent
27 0
Cri tical Essays
I now take two longer passages in order to try my method
nlore fuHy ; but I still keep to passages which have already
COine under our notice. I quoted Chapman's version of
some passages in the speech of Hector at his parting with
Andromache. One astounding conceit will probably still be
in your remenl brance,
'\Vhen sacred Troy shall shed her tow'rs for tears of overthrow,
as a translation of ÓT' ä'i t7;'()'1'" òÀWÀr: "IÀlo, if;;. I will quote a
few lines which will give you, also, the keynote to the
Anglo-Augustan nlanner of rendering this passage and to
the ß-liltonic manner of rendering it. \Vhat
Ir Newman's
nlanner of rendering it would be, you can by this time
sufficiently imagine for yourselves.
lr \Vright,-to quote
for once fronl his meritorious version instead of Cowper's,
whose strong and weak points are those of l\lr \Vright also,
-
lr \Vright- begins his versIon of this passage thus:
All these thy anxious cares are also min
,
Pa.rtner beloved; but how could I endure
The scorn of Trojans and their long-robed wives,
Should they behold their Hector shrink from war,
And act the coward
s part I Nor doth my soul
rrompt the base thought.
Ex þede Hert"ulenz: you see just what the nlanner is. 1,h
Sotheby, on the other hand (to take a disciple of Pope
instead of Pope himself), begins thus:
,e \Vhat moves thee, moves my mind," brave Hector said,
" Yet Troy's upbraiding scorn I deeply dread,
If, like a slave, where chiefs with chiefs engage,
The warrior Hector fears the war to wage.
Not thus my heart ir.clines."
From that specimen, too, you can easily divine what, with
such a nlanner, will becon1e of the whole passage. But
I-Iomer has neither
\Vhat moves thee, moves my mind,
nor has he
All these thy anxious cares are also min e.
on the fir
t syllable as well as the third, and p.f"'(at; KoppvOa.t6X^ot;' EKT(.c.IF
would have been to a Greek as intolerable an ending for a hexameter
line as "accurst orþhalzhood-destined houses" would be to us. The
best authorities, accordingly, accent KoptJ8aloXot; as a proparoxytonon.
On Translating Hon1er
27 1
)' 1 ' ò ' ',\ ' ''\'':1' ',\' ,,,,,
· II xa, Ep..O f"U e '1rU
f"a p..s^u, rtJ
c.(.l. u^^a p..u^ aH:,;ç,
that is what Homer has, that is his style and nlovement, if
one could but catch it. Andromache, as you know, has
been entreating Hector to defend Troy from within the
walls, instead of exposing his life, and, with his own life,
the safety of all those dearest to him, by fighting in the
open plain. I-Iector replies:
\Voman, J too take thought for this; but then I bethink me
\Vhat the Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur,
If like a coward I skulked behind, apart from the baule.
Nor would my own heart let me; my heart, which has bid me be
valiant
Always, and always fighting among the first of the Trojans,
BU3Y for Priam's fame and my own, in spite of the future.
For that day will come, my soul is assured of its ccming,
It will come, when sacred Troy shall go to destruction,
Troy, and warlike Priam too, and the people of Priam.
And yet not that grief, which then will be, of the Trojans,
Moves me so much-not Hecuba's grief, nor Priam my father's,
Nor my brethren's, many and brave, who then will be lying
In the bloody dust, beneath the feet of their foemen-
As thy grief, when, in tears, some brazen-coated Achaian
Shall transport thee away. and the day of thy freedom be ended.
Then, perhaps, thou shalt work at the loom of another, in Argc3t
Or bear pails to the well of 1Iesseïs, or Hypereia,
Sorely against thy will, L}p strong Necessity's order.
And
ome man may say, as be looks and sees thy tears falling:
See, the wife of Heäor, that gnat pn-eminent caþtain
OJ the horseme1Z oj Troy, in the day the)' fought jor thu"r city.
So some man will S:lY; and then thy grief will redouhle
At thy want of a man like me, to save thee from bondage.
But Jet me b
dead, and the earth be mounded
bove me,
Ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity told of.
The main question, whether or no this version repro-
duces for hin1 the movement and general effect of I-Iomer
better than other versions I of the same passage, I leave for
the judgment of the scholar. nut the particular points, in
which the operation of my own rules is manifested, are as
follows. In the second line I leave out the epithet of the
Trojan won1cn éì.
ecfl'7;g<;T^OlJS", altogether. In the sixth line
I put in five words "in spite of the future." which are in
the original by in1plication only, and are not there actually
expressed. This I do, because Homer, as I have before
J Dr I-Iawtrey also has translated this passage; hut here, he has not,
I think, been so successful as in his" Helen on the walls of Tro)'."
27 2
Critical Essays
said, is so remote from one who reads him in English, that
the English translator must be even plainer, if possible, and
more unambiguous than Homer himself; the connection of
meaning must be even more distinctly marked in the
translation than in the original. For in the Greek language
itself there is something which brings one nearer to Homer,
which gives one a clue to his thought, which makes a hint
enough; but in the English language this sense of near-
ness, this clue, is gone; hints are insufficient, everything
must be stated with full distinctness. In the ninth line
IIomer's epithet for Priam is ÈU/k,aÛ..íw,-" armed with
good ashen spear," say the dictionaries; "ashen-speared,"
translates Mr Newman, following his own rule to "retain
every peculiarity of his original,"-I say, on the other
hand, that EU/J.-/J;EÀíw has not the effect of a "peculiarity"
in the original, while "ashen-speared" has the effect of a
"peculiarity)) in English; and" warlike " is as n1arking an
equivalent as I dare give for EU/J;/J;EÀíw, for fear of disturbing
the balance of expression in Homer's sentence. In the
fourteenth line, again, I translate XctÀXOX'TWWWV by C( brazen-
coated." Mr Newman, meaning to be perfectly literal,
translates it by',' brazen-cloaked," an expression which
comes to the reader oddly and unnaturally, while Homer's
word comes to him quite naturally; but I venture to go as
near to a literal rendering as "brazen-coated," because a
" coat of brass" is. familiar to us all from the Bible, and
familiar, too, as distinctly specified in connection with the
wearer. Finally, let me further illustrate from the
twentieth line the value which I attach, in a question
of diction, to the authority of the Bible. The word
" pre-eminent" occurs in that line; I was a little in doubt
whether that was not too bookish an expression to be used
in rendering Homer, as I can imagine !vIr N ewnlan to have
been a little in doubt whether his "responsively accosted"
for åfkE/ßÓ,USllo, t71'fOtJÉ(þ'IJ, was not too bookish an expression.
Let us both, I say, consult our Bibles: Mr Newman will
nowhere find it in his Bible that David, for instance, "re-
sþonsively accosted Goliath;" but I do find in mine that
"the right hand of the Lord hath the pre-eminence,." and
forthwith I use "pre-eminent," without scruple. My
Bibliolatry is perhaps excessi \"e; and no doubt a true
poetic feeling is the Homeric translator's best guide in the
On Translating Homer
273
use of words; but where this feeling does not exist, or is
at fault, I think he cannot do better than take for a
mechanical guide Cruden's Concordance. To be sure, here
as elsewhere, the consulter must know how to consult,-
must know how very slight a variation of word or circum-
stance makes the difference between an authority in his
favour, and an authority which gives him no countenance
at all; for instance, the "Great simpleton!)) (for p..Érrx.
'7fIO
) of }\vir Newman, and the "Thou fool!" of the
Bible, ate something alike; but "Thou fool! U is very
grand, and "Great simpleton! " is an atrocity. So, too,
Chapman's "Poor wretched beasts" is pitched many
degrees too low; but Shakspeare's "Poor venomous fool,
Be angry and dispatch! " is in the grand style.
One more piece of translation and I have done. I will
take the passage in which both Chapman and Mr Newman
have already so much excited our astonishment, the
passage at the end of the nineteenth book of the Ilt"ad,
the dialogue between Achilles and his horse Xanthus, after
the death of Patroclus. Achilles begins:
U Xanthus and Balius both, ye far-famed seed of Podarga!
See that ye bring your master home to the host of the Argives
In some other sort than your last, when the battle is ended;
And not leave him behind, a corpse on the plain, like Patroclus."
Then, from beneath the yoke, the fleet horse Xanthus addressed him:
Sudden he bowed his head, and all his mane, as he bowed it,
Streamed to the ground by the yoke, escaping from under the collar;
And he was given a voice by the white-armed Goddess Hera.
" Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles!
But thy day of death is at hand; nor shall we be the reason-
No, but the will of heaven, and Fate's invincible power.
For by no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours
Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroc1us;
But that prince among Gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto,
Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector.
But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the \V est- Wind,
Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds; 'tis thou who art fated
To lie low in death, by the; hand of a God and a Mortal."
Thus far he; and here his voice was stopped by the Furies.
Then, with a troubled heart, the swift Achilles addressed him:
"'Vhy dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xantbus 1
I t needs not.
I of myself know well, that here I am destined to perish,
Far from my father and mother dear: for all that I will not
Stay this hand from fight, till the Trojans are utterly routed."
So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle.
274
Critical Essays
Here the only par.ticular remark which I will make is,
that in the fourth and eighth line the gralumar is what I call
loose and idiomatic gramn1ar. In writing a regular and
literary style, one would in the fourth line have to repeat
before" leave" the words" that ye" from the second line,
and to insert the word "do JJ; and in the eighth line one
would not use such an expression as " he was gi ven a voice. JJ
But I will make one general remark on the character of my
own translations, as I have made so many on that of
the translations of others. It is, that over the graver
passages there is shed an air son1ewhat too strenuous and
severe, by con1parison with that lovely ease and sweetness
which IIomer, for all his noble and masculine way of
thinking, never loses.
Here I stop. I have said so n1uch, because I think that
the task of translating I-Iomer into English verse both will
be reattempted, and may be reattempted successfully.
There are great works composed of parts so disparate that
one translator is not likely to have the requisite gifts for
poetically rendering all of them. Such are the works
of Shakspeare, and Goethe's Faust; and these it is best to
attempt to render in prose only. People praise Tieck and
Schlegel's version of Shakspeare: I, for my part, would
sooner read Shakspeare in the French prose translation, and
that is saying a great deal; but in the German poet's hands
Shakspeare so often gets, especially where he is humorous,
an air of what the French call lliaiserie I and can anything
be more un-Shakspearian than that? Again; 1Ir IIayward's
prose translation of the first part of Faust-so good that it
Inakes one regret 1\lr Hayward should have abandoned the
line of translation for a kind of literature which is, to say
tbe least, some\vhat slight-is not likely to be surpassed by
any translation in verse. But poelllS like the iliad, which,
in the main, are in one nlanner, may hope to find a poetical
translator so gifted and so trained as to be able to learn that
one manner, and to reproduce it. Only, the poet who
would reproduce this must cultivate in hilnself a Greek
virtue by no means common among the moderns in general,
and the English in particular,-nzoderation. For I-Iomer
has not only the English vigour, he has the Greek grace;
and when one observes the bOlstering, rol1icking way in
which his English admirers-even men of genius like the
On Translating l-Ioiner 275
late Professor 'Vilson-Iove to talk of Homer and his poetry,
one cannot help feeling that there is no very deep conl-
munity of nature bet\veen them and the object of their
enthusiasm. "It is very well, my good friends," I always
imagine Homer saying to them: if he could hear them:
"you do me a great deal of honour, but somehow or other
you praise me too like barbarians." For Hon1er's grandeur
is not the mixed and turbid grandeur of the great poets of
the north, of the authors of Othello and Faust; it is a
p
rfect, a lovely grandeur. Certainly his poetry has all the
energy and power of tbe poetry of our ruder climates j but
it has, besides, the pure lines of an Ionian horizoD c the
liquid clearness of an Ionian sky.
XI
HOl\IERIC TRANSLATION IN THEORY
AND PRACTICE
A REPLY TO l\IATTHEW ARNOLD
By FRANCIS W. NEWMAN
IT is so difficult, amid the press of literature, for a mere
versifier and translator to gain notice at an, that an assailant
may even do one a service, if he so conduct his assault as to
enable the reader to sit in intelligent judgment on the
nlerits of the book assailed. But when the critic deals out
to the readers only so much knowledge as may propagate
his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly immense
power to dissuade thenl from wishing to open it. Mr
Arnold writes as openly aiming at this end. He begins by
complimenting me, as "a man of great ability and genuine
learning"; but on questions of learning, as well as of taste,
he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had meant, "a man
totany void both of learning and of sagacity." He again and
again takes for granted that he has "the scholar" on his
side, ,. the living scholar," the man who has learning and
taste without pedantry. He bids me please" the scholars,"
and go to "the scholars' tribunal"; and does not know
that I did this, to the extent of my opportunity, before
committing myself to a laborious, expensive and perhaps
thankless task. Of course he cannot guess, what is the fact,
that scholars of fastidious refinement, but of a judgll1ent
which I think far more masculine than Mr Arnold's, have
passed a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of
my translations. I at this monlent count eight such names,
though of course I must not here adduce them: nor will I
further allude to it, than to say, that I have no such sense
either of pride or of despondency, as those are liable to,
who are consciously isolated in their taste.
Scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but of Taste the
educated but unleaI1ned public is the only rightful judge;
276
Reply to rvlatthe\v Arnold 277
and to it I wish to appeal. Even scholars collectively have
no right, and much less have single scholars, to pronounce
a final sentence on questions of taste in their court. \Vhere
I differ in Taste from 1fr Arnold, it is very difficult to find
"the scholars' tribunal," even if I acknowledged its absolute
jurisdiction: but as regards Erudition, this difficulty does
not occur, and I shall fully reply to the numerous dog-
matisms by which he settles the case against me.
But I must first avow to the reader my own moderate
pretensions. 11r Arnold begins by instilling two errors
which he does not commit himself to assert. He says that
my work will not take rank as the standard translation of
Homer, but other translations will be made: as if I thought
otherwise! If I have set the exanlple of the right direction
in which translators ought to aim, of course those who
follow me will improve upon me and supersede me. A man
would be rash indeed to withhold his version of a poem of
fifteen thousand lines, until he had, to his best ability, im-
parted to them all their final perfection. He n1ight spend
the leisure of his life upon it. He would possibly be in his
grave before it could see the light. If it then were published,
and it was founded on any new principle, there would be no
one to defend it from the attacks of ignorance and prejudice.
In the nature of the case, his wisdom is to elaborate in the
first instance all the high and noble parts carefully, and get
through the inferior parts somehow ; leaving of necessity
very much to be done in successive editions, if possibly it
please general taste sufficiently to reach them. A generous
and intelligent critic will test such a work mainly or solely
by the most noble parts, and as to the rest, will consider
whether the metre and style adapts itself naturally to them
also.
Next, 1\-1:r Arnold asks, U \Vho is to assure Mr Newman,
that when he has tried to retain every pe<:uliarity of his
original, he has done that for which 1Ir Newman enjoins
this to be done-adhered closely to Homer's manner and
habit of thought? Evidently the translator needs more
practical directions than these." The tendency of this is,
to suggest to the reader that I am not aware of the difficulty
of rightly applying good principles; whereas I have in this
very connection said expressly, that even when a translator has
got right principles, he is liable to go wrong in the detail of
27 8
Critical Essays
their application. l'his is as true of all the principles which
Mr Arnold can possibly give, as of those which I have
given; nor do I for a m0111ent assume, that in writing
fifteen thousand lines of verse I have not 111ade hundreds of
blots.
At the same time 1fr Arnold has overlooked the point of
my remark. N early every translator before me has k'IOU'illg
y
purþoselJ', habitually shrunk from líomer's thoughts and
IIomer's manner. The reader will afterwards see whether
Mr A.rnold does not justify them in their course. It is
not for those who are purposely unfaithful to taunt me with
the difficulty of being truly faithful.
I have alleged, and, against :ì\Ir Arnold's flat denial, I
deliberately repeat, that lIomer rises and sinks with his
subject, and is often hon1ely or prosaic. I have professed
as my principle, to follow my original in this matter. It is
unfair to expect of me grandeur in trivial passages. If in
any place where Honler is conftssedl)' grand and noble, I
have marred and ruined his greatness, let me be reproved.
But I shall have occasion to protest, that Stateliness is not
Grandeur, Picturesqueness is not Stately, 'Vild Beauty is not
to be confounded with Elegance: a Forest has its swamps
and brush wood, as well as its tall trees.
1'he duty of one who þublishes his censures on n1e is, to
select noble, greatly admired passages, and confront me both
with a prose translation of the original (for the public cannot
go to the Greek) and also with that which he judges to be a
more successful version than mine. Translation being
matter of compromise, and being certain to fall below the
original, when this is of the highest type of grandeur; the
question is not, 'Vhat translator is perfect? but, 'Vho is
least imperfect? Hence the only fair test is by comparison,
when comparison is possible. But 1fr Arnold has not put
me to this test. He has quoted two very short passages,
and various single lines, half lines and single words, from
me; and chooses to tell his readers that I ruin Homer's
nobleness, when (if his censure is just) he might make
them feel it by quoting me upon the most adlnired pieces.
N ow with the warnlest sincerity I say: If any English
reader, after perusing my version of four or five eminently
noble passages of sufficient length, side by side with those
of other translators, and (better still) with a prose version
Reply to Matthevv Arnold
279
also, finds in thenl high qualities which I have destroyed; I
am foremost to advise hiln to shut my book, or to consult
it only (as I\lr Arnold suggests) as a schoolboy's "help to
construe," if such it can be. My sole object is, to bring
Honler before the unlearned public: I seek no self-
glorification: the sooner I am superseded by a really better
translation, the greater will be my pleasure.
It was not until I n10re closely read 1fr Arnold's own
versions, that I understood how necessary is his repugnance
to mine. I am unwilling to speak of his metrical efforts. I
shall not say more than my argument strictly denlands. It
here suffices to state the simple fact, that for a while I
seriously doubted whether he nleant his first specimen for
metre at all. He seems distinctly to say, he is going to
give us English I-Iexan1eters; but it was long before I could
believe that he had written the following for that nletre :
So shone forth, in front of Tror, by the bed of Xanthus,
Between that and the ships, the Trojans' numerous fires.
In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires: by each one
There sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire.
By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ'd the white barley,
While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for
Iorning.
I sincerely thought, this was meant for prose; at length
the two last lines opened my eyes. lIe does mean them for
Hexameters! "Fire" (= feuer) with him is a spondee or
trochee. The first line, I now see, begins with three
(quantitative) spondees, and is meant to be spondaic in the
fifth foot. "Bed of, Between, In the,"-are meant for
spondees! So are " There sate," "B)1 their"; though
"Troy by the " was a dactyl. "Chalnp'd the white" is a
dactyl. 11y" metrical exploits" amaze :r"Ir Arnold (p. 223);
but my courage is timidity itself compared to his.
His second specimen stands thus:
And with pity the son of Saturn sa \V them bewailing,
And he shook his head, and thus address'd his own bosom:
Ah, unhappy pair! to Peleus why àid we give you,
To a mortal? but ye are without old age and immortal.
Was it that ye with man, might have your thousands of sorrows?
For than man indeed there breathes no wretcheder creature,
Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving.
Upon this he apologises for" To a," intended as a spondee
in the fourth line, and" -dress'd his own " for a dactyl in the
280
Critical Essays
second; liberties which, he admits, go rather far, but U do
not actually spoil the run of the hexameter." In a note, he
attempts to palliate his deeds by recriminating on Homer,
though he will not allow to me the san1e excuse. The
accent (it seems) on the second syllable of aió^o
makes
it as impure a dactyl to a Greek as "death-destin'd" is to
us ! Mr Arnold's erudition in Greek meters is very curious,
if he can establish that they take any cognisance at all of
the prose accent, or that aio^o
is quantitatively more or
less of a dactyl, according as the prose accent is on one or
other syllable. His ear also must be of a very unusual
kind, if it makes out that" death-destin'd n is anything but
a downright Molossus. 'Vrite it dethdestind, as it is pro-
nounced, and the eye, equally with the ear, decides it to be
of the same type as the word þerszS tunt.
In the lines just quoted, most readers will be slow to
believe that they have to place an impetus of the voice (an
ictus metricus at least) on Bétween, In' the, Thére sate, By'
their, A'nd with, A'nd he, 1'6 a, Fór than, O'f all. Here,
in the course of thirteen lines, comþosed as a sþecimen of style,
is found the same offence nine times repeated, to say
nothing here of other deforn1ities. N ow contrast 1Ir
Arnold's severity against me, I p. 261: "It is a real fault
when Mr Newman has :
Infátuáte I 6h that thou wért I lord to some other army-
for here the reader is required, not for any special advantage
to himself, but sÍ1nþ!y to save lVIr Nezvman trouble, to place
the accent on the insignificant word wert, where it has no
business whatever." Thus to the flaw which Mr Arnold
admits nine times in thirteen pattern lines, he shows no
mercy in me, who have toiled through fifteen thousand.
Besides, on wert we are free at pleasure to place or not to
place the accent; but in Mr Arnold's Bélween, Tó a, etc.,
it is impossible or offensive.
To avoid a needlessly personal argulnent, I enlarge on
the general question of hexameters. Others, scholars of
repute, have given example and authority to English hexa-
meters. As matter of curiosity, as erudite sport, such ex-
periments may have their value. I do not mean to express
I He attacks the same line also in p. 235 j but I do not claim this as
. mark, how free I am from the fault.
Reply to :rvlatthe\v Arnold 28 I
indiscriminate disapproval, much less contempt. I have
myself privately tried the same in Alcaics; and find the
chief objection to be, not that the task is impossible, but
that to execute it well is too difficult for a language like ours,
overladen with consonants, and abounding with syllables
neither distinctly long nor distinctly short, but of every in-
termediate length. Singing to a tune was essential to
keep even Greek or Roman poetry to true time; to the
English language it is of tenfold necessity. But if titne is
abandoned (as in fact it always is), and the prose accent has
to do duty for the ictus metricus, the moral genius of the
metre is fundamelìtal1y subverted. \Vhat previously was
steady duplicate time (U march-time," as Professor Blackie
calls it) vaciHates between duplicate and triplicate. \Vith
Homer, a dactyl had nothing in it more triPping than a
spondee: a crotchet followed by two quavers belongs to as
grave an anthem as two crotchets. But 1fr Arnold himself
(p. 242) calls the introduction of anapæsts by Dr I\laginn
into our ballad measure, "a detestable dance ": as in:
And scarcely hád she begún to wash,
Ere shé wãs ãwáre õ{ the grisly gash. I
I will not assert that this is everywhere improper in the
Odyssey; but no part of the Iliad occurs to me in which it is
proper, and r have totally excluded it in my own practice.
r notice it but once in 1\fr Gladstone's specimens, and it
certainly offends my taste as out of harmony with the
gravity of the rest, viz. :
:My ships shall bound Ïn thë morning's light.
In Shakspeare we have i'th' and o'th' for monosyllables, but
(so scrupulous an1 I in the midst of my "atrocities") I
never dream of such a liberty myself, much less of avowed
"anapæsts." So far do I go in the opposite direction, as to
prefer to make such words as Danai, victory three syllables,
which even :rvIr Gladstone and Pope accept as dissyUabic.
Some reviewers have called my metre lege solu/um j which
is as ridiculous a mistake as Horace made concerning
Pindar. That, in passing. But surely
f r Arnold's severe
blow at Dr Ivlaginn rebounds with double force upon himself.
To Péleus why' dId we gíve you?-
Hécubã's griéf nor Príãm mJ fáther's-
Thoúsãnds óE sórrows-
282
Critical Essays
cannot be a less detestable jig than that of Dr 1\ r ao-inn.
And this objection holds against every accentual hexan
eter,
even to those of Longfellow or Lockhart, if applied to grand
poetry. For bombast, in a wild whimsical poem, ]\[r
Clough has proved it to be highly appropriate; and I
think, the more" rollicking J) is 1\lr Clough (iÍ only I under-
stand the word) the nlore successful his nletre. I\Ir Arnold
hilTIself feels what I say against "dactyls," for on this very
ground he advises largely superseding them by spondees;
and since what he calls a spondee is any pair of sy lla bles of
which the former is accentuable, his precept an10unts to
this, that the hexalneter be converted into a line of six
accentual trochees, with free liberty left of diversifying it, in
any foot except the last, by Dr 1faginn's "detestable
dance." 'Vhat In ore severe conden1nation of the metre is
in1aginable than this ll1ere description gives? "Six trochees II
seCll1S to 111e the worst possible foundation for an English
metre. I cannot imagine that 1\fr Arnold will give the
slightest weight to this, as a judgment from me; but I do
advise him to search in "Sall1son Agonistes," "Thalaba,"
"Kehama," and Shelley's works, for the phenoll1enon.
I have elsewhere insisted, but I here repeat, that for a
long poem a trochaic beginning of the verse is most un-
natural and vexatious in English, because so large a nun1ber
of our sentences begin with unaccented syllables, and the
vigour of a trochaic line ell1inently depends on the purity of
its initial trochee. 1fr Arnold's feeble trochees already
quoted (fron) Bétween to 'Iõ a) are all the fatal result of
defying the tendencies of our language.
If by happy combination any scholar could compose fifty
sitch English hexameters, as would convey a living likeness
of the Virgilian metre, I should applaud it as valuable for
initiating schoolboys into that metre: but there its utility
would end. The method could not be profitably used for
translating Homer or Virgil, plainly because it is impossible
to say for whose service such a translation would be executed.
T'hose who can read the original will never care to rea.d
Ihrol:gh any translation; and the unlearned look on all, even
the best hexanlCters, whether from Southey, Lockhart or
Longfellow, as odd and disagreeable prose. Mr Arnold
deprecates appeal to popular taste: well he may! yet if the
unlearned are to be our audience, we cannot defy them. I
Reply to l\1atthe\v Arnold 283
myself, before venturing to print, sought to ascertain how
unlearned women and children would accept my verses. I
could boast how children and half-educated women have
extolled thelI1; how greedily a working man has inquired
for them, without knowing who was the translator; but I
well know that this is quite insufficient to establish the
nlerits of a translation. It is nevertheless one point.
"Honler is popular," is one of the very few matters of fact
in this controversy on which
lr .Arnold and I are agreed.
" English hexan1eters are not popular," is a truth so obvious,
that I do not yet believe he will deny it. Therefore,
"I-Iexanleters are not the metre for translating I-Iomer."
Q. E. D.
I cannot but think that the very respectable scholars who
pertinaciously adhere to the notion that English hexameters
have son1ething "epical "in them, have no vivid jeeling of
the difference between .Accent and Quantity: and this is the
less wonderful, since so very few persons have ever actually
heard quantitative verse. I have; by listening to Hungarian
poems, read to me by DIY friend l\Ir Francis Pulszky, a
native l\Iagyar. He had not finished a single page, before
I complaineà gravely of the monotony. He replied: "So
do u'e complain of it : " and then showed me, by turning the
pages, that the poet cut the knot which he could not untie,
by frequent changes of his metre. 'Vhether it was a change
of mere length, as from Iambic senarian to Iambic dim
ter ;
or implied a fundan1ental change of time, as in music from
common to "litluel tin1e; I cannot say. But, to my ear,
nothing but a tune can ever save a quantitative metre frorn
hideous monotony. It is like strulnming a piece of very
sin1ple music on a single note. Nor only so; but the most
beautiful of anthems, after it has been repeated a hundred
tÎInes on a hundred successive verses, begins to pall on the
car. How much more would an entire book of Horner, if
chanted at one sitting! I have the conviction, though I will
not undertake to impart it to another, that if the living
Homer could sing his lines to us, they would at first move
in us the same pleasing interest as an elegant and simple
melo"dy from an African of the Gold Coast; but that, after
hearing twenty lines, we should complain of meagreness,
sall1eness, and loss of moral exþress'ion j and should jud;e
the style to be as inferior to our own oratorical metres, as
28 4
Critical Essays
the music of Pindar to our third-rate modern music. But if
the poet, at our request, instead of singing the verses) read
or spoke them, then from the loss of well-marked time and
the ascendency reassumed by the prose-accent, we should
be as helplessly unable to hear any metre in them, as are
the modern Greeks.
I expect that lVlr Arnold will reply to this, that he reads
and does not sing Homer, and yet he finds his verses to be
melodious and not monotonous. To this, I retort, that he
begins by wilfully pronouncing Greek falsely, according to
toe laws of Latin accent, and artificially assimilating the
Homeric to the Virgilian line. Virgil has compromised
between the ictus metricus and the prose accent, by exacting
that the two coincide in the two last feet and generally for-
bidding it in the second and third foot. vVhat is called the
"feminine cæsura" gives (in the Latin language) coincidence
on the third foot. Our extreme familiarity with these laws
of compromise enables us to anticipate recurring sounds
and satisfies our ear. But the Greek prose accent, by reason
of oxytons and paroxytons, and accent on the ante-penultima
in spite of a long penultima, totally resists all such com-
promise; and proves that particular form of l11elody, which r
our scholars enjoy in flomer, to be an un historic imitation
of Virgil.
I am aware, there is a bold theory, whispered if not pub-
lished, that,-so out-and-out Æolian was Homer,-his laws
of accent must have been aln10st Latin. According to this,
Erasmus, following the track of Virgil blindly, has taught us
to pronounce Euripides and Plato ridiculously ill, but
Homer, with an accuracy of accent which puts Aristarchus
to shame. This is no place for discussing so difficult a
question. Suffice it to say, first, that Mr Arnold cannot
take refuge in such a theory, since he does not admit that
Homer was antiquated to Euripides; next, that admitting
the theory to him, still the loss of the Digan1ma destroys to
him the true rhythm of Homer. I shall recur to both
questions below. I here add, that our English pronuncia-
tion even of Virgil often so ruins Virgil's own quantities, that
there is something either of delusion or of pedantry in our
scholars' self-complacency in the rhythm which they elicit.
I think it fortunate for Mr Arnold, that he had not" courage
to translate Horner" j for he must have failed to make it
Reply to J\1atthew Arnold 28 5
acceptable to the unlearned. But if the public ear prefers
ballad n1etres, still (1fr Arnold assun1es) "the scholar" is
with him in this whole controversy. Nevertheless it gradu-
ally con1es out that neither is this the case, but he hÏ111self
is in the minority. P. 274, he writes: "'\Vhen one observes
the boistering, rollicking way in which Hon1er's English
admirers-even men of genius, like the late Professor \Vilson
-love to talk of Homer and his poetry, one cannot help
feeling that there is no very deep community of nature
between them and the object of their enthusiasm." It does
not occur to 11r Arnold that the defect of perception lies
with himself, and that Homer has more sides than he has
discovered. He deplores that Dr l\faginn, and others whom
he names, err with me, in believing that our ballad-style is
the nearest approximation to that of Hon1er; and avows
that "it Ù tz'1lle to say Plainly" (p. 237) that Homer is not of
the ballad-type. So in p. 236, "-thispoþular, but, tÏ is tÙ1Je
to say, this erroneous analogy" between the ballad and
Homer. Since it is reserved for 1fr Arnold to turn the tide
of opinion; since it is a task not yet achieved, but remains
to be achieved by his authoritative enunciation; he confesses
that hitherto I have with n1e the suffrage of scholars. \Vith
this confession, a little more diffidence would be becoming,
if diffidence were possible to the fanaticism with which he
idolises hexan1eters. P. 261, he says: "The hexameter has a
natural dignity, which repels both the jaunty style and the
jog-trot style, etc. . . . 1ne trallslator who uses z"t canlzot too
religiously follow the INSPIRATION OF HIS METRE," etc. In-
spiration from a metre which has no recognised type? from
a n1etre which the }tearl and soul of the nation ignores? I
believe, if the nletre can inspire anything, it is to frolic and
gambol with l\Ir Clough. 1vlr Arnold's English hexameter
cannot be a higher inspiration to him, than the true hexa-
meter was to a Greek: yet that n1etre inspired strains of totally
different essential genius and merit. '
But I claim 1fr Arnold himself as confessing that our
ballad metre is epical, when he says that Scott is "bastard-
epic." I do not admit that his quotations from Scott are all
Scott's best, nor anything like it; but if they were, it would
only prove something against Scott's genius or talent, nothing
about his metre. The KV'7fpla Ë'ìr7') or 'IÀíOIJ 'ìrÉpd/
were prob-
ably very inferior to the Iliad; but no one would on that
28ó
Critical J
sSa)TS
account call them or the Frogs and Mice bastard-epic. No
one would call a bad tale of Dryden or of Crabbe ba
tard-
epic. The application of the word to Scott virtually con-
cedes what I assert. !\1r Arnold also calls !\Iacaulay's ballads
U pinchbeck".; but a nlan needs to produce something very
noble himself, before he can afford thus to sneer at l\lacaulay's
"Lars Porsena."
Before I enter on nlyown "metrical exploits," I must get
rid of a disagreeable topic. l\Ir Arnold's repugnance to thetll
has led him into forms of attack, which I do not know how
to characterise. I shall state my complaints as concisely as
I can, and so leave them.
I. I do not seek for any similarity of sound in an English
accentual metre to that of a Greek quantitative metre; besides
that Homer writes in a highly vocalised tongue, while ours
is overfilled with consonants. I have disowned this notion
of similar rh ythtTI in the strongest terms (p. xvii of HI y Pre-
face), expressly because some critics had imputed this aim
to nle in the case of I-Iorace. I sumn1ed up: "It is not
audible sameness of tnetre, but a likeness of moral genius
which is to be ainled at. " I contrast the audible to the
111 0 ral. 1Ir Arnold suppresses this contrast, and writes as
follow, p. 230. "Mr Newman tells us that he has found a
metre like in moral genius to I-Ionler's. His judge has still
the saIne answer: 'reproduce THEN on our ear something
of the effect produced by the mOVelnellt of Honler's.'" He
recurs to the same fallacy in p. 243. "For whose EAR do
those two rhythms produce impressions of (to use .AIr New-
man's own words) 'similar moral genius?'" His reader
will naturally suppose that "like in moral genius" is with
me an eccentric phrase for" like in 111usical cadence." The
only likeness to the ear which I have admitted, is, that the
one and the other are primitively 111ade for music. That,
!\lr Arnold knows, is a matter of fact, whether a ballad be
well or ill written. If he pleases, he may hold the rhythm
. of our metre to be necessarily inferior to HOlner's and to his
own; but when I fully explained in 111Y preface what were
ll1Y tests of "like moral genius," I cannot understand his
suppressing them, and perverting the sense of my words.
2. In p. 240, 1vIr Arnold quotes Chapman's translation of
J, òÛÀfIJ, "Poor wretched beasts" (of Achilles' horses), on
which he comments severely. He does not quote me.
Reply to I\Iatthe\v Arnold
28 7
Yet in p. 269, after exhibiting Cowper's translation of the
same passage, he adds: "'There is no want of dignity here,
as in the versions of Chapman and of 111',. .J\TeZVlnan, 'ivhidl 1
have already quoted." Thus he leads the reader to believe
that I have the same phrase as Chapman! In fact, 01 y
translation is :
Ha! why on Peleus, mortal prince,
Bestowed we you, unnappy !
If he had done me the justice of quoting, it is possible that
some readers would not have thought my rendering intrin-
sically " wanting in dignity," or less noble than l\Ir Arnold's
own, which is:
Ah! unhappy pair! to Peleus r why did we give you,
To a mortal?
In p. 240, he with very gratuitous insult remarks, that U Poor
wn
tched beasts" is a little over-familiar; but this is no
objection to it for the ballad-manner: 2 it is good enough
. . . for AIr .J\Tewman's Iliad, . . . etc." Yet I myself
have not thought it good enough for my Iliad.
3. In p. 273, 1\Ir Arnold gÎ\-es his own translation of the
discourse between Achil1es and his horse; and prefaces it
with the words, "I will take the passage in which both
Cbapman and 1fr Newman have already so much excited our
astollisllment." But he did not quote my translation of the
noble part of the passage, consisting of 19 lines; he has
merely quoted 3 the tail of it, 5 lines; which are altogether
inferior. Of this a sufficient indication is, that l\Ir Gladstone
has translated the 19 and omitted the 5. I shall below give
my translation parallel to :rvIr Gladstone's. The curious
reader may compare it with 1\:[r Arnold's, if he choose. .
4. In p. 27 0 , 1Ir Þ..rnold quotes from Chapn1an as a
translation of Z.cu
GTt òì.r:Û...r; IAIO' jp
,
"'Vhen sacred Troy shaH shed her low'r! for fears o
overthrow;"
J If I had used such a double dative, as " to Pelcus to a mortal," what
would he have said of my syntax?
2 Ballad-11lan1zer! The prevalent ballad-metre is the Comlron
l\Ietre of our Psalm tunes: and yet he assumes that whatever is in this
m!tre must be on the same level. I have professed (Pref. p. x) that
our exis/Ùtg old ballads are" poor and mean," and are not my pattern.
3 He has also overlooked the misprint Trojans, where I wrote
Troïans (in three syllables), and has thus spoiled one verse out of the
five.
288
Critical Essays
and adds: " \Vhat Mr Newman's manner of rendering
would be, you can by this time sufficiently in1agine for your-
selves." Would be! \Vhy does he set his readers to
"imagine,7' when in fewer words he could tell them what my
version IS? It stands thus:
A day, when sacred Ilium I for overthrow is destin'd.-
which may have faults unperceived by me, but is in my
opinion far better than l\fr Arnold's, and certainly did not
deserve to be censured side by side with Chapnlan's
absurdity. I must say plainly; a critic has no right to hide
what I have written, and stimulate his readers to despise me
by these i1ldirect methods.
I proceed to my own metre. It is exhibited in this
stanza of Campbell :
By this the storm grew loud apace:
The waterwraith was shrieking,
And in the scowl of heav'n each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
\Vhether I use this metre well or ill, I maintain that it is
essentially a noble metre, a popular metre, a metre of great
capacity. It zS essentially the national ballad metre, for the
double rhyn1e is an accident. Of course it can be applied to
low, as well as to high subjects; else it would not be popular:
it would not be "of a like moral genius)7 to the Homeric
metre, which was available equally for the comic poem
Margites, for the precepts of Pythagoras, for the pious
prosaic hymn of Cleanthes, for the driest prose of a naval
catalogue I, in short, for all early thought. Mr Arnold
I As a literary curiosity I append the sentence of a learned reviewer
concerning this metre of Campbell. " It is a metre fit for introducing
anything or translating anything; a metre that nothÙz,g can elevate, or
degrade, or imþrove, or sþoil; in which all subjects will sound alike.
A theorem of Euclid, a leading article from the Times, a dialogue from
the last new novel, could all be reduced to it with the slightest possible
verbal alteration." [Quite true of Greek hexameter or Shakspeare's
line. It is a virtue in the metres.] "To such a mill all would be
grist that came near it, and in no grain that had once passed throug-h
it would kuma'll ingenuity ever detect agaÍ1z, a characteristic quality.'.
This writer is a stout maintainer that English ballad metre is the right
one for translating Homer: only, somehow, he shuts his eyes to the
fact that Campbell's is ballad metre! Sad to say, extravagant and
absurd assertions, like these, though anonymous, can, by a parade of
learning, do much damage to the sale of a book in verse.
Reply to 11atthe\v Arnold
28 9
appears to forget, though he cannot be ignorant, that prose-
corn position is later than Hon1er, and that in the epical days
every initial effort at prose history was carried on in H0171erÙ
doggerel by the Cyclic poets, who traced the history of Troy
ab 0';.:0 in consecutive chronology. I say, he is n1erely inad-
vertent, he cannot be if,'11orant, that the Homeric nzetre, like
my n1etre, subserves prosaic thought with the utmost facility;
but I hold it- to be, not inadvertence, but b1indness, when
he does not see that Homer's TÒIl ò
à'í.afJ.fIß6.Uf;IIO
is a line
of as thoroughly unaffected oratio þedestris as any verse of
Pythagoras or Horace's Satires. But on diction I defer to
speak, till I have finished the topic of luetre.
I do not say that any nleasure is faultless. Every
measure has its foible: mine has that fault which every
unifornl line must have; it is liable to monotony. This is
evaded of course, as in the hexameter or rather as in
11ilton's line, first, by varying the cæsura, secondly, by
varying certain feet, within narrow and well understood
lin1Ïts, thirdly, by irregularity in the strength of accents,
fourthly, by varying the weight of the unaccented syllables
also. All these things are needed, for tIle 1nere sake oj
breaking UnifOrJJlity. I will not here assert that Homer's
many marvellous freedonls, such as ÉX1}ß6Àou · A 'ir6ÀÀ WIIO"
were dictated by this aim, like those in the Paradise Lost;
but I do say, that it is lTIOSt unjust, most unintelligent, in
critics, to produce single lines from me, and criticise thelTI
as rough or weak, instead of examining them and presenting
thenl as part of a mass. How would Shakspeare stand this
sort of test? nay, or 1Iilton? The metrical laws of a long
poen1 cannot be the same as of a sonnet: single verses are
organic elen1ents of a great whole. A crag must not be cut
like a genl. l\lr Arnold should ren1elnber Aristotle's n1axim,
that popular eloquence (and such is Homer's) should be
broad, rough and highly coloured, like scene painting, not
polished into delicacy like 111iniature. But I speak now of
rnetre, not yet of diction. In any long and popular poem it
is a mistake to wish every line to conform severely to a few
types; but to clailn this of a translator of .E-Iomer is a doubly
unintelligent exaction, when llolner's own liberties transgress
all bounds; nlany of then1 being feebly disguised by later
double spellings, as
i'w$', iiCl;, invented for his special
accon1ffiodation.
K
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S rnll Fl;J:
29 0
Critical Essays
The Homeric verse has a rhythmical advantage over mine
in less rigidity of cæsura. Though the Hexameter was made
out of two Doric lines, yet no division of sense, no pause of
the voice or thought, is exacted between them. The chasm
between two English verses is deeper. Perhaps, on the side
of syntax, a four + three English metre drives harder towards
rnonotony than Homer's own verse. For otqer reasons, it
lies under a like disadvantage, compared with lVtilton's metre.
1'he secondary cæsuras possible in the four feet are of course
less numerous than those in the five feet, and the three- foot
verse has still less variety. 1'0 tny taste, it is far more
pleasing that the short line recur less regularly; just as the
paræmiac of Greek anapæsts is less pleasant in the l\risto-
phanic tetranleter, than when it comes frequent but not
expected. This is a main reason why I prefer Scott's free
metre to my own; yet, without rhyn1e, I have not found
how to use his freedom. l\1r Arnold wrongly supposes me
to have overlooked his Inain and just objections to rhyming
l-Iomer; viz. that so many Homeric lines are intrinsically
made for isolation. In p. ix of my Preface I called it a .
fatal embarrassll1ent. But the objection applies in its full
strength only against Pope's rhyn1es, not against \Valter
Scott's.
1\1:r Gladstone has now laid before the public his own
specilnens of IIo111eric translation. rrheir dates range from
1836 to 1859. It is possible that he has as strong a dis-
taste as 1Ir Arnold for my version; for he totally ignores
the archaic, the rugged, the boisterous elelnent in IIo111 er.
But as to metre, he gives l1le his full suffrage. He has lines
with four accents, with three, and a few with two; not one
with five. On the whC'le, his metre, his cadences, his vary-
ing rhYllles, are those of Scott. He has more trochaic lines
than I approve. He is truthful to If 0111er on n1any sides;
and (such is the delicate grace and variety admitted by the
rhyme) his verses are more pleasing than mine. I do not
hesitate to say, that if all Homer could be put before the
public in the same style equally well with his best pieces, a
translation executed on my principles could not live in the
n1arket at its side; and certainly I should spare my labour. r
I add, that I myself prefer the former piece which I quote I
to my own, even while I see his defects: for I hold that his
graces, at which I cannot afford to aim, more than make up
Reply to l\Iatthe\v i\rnold
2
1
for his losses. After this confession, I frankly contrast his
rendering of tbe two noblest passages with n1ine, that the
reader may see, what Mr Arnold does not show, my weak
and strong s:des.
GLADSTONE, Iliad 4, 4 22
As when the b:llow gathers fast
\Vith slow and sullen roar
Beneath the keen northwestern h!ast
Against the sounding shore:
Fk
t far at sea it rears its crest,
Then bursts upon the beach,
Or r with proud arch and swclling breast,
Where headlands I outward reach,
It smites their strength, and bellowing flings
Its silver foam afar;
So, stern and thick, the Danaan kings
.And soldiers marched to war.
Each leader gave his men the word;
Each warrior deep in silence heard.
S') mute they rnarch'd, thou coulà'st not ken
They were a mass of speaking men:
And as they strode in martial might,
Their flickering arms shot back the light,
But as at even the folded sheep
Of some rich master stand,
Ten thousand thick their place they keep,
And bide the milkman"s hand,
And more and more they bleat, the more
They hear their lamblings cry;
So, from the Trojan host, uproar
And din rose loud and high.
They were a many-\"oicèd throng:
Discordant accents there,
That sound from many a differing tongue,
Their differing race declare.
These, Mars had kindled for the fight i
Those, starry-ey'd Athenè's might,
And savage Terror and Affright,
And Strife, insatiate of war
,
The sister and the mate of 1\1ars :
Strife, that, a pigmy at her birth,
By gathering rumour fed,
Soon plants her feet upon the earth,
And in the heav'n her head.
I add n1Y own rendering of the same; somewhat
I I think he has mistaken the summit of the wave for a head/and, and
has made a single description into two, by the word Or: but I now
confine my r(-
ard to the metre and general effect of the style.
4i
29 2
Critical Essays
corrected, but only in the direction of my own principles
and against Arnold's.
As when the surges of the deep, by Western blore uphoven,
Against the ever-booming strand dash up in roll successive;
A head of waters swelleth first aloof; then under harried
By the rough bottom, roars aloud; till, hollow at the summit,
Sputtering the briny foam abroad, the huge crest tumbleth over:
So then the lines of Danaï, successive and unceasing,
In battle's close array mov'd on. To his own troops each leader
Gave order: dumbly went the rest (nor mightèst thou discover,
So vast a train of people held a voice wilhin their bosom),
In silence their commanders fearing: all the ranks wellmarshall'd
\Vere clad in crafty panoply, which glitter'd on their boåies.
:rvleantime, as sheep within the yard of some great cattle-master,
\Vhile the white milk is drain'd from them, stand round in number
countless,
And, grievèd by their lambs' complaint, re:.ïpond with bleat incessant;
So then along their ample host arose the Troian hurly.
For neither Cull1mOn words spake théy, nor kindred accent utter'd ;
But mingled was the tongue of men from divers places summon'd.
By Arès these were urgèd on, those by grey-ey'd Athenè,
By Fear, by Panic, and. by Strife immeasurably eager,
The sister and companion I of hero-slaying Arès,
Who truly dotn at first her crest but humble rear; thereafter,
Planting upon th
ground her feet, her head in heaven fixeth.
GLADSTONE, Iliad 19, 403.
Hanging low his auburn head,
Sweeping with his mane the ground,
From beneath his collar shed,
Xanthus, hark ! a voice hath fou
d,
Xanthus of the flashing feet:
\Vhitearm'd I-Ierè gave the sound.
" Lord Achilles, strong and fleet!
Trust us, we will bear thee home;
Yet cometh nigh thy day of doom:
No doom of ours, but doom that stands
By God and mighty Fate's commands.
'Twas not that we were slow or slack
Patroclus lay a corpse, his back
All stript of arms by Trojan hands.
The prince of gods, whom Leto bare,
Leto with the flowing hair,
lIe forward fighting did the deed,
And gave to Hector glory's meed.
J n toil for thee, we will not shun
Against e'en Zephyr's breath to run,
· Companion, in four sylJables, is in Shakspeare's st}'le; with whom
habitualiy the termination -lion is two.
Reply to lvlatthew Arnold
293
Swiftest of winds: but aU in vain:
By God and man shalt thou be slain."
He spake: and here, his words among,
Erinnys bound his faltering tongue.
Beginning with ...
chilles' speech, I render the passage
parallel to Gladstone thus.
" Chestnut and Sþotted! noble pair! farfamous brood of Sþry100t I
I n other guise now ponder ye your charioteer to rescue
l
ack to the troop of Danaï, when we have done with battlc :
N or leave him dead upon the field, as late ye left PatrocIus:'
But him the dapplefooted steed under the yoke accosted;
(And rlroop'd his auburn head aside straightway; and through the
collar,
His full mane, streaming to the ground, over the yoke was
scatter'd:
Him Juno, whitearm'd goddess, then with voice of man endowèd) :
II Now and again we verily will save and more than save thee,
Dreadful Achilles! yet for thee the deadly day approacheth.
Xot ours the guilt; but mighty God and stubborn Fate are
guilty.
Not by the slowness of our feet or dulness of our spirit
The Troians did thy armour strip from shoulders of Patroclus;
But the exalted god, for whom brighthair'd Latona travail'd,
Slew him amid the foremost rank and glory gave to Hector.
N ow we, in coursing, pace would keep even with breeze of Zephyr,
\Vhich speediest they say to be: but for thyself 'tis fated
By hand of hero and of God in mighty strife to perish."
So much he spake: thereat his voice the Furies stopp'd for ever.
N ow if any fool ask, 'Vhy does not 1fr Gladstone trans-
late all Homer? any fool can reply with me, Because he is
Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man who has talents and
acquiren1ents adequate to translate Homer 'lvell into rh.yme,
is aln10st certain to have other far more urgent calls for the
exercise of such talents.
So much of n1etre. At length I come to the topic of
Diction, where 1fr Arnold and I are at variance not only as
to taste, but as to the n1ain facts of Greek literature. I had
called Homer's style quaint and garrulous; aÌ1d said that he
rises and falls with his subject, being prosaic when it is
tame, and low when it is mean. I added no proof; for I
did not dream that it was needed. Mr Arnold not onlv
absolutely denies all this, and denies it without proof j b
t
adds, that these assertions prove my incompetence, and
account for my total and conspicuous failure. His whole
attack upon IllY diction is grounded on a passage which I
294
Critical Essays
must quote at length; for it is so confused in logic, that I
may otherwise be thought to garble it, pp. 230, 23 I.
" 1fr Newman speaks of the more antiquated style suited
to this subject. Quaint 1 Antiquated 1 but to ,,\'llon1?
Sir 1'homas Drowne is quaint, and the diction of Chaucer
is antiquated: does lvlr N eWlnan suppose that rlomer I
seemed quaint to Sophocles, as Chaucer's diction seelns I
antiquated to us? But we cannot really kno\v, I confess
(11), how HOlner seelned to Sophocles. 'VeIl then, to those
who can tell us how he seeins to them, to the living
scholar, to our only present witness on this nlatter-does :
I-Iomer 11lake on the Provost of Eton, when he reads hiln,
the illlpression of a poet quaint and antiquated 1 does he
make this inlpressioll on Professor 1"hompson or Professor
Jowett? 'Vhen Shakspeare says, 'The Princes orgulous,'
meaning 'the proud princes,' we say, '1"his is antiquated.-
'Vhen he says of the rrrojan gates, that they,
With massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts
Sþerr up the sons of Troy,
we say, C This is both quaint and antiquated.' But does
H orner ever compose in a language, which produces on the
scholar at all the same impression as this language which I
have quoted frOin Shakspeare? N ever once. Shakspeare
is quaint and antiquated in the lines I have just quoted;
but Shakspeare, need I say it? can con1po-se, when he
likes, when he is at his best, in a language perfectly simple,
perfectly intelligible; in a language, which, in spite of the
two centuries and a half which part its author from us,
stops or surprises us as little as the language of a contem-
porary. And HOlner has not Shakspeare's variations.
IIon1er always composes, as Shakspeare composes at his
best. Homer is always sin1ple and intelligible, as Shaks-
peare is often; HaIner is never quaint and antiquated, as
Shakspeare is SOInetÎ1nes."
If l\1r Arnold were to lay before none but Oxford
students assertions concerning Greek literature so startlingly
erroneous as are here contained, it would not concern me
to refute or protest against them. The young men who
read I-Io111er and Sophoclcs and 1"hucydides, nay, the
bo)'s who read Homer and Xenophon, would know his
Reply to 1-Iattlle\v Arnold
295
statements to be against the most notorious and elementary
fact: and the Professors, whom he quotes, would only lose
credit, if they sanctioned the use he makes of their names.
But when he publishes the book for the unlearned in
Greek, among whom I must include a great number of
editors of magazines, I find
Ir .A.rnold to do a public
wrong to literature, and a private wrong to my book. If I
anl silent, such editors nlay easily believe that I have nlade
an enormous blunder in treating the dialect of IIon1er as
antiquated. If those who are ostensibly scholars, thus
assail my version, and the great n1ajority of n1agazines and
reviews ignore it, its existence can never become known
to the public; or it win exist not to be read, but to be de-
spised without being opened; and it must perish as many
Ineritorious books perish. I but lately picked up, new, and
for a fraction of its price, at a second-hand stal1, a transla-
tion of the Iliad by T. S. Brandreth, Esq. (Pickering,
London), into Cowper's l11etre, which is, as I juàge, im-
nlensely superior to Cowper. Its date is 1846: I had
never heard of it. It seems to have perished uncriticised,
unreproved, unwept, unknown. I do not wish IllY progeny
to die of neglect, though I atD willing that it should be
slain in battle. However, just because I address myself to
the public unlearned in Greek, and because 1\lr Arnold lays
before thcJn a new, paradoxical, monstrously erroneous re-
presentation of facts, with the avowed object of staying the
plague of my HODler; I am forced to reply to him.
Knowingly or unknowingly, he leads his readers to con-
fuse four different questions: I. whether Hon1er is thor-
oughly intelligible to modern scholars; 2. whether Hon1er
was antiquated to the Athenians of Thenlistocles and
Pericles; 3. whether he was thoroughly understood by
then1; 4. ,,,hether he is, absolutely, an antique poet.
I feel it rather odd, that 1\Ir ...'\rnoId beg
ns by compli-
menting n1e with "genuine learning," and proceeds to
appeal frOl1l me to the H living scholar." (\Vhat if I were
bluntly to reply: "\'" ell! I am the living scholar"?) ...
fter
starting the question, how llomer's style appeared to
Sophocles, he suddenly enters a plea, under forn1 of a con-
cession [" I confess 1) !J, as a pretence for carrying the cause
into a new court, that of the Provost of Eton and two
Professors, into which court I have no admission; and then,
29 6
Critical Essays
of his own will, pronounces a sentence in the name of these
learned men. \Vhether they are pleased with this parading
of their name in behalf of paradoxical error, I may weB
doubt: and until they indorse it themselves, I shall treat
1V1r Arnold's process as a piece of forg
ry. But, be this as
it may, I cannot allow him to "confess" for me against me :
let him confess for himself that he does not know, and not
for me, who know perfectly ,yell, whether I-Iolner seemed
quaint or antiquated to Sophocles. Of course he did, as
every beginner must know. \Vhy, if 1 were to write mon
for 1nan, /ondis for lands, nesties for nests, libba1
d for leopard,
muchel for much, naþ for snap, grfen-'wood sha7t.! for green-
wood shade, :rvlr Arnold would call me antiquated, although
every word would be intelligible. Can he possibly be
ignorant, that this exhibits but the smallest part of the
chasm which separates the Homeric dialect not merely from
the Attic prose, but from Æschylus when he borrows most
from Homer? Every sentence of Homer was more or less
antiquated to Sophocles, who could no more help feeling at
every instant the foreign and antiquated character of the
poetry, than an Englishman can help feeling the saIne in
reading Burns' poems. \Vould l1lon, londis, libbard, 'll1ith-
outen, 111'lichel be antiquated or foreign, and are Ib;ìl.'1)ïáòu..
for rr")
E/ òou, óf1f1á,;,/o, for Õf10Ç, ;;ü t'E for
Jç, f1rfj'!'J for (j,;,f,
"'Ex
e6f1( for ,;,Éx
o/Ç, ,;,oJf1òe(ff1/ for TOJf1ÒE, 'iõ'oì...
eç for <;;oìl.)
oì,
fJ;f.6f1'rjYÙ; for fJ-E':'a
0, aT CG for ìl.r;, ei' ß(JJ for Àf.Íß
J, and five
hundred others, less antiquated or less foreign? I-Iomer
has archaisnls in every variety; some rather recent to the
Athenians, and carrying their minds back only to Solon, as
ßCGf1(A
oç for ßu.f1Í),ewç; others harsher, yet varying as dialect
stil1, as
F;ìlloS' for
Évo;" .,.íE for È7'ífJ-a, åI/O!,1L6s/ç for åJiB1íg
;.
"Éxìl.uB/ for xìl.{;s or (lXOU(fOll, Ba/.lJùç for BCl.fJ-ll/òS' or f1UXtIÒ;,
vtX/E':.áoll'nç for vaíoJi,;,eç or oì/!.o01/,;,eç: others varying in the
root, like a new language, as é1(þSllo; for 'irìI.OUTO
, i6'í'ljS' for
ßo
ìl.'ljfJ;a, 7'
for òÉ
a/, under which head are heaps of strange
d ' \ , ß Ò .,,,'). , ß ":\ ' ,
war s, as ax '1)"', Xt.JJOfJ;CG/, / ç, "'1)ACG, fJ;EfJ- A (J)/!.E, ')lEI/TO, 7:'E'hOll,
etc. etc. Finally comes a goodly lot of words which to this
day are most uncertain in sense. My learned colleague
:rvIr l\.falden has printed a paper on Homeric words, n1is-
understood by the later poets. Buttmann has written an
octavo volulne (I have the English translation, containing
548 þages) to discuss 106 ill-explained Homeric words.
Reply to Matthe\v Arnold
297
Some of these Sophocles may have understood, though we
do not; but even if so, they were not the less antiquated to
hinl. If there has been any perfect traditional understanding
of Homer, we should not need to deal with so many words
by elaborate argument. On the face of the Iliad alone
every learner must know how many difficult adjectives
occur: I write down on the spur of the moment and without
(' ,. \ · Ò . Ò JI J/ ,
L 'i" 1
relerence, Xg11'YUOV, agYfJ;, a /II ç, a'ìj'iú;, a,'l)'io;, \lW
O't', 11
'oÿ',
, .. Ò "..... t """
' ì .. ' ., i II':) ,.. ,
'eJÌ..,'::o fÇ, fA'S fÀ'X
'7rE;, E ..AO<:Ti;, }LfgOr.:'5;, Y;^'PCJ..TO;, 1jAEX,'j':,,}g,
ai,;À'+, 6rYCJ..À6'clç, ìó/u.lJpO;, ÈYXf6í,uwgoç, '7rÉ'7:0
S;,
lÌElÒ;. If
:L\Ir Arnold thought hin1self wiser than all the world of Greek
scholars, he would not appeal to them, but would surely
enlighten us all: he would tell llle, for instance, what
Ëì..AO"T!:Ç means, which Liddell and Scott do not pretend to
understand; or
ÙS1C:Ç, of which they give three different
explanations. But he does not write as claiming an
independent opinion, when he flatly opposes me and sets
me down; he does but use surreptitiously the name of the
"living scholar JJ against me.
But I have only begun to describe the marked chasm often
separating Homer's dialect from everything Attic. It has a
wide diversity of grammatical inflections, far beyond such
vowel changes of dialect as answer to our provincial pro-
nunciations. rrhis begins with new case-endings to the
nouns; in -ð/
-BiV, -òs, -f{JI, proceeds to very peculiar pronominal
forms, and then to strange or irregular verbal inflections, in-
finitives in -fJiSV, -fJJE
a', imperfects in -saXE, presents in -aBfAJ,
and an irnmensity of strange adverbs and conjunctions. II!
Thiersch's Greek Gramlllar, after the Accidence of common
Greek is added as supplement an Homeric Grammar: and
in it the Homeric Noun and Verb occupy (in the English
rrranslation) 206 octavo pages. 'Vho ever heard of a
Spenserian Grammar? How Inany pages could be needed
to explain Chaucer's granln1atical deviations from modern
English? 1'he bare fact of Thiersch having written so
copious a gralnmar will enable even the unlearned to under-
stand the monstrous misrepresentation of Homer's dialect,
on which nIr Arnold has based his condemnation of nlY
Homeric diction. Not wishing to face the plain and un-
deniable facts which I have here recounted, !\fr Arnold
makes a "confession JJ that we know nothing about thelll !
and then appeals to three learned men whether Homer is
29 8
Critical Essa}Ts
antiquated to the1n; and expounds this to mean, z"ntelligible
to tlle11: I 'Veil: if they have learned ?Jzodenz Greek, of
course they may understand it; bu.t Attic Greek alone will
not teach it to them. N either will it teach thelll IIom
r's
Greek. The difference of the two is in sonle directions so
vast, that they nlay deserve to be called two languages as
much as Portuguese and Spanish.
Iuch as I have written, a large side of the argt1l11ent
remains still untouched. The orthography of I-Ionler was
revolutionised in adapting it to I-Iellenic use, and in the pro-
cess not only were the grammatical [ornls tanlpered with,
but at least one consonant was suppressed. I am sure l\Ir
Arnold has heard of the Diganlma, though he docs not see
it in the current I-Ionleric text. By the re-estab1ishnlent of
this letter, no small addition would be made to the U oddity"
of the sound to the ears of Sophocles. That the unlearned
in Greek nlay understand this, I add, tbat what with us is
written eoika, oikon, oÍ1zos, hekas, eorga, eeiþe, elelixß1}, were
with the poet 'ivewoika, 'l1}ïkon, 'ltJinos, 'ivekas (or stwekas 7),
'ifJe'iVorga, e':t'eipe, etlfJelixß'fJ; I and so with very many other
words, in which either the metre or the grammatical forma-
tion helps us to detect a lost consonant, and the analogy of
other dialects or languages assures uos that it is 10 which has
been lost. N or is this all; but in certain words sw seenlS
to have vanished. 'Vhat in our text is hot
heos, hehttros,
were probably woi and swoi, weo; and sweos, swekuros.
1\loreover the received spelling of many other words is
corrupt: for instance, deos, deidoiha, eddeisen, þeriddeisas,
addees. Thetrue root must have had theformdwe or dre or dhe.
1'hat the consonant lost was really w, is asserted by Benfey
from the Sanscrit dvish. Hence the true forms are dztJeos,
dedu}oiha, edzveisen, etc. . .. N ext, the initial I of Homer
had in some words a stronger pronunciation, whether ÀÀ
or XÀ, as in À"J..ITa;, ^Àí
O,U,Y.I, ì"^(,J'rò,, ^^'TatJe
w. I have
met with the opinion that the consonant lost in a1lax is not
w but k j and that IIomer's kanax is connected with English
king. The relations of wergoll, weworga, wre:xai, to English
work and wrought must strike everyone; but I do not here
I By corrupting the past tenses of we/iSso into a False similarity to the
pasttellses of elelizo, the old editors superimposed a new and false sense
on the latter verb; which still holds its place in our dictionaries, as it
deceived the Greeks t.hemselves.
Reply to
latthe\v Arnold
299
press the phenolllena of the HOllleric r (although it became
br in strong lEolislTI), because they do not differ from those
in Attic. 'fhe l\ttic fanTIs ei'ì-''I1pa, eïÀE/.'-uJ.I for ÀÉì..7jy;a, etc.,
point to a time \\'hen the initial À of the roots was a double
letter. 1\ root ÀÀaß would explain IIomer's E^ÀrJ.ßS. If
^^ J approached to its \Velsh sound, that is, to %ì., it is not
wonderful that such a pronunciation as o.pgà À).aßwp"fV was
possible: but it is singular that the ÜÒCI.TI X^ICl.gcjj of ,Attic
is written ì..ICl.;
'5 in our IIo111eric text, though the metre
need:) a dou
le consonant. Such phen0111ena as X^ICl.gò;
and ì-.,a
ò;, f
8w and ÀHt3C1J, ia and fÛa, EÎ,lJJag
al and
Ê,'.L,
ogs, iÛa and raìa, rÉ
'T'O for ïì.
'T'o, jwx
and ;' CIJ;I; with
l5lwxw, need to be reconsidered in connection. 'fhe ei;
ií.i..a d^':'O of our Hon1er was perbaps sib åÀa ríáÀÀTO:
when Àì-. was changed into À, they cornpensated by circunl-
flexing the vowel. I n1ight add the qu
ry, Is it so certain
that his biaWIi was ßeãwõll, and not Bâirõll, analogous to Latin
dean/Ill. ? But dropping here e\.eryt.hing that has the
slightest uncertainty, the rnere restoration of the w where it
is nlost necessary, 111akes a startling addition to the antiquated
sound of the }-Iomeric text. The reciters of I-Iolller in
Athens muse haye dropped the w) since it is never written.
Nor indeedwould Sophocles have introducedin his TrachÙziæ,
II. òÉ lIi
íÀCI. òá/.1JCtp. . _ leaving a hiatus 1110st offensive to the
Attics, in l11ere imitation of Homer,-if he had been accustomed
to hear frOl11 the reciters, de woi or de swoi. In other words
also, as in ()
Àó
S\lO; for òi..i,IJ.HO;, later poets have slavishly
followed I-I0111er into irregularities suggested by his peculiar
nletre. 'Vhether I-Iomer's aOaua'T'o;, a,u.fJ.CJfo, . . . rose out
of auOcha'1()', êlu,u..opfJ; . . . is wholly unimportant when we
remember his - A'iT'óÌ\Î.ClJvo;.
But this leads to remark on the acuteness of l\1r Arnold's
ear. I need not ask whether he recites the A differently in
F" d . '" , - H . 11 11
Age" ,Age;, an In, At;;ü^Î..
v A1l"OÀ),.CAII10;. e WI not a ow
anything antiquated in H01l1er j and therefore it is certain
that he recites,
a.IÒOIO; 'T'E
f)1 Etftfl,
/Àf eXUfE, Òfl
(); 'T'I
and-
tJÒE EOIXE-
1 That ^X in Attic was sounded like French I mouillÜ, is judged prob-
able by the learned writer of the article L (Penny Cyclop.), who urges
that p,âXXoJ' is for p.á"toJl, and compares tþvXXo with/olio, a.X^O with aHo,
å.X
with sail.
3 00
Critical Essays
as they are printed, and admires the rhythm. 'Vhen he
endures with exemplary patience such hiatuses, such dactyls
as Écxu, OUÒtilS, such a spondee as g
Ò:I, I can hardly wonder
at his complacency in his own spondees "Between," "'fa
a." He finds nothing \vrong in xal '76cÒla À(JJ'reUV7C1. or tiroÀÀa
À/GdO/kH7J. But 'Homer sang,
(þIÀC ,wex\lgc ÒWEIIIO, 'l'S-OUÒE c.JE(JJOIXE-
XrJ.1 17:SÒICG ^ì
w'l'eull'ia . . . 4'J':'oÎ-.Àa ^^/
Ol.iJE"7J.
Mr Arnold is not satisfied with destroying Quantity alone.
After theoretically substituting Accent for it in his hexa-
meters, he robs us of Accent also; and presents to us:; the
syllables" to a," both short and both necessarily unacce;tled,
for a Spondee, in a pattern piece seven lines long, and with
an express and gratuitous ren1ark, that in using" to a " for
a Spondee, he has perhaps relied too nluch on accent. I
hold up these phenomena in IV1r Arnold as a warning to all
scholars, of the pit of delusion into which they will fall, if they
allow themselves to talk fine about the" I-Io111eric rhvthnl "
as now heard, and the duty of a translator to rep
-oduce
something of it.
It is not merely the sound and the metre of Homer, which
are inlpaired by the loss of his radical w; in extreme cases
the sense also is confused. 1
hus if a scholar be asked,
what is the meaning of Ètí
a'l'o in the Iliad? he will have to
reply: If it stands for eUJeisato, it nleans, "he was like," and
is related to the English root wis and wit, Germ. wiss, Lat.
vid; but it may also mean" he went "-a very eccentric
HOlnerism,-in which case we should perhaps write it
eyeisato, as in old English we have he yode or yede instead of
he goed, gaed, since too the current root in Greek and Latin
i (go ) may be accepted as ye, answering to Genl1an geh.
English go. Thus two words, eweisato, "he was like,"
eyeisato, "he went," are confounded in our text. I will add,
that in the Homeric
-;ji/"s !.ùÉeIlEa. (y)cid,-(Il. 2, 87)
-òlà '7:gò òÈ (y)eìdrJ.'l'O xaJ 'l'
5 (II. 4, 138)
my ear misses the consonant, though Mr Arnold's (it seen1s)
da
s not. If we were ordered to read dat ting in Chaucer
for that thing, it would at first" surprise " us as "grotesque,'.
Reply to Ì\Iatthe\v Arnold 3 01
but after this objection had vanished, we should still feel it
"antiquated." The confusion of thick and tick, thread and
tread, Inay illustrate the possible effect of dropping the w in
Hon1er. I observe that Benfey's Greek Root Lexicon has
a list of 454 digammated words, most of which are Honleric.
But it is quite needless to press the argument to its full.
If as much learning had been spent on the double ^ and
on the y and h of Homer, as on the digamma, it might
perhaps now be conceded that we have lost, not one, but
three or four consonants from his text. That A in AÚ(JJ or
AOÚ(JJ was ever a complex sound in Greek, I see nothing to
indicate; hence that A, and the A of AI'1'aì, AW.gò;, seem to
have been different consonants in Homer, as I and It in
'Velsh. As to hand y I assert nothing, except that critics
a
pear too hastily to infer, that if a consonant has disap-
peared, it must needs be w. It is credible that the Greek
It was once strong enough to stop hiatus or elision, as the
English, and llluch more the Asiatic h. The later Greeks,
after turning the character H into a vowel, seem to have
had no idea of a consonant h in the 111iddle of a word, nor
any means of writing the consonant y. Since G passes
through gh into the sounds h, w,)', f (as in English and
Gennan is obvious), it is easy to confound thenl all under
the compendious word" digamma." I should be glad to
know that Hon1er's forms were as well understood by
1110dern scholars as 1fr Arnold lays down.
On his quotation from Shakspeare, I re111ark, I. "Or-
gulous," fronl French "orgueilleux," is intelligible to all
who lmow French, and is comparable to Sicilian words in
Æschylus. 2. It is contrary to fact to say, that Homer has
not words, and words in great plenty, as unintel1igible to
later Greeks, as "orgulous" to us. 3. Sterr, for Bat; as
Sþla5h for Plash, is much less than the diversity which
separates Homer from the spoken Attic. ,,"rhat is (//.LI7..gòç for
/-u7..gbç to COlllpare with ñßalòç for /k1xgó,? 4. J\'fr Arnold
(as I understand hilll) blames Shakspeare for being sorne-
times antiquated: I do not blame him, nor yet Homer for
the sanle j but neither can I admit the contrast which he
asserts. He says: "Shakspeare can COlllpose, when he is at
his best, in a language perfectly intelligible, in spite of the
two centuries and a half which part hirn from us. Homer
has not Shakspeare's variatÙHzs: he is never antiquated, as
3 02
Critical Essays
Shakspeare is sometitnes." I certainly find the very same
variations in HOlner, as Mr Arnold finds in Shakspeare.
1,fy reader unlearned in Greek might hastily infer from the
facts just laid before hin1, that IIolner is always equally
strange to a purely Attic ear: but is not so. The dialects
of Greece did indeed differ strongly, as broad Scotch from
English; yet as we know, Burns is sometimes perfectly
intelligible to an Englishnlan, sometinles quite unintelligible.
In spite of I-Iomer's occasional wide receding frOll1 j\ttic
speech, he as often comes close to it. For instance, in the
first piece quoted above from Gladstone, the simile occupy-
ing five (Homeric) lines would all1lost go down in Sophocles,
if the Tragedian had chosen to use the metre. rrhere is but
one out-and-out Homeric word in it (S'ifCX(f(f
7"EgOÇ): and eyen
that is used once in an Æschvlean chorus. rrhere are no
strange inflections, and not a" single digamma is sensibly
lost. Its peculiarities are only -Eï for fI, È&
for ZII, and ðé rE
for õÉ, which could not embarrass the hearer as to the sense.
I myself reproduce much the same result. Thus in rny
translation of these five lines I have the antiquated words
blore for blast, ha'7Y for harass (harrow, wor,)',) and the
antiquated participle hoven from htave, as cloven, WO'l'ell from
cleave, weave. 'I'he whole has thus just a tinge of antiquity,
as had the Homeric passage to the Attics, without any need
of aid from a Glossary. But at other times the aid is
occasionally convenient, just as in I-lomer or Shakspeare.
Mr Arnold plays fal1aciously on the words fatniliar and
unfanliliar. I-Iomer's words may have been fa1lliliar to the
Athenians (i.e. often heard), even when they were not under-
stood, but, at most, were guessed at; or when, being under-
stood, they were still felt and known to be utterly foreign.
Of course, when thus "familiar," they could not" surprise"
the Athenians, as 1Ir Arnold complains that my renderings
surprise the English. Let nline be heard as Pope or even
Cowper has been heard, and no one will be "surprised. U
Antiquated words are understood well by some, ill by
others, not at aU by a third class; hence it is diTcult to
decide the limits of a glossary. :rvlr Arnold speaks scorn-
fully of me (he wonders 'with Wh01Jt AIr AJe'wman can have
lived), that I use the words which I use, and explain those
which I explain. lIe censures my little Glossary, for con-
taining three words which he did not know, and some
Repl)! to lvlatthe\v Arnold 3 0 3
others, which, he says, are" fan1iliar to all the world." It is
clear, he will never want a stone to throw at Ine. I suppose
I am often guilty of keeping low company. I have found
ladies WhOl11 no one would guess to be so ill-educated, who
yet do not distinctly know what It/sty means; but have an
uncon1fortable feeling that it is yery near to lustful; and
understand grisly only in the sense of grizzled, grey. Great
nU111bers n1istake the sense of Buxom, In1p, Dapper, de-
plorably. I no more wrote my Glossary than n1Y translation
for persons so highly educated as I\Ir Arnold.
But I must proceed to ren1ark: Honler might have been
as unintelligible to Pericles, as was the court poet of king
Crcesus, and yet it nlight be highly improper to translate
him into an old English dialect; namely, if he had been the
typical poet of a logical and refined age. Here is the real
questioll, ;-is he absolutely antique, or only antiquated
relatiyely, as Euripides is now antiquated? A modern
Greek statesnlan, accon1p1ished for every purpose of modern
business, might find himself quite perplexed by the in-
finitives, the numerous participles, the optatives, the datives,
by the particle èl
, and by the whole syntax of Euripides, as
also by many special words; but this would never justify us
in translating Euripides into any but a most refined style.
\Vas I-Iomer of this class? I say, that he not only Ulas
antiquated, relatively to l"'}ericles, but is also absolutely
antique, being the poet of a barbarian age. Antiquity in
poets is not (as IIorace stupidly imagines in the argument
of the horse's tail) a question of years, but of intrinsic
qualities. IIon1cr sang to a whollr unfastidious audience,
very susceptible to the n1arvellous, very unalive to the
ridiculous, capable of s\vallowing with reverence the most
grotesque conceptions. Hence nothing is easier than to
turn IIon1cr to ridicule. The fun \yhich Lucian made of
his nJ) thology, a rhetorical critic like
fr Arnold could make
of his diction, if he understood it as he understands mine.
He takes credit to himself for flot ridiculing me; and is not
aware, that I could not be like I-Ion1er without being easy
to riùicule. An intelligent child is the second-best reader of
I-Iomer. The best of all is a scholar of highly masculine
taste; the worst of all is a fastidious and refined man, to
whom everything quaint seems ignoble and conten1ptible.
I might have supposed that
Ir Arnold thinks Homer
3 0 4
Critical Essays
to be a polished drawing-room poet, like Pope, when I read
in him this astonishing sentence, p. 230. "Search the
English language for a word which does not apply to Homer,
and you could not fix on a better word than quaint." But
I am taken aback at finding him praise the diction of
Chaplnan's translation in contrast to mine. Now 1 never
open Chapman, without being offended at his pushing
HaIner's quaintness most unnecessarily into the grotesque.
Thus in Mr Gladstone's first passage above, where Homer
says that the sea" sputters out the foam," Chapman makes
it, "all her bach Í1z bristles set, spits every way her foam,"
obtruding what may remind one of a cat or a stoat. I hold
sþutter to be epical, I because it is strong; but sþit is feeble
and mean. In passing, I observe that the universal praise
given to Chapn1an as " Homeric" (a praise which I have
too absolutely repeated, perhaps through false shame of
depreciating my only rival) is a testilnony to me that I
rightly appreciate Homeric style; for my style is Chapman's
softened, purged of conceits and Inade far more melodious.
Mr Arnold leaves me to wonder, how, with his disgust
at me, he can avoid feeling tenfold disgust at Chapman;
and to wonder also what he 1JleanS, by so blankly con-
tradicting Iny statement that Homer is quaint; and why he
so vehemently resents it. He does not vouchsafe to me
or to his readers one particle of disproof or of explanation.
I regard it as quaint in I-Iomer to call Juno whz'te-arnz'd
goddess and larg,e-e;"d. (1 have not rendered ßOW'7t'/Ç ox-ey'd,
because in a case of doubt I shrank to obtrude anything so
grotesque to us.) It is quaint to say, "the lord of bright-
haired Juno lightens l' for" it lightens"; or "my heart in
n1Y shagg)' bosom is divided," for "I doubt": quaint
to call waves wet, nlilk 'Zl1híte, blood dusky, horses sínglehoofid,
a hero's hand broad, words winged, Vulcan Lob/oot
(KtJ^Ào'Ï;oúícm), a maiden fair-anklet!, the Greeks 'ivell-
greav'd, a spear I01lgshadowy, battle and council 11la;z-
ennobling, one's knees dear, and many other epithets. 1\1:r
Arnold most gratuitously asserts that the s
nse of these had
evaporated to the Athenians. If that were true, it would
J Men who can bear" belch " in poetry, nowaàays pretend that
" sputter" is indelicate. They find Homer's å:7T'01rTÚE'L to be " elegant,"
but sþutter-not! "No one would guess from :rvlr Newman's coarse
phrases how elegant is Homer" 11
Reply to l\T atthevv Arnold
"'0 5
oJ
not signify to this argument. ð.àl.
tUlot; (possessed by an
elf or dæmon) so lost its sense in Attic talk, that although
Æschylus has it in its true meaning, some college tutors
(I am told) render fJ1 òrf../,1J.,6uIE in Plato, "my very good sir! "
This is surely no good reason for mistranslating the word in
Homer. IfMr Arnold could prove (what he certainly cannot)
that Sophocles had forgotten the derivation of é '.'XVr,
iÒEt;
and Èi;,u.pJ'iì-)nt;, and understood by the former nothing but
" full-armed" and by the latter (as he says) nothing but
"warlike," this would not justify his blame of me for
rendering the words correctly. If the whole Greek nation
by long familiarity had become inobservant of Homer's
" oddities " (conceding this for the moment), that also
would be no fault of nline. That Homer is extremely
peculiar, even if the Greeks had becon1e deadened to the
sense of it, the proof on all siòes is overpowering.
It is very quaint to say, "the outwork (or ran1part)
of the teeth" instead of "the lips." If 1fr Arnold
will call it "portentous" in my English, let him produce
some shadow of reason for denying it to be portentous
in Greek. 11any phrases are so quaint as to be
aln10st untranslatable, as ,'
f)TWp y;6,BoIO (deviser of fear?)
(f'TWp àú''T
; (deviser of outcry?): others are quaint
to the verge of being comical, as to call a man an equiþoise
(å<;'"áì.a:Jo;"o
) to a god, and to praise eyes for having a curl in
them. I It is quaint to make Juno call Jupiter uivlrrurrE
(grimmest? direst?), whether she is in good or bad humour
with him, and to call a Vision ghast:Y, when it is sent with a
pleasant message. It is astonishingly quaint to tell how
many oxen every fringe of Athene's ægis was worth.-It is
quaint to call Patroclus "a great simpleton," for not fore-
eeing that he would lose his life in rushing to the rescue of
his countrymen. (1 cannot receive 1-1r Arnold's suggested
Biblical correction" Thou fool! " which he thinks grander:
first, because grave n10ral rebuke is utterly out of place;
secondly, because the Greek cannot mean this j-it means
infantine simplicity, and has precisely the colour of the
r In a Nate to my translation (overlooked by more than one critic) I
have explained lurl,ev'd, carefully, but not very accurately perhaps; as
I had not before me the picture of the Hindoo lady to which I referred.
The whole uþþe'r e)'elid, when open., may be called the curl; for it is
shaped like a buffalo's horns. This accounts for ÉÌ\LKOß^Úþa.pos, "having
a curly eyelid."
3 06
Critical Essays
word which I have used.)-It is quaint to say: "Patroclus
kindled a great fire, godlike nlanl " or, " Automedon held up
the nlcat, divine Achilles slic'd it:" quaint to address a
young friend as " Oh I pippin! " or "Oh softheart ! "or" Oh
pet!)) whichever is the true translation. It is quaint to
cOlllpare Ajax to an ass whom boys are belabouring, Ulysses
to a pet ram, Agamemnon in two lines to three gods, and in
the third line to a bull; the l\!yrmidons to wasps, Achilles
to a gnunpus chasing little fishes, Antilochus to a wolf which
ki1l5 a dog and runs away. 1Ienelaus striding over
Patroclus's body to a heifer defending her first-born. It is
quaint to say that l\Ienelaus was as brave as a bloodsucking
fly, that i\gamenlDon's sobs caIne thick as flashes of
lightning; and that the Trojan mares, while running,
groaned like overfto\ving rivers. All such similes con1e
fron1 a mind quick to discern sin1Îlarities, but very dull to
{eel incongruities,. unaware therefore that it is on a verge
where the sublime easily turns into the ludicrous; a mind
and heart inevitably quaint to the very core. 'Vhat is it in
Vulcan, when he would comfort his rTlother under Jupiter's
threat, to rnake jokes about the severe Inauling which he
hinlself forn1crly received, and his terror lest she should be
now beaten? Still Inore quaint (if rollicking is not the
,,"on.1), is the address by which Jupiter tries to ingratiate
hinlself with Juno: viz. he recounts to her all his unlawful
arnours, dec1aring that in none of them was he so smitten
as now. I have not enough of the rUlvcÛò; etJ'1jnsítl., the
barbarian sin1ple-heartedness, needed by a reader of I-Iomer,
to get through this speech with gravity. 'Vhat shall I can
it, certainly Inuch worse than quaint, that the poet adds:
Jupiter was 1110re enau10ured than at his stolen embrace in
their first bed" secretly fronl their dear parents"? nut to
develop HOIner's inexhaustible quaintnesses, of which l\Ir
Arnold denies the existence, seen1S to me to need a long
treatise. It is not to be expected, that one who is blind to
superficial facts so very prominent as those which I have
recounted, should retain any delicate perception of the
highly coloured, intense, and very eccentric diction ofl-Tomer,
J I thought I had toned it down pretty welI, :;. lenderir.g it (( 0 gentle
(riend ! " l\Ir Arnold rehukes me for this, without telling me what I
ought to say, or what is my fault. One thing is certain, that the Grct:k
is most odd and peculiar.
Reply to l\1atthe,v Arnold
3 0 7
e\"en if he has ever understood it, which he forces me to
doubt. He sees ncthing "odd" in xu
b; xCl.xfJ/LrrxÚVOu, or in
XU,Ó/LUICI., "thou dogfty!" I-Ie replaces to his imagination
the flesh and blood of the noble barbarian by a dim feeblE.
spiritless outline.
I have not adduced, in proof of I-lomer's quaintness, the
monstrous simile given to us in Iliad 13, 754; viz. Hector
"darted forward screaming like a snowy lllountain, and
flew through the 1'rojans and allies:" for I cannot believe
that the poet wrote anything so absurd. Rather than
adll11t this, I have suggested that the text is corrupt, and
that for öpEÏ V/
ÓH'7'1 we should read Òp
ftJ O
O
T/s "darted
forth screaming like a raging bird. " Yet, as far as I know,
I am the first n1an that has here impugned the text. :fi1r
Brandreth is faithful in his rendering, except that he says
shouting for screamz"ng;
"He said; and like a snowy mountain, rush'd
Shouting; and flèW through Trojans and allies."
Chapman, Cowper, and Pope strain and twist the words to
an impossible sense, putting in something about white pIt/me,
which they fancy suggested a snowy mountain; but they
evidently accept the Greek as it stands, unhesitatingly. I
clain1 this phenomenon in proof that to all commentators
and interpreters hitherto Homer's quaintness has been such
an axiom, that they have even acquiesced unsu'5piciously in
an extravagance which goes far beyond oddity. I\Ioreover
the reader may augur by my opposite treatn1Cl1t of the
passage, with what discernment :r-.lr Arnold condemns me
of obtruding upon l-Iomer gratuitous odditi
s which equal
the conceits of Chapman.
But, while thus vindicating Quaintness as an essential
quality of Homer, do I regard it as a weakness to be
apologised for? Certainly not; for it is a conùition of his
cardinal excellences. I-Ie could not otherwise be PÙ:tur-
esque as he is. So volatile is his mind, that what would be
a !\Ietaphor in a nlore logical and cultivated age, with him
riots in Simile which overflows its banks. IIis similes not
merel y go beyond 1 the mark of likeness; in extren1e cases
1 In the noble simile of the sea-tide, quoted p. 291 above, on!y the
two first of its fin
lines are to the purpose. l\Ir Glad::,tone, seàuced
by rhyme, has so tapered off the point of the similitude, that onlY;l
microscopic reader will 5(:
it.
"to8
J
Critical Essays
they even turn into contrariety. If he were not so carried
away by his illustration, as to forget what he is illustrating
(which belongs to a quaint mind), he would never p3.int for
us such full and splendid pictures. \Vhere a logical later
poet would have said that Nlenelaus
'Vith eagle-e)le survey'd the field,
the mere metaphor contenting him ; Horner says:
Gazing around on every side, in fashion of an eagle,
\Vhich, of all heaven's towl, they say, to scan the earth is keenest:
'Vhosc eye, when loftiest he hangs, not the swift hare escapeth,
Lurking amid a leaf clad bush: but straight at it he souseth,
Unerring; and with crooked gripe doth quickly rieve its spirit.
I feel this long sin1ile to be a disturbance of the logical
balance, such as belongs to the lively eye of the savage,
whose observation is intense, his concentration of reasoning
powers feeble. 'Vithout this, we should never have got
anything so picturesque.
Homer never sees things Ùt the sanze þro/,or!ÙJns as we
see then1. To on1it his digressions, and ,\hat I n1ay call
his" impertinences," in order to give to his argument that
which Mr Arnold is pleased to call the proper" balance,"
is to value our own logical nlinds, more than his pictur-
esque I but illogical mind.
1\1:r Arnold says that I am not quaint, but grotesque, in
my rendering of XUIIÒ; Xc/"XOfJ/i'JXáJJov. I do not hold the
phrase to be quaint: to me it is excessively coarse. "Then
Jupiter calls Juno" a bitch," of course he means a snarling
cur; hence my rendering, "vixen" (or she-fox), is there
perfect, since we say vixen of an irascible woman. But
Helen had no such evil ten1pers, and beyond a doubt she
meant to ascribe impurity to herself. I have twice com-
n1Ïtted a pious fraud by making her call herself" a vixen/'
where "bitch" is the only faithful rendering; and l\1r
Arnold, instead of thanking me for throwing a thin veil
1 It is very singular that 1\11" Gladstone should imagine such a poet to
have no eye for colour. I totally protest against his turning Homer's
paintings into lead pencil drawings. I believe that ",ÀavKðs is grey
(silvergreen), Xápo'l! blue; and that 7rpaO"Lvòs, "leek-colour," was too
m
an a word for any poets, early or late, to use for " green," therefore
X}..wpòs does duty for it. Kûp.a 1rOpcþÚpEOJl is surely" the purple "..ave,"
:tnd IOE..ôia 7r011TOJl "tbe violet sea."
Reply to 11atthe\v Arnold
3 0 9
over Honler's deformity, ass3.ils me for my phrase as
intolerably grotesque.
I-le further forbids Ine to invent new compound adjectives,
I as fair-thron'd, rill-bestreanl'd j because they strike us as
new, though Homer's epithets (he says) did not so strike
the Greeks: hence they derange attention from the main
question. I hold this doctrine of his (conceding his fact
for a moment) to be destructive of all translation whatever,
into prose or poetry. '''hen Hon1er tells us that Achilles'
horses were munching lotus and parsley, Pope renders it by
"the horses grazed," and does not say on what. Using 1\Ir
...L\'rnold's principles, he might defend hinlself by arguing:
" The Greeks, being familiar with such horsefood, were not
struck by it as new, as illY reader would be. I was afraid
of telling him 71)hat the horses were eating, lest it should
derange the balance of his mind, and injuriously divert hin}
from the main idea of the sentence." But, I find, readers
are indignant on learning Pope's suppression: the} feel that
he has defrauded them of a piece of interesting information.
-In short, how call an Englishman read any Greek com-
position and be affected by it as Greeks were? In a piece
of Euripides my imagination is caught by many things,
which he never intènded or calculated for the prOlninence
which they actualJy get in illY mind. I'his or that absurdity
in mythology, which passed with him as matter of course,
may monopolise n1Y Inain attention. Our minds are not
passive recipients of this or that poet's influence; but the
poet is the material on which our l1linds actively work. If
an unlearned reader thinks it very" odd J' of Homer (the
first time he hears it) to call .A.urora "fair-thron'd," so does
a boy learning Greek think it odd to call her eüBgouo;. l\Ir
Arnold ought to blot every odd Homeric epithet out of his
Greek Homer (or never lend the copy to a youthful learner)
if he desires me to expunge "fair-thron' d " from the transla-
tion. Nay, I think he should conceal that the Morning was
esteemed as a goddess, though she had no altars or sacrifice.
It is all odd. But that is just why people want to read an
English Hon1er,-to know all his oddities, exactly as learned
men do. He is the phenomenon to be studied. His
peculiarities, pleasant or unpleasant, are to be made known,
precisely because of his great eminence and his substantial
deeply seated worth. Mr Arnold writes like a timid
3 10
Critical Essays
biographer, fearful to let too much of his friend come out.
So Inuch as to the substance. As to I11ere words, here also
I hold the verv reverse of 1\1r Arnold's doctrine. I do not
feel free to. translate oùgalio/Ji
x11Ç by "heaven-kissing,"
precisely because Shakspeare has used the last word. I t is
his property, as Ëi;Xlir;fl-ïÒSç, È(;,U/JiSÀíT;Ç, XUð,áÞs/ga, etc., are
Hon1er's property. I could not use it without being felt to
quole Shakspcare, which would be highly inappropriate in a
Homeric translation. But if nobody had ever yet used the
phrase "heaven-kissing " (or if it were current without any
proprietor) then I should be quite fre
to use it as a render-
ing of o
gavo.u'nX11ç. I cannot assent to a critic killing the
vital powers of our tongue. If Shakspeare might invent the
C0111pound "heaven-kissing," or "nlan-ennobling," so ll1ight
'Villianl 'Vordsworth or :rvlatthew Arnold; and so n1ight I.
Inspiration is not dead, nor yet is the English language.
rr Arnold is slow to understand what I think very
obvious. Let Iue then put a case. 'Yhat if I were to scold
a luissionary for rendering in Fcejee the phrase "kingdom
of heaven" and" Lamb of God" accurately; also" saints"
anù other words characteristic of the .l'/ew Testament? I
n1ight urge against hin1: "This and that sounds very odd
to the Feejees: that cannot be right, for it did 1l0t seen1 odd
to the Nicene bishops. The latter had forgotten that
ßaðlÌ\.
ía meant 'kingdoln'; they took the phrase 'king-
dOln of God' collectiyely to mean 'the Church.' The
ohrase did not surprise theln. As to 'Lambs,' the Feejees
are not accustomed to sacrifice, and cannot be expected to
know of themselves what 'Lamb of God' means, as
I-Iebrews did. 'rhe courtiers of Constantine thought it
very natural to be calleel drlOf, for they were accustomed to
think every baptised person 11)'10'; but to the baptised I
courtiers of Feejee it really seems very odd to be called
saints. Yau disturb the balance of their judgment."
The missionary might reply: " You seelned to be
ashamed of the oddities of the Gospel. I am not. They
grow out of its excellences and cannot be separated. By
avoiding a few eccentric phrases you will do little to remo\"e
the deep-seated eccentricity of its very essence. Odd and
eccentric it will remain, unless you despoil it of its heart,
and reduce it to a fashionable philosophy." And just so do
I reply to 1Ir Arnold. The Homeric style (whether it be
Reply to
1atthe\v Arnold 3 I I
that of an individual or of an age) is peculiar, is "odd," if
Ir Arnold like the word, to the very core. Its eccentri-
I cities in epithet are mere efflorescences of its essential
eccentricity. If Honler could cry out to us, I doubt not he
would say, as Oliver Cromwell to the painter, "Paint nle
just as I am, 'itJart and all :" but if the true fIooler could
reappear, I am sure 1\Ir Arnold would start fro111 him just
as a bishop of R.oIne from a fishennan apostle. If a trans-
lator of the Bible honours the book by his close rendering
of its characteristics, however "odd," so do I honour
Hotner by the same. Those characteristics, the nloment I
produce them, 1fr Arnold calls ignoble. "\Yell: be it so ;
but I anI not to blalne for them. They exist whether :tvlr
Arnold likes them or not.
I will here observe that he bids me paraphrase 't'CGvÍJ';:'it;;'Î.o;
(trailing-robed) into something like, " Let gorgeous Trageày
'Vith sceptred pall conle sweeping by." I deliberately
judge, that to paraphrase an otiose epithet is the very worst
thing that can be done: to omit it entirely would be better.
I object even to :t\Ir Gladstone's
. . . whom Leto bare,
Leto with the flowing hair.
For the repetition overdoes the pron1inence of the epithet.
Still more extravagant is
Ir Arnold in wishing me to turn
"single-hoofed horses" in to "something which as little
surþrises us as 'Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds"': p.
266. To reproduce Shakspeare would be in any case a
" surprising" nlode of translating Honler: but the principle
which changes "single-hoofed n into a different epithet
which the translator thinks better, is precisely that which for
nlore than two centuries has made nearly all English trans-
lation worthles3. rro throw the poet into your crucible, and
bring out old Pelias young, is not a hopeful process. I
ha.d thought, the manly taste of this day had outgrown the
idea that a translator's business is to n1elt up the old coin
and stamp it with a modern Ï1nage. I am wondering that I
should have to write against such notions: I would not take
the trouble, only that they come against lne from an
Oxford Professor of Poetry.
At the same tinle, his doctrine, as I have said, goes far
beyond cOlnpound epithets. 'Yhether I say "lIlotley-
3 12
Critical Essays
heln1èd Hector" or " Hector of the motley helm," "silver-
footed Thetis" or "Thetis of the silver foot," "l11an-
ennobling conlbat" or "combat which ennobles man," the
novelty is so nearly on a par, that he cannot condenln one
and justify the other on this score. Even Pope falls far
short of the false taste which would plane down every
Honleric prominence: for he prizes an elegant epithet like
"silver-footed," however new and odd.
From such a Homer as l\lr Arnold's specimens and prin-
ciples would give us, no one could leaI'll anything; no one
could have any motive for reading the translation. He
smooths down the stanlp of Homer's coin, till nothing is
left even for miscf0scopic examination. \Vhen he forbids
me (p. 266) to let In)' reader know that Homer calls horses
"single hoofed," of course he would suppress also the
epithets" white nlilk," "dusky blood/' "dear knees,"" dear
life," etc. His process obliterates everything characteristic,
great or small.
1\1r Arnold condenl11s my translating certain names of
horses. He says (p. 244) : " 1\lr N ewnlan calls Xanthus Ches-
1lut; as he calls Balius .Spotted and Podarga Sþry/oot: which
is as if a Frenchman were to call 11iss Nightingale ltIdlle.
Rossignol, or 11r Bright 111. Clair." He is very wanting in
discrimination. If I had translated Hector into Possessor
or Agamemnon into High11tilld, his censure would be just.
A Miss \Vhite may be a brunette, a 1Iiss Brown may be a
blonde: we utter the proper names of men and women
without any remenlbrance of their intrinsic nleaning. But
it is different with Inany nanles of domestic animals. \Ve
never call a dog Spot, unless he is spotted; nor without
consciousness that the name expresses his peculiarity. No
one would give to a black horse the name Chesnut; nor, I
if he had called a chesnut horse by the nalne Chesnut,
would he ever forget the nleaning of the name while he
used it. 1'he Greeks called a chesnut horse xt1nthos and
a spotted horse balios; therefore, until 11r Arnold proves
the contrary, I believe that they never read the names of f
Achilles' two horses without a sense of their meaning.
Hence the names ought to be translated; while Hector and
I.Jaolnedon ought not. rfhe san1e reasoning applies to
Podarga, though I do not certainly understand åer 6 ,. I
bave taken it to mean sprightly.
Reply to
latthcw Arnold
") I
.:J .:J
1fr Arnold further asserts, that H orner is never
Ie garrulous." ,Allowing that too many others agree with
me, he attributes our error to giving too much weight to a
sentence in Horace! I admire Horace as an ode-writer,
but I do not revere him as a critic, any more than as a
n10ral philosopher. I say that I-Iomer is garrulous, because
I see and feel it. l\lr Arnold puts n1e into a most un-
welcome position. I have a right to say, I have some
enthusiasm for Homer. In the midst of numerous urgent
calls of duty and taste, I devoted every possible quarter of
an hour for two years and a half to translate the Iliad,
toiling unremittingly in my vacations and in my walks, and
going to large expenses of money, in order to put the book
before the unlearned; and this, though I am not a Pro-
fessor of Poetry nor even of Greek. Yet now I am forced
to appear as Homer's disparager and accuser! But if
Homer were always a poet, he could not be, what he is, so
n1any other things beside poet. As the Egyptians paint in
their tombs processes of art, not because they are beautiful
or grand, but from a mere love of imitating; so Homer
narrates perpetually from a mere love of chatting. In how
thoroughly Egyptian a way does he tell the process of
cutting up an ox and nlaking kebáb,. the process of bringing
a boat to anchor and carefully putting by the tackle; the
process of taking out a shawl from a chest, where it lies at
the very bottom! \Vith what glee he repeats the secret
talk of the gods; and can tell all about the toilet of Juno.
Every particular of trifling actions comes out with him, as,
the opening of a door or box with a key. He tells who
made Juno's earrings or veil or the shield of Ajax, the
history of Agan1emnon's breastplate, and in what detail a
hero puts on his pieces of armour. I would not press the
chattiness of Pandarus, Glaucus, Nestor, Æneas, in the
midst of battle; I might press his descriptiop of wounds.
Indeed I have said enough, and more than enough, against
fr Arnold's novel, unsupported, paradoxical assertion.-
But this is connected with another subject. I called
Homer's manner "direct": I\1r Arnold (if I understand)
would supersede this by his own epithet "rapid." But I
cannot admit the exchange: Homer is often the opposite
of rapid. Amplification is his characteristic, as it must be
of every impTovisatore, every popular orator: condensation
3 1 4
Critical Essays
indeed is irnproper for anything but written style; written
to be read privately. But I regard as Homer's worst
defect, his lingering over scenes of endless carnage' and
painful wounds. He knows to half an inch where one
hero hits another and how deep. They arn1: they
approach: they encounter: we have to listen to stereotype
details again and again. Such a style is anything but
" rapid." Homer's garrulity often leads hin1 into it; yet he
can do far better, as in a part of the fight over Patroclus's
body, and other splendid passages.
Garrulity often vents itself in expletives. :rvlr Arnold
selects for animadversion this line of mine (p. 235),
" A thousand fires along the plain, I say, that night were gleaming."
He says: "This Inay be the genuine style of ballad poetry,
but it is not the style of Homer." I reply; my use of
expletives is moderate indeed con1pared to Homer's, Ì\Ir
Arnold writes, as if quite unaware that such words as the
intensely prosaic åpa, and its abbreviations è2p, fa, with 'T'OI,
'1"
, ð
, f.LáÀa, ;,
pa JlU, ':TEP, overflow in epic style; and
that a pupil who has mastered the very copious stock oî
Attic particles, is taken quite aback by the extravagant
number in Hon1er. Our expletives are generally more
offensive, because longer. :rvIy principle is, to admit only
such expletives as add energy, and savour of antiquity. To
the feeble expletives of mean ditties I am not prone. I
once heard fronl an eminent counsellor the first lesson of
young lawyers, in the following doggerel :
IIe who holds his lands in fee,
Need neither quake nor quiver:
For I humbly conceive, look ye, do ye see?
lIe holds his lands for ever.
1
he U humbly conceiving" certainly outdoes IIomer. Yet
if the poet ha.d chosen (as he might ha.ve chosen) to make
Polydan1as or Glaucus say:
" · , A' , ß '\'"
Olfn, E'i'õETgaÇ!Ju'1} 'T'E/J.'iV(;
'iTllf"l'U alf'^fJOç,
, "j ", JI", , . JI ß -
ípr;p.,1 '1"01, OtJ"I'O' (J.,yr;g O'VT ag 'igElJÆI OUTE <po, ':J'.al.
9'1\' ""
""
or; ,aaÀa rag ga EU; xganol XEJI ElfalH agotJgaç:
I rather think the following would be a fair prose rendering:
" \Vhoso hath been entrusted with a den1esne under pled,ge
with the king (1 tell you); this man neither tren1bleth (you
Reply to I\1atthe\v Arnold 3 1 5
see) nor feareth: for (look ye!) he (verily) nlay hold (you
see) his lands for ever. u
Since 1fr Arnold momentarily appeals to me on the
chaSOl between Attic and Honleric Greek, I turn the last
piece into a style far less widely separated from modern
.English than Homer fronl Thucydides.
Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis-af
Londis yn féo, niver
(1 tcll 'e) fecreth aught; sith hee
Doth hauld hys londis yver.
I certainly do not recommend this style to a translator, yet
it would have its advantage. Even with a smaller change
of dialect it would aid us over Helen's self-piercing
denunciation, "approaching to Christian penitence," as
some have judged it.
Quoth she, 1 am a gramsome bitch,
If woman bitch may bee.
But in behalf of the poet I must avow: when one con-
siders how dramatic he is, it is marvellous how little in him
can offend. For this very reason he is above needing
tender treatment fronl a translator, but can bear faithful
rend
ing, nat only better than Shakspeare but better than
Pindar or Sophocles.
\Vhen
lr Arnold denies that Homer is ever prosaic or
bonlely, his own specimens of translation put nle into
despair of convinçing him; for they seem to me a very
anthology of prosaic flatness. Phrases, which are not in
themselves bad, if they were elevated by something in the
syntax or rhythm distinguishing them from prose, become
in him prose out-and-out. "To Peleus why did we give
you, to a nlortal?" "In the plain tlure were kindled a.
thousand fires; by each one there sate fifty men/' [At least
he might have left out the expletive.] "By their chariots
stood the steeds, and chan1ped the white barley; while their
masters sate by the fire and waited for morning." " Us,
whose portion for ever Zeus has made it, from youth righl
1tþ to age, to be winding skeins of grievous wars, till every
soul of us perish." The words which I here italicise, seem
to me below noble ballad. \Vhat shall I say of "I bethink
n1e what the Trojan nlen and Trojan women might nlurmur:'
" Sacred Troy shall go to destruction." "Or bear pails to
3 16
Critical Essays
the well of
1esseïs." U See, the wife of Hector, that great
pre-eminent captain of the horsemen of Troy, in the da)' they
fought for their city," for, "who was captain in the day on
which-." "Let me be dead and the earth be mounded
(?) above 111e, ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity I told
of." " By no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours 2 did
the Trojans obtain to strip the arms of Patroclus." " Here
I am destined to perish, far from my father and mother
dear; for all that, I will not," etc. "Dare they not enter
the fight, or stand in the council of heroes, all for fear of
the shame and the taunts 1nl' crime has awakened?" One
who regards all this to be high poetry, - emphatically
"noble,"-may well think TÒV Ò' èJ./i;'a
/(36fJÆ
O; or " with him
there call1e forty bìack galleys," or the broiling of the becf
collops, to be such. 'Vhen 1Ir Arnold regards "no want
of swiftness 0.1 ours,." " for all that," in the sense of never-
theless; "a II for fear," t'.e. because of the fear; 110t to be
prosaic: my readers, however ignorant of Greek, will dis-
pense with further argull1ent fi'om me. Mr Arnold's
inability to discern prose in Greek is not to be trusted.
But I see sonlething more in this phenoll1enon. 1\1:r
Arnold is an original poet; and, as such, certainly uses a
diction far n10re eleyated than he here puts forward to
represent I-IoD1er. He calls his HOllleric diction Plain and
sÙnþle. Interpreting these words from the contrast of
?vIr Arnold's own poell1S, I claÎln his suffrage as on illY side, I
that Ilomer is often in a style much lower than what the
moderns esteem to be poetical. But I protest, that he
carries it very tllltch too far, and levels the noblest down to I
the n10st negligent style of HOll1er. The poet is ?lot always
so "ignoble," as the u'llearned might infer fron1 ll1Y critic's
specin1ens. He never drops so low as Shakspeare; yet if
he were as sustained as Virgil or l\1ilton, he would with it
lose his vast superiority over these, his. rich variety. That
I He pares down É}I.K'l}8p..ol.o (the dragging away of a woman by the I
h:tir) into "captivity"! Better surely is my "ignoble" version: I
" Ere-that I see thee dral{.
'd away, and hear thy shriek of anguish."
2 He means OU'f"S for two syllables. "Swiftness of ours" is surely
ungrammatical. " A galley of my own" = one of m}' own galleys; but
"a father of mine," is absurd, since each has hut one father. I confess
I ha.ve myself heen seduced into writing" those two eyes of his," to
avoid" those his two eyes": but I have since condemned and
ltered
it.
I
epI)T to I\1atthe\v Arnold
3 1 7
the whole first book of the Iliad is pitched lower than the
rest, though it has vigorous descriptions, is denoted by the
total absence of simile in it: for HOHler's kindling is always
indicated by sin1ile. The second book rises on the first,
until the catalogue of ships, which (as if to atone for its flat-
ness) is ushered in by five consecuti\'e similes. In the third
and fourth books the poet continues to rise, and almost
culn1inates in the fifth; but then see1l1S to restrain himself,
lest nothing grander be left for Achilles. Although I do
not believe in a unity of authorship between the Oàyssey
and the Iliad, yet in the Iliad itself I see such un}ty, that I
cannot doubt its negligences to be from art. (1"he
n10nstrous speech of K estor in the I I th book is a case by
itself. About 100 lines have perhaps been added later, for
reasons other than literary.) I observe that just before the
poet is about to bring out
L\.chilles in his utmost splendour,
he has three-quarters of a book comparatively tame, with a
ridiculous legend told by Agan1emnon in order to cast his
own sins upon Fate. If Shakspeare introduces coarse
wrangling, buffoonery, or mean superstition, no one claims
or wishes this to be in a high diction or tragic rhythm; and
why should anyone wish such a thing from Homer or
Homer's translator? I find nothing here in the poet to
apologise for; but much cause for indignation, when the
unlearned public is misled by translators or by critics to
expect delicacy and elegance out of place. But I beg the
unlearned to judge for himselÍ whether Homer can have
intended such lines as the following for poetry, and whether
I am bound to make them any better than I do.
Then visiting he urged each man with words,
fvlesthles and Glaucus and l\ledon and Thersilochus
And Asteropæus and Deisenor and Hippothoiis
And Phorkys and Chromius and Ennomus the augur.
He has lines in plenty as little elevated. If they came often
in masses, it would be best to translate them into avowed
prose: but since gleams of poetry break out an1id what is
flattest, I have no choice but to imitate Homer in retaining
a uniform, but easy and unpretending metre. 1Ir Arnold
calls my metre "slipshod": if it can rise into grandeur
when needful, the epithet is a praise.
Of course I hold the Iliad to be generally noble and
3 18
Critical Essays
grand. Very many of the poet's conceptions were grand to
him, mean to us: especially is he n1ean and absurd in
scenes of conflict between the gods. Besiòes, he is dis-
gusting and horrible occasionally in \vord and thought; as
when Hecuba wishes to "cling on ..c\chilles and eat up his
liver"; when (as J uI'iter says) Juno would gladly eat Priarn's
children raw; when] upiter hanged Juno up and fastened a
pair of anvils to her feet; also in the description of dreadful
wounds, and the treatrnent which (Prianl says) dogs giye to
a.n old n1an's corpse. rrhe descriptions of Vulcan and
1"'hersitcs are ignoble; so is the 11lode of mourning for
Hector adopted by Prianl j so is the treatment of the
populace by Ulysses, which does but reflect the manners of
the day. I am not now bla,n1ing I-Ionler for these things;
but I say no treatlnent can elevate the subject; the trans-
lator must not be expected to 11lake noble what is not so
intrinsicallv.
If anyo;1e think that I am disparaging Honler, let me
remind him of the horrid grossnesses of Shakspeare, ,vhich
yet are not allowed to lessen our admiration of Shakspeare's
grandeur. The Homer of the Iliad is morally pure and
often very tender; but to expect refinen1ent and universal
delicacy of expression in that stage of civilisation is quite
anachronistic and unreasonable. As in earlier England, so
in Homeric Greece, even high poetry partook of the coarse-
ness of society. This was probably inevitable, precisely
because Greek epic poetry was so natural.
Mr Arnold says that I make HOlDer's nobleness
emÍ11e7ttìy ignoble. This suggests to me to quote a passage, j
not because I think myself particularly successful in it, but
because the poet is evidently aiming to be grand, when hi
mightiest hero puts forth mighty boastings, offensive to I
some of the gods. It is the speech of Achilles over the
dead body of Asteropæus (Iliad 21, 184)' 'Vhether I
n1ake it ignoble, by my diction or my metre, the reader
must judge.
Lie as thou art. 'Tis hard for thee to strive against the children
Of overmatching Saturn's son, tho' offspring of a River.
Thou boastest, that thy origin is from a Stream broad-fiówing ;
I boast, from mighty Jupiter to trace my first beginning.
A man who o'er the Myrmidons holdeth wide rule, begat me,
Peleus; whose father Æacl1s by Jupiter was gotten.
Rh'ers, that trickle to the sea, than Jupiter arc weaker;
Reply to
latthe\v Arnold
3 1 9
So, than the progeny of Jove. weaker a River's offspring.
Yea, if he aught avail'd to help, b('hold! a mighty River
Bes!llc thee here: but none can fight with J Q\'e, the child of Saturn.
Not royal Acheloïus with him may play the equal.
Nor e'en the amplebosom'ù strength of deeply-flowing Ocean:
Tho' from his fulness every Sea and e\'ery River welleth,
And all the eycr-bubLling springs and eke their vasty sources.
Yet at the lightning-Lolt of Jove doth e\'en Ocean shudùer,
And at the direful thunder-clap, when from the sky it crasheth.
lvlr Arnold has in sonle respects attacked me discreetly;
I nlean, where he has said that which damages me with his
readers, and yet leaves tue no possible reply. '''hat is
easier than for one to call another ignoble? what more
damaging? what harder to refute? 1'hen when he speaks
of my "metrical exploits" how can I be offended? to
what have I to reply? His words are expressive either of
compliment or of contempt; but in either case are in-
tangible. Again: when he would show how tender he
has been of my honour, and how unwilling to expose n1Y
enormities, he says: p. 243: "I will by no n1eans search in
1r Newman's version for passages likely to raise a laugh:
that search, alas! would be far too easy;" I find the pity
which the word alas! expresses, to be very clever, and very
effective against file. But, I think, he was not discreet, but
very unwise, in making dogmatic statements on the ground
of erudition, many of which I have exposed; and about
'which n1uch 1110re remains to be said than space will
allow me.
In his denial that Homer is Ie garrulous/' he complains
that so n1
ny think hiIl1 to be "diffuse." 1Ir Arnold, it
seems, is unaware of that very pron1inent peculiarity; \vhich
suits ill eyen to
Ir Gladstone's style. Thus, where Homer
said (and I said) in a passage quoted above, "people that
have a voice in their bosom,"
fr Gladstone has only" speak-
i1lg lllen." I have noticed the epithet shaggy as quaint, in
" lIis heart in his shaggy bosom was divided," where, in a
n10ral thought, a physical epithet is obtruded. But even if
"shaggy" be dropped, it rell1ains diffuse (and characteristi-
cally so) to say" my heart in nry bosom is divided," for" I
doubt." So-" I will speak what m)' heart in my bosom bids
me." So, Homer makes men think %aTà
g
.cx. xa.] xarà
Ou,uòv, "in their heart and mzizd j" and deprives them of
"mind and soul." Also:" this appeared to him in his mind
3 20
Critical Essays
to be the best counsel." :!vIr i\.rnold assun1es tones of great
superiority; but every school-boy knows that diffuseness is
a distinguishing characteristic of Homer. Again, the poees
epithets are often selected by their convenience for his
metre; sometimes perhaps even appropriated for no other
cause. No one has ever given any better reason why
])i0111edes and 11enelaus are almost exclusively called ßo
'J
cì.:^aaò
, except that it suits the metre. This belongs to the
inlprovisatore, the negligent, the ballad style. The word
Èü.
Û.írj;, which I with others render "ashen-speared," is
aid of Prialn, of Panthus
and of sons of Panthus. 1Ir
Arnold rebukes me, p. 272 for violating my own principles.
"I say, on the other hand, that eùa
Û.íw has not the effect 1
of a peculiarity in the original, while 'ashen-speared' has
the effect of a peculiarity in the English: and 'warlike' is
as marking an equivalent as I dare give for Èt/f.LfM.Àíw, for
fear of disturbing the balance of eXþression in Homer's
sentence." Mr Arnold cannot write a sentence on Greek,
without showing an ignorance hard to excuse in one who
thus conIes forward as a vituperating censor. Warlike is a
word current in the lips and books of all Englishmen:
Ëü'/iJfJJ=Àí?j', is a word never used, never, I believe, in all
Greek literature, by anyone but HOl1ler. If he does but
turn to Liddell and Scott, he will se
their staten1ent, that
the Attic fornl eÙ,as'"Aía; is only to be found in gram111ars.
He is here, as always, wrong in his facts. The word is
most singular in Greek; more singular by far than" ashen-
spear'd" in English, because it is more obscure, as is its
special application to one or two persons: and in truth I
have doubted whether we any better understand Eumelian
Priam than Gerenian Nestor.-Mr Arnold presently im-
putes to me the opinion that 'X/'l'
'J means "a cloak," 'lvhzcn
he does not disþute: but if I had thought it necessary to
be literal, I must have rendered Xa").XO-X/Twlieç. brazen- I
shirted. He suggests to me the rendering "brazen-coated,"
which I have used in II. 4, 285 and elsewhere. I have also
used "brazen-clad," and I now prefer "brazen-n1ail'd.'
I
here wish only to press that Mr Arnold's criticisu} proceeds
on a false fact. Homer's epithet was ?lot a fanliliar word at
r Of course no pecu1iarity of phrase has the effect of peculiarity on a
man who has imperfect acquaintance with the àelicacies oí a langua
e;
who, for instance, thinks that
M'YJ(}jJ.ÒS means óovÀ.Eia.
Reply to I\
atthe\v Arnold 3 21
Athens (in any other sense than as Burns or Virgil n1ay be
familiar to !vIr Arnold), but ,vas strange, unknown even to
their poets; hence his demand that I shall use a vt"ord
already fanliliar in English poetry is doubly baseless. The
later poets of Greece have plenty of words beginning with
xcû"xo-; but this one word is exclusively Hon1er's.-Every-
thing that I have now said, may be repeated still morc
pointedly concerning ÈCY..
ri/lJìò
;, inas1l1uch as directing at-
tention to leg-arnlour is pecuìiarly quaint. Noone in all
Greek literature (as far as I know) names the word but
Homer; and yet 1\1r Arnold turns on me with his ever
reiterated, ever unsupported, assertions and cens
res, of
course assun1ing that "the scholar U is with hinl. (I have
no theory at hand, to explain why he regards his own word
to sutnce without attenlpt at proof.) The epithet is in-
tensely peculiar; and I observe that 1\1r Arnùld has not
dared to suggest a translation. It is clear tå nle that he is
ashall1ed of nlY poet's oddities; and has no n10de of escap-
ing from then1 but by bluntly denying facts. Equally
peculiar to I-Iolner are the words ittJðlCl.
Elgå
Ta\iÚ'ñt
^OÇ
and twenty others, equally unknown to j\ttic the peculiar
compound fLÛ./
l)"fj' (adopted fron1 IIomer by Pindar),
about all which he carps at me on false grounds. But I
pass these, and speak a little more at length about fJ.
gt';:-f;.
'Vill the reader allow ll1e to vary these tedious details, by
imagining a conversation between the Aristophanic Socrates
and his clownish pupil
trepsiades. I suppose the philoso-
pher to be instructing hin1 iu the higher Greek, I-Iomer
being the text.
Soc. Now Streppy, tell me what /Ûpo?rs; á
'Of'f.IJ'i:OI means?
SIre}. Let me see: P.ÊflJ'i:E'? that n1ust mean "half-
faced. "
Soc. Nonsense, silly fellow: think again.
Slreþ. \Vell then:
P(J"ï:E', half-eyed, squ5ntit1g.
Soc. No; you are playing the fool: it is not our Ò
in
l
/;, Z+o/.LCU, XÚ'r(Jtï:<rpCJv, but another sort of Òtï:.
Sfrep. 'Vhy, you yesterday told nle that OIIiO'::U was" wine-
faced," and alJo'iTù "blazing-faced," sonlething like our
rÛBío
.
Soc. Ah! well: it is not so wonderful that you go wrong.
It is true, there is also r
po+, O'TÉpO+,
VO+. Those 111Íght
mislead you: P.fpO+ is rather peculiar. Now cannot you
L
3 22
Critical ESSa)TS
think of any characteristic of mankind, which P.
pO'1rf;
will
express. How do men differ from other animals?
Slreþ. I have it! I heard it fron1 your young friend
Euclid. 1\IÉpo+ Èt1rrl., (l'lBpCAJ1ro;, "lnan is a cooking anin1al."
Soc. You stupid lout! what are you at? what do you
mean?
Slreþ. 'Vhy, /iJÉpo+, from /iJÛgw, I distribute, õ+ov sauce.
Soc. No, no: Õ
O'l has the ò+, with radical immovable ,
in it; but here Ò1r is the root, and S' is movable.
Sirep. Now I have got it; /iJ'i:ípw, I distribute, ò'7Tðv, juice,
rennet.
Soc. 'Vretched man! you must forget your larder and
your dairy, if ever you are to learn grammar.-Colne
Streppy: leave rustic words, and think of the language of
the gods. Did you ever hear of the brilliant goddess Circe
and of her c;'7Ta xaÀ.
\I?
Sire}. Oh yes; Circe and her beautiful face.
Soc. I told you, no! you forgetful fellow. It is ANOTHER
Ò'1l'. Now I will ask you in a different way. Do you know
why we call fishes S^^O'7."E'?
Slreþ. I suppose, because they are cased in scales.
Soc. That is not it. (And yet I am not sure. Perhaps
the fellow is right, after all.) \Vell, we will not speak any
more of SÀ.À.Ò1õE:i. But did you never hear in Euripides, OÚ
ix.w 'ì'E'ì'CiJIIEìll D'iTa? '\Vhat does that mean?
W Sirep. "I am not able to shout out, w rr.CtJ:OI."
Soc. No, no, Streppy: but Euripides often uses ô;;:a.
l-Ie takes it from Homer, and it is akin to Ê?r, not to our
V'7T and much less to WÓrr.OI. \Vhat does Ë'7T1] n1ean?
Sire}. It means such lines as the diviners sing.
Soc. So it does in Attic, but I-Ionler uses it for pi;,uC/.Ta,
words; indeed we also sometimes.
Sire}. Yes, yes, I do know it. All is right.
Soc. I think you do: well, and õ+ means a voice, 9'CiJ\I
.
SIreþ. I-Iow you learned men like to puzzle us ! I often
have heard (;'7."1,
'ÎÕa in the r-fragedies, but never quite
understood it. \Vhat a pity they do not say
wv
when
they mean (þwv
.
òc. \Ve have at last made one step. N ow what is ,u,égo
?
IJ.
OCi'ï."S; /1 ,;0 0 fIJ'7TOI.
r- :,
Sire).
híew, I divide, Õ'irlX-,
Ji
JI, voice; "voice-divid-
ing ": what calz that nlean?
Reply to 11attl1e\v Arnold
3 2 3
Soc. You have heard a wild dog howl, and a tame dog
bark: tell ll1e how they differ.
Strep. The wild dog gives a long long 00-00, which
changes like a trull1pet if you push} our har:d up and down
it; and the tame dog says bo'w, 'WOW, wo;.v, lIke two or three
panpipes blown one after another.
I Soc. Exactly; you see the talTIe dog is humanised: he
I divides his voice into syllables, as men do. "V oice-divid-
, ing" n1cans "speaking in syllables."
Sire}. Oh, how clever you are!
Soc. \Vell then, you understand; " Voice-dividing "
n1eans articulating.
1fr Arnold will see in the Scholiast on Iliad 1,250, precisely
this order of analysis for }LÉg(j'76er;. It seems to n1e to give
not a traditional but a granlIuatical explanation. Be that as it
Inay, it indicates that a Greek had to pass through exactly
the saIne process in order to expound P.ÉgO'i'I'E;, as an English-
n1an to get sense out of "voice-dividing." The word is
twice used by Æschylus, who affects Botueric words, and
one by Euripides (Iph. 1'.) in the connection 'hOÀSO'III p.egC'76(JJv,
where the very unusual Ionism 'ir'OÀÉO"1I shows in how IIo111eric
a region is the poet's fancy. No other word ending in D+
eXctpt p.
go+ can be confidently assigned to the root ö
, a
voice. "'Huo
in Homer (itself of most uncertain sense and
derivation) is generally referred to the other Zt. 'rhe sense
of EÀì..o+ again I is very uncertain. E\"ery way therefore
I.Ûg()
is "oùd" and obscure. The phrase "articulating"
is utterly prosaic and inadmissible. Vocal is rather too
Latinised íor my style, and besides, is apt to n1ean l1lelodious.
The phrase "voice-dividing" is indeed easier to us than
fJ-Égo'T.'e; can have been to the Athenians, because we all know
what voice ll1eans, but they had to be taught scholastically
what D'T.a meant; nor would easily guess that èhy in p.Ég(r+ had
a sense, differing fro111 ö+ in (å)O'T
gG+ 0]1/0+, uTBo+, iÛBio+,
lIwgo+ (
1I0
), %;C-tgo+. Finally, since p,égCJ"'e
is only found
in the plural, it remains an open question, whether it does
not Inean "speaking various languages.') 11r Arnold will
find tha.t Stephanus and Scapula treat it as doubtful, though
Liddell and Scott do not name the second interpretation.
1 'EÀÀù,; needs light and gives none. Benfey suggests that it is for
JlEÒÇ, as ð.À^O';, aNti,s, for Sanscrit anya. He with me refers rXÀotþ to
)..Úrw. Cf. s
1ltallligeri in Lucretius.
3 2 4
Critical Essays
I desired to leave in the English all the uncertainty of the
Greek: but my critic is unencumbered with such cares.
Hitherto I have been unwillingly thrown into nothing but
antagonism to 1\lr Arnold, who thereby at le3.st adds tenfold
value to his praise, and makes me proud when he declares
that the structure of my sentences is good and I-lomeric.
For this I give the credit to my n1etre, which alone confers
on 111e this cardin31 advantage. But in turn I will compli,
Jnent !\lr Arnold at the expense oÍ son1e other critics. He
does know, and they do not, the difference of þO'ZiJillg
and .}"JJloulh. ...1. mountain torrent is flowing, but often very
rough; such is I-Iomer. The" staircases of Neptune" on
the canal of L
nguedoc are smooth, but do not flow: you
have to descend abruptly froln each level to the next. It
would be unjust to say absolutely, that such is rope's s11100th-
ness; yet often, I feel, this ccn
ure would not be too severe.
The rhyme forces hin1 to so frequent a change of the
non1inative, that he becomes painfully discontinuous, where
IIomer is what Aristotle calls" long-linked." At the same
time, in our language, in order to impart a flowing style,
good structure does not suffice. A principle is needed, un-
known to the Greeks; viz. the natural divisions of the
sentence oratorically, must coincide with the divisions of
the verse 111usically. To attain this alwa}'s in a long poem,
is very difficult to a translator who is scrupulous as to tan1per-
ing with the sensc. I have not always been successful in
this. But before any critic passes on me the general sentence
that I an1 "deficient in flow," let him count up the proportion
of instances in which he can justly make the complaint, and
n1ark whether they occur in elevated passages.
I shall now speak of the peculiarities of IllY diction, under
three heads: I. old or antiquated words; 2. coarse words
expressive of outward actions, but having no moral colour;
3. words of which the sense has degenerated in n10dern days.
I. !\1r Arnold appears to regard what is antiquated as
ignoble. I think him, as usual, in fundamental error. In
general the nobler words come from ancient style, and I
in no case can it be said that old words (as such) are ignoble.
To introduce such terms as whereat, therifro1n, quuth, be-
holden, steed, erst, anon, anent, into the n1idst of style which
in all other respects is modern and prosaic, would be like to
that which we often hear from half-educated people. The
Reply to l\latthew Arnold
3 2 5
want of harrrlony nlakes us regard it as low-n1inded and un-
couth. Fron1 this cause (as I suspect) has stolen into
lr
Arnold's nlind the fallacy, that the words then1selves are
uncouth. I But the words are excellent, if only they are in
proper keeping with the general style.-N ow it is very
possible, that in SOUle passages, few or nlany, I anl open to
the charge of having mixed old and new style unskilfully ;
I but I cannot adlnit that the old ,yords (as such) are ignoble.
Noone speaks of Spenser's dialect, nay, nor of Tho111S0n'S;
although with Tho111S0n it was assunled, exactly as by me,
but to a far greater extent, and without any such necessity
as urges me. As I have stated in my preface, a broad
tinge of antiquity in the style is essential, to make I-Iomer's
barharic puerilities and eccentricities less offensive. (Even
1\lr Arnold would admit this, if he adrnitted nlY fizets: but
he denies that there is anything eccentric, antique, quaint,
barbaric in I-Iolner: that is his on!;J way of resisting nlY
conclusion.) If
Ir Gladstone were able to give his valuable
tinle to \York out an entire Iliad in his refined modern style,
I feel confident that he would find it inlpossible to deal
faithfully with the eccentric phraseology and ,\-ith the
negligent parts of the lJoeu1. I have the testinlony of an
unfriendly reyiewer, that I am the first and only translator
that has dared to give HOITIer's constant epithets and not
conceal his ÎornlS of thought: of course I could not have
done this in lTIodern style. The lisping of a child is well
enough froIll a child, but is disgusting in a full-grown n1an.
Cowper and Pope systenlatical
y cut out from HOlner what-
ever they cannot nlake stateb', and harn10nise with nlodern
style: even 1\lr Brandreth often shrinks, though he is brave
enough to say ox-eyed Juno. \Vho then can doubt the ex-
treme unfitness of their metre and of their modern diction?
I I <10 not see that T\Ir .Arnold has any right to reproach tile, because
he does not know Spenser's word "bragly" (wh 1 C'h I may have us
d
twice in the Iliad), or Dryden's word" plump," {or a mass. The former
is so near in sound to brag and braw, that an Englishman who is once
told that it means "proudly fine," ought thencef0Twarù to find it very
intelligible: the latter is a noble modification of the vulgar lump. That
he can carp as he does against these words and against bulkitz (= young
bullock) as unintelligible, is a testimony how little I have imposed oi
difficulty on my readers. Those who know lambkin cannot find bulkin
very hard. Since writing the above, I see a learned writer in the
Philological 1\1 useum illustrates í1\'1} by the old English phrase "a
plump of spears."
3 26
Cri tical Essavs
J
My opposers never fairly meet the argument. Mr Arnold,
when most gratuitously censuring my mild rendering of
Y..uvòs- xaxo,u",vr/.J)f)U lxouoi(J'Ij''Jjç , does not dare to S1t ffff est anv
/... :> ðc') "J
English for it hÙ1lselJ
Even IVIr Brandreth skips it. It is
not rnerely offensive words; but the purest and simplest
phrases, as a man's "dear life," "dear knees," or his
"tightly-built house," are a sturn bling-block to translators.
No stronger proof is necessary, or perhaps is possible, than
these phenon1ena give, that to shed an antique hue over
Homer is of first necessity to a translator: without it, z'n-
jllstice is done both to the reader and to the poet. \Vhether
I have managed the styìe well, is a separate question, and
is matter of detail. I may have sometimes done well,
sometimes ill; but I claim that my critics shall judge me
from a broader ground, and shall not pertinaciously go on
comparing my version with modern style, and condemning
me as (what they are pleased to call) inelegant because
it is not like refined modern poetry, ,vhen it specially
avoids to be such. Thev never deal thus with Thol11son
or Chatterton, any m
re than with Shakspeare or
Spenser.
There is no sharp distinction possible between the foreign
and the antiquated in language. vVhat is obsolete with us,
n1ay stil1 live somewhere: as, what in Greek is called Poetic
or HOlneric, may at the same tillle be living Æolic. So,
whether I take a word from Spenser or from Scotland, is
generalIy unimportant. I do not remember more than four
cotch words, which I have occasionally adopted for con-
venience; viz. Callant, young man; Canny, right-minded;
Bonny, handson1e; t.:> Skid, to cry shrilly. A trochaic
word, which I cannot get in English, is sometimes urgently
needed. It is astonishing to me that those who ought to
know both what a large 111ass of antique and foreign-sound-
ing words an Athenian found in Homer, and how many
Doric or Sicilian fornlS as well as Homeric words the Greek
tragedians 011 princiPle brought into their songs, should make
the outcry that they do against my very limited use of that
which has an antique or Scotch sound. Classical scholars
ought to set their faces against the double heresy, of trying
to enforce, that foreign poetry, however various, shall be all
rendered into one English dialect, and that this shaH, in
order of words and in diction, closely approximate to I
Reply to M atthe\v Arnold 3 2 7
polished prose. From an Oxford Professor I should have
expected the very opposite spirit to that which 1fr Arnold
shows. He ought to know and feel that one glory of Greek
poetry is its great internal variety. He admits the principle
that old words are a source of ennoblement for diction,
when he extols the Bible as his standard: for surely he
claims no rhetorical inspiration for the translators. \V ords
which have come to us in a sa",red connection, no doubt,
gain a sacred hue, but they n1ust not be allowed to desecrate
other old and excellent words. 1\'lr Arnold informs his
Oxford hearers that" his Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive."
So the public will judge, if he say that wench, whore, þate,
pot, gin, damn, busybody, audzence, þrincitaNty, generation,
are epical noble words because they are in the Bible, and
that lief, ken, t'n sooth, grim, stal'wart, gait, guise, eld, hie, erst,
are bad, because they are not there. Nine times out of
ten, what are called "poetical" words, are nothing but
antique words, and are made ignoble by 1fr Arnold's
doctrine. His very arbitrary condelnnation of eld, lief, in
sooth, gait, gentle friend in one passage of mine as "bad
words," is probably due to his monomaniac fancy that there
is nothing qua.int and nothing antique in Homer. Excellent
and noble as are these words which he rebukes, excellent
even for Æschylus, I should doubt the propriety of using
them in the dialogue of Euripides; on the level of which
he seems to think Homer to be.
2. Our language, especially the Saxon part of it, abounds
with vigorous monosyllabic ve
bs, and dissyllabic frequenta-
tives derived from them, indicative of strong physical action.
For these words (which, I make no doubt, 1fr Arnold
regards as ignoble plebeians), I claim Quiritarian rights:
but I do not wish them to displace patricians from high
service. Such verbs as sweat, haul, þlu1nþ, maul, yell, bang,
sPlash, s1Jlash, thu1nþ, tug, scud, sþrawl, sþank, etc., I hold (in
their purely physical sense) to be eminently epical: for the
epic revels in descriptions of violent action to which they
are suited. Intense muscular exertion in 'every form,
intense physical action of the surrounding elements, with
intense ascription or description of size or colour;-
together make up an immense fraction of the poem. To
cut out these words is to emasculate the epic. Even Pope
admits such words. l\Iy ere in turning his pages was just
3 28
Critical Essays
now caught by: "They tug, they s\veat." 'Vho will say
that " tug," "sweat" are admissible, but "bang," " sn1ash/'
"sputter" are ina{hnissible? !vIr Arnold resents nlY saying
that Homer is often homely. He is hOIl1ely expressly
because he is natural. The epical diction achnits both the
gigantesque and the honlely: it inexorably refuses the con-
ventiono..l, under which is conlprised a vast mass of what
some wrongly call elegant. But while I justify the use of
homely words in a prinlary physical, I depreciate thenl in
a secondary moral sense. I\'1r Arnold clearly is dull to this
distinction, or he would not utter against me the foHowing
taunt, p. 263 :
" To grunt alld S11'eat under a 'Zt'eary load does perfectly
well \"here it COlnes in Shakspeare: but if the translator of
I-Ion1er, who will hardly have wound up our minds to the
pitch at which these words of I-Iamlet find them, were to
employ, ,,,"hen he has to speak of l-Ionler's heroes under the
load of calanlity, this figure of 'grunting' and' sweating,'
we should say, He l'leZVIi2anisfs."
1\1:r Arnold here not only nlakes a mistake, he propagates
a slander; as if I had ever used such \,"ords as .!;rltlzt and
SZf..Ieat morai1y. If HOl1ler in the Iliad spoke of grunting
swine, as he does of sweating steeds, so should I. As the
coarse metap1,ors here quoted from Shakspeare are utterly
opposed to (-lomcr's style, to obtrude theln on hin1 would
be a gross offence. !\lr Arnold sends his readers away with
the belief that this is 111Y practice, though he has not dared
to assert it. I bear such coarseness in Shakspeare, not
because I an1 "wound up to a high pitch" by him, "borne
away by a mighty current" (which 1\-1r Arnold, with
ingenious unfairness to Ole, aSSUInes to be certain in a
reader of Shakspeare and all but impossible in a reader of
I-Iomer), but because I know, that in Shakspeare's time all
literature was coarse, as was the speech of courtiers and of
the queen herself. l\'Ir Arnold irnputes to n1e Shakspeare's
coarseness, from which I instincth-ely shrink; and when
his logic leads to the conclusion, "he Shal
3pearises," he
with gratuitous rancour turns it into" he N eWlnanises."
SOlne words which with the 13iblical translators SeelTI to
have been noble, I should not now dare to use in the
primitive sense. For instance, "IIis iniquity shall fall
upon his ownþate." Yet I thinkþate a good metaphorical
Reply to Matthe\v Arnold
3 2 9
word and have used it of the sea-waves, in a bold passage,
II. 13, 795:
Then 6n rush'd théy, with weight and mass like to a troublous
whirlwind,
\Vhich from the thunderc10ud of Jove down on the campa:gn plumpeth,
And doth the briny flood bestir with an unearthly uproar:
Then in the everbrawling sea. full many a billow splashcth,
Hollow, and bald with hoary þate, one racing after other.
Is there really no "mighty current" here, to sweep
off petty criticism?
I have a relTIark on the strong physical word" pIUll1peth "
here used. It is funclan1entally
lilton's "plUlTIP down he
drops ten thousand fathoo1 deep;" þlumb and þlunp in
this sense are clear1v the saine root. I confess I have not
been able to find the 'l'erb in an old writer, though it is so
conlmon now. Old writers do not say" to plumb ùown,"
but" to droþ plu111b down." Perhaps in a second edition
(if I reach to it), I may aìter the words to "plulnb . . .
droppeth " on this ground; but I do turn sick at the
mawkishness of critics, one of whom, who ought to know
better, tells me that the word plump ren1inds him " of the
crinolined hoyden of a boarding-school I' !! If he had
said, "It is too like the phrase of a sailor, of a peasant,
of a schoolboy," this objection would be at least in-
telligible. I-Iowe;-er: the word is intended to express the
vio/ellt ii/pact of a bo..ly desCflldÙzg from. alojl, and it does
express it. .
Ir ...t\rnold censures me for representing Achilles as
yelling. lIe is depicted by the poet as in the n10st violent
physical rage, boiling over with passion and wholly uncon-
trouIed. tIe smacks his two thighs at once; he rolls
on the grounù, 1tJ.
,,/a; fksy(/.,ì.
ðT;; he defiles his hair with
dust; he rends it ; he grinds his teeth; fire flashes from
his eyes; but-he n1ay not "yell," that would not be
comme il fau! ! \Ve shall agree, that in peace nothing so
becomes a hero as nlodest stillness; but that" Peleus' son,
insatiate of cOlnbat," full of the fiercest pent-up passion,
should vent a little of it in a yell, seems to me quite
in place. That the Greek iúxwlI is not necessarily to be so
rendered, I an1 a ware; but it is a very vigorous word, like
þeal and shriek; neither of which would here suit. I
sometimes render it skirl: but "battle-yell" is a received
33 0
Critical Essays
rightful phrase. Achilles is not a stately Virgilian þiuJ
Æ1leas, but is a far wilder barbarian.
After I\ Ir Arnold has laid upon me the sins of Shakspeare,
he amazes me by adding, pp. 263, 264: "The idioillatic
language of Shakspeare, such language as 'prate of his
whereabout,' 'ju1nþ the life to come,' 'the damnation of his
takillg-ojf,' 'quietus l1take with a bare bodkin,' should be
carefully observed by the translator of Hon1er; although in
every case he will haye to decide for hin1self, whether the
use, by hin1, of Shakspeare's liberty, will or will not clash
'
Tith his indispensable duty of nobleness."
Of the Shakspearianisms here italicised by :1\1:r Arnold,
there is not one which I could endure to adopt. " llis
whereabout," I regard as the flattest prose. (fhe word
þrate is a plebeian which I admit in its own low places; but
how 1'1r Arnold can approve of it, consistently with his
attacks on nle, I do not understand.) Damnation and
Taking-off (for Guilt and 1Iurder), and Jump, I absolutely
reject; and "quietus make" would be nothing but an
utterly inadmissible quotatioll from Shakspeare. Jumþ as
an active verb is to me monstrous, but JUlllþ is just the
sort of modern prose word which is not noble. Leaþ,
BOltlld, for great action, Skip, Frisk, Galnbol for smaller,
are all good.
I have shown against 1fr Arnold-(I) that Homer was
out-and-out antiquated to the Athenians, even when
perfectly understood. by theln; (2) that his conceptions,
silniles, phraseology and epithets are habitually quaint,
strange, unparalleled in Greek literature; and pardonable
only to selnibarbarism; (3) that they are intinlately
related to his noblest excellences; (4) that many words
are so peculiar as to be still doubtful to us; (5) I have
indicated that some of his descriptions and conceptions
are horrible to us, though they are not so to his barbaric
auditors; (6) that considerable portions of the poern are
not poetry, but rhythmical prose like I-Iorace's Satires, and
are interesting to us not as poetry but as portraying the
manners or sentiments of the day. I now add (7) what is
inevitable in all high and barbaric poetry, perhaps in all
high poetry, nlany of his energetic descriptions are ex-
pressed in coarse physical 1.()ords. I do not here attempt
proof, for it might need a treatise: but I give one ill us-
Reply to lVIatthe\v Arnold 331
tration; II. 13, 136, TgWE; 'iTgo
7'u
av ÙOÀÀ&E,. Cowper,
misled by the 'ignis fatuus of "stateliness," renders it
absurdly
The þow'rs of Ilium gave the first assault,
EmbaltÙd close;
but it is strictly, "The Trojans knocked-fordJard (or, thumped,
butted, forward) in close pack.'J The verb is too coarse for
later polished prose, and even the adjective is very strong
(packed together). I believe, that " Forward in pack the
Troians þitch'd/' would not be really unfaithful to the
Homeric colour; and I n1aintain that "Forward in
mass the Troians pitch'd," would be an irreprovable
rendering.
Dryden in this respect is in entire harmony with Homeric
style. No critic deals fairly with me in isolating any of
these strong words, and then appealing to his readers
whether I an1 not ignoble. Hereby he deprives file of the
år
v, the "mighty current" of
Ir Arnold, and he mis-
states the problem; which is, 'whether the word is suitable,
then and there, for the ,,"ark required of it, as the coalman
at the pit, the clown in the furrow, the huntsman in the
open field.
3. There is a sn1all nun) ber of words not natural
plebeians, but patricians on which a most unjust bill of
attainder has been passed, which I seek to reverse. On
the first which I name, 1\lr Arnold will side with file,
because it is a Biblical word, wench. In Lancashire I
believe that at the age of about sixteen a "girl" turns into
" a wench," or as we say "a young won1an." In IIon1er,
" airl" and "Voun!! woman" !\re alike inadnlissible'
b .I D --- ,
" Inaid " or " maiden" wiìl not always suit, and "wench))
is the natural word. I do not know that I have used it
three times, but I claim a right of using it, and protest
against allowing the heroes of slang to deprive us of
excellent words by their perverse misuse. If the in1agina-
tions of some lllefi are always in satire and in low slang, so
much the worse for them: but the more we yield to such
demands, the 1110re will be exacted. I expect, before long,
to be told that brick is an ignoble word, meaning a jolly
fellow, and that sell, cut are out of place in Homer. l\ly
n1etre, it seems, is inadmissible with some, because it is
33 2
Cri tical ESSa)7S
the n1etre of Yankee Doodle! as if Hon1er's metre were
not that of the l\Iargites. Every noble poem is liable to be
travestied, as the Iliad and Æschylus and Shakspeare have
been. Every burlesque writer uses the noble metre, and
caricatures the noble style. 1'vir Arnold says, I must not
render f'av
t;(f;tïr)..O; "trailing-rob'd," because it reminds him
of "long petticoats sweeping a dirty pavement." \Vhat a
confession as to the state of his imagination! \Vhy not, of
" a queen's robe trailing on a marble pavement" ? Did he
never read
I '\ ' , . \ "')/! ?
'7r'=t;;"^ov fJJEV xaTsxEUEV Eal-Oll r,ra
go; H" O\JuEI
I haye digressed: I return to words which have been
misunderstood. A second word is of more importance,
IJlzþ,. which properly Ineans a Graft. T'he best translation
of ;}j A
òa
Ëgvoç to my 111ind, is, "0 In1p of Leda! " for
neither" bud of Leda," nor "scion of Leda" satisfy me;
much less "sprig" or "shoot of Leda." The theological
writers so often used the phrase" il11p of Satan" for" child
of the deviJ," that (since Bunyan?) the vulgar no longer
understand that inzþ means scion, child, and suppose it to
mean "little deviL" A Reviewer has omitted to give his
unlearned readers any explanation of the word (though I
carefully explained it) and calls down their indignation upon
n1e by his censures, which I hope proceeded from careless
ness and ignorance.
Even in Spenser's Fairy Queen the word retains its right-
ful and noble sense:
'VeIl worthy imp! then said the lady, etc.,
and in North's Plutarch,
" He took upon hin1 to protect him from theln all, and I
not to suffer so goodly an z'mp [Alcibiades] to lose the good
fruit of his youth."
Dryden uses the verb, To imp; to graft, insert.
I was quite aware that I claimed of my readers a certain
strength of mind, when I bid them to forget the defilements
which vulgarity has shed over the noble word Imp, and
carry their imaginations back two or three centuries: but I
did not calculate that any critic would call Dainty grotesque.
'fhis word is equivalent in meaning to Delicate and Nice,
but has precisely the epical character in which both those
l{eply to lVlatthe,v Arnold
333
words are deficient. For instance, I say, that after the
death of Patroclus, the coursers "stood Inotionless, "
DroolJing tõwãrd the ground their heads, and down their plaintive
eyelids
Did warm tears trick1e to the ground, their charioteer bewailing.
Defilèd were their daÙzty manes, over the yoke-strap droppiI
g.
A critic who objects to this, has to learn English frOlTI my
translation. Does he imagine that Dainty can mean nothing
"but "over-particular as to food"?
In the compound Dainty-cheek'd, H0111er shows his own
epic peculiarity. It is imitated in the similar word etr;;-ágCfo;
applied to the Gorgon 1vIedusa by Pindar: but not in the
Attics. I have son1ewhere read, that the rudest conception
of female beauty is that of a brilliant red Plump cheek; such
as an English clown adn1Îres (was this what Pindar n1eant ?) ;
the second stage looks to the delicacy of tint in the cheek
(this is I-Iomer's xaì.ì./1:'ágpJ;:) the third looks to shape
(this is the E
/LogrpO' of the Attics, the forlllOsus of the Latins,
and is seen in the Greek sculpture); the fourth and highest
looks to moral expression: this is the idea of Christian
Europe. That HOlner rests exclusively in the second or
semibarbaric stage, it is not for n1e to say, but, as far as I
am able, to give to the readers of my translation nlaterials
for their own judgment. Fronl the vague word sIòo;, sþecies,
aPþearance, it cannot be positively inferred whether the poet
had an eye for Shape. The epithets curl-eyed and fine-
ankled decidedly suggest that he had; except that his
applicaticn of the former to the entire nation of the Greeks
makes it seCln to be of foreign tradition, and as unreal as
brazen-mailed.
Another word which has been ill-understood and ill-used,
is daÞPer. Of the epithet dappergreav'd for iijXH;/Û; I
certain1y am not enanloureù, but I have not yet found a
better rendering. It is easier to carp at nlY phrase, than to
suggest a better. The word daþjer in Dutch = Gennan
tapjer j and like the Scotch Z,ra7v or blG'i/e n1cans ,vith us
ji71
, gal/ant, eíega1l/. I have read the line of an old poet,
The dapper words wlJich Im-crs m:e,
for elegant, I suppose; and so "the dapper docs" and
4C dapper eh-es" of I\1ilton n1ust refer to elegance or refined
334
Cri tical Essa)rs
beauty. 'Vhat is there I ignoble in such a word? " Ele-
gant" and " pretty" are inadn1issible in epic poetry:
"dapper" is logically equiyalent, and has the eþze colour.
Neither "fair" nor "comely" here suit. As to the school
translation of "wellgreav'd," every common Englishman on
hearing the sound receives it as "w
llgrieved," and to me it
is very unpleasing. A part of the mischief, a large part of
it, is in the word greave; for daþþer-girdled is on the whole
well-received. But what else can we say for greave?
leggings? gan1 bados ?
1-Iuch perhaps ren1ains to be learnt concerning H0111er's
perpetual epithets. 1Iy very learned colleague Goldstücke,
Professor of Sanscrit, is convinced that the epithet cow-e.,l'ed
of the flo111eric Juno is an echo of the notion of 1-I indoo poets,
that (if I remember his statement) "the sunbeams are the
cows of heaven." The sacred qualities of the Hindoo cow
are perhaps not to be forgotten. I have Inyself been struck
by the phrase òÚ'.ïrS':'EO
r,:or:-á,uolo as akin to the idea that the
Ganges falls from Mount 11eru, the Hindoo Olympus.
Also the meaning of two other epithets has been revealed
to me from the pictures of Hindoo ladies. First, curl-e)'ed,
to which I have referred above; secondly, ros)!-jingered
Aurora. For Aurora is an "Eastern lady"; and, as such,
has the tips of her fingers dyed rosy-red, whether by
henna or by some more brilliant drug. 'Vho shall say
that the kings and warriors of flomer do not derive from
the East their epithet "Jove-nurtured"? or that this
or that goddess is not called "golden-throned" or "fair-
throned" in allusion to Assyrian sculptures or painting, as
Rivers probably drew their later poetical attribute "bull-
headed " from the sculpture of fountains? It is a fan1iliar
renlark, that H0111er's poetry presupposes a vast pre-existing
art and n1aterial. 11uch in hiln was traditional. Many of
his wild legends can1e fron1 Asia. He is to us much beside
a poet; and that a translator should assume to cut him
down to the standard of n10dern taste, is a thou
ht which
all the higher minds of this age have outgrown. How nluch
better is that reverential Docility, which with simple and
innocent wonder, receives the oddest notions of antiquity as
nlaterial of instruction yet to be revealed, than the self-
J I observe that Lord L}'ltelton renders Milton's daþjere!fby paO'"ò.,
"softly moving."
Reply to 11attlle\v Arnold
335
complacent Criticism, which pronouncing everything against
modern taste to be grotesque I and contemptible, squares
the facts to its own" Axioms" ! HOlner is noble: but this
-or that eþithet is ?lot noble: therefore we must exþlode it fro1/1,
Honler I I value, I maintain, I struggle for the" high a
priori road" in its own place; but certainly not in historical
literature. To read Homer's own thoughts is to wander in
a world abounding with freshness: but if we insist on tread-
ing round and round in our own footsteps, we shall never
ascend those heights whence the strange region is to be
seen. Surely an intelligent learned critic ought to inculcate
on the unlearned, that if they would get instruction from
Homer, they must not expect to have their ears tickled by
a n1usical sound as of a namby-pamby poetaster; but must
look on a metre as doing its duty, when it "strings the
mind up to the necessary pitch" in elevated passages; and
that instead of deo1anding of a translator everywhere a
rhythmical perfection which perhaps can only be attained
by a great sacrifice of higher qualities, they should be
willing to submit to a small part of that ruggedness, which
11r Arnold cheerfully bears in Homer himself through the
loss of the Digamn1a. And now, for a final protest. To be
stately is not to be grand. Nicolas of Russia n1ay have been
.stately like Cowper, Garibaldi is grand like the true Homer.
A diplolllatic address is stately; it is not grand, nor often
noble. To expect a translation of Homer to be pervadÙlg!y
elegant, is absurd; HOlner is not such, any more than is the
side of an Alpine n1ountain. The elegant and the picturesque
are seldom identica1, however much of delicate beauty may
be interstudded in the picture5ique; but this has always got
plenty of what is shaggy and uncouth without which contrast
the full delight of beauty would not be attained. I think
lYloore in his characteristic way tells of a beauty
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till love falls asleep in the sameness of spleI!dour.
I :Mr Arnold calls it an unfortunate sentence of mine: "I ought to
be quaint; I ought not LO be grotesque." I am disposed to think him
right, but for reasons very opposite to those which he assigns. I have
" unfortunately" given to querulous critics a cue for attacking me
unjustly. I should rather have said: h \Ve ou
ht to be quaiut, and
not to shrink from that which the fastidious modern will be sure to call
,grotesque in English, when he is too blunted by habit, or too poor a
scholar to discern it in the Greek."
33 6
Critical Essays
Such certainly is not Homer's. His beauty, when at its
height, is u 1 zïd beauty: it sn1ells of the nlountain and of the
sea. If he be con1pared to a noble ani mal, it is not to such
a spruce rubbed-down Newmarket racer 3S our smooth trans-
lators would pretend, but to a wild horse of the l)on
Coss3.cks: and if I, instead of this, present to the reader
nothing but a Dandie l)inmont's pony, this, as a first ap-
proximation, is a valuable step towards the true solution.
Before the best translation of the Iliad of which our
language is capable can be produced, the English public has
to unlearn the false notion of I-lomer which his deliberately
faÜhless versifiers have infu3ed. Chapman's conceits unfit
his translation for instructing the public, even if his rhylhll1
" jolted" less, if his structure were sinlpler, and his dialect
more intelligible. 1\1 y version, if allowed to be read, will
prepare the public to receive a version better than nline. I
regard it as a question about to open hereafter, whether a
translator of 110mer ought not to adopt the old diss)' Babic
landis" houndis, hartis, etc., instead of our modern un-
melodious lands, hounds, harts,. whether the )'e or y before
the past participle may not be restored; the want of which
confounds that participle with the past tense. Even the
final -en of the plural of verbs (we dancen, they singen, etc.)
still subsists in Lancashire. It deserves consideration
whether by a/no such slight gran1rnatical retrogressions into
antiquity a translator of I-Ionler might not add n1uch n1eloà}V
to his poem and do good service to the langl1az
.
XII
LAST WORDS ON TRANSLATING HO!\IER
A REPLY TO FRANCIS 'V. NEWMAN
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD
"
Iulti, qui persequuntur me, et tribulant me: a testimoniis non
declinavi. "
BUFFON, the great French naturalist, imposed on himself
the rule of steadily abstaining from all answer to attacks
made upon him. "J e n'ai jamais répondu à aucune critique,"
he said to one of his friends who, on the occasion of a certain
criticism, was eager to take up arms in his behalf; "je n'ai
jamais répondu à aucune critique, et je garderai Ie mên1e
silence sur celle-ci." On another occasion, when accused
of plagiarism, and pressed by his friends to answer, "II vaut
mieux," he said, "laisser ces mauvaises gens dans l'incer.
titude." Even when reply to an attack was made successfully,
he disapproved of it, he regretted that tl
ose he esteemed
should nlake it. i\lontesquieu, more sensitive to criticism
than Buffon, had answered, and successfully answered, an
attack nlade upon his great work, the Esprit des Lois, by
the Gaz
tÙr Jallséniste. This Jansenist .Gazetteer was a
periodical of those times, a periodical such as other times,
also, have occasionally seen, very pretentious, very aggressive,
and, when the point to be seized was at all a delicate one,
very apt to miss it. " Notwithstanding this example," said
Buffon, who, as well as 11ontesquieu, had been attacked by
the Jansenist Gazetteer, "notwithstanding this example, I
think I may promise my course will be different. I shall
not answer a single word."
And to anyone who has noticed the baneful effects of the
controversy, with all its train of personal rivalries and hatreds,
on men of letters or men of science; to anyone who has ob-
served how it tends to irnpair, not only their dignity and
repose, but their productive force, their genuine activity;
how it always checks the free play of the spirit, and often
337
338 Critical Essays
ends by stopping it altogether; it can hardly seem doubtful
that the rule thus imposed on himself by Buffon was a wise
one. His own career, indeed, admirably shows the wisdom
of it. That career was as glorious as it was serene; but it
owed to its serenity no small part of its glory. The regularity
and completeness with which he gradually built up the great
work which he had designed, the air of equable majesty which
he shed over it, struck powerfully the imagination of his
contemporaries, and surrounded Buffon's fame with a peculiar
respect and dignity. "He is," said Frederick the Great of
him, H the man who has best deserved the great celebrity
which he has acquired." And this regularity of production,
this equableness of temper, he maintained by his resolute
.disdain of personal controversy.
Buffon's example seems to me worthy of all imitation, and
:in my humble way I mean always to follow it. I never have
replied, I never will reply, to any literary assailant; in such
"encounters tempers are lost, the world laughs, and truth is
;.Dot served. Least of all should I think of using this Chair
as a place from which to carryon such a conflict. But
when a learned and estimable man thinks he has reason to
complain of language used by me in this Chair, when he
attributes to me intentions and feelings towards him which
are far from my heart, I owe him some explanation, and I
am bound, too, to make the explanation as public as the
words which gave offence. This is the reason why I revert
once more to the subject of translating Homer. But being
thus brought back to that subject, and not wishing to occupy
you solely with an explanation which, after all, is 1fr. N ew-
man's affair and mine, not the public's, I shall take the
opportunity, not certainly to enter into any conflict with
anyone, but to try to establish our old friend, the coming
translator of Homer, yet a little firmer in the positions
which I hope we have now secured for him; to protect him
against the danger of relaxing, in the confusion of dispute,
his attention to those matters which alone I consider im-
portant for him; to save him from losing sight, in the dust
of the attacks delivered over it, of the real body of Patroclus.
He will probably, when he arrives, requite my solicitude
very ill, and be in haste to disown his benefactor: but my
interest in him is so sincere that I can disregard his probable
ngra ti tude.
Last Words
339
First, however, for the explanation. 1-1 r Newman has
published a reply to the remarks which I made on his
translation of the Iliad. He seems to think that the respect
which at the outset of those remarks I professed for him
must h3.ve been professed ironically; he says that I use
" forols of attack against him which he does not know how
to characterise;" that I "speak scornfully U of him, treat
him with "gratuitous insult, gratuitous raneour;" that I
"propagate slanders" against him, that I wish to " damage
hinl with my readers," to "stimulate OlY readers to despise t,
him. He is entirely mistaken. I respect :rvlr Newman
sincerely; I respect him as one of the few learned men we
have, one of the few who love learning for its own sake;
this respect for him I had before I read his translation of
the Iliad, I retained it while I was commenting on that
translation, I have not lost it after reading his reply. Any
vivacities of expression which nlay have given him pain I
sincerely regret, and can only assure him that I used them
without a thought of insult or rancour. 'Vhen I took the
liberty of creating the verb to l\
w1Jlanise, my intentions
were no more rancorous than if I had said to Mlltonise;
when I exclailned, in my astonishment at his vocabulary,
"\Vith whom can 1fr Newman have lived?" I meant
merely to convey, in a familiar form of speech, the sense of
bewilderment one has at finding a person to whom words
one thought all the world knew seem strange, and words
one thought entirely strange, intelligible. Yet this simple
expression of my bewilderment 1fr N ewnlan construes into
an accusation that he is "often guilty of keeping low
company," and says that I shall "never want a stone to
throw at him." And what is stranger still, one of his friends
gravely tells me that 1'Ir Newman" lived with the fenows of
Balliol." As if that made Mr N ewn1an's glossary less inex-
plicable to me! As if he could have got his glossary from
the fellows of Balliol! As if I could believe that the
members of that distinguished society, of whose discourse,
not so many years afterwards, I myself was an unworthy
hearer, were in !vIr Newman's tinle so far removed from the
Attic purity of speech which we all of us admired, that when
one of them called a calf a bulkin, the rest" easily under-
stood IJ him; or, when he wanted to say that a newspaper-
article was" proudly fine," it mattered little whether he said
34 0
Cri tical Essa:ys
it was that or bragly I No; his having lived with the fellows
of Balliol does not explain ?vIr Newman's glossary to Ine. 1
will no longer ask "with whom he can have lived," since
that gives him offence; but I must still declare that where
he got his test of rarity or intelligibility for words is a Il1ystery
to me.
1'hat, however, does not prevent me from entertaining a
very sincere respect for l\fr Newman, and since he doubts
it, I am glad to reiterate my expression of it. But the
truth of the matter is this: I unfeignedly admire lvlr N ew-
man's ability and learning; but I think in his translation of
Homer he has employed that ability and learning quite
amiss. I think he has chos
n quite the wrong field for
turning his ability and learning to account. I think that in
England, partly fron1 the want of an AcadenlY, p.1.rtly from
a national habit of intellect to which that want of an
AcadenlY is itself due, there exists too little of what I may
call a public force of correct literary opinion, possessing
within certain linlits a clear sense of what is right anù
wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling IHen of
ability and learning fron1 any flagrant misdirection of these
their advantages. I think, even, that in our country a
powerful ll1isdirection of this kind is often more likclj to
subjugate and pervert opinion than to be checked and
corrected by it. I Hence a chaos of false tendencies, wasted
efforts, impotent conc1usions, works which ought never to
have been undertaken. Anyone who can introduce a lhtle
order into this chaos by establishing in any quarter a single
sound rule of criticism, a single rule which clearly marks
what is right as right, and what is wrong as wrong, does a
good deed; and his deed is so n1uch the better the greater
force he counteracts of learning and ability applied to thicken
the chaos. Of course no one c=:tn be sure that he has fixed
any such rules; he can only do his best to fix them; but
I U It is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement. but of a juñg-
ment which I think far more masculine than !\Ir Arnold's, have passed
a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of my translation. I
at present count eight such names."-" Before n
nturing to print, I
.sought to ascertain how unlearned women and children would accept
my verses. I could boast how children and half-educated women have
extolled them, how greedily a working man has inquired for them,
'\vithout knowing who was the translator. "-!'viR NEWMAN'S Reply,
pp. 276, 283 sUþra.
Last \Vards
34 1
somewhere or other, in the literary opinion of Europe, if
not in the literary opinion of one nation, in fifty years, if
not in five, there is a final judglnent on these matters, and
the critic's work will at last stand or fall by its true merits.
feanwhile, the charge of having in one instance mis-
applied his powers, of having once followed a false tendency,
is no such grievous charge to bring against a man; it does
not exclude a great respect for hin1self personally, or for
his powers in the happiest manifestations of them. False
tendency is, I have said, an evil to which the artist or the
man of letters in England is peculiarly prone; but every-
where in our time he is liable to it,-the greatest as well
as the humblest. "The first beginnings of my IVilhelm
ilIeÙter," says Goethe, "arose out of an obscure sense of
the great truth that man will often attempt something of
which nature has denied him the proper powers, will under-
take and practise son1ething in which he cannot becolne
skilled. An inward feeling warns him to desist" (yes, but
there are, unhappily, cases of absolute judicial blindness!),
"nevertheless he cannot get clear in himself about it, and
is driven along a false road to a false goal, without knowing
how it is with him. To this we may refer everything which
goes by the name of false tendency, dilettantism, and so
on. A great many men waste in this way the fairest portion
of their lives, and fall at last into wonderful delusion." Yet
after aU, Goethe adds, it sOllletimes happens that even on
this false road a man finds, not indeed that which he sought,
but something which is good and useful for him; "like
Saul, the son of Kish, who went forth to look for his father's
asses, and found a kingdom." And thus false tendency as
well as true, vain effort as well as fruitful, go together to
produce that great movement of life, to present that inl-
mense and magic spectacle of human affairs, which from
boyhood to old age fascinates the gaze of every man of
imagination, and which would be his terror, if it were not
at the same time his delight.
So l\Ir Newn1an may see how wide-spread a danger it is,
to which he has, as I think, in setting himself to translate
Homer, fallen a prey. He may be well satisfied if he can
escape from it by paying it the tribute of a single work only.
He may judge how unlikely it is that I should U despise JI
him for once falIing a prey to it. I know far too well how
34 2
Critical Essay's
exposed to it we all are; how exposed to it I myself am.
At this very l110l11ent, for exa111ple, I an1 fresh fro In reading
Mr NeW111an'S Reply to my Lectures, a reply full of that
erudition in which (as I am so often and so good-naturedly
rel11inded, but indeed I know it without being reminded)
l\Ir N eWl1lan is i111measurably my superior. 'V ell, the
demon that pushes us all to our ruin is even now prompting
me to follow 1\fr Newman into a discussion about the
digaml11a, and I know not what providence holds me back.
And some day, I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the
language of the Berbers, and give him his entire revenge.
But 1\lr N eWlnan does not confine himself to complaints
on his own behalf, he c0l11plains on Homer's behalf too.
He says that l11Y "statements about Greek literature are
against the most notorious and elementary fact;" that I
, do a public wrong to literature by publishing them; J) and
that the Professors to whom I appealed in l11Y three
Lectures, "would only lose credit if they sanctioned the
use I Inake of their nanles." He does these enlinent nlen
the kindness of adding, however, that "whether they are
pleased with this parading of their names in behalf of
paradoxical error, he 11lay well doubt," and that" until they
endorse it thel11Selves, he shall treat Iny process as a piece
of forgery." He proceeds to discuss my statements at great
length, and with an erudition and ingenuity which nobody
can adn1ire more than I do. And he ends by saying that
my ignorance is gre3.t.
Alas! that is very true. 1Iuch as 1\1r N eWl11an was l11is-
taken when he talked of my rancour, he is entirely right
when he talks of my ignorance. And yet, perverse as it
seems to say so, I s0111etiines find nl)'self wishing, when
dealing with these matters of poetical criticism, that my
ignorance were even greater than it is. To handle these
matters properly there is needed a poise so perfect that the
least overweight in any direction tends to destroy the
balance. 1"enlper destroys it, a crotchet destroys it, even
erudition may destroy it. To press to the sense of the
thing itself with which one is dealing, not to go off on SOl1le
collateral issue about the thing, is the hardest 111atter in the
world. 1'he" thing itself 11 with which one is here dealing,
the critical perception of poetic truth, is of all things the
most volatile, elusive, and evanescent; by even pressing too
Last \V ords
343
impetuously after it, one runs the risk of losing it. The
critic of poetry should have the finest tact, the nicest
moderation, the most free, flexible, and elastic spirit
inlaginable; he should be indeed the " ondoyant et
divers," the undulating and diverse being of 110ntaigne.
The less he can deal with his object simply and freely,
the nlore things he has to take into account in dealing
with it, the lTIOre, in short, he has to encumber hÜnself, so
111uch the greater force of spirit he needs to retain his
elasticity. But one cannot exactly have this greater force
by wishing for it; so, for the force of spirit one has, the
load put upon it is often heavier than it will well bear. The
late Duke of \Vellington said of a certain peer that "it was
a great pity his education had been so far too much for his
abilities." In like manner, one often sees erudition out of
all proportion to its owner's critical faculty. Little as I know,
therefore, I am always apprehensive, in dealing with poetry,
lest even that little should prove" too much for my abilities."
'Vith this consciousness of my own lack of learning, nay,
with this sort of acquiescence in it, with this belief that for
the labourer in the field of poetical criticism learning has its
disadvantages, I anl not likely to dispute with 1fr Newman
about matters of erudition. All that he says on these
matters in his Reply I read with great interest; in general
I agree with him; but only, I am sorry to say, up to a
certain point. Like all learned men, accustonled to desire
definite rules, he draws his conclusions too absolutely; he
wants to include too much under his rules; he does not
quite perceive that in poetical criticism the shade, the fine
distinction, is everything; and that, when he has once
missed this, in all he says he is in truth but beating the air.
F or instance: because I think Homer noble, he imagines I
must think hinl elegant; and in fact he says in plain words
that I do think him so, that to me Honler seems "pervading1y
elegant." Eut he does not. Virgil is elegant, "pervadingly
elegant," even in passages of the highest emotion:
0, ubi campi,
Spercheosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacænis
Taygeta ! 1
1 "0 for the fields of Thessaly and the streams of Spercheios! 0
for the hills alive with the dances of the Laconian maidens, the hills 01
Taygetus ! "-Georgics, ii. 486.
344 Critical E
says
Even there Virgil, though of a divine elegance, is still
elegant, but Homer is not elegant; the word is quite
a wrong one to apply to him, and !\Ir NewIllan is quite
right in blaming anyone he finds so applying it. Again;
arguing against IllY assertion that Homer is not quaint, he
says: "It is quaint to call waves wet, milk 'il. 1 hite, blood
dusky, horses sl'lgle-hoofed, words "lvÍ1lged, v"'ulcan Lobjoot
(KuÎ,Ào<;,;,oòíCtJIi), a spear /ollgshado'Zvy," and so on. I find I
know not how many distinctions to draw here. I do not
think it quaint to call waves wet, or milk 'Zvhite, or words
winged / but I do think it quaint to call horses single-hoofed,
or Vulcan Lolfoot, or a spear IOllgshadowy. As to calling
blood dusky, I do not feel quite sure; I will tell l\lr
Newman my opinion when I see the passage in which he
calls it so. But then, again, because it is quaint to call
Vulcan Lob/oot, I cannot admit that it was quaint to call hin1
KUÀ}.Oï.oòíCtJv; nor that, because it is quaint to call a spear
10 llgJhadowy, it was quaint to call it òoì.IX/dY.IOV. lIere
Mr N eWIl1an's erudition misleads hiln: he knows the literal
value of the Greek so well, that he thinks his literal
rendering identical with the Greek, q,nd that the Greek
must stand or fall along with his rendering. nut the real
question is, not whether he has given us, so to speak, full
change for the Greek, but hOlo he gives us our change: we
want it in gold, and he giyes it us in copper. .Again:" It
is quaint," says 1Ir Newman, "to address a young friend as
, 0 Pippin!' it is quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom
boys are belabouring." Here, too, l\Ir Newman goes 111uch
too fast, and his category of quaintness is too cOl11prehensive.
'fo address a young friend as "0 Pippin!" is, I cordially
agree with hiIll, very quaint; although I do not think
it was quaint in Sarpedun to address G laucus as
'iTÉ'7ror:
but in c0l11paring, whether in Greek or in English, ,Ajax to
an ass 'Nhom boys are belabouring, I do not see that there
is of necessity anything quaint at all. Again; because I
said that eld, lie}; in sooth, and other words, are, as l\fr
Newman uses them in certain places, bad words, he
in1agines that I nlust mean to stan1p these words with an
absolute reprobation; and because I said that U n1Y
Bibliolatry is excessive," he in1agines that I brand all words
as ignoble which are not in the Bible. N ot
ing of t
e
kind: there are no such absolute rules to be laId down In
Last vVords
345
these matters. The Bible vocabulary is to be used as
an assistance, not as an authority. Of the words which,
placed where rvrr !
ewman places them, I have called bad
words, everyone may be excellent in some other place.
Take elrl, for instance: when Shakspeare, reproaching man
with the dependence in which his youth is passed, says :.
all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and cloth beg the alms
Of palsied e/d, . . .
it seems to me that e!d con1es in excellently there, in a
passage of curious nleditation; but when I\[r N ewn1an
renders å'ì'
g
,r' àða
áT'" orE by "fr01l1 E!d and Dcath ex-
empted," it seems to me he infuses a tinge of quaintness
into the transparent simplicity of I-Iomer's expression, and
so I call eld a Lad word in that place.
Once nlore.
Ir N ewnlan lays it down as a gen
ral rule
that" nIany of I-Io111er's energetic descriptions are expressed
in coarse physical words." He goes on: "I give one
illustration,-Tg
E' 'irgQ
'T'u+ru åoì-.ì.ÉE,. Cowper, n1Ïsled by
the ignis jatl/us of 'stateliness' renders it absurdly:
The powers of lJium gave the first assault
Embattled close;
but it is, strictly, 'The Trojans knocker! fOl'u'ard (or,
thumped, butted forward) in close jack.' The verb is t00
coarse for later polished prose, and even the adjective is
very strong (Packed togetlzer). I believe that 'forward in
pack the 1'rojans pitched,' would not be really unfaithful to
the I-Iomeric colour; and I maintain that' forward in mm;s
the Trojans pitched,' wou!d be an irreprovable rendering."
I-Ie actually gives us aU that as if it were a piece of scientific
deduction; and as if, at the end, he had arrived at an in-
controvertible conclusion. nut, in truth, one cannot settle
these nlatters quite in this way. Mr Newman's general rule
may be true or false (I dislike to meùdle with general rules),
but every part in what follows lTIUst stand or fall by itself,
and its soundness or unsoundness has nothing at all to do
with the truth or falsehood of l\Ir NeW111an'S general rule.
lIe first gives, as a strict rendering of the Greek, "'[he
'frojans knocked forward (or, thumped, butted forward), in
close pack." I need not say that, as a "strict rendering of
the Greek," this is good; all 11r Newman's "strict render-
34 6
Critical Essays
ings of the Greek," are sure to be, as such, good; but cc in
close pack," for åOÀÀÉES, seems to me to be what Mr. New-
man's renderings are not always,-an excellent poetical
rendering of the Greek; a thousand times better, certainly,
than Cowper's U embattled close." \Vell, but 1vIr. Newman
goes on: "I believe that, 'forward in pack the Trojans pitched,
would not be really unfaithful to the Homeric colour."
Here, I say, the Homeric colour is half washed out of Mr.
Newman's happy rendering of åOÀÀÉES; while in " pitched"
for 7rpOvTvý;av, the literal fidelity of the first rendering is
gone, while certainly no Homeric colour has come in its
place. Finally, Mr. Newman concludes: U I maintain that
, forward in mass the Trojans pitched,' would be an irre-
provable rendering." Here, in what
fr. Newman fancies
his final moment of triumph, Homeric colour and literal
fidelity have alike abandoned him altogether; the last stage
of his translation is much worse than the second, and im
measurably worse than the first.
.A.ll this to show that a looser, easier method than Mr.
Newman's must be taken, if we are to arrive at any good
result in these questions. I now go on to follow 1\-fr. N ew-
man a little further, not at all as wishing to dispute with him,
but as seeking (and this is the true fruit we may gather fron1
criticisms upon us) to gain hints from him for the establish-
ment of some useful truth about our subject, even when I
think him wrong. I still retain, I confess, my conviction
that Homer's characteristic qualities are rapidity of move-
ment, plainness of words and style, simplicity and directness
of ideas, and, above all, nobleness, the grand manner.
\Vhenever }'fr. Newman drops a word, awakens a train of
thought, which leads me to see any of these characteristics
more clearly, I am grateful to him; and one or two sugges-
tions of this kind which he affords, are all that now, having
expressed my sorrow that he should have misconceived my
feelings towards him, and pointed out what I think the vice
of his method of criticism, I have to notice in his Reply.
Such a suggestion I find in !vIr. Newman's remarks on my
assertion that the translator of Homer must not adopt a
quaint and antiquated style in rendering him, because the
impression which Homer makes upon the living scholar is
not that of a poet quaint and antiquated, but that of a poet
perfectly simple, perfectly intelligible. I added that we
Last Words
347
cannot, I confess, really know how Homer seemed to
Sophocles, but that it is impossible to me to believe that he
I seemed to him quaint and antiquated. 11r Newman asserts,
on the other hand, that I am absurdly wrong here; that
IIomer seemed U out and out" quaint and antiquated to
the Athenians; that" every sentence of him was more or
less antiquated to Sophocles, who could no more help
feeling at every instant the foreign and antiquated character
of the poetry than an Englishnlan can help feeling the same
in reading Burns' poems." And not only does
lr Newman
say this, but he has nlanaged thoroughly to convince S0111e
of his readers of it. "Homer's Greek," says one of then1,
U certainly seemed antiquated to the historical tin1es of
Greece. 1\fr Newman, taking a far broader historical and
philological view than Mr Arnold, stoutly maintains that it
did seem so." And another says: U Doubtless Homer's
dialect and diction were as hard and obscure to a later Attic
Greek as Chaucer to an Englishman of our day."
Mr Newman goes on to say, that not only was Homer
antiquated relatively to Pericles, but he is antiquated to the
living scholar; and, indeed, is in himself "absolutely
antique, being the poet of a barbarian age." He tells us of
his "inexhaustible quaintnesses," of his "very eccentric
diction 1 " and he infers, of course, that he is perfectly right
in rendering him in a quaint and antiquated style.
N ow this question, whether or no Homer seen1ed quaint
and antiquated to Sophocles, I call a delightful question to
raise. It is not a barren verbal dispute; it is a question
(( drenched in matter," to use an expression of Bacon; a
question full of flesh and blood, and of which the scrutiny,
though I still think we cannot settle absolutely, may yet
give us a directly useful result. To scrutinise it nlay lead
us to see more clearly what sort of a style a modern trans-
lator of Homer ought to adopt.
Homer's verses were sonle of the first ,yords which a
young Athenian heard. He heard them from his mother or
his nurse before he went to school; and at school, when he
went there, he was constantly occupied with them. So much
did he hear of them that Socrates proposes, in the interests
of morality) to ha ve selections from Homer made, and
placed in the hands of mothers and nurses, in his model
republic; in order that, of an author with whom they were
34 8
Critical Essays
sure to be so perpetually conversant, the young might learr
only those parts which might do thern good. [-lis language
was as fanliliar to Sophocles, we may be quite sure, as the
language of the Bible is to us.
Nay, more. HOlner's language was not, of course, in the
tilne of Sophocles, the spoken or written language of
ordinary life, any nlore than the language of the Bible, any
more than the language of poetry, is with us; but for onc
great species of conlposition, epic poetry, it was still the
current language; it was the language in which everyone
.vho made that sort of poetry composed. Everyone at
Athens who dabbled in epic poetry, not only understood
I-lonlcr's language, he possessed it. lIe possessed it as
everyone who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what
may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished
fronl the vocabulary of COlllmon speech and of Inoderl1
prose: I Inean, such expressions as þerchance for fer.
.a/.,',
spake for sþoke, ll)'e for ever, don for put on, Úíarllléd for
char1n'd, and thousands of others.
.i nlight go to Burns and Chaucer, and, taking words and
passages fronl thenl, ask if they afforded any parallel to a
language so fanliliar and so possessed. But this I will not
do, for l\Ir Newman himself supplies Ine with what he thinks
a fair parallel, in its effect upon us, to the language of
IIo111er in its effect upon Sophocles. He says that such
words as tnol1, IOlzdis, libbard, witholt/en, 11luclzel, give us a
tolerable but incomplete notion of this parallel; and he
finally exhibits the parallel in all its clearness, by this
poetical specimen:
Dat mon, quhicb hauldcth Kyngis af
Landis yn féo, niver
(I tell 'e) íeerelh aught;
ith hee
Doth hauld h)'s londis yver.
Now, does 1fr Newman real1y think that Sophocles could,
as he says, "no n10re help feeling at every instant the
foreign and antiquated character of Ifomer, than an English-
man can help feeling the same in hearing these lines" ? Is
he quite sure of it? He says he is; he will not allow of
any doubt or hesitation in the nlatter. I had confessed we
coiIld not rerrlly know how I{omer seenled to Sophocles;
"Let :ßlr Arnold confess for himself/' cries
Ir N eWl11ê.ln,
Last Words
349
"and not for me, who know perfectly well." And this is
what he knows!
1fr N eWlnan says, however, that I U play fallaciously on
the words familiar and unfamiliar; U that "Homer's words
may have been fan1Ïliar to the Athenians (i,e. often heard)
even when they were either not understood by them or else,
being understood, were yet felt and known to be utterly
foreign. Let my renderings," he continues, "be heard, as
Pope or e,-en Cowper has been heard, and no one will be
· surprised.' "
But the whole question is here. The translator must
not aSSU111e that to have taken place which has not taken
place, although, perhaps, he nlay wish it to have taken place,
namely, that his diction is becolne an established possession
of the minds of men, and therefore is, in its proper place,
familiar to them, will not "surprise" them. If Hon1er's
langu:lge was fall1iliar, that is, often heard, then to his
langu:lge words like IOlldis and libbard, which are not
familiar, oITer, for the translator's purpose, no parallel. For
SOl1le purpose of the philologer they may oOer a pa.rallel to
it; for the translator's purpose they offer none. The
question is not, whether a diction is antiquated for
current speech, but whether it is antiquated for that
particular purpose for which it is enlployed. A diction that
is antiquated for COlnmon speech and comlnon prose, may
very well not be antiquated for poetry or certain special
kinds of prose. "Peradventure there shall be ten found
there," is not antiquated for Biblical prose, though for
conversation or for a newspaper it is antiquated. "The
trUl1lpet spake not to the arméd throng," is not antiquated
for poetry, although we should not write in a letter, "he
sþaÆe to me," or say, "the British soldier is arméd with the
Enfield rifle." But when language is antiquated for that
particular purpose for which it is employed, as nun1bers of
Chaucer's words, for instance, are antiquated for poetry, such
language is a bad representative of language which, like
IIon1er's, was never antiquated for that particular purpose
for which it was enlployed. I in1agine that rr"/_'iïáòECd for
TIr,i-.síòou, in Horner, no more sounded antiquated to
Sophocles, than arméd for ar11z'd, in Milton, sounds anti-
quated to us; but Mr N ewn1an's withou/en and muchcl do
sound to us antiquated, even for poetry, and therefore they
35 0
Critical Essays
do not correspond in their effect upon us with IIonler's
words in their effect upon Sophocles. \Vhen Chaucer, who
uses such words, is to pass current alnongst us, to be
farniliar to us, as Homer was fan1Ïliar to the Athenians, he
has to be nlodernised, as \V ordsworth and others set to
work to modernise hirn; but an Athenian no nlore needed
to have HOlner lnodernised, than we need to have the Bible
modernised, or ,V ordsworth hiinseif.
Therefore, when i\Ir N ewn1an's words bragly, bufkin, and
the rest, are an established possession of our minds, as
Homer's words were an established possession of an
Athenian's mind, he may use them; but not till then.
Chaucer's words, the words of Burns, great poets as these
were, are yet not thus an established possession of an
Englislllnan's mind, and therefore they n1ust not be used
in rendering Homer into English.
1fr Newman has been misled just by doing that which
his admirer praises him for doing, by taking a "far broader
historical and philological view than ll1ine." Precisely
because he has done this, and has applied the "philo-
logical view" where it was not applicable, but where the
"poetical view" alone was rightly applicable, he has fallen
into error.
It is the same with him in his remarks on the difficulty
and obscurity of Honler. Homer, I say, is perfectly plain in
speech, siluple, and intelligible. And I infer from this that his
translator, too, ought to be perfectly plain in speech, siinple,
nd intelligible; ought not to sa}', for instance, in render-
Ing
" , ,. , ,. Ò '
O;J....s xs
E tJ'iÛ.i.OI.'M ,UU%1J" E' xu IU":lgu
. . .
"Nor liefly thee would I advance to nlan-ennobling battle,"
-and things of that kind.
Ir N eWlnan hands me a list of
S0111e twenty hard words, invokes Buttnlann, :ßlr l\falden,
and I\I. Benfey, and asks n1e if I think 111yself wiser than all
the world of Greek scholars, and if I am ready to supply the
deficiencies of Liddell and Scott's Lexicon I But here,
again, l\Ir N eWlllan errs by not perceiving that the question
is not one of scholarship, but of a poetical translation of
Honler. 1'his, I say, should be perfectly sinlple and in-
telligible. He replies by telling nle that &.ò:
ò" ij^í';;'OÒi
,
and arlui.6;1; are hard words. \r ell, Lut what does he
Last Words
35 1
infer from that? That the poetical translation, in his
rendering of them, is to give us a sense of the difficulties oi
the scholar, and so is to make his translation obscure? If
he does not n1ean that, how, by bringing forward these hard
, words, does he touch the question whether an English
version of HOlller should be plain or not plain? If
, Homer's poetry, as poetry, is in its general effect on the
poetical reader perfectly simple and intelligible, the un-
certainty of the scholar about the true meaning of certain
words can never change this general effect. Rather will the
poetry of IIomer make us forget his philology, than his
philology make us forget his poetry. It may even be
affirnltd that everyone who reads Honler perpetually for the
sake of enjoying his poetry (and no one who does not so
read him will ever translate him well), COUles at last to fornl
a perfectly clear sense in his own rnind for every in1portant
word in Horner, such as àÒHG;, or
).;ßa'T'o;, whatever
the scholar's doubts about the word n1ay be. And this
sense is present to his rnind with perfect clearness and
fulness, whenever the word recurs, although as a scholar he
may know that he cannot be sure whether this sense is the
right one or not. But poetically he feels clearly about the
word, although philologically he n1ay not. The scholar in
him may hesitate, like the father in Sheridan's play; but
the reader of poetry in hinl is, like the governor, fixed.
The san1e thing happens to us with our own language.
How n1any words occur in the Bible, for instance, to which
thousands of hearers do not feel sure they attach the pre-
cise real n1caning; but they make out a meaning for them
out of what materials they have at hand; and the words,
heard over and over again, come to convey this meaning
with a certainty which poetically is adequate, though not
philologically. How many have attached a clear and
poetically adequate sense to "the bea1n" and" the mole,"
though not precisely the right one! flow clearly, again,
have readers got a sense from
Iiltol1's words, " grate on their
scra1lnel pipes," who yet might have been puzzled to write
a conln1entary on the word scrannel for the dictionary! So
we get a cltar sense from åòJliò; as an epithet for grief,
after often meeting with it and finding out all we can about
it, even though that all be philologically insufficient; so we
get a clear sense from EÌÎ.f'!:()òs; as an epithet for
35 2
Critical Essays
cows. And this his clear poetical sense about the words,
not his philological uncertainties about them, is what the
translator has to convey. \Vords like bragly and bulkin
offer no parallel to these words; because the reader, from
his entire want of familiarity with the words bragly and
bufkin, has no clear sense of then1 poetically.
Perplexed by his knowledge of the philological aspect of
I-Iomer's language, encumbered by his own learning, l\[r
N eWl11 an, I say, 11lisses the poetical aspect, misses that with
which alone we are here concerned. "I-Iomer is odd," he
persists, fixing his eyes on his own philological analysis of
,uw
u
, and ,u
go+
, and KtJÀÀ09:'oòíwy, and not on these words
in their synthetic character ;-just as Professor :r
rax l\I üller,
going a little farther back, and fixing his attention on the
elementary value of the word
tJïá:-1jg, might say lIoBler
was "odd" for usin o thai word .-" if the whole Greek
b ,
nation, by long fan1iliarity, had become inobseryant of
Homer's oddities," of the oddities of this" noble barbarian,"
as 1fr Newman elsewhere calls him, this" noble barbarian"
with the" lively eye of the sayage," "that would be no fault
of mine. That would not justify l\[r Arnold's blame of Ine
for rendering the words correctly." Correc"':l',-ah, but
'wh3.t is correctness in this case? This correctness of his is
the very rock on which 1fr N eWlTIan has split. I-Ie is so
correct that at last he finds peculiarity everywhere. 'I'he
true knowledge of I-Io111er becomes at last, in his eyes,
knowledge of IIot11er's "peculiarities, pleasant and un-
pleasant." Learned n1en know these "peculiarities/' and
Homer is to be translated because the unlearned are im-
patient to know thenl too. "That," he exclaillls, "is just
why people want to read an English !-Iomer, 10 kno'ilJ all his
oddities, just as learned 1/ten do. JJ l-Iere I alTI obliged to
shake my head, and to declare that, in spite of all Iny
respects for 1Ir N eWlnan, I cannot go thcse lengths with
hiln. lIe talks of nlY "nl0n0111aniac fancy that there is
nothing quaint or antique in IIonlcr." 1'errible learning, I
cannot help in my turn exc1ailning, terrible learning, which
discovers so much!
Here, then, I take my leaye of l\[r Newman, retaining my
opinion that his version of Honler is spoiled by his making
1l0111er odd and ignoble; but haying, I hope, sufficient love
for literature to be able to canvass works without thinkinJ:.t
Last \V ords
353
of persons, and to hold this or that production cheap,
while retaining a sincere respect, on other grounds, for its
author.
In fulfilment of my promise to take this opportunity for
giving the translator of l-Iomer a little further advice, I pro-
ceed to notice one or two other criticisms which I find, in
like IHanner, sltg
eslh'e; "hich give us an opportunity, that
is, of seeing n10re clearly, as we look into them, the true
principles on which translation of I-Io111er should rest. This
is all I seek in criticisms; and, perhaps (as I have already
said) it is only as one seeks a positive result of this kind,
that one can get any fruit fron1 them. Seeking a negative
result from them, personal altercation and '''Tangling, one
gets no fruit; seeking a positive result, the elucidation and
establishment of one's ideas, one Inay get much. Even bad
criticisnls may thus be nlade suggestive and fruitful. I
declared, in a former lecture on this subject, my conviction
that criticism is not the strong point of our national
literature. 'V ell, even the bad criticisms on our present
topic which I nleet with, sen"e to illustrate this conviction
for me. And thus one is enabled, even in reading remarks
which for l-Iomeric criticism, for their in1mediate subject,
have no value, which are far too personal in spirit, far too
in1moden
te in temper, and far too heavy-handed jLJ Etyle,
for the delicate matter they have to treat, still to gain light
and confirmation for a serious idea, and to follow the
Daconian injunction, semþer aliquid addiscere, always to be
adding to one's stock of observation and knowledge. Yes,
even when we haTe to do with writers who, to quote the
words of an exquisite critic, the master of us all in criticism,
l\L Sainte-Beuve, remind us, when they handle such subjects
as our present, of "Rornans of the fourth or fifth century,
coming to hold forth, all at random, in African style, on
papers found in the desk of Augustus, l\Iæcenas, or Pollio, JJ
even then we may instruct ourselves if we may regard
iùeas and not persons; eyen then we may enable ourselves
to say, with the same critic describing the effect Inade
upon him by Ð'.A..rgenson's JIemoirs: "l\Iy taste is re-
volted, but I learn s0111ething; Je suis choqué mais je suis
Í!zstruit."
But let us pass to criticisms which are suggestive directly
and not thus indirectly only, criticislllS by examining which
M
354
Critical Essays
we may be brought nearer to what inunediately interests us,
the right way of translating Homer.
I said that Homer did not rise and sink with his subject,
was never to be called prosaic and lo\v. This gives surprise
to many persons, who object that parts of the Iliad are
certainly pitched lower than others, and who remind n1e of
a nunlber of absolutely level passages in HOlller. But I
never denied that a s1I1Jject n1ust rise and sink, that it must
have its elevated and its level regions; all I deny is, that a
poet can be said to rise anù sink when all that he, as a
poet, can do, is perfectly well done; when he is perfectly
sound and good, that is, perfect as a poet, in the level
regions of his subject as well as in its elevated regions.
Indeed, what distinguishes the greatest nlasters of poetry
fron1 all others is, that they are perfectly sound and poetical
in these level regions of their subject, in these regions which
are the great difficulty of all poets but the very greatest,
which they never quite know what to do with. A poet may
sink in these regions by being falsely grand as well as by
being low; he sinks, in short, whenever he does not treat
his matter, whatever it is, in a perfectly good and poetic
way. But, so long as he treats it in this way, he cannot be
said to s'ink, whatever his Dlatter may do. A passage of the
simplest narrative is quoted to me froll1 I-Iomer:-
W'l'ftJlleJI òÈ É'xaO'Toli Èr,;'OIX6{J;SIIOÇ ì'7rÉEO'O'III,
l\IÉO'tJÀ7'JJI 'l'S, rÀa;jxóJI ...-e, l\lfòQJlTá ...-e, EJSP61"A O X ÖJI ...5 .1
and I am asked, whether Homer does not sink there;
whether he "can have intended such lines as those for
I poetry? " 11 Y answer is: Those lines are very good poetry
indeed, poetry of the t est class, in that þlace. But when
Wordsworth, having to narrate a very plain matter, tries 1l0t
to sink in narrating it, tries, in short, to be what is falsely
called poetical, he does sink, although he sinks by being
P0111POUS, not by being low.
Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught,
""hile crossing 1\.fagdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Carn,
And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn.
That last line shows excellently how a poet may sink with
I Iliad, xvii. 216.
Last \ V ords
355
his subject by resolving not to sink with it. A page or two
farther on, the subject rises to grandeur, and then \Yords-
I worth is nobly worthy of it:
The antechapel, where tbe statue stood
Of Newwn with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.
But the supreme poet is he who is thoroughly sound and
poetical, alike when his subject is grand, and when it is
plain: with hin1 the subject may sink, but never the poet.
But a Dutch painter does not rise and sink with his subject;
Defoe, in .Afoll Flalldtrs, does not rise and sink with his
subject, in so far as an artist cannot be said to sink who is
sound in his treatment of his subject, however plain it is:
yet Defoe, yet a Dutch painter, may in one sense be said to
sink with their subject, because though sound in their treat-
ment of it, they are not poetical, poetical in the true, not the
false sense of the word; because, in fact, they are not in the
gra.nd style. HOl1ler can in no sense be said to sink with
his subject, because his soundness has something more than
literal naturalness about it; because his soundness is the
soundness of Homer, of a great epic poet; because, in fact,
he is in the grand style. So he sheds over the simplest
matter he touches the charm of his grand manner; he
makes everything noble. Nothing bas raised more question.
ing among my critics than these words, fzoble, the grand s
'JJle.
People complain that I do not define these words sufficiently,
that I do not tell them enough about them. "The grand
style, but what is the grand style? U they cry; some with an
inclination to believe in it, but puzzled; others mockingly
and with incredulity. Alas! the grand style is the last
matter in the world for verbal definition to deal with
adequately. One may say of it as is said of faith: "One
must feel it in order to know what it is." But, as of faith,
so too one may say of nobleness, of the grancl style: "\V oe
to those who know it not! " Yet this expression, though
indefinable, has a charm j one is the better for considering
it; bonum, est, nos hie esse,. nay, one loves to try to explain it,
though one knows that one n1ust speak in1perfectly. For
those, then, who ask the question, \Vhat is the grand style?
with sincerity, I will try to make son1e answer, inadequate
3
6
,-J
Critical Essays
as it 111USt be. For those who ask it mockingly I have no
answer, except to repeat to them, with compassionate sorrow,
he Gosp
l words: iJforiemÙzi ill þeccatis vestris, Ye shall die
1n your SIns.
But let me, at anyrate, have the pleasure of again giving,
before I begin to try and define the grand style, a specimen
of what it is.
Standing on earth, not wrapt ahove the pole,
l\Iore safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though [all'n on evil days,
On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues. . . .
There is the grand style in perfection; and anyone who has
a sense for it, will feel it a thousand times better froIn
repeating those lines than from hearing an),thing I can say
about it.
Let us try, however, wh
t can be said, controlling what
we say by exau1ples. I think it will be found that the
grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, þoetically
gift!d, treats 'ilJith shllþlkitl' or with severitv a serious suå.iect.
I think this definition will be found to cover all instances of
the grand style in poetry which present themselves. I think
it will be found to exclude all poetry which is not in the
grand style. And I think it contains no terms which are
obscure, which themselves need defining. Even those who
do not understand what is Ineant by calling poetry noble,
will understand, I imagine, what is meant by speaking of a
noble nature in a man. But the noble or powerful nature
-the bedeutendes IndividuU11Z, of Goethe-is not enough.
For instance, 1Ir Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for
thinking, zeal for liberty, and all these things are noble, they
ennoble a man; but he has not the poetical gift: there
must be the poetical gift, the" divine faculty," also. And,
besides all this, the subject must be a serious one (for it is
only by a kind of licence that we can speak of the grand
style in comedy); and it must be treated 'llJiih Sil1lþlicity or
severity. Here is the great difficulty: the poets of the
world have been many; there has been wanting neither
abundance of poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures;
but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so circum-
stanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style,
perfect in simplicity or perfect in severity, has been ex-
Last \V ords
357
tremely rare. One poet has had the gifts of nature and
faculty in unequalled fulness, without the circumstances
and training which make this sustained perfection of style
possible. Of other poets, some have caught this perfect
strain now and then, in short pieces or single lines, but
hale not been able to nlaintain it through considerable
works; others have cOl11posed all their productions in a style
which, by comparison with the best, one lllust call secondary.
The best J110del of the grand style simple is I-Ionler;
perhaps the best 1110del of the grand style se'-ere is 11ilton.
But Dante is renlark3.ble for affording adnlirable examples
of both styles; he has the grand style which arises frOlll
sÏ1npl i city, and he has the grand style which arises frOD1
seyerity; and fron1 hirn I will illustrate them both. In a
forDler lecture I pointed out what that severity of poetical
style is, which comes from saying a thing with a kind of in-
tense compression, or in an illusive, brief, 3.1n10st haughty
way, as if the poet's mind were charged with so 111an)' and
such grave matters, that he would not deign to treat anyone
of them explicitly. Of this severity the last line of the
following stanza of the PurgafolJ' is a good example. Dante
has been telling Forese that Virgil had guided him through
lIeU, and he goes on :
Indi m' han tratto su gli suoi conforti,
Salendo e rigirando 130
Iontagna
Chc drizza voi ehe Ü mondo feee torti. 1
" Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, clilnbing and
circling the
lountain, zf.I!LÍrh straighlr:lls J'OU whom th.e 'world
made crool?ed." rrhese last words, "la 110ntagna cJ
e drizza
voi clle il1nolldo flee lortz/' "the J\Iountain 'ivhiol straighte1ls
you zt,hom the
(Jo,.ld made c1'ùoked," for the ßlountain of
Purgatory, I call an excellent specilnen of the grand style in
severity, where the poefs Dlind is too full charged to suffer
him to speak Illore explicitly. nut the very next stanza is a
beautiful specimen of the grand style in simplicity, where a
noble nature and a poetical gift unite to utter a thing with
tbe n10st linlpid plainness and clearness:
Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna
Ch' io sarò là dove fia Bcat1Ïce;
Quivi cOllvien ch
senza lui rimagna. 2
1 Fursafo1Y, xxiii. 12 4_
J! Furgator)', xxiii. 12 7.
35 8
Cri tical Essa\Ts
"So long," Dante continues, "so Jong he (Virgil) s:1ith he
will bear me company, unti] I shall be there where Be3.trice
is; there it behoves that without him I remain." But the
noble simplicity of that in the Italian no words of mine can
render.
Both these styles, the simple and the severe, are truly
grand; the severe seems, perhaps, the grandest, so long as
we attend most to the great personality, to the noble nature,
in the poet its author; the simple seems the grandest when
we attend most to the exquisite faculty, to the poetical gift.
But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. It is the more
11lagÙ:al: in the other there is something intellectual, some-
thing which gives scope for a play of thought which may
exist where the poetical gift is either wanting or present in
only inferior degree: th
severe is much more iInitable, and
this a little spoils its charm. A kind of semblance of this
style keeps Young going, one may say, through all the nine
parts of that most indifferent production, the IVight Thoughts.
Eut the grand style in sin1plicity is inimitable:
, " "), ,
rL'ClJr a(f
rx^'Yj
,,, .". A ' ' ò ' "),-
O\JX
í'H'':'' ou.,. /Cl.X/ Cf 'i':'apa rr'7^
/,
" "/1' ,
'\ ' ' ß ....
(Hj7'f 'ifap av'nt1=
J KavlJ.'f- ^SYOV':"rJ.1 p.,av pO'rCl)
H, ß C , '-" \ ,
D/.. 6\1 Ut;;'Ep7rJ.,'r'OV (jf (í%
n.', 01 'Õe xal %pu()rl,/J.t;(uxCIJ
/i/Û
'::'o,UEl,lãv Èv ÕpEl 1\lo/O"ãv, X(Û Èv É'::'T(t,'i:'ÚÀOI,
" .. r.:Jo. ' ß I
UIOV "J
Cl./
. . .
There is a limpidness in that, a want of salient points to
seize and transfer, which makes imitation impossible, except
by a genius akin to the genius which produced it.
Greek sin1plicity and Greek grace are inimitable; but it
is said that the Iliad :nay still be bal1ad-poetry while in-
finitely superior to all other ballads, and that, in my specimens
of English ballad-poetry, I have been unfair. \Vell, 110 doubt
there are better things in English ballad-poetry than
N ow Christ thee save, thou proud portér, . . .
but the real strength of a chain, they say, is the strength of
I U A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus the son of Æacus,
nor of the godlike Cadmus; howbeit these are said to have had, of all
mortals, the supreme of happiness, who heard the golden-snooded l\Iuses
sing, one of them on the mountain (Pelion), the other in seven-gated
Thebus. "
Last Words
359
its weakest link; and what I was trying to show you was,
that the English ballad-style is not an instrument of enough
compass and force to correspond to the Greek hexameter;
that, owing to an inherent weakness in it as an epic style, it
easily runs into one or two faults, either it is prosaic and
hUlndrum, or, trying to avoid that fault, and to make itself
lively (se fa ire vij), it becomes pert and jaunty. To show
that, the passage about IZing Adland's porter serves very
well. But these degradations are not proper to a true epic
instrument, such as the Greek hexameter.
You may say, if you like, when you find I-Iomer's verse,
even in describing the plainest matter, neither humdrum nor
jaunty, that this is because he is so incomparably better a
poet than other balladists, because he is Hon1er. But take
the whole range of Greek epic poetry, take the later poets,
the poets of the last ages of this poetry, many of them most
indifferent, Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna,
Nonnus. Never will you find in this instrument of the
hexameter, even in their hands, the vices of the ballad-sty Ie
in the weak moments of this last: everywhere the hexameter,
a noble, a truly epical instrun1ent, rather resists the weakness
of its employer than lends itself to it. Quintus of Smyrna
is a poet of merit, but certainly not a poet of a high order:
with him, too, epic poetry, whether in the character of its
prosody or in tl
at of its diction, is no longer the epic poetry
of earlier and better times, nor epic poetry as again restored
by Nonnus: but even in Quintus of Slllyrna, I say, the
hexameter is still the hexan1eter; it is a style which the
ballad-style, even in the h
nds of better poets, cannot rival.
And in the hands of inferior poets, the ballad-style sinks to
vices of which the hexameter, even in the hands of a Tryphio-
dorus, never can become guilty.
But a critic, whom it is impossible to read without
pleasure, and the disguise of whose initials I alll sure Inlay
be allowed to penetrate,
Ir Spedding says that he "denies
altogether that the metrical moven1ent of the English hexa-
meter has any resernblance to that of the Greek." Of
course, in that case, if the two metres in no respect corre-
spond
praise accoràed to the Greek hexanleter as an epical
instrument will not extend to the English. Me Spedding
seeks to establish his proposition by pointing out that the
system of accentuation differs in the English and in the
"60
Cri tical Essays
Virgilian hexameter: that in the first, the accent and the
long syllable (or what has to do duty as such) coincide, in
the second they do not. He says that we cannot be so
sure of the accent with which Greek verse should be read
as of that with which Latin should; but that the lines of
HOOler in which the accent and the long syilable coincide,
as in the English hexameter, are certainly very rare. He
suggests a type of English héxameter in agreement with
the Virgilian mode], and fornled on the supposition that
"quantity is as distinguishable in English as in Latin or
Greek by any ear that will attend to it." Of the truth of
this supposition he entertains no doubt. 1'he new hexa-
nleter wilJ, 1Ir Sped ding thinks, at least have the merit of
resembling, in its 111etrical moven1ent, the classical hexa-
Ineter, which ll1erit the ordinary English hex
uneter has not.
But even with this improved hexameter he is not satisfied; and
he goes on, first to suggest other nleters for rendering Homer,
and finally to suggest that rendering Horner is impossible.
A scholar to whon1 all who admire Lucretius owe a large
debt of gratitude, l\fr l\Iunro, has replied to ßlr Spedding.
lr 1\funro declares that" the accent of the old Greeks and
Romans resembled our accent only in name, in reality was
essentially different; " tbat "our English reading of Homer
and Virgil has in itsclf no meaning; " and that" accent has
nothing to do with the Virgilial1 hexameter." If this be so,
of course the merit which 1\1r Spedding attributes to his
own hexameter, oÍ really corresponding with the Virgilian
hex::! n1eter, has no existence. Again; in contradiction to
1fr Spedd1ng's assertion that lines in which (in our reading
of theln) the accent and the long syllable coincide, I as in
the ordinary English hexameter, are" rare even in I-Ion1er,"
1ir 1\1 unro declares that such lines, "instead of being rare,
are ::unong the very C01111110nest types of I-Iomeric rhythln."
1\lr Spedding asserts that" quantity is as distinguishable in
English as in Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend to
it ; " but ïvlr Munro replies, that in English" neither his
ear nor his reason recognises any real distinction of quantity
except that which is produced by accentuated and unaccentu-
ated syllables." lIe therefore arrives at the conclusion that in
constructing English hexameters, "quantity must be utterly
I Lines such as the first of the Odys.rey:
· AJlðpa. p,Ol, lJlJlf7rf, ì\IoûO'<<, 7rO'XÚTP07rOJl, ðs p.á.'Xa 7ro^Xà " " .
IJast \V ords
3 61
di5carded; and longer or shorter unaccentuated syllables
can haxe no nleaning, e}..cept so far as they nlay be made to
produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the hands of a master."
It is not for me to interpose between two such com-
batants; and indeed my way lies, not up the highroad
where they are contending, but along a bypath. 'Vith the
absolute truth of their general propositions respecting
accent and quantity, I have nothing to do; it is nlost
interesting and ir.structive to me to hear such propositions
discussed, when it is l\Ir 1Iunro or
I r Spedding who dis-
cusses then1; but I have strictly lin1ited myself in these
Lectures to the 11l1I11ble function of giving practical advice
to the translator of I-Iolner. He, I still think, must not
follow so confidently, as makers of English hexameters
have hitherto followed, 1Ir 1\lunro's maxim, qua n tit)' 'may
be utterly discarded. He must not, like 1Ir Longfellow,
make Se7.1ellteen a dactyl in spite of all the length of its last
syllable, even though he can plead that in counting we lay
the accent on the first syllable of this word. He nlay be
far frorn attaining 1\Ir Spcdding's nicety of ear; nlay be un-
able to feel that "while quantity is a dactyl, quiddity is a
tribrach," and that" raþidlJ1 is a word to which we find no
parallel in Latin;" but I think he n1ust bring himself to
distinguish, with J\fr Spedding, between "th' o'er-wearied
eyelid," and "the wearied eyelid," as being, the one a
correct ending for a hexan1eter, the other an ending with a
false quantity in it; instead of finding, with !\-Ir J\-Iunro,
that this distinction "conveys to his mind no intelligible
idea. J1 He must telnper his belief in
lr ::\lul1ro's dictum,
Ijuantity must be utterly discarded, by n1ixing with it a belief
in this other dictum of the san1e author, /'lvo or more COI
-
SOliants take longer lîme ilt eJlulzciùtÙlg than one. I
1 Substantially, however, in the question at issue between ßlr :Munro
and I\lr Spedding, I agree with l\fr l\[unro. By the italicised words in
the following sentence, "The rhythm of tbe \Yirgi!ian hexameter de-
pends entirely on cæsura, þause, and a due arrangement of words," he
has touched, it seems to me, in the constitution of this hexameter, the
central point which Mr Spedding misses. The accent, or heighle1ttd
tOile, of Virgil in reading his own hexameters, was probably far from
bf"ing the same thing as the accent or stress with which we read them.
The general effect of each line, in Virgil's mouth, was probably there-
fore something widely different from what :Mr Spedding assumes it to
bave been: an ancient's accentual reading was s0melhing which
3 62
Critical ESS3.)7S
Criticism is so apt in general to be vague and impalpable;
that when it gives us a solid and definite possession, such as
is J\tlr Spedding's parallel of the Virgilian and the English
hexan1eter with their difference of acce
tuation distinctly
marked, we cannot be too grateful to it. It is in the way in
which l\fr Spedding proceeds to press his conclusions from
the parallel which he has drawn out, that his criticisn1 seeU1S
to me to conle a little short. Here even he, I think, sho\vs
(if he will allow me to say so) a little of that want of pliancy
and suppleness so common among critics, but so dangerous
to their criticisn1; he is a little too absolute in inlposing his
metrical laws ; he too much forgets the excellent maxim of
1Ienander, so applicable to literary criticislll :-
KaÀ.ôv oi IJÓ,fJJOI d(þóòl EidjV. ó ò' ógwil <ro
; IIt,'./.,O'J'
A/all åxgl(3w;, t1uxocpáll'Tr;
crab-sTal.
II Jjaws are admirable things; but he who keeps his eye too
closely fixed upon them, runs the risk of becoming,)J let us
say, a purist. 1fr Spedding is probably mistaken in suppos-
ing that Virgil pronounced his hexan1eters as Mr Spedding
pronounces them. lie is ahllost certainly mistaken in sup-
posing that Homer pronounced his hexaillcters as 1fr
Spedding pronounce
Virgil's. But this, as I have said, is
not a question for us to treat; all we are here concerned
with is the imitation, by the English hexameter, of the
ancient hexanleter in -its effect uþOfl us 'lnoderns. Suppose
we concede to 1Ir Sped ding that his parallel proves our
accentuation of the English and of the Virgilian hexan1cter
to be different: what are we to conclude fron1 that; how
will a criticism, not a formal, but a substantial criticism, deal
with such a fact as that? \Vill it infer, as 1fr Spedding
infers, that the Eng1ish hexan1eter, therefore, nlust not
pretend to reproduce better than other rhythms the move-
allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far more perceptible
than our accentual reading allows it to be.
On the question as to the real rhythm of the ancient hexameter, 1\1r
Newman has in his Reply a page quite admirable for force and precision.
Here he is in his element, and his ability and acuteness have their
proper scope. But it is true that the modern reading of the ancient
hexameter is what the modern hexameter has to imitale. and that the
English reading of the Virgilian hexameter is as :Mr Sperlding describes
it. \Vhy this rea.ding has not been imitated by the English hexameter,
I have tried to point out in the text.
Last Words
3 6 3
ment of HOlner's hexameter for us, that there can be no
correspondence at all between the moven1ent of these two
hexameters, that if we want to have such a correspondence,
we must abandon the current English hexan1eter altogether,
and adopt in its place a new hexan1eter of 1Ir Spedding's
A.nglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like the
Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia . . .
of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the
Procession, compìex melodies, pause, quantity, accent.
After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order . . .
of 1Ir Spedding? To infer this, is to go, as I have com-
plained of IV!r Newman for sometimes going, a great deal
too fast. I think prudent criticism must certainly recognise,
in the current English hexan1eter, a fact which cannot so
lightly be set aside; it must acknowledge that by this hexa-
lneter the English ear, the genius of the English language,
have, in their own way, adopted, have translated for thenl-
selves the Homeric hexameter; and that a rhythm which
has thus grown up, which is thus, in a manner, the produc-
tion of nature, has in its general type something necessary
and inevitable, something which admits change only within
narrow limits, which precludes change that is sweeping and
essential. I think, therefore, the prudent critic will regard
l\lr Spedding's proposed revolution as simply in1practicable.
He will feel that in English poetry the hexameter, if used at
all, must be, in the main, the English hexameter now current.
He will perceive that its having come into existence as the
representative of the Homeric hexan1eter, proves it to have,
for the English ear, a certain correspondence with the
l-lomeric hexalneter, although this correspondence may be,
from the difference of the Greek and English languages,
necessarily incomplete. This incompleteness he will
endeavour, I as he ll1ay find or fancy hin1self
ble, gradual1y
Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally shifting, in
the first foot of the hexámeter, the accent from the first syllable to the
second. In the current English hexameter, it is on the first. 1Ir
Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert the constitution of this
hexameter, seems not to understand that anyone can propose to modify
it partially; he can comprehend revolution in this metre, but not
reform. Accordingly he asks me how I can bring myself to say, "Bé.
tween that and the ships," or " Thére sat fifty men j" or how I can
3 6 4
Critical Essays
son1ewhat to lessen through minor changes, suggested by
the ancient hexameter, but respecting the general constitu-
tion of the modern: the notion of making it disappear
altogether by the critic's inventing in his closet a new con-
stitution of his own for the English hexan1eter, he will judge
to be a chimerical drean1.
\Vhen, therefore, Mr Spedding objects to the English
hexameter, that it imperfectly represents the movement of
the ancient hexameters, I answer: \Ve must work with the
tools we have. The received English type, in its general
outlines, is, for England, the necessary given type of this
metre; it is by rendering the metrical beat of its pattern,
not by rendering the accentual beat of it, that the Eng1ish
language has adapted the Greek hexameter. To render the
n1etrÍcal beat of its pattern is something; by effecting so
much as this the English hexanleter puts itself in closer
relations ,,,,ith its original, it COInes nearer to its movenlent
than any other metre which does not even effect so n1uch as
this; but l\fr Sped ding is dissatisfied with it for not effecting
more still, for not rendering the accentual beat too. If he
reconcile such forcing of the accent with my own rule, that "hexa-
meters must read themselves." Presently he says that he cannot bdieve
I do pronounce these words so, but that he thinks I ìeave out the accent
in the first foot altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five
accents. He will pardon me: I pronounce, as I suppose he himself
does, if he reads the words naturally, "Between that and the ships,"
and" There sdt fifty men." i\ir Spedding is familiar enough with this
accent on the second syllable in Yirgil's hexameters; in "et II
montosæ," or "Velóces jaculo." Such a change is an attempt to relieve
the monotony of the current English hexameter by occasionally altering
the position of one of its accents; it is not an attempt to make a wholly
new English hexameter by habitually altering tbe position of four of them.
Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt; but at anyrate it does not
violate what I think is the fundamental rule for English hexameters,
that may be such as to read tltemsehJes without necessitating, on the
reader's part, any non-natural putting-on or taking-ofl accent. IIexa-
meters like these of Mr Longfellow,
"In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware'. wate}&,"
and,
"As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they
molested, ,.
violate this rule; and they are very common. I think the blemish of
M:r Dart's recent meritorious version of the Iliad is that it contains too
many of them.
Last Words
3 6 5
asks me why the English hexameter has not tried to render
this too, 1lJhy it has confined itself to rendering the metrical
beat, why, in short, it is itself, and not l\lr Spedding's
new hexameter, that is a question which I, whose only
business is to give practical advice to a translator, am not
bound to answer; but I will not decline to answer it
nevertheless. I will suggest to l\Ir Spedding that, as I ha\"e
already said, the n10dern hexanleter is merely an attempt to
imitate the effect of the ancient hexameter, as read by us
moderns; that the great object of its in1itation has been the
hexameter of Homer; that of this hexameter such lines as
those which 1fr Spedding declares to be so rare, even
in HOlner, but which are in truth so COOlmon, lines in
which the quantity and the reader's accent coincide, are,
for the English reader, just fro111 that simplicity (for him)
of rhythnl which they owe to this very coincidence, the
master-type; that so much is this the case that O:1e
may again and again notice an English reader of HOHler, in
reading lines where his Virgilia.n accent would not coincide
with the quantity, abandoning this accent, and reading the
lines (as we say) b)' quanti!;', reading them as if he were
scanning thelTI; while foreigners neglect our Virgilian
accent even in reading Virgil, read even Virgil by quantity,
nlaking the accents coincide with the long syllables. And
no doubt the hexameter of a kindred language, the Gennan,
based on this Dlode of reading the ancient hexameter, has
had a powerful influence upon the type of its Eng1ish fellow.
But all this shows how extremely powerful accent is for us
lTIoderns, since we find not even Greek and Latin quantity
percep
ible enough without it. Yet in these languages, where
we have been accustonled always to look for it, it is far more
perceptiLle to us Englishmen than in our own language,
where we h.:lve not been accuston1ed to look for it. And
here is the true reason ,'hy
Ir Spedding's hexan1eter is not
and cannot be the current English hexan1eter, even though
it is based on the accentuation which Englishmen give to all
Virgil's lines, and to many of HOlner's,-that the quantity
which in Greek or Latin words we feel, or imagine we feel,
even though it b
unsupported by accent, we do not feel or
imagine we feel in English worùs when it is thus unsupported.
For example, in repeating the Latin line
Ipsa tibi blar..dosfulldent cunabula flores,
366
Critical Essa)ys
an Englishnlan feels the length of the second syllable
of fundtnt, although he lays the accent on the first; but in
repeating l\1r Spedding's line,
Softly cometh slumber closing th' o'erwearied erelid,
the English ear, fuII of the accent on the first syllable
of closing, has really no sense at all of any length in
its second. The metrical beat of the line is thus quite
destroyed.
So ,vhen Mr Spedding proposes a new Anglo-Virgilian
hexameter he proposes an impossibility; when he "denies
altogether that the metrical movement of the English
hexan1eter has any resemblance to that of the Greek,"
he denies too much; when he declares that, "were every
other ll1etre impossible, an attempt to translate Homer into
English hexameters might be pennitted, but that such an
attel1zþt he hi1nself would '/lever read, " he exhibits, it seems to
me, a little of that obduracy and over-vehemence in liking
and disliking,-a renlnant, I suppose, of our insular ferocity,
-to which English criticisll1 is so prone. He ought to be
enchanted to ll1eet with a good attempt in any Dlctre, even
though he would never have advised it, even though
its success be contrary to all his expectations; for it is the
critic's first duty-prior even to his duty of stigmatising
what is bad-to 'l.lJelco1)ze eveJ),thillg that is good. In
welcoming this, he must at all tin1es be ready, like the
Christian convert, even to burn what he used to worship,
and to worship what he used to burn. Nay, but he need
not be thus inconsistent in welcolning it; he may retain all
his principles: principles endure, circulnstances cþange;
absolute success is one thing, relative success another.
Relative success may take place under the n10st diverse
conditions; and it is in appreciating the good in even
relative success, it is in taking into account the change
of circumstances, that the critic's judgn1ènt is tested,
that his versatility n1ust display itself. H_e is to keep
his idea of the best, of perfection, and at the smne time to
be wil1ingly accessible to every second best which offers
itself. So I enjoy the ease and beauty of 1\1 r Spedding's
stanza,
Therewith to all the gods in order due. . .
Last \Vords
3 6 7
I welcome it, in the absence of equal1y good poetry in
another metre, I although I still think the stanza unfit to
render Homer thoroughly well, although I still think other
metres fit to render him better. So I concede to Mr
Spedding tbat every form of translation, prose or verse,
must more or less break up HOlner in order to reproduce
him; but then I urge that that form which needs to break
him up least is to be preferred. So I concede to him that the
test propos
d by me for the translator - a conlpetent
scholar's judgment whether the translation more or less
reproduces for hitn the effect of the original - is not
perfectly satisfactory; but I adopt it as the best we can get,
as the only test capable of being really applied; for 1\1r
Spedding's proposed substitute, the translations making the
same effect, more or less, upon the unlearned which the
ori
rinal makes upon the scholar, is a test ,vhich can never
really be applied at all. These two impressions, that of the
scholar, and that of the unlearned reader, can, practically,
never be accurately compared; they are, and must remain,
like those lines we read of in Euclid, which, though pro-
duced ever so far, can never meet. So, again, I concede
that a good verse-translation of Homer, or, indeed, of any
I As I welcome another more recent attempt in stanza, - !VIr
\Vorsley's version of the Odyssey in Spenser's measure. Mr 'Vorsle
'
does me the honour to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I
had said that its greater intricacy made it a \vorse measure than even
the ten-syllable couplet to emp:oy for rendering Homer. He points-
out, in answer, that" the more complicated the correspondences in a
poetical meagure, the less obtrusive and absolute are the rhym
s.')
This is true, and subtly remarked; but I never denied that the single
hocks of rhyme in the couplet were more strongly felt than those in the
stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence of the same rhyme, in
the stanza, necessarily made this measure more Ùltricate. The stanza
repacks Homer's matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore changes his
movement yet more radically, than the couplet. Accordingly, I
imagine a nearer approach to a perfect translation of Homer is possible
in the couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however well
managed. But meanwhile i\lr \Vorsley, applying the Spenserian
stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, to the most romantic poem of
the ancient world; making this stanza yield him, too (what it never
yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet ease; above all,
bringing to his task a truly poetical sense and skill, has rroduced a
version of the Od)'ssey much the most pleasing of those hitherto pro-
duced, and which is delightful to read.
For the public this may well be enollgh, nay, more than enough; but
for the critic even this is not yet quite enough.
3 68
Critical Essays
poet, is very difficult, and that a good prose-translation is
much easier; but then I urge that a verse-translation, while
giving the pleasure which Pope's has given, might at the
same time render I-lomer more faithfully than Pope's; and
that this being possible, we ought not to cease wishing for a
source of pleasure which no prose-translation can ever hope
to rival.
\Vishing for such a verse-translation of IIomer, believing
that rhythms have natural tendencies which, within certain
limits, inevitably govern thenl; having little faith, therefore,
that rhythms which have manifested tendencies utterly un-
Homeric can so change themselves as to become well
adapted for rendering I-I0111er, I have looked about for the
rhythm which seems to depart least from the tendencies of
I-lomer's rhythrn. Such a rhythm I think l11ay be found in
the English hexan1eter, s0111ewhat n10dified. I look with
hope towards continued atten1pts at perfecting and enlploy-
ing this rhythm; but Iny belief in the imluediate success of
such attenlpts is far less confident than has been supposed.
Between the recognition of this rhythm as ideally the best,
and the recomn1endation of it to the translator for instant
practical use, there 11luSt conIC all that consideration of
CirCU111stances, all that pliancy in foregoing, under the
pressure of certain difiicultics, the absolute best, which I
have said is so indispensable to the critic. 1'he hexanleter
is, conlparati\'ely, still unfan1Íliar in England; 111any people
have a great dislike to it. A certain degree of unfamiliarity,
a certain degree of dislike, are obstacles with which it is not
v\"'Ïse to contend. It is difficult to say at present whether
the dislike to this rhythm is so strong and so wide-sprcad
that it will prevent its ever becoming thoroughly fan11liar. I
think not, but it is too soon to decide. I anI inclined to
think that the dislike of it is rather among the professional
critics than among the general public; I think the reception
which :!\Ir Longfellow's Evangeline has met ,vith inòicates
this. I think that even now, if a version of the Iliad in
English hexameters were nlade by a poet who, like l\-lr
Longfellow, has that indefinable quality which renders hira
popular, sOlnething attradive in his talent, which cOffilnuni-
cates itself to his Ycrses, it would have a great success
Rlnong the general public. Yet a version of HOlner in
Lexanleters of tbe Ez'angeline type" would not satisfy the
Last Words
3 6 9
judicious, nor is the definite establishment of this type to
be desired: and one would regret that 1vlr LongfeUow
should, even to popularise the hexameter, give the in1mc"I1se
labour required for a translation of Homer when one could
not wish his work to stand. Rather it is to be wished that
by tbe efforts of poets like l\fr Longfellow in original poetry,
!lnd the efforts of less distinguished poets in the task of
translation, the hexameter may gradually be made familiar
to the ear of the English public; at the same time that there
gradually arises, out of all these efforts, an in1proved type of
this rhythm; a type which son1e man of genius lTIay sign
with the final stamp, and employ in rendering flomer; a
hexan1eter which may be as superior to V osse's as Shak-
speare's blank verse is superior to Schiller's. I am inclined
to believe that all this travail will actually take place,
because I believe that modenl poetry is actually in want of
such an instrument as the hexameter.
In the meantime, whether this rhythn1 be destined to
success or not, let us steadily keep in lnind what originally
made us turn to it. \Ve turned to it because we required
certain Homeric characteristics in a translation of Ilolner,
and because all other rhythms seenled to find, fronl different
causes, great difficulties in satisfying this our requirement. .
If the hexan1eter is impossible, if one of these other rhythms
mllst be used, let us keep this rhythrn always in mind of our
requirements and of its own faults, let us compel it to get
rid of these latter as much as possible. It may be necessary
to have recourse to blank verse; but then blank verse must
de-Co'Zt1þerise itself, n1ust g
t rid of the habits of stiff self-
retardation which 111ake it say" Not fewer shone,') for" So
many shone." IIomer lTIOVeS swiftly: blank verse can rnove
swiftly if it likes, but it must remember that the movement
of such lines as
A thousand fires were burning, and by each. . .
is just the slow movement which makes us despair of it.
Honler 1110ves with noble ease: blank verse 111ust not be
suffered to forget that the movement of
Came they not over from sweet Lacedæmon. . .
is ungainly. Homer's expression of his thought is simple
as light: we know how blank verse affects such locutions as
\'Vhile the steeds mouthed their corn aloof. . .
37 0
Critical Essays
and such models of expressing one's thought are sophisticatt.-'<l
and artificial.
One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly thð
English transhLtor's attention to the essential characteristics
of HOiner's poetry, when so accomplished a person as .l\lr
Spedding, recognising these characteristics as indeed
flo1ner's, admitting thenl to be essential, is led by the
ingrained habits and tendencies of English blank verse thus
repeatedly to lose sight of theln in translating even a few
lines. One sees this yet more clearly, when
Ir Spedding,
taking me to task for saying that the blank verse used for
rendering I-Iolner "ITlust not be
,Ir rrennyson's blank
verse, JJ declares th::t.t in illost of 1Ir rrennyson's blank verse
anI-Iomer's essentia.l characteristics, " rapidity of moveillent,
þlaillness 0.1 word!J' and style, simPlicil)' and directness 0.1 ideas,
and, above all, nobleness of manner, are as conspicuous as
in Homer hinlself." rrhis shows, it seems to nle, how hard
it is for English readers of poetry, even the most accom-
plished, to feel deeply and permanently what Greek plainness
oÍ thought and Greek silnplicity of expression really are:
they adnIit the importance of these qualities in a general
way, but they have no ever-present sense of thelll; and
they easily attribute them to any poetry which has other
excellent qualities, and which they very much adn1ire. No
doubt there are plainer things in 1Ir rrennyson's poetry
than the three lines I quoted; in choosing them, as in
choosing a specÏ1nen of ballad-poetry, I wished to bring out
clearly, by a strong instance, the qualities of thought and
style to which I was calling attention; but when 1Ir Spedding
talks of a plainness of thought /t'ke .lIollzer's, of a plainness
of speech like .l.IOJJler'S, and says that he finds these con-
stantly in 1Ir Tennyson's poetry, I answer that these I do
not tind there at all. IV!r Tennyson is a most distinguished
and charn1Ïng poet; but the very essential characteristic of
his poetry is, it seems to nIe, an extreme subtlety and
curious elaborateness of thought, an extren1e subtlety and
curious elaborateness of expression. I n the best and most
chJ.racteristic productions of his genius, these character-
istics are most pronlinent. They are marked characteristics,
as we have seen, of the Elizabethan poets; they are nlarked,
though not the essential, characteristics of Shakspeare hinl-
self. Under the influences of the nineteenth centÙrYJ under
Last \V ords
37 1
wholly new conditions of thought and culture, they manifest
themselves in ßlr Tennyson's poetry in a wholly new way.
But they are still there. The essential bent of his poetry is
towards such expressions as
N ow lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars;
O'er the sun's bright eye
Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud;
\Vhen the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned
The world to peace again;
The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,.
The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew;
He bared the knotted column of his throat,
The Il1assive square of his heroic breast,
And arms on which the standing muscle sloped
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehen1.cntly to break upon it.
And this way of speaking is the least plain, the most un-
IIomeric, which can possibly be conceived. I-Ion1cr presents
his thought to you just as it wells fron1 the source of his
mind:
"lr Tennyson carefully distils his thought before he
will part with it. Hence con1es, in the expression of the
thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In HODler's
poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural words; in Mr
Tennyson's poetry it is all distilled thoughts in distilled
words. Exactly this heightening and elaboration may be
o bserved in Mr Sped ding' s
\\t
hile the steeds mouthed thely (onl aloof
(an expression which füight have been 1fr Tennyson's), on
which I have already commented; and to one who is
penetrated with a sense of the real sin1plicity of Homer,
this subtle sophistication of the thought is, I think, very
perceptible even in such lines as these,
And drunk delight of battle with my pet::rs,
:Far on the ringing plains of windy 'froy,
which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. Perfect
simplicity can be obtained only by a genius of which perfect
silnplicity is an essential characteristic.
So true is this, that when a genius essentially subtle, or
a genius which, fron1 whatever cause, is in its essence not
37 2
Critical Essays
truly and broadly sin1ple, detern1ines to be perfectly plain,
detenuines not to admit a shade of subtlety or curiosity into
its expression, it cannot ever then attain real simplicity; it I
can only attain a semblance of sinlplicity.I French
criticism, richer in its vocabulary than ours, has invented a
useful word to òistinguish this semblance (often very beautiful
and valuable) from the real quality. 1-'he real quality it
calls sÙJ1l'licité, the semblance sil1zþlesse. 1"he one is natural
silnplicity, the other is artificial simplicity. '''hat is called
sin1plicitv in the productions of a genius essentially not
simple, is, in truth, simp/esse. rfhe two are distinguishable
fron1 one another the IHoment they appeal in company.
For instance, let us take the opening of the narra
ive in
\V orùsworth's .JIichael:
Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a. shepherd, :Michael was his m
.me;
An old man, stout of heart, and strong uf limb.
I lis bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen,
Intense, and frugal, apt {or aU affairs;
And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than Oldinary men.
N ow let us take the opening of the narrative In 1c,fr
rl'ennyson's Dora:
\Vith Farmer Allan at the farm abode
\Villia.m anà Dora. 'Villiam was his son,
And she his niece. He often looked at them,
And oflen thought, " I'll m
ke them man and wife. tt
"rhe sil'nplicity of the first of these passages is sz"mþliciti;
that of the second, sÙl1þ!esse. Let us take the end of the
same two poems: first, of .AIichael:
The cottage whicn was named the E\7ening Star
Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground
On which it stood; great changes have been wrought
In all the neighbourhood : yet the oak is left
That grew beside their door: and the remains
Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen
Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.
1 I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or
dramatic poetry,-poetry in which the poet has to go out of himself and
to create. In lyrical poetry, in the direct expression of personal
feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the momentary pressure (If
passion, express itself simply. Even here, however, the native tendency
'vtin generally be discernible.
Last \tV ords
373
nd now, of Dora:
So those four abode
'Vithin one house together; and as years
'Vent forward, i\1arv took another mate:
But Dora lived unID'arried till her death.
A heedless critic may call both of these passages simple if
Ie will. Silnple, in a certain sense, they both are; but
)etween the simplicity of the two there is all the difference
hat there is between the sin1plicity of I-lolner and the
.iInplicity of l\Ioschus.
But, whether the hexan1eter establish itself or not, whether
t truly silnple and rapid blank verse be obtained or not, as
.he vehicle for a standard English translation of Homer, I
feel sure that this vehicle will not be furnished by the
ballad-form. On this question about the ballad-character of
I-Iomer's poetry, I see that Professor Blackic proposes a
compromise: he suggests that those who say Homer's
poetry is pure ballaò-poetry, and those who deny that it is
ballad-poetry at aU, should split the difference between
them; that it should be agreed that lIon1er's poems are
ballads a little, but not so much as son1e have said. I am
very sensible to the courtesy of the telms in which ::rÆr
I Blackie invites me to this cOl11promise; but I cannot, I an}
sorry to say, accept it; I cannot allow that Hon1er's poetry
is bal1a<.1-poetry at all.
\ want of capacity for sustained
nobleness seen1S to nle inherent in the ballad-fornl "w'hen
clnployed for epic poetry. The more we examine this pro-
position, the nlore certain, I think, will it become to us.
Let us but observe how a grea.t poet, having to deliver a
narratiye very weighty and serious, instinctively shrinks from
the ballad-forn1 as frol11 a fonn not comInensurate with his
subject-matter, a forn1 too narrow and shallow for it, and
seeks for a forn1 which has more amplitude and in1pressive-
ness. Everyone knows the Lucy Gray and the Ruth of
'Vordsworth. Both poems are excellent; but the subject-
matter of the narrative of Ruth is much more \veighty and
impressive to the poet's own feeling than that of the narrative
of Lucy Gray, for which latter, in its unpretending sinlplicity,
the ballad-form is quite adequate. ,V ordsworth, at the tin1e
he composed Ruth, his great time, his anflZ/S 11lirabilis, about
1800, strove to be simple; it was his nlission to be sinlple ;
he loved the ballaq-form, he clung to it, because it was
374
Critical Essays
simple. Even in Ruth he tried, one may say, to use it; he
would have used it if he could: but the gravity of his matter
is too much for this somewhat slight form; he is obliged to
give to his form more amplitude, more augustness, to shake
out its folds.
The wretched parents aU that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form is adequate to the
subject-matter. But take this, on the other hand:
I, too, have passed her on the hills,
Setting her little water-mills
By spouts and fountains wild;
Such small machinery as she turned,
Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,
A young and happy child.
Who does not perceive how the greater fulness and weight
of his matter has here compelled the true and feeling poet
to adopt a form of more volul1le than the simple ballad-
form?
It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking; the question
is about the use of the ballad-form for this. I say that for
this poetry (when in the grand style, as Homer's is) the
ballad-form is entirely inadequate; and that Homer's trans-
lator must not adopt it, because it even leads him, by its
own weakness, away froITI the grand style rather than towards
it. \Ve must remeITIber that the matter of narrative poetry
stands in a different relation to the vehicle which conveys it,
is not so independent of this vehicle, so absorbing and
po\yerful in itself, as the matter of purely emotional poetry.
'Vhen there comes in poetry what I may call the lyrical cry,
this transfigures everything, makes everything grand; the
sin1plest form n1ay be here even an advantage, because the
flame of the emotion glows through and through it n10re
easily. To go again for an illustration to ,V ordsworth; our
great poet, since Milton, by his performance, as K.eats, I
think, is our great poet by his gift and promise; in one of
his stanzas to the Cuckoo, we have:
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
Last \tV ords
3 --'r::
I",
Here the lyrical cry, though taking the simple ballad-r0rm,
is as grand as the lyrical cry con1ing in poetry of an an1pler
form, as grand as the
An innocent life, yet far astray!
of Ruth,. as the
There is a comfort in the strength of love
of .Ilfichael. In this way, by the occurrence of this lyrical
cry, the ballad-poets then1selves rise sometimes, though not
so often as one might perhaps have hoped, to the grand style.
o lang, lang may their ladies sit,
'Vi' their fans into their hand,
Or ere they see Sir ratrick Spenc
Come sailing to the land.
o lang, lang may the ladies stand,
\Vi' their gold cum bs in their hair,
\Vaiting for their ain dear lords,
For they'll see them nae mair.
But from this impressiveness of the ballad-form, when its
subject-matter fills it over and over again, is, indeed, in itself,
all in all, one must not infer its effectiveness when its subject
matter is not thus overpowering, in the great body of a
narrati ve.
But, after all, I-Iomer is not a bètter poet than the baUadists,
because he has taken in the hexan1eter a better instrument;
he took this instrument because he was a different poet from
them; so different, not only so much better, but so essentially
different, that he h3.s not to be classed with them at all.
Poets receive their distinctive character, not from their sub-
ject, but from their application to that subject of the ideas
(to quote the Excursion)
On God, on Natnre, and on human life.
which they have acquired for themselves. In the ballad-
poets in general, as in men of a rude aad e'lrly stage of the
world, in whom their hUlnanity is not yet variously and fully
developed
the stock of these ideas is scanty, and the iàeas
themselves not very efrective or profound. Fron1 them the
narrative itself is the great matter, Dot the spirit and signifi-
cance ,vhich underlies the narrative. Even in later times of
richly developed life and thought, poets appear who have
"'hat may be called a balladist's 1Jzind; in whom a fresh and
37 6
Critical Essays
lively curiosity for the outward spectacle of the world is
much more strong than their sense of the in ward significance
of that spectacle. 'Vhen they apply ideas to their narrative
of human events, you feel that they are, so to speak, travelling
out of their own province: in the best of them you feel this
perceptibly, but in those of a lower order you feel it very
strongly. Even Sir 'Valter Scott's efforts of this kind, even,
for instance, the
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
or the
o woman! in our hours of eas
,
even these leave, I think, as high poetry, much to be desired;
far more than the sanle poet's descriptions of a hunt or a
battle. Ðut Lord lvlacaulay's
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The ca Plain of the ga te :
I. To all the men upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late."
(and here, since I have been reproached with undervaluing
Lord 11acaulay's Lays of Ancient R011ze, let me frankly say
that, to nlY mind, a man's power to detect the ring of false
tHetal in those Lays is a good measure of his fitness to give
an opinion about poetical matters at all), I say, Lord
!\1acaula y' s
To all the men upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late,
it is hard to read without a cry of pain. But with I-Iomer
it is very different. 'I'his" noble barbarian," this" savage
with the lively eye," wh0se verse 1\1r Newman thinks,
vould
affect us, if we could hear the living lIolDer, "like an elegant
anù sio1ple ll1elody fronl an African of the Gold Coast," is
never more at home, never 1110re nobly hi1nself, than in
applying profound ideas to his n
rrative. As a poet he
belongs, narrative as is his poetry, and early as is his date,
to an incomparably lTIOre developed spiritual and intellectual
order than the bal1adists, or than Scott and 1Iacaulay; he
is here as n1uch to be distinguished fronl theIn, and in the
san1e way, as
1ilton is to be distinguished from the1n. I1e
is, indeed, rather to be classed with I\filton than with the
balladists and Scott; for what he has in COnll110n with
Last \V ords
377
1\Iilton, the noble and profound application of ideas to life
is the 010st esscntial part of poetic greatness. The most
essentially grand and characteristic things of I-Iomer are
such things as
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' , , " Ò ' .. Ò ' " 3
WEH' CI.;(}UfJ.E'VOU;. CtiJ'iOI ; "r aX77 ss, SUJ"I",
and of these the tone is given, far better than by anything
of the balladists, by such things as the
10 no piangcva: sì àentro impietrai :
Piangevan cUi . . . 4
of Dante; or the
Fall'n Cherub! to be weak is miserable
of
rilton.
I suppose I must, before I conclude, say a word or two
about my own hexameters j and yet truly, on such a topic,
I aI11 aln10st ashan1ed to trouble you. From those perish-
able objects I feel, I can truly say, a most Oriental detach-
D1ent. You yourselves are witnesses how little importance,
when I offered theo1 to you, I claimed for them, how
Innnble a function I designed them to fill. I offered them,
not as specimens of a cOlnpeting translation of Homer, but
as illustrations of certain canons which I had been trying to
establish for I-Iomer's poetry. I said that these canons they
might very well illustrate by failing as well as by succeeding:
if they illustrate them in any manner, I am satisfied. I was
thinking of the future translator of Homer, and trying to let
I " And I have endured-the like whereof no soul upon the earth
hath yet endured-to carry to my lips the hand of ,him who slew my
child."-lliad, xxiv. 505.
2 "Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, as we hear,
happy. "-Iliad, xxiv. 543. In the original this line, for mingled pathos
and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer.
3 "For so have the gods spun our destiny to us wretched mortals,-that
we should live in sorrow; but they themselves are without trouble."-
Iliad, xxiv. 525.
4 U I wept not: so of stone grew I within :-they wept."-Hel/
xxxiii. 49 (Carlyle's Translation, slightly altered).
37 8
Critical Essays
him see as clearly as possible what I meant by the combina-
tion of characteristics which I assigned to Homer's poetry,
by saying that this poetry was at once rapid in moveInent,
pla.in in words and style, sinlple and direct in its ideas,
anà noble in manner. I do not suppose that my own
hexanleters are rapid in mOVClnent, plain in words and style,
sÏ1nple and direct in their ideas, and noble in manner; but
I am in hopes that a translator, reading them with a genuine
interest in his subject, and without the slightest grain of
personal feeling, may see n10re clearly, as he reads theIn,
what I n1eant by saying that Homer's poetry is all these. I
anl in hopes that he may be able to seize more distinctly,
when he has before hÍ1n rny
So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus,
or nlY
Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you?
or my
So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle,
the exact points which I wish hil11 to avoid in Cowper'
So numerous seemed those :fires the banks between,
or in Pope's
Unhappy coursers of immortal strain,
or Ín
\Ir N ewn1an' s
lIe spake, and, yelling, held a-front his single--hoofed horses.
At the same time there nlay be innulnerable points in mine
which he ought to avoid also. Of the merit of his own
cOfnpositions no composer can be adn1Ìtted the judge.
But thus humbly useful to the future translator I still
hope n1Y hexanleters Inay prove; and he it is, above all,
whonl one has to regard. 1"he general public carries away
little fr0111 discussions of this kind, except sonle vague
notion that one advocates English hexan1eters, or that one
has attacked IVlr Newman. On the 11lind of an adversary
one never n1akes the faintest Í1npression. 1\1r N eWl.llan
reads all one can say about diction, and his last word on
the subject is, that he "regards it as a question about to
open hereafter, whether a translator of Homer ought not to
adopt the old dis5yllabic landis, hOUJldis, hartis)J (for lands,
hounds, harts), and also "the i1nal en of the p
ural of verbs
Last \\lords
379
(we dancen, they singen, etc.), which still subsists in Lanca-
shire." A certain critic reads all one can say about style,
and at the end of it arrives at the inference that, "after all,
there is some style grander than the grand style itself, since
Shakspeare has not the grand manner, and yet has the
suprelnacy over lv1ilton; " another critic reads all one can
say about rhythm, and the result is, that he thinks Scott's
rhythn1, in the description of the death of 1Iarmion, all the
better [or being saccadé, because the dying ejaculations of
Marmion were likely to be I'; jerky." How vain to rise up
early, and to take rest late, fronl any zeal for proving to 1fr
Newlnan that he must not, in translating HOlller, say
hOUlldÙ and dallce1t,. or to the first of the two critics above
quoted, that one poet may be a greater poetical force than
another, and yet have a more unequal style; or to the
second, that the best art, having to represent the death of a
hero, does not set about imitating his dying noises! Such
critics, however, provide for an opponent's vivacity the
charming excuse offered by Rivarol for his, when he was
reproached with giving offence by it: "Ah! 11 he exclaimed,
"no one considers how ll1.uch pain every man of taste has
had to suffer, before he ever inflicts any."
It is for the future translator that one must work. The
successful translator of I-Iolner will have (or he cannot
succeed) that true sense for his subject, and that dis-
interested love for it, which are, both of them, so rare in
literature, and so precious; he will not be led off by any
false scent; he will have an eye for the real matter, and
where he thinks he may find any indication of this, no hint
will be too slight for him, no shade will be too fine, no
imperfections will turn him aside, he will go before his ad-
viser's thought, and help it out with his own. This is the
sort of student that a critic of HOlner should always have
in his thoughts; but students of this sort are indeed rare.
And how, then, can I help being reminded what a
student of this sort we have just lost in
Ir Clough, whose
name I have already mentioned in these lectures? I-Ie,
too, was busy with Homer; but it is not on that account
that I now speak of him. Nor do I speak of him in order
to call attention to his qualities and powers in general,
admirable as these were. I mention him because, in so
eminent a degree, he possessed these two invaluable literary
3 80
Critical Essays
qualities, a true sense for his object of study, and a single-
hearted care for it. He had both; but he had the second
even nlore eminently than the first. He greatly developed
the first through means of the second. In the study of art,
poetry, or philosophy, he had the most undivided and dis-
interested love for his object in itself, the greatest a version
to n1ixing up with it anything accidental or personal. I-lis
interest was in literature itself; and it was this which gave
so rare a stamp to his character, which kept him so free
from an taint of littleness. In the saturnalia of ignoble
personal passions, of which the struggle for literary success,
in old and crowded c0111n1l1nities, offers so sad a spectacle,
he never mingled. lie had not yet traduced his friends,
nor flattered his enelnies, nor disparaged what he admired,
nor praised what he despised. 1--hose who knew hinl well
had the conviction that, even with time, these literary arts
would never be his. I-lis poen1, of which I before spoke,
has son1e admirable llomeric qualities ;-out-of-doors fresh-
ness, life, naturalness, buoyant rapidity. Some of the ex-
pressions in that poen1, "Dangerous Corrievre(kall . . .
lVlzere roads are U1lknOZl'1l 10 Locll l\
'vish," come back now
to nlY ear with the true H0111eric ring. But that in hin1 of
which I think oftenest is the Homeric sirnplicity of hi
literary life.
"IRE END
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