Studies in poetry and criticism;

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO

. *"%^x

LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS
PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W.C.
CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY : A. H. WHEELER & CO.

STUDIES IN POETRY AND
-••• CRITICISM

BY

JOHN CHURTON COLLINS

(PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF BIRMINGHAM)

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PINDAR

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1905

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND co.

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

\

TO

SIR OLIVER LODGE,

WHOSE SYMPATHIES EXTEND EVEN TO TRIFLES

LIKE THESE, THIS VOLUME

IS INSCRIBED.

PREFACE

THOUGH the essays here collected have, with
one exception, appeared in current periodicals
and reviews, they are not merely reprints. Most of
them have been much enlarged, one or two have
been almost re-written and all have been carefully
revised. Though the subjects of which they treat
are various, I venture to hope that a certain unity
may be discerned in them, arising from an en-
deavour to regard both criticism and poetry more
seriously than is at present the fashion. The first
seems to be resolving itself almost universally into
a loose record of personal impressions, the second
to be regarded as little more than a medium of
aesthetic trifling. In the wretched degradation into
which belles lettres have fallen we seem to be losing
all sense of the importance once attached to them,
when critics were scholars and poets something
more than aesthetes. In the essay on Longinus an
attempt has, therefore, been made to recall criticism
to its old sources and traditions, and thus to illustrate
how, if it is to be what it is of power to be, it must
rest on far more solid foundations than undiscip-
lined and uninstructed susceptibility, — on the found-
ations, that is to say, laid by its classical masters.

vii

viii PREFACE

So, too, in the essay on the True Functions of Poetry
I have ventured to re-state and bring home what
once were truisms, but what will now appear — and
to too many—paradox and extravagance.

How far my estimates of the poets whom I have
passed in review will recommend themselves to
others I know not, but this I should like to say : I
hope emphasis will not be mistaken for dogma.
Such estimates, even were they those of a critic
entitled to far more authority than I can pretend to
possess, must be experimental, and can have no
approximation to finality. But it is right that when
well-weighed they should be attempted. Thus only
can the literary product of each age be sifted and
proved, thus only the balance at last adjusted.

My thanks are due to the proprietors of the North
American Review for permission to use the articles
on the Poets and Poetry of America; to Mr. John
Murray for permission to use the articles on Long-
inus which appeared originally in the Quarterly
Review, and on Byron ; to the editor of the Con-
temporary Review for permission to reproduce that
on the poetry of Mr. Gerald Massey; to the editor
and proprietor of the National Review for allowing
me the use of that on Miltonic Myths. The original
sketch of the essay on Mr. William Watson's
poetry appeared in the Westminster Gazette, but it
has been much enlarged and, indeed, almost re-
written. The paper on the True Functions of
Poetry has not been printed before.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA ... i

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF LORD BYRON . 78
THE COLLECTED POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM

WATSON 124

THE POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY . . 142

MILTONIC MYTHS AND THEIR AUTHORS . . 167

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM .... 204

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY .... 263

APPENDIX 293

INDEX 297

IX

ERRATA

Page 205, for Gerald read Gerard.
Page 214, for Walton read Wotton.
Page 2ig,for Kames' read Kames's.
Page 297, for William Hall read John Hall.

ESSAYS

i

THE POETRY AND POETS OF
AMERICA

r I AHERE goes a story — I had it, if I remember
J_ rightly, from the late Professor Nichol — that
the editor of the Golden Treasury of English Poetry
was asked by an American lady why he did not
supplement that work by a Golden Treasury of
American Poetry. "American Poetry!" he ex-
claimed with supercilious surprise. ' ' Why, who are
your poets?" "Well, among others," she replied,
"we have Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton." It
was a retort as fair as it was wise ; no paradox, though
it seems one; not wit, but truth. And although a
review of American poetry is necessarily concerned
only with the " others " referred to, we cannot insist
too strongly on the relation of those others to the
patriarchs of Anglo-Saxon song — on the essential
unity of almost all of what finds expression in the
poetry of England and in the poetry of America, in
the genius which inspires both, in the art which in-
forms both. The great schism of 1776 was our own
mad work. A war, as purely internecine as that in
which the Roundheads and Cavaliers confronted
each other at Marston Moor and at Naseby, was

c

2 POETRY AND CRITICISM

forced on the descendants of both in another hemi-
sphere. The sword, once drawn, was not sheathed till
England was humiliated and America independent.
What followed, followed inevitably. With the
Atlantic intervening, with the Puritan and republican
elements in overwhelming ascendency, with colossal
potentialities of expansion and development, with
much that was irreconcilable with subordination to
the Mother Country rapidly defining itself, reunion
under a common flag, even had it been desired, be-
came impossible. But, if the effect of the great
schism was, during many years, to alienate, and to
canker; if it sowed the seeds of all that has since
resulted from mutual mistrust and jealousy, from
conflicting interests, from rival aims and competitive
ambition, it has never extended to what constitutes
the bond of bonds — the inheritance of common blood,
of common creeds political as well as religious, of a
common language, of a common literature.

O Englishmen ! in hope and creed,

In blood and tongue our brothers !

We too are heirs of Runnymede ;

And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed

Are not alone our mother's.

" Thicker than water," in one rill

Through centuries of story
Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still
We share with you its good and ill,

The shadow and the glory.

Joint heirs and kinsfolk, leagues of wave

Nor length of years can part us :
Your right is ours to shrine and grave,
The common freehold of the brave,

The gift of saints and martyrs.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 3

In these words, Whittier gave expression to senti-
ments which perhaps appealed more directly to his
fellow countrymen generally fifty years ago than
they do to-day ; but to-day and for all time will they
find response, will they be very creed, wherever, in
our mutual relations, the humanities prevail.

In estimating the achievement of America in
poetry, it is very necessary to bear all this in mind.
It is not by regarding it as a rival counterpart of our
own, which in some respects it is, and by continu-
ally instituting, either directly or tacitly, comparisons
and parallels with its English archetypes and ana-
logues, which it necessarily does invite, that we can
possibly do it justice. For by such a method the
whole focus of criticism is deranged. We expect
more than it is reasonable to expect, and are dis-
appointed ; we find much for which our criteria are
insufficient, and are perplexed. And the English
people have assuredly not done justice to the poetry
of America. Our leading critics have always regarded
it pretty much as the Greek critics regarded the
poetry of the Romans ; for what was indigenous in
it they had no taste, from what reminded them of
their own artists they turned with contemptuous in-
difference. The silence of Dionysius and Longinus
about the poems which are the glory of Roman lit-
erature, is not only exactly analogous to the silence
of Arnold, Pater, and their schools about the poems
which are the pride of Transatlantic literature, but
it sprang from the same causes. Where originality
existed, it was originality which did not appeal to
them ; where comparison with the genius and art
with which they were familiar, and from which their

4 POETRY AND CRITICISM

own touchstones and standards were derived, was
challenged or could be instituted, sensibly or insen-
sibly it was instituted, and inferiority stood revealed.
A Greek who expected from Horace what he found
in Sappho and Pindar, and an Englishman who ex-
pects from Bryant and Longfellow what he finds in
Wordsworth and Tennyson, might be forgiven for
being disappointed. But, for all that, Horace is
Horace, and Bryant and Longfellow are true
poets.

Two other causes have contributed to the under-
estimation of American poetry in England, and for
one of them the Americans themselves are, I fear,
responsible. I mean the prominence which has un-
happily been given to what is essentially mediocre
and inferior, sometimes by indiscreet and absurd
eulogy, and sometimes by associating it in Antho-
logies and Critiques with what is excellent. We
find, for instance, in Mr. Tyler's otherwise admirable
Literary History of the American Revolution a
lamentable want of balance wherever poetry is in
question. Ballads and political songs, bad enough
for the bellman, are described as "worthy of Tyr-
taeus " ; lyrics and other poems which never, even
at their best, have any other than historical interest,
are praised in terms which would be exaggerated if
applied to the poetry of great masters. No critic
could mention the name of Mr. Stedman without
respect for his immense knowledge and his catholic
taste; but I venture to think that the scale on which
his justly celebrated Anthology is planned has been
signally unfortunate for the promotion of his object
— namely, to bring home to the English-speaking

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 5

race the merits of American poetry. Most people
will, I fear, lay it down with something of the im-
pression with which the weary scholar closes thank-
fully the tomes of the Poetae Latini Minores, so im-
mensely does what is commonplace and of every
degree of mediocrity predominate over what has
merit and distinction. Had Mr. Stedman confined
his plan, I cannot forbear adding, to the inclusion
of the best, and the best only, he would have had no
difficulty in finding material for a charming volume.
As it is, his collection is only likely to confirm the
impression which it was his idea to correct.

Another cause affecting the reputation of American
poetry in England, is the prominence which has been
given, not to what represents it at its best or in rela-
tion to its finer qualities, but to what appeals to the
multitude. The Raven and The Bells are anything
but typical of the peculiar genius of Poe; but The
Raven and The Bells have overshadowed every-
thing else which he has written in verse. Neither
Bryant nor Whittier has fared any better; what is
most commonplace in them has been most popular.
Lowell's fame rests almost entirely on what is most
broadly humorous in the Biglow Papers. Holmes
is associated with comical trifles like The One Horse
Shay, as Bret Harte is with Truthful James and The
Heathen Chinee. Longfellow has been described as
the "Laureate of the Middle Classes," and every
one knows what that implies. Nor is this all. In
many, and perhaps in many more than we suspect,
the impression made by the aggressive eccentricities
of Whitman and his school, on the one hand, and
the florid extravagance of the school of Joaquin

6 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Miller, on the other, has so predominated over the
impression made by the true masters of American
song, that work as little representative of what is
best in American poetry as it is of what is best in
our own poetry has come to be regarded as essenti-
ally typical. And so it is, and from these causes
chiefly, that England, as a nation, has not done jus-
tice to American poetry.

To a survey of that poetry, a brief sketch of its
origin and early history is a necessary prelude ; for
its characteristics are to be traced to conditions and
circumstances long preceding its articulate expres-
sion. Schiller, in a famous lyric, has described the
austerities amid which the German muse was cradled
and nurtured, and attributed its lofty spirit to their
severe discipline; but austerities sterner still tem-
pered the infancy of the American muse.

In the zenith of our own Golden Age of poetry and
letters, when Shakespeare had just finished King
Lear and Bacon was meditating the Instauratio
Magna, the first pioneers of American civilization
landed at Jamestown. Michael Drayton in a hearty
and spirited ode had bade them Godspeed, and
blended with his blessing a prophecy that the New
World would not be without its bards. But upwards
of a hundred and sixty years were to pass before that
prophecy was even partially to be fulfilled. During
those years, it would be scarcely possible to conceive
conditions more unpropitious to the production of
poetry, or more propitious to the development of
those heroic virtues which poetry loves to celebrate,
and of that "character," as Emerson calls it, which
is the noblest substratum of poetry itself. The frag-

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 7

ment of Percy, and the narratives of Captain John
Smith and of William Strachey, record the storm
and stress of the early part of this period, the period
which witnessed the settlement of Virginia. Then
came the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and, amid
hardships unspeakable, preceding and ensuing, the
foundation of New Plymouth. With the foundation
of Massachusetts which followed, began the history
of all that is implied and involved in the establish-
ment and constitution of New England. In the
South, also, there had been the same activity. The
colonization of Virginia had been succeeded by the
foundation of Maryland and the two Carolinas.
Round the Delaware, New York, and Chesapeake
Bays, the Middle States had been gradually formed.
All this had been a work of Herculean labour, ab-
sorbing every energy, and taxing to the uttermost
man's powers of effort and endurance. Forests had
to be cleared ; marshes to be drained ; the savage
aborigines to be kept at bay. Carrying their lives
in their hands, inured to privation and distress in
their severest forms, these hardy and dauntless ad-
venturers lived daily face to face with the grimmest
realities of life. The toil of the pioneer accomplished,
other toils not less arduous and incessant awaited
them in the duties incumbent on the citizens of in-
fant States, the duties of the builder, the agriculturist,
the legislator. Then came the wars with the Indians.
Incessantly harassed by the raids of these murderous
enemies, always on the watch for mischief and assas-
sination, in 1637 they brought the first of these wars
to a climax, by the annihilation of the Pequots, men,
women and children, a scene of almost unparalleled

8 POETRY AND CRITICISM

horror.1 Still more terrible was the second war in
1674, which lasted two years, and in which Massa-
chusetts was overrun by the savages, some eighty
towns raided, some twelve totally destroyed, and ten
in every hundred of the men of military age either
killed outright, or dragged off to a death of agony
by torture.2 Nothing in history is more thrilling than
some of the contemporary narratives which place
us in the midst of these frightful experiences of the
Fathers of Virginia and of New England.

In this iron school was tempered the character of
the forefathers of those who were to create American
literature. Nor must we forget who these men origin-
ally were. However mixed was the population of
the States in the South and of the middle group,
the founders of New England were almost entirely
what that name implies — Englishmen: but they
were Englishmen of a peculiar type. The first emi-
grants had quitted Europe because of their dissatis-
faction with the regulations and ritual of the Estab-
lished Church. The successive emigrants between
1630 and 1640 consisted of those who, despairing of
the causeof religious and civil liberty under Charles I,
had left the Mother Country in impatient indigna-
tion, to realize what they desired in a community
of their own founding. In spite of many differences
of opinion, these men, like their brother Puritans
in England, had a common character. In their re-
ligious convictions enthusiasts and fanatics, with
the Bible and the Bible only as their guide and rule,

1 See Street's spirited poem, The Settler, Griswold's Poets
and Poetry of America, pp. 399-410.

2 See Dwight's poem. Ibid., pp. 14-17.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 9

they sought in its precepts and in its examples all
that they desired to learn and all that they aspired
to become. Almost everything they did, almost
everything they meditated, took its ply and its
colour from this enthusiasm. But the gracious
philanthropy of the New Testament appealed to
them far less than the sterner teachings of the Old.
Here they found justification for the fierce intoler-
ance which, in their uncompromising creed, ranked
with the cardinal virtues, for the rancour with which
they regarded the enemies of God, and for the many
ruthless deeds which were, no doubt, forced upon
them, but which appear to have cost them so little
compunction. And here, too, they found the patterns
on which their lives were fashioned, individually as
well as collectively. Never since the days of the
Patriarchs did men live, in a sense so literally true,
"as ever in their great Task-master's eye," or find
such sustainment in the sense of duty fulfilled, and
in simple faith.

To enter their homes is recalling the world of the
Chosen People. Each busy day, each frugal meal,
opened and closed with prayer. Next to God, in a
child's eyes, stood his parents, and next to his
parents, his elders. Frivolity, irreverence were al-
most unknown, and anything approaching to their
expression, either in word or act, was set down with
a severity strangely out of proportion to the offence.
To be abstemious and chaste, to speak the truth at
any cost and under any stress, to regard the world's
gauds and the world's honours with contempt, to be
patient in tribulation and sober in prosperity, to re-
cognize in conscience the veritable voice of the Al-

io POETRY AND CRITICISM

mighty and the obligation to obey that voice as
man's paramount duty — all this was of the essence
of their ethics. Public life had the same cast. Their
very government was a theocracy. At the head of
it the God of Christian faith, its magistrates His
servants, its citizens those only who had been
initiated through Baptism and the reception of the
Lord's Supper. In Virginia, indeed, the other dis-
tributing centre of the English race, becoming as it
did an asylum for Cavaliers, broken aristocrats, and
Church of England men, society and the temper of
those who composed it presented a remarkable con-
trast to all this. But, mighty as the part has been
which Virginia has played in politics, in war, and
in commerce, she has been no factor in the spiritual
and intellectual life of America, which was to take
its bent from her austerer sons in the North.

Thus was produced, partly from what was in-
herited from their forefathers, and partly from what
was the result of the long probation and discipline
of those iron times, a race of men the like of which
this world has never seen. Indelible is the im-
pression which they have made on all who have
contributed, and on all which has been contributed,
either in politics or in literature, to the glory of
America. We trace their lineaments in every great
statesman and in every great soldier who has suc-
ceeded them in the Western World, whether from
the South or from the North. Their purity, their
earnestness, their simplicity, the noble ardour of
their love of liberty, their God-fearing spirit and
profound sense of man's religious and moral re-
sponsibilities, permeate, or if they do not permeate,

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA n

at least colour, almost every characteristic contribu-
tion, both in verse or prose, to American literature.
Even where their theology had ceased to appeal,
and the light had faded out of Puritan orthodoxy,
Puritan ethics and the Puritan temper still pre-
vailed. Franklin, Emerson, and Hawthorne were
as essentially the offspring of these men as William
Bradford and Thomas Hooker were their repre-
sentatives. When poetry awoke, and it was long
before it awoke, it was their soul which suffused it.
Their soul has suffused it ever since.

To the influence of these silent forefathers, Ameri-
can poetry owes its distinguishing notes — it has them
in common with the characteristic poetry of Ger-
many— its simplicity, its purity, its wholesomeness.
No American poet has ever dared, or perhaps even
desired, to do what, to the shame of England and
France, their poets have so often done — what is
mourned by Dryden:

O gracious God ! how oft have we
Profan'd Thy heavenly gift of Poesy,
Made prostitute and profligate the muse
Debas'd to each obscene and impious use.

We should search in vain through the voluminous
records of American song for a poem by any poet
of note or merit, with one exception who is an ex-
ception in everything, glorifying animalism or
blasphemy, or attempting to throw a glamour over
impurity and vice.

But the men to whom American poetry was in-
directly to owe so much contributed, as might have
been expected, nothing to its treasures. There came
over with them more than one distinguished scholar,

12 POETRY AND CRITICISM

and many who either were, or were to become,
theologians of eminence; men, too, full of en-
thusiasm for education, to whom America owes her
first schools, her first libraries, her first university;
but no one, with the solitary exception of George
Sandys, who carried in him the seeds of poetry.

Nor was the period which succeeded the establish-
ment of the new communities more propitious to
literary activity. Constant friction with England,
chiefly in connection with the royal governors, con-
stant disputes among the States about boundaries,
and with the aborigines about commercial affairs —
these were their occupations. Then came the co-
alition with Great Britain against the French and
their Indian allies — a momentous crisis, culminating
in the conquest of Canada and the preservation of
the Colonies from subjection to France. Seven years
afterwards followed the epoch-making Revolution
which transformed Anglo-America from a congeries
of scattered communities into a mighty nation, and
which for a time effectually hushed everything ex-
cept the voice of the orator, the tumult of debate,
the roar of cannon, and the myriad clamour of the
popular press. That story need not be told here ;
it is a story no Englishman will ever love to tell or
to remember. To America, it was all that Marathon
and Salamis were temporarily to Hellas; all that
the loss of her Continental possessions was, per-
manently, to England. Regarded in relation to its
effects, immediate and subsequent, and in relation
to its examples and its lessons, it is perhaps the
greatest single event in the history of mankind.
That it should not have awakened the American

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 13

muse seems at first sight surprising, for it opened
every spring of poetic inspiration. It appealed, and
appealed thrillingly, to passion, to sentiment, to
imagination. In no lyric ever burned more fire than
glowed in the speeches of Patrick Henry, of James
Otis, of Richard Henry Lee, of Alexander Hamilton.
No epic has celebrated scenes which surpass in im-
pressiveness and picturesqueness the scenes which
America witnessed between 1775 and 1782, or ideal-
ized heroes of nobler and grander moral temper than
most of those who shaped the destinies of the West-
ern World at that tremendous crisis.

Still lyric, still epic, still poetry in every form of
its genuine expression, slept. But, if we reflect,
this need not surprise us. Wordsworth has admir-
ably defined poetry as emotion recollected in tran-
quillity. As men who make history seldom write it,
so, when poetry is expressing itself in action, it has
little need to express itself in words. The achieve-
ments and character of those who welded America
into a nation were of a piece with all that had origin-
ally fashioned, moulded and preserved the several
communities now federated. Both were works to
which every citizen contributed, and in which every
citizen took absorbing interest. As a rule, the
Puritan despised poetry, even when he had leisure
for it. Hymns and Biblical paraphrases, indeed,
he tolerated, patronized, and, if he had the ability,
produced ; but when it went beyond these it became
vanity, and his sympathy with it ceased. What
need of poetry to inspire, when the voice of Duty,
when the voice of God Himself, was calling? Of
what worth the tribute of song to " live battle odes,

14 POETRY AND CRITICISM

whose lines were steel and fire"; the homage of
mere aesthetic appreciation to virtues so practical,
to achievements so real? But there was another
reason, and perhaps the chief one, for the silence
of song. The triumph of the warrior and of the
statesman could have seemed no triumph to the
poet. To him England was all that Athens, all that
Rome, had been to his brethren in ancient times,
the object of his profoundest reverence, of his fond-
est affection, the consecrated home of the lords of
his art, and fraught with memories inexpressibly
dear. Before, an exile, he was now an alien. No-
thing, then, can be more natural than that this re-
volution should have failed to awaken poetry.

The poetry which the Revolution could not in-
spire was not likely to be inspired by the period
which immediately succeeded. The history of
America between 1782 and 1820 is the history of
the most distracted time in her annals. All was
fever, all was tumult. The old world was passing
away, the new world had not defined itself. While
the fierce conflicts between Federalists and De-
mocrats tore and perplexed her central councils,
dividing the whole Republic into hostile camps,
feuds and disputes peculiar to themselves kept the
separate States in constant turmoil. The alliance
against England, instead of conducing to permanent
harmony, seemed only to have the effect of aggra-
vating their differences. To all these distractions
were added the distractions involved by America's
association with that mighty European revolution,
the torch of which had been lighted by her own ;
by the relations with Napoleon, by the second war

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 15

with Great Britain. The termination of that war in
1814 marks no epoch in American history, but it
ushered in the period which witnessed the birth of
her Poetry, not in the historical — for she had al-
ready produced much — but in the true sense of the
term.

Nothing more deplorable than the verses which
have come down to us from the earliest colonists and
from the ante-Revolutionary age could be conceived.
They consist chiefly of paraphrases of the Psalms,
such as find expression in such doggerel as the Bay
Psalm-Book, of descriptive poems and of miscel-
laneous trifles of a serious cast, and were the work,
generally speaking, of Puritan divines, school-
masters, and scribbling governors. They may be
dismissed without ceremony; for to settle the rela-
tive proportion of worthlessness between Benjamin
Thomson, " punning" Byles, Michael Wiggles-
worth, who, " when unable to preach by an affection
of the lungs,

In costly verse and most laborious rhymes
Did dish up truths right worthy our regard,"

Nathaniel Evans and Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, the
"mirror of her age," as, unhappily, in poetry she
was, would indeed be a futile task. A little later
we find a group of versifiers who, in their several
ways, almost rise to the dignity of mediocrity. Such
would be John Trumbull, who began his career with
a poem bearing the ominous title of the Progress of
Dulness, but whose McFingal is a very respectable
imitation of Hudibras, containing original touches
not unworthy of its model. Timothy Dwight, who,

16 POETRY AND CRITICISM

under the guise of independence, sometimes echoes
Pope, sometimes Beattie, sometimes Cowper, but
who in another strain produced a spirited lyric
Columbia, which long endeared his name to his
countrymen, and in one of his poems, The Con-
quest of Canaan, an epic in eleven books, stumbled
on a few lines which pleased Cowper.1

No such exploit enlivens the intolerable epic and
the still more intolerable mock heroic, the Colum-
biad and Hasty Pudding, of Joel Barlow, in the
first of which he certainly disputes the palm of som-
niferousness with our own Blackmore. Nor can any-
thing be said for the smooth platitudes of Alsop, of
Honeywood, and of Clifton. One poet only in this
period had a touch of genius; and he was, as his

J Cowper reviewed the poem in the Analytical Review when
it was reprinted by T.Johnson in 1788. See Southey's Co-wper,
vol. vii. 314-319. The lines which he pronounced to be " highly
poetical," are:

Now Night in vestments robed of cloudy dye,
With sable grandeur clothed the orient sky,
ImpelPd the sun obsequious to her reign,
Down the far mountains to the Western main ;
With magic hand becalmed the solemn even,
And drew day's curtain from the spangled heaven.
At once the planets sail'd around her throne :
At once ten thousand worlds in splendour shone ;
Behind her car the morn's expanded eye
Rose from a cloud, and looked around the sky :
Far up th' immense her train sublimely roll,
And dance and triumph round the lucid pole.
Faint shine the fields beneath the shadowy ray,
Slow fades the glimmering of the west away ;
To sleep the tribes retire : and not a sound
Flows through the air or murmurs on the ground.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 17

name implies, of French extraction. In the too vol-
uminous poetry of Philip Freneau there are a few
flowers, somewhat wan and frail it is true, but, like
his Wild Honeysucklet worth the gathering. There
is a note of distinction in the verses To Neversink
Heights, To the Dying Indian, The Indian Bury ing-
ground, — a line from which, as Professor Nichol
points out, Campbell condescended to appropriate,
— and in the verses to The Hurricane, but he is
never sure and generally trivial.

The numerous patriotic songs inspired by the
struggles with England and the realization of Ame-
rican nationality, such as Robert Treat Paine's
Adams and Liberty, Hopkinson's Hail Columbia,
the anonymous Yankee Man-of-War and Key's
Star-spangled Banner, are not without ring and lilt,
but owe their charm chiefly to their sentiment. To
one of them higher praise than this is due. The
American Flag of Joseph Rodman Drake is effective
rhetoric, a little strained, perhaps, but instinct with
true enthusiasm.

And now, with surprising rapidity, these matin
chirps became full quire. As we advance in the

1 Freneau's stanza is :

By midnight moons o'er moistening dews

In vestments for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues,

The hunter and the deer a shade.
In O'Connors Child, Campbell writes :

Now on the grass-green turf he sits,
His tasselPd horn beside him laid,

Now o'er the hills in chase he flits,
The hunter and the deer a shade.
C

i8 POETRY AND CRITICISM

second quarter of the century, our ears are almost
deafened by the chorus of songsters which greet us
on all sides, some from the Southern, some from
the Middle, some from the Northern States. This
activity is, no doubt, to be traced mainly to the pro-
gress of education and culture, for which there was
more leisure, and which had flourishing centres at
the universities. The result of this was that the
poetry of England was studied with sympathy and
enthusiasm, and the natural consequence was imi-
tation. Young men acquired the same facility in
composing English verses, almost indistinguish-
able, so far as form was concerned, from their origin-
als, as clever undergraduates at Oxford and Cam-
bridge composed Ovidian elegiacs and Virgilian
hexameters. As these imitations were occasionally
produced, not merely by men of talent and of such
accomplishments as memory and industry can ac-
quire, but by men of sensibility, with some of the
qualities of genius, and even a spark of genius itself,
some of this poetry, if only just rising above medi-
ocrity, is far from contemptible. It is most interest-
ing when it is touched with what is essentially native,
with ancestral moral enthusiasm, with character,
with the impressions made by American tradition,
scenery and life ; in other words, where it differen-
tiates itself from English models. Mere imitation,
with nothing superinduced, is perhaps most con-
spicuous in Hillhouse's stilted and wretched concoc-
tion in travesty from Milton, Young and Pollock;
in Sprague's bombastic Pindarics and parrot echoes
of the heroics of Pope's school ; and in others, who
need not be specified. In Allston, in Pierpont, in

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 19

Brainard, and in Percival, we have the most con-
spicuous and most comprehensive representatives of
the poetry of the best culture, though the last two are
unconscionably careless and diffuse in style, while
the best poem of the first, The Sylphs of the Seasons,
is too much an echo of Burns's Vision. Carlos
Wilcox, though his blank verse, which is a bad
imitation of Thomson's, is intolerable, deserves
notice for his minute and accurate description of na-
ture, closely recalling, as Street did afterwards, our
own Richard Jefferies's prose studies. In Paulding,
Halleck, Drake and John Howard Payne, the author
of the world-famous lyric, "Home, Sweet Home,"
native elements predominate over external ; and they
all, in their several ways, assisted the development
of the Home school.

Paulding is better known by his prose writings;
but his Backwoodsman, written in smooth and
musical heroics, contains very pleasing descriptions
of American scenery, and his Old Man's Carousal
has long been, and justly, a favourite. Halleck's
spirited historical ballad, Marco Bozzaris, recalls
Byron, his Alnwick Castle Scott, but worthily and
in no servile way; while his Burns, his Redjacket,
his ballads written in conjunction with Drake, his
vigorous vers de societe and his Fanny at least prove
his versatility; but we can hardly feel with Whittier
that he has "consecrated New York," and that
"shady square and dusty street are classic ground
for him." The American Flag will long preserve
the memory of Drake, and his Culprit Fay, though
too evidently showing the blended influence of
Scott, Coleridge and Moore to be entitled to the

20 POETRY AND CRITICISM

praise of originality, was considered at the time of
its appearance a remarkable production. Dana's
wild poem the Buccaneer struck a new note of the
Monk Lewis order, and there was originality, though
of a somewhat tawdry kind, in Maria Brooks's
Zophiel) a poetess so unaccountably pronounced by
Southey to be "the most impassioned and the most
imaginative of all poetesses."

Of the many disciples of Mrs. Hemans and Miss
Landon flourishing at this time, Lydia Sigourney
stands alone. It is not fashionable to praise Mrs.
Hemans in these days ; but I will have the courage
to say that higher praise could scarcely be given to
a poetess of the secondary order than to say, what
may be said with truth of Lydia Sigourney, that she
stands beside Mrs. Hemans. Nothing more simply
touching was ever written than her Widow's Charge,
and if her threnody on her mistress and model is
too ambitious, it is both noble and pathetic.

Nor was the South silent. Edward Coate Pinkney
has no pretension to genius, and he was too close
in imitation of Byron and other English poets; yet
he had a very pleasing lyrical gift, and such lyrics
as A Healthy A Serenade, and A Picture Song
tremble on excellence, while Richard Henry Wilde
has left one lyric, "My Life is Like the Summer
Rose," which, if falsetto, has one line which a true
poet might envy:

On that lone shore loud moans the sea.

And yet, in spite of all this activity and achieve-
ment, De Tocqueville could say in 1835 that America
had not produced a single poet of a high order.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 21

Certainly, he could not have been refuted by citing
any of the poets of whom I have spoken ; but we
have now come to a poet who could be triumphantly
produced to falsify the statement. In William Cul-
len Bryant, America produced her first poet of dis-
tinction, the first who has some pretension to ori-
ginality. Griswold tells us that when Thanatopsis,
Bryant's first characteristic poem, was submitted to
Dana, then editor of the North American Review,
Dana and one or two critics whom he consulted
were satisfied that a poem so finished and so noble
could not have been written by an American. Their
wonder was, no doubt, increased when they learned
that it was not only written by an American, but by
an American scarcely out of his teens.

It is no figure of speech to say that the American
muse found her first voice in Bryant. He has been
called a disciple of Wordsworth ; it has been pointed
out that his favourite measures haveall been borrowed
from ours; that in Young's Night Thoughts and in
Dyer's Ruins of Rome had been sounded the note
which he struck with more power and impressive-
ness in the poems peculiarly characteristic of him,
and that his blank verse is but a variation of the
blank verse of English masters. This is true only
in the sense in which it is true that, but for Ennius
we should never have had Virgil, and that, but for
his classical predecessors in ancient Greece and
Rome and in modern Italy, we should never have
had Milton. Bryant's relation to Wordsworth may
be more accurately indicated by calling him, in virtue
of his own native genius, and not by virtue of imita-
tion, the "American Wordsworth"; his relation to

22 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Young and Dyer, by distinguishing between what
is accidental and what is essential ; and of his blank
verse it may be said, with literal truth, that in struc-
ture and rhythm it is his own. Nature, and Nature
only, was his inspirer and teacher ; and pure and sim-
ple and wholesome as herself was her disciple and
prophet. From his Puritan ancestors, he had in-
herited his moral temper and cast of mind, his purity,
his simplicity, his earnestness, his love of liberty, his
reverent piety, his profound seriousness; and with all
this some good genius had blended the aesthetic tem-
perament, and bestowed on him the gifts of the poet.
And so he went out among the wonders and beauties
of the New World, "the rolling prairies,"

The gardens of the Desert,
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name,

under

The thick roofs

Of green, and stirring branches all alive
And musical with birds that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit, while, below,
The squirrel, with rais'd paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily;

through the great solitudes with their

Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers

They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,

And birds that scarce have learn 'd the fear of man,

.... and sliding reptiles of the ground

Startlingly beautiful ;

or heard from

Dim woods the aged past
Speak solemnly;

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 23

or stood and gazed on

The hills

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun : the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between:
The venerable woods, rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste ;

or lay and listened to Earth's voice:

A voice of many tones — sent up from streams

That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen

Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air,

From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day,

And hollows of the great invisible hills,

And sands that edge the Ocean, stretching far

Into the night.

In his nature poems, there is at times an almost
magical note, as in the first two stanzas of The
Water Fowl'.

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

And how fine are the lines in the next stanza but

one:

There is a Power, whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone -wandering, but not lost.

And The Gladness of Nature pulses with the
ecstasy which it describes. " O Fairest of the Rural

24 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Maids" may remind us a little too closely of Words-
worth, but this exquisite lyric, as well as The Even-
ing Wind, could only have been written by one
whom Nature had initiated. Mr. Stedman speaks of
the "elemental quality" of Bryant's poetry: it is a
most happy expression, as anyone will feel after read-
ing such poems as The Prairies, A Winterpiece,
The Evening Wind, The Hunter of the Prairies,
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, The Painted
Cup, A Hymn to the Sea, A Forest Hymn, A Hymn
to the North Sea, Among the Trees, A River by
Night.

But to this exquisite susceptibility to the power
and charm of nature, and to this inspired faculty for
catching and rendering them, he brought other quali-
ties. He was not, like our own Wordsworth, a pro-
found philosopher, but he was deeply impressed with
the mystery, solemnity, and sadness of life, and also
with the momentous importance of the moral re-
sponsibilities resting on all on whom the gift of it
has been conferred. This element is sometimes dis-
tinct from his nature studies, and sometimes blends
itself with them. It is seen in its distinctness in such
poems as the Hymn to Death, The Past, Life, The
foumey of Life, The Crowded Street, The Future
Life, Blessed are They that Mourn, and that noble
poem, The Return of Youth; but it is when blended
with his nature studies that it is most impressive.
In what majestic threnody does he contrast the
eternity of nature and the transitoriness of man in
Thanatopsis, and again in The Fountain, and again,
with tenderer pathos, in The Rivulet. With what
eloquence does he enlist Nature in the service of

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 25

man's spiritual and moral instruction, as in the
Forest Hymn, The Old Man's Gospel, and an Even-
ing Revelry ; or make her bring balm for the wounds
of life and solace and comfort, in such poems as
the Walk at Sunset, Green River, Inscription foi
the Entrance to a Wood, A Scene on the Banks of
the Hudson, Lines on Revisiting the Country, A
Slimmer Wind. In the beautiful City Hymn he
leads her from her solitudes to irradiate the sordid
and crowded life of the street and of the mart, while
in June and The Burial-place he would have her
wreathe the dishonours of death with her loveli-
ness.

The dominant note in Bryant is, certainly, thren-
ody; but it is threnody without gloom. He had in-
herited from his Puritan ancestors the faith that illu-
mines life and looks through death, and it never fails
him. To his Puritanism is probably owing also his
absolute freedom from any traces of a mystic or pan-
theistic tendency in his treatment of Nature. His
diction, his style, his versification, if the result of the
study of English models, are, in the main, his own,
and seem to be the spontaneous utterance of what
they convey. Never when he is at his best were con-
ception and expression in more absolute harmony.
It has been observed that his vocabulary is a limited
one, and that the measures in which he writes were
few and simple ; the reason is, because the sphere in
which his genius moved is limited, and because he
only employed such measures as were most appro-
priate for his few and simple themes. It is as difficult
to associate art with his poetry as it would be to
associate art with the vibrations of an Aeolian lyre.

26 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Perhaps such a stanza as this — and how haunting
it is — owed something to the file:

I sat and watched the eternal flow
Of those smooth billows to the shore,

While quivering lines of light below
Ran with them on the Ocean floor ;

but, if it did, it is art indistinguishable from nature.
Perfect simplicity is the note of Bryant, and absolute
sincerity, yet how magical, now with the note of
pathos, now with the note of the sublime. He realized
what he wrote in The Poet:

. . . Let no empty gust
Of passion find an utterance in thy lay,
A blast that whirls the dust

Along the howling street, and dies away;
But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep,
Like currents journeying through the windless deep.

Seekest thou, in living lays

To limn the beauty of the Earth and sky?
Before thine inner gaze

Let all that beauty in clear vision lie ;
Look on it with exceeding love, and write
The words inspired by wonder and delight.

He moved, it must be conceded, in a very limited
sphere, and had comparatively few notes ; but, with-
in that sphere how admirable ; of those few notes,
how true a master!

II

In Bryant America produced her first poet whose
work approaches classical merit. But for many years
he stood alone, mediocrity surrounding as mediocrity

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 27

had preceded him. His influence was great on the
later works of some of the poets who have already
been mentioned, and he had many disciples among
the younger men, but they were all mere imitators.
Among the poets, if they can be dignified with such
a title, intervening between the period marked by the
appearance of Bryant's first volume and the appear-
ance of the characteristic work of the great New Eng-
land group in the latter part of the century, a few may
be noticed as, in different ways, typical. Street, the
author of Nature and of the Gray Forest Eagle,
is interesting; for, though his work has very little
poetic quality, his descriptions of Nature are remark-
ably minute and accurate, and he is certainly the best
representative of the Nature school. How faithful
and vivid, for example, are pictures — and his poetry
abounds in them — like these:

The hemlock stands, an ivory pyramid,

And the link'd branches gleam, like silvery webs,

Trac'd on the glittering azure of the sky ;

and

The last butterfly,

Like a wing'd violet, floating in the meek,
Pink-colour'd sunshine, sinks his velvet feet
Within the pillar'd mullein's delicate down,
And shuts and opens his unruffled fans.1

In versatile and voluminous Charles Fenno Hoff-
man, we have Byron and Moore and Dibdin and Miss
Landon, variously and vigorously diluted, without a
line of any distinction ; and Hoffman is typical of a
then flourishing school. Lunt has vigour and mettle,
as his Lyre and Sword testify. In Pike's "Hymns

1 See, for Street, Griswold, pp. 395-401.

28 POETRY AND CRITICISM

to the Gods," we have an excursion into classical
themes, suggested, no doubt, by Keats's Endymion,
on which they are plainly modelled, and which they
echo as faithfully as his Lines "written on the Rocky
Mountains echo Shelley's Stanzas -written in Dejec-
tion at Naples. Southey's intolerable epics found
an imitator in Sands, who also paid the same
tribute to Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming. But
it is unnecessary to particularize further; and, per-
haps, we may take N. P. Willis as most compre-
hensively representative of this period. Traveller,
journalist, playwright, novelist, essayist, man of the
world — a readier and defter pen and more versatile
talents were probably never possessed by man. And
all these qualities and accomplishments are reflected
in his poetry. It has no depth ; it has no concentra-
tion ; it has no distinction ; but it is always readable,
and it is generally pleasing. His genius resembled
those light, friable soils where every seed that falls
takes root, shoots up, bursts readily into leaf and
flower, and ends in producing a fruit, which is indeed
fruit, but which is hardly worth picking. To origin-
ality Willis had no pretension. Every note he struck
had been struck before with far more vigour in Eng-
land, and with vigour equal to his own in America.
In a word, if we except the poetry descriptive of
native scenery, and that was modelled on Bryant, the
verse of this period is merely the English poetry of
the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, with in-
ferior variations, over again in feeble echo. " I am
tired," wrote Judge Story to his son, " of the endless
imitations of the forms and figures and topics of
British poetry." And what Judge Story complained

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 29

of in prose, Paulding bewailed in verse. Apostro-
phizing the muse of his country, he asks:

How long in servile imitative rhyme

Wilt thou thy stifled energies impart,

And miss the path that leads to every heart?

But this prodigious multiplication of mediocrities,
and this tardy development of true poetry are not
difficult to explain. All national poetry of a high
order must have its root in life, in the propitious soil
of such social and political conditions as are con-
ducive to its inspiration and nutriment. It must have
a past rich in tradition behind it ; it must have a
present throbbing with what appeals to imagination,
to sentiment, to passion ; its energy must be concen-
trated, that spark may catch from spark, and flame
from flame : it must have touchstones and standards,
derived primarily from what was best in preceding
achievement, mutually applied and mutually exacted
by rival competitors for fame: it must have enlight-
ened patronage: it must have response and sym-
pathy from those to whom it appeals. None of these
conditions existed in America; it would be more true
to say that conditions the very opposite to these ob-
tained everywhere. Where energy was concentrated,
it was concentrated almost entirely on commercial
and industrial pursuits. The extraordinary facility
which the country afforded for the accumulation of
wealth, was soon discovered and utilized. With ma-
terial prosperity, came all that such prosperity carries
in its train. The attainment of much, inflamed the
passion for more. Each year increased the fever ; and
America, speaking generally, rapidly assumed the

30 POETRY AND CRITICISM

gross features so familiar to us in Emerson's por-
trait of her. National life there was none. Between
the several States, which had each its own character-
istics and its own interests, there was almost as little
unity as there was between the Italian republics of
the Middle Ages.

Nor were other conditions more favourable to the
development of poetry. As there was everything to
depress it in social and political life, so there was no
bond of union, no common centre; poets had no stim-
ulus from mutual enthusiasm and mutual emulation.
Without enlightened patrons, without public sym-
pathy, without responsibility to any critical tribunal,
each poet went his own way. There was nothing to
encourage him to excel. He was in a country which
had no literary tradition of its own, and where critic-
ism was in its infancy. And this was not all. In every-
thing relating to the humanities, he was an English-
man. He spoke as his native tongue the English
language, he was nourished on the English literature.
The schism which had severed all other bonds with
the Mother Country only drew this intellectual bond
the closer. England was, indeed, to America all and
much more than ancient Greece was to ancient Rome;
and, like Rome, America gloried in her servitude.
The genius of Bryant had, aswe have seen, succeeded
in breaking these shackles, but only so far as extended
to the treatment of Nature. Beyond this, the move-
ment had not progressed ; at that point it was ar-
rested. And so remained, unexplored and unworked,
all those rich mines which were to yield so much
precious ore to Whittier and to Longfellow, to
Lowell and to the other poets of the Revival.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 31

American poetry presents the extraordinary anom-
aly of having no infancy. Like the portentous child
in Hesiod, it was born with gray hairs. Decrepit
from its birth, it had in itself no principle of vigor-
ous life. By re-creation only could that life inspire
it. The process had been commenced by Bryant, it
was now to be completed. America was to have a
poetry of her own.

On the 3ist of August, 1837, Emerson delivered
an Address at Cambridge which sounded a trumpet
note. Thus rang the thrilling strain :

"Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to
the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The mil-
lions that around us are rushing into life cannot always
be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events,
actions arise that must be sung, that will sing themselves.
Who can doubt that Poetry will revive and lead in a new
age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now
flames in our zenith, shall one day be the pole-star for a
thousand years? . . . We have listened too long to the
courtly Muses of Europe. The spirit of the American is
suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and priv-
ate avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The
mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats
upon itself. Young men of the fairest promise who begin
life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds,
shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below
not in union with these. . . . We will walk on our own
feet : we will work with our own hands : we will speak
our own minds. The study of letters shall no longer be
a name for pity, for doubt and for sensual indulgence.
A nation of men will, for the first time, exist, because
each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which
also inspires all men."

32 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Noble words; as Holmes justly says, " Nothing
like them had been heard in the halls of Harvard
since Samuel Adams supported the affirmative of
the question, ' Whether it be lawful to resist the
Chief Magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot
otherwise be preserved.'" It was, he says, the
American intellectual Declaration of Independence.

The response to this appeal was so immediate and
enthusiastic that it must have fallen on sympathies
prepared to meet it more than half way. And that,
indeed, was the case. A reaction had begun to set
in : a stir was already in the air, Channing's similar
but less eloquent appeal, delivered fourteen years
before, had sunk into many minds. Everett's Ora-
tions and writings had struck, and very powerfully,
a native note in prose, as Bryant and, in a minor
degree, Whittier had done in poetry. If we glance
at those who were to create the poetry of the next
generation, and, where they had been already active,
compare what they produced before 1837 with what
they produced afterwards, we shall have some idea
of what the movement, defining itself in that year,
meant. Whittier and Longfellow were in their
thirty-first year; the first had produced nothing of
any value except Mogg Megone ; the second, nothing
at all but a few trifles contributed to magazines.
Holmes, some two years younger, had given to the
world a thin volume, which would have been for-
gotten long ago had it not been for his subsequent
fame. Poe, an anomaly in everything, had pro-
duced some fine poems, but he was almost unknown.
Lowell, in his nineteenth year, as yet guiltless of
verse, was an undergraduate at Harvard. Whitman,

of the same age, and equally silent, was a wandering
schoolmaster. Bayard Taylor was a child of thirteen,
and Miller and Bret Harte were not born. The history
of American poetry, till quite recently, centres round
these names. With Emerson is associated the tran-
scendental school ; with Whittier, the purely native
school. Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell are the
centre of what may be called the academic and
eclectic group; Poe stands alone; so, happily, does
Whitman. Taylor represents the cosmopolitan
school: Miller, the poetry of the Pacific slope:
Lanier, the poetry of the South, and Bret Harte
was the founder and representative of what Mr.
Stedman calls the transcontinental school.

In some respects, Emerson is among the greatest
of American poets; but it is not by virtue of his
poetry, but by virtue of his prose and by virtue of
what in his verse is independent of the form of
verse. If we take Wordsworth's definition of a
poet as exhaustive, namely, that he is "an inspired
philosopher " ; or if we estimate the quality of
poetry by a criterion furnished us by Emerson him-
self, that it is to be judged by "the frame of mind
which it induces," then there can be no question
about Emerson's eminent place among poets. But
these criteria are not sufficient. Poetry must have
other qualities, even those indicated by Milton; it
must be "simple, sensuous, impassioned." Simple,
Emerson never is, except in touches. Where his
poetry does not move in a world of symbolism, it
moves in a world of riddles; and what it discerns it
so encumbers with the laces and jewels of recondite
fancies and phrases, that we dwell rather on the

D

34 POETRY AND CRITICISM

ornaments than on what they adorn. He seems to
think and feel in aphorisms. Some of his poems
resemble necklaces of crystals, and have all the hard,
cold glitter of crystals. They abound in passages of
which the following is typical:

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with a hammer or with mace;

That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys

Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the super-solar blaze.

He seems to have modelled his style on that of the
poets of our Metaphysical School, particularly on
that of Donne, of whom he has many reminiscences.
His predominating characteristics as a poet are, if we
may use the expression, intellectualized fancy and
transcendental enthusiasm. But he had no attribute
of the born singer. His verse, even where the
themes are simple and natural, as in the touching
Threnody and in May Day, has a constrained awk-
ward movement, and, what is worse, leaves us with
the impression that it has only been by the greatest
labour that such an effect has been produced. We
feel that what Milton said of himself in composing
prose, namely, that he had only the use of his left
hand, Emerson might have said of himself in com-
posing verse. Occasionally, he can be most felicit-
ous, as in

Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,

Or dip thy paddle in the lake,
But it carves the bow of beauty there

And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake;

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 35

or in

Though love repine and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply;

'Tis man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die;

or in the justly famous

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,

The youth replies, / can.

But such felicities are so rare that they come upon
us, as Matthew Arnold remarks, with a sort of sur-
prise, just as the Concord Hymn in point of com-
position stands almost alone among his poems. He
was not a born singer. The moment we place his
Dirge, excellent as the first part of it is, beside
Wordsworth's parallel Extemporary Stanzas on the
Death of the Ettrick Shepherd, or the Fourth of July
Ode and the Boston Hymn beside Whittier's lyrics
in a similar strain, we see at once the difference
between Emerson and those who, in Juvenal's
phrase, have ''bitten the laurel." His ear, more-
over, is so defective that, the moment he leaves the
simplest measures, or attempts any variations on
them, his verses become intolerably dissonant.
Nothing could be more unmusical than his blank
verse.

But his poetry is absolutely original ; and, if we
seek in it what we find in his prose, it is interesting
and precious. There is enough thought in it, illu-
mining and inspiringly suggestive thought, to set
up a dozen poets. An intense lover of Nature,
natural description is a very prominent element in

36 POETRY AND CRITICISM

his poetry. And his pictures and touches are always
fresh, vivid, and accurate, though he has nothing of
the clairvoyance and magic of Bryant. Speaking of
sea-shells, he says in one of his poems:

I fetched my sea-born treasures home,

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

It was so always with him : as a philosopher he
could read Nature, and he was poet enough to de-
light in her and to describe her, but he was not poet
enough to steal her beauty and catch her magic.
He wooed, but she jilted him.

Among the most remarkable poems produced by
the disciples of Emerson — and he had many, notably
Alcott, Cranch, Ellery Channing, and Thoreau —
are the sonnets of Jones Very, which, though not of
the highest order, deserve to be better known than
they are ; and Cranch has written one or two strik-
ing poems in the same metaphysical strain. These,
for example, deserve, as Sir Thomas Browne would
say, an asterisk, and would have pleased Donne:

We are spirits clad in veils;

Man by man was never seen.
All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known :
Mind with mind did never meet:

We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete.

Like the stars that gem the sky
Far apart though seeming near;

In our light we scatter'd lie,
All is then but starlight here.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 37

In passing to Whittier, we pass to a poet of a
very different order. Of Quaker descent and of the
Quaker persuasion, his early surroundings, those of
a New England farmstead, his later, the storm and
stress of the abolitionist struggle, with the Bible,
the Pilgrim's Progress, the poems of Burns, and the
current political journalism of his time as the chief
sources of his literary education, he rapidly rose to
eminence, some insisted to pre-eminence, among
the poets of his country. His long life falls into two
eras, the first closing with his sixtieth year in 1865,
up to which time, he says, his poetry was some-
thing episodical, something apart from the real
object and aim of his life; the second with his death,
in his eighty-fifth year, in 1892. But in both these
eras his genius moved in the same sphere, and was
bounded by the same horizons. He improved in
technique; his note grew mellower; and, as the
cause to which his life had been so nobly devoted
was won, he passed out of the fierce turbulence of
aggressive polemics into a serener atmosphere. He
said himself, when at the height of his fame, " I set
a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-
Slavery Declaration of 1833, than on the title-pages
of my books " ; and the remark gives us the key to
his character. His noble enthusiasm as a philan-
thropist cost him dear as a poet. It left him no
leisure, from early manhood till past the prime of
life, to do justice to his powers. It forced him to
give to journalism and controversy what he might
have given to fame, and to consider of secondary
importance everything which was not subservient
to the moment. The result was that the habits and

38 POETRY AND CRITICISM

defects peculiar to those who devote themselves to
the production of ephemeral literature became con-
firmed in him. What was characteristic, and neces-
sarily characteristic of the work which he produced
under pressure and when he had no time for medi-
tation and labour, is equally characteristic of the
work which he produced when he had ample time
for both. Whittier has left abundant proof that
Nature had qualified him to take a much higher
place among poets than the place he holds; and the
reason for his failing to attain it may obviously be
traced to what I have described, his monotonous
insistence on the themes inspired and suggested by
the cause to which he devoted his life, his too easy
acquiescence, as an artist, in commonplace stand-
ards of aim and attainment, and his want of broad
generous culture. His facility of expression and his
deft and wonderful skill in spinning poems became
a snare to him. Sensitive and restless, he knew no
repose. Lowell describes him as having

A fervour of mind that knows no separation
'Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration.

And, unfortunately for his fame, we owe almost as
much of his poetry to "simple excitement" as to
"pure inspiration." But when under this inspira-
tion, his lyrics have a verve, swing and fire which
are irresistible, and which fill us with responsive en-
thusiasm. The cause to which his Anti-Slavery
lyrics were dedicated has long been won, and the
incidents of the great struggle to which they refer
are dim traditions now. But who can read, unmoved,
such lyrics as The Paean, Stanzas for the Times, To

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 39

Englishmen, The Song of the Free, The Farewell,
Massachusetts to Virginia, The New Year; or listen,
unthrilled, to the crashing joy-bells of Laus Deo?
There is great power in The Slave-Ships, and true
pathos in The Farewell, while Barbara Frietchie is
a little masterpiece. In his narrative poems his great
infirmities as an artist are most conspicuous. Mogg
Megone and The- Bridal of Pennacook, though in-
teresting as anticipating Longfellow in dealing with
Indian legends, are crude, diffuse, cumbrous; and
The Tent on the Beach, which is among his maturest
works, has no pretension to unity. Heavily drags
also The Pennsylvania Pilgrim. But of his ballads
and ballad-lyrics the very least that can be said for
some of them is, that they are among the best of
their kind. Maud Midler is justly famous, and
Skipper Ireson's Ride will always be among the
classics of humorous song. But his most pleasing
poems are those which fairly entitle him to be called
the Burns of New England. His pictures of its rural
scenery and life, such as we find in Miriam, Hamp-
ton Beach, in The Tent on the Beach, in Summer by
the Lakeside, in The Old Burying-ground and above
all in Snowbound, which is his masterpiece as a poet,
are indeed delightful, and can never lose their charm.
Mr. Stedman tells us that Horace Greeley pro-
nounced Whittier to be the best of American poets.
It would surely be more correct to say that, among
the eminent poets of America, he stands lowest.
The profound respect which must be felt for him as
a man ; the noble object to which so much of his
poetry was directed; its high moral and religious
tone; its wholesomeness, its purity and its other

40 POETRY AND CRITICISM

most unquestionable merits must not seduce us into
mismeasurement. Whittier's very best work is not
work into which any high poetic quality enters. His
average work is essentially commonplace, and
scarcely rises to mediocrity.

His studies from Nature, truthful, fresh, and most
pleasing as they generally are, are too diffuse, and
produce their effect, not as the touch of genius pro-
duces it, but by the commonplace process of a faith-
ful accumulation of superficial details. His style,
even at its best, has little distinction, abounding in
such feeble pleonasms as "The tear on her cheek was
not of rain," and such grotesque lapses into prose, —
and they are not unfrequent, — as this:

In him brain-currents, near and far,
Converged, as in a Leyden jar.

His versification is correct and musical, and at times
has real charm ; but it has few notes, and on these
notes it harps too monotonously. He owed nothing
to study and books, had no touch of classical cul-
ture. In tone, in temper and in sympathies, for
good and for detriment, spiritually, morally, and
intellectually, he was a New England Quaker on
whom Apollo had smiled, not ungenially, but with
something of the constraint and reserve likely to be
evoked by the homage of so unwonted a votary.
But the annals of poetry would be poorer, had such
a name as Whittier's not been inscribed on their
pages. Noble example is nobler than the noblest
poem, and the tradition of a life which was a poem,
an inheritance more precious than a poem which is
written. And therefore poetry itself, the poetry of

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 41

the world, has room for Whittier's, for, impressed
on what he wrote is the character of the man who
wrought, his purity, his simplicity, his philanthropy,
his uncompromising loyalty to conscience and duty,
his cheerful piety, all that speaks in

The letter fails, the systems fall,
And every symbol wanes ;
The Spirit, overbrooding all,
Eternal love remains ;

— all that speaks in the beautiful verses which he
addressed to those who had less confidence than him-
self in the faith which sustained him :

I walk with bare, hush'd feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod :
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God. . . .

And so, beside the Silent Sea,

I wait the muffled oar :

No harm from Him can come to me

On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

O brothers, if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen
Thy creatures, as they be,
Forgive me, if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee !

Whittier was not the only poet inspired by the

42 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Abolitionist struggle and the events preceding and
resulting from the great war of 1861. Of the in-
numerable lyrics, anonymous and appropriated, in-
spired by them, some became famous. The catch
song, John Brown's Body, has little to recommend
it but the sonorous music to which it was set, and
Randall's My Maryland, as well as the anonymous
Blue Flag, have mettle and fire; but higher merit
belongs to Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the
Republic, which has the power and enthusiasm of
something more than rhetoric. BrownelPs war lyrics
have vigour, not distinction ; but distinction cer-
tainly belongs to Mrs. Lynn Beer's vivid and
pathetic lyric, All Quiet along the Potomac, and to
Forceythe Willson's most touching and dramatic
picture of the death of The Old Sergeant.

But to return to the main stream. If Whittier is
the most purely native of American poets, Poe is the
most purely alien. In no touch has he anything
that recalls the temper and genius either of the North
or of the South ; in no feature can the features of his
fellow countrymen be traced. Of morality, or of any-
thing pertaining to morality, he has nothing; of
patriotism he has nothing; of any concern or inter-
est in the world around him, nothing. An anomaly
absolutely unique, the poetry characteristic of him
might have been produced in any country and at any
time. As he was an American citizen, and the de-
scendant of American citizens, though his mother
was an Englishwoman, America has a right to claim
him. And, need it be added, America has a right
to be proud of him, but for reasons very different
from those which make her proud of her other poets.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 43

Poe is to her literature what Keats, in an infinitely
higher sense and measure, is to ours — an artist for
art's sake, to whom little appealed but the Beautiful,
and whose poetry, at its best, is the expression of
exclusive homage to it. He was the first American
poet to disassociate poetry from nature and life, from
the world of men, and to transport it into a world of
imagination and fantasy.

An artist more consummate never existed; and,
although the fascination and witchery of much of
his poetry had its origin from mystic sources of
genuine inspiration, and cannot be resolved into
triumphs, into miracles of conscious art, yet, as we
know from himself, he revelled in the display of
mere mechanical craftsmanship. This he did in The
Bells and The Raven obviously, and, almost as ob-
viously, in Ulalume ; and in this consists the in-
sincerity of his poetry, " the two-fifths sheer fudge "
of Lowell's well-known sarcasm. Of no poet may it
be said with more truth that he was the slave of
music ; hence some of his poems, like Israfel, and
the poem just mentioned, Ulalume, resolve them-
selves into mere music; but it is a music which had
never before been heard on earth. It is in such poems
as The Haunted Palace, The Conqueror Worm, The
City in the Sea, Lenore, Dreamland, that, in his fan-
tastic vein, he is at his best, because his magical
power as an artist and musician is employed legiti-
mately to body forth the genuine conceptions of
imagination, weird and in various degrees touched
with insanity as that imagination is. But the poems
which come most home to us are the love lyrics and
threnodies, whether represented by such a classic

44 POETRY AND CRITICISM

gem as ' ' Helen thy Beauty " or by A nnabel Lee, with
its pathos in quintessence and haunting harmony,
or the magic of Eulalie, and The Sleeper, or the
utterly unanalyzable fascination of the verses For
A nnie.

The contrast between Poe's lawless and turbid
life and the purity and serenity of the world in which
he moved as a poet, is not more striking than an-
other contrast presented by his constitution and
temper. With the aesthetic sensibility, imagination
and enthusiasm of a poet he united a precise, cold,
logical intellect, in the exerciseof which he delighted.
His analysis of the rationale of The Raven is well
known and is most significant. Of what may be
traced to this characteristic there is too much in his
poetry. Its enthusiasm, we often feel, is not wholly
pure : its passion has not always the note of sincerity,
nor is it always on the wing of inspired imagination
that he soars to his weird realms. To this character-
istic may be traced, also, his precise and clear-cut
style, so lucid, so coldly chaste, so deliberately, so
exquisitely finished. His marvellous tact as an artist
taught him to blend most harmoniously and effect-
ively the opposite extremes of studied simplicity and
studied preciosity.

The poetry of Poe was a new creation. It owed
something to Coleridge, something to Shelley, and
something to Tennyson, but nothing like it as a
whole had appeared before. If The Raven and The
Bells are little better than tours de force they are
absolutely original: if Ulalume and Israfel are
tuneful nonsense, no such tuneful nonsense had as
yet been heard. Every note which he struck he

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 45

struck for the first time, and every note which he
struck has since vibrated in the lyric poetry of Ame-
rica and England. It would be idle to institute any
comparison between him and the other lyric poets
of the English-speaking race whose immortality he
will share, for he stands absolutely alone. Every
generation will delight in his poetry, but it will
never come home to men like the poetry of his
brethren. They will be fascinated with the weird
witchery of its music, and with the mystic beauty
of its strange, wild fancies. They will wander with
mingled emotions through its wonderful Dream-
land, now radiant with the light of heaven, now
lurid with a light which is the light in delirium's
eyes. They will be touched with its pathos, so sim-
ple, yet so intense. They will marvel at its miracles
of technical triumph. But they will draw no inspi-
ration from it. It has nothing of the influential
virtue of vital poetry: it carries no balm for the
heart's wounds, no solace for life's cares. It never
kindled a generous emotion or a noble thought.
To rise from its perusal is like waking from a dream,
a dream that haunts, but a dream that finally fades,
leaving no traces, from memory.

Not his the song that in its metre holy
Chimes with the music of the eternal stars :
Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly,
And sending sun through the soul's prison bars.

And now we come to that eminent and gifted trio
in whose work the transatlantic poetry of the last
century may be said, in many important respects, to
culminate. It would be difficult for any critic, unless
he wishes to be paradoxical, to say anything new

46 POETRY AND CRITICISM

about poets so long and so widely discussed as
Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell. Each has his place
assigned, and, no doubt, rightly assigned, to him,
both in his native country and in Great Britain ; and
it is a proof of the intimacy of the relationship in all
that pertains to the humanities between America
and ourselves, that the estimate formed of them by
their countrymen should differ so little from the es-
timate formed here. I am not speaking of the aca-
demic school of criticism which has ignored them,
nor of the modern preciosity school which has af-
fected, and still affects, to despise them, but of the
audience and tribunal to which they appeal and by
which they would desire to be judged — general
readers of culture and intelligence, and competent
critics with catholic tastes and sympathies. The
correctness of the estimate formed of their work
is due to the instinctive good sense which has not
expected more from them than they had to give, and
thus allowed no discontent or querulousness to in-
terfere with generous appreciation of what they did
give.

These three poets have very much in common.
All professors in the same university, they were es-
sentially scholars and men of manifold accomplish-
ments, profoundly versed in English literature and
intimately acquainted with all the chief languages
and literatures of Europe, where all had resided, not
as casual travellers, but as students. They were
thus men of cosmopolitan culture and of cosmopoli-
tan tastes and sympathies. All delighted in society,
and were almost as distinguished by their social
qualities as by their literary accomplishments. For

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 47

all, the composition of poetry was mere recreation,
subordinate, in the case of Holmes, to the duties of
a busy practising physician ; in the case of Long-
fellow, to the duties of a Professor of Belles-lettres ;
in the case of Lowell, to vocations more various than
had ever before, perhaps, fallen to the lot of one
man. Their lives were easy and prosperous; two
of them were humorists, delighting in such trifles
as amuse good-natured flaneurs, and the third, if
not a humorist, had the tastes of a refined dilettant.
Nothing less like bards or prophets could possibly
be imagined than these genial, polished, and most
accomplished men.

No great poetry ever appeared under such con-
ditions, and from men so constituted and tempered
great poetry we cannot hope to find. We find what
we might expect, not a poetry rooted in contempor-
ary national life and drawing its inspiration and nu-
triment from that life: not intensity, not passion,
not enthusiasm, nothing of that homogeneousness
and originality characteristic of a poetry which has
the note of the Zeitgeist, and is the unforced and
common product of propitious social and political
conditions; but a poetry academic, eclectic, occa-
sional, having its models in many literatures, de-
riving its material and inspiration from what hap-
pened accidentally to appeal to the poet as an in-
dividual, either in his private or social life, or in his
studies. Thus, when it took an objective form, it
ransacked the annals legendary and historical, not
of America only, but of almost every country in the
world, without, however, transferring them, after
the manner of inspired poetry, into symbols and

48 POETRY AND CRITICISM

analogues of the life pulsing round it. When it took
a subjective form, it resolved itself into a series of
fragments, as various in expression as in matter,
sometimes serious, sometimes trifling, seldom ori-
ginal, never profound. It is a poetry which plays
on the surface of life, catching its lights and shadows;
dealing with its ordinary experiences, and giving
musical utterance to such reflections and senti-
ments as those experiences are wont to evoke
from normally and healthily constituted men and
women. But, being essentially composite, it has
many tones and many notes, and ranges over a wide
field. Now it is academic, and, seeking its themes
in subjects dear to the scholar and student, affects
classicism and the grand style, and here, as a rule,
it is not successful; now, as in Lowell's Commem-
oration Ode, it kindles with noble moral fervour; now
it is the perfection of simple idyll, pure nature with
pure nature's note:

A certain freshness of the fields,

A sweetness as of home-made bread,

and here it has often inexpressible charm. Occa-
sionally, it surprises us, as in the Btglow Papers
and in other humorous and semi-humorous pieces,
not only by its raciness, vividness and power in
comedy and satire, but by its inimitable presenta-
tion of the idiosyncrasies of national character. A
very long life may fairly be predicted for Parson
Wilbur, Hosea Biglow and Bird o' Fredom Sawin.
But its excursions into such realms as these are the
exception, not the rule. Its favourite sphere is the
sphere which has been indicated, the sphere of

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 49

Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, of Schiller's and
Heine's lyrics and legends, of Wordsworth's "bal-
lads " and nature poems, of Tennyson's home idylls
and In Memoriam, of Prior's and Praed's vers de
societe. And this realm it, too, made its own, en-
riching and permanently enriching the poetry of the
English-speaking world.

I have associated Holmes with Longfellow and
Lowell. Had he been living, that most modest of
men would probably have asked with surprise how
any one who presumed to talk critically of poetry
could have so mismeasured him. It would have been
necessary to explain that he stood beside them rather
for the convenience of tabulation than for any inten-
tion of assuming his equality. But even then he
would have shaken his head. And, indeed, Holmes's
most striking characteristics are those of the impro-
msatore, his extraordinary versatility and his not less
extraordinary facility in composition. He has fire
and mettle, witness his Bunker-hill Battle and his
Old Ironsides and Lexington : his fancy can be ex-
quisite, with a touch of magic, as the Chambered
Nautilus testifies ; and equally exquisite and magic-
touched his pathos, as in Under the Violets. He can
be impressive to sternness as in The Two Streams —
a really fine lyric — and The Living Temple: he can
catch the deep religious fervour of his Puritan fore-
fathers, as in his Hymns. His humour can be de-
lightful, as in The One-Horse Shay and in Parson
Turell's Legacy. His tact and grace and his felicity
of charming and appropriate expression as a poet of
social functions, of anniversaries, and of all such
occasions as call for the wreath of the moment, are

E

50 POETRY AND CRITICISM

quite unsurpassed. But we love him best as the
poet of the changes and chances of man's life, and
as the tender laureate of the memory-consecrated
past ; as the cheerful optimist, when night is nigh
— as the poet of such poems as The Last Survivor,
The S/tadotvs, All Here, and of that poem which for
all time deserves to be bound up with its sister poem
in prose, Cicero's De Senectute, I mean The Iron-
gate. We love him, as we love Horace, for his
genial humanity, his mellow wisdom, such as find
expression, for instance, in an unforgetable quatrain
like this:

Man judges all : God knoweth each:
We read the rule, He knows the law;
How oft His laughing children teach
The truths His prophets never saw.

And this is typical of much more.

In passing from Holmes to Lowell, we pass from
charm to power. In originality, in virility, in many-
sidedness, Lowell is the first of American poets. He
not only possessed, at times in nearly equal measure,
many of the qualities most notable in his fellow poets,
rivalling Bryant as a painter of Nature, and Holmes
in pathos, having a touch too of Emerson's tran-
scendentalism, and rising occasionally to Whittier's
moral fervour, but he brought to all this much be-
side. The first part of the Legend of Brittany in its
sensuous richness reminds us of Leigh Hunt at his
best: The Sirens and Irene recall Tennyson too
nearly, perhaps, but they are no discredit to their
model. In one vein he produced such a masterpiece
of mingled pathos and nature painting as we find
in the tenth Biglow letter of the second series: in

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 51

another, such a lyric gem as The Fountain', in an-
other, The First Snow-fall and After the Burial: in
another, again, the noble Harvard Commemoration
Ode. And the author of these poems was the creator
of Parson Wilbur, Hosea Biglow, and Bird o' Fre-
dom Sawin, as well as the author of A Fable for
Critics. This is a wide range; but we must distin-
guish between the degrees of success with which it
has been attempted. No work produced before a
poet has found his natural level, has found himself,
can form any factor in an estimate of his work as a
whole, in an estimate of his place among poets. At
least two-thirds of Lowell's earlier poems, however
pleasing and eloquent, have something of the note
of falsetto. Many of them are simply eclectic ex-
periments. The more ambitious poems, Prometheus,
J?/wecusand Columbus, are little more than academic
exercises, and not of a high order even among such
compositions. Sir Launfal, except for the beautiful
nature pictures, scarcely rises above the level of an
Ingoldsby Legend.

The truth is, that Lowell was in constitution and
temper a humorist and moralist touched with aes-
thetic sensibility, with the fancy not with the imagi-
nation, with something of the fervour, not with the
enthusiasm, of the poet. Much which, as a poet,
he should have owed to Nature, he owed to culture
and to the sympathetic study of preceding masters,
notably Keats and Tennyson. A cultivated taste is
a poor substitute for instinct ; for the one is as fall-
ible as the other is infallible. Hence, we are never
sure of Lowell. He deserts Keats in A Legend of
Brittany to collapse into melodrama expressed in

52 POETRY AND CRITICISM

the language of melodrama, just as the Indian
Summer Reverie, with its exquisite nature pictures,
trails off into flat bald prose. Except in his earlier
poems and in his pictures from nature, his poetry
has little sensuous charm. He had plainly a most
defective ear for rhythm and verbal harmony. Ex-
cept when he confines himself to simple metres, we
rarely find five consecutive lines which do not in
some way jar on us. His blank verse and the irre-
gular metres which he, unfortunately, so often em-
ploys, have little or no music, and are often quite
intolerable. Of the distressing effect of clogged con-
sonants, sibilants and cacophonies of all kinds, he
appears to be as unconscious as Browning. Some
of these defects, or, at least, their exaggeration, are
perhaps to be attributed, like his jumbled metaphors
and other faults of expression, to carelessness and
impatience of the work of correction. No poetry
owes so little to the file.

But, after all the deductions which the most ex-
acting criticism can make, it still remains that, as a
serious poet, Lowell stands high. As a painter of
Nature, he has, when at his best, few superiors, and,
in his own country, none. Whatever be their aesthe-
tic and technical deficiencies, he has written many
poems of sentiment and pathos which can never fail
to come home to all to whom such poetry appeals.
His hortatory and didactic poetry, as it expresses it-
self in the Harvard Commemoration Ode, is worthy,
if not of the music and felicity of Milton and Words-
worth, at least of their tone, when that tone is most
exalted. As a humorist he is inimitable. His humour
is rooted in a finer sense of the becoming and in a

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 53

profounder insight into the character of his country-
men than that of any other American writer. The
Biglow Papers will live as long as Hudibras; and,
as long as Butler's crystallizations of shrewd wisdom
and ethic truth, will live and appeal the similar
aphorisms with which Lowell's poems are studded.

Ill

Sydney Smith, having occasion to discuss some
subject with Lord Melbourne, and knowing that
great man's habit of indulging very liberally in a
certain expletive, proposed that they should save
time by assuming that the said expletive had been
applied to everything, and proceed to business. I
propose to deal similarly with Longfellow's hostile
critics. Let it be conceded at once that he had little,
if any, originality; that he would have been nowhere
without the lyric poetry of Germany, of which his
own is often merely an echo, without the literatures
of Europe generally, to which almost everything he
has written can be traced ; that he had no depth of
thought; that he had neither sublimity nor passion ;
that*he failed egregiously when he attempted any-
thing ambitious; that he succeeded most when he
was most modest; that he never composed a line
beyond the comprehension of the bourgeoisie, nay,
of intelligent boys and girls, and very much which
was dedicated and intimately appealed to them.
And yet, it remains that, to thousands, whose tastes
have been formed by the sympathetic study of the
aristocrats of classical poetry, and who are com-
pelled to acknowledge the justice of these allega-

54 POETRY AND CRITICISM

tions, they come, like those grating truths which
we wish were falsehoods. It is like listening to re-
proaches on those we love ; distressed and irritated,
we long to retort on those who utter them. And,
indeed, there is something almost sacred in the fame
of Longfellow; for to how many thousands, to how
many hundreds of thousands, is his poetry conse-
crated by its associations. As Froude beautifully
says of the silvery cadences of our liturgy, that they
" chime like church-bells in the ear of the English
child," and haunt his memory with their music long
after childhood has passed, so, like church-bells
have chimed for our children another music as sil-
very and as haunting — the music of Longfellow.
To how many a death-darkened household, to how
many a life, clouded with the cares or bending under
the burdens which few escape, has his poetry brought
balm and sunshine and encouragement. Such poetry
as is characteristic of him is no more intended for
critics than the Bible was intended for theologians,
or the spring that gushes forth and refreshes the
toil-worn traveller, to supply material for analytical
chemistry.

And yet is there much satisfaction in showing
that, even on the application of strict and exacting
critical standards, even if we accept Sainte-Beuve's
dictum that the question for us is not whether we
admire any given work but whether we ought to
admire it, even from this point of view, Longfellow's
admirers have nothing to fear. He is almost always
sound in quality and sound in style. Even where
sentimentally he is thinnest and most trite, as in
The Footsteps of Angels, The Rainy Day, The Bridge,

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 55

The Reaper and the Flowers, Children, we are touched
and rightly touched ; for the pathos, though simple,
is genuine, and its expression exquisite in its pro-
priety. The Psalm of Life, I am not speaking of it
as a work of art, is a noble poem, and all the mouth-
ings of it in Infant Schools and in Young Men's
Christian Associations, and all the strummings of
" middle class " pianos will never make it other than
noble. Though his themes are so often the themes
so dear to Eliza Cook and her circle, his refinement
and tact often enabled him to maintain a level above
commonplace. He was never trivial ; his style sel-
dom lacks distinction.

His range and power as a lyric poet and balladist
would be best seen by placing beside the poems
which have just been referred to, The Skeleton in
Armour and Victor Galbraith, which have a fire
and verve rare with him; the impressive and noble
quatrains in the Arsenal at Springfield', the ex-
quisitely pathetic verses entitled Weariness, and the
Bells of Lynn, with its finely-cadenced lilt and swing.
The Building of the Ship cannot bear comparison
with Schiller's Das Lied von der Glocke, which was
its model, but the concluding lines, the apostrophe
to the Union, have all the fervour and strength of
Whittier's lyric when at its very best, and must go
to the heart of every true American. Of his longer
poems, The Tales of a Wayside Inn will scarcely
add to his reputation ; but the Saga of Olaf shows
how faithfully he could catch and render the notes
of the Eddas. The Golden Legend, whatever excep-
tion may justly be taken to its infirmities of structure
and want of unity and concentration, contains, frag-

56 POETRY AND CRITICISM

mentarily, some of his very best and most impressive
work: Elsie's chant, in the fifth part, beginning ' ' The
night is calm and cloudless," is one of the most ex-
quisite lyrics to be found in American poetry:

The night is calm and cloudless,
And still as still can be,
And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea.
They gather, and gather, and gather,
Until they crowd the sky,
And listen in breathless silence
To the solemn litany.
It begins in rocky caverns,
As a voice that chants alone
To the pedals of the organ
In monotonous undertone ;
And anon from shelving beaches,
And shallow sands beyond,
In snow-white robes uprising
The ghostly choirs respond.
And sadly and unceasing
The mournful voice sings on,
And the snow-white choirs still answer,
Christe eleison !

His most powerful work, from a dramatic point of
view, is the Courtship of Miles Standish, but the
works in this group on which his fame will rest are
of course Evangeline and Hiawatha. Of Evangeline,
it would be impertinent to say anything more than
that it is the crown and flower of American Idyll, a
poem belonging, like our own Goldsmith's Deserted
Village, to the poetry which a nation enshrines in
its heart of hearts. As a work of art it will not, of
course, bear comparison fora moment with the Ger-
man masterpiece on which it is obviously modelled,

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 57

but in its simple pathos it comes more nearly home
to the affections than Hermann and Dorothea.

If anyone wished to make out a case for Long-
fellow's claim to what is almost universally denied
him, originality, he would do well to take his stand
on Hiawatha. He may have borrowed his form and
metre from the Kalevala, his material from books in
his library, and have failed, as he always does fail, in
concentration and unity; yet he at least broke new
ground, and produced a work which is often of
singular charm, and which had no prototype in
art.

As a translator, he is all but unrivalled. I am not
speaking of the hideous fidelity of his version of
Dante, but of such masterpieces as his version of the
Coplas of Manrique, of Salis' Silent Land, of Mul-
ler's Beware, of Uhland's Castle by the Sea, and the
versions from the Swedish and Danish. Perhaps the
only poems of Longfellow's to which, generally
speaking, justice has not been done are his Son-
nets; but some of these Sonnets are among the
finest ever written in any language; such would be
Dante, and the first and second of those on the
Divina Commedia ; excellent, also, if in a less degree,
are the three others, as well as Nature, Giotto's
Tower, and Chaucer — but nearly all have distinction.

Many would no doubt dispute Longfellow's title
to be considered America's greatest poet; probably
no one would dispute his title to be considered her
greatest poetic artist. His supremacy there is con-
firmed alike by the range of his attainment and by
its quality. It is a long way from the most exquisite
of his lyrics to such lyrics as the Saga of KingOlaf

58 POETRY AND CRITICISM

and Victor Galbraith, from the Voices of the Night
and Birds of Passage to the Courtship of Miles
Standish) from the Sonnets to Hiawatha, from The
Golden Legend to Evangeline] and in every one of
these experiments his success has been universally
acknowledged. It is no small achievement to have
been able to sound again the note of the Sagas and
the Kalevala, the note of Manrique, the note of
Dante, the notes of Goethe, of Schiller, of Uhland
and of Heine, not as a mere imitator, but as a kins-
man and copartner in inspiration ; to have created
a style admirable alike in lexis and in rhythm, the
perfection of purity, lucidity, and propriety, with a
music all its own, equably harmonious but never
monotonous, because in gracious and exquisite har-
mony with every conception and every emotion that
inspired it.

And so, having conducted him to where he is safe
from hostile criticism, we will reverently and grate-
fully leave him, without adding to the impertinences
of that criticism by any attempt to settle his relative
place among modern poets.

From the great New England trio we come to the
most versatile of American men of letters, Bayard
Taylor. Sensitive, receptive, finely touched and
finely tempered, with a faculty of fluent expression
and production, which few, even of his own country-
men, have rivalled, he dedicated a life of crowded
experience and of almost limitless industry to literary
work. In serious poetry, there was scarcely any
note which he did not strike. Studies from the
Greek, studies in Oriental life, studies in Italian
life, studies in Pennsylvanian, in California!!, in

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 59

Norse life: lyrics in every key and in almost every
measure, Pindaric, Hafizian, Shelleyan; threnody
and dithyramb, love-song and war-song, state-song
and ballad : narratives and idylls of equal range and
variety: drama, ideal, realistic, lyrical. And if it be
said, as it may with justice be said, that he failed
conspicuously in nothing except when he became
metaphysical, we must not grudge him the tribute
to which such gifts and such achievements are en-
titled, the tribute of admiration. But no poetry of a
high, or even of any permanent, value at all has
ever had its root in what we admire in Taylor. He
is, like Willis, little more than an impromsatore.
His poems, having no unity and no enthusiasm,
either moral or spiritual, are mere studies in song.
He has neither depth nor distinction, neither sub-
tlety nor power in reserve. At his best, he is above
mediocrity, but, with very rare exceptions, below
excellence. How incomparably inferior, for example,
is the Bedouin Song, praised so highly by Mr.
Stedman, to Shelley's Lines on an Indian Air which
it so nearly recalls, and which apparently inspired
it. The rich and noble but somewhat extravagant
poem, The Metempsychosis of the Pme, and the very
exquisite verses from Euplwrion on the death of a
friend's child, seem to me to stand absolutely alone
in his poetry:

For, through the crystal of your tears,
His love and beauty fairer shine ;
The shadows of advancing years
Draw back, and leave him all divine.

And Death, that took him, cannot claim
The smallest vesture of his birth,—

60 POETRY AND CRITICISM

The little life, a dancing flame
That hover'd o'er the hills of earth, —

The finer soul, that unto ours
A subtle perfume seemed to be,
Like incense blown from April flowers
Beside the scarred and stormy tree, —

The wondering eyes, that ever saw
Some fleeting mystery in the air,
And felt the stars of evening draw
His heart to silence — childhood's prayer !

And more exquisite verses never came from a
poet's pen. There is pathos too and power also in
Under the Stars, in Sunken Treasures, and in The
Mystery, which last has a memorable line :

Death may not keep what Death has never made.

An achievement far more valuable than any of his
original poems — except, indeed, fortouches and frag-
ments, is his admirable version of Goethe's Faust.

With Taylor are associated four poets, one of
whom is justly distinguished, while the other three
have at least individualized themselves — Thomas
Bailey Aldrich, Richard Henry Stoddard, George
Henry Boker and Thomas Buchanan Read. As a
writer of vers de societe, as a balladist, lyrist, and
descriptive poet, Aldrich is among the most ac-
complished and pleasing of American poets, as
such poems as his Palabras Carinosas, Babie Bell,
and Lynn Terrace amply testify. Stoddard is the
author of some pretty lyrics, of some respectable
blank verse, and of a threnody on Lincoln which
unfortunately invites comparison with Marvell and
Tennyson; Boker of some dramas which have gone

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 61

the way of W. H. Wills's, and of some pleasing
lyrics and ballads. Read produced a good descrip-
tive poem, The New Pastoral, at least one pretty
lyric, Drifting, and a war song of real merit, Sheri-
dan's Ride. With this group of poets may be classed
Dr. Thomas William Parsons, a scholarly and ac-
complished poet, whose lines On a Bust of Dante,
if perhaps overpraised, have real merit, and John
James Piatt, a representative poet of the Middle
West, who holds no undistinguished place both in
idyll and in reflective lyric.

In singular contrast to the poetic activity of the
New England and Pennsylvanian schools was the
sterility of the South. It had only produced three
poets whose names are worth recording. Henry
Timrod, the author of The Cotton Boll, had a touch
of genius; and of merit also is the work of Paul
Hamilton Hayne, who, like our own Southey, was
a good man and not a bad poet: his lyrics, A Little
While I Fain would Linger and In Harbour are
very pleasing. But by far the most distinguished
poet of this group was Sidney Lanier. Lanier is
plainly a disciple of Poe, whose music he often
closely recalls, but he was a man of rich and fine
genius, over which, however, he had no control and
which seems to have intoxicated him. "The very
inner spirit and essence of all wind-songs, passion-
songs, sex-songs, soul-songs, and body-songs " — so
he wrote of himself — "hath blown upon me like
the breaths of passions, and sailed me into a sea of
vast dreams, whereof each wave is at once a vision
and a melody." So it is with him in such poems as
the really superb Marshes of Glynn, Sunrise, Corn,

62 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Psalm of the West, Nirvana, in such lyrics as The
Sun has Kissed the Violet Sea, the verses to Neilson,
and in the less intense but most charming Song of
the Chattahoochee. But Lanier failed to do justice
to his genius as a poet, by deliberately fettering
himself with a most mistaken theory. He endea-
voured to blend and reconcile what is peculiar to
music with what is peculiar to poetry, so that his
poetry tends to confine itself to the expression of
what is more appropriately expressed by the sister
art, too often resolving into mere sensuous melody
and vague dreamy suggestiveness; but his poetry
is full of beauty and charm ; and it is original.

Very different were the strains coming from the
Pacific slope. There a poet appeared who at one
time promised to be among the most eminent, as he
is certainly among the most remarkable, whom
America has produced. Of the genius of Joaquin
Miller there can be no question. His Songs of the
Sierras struck a new and powerful note. Full of
fire and passion and colour, with all the race and
flavour of the wild, rich world of their nativity, they
swept along, like his own Vaquero,

On stormy steed,

His gaudy trappings tossed about and blown
About the limbs as lithe as any reed,

and the woods, where

Birds hang and swing, green rob'd and red,
Or droop in curved lines dreamily,
Rainbows reversed, from tree to tree,

and monkeys run through the leaves

Like shuttles hurried through and through
The threads a hasty weaver weaves.

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 63

And, the long days through, from blossom'd trees

There comes the sweet song of sweet bees,

With chorus tone of cockatoo

That slides his beak along the bough,

And walks and talks and hangs and swings

In crown of gold and coat of blue,

and the land of the tornado, when —

The tasselled tops of the pines are as weeds,

And the redwoods rock like to lake-side reeds,

And the world seems darkened and drowned forever,

— the land of sun-maids " tawny-red like wine " with
"rivers of hair and hearts of gold" — all this had
found its poet. But Miller never got beyond the
Songs of the Sierras', to the themes of which, or to
themes kindred to them, he always returned, when
he had anything distinctive to say. What seemed,
therefore, a work of splendid promise included the
fulfilment of that promise. Shallow-rooted and with-
out buds, his poetry flaunted into full life a gaudy,
broad-blown flower. But it was of native growth
and no exotic.

Of native growth, also, and no exotic was the pro-
digious product of transatlantic genius which we
have now to inspect. One of the most accomplished
and scholarly of English critics, the late John Ad-
dington Symonds, told us that we were to see in
Walt Whitman "A Behemoth, wallowing in prim-
eval jungles, bathing at fountain heads of mighty
rivers, crushing the bamboos and the cane-brakes
under him, bellowing and exulting in the torrid air;
a gigantic elk or buffalo trampling the grasses of
the wilderness, tracking his mate with irresistible
energy ; an immense tree, a kind ofYgdrasil, stretch-

64 POETRY AND CRITICISM

ing its roots deep down into the bowels of the world,
and unfolding its magic boughs through all the
spaces of the heavens ; the circumambient air, in
which float shadowy shapes, rise mirage towers and
palm groves; the globe itself, all seas, lands, forests,
climates, storms, snows, sunshines, rains of uni-
versal earth; all nations, cities, languages, religions,
arts, creeds, thoughts, emotions; the beginning and
the grit of these things, not their endings, lees and
dregs."1

The most distinguished of living English poets,
on the other hand, sees in the touches which awaken
these astonishing elemental melodies only " the
dirty and clumsy paws of a harper whose plectrum
is a muck-rake," and whose Muse may be resolved
into "a drunken apple-woman indecently sprawl-
ing in the slush and garbage of the gutter, amid the
rotten refuse of the overturned apple stall.2

These have not the accent of impartial criticism.
It may, perhaps, assist us to a more balanced
estimate, if we assume the truth of three proposi-
tions; namely, that if a man six feet high, " of
striking masculine beauty and of venerable appear-
ance," chooses to stand on his head in the public
streets, and proceed to other improprieties of which
the police take cognizance, he will at least attract
notice, and create some excitement; secondly, that
the law of reaction in literature, as in everything
else, will assert itself, that, when poetry has long
attained perfection in form and has been running
smoothly in conventional grooves, there is certain

1 A Study of Walt Whitman, pp. 155-6.

2 Swinburne's Whitmania,

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 65

to be revolt both on the part of poets themselves and
in the public taste, and the opposite extreme will be
affected and welcomed ; and, thirdly, that if a writer
has the courage or impudence to set sense, taste
and decency at defiance, and, posing sometimes as a
mystic and sometimes as a mountebank, to express
himself in the jargon of both, and yet has the genius
to irradiate his absurdities with flashes of wisdom,
beauty and inspired insight, three things are cer-
tain to result. Those who sympathize with the re-
action of which he is the representative will dwell
with ecstasy on the very little which is the salt of
his work, will either ignore the rest, or, coming to
it with judgement prejudiced by their admiration for
what is vital and excellent, invest it with factitious
merits. Those of conservative tastes will dwell only
on what disgusts and offends them, and have no
eyes for anything else; and those who belong to
neither party, but are quite willing to judge what
they find on its own merits, will be perplexed, and
probably misled, by the conflicting opinions so im-
portunately vociferated, with all the heat of partisan-
ship, by the others.

This is precisely what has happened in the case
of Whitman. There can be little doubt that he em-
ployed the style which he affected, as well as the
shameless obscenities of such pieces as The Children
of Adam, to attract attention. It was a cheap and
easy means of attaining a unique position as a poet.
Nor was his mode of expression his only expedient
for securing singularity. Since Rousseau, no man
had presented himself absolutely nude to the public
gaze. That edifying spectacle was now repeated,

F

66 POETRY AND CRITICISM

and all who were interested in such exhibitions could
inspect and contrast them at their leisure; and, cer-
tainly, the stalwart and virile American showed to
great advantage beside the puny and emasculated
Frenchman. Having thus succeeded, as might have
been expected, not indeed in gaining respect, but
in drawing all eyes upon him, he proceeded to pile
eccentricity upon eccentricity and extravagance up-
on extravagance. A celebrated statesman once ob-
served, on being informed that the English people
would not " stand " a certain measure which he was
preparing to carry, that his experience had shown
him that the limits of what they would " stand " had
never yet been discovered. But what they would
"stand " in art — the American people, it must be re-
membered, were never hoodwinked by him — Whit-
man resolved to try. He gave them page after page
of mere jabber, of twaddle so absolutely drivelling
that it fascinated by its sheer audacity. Sometimes
it assumed the form of inanities and platitudes, such
as any man of average intelligence would, even in
familiar conversation, be ashamed to express ; some-
times it strung together long lists of names tran-
scribed from maps and gazetteers, introduced with
a "What do you see, Walt Whitman?", extracts
from Natural Histories, travels, scientific treatises,
and even from newspapers; more often it vented
itself in transcendental or political ravings. Alto-
gether, it presented a phenomenon the like of which
had not only never been seen before, but the like of
which would have seemed to any sane man impossi-
ble outside the cells of a lunatic asylum. But Whit-
man was no lunatic, and well knew what he was

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 67

after. All this was merely, in his own words,
" Drum-Taps " — the arts of the astute showman, to
collect a crowd for a show which, in some respects,
was well worth seeing.

But when we come even to Whitman's serious and
genuine work, large deductions have to be made
for what it would be unduly harsh to call charla-
tanry, but which certainly comes very near it. His
" chants " — for that is the term he affected — have
been called poetry in solution, but what is in solu-
tion in them is not poetry of his own but the poetry of
others. This " most original of American writers "
is, in truth, more indebted to his predecessors and
contemporaries than any other American writer.
He simply resolved into his own diffuse jargon, and
revoked in his own "barbaric yawp," what had been
expressed legitimately, in the true form of poetry, or
in simple prose, by Burns and Blake, by Words-
worth, by Goethe, by Shelley, by Tennyson, by
Carlyle, by Emerson, by Thoreau and by many
others. Whether his appropriations were conscious
and deliberate, or whether they were the result of
what was in the air, so to speak, scarcely affects the
point of importance. He was not, what by a trick
of expression he affected to be, original in anything
that was sane in his philosophy and propaganda.
One illustration will suffice, for it is typical. Words-
worth wrote, and wrote as a poet :

The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her : and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of neighbouring sound
Shall pass into her face.

68 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Whitman writes, more suo:

There was a child went forth every day :

And the first object he looked upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day, or

A certain part of the day, or for many years, or

Stretching cycles of years. . . .

The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow : the fragrance of salt

marsh and shore-mud :

These became part of that child who went forth
Everyday, and who now goes and will always go forth everyday.

" Plainly," as Mr. Stedman naively observes,
" there are some comparative advantages in Words-
worth's treatment of this idea." It is pitiable to see
a critic like Addington Symonds exalting Whitman
into a bard and prophet, and dwelling fondly on the
inspired power and beauty of chants, or portions of
chants, which, he must have known, were simply
centos, with Whitmanian dilutions or extravagances,
from Goethe, or from Wordsworth, fromThoreau, or
from Emerson. It was this sort of homage which con-
firmed Whitman in his megalomania, in that mon-
strous and ludicrous egotism which led him to preach,
and finally no doubt to believe, that, to employ his
own jargon, he was all, and that all was he. To speak
quite plainly, Whitman began by being in some re-
spect a charlatan, and paid the penalty by becoming
at last something very like a madman. He had to
pay also another penalty mortifying to his vanity,
and, to do him justice, to a nobler instinct. He
aspired to be the poet of the democracy, but the
democracy would have nothing to do with him ; and
it was right, as it almost always is, in its judgment
of what directly appeals to it. He has been com-
pared to our own Blake, whom in some respects he

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 69

nearly resembles; but, as Professor Nichol admir-
ably put it, Blake was a prodigious genius marred
by almost insane violence, Whitman a writer of
almost insane violence occasionally redeemed by
touches of genius.1

How, then, are we to explain the fascination which
his work has undoubtedly had, and still has, for so
many? Making all due deductions for what has been
explained already, there can of course be no question
about Whitman's genius. Had he been true to it,
he might have stood high among genuine poets;
for, on the rare occasions when he is true to it, he
has lyric notes of thrilling power, he has pathos, he
has passion, and in his nature-pictures he has often
a magical touch. At times, true enthusiasm pos-
sessed and inspired him, and there is no mistaking
its accent. A poem like Pioneers, firm-blown and
from the heart, rings like a clarion. The poem
When Lilacs Last, and the shorter piece O Captain,
My Captain, are noble threnodies. Out of the Cradle
endlessly Rocking is at times beautiful alike for its
pathos, nature-painting, and rhythm. A poem,
again, like the Vigil on the Fields came from the
heart and goes to the heart. In Sea Drift there is
more which reveals him at his very best, for he is
generally at his best when the sea and elementary
forces are his themes. Nor can it be denied that the
strange uncouth mode of expression which he
adopted had at times curious propriety.

Another secret of his fascination is his impressive
and imperious personality and his cosmopolitan
sympathies and gospel. If, in the first, there is
1 American Literature, p. 214.

70 POETRY AND CRITICISM

much which is grotesque and disgusting, there is
more which justly commands admiration. Every
inch a man, big-brained, big-hearted, fearless, re-
solute and robust, he is not only the incarnation of
strength, but he is the soul of independence and
philanthropy. Art and the humanities may look
askance on him, as he on them ; but mother Nature,
to whom alone he did homage, had every reason to
regard with pride one of the loyaljst and most stal-
wart of her children. And, indelibly as his vices,
follies, and infirmities, is all this — and it is very at-
tractive— impressed on his writings. Though there
is nothing original, either in his propaganda or in
his prophecies, yet, however ragged and dissonant
the note of his trumpet, he is among the heralds of
the mighty future — before America, before mankind
— of the Republic of Republics, of world federation,
of universal brotherhood, of the religion of humanity,
of the " one God, one law, one element " of Tenny-
son's vision. No one can read unmoved such poems
as By blue Ontario's shore, Thou Mother -with thy
Equal Brood, Song of the Broad Axe, and The
Mystic Trumpeter. I have spoken of his herald-
trumpet's ragged notes; let us listen to one of his
clear notes :

Marches of victory — man disenthral'd — the conqueror at last.
Hymns to the Universal God from universal man — all joy !
A re-born race appears — a perfect world, all joy !
Women and men in wisdom, innocence and health — all joy !
War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth purg'd — nothing

but joy left ;

The ocean fill'd with joy— the atmosphere all joy-
Joy, joy in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life !

Joy ! joy ! all over joy !

7'

This is at least worth translating into poetry. But
Whitman's virtues will be of no more avail, and all
he has left will inevitably fall " into the portion of
weeds and outworn faces." The world never respects
a man who does not respect himself, and to bawl
out indiscriminately what should be said and what
should not be said (6 fara xai appyra jSowv) was a syno-
nym with the Greeks for a blackguard. Of this
offence, Whitman was guilty, not accidentally but
on principle, not morally only, but intellectually and
aesthetically. He was, no doubt, what he was fond of
calling himself, a child of Nature, and his admirers
have called him the poet of nature: but no poet can
be true to nature who is not true to art.

We now pass to a poet as essentially native as
Miller and Whitman, but standing in remarkable
contrast to both. If Miller is the most diffuse, and
Whitman the most extravagant and lawless of the
native school, Bret Harte is the most concise and
restrained. His reputation as a humorist has
eclipsed his reputation as a serious poet, and he will
no doubt live mainly by his prose stories; but his
serious poetry has scarcely had justice done to it.
Much, indeed the greater part, of his verse was, no
doubt, produced as mere journeyman work, and cer-
tainly does not rise above the level of what a skilful
craftsman could, in the course of that work, easily
turn out. With this we need not trouble ourselves.
It is in a narrow sphere that his distinction lies; it
lies in the clairvoyant vividness and thrilling power
with which he realizes and presents a pathetic scene
or incident, in his faculty of piercing to the heart of
some dramatic situation or circumstance, and repro

72 POETRY AND CRITICISM

ducing it with corresponding nearness and truth,
and in the nerve and grip of his narrative. Nothing
could well exceed the power and pathos of The Sta-
tion-master of Lone Prairie, or the charm and pathos
of Dickens in Camp. Even such waifs a.sjim and
In the Tunnel smite, the tears into our eyes. Guild's
Signal may owe its pathos — and what pathos there
is in it! — to the fact, but how admirably is that fact
presented; in Grandmother Tenterden he is again at
his best. The exquisite little poem The Mountain
Hearts-ease is in another vein, but it deserves a
place beside Burns' Daisy. In Ramon, The Hawk's
Nest, Dow's Flat, and in The Old Camp-fire, we
have leaves from a life which no one has painted as
he has done. Miss Blanche Says and For the King
are spoilt by too great fidelity to a bad model,
Browning, and Concepdon de Arguello by a fault
very rare with Bret Harte, diffuseness. His style,
terse, lucid and sinewy, "with its sabre-cuts of
Saxon speech," is all his own, and has set American
realistic poetry to a new tune. Bret Harte has great
versatility. When he strikes the notes which other
poets have struck, it is often with added charm. In
spite of Longfellow there is room for such a poem
as The Angelus, and in spite of Praed and Owen
Meredith, room for Her Letter. As a humorist in
verse he stands on a much lower level, and whether,
as Professor Nichol opined, he must often have
wished " to hang that Heathen Chinee, and to give
the lie to Truthful James, and wring the neck of the
Emeu, and ' cave in ' the heads of the whole Society
on the Stanislaus," I cannot, of course, say, but it
is very certain that they have intervened between

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 73

the lower reputation which they have given him and
the higher reputation to which he is justly entitled.
Nor can it be denied that they are, quantum valeat,
perfectly original, and have, like one or two of Mark
Twain's kindred strains, a most provoking fascina-
tion.

But Bret Harte, even where he was strongest, had
a powerful rival in the author oijim Bludso of the
" Prairie Bell " and of Little Breeches. All lovers of
poetry, both in England and in America, must re-
gret that Colonel Hay's crowded life did not leave
him more leisure to cultivate a genius which, within
its range, is as rare and fine as it is virile. It is not
given to many minor poets to strike such notes as
we hear in the two poems referred to, in such a
sonnet as The Haunted Room, and in such a lyric as
Remorse. How exquisite is the following:

Sad is the vague and tender dream

Of dead love's lingering kisses

To crush'd hearts, hallow'd by the gleam

Of unreturning blisses ;

Deep mourns the soul, in anguished pride,

For the pitiless death that won them ;

But the saddest wail is for lips that died

With the virgin dew upon them.

And now we descend to the levels where it be-
comes impossible to distinguish. During the last
few years, there have been at least a hundred and
fifty poets and poetesses, of very many of whom even
the indulgent Catholicism of Mr. Stedman has not
taken cognizance. And in the case of the majority
of these, so uniform is the standard of merit, so es-
sentially similar in quality the work, that distinction

74 POETRY AND CRITICISM

depends, not on any application of critical tests, but
purely on the accidents of personal taste. Nor has
this poetry, throughout its whole range, any land-
marks or eminences; whether we regard it compre-
hensively, or in relation to those who have individ-
ually contributed to it, nothing stands out in striking
singularity. In the minor poetry of almost all periods
and of almost all nations, there are particular poems
with which everyone is familiar, and in the writings
of most minor poets there are particular poems with
which we instantly associate them. But this cannot
be said of any of these poets. Even the best of them
remind us, I fear, of what Dr. Johnson said of the
Giant's Causeway — it was worth seeing, but it was
hardly worth going to see. If their volumes happen
to come in our way, the chances are that we turn over
their pages with real pleasure. We are pretty sure
to find a pure and wholesome tone, refinement, grace,
often charm, all the marks of careful culture based
in many cases on a sympathetic acquaintance with
European belles-lettres, and a power of expression
and a skill in technique, generally, which fifty years
ago would only have been found in the work of
masters. But it is, we feel, the poetry of accomplished
artists, who do not sing because they must, but be-
cause they can. Eclectic and cosmopolitan, or
trivially native, it is essentially the work of art, and
too often of nothing but art, with no root in life,
national or individual ; in its themes, a weary same-
ness; in its tone and spirit, a certain insincerity, or
at all events a lack of genuine enthusiasm where
enthusiasm is affected. Here and there, particular
poems and particular poets may be found whose

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 75

work would, in justice, require some modification of
this criticism. The most deservedly eminent of living
American critics, Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman,
has, like our own Matthew Arnold, confirmed his
title to speak with authority on poetry by his own
contributions to it. The too facile and voluminous
poetry of James Whitcomb Riley, an essentially
native product, though in no way comparable to the
Btglow Papers, is full of humour, vivid life, and
graphic nature painting, but it is hardly likely to
travel further than the country of its birth. And,
certainly, an honourable place must be claimed for
more than one poetess; Mrs. Thaxter's lyrics have
at times true inspiration and great charm, particu-
larly when her themes are the sea, and bird life. The
lyrics and sonnets of Mrs. Helen Jackson Hunt dis-
play great technical skill, and have often much
beauty. Emily Dickinson is, in her jerky transcend-
entalism and strained style, too faithful a disciple of
Emerson, but much of her work has real merit. The
refined and thoughtful sonnets of Mrs. Chandler
Moulton can never lack grateful appreciation, and
more than one of her simple and tender lyrics will
long be gems in every anthology. But a higher
place, perhaps, than belongs to any of these poetesses
must be assigned to Miss Helen Hay, whose sonnets
and lyrics have both subtlety and power, and whose
last work, The Rose of Dawn, in its rich picturesque-
ness, dramatic intensity, and sustained power, seems
to me, in spite of its occasional collapses in style,
one of the most brilliant contributions which has
recently been made to American poetry.

76 POETRY AND CRITICISM

But it is time to conclude. The future of Ameri-
can poetry is as dark as that of our own, and criti-
cism is not concerned with prophecy. The imme-
diate prospect is, it must be owned, not encouraging
on either side of the Atlantic. In the sphere of in-
tellectual activity, nothing is seriously energetic but
Science, or vitally influential but the scientific spirit ;
and, what that spirit has engendered — the spirit of
investigation, analysis and criticism — is ubiquitous.
Under this deadly solvent of the spiritual and ima-
ginative faculties of man, their two creations, poetry
and theology, seem to be melting away, the one re-
solving itself into an aesthetic appeal to the senses,
the other into a code of ethics. Materialism and
wealth-accumulating labour and luxury, with all
that accompanies and all that follows in their train,
have and must inevitably have the effects which
Wordsworth, Emerson and Ruskin attributed to
them. Literature generally will degenerate, as it
has degenerated, into little more than a means of
affording recreation and amusement to those whose
serious interests and occupations are elsewhere ; and
poetry will cease to appeal, or will share, as it now
shares, in this degradation. But Man's finer and
nobler energies can only be depressed, they can
never be extinguished or even lose their vitality.
Unerring and inevitable as the law of gravitation in
the physical, is the law of reaction in the spiritual,
world. Materialism — and let us understand the word
in its most comprehensive sense — has still a long
course to run, of that we may be quite sure. But
all that poetry represents and vindicates can never
fail at last to assert itself. Very different, however,

POETRY AND POETS OF AMERICA 77

from the poetry of the past must be the poetry of
the future. It will not imp its wing from the myth-
ology of Olympus and Hippocrene, or seek inspira-
tion from

Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the Oracle of God.

Of that there can be no doubt. It must have other
inspiration, other themes. It is more likely perhaps
to find the first in the immense, emancipated, un-
developed life, with its infinite potentialities and
possibilities, which is unfolding itself in the New
World, than in the more contracted, tradition-tram-
melled life of the Old. Its themes, we may be sure,
will be the themes in the treatment of which Whit-
man fumbled and stammered, its religion and ethics
the religion and ethics of which Emerson was the
prophet. In a word, it is likely to be a poetry the
features of which have been more clearly, if still
dimly, adumbrated in the genius typical of America,
than in the genius typical of any of the European
nations. A reaction against the restless, hollow,
degraded life at present characteristic of the great
centres of business and fashion is inevitable, and
with that reaction poetry may awake, — the poetry
of a fuller day, — and the famous prophecy find its
realization, not politically only, but in another and
nobler sense as well :

Westward the course of Empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF LORD
BYRON.1

THE completion of what may be regarded as a
final edition of Byron's writings both in poetry
and prose is surely a notable event in literary his-
tory. Nothing indeed is likely to modify very ma-
terially either the estimate which has been formed
of his character since the appearance of Moore's
work, or the verdict which his countrymen have
long since passed on him as a poet. But we are
now in a position to understand much in the man
himself, and more in his work as an artist, which it
was not possible to understand fully and clearly
before; we are enabled to review both, if not in any
absolutely new light, at least in the light of testi-
mony and illustration so ample, nay, so exhaustive,
that probably nothing of any importance will ever
be added to it. These thirteen volumes form, in
truth, a contribution to biography and criticism to
which it would be difficult to find a parallel in

1 i. The Works of Lord Byron : Letters and Journals. Edited
by Rowland E. Prothero. Six vols. London: Murray, 1898-
1901.

2. The Works of Lord Byron: the Poetical Works. Edited by
Ernest Hartley Coleridge. Seven vols. London: Murray, 1898-
1904.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 79

modern times. There is no corner, no recess, in
Byron's crowded life, from boyhood to manhood,
from manhood to the end, into which we are not
admitted ; we know him as we know Pepys and as
we know Johnson.

To say nothing of a correspondence in which his
experiences and his impressions, his idiosyncrasies
and his temper, are reflected as in a mirror, records
intended for no eyes but his own reveal to us his
most secret thoughts. He is exhibited in all his
moods and in all his extremes. We can watch every
phase which, in its rapid and capricious alternations
of darkness and light, his extraordinarily complex
and mobile character assumed. The infirmities, the
follies, the vices which revolted Wordsworth and
Browning and degraded him at times to the level
of fribbles like Nash and Brummell, and of mere
libertines like Queensberry and Hertford ; the sud-
den transitions by which, in the resilience of his
nobler instincts and sympathies, he became glorified
into the actual embodiment of what at such mo-
ments he expressed in poetry; the virtues on which
those who admired and those who loved him de-
lighted to dwell, and which could transform him
momentarily into the most heroic, the most gener-
ous, the most attaching of men ; the strange ano-
malies for which the perpetual conflict between
his higher and baser nature, and between his reason
and his passions, was responsible; his mingled
charlatanry and sincerity, refinement and grossness,
levity and enthusiasm ; the magnanimity and dig-
nity which could occasionally be discerned in him ;
the almost incredible paltriness and meanness of

8o POETRY AND CRITICISM

which at times he was capable ; his sanity, his good
sense, his keen insight into men and life, his ad-
mirable literary judgements, so singularly and glar-
ingly contrasted with the childishness, the obliquity,
the extravagance which he displayed when under
the influence of prejudice or passion — all this makes
his autobiography, in other words, his correspond-
ence, memoranda, and journals, a psychological
study of the profoundest interest.

Nor is this all. His poetry is so essentially the
expression of his character, and was so directly in-
spired by his personal experiences, that these records
form the best of all commentaries on it. From a still
more important point of view, they, or at least the
greater portion of them, are equally remarkable.
Byron's letters will probably live as long as his
poems. Voluminous as they are, they never weary
us. Social sketches dashed off with inimitable hap-
piness; anecdote and incident related as only a con-
summate raconteur can relate them ; piquant com-
ments on the latest scandal or the latest book ; the
gossip and tittle-tattle of the green-room and the
boudoir, of the clubs and the salons, so transformed
by the humour and wit of their cynical retailer that
they almost rival the dialogue of Congreve and
Sheridan; shrewd and penetrating observations on
life, on human nature, on politics, on literature,
dropped so carelessly that it is only on reflection
that we see their wisdom, keep us perpetually
amused and entertained.

Of the conscientiousness and skill with which
Mr. Prothero has performed a most difficult task it
is impossible to speak too highly. In the first place,

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 81

he has spared no pains to make the correspondence
complete. With what success, a comparison of the
number of letters which have appeared in preceding
collections with the number printed by him will at
once show. If he has, to some extent, fared as those
who glean after the full harvest must necessarily
fare, he has not only preserved much which was
worth preservation, but he has been able to add
substantially to what was of most interest and value
in preceding collections.1

Mr. Prothero has not only given us an exhaus-
tive edition of the letters, journals, and memoranda,
and settled what must henceforth be their standard
text, but he has done much more. No man entered
more fully into the social and literary life of his
time, or took keener interest in the incidents of the
passing hour, than Byron. The consequence is that
the letters and journals teem with allusions and re-
ferences to individuals and to current topics, as well
as to the literature of the day, which the lapse of
nearly a century has made unintelligible without
continual elucidations. This Mr. Prothero has given
us, and given us in a measure pressed down and
overflowing. We have memoirs and notices of all
the persons, many of them long since forgotten, to
whom the letters are addressed, or of whom they

1 For the ample material at the disposal of Byron's editors,
without which the present edition both of the letters and of
the poems would have been impossible, the world is indebted
to the diligence and enthusiasm of the second and third John
Murray, who during eighty years spared no time or expense
in collecting it. If they and their house owe much to Byron
they have certainly endeavoured to repay their debt in a manner
which their creditor would most have appreciated.

G

82 POETRY AND CRITICISM

make mention ; and rare indeed it is to find any-
thing requiring explanation which is left in ob-
scurity. His notes are in themselves delightful
reading, and we are not at all inclined to quarrel
with their occasional diffuseness.

But important as this edition is as concentrating
all that throws light on Byron as a man, it is still
more important from the light which it throws on
his work. If, in editing the correspondence, journals,
and miscellaneous prose writings, Mr. Prothero had
a difficult task imposed on him, a still more diffi-
cult task was imposed on his coadjutor, the editor of
the poems and dramas. When we say that Mr.
Coleridge's edition contains, not only every com-
plete poem and drama written by Byron, but every
fragment of the smallest interest which can be
gleaned from authentic sources; that his text has
been formed by collation with the early printed
copies and with the original manuscripts where they
are extant, as in most cases they are, every variant
and erasure being carefully noted ; that every poem
is furnished with elucidatory notes explaining allu-
sions and citing parallel passages to which Byron
was, or may have been, indebted; that to each of
the chief poems and collection of poems is prefixed
a more or less elaborate bibliographical, critical,
and generally illustrative introduction — some esti-
mate may be formed of the immense labour ex-
pended on his work.

A poet more troublesome to a conscientious editor
than Byron could hardly be found, and this for three
reasons — the multiplicity of the sources of his text,
the large space which topics of ephemeral interest

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 83

fill in his poetry, and the difficulty of identifying or
even of explaining the innumerable reminiscences
and references which his loose and desultory but
immense reading supplied in such profusion. A
very superficial acquaintance with Byron's writings
will enable any one to understand what the adequate
annotation of such poems as the Hints from Horace,
The Vision of Judgment, The Demi's Drive, The
Blues, to say nothing of English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers, and, above all, The Age of Bronze and
Don Juan, must imply. No doubt the labour was
somewhat lightened, as Mr. Coleridge acknow-
ledges, by that great work, which has lightened so
much editorial labour, the Dictionary of National
Biography; but all that the Dictionary could afford
represents only a fraction of what was necessary for
the elucidation of these poems. Mr. Coleridge has
brought to his task an extensive knowledge of
general literature, and a still more extensive know-
ledge of the literature immediately preceding and
contemporary with Byron. Memoirs, correspond-
ence, "ana," novels, travels, periodicals, news-
papers, and all such publications as are known to
have been in Byron's hands, have been explored by
him ; and with the happiest result. For he has thus
been enabled, not only to explain the innumerable
references and allusions in the poems which the
lapse of time has, for the present generation, rend-
ered obscure or even unintelligible, but, in conjunc-
tion with the notes on the text, to furnish us with
the best of commentaries on Byron's methods and
technique. The chief infirmity of the notes lies in
the parallel passages. Mr. Coleridge, very rightly,

84 POETRY AND CRITICISM

attaches importance to them as illustrating a strik-
ing characteristic of Byron — the union of originality
with an indebtedness to his predecessors and con-
temporaries so considerable as to be not a little sur-
prising, particularly in a poet of his temper. But
many of the most remarkable of these reminiscences
are not noticed by Mr. Coleridge, though a place is
found for many which might easily be resolved into
mere coincidences. To this, however, we shall re-
turn presently.

To pass to the contents of these seven substantial
volumes, which represent all that has been given,
or probably ever will be given, to the world in verse
from Byron's pen. The first question which every
reader will naturally ask is: do they add anything
of importance to what we already have, any poem
which deserves permanence, any poem which strikes
a new note? This may be answered, with some
little reserve perhaps, in the negative. Of the thirty
poems published here for the first time, the insertion
of at least two thirds could only be justified by the
consideration that it was desirable to make the col-
lection complete. The eleven early poems printed
from the Newstead manuscripts are much below the
level of the verses comprised in the Hours of Idle-
ness', the lines beginning "I cannot talk of love
to thQQ," Julian, The Duel, the Ode to a Lady, in
volumes iii and iv, have no distinction; few of those
printed in volume vii are, so far as intrinsic merit
goes, worth preserving. Every one will turn with
interest to the seven stanzas, with the prose note,
containing the savage attack on Brougham, which

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 85

were to follow stanza clxxxix in the first canto of
Don Juan, and to the fourteen stanzas opening the
seventeenth canto of Don Juan , found in Byron's
room at Missolonghi. But no one can read them
without feeling how little, even as a satirist, his re-
putation gains by the first series, and how pain-
fully, in their flaccid diffuseness, the second series
illustrates his decadence. Nor is the fragment of
the third part of The Deformed Transformed likely
to gratify anything but curiosity. The most remark-
able of these pieces is the fragment of a poem on
Aristomenes, dated Cephalonia, September loth,
1823, in which he certainly struck a new note, and,
what is not a little surprising, a note closely recall-
ing Keats.
The fragment is short and it may be transcribed:

The Gods of old are silent on their shore

Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar

Of the Ionian waters broke a dread

Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead."

How much died with him ! false or true — the dream

Was beautiful which peopled every stream

With more than finny tenants, and adorned

The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorn 'd

Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace

Of Gods brought forth the high heroic race

Whose names are on the hills and o'er the seas.

On a general review of these poems it is impos-
sible not to be struck, as in the case of the letters,
with the admirable judgement which Moore dis-
played both in what he published and in what he
suppressed. We can quite understand Mr. Cole-
ridge's desire to make this edition of Byron as com-
plete as possible, but one is glad to learn that he

86 POETRY AND CRITICISM

has not extended his editorial discretion beyond the
limits of what is here printed, for, in giving per-
manence to some of these pieces the extreme limits
of such discretion have been reached. The lees even
of Byron are not exhilarating, and as we gather
from Mr. Coleridge that lees still remain, it is to be
hoped that no less discreet successor of Mr. Cole-
ridge will be permitted to allow vulgar curiosity to
regale on them.

But it is as affording more copious material than
has hitherto been collected for a critical estimate of
Byron's work as a poet that this edition is perhaps
of most interest and importance. We are now en-
abled, thanks to Mr. Coleridge, to distinguish be-
tween what Byron owed to nature and what he owed
to predecessors and contemporaries, and, following
him into his workshop, to study his methods and to
be admitted into all the secrets of his technique. It
will certainly come as a surprise to many to learn
how often the most vehement and impetuous of
poets, in what appears to be the full tide of im-
passioned inspiration, is, at the same time, the most
patient of artists; how, with so much originality in
essence, his poetry is, in expression and often in
imagery and sentiment, almost as much indebted to
assimilative memory as that of Gray or Tennyson.

Among Byron's many affectations was his almost
morbid anxiety to have it supposed that composi-
tion cost him no labour; and of this he was always
boasting. " Like Edie Ochiltree," he said, "I never
dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life." That
he composed, as a rule, with great rapidity seems
certain, but that he took immense pains in preparing

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 87

himself for composition, and in revising what he
composed, is abundantly apparent, not only from
the elaborate accuracy of his realism, when realism
was his aim, but from the testimony afforded by the
variants and deletions in his manuscripts and proofs.
Of the first, we have two very striking illustrations
in Don Juan, namely, the shipwreck and the inci-
dents succeeding it in the second canto, and the
siege of Ismail in the seventh and eighth. Of the
shipwreck, he himself said there was " not a single
circumstance of it not taken from fact; not indeed
from any single shipwreck, but all from actual facts
of different wrecks." The fidelity with which this
part of the poem was compiled, in other words, con-
structed out of passages dovetailed from Dalzell's
Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, Hartford's Re-
markable Shipwrecks, Bligh's Narrative of the Mu-
tiny of the Bounty, and his own grandfather's Nar-
rative, shows to what patient drudgery Byron could
sometimes submit. Most of the passages borrowed
by him have been duly recorded in Mr. Coleridge's
notes, but one of the most interesting and remark-
able appears to have escaped his notice. The mag-
nificent stanza —

And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash

Of echoing thunder ; and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash

Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry

Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

— was plainly based on the following passage in the

88 POETRY AND CRITICISM

wreck of the " Pandora " (Ship-wrecks and Disasters,
vol. iii, p. 129):

Within a very few minutes of the time when Mr. Rogers
gained the rock an universal shriek, which long vibrated
in their ears, . . . announced a dreadful catastrophe.
In a few minutes all was hushed except the roaring of
the winds and the dashing of the waves. . . . The cries
of men drowning were dreadful in the extreme, but died
away by degrees as they became faint.

It would indeed be quite impossible to exceed the
scrupulous particularity with which, even to the
most trifling minutiae, Byron has drawn on these
narratives, owing literally nothing to invention. In
his account of the siege and capture of Ismail he
has drawn in the same way, and almost to the same
extent, on the Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau's Essai
sur VHistoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle
Russie. And this drudging industry was not more
remarkable than the labour expended on successive
editions of some of his poems, notably English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers, the Hints from Horace,
and The Giaour.

What trouble composition sometimes cost him
will be plain to any one who will turn to the record
of the variants in stanza ix of the first canto of Childe
Harold, and in cxxxiv of the fourth canto. How re-
vision could at times transform his poetry is illus-
trated by the passage which every one knows in
The Giaour, " He who hath bent him o'er the dead."
The lines which now run :

The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 89

(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)

And mark'd the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there;

The fix'd yet tender traits that streak

The languor of the placid cheek;

originally ran :

The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of doom and of distress,
Before Corruption's cankering fingers
Hath tinged the hue where beauty lingers,
And marked the soft and settled air
That dwells with all but spirit there.

The line " Where cold obstruction's apathy," which
occurs later, and originally appeared as " Whose
touch thrills with mortality," illustrates what is often
perceptible in Byron's variants. A reminiscence of
Shakespeare's "cold obstruction " occurring to him
as he corrected the proofs, suggested it; just as, in
the apostrophe to the ocean in Childe Harold, the
memory of a couplet in Campbell's Battle of the
Baltic enabled him to transform

These oaken citadels which made and make
Their clay creator the vain title take,

into

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make, etc.

Again, the lines in The Giaour,

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven,

A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given,

To lift from earth our low desire.

were evolved thus:

90 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Yes 1 f doth sPr'mS }

If jLovemdee<M descend V from heaven,

I be born J

c immortal ^
A spark of that \ eternal I fire.

I celestial J

The couplet in The Bride of 'Abydos,

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray.

took final form from

And tints to-morrow with (a fan<;ied I ray.
I an airy J

And •! &l S > the hope of morning with its ray.
And gilds to-morrow's hope with heavenly ray.

There is a variant in the description of the thunder-
storm in the third canto of Childe Harold which,
poor as it is, is certainly preferable to the ludicrous
line for which it is substituted:

The glee

Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth ;

namely,

As they had found an heir and feasted o'er his birth.

There is one characteristic of Byron's variants
which is very significant: they rarely improve the
rhythm, and were apparently seldom designed for
that purpose. So incurably bad was his ear that
occasionally they are, from this point of view, alter-
ations for the worse, as here (Childe Harold, iii,

lix):

Wild but not rude, awful yet not awstere,
Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 91

In the MS. this was softened by reading —

Rustic, not rude, sublime, yet not austere.

So in the Siege of 'Corinth , the dissonant and lum-
bering line,

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone,

ran in the MS.,

The vaults beneath the ( chequered j. stone>
I inlaid J

where, had " chequered " been chosen, the rhythm
would have been faultless. In another passage of
the same poem after three experiments he chooses
the turn which is best indeed, but which in no way

improves the rhythm :

The wild dogs fled
And left their food the unburied dead
And left their food the untasted dead
And howling left the untasted dead

but finally

And howling left the unburied dead.

To a variant in the eighteenth stanza of the third
canto of Childe Harold an interesting history is at-
tached. Byron wrote the stanza in a lady's album
just after he had composed it, and one of the couplets

ran:

Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew,
Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain.

This being shown to oneReinagle, an artist, he drew
a pencil sketch of a chained eagle which was, how-
ever, represented as grasping the earth with his
talons. The vignette was forwarded to Byron, who
wrote in reply: " Reinagle is a better poet and a
better ornithologist than I am; eagles and all birds

92 POETRY AND CRITICISM

of prey attack with their talons and not with their
beaks, and I have altered the line:

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain.

Carlyle's definition of genius as an infinite capacity
for taking pains is certainly not refuted by what we
know of Byron.

But the combination of a capacity for drudging
industry with a genius and temper which seem
scarcely compatible with the practice of so humble
a virtue, is not the only anomaly in Byron's con-
stitution. In three respects he bears a remarkable
resemblance to a class of poets with whom he would,
at first sight, appear to have nothing in common.
Neither Virgil nor Horace in ancient times, neither
Milton or Gray or even Tennyson in modern times,
has been more indebted to preceding and contem-
porary literature. An extraordinary wide range of
reading, a memory remarkable alike for its tenacity
and its ready mastery over its acquisitions, and a
not less remarkable power of assimilating and of re-
producing in other forms what was thus acquired,
are quite as characteristic of Byron as of the poets
to whom we have referred. It may sound paradoxi-
cal to say that Byron owed more to reading and
books than he owed to independent observation of
nature and life ; that what in his poetry was directly
inspired by his own experiences and impressions
bears a very small proportion to what was suggested
to him by others; that, in all that relates to form,
his poetry, so far from having any pretension to
originality, is essentially imitative. And yet this is
certainly the case. We have already remarked that

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 93

the least satisfactory part of Mr. Coleridge's com-
mentary is its illustration of these very remarkable
characteristics of Byron, and we shall therefore make
no apology for dealing with them at some length.

Nothing could illustrate more strikingly Byron's
method than Childe Harold and the Eastern tales.
It is generally supposed that in the Childe Byron
simply painted himself, and so in some touches and
in certain details he undoubtedly did ; but the char-
acter was plainly suggested to him by Madame de
Stael's Lord Nelvil in Corinne, in whom every trait
of Byron's hero is defined and described. In the
fourth canto Corinne is followed very closely, as in
the descriptions of the Coliseum and St. Peter's,
and in the reflections on the ruins of Rome. Nearly
the whole of two of the finest stanzas (clxxix, clxxx)
in the apostrophe to the ocean is taken from the
novel (i, iv):

. . . Cette superbe mer, sur laquelle 1'homme jamais ne
peut imprimer sa trace. La terre est travaill^e par lui
. . . mais si les vaisseaux sillonnent un moment les
ondes, la vague vient effacer aussitot cette l^gere marque
de servitude, et la mer reparait telle qu'elle fut au premier
jour de la creation.

The famous stanza in Julia's letter, in the first canto
c>i Don Juan, st. cxciv, "Man's love is of Man's life,"
etc., is little more than a translation of Corinne,
xviii, v:

Que les hommes sont heureux d'aller a la guerre, d'ex-
poser leur vie, de se livrer a 1'enthousiasme de 1'honneur
et du danger! Mais il n'y a rien au dehors qui soulage
les femmes; leur existence, immobile en presence du
malheur, est un long supplice.

94 POETRY AND CRITICISM

The character of Conrad, in the The Corsair, was
apparently concocted, as Alaric Watts pointed out,
from that of Malefort Junior, in Massinger's Un-
natural Combat, and Mrs. Anne Radcliffe's typical
heroes. The Giaour is simply Mrs. Radcliffe's
Schedoni in The Italian. In Lara Byron no doubt
analyzes his own character; but, for the rest, the
whole poem is concocted from Mrs. Radcliffe's Italian
and Mysteries ofUdolpho, and from Scott's Marmion.
How closely Mrs. Radcliffe is followed will be ap-
parent to any one who compares the combat between
Lara and Otho, and that between Mrs. Radcliffe's
Morano and Montoni in the second volume of the
Mysteries of Udolpho. Compare, for instance, with
Mrs. Radcliffe, the passage in section iv of the
second canto of Lara, beginning

"Demand thy life !" . . .

For Lara's brow upon the moment grew

Almost to blackness in its demon hue.

The Count then fell back . . . while Montoni held his
sword over him and bade him ask his life. . . . He
yielded at the interruption, but his countenance changed
almost to blackness as he looked.

Indeed, we continually trace the influence of Mrs.
Radcliffe's novels on Byron's poetry; he has bor-
rowed from her hints, as Alaric Watts pointed out,
for two of his most striking passages, the compari-
son of modern and ancient Greece to the features of
the dead and the living:

Beyond Milan the country wore the aspect of a ruder de-
vastation ; and though everything seemed now quiet, the
repose was like that of death spread over features which

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 95

retain the impression of the last convulsions (Udolpho,
ii, 29). Compare with this, The Giaour, 68-98;

and the description of Venice at the beginning of
the fourth canto of Childe Harold:

Nothing could exceed Emily's admiration on her first
view of Venice, with its islets, palaces, and towers rising-
out of the sea ... its terraces, crowned with airy yet
majestic fabrics, . . . appeared as if they had been called
up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter (Id., ii, 59).

I saw from out the wave her structures rise,
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand.

She looks a sea Cybele fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance with majestic motion.

There can be little doubt that, in the remarkable
poem entitled Darkness, Byron was greatly indebted,
as Herr Kolbing and Mr. Coleridge have pointed
out, to a once popular but long forgotten novel
published in 1806, entitled The Last Man, or Ome-
garus and Syderia; but what neither Herr Kolbing
nor Mr. Coleridge has noticed is that he was almost
equally indebted to Burnet's Telluris Theoria Sacra,1
which he had certainly read, and from which he has
borrowed details of singular picturesqueness not
found in the novel, for example, the lines:

Ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths ;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, . . .
They slept on the abyss without a surge ;
The waves were dead

—which are simply a paraphrase of, " Et quoad
1 See particularly lib. iii, cap. xii.

96 POETRY AND CRITICISM

mare, hoc dudum deseruerunt nautae, stagnum puti-
dum sine motu." l The plot of Werner, " the char-
acters, plan, and even the language," were taken,
as he himself acknowledged, from the German's
Tale in the Canterbury Tales by the Misses Lee; as
the plot of The Deformed Transformed^?^, borrowed
mainly, also by his confession, from a long forgotten
novel, entitled The Three Brothers, by one Joshua
Pickersgill.

The indebtedness of Byron in Manfred to Goethe's
Faust, the greater part of which Lewis translated
for him, and to the Prometheus of Aeschylus, is of
course notorious, and is duly noted by Mr. Coleridge.
But what Mr. Coleridge does not notice is the in-
fluence exercised on it by the romance oiAhasuerus,
by Southey's Curse ofKehama, by Schiller's Robbers
and Death of Wallenstein, both of which were ac-
cessible to Byron in translations,2 and by Maturin's
Bertram, to say nothing of innumerable passages
suggested by Paradise Lost. Nor has Mr. Coleridge
noticed for how much of Don Juan Byron was in-
debted to Casti's Novelle, which, beyond all doubt,
suggested the poem to him. He had been introduced
to the Novelle by Major Gordon at Brussels, in 1816;
and in a letter written from Geneva, not long after-
wards, he says, " I cannot tell you what a treat your
gift of Casti has been to me. I have almost got him
by heart."3 He began Don Juan about two years

1 Lib. iii, cap. xii.

2 See the English translation of the first, published in 1795,
and Coleridge's well-known version of the second, published
in 1800.

3 Letters and Journals, iv, 217, note.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 97

afterwards. Don Juan is full of reminiscences of the
Novelle. The novel which brings us nearest to
Byron's poem is the one entitled La Diavolessa
(Novella iv). This suggested to him his hero.

I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan —
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

So Casti :

Ma voi piu volte, O Donne mie, vedeste
Sovra le scene pubbliche e private
Di don Giovan le scandalose geste.

(St. xv.)

In Casti's story one Don Ignazio (who is his
hero) and Don Juan wander over Spain in quest of
licentious adventures, to meet afterwards in the in-
fernal regions, whither, as we know from himself,
Byron intended finally to conduct his hero. Ignazio,
like Don Juan, was born in Seville, and

Traced his source
Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain.

La nobil sua famiglia
Drittamente scendea fin dai re Goti.

(St. ix.)

Both are extraordinarily precocious and addicted to
the same frailties, Julia, the wife of Don Jose, stand-
ing in the same relation to Don Juan as Ermene-
gilda, the wife of his friend, to Ignazio, the one,
however, voluntarily, the other involuntarily. Ig-
nazio, like Don Juan, is shipwrecked; and each
hero is the sole survivor. It is quite clear that Byron
modelled his style, not on Berni, as he implied, but
on Casti. To Casti, then, undoubtedly belongs the
honour of having suggested and furnished Byron

H

98 POETRY AND CRITICISM

with a model for Don Juan. In point of distinction
and merit, in brilliance, picturesqueness and power,
there is, of course, no parallel between the two
poets. To accuse Byron of plagiarism for the per-
fectly legitimate use of material or suggestion
afforded by others would, we hasten to say, be as
absurd as to bring a. similar charge against Shake-
speare for the use which he has made of Plutarch
and Holinshed, or against Milton for the use which
he has made of the ancients. As Swift well ob-
serves, " If I light my candle from another, that
does not affect my property in the wick and tallow";
and of wick and tallow Byron had infinitely more
than the majority of his creditors put together.

Byron's reading, if desultory, was unusually ex-
tensive and curious; and his memory, like that of
Tennyson, extraordinarily assimilative and tena-
cious. To scholarship he had of course no preten-
sion. The fact that, in his last years at school, we
find him scribbling on the margins of his Xeno-
phon and Greek plays the English equivalents for
vsoiy <7<a(MXTa, and xfvff°$) is no doubt indicative of
his acquaintance with Greek, for it does not appear
that at a later time he made any effort to extend his
knowledge of that language.1 But with most of the
Greek classics in translations — Latin, probably, as
well as English — he was certainly familiar, as the
ready propriety with which applications or reminis-
cences of passages from them spring to his pen

1 In his "Detached Thoughts" (Letters and Journals, v,
436) he speaks of his classical attainments as being " in the
usual proportion of a sixth-form boy." In those days boys
were usually much more advanced in Latin than in Greek.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 99

sufficiently shows. Of the Prometheus, as he tells
us himself, he " was passionately fond "; and this,
at least, he knew well in the original, as it was one
of the Greek plays which "we read thrice a year at
Harrow," adding, that "that and the Medea were
the only ones, except the Seven against Thebes,
which ever much pleased me.-" Many of the most
striking of these reminiscences from Greek poetry
have been duly noted by Mr. Coleridge, but he has
not observed that stanza cciv in the Haidee episode
in the second canto in Don Juan, "And now 'twas
done," etc., is almost a translation from the Hero
and Leander of the Pseudo-Musaeus, 279-283; the
resemblance between

Their priest was Solitude, and they were wed,
and

being, with the other general resemblances, too
close to admit of any likelihood of coincidence.
That Byron read Latin fluently and habitually, and
was well, if irregularly, acquainted with the Latin
poets, there can be no doubt. We cannot enter into
the question here, but will only add that for every
illustration given by Mr. Coleridge a dozen could
be adduced by any one who had happened to pay
particular attention to this subject. In addition to
Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid, whom
he seems to have known well, he had read Tibullus,
Lucan, Juvenal, Persius, Valerius Flaccus, Seneca,
and Claudian, from all of whom he has borrowed.
Wherever, indeed, in the less known Latin poets,
or in modern Latin literature, anything particularly

ioo POETRY AND CRITICISM

felicitous occurs, the chances are that Byron was
acquainted with it and has turned it to account.
Thus the pretty description of a dimple by Teren-
tius Varro, preserved by Nonius Marcellus:

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem

— which he probably found in Gray's Letters^ (where
it is wrongly attributed by West to Aulus Gellius)
— he adapts, as he himself has noted, in Childe
Harold'.

The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress 'd
Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch.

He quotes Shenstone's exquisite inscription, " Heu
quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui
meminisse," Gray's exquisite Alcaic stanza, " Fons
lacrymarum," etc., Cowley's " Nam vita gaudet
mortua floribus " in the Epitaphium mm aucioris,
and the felicitous epigram of Amaltheus, " Lumine
Aeon dextro,captaestLeonillasinistro,"etc. Among
the prose writers, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus ap-
pear to have been his favourites; and scores of
reminiscences from them may be found in his
poems.

To pass from Byron's appropriations from the
ancients to his appropriations from the moderns.
He was so sensitive about being charged with pla-
giarism that he gave away, Mrs. Shelley tells us,
Aikin's edition of the British poets for fear some
English traveller should find it in his house and
report at home his possession of it; and when, in
the Literary Gazette tor February and March, 1821,

1 Gray's Works. Ed. Mitford. Vol. II, p. 137.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 101

Mr. Alaric A. Watts very amply illustrated with
what justice such a charge could be brought against
him, he was greatly annoyed. "I think I now in my
time," he wrote to Moore, " have been accused of
everything." But, in another mood, he owned that,
" when he had got a good idea " he was " not very
scrupulous how he came into possession of it." And
this was true. It is undoubtedly part of the duty of
a "variorum" editor to point out these appropria-
tions; and this Mr. Coleridge has to some extent
succeeded in doing; so imperfectly, however, that
we cannot but regret that he did not consult some
one who would have assisted him to supply this de-
ficiency.

Plagiarism, in the strict sense of the term, must
be conscious and deliberate, but what may justly
render an author liable to the charge of it may be
either coincidence or unconscious appropriation.
Coincidence is not, as a rule, likely to be the case
with Byron, for his memory was almost as remark-
able as his genius, and from his boyhood he was an
incessant reader. " I read," he said, " eating, read
in bed, and read when no one else reads." When
he was little more than a child he found at Dr.
Glennie's a complete set of the British poets from
Chaucer to Churchill; " and I am," said Dr. Glen-
nie, "almost tempted to say that he had perused
them more than once from beginning to end." His
poetry throughout is saturated with what he had
thus acquired. Many of his reminiscences are no
doubt unconscious. Such, for instance, would be
his echo of Campbell's,

The power of thought — the magic of a name,

102 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in

The power of grace, the magic of a name ;

of Burns's,

I saw thy pulse's maddening play,
in

The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play ;

of Scott's,

0 for an hour of Wallace wight,
in

O for one hour of blind old Dandolo;

of Tickell's,

1 hear a voice you cannot hear,
in

I hear a voice I would not hear ;

of Young's,

Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our powers
in

My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers ;

of Coleridge's

Curse me with forgiveness,
in

My curse shall be forgiveness.

of Pope's,

Glory of the priesthood and the shame,
in

Tasso is now their glory and their shame.

The echoes, we may add, from Spenser — the
minor poems as well as the Faery Queen — of
Young's tragedies, particularly the Revenge, and of
Macpherson's Ossian, are innumerable. To Spen-
ser's lines (F.Q. Ill, ii, 5):

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 103

And ever and anon the rosy red

Flash'd through her face, as it had been a flake

Of lightning through bright heaven fulmine'd

—he seems to have owed a singularly beautiful image
in stanza Ixi of the first canto of Don Juan:

Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.

In the last line of The Corsair (" Link'd with one
virtue, and a thousand crimes ") we have one of
his many reminiscences of a book which was a
great favourite with him, Burton's Anatomy of Me-
lancholy, " Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so
he had many vices ; unam virtutem mille vitia
comitantur." In ChurchilVs Grave, a noble expres-
sion of Dante's (Inferno, xxxiii, 26-27) is laid under
contribution :

Do we rip

The veil of immortality.
II mal sonno
Che del futuro mi squarcib il velame.

We will now give a few examples of Byron's ap-
propriations from more recondite sources, as they
illustrate how keen an eye he had for anything
which, being unusually felicitous, he could turn to
account. Sir William Jones, in his Essay on the
Poetry of the Eastern Nations,1 observes that their
similes are very just and striking, and gives as an
instance, " The blue eyes of a fine woman bathed
in tears compared to violets dropping with dew."
This appears in Byron's stanzas, "I saw thee
weep" :

1 Works, vol. x, 335.

104 POETRY AND CRITICISM

The big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue ;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew.

In his dedication to the Rival Ladies Dryden,
speaking of the progress of the work, says:

When it was only a confused mass of thoughts, tumbling
over one another in the dark ; when the fancy was yet
in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things
towards the light, there to be distinguished and then
either chosen or rejected by the judgement.

This reappears in Marino Faliero, I, ii, as

As yet 'tis but a chaos
Of darkly brooding thoughts : my fancy is
In her first work, more nearly to the light
Holding the sleeping images of things,
For the selection of the pausing judgment

In the Bride of Abydos there is a remarkable in-
stance of Byron's tact in assimilation, whether the
reminiscence be conscious or unconscious. On the
line 179 in the first canto of the poem,

The mind, the music breathing from her face,
Byron has the following note:

This expression has met with objections. I will not refer
to "him who hath not music in his soul," but merely
request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the
features of the woman whom he believes to be most
beautiful, and if he does not comprehend fully what is
feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us
both. For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the
first female author of this, perhaps of any age, on the
analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that
analogy) between painting and music, see Vol. Ill, cap.
10, D. 1'Allemayne.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 105

But what Byron does not mention is, that the
expression has been taken, as Alaric Watts pointed
out, directly from Lovelace :

Oh could you view the melody of every grace
And music of her face .^

We have another curious illustration in Childe
Harold, Canto iii, st. xxii-xxiii:

. . . The heart will break, yet brokenly live on.

E'en as a broken mirror which the glass

In every fragment multiplies, and makes

A thousand images of one that was,

The same and still the same the more it breaks.

This simile, Byron said, was suggested to him by
a quatrain which Curran had once repeated to him,
a quatrain which, as he must well have known,
does not bear the smallest resemblance to the pas-
sage. It has been traced by M. Darmesteter to a
passage in Burton, and by Mr. Coleridge to a pas-
sage in Carew's Spark, but the true source was
almost certainly Donne, who suggested also the
application. The passage occurs in his poem The
Broken Heart, and runs:

. . . Love, alas

At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.

And now as broken glasses showe

A thousand lesser faces, soe

My ragges of heart can like, wish and adore

But after one such love can love no more.

In the same way he has appropriated a passage
from one of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters

1 Orpheus to Beasts, Works, Ed. Hazlitt, p. 38.

io6 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in Don frian (Canto III, st. xviii). She writes, re-
ferring to the coalition between Newcastle and Pitt:

It puts me in mind of a friend of mine who had a large
family of favourite animals, and not knowing how to
convey them to his country house in separate equipages,
he ordered a Dutch mastiff, a cat and her kittens, a
monkey and a parrot, all to be packed up together in one
hamper.1

A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,
Two parrots with a Persian cat and kittens
He chose from several animals he saw
A terrier too . . .
He cag'd in one huge hamper altogether.

The remark in Don Juan, IV, st. iv:

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep

— looks very like a reminiscence of Richardson's
Pamela (Letter Ixxxiv) :

It is to this deep concern that my levity is owing ... I am
forced to try to make myself laugh that I may not cry.

But he sometimes goes to more recondite sources,
as in Childe Harold, III, st. xix:

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we
Pay the Wolf homage ?

which appears to have been suggested by a sen-
tence in the famous pamphlet, Killing No Murder,
attributed to Colonel Titus:

Shall we, who would not suffer the Lion to invade us,
tamely stand to be devoured by the Wolf ? 2

It is not necessary and it would be tedious to

1 To Lady Bute, Jan. 20, 1758, Works, Ed. 1803, Vol. v,

36-37-
* Harleian Miscellany, iv, 290 (ed. 1744).

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 107

multiply illustrations. It is sufficient that this
characteristic of Byron — and, critically speaking, it
is a very important one — has been illustrated.

II

Few critical problems would be more difficult to
solve than to determine Byron's relative position
among poets.

Of no man of genius can it be so truly said that
he is of those whom Chapman admirably described
as having

Strange gifts from Nature, but no soul
Infused quite through to make them of a piece.

His inspired power, his essential sincerity as a
poet, lay partly in the intensity with which he felt
and expressed the passions and realized all that in
circumstance and situation appealed to them, and
partly in what Matthew Arnold has so happily de-
signated his Titanism. The moment he quits these
spheres he becomes a rhetorician, but a rhetorician
so eloquent and moving, so brilliant and impres-
sive, that the note of falsetto is not at first sight
discernible. We see his power, in quintessence, in
such passages as the journey and death of Hassan ;
Alp's journey along the beach ; the death of Selim ;
the stanzas on Waterloo; the falls of Velino; the
thunderstorm; the apostrophe to Rome; the dying
gladiator; the last two stanzas of the shipwreck, and
innumerable other passages in which these and
similar notes are struck. But his serious poetry has
not only no unity, it has not even permeating en-
thusiasm. Ecstasy exhausted and in collapse, mere

io8 POETRY AND CRITICISM

talent succeeds to genius, the interstices between
each effort of inspired energy being filled up by
more or less successfully disguised falsetto.

In the other sphere, the sphere of satire and
comedy, his masterpiece — and here his power is
sustained — is The Vision of Judgment ; while in
Don Juan we have, what we have nowhere else, the
true, full man in absolute and naked simplicity, a
comprehensive illustration of his amazing versa-
tility and dexterity, of his genius for comedy and
satire — perhaps his most remarkable characteristic
— as well as of all those qualities of sincerity which
inform and vitalize his serious poetry.

Byron's insincerity — in other words, his rhetoric
and falsetto — is most discernible in those parts of
his poetry which are in execution most brilliant,
and which are generally singled out for special
commendation by his admirers. First would come
his descriptions of nature and his affectation of be-
ing Nature's devoted worshipper. It may fairly be
questioned whether Byron was ever profoundly
moved by Nature, or whether he ever regarded her
in any other light than a theme for rhetorical dis-
play. In his earlier poems all his descriptions are
perfectly commonplace and of the order of Shen-
stone's, who seems, judging from the Hours of
Idleness, to have been a favourite with him. In the
first two cantos of Childe Harold his descriptions are
mere rhetoric. The Morean sunset in the third canto
of The Corsair is little more than a brilliant decla-
mation. At last, in the third canto of Childe Harold,
the note changes ; but it changes because, to employ
his own expression, Shelley "had dosed him with

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 109

Wordsworth." From this moment Nature became
a favourite, for he saw from Wordsworth what
capital could be made out of such a theme; and
"description" being, as he himself boasted, "his
forte," delineations of Nature fill thenceforward a
very wide space in his poetry. Of their power and
beauty there can be no question, but there can be
as little question of the purely rhetorical quality of
much of this part of his work. Not, however, of all
of it, for affectation passes at once into inspired
sincerity the moment he deals with such phases of
Nature as respond to his own moods. He "loved
her," he tells us, "best in wrath"; and in her
wrath and her awe-compelling forms of sublimity
and grandeur she took possession of him and made
him her prophet. There is no note of falsetto, or,
if there appears to be such a note, it is only in
clumsiness of expression, when his themes are the
falls of Velino, or the thunderstorm in the Alps, or
the elemental wastes of mountain or of ocean, or
the ravages of death and time.

His falsetto becomes at once apparent when, in
wholesale plagiarisms from Wordsworth, he adopts
Wordsworth's metaphysical philosophy ; because it
is quite evident that, so far from believing in it, he
did not even comprehend it. He saw how happily
it lent itself to effective rhetoric, but he did not see
how incongruous was the essential materialism of
his own conception of life and nature with con-
ceptions as essentially transcendental. When he
writes —

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me ... -

i io POETRY AND CRITICISM

And thus I am absorbed, and this is life;

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost

But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence

— we instinctively feel that it is what the Greeks so
happily called parenthyrsos.

It is in these parts of his poetry that his adapta-
tions and appropriations from other poets are most
frequent and palpable, notably from the Pseudo-
Ossian, from Beattie's Minstrel, from Wordsworth
and Coleridge. But he often goes much further
afield. It is well known that one of his favourite
books was Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy ; and
there can be little doubt that he turned passages in
it to good account more than once in Childe Harold
(for instance, in Canto II, st. xxv) in describing the
pleasures and solaces of Nature.

To walk among" orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts and
arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, arches,
groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant
places . . . betwixt wood and water, in a fair meadow,
by a river side ... to disport in some pleasant plain,
run up a steep hill, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be
a delectable recreation. (Anatomy, part ii, § ii, m. 4.)

Such parallels may, of course, be merely accidental
coincidences; but there can be no doubt — and it is
on this only that I wish to insist — that Byron, in
describing Nature in her calmer aspects, where there
was nothing to arouse passion, and in expressing

WORKS OF LORD BYRON in

sympathy with her in such aspects, invariably drew
both his descriptions and his sentiments from books.
It is precisely the same with his brilliant descrip-
tions of masterpieces in the plastic arts — the Venus
de Medici, the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere. Now
we have it on the authority of Rogers that Byron
was, like Scott, without any feeling for the fine arts.
In his letter to Murray, dated April 26th, 1817,
he does, indeed, express himself with some en-
thusiasm about what he saw in the galleries of Flor-
ence, but he observes of the Venus de Medici that
it is "more for admiration than love." We turn to
his description, and find the mood and tone with
which it is assayed and executed the very reverse of
what he says his real feelings were. In truth, his de-
scription is little more than an eloquent paraphrase
of the famous passage at the beginning of the first
book of Lucretius, the passion-inspiring voluptuous-
ness of the work being especially, and indeed solely,
dwelt upon ; while he dovetails into it a reminiscence
of a passage in Young's Revenge (v, ii) — a tragedy
evidently well known to him, as he borrows from
it more than once elsewhere :

Where hadst thou this, Enchantress? . . .
E'en now thou swimm'st before me. . . .
Who spread that pure expanse of white above,
On which the dazzled sight can find no rest,
But, drunk with beauty, wanders up and down ?

Not the Apollo Belvidere itself, but Milman's noble
Newdigate was plainly the model and inspiration of
the magnificent description of that statue, though
Byron may also have drawn, as Milman certainly
did, on the very remarkable description of the statue

ii2 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in Isaac Disraeli's Flim-flams (vol. iii, ch. 44) — a
work well known to Byron.

Keats, with characteristic insight, once described
Byron as "a fine thing in the worldly, theatrical,
and pantomimical way " ; and this description, with
some modification, almost always applies to him
when he attempts what he attempts, for example, in
Manfred. That work may indeed be taken as a com-
prehensive illustration both of his falsetto and of
what redeems that falsetto from contempt. The
drama as a whole is mere fustian, a chaotic concoc-
tion from what has been suggested by other poets,
with a substratum of the impressions really made
on him by the scenery of Switzerland, recorded in
his journal to Mrs. Leigh.

He was no doubt anxious to have it supposed that
Manfred was drawn from himself, and that Man-
fred's crimes and remorse had their counterparts in
his own ; and this Goethe was induced to believe.1
But beyond a generic resemblance in certain super-
ficial qualities, Manfred has no more resemblance to
Byron than he has to any other human being. He
is partly a poor copy of Goethe's Faust, with touches
of Aeschylus's Prometheus and Milton's Satan,
partly of Beattie's Edwin and Shelley's Alastor,
partly of Schiller's Moor in Die R'duber, to which
Byron had access either in a French version or in
the English translation of 1795, 2 partly of Southey's

1 See his letter to Knebel, October, 1817.

2 In the journal to Mrs. Leigh (Letters and Journals, iii, 356)
he speaks of reading " a French translation of Schiller." The
reminiscences of William Tell in Manfred are obvious ; and
this, and not The Robbers, may be what he refers to.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 113

Ladurlad when under the curse, partly of Mrs.
Radcliffe's Schedoni, and partly of Ahasuerus.

And as is the protagonist — a thing of shreds and
patches — such is the whole drama. Resolved into
its constituent parts, the opening scene, the ma-
chinery of Spirits, the incantation, the scenes with
the Chamois Hunter, the soliloquies and their sur-
roundings, the intervention of the Abbot, and Man-
fred's relations with him — there is no portion of it
which cannot be traced to pre-existing poems or
fictions. The drama has neither unity, soul, nor
motive. Indeed, it is part of the falsetto that for in-
telligible motive is substituted juggling mystifica-
tion, just as we find in Lara. In truth the motive,
or what does service for it, appears to be to send
curiosity on a quest after the secret of " the all
nameless hour," the solution of which is, so it is in-
sinuated, that Astarte was Manfred's sister, and that
remorse for an incestuous union with her, coupled
with the conviction that the sin was inexpiable, is
the chief cause of his torture. But, as is usual with
Byron's falsetto, the vigour of the rhetoric in the
descriptions and soliloquies half disguises it. Every
one must be arrested by the eloquenceof the soliloquy
which opens the second scene of the first act, by the
impassioned appeal to Astarte, and by the impressive
picture of the Coliseum. What is true of Manfred
is true of the other metaphysical dramas. Byron
was no philosopher, though he delighted to pose as
one, and in all these works he illustrates what Goethe
so truly said of him, that so soon as he began to re-
flect he was a child.

It is when we compare the dramas with The Vision
I

ri4 POETRY AND CRITICISM

of Judgment and Don Juan, and with such poems
and such passages in poems as found their inspira-
tion in what sincerely moved him, that we measure
the distance between Byron the rhetorician and
Byron the poet, between degrees of talent and the
pure accent of genius. A large proportion, perhaps
two-thirds, of Byron's poetry resolves itself into the
work of an extraordinarily gifted craftsman, with a
rhetorical talent as brilliant and plastic as Dryden's,
working on the material furnished by an unusually
wide experience of life, by sleepless observation,
and by a marvellously assimilative and retentive
memory, incessantlyif desultorilyadding toits stores.
No English poet, not Ben Jonson, not Milton, not
Gray, not Tennyson, owed more to reading than
Byron, or had a mind more stored with acquired
knowledge.

But let us not mistake. Whatever deduction may
result from discrimination between what is original
and what is derivative, between what is sound and
excellent and what is unsound or of inferior quality
in Byron's work, the truth remains that he occupies,
and for ever must occupy, a place of extraordinary
distinction in our literature. Shakespeare excepted,
his versatility is without parallel among English
poets. There is scarcely any form or phase open
to the poetic art which was not attempted by him,
or any theme capable of poetic treatment which he
did not handle. There is not a note characteristic of
the poetry of the eighteenth century, or of the early
nineteenth century, which he does not strike. He
was the disciple of Dryden and Pope ; he was the
disciple of Shenstone and Gray, of Beattie and the

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 115

Pseudo-Ossian ; he was the disciple of Scott and
Wordsworth ; at last he had even, as Aristomenes
shows, a touch of Keats. He drew largely on
Aeschylus and Milton ; he drew largely on the Old
Testament. He identified himself with Dante, and,
catching his inspiration, has enriched our literature
with a poem worthily recalling much of what is most
moving and most noble in the Divine Comedy. He
has identified himself with Tasso, and re-expressed
all that thrills and melts us in the Canzoni to
Alphonso, and to Lucretia and Leonora. With
equal facility and success his marvellously plastic
genius assimilated also that species of poetry which
lies at the opposite extreme of Italian art; and the
mock-heroic of the Pulci, of Ariosto, and of Casti
will, in point of humour and pathos, of wit and
eloquence, bear no comparison with that of their
English imitator. In the dramas generally, but more
particularly in the historical dramas, the influence
of Alfieri is plainly perceptible.

But if Byron's versatility is illustrated by the
heterogeneity of the sources of his works, it is illus-
trated still more strikingly by those works them-
selves. Since Shakespeare, as Scott justly observes,
no English poet has shown himself so great a master
in the essentials of comedy and in the essentials of
tragedy. In his comedy, it is true, there is no re-
finement, no geniality, and much that is brutal and
gross ; in his tragedy large deductions have to be
made for insincerity and falsetto. But all that
comedy, at least in its less refined, all that tragedy,
at least in its less exalted, aspects can excite, will be
for ever at the command of a master whose name

ii6 POETRY AND CRITICISM

instantly calls up Beppo, The Vision of Judgment,
the first, thirteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cantos
of Don Juan, many passages in the earlier narratives
and Eastern tales, The Prisoner of Chillon, the
episodes of the shipwreck, and the death of Haidee.

His range in composition is indeed extraordinary.
He was a brilliant disciple of the school of Pope in
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and in the
Hints from Horace ; the superior of Scott in a species
of poetry peculiarly characteristic of the modern
romantic school, in which, till his appearance, Scott
reigned alone; the originator, in The Corsair, Lara,
and the Oriental tales, of a new species of epic ; the
originator, in Cain and in Heaven and Earth, of a
new and most striking species of drama, and in Man-
fred of a species which had, with the exception of a
work unknown to him, Marlowe's Faustus, no proto-
type or counterpart in our literature. Sardanapalus,
to say nothing of Marino Faliero and The Two Fos-
cari, may be below contempt as a drama, but it is a
splendid exhibition of dramatic rhetoric. As satire
in mock-heroic, The Vision of Judgment has neither
equal nor second in European literature. Inferior
in quality as his lyric poetry is to that of many of
his predecessors, and to that of many more of his
contemporaries and successors, it would be impossi-
ble to name any poet in our language out of whose
work an anthology so splendid and multiform could
be compiled.

To pass to his masterpieces ; Childe Harold and
Don Juan, regarded comprehensively, are perhaps
the two most brilliant achievements in the poetry of
the world, and they are achievements which have

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 117

nothing in common. Each moves in a sphere of its
own, as each exhibits powers differing not in degree
merely, but in kind. Childe Harold is a superb
triumph partly of pure rhetoric and partly of rhetoric
touched with inspired enthusiasm. In Don Juan we
are in another world and under the spell of another
genius. The sentimentalist has passed into the cynic,
the moralist into the mocker. We are no longer in
the temples and palaces of poetry, but in its profane
places and meaner habitations. The theme now is
not Nature in her glory, but humanity in its squalor;
not the world as God made it, but as the devil rules
it. For the series of splendid pageants, for the rap-
tures and sublimities of its predecessor, has been
substituted, in broad, free fresco, the tragic farce
into which man's lusts and lawlessness, madness
and follies, have perverted life. It was into this
mock-heroic that Byron, disengaging himself from
all that vanity had induced him to affect, and from
all that his cleverness and command of rhetoric had
enabled him to assume, poured out his powers in
sheer and absolute sincerity — the Titanism which
was of the very essence of his genius, the scorn and
mockery, the wit, the persiflage, the irony, "the
sense of tears in human things," the brutal appetites,
the more refined affections of which he was still, in
some of his moods, susceptible.

Don Juan is admirable alike in conception, in
range, in expression. To give unity to a work which
blends all that amuses and entertains us in Lazarillo
de Tormes, Gil Bias, the Novelle Amorose, and
Horace Walpole's Letters, much of what impresses
and charms us in the Odyssey and the Aeneid, which

ii8 POETRY AND CRITICISM

has all the cynicism of La Rochefoucauld and Swift,
all the callous levity of the worst school of our
comedy, and yet subdues us with a pathos which
has now the note of Ecclesiastes and now the note
of Catullus — this indeed required a master-hand.
The unity of the poem is the unity impressed on it
by truth, by truth to nature and truth to life, for
Byron in writing it did but hold up the mirror to
himself and his own experiences.

" What an antithetical mind!" (he himself wrote
after reading certain letters of Burns) — " tenderness,
roughness, delicacy, coarseness, sentiment, sen-
suality, soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity, all
mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay."

Such, in fact, was Byron himself, and such is this
poem, the glory and the shame of our poetry. But
if much is to be forgiven to one who loves greatly,
something may be forgiven to one who hates rightly.
The justification of Don Juan is its ruthless exposure
of some of the most despicable characteristics of the
English people: the ubiquity of hypocrisy, the
ubiquity of cant; immorality masking as morality,
and ceremony as religion, for the vilest purposes,
the one to make capital out of the frailties and lapses
of those who are at least sincere, the other as a
means for dignifying almost every form which moral
cowardice and moral vanity can assume.

In its execution Don Juan deserves all the praise
which Byron's most extravagant admirers have
heaped on it. Never was our language so com-
pletely clay in the moulder's hands. Whatever he has
to express seems to embody itself spontaneously in
the complicated form of verse which he has chosen.

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 119

With a skill and ease which, in our literature at
least, are unrivalled, he has blended every extreme
in nature and life, in style and tone, without pro-
ducing the effect either of incongruity or even of
impropriety. Don Juan has little enough in common
with the Odyssey, and yet in some respects it recalls
it. In both poems the similitude which at once sug-
gests itself is the element so closely associated with
the action of both — the sea. A freshness, a breezi-
ness, a pungency as of the brine-laden air of beach
or cliff seems to pervade it. Over the spacious ex-
panse of its narrative, teeming with life and in ever-
changing play, now in storm and now in calm, roll
and break, wave after wave in endless succession,
the incomparable stanzas on whose lilt and rush we
are swept along.

The importance of Byron in English poetry is
not to be estimated by ordinary critical tests; it is
not by its quality that his work is to be judged.
The application of perfectly legitimate criteria to his
poetry would justify us in questioning whether he
could be held to stand high even among the " Dii
minores " of his art; it would certainly result in as-
signing him a place very much below Wordsworth
and Shelley, and even below Keats. Of many, nay,
of most of the qualities essential in a poet of a high
order, there is no indication in anything he has left
us. Of spiritual insight he has nothing ; of morality
and the becoming, except in their coarser aspects,
he has no sense. If the beautiful appealed to him,
it appealed to him only in its material expression
and sentimentally as it affected the passions. Of no
poet could it be said with so much truth — and how

120 POETRY AND CRITICISM

much does that truth imply! — that he had not
"music in his soul." Turn where we will in his
work, there is no repose, no harmony ; all is without
balance, without measure, and, if we accept Don
Tuan and The Vision of Judgement, without unity.
At his worst he sinks below Peter Pindar; at his
best his accent is never that of the great masters. A
certain ingrained coarseness, both in taste and feel-
ing, which became more emphasized as his powers
matured, not only made him insensible of much
which appeals to the poet as distinguished from the
rhetorician, but is accountable for the jarring notes,
the lapses into grossness, and the banalities which
so often surprise and distress us in his poetry.

As an artist, his defects are equally conspicuous.
In architectonic he is as deficient as Tennyson.
Childe Harold, as well as all his minor narratives,
simply resolve themselves into a series of pageants
or episodes. Some, notably the Giaour, are little
more than congeries of brilliant scraps. No eminent
English poet, with the exception of Browning, had
so bad an ear. His cacophanies are often horrible;
his blank-verse is generally indistinguishable from
prose; and his rhythm in rhymed verse is without
delicacy, and full of discords. Every solecism in
grammar, every violation of syntax and of propriety
of expression, might be illustrated from his diction
and style. Nor is this all. His claim to originality
can only be conceded with much modification in its
important aspects, and with very much more modi-
fication in the less important.

These are large deductions to make; and yet
Goethe placed Byron next to Shakespeare among

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 121

the English poets; and in fame and popularity, by
the consentient testimony of every nation in Europe,
next to Shakespeare among Shakespeare's country-
men, he still stands. Such a verdict it is much more
easy to understand than to justify. To his country-
men Byron's flaws and limitations will always be
more perceptible and important than they will be to
the people of the Continent ; while, in all that appeals
to humanity at large, his work will come more nearly
home on the other side of the Channel than that of
any other English poet except Shakespeare; and
necessarily so. Byron's poetry originally was not
so much an appeal to England as to Europe. His
themes, his characters, his inspiration, his politics,
his morals, were all derived from the Continent or
from the East. England was little more than the
incarnation of everything against which he reacted,
at first with contempt and then in fury. The trumpet-
voice of the world of the Revolution and of the re-
volt against the principles of the Holy Alliance, it
was on the Continent that he found most response.
And there indeed he can never cease to be popular.
The laureate of its scenery, the rhapsodist of its
traditions, the student and painter of almost every
phase of its many-sided life, the poet of the passions
which burn with fiercer fire in the South than in the
colder regions of the North, he neither has nor is
likely to have, with the single exception of Shake-
speare, an English rival across the Channel.

The greatness of Byron lies in the immense body
and mass of the work which he has informed and
infused with life, in his almost unparalleled versa-
tility, in the power and range of his influential

122 POETRY AND CRITICISM

achievement. Youth and mature age alike feel his
spell, for of the passions he is the Orpheus, of re-
flection the Mephistopheles. There is not an emo-
tion, there is scarcely a mood, to which he does not
appeal, and to which he has not given expression.
Of almost every side of life, of almost every phase
of human activity, he has left us studies more or less
brilliant and impressive. He had, in extraordinary
measure, nearly every gift, intellectually speaking,
which man can possess, from mere cleverness to
rapt genius; and there was hardly any species of
composition which he did not more or less success-
fully attempt. In his inspired moments what
Longinus sublimely observes of Demosthenes may
with the strictest propriety be applied to his elo-
quence, " One could sooner face with unflinching
eyes the descending thunderbolt than stand un-
dazzled as his bursts of passion, in swift-succeeding
flash on flash, are fulmined forth."

As Goethe and Wordsworth were the Olympians,
so he was the Titan of the stormy and chaotic age
in which he lived; and his most authentic poetry is
typical of his temper and attitude. He has impressed
on our literature the stamp of a most fascinating and
commanding personality, and on the literature of
every nation in Europe he has exercised an influence
to which no other British writer except Shakespeare
has even approximated. Among his disciples and
imitators in Germany are to be numbered Wilhelm
Miiller, Heine, Von Platen, Adalbert Chamisso,
Karl Lebrecht, Immermann and Christian Grabbe.
How deeply he has impressed himself on the genius
of France is sufficiently testified by the poetry of

WORKS OF LORD BYRON 123

Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Casimir de la Vigne, and
Alfred de Musset. The most brilliant of the modern
poets of Spain, Espronceda, is little more than his
echo. In the Netherlands he has found imitators
in Willem Bilderdijk, Isaac de Costa, Jakobus Van
Lennep, and Nicolaes Beets. On the poetry of
Russia he has exercised wide and deep influence, as
we need go no further than Poucshkin and Lermon-
toff to see.1 Such is the intrinsic power and attraction
of a great part of his poetry that he will always be a
favourite — if not in the first rank of their favourites
—with his countrymen ; and, although no purely
critical estimate would place him on a level with at
least five, if not more, of our poets, yet it must be
admitted that, next to Shakespeare, he would prob-
ably be most missed.

1 See Otto Weddigen's excellent monograph, Lord Byrorfs
Ein/ltiss auf die Europaischen Litteraturen der Neuzeit.

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF MR.
WILLIAM WATSON.1

THE appearance of an edition of the collected
poems of Mr. William Watson, carefully re-
vised, with important alterations and additions, and
comprising many new pieces, will be hailed joyfully
wherever poetryisappreciated. Mr. Watson's reluct-
ance to sanction any complete edition of his works
has long been regretted by his many admirers, who
have hitherto had to content themselves partly with
the numerous booklets, often most difficult to pro-
cure, in which the poems originally appeared, and
partly with the very imperfect collection published
in 1899. These are now superseded by the present
two volumes, which are not only within the reach
of everybody, but which contain all that a most dis-
criminating editor thinks best representative in the .
former miscellanies of Mr. Watson's work, Mr.
Watson himself assisting by a final revision of each
poem selected.

It would not perhaps be too much to say that Mr.
Watson's reputation has hitherto been, like that of
Matthew Arnold in his earlier days, somewhat

1 The Poems of William Watson. In two volumes. (John
Lane, The Bodley Head. London and New York.)

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 125

esoteric, and there can be little doubt that the reason
for this has been his refusal to consent to what
happily he has at last been induced to sanction. The
publication of these volumes, by giving the general
public easy access to writings which could only be
known to them fragmentarily, and which they were
not likely to go out of their way to seek, cannot fail
to enlarge Mr. Watson's sphere of influence and
fame; and I heartily trust — for no influence could
be more salutary, no fame more worthy to be
universal — that this will be the case. To many
thousands of his contemporaries he is probably, at
present, best known by poems most of which stand
in the same relation to those on which his fame will
rest as Mrs. Browning's Italian tirades stand to
Aurora Leigh and the Portuguese sonnets. But it
is time that, to some at least of these thousands, he
should be known as these volumes reveal him. To
Mr. Watson himself such considerationsare probably
a matter of profound indifference. Like Arbuscula
in Horace, he can say satis est equitem mihiplaudere,
and of the "equites " he will always be sure — assure,
I venture to think, in his grave a century hence as
he is sure of them to-day.

No one could go through these two volumes with-
out being struck with the amount of work of the
permanence, of the classical quality of which there
can be no question. To begin with, they are a very
treasury of jewelled aphorisms as profound and
subtle, often, in wisdom and truth as they are con-
summately felicitous in expression. Take for in-
stance :

126 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Song is not Truth, not Wisdom, but the rose
Upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes

— that is immortal. Or take again such an exquisite
triplet as this:

The wonder of the sweetness of a rose,

The wonder of the wild heart of a song,
Shall shame man's foolish wisdom to the close.

And how unforgettable in their several ways are the

following:

And set his heart upon the goal,

Not on the prize;
or

And evermore the deepest words of God

Are yet the easiest to understand ;
or

Not in vague dreams of man forgetting men,
Nor in vast morrows losing the to-day.

Nor can a sonnet so superb as the following perish
except with the language in which it is written ; it
is a gem without a flaw:

MELANCHOLIA.

In the cold starlight, on the barren beach,
Where to the stones the rent sea-tresses clave,
I heard the long hiss of the backward wave
Down the steep shingle, and the hollow speech
Of murmurous cavern-lips, nor other breach
Of ancient silence. None was with me, save
Thoughts that were neither glad nor sweet nor brave,
But restless comrades, each the foe of each.
And I beheld the waters in their might
Writhe as a dragon by some great spell curbed
And foiled ; and one lone sail ; and over me
The everlasting taciturnity ;
The august, inhospitable, inhu nan night,
Glittering magnificently unperturbed.

Among the many memorable reflections with which

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 127

the contemplation of human life has inspired poets
perhaps nothing more impressive has found expres-
sion than this:

So passes, all confusedly

As lights that hurry, shapes that flee

About some brink we dimly see,

The trivial, great,
Squalid, majestic tragedy

Of human fate.

When can The Unknown God cease to appeal, or
The Dream of Man to appal with its tragic wisdom?
When can that gem of workmanship The Father of
the Forest lose its charm, or the Ode in May its
pathos? Nor is it too much to say that The Tomb of
Burns, Wordsworth's Grave, In Laleham Church-
yard, Shelley's Centenary, will come to be linked
indissolubly with the memory of those they cele-
brate, so clairvoyant is the sympathetic insight into
the very essence of what each poet was in temper,
in genius, in expression.

It is remarkable that when Mr. Watson's poetry
directly invites comparison with the poetry of pre-
ceding masters his equality always, his incomparable
superiority often, becomes instantly apparent. He
has, of course, no pretension to be regarded gener-
ally as a rival of Wordsworth ; but how dwarfed and
undistinguished is Wordsworth's At the Grave of
JJurnswhsn placed beside The TombofBumsl There
is nothing again in Wordsworth's Ode to the Skylark
which will bear comparison with the couplet in The
First Skylark of Spring:

O high above the home of tears,
Eternal Joy, sing on !

128 POETRY AND CRITICISM

No one would dispute that in conception, evolution,
and finish of style Gray's Installation Ode is not
altogether unworthy of the poet of The Bard and
The Progress of Poesie; and yet how immeasurably
superior to it is the Ode on the Day of the Corona-
tion of King Edward VII \ It was a bold thing to
challenge comparison, not as an imitator but as a
rival, with the Ode to Autumn, and to have produced
a poem which, if not comparable to Keats's master-
piece, the world will be almost as loth to lose. The
delicious little lyric Night has enriched our language
with an exact counterpart, as distinguished from an
imitation, of one of the most exquisite of Platen's
lyrics, Reue, just as in the second and third staves of
England My Mother we have the note of Goethe.
And this leads me to remark on one of Mr. Watson's
moststrikingandmostdistinguishingcharacteristics.
The disciple of Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold,
confessedly and even ostentatiously so, and drawing
into his poetry much of the essence of theirs, he is
never an imitator. Modest and reverent, it is yet
with the air of a kinsman proudly conscious of inde-
pendence that he seems to stand in their presence
and hold communion with them. And this is his
attitude towards all his great predecessors. Pre-
eminently an elaborate and unwearied artist in ex-
pression, with all the curios a felicitas of Milton, of
Gray, of Tennyson, he attains distinction, not as
they attained it, by making his diction mosaic work,
rich in felicities culled from the classics of the anci-
ent and modern world, but by new combinations and
nice and happy subtleties of his own. Mr. Watson
will indeed have little to fear from the revelations of

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 129

" Variorum editors," the detectives whom Tenny-
son, with too much of the air of "a guilty thing
surprised," regarded and denounced so wrathfully.
It has often been said that one of the tests of a
classic is the amount of his contribution to what is
quotable, his power of crystallizing thought and
sentiment in finally felicitous expression. It may be
doubted whether the diction of any modern poet
will yield so large a percentage of what cannot fail
to pass into this currency. Such as:

The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God.

The mystery we make darker with a name.

And doing nothing never do amiss.

The God on whom I ever gaze,
The God I never once behold.

Now touching goal, now backwards hurled,
Toils the indomitable world.

In nothing, perhaps, is Mr. Watson's originality so
striking as in his treatment of Nature. When we
remember what Wordsworth, what Coleridge, what
Shelley, what Keats, what Tennyson, what Ros-
setti, what Matthew Arnold, what innumerable
minor poets, here and here only rising to distinction,
have, during the last century, contributed to this
branch of poetry, we might well have despaired of
hearing a new and distinctive note. But without for
a moment recalling, save here and there in a stray
accent, any of these poets, there will be found within
these two volumes a wealth of charm and power and
beauty absolutely independent of all that had antici-
pated it in preceding artists. What Coleridge said
of Wordsworth is very exactly applicable to Words-

K

130 POETRY AND CRITICISM

worth's most original disciple. He noted in Words-
worth's poetry "the perfect truth of nature in his
images and descriptions, as taken immediately from
nature and proving a long and genial intimacy with
the very spirit which gives the physiognomic ex-
pression to all works of nature." It is so with Mr.
Watson. Nature is always with him whether in
magically felicitous imagery as

Sidney, that pensive Hesper-light
O'er Chivalry's departed sun,

or in simple cameo-picture of some quite common-
place a scene:

Where, on the tattered fringes of the land,
The uncourted flowers of the penurious sand
Are pale against the pale lips of the sea ;

so, again,

Gorgeously the woodlands tower around,
Freak'd with wild light at golden intervals,

or where heinterpretsher speech to man, asm Autumn
or the Hymn to the Sea — a poem in which he catches
her elemental harmonies.

No discriminating critic could doubt that there
are more elements of permanence in Mr. Watson's
poems than in those of any of his present contem-
poraries. The most prodigally endowed of living
poets to whom long life, nay probably immortality,
will be secure by a drama which is the radiant in-
carnation of enthusiasm and music, by lyrics in
which some of the noblest notes of Coleridge and
Shelley were heard again, and by innumerable
poems which are among the miracles of plastic and
musical expression, will have infinitely more to fear

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 131

from sifting time. Enthusiasm without wisdom, and
aestheticism without ethics and spirituality, are like
Ariel without Prospero. And Mr. Swinburne's
genius has been a very Ariel — an Ariel, indeed,
turned Puck — and most malodorous and noisome
have been the abysses into which his Puck has
occasionally beguiled him ; and even when the guid-
ance has been into less unlovely haunts — into
flowery pleasaunces and wildernesses of heather —
of what avail have been the excursions? " Art for
Art's sake " is always a perilous creed, and a strange
Nemesis sometimes awaits its votaries.

Mr. Watson has certainly been fortunate in his
editor. In an introduction which is a model of good
taste and discrimination the editor explains the
principle on which the poems have been selected.
The intention has been to make them comprehens-
ively representative of Mr. Watson's work. For this
reason early poems which their author, with charac-
teristic scrupulousness, long refused to reprint have
been included. Thus we have The Prince's Quest,
interesting, as the editor remarks, " because it takes
us back to a beginning which is rather curiously
unprophetic of Mr. Watson's subsequent develop-
ment." Unprophetic it indeed is, for it is a purely
aesthetic study after the manner of Keats and Mor-
ris. It stands in something of the same relation to
Mr. Watson's maturer work as The Lovers1 Tale
stands to Tennyson's. But it is a poem of great
beauty and of singular interest, and well deserves a
permanent place in Mr. Watson's works. A few
other examples also of his early work are given.
With what admirable judgement the editor has ex-

132 POETRY AND CRITICISM

ercised his discretion in selection will be apparent to
anyone who will re-read in the original booklets
the poems marked in the index of these volumes
with asterisks and those which are unasterisked and
included. For my own part, the only surprises felt
have been the rejection of Three Eternities, Love
Outloved, and God-seeking in The Prince's Quest,
and other Poems. It is easy to see why the Dedica-
tion to the Dream of Man should have been excluded,
but in itself it is a charming poem. It is a pity, per-
haps, that The Jubilee Night in Westmorland should
not have been reprinted, because of the fine lines
contrasting the Queens Elizabeth and Victoria. But
against the exclusion of one poem, Hellas, hail! all
lovers of poetry will protest, must protest; it is one
of Mr. Watson's very best lyrics. How noble are
the following stanzas:

Thou, in this thy starry hour,

Sittest throned all thrones above.
Thou art more than pomp and power,

Thou art liberty and love.
Doubts and fears in dust be trod :
On, thou mandatory of God !

Nor, since first thy wine-dark wave

Laughed in multitudinous mirth,
Hath a deed more pure and brave

Flushed the wintry cheek of Earth.
There is heard no melody
Like thy footsteps on the sea.

Fiercely sweet as stormy Springs

Mighty hopes are blowing wide :
Passionate prefigurings

Of a world re-vivified.

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 133

Dawning thoughts that, e'er they set,
Shall possess the ages yet.

From the volume For England room might have
been found for Lamentation, and I wish the con-
cluding lines could have pleaded successfully for
Metamorphosis. Of the twenty-four poems now first
appearing in book-form, Leavetaking, The Venusberg,
In City Pent, and The Guests of Heaven are perhaps
the most striking. The first is exquisite:

Pass, thou wild light,

Wild light on peaks that so

Grieve to let go

The day.

Lovely thy tarrying, lovely too is night.

Pass, thou wild heart,

Wild heart of youth that still

Hast half a will

To stay.

I grow too old a comrade ; let us part :

Pass thou away.

But to nothing in these volumes will Mr. Watson's
admirers and critics turn with more interest and
curiosity, not perhaps unmingled with apprehension,
than to the revision of the text. As fastidious an
artist as Petrarch and Milton, as Gray and Tenny-
son, it might have been expected that much of what
is familiar to us in the old texts would disappear.
We all know what havoc Wordsworth made of some
of his best poetry and De Quincey of some of his
best prose, and how even Tennyson in his latter
days more than once corrected for the worse. But
Mr. Watson is happily in the prime of life, and of
the very numerous alterations and additions made
by him there is scarcely one which those who have

134 POETRY AND CRITICISM

his old texts by heart could regret. The file has been
busy everywhere, but the poems most extensively
altered are The Dream of Man, The Hope of the
World, Domine, Quo Vadis? Lakeland Once More,
and the first part of The Prince's Quest. Of great
improvements in his best-known poems the follow-
ing may be noted as among the most striking. For
the flat and feeble line in Lacrymae Musarum

Bright Keats to touch his raiment both beseech
are substituted :

Keats, on his lips the eternal rose of youth,
Doth in the name of Beauty that is Truth
A kinsman's love beseech ;

and in the same poem, the lines

And what is Nature's order but the rhyme
Whereto in holiest unanimity
All things with all things move unfalteringly,
Infolded and communal from their prime?

are substituted for

Whereto the worlds keep time.

And all things move with all things from their prime.

In The Father of the Forest the only blemish is
removed — the historical error representing Edward
I dying in the hostile land — the poet presumingly
supposing that Burgh-upon-Sands was in Scotland,
and so "And eased at last by Solway strand," a
better line, takes the place of " And perished in the
hostile land." So, again, of Henry II and Becket,
" Him whose lightly leaping words," supersedes
"That with half careless words."

Many most felicitous corrections improve the
the rhythm of Lakeland Once More. In The Dream

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 135

of Man "And aeons rolled into aeons" most hap-
pily takes the place of ' ' And the aeons went rolling" ;
" the rapture of striving " the tamer " boon of long-
ing"; and "I have read interpreted clear" yields
place to "my soul hath deciphered clear"; while
four powerful lines are added in the body of the
poem. To The Hope of the World a prose note suc-
cinctly summing the argument is added. In Laleham
Churchyard there is a most judicious omission of the
last two stanzas of the earlier editions, and in The
Ode to Traill the somewhat flat introductory stanza
is excised, while many excisions add to the terseness
and power of Domme, Quo Vadis?

The examples which I have cited — it is not neces-
sary to extend them — are very far indeed from illus-
trating completely the scrupulous care with which
this most conscientious1 of artists has revised his
work. And he will have his reward — the reward
due to one who has maintained a great tradition. As
he sought his models so he learnt his creed in other
and better schools than the schools of to-day. His
communion has been with those great men who are
in the true sense of the term the aristocrats of art,
men in whom loyalty to the best of which they were
capable was the law of being — who would have
regarded disloyalty to such an ideal with something
of that horror with which the early Christians con-
templated the sin which shall never be forgiven. It
is this which, in an age when every species of bar-
barism, vulgarity, and charlatanism are corrupting
morals, taste, and art, in an age when men of real
genius, glorying in the applause of the mob, see
nothing derogatory in dedicating to the hour what

136 POETRY AND CRITICISM

with the hour will perish, enables us to boast that
we have still one true Classic, if only a minor one,
lingering among us.

The limitations of Mr. Watson — and the sphere
in which his genius moves is a comparatively narrow
one — are not only analogous to those of Gray and
Matthew Arnold, but have the same origin. Like
theirs his lot has been cast in an age of decadence
and transition, when poets, derivingneither nutriment
nor enthusiasm from their surroundings, have per-
force to fall back on art and on themselves for the
impulse and inspiration which their brethren of a
happier day found in the world without them. From
Gray went up the cry :

For not to one, in this benighted age,

Is that diviner inspiration given,
That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page,

The pomp and prodigality of heaven.

From Matthew Arnold :

The winged fleetness
Of immortal feet are gone,
And your scents have shed their sweetness,
And your flowers are overblown,
And your jewell'd gauds surrender

Half their glories to the day,
Freely did they flash their splendour,
Freely gave it, but it dies away.

Pluck no more red roses, maidens,

Leave the lilies in their dew ;
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk, O dusk the hall with yew.

And in both, unpropitious surroundings, after first
comparatively stunting, finally blightedand withered

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 137

upallthepoeticpowerwithin them. Matthew Arnold,
commenting on the scantiness of Gray's production,
accounted for it by saying that he "was a born poet
who fell upon an age of prose," when "a sort of
spiritual East wind was blowing." His own was a
similar lot and a similar fate. But the poet of Thyrsis
and The Scholar Gipsy had at least the advantage of
being born in the summer and of living in the au-
tumn of a glorious era. It is the lot of the poet of
Wordsworth's Grave and of Lacrymae Musarum
to have been born in its winter. As he himself puts
it:

Fated among Time's fallen leaves to stray
We breathe an air that savours of the tomb,
Heavy with dissolution and decay,
Waiting till some new world-emotion rise.

Nor was it mere modesty which induced Mr. Watson
to write :

Not mine the rich and showery hand, that strews
The facile largeness of a stintless Muse.
A fitful presence, seldom tarrying long,
Capriciously she touches me to song,
Then leaves me to lament her flight in vain
And wonder will she ever come again.

All that he owes to his age is all that constitutes his
limitations — the tumult, indignation, and depression
which find such turbid expression in his political
sonnets, the dissonant levity, so miserably conspicu-
ous everywhere, which finds expression in what is
perhaps his worst poem, The Eloping Angels, and
the ignoble pessimism which vents itself in The
Hope of the World. To the want of inspiration from
without it is no doubt due that Mr. Watson has,

138 POETRY AND CRITICISM

like Gray, produced no ambitious work; to the
misfortune that his lot has been cast in

This modern life

With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts,

its " light half beliefs in casual creeds," its "sick
fatigues and languid doubts," the fact that his poetry
resolves itself into mere lyric, having neither gospel
nor ethics, having neither unity nor creed, with no-
thing in it to inspire us, with little in it to console
us. To the same lack of genial inspiration from
without is also no doubt to be attributed that over-
solicitude for distinction in style which, if it often
results in the felicities to which I have referred, has
occasionally the fatal effect either of falsetto or of
sophistry, in other words the substitution of origin-
ality in expression for originality in conception.
This, however, is comparatively rare in him, much
rarer than in Tennyson, but, though rare, signifi-
cant. In spite of noble passages, the least successful
of his ambitious poems because the most strained,
seems to me Lacrymae Musarum, being sometimes
a most unhappy combination of symbolic parenthyr-
sus and flat prose, which, in one passage, at least,
borders on the grotesque, I mean the picture of
Tennyson's reception by his brother poets:
Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante stretch

Coleridge, his locks aspersed with faery foam

And God-like spirits hail him guest, in speech
Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome.

Still it is almost redeemed by the superb addition :

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 139

Keats, on his lips the eternal rose of youth,
Doth in the name of Beauty that is Truth,
A kinsman's love beseech.

So strained indeed is the style that when we come
upon the lines:

Dead is Augustus, Maro is alive,

And thou, the Mantuan in this age and soil,

With Virgil shall survive,

the sudden collapse into commonplace positively
startles and shocks us.

Mr. Watson, like all men of genius as distin-
guished from men of mere talent, has taken his own
measure, and how conscious he is of being hampered
by the Zeit-geist, he has himself pathetically and
exquisitely expressed. He is addressing the sky-
lark:

Two worlds hast thou to dwell in, Sweet, —

The virginal untroubled sky
And this vext region at my feet. —

Alas, but one have I !

To all my songs there clings the shade,

The dulling shade of mundane care.
They amid mortal mists are made, —

Thine, in immortal air.

My heart is dashed with griefs and fears ;

My song comes fluttering and is gone.
O high above this home of tears,

Eternal joy, sing on !

But I am fettered to the sod,
And but forget my bonds an hour.

In a beautiful passage in the Odyssey Calypso is
represented as about to rebuke the minstrel for the

140 POETRY AND CRITICISM

persistent sadness of his strains, but Telemachus
explains to her that a poet is not responsible for his
inspiration ; whether for joy or for sorrow he must
sing as the spirit prompts. And so it must always
be with a true poet. A poet who is an imitator and
a man of talent is quite independent of his age and
of his surroundings. He is wretched or joyous to
show he has wit. He can make equal capital out of
faith or out of agnosticism. It matters little to him
in what direction the streams of contemporary tend-
encies are running. As Vanessa said of Swift, he
can write beautifully about a broom-stick. But the
poetry of imitation and of talent, however brilliant,
will pass away, or at least lose its vogue, with the
generation which produced it. Five characteristics
have always been peculiar to all great poetry. It is
rooted in life, in the life of the individual, and in the
life of the age: it is harmonious in the strictest and
most comprehensive sense of the term ; it appeals
through the senses and the imagination to the spirit-
ual and moral nature of man : and it suggests infin-
itely more than it directly expresses. Such poetry can
only be the result of inspiration, of inspiration rarely
bestowed, and possible only, so it would appear,
under propitious conditions in the history of nations.
The last of the dynasty to whom we owe this, the most
precious inheritance of mankind, was Wordsworth.
But poetry may be of classical quality without being
great poetry; Sappho is not Pindar, and Pope is
not Wordsworth, but both Sappho and Pope will
live as long as Pindar and Wordsworth. The quality
of poetry, the extent to which the elements of in-
fluential permanence enter into it depend far more

POEMS OF MR. WILLIAM WATSON 141

on the age than on the individual, on the conditions
which have nourished, inspired, and moulded the
poet, than on the poet himself. Had men gifted and
tempered like Collins and Gray lived and worked,
not in the deep valley between the heights of Re-
naissant England on the one side, and the heights
of the Revolutionary era on the other, but on either
of these elevations, their achievement would have
been infinitely greater.

To Mr. Watson's poetry with its limited and unam-
bitious range, its comparatively few notes, its per-
sistent threnody, its joyless agnosticism, its thin and
uncertain ethic, the critics of the future will probably
point, and point mournfully, as a striking example
of a most rare and fine genius struggling with malign
and depressing conditions. As he himself writes,
contrasting his note and tone with Chaucer's:

Blandly arraigning ghost ! 'tis all too true, —
A want of joy doth in these strings reside;
Some shade, that troubled not thy clearer day,
Some loss, nor thou nor thy Boccaccio knew ;
For thou art of the morning and the May
I of the Autumn and the eventide.

THE POETRY OF MR. GERALD
MASSEY

MORE than half a century has passed since a
volume of poems, falling into Landor'shands,
so entranced him that he wrote a letter to a leading
London newspaper, proclaiming the appearance of
a poet whom he rapturously compared now to Keats,
now to "a chastened Hafiz," now to the Shakespeare
of the sonnets when the sonnets are at their best.
Singling out a poem on Hood, " How rich and
radiant," he said, "was the following exhibition of
Hood's wit":

. . . His wit? a kind smile just to hearten us,

Rich foam-wreaths on the waves of lavish life,

That flasht o'er precious pearls and golden sands.

But there was that beneath surpassing show !

The starry soul, that shines when all is dark ! —

Endurance that can suffer and grow strong,

Walk through the world with bleeding feet and smile !

And he comments on the u rich exordium" of the
same poem:

'Tis the old story ! — ever the blind world

Knows not its Angels of Deliverance

Till they stand glorified 'twixt earth and heaven.

Then turning to the lyrics and quoting:

Ah ! 'tis like a tale of olden
Time long, long ago ;

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 143

When the world was in its golden

Prime, and love was lord below !
Every vein of Earth was dancing

With the Spring's new wine !
'Twas the pleasant time of flowers

When I met you, love of mine !
Ah ! some spirit sure was straying

Out of heaven that day,
When I met you, Sweet ! a-Maying,

In that merry, merry May.

Little heart ! it shyly open'd

Its red leaves' love-lore
Like a rose that must be ripen'd

To the dainty, dainty core ;
But its beauties daily brighten,

And it blooms so dear ;
Tho' a many Winters whiten,

I go Maying all the year.

"I am thought," he says, "to be more addicted to
the ancients than to the moderns . . . but at the pre-
sent time I am trying to recollect any Ode, Latin or
Greek, more graceful than this." In many pieces,
he continues, "the flowers are crowded and pressed
together, and overhang and almost overthrow the
vase containing them, " and he instances the ' ( Orient-
al richness " of such a poem as Wedded Love.

Of the poet in whose work he found so much to
admire, and in which he discerned such splendid
promise, Landor knew no more than that " his sta-
tion in life was obscure, his fortune far from pros-
perous," and that his name was Gerald Massey.
Had he known all he would indeed have marvelled.
Whatever rank among poets may finally be assigned
to Mr. Gerald Massey, and we may be quite sure
that he will stand higher than some of those who at

144 POETRY AND CRITICISM

present appear to have superseded him, there can
be no question about three things — his genius, his
singularly interesting personal history, and the grati-
tude due to him for his manifold services to the cause
of liberty and to the cause of philanthropy. If he has
not fulfilled the extraordinary promise of his youth,
he has produced poems instinct with noble enthusi-
asm, welling from the purest sources of lyric inspira-
tion, exquisitely pathetic, sown thick with beauties.
His career affords one of the most striking examples
on record of the power of genius to assert itself under
conditions as unfavourable and malign as ever con-
tributed to thwart and depress it. But even apart
from his work as a poet, and the inspiring story of
his struggle with adverse fortune, he has other and
higher claims to consideration and honour. He is
probably the last survivor of that band of enthusiasts
to whose efforts we mainly owe it that the England
of the opponents of all that was most reasonable in
Chartism, the England of the grievances and abomin-
ations which Chartism sought to remedy, the Eng-
land of the Report on which Ashley's Collieries Bill
and of the Report on which his Address on National
Education were based, the England of the opponents
of the Maynooth Grant, of the persecutors of Maur-
ice, was transformed into the England of to-day.
His revolutionary lyrics have done their work. The
least that can be said for them is, that they are among
the very best inspired by those wild times when
Feargus O'Connor, Thomas Cooper, James O'Brien
and Ernest Jones were in their glory. Of their
effect in awakening and, making all allowance for
their intemperance and extravagance, in educating

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 145

our infant democracy and those who were to mould
it there can be no question. How vividly, as we
listen to a strain like this, do those days come back
to us:

Fling out the red Banner! the Patriots perish,

But where their bones whiten the seed striketh root :
Their blood hath run red the great harvest to cherish :

Now gather ye, Reapers, and garner the fruit.
Victory ! Victory ! Tyrants are quaking !

The Titan of toil from the bloody thrall starts,
The slaves are awaking, the dawn-light is breaking,

The foot-fall of Freedom beats quick at our hearts !

If lines like the following had a message for those
days which they have not for us, we can still feel
their charm :

'Tis weary watching wave by wave,

And yet the tide heaves onward :
We climb, like Corals, grave by grave

That have a path-way sunward.

The world is rolling Freedom's way,

And ripening with her sorrow.
Take heart ! who bear the Cross to-day

Shall wear the Crown to-morrow.

And the truth of what their author wrote of these
poems many years later few would dispute :

Our visions have not come to naught
Who saw by lightning in the night :

The deeds we dreamed are being wrought
By those who work in clearer light.

So heartily and fully did Mr. Massey throw him-
self into the life of his time that all that is most
memorable in our national history during the most
stirring years of the latter half of the last century is

L

146 POETRY AND CRITICISM

mirrored in his poetry. There is scarcely any side
from which he has not approached it, from politics
to spiritualism. To the cause of Chartism he was
all that Whittier was to the cause of the Abolition-
ists on the other side of the Atlantic. Of the Rus-
sian War he was the veritable Tyrtaeus. It is im-
possible even now to read such a poem as New
Year's Eve in Exile, and such ballads as England
Goes to War, After Alma, Before Inkermann, Cath-
carfs Hill, A War Winter's Night in England,
without emotions recalling those that thrilled in that
iron time, when :

Out of the North the brute Colossus strode
With grimly solemn pace, proud in the might
That moves not but to crush,

on fields

of the shuddering battle-shocks
Where none but the freed soul fled,

in homes

Where all sate stern in the shadow of death.

In HavelocKs March the heroes of the Indian
Mutiny found a laureate as spirited and eloquent as
Tennyson, whose Defence of Litcknow, which ap-
peared many yearsafterwards, was certainly modelled
on Mr. Massey's poem. Ever in the van of every
movement making for liberty, he pleaded in fiery
lyrics the cause of Italy against Austria; and, of all
the tributes of honour and sympathy Garibaldi re-
ceived, he received none worthier than the poems
dedicated to him by his young English worshipper.
He extended the same sympathy to the Garibaldi
of Hungary, and his Welcome to Kossuth, when he

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 147

visited England in 1851, if it does no great credit
to its author as a poet, is at least proof of the gener-
ous enthusiasm which inspired it. But the passion-
ate sympathy which he expressed for the friends of
liberty was equalled by the vehemence of the detest-
ation which he expressed for its enemies. And pre-
eminent among those enemies he regarded the
"hero" of the coup d'etat and the founder of the
Second Empire. We must go back to the broadsides
of Swift to find any satire equalling in intensity and
concentrated scorn the poems in which he gave
vent to his contempt for Louis Napoleon, and his
indignation at the friendly reception accorded to him
by England in 1853. Take two stanzas of one of
them:

There was a poor old Woman once, a daughter of our nation,

Before the Devil's portrait stood in ignorant adoration.

" You're bowing down to Satan, Ma'am," said some spectator,

civil :
" Ah, Sir, it's best to be polite, for we may go to the Devil."

Bow, bow, bow,
We may go to the Devil, so it 's just as well to bow.

So England hails the Saviour of Society, and will tarry at
His feet, nor see her Christ is he who sold Him, curs'd Iscariot,
By grace of God, or sleight of hand, he wears the royal vesture ;
And at thy throne, Divine Success! we kneel with reverent
gesture,

And bow, bow, bow,
We may go to the Devil, so it 's just as well to bow.

Or take three stanzas from The Two Napoleons-.

One shook the world with earthquake — like a fiend
He sprang exultant — all hell following after !

The other, in burst of bubble and whiff of wind
Shook the world too — with laughter.

148 POETRY AND CRITICISM

The First at least a splendid meteor shone !

The Second fizzed and fell, an aimless rocket ;
Kingdoms were pocketed for France by one,

The other picked her pocket.

That showed the Sphinx in front, with lion-paws,
Cold lust of death in the sleek face of her, —

This the turned, cowering tail and currish claws,
And hindermost disgrace of her.

Worthy of Swift, too :

He stole on France, deflowered her in the night,
Then tore her tongue out lest she told the tale.

And

Our ghost of Greatness hath not fled
At crowing of the Gallic Cock !

But if in his poetry he has been the ally of those
who have furthered the cause of liberty and human-
ity in the field and in politics, he has been an ally
as loyal to those who have furthered it in other
capacities. When the bigots hunted down Maurice,
he addressed brave words of comfort to him ; Brad-
laughs Burial is in praise of a martyr of more
doubtful character perhaps, but it strikes the same
note. In the ringing lyric of Stanley's Way, we have
a tribute to heroism in another form. The fine
poems on Burns, Hood, and Thackeray could only
have come from one who had the sympathy and in-
sight of kinship, and so could pierce at once to the
essence of each, and the work of each. No one in-
deed can go through the two volumes of Mr.
Massey's poems without being struck with what
struck George Eliot when, as she made no secret,
she drew the portrait of their author in Felix Holt —

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 149

the innate nobility of the character impressed on
them. Whatever may be their defects as composi-
tions, and it may be conceded at once that they are
neither few nor small, they have never the note of
triviality. Instinctively as a plant makes towards the
light, the poet of these poems makes towards all
that appeals and all that belongs to what is most
virtuous, most pure, and most generous in man. In
some he kindles sympathy for the wrongs and
miseries of the poor by giving pathetic voice to
them ; in others he pleads for the victims of injustice
and oppression in his own and in foreign lands. Here
he calls on the patriot, there on the philanthropist
to be true to trust and duty. No poet has painted
more vividly or dwelt with more fervour on the
virtues which have made us, as a people, what we
are at sea, on land, in the home. Who can read un-
moved such ballads as The Norseman, Sir Richard
Grenville's Last Fight, which appears to have sug-
gested Tennyson's Revenge, and The Stoker's Story,
such a lyric as Love's Fairy Ring and Wedded Love,
the poem so much admired by Landor? As his heart
went out to the heroes and martyrs of the revolu-
tions of the middle of the last century, and his sym-
pathetic insight enabled him to discern and interpret
what so many of his contemporaries were blind to —
the nobility and greatness underlying the foibles of
Burns, the buffooneries of Hood, and the cynicism
of Thackeray — so wherever the beautiful or " aught
that dignifies humanity " has found expression,
whether on the heights of life or in its valleys, he
has ever sprung to greet it with readiest and sincer-
est homage. All this gives an attractiveness to his

150 POETRY AND CRITICISM

poetry quite irrespective of its merits as mere poetry,
just as in human features there is often a beauty and
a charm which is simply the reflection of moral
character.

There was little in Mr. Massey's early surround-
ings to promise either such traits as these, or such
poetry as they informed. The story of his life is no
secret, and a more striking illustration both of the
independence of genius, when thrown on itself — for
he had neither education nor sympathy — and of its
irresistible energy — for everything combined to
thwart and depress it — cannot easily be found.

His father was a canal boatman of the ordinary
type, supporting on ten shillingsa week, in a wretched
hovel, a numerous family. A little elementary in-
struction at a penny school, to which his mother sent
him, was all the education he ever received. At eight
years of age he was working in a silk mill, from five
in the morning to half-past six in the evening, for a
weekly wage beginning at gd. and rising to is. $d.
Here he experienced all that Elizabeth Barrett so
powerfully and pathetically denounced in a poem
which nine years later brought indignant tears into
the eyes of half England, The Cry of the Children.
From this cruel servitude the poor child was released
by the mill being burnt down, and in some touching
reminiscences of those dismal days he tells how he
and other children stood for many hours in the wind
and sleet and mud, watching joyfully the conflagra-
tion which set them free. But he had only exchanged
one form of toil for another quite as ill-paid and
more unwholesome. This was straw-plaiting. The
plaiters, having to work in a marshy district with

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 151

constitutions enfeebled by confinement and want of
proper food, fell easy victims to ague. Young Mas-
sey was no exception, and for three years he was
racked, and sometimes quite prostrated, by this dis-
ease. At these times and when his father was out of
work the sufferings of the family were terrible. It
was only by unremitting drudgery, so miserable was
the wage each could earn, that the wretched cabin
which sheltered them and the barest necessities of
life could be secured. They were more than once
literally on the verge of starvation. At one dreadful
crisis they were all down with the ague, with no one
to assist them, and unable to assist each other. Well
might Mr. Massey say, " I had no childhood. Ever
since I can remember I have had the aching fear of
want, throbbing in heart and brow." It was these
experiences which inspired the touching poem,
Little Willie and The Famine Smitten, and the
"Factory-bell " in Lady Laura. Butthelad, thanks to
his mother, had been taught to read, and in his
scanty leisure committed many chapters of the Bible
to memory, and eagerly devoured such books as he
could get at, among them the Pilgrim's Progress
and Robinson Crusoe, which he took, he tells us, for
true stories.

So passed the first fifteen years of his life. In or
about 1843 he came up to London, where he was
employed as an errand boy. And now an eager
desire for knowledge possessed him, and he devoured
all that came in his way — history, political philo-
sophy, travels, everything, strangely enough, but
poetry, going without food to buy books, and with-
out sleep to read them. Sometimes in and sometimes

152 POETRY AND CRITICISM

out of employment, a waif and a stray, his only
solace in this dismal time was his passion for infor-
mation. Then social questions began to interesthim.
His own bitter experiences naturally led him to brood
over the wrongs and grievances against which the
Chartists were protesting, and which they were seek-
ing to remedy. He attended their meetings and, in-
flamed not only by what he heard there but by what
he had himself seen and suffered, as well as by the
sympathetic study of the writings of English and
French republicans, immediately threw himself heart
and soul into the cause. At last poetry awoke in him,
inspired, he tells us, not by politics but by love.
His first volume, Original Poems and Chansons, was
published in 1847 byaprovincial bookseller atTring,
his native place. This was succeeded three years
later by Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love, a very
great advance on the crude work of the preceding
collection. Meanwhile, though as poor as ever and
amid surroundings as sordid and dismal as they
could well be, his prospects had in some degree
brightened. He was beginning to feel his way with
the pen. He started, and became the editorof, a cheap
journal for working men, half of which was written
by himself and the other half by them. But this
coming to the ears of the employers on whom he
depended for his daily bread, and who were not
likely to regard with much favour the propaganda
of which it was the medium, he was continually
turned adrift by being dismissed from such situations
as he could manage to scramble into. At last he
fought his way to his proper place, and found he
could rely on his pen at all events for a livelihood,

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 153

if only a bare one. He became a regular and valued
contributor to the principal socialist journals, such
as the Leader, Thomas Cooper's Journal and the
Christian Socialist. This brought him into connec-
tion with his earliest friend Thomas Cooper, and
subsequently with Charles Kingsley, who had just
written Alton Locke, and with F. D. Maurice. Nor
was this all. Dr. Samuel Smiles, ever helpful and
ever quick to recognize merit, had been greatly
struck by some of the lyrics in these publications
and in the volume of 1850, and, hearing the young
poet's history, wrote an eloquently appreciative
review of both in a magazine long since defunct but
in those days very popular. He welcomed the ad-
vent of a new and true poet "who had won his ex-
perience in the school of the poor, and nobly earned
his title to speak to them as a man and a brother,
dowered with ' the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
the love of love ' " ; and, dwelling on the fact that
the maker of poems so full of power and beauty was
only twenty-three years of age, prophesied, if fortune
was kind, a splendid future for him.

Fortune was not kind and was never going to be
kind, but in Mr. Massey's next volume, published
in 1854, appeared most of the poems on which his
fame must mainly rest — The Ballad of Babe Christa-
bel -with other Lyrical Poems. From this moment his
reputation was made. The volume passed through
edition after edition and became the subject of
eulogies so unmeasured that they may well have
turned a young poet's head. But they did not turn
the head of this poet. In a modest and manly pre-
face prefixed to the third edition he deprecated the

154 POETRY AND CRITICISM

homage which had been, he said, prematurely paid
him. ' ' Some of the critics have called me a ' Poet ' :
but that word is much too lightly spoken. I know
what a poet is too well to fancy that I am one yet ;
I may have something within which kindles flame-
like at the breath of Love, or mounts into song in the
presence of Beauty : but, alas ! mine is a jarring lyre.
I have only entered the lists and inscribed my name
— the race has yet to be run." Referring to the politi-
cal poems he was, he said, half-disinclined to give
them a place in the volume, so averse was he "to
sow dissension between class and class and fling fire-
brands among the combustibles of society." " But,"
he added, " strange wrongs are daily done in the
land, bitter feelings are felt, and wild words will be
spoken." Then he went on to say that his aspira-
tion was to become the poet of the masses, to
brighten and elevate the lives of those whose toils
and sufferings, whose miseries and darkness he had
himself shared. " I yearn to raise them into lovable
beings. I would kindle in their hearts a sense of the
beauty and grandeur of the Universe, call forth the
lineaments of Divinity in their poor, worn faces, give
them glimpses of the grace and glory of Love and
of the marvellous significance of Life, and elevate
the standard of Humanity for all." And to these aims
he was nobly true, as innumerable poems were to
testify, poems which if they have not always intrinsi-
cally the quality of poetry of a high order and which
endures, went home influentially to hundreds of
thousands in times when such appeals were of in-
calculable service to society.

When this volume was passing through the press

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 155

the Crimean War had broken out, and, during its
progress, the young poet found his themes in what
it inspired. The spirited ballads, in which he told
the story of England's truth to herself and to her
heroic past in that conflict, and in which just before he
had deplored and denounced her apostasy from both
in her recognition and welcome of Louis Napoleon,
were collected and published in 1855, under the title
of War-waits. Then came the Indian Mutiny and
another series of ballads in which the heroism of his
countrymen and the achievements and virtues of one
of the noblest and purest of England's sons were
commemorated: these were also collected and re-
published in 1860 under the title of Havelock's
March. Nine years afterwards the regular sequence
of his poetry and his serious life as a poet ceased
with A Tale of Eternity and other Poems.

With Mr. Massey's subsequent career and occupa-
tions I am not here concerned. In 1890, as his poems
had never been collected, he was prevailed on to
allow a selection of such as he thought most worthy
of preservation to be made, and they appeared in
two volumes under the title of My Lyrical Life. In
a very modest preface he re-introduces himself to a
generation which he assumes has forgotten him, and
to which his poems will be "as good as MS." For
himself, he says, they " may contain the flower, but
the fruit of my life is to be looked for elsewhere by
those who are in sympathy with my purpose." The
enormous labours, " the fruit " to which Mr. Massey
refers, his Book of the Beginnings, his Natural
Genesis and the like — the value of these must be
estimated by those competent to estimate it. It is with

156 POETRY AND CRITICISM

the " flower" and the flower-time of Mr. Massey's
life that I am here concerned and seek to interest
others, with the poet and enthusiast to whom Ruskin
wrote :

I rejoice in acknowledging my own debt of gratitude to
you for many an encouraging and noble thought and ex-
pression of thought, and my conviction that your poems
in the mass have been a helpful and precious gift to the
working-classes (I use the term in its widest and highest
sense) of the country, that few national services can be
greater than that which you have rendered.

The history and career of Mr. Massey can never
be separated from his work as a poet, and taken to-
gether they form a record which surely deserves to
live. Of the services to which Ruskin refers I have
already spoken.

In considering his work as a poet I do not pro-
pose to deal with it critically, to balance its merits
and shortcomings, and to enter into any discussion
about his relative place among the poets of his time.
I wish to dwell only on its beauties, on its very real
beauties, and to invite the attention of all for whom
poetry has charm to the two little volumes " which
are as good as MS."

The Ballad of Babe Christabel is one of the richest
and most pathetic poems in our language, sown thick
with exquisite beauties ; as here :

In this dim world of clouding cares,
We rarely know, till wildered eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,

The Angels with us unawares.

Through Childhood's morning land, serene
She walked betwixt us twain, like Love ;

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 157

While, in a robe of light above,
Her guardian Angel watched unseen.

Till life's highway broke bleak and wild ;
Then, lest her starry garments trail
In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail,

The Angel's arms caught up the child.

Her wave of life hath backward roll'd
To the great ocean ; on whose shore
We wander up and down to store

Some treasure of the times of old.

And this:

We sat and watched by Life's dark stream
Our love-lamp blown about the night,
With hearts that lived as lived its light,

And died as died its precious gleam.

And this:

With her white hands clasped she sleepeth ; heart is hushed

and lips are cold
Death shrouds up her heaven of beauty, and a weary way we

go,

Like the sheep without a shepherd on the wintry Norland wold,
With the face of day shut out by blinding snow.

O'er its widowed nest my heart sits moaning for its youngling

fled
From this world of wail and weeping, gone to join her starry

peers ;
And my light of life 's o'ershadowed where the dear one lieth

dead;
And I'm crying in the dark with many fears.

All last night she seemed near me, like a lost beloved bird,
Beating at the lattice louder than the sobbing wind and rain ;
And I called across the night with tender name and fondling

word;
And I yearned out through the darkness, all in vain.

158 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Heart will plead, "Eyes cannot see her: they are blind with

tears of pain,"

And it climbeth up and straineth for dear life to look, and hark
While I call her once again : but there cometh no refrain,
And it droppeth down and dieth in the dark.

As long as a shaft, as cruelly barbed as any that
Fate holds in its quiver, flies to its aim, will The
Mother's Idol Broken find response :

Ere the soul loosed from its last ledge of life,

Her little face peered round with anxious eyes,

Then, seeing all the old faces, dropped content.

The mystery dilated in her look,

Which on the darkening deathground, faintly caught

Some likeness of the Angel shining near.

Full of wisdom and beauty is the poem Wedded
Love'.

We have had sorrows, love ! and wept the tears
That run the rose-hue from the cheeks of Life ;
But grief hath jewels as night hath her stars,
And she revealeth what we ne'er had known,
With Joy's wreath tumbled o'er our blinded eyes.

The kindred poems, The Young Poet to His Wife,
Long Expected and Wooed and Won are full of rich
beauty. In Memoriam, with its eloquent and im-
pressive exordium, is a poem over which most of
those who have been initiated in "the solemn mys-
teries of grief" will gratefully linger. How sunny
are many of his lyrics, how full of grace ! Take the
following:

We cannot lift the wintry pall

From buried life : nor bring
Back, with Love's passionate thinking, all

The glory of the Spring.
But soft along the old green way

We feel her breath of gold :

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 159

Glad ripples round her presence play ;
She comes! — and all is told.

She comes ! like dawn in Spring her fame !

My winter-world doth melt ;
The thorns with flowers are all a-flame.

She smiles ! — and all is felt.

If a more charmingly touching lyric than Cousin
Winnie exists in our language, where is it to be
found?

It is impossible to go through these volumes with-
out being struck with the felicities which meet us at
every turn, now of thought, now of sentiment, now
of expression. How happily, for example, are
Hood's witticisms described as:

Rich foam-wreaths on the waves of lavish life,
and men in affliction as those

To whom Night brings the larger thoughts like stars.

How beautifully true and how originally expressed
is this:

The plough of Time breaks up our Eden-land,
And tramples down its flowery virgin prime.
Yet through the dust of ages living shoots
O' the old immortal seed start in the furrows.

How happy this:

The best fruit loads the broken bough :
And in the wounds our sufferings plough
Love sows its own immortal seed.

Or:

Hope builds up
Her rainbow over Memory's tears.

How simple and true is the pathos here :

160 POETRY AND CRITICISM

The silence never broken by a sound
We still keep listening for : the spirit's loss
Of its old clinging place, that makes our life
A dead leaf drifting desolately free.

And this too we pause over:

Who work for freedom win not in an hour.

The seed of that great truth from which shall spring

The forest of the future, and give shade

To those that reap the harvest, must be watched

With faith that fails not, fed with rain of tears,

And walled around with life that fought and fell.

And this:

The world is waking from its phantom dreams
To make out that which is from that which seems ;
And in the light of day shall blush to find
What wraiths of darkness had the power to blind
Its vision, what thin walls of misty gray,
As if of granite, stopped its outward way.

This, too, was worth saying and is well said :

Prepare to die? Prepare to live,

We know not what is living :
And let us for the world's good give,

As God is ever-giving.

In The Haunted Hurst, A Tale of Eternity Mr.
Massey struck a new note, and has produced a most
powerful and original poem to which I know no
parallel in poetry. It was occasioned and inspired
by certain extraordinary experiences which he once
had in a certain house where many years ago he
resided, and which had the effect of converting him
to Spiritualism. With the esoteric interest which it
no doubt has for Spiritualists I have no concern,
but its dramatic and poetic interest is so great that
an account of it will probably be as acceptable to

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 161

those who have no sympathy with the creeds which
it is designed to support and illustrate as to those
who have. The physical fact on which it is founded
was the discovery of a child's skeleton in the garden
of the house occupied by the poet, the metaphysical
fact the apparition of the materialized spirit of the
self-destroyed murderer, who tells the story of the
crime and of the punishment posthumously inflicted
on him. The poem opens weirdly and vividly with a
description of the phenomena commonly associated
with so-called haunted houses, but here symbolic of
the tragedy afterwards divulged:

At times a noise, as though a dungeon door
Had grated, with set teeth, against the floor :
A ring of iron on the stones : a sound
As if of granite into powder ground.
A mattock and a spade at work ! sad sighs
As of a wave that sobs and faints and dies.
And then a shudder of the house : a scrawl
As though a knife scored letters on the wall.

The wind would rise and wail most humanly,
With a low scream of stifled agony
Over the birth of life about to be.

At last " the veil was rent that shows the Dead not
dead," and live figures define themselves; one:

A face in which the life had burned away

To cinders of the soul and ashes gray :

The forehead furrowed with a sombre frown

That seemed the image, in shadow, of Death's Crown.

The faintest gleam of corpse-light, lurid, wan,
Showed me the lying likeness of a man !
The old soiled lining of some mortal dress.
M

162 POETRY AND CRITICISM

the other:

A dream of glory in my night of grief.

She wore a purple vesture thin as mist,

The Breath of Dawn upon the plum dew-kissed.

The purple shine of violets wet with dew
Was in her eyes.

And the first apparition tells its horrible story, the
tragedy of its earthly life, the lust that led to mur-
der and from murder to self-destruction.

She was a buxom beauty !

No demon ever toyed with worthier folds,
About a comelier throat, to strangle souls ;
A face that dazzled you with life's white heat,
Devouring, as it drew you off your feet,
With eyes that set the Beast o' the blood astir,
Leaping in heart and brain, alive for her;
Lithe, amorous lips, cruel in curve and hue,
Which, greedy as the grave, my kisses drew
With hers, that to my mouth like live things clung
Long after, and in memory fiercely stung.

One wild and stormy night, the shame of her sin
having driven her from her home and friends, she
rushes into her lover's house with her new-born
child:

Harsh as the whet-stone on the mower's scythe
She rasped me all on edge ; the hell-sparks flew,
Till there seemed nothing that I dared not do.
" Kill it, you coward ! "

And the wretch murders the child, to perish after-
wards, in the agonies of frenzy and remorse, by his
own hand:

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 163

I fancied when I took the headlong leap,
That death would be an everlasting sleep :
And the white winding sheet and green sod might
Shut out the world, and I have done with sight.
Cold water from my hand had sluic'd the warm
And crimson carnage; safe the little form
Lay underground ; the tiny trembling waif
Of life hid from the light : my secret safe.

But this was not to be. The panic horror of one
awful moment was to become stereotyped for ever.
He had made the child's grave in a chamber of
which he had lost the key, and so exposed his crime
— for the grave was open — to instant discovery. So :

The lost soul whirls and eddies round

The grave-place where the lost key must be found.

He often sees it, but he cannot touch
It : like a live thing it eludes his clutch —
Gone, like that glitter from the eyes of Death,
In the black river at night that slides beneath
The Bridges, tempting souls of Suicides
To find the promised rest it always hides.

All this, as well as the Angel-form who acts as inter-
preter, reveals itself in clairvoyance to the poet,
explaining the sounds heard in the house:

The liquid gurgle and the ring
Metallic, with the heavy plop and ping,

The grinding sound

O' the grating door ; the digging underground ;
The shudders of the house ; the sighs and moans ;
The ring of iron dropt upon the stones ;
The cloudy presence prowling near.

Sometimes, as here, with tragic power, and some-
times with infinite pathos, the poem explains and
illustrates that what we call death is but life's con-
tinuance behind a veil which it is in the power of

164 POETRY AND CRITICISM

some who are still in the flesh to uplift ; that the
impressions which the soul receives from earthly
experience it retains long after the body is dust; that
Heaven and Hell, with those who people them, are
around us and in our midst, the barrier dividing
them from us so thin that for some it scarcely exists.
Of all this the poem gives us many weird and
most impressive illustrations ; such as the story of
the man who, seeing a woman, with a beautiful
child in her arms, standing begging in a crowded
London thoroughfare, placed in her outstretched
hand — for he was touched with pity for the child —
a golden coin, only to find it ringing on the pave-
ment at his feet, and no woman or child any longer
visible:

He was one of those who see
At times side-glimpses of eternity.
The Beggar was a Spirit, doomed to plead
With hurrying wayfarers, who took no heed,
But passed her by, indifferent as the dead,
Till one should hear her voice and turn the head.
Doomed to stand there and beg for bread, in tears,
To feed her child that had been dead for years.
This was the very spot where she had spent
Its life for drink, and this the punishment.

In sentiment, in imagery, and in expression there
is much in this original and powerful poem over
which no reader can fail to pause. Never have the
genesis and progress of evil in the human soul been
more subtly and terribly described and analyzed
than in the Fifth Part, and if we are not prepared
to accept every article in the creed of this poem we
can at least understand the wisdom and force of such
lines as these:

POETRY OF MR. GERALD MASSEY 165

If those blind Unbelievers did but know
Through what a perilous Unknown they go
By light of day ; what furtive eyes do mark
Them fiercely from their ambush of the dark ; «

What motes of spirit dance in every beam ;
What grim realities mix with their dream ;
What serpents try to pull down fallen souls,
As earth-worms drag the dead leaves through their holes.
How, toad-like, at the ear will work
The squatted Satan, wickedly at work.

Till from some little rift in nature yawns
A black abyss of madness, and Hell dawns.

And how beautifully is the Divine guidance described
as:

The magnet in the soul that points on through
All tempests, and still trembles to be true,

and as

A bridge of spirit laid in beams of light,
Mysteriously across a gulf of night.

Nor are the comments on the perversions of Chris-
tianity even now altogether superfluous, and very
far indeed from profanity is the aspiration:

Forgive me, Lord, if wrongly I divine,
I dare not think Thy pity less than mine.

It is characteristic of Mr. Massey's cheerful optim-
ism that a poem which begins so grimly, and that
a theosophy which involves so much which is both
sombre and awful should conclude with an assurance

That all divergent lines at length will meet,
To make the clasping round of Love complete;
The rift 'twixt Sense and Spirit will be healed
Before creation's work is crowned and sealed ;
Evil shall die, like dung about the root
Of Good, or climb converted into fruit.

166 POETRY AND CRITICISM

All blots of error bleached in Heaven's sight ;
All life's perplexing colours lost in light.

I have indulged very freely in quotation, but I must
find room for the following noble lines which con-
clude the sixth part:

Lean nearer to the Heart that beats through night ;
Its curtain of the dark your veil of light.
Peace Halcyon-like to founded faith is given,
And it can float on a reflected Heaven
Surely as Knowledge that doth rest at last
Isled on its "Atom " in the unfathomed vast
Life-Ocean, heaving through the infinite,
From out whose dark the shows of being flit,
In flashes of the climbing waves' white crest ;
Some few a moment luminous o'er the rest !

I have already said that I shall not presume to at-
tempt any estimate of Mr. Massey's relative position
among the poets of the Victorian era ; if he has no
pretension to rank among its classics, in the house
of song there are many mansions. My purpose will
have been fulfilled if I recall to a generation which,
judgingfrom popular anthologiesandcurrent literary
memoirs, appears to have forgotten them, poems full
of interest and full of charm.

MILTONIC MYTHS AND THEIR

AUTHORS

I

THE posthumous fortunes of Milton form a
curious chapter in literary history. First,
prophecy was busy with his name, and prophecy,
delivering itself in the person of a contemporary
critic, one William Winstanley, thus pronounced:
"John Milton was one whose natural parts might
deservedly give him a place amongst the principal
of our English poets, having written two Heroic
Poems and a Tragedy, namely, Paradise Lost,
Paradise Regain'd, and Samson Agonistes. But his
Fame is gone out like a Candle in a Snuffe, and his
memory will always stink." l For this verdict politi-
cal prejudice was no doubt mainly responsible. But
in 1750 Dr. Johnson was induced to write a preface
and a postscript to a volume, the effect of which, had
it attained legitimately the end at which it aimed,
would have been, if not exactly the fulfilment, some-
thing not very far from the fulfilment of Winstanley's
strange prophecy. In or about 1747 a Scotchman
named Lauder, irritated at the failure of an attempt
to introduce an edition of Arthur Johnston's Latin
version of the Psalms into schools, in consequence
of a contemptuous comparison instituted originally
1 Lives of the Most Famous English Poets, p. 195.

168 POETRY AND CRITICISM

by Pope between Johnston and Milton, determined,
if possible, to blast Milton's fame.1 This he sought
to effect by accusing and convicting him of whole-
sale plagiarism. The fellow was a scholar, and in
the course of his reading had explored the writings
of the Scotch, Dutch, and English Latin poets of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of
whom were very little known in England even to
the learned. As much of this poetry was on sacred
subjects, and had, like Paradise Lost, drawn largely
on the Old Testament and on theological common-

1 In a remarkable letter which appears to have escaped the
notice of the historians of this affair, written to Dr. Birch, pre-
served among Birch's papers in the British Museum, and printed
in Anecdotes of Eminent Persons, vol. i, pp. 122-128, Lauder at-
tributes his infamous conduct to another motive: "You," he
writes to Birch, " were the innocent cause of my offence, more
than any man alive. I mean your Appendix to Milton's Life,
where you relate an unparalleled scene of villainy as acted by
Milton against King Charles I, who, in order to blast the re-
putation of that prince, the undoubted author of EikonBasilike,
stole a prayer out of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and obliged the
printer of the King's book, under severe penalties and threat-
nings, to subjoin it to his Majesty's performance, and then made
a hideous outcry against his own action, merely to create a
jealousy, as was observed just now, that if his Majesty was not
the author of the prayers in that Treatise he was far less the
author of the Treatise itself, which thing is believed by
thousands to this day : Now, if that action when committed by
Milton is without malignity why should it be deemed so
criminal in me. . . . If this be the case, as you very well know
it is, do you think I deserved so much to be reproached as I
have been for acting by Milton as he acted by the King? " For
this abominable charge there was, needless to say, no evidence
whatever, as Birch himself admits when he relates the scandal.
See Birch, Milton, vol. i, Introduction, p. xxxiii.

MILTONIC MYTHS 169

places, both in relation to incident as well as to
doctrine and sentiment, there were necessarily many
analogies and parallels to be found in it to Milton's
epic. These Lauder industriously collected, and they
were pointed out in a series of papers communicated
to the Gentleman's Magazine between 1747 and 1749.
The papers naturally attracted attention, and in 1750
they were collected, with considerable additions, and
published in a volume, dedicated to the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge, entitled An Essay on
Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his
Paradise Lost.

The papers in the Gentleman's Magazine had dis-
turbed and surprised Milton's many admirers, but
the discoveries there made were nothing to what this
volume revealed. In a few weeks the essay was the
talk of every one to whom the name and fame of
Milton were known, and the sensation made by it
was extraordinary, as well it might have been. For
it was here demonstrated that a poem which was the
glory and pride of our literature, and had given
an Englishman a place beside Homer and Virgil,
was nothing but a compilation, an ingenious cento
of fragments selected and dovetailed out of the
writings of poets known only to the curious. The
scheme and architecture of the poem, as well as the
machinery and details of the first two books, includ-
ing the debate in Pandemonium, had been stolen
from the Sarcotis, an epic poem in five books,
written about 1650 by Jacobus Masenius, a Jesuit
professor in the college at Cologne. With whole-
sale plunderings from Masenius had been blended
plunderings on a similar scale from the Adamus

170 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Exsul of Grotius and from the Locustae of Phineas
Fletcher. The description of the creation of the world,
the scenes in Eden, and the account of the Fall had
been concocted out of the Creationis Rerum Poetica
Descriptio of Andrew Ramsay, the Virgilius Evan-
gelizans of Alexander Ross, and Silvester's English
translation of Du Bartas. The dialogue at the end
of the fourth book between Gabriel and Satan had
been translated from one of the tragedies of Johannes
Franciscus Quintianus. The Bellum Angelicum of
Frederic Taubmann, a professor in the University
of Wittemburg, had supplied the shameless plagiar-
ist with a great part of the sixth book; while the
famous panegyric on marriage had been filched from
the Triumphus Pads of Caspar Staphorstius. Many
other illustrations are given of these appropriations,
and their supposed plumes are' restored to a numer-
ous rabble of obscure Latin versifiers. " And now,"
says Lauder in summary, " Milton is reduced to his
true standard, appears mortal and uninspired, and
in ability little superior to the poets above mentioned;
but in honest and open dealing, the best quality of
the human mind, not inferior, perhaps, to the most
unlicensed plagiary that ever wrote."

With an alacrity which did him little credit, Dr.
Johnson, whose prejudice against Milton is well
known, heartily supported Lauder in his "dis-
coveries," having indeed furnished him with a pre-
face and postscript to his work. But the triumph of
this infamous impostor was short-lived. In less than
a year after the appearance of his work the Rev.
John Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, fol-
lowed with a pamphlet, Milton vindicated from the

MILTONIC MYTHS 171

Charge of Plagiarism brought against him by Mr.
Lauder, and Lander himself convicted of several
forgeries and gross impositions on the Public.
Douglas showed how Lauder had, by an elaborate
system of fraud and forgery, converted vague and
general resemblances in the writings of these poets
to the work of Milton into precise and particular,
sometimes by suppressing the context, sometimes
by dovetailing disconnected passages, sometimes by
alterations more or less extensive, and sometimes by
interpolations of his own. The exposure was com-
plete, and the wretched man, covered with shame,
wrote, at Johnson's dictation, a public letter to
Douglas, fully acknowledging the fraud of which
he had been convicted, and apologizing in the most
abject terms for his villainy.

The impostures of Lauder have thrown into the
shade the less criminal Miltonic " discoveries" of
the Rev. Francis Peck, and yet in impudence he
may fairly challenge comparison with the Scotch-
man. Peck, who is honourably known as an anti-
quary of some distinction, published in 1740 a sub-
stantial quarto, entitled New Memoirs of the Life and
Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton. The volume
contained many " important additions" to Milton's
works, all of them discoveries for which the world
was indebted to the industry and acumen of thje Rev.
editor. Among them was a drama which Mr. Peck
rapturously placed beside Samson Agonistes. The
history of this discovery is so interesting that we
must leave Mr. Peck himself to tell it. Happening
to be going through a collection of pamphlets pub-
lished between 1640 and 1660 his attention was

172 POETRY AND CRITICISM

directed to one entitled Tyrannical Government
anatomized: or a Discourse concerning evil Counsel-
lors, being the Life and Death of John the Baptist.
Presented to the King's Most Excellent Majesty by
the author. It was in prose, and was printed in the
form of a dialogue in long paragraphs. Suddenly it
flashed on the inspired discoverer that the prose
might be verse, and that the verse might be Milton's,
and in a very short time he was satisfied that Milton's
it was. The spelling was Milton's, "the spirit of
liberty breathing through it "was Milton's, and " who
so likely as Milton to present it to the King?" He
carried it, in rapture, to a learned friend, who, on in-
specting it, found it was nothing more than a literal
prose version of Buchanan's Baptistes. This was,
as Mr. Peck owns, a great shock to him, but he bore
up so wonderfully that the untoward revelation
scarcely modified his original opinion. Slicing up
the prose into blank verse and insisting that the
translator was Milton, he had the effrontery to print
it among Milton's poems, entitling it " the sixth of
Mr. John Milton's nine celebrated poems." And
Mr. Peck justified its ascription to Milton thus:

I shall begin with owning that at first indeed I took
this poem to be an original, but since find that it is only
a translation from the Latin of Mr. George Buchanan.
Yet I shall still make bold to call it Milton's own. And
I think not improperly. For are not Dryden's Virgil Mr.
Dryden's, Pope's Homer Mr. Pope's? Besides, this poem,
I conceive, is more Mr. Milton's than either of those
pieces are theirs. . . . Milton in translating Buchanan did
no more than render so many of his own thoughts into
English which, as it happened, Buchanan had with the

MILTONIC MYTHS 173

same elegance of style and the same turn of thinking
wrote down in Latin about a hundred years before.

The following is a favourable specimen of the
blank verse evolved with a little manipulation by
Mr. Peck out of the prose, and pronounced to be
"conclusively Miltonic":

But if you should read
Or teach the prophets oracles, and show
The track or steps of your own holy life,
Then your authority is stricken mute :
Then like dumb dogs that bark not here you fret
And fume about your sheep-coates ; but the wolves
Which of you drive away? The wolves, sayd I?
You are the wolves yourselves that flay your flock
Clothed with your wool ; their milk don't slack your thirst,
Their flesh your hunger.

Of a very different order to these pseudo-dis-
coveries was the real and important discovery made
by Mr. Lemon in 1823. It had long been known
that Milton had completed a work containing a sys-
tem of theology, and that the manuscript had been
in the possession of his friend and pupil Cyriac
Skinner. Beyond this nothing more was known
about it, and it was supposed to have perished. But
in the latter part of 1823, Mr. Lemon, then Deputy
Keeper of the State Papers, discovered in one of the
presses of the State Paper Office in Whitehall, a
parcel inclosed in an envelope directed to "Mr.
Skinner, Mercht." It contained, with other docu-
ments, a corrected copy of all the Latin letters to
foreign princes and states written by Milton when
Latin Secretary, together with a manuscript of 735
closely written small quarto pages, entitled Joannis
Miltoni Angli De Doctrina Christiana^ ex sacris

174 POETRY AND CRITICISM

duntaxat libris petita, Disquisitionum libri duo post-
humi. This was the long-lost treatise, and how it
found its way into so strange a depository can only
be matter for precarious conjecture. Of its authen-
ticity, however, there can be no question.

But Miltonic discoveries did not cease here. In
the summer of 1868 the columns of the Times, and
of other leading newspapers, became the arena of a
very lively controversy. The late Professor Henry
Morley announced that he had found a new poem
by Milton containing fifty-four lines, and entitled
An Epitaph. It was inscribed on a blank page of
the first edition of the minor poems belonging to
the British Museum, was signed, so it was alleged,
"J.M.,Ober 1647, "and was, the Professor contended,
in the handwriting of Milton himself. As the poem
bore some resemblance to the Epitaph on the
Countess of Winchelsea, and contained couplets
which Milton might, as a boy, conceivably have
written, and as, moreover, the handwriting was ab-
normally cramped owing to the exigencies of space,
the ascription of the verses to Milton was at least
worth discussion. But the bubble soon burst. It
appeared, on due scrutiny, that the initials were not
"J. M."but"P. M."; that the handwriting, making
every allowance for its necessary variation from the
normal type, was not the handwriting of Milton.
The pronoun "its," though occurring only three
times in the whole of Milton's voluminous writings,
occurred three times in these fifty-four lines alone.
There were, moreover, inaccuracies and cacophonies
which would have been impossible to a scholar of
Milton's accomplishments, and with Milton's fine

MILTONIC MYTHS 175

ear. And lastly, as I think Mr. Gerald Massey
pointed out, the poem was full of very un-Miltonic
plagiarisms from Crashaw.

Some fifteen years before Professor Morley
" discovered" a poem which convicted Milton of
being a plagiarist from Crashaw, a Mr. Brook Asp-
land discovered an inscription in a volume in the
Bodleian which convicted him of being not merely
an Arian but a downright and thorough-going
Socinian. Mr. Aspland was, it seems, collecting
material fora Life of Paul Best, the Unitarian Con-
fessor, whose tract, Mysteries Discovered, was burnt
by an order of the Long Parliament in 1647. To
his unspeakable joy he found in a blank space of
the tract a Latin note, written in "a clear and ele-
gant Italian hand," headed " De Redemptoris nostri
Jesu Christi Persona" To whom but to Milton
could be ascribed — so argued rapturous Mr. Asp-
land — a Latin note in "a clear and elegant Italian
hand " of the seventeenth century? Experts shook
their heads, but Mr. Aspland remained unshaken,
and Socinianism, greatly to the satisfaction of John
Keble, annexed Milton.

But the most remarkable Miltonic " discovery"
was made some four or five years ago, and perhaps
impudence and credulity never went further. In a
leading London newspaper appeared a poem pur-
porting to be — so ran the words of the discoverer —
" the last effort of the genius who gave to the world
the greatest epic in the English tongue. ... It was
found among Milton's papers after his death, and
was actually included in an incomplete Oxford
edition of his works, of which but a limited number

i;6 POETRY AND CRITICISM

were issued." It will be sufficient to give the first
stanza, it would, indeed, be sufficient to give the first
line:

I am old and blind.

Men point at me as smitten by God's frown,
Afflicted and deserted of my mind,

Yet am I not cast down.

"My lord," said a counsel to a judge who asked
him why his client had not produced an important
witness, " my client has several reasons for not pro-
ducing that witness; the first is that he is dead, the

second is " "That will do," interrupted the

judge, "you need not trouble us with the other
reasons." To discuss anything which follows the
first line of this poem would, as I need scarcely say,
be equally superfluous. And yet the genuineness
of this poem was emphatically maintained by more
than one distinguished scholar, and gravely debated
in the columns of several newspapers. It is not,
indeed, unlikely that the gem would have formed
the chief attraction of some new edition of Milton's
poems had it not been pointed out that it was to be
found in the Treasury of American Song, and had
been written about 1848 by Mrs. Elizabeth Howell
of Philadelphia.

And now we come to the last and most remark-
able of these Miltonic discoveries. Mr. John Mur-
ray published some three years ago in two handsome
volumes, "Nova Solyma, The Ideal City: or Jeru-
salem Regained. An Anonymous Romance, written
in the time of Charles /, now first drawn from ob-
scurity and attributed to the illustrious John Milton.
With Introduction, Translation, Literary Essays and

MILTONIC MYTHS 177

a Bibliography, by the Rev. Walter Begley." The
history of the work here translated is briefly this. It
appeared, printed at London by John Legat in 1648,
under the title of NOVAE SOLYMAE Libri Sex. There
was nothing to indicate the authorship. On the
contrary, a Latin couplet on the middle of the blank
page facing the title informed the reader that all
inquiry as to the authorship would be vain.

Cujus opus, studio cur tantum quaeris inani?
Qui legis et frueris feceris esse tuum.

In the following year the unsold remainder of the
impression was published with a new title-page,
adding to the old title the words Sive Institutio
Christian^ (i) DePueritd; (2) De Creatione Mundi;
(3)DeJuventute; (4) DePeccato; (^)De ViriliAetate;
(6) De Redemptione Hominis; and stating that it
was sold by Thomas Underhill, in Wood Street.
With this, all that is known about the book begins
and ends. No reference to it, no indication that it
has been so much as seen by any person except the
writers of two brief manuscript notes in the British
Museum copy, has as yet been discovered either in
contemporary records or subsequently, till Mr. Beg-
ley gave it to the world. Its discoverer, for to that
honour Mr. Begley is fully entitled, has certainly
laid all students of the seventeenth-century literature
and theology under very great obligations. About
the Romance itself there cannot be two opinions;
intrinsically as well as historically it is of singular
interest and merit, the work of an accomplished and
brilliant scholar, who, if not exactly a man of genius,
was yet gifted and tempered as very few men who

N

178 POETRY AND CRITICISM

are not geniuses are gifted and tempered. On a first
and rapid perusal, indeed,, any critic might be ex-
cused for being carried away with Mr. Begley's
fascinating theory, — for imagining that in a work,
which, with some deductions, would do no discredit
to Milton, he had in his hands an experiment of the
master's early manhood.

The Nova Solyma belongs to a species of fiction
peculiarly characteristic of the seventeenth century,
and it presents it in its most composite form. In such
works as Bacon's New Atlantis, Campanella's City
of the Sun, and, later, Harrington's Oceana, we
have, as in More's Utopia, examples of the purely
didactic romance; in Hall's Mundus alter et idem,
and in Godwin's Journey to the Moon, phantastic
extravaganzas of the Lucianic and Rabelaisian type.
Other classes of these fictions found their original
models in the Satyricon of Petronius, the Golden
Ass of Apuleius, and, later, in the Arcadias of
Sannazzaro and Sidney, and, blending prose and
poetry, dealt with pastoral life, romantic adventures,
love, the delineation of character and picturesque
nature-painting, preserving however the didactic
element by moral or political disquisitions and a
large infusion of allegory. Such would be the Ar-
genis and Euphormionis Satyricon of Barclay and
the Comus of Erycius Puteanus. Into the composi-
tion of the Nova Solyma almost all these elements
enter. As a didactic romance it closely recalls the
New Atlantis; as a romance of adventure and senti-
ment and of mingled prose and verse, the Argenis\
in its idyllicism and colouring, the Comus. And in
structure, phraseology and style these works were

MILTONIC MYTHS 179

obviously its models. But a still closer resemblance,
so far at least as didactic purpose is concerned, may
be traced in it to a species of romance which appears
to have been particularly popular during the seven-
teenth century, and which finds illustrations in such
works as Johann Valentin Andreae's Reipublicae
Christianopolitanae Descriptio, published in 1619,
though here romantic incident is entirely subordin-
ate to didactic purpose, or in such works as the
Eudemia of Janus Nicius Erythraeus, 1637, which
interweaving romantic stories and blending poetry
with prose closely recalls the Nova Solyma.

But the themes, the theories, and the inspiration
of the Nova Solyma are derived from the world of
the Puritan revolution. Since theaccession of Charles
I speculations and disquisitions on ethical and
scientific subjects, on politics, on government, on
education, and, above all, on theology, had been
gradually superseding the literature most character-
istic of the Renaissance. Philosophers and politic-
ians were engaged in formulating systems and in
constructing ideal commonwealths. Pious fanatics
were indulging in dreams of a Millennian time,
when Jerusalem should be the centre of united Chris-
tendom, and the scattered tribes, gathered into
Christ's fold, repossess, as His subjects, their old
inheritance. The Jews were coming into promin-
ence, and Menasseh ben Israel was beginning his
indefatigable labours in the cause of his people.
Just a year before the Nova Solyma was published
he had attributed the Civil War to the anger of God
at the treatment the Jews had so long experienced
at the hands of the Christians, and in 1650 appeared

i8o POETRY AND CRITICISM

his Spes Israelis.1 The theories of Comenius were
engaging the attention of all who were interested in
education, and, whether accepted or not, had brought
home to intelligent citizens the importance of its
efficient regulation. And these are the themes of
the Nova Solyma. The author of it was plainly a
Puritan enthusiast without the ordinary Puritan
limitations; a man who, like Milton, was eminently
a scholar and a humanist, as familiar with the polite
literature of the ancient as of the modern world, as
well as profoundly versed in divinity and theology;
a man who, like Milton, entered intensely into the
intellectual and spiritual life of his time, but who,
unlike Milton, had little interest, so at least we
should judge, in politics and in political controversy.
It may be assumed with some confidence that he
was a young man, and a young man of ardent pas-
sions but of ascetic ideals. No one can read the
Romance without being struck with what is equally
striking both in Milton and in Spenser, the union
of a sensuousness which borders, and often more
than borders, on the voluptuous with austere purity
of sentiment and principle.

The work is partly in prose and partly in verse.
The prose has little distinction, but the verse has
much. The most remarkable experiment in hexa-
meters consists of extracts from a supposed epic on
the destruction of the Armada, cited to illustrate a

1 See, for the whole question and of the Jewish movement
at this time, Lucien Wolfs Menasseh Ben Israel, Mission to
Oliver Cromwell and his Crypto-Jews under the Commonwealth.
The first is published for the Jewish Historical Society of Eng-
land and the other is reprinted from the Jewish Chronicle.

MILTONIC MYTHS 181

lecture on poetry. In addition to original poems
and translations in the ordinary metres, the narrative
is interspersed with lyrics, often of great beauty, in
almost every form which these compositions have
assumed both in classical and in post-classical poets,
concluding with a multi-metrical marriage-song.

The plot in succinct summary is as follows. The
Jews having at last been converted, a Millennian
Jerusalem, Nova Solyma, has been established;
an ideal city, glorious alike in surroundings, site,
and architecture, its government an aristocratic re-
public, its achievements the realization of all that
can be accomplished by a God-fearing, God-directed
community, as alive to its temporal as to its spiritual
interests. Its fame having come to the ears of two
Cambridge students, the sons of a London mer-
chant, named respectively Eugenius and Politian,
they set out to visit it. Meeting at Palermo with one
Joseph, the son of a Patriarch of the new city, a
young man who was on his travels with a tutor and
a servant, but who had been reduced to great straits
by some brigands having robbed him of all he had,
in addition to murdering his servant, they have little
difficulty in persuading him to dismiss his tutor and
to return as their escort to Nova Solyma. At this
point the romance opens. On a beautiful spring day
they enter the city. It chanced to be the anniversary
of the Restoration, and a gorgeous pageant, the
central figure of which is a young girl of surpassing
loveliness, is passing through the streets. On her
— she is, as is explained to them, the impersonation
of Zion — the eyes of both the youths are riveted.
Joseph, without, at the time, informing them that the

1 82 POETRY AND CRITICISM

fair maiden is his sister, leads them to his home and
introduces them to his father Jacob. Jacob is over-
joyed at seeing his son again, and heartily accedes to
Joseph's request that Eugenius and Politian should
be the guests of the family. The old man enters into
conversation with them, and pleased with some re-
marks which they had made about an act of graceful
unselfishness on the part of two of his younger child-
ren, takes them into his confidence and explains the
principle on which the children of Nova Solyma are
educated. Politian and Eugenius now retire to
rest; not, however, before discussing the charms of
the daughter of Zion, with which it is quite clear
that they have both been deeply impressed. The
next day they learn, to their surprise, that she is the
daughter of their host and the sister of Joseph. The
narrative is then interrupted by a long allegorical
episode, in the form of a dream, related by an elderly
matron for the edification of the two sons of Jacob.
This over, the main narrative is resumed by the
sudden arrival of one Alcimus, the son of Joseph's
tutor. The graceless youth, full of remorse for what
he had done, confesses, to the amazement of Joseph,
that having taken to a brigand life, he had been one
of the band who robbed him, murdered his servant,
and deprived him of his tutor, the tutor being his
own father. To save his father's life he had, how-
ever, imperilled his own, the one redeeming point
in the infamy of his conduct. Both Joseph and
Jacob treat the culprit with very un-Miltonic indulg-
ence. This incident, as well as the subsequent ad-
ventures of Alcimus, are, it may be added, related
with great particularity of vivid detail, and, if written

MILTONIC MYTHS 183

by Milton, display powers of which he has no-
where else revealed even a glimpse. So ends the
first book.

The greater part of the second book, which begins
with a philosophical garden-party, is occupied with
prolix disquisitions on religious, metaphysical, and
scientific subjects, but introduces an essential part
of the fabric of the Romance. This is the tragical
love of Philippina, daughter of Sebastian, Duke of
Palermo, for Joseph, whom she had met, under
romantic circumstances, when on his travels. In her
infatuation she had come, in male disguise and under
the assumed name of Philander, to Nova Solyma
in quest of the unsuspicious Joseph. The story is
not unskilfully introduced. As Joseph, Politian, and
Eugenius are entering the public hall in the market-
place, they notice a young boy observing and follow-
ing them at a distance. The object of his attention
is plainly Joseph. Joseph accosts him, and asks him
who he is and from what country he has come. The
youth explains that he was an Italian, and having
been forced into a betrothal with a lady whom he
did not love, he had run away from home to find a
lady whom he did love. He was, he added, alone
and without friends, and he appeals to Joseph to
protect him. Joseph very kindly arranges with a
widow named Antonia to board the youth, and he
is taken into her house. Among her boarders is a
young man named Theophrastus, who is suffering
from religious melancholia of a most distressing
kind. He tells his story, which is not unlike that of
the Man in the Iron Cage in Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress, recalling also many of the cases cited in

1 84 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Henry More's Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, and we
have a long digression on witchcraft and demoniac
possession. The book concludes with old Jacob's
account of his conversion to Christianity, which is
broken off by his summons to the Council of State.
The third book is occupied with an elaborate re-
view of the colleges of Nova Solyma, and with the
methods of education pursued there, which are very
particularly described. Then comes a long dis-
quisition on Rhetoric and Poetry, illustrated by
three extracts from an epic poem on the Spanish
Armada, composed by Joseph, entitled Philippica.
This is followed by some remarks on the pernicious
influence of prose romances, — another most un-
Miltonic note, — and the attempt of the author of
Nova Solyma to elevate and utilize such fiction by
employing it as a vehicle for religious instruction.
After a visit to the Gymnasium the two friends,
Eugenius and Politian, return to Jacob's house,
Politian discovering to his infinite concern that his
friend is as desperately in love as himself with the
Daughter of Zion. So ends the third book, promis-
ing well for the fourth. But we have to wade through
two dreary lectures, one De ortu et occasu Rerum,
evidently a college thesis pressed into the service of
the work, and the other a long harangue on the origin
of evil, before the action is resumed. And when re-
sumed it takes a turn which is not a little surpris-
ing. The author, betraying a suspicious familiarity
with the most unsavoury parts of the Romances of
Petronius and of Apuleius, goes on to describe how
the widow Antonia, mistaking Philander for what
she appeared to be, a young man, falls desperately

MILTONIC MYTHS 185

in love with her, and urges her suit with such im-
portunity, that had not Joseph, who had now been
informed by messengers from the Duke of Palermo
that Philander was no other than Philippina in dis-
guise, intervened, a tragedy even more terrible than
what actually occurred might have resulted. As it
is, Philippina destroys herself with a dagger, and
Antonia takes poison. This dismal scene over, the
narrative resumes the story of poor Theophrastus,
who is now worse than ever, and indeed on the point
of death. The imperturbable Joseph, while waiting
with Eugenius and Politian in an adjoining room
for a summons to administer the last consolations to
Theophrastus, improves the occasion by first break-
ing into iambic trimeter acatalectics on the Curse of
Cain, and then settling into a long prose disquisition
on the Fall of Man. At last the summons comes,
the consolation is administered, and Theophrastus
breathes his last.

The first part of the fifth book is retrospective, and
is a narrative placed in the mouth of the unhappy
Philippina's maidservant, telling how it was that
her mistress met, and fell in love with Joseph; how
Philippina's father, the Duke of Palermo, wishing
her to marry the Duke of Parma, and discovering
her passion for Joseph, caused Joseph to be kid-
napped and imprisoned ; how Joseph escaped by im-
personating the Ethiopian servant who, appointed
to guard him, had fortunately been seized with a fit
and to all appearance fallen dead ; how, at the insti-
gation of Philippina's licentious stepmother, angry
at Joseph's rejection of her immoral overtures, he
was accused of the murder but acquitted, in con-

i86 POETRY AND CRITICISM

sequence of the supposed corpse reviving; and how
finally he had made his escape, Philippina following
him in disguise. All this certainly constitutes a
most ingenious and interesting story, suggested
partly by Montemayor's Diana, and partly by certain
incidents in Sidney's Arcadia : but there is no touch
of Milton's hand discernible in any portion of it.

After this the narrative again stagnates in dis-
courses on the higher and lower love, on duelling,
with hints for the attainment of a well-regulated
mind, these themes being suggested by the dis-
covery of an intended duel between Eugenius and
Politian, both of whom had become distracted by
their passion for the Daughter of Zion. The book
concludes with a grotesquely irrelevant discourse in
prose on the right use of money, another college
thesis no doubt, and an equally irrelevant Ode to the
Deity in verse. The sixth and last book opens with
the return of Apollos, Joseph's long-lost tutor, who
relates his adventures, among them a very lively
account of an escape from pirates. This is succeeded
by a ponderous continuation on the part of old Jacob
of the discourse which his summons to the Council
had interrupted, supplemented by an edifying
homily from Joseph.

The main narrative is resumed by an account of
the death of Alcimus, who, though forgiven, is full
of remorse for the frailties of his youth. However,
like his fellow sinner Theophrastus, he makes a
good end, thanks to the pious administrations of
Joseph. Apollos, who proves himself quite as long-
winded as old Jacob, again interrupts the story by
holding forth on the Sabbath, on public worship,

MILTONIC MYTHS 187

on prayer, on religious ritual, on fanatics, on the
sacraments. And now things have to be set straight
for those estimable young men Eugenius and Poli-
tian, who though they have the grace to be ashamed
of their feuds on the subject of the Daughter of Zion,
the fair Anna, " still find the flame of desire burning
in their breasts." However, it luckily happened that
Anna had a twin-sister Joanna, so like her that the
one was scarcely distinguishable from the other. It
was therefore, so naively argues the author, of little
moment which went to which, so Anna is assigned
to Politian and Joanna to Eugenius. The young
ladies had not been consulted in this arrangement,
but finding themselves betrothed to comely lovers,
' ' soon began to feel love's ardent passion, and burned
with mutual fires." The only cloud on the approach-
ing festivity is the sudden and inexplicable collapse
of Joseph in unutterable despair, which Apollos un-
comfortably and somewhat unsatisfactorily explains
as ' ' God's doing and marvellous in our eyes. " How-
ever, this is soon succeeded by an equally inexplic-
able ecstasy of joy, in which happy state the day
appointed for the double marriage finds him. It is
a day of civic pomp and glory, for it is the day of
the annual festival in honour of the restoration of
the city, besides being the anniversary of the day
on which Politian's eyes first rested on his bride.
"At a later hour the wedding festivals were con-
tinued in Jacob's house, and there Joseph distributed
to the guests copies of a sacred wedding song he had
recently composed." And with this wedding song,
which finds expression in nine different metres, the
Romance concludes.

i88 POETRY AND CRITICISM

To the second impression was appended what the
author calls an " Autocriticon," apologizing for the
many imperfections of the work, inviting criticism,
and promising, if the public verdict should be favour-
able, to revise and continue what he had begun.
"The Author," so runs, in Mr. Begley's version, the
concluding paragraph, "had a special desire, seeing that
his work was such a novel and daring institute, to hear
the judgements that others passed on his attempts before
he bestowed further pains on them himself; for he is by
no means unconscious how adverse the spirit or fate of
this age is to any strict repression of the carnal life, or
to any endeavour to bring into favour the higher spiritual
faculties, as is here assayed. If it should turn out thoroughly
distasteful to the public, he will not proceed further with
a superfluous book. If it should meet with approbation,
he will be encouraged to go on, and, paying due attention
to what the critics may say of the present work, will
proceed to bring this imperfect sketch into a more finished
picture."

II

Such is the work which Mr. Begley would have
us suppose was written by Milton, partly while he
was still at Cambridge and partly during his resid-
ence at Horton, in other words between about 1628
and 1639, and which his friend Hartlib persuaded
him to publish in 1648. It may be fully conceded
that, on a superficial view, Mr. Begley 's theory is a
most plausible one. If Milton ever, as a young man,
wrote a prose romance, Nova Solyma is, in some re-
spects, just the sort of romance which we should
have expected from him. We have his note in its
mingled voluptuousness and purity, in its treat-

MILTONIC MYTHS 189

ment of the passion of love, and in its conception
of the relation of that passion to physical and
spiritual life. He has himself told us that he de-
lighted in romantic fictions,1 and we know that he
was conversant with many of the works which have
contributed to the plot and coloured the narrative
generally of this romance. To its composition, but
I say this with much reserve in reference to the
verses, he was, of course, as a scholar, quite equal.
But the moment serious scrutiny begins, the improb-
ability of Milton having had any hand in it becomes
at once apparent, and, as we proceed, improbability
soon passes into impossibility. The arguments in
favour of the Miltonic authorship simply resolve
themselves into what I have just stated, into that
and nothing more. The rest of the evidence, ex-
ternal and internal, against the Miltonic authorship
is so overwhelming and conclusive that we feel the
case closes before half of it is adduced.

In the first place there is absolutely nothing, either
in contemporary or subsequent tradition, to connect
this work with Milton. Milton has himself given us
the fullest particulars about his studies and his writ-
ings, but has said nothing about his being engaged
in this or in any similar fiction. His nephew,
Phillips, has given an elaborate account of his
occupations and a complete list of his writings, but
is silent about it; Hartlib, to whom the Tractate
on Education was addressed, though he mentions
Sadler's Olbia and was himself the author of a
political romance, is equally silent about it. No

1 An Apology for Smectymnuus, Prose Works, ed. Bohn,
p. 81.

190 POETRY AND CRITICISM

rumour of Milton's association with such a work
ever reached the restless and insatiable curiosity of
Aubrey. There is nothing in Milton's collections
bearing on it; there is no passage in his correspond-
ence or in any of his voluminous writings which
can be tortured into a reference to it. We have seen
how elaborately it treats of education, and of the
education of children ; but in his Tractate to Hartlib,
written in 1644, he distinctly says that he had not
written on the subject before, and, what is still more
remarkable, goes out of his way to say that in treat-
ing of education he " had not begun, as some have
done, at the cradle, which might yet be worth many
considerations."1 And yet, according to Mr. Begley,
he had this work in his desk to publish it four years
later. Of such disingenuousness Milton was ab-
solutely incapable. Nor was he a man to suppress
what he had written. Is it credible that he would
have given to the world in 1643 such inferior verses
as the In Quintum Novembris and others of his
Juvenilia, when he had in MS. such poems as
abound in Nova Solyma, or that, in the very last
year of his life, he would deliberately have put in the
printer's hands a collection of his college exercises,
the Prolusiones Oratoriae, and concealed the author-
ship of compositions which would have done him,
as he must have well known, infinitely more honour
as a scholar? Take again the Atitocriticon appended
to Nova Solyma. Is it credible that Milton in 1648,
in all the stress of the work in which he was then
engaged, could have meditated the continuation
of such a romance? Nay, need we go any further
1 Tractate, Prose Works, ed. Bohn, pp. 88 and 102.

MILTONIC MYTHS 191

than the appeal to public opinion? Imagine Milton,
at any time in his life, deferentially assuring his
readers that their verdict would decide whether he
abandoned or whether he went on with what he had
in hand!

But to pass from probabilities to facts. A com-
parison of Milton's known opinions and views on
important subjects with those expressed in the
Romance would alone be conclusive against Mr.
Begley's theory. The theory and practice of educa-
tion prescribed in Nova Solyma differ in many
essential particulars from what is inculcated in the
Tractate. The one is largely concerned with the
training of young children, the other ignores it.
The one subordinates intellectual to moral discip-
line, the other subordinates moral to intellectual.
The one recognizes the importance of equipping
young citizens for mercantile and mechanical pur-
suits, the other turns from such aims with aristocratic
contempt. The one attaches the greatest importance
to composition both in prose and verse, the other
discourages such exercises. In Nova Solyma no
stress is laid on the importance of mathematics
and natural science as factors in education; in the
Tractate they are especially prescribed and em-
phasized. It is quite clear that the author of Nova
Solyma was familiar and in sympathy with the
theories of Comenius. Milton distinctly and rudely
tells Hartlib that he had not troubled himself to ex-
plore them. "To search what many Januas and
Didactics more than ever I shall read, have projected
my inclination leads me not, "are his words.1 Again ;
1 Tractate, Works, Bohn, p. 98.

192 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Mr. Begley admits, what is indeed sufficiently ob-
vious, that the author of Nova Solyma held Arian
views. Whatever opinions Milton may have had in
later life, and in later life he was undoubtedly an
Arian, nothing is more certain than that in all his
writings up to 1660 he was not only perfectly ortho-
dox but spoke of Arianism with abhorrence. In
his Of Reformation in England, he describes the
Arians"as no true friends of Christ";1 in his treatise
of Prelatical Episcopacy ', he describes them as " un-
faithful expounders of Scripture " ; ' in his Anim-
adversions on the Remonstrant's Defence, he speaks
of the necessity of restraining the Arians from " in-
fecting the people by their hymns and forms of
prayer." 3 In all his writings indeed, from the Hymn
on the Morning of Christ's Nativity to his treatise on
a Free Commonwealth published in 1660, his anti-
Arianism finds most emphatic expression. This
argument would alone be conclusive against the
identity of the authorship of the Nova Solyma and
of Milton's writings previous to 1660.

Take again the question of divorce and polygamy.
The author of Nova Solyma is emphatic on the in-
dissolubility of the marriage tie. If, he says, you
make a mistake in wedlock you must abide by it,
and to polygamy he is so adverse that he does not
so much as recognize it.4 Compare this with the
theories and contentions in Milton's divorce treatises
and with what he says in the Treatise on the Christian
Doctrine: " It appears to me sufficiently established

1 Works, Bohn, p. 9.

8 Id., p. 26. 3 Id., p. 60.

4 Nov. Soly. , Bk. vi, ch. viii of Mr. Begley's version.

MILTONIC MYTHS 193

that polygamy is allowed by the law of God," l and
let us ask ourselves whether it is within the bounds
of credibility that he would, in 1648, have deliber-
ately published views so diametrically opposed to
the views which, as is notorious, he was fanatically
bent on disseminating. There are many other serious
discrepancies on points which to Milton were of
capital importance. One example will probably
suffice. Milton, as is well known, and as he has
himself elaborately argued in the Treatise on the
Christian Doctrine, believed that after death both
body and soul remained in a state of suspended vital-
ity till the Day of Judgement.2 " The grave, " he says
in one place, " is the common guardian of all till the
Day of Judgement";3 in another, "There is no
recompense of good or bad previous to the Day of
Judgement."4 In Nova Solyma there is no such
theory, the soul being represented as passing at
once, on leaving the body, into Heaven.

We pass now to the evidence on which, as Mr.
Begley justly observes, his case must chiefly stand
or fall, and on which he naturally lays most stress
— the evidence afforded by the Latinity. We must
all be so grateful to Mr. Begley for the discovery of
this most interesting work that it is with unfeigned
regret that I am obliged to comment on the evidence
and arguments with which he supports his theory
with unpleasant frankness. A more amazing tissue
of ignorance and audacious sophistry probably no
critic has ever had to unravel than what we find in

1 On the Christian Doctrine, Bk. i, ch. x, Sumner's Trans-
lation, p. 241. 2 Id., Bk. i, chap. xii.
8 Id., p. 290. * Id., p. 293.

O

194 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Mr. Begley's dissertations and notes. Mr. Begley's
method is to ignore the rich and voluminous Latin
literature preceding and contemporary with Milton,
to seize on peculiarities common to the Latinity of
Milton's acknowledged writings and to that of Nova
Solyma, and then proceed to the deduction that they
could only have come from the same author. He has,
for example, a special dissertation on the shortening
of the "i" in "Britones" and its inflexions, pointing
out that it occurs twice in Milton's Latin poems and
in Nova Solyma, for the purpose of drawing as his
corollary that those Latin poems and the NovaSolyma
must have come from the same hand. As if it was
not habitual in the Latin poetry of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries! It occurs six times in Tolmer's
Naumachiae, twice in Cowley's Plantarum Libri,
twice in Newton's Encomia', it occurs in Ascham's
poem to Elizabeth, in Phineas Fletcher's Locustae,
in May's supplement to Lucan, and in innumerable
other Latin poems. Next we are treated to another
" proof" in the shortening of the vowels "e" and
"a" before usp," "sc," "sm,"and "st,"whileonein-
stance from Buchanan is paraded as affordinga paral-
lel to the same extraordinary anomaly. Why, such
licences are habitual, as Mr. Begley must or ought
to know, in every British Latin poet of those times;
at least twenty instances occur in Buchanan; there
are twelve in a comparatively short poem like
Fletcher's Locustae] there are six in the com-
paratively few Latin poems of Marvell; Cowley
teems with them; and they are to be found by
scores in the poems included in the Deliciae Poet-
arum Scotorum, and in the Anthology edited by

MILTONIC MYTHS 195

Lauder. Indeed, till Dawes, commenting on the
well-known passage in Terentianus Maurus (De
Syllabis, v. lo^Ssegg.), formulated his canon, modern
Latin poets do not seem to have been aware of the
inadmissibility of this collocation in serious poetry.
Mr. Begley's qualifications for discussing the subject
may be judged from what he says in his note on p.
283 of his second volume. He actually asserts that
this solecism in metre is found "seven times in
Virgil," and " nineteen times" in Ovid. In Virgil
there is exactly one instance, Aen. xi, 309, where it
is explained by the caesural pause, if indeed the
rest of the line is not spurious. The other two are
in the Culex and the Cirts, the Ciris most certainly
not being written by Virgil, the Culex, if written by
him, being a very early work; and in both cases, it
may be added, the text is unsound. Where it ap-
pears to occur in Ovid the text, as every scholar
knows, is corrupt, there being only two instances
which can be fairly cited against the canon, " olentia
strigis," Ep. Pont., II, x, 25, and " hebetare smar-
agdis," Am., II, vi, 21, and there the right reading
might be "maragdis," as one MS. in the other
instance where the word occurs, Met., II, 24, actually
has, which leaves Ovid with exactly one instance.

Then we are treated to an elaborate dissertation
on the form " Belgia" for " Belgium," one of Mr.
Begley's " trump cards," to employ his own phrase.
Can Mr. Begley possibly be ignorant that the
form " Belgia" was the form ordinarily used by the
Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan writers, being
found not merely in Shakespeare and Marston, as he
notes, but in Marlowe, in Greene, in Peele, in Lyly,

196 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in Ben Jonson, in Donne, in Chapman, in Drayton,
and in dozens of others? It is noticeable that, though
Spenser in personifying Belgium in the Faerie
Queene calls it " Beige," in his prose treatise he
uses the form " Belgia." 1 Indeed, it is the exception
to find it called anything else. Another astonishing
piece of evidence which Mr. Begley presses into his
service is what he calls "the Miltonicunicuique " (!),
citing the supposed occurrence of it in Nova Solyma
and in Milton's epigram on Leonora, " Angelus
unicuique suus, sic credite gentes." It is scarcely
necessary to say that in both cases it is, what it
always is in classical Latin poetry, a spondee, not a
dactyl, the shortening of the " i " being a literal im-
possibility, as Mr. Begley must surely know. An-
other of Mr. Begley's " trump cards " is the repeated
occurrence of the adverb " undequaque " in Nova
Solyma, and its inclusion in the Cambridge Latin-
English Dictionary, 1693, which, as Mr. Begley
exultingly observes, "absorbed Milton's MS. col-
lection," a word which is not classical, and which
is not recognized " in the great Latin dictionaries of
the present day." Because it is included in a Dic-
tionary "which absorbed Milton's MS. collection,"
Mr. Begley circuitously argues that Milton must
have been acquainted with the word. As it is of such
frequent occurrence in Nova Solyma it would have
been more to the point had Mr. Begley cited an in-
stance of its use in Milton's somewhat voluminous
Latin writings. Mr. Begley is evidently one of
those comfortable scholars who rely on that which
1 View of the State of Ireland, Todd's Spenser, i vol. ed.,
P- 5*7-

MILTONIC MYTHS 197

Turns no student pale,
But holds the eel of science by the tail.

If, instead of relying on dictionaries, he were con-
versant with the Latin ity of the Renaissance and
the succeeding age he would have known that it
is of frequent occurrence. Linacre in his De Emen-
data Structurd gives it a place among the com-
pounds of "unde." It is found at least four times
in Barclay's Argenis and Euphormion^ it is a
favourite word with Bacon, occurring twice in the
Praefatio to the De Augmentis alone, and at least
twice, probably oftener, in the body of the work; in
Hobbes it occurs over and over again.

But to continue; of the fifteen " uncommon
words " enumerated by Mr. Begley from the Nova
Solyma we find exactly two in Milton's acknow-
ledged writings, and these two, " quaestiuncula "
and "stellula," of common occurrence in the Latin
of the seventeenth century, the second occurring
twice, and probably oftener, in Cowley alone, and the
first simply as often as it is appropriate.

Mr. Begley's excursus and notes on the evidence
to be adduced from identities in the Latinity of the
Nova Solyma and in that of Milton's acknowledged
writings are almost too ridiculous to be examined,
and betray an ignorance of the characteristics of
sixteenth and seventeenth century Latinity which
is nothing short of astounding. Finding, for ex-
ample, in the Armada fragment the repetition

Non arma Philippi
Artna minasque, etc.,

he tells us that this is " very Miltonic," and quotes
two instances, one from Elegy p, iii, 47, 48:

ig8 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Serpit odoriferas per opes levis aura Favoni
Aura sub innumeris humida nata rosis,

and one from Nova Solyma:

Frustra recorder oscula et amplexus tuos
Oscula quae volucres diripuere notae.

But such repetitions are not only commonplaces in
the ancient classical poets, as every scholar knows,
but teem in the Latin poets of the Renaissance
and post-Renaissance ages. We open Buchanan's
Elegies almost at random and find (Elegy vii) :

et aurea plectra
Aureaque hoc merito judice dicta Venus,

and again, Elegy iii :

et verbis oscula jungit :
Oscula dum jungit, etc.

But illustrations are superfluous. On a par with
this is the following. "Qum, too, is often used in
Nova Solyma at the beginning of a sentence, and
the same practice occurs three or four times in
Milton's youthful poems." As if " quin " does not
constantly open sentences in the best Latin Classics
where the style is colloquial ! Why, even in the most
serious compositions it is habitually used at the be-
ginning of sentences by nearly all the writers of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nothing
is more common. To give two examples which at
once occur to us: in the first book of More's Utopia
it opens sentences six times, and in the first book
of Bacon's De Augmentis eight, its occurrence in
this context being as relatively frequent in dozens
of other writers ! This will probably suffice to show
the value of Mr. Begley's argument from analogies

MILTONIC MYTHS 199

of diction. Equally futile, it may be added, is the
argument adduced from the alleged fondness of
Milton for diminutives, and the unusually frequent
use of them in the Nova Solyma. Diminutives were
equally affected by dozens of writers, both in verse
and prose, from Ausonius to Cowley; and Milton,
unfortunately for Mr. Begley, in his own Latin
poetry studiously avoids them, the only instances
being, if I am not mistaken, " tenellus " (EL iv and
vi), "novellus" (El. v), "catillus" (El. vi), "areola"
(Apol. de Rust.}, "capsula" (InSalm.}, "gemellus"
(De Idea Plat, and Ad Joannem Rousium), "fis-
cella" (Epitap. Dam.), "libellus" (Ad Joannem
Rousium), diminutives, it may be added, of a very
different order to those so commonly found in the
Nova Solyma.

A comparison of Milton's Latin poems with the
poems in the Nova Solyma is conclusive against
identity of authorship. To go no further than poems
which are in some respects parallel. The author of
the hexameters on the Fifth of November and in the
Epitaphium Damonis could not possibly have been
the author of the hexameters in the Philippica and
in the Hymn to the Higher Love. The norm of the
rhythm in Milton's best hexameters is Ovidian, of
those in Nova Solyma, Virgilian or rather Claudianic.
Again, in Milton's Alcaics and in those of Nova
Solyma there are essential differences ; nor, with the
exception of the conventional metres, is there the
remotest analogy between Milton's metres and those
employed in the Romance.

Mr. Begley attempts — and it is not a creditable
stratagem — in supporting his theory, to throw dust

200 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in the eyes of unlearned readers by representing
Milton as pre-eminent among the Latin poets of the
seventeenth century, and as therefore being alone
competent to produce the poems in Nova Solyma.
The truth is that as a Latin poet Milton is hardly in
the front rank of the Latin poets of his age.1 To go
no further than Great Britain. In fluency, flexibility,
and skill, he is far inferior in hexameters to Henry
Anderson, to Alexander Ross, to Andrew Ramsay,
to Alexander Boyd, to Phineas Fletcher, and to
May; in Elegiacs to David Hume and Arthur
Johnston; in Lyrics to Robert Boyd, to Crichton,
to Barclay, and even to Cowley.2 And these poets
are typical of scores of others only slightly inferior

1 His Latin verses have most serious defects. The habitual
shortening of vowels before "sc," "st," and "sp," is a fault
which he shares in common with his contemporaries ; but the
shortening of " a " in " paruere " (Sylv. ii, 165), the shortening
of "is "in "sentis" (Sylv. vii, 3), and of "es" in "alipes"
(El. ii, 14); the use of "surdeat" (El. vii, 90), a word which
does not exist in Classical Latinity, the use of "ocellus" in-
stead of " oculus," where an image of terror is associated with
it (In Quintum Novembris, 145), the use of a dative after
"supereminere"(J£/.vii,6i)and "licenf'in the sense of "licet"
(El. vi. 53) ; the violation, no less than eighteen times in forty-
nine lines, of the rule which requires in choliambics an iambus
in the fifth foot, are great flaws. See Bishop Wordsworth on
Milton's Latin poetry, Classical Review, vol. i, p. 136, and Lan-
dor, Southey and Landor, Works, Ed. 1868, vol. ii, pp. 171-173.

1 Dr. Johnson, and no one in this matter, for it is not a
question of niceties, could be a more competent judge, con-
siders Cowley and May to be superior in Latin verse to Milton.
" If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared
(for May I hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to
lie on the side of Cowley." — Life of Cowley, Works, Murphy,
vol. iii, p. 156.

MILTONIC MYTHS 201

to them. It may be safely said that between 1621
and 1648 there were many and very many scholars
in Great Britain quite competent to produce the
verses in Nova Solyma. But Milton, judging from
what he has left us, was not. Of the metres em-
ployed in the Romance which are also employed by
Milton he has, it may be added, left no examples
distinguished by analogous characteristics, while of
at least fourteen of them he has left no examples at
all. And what applies to the verse applies to the
prose. If Milton wrote Nova Solyma he must by
Mr. Begley's own admission have written it at, or
shortly after, the time he composed the Prolusiones
Oratoriae. Whoever will take the trouble to compare
the Latin ity and prose style of these exercises with
the Latinity and prose style of the Romance, even
where the similar exercises in it invite comparison,
will at once recognize not merely the improbability,
but the impossibility of supposing that they could
have come from the same pen.

Nor are the poems in the Nova Solyma, as Mr.
Begley contends, in any way original or Miltonic
compositions. The Philippica is plainly modelled
on Fletcher's Locustae ; the Hymn to the higher love
as well as the Canticum Sacrum quoted on p. 296 of
vol. ii are simply echoes of the many expanded imi-
tations of Virgil's Sabian hymn to Hercules, to be
found in Vidaand many other Christian Latin poets.
Indeed, they are plainly modelled on Vida's Hymni
De Rebus Divinis. The numerous lyrics are modelled
partly on Buchanan's and partly on the Poemata
Sacra of Georgius Fabricius, who has, if I am not
mistaken, anticipated almost every variety of metre

202 POETRY AND CRITICISM

employed in the Romance, and with the influence of
whose lyrics its lyrics are simply saturated.

Mr. Begley's case, indeed, breaks down on every
point. The metrical peculiarities which he cites as
instances of Milton's careful study of Virgil find,
without exception, far more striking illustration in
the hexameters of Vida and Sannazarius and of in-
numerable other Latin poets of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. In the parallels and analogies
with which his volumes are loaded, he confounds
what are mere commonplaces in the writings of
Milton's contemporaries with what was peculiar to
Milton himself, and as corroborative testimony they
simply amount to nothing.

How, then, stands the case? While there is not
an iota of external evidence to warrant the ascription
of the Romance to Milton, the internal evidence is
as conclusive as it is possible for such evidence to
be against any such assumption. The author, who-
ever he was, was a young man of the Puritan per-
suasion, who was an excellent classical scholar, con-
versant with the Latin and English romances current
in his time, well read in divinity and philosophy,
with not much originality, and saturated with the
Latin poetry and prose of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. And can we doubt, nay, have we
not testimony, that many such young men were to
to be found both in Scotland and in England at the
time this Romance was written?

I repeat, we are indebted to Mr. Begley both for
the discovery of a work of singular interest as well
as for having presented it in a most attractive shape.
His translation, whatever exception may sometimes

MILTONIC MYTHS 203

be taken to its renderings of the original, is lively
and pleasing. His prolegomena, dissertations and
notes, are full of curious and entertaining inform-
ation. What is to be regretted is that so much
allowance should have to be made for defects,
probably due to the necessity for a sophistical de-
fence of a preconceived theory absolutely untenable.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM l

I

IN all the history of literature, there is surely no-
thing so extraordinary as the fortunes of this
treatise. The silence of antiquity about a work so
brilliant, so original, and so essentially unlike any-
thing in extant Greek criticism, and about a writer
who produced, as he himself tells us, other treatises,
presumably of a similar kind, and who must, there-
fore, have been a man of note among his contem-
poraries; the difficulty involved in ascribing it to
him ; the difficulty involved in ascribing it to anyone
else ; the homage paid so unsuspiciously for upwards
of two centuries and a half to the critic to whom it
had been so confidently assigned; his sudden de-
thronement at the beginning of the present century,
and the relegation of the treatise to anonymity; the
strange vicissitudes through which its reputation
has passed ; its enormous popularity between about
1674 and 11790; the comparative oblivion into which
it seems to have fallen during the revolutionary

1 (i) Longinus on the Sublime. The Greek Text, edited after
the Paris Manuscript, with introduction, translation, facsimiles,
and appendices. By W. Rhys Roberts, M.A., Cambridge: at
the University Press.

(2) Longinus on the Sublime. Translated into English by H.
L. Havell, B.A. With an introduction by Andrew Lang.
London, Macmillan and Co.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 205

period ; the increasing favour with which it is begin-
ning to be regarded now; the voluminous critical
literature which has gathered round it, not merely
in the form of editorial exegesis and commentary,
but in the form of independent disquisitions, mono-
graphs, and translations ; the extraordinary influence
which it has, in different degrees and at different
periods, exercised on men of letters and on popular
belles lettres; the not less extraordinary indifference
with which, though the delight of scholars, it has
been, and still is, treated by the Universities and by
those who regulate liberal education in England —
all this gives the Treatise on the Sublime a unique
place in literary history and invests it with curious
interest. And its importance is equal to its interest.
With the single exception of the Poetics it has
probably had more influence on criticism, both
directly and indirectly, than any work in the world.
The high appreciation in which it has been held
by every civilized country in Europe is sufficiently
indicated by the number of editions and translations
through which it has passed.

The editio princeps appeared at Basle in 1554; in
the following year Paulus Manutius issued a second
edition at Venice; then came a third with a Latin
version at Geneva, and in 1612 a fourth at the same
place. An English scholar of some distinction,
whose name is well-known to students of our drama,
Gerald Langbaine, followed with an edition printed
in 1636 at Oxford, and twice reprinted before 1651.
Then came, between 1643 and 1694, editions at
Venice, at Bonn, at Saumur, at Utrecht, among them

206 POETRY AND CRITICISM

memorable one of Tollius. In 1710 John Hudson,
a respectable scholar, who succeeded Hyde as
Bodley's librarian, issued an edition, based on that
of Tollius, which was four times reprinted, and in
i724Zachary Pearce an edition of which there were
no less than seven issues between 1724 and 1773.
Wetstein edited in 1733 an edition at Amsterdam,
which was in 1751 and 1763 reproduced at Glasgow,
and in 1756 at Frankfort; to say nothing of editions
by Tannegui Lefevre, by Le Clerc, by Heinecken,
by Gori, by Morus, by Robinson, by Schlosser, by
Bodoni, culminating in 1778 in the epoch-making
work of Toup, twice reprinted within a few years.
Nor has the nineteenth century been less fruitful
in its scholarly tributes to the elucidation of the
" Libellus vere aureus," as Casaubon enthusiastic-
ally called it. For between the appearance of
Weiske's edition in 1809 and that of Professor Rhys
Roberts there have been at least ten. Scarcely less
numerous have been the translations.

To say nothing of the nine versions in Latin, it
was translated into Italian by Pinelli in the seven-
teenth century, by Gori in the eighteenth, Gori's
version having been reprinted by most of the chief
presses in Italy, and by Fiocchi, Accio, Tipaldo,
and Canna in the last century. Boileau may be
said to have naturalized it in France, and between
1674 and 1780 probably no book in belles lettres was
so frequently reprinted as his version. But Boileau
is not the only French translator. In 1775 Boileau
had a successor in Lancelot, and Lancelot has had
successors in M. Pujol and in Professor Vaucher.
The Treatise has never been so popular in Germany

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 207

as in Italy, France, and England, and yet it has ap-
peared in German at least four times, in 1737, in
1774, in 1781, and in 1895. Into Dutch it has been
three times translated, into Spanish three times. It
has appeared also in Portuguese, in Swedish, in
Polish, in Russian, and in Modern Greek.

But in no country have translations been so
numerous as in our own. The first to present the
work in an English dress was William Hall, a friend
of Hobbes and a distinguished Cambridge scholar.
Hall's version, which is dedicated to Whitelock, was
published in 1652. Though somewhat too free, and
frequently inaccurate, it is racy and vigorous, and on
the whole superior to any version — and I have com-
pared them all — anterior to the present century.
The next version, by one J. Pulteney, which ap-
peared twenty-eight years afterwards, was from the
French of Boileau. Then came in 1698 an anonym-
ous translation published at Oxford, and purporting
to be from the Greek, with which however it has as
little concern as its less pretentious predecessor.
The name of this person's successor, Leonard Wel-
sted, will be familiar to the readers of the Dunciad.

Flow, Welsted, flow, like thine inspirer, beer,
Though stale, not ripe, though thin, yet never clear,
So sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull,
Heady, not strong; o'erflowing, through not full.1

Welsted professes to translate from the Greek ; it is
perfectly plain that if he has travelled further than
the French it has only been to the Latin ; his version,
both in point of style and in point of scholarship, is
in truth below contempt. It is mortifying to know

1 Book iii, 11. 170-4.

203 POETRY AND CRITICIS M

that what would probably have been the most im-
portant contribution to the literature of Longinus in
the eighteenth century has been lost. We learn from
Oldisworth's notice of Edmund Smith, inserted in
Johnson's Life of that unhappy scholar, that Smith
had completed a translation of the Sublime, and was
proceeding with an elaborate commentary, a part of
which he had finished.1 Smith, though a man of
depraved and dissipated character, was an excellent
classic, besides being well versed in English, Italian,
French, and Spanish, and it was, we are told, his
intention to illustrate his author's remarks on the
virtues and vices of style by examples drawn from
writers in all those literatures. In 1739 appeared
the most popular of all the English translations of
Longinus. This was the work of William Smith,
afterwards Dean of Chester, a very accomplished
man, who also translated Thucydides. It is little
more than a loose paraphrase of Zachary Pearce's
Latin version, just then greatly in vogue, and has
no pretension to exact scholarship. But, addressed
to ''the mere English reader," it gave that reader
exactly what he wanted. Indeed it may be said of it,
as was said of Pope's Homer, that it has every merit
except that of fidelity to the original. We must, how-
ever, do Smith the justice to acknowledge that as a
rule, thanks no doubt to Pearce, he renders the
general sense and drift even of the most difficult pass-
ages with some approach to correctness. Wherever
belles lettres were studied Smith's version became a
standard book, and it would not perhaps be too much
to say that he made Longinus an English classic.

1 See Life of Smith, Johnson's Works, Ed. Murphy, vol. iii,
498-499.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 209

The seven editions through which his work passed
between the date of its appearance and the end of the
century sufficiently attest its popularity. But the
success of Smith did not deter another scholar from
aspiring to rival him, and in 1751 a Fellow of Saint
John's College, Oxford, one Thomas Weales, issued
proposals for a new translation with notes and a
commentary,1 though the project seems to have
collapsed. But Weales had many other more fortun-
ate successors. Longinus found another translator
at Dublin in 1821 and another at Oxford in 1830,
both anonymous.

Six years afterwards appeared the first translation
which has any pretension to exact scholarship, that,
namely, by William Tylney Spurdens. Spurdens,
of whom I know nothing more than what can be
gathered from his book, tells us that it was his am-
bition to do for the Treatise what Twining had done
for Aristotle's Poetics. He is very far from being
Twining's equal, either as a scholar or as a critic,
but he produced a work for which all students of
Longinus had reason to be grateful. His translation
is on the whole excellent, and if his scholarship is
not unimpeachable it seldom leads him far astray,
and he often catches, as few translators have done, the
nerve and spirit of his original. His dissertations,
commentaries, and notes are full of instruction and
interest, and deserve far more attention than they
appear to have received from his successors. It is
difficult to account for the neglect into which this
useful book has fallen. Spurdens was followed in
1867 by Mr. T. R. R. Stebbing, and Stebbing in
1 Rawl. MSS. J, fol. 5, in the Bodleian Library.
P

2io POETRY AND CRITICISM

1870 by Mr. H. A. Giles. But the long dynasty of
those who paid the sincerest of all tributes to an
ancient master did not close here. In 1890 Mr.
H. L. Havell published a version which may fairly
be said to supersede all its predecessors, not simply
because it is based, as no other had been based, on
a sound text, but because it is in itself at once
scholarly and popularly attractive. Lastly comes
Professor Rhys Roberts, of whose work I propose
to speak presently.

The influence of a poem or of a work of fiction is
not always to be measured by its popularity, but
the popularity of a purely didactic treatise is a fair
criterion of its power. No one but a serious reader
would be likely to take up Longinus, either in the
original or in a translation, and it may be safely said
that very few would be likely to lay him down
without being in some degree, and perhaps un-
consciously, affected by what they read. What
Swift observed of books generally, that they give
the same tone to our mind as good company gives
to our air and manners, is particularly applicable to
this treatise. It is essentially noble ; it is inspiring,
it is elevating, it is illumining ; it taught criticism
a new language, it breathed into it a new soul. In
estimating, therefore, the influence which it has exer-
cised on modern literature we should greatly under-
rate the importance of that influence if we submitted
it to definite tests. We must take into consideration
the immense vogue which its bibliographical record
proves it to have had, and the silent effect which it
must inevitably have had.

The Treatise was first brought into prominence

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 211

by Boileau and the French critics towards the end of
the seventeenth century. Before that time it had not
travelled beyond the libraries of scholars. Its very
existence was unknown to the world till Robortello
printed it in 1554, for the supposed reference to it by
John of Sicily, a commentator on Hermogenes, who
lived about the beginning of the thirteenth century,
is too vague and ambiguous to warrant any certain
conclusion to the contrary. Even after it had been
printed and reprinted it seems to have attracted no
notice popularly, either in England or in France.
No allusions are to be found to it in our Elizabethan
writers. It wras plainly unknown to Ascham, to
Sidney, to Meeres, to Webbe, to Puttenham, and
even to Ben Jonson. Nor during the first half of the
next century did it make any way. Milton, indeed,
in his Tractate on Education, gives Longinus a
place among those philosophers and rhetoricians
who should be studied as models of expression. But
it may be doubted whether he was familiar with him.
He never, if we are not mistaken, quotes him, nor
can we find any certain indication either in his poems
or in his prose-writings of knowledge of the Treatise.
That Milton should not have been attracted by a
work so noble is certainly surprising, and it is just
possible that he may have been indebted to it for
the hint of two of his sublimest passages. The com-
parison of Satan to the sun shorn of his beams may
have been a reminiscence of the comparison of the
Homer of the Odyssey to "a sinking sun whose
grandeur remains without its intensity,"1 and the
sublime image in the line

1 De Sublim., ix, 13.

212 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear,

may be a reminiscence of a passage in the seven-
teenth section, Tw yap ivrauQ' o prnup aTrsxpv-j/s TO

By what means has the orator concealed the figure?
clearly by the very excess of light.1

Though Hobbes had paid special attention to
rhetoric, and even published a treatise on it,2 he
makes no mention of Longinus; and though Butler
has, in more than one poem, ridiculed the fashion-
able cant about Aristotle and Greek criticism, he does
not make the faintest reference to the Treatise on the
Sublime. But the moment Boileau's version appeared
in 1674 attention was at once turned to this neglected
critic, and, in less than three years, the name of
Longinus was on the lips of every man of letters on
both sides of the Channel. Boileau's preface to his
translation was admirable, and appealed equally to
the general reader and to the scholar. Here, it said
in effect, is a critic even greater than Aristotle, here
a master at whose feet every man of taste should
be proud to sit. All that constitutes the charm and
power of the Treatise could not, indeed, have been
interpreted with more eloquence and discrimination.

No doubt the association of Longinus with a con-
troversy which made a great noise at that time con-
tributed to his celebrity. Charles Perrault and his
faction, who, in the contest between the Ancients
and Moderns, led the attack against the Ancients,
had lately been speaking very disrespectfully of

1 De Sublim., xvii, 2.

2 This appeared as a supplement to his abstract of Aristotle's
Rhetoric,

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 213

Homer and Pindar, and Boileau, in some Re-
flections appended to a sixth edition of his trans-
lation— " Reflexions Critiques sur quelques Pass-
ages du Rheteur Longin " — brought Longinus to
their rescue, and to the rescue of their brethren.

Thus Longinus at last took his place with Aris-
totle at the head of criticism. Fenelon, indeed, even
preferred him to the master who had so long reigned
without a rival.

The parallel which Fenelon draws between the
Rhetoric and the Treatise on the Sublime expresses so
exactly the estimate formed of the work in France,
besides indicating the nature of the effect which it
had on French literature, that it may be well to tran-
scribe the most important portion of it. It is to be
found in the first of his Dialogues sur V Eloquence:

Je ne crains pas de dire qu'il [Longinus] surpasse a
mon gre" la Rh^torique d'Aristotle. Cette Rh^torique,
quoique tres belle, a beaucoup de pre"ceptes sees et plus
curieux qu'utiles dans la pratique . . . Mais le Sublime
de Longin joint aux pr^ceptes beaucoup d'exemples qui
les rendent sensibles. Cet auteur traite le sublime d'une
maniere sublime; . . . il e"chauffe 1'imagination, il 61eve
1'esprit du lecteur, il lui forme le gout, et lui apprend a
distinguerjudicieusement lebien et le maldans les orateurs
ce"lebres de I'antiquite".

Not less enthusiastic is Rollin, who insists that
Longinus should be made a text-book wherever
rhetoric is taught, and speaks of the Treatise as that
"admirable traite," which is "seul capable de former
le gout des jeunes gens." ' Between the end of the

1 De la Maniere d'Enseigner et d^Etudier les Belles Lettres,
vol. ii, p. 69. He draws largely on Longinus throughout the
work.

214 POETRY AND CRITICISM

seventeenth and the middle of the eighteenth century
allusions to Longinus and quotations from the
Sublime abound in French literature; and the in-
fluence which he exercised may be judged from the
frequency with which we find his characteristic
sentiments, as well as direct references to him,
appearing and reappearing in sermons and in
Eloges.

In England he became equally influential. Wal-
ton, in his Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learn-
ing" says that, with Demosthenes, Tully, and
Quintilian, he was studied by all who would write
finely in prose.1 Dryden, who pronounced him to
be ''undoubtedly, after Aristotle, the greatest critic
among the Greeks," confessed himself to be his dis-
ciple. "Aristotle," he says, in his Apology for
Heroic Poetry, "and his interpreters, and Horace,
and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe my
lights." And no author is more frequently quoted
by him. Whoever would understand how much
Dryden owed to Longinus would do well to turn to
the preface to Troilus and Cressida, to the preface
to the State of Innocence, and to the Apology for
Heroic Poetry. To Addison he was "that great
critic "; and the care with which he had studied him
is abundantly clear from the frequency with which
he quotes and appeals to him. The germ, and in-
deed more than the germ, of the most eloquent
papers Addison ever wrote, those on the pleasures
of the imagination, was derived from the twenty-
fifth section of the Sublime* Indeed, all Addison's

1 See second edition of Reflections, p. 23.

2 See particularly the second paper, Spectator, No. 412.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 215

criticism, and particularly his aesthetic, is coloured
by the Treatise. Pope's lines are well known :

Thee, bold Longinus ! all the Nine inspire,
And bless their critic with a poet's fire ;
An ardent judge who, zealous in his trust,
With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just;
Whose own example strengthens all his laws,
And is himself that great Sublime he draws.1

There is nothing, it is true, in Pope's Essay on
Criticism which he may not have borrowed from
other sources than Longinus, and it is scarcely
necessary to say that he probably could not construe
a sentence of the Greek, but two English translations
were at his service; and we may therefore fairly
presume that when he expressed himself as he did
in the lines just quoted, he expressed himself sin-
cerely. It is perhaps rather in the tone of the Essay
than in particular reminiscences that the influence
of Longinus is discernible.2 In the treatise on the
Bathos, or the Art in Sinking in Poetry, the joint
production of Pope and Swift, we have testimony
of another kind to the popularity of our author, and
certainly a curious commentary on the use to which
a word seriously retained in the text may be applied.3

1 Essay on Criticism, iii, 675-680.

2 The parallels between the Essay and the Treatise appear
to be: part i, 67-73, 84-91, 94-99, 134-135. 13%> 15°-ISB> Part
ii, 233-236, 243-246, 299-300, 318-321. The couplet in the Temple
of Fame, describing Homer:

A strong expression most he seem'd to affect,
And here and there disclosed a brave neglect,
was plainly suggested by a similar remark in section xxxiii.

3 See the commentators on the words ii lft» H^wc Ti

in section ii.

216 POETRY AND CRITICISM

But the cult of Longinus had now passed into a sort
of cant, and we find Swift writing in his Rhapsody
on Poetry :

A forward critic often dupes us
With sham quotations peri hupsous,
And if we have not read Longinus
Will magisterially outshine us.

But worthier homage was paid him, both then and
afterwards, than that offered by fribbles and criti-
casters. The noblest passage, or perhaps it would
be more correct to say the one noble passage, in
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, is little more
than a paraphrase of the thirty-fifth section of the
Sublime,1 while another fine passage in the third
book is the expansion of a remark in the second
section.2 Throughout Akenside's poem we frequently
indeed catch the note of Longinus. That Young
had read him is clear from his Conjectures on
Original Composition, where he quotes him,3 and
there can therefore be little doubt that what appear
to be reminiscences of the Treatise in the Night
Thoughts are not simply accidental, or derived
from other sources. Take the following lines in
Night IX. Pagan tutors taught, he says:
That mind immortal loves immortal aims :
That boundless mind affects a boundless space :
That vast surveys and the sublime of things
The soul assimilate, and make her great :
That, therefore, heaven her glories, as a fund
Of inspiration, thus spreads out to man.

1 From 1. 151, " Say, what was man," to 1. 221, "close the
scene," in book i.

2 Cf. Longinus, ii, 2, compared with Akenside, book iii, 535
et seqq.

3 Works, ed. 1774, vol. iv, p. 321.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 217

This is little more than a summary of section thirty-
five of the Treatise ; and of that section, as well as of
the forty-third, we are constantly reminded in The
Relapse (Night V) and The Infidel Reclaimed (Night
VII). In his Resignation (Part II, st. 46), he has in
the couplet:

Nothing is great of which more great,
More glorious is the scorn —

little more than translated part of the opening sen-
tence of section two of Longinus: EJ&V«J %f»>

Ka6a7TEf> KO.V ru xoivu @tta ovdev VTrap^i (Jtsytz, ov TO Ka

£<m psya — " you must know that, just as in common
life, nothing can be considered great which it is
held great to despise."

That Goldsmithwas a student of Longinus is plain
from his Essays. He ranks him among "the most
approved classics," and frequently quotes him;1
and if the remarks on luxury and corruption in the
Traveller and the Deserted Village need not be
attributed to any reminiscences of the Sublime, they
recall very closely similar remarks in the last sec-
tion of it.

When Johnson was engaged on the Lives of the
Poets, he set himself, as he has himself recorded, to
read Longinus, and though he never, so far at least
as I can discover, directly quotes him, he often, and
very unmistakably, recalls him.

In his Academic Discourses, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
if I recollect rightly, only once mentions Longinus;
but, whether consciously or not, there is scarcely one
of them in which he does not recall and recall closely

1 See particularly the Essays on the Cultivation of Taste and
on Metaphors,

218 POETRY AND CRITICISM

the De Sublimitate. There is the same noble con-
ception of the character and functions of art, of its
relation to the divine, of its relation to nature, of the
spirit in which its study should be approached and
pursued. There is the same union of the critic and
the enthusiast. He speaks of Michael Angelo pre-
cisely as Longinus speaks of Homer. His definition
of the sublime, and his criteria for testing it, are
identical with those of the Greek critic. If Reynolds
had not studied Longinus with the greatest care and
with the greatest sympathy, we can only assume
that experience, reflection, and genius, operating
on similar temperaments, had conducted both these
critics independently to the same truths, and inspired
them to express themselves in the same language.
Longinus, for example, is speaking here:

These arts in their highest province are not addressed
to the gross senses, but to the desires of the mind, to
that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient
of being" circumscribed and pent up by the world which
is about us. Just so much as our Art has of this, just so
much of dignity, I had almost said of divinity, it exhibits:
and those of our artists who possessed this mark of dis-
tinction in the highest degree acquired from thence the
glorious appellation of Divine.1

While in the remarks which he makes about the
sublime in the Fourth Discourse, that " it impresses
the mind at once with a great idea: it is a single
blow, the Elegant, indeed, may be produced by
repetition, by an accumulation of many minute
circumstances," we have precisely what Longinus

1 Discourse XIII (conclusion).

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 219

has expressed with so much more force and eloquence
in the first section of his work:

Similarly, skill in invention and the due order and dis-
position of material we see emerging by degrees not out
of one or even out of two things, but out of the whole
weft of a composition, whereas Sublimity, flashing out
at the right moment, scatters like a thunder-bolt every-
thing before it, and displays in an instant the whole
power of the speaker.

But to pass from Reynolds to one of the most
accomplished critics of the eighteenth century : Hurd
— who remarks incidentally that Longinus was one
of the three most popular critics of that time, the
others being Bouhours and Addison — had studied
him with great care, and frequently quotes him.
Kame's chapter on Grandeur and Sublimity, in his
Elements of Criticism, is little more than a para-
phrase of Longinus. Fielding, to turn to popular
men of letters, was one of his most enthusiastic ad-
mirers; and as he appears to have been a good
classical scholar he had no doubt practised what he
preached when he said " No author is to be admitted
into the order of critics until he hath read over and
understood Aristotle, Horace, and Longinus in their
original language.1 In his novels he makes frequent
references to him. Readers of Sterne will remember
the characteristic tribute which that facetious writer
pays to the great critic.

By none of our classics was he studied more care-
fully than by Gibbon, who has, in his Journal, given
an elaborate account both of the impressions which
the Sublime made on him, and of the difficulty he
1 Covent Garden Journal, No. 3; Works, x, p. 7.

220 POETRY AND CRITICISM

had in mastering it in the original. He expresses
his astonishment that "a work worthy of the best
and freest days of Athens " should have been the
product of an age so corrupt and degenerate as
that in which Longinus lived.

"Till now," he says, "I was acquainted only with
two ways of criticising a beautiful passage, the one to
show by an exact anatomy of it the distinct beauties of
it, and whence they sprung ; the other an idle exclamation
or a general encomium, which leaves nothing behind it.
Longinus has shown me that there is a third. He tells
me his own feelings upon reading it, and tells them with
such energy that he communicates them. I almost doubt
which is most sublime, Homer's battle of the gods or
Longinus' apostrophe to Terentianus upon it."

The ninth section Gibbon pronounces to be "one
of thenoblest monumentsof antiquity." TheTreatise
produced a similar effect on Fox when a boy at
Eton. He told Colton that he was so idle that he
should probably have made no progress in Greek,
had he not happened to take up the De Sublimitate.
He found such charms in it that he never rested till
he could read it with a fluency which ' ' enabled him to
derive more pleasure from the remarks on Homer
than from Homer himself."1

1 Colton's Lacon, vol. ii, p. 88. An interesting illustration
of the way in which Longinus has influenced public men, and
coloured oratory is afforded by Grattan's famous Character 0,
Chatham. Speaking of his eloquence he said " it was not like
the torrent of Demosthenes or the splendid conflagration of
Tully, but he rather lightned on the subject, and reached the
point by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of his eye
could be felt, but could not be followed " ; plainly a reminis-
cence— partly of Subl. xii, "Demosthenes may be compared

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 221

That a work which has filled so important a place
in the history of our literature, which has been so
influential, and which has had so many authoritative
testimonies to its great value as a text-book in critic-
ism, should not only have no place in the curricula
of our universities, but be practically unknown to
them, is surely matter for surprise. It is, I fear,
one of the many melancholy illustrations of what
has been so often deplored, their indifference to
literary as distinguished from philological studies.
Let us hope that Professor Rhys Roberts's edition
will have the effect of directing the attention of the
universities to what is so well worth their attention,
and what ought long ago to have taken its place with
the Poetics at the head of every course in Literae
Humaniores.

II

Till the beginning of the present century no one
had questioned the authenticity of this Treatise,
or doubted that — to quote Gibbon's words — "the
Sublime Longinus had, in the Court of a Syrian
Queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens." But
in 1808 a discovery was made which appeared to in-
dicate that if the Sublime Longinus preserved that
spirit it was not as the author of the De Sublimitate.

to a thunder-bolt or flash of lightning. Cicero may be likened
to a widespread conflagration which rolls over and feeds on all
around it," and partly of sect, xxxiv, where it is so magni-
ficently said of Demosthenes, " it would be easier to meet the
lightning flash with unflinching eye than to gaze unmoved
when his impassioned eloquence is fulminating out flash on
flash."

222 POETRY AND CRITICISM

While Weiske was passing through the press an
edition of the Treatise on which he had been long
engaged, he was informed by Jerome Amati, the
librarian of the Vatican, whom he had employed to
collate the Longinian MSS. in that library, that the
title of one of them threw doubt on the authorship of
the work. Instead of attributing it to Dionysius
Longinus, as the other MSS. did, it attributed it to
" Dionysius or Longinus," the title running Aiovwlov
ri Aory<W nepi u-^ovg. This naturally led to a careful
scrutiny of the existing codices, and the result was
corroboration of a surprising kind. The Paris codex,
which appears to be the archetype of the rest, and is
at least four centuries and a half anterior to any of
them, had indeed Dionysius Longinus on the title-
page of the Treatise, but in the index, inserted after
the Physical Problems of Aristotle, which fill the
greater part of the MS., it is also ascribed to
Dionysius or Longinus. On further investigation
it was discovered that the same alternative was given
in another MS., numbered 985 of the Bibliotheque
Nationale. Nor was this all. In a third codex, in
the Laurentine Library at Florence, though the old
title ascribing the work to Dionysius Longinus was
still discernible on the first page, the cover bore the
title Anonymous on the Sublime ('AVUVL//J.OU Ktfi fyoui), a
deduction no doubt, on the part either of the copyist
or of the owner, from the uncertainty implied in the
Parisian codices.

It soon, too, became apparent that the ascription
of the work to the historical Longinus received no
corroboration either from Robortello, the first editor,
or from Manutius, the second; Robortello simply

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 223

ascribed the work, as most MSS. had done, to Diony-
sius Longinus, without any attempt at identifying
him, and Manutius, following Robortello, had been
equally silent on the subject of identification, observ-
ing, however, in a Greek epistle prefixed to his
edition, that the writer was a Greek, and "one of
the ancients who were of very high repute." It is
not till we come to the third editor, Portus, that we
find the author of the work positively identified with
Longinus of Palmyra, Portus not indeed stating
this, but silently prefixing to his edition Suidas'
notice of the Palmyrene, and a short account of him
by Eunapius. From this moment it had been taken
for granted by every one that Longinus of Palmyra
and the Longinus to whom the manuscripts, with
the hesitating exceptions referred to, ascribed the
Treatise, were the same man.

On investigation difficulties of all kinds began to
present themselves. Whoever was the author of the
Treatise, one of his names was Dionysius. But the
name of Dionysius had never been associated with
that of Longinus of Palmyra. Where he is not
spoken of simply as Longinus, and whenever his
full name has been given, as it has been given by
Suidas and Photius, he is called either Cassius
Longinus or Longinus Cassius; no one has called
him Dionysius. Of the writings of the Palmyrene
we have a somewhat full account. Suidas has given
a list of them, probably of the greater part of them.
Porphyry, Libanius, John of Sicily, and later scho-
liasts have referred to other writings of his, but no
one has mentioned this Treatise or any work which
might be taken for it.

224 POETRY AND CRITICISM

We know from the Sublime itself that the author
had written a treatise on Xenophon, two treatises on
composition, and had either written or intended to
write a treatise on the passions, but none of these
works appear among those attributed to Longinus.
Of the works of the Palmyrene several fragments
remain, including a large portion of a Manual of
Rhetoric, so that a comparison may be made between
the style, the diction, the vocabulary, and the char-
acteristics generally of the author of the Sublime
and of the historical Longinus. To this subject I
shall return, merely remarking at present that a
comparative study of them has, in the opinion of
some critics, furnished conclusively proof that the
author of the fragments was not the author of the
Treatise, and, in the opinion of no critic, confirmed
or even strengthened the case for the affirmative.

Again, the presumption is much more in favour of
the Treatise belonging to the end of the last century
A.D. than to the age of Claudius and Aurelian. It
was suggested by a book written in the Augustan
age: of the many authors quoted or referred to not
one lived later than the first century A.D. The con-
tempt which Longinus notoriously had for his con-
temporaries may account satisfactorily for his not
mentioning any of them in the way of praise, but
that, when dealing with the vices of style and tone,
with iI/y%poTHf (affectation), with TO fomutsv *«» TO xaxo'£n*ov
(trumpery bedizenment), with TO avfapov (the florid
style), with TrapsvQvfxros (false sentiment), of which they
would have furnished far more striking examples
than any he cites, he should have been equally silent
about them, is, to say the least, strange. We might

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 225

reasonably have expected to find some reference, if
not to the work of Quintilian and to the Dialogue
on Oratory, at least to the writings of Dionysius o f
Halicarnassus, of Demetrius of Alexandria, and
above all to those of his immediate predecessor,
Hermogenes, but not a syllable is said about any of
them.

There is surely not much difficulty in reconciling
the account given in the last chapter of the Treatise
of the state of the world and of society, with what
would, if we make a little allowance for rhetorical
exaggeration, apply to the world and the surround-
ings of the historical Longinus.1 But it would, no
doubt, be much more applicable to the age of Au-
gustus and his immediate successors. The whole
chapter reminds us not only of the passionate dis-
satisfaction and recalcitrance which find expression
in the eighty-eighth chapter of the Satyricon, and in
the elder Seneca's preface to the first book of the
Controversiae, but more particularly of the remarks
which Tacitus makes at the beginning of the His-

1 The point on which most stress has been laid by those who
contend against the late authorship of the Treatise is the clause
which speaks of the world's peace (^ rr? oixoujUivn? slpwt), which
they contend would not apply to the times of Longinus, and
could only apply to the Augustan period. To this two answers
maybe given. If Longinus wrote the Treatise, it was probably
written early in his career, and though the remark could not
possibly apply to the time succeeding the accession of Maximin,
it might apply, if we allow for rhetoric, to the immediately pre-
ceding period. But probably there is no necessity for pressing
the word — it is a mere euphemism for the despotic power of
Rome, a world-wide tyranny, "pax" in the Tacitean sense of
the term.

Q

226 POETRY AND CRITICISM

fortes, when he associates the disappearance of great
geniuses with the peace which succeeded the battle
of Actium and the subsequent extinction of liberty.
Still closer is the parallel with the Dialogue on Ora-
tory, in which a similar lament over the decline of
eloquence attributes that decline to the moral de-
gradation involved in contented servitude and in
social corruption. Indeed the whole chapter glows
with a moral and political enthusiasm which it is
much more natural to associate with a contemporary
of Lucan and Tacitus than with a contemporary of
Plotinus and Porphyry. It is certainly not the note
of the third century, nor, as Vaucher remarks, will
any analogy to this dissatisfaction with the literature
of their time be found in any of the writers of that
age who have discussed and criticised that literature,
neither in Lucian nor in Maximus Tyrius, neither in
Aristides nor in Philostratus. Such, then, is the
evidence on which the ascription of the work to
Longinus of Palmyra rests, and such are the diffi-
culties involved in ascribing it to him.

Assuming for a moment that these difficulties are
insuperable, and that Longinus of Palmyra could
not have written the Treatise, — who did? There is
no necessity for wearying ourselves by reviewing
the innumerable theories which have accumulated
round this subject. Weiske's baseless hypothesis
that it belongs to Dionysius of Pergamus, " men-
tioned by Strabo," may be consigned to the same
limbo as the equally baseless hypothesis of Schoel
that it belongs to Dionysius of Miletus, a disciple of
Isaeus. It might be assigned with equal reason to
Dionysius of Phaselis. The theory which ascribes

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 227

it to Dionysius of Halicarnassus is, if not equally
baseless, at least as improbable. The evidence in
favour of it literally begins and ends with the fact,
that the writer of the Treatise tells us that he had
composed two treatises on composition, and that
Dionysius has left one treatise on composition and
promised to write another. The oratorical style of
Burke does not differ more essentially from the
characteristic style of Addison than the style of the
De Sublimitate differs from that of the treatises of
the Halicarnassian. In genius and temper the two
men have nothing in common. Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus is a pure critic of the secondary order, little
better indeed than a grammarian. It is with com-
position, and with composition only, that he concerns
himself. That sublimity in a writer is " the echo of a
great soul " — to quote the De Sublimitate — that "as
all dim lights are extinguished in the blaze of the
sun, so when sublimity is present rhetorical artifices
become invisible," that work which is full of faults
may be superior to work which is flawless — are re-
marks of which Dionysius was, we feel, absolutely
incapable. A great history, a magnificent oration,
a noble or pathetic poem, an inspired apologue, were
to him mere exercises in rhetoric, the results of the
mechanical application of mechanical rules. A critic
was one who knew those rules and who had to de-
cide whether they had been followed. No one, he
observes, will get to the end of Polybius, for he has
a faulty arrangement and a bad style. l Of Pericles's
magnificent funeral speech in the second book of
Thucydides all he has to say in his critique on
1 De Comp., iv, Ed. Reiske, vol. v, p. 30.

228 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Thucydides — and he gives a chapter to saying it —
is, that it is out of place in that book and might have
been delivered with more propriety by some one else
in the fourth book, over those who were killed at
Pylos.1 Sappho's superb Ode to Aphrodite, for the
preservation of which, however, we are indebted to
him, elicits only a few frigid remarks about its skil-
ful and graceful texture and the tact with which the
vowel sounds are managed.2 His insensibility to the
beauty of the Phaedrus, and to all that constitutes
its interest and its charm, is not less conspicuous.3
We would ask any one whether it is conceivable
that the critic who commented on Sappho's Ode to
Aphrodite as Dionysius has done, and the critic who
commented on the other ode by the same poetess as
the author of the De Sublimitate has done, could
be the same man; whether the cool and composed
arbiter and anatomist who measured and dissected
Thucydides, Plato, and Demosthenes, in the Disser-
tation to Tubero, in the Epistle to Pompey, and in the
De Admirandi Vi, could possibly be identified with
the enthusiast to whom they were very demi-gods,
and whose homage expressed itself with almost
dithyrambic fervour.

But even supposing these difficulties could be ex-
plained by assuming that the De Sublimitate was a
work of his fervid youth, and that it was his intention
in his other treatises to confine his criticism strictly

1 De Thucyd. Hist.Jud., xviii, and cf. his remarks on the
same speech, Ars Rhet., ix, and cf. Longinus on Thucydides.

2 De Comp., xxiii.

3 See his extraordinary criticism of it in the Epistle to Gnaeus
Pompeius.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 229

to form and expression, one discrepancy alone would
surely be conclusive against the claims of Diony-
sius. Nothing is more emphatically dwelt on in the
Treatise on the Sublime than the hopelessly de-
graded state of literature and the almost total ex-
tinction of really great writers. But Dionysius, at
the beginning of his treatise on the Attic orators,
dwells with equal emphasis on the remarkable re-
vival of ancient eloquence which his times had wit-
nessed, and even discerns the promise of a second
golden age.1

The strangest theory of all is that of Professor
Vaucher, which ascribes the Treatise to Plutarch.
For Professor Vaucher every student of Longinus
must have the profoundest respect. His Etudes
Critiques sur le Traite Du Sublime,' published in
1854, is the most valuable contribution which has
ever been made to the study of Longinus and to the
problem presented by this treatise, not so much
directly as collaterally. It is, therefore, greatly to be
deplored that he should have wasted so much erudi-
tion in supporting a theory so obviously, so pre-
posterously extravagant. Plutarch, witness the
comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, the
De Audiendis Poetis, and the comparison between
Demosthenes and Cicero, was no more capable of
writing the Treatise on the Sublime than Eckermann
was capable of writing the Laocoon, or Boswell the
Apology for Poetry. His criticisms, where they are

1 Compare sect, xliv of the De Sublim. with chaps, ii and
iii of the De Oral. Antiq.

2 Etudes Critiques sur le Traite du Sublime et sur It-s Ecrits
de Longin, Geneva, 1854.

230 POETRY AND CRITICISM

not compiled, are the mere records of his personal
predilections. Principles he has none: criteria and
standards he has none. I n a word, a more essentially
uncritical critic never gossiped about poetry and
oratory. Professor Vaucher is, it is evident, uneasily
aware of all this, and, taking care not to appeal to
any of his protege's extant writings as testimony of
his ability as a critic, very judiciously falls back on
the titles of critical disquisitions, or disquisitions
presumably critical, which have perished.

Professor Vaucher's arguments are on a par with
his hypothesis. He notices a general resemblance
between the style of Plutarch and the style of the
Treatise; that is to say, that both are highly figur-
ative ; that both blend the rhetorical with the con-
versational ; that both have apparently taken a tinge
from the study of Thucydides, Demosthenes, and
Philo-Judaeus ; that both abound in quotations ; that
both are fond of certain particles, adverbs, and turns
of speech ; that in both are to be found several
synonyms for elevation of style (^05), and seventy-
seven words not common, and in some cases rare,
in other writers. He also observes that both authors
agree in praising Thucydides, and in thinking very
little of Timaeus; that both have a very high opinion
of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; that both
are enthusiastic admirers of Plato, and often quote
him, and that neither of them holds up Gorgias of
Leontium as a model of style.

With their judgements on the orators Professor
Vaucher does not proceed so smoothly. The high
praise given to Hyperides in the De Sublimitate
finds no response in Plutarch, and with regard to

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 231

Demosthenes it may be sufficient to quote Professor
Vaucher's own words: " Ce grand nom de Demos-
thene reparait souvent dans les oeuvres morales de
Plutarque, qui rapporte une foule de ses pensees, de
ses traits d'eloquence, de ses triomphes de tribune,
tantot les memes que signale 1'auteur du Trspi vfyw
tantot differents. " ' When we remember how Demos-
thenes is regarded in the Sublime we can quite under-
stand the pang which that " tantot differents " must
have cost Professor Vaucher. But enough. Had it
not been for the respect due to the industry and
learning of Professor Vaucher I should not have
paused to discuss, for one moment, so absurd a
theory.

Ill

And now let us see whether the difficulties in the
way of ascribing this Treatise to the great critic
who so long had the credit of it are insuperable, or
whether, after all, the balance of probability does not
incline, or at all events slightly incline, in his favour.

The exact date and place of the birth of Longinus
are not known, but there can be no doubt that he was
born about A.D. 213. His mother, Phrontis, was a
Syrian, and there was a tradition that he was born
at Emesa. It is more likely that he was born at
Athens, where his uncle, who was a rival of Philo-
stratus and Apsines of Gadara, taught rhetoric.
Neither the name nor the nationality of his father is
known. He tells us himself that, when a youth, he

1 Etudes Critiques sur le Traite du Sublime, p. in.

232 POETRY AND CRITICISM

travelled about with his parents, and, visiting many
countries and many cities, had become personally
acquainted with some of the most illustrious men of
the day.1 At Alexandria he attended the lectures of
Ammonius Saccas and of Origen the Platonist, and
among the friends he made there were Plotinus and
Amelius. At what other places he stayed and studied
is not recorded, but it is not unlikely that he visited
Rome. He returned to Athens probably about A.D.
235. Whether his uncle Phronto died before his
nephew set out on his travels or afterwards is un-
certain, but in any case he made him his heir. The
near relative and heirof oneof the most distinguished
professors in Athens was not likely to want pupils,
and we are not surprised therefore to learn that his
time was soon so occupied with teaching that he
had no leisure for writing. The subjects which he
taught were rhetoric and philosophy. He rapidly
rose to eminence in both, but as he had little sym-
pathy with Neo-Platonism, then so greatly in the
ascendant, he devoted himself as a teacher princip-
ally to the first. Not that he ever abandoned his
philosophical studies, for he continued, as a writer,
to contribute largely to such subjects, and they fill
a wide space in the list of his published works. The
most distinguished of his pupils was Porphyry, and
to Porphyry's biographer, Eunapius, we owe a vivid
account of the position occupied by Longinus at
Athens.

" Longinus was a kind of living library and walking
museum (/3t/3\io0//KJj TIQ fit* t/Li\^v^oc Kal irepnrarovt' /jtovfrtlov),
and had been appointed to give critical instruction on
1 Fragment v.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 233

classical literature. With him Porphyry received the
very perfection of training", attaining", like his master, the
summit of excellence in philology and rhetoric. For, in
such studies, Longinus was by far the most distinguished
of all the men of those times. No unfavourable judge-
ment on any classical writer was allowed to hold good
before Longinus had given his opinion, but his opinion
when given was without appeal."1

We have no means of knowing at what date and
for what reason Longinus quitted Athens and went
to the East. But he settled at Palmyra, then under
Odenathus and Zenobia, the capital of an empire
which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers
of Bithynia, including Egypt, and which threatened
to become formidable even to the Romans. Zenobia,
like Christina of Sweden, our own Elizabeth, and
Mary Queen of Scots, delighted in literature and in
the society of scholars, and what Salmasius, Ascham,
and Buchanan were to them Longinus became to
the Queen of Palmyra. The premature death of
Odenathus deprived Zenobia of a wise counsellor,
and, unhappily for herself, her friends, and her
kingdom, she began to indulge in the wildest dreams
of feminine ambition. Rome should have a rival
in Palmyra, and Caesar in herself. She increased
her armies ; she sought alliances with neighbouring
States, conferred on herself the title of Empress of
the East, and prepared to defy the Romans. In the
director of the studies of her leisure hours she found
something more than a critic and philologist. Lon-
ginus became her confidant and her adviser, en-
couraged and assisted her in her mad conflict with

1 Porphyrii Vita,

234 POETRY AND CRITICISM

the Romans, dictated, or inspired, the letter in which
she defied Aurelian, and, on the fall of Palmyra,
paid the penalty for his devotion to his royal mis-
tress by her treachery and Aurelian's vengeance.1
The woman had triumphed over the heroine, and
she tried to save herself by attributing what she now
acknowledged to be crime and folly to the evil coun-
sels of Longinus. His execution was immediately
ordered. He met death with cheerfulness and con-
stancy, consoling and encouraging others whom
Zenobia had similarly betrayed.

It will be seen that all which can now be recovered
of the biography of Longinus is too scanty to give
us any very definite picture either of the man or of
his career. But five things stand out clearly. By
the universal consent of his contemporaries and
successors he was one of the greatest critics of an-
tiquity. We have already seen what Eunapius says
of him. Porphyry calls him, in one place, the critic
of critics (xpcnxaTaroj), in another the first of critics
(TOV kv xpio-ei Trpurov OVT«), and up to the present time
considered so (KM ^t^^evov a^f1 v^v)« His greatness
as a critic had passed into a proverb, and " to judge
as Longinus would do " (xara Aoyyivov Kpivsiv) was a
synonym for a correct judgement, just as "you are
writing this not as a Longinus would do " (ov% u$
xpiTixos Aoyyivos, raura ypdpsis), was a synonym for the
opposite. Secondly, he thought very little of the
writers of his time and was always upholding the
ancient classics. Porphyry describes him as being
of all men most addicted to contradiction (e^yxTnia-
, and as systematically opposed to almost every-
1 Gibbon, vol. ii, pp. 19 seqq.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 235

thing that his contemporaries thought (-ret ruv <r^ov
Trexvra ruv KO.& cwrov heteyi-ac,), and he gives him the nick-
nameof a ' ' loverof theancients " ' (p<xaf%arof). Thirdly,
he had no taste for the mysticism and metaphysical
extravagances of the Neo-Platonists, but confined
himself to Plato, whom he expounded, not as Plo-
tinus and Porphyry expounded him, but in a man-
ner which provoked Plotinus to say of him that he
was not a philosopher but a man of letters (piXoWyoj
ftsv o Aoyyivog q>&oero$ot os oudxfjwi). To this it may be
added that tradition, his own fragments, and the
titles of his lost treatises unite in showing that he
was a devoted student of Plato. Fourthly, every-
thing seems to point to the fact that he was not only
a scholar, and a scholar of attainments very uncom-
mon with professors of rhetoric, but that he was a
man of affairs and of the world. He could never
have filled the place which he did fill at the court of
Zenobia had this not been the case. Fifthly, what
we know from Zosimus and Vopiscus about the
circumstances under which the letter to Aurelian
was written, about the letter itself, and above all
about the closing scene of his life, places it beyond
doubt that he possessed, in a degenerate age, a soul
worthy of Socrates and Demosthenes. Lastly — and
this surely ought especially to be noted and em-
phasized— that he had Oriental blood in his veins.
That all these are characteristics which we should

1 See Ruhnken's correction of the reading in Porphyry's
Life of Plotinus ; p. 116, in which he had been anticipated by
Fabricius ; possibly the old reading isthe rightone, see Vaucher,
Etudes Critiques^ pp. 27 and 283, and the word is not an epi-
thet for Longinus, but the title of a treatise.

236 POETRY AND CRITICISM

expect to find in the author of the De Sublimitate —
for unmistakably and deeply are they impressed on
it, no one can deny: and they are characteristics
which can hardly be said to distinguish, and which
most assuredly are not united in, any other claimant.

And now let us see what can be advanced in
answer to the chief objections raised to the Lon-
ginian authorship. Amati and others contend that
there is no proof that Longinus was ever called
Dionysius, which is true — but deny the possibility
of such a combination of names as Dionysius Cas-
sius Longinus, which is absurd. Nothing was com-
moner than for Greeks who had obtained the privi-
lege of Roman citizenship to adopt the gentile and
family names of the patron who had obtained it for
them, while retaining their own. Thus, to go no
further than Cicero, we find Aulus Licinius Archias
and Quintus Lutatius Diodorus; and although it
was commoner for the Greek name to stand as the
agnomen, its position was sometimes reversed, as in
the case of the historian Dio Cassius.1 In the third
century this was particularly common. It may, there-
fore, be assumed, with a high degree of probability,
that the name of Longinus was Dionysius, and that,
obtaining — possibly through the influence of the
young Roman to whom the Sublime is addressed —
the privilege of citizenship by means of one of the
Cassian family, he adopted the names of his patron.

But, it may be urged, the Treatise is, before the

1 For ample information on this point, see Henricus Can-
negieterus, De Mutata Romanorum Nominum sub Principibus
Ratione, and the exhaustive note of Reimarus in his edition of
Dio Cassius, vol. ii, pp. 1534-5.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 237

tenth century, nowhere attributed to him. To this
it may be replied that the only catalogue of his writ-
ings which has come down to us, namely, the notice
in Suidas, is confessedly incomplete, ending with
the words " and many others " (*«i atea TroMa), which
may not only cover the Sublime but the other lost
treatises. Nor must we forget that the scribe of the
Paris archetype, in assigning the Treatise to Lon-
ginus, must have had authority for doing so, and it
seems to us far more reasonable to suppose that in
the unmistakable reference in John of Sicily to the
passage about Moses, in the ninth section of the
Sublime, he was following, not a tradition originat-
ing from a conjecture of the Paris copyist, but an
independent tradition.1 It is, moreover, quite pos-
sible to attach far too much importance to the alter-
native title found in the Paris manuscript, and its
supposed confirmations. That title, we must re-
member, is found only in the index, and is not in
the handwriting of the copyist of the Treatise. The
second manuscript, in the Bibliotheque Nationale,
agrees exactly with the Codex Vaticanus 285, which
is probably a transcript of it, and neither of them
can reasonably be cited as independent testimony;

1 In his Commentary on Hermogenes, John of Sicily observes
that Longinus and Demetrius, 'EXXWW oi api<rr<«, had agreed with
the Christians in their admiration of Moses — "God said let there
be light and there was light," a plain though misquoted refer-
ence (for he substitutes roJs for $*><;) to the ninth section of the
Sublime. But, as the date of John of Sicily was the twelfth
century, and that of the Paris manuscript the tenth, no im-
portance, says the anti-Longinus party, can be attached to the
passage ; besides, they add, Longinus may have quoted it
somewhere else.

238 POETRY AND CRITICISM

while in the manuscript at Florence the title '
is given only on the cover, the title at the top of
the first page — for traces of it are distinctly visible
— being the old one.

All, then, that this evidence amounts to is, that
the writer of the index in the Paris manuscript, for
some reason, doubted the authorship of the Treatise,
attributing it to one of the two most distinguished
critics known to him, namely, Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus and Longinus; that the next copyist of the
Treatise reproduced the alternative title, and was fol-
lowed by a third, and that this led, not unnaturally,
to the Florentine manuscript being tampered with.
In a word, this evidence simply resolves itself, so
far as can be ascertained, and so far as is in the
highest degree probable, into a doubt expressed by
a single individual of whom nothing is known.

The fact that the Treatise was suggested by a
work written in the Augustan age, and refers to no
writers subsequent to that age, surely presents little
difficulty. Caecilius, the author of that work, was
one of the classics of criticism, and nothing, there-
fore, could be more natural than that Longinus and
Posthumius should, even at the distance of more
than two centuries and a half, be studying and dis-
cussing him. In not referring to later writers he
was only following the custom of authors of rhe-
torical treatises, who very properly confined their
illustrations and references to writers of classical
repute. If I am not mistaken, there is not a single
reference to a post-Augustan writer either in Her-
mogenes or in Apsines, either in Demetrius or in
Aphthonius.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 239

This brings us to the last point. The remains of
Longinus which are undoubtedly genuine have, it
is alleged, no resemblance in any of their charac-
teristics of style to those of the Sublime, and yet
among them are fragments bearing on literary criti-
cism and a considerable section of a Treatise on
Rhetoric. We may begin by remarking that argu-
ments based on analogies of style will sometimes
lead to very erroneous conclusions. What analogy
could there have been in this respect between those
dialogues of Aristotle which Cicero praises for the
" golden flow of their diction,"1 and the works of
Aristotle which have come down to us? What
reasonable doubt can there be that Tacitus was the
author of the Dialogue on Oratory, and yet what
could possibly be more unlike the style of the Agri-
cola or of the Histories and of the Annals'? If our
criterion of the genuineness of Carlyle's French Re-
volution and Latter-Day Pamphlets were derived
from any analogy drawn from his Essay on Mathe-
matics and his Life of Schiller, we should certainly
arrive at a very absurd result.

And now, putting aside for a moment the Treatise
on Rhetoric, let us see of what the remains of Lon-
ginus the Palmyrene consist. We have a portion
of a letter to one Marcellus giving an account of
contemporary philosophies; a short extract from
a letter to Porphyry asking him to send him some
books and come and visit him ; another short ex-
tract from some letter or treatise protesting against
the opinion that the soul was corporeal and perish-

1 " Flumen orationis aureum fundens Aristoteles." — Acad.
Prior, xxxviii, and cf. De Fin. i, 5.

24o POETRY AND CRITICISM

able; and lastly, three extracts about metre from a
commentary on Hephaestion, the authorship of the
first of which is simply assumed from the fact that
Longinus is known to have been an authority on
metre and prosody, the authorship of the two last
from the fact that they are ascribed to him in mar-
ginal notes on the manuscripts, written in Latin
by a modern hand ! Of the Treatise on Rhetoric it
may suffice to say that it originally formed part
of the text of Apsines, from which it was disengaged
by the sagacity of Ruhnken. But where it begins
and where it ends, what may still belong to Ap-
sines and what to Longinus, has only been deter-
mined, and can only be determined, by mere con-
jecture.1

1 The circumstances of its discovery are singularly interest-
ing. In 1765 Ruhnken was reading the Rhetoric of Apsines
when he was struck, he tells us, with a sudden change in the
style, which began to remind him strongly of the style of the
De Sublimitate. Continuing his reading he came upon a
passage which he remembered to have seen cited by Maximus
Planudes and John of Sicily, and cited as belonging, not to the
TE^V» puTopjjtw of Apsines, but to the TE^W pVropoui of Longinus. In
great delight at having recovered a work by Longinus which
was supposed to have been lost, he announced that it was his
intention to edit it. But to the surprise of every one he did
nothing of the kind, nor could any one get him to say where
he believed the Longinus portion to begin and end. On that
subject he maintained an obstinate, and perhaps discreet
silence, to the end of his life. Wyttenbach told Bast that
Ruhnken attributed to Longinus the whole portion extending
from p. 709 to p. 720 in the Aldine edition of Apsines. Spengel,
Walz, and Egger give him much more — from p. 707 to p. 726
— in the Aldine. Finckh would reduce him to even narrower
dimensions than Ruhnken is reported to have done. Mean-
while, all the confirmation of these conjectures rests on an

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 241

It is, therefore, surprising, nay more, amusing, to
find Professor Vaucher gravely tabulating the words
in these fragments, for the purpose of ascertaining
which of them appear and which do not appear in
the De Sublimitate ; instituting elaborate compari-
sons between the style, the diction, the character-
istics generally of these scanty and most question-
able relics with those of the Treatise, and then
proclaiming that the Longinus of the one could not
possibly have been the Longinus of the other. There
is no conclusion, however preposterous, at which
criticism could not arrive if Professor Vaucher's
method were applied to such materials as the mater-
ials to which Professor Vaucher applies it. These
fragments are, in truth, too meagre, too irrelevant
when genuine, too unauthenticated when analogous,
to make any comparison with the Sublime of the
smallest use. I have no wish to appear paradoxical,
but I cannot but think that, such dim and fitful light

Abstract of the Rhetoric of Longinus, discovered at Moscow
about 1782, and on a manuscript in the Laurentian Library at
Florence, containing twenty-four notes on rhetoric, derived, as
the title of the manuscript indicates, from the Rhetoric of Lon-
ginus. The chief value of the Abstract is that, if it does not
confirm Ruhnken's conjecture that the treatise of Longinus, or
rather a portion of it, had got mixed up with the treatise by
Apsines, it makes the theory highly probable, because much of
it corresponds in a remarkable way with the portion of Apsines
restored, through Ruhnken's conjecture, to Longinus. But the
manuscript at Florence is anything but conclusive. Short and
scanty as it is, it contains much which is not found either in
Apsines or in the Abstract at Moscow. It will be seen, there-
fore, how little confidence can be placed in arguments drawn
from the phraseology, the style, or even the general character
of this most rickety and unsatisfactory relic.

R

242 POETRY AND CRITICISM

as they do cast on the subject, flickers in favour of
the claims of Longinus to the authorship of the
Treatise.

The fragment, for example, numbered vii in
Weiske, vindicating the immateriality of the soul,
has, particularly at the conclusion, quite the note of
the De Sublimitate. Professor Vaucher has himself
drawn attention to a very remarkable parallel pas-
sage in the Rhetoric. In the Treatise (sect, ii) the
author finely calls " beautiful words the very light of
thought " (?><£$ ycif> TO) ovri i'dtov roS vou TO, tia^a. oyo/uara) : in
the Rhetoric we find <pu$ yap uo-Trep TMV svvowfMiTuv if. Kai
£7nxtti{iv\iAa.'Tuv 6 TOIOJ/TOJ *o'yo$. The citations from Proclus,
Eusebius, John of Sicily, and others, included by
Professor Vaucher among the fragments, show how
large a space literary criticism of a parallel kind to
that found in the Sublime filled in the writings of
Longinus. We learn, for instance, that he was the
author of a series of literary discourses known as
ol pixo'xoyoj or M ptxoAoyoi o/^ix/ai, which must have been
very voluminous, as the twenty-first book of it is
cited. Walz and others have suggested that the De
Sublimitate may have formed a part of these dis-
courses. This conjecture is certainly supported by
John of Sicily, who, in an unmistakable reference to
the passage in the third section of the Sublime treat-
ing of bombast, observes : " But about these things
Longinus speaks with more precision in the twenty-
first book of his Qfootoyoi."

It is, also, at least significant that Longinus had
written works dealing particularly with those authors
who are cited most frequently in the Sublime, four

1 Commentary on Hermogenes. See Vaucher, Etudes, p. 306.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 243

on Homer, two on Plato, commenting, as the
citations given by Proclus and Olympiodorus show,
more on his style than on his philosophy, and one
on the Meidias of Demosthenes, an oration from
which a striking passage is quoted in the De Sub-
limitate.

On a general review of the evidence, then, it may
be contended that, if the arguments urged against the
claims of Longinus to the authorship of the Treatise
can not be conclusively refuted, they can, if examined
impartially, be seriously shaken, and that we are
still very far from having reached such a degree of
probability as would justify us in withdrawing his
name from the title-page of the Treatise.

In bringing this long, and I fear wearisome, dis-
cussion to a close I cannot forbear adding, that the
responsibility for its necessity lies with Professor
Roberts. His book will, I hope, become a text-book
at the Universities, but nothing can be more in-
adequate and unsatisfactory than that portion of the
Prolegomena which deals with the important ques-
tion discussed here. The claims of Longinus are
assumed to be so baseless and untenable that they
are not even debated; and yet, with singular in-
consistency, the work is attributed to him on the
title-page.

IV

The contributions of the Greeks to literary critic-
ism, or at all events such contributions as have come
down to us, are, it must be owned, exceedingly dis-

244 POETRY AND CRITICISM

appointing. It might have been expected that a
people by whom the fine arts had been carried to
such perfection, and in whom philosophical inquiry
and dialectics had developed such rare powers
of analysis, would have left masterpieces in literary
criticism worthy to stand beside their masterpieces
in creative art. But this is not the case. From the
very beginning, criticism seems to have fallen into
inferior hands. Its earliest representatives were the
second Rhapsodists, men who blended recitation
with interpretation and commentary. Of these men
we have a lively and contemptuous picture in the
Ion and in Xenophon's Symposmm. " Do you know
greater fools than the Rhapsodists? " asks one of the
characters in Xenophon's dialogue. " No, by Hea-
ven, I do not!" is the reply.1 Whether they ever
committed their criticisms, which were mostly con-
cerned with Homer, to writing, does not appear,
but, if they did, we know enough of them to know
that their exact modern analogies would probably
be the critiques of the late Mr. Gilfillan, and of
Christopher North at his worst. Nor were matters
much improved when criticism was represented, as
it next was, by the philosophers. In their hands it
chiefly confined itself to allegorizing and ration-
alizing Homer, and to discovering in him symbolic
anticipations of particular truths, theological, moral,
and physical, of which the interpreter was himself
the prophet. Such was the employment of Anaxa-
goras, Stesimbrotus, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, and
Euhemerus.

1 Ola~6a. TI oJv £0vo{, £<f>n. JjXiSiiTtjov pa-^tutent] — ol jua TOV A». —

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 245

In the Periclean age the criticism which has its
counterpart in our popular press found, no doubt,
voluminous expression. What Punch and the
weekly reviews are to us, Aristophanes and the poets
of the Old Comedy were to Athens. Before this
irresponsible tribunal was dragged every prominent
candidate for literary fame. How he fared depended
partly on the personal prejudices of his censor, partly
on the clique or faction to which he belonged, and
partly to what could be got out of him in the way of
amusement. We have excellent and no doubt typical
specimens of this criticism in the Frogs, in the
Acharnians, in the Thesmophoriazusae, and in the
fragments of Antiphanes and Epicrates. Of the sys-
tematic treatises on criticism produced during the
Periclean age not one remains, and, judging from
the remarks quoted from them, the loss is not to be
regretted.

No greater calamity has befallen letters than the
fact that Plato gave to metaphysics and politics what
he might have given to criticism in its application
to the fine arts. Scattered up and down his writings
are passages in which may be found the germs of the
profoundest truths on which philosophical criticism
rests. He was the first to discern and maintain that
the fine arts are modes of imitation — that what they
represent is not the particular and accidental, but the
universal and essential, and that the breath of their
life is divine inspiration, without which they are of no
avail. But, like our own Ruskin, Plato was wilful
and fanatical, and his most elaborate contributions
to literary criticism express opinions so contradictory
to what he has maintained elsewhere and are so

246 POETRY AND CRITICISM

singularly unintelligent and perverse that they might
almost be mistaken for irony.

Whether criticism advanced under the other dis-
ciples of Socrates we have no means of judging.
We know that Crito and Simon wrote treatises on
poetry and on the beautiful, Simmias a treatise on
the epic, and Glauco a dialogue on Euripides. Of
Plato's own disciples the most distinguished, after
Aristotle — we are speaking, of course, of criticism —
was Heraclides of Pontus, the author of several
treatises, the loss of one of which, a treatise on poetry
and the poets, is for many reasons greatly to be re-
gretted. The criticism of pre-Alexandrian Hellas
culminated in Aristotle and in his most distinguished
disciple Theophrastus, of whose once voluminous
critical writings all that remain are a few short frag-
ments, and one entire work.

Aristotle concerned himself with criticism, not be-
cause of any special aptitude and taste for such
studies, but simply because, as a departmentof human
knowledge, it was comprehended in his survey. He
brought to it what he brought to everything else, a
most powerful and logical intellect, subtle discrimi-
nation, immense erudition, and a mania for method-
izing; and he brought nothing else. In all the finer
qualities and instincts of the critic, in all that is im-
plied by aesthetic sensibility, he was more signally
deficient than our own Johnson. He narrowed and
reduced criticism to an exact science ; but such prin-
ciples in the theory of rhetoric and poetry as are
capable of precise definition and direct application he
deduced and fixed for ever. Thus the Poetic and
Rhetoric are in some respects the most precious

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 247

contributions which have ever been made to critic-
ism ; in others, and especially to modern readers, dis-
appointing even to exasperation. How far Aristotle
was original, and how far indebted to his predecessors
and contemporaries, is a question which cannot be
answered now. The germ of much in his Poetic
he certainly owed to Plato, and his Rhetoric had
been preceded by numerous treatises issuing from
the schools of Athens, of Sicily, of Pergamus, and
of Rhodes. We know, for example, that in his de-
finition of rhetoric he had been anticipated by Corax
and Tisias; that he was original neither in his
method nor in his analysis, and that by far the greater
part of his practical precepts had long been common-
places. Aristotle either directly, or through his dis-
ciples, left his mark on every department of criticism.
In his recension of the Iliad and the Odyssey,
in the commentaries on Homer, Hesiod, and other
classics, and in the Didascaliae compiled under
his directions, he initiated studies which were to
occupy the chief attention of critics during several
generations.

With the Alexandrian age Greek criticism may be
said to have entered on its third stage. It passed out
of the hands of dilettants and of philosophers into
those of pedants and grammarians, and confined it-
self almost entirely to philology and antiquities. To
the Alexandrian scholiasts our debt is certainly a
considerable one, and, had they confined themselves
to the sphere in which they were qualified to excel,
our gratitude would have been without reserve. But
unfortunately they did not. They confounded what
should be distinguished. They mistook the means

248 POETRY AND CRITICISM

of exegesis for the ends; and they taught others to
make the same capital mistake. Criticism ceased to
be associated with its higher functions, either being
directed entirely to such points as are of interest to
mere grammarians and philologists, or dissolving
itself, as Bacon puts it, " into a number of idle, un-
wholesome, and, as I may call them, vermiculate
questions." In the long list of critical treatises com-
posed during the Alexandrian age it is remarkable
that there is, I believe, not one which certainly in-
dicates that the treatment of the subject was other
than either philological or historical. So completely,
indeed, was the distinction between criticism in its
higher aspects and in the sense in which these
scholars understood it lost, that, though Crates of
Pergamus denied that a grammarian was a critic,
and maintained that grammar was subordinate to
criticism, he confined the term to illustrative com-
mentary.

On critical literature these men left an indelible
impress. They became the founders of a dynasty
which has remained unbroken to the present day,
and which has its representatives wherever letters
have been studied. When Swift facetiously traced
to Aristarchus the pedigree of those critics whom
his friend Pope described as possessing every ac-
complishment except spirit, taste, and sense, and
whom he has himself delineated with so much truth
and humour in the Tale of a Tub, he may have been
unjust to that particular scholar, but he was certainly
not unjust to most of that scholar's disciples. There
was always a tendency in the Greek mind to frivol-
ousness, to attach undue importance to trifles, to

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 249

peddle with nice distinctions, and to waste itself on
the mere exercise of ingenuity. While Greece was
in her glory all this had been kept in check, for a
great community makes great citizens, but the ex-
tinction of their national life, and the loss of every-
thing which was involved in it, threw the Greeks on
themselves, and developed this their innate infirmity.
What before was a tendency now became a habit,
and soon grew into a distinguishing characteristic.
In nothing is this more conspicuous than in
criticism. Of its degeneracy during the Alexandrian
age we have just spoken ; its degeneracy in the ages
succeeding is equally apparent. And this degener-
acy is the more striking when we compare it with
what Rome produced between about B.C. 60 and
A.D. 1 20 — the brilliant treatises of Cicero, the Ars
Poetica and two epistles of Horace, the Dialogue on
Oratory, the great masterpiece of Quintilian, works
in some cases and in some portions as severely
technical as the treatises of Demetrius and Hermo-
genes, but impressed with the stamp of a large and
liberal intelligence, and pregnant with energy and
life. Of this there is nothing discernible in what
the Greeks of that age have left us. In the treatises
of Dionysius, the contemporary in early life of
Cicero, we are in the class-room of a professor of
rhetoric, mechanically imparting what has been
mechanically acquired; we are in the dissecting-
room of a philological anatomist. There lies the
composition — a history it may be, or an oration, or
occasionally a poem. Every bone, every nerve,
every artery is traced out and laid bare, everything
is demonstrated but what constitutes its charm,

250 POETRY AND CRITICISM

everything discovered but the secret of its life.
There appears to be no sense of anything which
cannot be submitted to precise analysis, and which
cannot be defined as legitimate deductions from
the application of conventional canons. Of the
principles of criticism, of the philosophy of taste,
of the philosophy of the beautiful, of the relation of
Nature to Art and of Art to Nature, of the influence
exercised by individual temperament and social and
historical conditions on the activity of a literary
artist, not a word is said. The masterpieces of
Homer, of Thucydides, of Plato, of Demosthenes,
are contemplated merely as models of composition.
But within this contracted sphere the analytical
subtlety displayed is indeed extraordinary. It is
seen in its perfection in the two treatises of Diony-
sius on Composition and on the Attic Orators, in the
De Inventions and the De Formis Oratoriis of Her-
mogenes, and, above all — for the work is a model
of terseness and lucidity, and, a little peddling ex-
cepted, of good sense — in the De Elocution* of
Demetrius.1 However much we may regret the
purely scholastic character of these works, criticism
would have been poorer for their loss, for of their
kind they are classics.

1 It is extraordinary that this admirable treatise should not
have found a modern editor ; it is perhaps the best practical
manual on composition ever written ; even a popular transla-
tion of it would be most useful and entertaining, for it is as
applicable to the various forms of composition in English as it
is to those in Greek. [Since this was written the Treatise has
been translated and edited as a companion volume to his edi-
tion and translation of the Treatise on the Sublime by Dr.
Rhys Roberts.]

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 251

But, if we except the treatise of Hephaestion on
metres, which has, however, nothing but a technical
value, the De Sublimitate, and an essay to which
we shall presently refer, this cannot be said for the
numerous other contributions to criticism which
have survived from the first, second, and third
centuries. It would be absurd to dignify with this
name the loose and desultory observations of Plu-
tarch, which are exactly on a par with those of
Strabo. Lucian has some excellent remarks scattered
up and down his works, particularly in the Lexi-
phanes, in The Teacher of Orators, and in the HOTO
History Should be Written, but his place is among
satirists rather than among critics. Apollonius
Dyscolos, and Aelius Herodianus were mere gram-
marians. Apsines, like the Anonymi before and
after him, simply thrashes the straw. But one writer,
at the end of the first and the beginning of the second
century A.D., deserves particular notice. Egger has
drawn attention to the remarkable example of philo-
sophical criticism which is to be found in one of the
orations of Dion Chrysostom * — the Olympicus.
Pheidias is there represented as explaining how he
formed the conception of his great statue, the Olym-
pian Zeus. Tracing Art and Religion to the same
source — Divine Truth — Dion dwells on the close
alliance between them, as embodiments of divine
ideas, ideas innate in man's soul. He then goes on
to compare the plastic arts with poetry, and contrasts
as well as laments the limitations necessarily im-
posed on the sculptor with the freer scope of the poet
It contains, it will be seen, the germ of Lessing's
1 Oral., xii. Works, Ed. Arnim, vol. i, 155 seqq.

252 POETRY AND CRITICISM

thesis in the Laocoon, and it is written with extra-
ordinary enthusiasm and eloquence. Of all the
critiques which have come down to us from an-
tiquity, this, and this alone, has the note, or some-
thing of the note, of the work at which we have now
arrived.

The De Sublimitate, like the Poetic of Aristotle, has
not reached us in its entirety. About nine hundred
lines, or more than a third of it, have been lost, but
as the lacunae are occasional, and occur, with the
exception apparently of a few words, in the body of
the work, they are comparatively unimportant, and
in no way obscure either its method or its scope. The
author addresses it to a young Roman, apparently
his pupil, who had been studying with him a treatise
on the sublime written by Caecilius of Calacte.
Both of them had found it most unsatisfactory. It
had neither shown how the sublime could be attained
nor had it even defined what the sublime is, to say
nothing of other serious defects. At the request of
the pupil the master had, out of kindness and respect
for a desire of knowledge, been persuaded to give
his views on the subject, and he exhorts his fellow-
student — for so he courteously regards him — to join
in an investigation which should, with both of them,
have truth, and truth only, for its object. " For he
answered well " — the reference is to Pythagoras —
4 'who, when asked in what qualities we resemble
the Gods, declared that we do so in benevolence and
truth."1 With this charming prelude the treatise
opens.

We may begin by remarking that ''sublimity,"
1 Chap, i, 3.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 253

in the Greek sense of the term, and as it is employed
here, is by no means synonymous with " sublimity"
in the English sense of the term, though it has some
affinity with it. It is here used, partly as a synonym
for a technical term in rhetoric, and partly perhaps
in a sense peculiar to the writer. Among the various
species or styles of composition, which the ancient
critics have distinguished and defined, is one which
appears under different names but with a common
character — this is the "grand" or "magnificent"
style. It is described by Aristotle and defined by
Demetrius as " magnificent," or " befitting a great
man " (ntya^oTrpt'nys) ; by Cicero under the title of
" grandiloqua" ; by Dionysius under the title of a
style blending the characteristics of the "harsh"
(«y<7T»pov) and the "polished and elegant" (yiatpupov),
and by Hermogenes as indicative of "greatness"
(/u£7E0o$). Caecilius appears to have been the first to
apply the term t/^oj, " height" or " elevation," to it,
though the adjective corresponding to i^oj, i.e., i4"x°V>
had already been used by Dionysius to describe it.1
In this treatise the word which gives it its title sig-
nifies all that was included in the qualities indicated
by these technical terms, and, to judge from what
may be gathered from the extant analyses of them,
much more besides. Its elasticity, indeed, perplexed
Gibbon and was ridiculed by Macaulay. If we take
our stand on two remarks, and on what may be
deduced directly from them, we shall have the key
to the meaning of " sublimity " as here interpreted ;
it isacertain "loftiness and excellence in expression"

1 ic^nXfl J§ uttl jusyaXaTTpSTP:? oix If TIM n Ava-iov Xe£ij. — De

xiii, 10.

254 POETRY AND CRITICISM

£%oxn rig Koyuv l<rn ra ty*),1 it is " the echo of
a great soul " (i^oj, fAtya^otppoauws earnxjdfM).' It thus
includes all that expresses grand conceptions in
magnificent language, all that can with the power
of words exalt and thrill the mind, excite in the
affections, and especially in the nobler affections,
passionate sympathy, and, whatever be the apparel,
simple or ornate, exquisite or homely, all that invests
with distinction, dignity and grandeur whatever is
embodied and represented. This is the sublime.

The first question discussed is, whether the sub-
lime can be reduced to rule, or whether rather it is
not innate and a pure gift of nature. This leads to
some interesting remarks on the relation of Art to
Nature and of expression to inspiration. Their
relations, it is maintained, are precisely those which,
according to Demosthenes, exist between good for-
tune and good counsel. Good fortune is undoubtedly
the first of blessings, and good counsel only the
second ; yet, if the second without the first may be
quite useless, the first without the second may be
useless too. At this point occurs the first lacuna,
and we find ourselves in the middle of a discussion
of the false sublime (in other words, bombast),
what is called parenthyrsus (vretpevSvpirQs), and frigidity
(tvxpoTVf). The first is an affectation of an enthusiasm
which is not felt, the language of passion without the
thing itself, mere tumidity; the second is the display
of passion where no passion is required, or of passion
in excess where it ought to be subdued. The third
is puerility (TO (jieipootiukf), conceited affectation, the
perpetual straining after preciosity and fine writing,
1 De Sublim.y i, 3. 2 Id., ix, 2.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 255

of all literary vices the "most ignoble" and the
4 'direct antithesis of the sublime " — exactly the senti-
ment of Anatole France, " Gardons-nous d'ecrire
trop bien, c'est la pire maniere qu'il y ait d'ecrire."
And, he adds in words which are only too applicable
to much of our own current literature, "All im-
proprieties in literature spring from one common
cause, the rage for novelty in the expression of
ideas, which is simply a craze with most of the writers
of the present day."

We fear that Mr. R. L. Stevenson occasionally,
and his disciples generally, would have had short
shrift from this critic.

From the false he passes to the true sublime.
After observing that it is with the sublime as it is
with the common objects of life, that nothing should
be held really great which it is a mark of greatness
to despise, such as riches, honours, distinctions, and
"any of those things which have the superfine
pomp and trappings of the stage about them";
so, he continues, it should be with literary composi-
tions,— we should be careful not to allow ourselves
to admire those which it would be creditable to us
to despise. And then, in a very noble passage, he
furnishes us with the real test of the sublime :

If we feel our souls lifted up, filled as it were with joy
and pride, as though we had ourselves originated what
we read ; if it inspires us with lofty thoughts, suggests
to us more than it expresses, brands itself on our me-
mories, and gains rather than loses by repeated perusals
and study, then we may be sure the Sublime has ex-
pressed itself.1

1 De Sub., vii.

256 POETRY AND CRITICISM

It was on hearing this passage that the great
Conde exclaimed in rapture, " Voila le sublime!
Voila son veritable caractere ! " l The author goes
on to say — perhaps no better definition of what
must constitute the supreme standard of taste could
be given — that true sublimity is that which pleases
all and pleases always:

For when men of different pursuits, lives, aspirations,
ages, languages, hold identical views on one and the
same subject, then that verdict, which results, so to
speak, from a concert of heterogeneous elements, gives
us unshaken confidence in the object of our admiration.2

From these general remarks the Treatise proceeds
to enumerate the sources of the sublime. They are
five. The first and most important cannot be ac-
quired by art, and is, like the second, the gift of
nature, the power of forming grand conceptions
(TO Tctpi rag voweif a3jsE0roj3oxov) ; next comes vehement
and inspired passion (TO atpotyov xai Mowruwruibv Trafioj).
Then the three which are the result of art, the due
formation of figures, both those of thought and those
of expression (noia TUV <rx,n(juzTuv 7r;\a<r<f) ; noble diction,
comprising the choice of words, the use of meta-
phors and elaboration of language (yenaia <ppa<ri<;),
and lastly, dignified and elevated composition (>» ev

1 Dugald Stewart, Works, vol. v, p. 381.

2 De Sub., vii, 4.

3 I cannot but think, in opposition to the editors and com-
mentators, that fl-uvflsmj here means, not what it generally
means, simply composition, but the combination of all the
qualities just specified in the general composition of the work,
so that it may be paraphrased as tout ensemble, "general

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 257

It is in dealing with the first of these sources that
the great note of the Treatise is struck, namely, that
grandeur in composition and style can neither be
simulated nor induced. It must be in the soul of
the artist, the expression of the man himself. To
write nobly we must think, we must feel, we must
live nobly. It is not possible, says this great critic,
that men with mean and servile ideas and aims
prevailing throughout their lives should produce
anything which is admirable. In a passage which
might have been written by Ruskin he thus accounts
for the degradation of art and literature:

The love of money, a disease with which we are all of
us now insatiably infected, and the love of pleasure, make
us their slaves — or rather, I should say, plunge us, body
and soul, into the abyss of degradation : the one a malady
that dwarfs men, the other a malady that makes them
ignoble. Nor, on reflection, can I discover how it is pos-
sible for us, if we honour so highly, or, to speak more
correctly, make boundless wealth a God, to guard our
souls from the entrance of those evils which are insepar-
able from it. For wherever wealth is immoderate and
unrestrained, extravagance, in close conjunction, follows
it, so to speak, step by step ; and as soon as the former
opens the gates of cities and houses the latter straight-
way enters in and dwells there. And after a while these
two build nests in the lives of men, as philosophers have
expressed it, and very soon propagate, breeding char-
latanry and vanity and luxury, no bastard progeny of
their parents, but quite legitimate. Should these children
of wealth be allowed to come to maturity, they speedily
beget inexorable tyrants in the soul, insolence, lawless-
effect." It is precisely Horace's " totum." Cf. Ars Poet., 34, 35,
" Infelix operis summa quia ponere totum Nesciet."

S

258 POETRY AND CRITICISM

ness, and shamelessness. And so it will be, necessarily,
that men will no longer lift up their eyes, or have any
regard for fame, but the complete ruin of such lives will
gradually be wrought, the nobler faculties of the soul
pining and fading away, and becoming despicable. . . •
What wastes and consumes the geniuses of the present
age is the apathy in which, with few exceptions, we pass
our lives, merely working and striving to get applause
and pleasure, never to do what is useful and what would
secure the praise which is worth having and worth our
effort.1

Thus, all that constitute the vitality, the power,
the glory of literature are enervated and corrupted
at their very source. No one is in earnest, no one is
serious. What is wanted can be obtained, the per-
fection of cleverness and trifling, brilliant speeches,
pretty poems, charming disquisitions — all, in fact,
that slaves and fribbles of parts and accomplish-
ments are likely to demand and competent to supply.
And is this, he asks in scorn, what poetry, what
oratory, what criticism have come to? The only
salvation lies in getting back to the demi-gods of
happier times — ol iaofeoi SHEIVOI, to Homer, to Thucy-
dides, to Plato, to Demosthenes, and in making
them our companions, our guides and teachers, our
standards, and our touchstones. For, as he beauti-
fully says :

The Priestess of Apollo, when she approaches the tripod,
is inspired by the divine vapour exhaling from the rift
beneath it, so from the great natures of the men of old
there are borne in about the souls of those who emulate
them, as from sacred caves, what we may describe as

1 De Sub., xliv.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 259

effluences, so that they who seem little likely to be pos-
sessed are thereby inspired, and become great with the
greatness of others. '

We should live as in their presence. We should
ask ourselves, when writing, how would Homer, or
Thucydides, or Plato, or Demosthenes have ex-
pressed themselves, and what would be their verdict,
if we submitted what we were writing to them.

Such was the spirit in which the author of this
Treatise approached the study of the Old Masters,
a study as profound and minute as it was passion-
ately sympathetic ; and from this study were derived
his criteria of literary excellence. These criteria are
not infallible. If the Treatise has not been inter-
polated— which is, by the way, extremely likely,2
— they sometimes produced, or at least were com-
patible with, most unsatisfactory results. But they
revealed to him and enabled him to reveal to others
the real secret of literary immortality, of genuine
greatness, of genuine excellence, and they furnished
him with a very Ithuriel's spear for the detection of

1 See De Sub., xiii, 5. There is no indication that Ben Jonson
was acquainted with Longinus, but there is a close parallel to
this passage in his Discoveries, Section De Stylo et Optimo scrib-
endigenere\ "Such as accustom themselves and are familiar
with the best authors shall ever and anon find somewhat of
them in themselves, and in the expression of their minds, even
when they feel it not, and be able to utter something like theirs
which hath an authority above their own." — Works, Ed. Cun-
ningham, vol. iii, 411-412.

2 It is difficult to suppose that the author of the rest of the
Treatise could have written some of the stupid remarks about
the Odyssey in sect, x, and the criticism of the noble simile in
Iliad, xv, 624-628, in sect. x.

2<5o POETRY AND CRITICISM

their counterfeits. No false note escapes him; he
has no mismeasurements. Apollonius, who never
trips, is separated from Homer, who is often trip-
ping, and badly tripping, by the impassable barrier
which divides talent from genius. The all-accom-
plished Hyperides may be proved categorically to
unite innumerable virtues to which Demosthenes
has no pretension : but Demosthenes remains with-
out equal or second: "Bacchylides and Ion," he
observes, "are faultless and in the polished school
eminently elegant and beautiful, while Pindar and
Sophocles often become unaccountably dull (tr&enwrau
aAo'yaj) and fail most deplorably. But would anyone
in his senses regard all the works of Ion put to-
gether as an equivalent for the single drama of the
Oedipusl " 1

The four sections * in which the author discusses
whether the palm should be given to works which are
without flaws and defects, but deficient in grandeur,
or to works which are marked by grandeur but full
of faults, and whether, in estimating comparative
excellence, we should prefer quantity to quality, or
quality to quantity, are of singular interest. There
is certainly nothing more noble in criticism than the
passage in which, while maintaining the superiority
of the faulty sublime to faultless mediocrity, he de-
duces the reasons for such preference from the innate
nobility of man, from the instinct which attracts
him to the "thoughts beyond the reaches of his
frame," to immensity and grandeur. Of the pellucid
streamlet, he says, which quenches our thirst, of the
tiny, clear, burning flame which our hands have
1 Sect, xxxiii, 2025. * Sect, xxxiii — xxxvi.

LONGINUS AND GREEK CRITICISM 261

kindled, we gratefully avail ourselves, for they are
of use. But our admiration is reserved not for what
is serviceable, but for what expands and thrills our
souls, — for the stupendous phenomena of nature, for
the overwhelming magnificence of mighty rivers
and of ocean, for the great luminaries of heaven,
though so often overshadowed, for the awe-com-
pelling splendours of the rock-belching desolating
Etna.1

And so he goes on to say, that what constitutes
the superiority of a writer who possesses sublimity
to a writer who has every gift and accomplishment
without sublimity, — in other words, what measures
the distance between Homer and Apollonius, be-
tween Demosthenes and Hyperides, between Plato
and Lysias — is in no way affected by the absence or
presence of errors and blemishes. When sublimity
is present, they are mere spots on the sun. When
sublimity is absent, of what concern in the absence
of the sun is the absence of the spots? All other
qualities, he continues in his enthusiasm, prove
their possessors to be men, but sublimity raises
them near the majesty of God. Immunity from
errors relieves from censure, but sublimity alone
excites admiration.3

There is much more in this most suggestive and
we may truly say inspiring Treatise over which
every critic would gladly linger. It would have been
a pleasure to dwell on the many other admirable
critical canons which it has laid down, and on its
equally admirable illustrations of them; on the judge-
ments passed in it on the great classics, at once so
1 Sect. xxxv. a Sect, xxxiii.

262 POETRY AND CRITICISM

discriminating and so eloquent; on the parallels be-
tween Demosthenes and Hyperides, and Demos-
thenes and Cicero; on the magnificent criticism of
the Iliad) and the sublime comparison of Homer to
the sun and to the sea ; and above all, on the general
characteristics of one who may be described as an
almost ideal critic alike in aim, in method, in cul-
ture, in temper. But it would be superfluous to
comment on what must be obvious to every student
of this noble Treatise.

That a work which has been so influential, and
which has had so many authoritative testimonies to
its great value as a text-book in criticism should not
only have no place in the curricula of our Univer-
sities, but be practically unknown in their schools,
is surely matter for very great surprise. Let the
hope be indulged that Professor Rhys Roberts's
edition, which, with all its deficiencies, has at least
the merit of being sound and helpful, will have the
effect of removing this reproach: for a reproach it
is.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF
POETRY

f^ESSERNsollen uns alle Gattungen der Poesie:
1 J es ist klaglich, wenn man dieses erst beweisen
muss; noch kldglicher ist es wenn es Dichter giebt
die selbst daran zweilfeln. — "Every kind of poetry
ought to improve us ; it is deplorable if this has to be
demonstrated, it is still more deplorable if there are
poets who themselves doubt it. " ' So wrote Lessing.
Matthew Arnold also was never weary of telling us
that we ought to conceive of poetry worthily, to con-
ceive of it, that is to say, as capable of higher uses and
called to higher destinies than those which in general
men have, at least in modern times, hitherto assigned
to it; and that to this end we must in conceiving of
poetry accustom ourselves to a high standard and
a strict judgement. Let us not forget that the dis-
tinction between poets of the first order and poets of
the secondary order is not a distinction in degree but
a distinction in essence. As Browning expresses it,2
"In the hierarchy of creative minds it is the presence
of the highest faculty that gives first rank, in virtue
of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a lower
nature, whatever the completeness of development
or variety of effect, impeding the precedency of the

1 Hamburgische Dramaturgic, Jan. 26, 1768.
• Essay on Shelley, printed in Furnivall's Bibliography of
Robert Browning, p. 18.

264 POETRY AND CRITICISM

rarer endowment though only in the germ." Let us
then in conceiving of poetry conceive of it as repre-
sented by those whose title to pre-eminence no one
would dispute, the authors, say, of the Psalms,
Isaiah, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Virgil, Dante,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth.
Let us ask ourselves what ends poetry, as represented
by them, is designed to serve, what gospel it delivers
to us, what truths it opens out to us, what lessons
it teaches us. And in this inquiry we have the good
fortune to be assisted by excellent guides. If the poet
is the interpreter of God to mankind, the critic is the
interpreter of the poet to individual men. For what
Bacon observes of studies is, in a great measure,
true also of poetry, "it teacheth not its own use,"
and especially at that time in our life when it may
be of most use to us. To how many of us did the
study of such works as Sidney's Defence of Poesie
and Wordsworth's two prefaces come as a revelation.
Howinadequately and imperfectly was Shakespeare's
message to mankind understood till it found an in-
terpreter in Coleridge, and in those who have since
lighted their torches from his! How dim in the
eclipsing radiance or under the mighty shadow of
Christianity, as we choose to express it, had grown
that gospel, it, too, divine, which finds its embodi-
ment in the Odyssey, in Pindar, in Aeschylus, in
Sophocles, till in our own time Matthew Arnold and
others, re-interpreting, re-illumined it. Who of us
can forget the hour when Carlyle's burning words
made the Divine Comedy become articulate to us,
and revealed to us what solace, sustainment, and in-
spiration might be found in its stern gospel?

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 265

These, surely, are the poets, these the critics who
will teach us best the true functions of poetry, teach
us to understand that the chief office of poetry is not
merely to give amusement, not merely to be the
expression of the feelings, good or bad, of mankind,
or to increase our knowledge of human nature and
of human life, but that, if it includes this mission,
it includes also a mission far higher, the revelation,
namely, of ideal truth, the revelation of that world of
which this world is but the shadow or drossy copy,
the revelation of the eternal, the unchanging and
the typical which underlies the unsubstantial and
ever-dissolving phenomena of earth's empire of
matter and time. It was this function of poetry
which was indicated by Matthew Arnold when, with
so much subtle truth, he defined it as " the applica-
tion of ideas to life," and it was with this conception
of it that he pronounced its future to be immense,
and prophesied that, as time went on, mankind
would find an ever surer and surer stay in it.

Here then let us, for a while, take our stand ; let
us say of poetry that it is " the application of ideas
to life." But, as in thus describing it, we are really
using technical language, I must ask you to bear
with me while I explain a little more fully what we
mean by "ideas," and what also was meant by
"that world of which this world is the shadow or
drossy copy." It was the habit of the ancients to
clothe and convey truths in symbolic fictions, and
pre-eminent among those who have chosen such
media stands Plato. Plato, speaking in the person
of Socrates, fables, as we all know, that there are
two worlds, the material world, the world of matter,

266 POETRY AND CRITICISM

which is perceptible by the senses, but which is
purely phenomenal, having no real existence, per-
petually decaying, perishing, changing, the mere
wax on whose ever-melting matter form is eternally
impressing itself to be eternally obliterated. The
other is a world not perceptible by the senses, per-
ceptible only by voVij, pure intelligence, the world
of form, of ideas, of essence, and this is the world
of what really not phenomenally exists, the world
of what is. Eternal are those ideas, self-existent and
uncreate, the only real entities. What exists in the
world of matter, in the world perceptible by the
senses has only a sort of quasi-existence, exists only
in so far as it reflects or participates in those real
essences, is a mere copy, and not merely a perish-
able copy but a wretchedly imperfect copy or image
of the divine, eternal and perfect archetypes there.

The One remains, the many change and pass ;
Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly.

Here on earth are fleeting objects reflecting dimly
and brokenly Beauty, Justice, Truth, but there is
Beauty itself, Justice itself, Truth itself, "clear," as
Plato puts it, " as the light, pure and undefined, not
daubed with human colouring nor polluted with
human fleshliness and other kinds of mortal trash."
Now, how comes it to pass that we in this world
have any perception of what the senses could never
have revealed to us : how comes it that, when we see
the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, we recognize
them, recognize them in the faint and dim copies
which is all we have here, in this poor world, of their
Divine originals, and not merely recognize them,
but are instinctively attracted to them.~~'Why, be-

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 267

cause we have seen the originals, have been in
communion with the Good and the True and the
Beautiful; because our souls, before they became
imprisoned in these walls of flesh and corrupted
with matter, were denizens of the world of Reality,
of the world of which this world is but the shadow,
of the world of essences and forms:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.

And hence, too, come

Those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing,
Uphold us, cherish us;

come

Those echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognized intelligence.

In that world what we can see now only brokenly
and by glimpses, by glimpses only in our highest
moments, in "our seasons of calm weather," we
saw steadily, habitually, and in perfection, saw not
in drossy semblance but in essential integrity.
There, too, man's soul, in harmony with the har-
monies of Heaven, not only heard but vibrated in
unison with them, understanding that music which,
as Sir Thomas Browne puts it, sounds intellectually

268 POETRY AND CRITICISM

in the ears of God — the music of the spheres, the
music of the ordered Universe. And this is the
meaning of Shakespeare's famous lines:

There 's not the smallest orb which thou beholdst
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

But we hear it sometimes, as Browning's Abt Vog-
ler, in his ecstasy, heard it; and then with him we
come to understand how

There shall never be one lost good ; what was shall be as be-
fore,
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound.

What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good
more.

On the earth the broken arcs : in the heaven a perfect round.

But to return to Plato. In one celebrated passage l
he compares the estate of man on earth to that of
dwellers in an underground den, who, from child-
hood upward, have had chains on their legs and their
necks, and who are sitting with their backs to the
light, unable to move by reason of their shackles,
and can see nothing save the shadows of things
passing before them on a wall in front. In another
place 2 he describes the earth as being far larger and
more beautiful than is generally supposed, "the
surface being above the visible heavens," — I give a
paraphrase of the passage — "while we who think
we occupy the upper parts really dwell in a mere
cavity, being pretty much in the position of men

1 Republic, vii, ad init. 2 Phaedo Steph., p. 109.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 269

living at the bottom of the sea, or like frogs round
a marsh. Surrounded we are by a dull and heavy
atmosphere, through which we ignorantly suppose
the stars to move: round us are clefts and sands
and endless sloughs of mud." But, could we come
to the surface, as fish come to the surface of water,
what a wondrous world would meet our eyes — a
world whose mountains are of precious stones, our
emeralds, and sardonyxes, and jaspers being but
chips from them — a sun ever-shining, never dimmed.

All that is most beauteous imagined there,

In happier beauty, more pellucid streams,

An ampler ether, a diviner air,

And fields invested with purpureal gleams,

Climes which the sun who sheds the brightest ray

Earth knows is all unworthy to survey

—the world, in fine, of the unfallen soul where, as
Plato expresses it, are " Temples and sacred places
in which the Gods really dwell, and the denizens of
this radiant world hear the voices of the Gods, and
receive their answers, and are conscious of them
and hold converse with them"; and they see, con-
tinues Plato, "the sun, moon, and stars, as they
really are, and their other blessedness is of a piece
with this."

We must not, as I need scarcely say, press these
myths too closely. We must not understand them
literally, but we must accept them as it was designed
we should accept them, as allegories, as parables.
And they symbolize, as we must all feel, immortal
truths, so intelligibly and clearly, that when we say,
fancifully, that the keys of this world of Ideas are in
the hands of the poet, and that it is his chief mission

270 POETRY AND CRITICISM

to unlock and reveal this world of Ideas, we are us-
ing language which everyone will understand. But
two quotations, one from Shakespeare and one from
Wordsworth, may form an appropriate transition
from the rarified region in which we have been
wandering with Plato, to that more familiar region
in which criticism is more at home. And they will
show us at the same time how short is the distance
from figurative to literal truth in these matters.
Wordsworth describes the poet's highest mood, and
the poet's highest capacity and mission, as

The gift

Of aspect more sublime : that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened : that serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And e'en the motions of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body and become a living soul:
While with an eye, made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of thing's.

11 We see into the life of things ": that is it, almost
you will observe the exact expression of Plato, while
in that "eye made quiet with the power of harmony"
we are brought still nearer to him. Now let us turn
to Shakespeare's famous lines :

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 271

He seems to be translating, even to minute points
of technical phraseology, the very language of Plato :
and neither Shakespeare nor Wordsworth — of that
we may be almost sure — had Plato's myth in their
mind when they were thus expressing themselves.
And so it will always be with essential truth, whether
it speak indirectly in symbols or outright in plain
speech, whether it be draped in gorgeous fictions or
embodied in baldest aphorism : no variety of vesture
can disguise it.

It is curious and interesting to note how the notion
of the functions of poetry which we are thus tracing
up and defining in relation to Platonism, has repeated
itself age after age, often without any reference to
the doctrine of Ideas, without any conscious reference
to Platonism at all. Let us take first Bacon's famous
definition of poetry:

Poesy is a part of learning which being not tied to the
laws of matter may at pleasure join that which Nature
hath severed, and sever that which Nature hath joined.
It is feigned history, and the use of this feigned history
hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind
of man in those points wherein the nature of thing's doth
deny it, the world being- in proportion inferior to the soul,
by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man
a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness than can
be found in the nature of things. . . . And therefore poetry
was thought to have some participation of divineness,
because it doth raise and erect the mind by submitting
the shows of things to the desires of the mind, whereas
reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of
thing's.1

1 Advancement of Learning, bk. ii.

272 POETRY AND CRITICISM

We have it there. "Truth narrative and past,"
writes Sir William Davenant in his deeply interest-
ing Prefatory Letter to Hobbes, " is the idol of his-
torians who worship a dead thing, and truth, oper-
ative and by effects continually alive, is the mistress
of poets who hath not her existence in matter, but
in mind."1 We have it there. It was this, this asso-
ciation of poetry with the ideal and the typical, not
exactly indeed in the sense in which we have been
speaking of the ideal and the typical, but in a sense
cognate to it, which made Aristotle say that poetry
was more philosophical and important, as being
more universal and essential than history.2

Coleridge, in a striking passage in the Biographia
Literaria^ has finely applied to the poetic faculty
what Sir John Davies in his Nosce Te-ipsum has
said of the soul :

She turns

Bodies to spirit by sublimation strange,

As fire converts to fire the things it burns,

As we our food into our nature change.

From their gross matter she abstracts the forms
And draws a kind of quintessence from things,

Which to her proper nature she transforms
To bear them light on her celestial wings.

Thus doth she, when from individual states
She doth abstract the universal kinds,

Which then, re-clothed in divers names and fates,
Steal access through our senses to our minds.

And here I cannot but quote what Browning ex-
presses so eloquently in his Essay on Shelley. The
poet, he says :

1 Works, Fol. Ed., p. 5. a Poetic, ch. ix. 3 Chap. xiv.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 273

Is impelled to embody the thing he perceives, not so
much with reference to the many below, as to the one
above him, the supreme Intelligence which apprehends
all thing's in their absolute truth, an ultimate view ever
aspired to if but partially obtained, by the poet's own
soul. Not what man sees, but what God sees — the Ideas
of Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly in the Divine
Hand — it is toward these that he struggles. Not with
the combination of humanity in action but with the primal
elements of humanity he has to do. . . . He is rather a
seer than a fashioner, and what he produces will be less
a work than an effluence.1

And there are two other characteristics which
essentially associate themselves with this conception
of the highest office of poetry. The one is the old
doctrine of the Greeks, so frequently insisted on by
Plato, that the poetical faculty, when genuine, is
innate, the immediate gift of Heaven, simple inspira-
tion (pavia), holy madness, having as an impulsive
power no connection at all with art, not to be learnt,
nor in any other way than by divine transmission to
be attained. And so Plato speaks of the poet as
ex<ppuv xai Evfleoj, bereft of reason but filled with divinity ;
he is a seer, he is a prophet; he discerns in the
light of inspiration ; he speaks for, he is the inter-
preter of, Divinity. Of the full meaning of the mes-
sage he is charged with he maybe ignorant. In the
Apology Socrates is represented as questioning poets
as to the meaning of their poetry, and finding that
any bystander could give a better explanation of
what the poets meant than the poets themselves.
"Then I knew," he says, "that not by wisdom do

1 Essay on Shelley, p. 20.
I

274 POETRY AND CRITICISM

poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and in-
spiration ; they are like diviners or soothsayers, who
also say many fine things, but do not understand
the meaning of them." 1 To the same effect speaks
Shelley:

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended in-
spiration : the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which
futurity casts upon the present: the words which express
what they understand not: the trumpets which sing to
battle and feel not what they inspire, the influence which
is moved not, but moves.2

The other is a remark which first found direct
expression in Strabo,3 1 believe, but which embodied
a sentiment pretty generally held by the ancients,
namely, that a man could not be a good poet who
was not first a good man, " himself," as Milton com-
menting on this remark observes, "himself a true
poem, a composition and pattern of the honour-
ablest things." Of the truth of this there can be no
question. ' ' The greatest poets, " says Shelley, ' ' have
been men of the most spotless virtue, of the most
consummate prudence, and if we would look into
the interior of their lives, the most fortunate of men. "
Shelley himself is not, for many obvious reasons,
in the first rank of the world's poets, but suffused as
his poetry is with moral and spiritual enthusiasm,

1 Apology, xxii, Jowett's version. See too on this subject
Phaedrus, 245, 265 ; the Ion passim ; and the very remarkable
passage in the Timaeus beginning H*EJUV»/UEVOI yip T?J -n\> war^of
mo-Tux^, marg. p. 71-72.

2 A Defence of Poetry, concluding paragraph.

« Ji TTOIDTOU «j£T»i at/vs^suxTai Tnvfj avflpiTro;;, xai oJjf <?w T£ aya.0:v
Troiirm /«.« Trparepov •ysmdtrra, ayaSoy. — Strabo, I, 2, $.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 275

in one most important respect it has their note, and
whatever were his infirmities and errors, of his essen-
tial goodness there can be no question. " I call
Shelley," says Browning, in the essay which I have
already quoted, "a moral man because he was true,
simple-hearted, and brave, and because what he
acted corresponded to what he knew; so I call him
a religious mind because every audacious negative
cast up by him against the Divine was interpene-
trated with a mood of reverence and adoration."
This is indeed the fact.

I have been indulging, too freely perhaps, in
quotations, but I must crave leave to give two more,
and let Ben Jonson and Milton sum up for us
what were anciently believed to be among the chief
prerogatives and functions of the poet. " If," says
Ben Jonson, the passage is in his Dedication of the
Fox to Oxford and Cambridge:

If men will impartially and not asquint look towards
the offices and functions of a poet, they will easily con-
clude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being
a good poet without first being a good man. For the
poet is said to be able to inform young men to all good
disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep
old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they de-
cline to childhood, recover them to their first strength, to
come forth the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher
of things divine not less than human, a master in manners
that can alone, or with a few, effect the business of man-
kind.

And in thus expressing himself Ben Jonson is
but expressing the common opinion of antiquity on
the nature of the poet's office, on the high duties to

276 POETRY AND CRITICISM

which the poet is called, is but expressing what
Aristophanes,1 what Cicero,2 what Ovid,3 what
Horace4 have, in celebrated passages, expressed
almost in the same terms. In a vein even loftier
than this has Milton in that noble passage in the
second book of The Reason of Church Government
urged against Prelacy, interpreted for us the true
functions of the poet:

Poetical abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the
inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some
(though most abused) in every nation ; and are of power
beside the office of a pulpit to imbreed and cherish in a
great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to
allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affec-
tions in right tune, to celebrate in glorious and lofty
hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness,
and what he works and what he suffers to be wrought;
to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds
and triumphs of just and pious nations, to deplore the
general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and
God's true worship. Whatsoever in Religion is holy and
sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath
passion and admiration in all the changes of that which
is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and
refluxes of men's thoughts from within — all these things
with a solid and treatable smoothness to point out and
describe/

In its highest aspects, then, poetry is essentially
didactic, but didactic in the most exalted sense of
the term. A poet does not, indeed, teach as a philo-
sopher teaches, that is, directly and formally. He

1 Frogs, 1009-1014, 1029-1036. 2 Pro Archia, viii, 18, 19.
3 Fasti, vi, 5 seqq. 4 Epist. II, i, 126 seqq.

5 Works (Bohn), vol. ii, p. 475.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 277

has first to remember that in expression he is an
artist, and that he must satisfy the requirements of
art, and that if he fails to satisfy those requirements,
he fails in what should be his primary aim. He
must appeal to the sensuous and emotional nature
of man, he must be successful in innumerable ways
in which no didactic purpose can enter. The moment
he preaches, or poses as a moralist, he ceases to be a
poet. This is the great mistake and defect of Words-
worth. So subordinate, in a great work of art, is its
spiritual and moral significance to its aesthetic, that
while the second is the result of conscious effort, the
first is probably, and very often purely, unconscious
on the part of the artist. The moral must either be
implicit in the subject or necessarily deduced from
it. "If," said Goethe to Eckermann, "there be a
moral in the subject it will appear, and the poet has
nothing to consider but the effective and artistic
treatment of his subject. If a poet has a high soul,
his treatment will always be moral, let him do what
he will."1

Poetry teaches as life and nature teach; a great
poet is necessarily a teacher by virtue of the profund-
ity, purity, and comprehensiveness of his insight.
His creations are, in Plato's noble phrase, tpavravftaTa
6eia KM mat ruv ovruu — divine phantoms and shadows
of realities ; and so Goethe, with no less truth than
beauty, speaks of poetry as a veil woven of the
morning fragrance and the sun's lightness from the
hand of truth :

Aus Morgenduft gewebt und sonnenklarheit

Der Dichtung Schleier aus der hand der Wahrheit.

1 Conversations with Eckermann, Oxenford Ed., Bohn, p. 226.

278 POETRY AND CRITICISM

Without disputing the title of Pope's Rape of the
Lock and Essay on Man, or Crabbe's Borough and
Tales of the Hall, or Cowper's Task, or Goldsmith's
Deserted Village, or Gray's Elegy, or innumerable
works in rhythm or metre such as all literatures
abound in, to a distinguished place in poetry, we
must yet feel that there are some properties or
qualities of poetry regarded, as we have just seen it
regarded by Jonson and Milton, which are not pre-
sent in such poems. We must, too, have the same
feeling with regard to many works which deservedly
enjoy a very high reputation as poetry, to Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, to Byron's Childe Harold and
Don Juan, for example, on the one hand and for
some reasons, to Keats' Eve of Saint Agnes and
William Morris' Earthly Paradise on the other hand
and for other reasons — we must feel that they are
separated from poetry of the first order by differ-
ences not simply of degree but of kind.

And this is indeed the case, and it is well for us to
understand that this is the case. We have so abused
the name of poetry, so prostituted and degraded it
by light and frivolous and even by scandalous and
immoral uses and associations, that, as a name, it
has almost ceased to have any serious significance.
A loose and careless notion that its chief end is to
please, and loose and careless habits of abandoning
ourselves to its mere aesthetic charms and to the at-
tractions of its sensuous and superficial graces, have
all contributed to the same result. But if poetry is
to be to us what it is of power to be, what it ought
to be, and what if faith and hope are to be kept alive
it must be, we must go back to the old conception

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 279

of it, when men believed that inspired poets were
the prophets and messengers of God. We must
seek in it what men sought, and found in it, when
Aristophanes could say, " Children have the school-
master to teach them, but when men grow up the
poets are their teachers " ; l when Aristides the
orator could say that " they were the common tutors
and teachers of all Hellas " ; when Horace found in
Homer a sounder and clearer moral philosopher
than either Chrysippus or Crantor, and our own
Milton in Spenser, that " sage and serious poet who
I dared be known to say was a better teacher of
truth than Scotus or Aquinas." We must not ac-
custom ourselves to think of poetry as illusion, still
less to understand by it what Pater and his school
tell us we are to understand by it, namely, "all
literary production which attains the power of giv-
ing pleasure by its^form as distinct from its matter,"
but to have quite other notions of what is to be un-
derstood by it. And here I cannot but protest
against an altogether unwarrantable perversion of
Aristotle's theory of tragedy, for which Professor
Butcher in what is unfortunately a text-book in our
Universities appears to be mainly responsible. We
are told that Aristotle " attempted to separate the
function of aesthetics from that of morals," that " he
made the end of art reside in a pleasurable emotion,"
that he says " nothing of any moral aim in tragedy."
The fifth, the thirteenth, and the twenty-fifth chapters
of the Poetic amply and absolutely refute such an
hypothesis. On nothing does Aristotle lay more
stress than on the moral function of tragedy, as his

' Frogs, 1055-56.

280 POETRY AND CRITICISM

very definition of tragedy shows. He maintains,
indeed, that the end of poetry is pleasure, but he is
careful to add that it must be the proper pleasure,
and, implicit in the proper pleasure, is moral satis-
faction.1

Very felicitously does Shelley say that poetry is
"the record of the best and happiest moments of
the happiest and best minds, the interpenetration of
a diviner nature through our own, redeeming from
decay the visitations of the divinity in man." In its
excellence and majesty it is the incarnation of ideal
truth, the " breath and finer spirit," as Wordsworth
puts it, " of all knowledge." It is, therefore, its
august prerogative, not indeed to supply for us the
place it supplied in ancient Greece, the place of
theology, but to stand to theology in the same rela-
tion as Sapience in Spenser's sublime fiction stands
to the Divinity —

The sovereign darling, the consentient voice,
Clad like a queene in royal robes most fit
For so great power and peerless majesty.
And all with gems and jewels gorgeously
Adorned, that brighter than the stars appeare,
And make her native brightness seem more cleare.2

True it is, as we must all feel, that man's state
would indeed be forlorn, if his only lantern were the
lantern of traditional dogma, or if his horizon were
bounded by what the senses or by what reason can
reveal — forlorn, indeed, would he be without these
"lords of the visionary eye." Breath is not life,
nor is what seems what is. Slaves as we are of the

1 See particularly chap. xxvi.

2 Hymn to Heavenly Beauty, 184-189.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 281

senses, we call the visions of poetry illusions, but
are they not the only realities? "You admire that
picture," said an old Dominican to Rogers at Padua,
as they stood contemplating a picture of the Last
Supper in the refectory of the Convent. "I have
sat at my meals before it," said the old man, "for
seven-and-forty years, and such are the changes
that have taken place among us— so many have
come and gone in that time — that when I look upon
the company there, upon those who are sitting at
that table, silent as they are, I am sometimes inclined
to think that we and not they are the shadows."
And the old man was right, right in a far deeper
meaning than he meant or knew, piercing to the
very core of the relation in which truth embodied in
poetry stands to the truth of what, let us hope, we
falsely call reality. Well did Tennyson say, as
according to his son he did: u Poetry is truer than
fact."1

In the Convito* Dante tells us that there are four
senses in which poetry is to be taken, the literal, the
allegorical, the moral, and the anagogic or mystical,
and it is the last which is concerned with its highest
mission. In poetry of the secondary order these
elements exist in singularity, or, at most, enter im-
perfectly into its composition, in great poetry, as-
suming their fullest proportions, they are blended

1 Life, vol. ii, 129.

* " Le scritture si possono intendere e debbonsi sponere
massimamente per quattro sensi. L'uno si chiama litterale . . .
il senso allegorico secondo che per li poeti e usato. II terzo
senso si chiama morale. . . . Lo quarto senso si chiama ana-
gogico cio6 sovra senso." — Convito, Trattato Secondo, cap. i.

282 POETRY AND CRITICISM

and fused. It is so with the Iliad and Odyssey, with
iheAenetd, with theDmine Comedy, and with the epics
of Spenser and Milton ; it is so with the great Attic
tragedies and with the dramas of Shakespeare ; it is
so with the lyrics of Pindar and with the poems
most characteristic of Wordsworth.

Poetry, in its transcendental activity, is the revela-
tion of the infinite and invisible in the finite and
seen, in its ethical activity the sublimation of man's
human duties and obligations; of his conscience
and impulses at once the legislator and inspir-
ation, of his passions and cares the solace and tran-
quillity ; in its aesthetic activity it turns all things to
loveliness and music. Delivering "authentic tidings
of invisible things," it is the voice of that peace
" subsisting at the heart of endless agitation " ; it is
the eye

With which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine.

And, therefore, it is in its transcendental and ethical
aspects that poetry is most precious and furthering,
and so the Greeks felt. Who can forget the lines in
Hesiod?

Ei yap Tif xai TTtvOof £/Xa)V vEoiwJfci' Styxa)
a£>!Tai xpa&'w axa^jMEVo?, avtaf aoiSSc
fj.ova-a.uiv 0£paw<wv n^tia vporepiuv av&fcaircm
v(jtmo->)' jtxaxapaf TE 6et>v$ ct "OXiijUWov ep^otwi,
aiVj/' oy£ buo-tyovioiw lwiXii0£Tai, oLSi TI xq&wv

(For if anyone having grief in his newly-stricken soul, pines
with sorrow in his heart, and a minstrel, the henchman of the
muses, chants the glorious deeds of the men of old time, and
the blessed Gods whose home is in Heaven, straightway he

1 Theogony, 98-102.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 283

forgets his sorrows and remembers not his griefs, so quickly
beguiled are they by the gifts of the goddesses of song.)

Of all the evils which can befall poetry, the worst
are to link it with sensuality and obscenity, to con-
strain its heavenly voice to express or attempt to
consecrate the grosser instinctsand appetites of man's
mortal nature, and to link it with pessimism. To
link it with pessimism is to repeat the horrid crime
of Mezentius, to bind the living to the dead ; to link
it with sensuality and obscenity is blasphemy in the
most repulsive form which man's blasphemy can
assume.

Perhaps nothing can illustrate more strikingly the
difference between ancient and modern conceptions
of the functions of poetry than the attitude of con-
temporary criticism towards such poetry as the poetry
of Keats on the one hand and that of Wordsworth
on the other. Of the first no one can deny that the
eulogies of Matthew Arnold, now commonplaces
which need not be repeated, express nothing further
than literal and measured truth, and that when
Tennyson said that there "was something of the
innermost soul of poetry in almost everything Keats
had written," he said what every discriminating
critic of poetry would concede. But is the corollary
of this the superiority of the poetry of Keats to the
poetry of Wordsworth, his admission into the ranks
of the lords of his art? Are we to say of a poet whose
most characteristic work may be described as Othello
describes Desdemona

Thou art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee —

284 POETRY AND CRITICISM

are we to say of the poet of the Ode to Autumn, the
Odes To a Nightingale and On a Grecian Urn, of
the Eve of Saint Agnes, and of the sonnet " Bright
Star," etc., that he has enriched poetry with contri-
butions more precious than the Ode on the Intima-
tions of Immortality, the Ode to Duty, Laodamia,
Tintern Abbey, the best of Wordsworth's lyrics and
sonnets? Compare the note of:

What care, though striding Alexander past
The Indus with his Macedonian numbers?

Julia leaning

Amid her window-flowers, — sighing, — weaning
Tenderly her fancy from his maiden snow,
Doth more avail than these ; the silver flow
Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den
Are things to brood on with more ardency
Than the death-day of Empires —

with this note :

Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee : air, earth, and skies,

There 's not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee : thou hast great allies :

Thy friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and man's unconquerable mind —

or the note of:

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty" — that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know —

with the note of:

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face :

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 285

Flowers laugh before thee in their beds
And fragrance on thy footing treads ;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,

And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and
strong —

or the note of:

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath
And so live ever — or else swoon to death —

with the note of:

E venni dal martirio a questa pace.

Keats, with his magical faculty of presentation and
expression, his unerring artistic tact and bewitching
power of piercing into the innermost soul of sensu-
ous beauty, to represent it in a thousand forms of
loveliness and radiance, has been the very Lorelei of
modern poetry, and has done more than any of the .
divine brotherhood to which he undoubtedly be-
longed to vindicate, in the judgement at least of in-
ferior disciples and critics, the disastrous separation
of aesthetic from ethic and metaphysic. It is not
difficult to understand what Ruskin meant when he
said that "he dare not read Keats," or to apply
Newman's lines to what is most entrancing in his
work:

Cease, stranger, cease, those piercing notes,
The craft of Siren choirs;

Hush the seductive voice that floats
Across the languid wires.

Music's ethereal fire was given

Not to dissolve our clay,
But draw Promethean beams from Heaven

And purge the dross away.

It cannot, therefore, be urged too insistently that

286 POETRY AND CRITICISM

we must go to poetry, not for what poetry of this
kind can give us, not for what much poetry of a high
order of artistic and aesthetic merit does not contain
and appears to have no concern with; — we must go
to it in its higher manifestations, go to it for illumin-
ation and furtherance spiritually and morally.

When we rise to a conception of what should
constitute the education of our citizens, which partly
owing to the narrow esotericism of our scholastic
systems, and partly in consequence of the necessar-
ily preponderating claims of scientific and technical
instruction, we have not yet done, then poetry will
come to fill the same place in our systems of civil
culture as it filled in that of the Ancients. Then, for
the barren and repulsive word-mongeringand phrase-
splitting which too often represents what is supposed
to constitute the only serious method of dealing
educationally with it, we shall have the counter-
part of what Plato has described for us in the Pro-
tagoras :

When the boy has learned his letters and is beginning
to understand what is written, as before he understood
only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works
of great poets, which he reads at school : in these are
contained many admonitions, and many tales and praises
and encomia of ancient famous men which he is required
to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate
them, and desire to become like them. Then, again, the
teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young
disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when
they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce
him to the poems of other excellent poets who are the
lyric poets ; and these are set to music and make their

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 287

harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children's
souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle and
harmonious and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech
and action.1

We shall employ poetry, the best poetry, as an
instrument of moral and political discipline, making
its study as delightful as profitable. And then we
shall perhaps understand what Xenophon meant
when he made Nikeratus say, " My father, anxious
that I should become a good man, made me learn
all the poems of Homer by heart; for if any of us,
he said, wants to become a prudent ruler of his
house, or an orator, or public servant, let him know
Homer well " ; 2 what Plutarch meant when he said
that poetry must initiate us in philosophy;3 what
the Roman anecdotist meant, when hesaid that poetry
was of more benefit to the young than all the lectures
of the Greek philosophical schools, and even attri-
buted to its influence the virtues of Camillus and Fab-
ricius ; 4 what Lord Chatham meant when he wrote
to his nephew at Cambridge.5

1 Protagoras, p. 326, Jowett's version. And with what Plato
saysabout the importance of poetry asaninstrumentof education
should be compared the excellent remark of Quintilian, Inst.
Orat., I, viii. See also Lucian, Anacharsis, 21, 22.

* Symposium, cap. Hi, 5.

3 Iv ittnnfjuuri wpo<j«Xoyo^»!T£w. — De Aud. Poet., cap. i.

4 Valerius Maximus, ii. i-io.

5 Letters to Thomas Pitt, pp. 6-7 ; cf. with this Shelley, A
Defence of Poetry. "Homer embodied the ideal perfection of
his age in human character : nor can we doubt that those who
read his verses were awakened to an imitation of becoming
like to Achilles, Hector and Ulysses : the truth and beauty of
friendship, patriotism, and persevering devotion to an object
were unveiJM to the depths in these immortal creations."

288 POETRY AND CRITICISM

I hope you taste and love Homer and Virgil — you can-
not read them too much ; they are not only poets, but they
contain the finest lessons we can learn, lessons of honour,
courage, disinterestedness, love of truth, command of
temper, gentleness of behaviour, humanity, and, in one
word, virtue in its true signification : drink as deep as
you can of these divine springs.

The Greek custom of training the young to com-
mit to memory as much as possible of the writings
of classical poets cannot be too much commended,
nor can there be a greater mistake than to substitute
the writings of minor and inferior poets, on the sup-
position that they will be more intelligible and
attractive. The full meaning, it is true, of what is
learned will not be understood, nay perhaps little
more than the sensuous charm of harmonious num-
bers, and what is most obvious in significance will
appeal ; but, as the application of heat brings out the
characters of some forms of secret writing, so life's
progressive experience will decipher wisdom and
beauty and power where almost all that attracted
before were the graces of style and the music of
rhythm. On this subject I cannot refrain from quot-
ing a singularly beautiful passage from Newman :

Let us consider how differently young and old are
affected by the words of some classic author such as
Homer or Horace. Passages which to a boy are but
rhetorical commonplaces, neither better nor worse than
a hundred others, which any clever writer might supply,
which he gets by heart and thinks very fine, and imitates,
as he thinks, successfully, in his own flowing versification,
at length come home to him when long years have passed
and he has had experience of life, and pierce him as if he

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 289

had never heard them with their sad earnestness and
vivid exactness. Then he comes to understand how it is
that lines, the birth of some chance morning or evening
at an Ionian festival or among the Sabine hills, have lasted
generation after generation for thousands of years, with
a power over the mind and a charm which the current
literature of his own day, with all its obvious advantages,
is utterly unable to rival.1

Not till we link the serious study of the best poetry
of the best nations and pre-eminently that of Ancient
Greece and England with all such studies as bear
directly on religious, on moral, and on political cul-
ture, shall we be adequately fulfilling the educational
responsibility which the changed conditions under
which we are now living, have entailed upon us.

But, regarding the question from this point of
view, we must distinguish. No one can doubt that
our confused and inadequate definitions of poetry, at
once springing from, and leading to confused and
inadequate notions of its nature and its aims have
arisen from our not distinguishingbetween its higher
and lower manifestations, between its functions as
the greatest of the world's poets conceived them and
its functions as poets of a secondary order have con-
ceived them. As long as we accustom ourselves to
place loosely in the same category and to label with
the common name of "poetry" the Prometheus
Bound and the Rape of the Lock, the Odes of Pindar
and the Odes of Prior, the Attis of Catullus and the
Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, our conception
of what constitutes, or should constitute, " poetry,"
from an educational point of view, is not likely to be
1 Grammar of Assent, p. 78.
U

290 POETRY AND CRITICISM

sound and furthering. I am here pleading that poetry,
as a medium of civil culture and discipline should,
both in elementary and advanced education, have far
more importance attached to it than is attached to it
at present, that in this respect it should be to us what
it was to the ancient Greeks. It can never hold that
place until we distinguish between its interest, value
and charm aesthetically and in relation to art, and its
value and power spiritually and morally in relation
to theology and ethics. The only instance known to
me, in modern times, of an attempt to assign it such
a place in education is John Wesley's association of
the Faerie Queene with the Old and New Testament
in the course of study drawn up by him for theo-
logical students.

It is no paradox to say, that to the properly directed
study of the best poetry we must now look, at least
mainly, for the guidance, illumination and solace
which we shall seek in vain elsewhere. The creeds
and codeswhich have nocollateral security in rational
ethics and in what the inspired insight of " sage and
serious poets" has revealed, are daily losing their
efficacy and are indeed hard upon dissolution. In
their very constitution there is a fatal flaw predestin-
ing them to destruction, for, in that constitution, not
only is no distinction drawn between fiction and
truth, in other words between the symbol and what is
symbolized, but more importance is attached to the
first than to the second. It is here that poetry comes
to the rescue, for in poetry the distinction is clear;
what is symbolized is everything — the kernel, what
is symbol is separable and nothing — the husk.

In every stage, therefore, of education, in the

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF POETRY 291

nursery, in the schoolroom, at the Universities, it
would be wise of us to apply poetry to far more
serious uses than those to which it is commonly
applied. It should fill, I repeat, the same place in
our system of education as it filled in that of the
ancient Greeks, and become the chief medium not
merely of aesthetic but of religious and moral
discipline.

APPENDIX.

See page 210.

T)ROFESSOR ROBERTS is, on the whole, to be con-
JL gratulated on his work as an editor and translator,
for, if in the first capacity, he cannot claim distinction, he
possesses, in a high degree, competence, and if, as a
translator, he is at times perhaps unnecessarily peri-
phrastic, he is often happy and almost always trust-
worthy and vigorous. Of his scholarship, it may be said
that it is " magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus,"
cautious, sober, and sure-footed, but never brilliant. Thus,
if it does not actually break down at what may be called
crises, it almost always disappoints. Wherever a real
difficulty occurs, the chance is always, that it will either
be adroitly avoided or be left in perplexing ambiguity.
Such is the plight in which livdtv lAwy in section xxxv (4)
is left, and lavaviLv in section xliv (n). The retention of
the absurd ftaQovg at the beginning of the second section,
as well as the rambling indecision of the note is an illus-
tration of the same infirmity. Similar weakness is dis-
played in the choice of readings, such as the rejection of
Bentley's certain and brilliant emendation cnraffrpcnrrti in
section xii and the adherence to the untenable tVt'or/oairra of
the Paris manuscript; or again, the rejection of the Paris
ijQSiv and the adoption of Tollius' conjecture, e<3wi', though
no one could put the case for >/0<L»' better than Dr. Roberts
has done. Nor is Dr. Roberts1 scholarship, sound though
it generally be, impeccable. In section i, u6p6av it>s$fi*a.Tt>
is not, as the context shows, "displays the power

294 POETRY AND CRITICISM

(of an orator) in all its plenitude" but "all at once,"
"at a stroke." In section viii, y<m/iwrcmu is rather
"most fertile" or possibly "most genuine," certainly
not "principal, "and the words which follow TrjOoiVom/xEi'Tjc
tiffirtp eddtyovg rtvoe KOLVOV rate vivre raz/raie IclaiQ ri)c iv r«
Xlysii' SwafjtetiuG would be better turned " a natural faculty
of expression being assumed to underlie these five varities
as . . ." than "beneath these five varieties there lies . . .
the gift of discourse," which is not only bald, but in-
adequate. To translate rbVoe in xvi and in xvii as "place,"
is entirely to miss the meaning. Again, ?)0oe in section
xxix cannot mean "delineation of character," and the
note on this difficult and important word is most in-
adequate. In section xxiii, the rather difficult word
Zol-flKovovvTa is very loosely rendered as "impress" in the
translation, and explained quite wrongly in the note, nor
can dXoff^fpwe in section xliii possibly mean "in massive
images," but "generally" summatim, or a/^tXtt "for
instance."

In the locus vexatissimus in section xvii, rat TTWC

?/ TOV vavovpytiv ri-^rt) rote KaXXeai KOI
e, etc. — a passage most inadequately dealt with by
Dr. Roberts — it is to say the least very doubtful whether
Trapa\T)<f>d£i(ra rote (co\\£<rt can possibly mean " when asso-
ciated with beauty," nor does his alternative proposal,
"when introduced by" much mend matters. Toup's
conjecture TrapaXei^deltra and Ruhnken's proposal to read
TrapaKaXu^Etffct and to take rote ^a'XX* <rt with ct'Swve, both of
which Dr. Roberts omits, might have been considered,
and should certainly have been mentioned. Nor is he
more successful with the difficult passages which closes
section x, where by misinterpreting the plain meaning of
/xfye'Qjj and inserting «e on his own authority, he gives a
totally wrong impression of the meaning of the whole
passage.

APPENDIX 295

But the capital defect of Dr. Roberts as an editor and
interpreter does not lie here. Surely the first duty of a
commentator on a Greek critic should be to explain the
exact meaning of Greek critical terms; what, for ex-
ample, to go no further than this treatise, were the pre-
cise or modified significations of SSIVOTIIC, of yXa^upo'c, of
a(f>f\fia, of i//v^pon/c, of d£poc and acp£7r/;/3o\oc, of £>j/\0c, and
r)\o£, of cialpeiv and the terms derived from it, of
and avffypoc, of jjfloc, and the like. This can only be
done by careful deduction and illustrations from the
Greek critics with the collateral interpretation afforded
by the Latin. All that represents this in Dr. Roberts'
work is a very meagre glossary, correct as a rule, so far
as it goes, but too indeterminate and jejune to be of
much use to serious students. In one respect, Dr. Roberts
may be praised without reserve, and that is in his rigid
conservatism and in his refusal to corrupt his text with
unnecessary conjectural emendations, such as Tucker's
absurd 6 M<D/uoe avrov for o/^wc alro in section xxxii, and
his almost equally ridiculous Ei'SvXXuwc for >/cw Xtrwg in
xxxiv. He has thus uttered a silent protest against the
most odious and mischievous pest now epidemic among
inferior classical editors. His translation may fairly be
pronounced to be the best which has yet appeared in
English, for it is as a rule both spirited and accurate.

INDEX

Accio, T., 206.

Adams, Samuel, 32.

Addison, Joseph, influence of

Longinus on, 214-5, 2I9> 227-
Aelius Herodianus, 251.
Aeschylus, 96, 112, 115, 230,

264, 289.
Aikin, Dr., 100.
Akenside, Mark, influence of

Longinus on, 216.
Alcott, A. B., 36.
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 60.
Alfieri, Vittorio, 115.
Allston, Washington, 18.
Alsop, Richard, 16.
Amaltheus, 100.
Amati, Jerome, 222, 236.
Amelius, 232.
Anaxagoras, 244.
Anderson, Henry, 200.
Andreae, Johaniv Valentin, 129.
Angelo, Michael, 218.
Antiphanes, 245.
Aphthonius, 238.
Apollonius, 261.
Apsinesof Gadara,23i, 238,240,

241 note, 251.
Apuleius, 178, 184.
Aquinas, Thos., 279.
Ariosto, L., 115.
Aristarchus, 248.
Aristides, 226, 279.

Aristophanes, 229, 245, 276, 279.
Aristotle, 209, 212, 213, 214,219,

222, 239, 246, 247, 252, 253,

272, 279.
Arnold, Matthew, 3, 35, 75, 107,

124, 128, 129, 136, 137, 263,

264, 265, 283.

Ascham, Roger, 194, 211, 233.
Aspland, Brook, 175.
Aubrey, John, 190.
Aulus, Gellius, 100.
Aurelian, 234, 235.
Ausonius, 199.

Bacon, Lord, 6, 178, 197, 198,
248, 264; his definition of
poetry, 271.

Barclay, John, 178, 197, 200.

Barlow, Joel, 16.

Beattie, James, 16, no, 112, 114.

Becket, Thomas a, 134.

Beer, Mrs. Lynn, 42.

Beets, Nicolaes, 123.

Begley, Rev. Walter, his trans-
lation of the N(n>a Solytna,
176; credit due to him for an
interesting discovery, 177; his
arguments for ascribing it to
Milton examined, 188; their
untenable character, 190;
proofs, 190; discrepancies be-
tween Milton's known opin-

298

POETRY AND CRITICISM

ions and those in Nova
Solyma, 191; opinions on edu-
cation, 191 ; Arian doctrines,
192; divorce and polygamy,
192; comparison between Mil-
ton's Latinity and that of the
Romance, 192-3; Mr. Begley's
errors, 194-9; Milton's Latin
poetry, 199; its errors and de-
fects, 200 and note; compari-
son of Milton's Latin poetry
with that of his contempora-
ries— collapse of Mr. Begley's
case, 202-3.

Berni, Francisco, 97.

Best, Paul, 175.

Bilderdijk, Willem, 123.

Birch, Dr., 168 note.

Blackmore, Sir Richard, 16.

Blake, William, 67, 68, 69.

Bligh, Lieut. Wm., 87.

Blue Flag, 42.

Boccaccio, 141.

Bodoni, 206.

Boileau, Nicolas B. D., 206,
207, 21 1 ; effect of his version
of Longinus on the Sublime,
212-3.

Boker, George Henry, 60.

Boswell, James, 229.

Bouhours, Dominique Abb£,
219.

Boyd, Alexander, 200.

Boyd, Robert, 200.

Bradford, William, n.

Bradstreet, Anne, 15.

Brainard, John, G. C., 19.

Brooke, Maria, 20.

Brougham, Lord, 84.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 36, 267.
Brownell, Henry Howard, 42.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,

I25. 15°-

Browning, Robert, 52, 72, 79,
120, 263, 268, 272; on Shelley,

275-

Brummell, George, 79.

Bryant, William Cullen, 4, 5;
the American Wordsworth,
21 ; his characteristics, 22-4;
dominant note of his poetry,
25; his simplicity, 26; his in-
fluence, 27, 28; his genius, 30,
31, 32, 36, 50.

Buchanan, George, 172, 194,
198, 201, 233.

Bunyan, John, 183.

Burke, Edmund, 227.

Burnet, Bp. G., 95.

Burns, Robert, 19, 37, 39, 67,
72, 102, 118, 148, 149.

Burton, Robert, 103, no.

Butcher, S. H., 279.

Bute, Lady, 106.

Butler, Samuel, 53, 212.

Byles, Mather, 15.

Byron, Hon. John, 87.

Byron, Lord, 19, 20, 27; con-
tributions to his biography
and criticism, 78; character,
79; his letters, 80; his keen
interest in daily events, 81;
completeness of Mr. Cole-
ridge's edition, 82-4; The De-
formed Transformed, 85 ; his
assimilative memory, 86; the
shipwreck in Don Juan, 87;
the siege, 88; his careful re-

INDEX

299

^ vision as instanced by the va-
riants, 88-92; his indebted-
ness to preceding and con-
temporary7 literature: ChiJde
Harold, 93, 95; Don Juan,
93, 96; Lara, 94; Darkness,
95; Manfred, 96; his indebted-
ness to La Diavolcssa, 97-8;
his extensive reading, 98; his
knowledge of. Latin, 99-100;
his appropriations from the
moderns, 100-107; his relative
position among poets, 107;
his insincerity, 108-11; Man-
fred, 1 1 2-3 ; where Byron's
power lay, 114-6; Childe Har-
old and Don Juan, \ 16-9 ; his
deficiencies, 119-20; his popu-
larity on the Continent, 121;
his remarkable personality
and influence, 122-3, 27%-

Caecilius, 238, 252, 253.
Camillus, 287.
Campanella, T., 178.
Campbell, Thomas, 17, 28, 89,

101.

Canna, G., 206.
Cannegieterus Henricus, 236

note.

Carew, Thomas, 105.
Carlyle, Thomas, 67, 92, 239,

264.

Casaubon, I., 206.
Casti, Giovanni Battista, 96-7,

uS-
Catullus, 99, 118, 289.
Chamisso Adalbert, 122.
Channing, Ellery, 32, 36.

I Chapman, George, 107, 196.

Charles 1,8, 168 note, 179.
I Chatham, Lord, 287.
I Chaucer, G., i, 101, 141, 278.
j Chrysippus, 279.
i Churchill, Charles, 101.
| Cicero, 50, 214, 220 note, 229,
236, 239, 249, 253, 262, 276.

Claudian, 99.

Clifton, William, 16.
j Coleridge, Mr. Ernest Hartley,
78 note, 83-7, 93, 95-6, 99, 101,
105.

j Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 19,
44, 102, no, 129, 130, 138,
264; on poetry, 272.
i Collins, William, 141.
j Colton, C. C., 220.

Comenius, 180, 191.

Conde1, Jean, 255.

Congreve, W., 80.

Cook, Eliza, 54.

Cooper, Thomas, 144, 153.

Corax, 249.

Cowley, Abraham, 100, 194, 197,
199, 200.

Cowper, William, 16, 278.

Crabbe, George, 278.

Cranch, Christopher P., 36.

Crantor, 279.
I Crashaw, Richard, 175.
! Crates of Pergamus, 248.
' Crichton, the Admirable, 200.
j Cromwell, Oliver, 2.
\ Curran, J. P., 105.

! Dalzell, Sir George, 87.

! Dana, Richard Henry, 20, 21.

POETRY AND CRITICISM

Dante, A., 57, 58, 103, 115, 138,

264, 281.

Darmesteter, M., 105.
Davenant, Sir William, 272.
Davies, Sir John, 272.
Dawes, E. A. S., 195.
de Castelnau, Gabriel, Marquis,

88.

de Costa, Isaac, 123.
Demetrius of Alexandria, 225,

237 note, 283, 249, 250, 253.
Demosthenes, 122, 214, 22onote,

228, 229, 230, 231, 235, 243,

250, 254, 258, 259, 260, 261,

262.

de Musset, Alfred, 123.
de Quincey, Thomas, 133.
de Stael, Madame, 93.
de Tocqueville, A., 20.
Dibdin, Charles, 27.
Dickinson, Emily, 75.
Dio Cassius, 236.
Dion Chrysostom, 251.
Dionysius, his silence about

Roman poetry, 3, 249, 250,

253-

Dionysius Longinus, 222. See
Longinus.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
225, 227, 238.

Dionysius of Miletus, 226.

Dionysius of Pergamus, 226.

Dionysius of Phaselis, 226.

Disraeli, Isaac, 112.

Donne, Dr. John, 34, 36, 105,
196.

Douglas, Rev. John (Bp. of Salis-
bury), 170, 171.1

Drake, Joseph Rodman, 17, 19.

Drayton, Michael, 6, 196.
Dryden, John, u, 104, 114,

172, 214.

Du Bartas, G. Saluste, 170.
Dwight, Timothy, 8 note, 15.
Dyer, John, 21, 22.
Dyscolos, Apollonius, 251.

Eckermann, J. P., 229, 277.

Edward I, 134,

Egger, A. Emile, 240 note, 251.

Eliot, George, 148.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 6, n,
30; his Address at Cambridge,
3J> 335 his position among
American poets, 33 ; his char-
acteristics, 34 ; his originality,
35; his disciples, 36, 50, 67,

68, 75 > 76> 77-
Ennius, 21.
Epicrates, 245.

Erythraeus, Janus Nicius, 179.
Espronceda, Don Jose", 123.
Euhemerus, 244.
Eunapius, 223, 232, 234.
Euripides, 230, 246.
I Eusebius, 242.
Evans, Nathaniel, 15.
Everett, Edward, 32.

Fabricius, Georgius, 201, 235,

287.
Fe"nelon, F. on Longinus on the

Sublime, 213.
Fielding, Henry, 219.
I Fiocchi, Fr., 206.
Fletcher, Phineas, 169, 194, 200,

201.
| Fox, Charles James, effect of

INDEX

301

Longinus on the Sublime on,

220.

France, Anatole, 255.
Franklin, Benjamin, n.
Freneau, Philip, 17.
Froude, J. A., 54.
Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 263 note.

Garibaldi, 146.

Gibbon, Edward, on Longinus \

on the Sublime, 219-20, 221,

234 note, 253.
Giles, H. A., 210.
Gilfillan, Rev. George, 244.
Glauco, 246.
Glennie, Dr., 101.
Godwin, Francis, 178.
Goethe, J. W., 49, 58, 67, 68,

96, 112, 113, I2O, 122, 128,
264, 277.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 56, 217, 278.

Gordon, Major, 96.

Gori, A. F., 206.

Grabbe, Christian, 122.

Grattan, H., 220 note.

Gray, Thomas, 86, 92, 100, 114,

128, 133, 136, 137, 138, 141,

278.

Greeley, Horace, 39.
Greene, Robert, 195.
Griswold, R. W., 8 note, 21,

27 note.
Grotius, Hugo, 170.

Hall, Bp., 178.
Hall, Jno., 207.
Halleck, Fitzgreene, 19.
Hamilton, Alexander, 13.

Harrington, J., 178.

Harte, Bret, 5, 33; where his
power lies, 71 ; his style, 72;
as a humorist, 72-3.

Hartford, 87.

Hartlib, Samuel, 188, 189, 190,
191.

Havell, H. L., his version of
Longinus on the Sublime, 210.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, n.

Hay, Colonel, 73.

Hay, Helen, 75.

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 61.

Hazlitt, W. C., 105 note.

Heine, Heinrich, 49, 58, 122.

Heinecken, Henry, 206.

Hemans, Mrs., 20.

Henry II, 134.

Henry, Patrick, 13.

Hephaestion, 240, 251.

Heraclides of Pontus, 246.

Hermogenes, 211, 225, 237 note,
238, 242 note, 249, 250, 253.

Hertford, Lord, 79.

Hesiod, 31, 247, 282-3.

Hillhouse, James, A., 18.

Hobbes, Thomas, 197, 207, 212,
272.

Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 27.

Holinshed, R., 98.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 5 ; on
Emerson's Address, 32, 33;
character, 46; comparison
with Longfellow and Lowell,
46-9; characteristics of his
work, 49; his genial human-
ity, 5°-

Homer, 169, 208, 211, 213, 215
note, 218, 220, 243, 244, 247,

302

POETRY AND CRITICISM

250, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262,
279, 287, 288.

Honeywood, St. John, 16.
Hood, Thomas, 142, 148, 149,

159-

Hooker, Thomas, n.
Hopkinson, Joseph, 17.
Horace, 4, 50, 92, 99, 214, 219,

249, 257, 276, 279, 288.
Howe, Julia Ward, 42.
Howell, Elizabeth, 176.
Hudson, John, 206.
Hugo, Victor, 123.
Hume, David, 200.
Hunt, Helen Jackson, 75.
Hunt, Leigh, 50.
Hurd, Bp., 219.
Hyde, Dr. Thomas, 206.
H)rperides, 261, 262.

Immermann, 122.
Isaeus, 226.

Jefferies, Richard, 19.

John Brown's Body, 42.

John of Sicily, 211, 223, 237,

240 note, 242.
Johnson, Samuel, 74, 79, 167,

170, 171, 200 note, 208 and

note, 217, 246.

Johnston, Arthur, 167, 168, 200.
Jones, Ernest, 144.
Jones, Sir William, 103.
Jonson, Ben, 114, 196, 211,

259; on the functions of a

poet, 275, 278.
Juvenal, 35, 99.

Kames, Lord, 219.

Keats, John, 28, 43, 51, 85; his
description of Byron, 112, 115,
119, 128, 129, 131, 134, 139,
142, 278, 283, 285.

Keble, John, 175.

Key, Francis Scott, 17.

Kingsley, Charles, 153.

Kolbing, Prof. Eugen, 95.

Kossuth, L., 146.

Lamartine, A. de, 123.
Landon, Miss, 20, 27.
Landor, W. S., on Gerald Mas-

sey, 142-3, 149, 200 note.
Lane, John, 124.
Langbaine, Gerard, 205.
Lanier, Sidney, 33, 61, 62.
La Rochefoucauld, F. de M.,

118.
Lauder, William, 167, 169, 170,

i/i. !95-

Lebrecht, Karl, 122.

Le Clerc, Peter, 206.

Lee, the Misses, 96.

Lee, Richard Henry, 13.

Le Fevre, Tanneguy, 206.

Legat, John, 177.

Leigh, Mrs., 112.

Lemon, 173.

Lermontoff, M. I., 123.

Lessing, G. E., 251, 262.

Lewis, C. T., 96.

Libanius, 223.

Linacre, Dr. Thos., 197.

Livy, loo.

Longfellow, H. W., 4, 5, 30, 32,
33, 39 ; character of his work,
comparison with Holmes and
Lowell, 46-8; defects, 53; the

INDEX

beauty of his poetry, 54-5 ;
as a lyric poet, 55 ; his dra-
matic poems, 56 ; as a trans-
lator, 57 ; America's greatest
poetic artist, 57-8, 72.
Longinus, his silence about
Roman poetry, 3 ; on Demos-
thenes, 122; strange silence
of antiquity on his Treatise,
204 ; the several editions, 205 ;
translations, 206-7; English
translations, 208 ; Smith's
translation, 208 ; Spurden's
translation, 209 ; Havell's ver-
sion, 210; influence of the
Treatise, 210; its neglected
existence, 211-2; effect of
Boileau's version, 212-3;
F£nelon on the work, 213;
influence in England, 214-6;
influence on Akenside, 216;
on Goldsmith, Johnson, and
Sir Joshua Reynolds, 217-8;
on Gibbon, 2 19-20; authentic-
ity first questioned, 221-2;
difficulties in the way of identi-
fying the author with Long-
inus of Palmyra, 223-6 ; other
theories, 226-9 ; Professor
Vaucher's theory, 229-31 ;
birth and early life of L., 231-
2; settles at Palmyra, 233;
becomes adviser to Queen
Zenobia, 233; death, 234;
his greatness as a critic, 234 ;
his high opinion of the an-
cient classics, 234 ; including
Plato, 235; his high attain-
ments, 235 ; a soul worthy of

Socrates, 235; his Oriental
blood, 235 ; objections raised
by the anti-Longinians dis-
cussed, 236-9 ; the remains of
Longinus of Palmyra, 239-40 ;
Professor Vaucher's methods,
241-2; what the general evi-
dence leads us to, 243 ; history
ofitscomposition,252; mean-
ing of the title, 253-5; sources
of the Sublime, 256; the
great note struck by the
Treatise, 257; the work re-
viewed, 258-62.

Lowell, Jas. R., 5, 30, 32, 33;
on Whittier, 38 ; on Poe, 43 ;
character of his work, com-
parison with Holmes and
Longfellow, 46-9; his power
and originality, 50; as a
humorist, 51-52; his defects,
52 ; as a serious poet, 52 ; the
Biglow Papers, 53.

Lucan, 99, 194, 226.

Lucian, 226, 251, 287 note.

Lucretius, 99, in.

Lyly, John, 195.

Lysias, 261.

Macaulay, Lord, 253.
Macpherson, James, 102.
Manrique, Jorge, his Coplas,

57. 58-

Manutius, Paulus, 205,222,223.
Marcellus, 239.

Marlowe, Christopher, 1 16, 195.
Marston, John, 195.
Marvel), Andrew, 60, 194.
Masenius, Jacobus, 169.

304

POETRY AND CRITICISM

Massey, Gerald, Lander's opin-
ion of, 142-3; his services to
the cause of liberty, 144; his
revolutionary lyrics, 145; his
ballads, 146 ; his satirical
poems, 147-8 ; his sympa-
thetic character shown in his
poetry, 148-9 ; his history,
150-2; his first volume, 152;
The Ballad of Babe Christabel,
153 ; his aspiration, 154; War-
ivaits, 155; HavelocK's March,
155; A Tale of Eternity, 155;
My Lyrical Life, 155 ; his
history and his work in-
separable, 156; The Ballad of
Babe Christabel, 156-7; some
of his gems, 158-60; The
Haunted Hurst, 160-6, 175.

Massinger, Philip, 94.

Maturin, Rev. Chas. R., 96.

Maurice, F. D., 144, 148, 153.

Maximus, Tyrius, 226.

May, Thos., 194, 200.

Meeres, Francis, 211.

Melbourne, Lord, 53.

Menander, 229.

Meredith, Owen, 72.

Metrodorus of Lampsacus, 244.

Mezentius, 283.

Miller, Joaquin, 6, 33, 62-3, 71.

Milman, Rev. Francis H., in.

Milton, John, 18, 21, 33, 34, 52,
92, 96, 98, 112, 114, 115, 128,
J33 ! myths concerning M.,
167-76; the Nova Solyma,
176-203; his probable ignor-
ance of Longinus' Treatise on
the Sublime, 211, 264, 274;

on poetical abilities, 275-6,

278, 279, 282.
Mitford, John, 100 note.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley,

105.

Montemayor, Jorge de, 186.
Moore, Thomas, 19, 27, 78, 85,

101.

More, Henry, 184.
More, Sir Thomas, 178, 198.
Morley, Henry, 174, 175.
Morris, William, 131, 278.
Morus, Sam. F. R. Nathan,

206.

Moses, 237.

Moulton, Mrs. Chandler, 75.
Muller, Wilhelm, 57, 122.
Murphy, Arthur, 200, 208.
Murray, John, 81 note, in, 176.

Napoleon, 14.

Napoleon, Louis, 147, 155.

Nash, Thomas, 79.

Newman, Cardinal, 285 ; on
classical poetry, 288-9.

Newton, Isaac, 194.

Nichol, Prof., i, 17, 69, 72.

Nonius, Marcellus, 100.

North, Christopher, 244.

Nova Solyma, Mr. Begley's dis-
covery of, 176-7; comparison
with other romances, 178-9]
account of, 180-8 ; arguments
against the Miltonic author-
ship, 188-203.

O'Brien, James, 144.
O'Connor, Feargus, 144.
Odenathus, 233.

INDEX

305

Oldisworth, William, 208.
Olympiodorus, 243.
Origen, 232.
Otis, James, 12.
Ovid, 99, 195, 276.

Paine, Robert Treat, 17.

Parsons, Dr. Thomas William,
61.

Pater, Walter, 3 ; on poetry, 279.

Paulding, Jas. K., 19; on
American poetry, 29.

Payne, John Howard, 19.

Pearce, Zachary, 206, 208.

Peck, Rev., Francis, his Mil-
tonic "discover}'," 171-3.

Peele, George, 195.

Pepys, Samuel, 79.

Percival, James G., 19.

Perrault, Charles, 212.

Persius, 99.

Petrarch, 133.

Petronius, 178, 184.

Pheidias, 251.

Phillips, Edward, 189.

Philo, Judaeus, 230.

Philostratus, 226, 231.

Photius, 223.

Phrontis, 231.

Phronto, 232.

Piatt, John James, 61.

Pickersgill, Joshua, 96.

Pierpont, John, 18.

Pike, Albert, 27.

Pindar, 4, 120, 140, 213, 264,
282, 289.

Pinelli, 206.

Pinkney, Edward Coate, 20.

Planudes, Maximus, 240 note.

Plato, 228, 230, 235, 243, 245,
246, 247, 250, 258, 259, 261 ;
on the " two worlds," 265-71 ;
on poets, 273-4, 277, 286-7.

Plotinus, 226, 232, 235.

Plutarch, 98, 229, 230, 251, 287.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 5, 32, 33;
his alien genius, 42; char-
acter of his poetry, 43-44; its
originality, 44 ; excellences
and defects, 44-5, 61.

Poetae Latini Minores, 5.

Poetry, true functions of, 263;
importance of the didactic
element in, 264; transcend-
entalism of, 266-73; inspira-
ration the breath of its life,
273-4 ; moral function of,
275-7; abuse of poetry, 278;
its relation to theology, 280;
difference between ancient
and modern conceptions of,
283, 286; proper place of
poetry in education, 286-90.

Pollock, Edward, 18.

Polybius, 227.

Pope, Alexander, 16, 18, 102,
114, 116, 140, 168, 172, 208,
215, 248, 278, 289.

Porphyry, 223, 226, 232, 233,
234. 235, 239.

Portus, Fr., 223.

Posthumius, 238.

Poucshkin, A. S., 123.

Praed, W. MM 49, 72.

Prior, Matthew, 49, 289.

Proclus, 242, 243.

Prothero, Mr. Rowland C., 78
note, 80, 8 1 -2.

306

POETRY AND CRITICISM

Pseudo-Musaeus, 99.
Pseudo-Ossian, no, 115.
Pujol, 206.

Pulteney, William, 207.
Punch, 245.

Puteanus, Erycius, 178.
Puttenham, George, 211.
Pythagoras, 252.

Queensberry, Lord.
Quintianus, Johannes Francis-

cus, 170.
Quintilian, 214, 225, 249, 287

note.

Radcliffe, Anne, influence on
Byron's poems, 94, 113.

Ramsay, Andrew, 170, 200.

Randall, Jas. R., 42.

Read, Thomas Buchanan, 60,
61.

Reimarus, 236 note.

Reinagle, R. R., 91.

Reiske, 227 note.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, similar-
ity of his sentiments with
Longinus on the Sublime,
217-9.

Richardson, Samuel, 106.

Riley, James Whitcomb, 75.

Roberts, W. Rhys, his Longinus
on the Sublime, 204 note, 206,
210, 221, 243, 250 note, 262;
defects of his edition, 293-5 !
errors, 294; merit of his trans-
lation, 295; conservatism as
an editor, 295.

Robinson, R., 206.

Robortello Fr. 211, 222, 223.

Rogers, Samuel, in, 281.
Rollin, Charles, 213.
Ross, Alexander, 170, 200.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 129.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 65.
Ruhnken, David, 235, note, 240

and note, 241, note.
Ruskin, John, 76, 156, 245, 257,

285.

Sadler, John, 189.
Sainte-Beuve, C. A., 54.
Sallust, 100.
Salmasius, 233.
Sands, Robert Charles, 28.
Sandys, George, 12.
Sannazzaro, 178, 202.
Sappho, 4, 140, 228.
Schiller, 6, 49, 55, 58, 96, 112.
Schlosser, J. G., 206.
Schoel, Fredk., 226.
Scott, Sir Walter, 19, 102, in,

115, 116.

Scotus, John, 279.
Seneca, 99, 225."
Shakespeare, William, i, 2, 6,

89, 98, 114, 115, 120, 121, 122,

123, 142, 195, 264, 268, 270,

271, 282.

Shelley, Mrs., 100.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 28, 44,

67, 108, 112, 119, 129, 130; on

poets, 274, 275, 280, 287, note.
Shenstone, William, 100, 108,

114.

Sheridan, Richard B., 80.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 168, note,

178, 186, 211, 264.
Sigourney, Lydia, 20

INDEX

307

Silvester, Joshua, 170.

Simmias, 246.

Simon, 246.

Skinner, Cyriac, 173.

Smiles, Dr. Samuel, on Gerald

Massey, 153.
Smith, Edmund, 208.
Smith, Captain John, 7.
Smith, Sydney, 53.
Smith, William, his version of

Longinus on the Sublime,

208-9.

Socrates, 235, 246, 265, 273.
Sophocles, 230, 264.
Southey, Robert, 16 note, 20,

28, 61, 96, 112, 200 note.
Spengel, Leonard, 240, note.
Spenser, Edmund, 102, 180,

196 and note, 264, 279, 280,

282, 290.

Sprague, Charles, 18.
Spurdens, William Tylney, his

translation of Longinus, 209.
Staphorstius, Caspar, 170.
Stebbing, T. R. R., 209.
Stedman, Edmund C., his An-
thology, 4-5, 24, 33, 39, 67,

73» 75-

Sterne, Laurence, 219.
Stesimbrotus, 244.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 255.
Stewart, Dugald, 256 note.
Stoddard, Richard Henry, 60.
Story, Judge, on American

poetry, 28.

Strabo, 226, 251, 274.
Strachey, William, 7.
Street, Alfred B., 8 note, 19, 27.
Suidas, 223, 237.

Sumner, Dr. C. R., 193 note.
Swift, Jonathan, 98, 118, 140,

147, 148, 210, 215, 216, 248.
Swinburne, Algernon C., 131.
Symonds, John Addington on

Walt Whitman, 63-4, 67.

Tacitus, 100, 225, 226, 239.

Tasso, Torqunto, 115.

Taubman, Frederic, 170.

Taylor, Bayard, 33; his versa-
tility, 58; his defects, 59; his
best work, 60.

Tennyson, Lord, 4, 44, 49, 50,
51, 60, 67, 70, 86, 92, 98, 114,
120, 128, 129, 131, 133, 138,
146, 149, 281, 283.

Terentius, Maurus, 195, 220.

Terentius, Varro, 100.

Thackeray, William Make-
peace, 148, 149.

Thaxter, Mrs., 75.

Theophrastus, 246.

Thomson, Benjamin, 15.

Thomson, James, 19.

Thoreau, H. D., 36, 67, 68.

Thucydides, 227, 228, 230, 250,
258, 259.

Tibullus, 99.

Tickell, Thos. 102.

Timaeus, 230.

Timrod, Henry, 61.

Tipaldo, Em., 206.

Tisias, 247.

Titus, Colonel, 106.

Todd, Rev. H. J., 196.

Tollius, Jaques, 206.

Tolmer, John, 194.

Toup, Jonathan, 206.

308

POETRY AND CRITICISM

Trumbull, John, 15.
Twain, Mark, 73.
Twining, Thomas, 209.
Tyler, Prof. M. C, 4.
Tyrtaeus, 4, 146.

Uhland, L., 57, 58.
Underbill, Thomas, 177.

Valerius, Flaccus, 99.

Valerius, Maximus, 287 note.

Van Lennep, Jacobus, 123.

Vaucher, Lewis, 206, 226 ; his
theory on the authorship of
the Treatise on the Sublime,
229-31, 235 note, 241, 242.

Very, Jones, 36.

Vida, 201, 202.

Vigne, Cashnir de la, 123.

Virgil, 21, 92, 99, 139, 169, 195,

2OI, 264, 288.

Von Platen, Count, 122, 128.
Vopiscus, 235.

Wai pole, Horace, 117.

Watton, William, 214.

Walz, Chr., 240 note, 242.

Watson, William, the Poems
published by Mr. John Lane,
124-5; the jewelled aphorisms
in his poetry, 126; compari-
son with the poetry of pre-
ceding masters, 127-8; his
treatment of Nature, 129-30;
the good judgment of his
editor, 131-2; Mr. Watson's
careful revision, 133-4, an<^
his felicitous corrections,
134-5; a true Classic, 135-6;

his limitations, 136-9; the
characteristics of great poetry,
140; depressing conditions
under which poetry is now
developing, 141.

Watts, Alaric, 94, 101, 105.

Weales, Thomas, 209.

Webbe, William, 211.

Weddigen, Otto, 123 note.

Weiske, Benjamin, 206, 222,
226, 242.

Welsted, Leonard, 207.

Wesley, John, 290.

West, Richard, 100.

Wetstein, H., 206.

Whitelock, Bulstrade, 207.
| Whitman, Walt, 5, 32, 33;
Symond's criticism of, 63-4 ;
Swinburne's opinion of, 64;
conflicting opinions of, 65;
his eccentricity, 66-7 ; his or-
iginality, 67 ; extravagant
homage paid to him, 68; se-
cret of his success, 69-70;
where he fails, 71.
j Whittier, John G., 3, 5, 19, 30,
32» 33. 35 ! early life and.char-
acteristics, 37, 38; his place
among American poets, 39;
his excellences and his defects,
40; character of his poetry,
41, 42, 50, 55, 146.

Wigglesworth, Michael, 15.
I Wilcox, Carlos, 19.

Wilde, Richard Henry, 20.
| Willis, Nathaniel P., his %-ersa-
tility, 28.

Wills, W. H., 61.
j Will son, Forceythe, 42.

Winstariley, William, 167.

Wolf, Lucien, 180.

Wordsworth, William, 4; his
definition of poetry, 13, 21, 24,
33. 35. 49> 52. 67, 68, 76, 79,
109, no, 115, 119, 122, 127,
128, 129, 130, 133, 140, 264,
270, 271 ; his defect as a poet,
277, 280, 283, 284, 289.

Wordsworth, Bishop, 200 note.

INDEX 309

Wyttenbach, Daniel, 240 note.
Xenophon, 98, 224, 244, 287.

Yankee Man-qf-War, 17.
Young, Edward, 18, 21, 22,

102, ii i ; influence of Longi-

nus on, 216-7.

Zenobia, 233, 234, 235.
Zosimus, 235.

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