Well, then, we have once more—to wit a month ago—wheeled round and encountered face to face our two great masters, with whom we at first set out—John Dryden and Alexander Pope. We found them under a peculiar character, that of Avengers—to be imaged by the Pythean quelling with his divine and igneous arrows the Python, foul mud-engendered monster, burthening the earth and loathed by the light of heaven.
Dryden and Pope! Father and son—master and scholar—founder and improver. Who can make up his election, which of the two he prefers?—the free composition of Dryden that streams on and on, full of vigour and splendour, of reason and wit, as if verse were a mother tongue to him, or some special gift of the universal Mother—or the perfected art of Pope? Your choice changes as your own humour or the weathercock turns. If jolly Boreas, the son of the clear sky, as Homer calls him, career scattering the clouds, and stirring up life over all the face of the waters, grown riotous with exuberant power, you are a Drydenite. But if brightness and stillness fall together upon wood and valley, upon hill and lake, then the spirit of beauty possesses you, and you lean your ear towards Pope. For the spirit of beauty reigns in his musical style; and if he sting and kill, it is with an air and a grace that quite win and charm the lookers-on; and a sweetness persuades them that he is more concerned about embalming his victims to a perennial pulchritude after death, than intent upon ravishing from them the breath of a short-lived existence.
Dryden is all power—and he knows it. He soars at ease—he sails at ease—he swoops at ease—and he trusses at ease. In his own verse, not another approaches him for energy brought from familiar uses of expression. Witness the hazardous but inimitable—
"To file and polish God Almighty's fool,"
and a hundred others. Shakespeare and Milton are now and then (in blanks, as Tweedie used to say) all-surpassing by such a happiness. But Dryden alone moves unfettered in the fettering couplet—alone of those who have submitted to the fetters. For those who write distichs, running them into one another, head over heels, till you do not know where to look after the rhyme—these do not wear their fetters and with an all-mastering grace dance to the chime, but they break them and caper about, the fragments clanking dismally and strangely about their heels. Turn from the clumsy clowns to glorious John:—sinewy, flexible, well-knit, agile, stately-stepping, gracefully-bending, stern, stalwarth—or sitting his horse, "erect and fair," in career, and carrying his steel-headed lance of true stuff, level and steady to its aim, and impetuous as a thunderbolt. His strokes are like the shots of that tremendous ordnance—
"chain'd thunderbolts and hailOf iron globes——That whom they hit none on their feet might stand,Though standing else as rocks."
But we are forgetting ourselves. We must not run into elongated criticism, however excellent, in aSupplement—and therefore gladden you all with a specimen—without note or comment—from the second part ofAbsalom and Achitophel.
"Doeg, though without knowing how or why,Made still a blundering kind of melody;Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin,Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in;Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,And in one word, heroically mad:He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,But fagoted his notions as they fell,And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satyr,For still there goes some thinking to ill nature:He needs no more than birds and beasts to think,All his occasions are to eat and drink.If he call rogue and rascal from a garret,He means you no more mischief than a parrot:The words for friend and foe alike were made,To fetter them in verse is all his trade.For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother:And call young Absalom king David's brother.Let him be gallows-free by my consent,And nothing suffer since he nothing meant;Hanging supposes human soul and reason,This animal's below committing treason:Shall he be hang'd who never could rebel?That's a preferment for Achitophel.Railing in other men may be a crime,But ought to pass for mere instinct in him:Instinct he follows and no further knows,For to write verse with him is to transprose.'Twere pity treason at his door to lay,Who makes heaven's gate a lock to its own key:Let him rail on, let his invective MuseHave four and twenty letters to abuse,Which, if he jumbles to one line of sense,Indict him of a capital offence,In fire-works give him leave to vent his spight,Those are the only serpents he can write;The height of his ambition is, we know,But to be master of a puppet-show,On that one stage his works may yet appear,And a month's harvest keeps him all the year."Now stop your noses, readers, all and some,For here's a tun of midnight-work to come,Og from a treason-tavern rowling home,Round as a globe, and liquor'd every chink,Goodly and great he sails behind his link;With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,For every inch that is not fool is rogue:A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter,When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,He curses God, but God before curst him;And, if man could have reason, none has more,That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.With wealth he was not trusted, for heaven knewWhat 'twas of old to pamper up a Jew;To what would he on quail and pheasant swell,That ev'n on tripe and carrion could rebel?But though heaven made him poor, with reverence speaking,He never was a poet of God's making;The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,With this prophetic blessing—Be thou dull:Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delightFit for thy bulk, do any thing but write:Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,A strong nativity—but for the pen!Eat opium, mimic arsenic in thy drink,Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink.I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,For treason botcht in rhyme will be thy bane:Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck:Why should thy metre good King David blast?A psalm of his will surely be thy last.Dar'st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes,Thou whom the penny pamphlet foil'd in prose?Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has made,O'er-tops thy talent in thy very trade;Doeg to thee, thy paintings are so coarse,A poet is, though he's the poet's horse.A double noose thou on thy neck dost pullFor writing treason, and for writing dull;To die for faction is a common evil,But to be hang'd for nonsense is the devil:Had thou the glories of thy king exprest,Thy praises had been satyr at the best;But thou in clumsy verse, unlickt, unpointed,Hast shamefully defy'd the Lord's anointed:I will not rake the dunghill for thy crimes,For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes?But of King David's foes be this the doom,May all be like the young man Absalom!And for my foes, may this their blessing be,To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee!"
This is thene plus ultraof personal satire. Yet there are passages of comparable excellence in theDunciad. Aha! what have we here? A contemptuous attack on Pope by—a Yankee-Cockney! What a cross!John Russell Lowellfrom Massachusets thus magpie-like chattereth at the Nightingale.
"Philip.—You talk about the golden age of Queen Anne. It was a French pinchbeck age."John.—Stay, not so fast. I like the writers of that period, for the transparency of their style, and their freedom from affection. If I may trust my understanding of your meaning, our modern versifiers have only made the simple discovery, that an appearance of antiquity is the cheapest passport to respect. But the cheapest which we purchase with subservience is too dear. You yourself have no such prejudice against the Augustan age of English literature. I have caught you more than once with theTatlerin your hand, and have heard you praising Dryden's prefaces."Philip.—You and I have very different notions of what poetry is, and of what its object should be. You may claim for Pope the merit of an envious eye, which could turn the least scratch upon the character of a friend into a fester, of a nimble and adroit fancy, and of an ear so niggardly that it could afford but one invariable cæsura to his verse; but, when you call him poet, you insult the buried majesty of all earth's noblest and choicest spirits. Nature should lead the true poet by the hand, and he has far better things to do than to busy himself in counting the warts upon it, as Pope did. A cup of water from Hippocrene, tasting, as it must, of innocent pastoral sights and sounds, of the bleat of lambs, of the shadows of leaves and flowers that have leaned over it, of the rosy hands of children whose privilege it ever is to paddle in it, of the low words of lovers who have walked by its side in the moonlight, of the tears of the poor Hagars of the world who have drunk from it, would choke a satirist. His thoughts of the country must have a savour of Jack Ketch, and see no beauty but in a hemp field. Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has set in all men's souls; not by picking out the petty faults of our neighbours to make a mock of. Shall that divine instinct, which has in all ages concerned itself only with what is holiest and fairest in life and nature, degrade itself to go about seeking for the scabs and ulcers of the putridest spirits, to grin over with a derision more hideous even than the pitiful quarryit has moused at? Asmodeus's gift, of unroofing the dwellings of his neighbours at will, would be the rarest outfit for a satirist, but it would be of no worth to a poet. To the satirist the mere outward motives of life are enough. Vanity, pride, avarice—these, and the other external vices, are the strings of his unmusical lyre. But the poet need only unroof his own heart. All that makes happiness or misery under every roof of the wide world, whether of palace or hovel, is working also in that narrow yet boundless sphere. On that little stage the great drama of life is acted daily. There the creation, the tempting, and the fall, may be seen anew. In that withdrawing closet, solitude whispers her secrets, and death uncovers his face. There sorrow takes up her abode, to make ready a pillow and a resting-place for the weary head of love, whom the world casts out. To the poet nothing is mean, but every thing on earth is a fitting altar to the supreme beauty."But I am wandering. As for the poets of Queen Anne's reign, it is enough to prove what a kennel standard of poetry was then established, that Swift's smutchy verses are not even yet excluded from the collections. What disgusting stuff, too, in Prior and Parnell! Yet Swift, perhaps, as the best writer of English whom that period produced. Witness his prose. Pope treated the English language as the image-man has served the bust of Shakspeare yonder. To rid it of some external soils, he has rubbed it down till there is no muscular expression left. It looks very much as his own 'mockery king of snow' must have done after it had begun to melt. Pope is for ever mixing water with the good old mother's milk of our tongue. You cannot get a straightforward speech out of him. A great deal of his poetry is so incased in verbiage, that it puts me in mind of those important-looking packages which boys are fond of sending to their friends. We unfold envelope after envelope, and at last find a couple of cherry-stones. But in Pope we miss the laugh which in the other case follows the culmination of the joke. He makes Homer lisp like the friar in Chaucer and Ajax and Belinda talk exactly alike."John.—Well, we are not discussing the merits of Pope, but of the archaisms which have been introduced into modern poetry. What you say of the Bible has some force in it. The forms of speech used in our version of it will always impress the mind, even if applied to an entirely different subject. What else can you bring forward?"Philip.—Only the fact, that, by going back to the more natural style of the Elizabethan writers, our verse has gained in harmony as well as strength. No matter whether Pope is describing the cane of a fop, or the speech of a demigod, the pause must always fall on the same syllable, and the sense be chopped off by the same rhyme. Achilles cannot gallop his horses round the walls of Troy, with Hector dragging behind his chariot, except he keep time to the immitigable seesaw of the couplet."
"Philip.—You talk about the golden age of Queen Anne. It was a French pinchbeck age.
"John.—Stay, not so fast. I like the writers of that period, for the transparency of their style, and their freedom from affection. If I may trust my understanding of your meaning, our modern versifiers have only made the simple discovery, that an appearance of antiquity is the cheapest passport to respect. But the cheapest which we purchase with subservience is too dear. You yourself have no such prejudice against the Augustan age of English literature. I have caught you more than once with theTatlerin your hand, and have heard you praising Dryden's prefaces.
"Philip.—You and I have very different notions of what poetry is, and of what its object should be. You may claim for Pope the merit of an envious eye, which could turn the least scratch upon the character of a friend into a fester, of a nimble and adroit fancy, and of an ear so niggardly that it could afford but one invariable cæsura to his verse; but, when you call him poet, you insult the buried majesty of all earth's noblest and choicest spirits. Nature should lead the true poet by the hand, and he has far better things to do than to busy himself in counting the warts upon it, as Pope did. A cup of water from Hippocrene, tasting, as it must, of innocent pastoral sights and sounds, of the bleat of lambs, of the shadows of leaves and flowers that have leaned over it, of the rosy hands of children whose privilege it ever is to paddle in it, of the low words of lovers who have walked by its side in the moonlight, of the tears of the poor Hagars of the world who have drunk from it, would choke a satirist. His thoughts of the country must have a savour of Jack Ketch, and see no beauty but in a hemp field. Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has set in all men's souls; not by picking out the petty faults of our neighbours to make a mock of. Shall that divine instinct, which has in all ages concerned itself only with what is holiest and fairest in life and nature, degrade itself to go about seeking for the scabs and ulcers of the putridest spirits, to grin over with a derision more hideous even than the pitiful quarryit has moused at? Asmodeus's gift, of unroofing the dwellings of his neighbours at will, would be the rarest outfit for a satirist, but it would be of no worth to a poet. To the satirist the mere outward motives of life are enough. Vanity, pride, avarice—these, and the other external vices, are the strings of his unmusical lyre. But the poet need only unroof his own heart. All that makes happiness or misery under every roof of the wide world, whether of palace or hovel, is working also in that narrow yet boundless sphere. On that little stage the great drama of life is acted daily. There the creation, the tempting, and the fall, may be seen anew. In that withdrawing closet, solitude whispers her secrets, and death uncovers his face. There sorrow takes up her abode, to make ready a pillow and a resting-place for the weary head of love, whom the world casts out. To the poet nothing is mean, but every thing on earth is a fitting altar to the supreme beauty.
"But I am wandering. As for the poets of Queen Anne's reign, it is enough to prove what a kennel standard of poetry was then established, that Swift's smutchy verses are not even yet excluded from the collections. What disgusting stuff, too, in Prior and Parnell! Yet Swift, perhaps, as the best writer of English whom that period produced. Witness his prose. Pope treated the English language as the image-man has served the bust of Shakspeare yonder. To rid it of some external soils, he has rubbed it down till there is no muscular expression left. It looks very much as his own 'mockery king of snow' must have done after it had begun to melt. Pope is for ever mixing water with the good old mother's milk of our tongue. You cannot get a straightforward speech out of him. A great deal of his poetry is so incased in verbiage, that it puts me in mind of those important-looking packages which boys are fond of sending to their friends. We unfold envelope after envelope, and at last find a couple of cherry-stones. But in Pope we miss the laugh which in the other case follows the culmination of the joke. He makes Homer lisp like the friar in Chaucer and Ajax and Belinda talk exactly alike.
"John.—Well, we are not discussing the merits of Pope, but of the archaisms which have been introduced into modern poetry. What you say of the Bible has some force in it. The forms of speech used in our version of it will always impress the mind, even if applied to an entirely different subject. What else can you bring forward?
"Philip.—Only the fact, that, by going back to the more natural style of the Elizabethan writers, our verse has gained in harmony as well as strength. No matter whether Pope is describing the cane of a fop, or the speech of a demigod, the pause must always fall on the same syllable, and the sense be chopped off by the same rhyme. Achilles cannot gallop his horses round the walls of Troy, with Hector dragging behind his chariot, except he keep time to the immitigable seesaw of the couplet."
Master Lowell gives tongue with a plagiarism from Southey. In hisLife of Cowperthat great writer somewhat rashly says, "The age of Pope was the golden age of poets—but it was the pinchbeck age of poetry." What is pardonable in Southey is knoutable in his ape. Think of one American Cantab playfully rating and complimenting another on having caught him more than once with theTatlerin his hand, and with having heard him praising Dryden's prefaces! What liberality—nay, what universality of taste! Absolutely able, in the reaches of his transatlantic soul, to relish Dryden's prefaces! But in his appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, Philip cannot, crop-sick, but nauseate the thought of Pope being a poet.
The whole dialogue—somewhat of the longest—tediousexceedingly—is polluted with similar impudencies. "The strong point in Pope's displays of sentiment, is in the graceful management of a cambric handkerchief. You do not believe a word that Heloïse says, and feel all the while that she is squeezing out her tears as if from a half-dry sponge." Such is the effect of too copious draughts from that Hippocrene which alternately discharges cock-tail and mint-julep. John, however, does not go the whole hog with Philip. He erects his ears to their full length, and brays thus—"I do not think that you do Pope justice!" and then does Pope justice as follows: "His translation of Homer is as bad as it can be, I admit!"I admit!"But surely you cannot deny the merit of livelyand ingenious fancy to his 'Rape of the Lock;' nor of knowledge of life, and a certain polished classicalness, to his epistles and satires. His portraits are like those of Copley, of fine gentlemen and ladies, whose silks and satins are the best part of them." But poor, cautious, timid, trimming, turn-about John cannot so conciliate bully Philip, who squabashes at once both poet and critic.
"Philip.—I cannot allow the parallel. In Copley's best pictures, the drapery, though you may almost hear it rustle, is wholly a subordinate matter. Witness some of those in our College-hall here at Cambridge—that of Madam Boylston especially. I remember being once much struck with the remark of a friend, who convinced me of the fact, that Copley avoided the painting of wigs whenever he could, thus getting a step nearer nature. Pope would have made them a prominent object. I grant what you say about the 'Rape of the Lock,' but this does not prove that Pope was a poet. If you wish an instance of apoet'sfancy, look into the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' I can allow that Pope has written what is entertaining, but surely not poetical. Show me a line that makes you love God and your neighbour better, that inclines you to meekness, charity, and forbearance, and I will show you a hundred that make it easier for you to be the odious reverse of all these. In many a Pagan poet there is more Christianity. No poet could write a 'Dunciad,' or even read it. You have persuaded yourself into thinking Pope a poet, as, in looking for a long time at a stick which we believe to be an animal of some kind, we fancy that it is stirring. His letters are amusing, but do not increase one's respect for him. When you speak of his being classical, I am sure that you jest."
"Philip.—I cannot allow the parallel. In Copley's best pictures, the drapery, though you may almost hear it rustle, is wholly a subordinate matter. Witness some of those in our College-hall here at Cambridge—that of Madam Boylston especially. I remember being once much struck with the remark of a friend, who convinced me of the fact, that Copley avoided the painting of wigs whenever he could, thus getting a step nearer nature. Pope would have made them a prominent object. I grant what you say about the 'Rape of the Lock,' but this does not prove that Pope was a poet. If you wish an instance of apoet'sfancy, look into the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' I can allow that Pope has written what is entertaining, but surely not poetical. Show me a line that makes you love God and your neighbour better, that inclines you to meekness, charity, and forbearance, and I will show you a hundred that make it easier for you to be the odious reverse of all these. In many a Pagan poet there is more Christianity. No poet could write a 'Dunciad,' or even read it. You have persuaded yourself into thinking Pope a poet, as, in looking for a long time at a stick which we believe to be an animal of some kind, we fancy that it is stirring. His letters are amusing, but do not increase one's respect for him. When you speak of his being classical, I am sure that you jest."
The waves of the Atlantic have wafted acorns dropped from the British oak to the Western shores, and a wide and strong grove is growing up there. We feel our kindred with the fellow-beings of our tongue, and rejoice with a natural and keen interest in every thing true, great, and good that is produced within the States. Powers are moving there, that may, that do, want much tempering; but of which, when tempered, we augur high things. One such tempering is reverence of the past, and Pope is one of the great names which England tenders to young America. We augur ill, and are uneasy for our cousins or nephews, when we see them giving themselves airs, and knowing better than their betters. What are we to think, when instead of the fresh vigour which should rise on the soil of the self-governed, we find repetition, for the worse, of the feeblest criticisms which have disgraced some of our own weaklings? This presumptuous youngling talks technically, and does not know what he is talking about. Pope hasnotbut one invariable cæsura to his verse. He has an ordinary range of four places for his cæsura, and the variety and music which he manages to give his verse under that scheme, dictated by a sensitive ear, is truly wonderful. That Pope is only a satirist, and can find nothing in humanity but its faults, infirmities, and disgraces to feed upon with delight, is a shameful falsehood. He is as generous in praise as he is galling in sarcasm; and the voice of Christian Europe has pronounced him a moral and religious poet. It is rather strange to see the stickler for the beauty and exaltation of poetry, diligent in purifying and ennobling the taste of his countrymen, by raking in the dirt for disgusting and loathsome images, to express his slanderous character of a writer, eminent among the best for purity and refinement. We take leave of Mr Lowell with remarking, that his affected and hyperbolical praises heaped on the old English dramatists are as nauseous as any ignorant exaggeration can be, bombastically protruded on us at second-hand, from an article in an old number of theRetrospective Review, from which most of the little he knows is taken, and in the taking, turned into most monstrous nonsense.
Friends of our soul! Permit us, now, in this our Supplement, to suggest to your recollection, that Satire is public or private. Public satire is, or would he, authoritative, robed, magisterial censure. Private satire is private warfare—the worst plague of the state, and the overthrow of all right law. It is worse. For whenbaron besieges baron, there is high spirit roused, and high deeds are achieved. But private malice in verse is as if the gossiping dames of a tea-table were armed with daggers instead of words, to kill reputations—the School for Scandal turned into a tragedy. We are groaning now over the inferior versifiers. To the Poets, to the mighty ones, we forgave every thing, a month ago. We say then, again, that although duly appointed to this Chair of Justice in which we sit, and having our eyes bandaged like the Goddess whose statue is in the corner of the hall, yet our hands are open, and we are willing—as in all well-governed kingdoms judges have been willing—to take bribes. But we let it be known, we must be bribed high. Juvenal, Persius, Horace, Dryden, and Pope have soothed the itching of our palms to our heart's content; and each has gained his cause in or impartial court. Nay, we are very much afraid, that if that gall-fed, parricidal ruffian, Archilochus, who twisted his verses into a halter for noosing up his wife's father—a melancholy event to which the old gentleman, it is said, lent a helping-hand—were more to us than a tradition, we should be in danger of finding in the poignancy of his iambics a sauce too much to our relish.Avec cette sauce—cried the French gastronome, by the ecstasy of his palate bewitched out of his moral discretion—Avec cette sauce on mangerait son père!
But leaving these imaginative heights, and walking along the level ground of daily life, common sense, and sane criticism, we go on to assert that private satire, lower than the highest, is intolerable. The grandeur of moral indignation in Juvenal, never is altogether without a secret inkling of disquietude at the bottom of the breast. It may be the Muse's legitimate and imposed office to smite the offending city; but it is never her joyous task. The judge never gladly puts on the black cap. The reality oppresses us—we are sore and sick in the very breath of the contagion, even if we escape untainted by it. The power of poetry possesses us for the time, and we must submit. Perhaps it is right, if the Muse be a greatmagistra vitæ, that she should present life under all its aspects, and school us in all its disciplines; and the direct, real, official censure of manners may be a necessary part of her calling. But how differently does the indirect censure affect us! Shakspeare creating Iago, censures wily, treacherous, envious, malignant, cold-blooded villany, where and whensoever to be found. He does not fix the brand upon the forehead of a time, or of a profession, or of a man, or of a woman; but of a devil who is incarnate in every time, who exercises every profession, is an innate, is the householder rather, now in the steeled breast of a man, and now in woman's softest bosom. This ubiquitous possibility of the Mark's occurring—the ignorance of the archer where his gifted arrow will strike—ennobles, aggrandizes his person and his work. It does not weaken the service which the poet is called upon to render to humanity, by showing himself the foe of her foes. And we, the spectators of the drama—what is that strangely balanced and harmonized conflict of emotions, by means of which we at once loathe and endure the poisonous confidant of the Moor? From the depths of the heart abhorring the odious, execrable man, whilst our fancy hovers, fascinated, about the marvellous creation! Yet we do not call Shakspeare here a Satirist. The distinction is broad. The Satirist is, in the most confined, or in the most comprehensive sense—PERSONAL.
And now we doubt not, readers beloved, that while you have been enjoying these our reflections on Satire, you may likewise have been dimly foreseeing the purposed end towards which our drift is setting in, as on a strong tide. We have been dealing with first-raters. In them the power of the poetry reconciles us to the matter—mitigates the repugnancy otherwise ready to wait, in a well-constituted mind, upon a series of thoughts and images which studiously persevere in venting the passions of hate and scorn. The curse of the Muse on all middling poets—and upon Parnassus one is tempted to ascribe to the middle zone of the mountain, all those who do not cluster about one ofthe summits—the common curse seems to fall with tenfold violence upon the middling Satirist. The great poet has authority, magistery, masterdom, seated in his high spirit; and when he chooses to put forth his power, we bow before him, or stoop our heads from the descending bolt. But if one not thus privileged leap uncalled into the awful throne, to hurl self-dictated judgments, this arrogant usurpation of supremacy; justly offends and revolts us. For he who censures the age, or any notable division of contemporary society, in verse, does in fact arrogate to himself an unappealable superiority. He speaks, or affects to speak, muse-inspired, as a prophet, oracularly. He does not enquire, he thunders. Now, the thunder of a scold is any thing but agreeable—and we exclaim—
"Demens! qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmenÆre et cornipedum cursu simulârat equorum."
Poets are the givers of renown. Their word is fame. But fame is good and ill; and therefore they speak Eulogy and Satire. They are the tongues of the world. The music of verse makes way for Lear's words to all our hearts. It makes way for the Satirist's to the heart, where they are to be mortal. If mankind justly moved condemn, the Poet will find voice for that condemnation. Wo be to those who by goading provoke him, who is the organ of the universal voice, to visit his own wrong, to wreak his own vengeance on their heads! The wrong, the wrath is private; but the voice retains its universality, and they are withered as if by the blast of the general hate or scorn—
"He was not for an age, but for all time,"
said one poet of another. There are two ways of belonging to one's age. You are born of it—you die with it. Johnson disclaims for Shakspeare the co-etaneousness by birth and by death. He is the son of all time; and the inheritor of all time. His mind is the mind of ages deceased, and of ages unborn; and his writings remain to each succeeding generation, as fresh as if it had witnessed their springing into existence. They take no date.
Something of this is common to all essential poetry—
"Vivuntque commissi caloresÆoliæ fidibus puellæ."
The loves of Sappholive. They have not passed away. Theyareimmortally. Therefore the Poet, as we said, is the giver of fame. His praise—his scorn—lives for ever.
All who are worthy to read Us know how well the rude primeval people comprehended the worth of the poet. The song rang to the borders of the land or of the name, and that was glory or ignominy alive in every heart. Honour given by the poet was then a substantial possession; to be disgraced by his biting vituperation was like the infliction of a legal punishment. The whole condition of things—men's minds and their outward relations—corresponded to that which seems now to us an extraordinary procedure—that of constituting the poet, in virtue of that name, a state functionary, holding office, rank, and power. Now, the poet is but a self-constituted Censor. He holds office from the Muse only; or upon occasion from the mighty mother, Dulness. The Laureateship is the only office in the State of Poetry that is in the Queen's gift; and that, thanks to her benignity and the good sense of the nineteenth century, has become a sinecure conferred on an Emeritus.
"Hollo! my fancy, whether dost thou roam?"
Nay, she is not roaming at all—for we have been all along steering in the wind's eye right to a given point. We come now to say a few words ofCharles Churchill.
Of him it was said by one greater far, that he "blazed the meteor of a season." For four years—during life—his popularity—in London and the suburbs—was prodigious; for forty—and that is a long time after death—he was a choice classic in the libraries of aging or aged men of wit upon town; and now, that nearly a century has elapsed since he "from his horrid hair shook pestilence and war" o'er slaves and Scotsmen, tools and tyrants, peers, poetasters, priests, pimps, and players, his name is still something more than a mere dissyllable,and seems the shadow of the sound that Mother Dulness was wont to whisper in her children's ears when fretting wakefully on her neglected breasts. The Satirist, of all poets, calls the enquiry of the world upon himself. The Censor of manners should in his own be irreproachable. The satirist of a nation should feel that in that respect in which he censures he is whole and sound; that in assailing others he stands upon a rock; that his arrows cannot by a light shifting of the wind return to his own bosom. It was not so with Churchill. But he had his virtues—and he died young.
"Life tothe last enjoy'd!! here Churchill lies."
It is not of his life but his writings we purpose to speak. It is not to be thought that his reputation at the time, and among some high critics since, could be groundless. There is an air of power in his way of attacking any and every subject. He goes to work without embarrassment, with spirit and ease, and is presently in his matter, or in some matter, rarely inane. It is a part, and a high part of genius, to design; but he was destitute of invention. The self-dubbed champion of liberty and letters, he labours ostentatiously and energetically in that vocation; and in the midst of tumultuous applause, ringing round a career of almost uninterrupted success, he seldom or never seems aware that the duties he had engaged himself to perform—to his country and his kind—were far beyond his endowments—above his conception. His knowledge either of books or men was narrow and superficial. In no sense had he ever been a student. His best thoughts are all essentially common-place; but, in uttering them, there is almost always a determined plainness of words, a free step in verse, a certain boldness and skill in evading the trammel of the rhyme, deserving high praise; while often, as if spurning the style which yet does not desert him, he wears it clinging about him with a sort of disregarded grace.
The Rosciad—The Apology—Night—The Prophecy of Famine—An Epistle to William Hogarth—The Duellist—Gotham—The Author—The Conference—The Ghost—The Candidate—The Farewell—The Times—The Journey—Fragment of a Dedication—such is the list ofWorks, whereof all England rung from side to side—during the few noisy years he vapoured—as in the form of shilling or half-crown pamphlets they frighted the Town from its propriety, and gave monthly or quarterly assurance to a great people that they possessed a great living Poet, worthy of being numbered with their mightiest dead.
He began with the Play-house.
The theatre! Satire belongs to the day, and the theatre belongs to the day. They seem well met. The spirit of both is the same—intense popularity. Actors are human beings placed in an extraordinary relation to other human beings: public characters; but brought the nearer to us by being so—the good ones intimate with our bosoms, dear as friends. Their persons, features, look, gait, gesture, familiar to our thoughts, vividly engraven. They address themselves to every one of us personally, in tones that thrill and chill, or that convulse us with merriment—and all for pleasure! They ask our sympathy, but they task it not. No burthen of distress that they may lay upon us do we desire to rid off our hearts. We only call for more, more! They stir up the soul within us, as nothing else in which, personally, we are quite unconcerned, does. Therefore the praise or sarcasm that visits them, comes home to the privacy of our own feelings. Besides, they belong to the service of the Muse; and so the other servant of the Muse, the Satirist, as the superintendent of the household, may reasonably reprehend or commend them. Further, they offer themselves to favour and to disfavour, to praise, to dispraise; to the applauding hands or to the exploding hisses of the public. There is, then an attraction of fame-bestowing verse towards the stage. And yet does it not seem a pity that the unfortunate bad actors should "bide the pelting ofthispitiless storm," over and above that of others they are liable to be assailed with? What great-mindedSatirist could step down a play-bill from the first rank of performers to the second and the third—hunting out miserable mediocrities—dragging away the culprits of the stage to flagellation and the pillory? Say then, at once, that the Satirist is not great-minded, and his motives are not pure desires for the general benefit. He is by the gift of nature witty, and rather ill-natured. He very much enjoys his own wit, and he hopes that you have fun enough in you to enjoy his jests, and so he breaks them.The Rosciadis, we believe, by far the best of Churchill's performances; very clever, indeed, and characteristic; at the head of all theatrical criticism in verse; yet an achievement, in spite of the talent and ingenuity it displays, not now perusable without an accompanying feeling akin to contempt.
"Gotham" is an irregular, poetical whim, of which it is easier to describe the procedure than to assign the reasonable purpose. Gotham itself is a country unknown to our geographers, which Churchill has discovered, and of which, in right of that discovery, he assumes the sovereignty under his own undisguised name, King Churchill. After spiritedly arraigning the exercise in the real world of that right by which he rules in his imaginary kingdom—a right which establishes the civilised in the lands of the enslaved or expatriated uncivilised, he spends the rest of his first canto in summoning all creatures, rational and irrational, to join the happy Gothamites in the universal choral celebration of his mounting the throne. The second canto, for some two hundred verses, insists upon the necessity of marrying Sense with Art, to produce good writing, and Learning with Humanity, to produce useful writing; and then turns off bitterly to characterise the reigns in succession of the Stuarts, by way of warning to his Gothamites against the temptation to admit a vagrant Stuart for their king. The third canto delivers the rules by which he, King Churchill, who purposes being the father of his people, designs to govern his own reign. That is all. What and where is Gotham? What is the meaning of this royalty with which the poet invests himself? What is the drift, scope, and unity of the poem? Gotham is not, and is, England. It is not England, for he tells us in the poem that he is born in England, and that he is not born in Gotham; besides which, he expressly distinguishes the two countries by admonishing the Gothamites to search "England's fair records," for the sake of imbibing a due hatred for the House of Stuart. It is England, for it is an island which "Freedom's pile, by ancient wisdom raised, adorns," making it great and glorious, feared abroad and happy at home, secure from force or fraud. Moreover, her merchants are princes. The conclusion is, that Gotham is England herself, poetically disidentified by a very thin and transparent disguise. The sovereignty of King Churchill, if it mean any thing capable of being said in prose, may shadow the influence and authority which a single mind, assuming to itself an inborn call to ascendancy, wishes and hopes to possess over the intelligence of its own compatriot nation; and this may be conjectured in a writer who principally dedicates himself to the championship of political principles. The rules, in the Third Book, for the conduct of a prince, afford the opportunity of describing the idea of a patriot king, of censuring that which is actually done adversely to these rules; and, at the same time, they acquire something of a peculiar meaning, if they are to be construed as a scheme of right political thinking—the intelligence of the general welfare which is obligatory upon the political ruler being equally so upon the political teacher. If this kind of deliberate, allegorical design may be mercifully supposed, the wild self-imagination, and apparently downright nonsense of the First Book, may pretend a palliation of its glaring vanity and absurdity; since the blissful reign of King Churchill over Gotham, which is extolled very much like the "Jovis incrementum," in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, thus comes to mean, when translated into the language of men, the reign in England of the opinions for which Churchill battles in rhyme. Or, this may be too much attribution of plan to a caprice that meant little or nothing. The first book waspublished by itself, and may have aimed at something to which the author found that he could not give shape and consistency. Yet Cowper declares Gotham to be a noble and beautiful poem.
The Authormight almost seem intended for a sequel to MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad. Not that it assumes, like them, a fanciful vehicle for the satire, but it undertakes the lashing of peccant authors, and recognisesDulnessas an enthroned power to whose empire the writer is hostile; and where he adverts to his own early life, and clerical destination, he mentions her as the patroness upon whom his friends had relied for his future church preferment.
"But now, when Dulness rears aloft her throne,When lordly vassals her wide empire own;When Wit, seduced by Envy, starts aside,And basely leagues with Ignorance and Pride, &c.****Bred to the church, and for the gown decreed,Ere it was known that I should learn to read;Though that was nothing for my friends, who knewWhat mighty Dulness of itself could do,Never design'd me for a working priest,But hoped I should have been a dean at least," &c.
The writers more formally and regularly attacked, are Smollett, Murphy, Shebbeare, Guthrie, and one Kidgell, who contrived to earn shame, in exposing to shame the printed but unpublished obscenity and blasphemy of Wilkes. Johnson gets a good word as a state-pensioner, Francis, the translator of Horace, for dulness apparently, and Mason, and even Gray, are signalized,en passant, as artificial rhymesters! The general tenor of the poem complains that in these days true learning, genius, and the honesty of authorship are of no account; whilst the political profligacy of the pen ensures favour and pay. The first hundred lines forcibly express the inspiring indignation proper to the subject, and some of them are still occasionally quoted; but how inferior all to corresponding strains in Dryden and Pope! They were poets indeed—he was not a poet. He has not fancy or imagination—they had both—they were consummate masters in their art: he was but a bold bungler after all. In proof, take the best passage inThe Author.
"Is this—O death to think!—is this the landWhere merit and reward went hand in hand?Where heroes, parent-like, the poet view'd,By whom they saw their glorious deeds renew'd?Where poets, true to honour, tuned their lays,And by their patrons sanctified their praise?Is this the land where, on our Spenser's tongue,Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung?Where Jonson rigid Gravity beguiled,While Reason through her critic fences smiled?Where Nature listening stood whilst Shakspeare play'd,And wonder'd at the work herself had made?Is this the land where, mindful of her charge,And office high, fair Freedom walk'd at large?Where, finding in our laws a sure defence,She mock'd at all restraints, but those of sense?Where, Health and Honour trooping by her side,She spreads her sacred empire far and wide;Pointed the way, Affliction to beguile,And bade the face of Sorrow wear a smile—Bade those who dare obey the generous callEnjoy her blessings, which God meant for all?Is this the land where, in some tyrant's reign,When a weak, wicked, ministerial train,The tools of power, the slaves of interest, plann'dTheir country's ruin, and with bribes unmann'dThose wretches, who ordain'd in Freedom's cause,Gave up our liberties, and sold our laws;When Power was taught by Meanness where to go,Nor dared to love the virtue of a foe;When, like a lep'rous plague, from the foul headTo the foul heart her sores Corruption spread,Her iron arm when stern Oppression rear'd,And Virtue, from her broad base shaken, fear'dThe scourge of Vice; when, impotent and vain,Poor Freedom bow'd the neck to Slavery's chain?Is this the land, where, in those worst of times,The hardy poet raised his honest rhymesTo dread rebuke, and bade Controlment speakIn guilty blushes on the villain's cheek;Bade Power turn pale, kept mighty rogues in awe,And made hem fear the Muse, who fear'd not law?"How do I laugh, when men of narrow souls,Whom folly guides, and prejudice controls;Who, one dull drowsy track of business trod,Worship their Mammon, and neglect their God;Who, breathing by one musty set of rules,Dote from their birth, and are by system fools;Who, form'd to dulness from their very youth,Lies of the day prefer to Gospel-truth;Pick up their little knowledge from Reviews,And lay out all their stock of faith in news;How do I laugh, when creatures form'd like these,Whom Reason scorns, and I should blush to please,Rail at all liberal arts, deem verse a crime,And hold not truth as truth, if told in rhyme?"
These are commendable verses, but they are not the verses of a true poet. For instance, when he will praise the greatest poets—
"Is this the land, where, on our Spenser'stongue,Enamour'd of hisvoice, Description hung"—
the intention is good, and there is some love in the singling out of the name; but Description is almost the lowest, not the highest praise of Spenser. The language too is mean and trite, not that of one who is "inflammatus amore" of the sacred poet whom he praises. How differently does Lucretius praise Epicurus! The words blaze as he names him. How differently does Pope or Gray praise Dryden! Even in Churchill's few words there is the awkward and heavy tautology—tongue and voice. It is more like the tribute of duty than sensibility. The well-known distich on Shakspeare is rather good—it utters with a vigorous turn the general sentiment, the nation's wonder of its own idol. But compare Gray, who also brings Nature and Shakspeare together; or see him speaking of Dryden or Milton, and you see how a poet speaks of a poet—thrilled with recollections—reflecting, not merely commemorating, the power. Indeed, we design to have a few (perhaps twenty) articles entitled Poets on Poets—in which we shall collect chronologically the praises of the brotherhood by the brotherhood. In the mean time we do believe that the one main thing which you miss in Churchill is the true poetical touch and temper of the spirit. He is, as far as he succeeds, a sort of inferior Junius in verse—sinewy, keen—with a good, ready use of strong, plain English; but he has no rapture. His fire is volcanic, not solar. Yet no light praise it is, that he rejects frivolous ornament, and trusts to the strength of the thought, and of the good or ill within. But besides the disparity—which is great—of strength, of intellectual rank—this draws an insuperable difference in kind between him and Pope or Dryden, that they are essentially poets. The gift of song is on their lips. If they turn Satirists, they bring the power to another than its wonted andnative vocation. But Churchill obtains the power only in satirizing. As Iago says—
"For I am nothing if not critical."
Is this merely a repetition of Juvenal's "facit indignatio versus," rendered in prose, "Indignation makesmea poet," who am not a poet by nature? In the first place, Juvenal prodigiously transcends Churchill in intellectual strength; and in the second, Juvenal has far more of essential poetry, although hidden in just vituperation, and in the imposed worldliness of his matter. But we must pull up.
The so-called "Epistle to Hogarth" is, after the wont of Churchill, a shapeless, undigested performance. It is nothing in the likeness of an epistle; but for three hundred lines a wandering, lumbering rhapsody, addressed to nobody, which, after abusing right and left, suddenly turns to Hogarth, whom it introduces by summoning him to stand forth at the bar in the Court of Conscience, an exemplar of iniquities worse than could have been believed of humanity, were he not there to sustain the character, and authenticate the rightful delineation. Thenceforwards obstreperously railing on, overwhelming the great painter with exaggerated reproaches for envy that persecuted all worth, for untired self-laudation, for painting his unfortunateSigismunda; and oh! shame of song! for the advancing infirmities of old age. The merits of Hogarth, as master of comic painting, are acknowledged in lines that have been often quoted, and are of very moderate merit—not worth a rush. "The description of his age and infirmities," as Garrick said at the time, "is too shocking and barbarous." It nauseates the soul; and unmasks in the Satirist the rancorous and malignant hostility which assumes the disguise of a righteous indignation.
"Hogarth! stand forth.—Nay, hang not thus aloof—Now, Candor! now thou shalt receive such proof,Such damning proof, that henceforth thou shalt fearTo tax my wrath, and own my conduct clear—Hogarth! stand forth—I dare thee to be try'dIn that great court where Conscience must preside;At that most solemn bar hold up thy hand;Think before whom, on what account, you stand—Speak, but consider well—from first to lastReview thy life, weigh ev'ry action past—Nay, you shall have no reason to complain—Take longer time, and view them o'er again—Canst thou remember from thy earliest youth,And, as thy God must judge thee, speak the truth;A single instance where, self laid aside,And justice taking place of fear and pride,Thou with an equal eye did'st genius view,And give to merit what was merit's due?Genius and merit are a sure offence,And thy soul sickens at the name of sense.Is any one so foolish to succeed?On Envy's altar he is doom'd to bleed;Hogarth, a guilty pleasure in his eyes,The place of executioner supplies:See how he glotes, enjoys the sacred feast,And proves himself by cruelty a priest."Whilst the weak artist, to thy whims a slave,Would bury all those pow'rs which Nature gave;Would suffer black concealment to obscureThose rays thy jealousy could not endure;To feed thy vanity would rust unknown,And to secure thy credit blast his own,In Hogarth he was sure to find a friendHe could not fear, and therefore might commend:But when his Spirit, rous'd by honest shame,Shook off that lethargy, and soar'd to fame;When, with the pride of man, resolv'd and strong,He scorn'd those fears which did his honour wrong,And, on himself determin'd to rely,Brought forth his labours to the public eye,No friend in thee could such a rebel know;He had desert, and Hogarth was his foe."Souls of a tim'rous cast, of petty nameIn Envy's court, not yet quite dead to shame,May some remorse, some qualms of conscience feel,And suffer honour to abate their zeal;But the man truly and completely greatAllows no rule of action but his hate;Thro' ev'ry bar he bravely breaks his way,Passion his principle, and parts his prey.Mediums in vice and virtue speak a mindWithin the pale of temperance confin'd;The daring spirit scorns her narrow schemes,And, good or bad, is always in extremes."Man's practice duly weigh'd, thro' ev'ry ageOn the same plan hath Envy form'd her rage,'Gainst those whom fortune hath our rivals made,In way of science and in way of trade:Stung with mean jealousy she arms her spite,First works, then views their ruin with delight.Our Hogarth here a grand improver shines,And nobly on the gen'ral plan refines:He like himself o'erleaps the servile bound;Worth is his mark, wherever worth is found;Should painters only his vast wrath suffice?Genius in ev'ry walk is lawful prize:'Tis a gross insult to his o'ergrown state;His love to merit is to feel his hate."When Wilkes, our countryman, our common friend,Arose, his king, his country, to defend;When tools of pow'r he bar'd to public view,And from their holes the sneaking cowards drew;When Rancour found it far beyond her reachTo soil his honour and his truth impeach;What could induce thee, at a time and placeWhere manly foes had blush'd to show their face,To make that effort which must damn thy name,And sink thee deep, deep, in thy grave with shame?Did virtue move thee? No; 'twas pride, rank pride,And if thou had'st not done it thou had'st dy'd.Malice, (who, disappointed of her end,Whether to work the bane of foe or friend,Preys on herself, and driven to the stake,Gives virtue that revenge she scorns to take,)Had kill'd thee, tott'ring on life's utmost verge,Had Wilkes and Liberty escap'd thy scourge."When that Great Charter, which our fathers brought;With their best blood, was into question bought,When, big with ruin, o'er each English headVile slav'ry hung suspended by a thread;When Liberty, all trembling and aghast,Fear'd for the future, knowing what was past;When ev'ry breast was chill'd with deep despair,Till reason pointed out that Pratt was there;Lurking most ruffian-like behind a screen,So plac'd all things to see, himself unseen,Virtue, with due contempt, saw Hogarth stand,The murd'rous pencil in his palsied hand.What was the cause of Liberty to him,Or what was Honour? let them sink or swim,So he may gratify without controlThe mean resentment of his selfish soul;Let freedom perish, if, to freedom true,In the same ruin Wilkes may perish too."With all the symptoms of assur'd decay,With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away,Pale qiuv'ring lips, lank cheeks, and falt'ring tongue,The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung,The body shrivell'd up, thy dim eyes sunkWithin their sockets deep, thy weak hams shrunk,The body's weight unable to sustain,The stream of life scarce trembling, thro' the vein,More than half-kill'd by honest truths, which fellThro' thy own fault from men who wish'd thee well,Canst thou, ev'n thus, thy thoughts to vengeance give,And, dead to all things else, to malice live?Hence, Dotard! to thy closet; shut thee in;By deep repentance wash away thy sin;From haunts of men to shame and sorrow fly,And, on the verge of death, learn how to die."
What was Hogarth's unpardonable sin? Nature had lodged the unlovely soul of Jack Wilkes in an unlovely and ludicrous person, which the wicked and inimitable pencil of Hogarth had made a little unlovelier perhaps, and a little more ludicrous. Horace Walpole spoke in his usual clear-cutting style of Mr Charles Pylades and Mr John Orestes. They liked one another, and ran the scent, strong as a trail of rancid fish-guts, of the same pleasures—but let not such hunting in couples profane the name of friendship.
"For me, who warm and zealous for my friend,In spite of railing thousands, will commend,And, no less warm and zealous 'gainst my foes,Spite of commending thousands, will oppose—I dare thy worst, with scorn behold thy rage;But with an eye of pity view thy age—Thy feeble age! in which, as in a glass,We see how men to dissolution pass.Thou wretched being! whom, on reason's plan,So chang'd, so lost, I cannot call a man—What could persuade thee at this time of life,To launch afresh into the sea of strife!Better for thee, scarce crawling on the earth,Almost as much a child as at thy birth;To have resign'd in peace thy parting breath,And sunk unnotic'd in the arms of death.Why would thy gray, gray hairs resentment brave,Thus to go down with sorrow to the grave?Now, by my soul! it makes me blush to knowMy spirit could descend to such a foe:Whatever cause the vengeance might provoke;It seems rank cowardice to give the stroke."Sure 'tis a curse which angry Fates imposeTo mortify man's arrogance, that thoseWho're fashion'd of some better sort of clayMuch sooner than the common herd decay.What bitter pangs must humble Genius feelIn their last hours, to view a Swift and Steele!How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast,When she beholds men mark'd above the restFor qualities most dear, plung'd from that height,And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night!Are men, indeed, such things? and are the bestMore subject to this evil than the rest;To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,And sit the monuments of living Death!O! galling circumstance to human pride!Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd.With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought.Constant attention wears the active mind,Blots out her pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind,But let not youth, to insolence ally'd,In heat of blood, in full career of pride,Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rageMock the infirmities of rev'rend age:The greatest genius to this fate may bow;Reynolds in time may be like Hogarth now."
One makes allowance, in reading, for the inflamed temper of the times, for a judgment disturbed with personal anger, and for the self-consciousness which, hardly separable from talent, stirs and sustains its energies. But—Churchill demolishing Hogarth! It is startling—rather melancholy—and very amusing. One compares fame with fame—the transitory and the imperishable. The wave, lashed into fury, that comes on, mountain-swollen, all rage, and froth, and thunder, to dash itself into spray against some Atlas of the Deep—some huge brother of Time, whose cheeks the wings of the centuries caress, and of whose hand storms that distract heaven and earth are but toys.
Of the "Prophecy of Famine," Wilkes, before its publication, said he "was sure it would take, as it was at once personal, poetical, and political." And take it did—going off in thousands, and tens of thousands. The Whig coteries, of course, cried it up to the skies; and the established authorities declared that Pope must now hide his diminished head. Such nonsense Churchill swallowed; for he had tried to take it into his head that Pope was a fool to him, and in his cups was wont to vent a wish that little Alec were alive, that he might break his heart. That was the delusion of delirium. Inflated with vanity as he was, he must, when sober, have known well he could not with his cudgel, readily though he flourished it, have lived for five minutes before that Master of the rapier.
Scotsmen as we are to the spine, it is possible that we may be incapacitated by the strength of our backbone for perceiving the mighty merit of this astonishing satire. Steeped to the lips in national prejudices in favour of Scotland, (not against England—heaven forbid!) imbibed with the first gulp of Glenlivet that more than three quarters of a century ago went gurgling down our filial throats—inured to hunger from our tenderest years—"in life's morning march when our spirits were young," ignorant of shoes, though haply not inexpert of sulphur—to us, thus born and thus bred, it may not be given to behold with our outward eyes, and feel with our inward hearts, the full glory of "The Prophecy of Famine." Boswell, with an uneasy smirk, rather than a ghastly grin, said, "It is indeed falsely applied to Scotland, but may on that account be allowed a greater share of invention." Johnson in his heart loved Scotland, as all his jeers show; and perhaps on that account was, like ourselves, no fair judge of Churchill's genius. "I called the fellow a blockhead at first—and I call him a blockhead still," comprehended all his performances in one general contempt. In later times, Jeffrey has dismissed him with little ceremony to find his place at the Third Table. Campbell, who, though a Whig, cared nothing about Churchill, acknowledges having been amused bythe laughable extravagance of the "Prophecy." And Lord Mahon says, "that it may yet be read with all the admiration which the most vigorous powers of verse and the most lively touches of wit can earn in the cause of slander and falsehood."
Suppose, rough-and-ready Readers, that you judge for yourselves. You have not a copy of Churchill—so passing over the first part of the poem—about three hundred lines—as dull as ditchwater in the season of powheads—let us give you the cream, or marrow, or pith of the famous "Prophecy of Famine," before which Scotia, "our auld respectit mither," bowed down and fell, and was thought by some to have given up the ghost, or at least "tined her dam."
"Two boys, whose birth, beyond all question, springsFrom great and glorious tho' forgotten kings,Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bredOn the same bleak and barren mountain's head;By niggard Nature doom'd on the same rocksTo spin out life, and starve themselves and flocks;Fresh as the morning which, enrob'd in mist,The mountain's top with usual dulness kiss'd,Jockey and Sawney, to their labours rose;Soon clad I ween where Nature needs no clothes,Where, from their youth inur'd to winter-skies,Dress and her vain refinements they despise."Jockey, whose manly high-bon'd cheeks to crown,With freckles spotted flam'd the golden down,With meikle art could on the bagpipes play,Ev'n from the rising to the setting day:Sawney as long without remorse could bawlHome's madrigals, and ditties from Fingal:Oft at his strains, all natural tho' rude,The Highland lass forgot her want of food;And, whilst she scratch'd her lover into rest,Sunk pleas'd, tho' hungry, on her Sawney's breast."Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen,Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively green:The plague of locusts they secure defy,For in three hours a grasshopper must die:No living thing, whate'er its food, feasts there,But the chameleon, who can feast on air.No birds, except as birds of passage, flew;No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo:No streams, as amber smooth, as amber clear,Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here:Rebellion's spring, which thro' the country ran,Furnish'd with bitter draughts the steady clan:No flow'rs embalm'd the air but one White Rose,Which on the tenth of June by instinct blows,By instinct blows at morn, and when the shadesOf drizzly eve prevail, by instinct fades."One, and but one, poor solitary cave,Too sparing of her favours, Nature gave;That one alone (hard tax on Scottish pride!)Shelter at once for man and beast supply'd.Their snares without entangling briers spread,And thistles, arm'd against the invader's head,Stood in close ranks, all entrance to oppose,Thistles! now held more precious than the Rose.All creatures which, on Nature's earliest plan,Were form'd to loathe and to be loath'd by man,Which ow'd their birth to nastiness and spite,Deadly to touch, and hateful to the sight;Creatures, which, when admitted in the ark,Their saviour shunn'd, and rankled in the dark,Found place within. Marking her noisome roadWith poison's trail, here crawl'd the bloated toad;There webs were spread of more than common size,And half-starv'd spiders prey'd on half-starv'd flies;In quest of food, efts strove in vain to crawl;Slugs, pinch'd with hunger, smear'd the slimy wall:The cave around with hissing serpents rung;On the damp roof unhealthy vapour hung;And Famine, by her children always known,As proud as poor, here fix'd her native throne."Here, for the sullen sky as overcast,And summer shrunk beneath a wintry blast,A native blast, which, arm'd with hail and rain,Beat unrelenting on the naked swain,The boys for shelter made: behind the sheep,Of which those shepherds ev'ry day take keep,Sickly crept on, and, with complainings rude,On Nature seem'd to call and bleat for food."Jockey.Sith to this cave by tempest we're confin'd,And within ken our flocks, under the wind,Safe from the pelting of this per'lous storm,Are laid among yon' thistles, dry and warm,What, Sawney! if by shepherds' art we tryTo mock the rigour of this cruel sky?What if we tune some merry roundelay?Well dost thou sing, nor ill doth Jockey play."Sawney.Ah Jockey, ill advisest thou, I wis,To think of songs at such a time as this;Sooner shall herbage crown these barren rocks,Sooner shall fleeces clothe these ragged flocks,Sooner shall want seize shepherds of the south,And we forget to live from hand to mouth,Than Sawney, out of season, shall impartTho songs of gladness with an aching heart."Jockey.Still have I known thee for a silly swain;Of things past help what boots it to complain?Nothing but mirth can conquer Fortune's spite;No sky is heavy if the heart be light:Patience is sorrow's salve: what can't be cur'd,So Donald right areeds, must be endur'd."Sawney.Full silly swain, I wot, is Jockey now;How didst thou bear thy Maggy's falsehood? how,When with a foreign loon she stole away,Didst thou forswear thy pipe and shepherd's lay?Where was thy boasted wisdom then, when IApply'd those proverbs which you now apply?"Jockey.O she was bonny! all the Highlands roundWas there a rival to my Maggy found?More precious (tho' that precious is to all)Than the rare med'cine which we Brimstone call,Or that choice plant, so grateful to the nose,Which in I-know-not-what-far country grows,Was Maggy unto me: dear do I rueA lass so fair should ever prove untrue."Sawney.Whether with pipe or song to charm the ear,Thro' all the land did Jamie find a peer?Curs'd be that year by ev'ry honest Scot,And in the shepherds' kalendar forgot,That fatal year, when Jamie, hapless swain!In evil hour forsook the peaceful plain:Jamie, when our young laird discreetly fled,Was seiz'd, and hang'd till he was dead, dead, dead."Jockey.Full sorely may we all lament that day,For all were losers in the deadly fray;Five brothers had I on the Scottish plains,Well dost thou know were none more hopeful swains;Five brothers there I lost, in manhood's pride,Two in the field, and three on gibbets dy'd:Ah! silly swains! to follow war's alarms;Ah! what hath shepherd's life to do with arms?"Sawney.Mention it not—There saw I strangers cladIn all the honours of our ravish'd Plaid;Saw the Ferrara, too, our nation's pride,Unwilling grace the awkward victor's side.There fell our choicest youth, and from that dayMote never Sawney tune the merry lay;Bless'd those which fell! curs'd those which still survive!To mourn Fifteen renew'd in Forty-five."
As our memory of our personal experiences about the period in Scottish history at which the above scene is laid is extremely obscure, we cannot take upon ourselves to speak authoritatively of the fidelity of the picture. But Churchill, we grieve to say it, was a regular—a thorough Cockney. The instant a Cockney opens his mouth, or puts pen to paper about Scotland, he stands confessed. Here Charles's attempt at the Scottish dialect betrays the taint. Not a single one of the words he chucklingly puts into the lips of Jockey and Sawney as characteristically Scoto-Arcadian, was ever heard or seen by the breechless swains of that pastoral realm. Never does an alien look so silly to the natives, be they who they may, as when instructing them in their own language, or mimicking the niceties and delicacies of its dialects. They pardonably think him little better than a fool; nor does he mend the matter much by telling them that he is satirical and a wit.
Considerable latitude in the article of language must be allowed to the poet, who presents to us engaged in dialogue two natives of a country where clothes and victuals are nearly unknown. "Rude must they be in speech—and little graced with the set phrase of peace." Churchill was bound to have conceived for them an utterance natural to their condition, as Shakspeare did for Caliban. But over and above the Cockneyisms committed by him, he makes them twaddle like middle-aged men in middle-sized towns, who had passed all their nights in blankets, and all their days in breeches, with as liberal an allowance of food as parish paupers.
"To mock the rigour of this cruel sky,""In all the honours of our ravish'd plaid"—"Unwilling grace the awkward victor's side,"
have here no dramatic propriety we opine—and show the slobberer.
The Satirist betrays the same poverty of invention in the sentiments as in the language of the Swains. They illustrate no concealed character—they reveal no latent truth.
"Rebellion's spring, which through the country ran,Furnished with bitter draughtsthe steady clan;"
and yet the swains are averse from war, and exclaim—
"Ah! silly swains! to follow war's alarms;Ah! what hath shepherd's life to do with arms?"
And, at the same time, they talk of—
"the Ferrara, too, our nation's pride."
The dialogue is throughout absolutely stupid. You are not made by it either to hate or despise the Swains, nor are you led to laugh at them; but lay down the satire for minute or two, peevishly suspecting that you have been reading arrant nonsense.
You take up the trash again; and, being a Scotsman, you are perhaps not altogether quite so well pleased to find that it suddenly waxes into something very like poetry. The description of the cave had made youwince—why, you knew not; for nothing the least like it ever existed in Scotland, or out of it; and your high cheekbones had tingled. The reprobate can write, you are forced to confess, while Christopher North holds up to your confusion the picture of Famine.
"Thus plain'd the boys, when from her throne of turfWith boils emboss'd, and overgrown with scurf,Vile humours, which, in life's corrupted well,Mix'd at the birth, not abstinence could quell,Pale Famine rear'd the head; her eager eyes,Where hunger ev'n to madness seem'd to rise,Speaking aloud her throes and pangs of heart,Strain'd to get loose, and from their orbs to start.Her hollow cheeks were each a deep sunk cell,Where wretchedness and horror lov'd to dwell:With double rows of useless teeth supply'd,Her mouth from ear to ear extended wide,Which when for want of food her entrails pin'dShe op'd, and, cursing, swallow'd nought but wind:All shrivell'd was her skin; and here and there,Making their way by force, her bones lay bare:Such filthy sight to hide from human viewO'er her foul limbs a tatter'd plaid she threw."'Cease,' cry'd the goddess, 'cease, despairing swains!And from a parent hear what Jove ordains."'Pent in this barren corner of the isle,Where partial Fortune never deign'd to smile,Like Nature's bastards, reaping for our shareWhat was rejected by the lawful heir;Unknown amongst the nations of the earth,Or only known to raise contempt and mirth;Long free, because the race of Roman bravesThought it not worth their while to make us slaves,Then into bondage by that nation broughtWhose ruin we for ages vainly sought,Whom still with unslak'd hate we view, and still,The pow'r of mischief lost, retain the will;Consider'd as the refuse of mankind,A mass till the last moment left behind,Which frugal Nature doubted, as it lay,Whether to stamp with life or throw away;Which, form'd in haste, was planted in this nook,But never enter'd in Creation's book,Branded as traitors, who, for love of gold,Would sell their God, as once their king they sold;Long have we borne this mighty weight of ill,These vile injurious taunts, and bear them still;But times of happier note are now at hand,And the full promise of a better land:There, like the sons of Isr'el, having trodeFor the fix'd term of years ordain'd by God,A barren desert, we shall seize rich plains,Where milk with honey flows, and plenty reigns:With some few natives join'd, some pliant few,Who worship int'rest, and our track pursue;There shall we, tho' the wretched people grieve,Ravage at large, nor ask the owners' leave."'For us the earth shall bring forth her increase;For us the flocks shall wear a golden fleece;Fat beeves shall yield us dainties not our own,And the grape bleed a nectar yet unknown:For our advantage shall their harvests grow,And Scotsmen reap what they disdain'd to sow:For us the sun shall climb the eastern hill;For us the rain shall fall, the dew distil:When to our wishes Nature cannot rise,Art shall be task'd to grant us fresh supplies;His brawny arm shall drudging Labour strain,And for our pleasure suffer daily pain:Trade shall for us exert her utmost pow'rs,Hers all the toil, and all the profit ours:For us the oak shall from his native steepDescend, and fearless travel thro' the deep;The sail of commerce, for our use unfurl'd,Shall waft the treasures of each distant world;For us sublimer heights shall science reach;For us their statesmen plot, their churchmen preach:Their noblest limbs of counsel we'll disjoint,And, mocking, new ones of our own appoint:Devouring War, imprison'd in the north,Shall at our call in horrid pomp break forth;And when, his chariot wheels with thunder hung,Fell Discord braying with her brazen tongue,Death in the van, with Anger, Hate, and Fear,And Desolation stalking in the rear,Revenge, by Justice guided, in his train,He drives inpet'ous o'er the trembling plain,Shall at our bidding quit his lawful prey,And to meek, gentle, gen'rous Peace give way."'Think not, my sons! that this so bless'd estateStands at a distance on the roll of Fate;Already big with hopes of future sway,Ev'n from this cave I scent my destin'd prey.Think not that this dominion o'er a race,Whose former deeds shall Time's last annals grace,In the rough face of peril must be sought,And with the lives of thousands dearly bought:No—fool'd by cunning, by that happy artWhich laughs to scorn the blund'ring hero's heart,Into the snare shall our kind neighbours fall,With open eyes, and fondly give us all."
Alongside of any one of the masterpieces of Dryden or Pope, this, perhaps the most vigorous thing of Churchill's, is seen to be a daub. Yet Cockney connoisseurs still think it a fine picture. When fresh from the easel, it was thus praised by a metropolitan critic:—
"You'll own the great Churchill possesses, I hope,More fancy than Cowley, more numbers than Pope;More strength, too, than Dryden—for, think on what's past,He has not only rivall'd, but beat them at last."
A hearty national prejudice is no bad foundation for a Poem. It implies one great requisite of success—a secure large sympathy. This "trusted home" animates the poet; and a reception, answering to the confidence, awaits the work. Moreover, ungrounded or exaggerated as these depreciations and antipathies are likely to be, they usually spring out of some deep-laid element in the character of those who entertain them, and have thus the vital warmth and strength that feed poetry, and an original truth of nature mixed up amongst fallacies of opinion. Caricatured representation is the proper vehicle. For Censure is then half disarmed, when to her exception, "This is not so," the reply lies upon the face of the performance, "Neither is it offered for true." The hyperbole of the phrase covers the distortion of the thinking. If we are to find fault with Churchill's "Prophecy of Famine," it must be upon some other ground than the injustice or cruelty of the attack upon poor Scotland, or the hardness of the hits delivered, it may be, by a fist gloved in iron.
Who grudges the attack? Not Sawney himself, if it is made in masterly style. A magnanimous combatant, who has the true enthusiasm of the fight, admires the skill of the stroke that threatens him with defeat or death. Spite, malice, aversion, enmity, are not ingratiating demonstrations. Far from it. Ill-will is naturally met with ill-will. But besides that which is unavoidably self-regarding in such a relation of parties, room is open for views of a more general feature, of a more generous complexion. John Bull scowls at Sawney, and makes mouths at his oatmeal diet, with lips to which the memory of his own roast-beef cleaves. The last-mentioned dish is not altogether unknown north of the Tweed. But John Bull knows not the unimaginable fact, or knew it not, for the barrier is now widely broken down. Sawney has humour enough to be amused by the writhing apprehension of dry and lean fare which deforms the well-fed and jocund face of the bacon-bolter.
There is in the description and Amabæan lament of the two gaunt and shivering young Arcadians, and in the cave of the tutelary Goddess, Famine, the intention at least of the picturesque and poetical. The fault is, that the thing has no bringing out or completeness. It is incomposite—as a plan, unintelligible. Are thedramatis personæ, Sawney, Jockey, and the Goddess, with Sawney's love, the whole population of Scotland? Do the two lads, and their sheep, and Famine, occupy the same sole cave which is all the houses in Scotland? Is it a comprehensive Allegory under the guise of a pastoral Idyl? A ground is laid; and it is easy to conceive that a Hogarth in verse, with his stored eye, and that hand mimic and creative, which, by some unmistaken touch of nature, sets upon capricious extravagance the known seal of truth, might have finished a picture which experience itself would have half-believed in spite of its conviction, that never had there been such an hungered race. But such a Hogarth in verse was not Churchill. Upon the ground laid, a Satire might have been made out by such a genius, exaggerated, witty, poetical—pleasing even to the posterity of the victims. But instead of crowded ideas, here are but three or four. This writing does, in fact, not express the national prejudices of South Britain against North Britain. It expresses the zeal of party and of a partizan. One can hardly conceive such an ignorance of Scotland in England, as that a man of ability wishing to traduce and ridicule the country, should sit down contented under such a paucity of mischievous information. He writes under one simple rule—negation. To deny food, to deny clothes, to deny houses, to deny sunshine, grass,riverseven, requires no mental effort of any kind, and is the part of a dunce and an ignoramus. For any thing positive, the Scotch are proud, have high cheekbones, and love brimstone and rebellion. That is the amount of the picture. Famine consoles the two hungry lads who mourn over the Fifteen and the Forty-five, with prophesying the invasion and conquest of England by the Bute Administration—a glorious hope, a national redress, and a private filling of empty purses and stomachs. Churchill was himself poverty-stricken in mind, during the composition of this blunder, to a degree that never befell any true poet.