All the abuses of ecclesiastical property seem to have flourished in the land of Wales, as in a nook where there was no chance of their being ever brought to light;—more than one-half of the income of the church, for parochial purposes, totally alienated; the bishops and other dignitaries totally asleep, and exercising no spiritual supervision; pluralities and non-residence prevailing to a great extent; the character of the clergy degraded; the gentry and aristocracy of the land starving the church, and giving it a formal, not a real support;—how can any spiritual system flourish under such an accumulation of evils? The true spirit of the church being dead, a reaction on the part of the people inevitably took place; and it is hardly going too far to say, that had it not been for the efforts of dissenters, "progressing by antagonism," Christianity would by this time have fallen into desuetude within the Principality.
It is a very thorny subject to touch upon, in the present excitable state of the world, and therefore we refrain; but we would earnestly solicit the attention of our readers to the pages of Sir Thomas Phillips,—himself one of the very few orthodox churchmen still left in Wales,—for a proof of what we have asserted; and should they still doubt, let them try an excursion among the wilds of the northern, or the vales of the southern division of the country, and they will become full converts to our opinion. Things, however, in this respect are mending—the church has at length stirred, abuses are becoming corrected, the ecclesiastical commissioners have done justice in several cases—and in none more signally than in the extraordinary epitome of all possible abuses, shown by the chapter of Brecon—abuses existing long before the Reformation, but increased, like many others, tenfold since that period. The church has never yet had fair play in the country, for she has never yet done herself—much less her people—justice; so that what she is capable of effecting among the Cambrian mountains cannot yet be predicated. We fondly think, at times, that all these evils might be abolished; but this is not the place for such a lengthy topic: we have adverted to the state of things as they have hitherto existed in the Principality, chiefly with the view of showing their influence upon the peculiar political and ethnical condition of the people, which it is our main object to discuss. We will content ourselves with observing, that Sir Thomas Phillips' remarks on this subject, and on the connexion of the state with the education of the country, are characterised by sound religious feeling, and a true conservative interpretation of the political condition of the empire.
On a calm view of the general condition of Wales, we are of opinion that the inhabitants, the mass of the nation, are as well off, in proportion to the means of the country itself, to the moderate quantity of capital collected in the Principality, and the number of resident gentry—which is not very great—as might have been fairly expected; and that it is no true argument against the national capabilities of the Welsh, that they are not more nearly on a level with the inhabitants of some parts of England. The Welsh inhabit a peculiar land, where fog and rain, and snow and wind, are more prevalent than fine working weather in more favoured spots of this island. A considerable part of their land is still unreclaimed and uncultivated—their country does not serve as a place of passage for foreigners. Visitors, indeed, come among them; but, with the exception of the annual flocks of summer tourists, and the passengers for Ireland on the northern line of railroad, they are left to themselves without much foreign admixture during a great portion of each year. The mass of the gentry are neither rich nor generous: there are some large and liberal proprietors, but the body of the gentry do not exert themselves as much as might be expected for the benefit of their dependants; and hence the Welsh agriculturist lacks both example and encouragement. That the cultivation of the land, therefore, should be somewhat in arrear, that the mineral riches of the country should be but partially taken advantage of, and that extensive manufactures should rarely exist amongst the Welsh, ought not to form any just causes of surprise: these things will in course of time be remedied of themselves. The main evil that the Welsh have to contend against is one that belongs to their blood as a Celtic nation; and which, while that blood remains as much unmixed as at present, there is no chance of eradicating. We allude to that which has distinguished all Celtic tribes wherever found, and at whatever period of their history—we mean their national indolence and want of perseverance—the absence of that indomitable energy and spirit of improvement which has raised the Anglo-Saxon race, crossed as it has been with so many other tribes, to such a mighty position in the dominion of the world.
This absence of energy is evident upon the very face of things, and lies at the bottom of whatever slowness of improvement is complained of in Wales. It is the same pest that infests Ireland, only it exists in a minor degree; it is that which did so much harm to the Scottish Highlands at one period of their history; and it is a componentcause of many anomalies in the French character, though in this case it is nearly bred out. One of the most striking evidences and effects of it is the dirt and untidiness which is so striking and offensive a peculiarity of Welsh villages and towns—that shabby, neglected state of the houses, streets, and gardens, which forms such a painful contrast the moment you step across the border into the Principality. In this the Welsh do not go to the extremes of the Irish: they are preserved from that depth of degradation by some other and better points of their character; but they approach very closely to the want of cleanliness observable in France—and the look of a Welsh and a French village, nay, the very smell of the two places, is nearly identical. A Welsh peasant, amidst his own mountains, if he can get a shilling a-day, will prefer starving upon that to labouring for another twelvepence. A farmer with £50 a-year rent has no ambition to become one of £200; the shopkeeper goes on in the small-ware line all his life, and dies a pedlar rather than a tradesman. There are brilliant and extraordinary exceptions to all this, we are well aware; nay, there are differences in this respect between the various counties,—and generally the southern parts of Wales are as much in advance of the northern, in point of industry, as they are in point of intellect and agricultural wealth. It is the general characteristic of this nation—and it evidences itself, sometimes most disagreeably, in the want of punctuality, and too often of straightforward dealing, which all who have any commercial or industrial communications—with the lower and middle classes of the Welsh have inevitably experienced. It is the vice of all Celtic nations, and is not to be eradicated except by a cross in the blood. Joined with all this, there is a mean and petty spirit of deceit and concealment too often shown even in the middle classes; and there is also the old Celtic vice of feud and clanship, which tends to divide the nation, and to impede its advancement in civilisation. Thus the old feud between North and South Wales still subsists, rife as ever; the northern man, prejudiced, ignorant, and indolent, comes forth from his mountains and looks down with contempt on the dweller in the southern vales, his superior in all the arts and pursuits of civilised life. Even a difference of colloquial dialects causes a national enmity; and the rough Cymro of Gwynedd still derides the softer man from Gwent and Morganwg. All these minor vices and follies tend to impair the national character—and they are evidences of a spirit which requires alteration, if the condition of the people is to be permanently elevated. On the other hand, the Welsh have many excellent qualifications which tend to counteract their innate weaknesses, and afford promise of much future good: their intellectual acuteness, their natural kindliness of heart, their constitutional poetry and religious enthusiasm, their indomitable love of country—which they share with all mountain tribes—all these good qualities form a counterbalance to their failings, and tend to rectify their national course. Take a Welshman out of Wales, place him in London or Liverpool, send him to the East Indies or to North America, and he becomes a banker of fabulous wealth, a merchant of illimitable resources, a great captain of his country's hosts, or an eminent traveller and philosopher; but leave him in his native valley, and he walks about with his hands in his pockets, angles for trout, and goes to chapel with hopeless pertinacity. Such was the Highlander once; but his shrewd good sense has got the better of his indolence, and he has come out of his fastnesses, conquering and to conquer. Not such, but far, far worse is the Irishman; and such will he be till he loses his national existence. St Andrew is a better saint than St David, and St David than St Patrick; but they all had the same faults once, and it is only by external circumstances that any amelioration has been produced.
It is a fact of ethnology, that while a tribe of men, kept to itself and free from foreign admixture, preserves its natural good qualities in undiminished excellence through numerous ages, all its natural vices become increased in intensity and vitality by the same circumstances of isolation. Look at the miserable Irish, always standing in their own light; look at the Spaniards,keeping to themselves, and stifling all their noble qualities by the permanence of their national vices; look at the tribes of Asia, doomed to perpetual subjection while they remain unmixed in blood. Had the Saxons remained with uncrossed blood, they had still been stolid, heavy, dreaming, impracticable Germans, though they had peopled the plains of England; but, when mixed with the Celts and the Danes, they formed the Lowland Scots, the most industrious and canniest chields in the wide world: fused with the Dane and Norman, and subsequently mixed with all people, they became Englishmen—rerum Domini—like the Romans of old. It may be mortifying enough to national pride, but the fact is, nevertheless, patent and certain, that extensive admixture of blood commonly benefits a nation more than all its geographical advantages.
It is our intimate conviction of the truth of this fact, so clearly deducible from the page of universal history, and especially from the border history of England and Wales, that shows us,inter alia, how false and absurd is the pretended patriotism of a small party among the gentry and clergy of Wales who have lately raised the cry of "Wales for the Welsh!" and who would, if they could, get up a sort of agitation for a repeal of the Norman conquest! There are sundry persons in Wales who, principally for local and party purposes, are trying to keep the Welsh still more distinct from the English than they now are,—who try to revive the old animosities between Celt and Saxon,—who pretend that Englishmen have no right even to settle in Wales,—and who, instead of promoting a knowledge of the English language, declaim in favour of the exclusive maintenance of the Welsh. These persons, actuated by a desire to bring themselves forward into temporary notoriety, profess, at the same time, by an extraordinary contradiction, to be of the high Conservative party, and amuse themselves by thwarting the Whigs, and abusing the Dissenters, to the utmost of their power. They are mainly supported—not by the Welsh of the middle classes, who have their separate hobby to ride, and who distrust the former too much to co-operate with them—but by English settlers in Wales, and on its borders, who, in order to make for themselves an interest in the country, pander to the prejudices of a few ambitious twaddlers, and get up public meetings, at which more nonsense is talked than any people can be supposed gullible enough to swallow. This spirit exists in the extreme northern portion of Wales, in Flintshire, Denbighshire, and Caernarvonshire; and on the south-eastern border of the country, in Monmouthshire, more than in any other district. It is doomed to be transient, because it is opposed, not less to the wishes and the good sense of the mass of the people, than to the views and policy of the nobles and leading gentry of the Principality. One or two radical M.P.s, a few disappointed clergymen, who fancy that their chance of preferment lies in abusing England, and a few amateur students of Welsh literature, who think that they shall thereby rise to literary eminence, constitute the clique, which will talk and strut for its day, and then die away into its primitive insignificance. But, by the side of this unimportant faction, there does exist, amongst the working classes and the lower portion of the middle orders, a spirit of radicalism, chartism, or republicanism,—for they are in reality synonymous terms,—which is doing much damage to the Principality, and which it lies easily within the power of the upper classes to extinguish,—not by force, but by kindness and by example.
It has been one of the consequence of dissent in Wales—not intended, we believe, by the majority of the ministers, but following inevitably from the organisation of their congregations,—that a democratic spirit of self-government should have arisen among the people, and have interwoven itself with their habits of thought and their associations of daily life. The middle and lower classes, separated from the upper by a difference of language, and alienated from the church by its inefficiency and neglect, have thrown themselves into the system of dissent,—that is, of self-adopted religious opinions, meditated upon, sustained, and expounded in their own native tongue, with all theenthusiasm that marks the Celtic character. The gulf between the nobles and gentry of Wales on the one side, and the middle and lower classes on the other, was already sufficiently wide, without any new principle of disunion being introduced; but now the church has become emphatically the church of the upper classes alone,—the chapel is the chapel of the lower orders—and the country is divided thereby into two hostile and bitterly opposed parties. On the one hand are all the aristocratic and hierarchic traditions of the nation; on the other is the democratic self-governing spirit, opposed to the former as much as light is to darkness, and adopted with the greater readiness, because it is linked to the religious feelings and practices of the vast majority of the whole people. Dissent and democratic opinions have now become the traditions of the lower orders in Wales; and every thing that belongs to the church or the higher orders of the country, is repulsive to the feelings of the people, because they hold them identical with oppression and superstition. The traditions of the conquest were quite strong enough,—the Welshman hated the Englishman thoroughly enough already; but now that he finds his superiors all speaking the English tongue, all members of the English church, he clings the more fondly and more obstinately to his own self-formed, self-chosen, system of worship and government, and the work of reunion and reconciliation is made almost impossible. In the midst of all this, the church in Wales is itself divided into high and low, into genteel and vulgar; the dignitaries hold to the abuses of the system,—and some, less burdened with common sense than the rest, gabble about "Wales and the Welsh," as if any fresh fuel were wanted to feed the fire already burning beneath the surface of society!
Even at the present moment, chartism is active in Wales: Mormonites and Latter-day Saints still preach and go forth from the Principality to the United States, (fortunately for this country;) and unprincipled itinerant lecturers on socialism, chartism, and infidelity, are now going their circuits in Wales, and obtaining numerous audiences.18
Most of the leading gentry and nobility of Wales are, strange to say, dabblers in Whiggism and amateur radicalism; many of the M.P.s are to be found on the wrong side in the most disgraceful divisions: the corporations of the country are of an unsatisfactory character, and disaffection prevails extensively in many of the chief towns. We believe that a great deal of all this has arisen from the folly, the neglect, the bad example, and the non-residence of the natural leaders of the Principality. Welsh landlords, like Irish—though not so bad as the latter—are uncommonly unwilling to loosen their purse-strings, except for their own immediate pleasures. Scores of parishes have no other representative of the upper classes in them than a half-educated and poorly paid resident clergyman: agents and lawyers ride it roughly and graspingly over the land; the people have few or no natural leaders within reach; they pay their rents, but they get little back from them, to be spent in their humble villages. Their only, and their best friend, as they imagine, is their preacher—one of themselves, elected by themselves,deposableby themselves. They come in contact with asharplawyer, a drunken journalist, a Chartist lecturer, a Latter-day Saint—can the result be wondered at?
As long as the patriotism of theWelsh gentry and clergy consists, as it now, too often, does, in frothy words, and an absence of deeds—in the accepting of English money and in abusing England—in playing the Aristocrat at home, and the Whig-radical-liberal in public—so long will disaffection continue in the Principality, and the social condition of the people remain unimproved. The only thing that preserves Wales from rapidly verging to the condition of Ireland, is the absence of large towns with their contaminating influences, and the purely agricultural character of the greatest portion of the people. But even the mountaineer and the man of the plain may be corrupted at last, and he may degenerate into the wretched cottier—the poor slave, not of a proud lord, but of a profligate republic. It is from this lowest depth that we would wish to see him rescued; for in the peasantry the ultimate hope of the country is involved quite as much as in the upper classes; and until the latter set the example, by actually putting their shoulders to the wheel, throwing aside their political tamperings with the worst faction that divides the state, and especially by encouraging the introduction of English settlers into all corners of the country,—we shall not see the social and moral condition of Wales such as it should be. Let the nobles and gentry spend their incomesinthe country, notoutof it; let them live even amid their mountains, andmixwith their people; let them improve the towns by introducing English tradesmen as much as possible; let them try to get up a spirit of industry, perseverance, and cleanliness throughout the land;—so shall they discomfit the Chartists, and convert the democrats into good subjects. Let the clergy reform the discipline of the Welsh church; let them alter the financial inequalities and abuses that prevail in it, to an almost incredible extent; and let them, by their doctrines and practice, emulate the good qualities of their professional opponents;—so shall they empty the meeting-houses, and thaw the coldness of Independentism or Methodism into the warmth of union and affectionate co-operation. Let every Welshman, while he maintains intact and undiminished the real honour of his country, join with his Saxon neighbour, imitating his good qualities, correcting his evil ones by his own good example; and let their children, mingling in blood, obliterate the national distinctions that now are mischievously sought to be revived;—so shall the union of Wales with England remain unrepealed, and the common honour of the two countries, distinct yet conjoined, be promoted by their common weal.
The other evening, on returning home from the pleasant hospitalities of the Royal Mid-Lothian Yeomanry, our heart cheered with claret, and our intellect refreshed by the patriotic eloquence of M'Whirter, we found upon our table a volume of suspicious thinness, the title of which for a moment inspired us with a feeling of dismay. Fate has assigned to us a female relative of advanced years and a curious disposition, whose affection is constantly manifested by a regard for our private morals. Belonging to the Supra-lapsarian persuasion, she never loses an opportunity of inculcating her own peculiar tenets: many a tract has been put into our hands as an antidote against social backslidings; and no sooner did that ominous phrase,The Strayed Reveller, meet our eye, than we conjectured that the old lady had somehow fathomed the nature of our previous engagement, and, in our absence, deposited the volume as a special warning against indulgence in military banquets. On opening it, however, we discovered that it was verse; and the first distich which met our eye was to the following effect:—
"O Vizier, thou art old, I young,Clear in these things I cannot see.My head is burning; and a heatIs in my skin, which angers me."
"O Vizier, thou art old, I young,Clear in these things I cannot see.My head is burning; and a heatIs in my skin, which angers me."
"O Vizier, thou art old, I young,Clear in these things I cannot see.My head is burning; and a heatIs in my skin, which angers me."
This frank confession altered the current of our thought, and we straightway set down the poet as some young roysterer, who had indulged rather too copiously in strong potations, and who was now celebrating in lyrics his various erratic adventures before reaching home. But a little more attention speedily convinced us that jollity was about the last imputation which could possibly be urged against our new acquaintance.
One of the most painful features of our recent poetical literature, is the marked absence of anything like heartiness, happiness, or hope. We do not want to see young gentlemen aping the liveliness of Anacreon, indulging in praises of the rosy god, or frisking with supernatural agility; but we should much prefer even such an unnecessary exuberance of spirits, to the dreary melancholy which is but too apparent in their songs. Read their lugubrious ditties, and you would think that life had utterly lost all charm for them before they have crossed its threshold. The cause of such overwhelming despondency it is in vain to discover; for none of them have the pluck, like Byron, to commit imaginary crimes, or to represent themselves as racked with remorse for murders which they never perpetrated. If one of them would broadly accuse himself of having run his man through the vitals—of having, in an experimental fit, plucked up a rail, and so caused a terrific accident on the South-Western—or of having done some other deed of reasonable turpitude and atrocity, we could understand what the fellow meant by his excessively unmirthful monologues. But we are not indulged with any full-flavoured fictions of the kind. On the contrary, our bards affect the purity and innocence of the dove. They shrink from naughty phrases with instinctive horror—have an idea that the mildest kind of flirtation involves a deviation from virtue; and, in their most savage moments of wrath, none of them would injure a fly. How, then, can we account for that unhappy mist which floats between them and the azure heaven, so heavily as to cloud the whole tenor of their existence? What makes them maunder so incessantly about gloom, and graves, and misery? Why confine themselves everlastingly to apple-blossoms, whereof the product in autumn will not amount to a single Ribston pippin? What has society done to them, or what can they possibly have done to society, that the future tenor of their span must be one of unmitigated woe? We rather suspect that most of the poets would be puzzled to give satisfactory answers to such queries. They might, indeed, reply, that misery is the heritage of genius; but that, we apprehend, would be arguing upon falsepremises; for we can discover very little genius to vindicate the existence of so vast a quantity of woe.
We hope, for the sake of human nature, that the whole thing is a humbug; nay, we have not the least doubt of it; for the experience of a good many years has convinced us, that a young poet in print is a very different person from the actual existing bard. The former has nerves of gossamer, and states that he is suckled with dew; the latter is generally a fellow of his inches, and has no insuperable objection to gin and water. In the one capacity, he feebly implores an early death; in the other, he shouts for broiled kidneys long after midnight, when he ought to be snoring on his truckle. Of a morning, the Strayed Reveller inspires you with ideas of dyspepsia—towards evening, your estimate of his character decidedly improves. Only fancy what sort of a companion the author of the following lines must be:—
"TO FAUSTA.Joy comes and goes: life ebbs and flows,Like the wave.Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.Love lends life a little grace,A few sad smiles: and then,Both are laid in one cold place,In the grave.Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,Like spring flowers.Our vaunted life is one long funeral.Men dig graves with bitter tears,For their dead hopes; and all,Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,Count the hours.We count the hours: these dreams of ours,False and hollow,Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?Joys we dimly apprehend,Faces that smiled and fled,Hopes born here, and born to end,Shall we follow?"
"TO FAUSTA.Joy comes and goes: life ebbs and flows,Like the wave.Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.Love lends life a little grace,A few sad smiles: and then,Both are laid in one cold place,In the grave.Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,Like spring flowers.Our vaunted life is one long funeral.Men dig graves with bitter tears,For their dead hopes; and all,Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,Count the hours.We count the hours: these dreams of ours,False and hollow,Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?Joys we dimly apprehend,Faces that smiled and fled,Hopes born here, and born to end,Shall we follow?"
"TO FAUSTA.
Joy comes and goes: life ebbs and flows,Like the wave.Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.Love lends life a little grace,A few sad smiles: and then,Both are laid in one cold place,In the grave.
Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,Like spring flowers.Our vaunted life is one long funeral.Men dig graves with bitter tears,For their dead hopes; and all,Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,Count the hours.
We count the hours: these dreams of ours,False and hollow,Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?Joys we dimly apprehend,Faces that smiled and fled,Hopes born here, and born to end,Shall we follow?"
It is impossible to account for tastes; but we fairly confess, that if we thought the above lines were an accurate reflex of the ordinary mood of the author, we should infinitely prefer supping in company with the nearest sexton. However, we have no suspicion of the kind. An early intimacy with the writings of Shelley, who in his own person was no impostor, is enough to account for the composition of these singularly dolorous verses, without supposing that they are any symptom whatever of the diseased idiosyncrasy of the author.
If we have selected this poet as the type of a class now unfortunately too common, it is rather for the purpose of remonstrating with him on the abuse of his natural gifts, than from any desire to hold him up to ridicule. We know not whether he may be a stripling or a grown-up man. If the latter, we fear that he is incorrigible, and that the modicum of talent which he certainly possesses is already so perverted, by excessive imitation, as to afford little ground for hope that he can ever purify himself from a bad style of writing, and a worse habit of thought. But if, as we rather incline to believe, he is still a young man, we by no means despair of his reformation, and it is with that view alone that we have selected his volume for criticism. For although there is hardly a page of it which is not studded with faults apparent to the most common censor, there are nevertheless, here and there, passages of some promise and beauty; and one poem, though it be tainted by imitation, is deserving of considerable praise. It is the glitter of the golden ore, though obscured by much that is worthless, which has attracted our notice; and we hope, that by subjecting his poems to a strict examination, we may do the author a real service.
It is not to be expected that the first essay of a young poet should be faultless. Most youths addicted to versification, are from an early age sedulous students of poetry. They select a model through certain affinities of sympathy, and, having done so, they become copyists for a time. We are far from objecting to such a practice; indeed, we consider it inevitable; for the tendency to imitate pervades every branch of art, and poetry is no exception. We distrust originality in a mere boy, because he is not yet capable of the strong impressions, or of the extended and subtile views, from which originality ought to spring. His power of creating music is still undeveloped, but the tendency to imitate music which he has heard, and can even appreciate, is strong. Most immature lyrics indicate pretty clearly the favourite study of their authors.Sometimes they read like a weak version of the choric songs of Euripides: sometimes the versification smacks of the school of Pope, and not unfrequently it betrays an undue intimacy with the writings of Barry Cornwall. Nor is the resemblance always confined to the form; for ever and anon we stumble upon a sentiment or expression, so very marked and idiosyncratic as to leave no doubt whatever of its paternity.
The same remarks apply to prose composition. Distinctions of style occupy but a small share of academical attention; and that most important rhetorical exercise, the analysis of the Period, has fallen into general disregard. Rules for composition certainly exist, but they are seldom made the subject of prelection; and consequently bad models find their way into the hands, and too often pervert the taste, of the rising generation. The cramped, ungrammatical style of Carlyle, and the vague pomposity of Emerson, are copied by numerous pupils; the value of words has risen immensely in the literary market, whilst that of ideas has declined; in order to arrive at the meaning of an author of the new school, we are forced to crack a sentence as hard and angular as a hickory-nut, and, after all our pains, we are usually rewarded with no better kernel than a maggot.
TheStrayed Revelleris rather a curious compound of imitation. He claims to be a classical scholar of no mean acquirements, and a good deal of his inspiration is traceable to the Greek dramatists. In certain of his poems he tries to think like Sophocles, and has so far succeeded as to have constructed certain choric passages, which might be taken by an unlettered person for translations from the antique. The language, though hard, is rather stately; and many of the individual images are by no means destitute of grace. The epithets which he employs bear the stamp of the Greek coinage; but, upon the whole, we must pronounce these specimens failures. The images are not bound together or grouped artistically, and the rhythm which the author has selected is, to an English ear, utterly destitute of melody. It is strange that people cannot be brought to understand that the genius and capabilities of one language differ essentially from those of another: and that the measures of antiquity are altogether unsuitable for modern verse. It is no doubt possible, by a Procrustean operation, to force words into almost any kind of mould; a chorus may be constructed, which, so far as scanning goes, might satisfy the requirements of a pedagogue, but the result of the experiment will inevitably show that melody has been sacrified in the attempt. Now melody is a charm without which poetry is of little worth; we are not quite sure whether it would not be more correct to say, that without melody poetry has no existence. Our author does not seem to have the slightest idea of this, and accordingly he treats us to such passages as the following:—
"No, no, old men, Creon I curse not.I weep, Thebans,One than Creon crueller far,For he, he, at least by slaying her,August laws doth mightily vindicate:But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless,Ah me! honourest more than thy lover,O Antigone,A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.""Nor was the love untrueWhich the Dawn-Goddess boreTo that fair youth she erst,Leaving the salt-sea bedsAnd coming flush'd over the stormy frithOf loud Euripus, saw:Saw and snatch'd, wild with love,From the pine-dotted spursOf Parnes, where thy waves,Asopus, gleam rock-hemm'd;The Hunter of the Tanagrœan Field.But him, in his sweet prime,By severance immature,By Artemis' soft shafts,She, though a goddess born,Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.Such end o'ertook that love,For she desired to makeImmortal mortal man,And blend his happy life,Far from the gods, with hers:To him postponing an eternal law."
"No, no, old men, Creon I curse not.I weep, Thebans,One than Creon crueller far,For he, he, at least by slaying her,August laws doth mightily vindicate:But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless,Ah me! honourest more than thy lover,O Antigone,A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.""Nor was the love untrueWhich the Dawn-Goddess boreTo that fair youth she erst,Leaving the salt-sea bedsAnd coming flush'd over the stormy frithOf loud Euripus, saw:Saw and snatch'd, wild with love,From the pine-dotted spursOf Parnes, where thy waves,Asopus, gleam rock-hemm'd;The Hunter of the Tanagrœan Field.But him, in his sweet prime,By severance immature,By Artemis' soft shafts,She, though a goddess born,Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.Such end o'ertook that love,For she desired to makeImmortal mortal man,And blend his happy life,Far from the gods, with hers:To him postponing an eternal law."
"No, no, old men, Creon I curse not.I weep, Thebans,One than Creon crueller far,For he, he, at least by slaying her,August laws doth mightily vindicate:But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless,Ah me! honourest more than thy lover,O Antigone,A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse."
"Nor was the love untrueWhich the Dawn-Goddess boreTo that fair youth she erst,Leaving the salt-sea bedsAnd coming flush'd over the stormy frithOf loud Euripus, saw:Saw and snatch'd, wild with love,From the pine-dotted spursOf Parnes, where thy waves,Asopus, gleam rock-hemm'd;The Hunter of the Tanagrœan Field.But him, in his sweet prime,By severance immature,By Artemis' soft shafts,She, though a goddess born,Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.Such end o'ertook that love,For she desired to makeImmortal mortal man,And blend his happy life,Far from the gods, with hers:To him postponing an eternal law."
We are sincerely sorry to find the lessons of a good classical education applied to so pitiable a use; for if, out of courtesy, the above should be denominated verses, they are nevertheless as far removed from poetry as the Indus is from the pole. It is one thing to know the classics, and another to write classically. Indeed, ifthis be classical writing, it would furnish the best argument ever yet advanced against the study of the works of antiquity. Mr Tennyson, to whom, as we shall presently have occasion to observe, this author is indebted for another phase of his inspiration, has handled classical subjects with fine taste and singular delicacy; and his "Ulysses" and "Œnone" show how beautifully the Hellenic idea may be wrought out in mellifluous English verse. But Tennyson knows his craft too well to adopt either the Greek phraseology or the Greek rhythm. Even in the choric hymns which he has once or twice attempted, he has spurned halt and ungainly metres, and given full freedom and scope to the cadence of his mother tongue. These antique scraps of theRevellerare farther open to a still more serious objection, which indeed is applicable to most of his poetry. We read them, marking every here and there some image of considerable beauty; but, when we have laid down the book, we are unable for the life of us to tell what it is all about. The poem from which the volume takes its name is a confused kind of chaunt about Circe, Ulysses, and the Gods, from which no exercise of ingenuity can extract the vestige of a meaning. It has pictures which, were they introduced for any conceivable purpose, might fairly deserve some admiration; but, thrust in as they are, without method or reason, they utterly lose their effect, and only serve to augment our dissatisfaction at the perversion of a taste which, with so much culture, should have been capable of better things.
The adoption of the Greek choric metres, in some of the poems, appears to us the more inexplicable, because in others, when he descends from his classic altitudes, our author shows that he is by no means insensible to the power of melody. True, he wants that peculiar characteristic of a good poet—a melody of his own; for no poet is master of his craft unless his music is self-inspired: but, in default of that gift, he not unfrequently borrows a few notes or a tune from some of his contemporaries, and exhibits a fair command and mastery of his instrument. Here, for example, are a few stanzas, the origin of which nobody can mistake. They are an exact echo of the lyrics of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:—
"Are the accents of your luringMore melodious than of yore?Are those frail forms more enduringThan the charms Ulysses bore?That we sought you with rejoicings,Till at evening we descry,At a pause of siren voicings,These vext branches and this howling sky?Oh! your pardon. The uncouthnessOf that primal age is gone,And the kind of dazzling smoothnessScreens not now a heart of stone.Love has flushed those cruel faces;And your slackened arms foregoThe delight of fierce embraces;And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.'Come,' you say; 'the large appearanceOf man's labour is but vain;And we plead as firm adherenceDue to pleasure as to pain.'Pointing to some world-worn creatures,'Come,' you murmur with a sigh:'Ah! we own diviner features,Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.'"
"Are the accents of your luringMore melodious than of yore?Are those frail forms more enduringThan the charms Ulysses bore?That we sought you with rejoicings,Till at evening we descry,At a pause of siren voicings,These vext branches and this howling sky?Oh! your pardon. The uncouthnessOf that primal age is gone,And the kind of dazzling smoothnessScreens not now a heart of stone.Love has flushed those cruel faces;And your slackened arms foregoThe delight of fierce embraces;And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.'Come,' you say; 'the large appearanceOf man's labour is but vain;And we plead as firm adherenceDue to pleasure as to pain.'Pointing to some world-worn creatures,'Come,' you murmur with a sigh:'Ah! we own diviner features,Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.'"
"Are the accents of your luringMore melodious than of yore?Are those frail forms more enduringThan the charms Ulysses bore?That we sought you with rejoicings,Till at evening we descry,At a pause of siren voicings,These vext branches and this howling sky?
Oh! your pardon. The uncouthnessOf that primal age is gone,And the kind of dazzling smoothnessScreens not now a heart of stone.Love has flushed those cruel faces;And your slackened arms foregoThe delight of fierce embraces;And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.
'Come,' you say; 'the large appearanceOf man's labour is but vain;And we plead as firm adherenceDue to pleasure as to pain.'Pointing to some world-worn creatures,'Come,' you murmur with a sigh:'Ah! we own diviner features,Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.'"
High and commanding genius is able to win our attention even in its most eccentric moods. Such genius belongs to Mrs Browning in a very remarkable degree, and on that account we readily forgive her for some forced rhyming, intricate diction, and even occasional obscurity of thought. But what shall we say of the man who seeks to reproduce her marvellous effects by copying her blemishes? Read the above lines, and you will find that, in so far as sound and mannerism go, they are an exact transcript from Mrs Browning. Apply your intellect to the discovery of their meaning, and you will rise from the task thoroughly convinced of its hopelessness. The poem in which they occur is entitledThe New Sirens, but it might with equal felicity and point have been calledThe New Harpies, orThe Lay of the Hurdy-Gurdy. It seems to us a mere experiment, for the purpose of showing that words placed together in certain juxtaposition, without any regard to their significance or propriety, can be made to produce a peculiar phonetic effect. The phenomenon is by no means a new one—it occurs whenever the manufacture of nonsense-verses is attempted; and it needed not the staining of innocentwire-wove to convince us of its practicability. Read the following stanza—divorce the sound from the sense, and then tell us what you can make of it:—
"With a sad majestic motion—With a stately slow surprise—From their earthward-bound devotionLifting up your languid eyes:Would you freeze my louder boldness,Humbly smiling as you go?One faint frown of distant coldnessFlitting fast across each marble brow?"
"With a sad majestic motion—With a stately slow surprise—From their earthward-bound devotionLifting up your languid eyes:Would you freeze my louder boldness,Humbly smiling as you go?One faint frown of distant coldnessFlitting fast across each marble brow?"
"With a sad majestic motion—With a stately slow surprise—From their earthward-bound devotionLifting up your languid eyes:Would you freeze my louder boldness,Humbly smiling as you go?One faint frown of distant coldnessFlitting fast across each marble brow?"
What say you, Parson Sir Hugh Evans? "The tevil with his tam; what phrase is this—freeze my louder boldness? Why, it is affectations."
If any one, in possession of a good ear, and with a certain facility for composing verse, though destitute of the inventive faculty, will persevere in imitating the style of different poets, he is almost certain at last to discover some writer whose peculiar manner he can assume with far greater facility than that of others. TheStrayed Revellerfails altogether with Mrs Browning; because it is beyond his power, whilst following her, to make any kind of agreement between sound and sense. He is indeed very far from being a metaphysician, for his perception is abundantly hazy: and if he be wise, he will abstain from any future attempts at profundity. But he has a fair share of the painter's gift; and were he to cultivate that on his own account, we believe that he might produce something far superior to any of his present efforts. As it is, we can merely accord him the praise of sketching an occasional landscape, very like one which we might expect from Alfred Tennyson. He has not only caught the trick of Tennyson's handling, but he can use his colours with considerable dexterity. He is like one of those second-rate artists, who, with Danby in their eye, crowd our exhibitions with fiery sunsets and oceans radiant in carmine; sometimes their pictures are a little overlaid, but, on the whole, they give a fair idea of the manner of their undoubted master.
The following extract will, we think, illustrate our meaning. It is from a poem entitledMycerinus, which, though it does not possess the interest of any tale, is correctly and pleasingly written:—
"So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn,And one loud cry of grief and of amazeBroke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,And turning, left them there; and with brief pause,Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his wayTo the cool regions of the grove he loved.There by the river banks he wandered on,From palm-grove on to palm-grove; happy trees,Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneathBurying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers;Where in one dream the feverish time of youthMight fade in slumber, and the feet of JoyMight wander all day long and never tire:Here came the king, holding high feast, at mornRose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down,A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloomFrom tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove,Revealing all the tumult of the feast,Flush'd guests, and golden goblets, foam'd with wine,While the deep burnish'd foliage overheadSplinter'd the silver arrows of the moon."
"So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn,And one loud cry of grief and of amazeBroke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,And turning, left them there; and with brief pause,Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his wayTo the cool regions of the grove he loved.There by the river banks he wandered on,From palm-grove on to palm-grove; happy trees,Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneathBurying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers;Where in one dream the feverish time of youthMight fade in slumber, and the feet of JoyMight wander all day long and never tire:Here came the king, holding high feast, at mornRose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down,A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloomFrom tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove,Revealing all the tumult of the feast,Flush'd guests, and golden goblets, foam'd with wine,While the deep burnish'd foliage overheadSplinter'd the silver arrows of the moon."
"So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn,And one loud cry of grief and of amazeBroke from his sorrowing people; so he spake,And turning, left them there; and with brief pause,Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his wayTo the cool regions of the grove he loved.There by the river banks he wandered on,From palm-grove on to palm-grove; happy trees,Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneathBurying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers;Where in one dream the feverish time of youthMight fade in slumber, and the feet of JoyMight wander all day long and never tire:Here came the king, holding high feast, at mornRose-crown'd; and ever, when the sun went down,A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloomFrom tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove,Revealing all the tumult of the feast,Flush'd guests, and golden goblets, foam'd with wine,While the deep burnish'd foliage overheadSplinter'd the silver arrows of the moon."
This really is a pretty picture; its worst, and perhaps its only fault, being that it constantly reminds us of the superior original artist. Throughout the book indeed, and incorporated in many of the poems, there occur images to which Mr Tennyson has a decided right by priority of invention, and which theStrayed Revellerhas "conveyed" with little attention to ceremony. For example, in a poem which we never much admired,The Vision of Sin, Mr Tennyson has the two following lines—
"And on the glimmering limit, far withdrawn,God made himself an awful rose of dawn."
"And on the glimmering limit, far withdrawn,God made himself an awful rose of dawn."
"And on the glimmering limit, far withdrawn,God made himself an awful rose of dawn."
This image is afterwards repeated in thePrincess. Thus—
"Till the sunGrew broader toward his death and fell, and allThe rosy heights came out above the lawns."
"Till the sunGrew broader toward his death and fell, and allThe rosy heights came out above the lawns."
"Till the sunGrew broader toward his death and fell, and allThe rosy heights came out above the lawns."
Young Danby catches at the idea, and straightway favours us with a copy—
"When the first rose-flush was steepingAll the frore peak's awful crown."
"When the first rose-flush was steepingAll the frore peak's awful crown."
"When the first rose-flush was steepingAll the frore peak's awful crown."
The image is a natural one, and of course open to all the world, but the diction has been clearly borrowed.
Not only in blank verse but in lyrics does the Tennysonian tendency of our author break out, and to that tendencywe owe by far the best poem in the present volume. "The Forsaken Merman," though the subject is fantastic, and though it has further the disadvantage of directly reminding us of one of Alfred's early extravaganzas, is nevertheless indicative of considerable power, not only of imagery and versification, but of actual pathos. A maiden of the earth has been taken down to the depths of the sea, where for years she has resided with her merman lover, and has borne him children. We shall let the poet tell the rest of his story, the more readily because we are anxious that he should receive credit for what real poetical accomplishment he possesses, and that he may not suppose, from our censure of his faults, that we are at all indifferent to his merits.
"Children dear, was it yesterday(Call yet once) that she went away?Once she sate with you and me,On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,And the youngest sate on her knee.She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.She said, 'I must go, for my kinsfolk prayIn the little gray church on the shore to-day.'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me'And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves,Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.Children dear, was it yesterday?"Children dear, were we long alone?'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say.Come,' I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.We went up the beach, by the sandy downWhere the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town.Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still,To the little gray church on the windy hill.From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone,The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'But, ah, she gave me never a look,For her eyes were sealed to the holy book.'Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.'Come away, children, call no more.Come away, come down, call no more."Down, down, down,Down to the depths of the sea.She sits at her wheel in the humming town,Singing most joyfully.Hark, what she sings; 'O joy, O joy,For the humming street, and the child with its toy.For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.For the wheel where I spun,And the bless'd light of the sun.'And so she sings her fill,Singing most joyfully,Till the shuttle falls from her hand,And the whizzing wheel stands still.She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;And over the sand at the sea;And her eyes are set in a stare;And anon there breaks a sigh,And anon there drops a tear,From a sorrow-clouded eye,And a heart sorrow-laden,A long, long sigh,For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,And the gleam of her golden hair."
"Children dear, was it yesterday(Call yet once) that she went away?Once she sate with you and me,On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,And the youngest sate on her knee.She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.She said, 'I must go, for my kinsfolk prayIn the little gray church on the shore to-day.'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me'And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves,Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.Children dear, was it yesterday?"Children dear, were we long alone?'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say.Come,' I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.We went up the beach, by the sandy downWhere the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town.Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still,To the little gray church on the windy hill.From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone,The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'But, ah, she gave me never a look,For her eyes were sealed to the holy book.'Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.'Come away, children, call no more.Come away, come down, call no more."Down, down, down,Down to the depths of the sea.She sits at her wheel in the humming town,Singing most joyfully.Hark, what she sings; 'O joy, O joy,For the humming street, and the child with its toy.For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.For the wheel where I spun,And the bless'd light of the sun.'And so she sings her fill,Singing most joyfully,Till the shuttle falls from her hand,And the whizzing wheel stands still.She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;And over the sand at the sea;And her eyes are set in a stare;And anon there breaks a sigh,And anon there drops a tear,From a sorrow-clouded eye,And a heart sorrow-laden,A long, long sigh,For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,And the gleam of her golden hair."
"Children dear, was it yesterday(Call yet once) that she went away?Once she sate with you and me,On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,And the youngest sate on her knee.She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea.She said, 'I must go, for my kinsfolk prayIn the little gray church on the shore to-day.'Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me'And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves,Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.Children dear, was it yesterday?
"Children dear, were we long alone?'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say.Come,' I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay.We went up the beach, by the sandy downWhere the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town.Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still,To the little gray church on the windy hill.From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone,The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'But, ah, she gave me never a look,For her eyes were sealed to the holy book.'Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.'Come away, children, call no more.Come away, come down, call no more.
"Down, down, down,Down to the depths of the sea.She sits at her wheel in the humming town,Singing most joyfully.Hark, what she sings; 'O joy, O joy,For the humming street, and the child with its toy.For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.For the wheel where I spun,And the bless'd light of the sun.'And so she sings her fill,Singing most joyfully,Till the shuttle falls from her hand,And the whizzing wheel stands still.She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;And over the sand at the sea;And her eyes are set in a stare;And anon there breaks a sigh,And anon there drops a tear,From a sorrow-clouded eye,And a heart sorrow-laden,A long, long sigh,For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,And the gleam of her golden hair."
Had the author given us much poetry like this, our task would, indeed, have been a pleasant one; but as the case is otherwise, we can do no more than point to the solitary pearl. Yet it is something to know that, in spite of imitation, and a taste which has gone far astray, this writer has powers, which, if properly directed and developed, might insure him a sympathy, which, for the present, must be withheld. Sympathy, indeed, he cannot look for, so long as he appeals neither to the heart, the affections, nor the passions of mankind, but prefers appearing before them in the ridiculous guise of a misanthrope. He would fain persuade us that he is a sort of Timon, who, despairing of the tendency of the age, wishes to wrap himself up in the mantle of necessity, and to take no part whatever in the vulgar concerns of existence. It is absolutely ridiculous to find this young gentleman—after confiding "to a Republican friend" the fact that he despises