FOOTNOTES:

[31]Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson.By Francis T. Palgrave.

It would be scarcely possible for a critic of Mr. Palgrave's taste and learning to produce a treatise on any aspect of poetry, which would not be full of interest and instruction, and the present volume is a contribution, and in some respects a memorable contribution, to a particularly attractive subject of critical inquiry. Its purpose is to trace the history of descriptive poetry in its relation, that is to say, to natural objects and more particularly to landscape, by illustrating its characteristics at different periods, and among different nations. Beginning with the Homeric poems, Mr. Palgrave reviews successively the "landscape" of the Greeks, the Romans, the Hebrews, the mediæval Italians, the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, and of our own poets, from the predecessors of Chaucer to Lord Tennyson. That a work, covering an area so immense, should be far less satisfactory in some portions than in others is no more than whatmight be expected, and Mr. Palgrave would probably be himself the first to admit that, except when he is dealing with the classical poetry of Hellas, of ancient and mediæval Italy, and of our own country, his treatise has no pretension to adequacy. Even within these bounds there is much which is irrelevant, and much which is surprisingly defective. Where, as in a subject like this, the material at the author's disposal is necessarily so superabundant, surely the utmost care should have been taken both to keep within the limits of the theme proposed, and to select the most pertinent and typical illustrations. But when Mr. Palgrave illustrates "Homeric landscape" by the simile describing the heifers frisking about the drove of cows in the fold-yard, and the "Sophoclean landscape" by the simile of the blast-impelled wave rolling up the shingle, he lays himself open to the imputation of drawing at random on his commonplace book. Indeed, the pleasure with which lovers of classical poetry will read this book cannot fail to be mingled with the liveliest surprise and disappointment. Take the Homeric poems. If a reader, tolerably well versed in theIliadandOdyssey, were asked for illustrations of the power with which natural phenomena are described, to what would he turn? Certainly not to Mr. Palgrave's meagre and trivial examples, three of which alone have any title to pertinence. He would turn to the winter landscapeinIliad, xii. 278-286, to the lifting of the cloud from the landscape inIliad, xvi. 296:—

ὡς δ' ὁτ' αφ' ὑψηλης κορυφης ορεος μεγαλοιοκινηση πυκινην νεφελην στεροπηγερετα Ζευς,εκ τ' εφανεν πασαι σκοπιαι και πρωονες ακροικαι ναπαι, ουρανοθεν δ' αρ' ὑπερῥαγη ασπετος αιθηρ.

ὡς δ' ὁτ' αφ' ὑψηλης κορυφης ορεος μεγαλοιο

κινηση πυκινην νεφελην στεροπηγερετα Ζευς,

εκ τ' εφανεν πασαι σκοπιαι και πρωονες ακροι

και ναπαι, ουρανοθεν δ' αρ' ὑπερῥαγη ασπετος αιθηρ.

"As when Zeus, the gatherer of the lightning, moves a thick cloud from the high head of some mighty mountain, and all the cliffs and the jutting crags and the dells start into light, and the immeasurable heaven breaks open to its highest";

to the descent of the wind on the sea,Ib.xi. 305-308:—

ὡς ὁποτε Ζεφυρος νεφεα στυφελιξηαργεσταο Νοτοιο, βαθειη λαιλαπι τυπτων;πολλον δε τροφι κυμα κυλινδεται, ὑψοσε δ' αχνησκιδναται εξ ανεμοιο πολυπλαγκτοιο ιωης.

ὡς ὁποτε Ζεφυρος νεφεα στυφελιξη

αργεσταο Νοτοιο, βαθειη λαιλαπι τυπτων;

πολλον δε τροφι κυμα κυλινδεται, ὑψοσε δ' αχνη

σκιδναται εξ ανεμοιο πολυπλαγκτοιο ιωης.

"As when the west wind buffets the cloudlets of the brightening south wind, lashing them with furious squall, and the big wave swells up and rolls along, and the spray is scattered on high by the blast of the careering gale";

or to the pictures of the billow-buffeted headland, and the wave bursting on the ship inIliad, xv. 618-628; or to the storm-cloud coming over the sea inIliad, iv. 277; or to the descent of the wind on the standing corn,Iliad, ii. 147. He would point, above all, to the description of Calypso's grotto, inOdyssey, v. 63-74; to that of the harbour of Phorcys, inOdyssey, xiii. 97-112; to the fountain in the grove, xvii. 205-211. Mr. Palgrave comments justly on Homer's minute observation of nature; but heonly gives one illustration, where it is noticed inOdyssey, vi. 94, that the sea, in beating on the coast, "washed the pebbles clean." He might have added with propriety many others: as the "earth blackening behind the plough," inIliad, xviii. 548; the bats in the cave,Odyssey, xxiv. 5-8; the birds escaping from the vultures,Iliad, xxii. 304, 305; the wasps "wriggling as far as the middle,"σφηκες μεσον αιολοι,Iliad, xii. 167; the dogs and the lions,Iliad, xviii. 585, 586.

Mr. Palgrave observes that Homer "was not only familiar with the sea, but loved it with a love somewhat unusual in poets." We venture to submit that there is not a line in Homer indicating that he "loved" the sea, except for poetical purposes; like most of the Greeks he probably dreaded it; his real feeling towards it is no doubt indicated in his own words:—

ου γαρ εγω γε τι φημι κακωτερον αλλο θαλασσηςανδρα γε συγχευαι.

ου γαρ εγω γε τι φημι κακωτερον αλλο θαλασσης

ανδρα γε συγχευαι.

—nothing crushes a man's spirit more than the sea. Mr. Palgrave justly points out that Hesiod's rude prosaic style and matter are not congenial to the poetic landscape, yet it is only fair to Hesiod to say, that his poetry is not without vivid touches of natural description, as the winter scene inWorks and Days, 504 sqq., and his description of the beginning of spring, 565-569, show. Professor Palgrave next glancesat the treatment of nature in the lyric poets, and very properly cites the lovely fragment of Alcman:

βαλε δη βαλε κηρυλος ειηνὁς τ' επι κυματος ανθος ἁμ' αλκυονεσσι ποτηται,ηλεγες ητορ εχων, ἁλιπορφυρος ειαρος ορνις,—

βαλε δη βαλε κηρυλος ειην

ὁς τ' επι κυματος ανθος ἁμ' αλκυονεσσι ποτηται,

ηλεγες ητορ εχων, ἁλιπορφυρος ειαρος ορνις,—

but in translating it makes a truly extraordinary blunder.

"Would I were the kingfisher, as he flies, with his matesin his feeble age, between wind and water."

νηλεγες ητορmeaning, as we need hardly say, "reckless heart"; it is exactly Byron's, "With all herrecklessbirds upon the wing." In the quotations from Sappho, Ibycus, and Pindar, Mr. Palgrave has been judicious and happy, but surely he ought to have found place for the lovely flower cradle of Iamus in the sixth Olympic Ode, and for the moonlight evening in the third Olympian,—only seven words, but what a picture!—while, in the popular poetry, the omission of the Swallow Song is inexplicable.[32]Nor can we forgive him the omission of the magnificent simile of the spring wind clearing away the clouds, in the thirteenth of the fragments attributed to Solon.

But it is in dealing with the Greek dramatists that Mr. Palgrave is most defective in illustration. It is not to the opening of thePrometheus, or to the conclusion, or, indeed, to any of the passagesfrom this poet which Mr. Palgrave cites, that we must turn for Æschylean landscape, or for illustration of this poet's power of natural description. It is to his brief picture—his pictures of scenery, though singularly vivid, are always brief—of the airy seat "against which the watery clouds drift into snow,"

λισσας αιγιλιψ απροσδεικτος οιοφρων κρεμαςγυπιας πετρα(Supplices, 772-3),

λισσας αιγιλιψ απροσδεικτος οιοφρων κρεμας

γυπιας πετρα(Supplices, 772-3),

where almost every word is a perfect picture, literally beggaring mere translation; it is to his description, so magical in its rhythm, of the mid-day sea slumbering in summer calm (Agamemnon, 548-50),

η θαλπος, ευτε ποντος εν μεσημβριναιςκοιταις ακυμων νηνεμοις ευδοι πεσων,

η θαλπος, ευτε ποντος εν μεσημβριναις

κοιταις ακυμων νηνεμοις ευδοι πεσων,

to his picture of the keen brisk wind, clearing the clouds away, to bring into relief against the sky the dark masses of waves tossing on the horizon (Agamemnon, 1152-54), to his world-famous

ποντιων κυματωνανηριθμον γελασμα."The multitudinous laughter of the ocean waves."—Prometheus, 89-90.

ποντιων κυματων

ανηριθμον γελασμα.

"The multitudinous laughter of the ocean waves."

—Prometheus, 89-90.

Mr. Palgrave has, of course, cited with reference to Sophocles the great chorus in theŒdipus Coloneus, but he has omitted to notice that, if Sophocles has not elsewhere given us so elaborate a piece of natural description, innumerabletouches in the dramas, and more particularly in the fragments, show that he observed nature almost as minutely as Shakespeare. Nothing could be more vivid than the touches of description in thePhiloctetes. From Euripides Mr. Palgrave cites nothing, observing that he rarely goes beyond somewhat conventional phrases. Surely Mr. Palgrave must have forgotten the magnificent description of Parnassus, as seen from the plain, in thePhœnissæ, the glorious description of a moonlight night, as represented on the tapestry, in theIon, the vivid touches of natural description in theBacchæ, that of the meadow in theHippolytus, and the chorus about Athens in theMedea, to say nothing of the charming rural picture in the fragments of thePhaeton.[33]To say of Aristophanes that, in his treatment of nature, he rarely goes beyond somewhat common phrases, is to say what is refuted, not merely in the chorus referred to by Mr. Palgrave, but in theFrogsand in theBirds. He stands next to Homer in his keen sensibility to the charm of nature. Shelley himself might have written the choruses referred to. In dealing with the Alexandrian poets Mr. Palgrave passes over Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus entirely, and yet the fine picture of Delos given by Callimachus in the Hymn to Delos is one of the gems of ancient description, and Apollonius Rhodius abounds with the most graphic andcharming delineations of scenery and natural objects. What a beautiful description of early morning is this!—

ημος δ' ουρανοθεν χαροπη ὑπολαμπεται ηωςεκ περατης ανιουσα, διαγλαυσσουσι δ' αταρποι,και πεδια δροσοεντα φαεινη λαμπεται αιγλη.Argon.i. 1280-1283.

ημος δ' ουρανοθεν χαροπη ὑπολαμπεται ηως

εκ περατης ανιουσα, διαγλαυσσουσι δ' αταρποι,

και πεδια δροσοεντα φαεινη λαμπεται αιγλη.

Argon.i. 1280-1283.

"What time from heaven the bright glad morn coming up from the East begins to shine, and path and road are all agleam, and the dew-bespangled plains are flashing with the radiant light."

How vivid too, and with the vividness of modern poetry, are his descriptions of the cave of Hades and its neighbourhood (ii. 729-750), and the Great Syrtis (iv. 1230-1245)! In his selections from the Greek Anthology Mr. Palgrave is much happier; but here again he has many omissions, and among them the most remarkable illustration of Greek nature-painting to be found in that collection—namely, Meleager's idyll giving an elaborate description of a spring day, which might have been written by Thomson (Pal. Anthology, ix. 363). It may be observed in passing thatουρεσιφοιτα κρινα(Pal. Anth., v. 144) can hardly mean "lilies that wander over the hills," but lilies "that haunt the hills," and thatξουθαι μελισσαιin Theocritus, vii. 142, probably means "buzzing" bees, not "tawny."

In dealing with the Roman poets Mr. Palgrave is, with one exception, most unsatisfactory. From the poets preceding Lucretius, amply asthe fragments would serve his purpose, he gives only one illustration. We should have expected the vivid picture given by Accius in hisŒnomausof the early morning:

"Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem,Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient,Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidasProscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent."

"Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem,

Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient,

Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidas

Proscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent."

"Perchance before the dawn that heralds the burning rays, what time rustics bring forth the oxen from their sleep into the cornfields, to break up the red dew-spangled soil with the ploughshare, and turn up the clods from the soft soil";

or the wonderfully graphic description of a sudden storm at sea, in the fragments of theDulorestesof Pacuvius:

"Profectione læti piscium lasciviamIntuentur, nec tuendi capere satietas potest.Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare,Tenebræ conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occæcat nigror,Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cælum tonitru contremit,Grando mixta imbri largifico subita præcipitans cadit,Undique omnes venti erumpunt, sævi existunt turbines,Fervit æstu pelagus."

"Profectione læti piscium lasciviam

Intuentur, nec tuendi capere satietas potest.

Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare,

Tenebræ conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occæcat nigror,

Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cælum tonitru contremit,

Grando mixta imbri largifico subita præcipitans cadit,

Undique omnes venti erumpunt, sævi existunt turbines,

Fervit æstu pelagus."

"Glad at heart when they set out they gaze at the sporting fish, and are never weary of looking at them. Meanwhile, hard upon sunset, the sea ruffles, darkness gathers thick, the blackness of the storm-clouded night hides everything, flame flashes between the clouds, heaven shakes with thunder, hail, mingled with streaming rain, dashes suddenly down, from every quarter all the winds tear forth, wild whirlwinds rise, the sea boils with the seething waters."

With Lucretius, indeed, he deals fully, and thisportion of his work leaves little to be desired. But a reference to the lines to Sirmio and one illustration from thePeleus and Thetisexhaust his examples from Catullus. We should have expected the picture of the stream leaping from the mossy rock into the valley beneath, in the Epistle to Manlius, of the morning chasing away the shadows in theAttis, and the lovely flower pictures in the Epithalamia. In dealing with Virgil most of Mr. Palgrave's citations are practically irrelevant; scarcely any of the passages which best illustrate Virgil's power of landscape painting being even referred to. "TheÆneid," says Mr. Palgrave, "may be briefly dismissed. Natural description can have but little place in an epic." And yet what are the passages to which any one, who wishes to illustrate the charm and power of Virgil's pictures of scenery, would naturally turn? Surely to these: the description of the rocky recess which sheltered Æneas's ships (Æneid, i. 159-168), a picture worthy of Salvator; the picture of Ætna (iii. 570-582), which rivals the picture of it given by Pindar, a picture praised so justly by Mr. Palgrave himself; the description of a calm night (iv. 522-527); the wave-buffeted, gull-haunted rock (v. 124-128); and, above all, the scenery at the mouth of the Tiber, bathed in the rays of the morning sun, a picture unexcelled even by Tennyson. Nor even in theGeorgicsis any reference made tothe superb description of a storm in harvest time (i. 216-334), or to the magnificent winter piece (iii. 349-370).

The remarks about the indifference of Propertius to natural scenery are most unjust. What a charming picture is this!—

"Grata domus Nymphis humida Thyniasin,Quam supra nullæ pendebant debita curæRoscida desertis poma sub arboribus;Et circum irriguo surgebant lilia pratoCandida purpureis mixta papaveribus."El., I. xx. 35-39.

"Grata domus Nymphis humida Thyniasin,

Quam supra nullæ pendebant debita curæ

Roscida desertis poma sub arboribus;

Et circum irriguo surgebant lilia prato

Candida purpureis mixta papaveribus."

El., I. xx. 35-39.

It may be conceded that Ovid is conventional and commonplace in his treatment of nature; but why is Valerius Flaccus, with his bold, vivid touches, left unnoticed? Why does one citation suffice for the many exquisite cameos which ought to have been given from Statius? Another inexplicable omission in Mr. Palgrave's work is the poem entitledRosæ, attributed to Ausonius—a lovely poem, infinitely more beautiful than the epigram quoted by Mr. Palgrave from the Latin Anthology, and rivalling the fragment given by him from Tiberianus. Most readers would agree with him in his estimate of Claudian, but he might have added the fine description of Olympus in theDe Consulatu Theodori, 200-210:

"Ut altus OlympiVertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit,Perpetuum nullâ temeratus nube serenumCelsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentesSub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat;"

"Ut altus Olympi

Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit,

Perpetuum nullâ temeratus nube serenum

Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes

Sub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat;"

which Goldsmith, by the way, has borrowed and paraphrased in theDeserted Village, together with its sublime application:

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful formSwells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,Eternal sunshine settles round its head.

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form

Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,

Eternal sunshine settles round its head.

Space does not serve to follow Mr. Palgrave through his chapters on Italian, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon poetry, in all of which his omissions are as remarkable as his citations; so we must content ourselves with making a few remarks on his treatment of the English poets. It is pleasing to see that, guided by Gray, he has done justice to Lydgate, but he has not noticed the distinguishing peculiarity of this poet in his description, his extraordinary sensitive appreciation of colour.

Among the Scotch poets of the fifteenth century a prominent place should have been given to Henryson who is not even mentioned. Mr. Palgrave hurries over the Elizabethan poets with too much expedition, and the poets of the eighteenth century fare even worse. Great injustice is done to Thomson. Why did not Mr. Palgrave, instead of citing what he calls Thomson's "cold" tropical landscape, for the purpose of contrasting it unfavourably with Tennyson's picture inEnoch Arden, give us instead the Summer morning—

"At first faint gleaming in the dappled East... Young day pours in apace,And opens all the lawny prospect wide,The dripping rock, the mountain's misty topsSwell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn,Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine,"

"At first faint gleaming in the dappled East

... Young day pours in apace,

And opens all the lawny prospect wide,

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty tops

Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn,

Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine,"

"The clouds that pass,For ever flushing round a summer sky";

"The clouds that pass,

For ever flushing round a summer sky";

or the rainbow in theLines to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton? Dyer may be somewhat prosaic, but he is not a poet to be despatched in a treatise on descriptive poetry, without citation, in a few contemptuous lines: how vivid is his picture of a calm in the tropics!—

"The dewy feather, on the cordage hung,Moves not; the flat sea shines, like yellow goldFused in the fire";

"The dewy feather, on the cordage hung,

Moves not; the flat sea shines, like yellow gold

Fused in the fire";

or his

"Rocks in ever-wildPosture of falling";

"Rocks in ever-wild

Posture of falling";

or the charming landscape inGrongar Hillwith such touches as these:

"The windy summit wild and highRoughly rushing on the sky";

"The windy summit wild and high

Roughly rushing on the sky";

"Rushing from the woods the spiresSeem from hence ascending fires."

"Rushing from the woods the spires

Seem from hence ascending fires."

As Wordsworth said, "Dyer's beauties are innumerable and of a high order." It is very surprising that nothing should have been saidabout Shenstone and the Wartons, about Scott of Amwell, Jago, Crowe and Bowles, all of whom are, in various ways, remarkable as descriptive poets. And certainly Mr. Palgrave does scant justice to Cowper; his touch may be prosaic, but he always had his eye on the object, and his landscape lives. Surely, by the way, Mr. Palgrave is mistaken in supposing that Shelley apparently understood Alastor to mean a "wanderer"; he understood it, as the preface shows, to mean, what it means so often in Greek, "one under the spell of an avenging deity."

Here we must break off. Mr. Palgrave's is an important work, and it is the duty, therefore, of a critic to review it seriously, in the hope that, should it reach a second edition, which may be confidently anticipated, Mr. Palgrave may be disposed to do a little more justice to his most interesting subject.

Since this article was written Mr. Palgrave's lamented death has unhappily rendered all hope of what was anticipated in the last paragraph, vain. But the review has been reprinted, and with some additions, in the hope that it may not be unacceptable as a contribution, however slight and imperfect, to a subject of great interest to lovers of poetry.

FOOTNOTES:[32]See Bergk, Poet. Lyr.Carm.Pop. xxix.[33]Nauck,Trag. Græc. Frag., p. 473.

[32]See Bergk, Poet. Lyr.Carm.Pop. xxix.

[33]Nauck,Trag. Græc. Frag., p. 473.

A familiar figure in literary circles, a fine critic, a graceful and scholarly minor poet, and one whose name will long be held in affectionate remembrance by lovers of English poetry, has passed away in the person of Francis Turner Palgrave. It would be absurd to place him beside Matthew Arnold—to whose genius, to whose characteristic accomplishments, to whose authority and influence, he had no pretension. And yet it may be questioned whether, after Arnold, any other critic of our time contributed so much to educate public taste where, in this country, it most needs such education. If, as a nurse of poets and in poetic achievement, England stands second to no nation in Europe, in no nation in the world has the standard of popular taste been so low, has the insensibility to what is excellent, and the perverse preference of what is mediocre to what is of the first order, been so signally, so deplorably, conspicuous. The generation which produced Wordsworth preferred Moore, and no less a person than the author ofVanity Fairwrote:—"Old daddy Wordsworthmay bless his stars if he ever gets high enough in Heaven to black Tommy Moore's boots." While the readers of Keats might have been numbered on his fingers, Robert Montgomery'sSatanandOmnipresence of the Deitywere going through their twelfth editions. During many years, for ten readers of Browning's poems there were a hundred thousand for Martin Tupper'sProverbial Philosophy, while the popularity of Mrs. Browning was as a wan shadow to the meridian splendour of Eliza Cook. Whoever will turn to the criticism of current reviews and magazines forty years ago will have no difficulty in understanding the diathesis described by Matthew Arnold as "on the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity; on the side of morality and feeling, coarseness; on the side of mind and spirit, unintelligence." Whoever will turn to nine out of the ten Anthologies, most in vogue before 1861, will understand, that the same instinct which in the Dark Ages led man to prefer Sedulius and Avitus to Catullus and Horace, Statius to Virgil, and Hroswitha to Terence, led these editors to analogous selections.

Making every allowance for the co-operation of other causes, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the appearance of theGolden Treasury of Songs and Lyricsin 1861 initiated an era in popular taste. It remains now incomparably the best selection of its kind inexistence. Itsdistinctive feature is the characteristicwhich differentiates it from all the anthologies which preceded or have followed it. It was to include nothing which was not first-rate; there was to be no compromise with the second-rate; if its gems varied, as gems do in value, each was to be of the first water. With patient and scrupulous diligence, the whole body of English poetry, from Surrey to Wordsworth, was explored and sifted. After due rejections, each piece in the residue was considered, weighed, tested. And here Mr. Palgrave had assistance, more invaluable than any other anthologist in the world has had—that of the illustrious poet to whom the volume was dedicated. It may be safely said of Tennyson that nature and culture had qualified him for being as great a critic as he was a poet. His taste was probably infallible; his touchstones and standards were derived not merely from the masters who had taught him his own art, but from a wonderfully catholic and sympathetic communion with all that was best in every sphere of influential artistic activity. The consequence is, that a book like theGolden Treasury, especially when taken in conjunction with the notes, which form an admirable commentary on the text, may be said to lay something more than the foundation of a sound critical education. What theGolden Treasuryis to readers of a maturer age theChildren's Treasuryis to younger readers. It is a greatpity that such inferior works as many which we could name are allowed, in our schools, to supplant such a work as Palgrave's. The same exquisite taste and nice discernment mark his other anthologies, his selections from Herrick, and Tennyson, and, though perhaps in a less degree, hisTreasury of English Sacred Poetry, and his recently published supplement to theGolden Treasury. It is probably impossible to over-estimate the salutary influence which these works have exercised.

There is no arguing on matters of taste, and exception might easily be taken, sometimes, to his dicta as a critic. But this at least must be conceded by everybody, that in the best and most comprehensive sense of the term he was a man of classical temper, taste, and culture, and that he had all the insight and discernment, all the instincts and sympathies, which are the result of such qualifications. He had no taint of vulgarity, of charlatanism, of insincerity. He never talked or wrote the cant of the cliques or of the multitude. He understood and clung to what was excellent; he had no toleration for what was common and second rate; he was not of the crowd. He belonged to the same type of men as Matthew Arnold and William Cory, a type peculiar to our old Universities before things took the turn which they are taking now. It will be long before we shall have such critics again, and their loss is incalculable.

As a scholar Palgrave was rather elegant than profound or exact, and, to judge from a series of lectures delivered by him as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, onLandscape in Classical Poetry, and afterwards published in a work which is here reviewed, his acquaintance with the Greek and Roman poets was, if scholarly and sympathetic, somewhat superficial. But he was getting old, and perhaps he had lost his memory or his notes. As a poet he was the author of four volumes, the earliest, published in 1864, entitledIdylls and Songs, and the latest, published in 1892,Amenophis; and other Poems. But his most ambitious effort appeared in 1882,Visions of England, written with the laudable purpose of stirring up in the young the spirit of patriotism. His poetry may be described, not inaptly, in the sentence in which Dr. Johnson sums up the characteristics of Addison's verses:—"Polished and pure, the production of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence." Perhaps they served their end in procuring for him the honourable appointment which he filled competently for ten years—that of the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford. It may be said of him as was said of Southey, he was a good man and not a bad poet, or of Agricola,decentior quam sublimior fuit. But as a critic of Belles Lettres he was excellent.

[34]Some Aspects of the Greek Genius.By S. H. Butcher, Litt. D., LL.D. London.

That a second edition of Professor Butcher's essays onSome Aspects of the Greek Geniusshould have been called for so soon is assuredly a very significant fact. And it is significant in more ways than one. It not only goes far to refute Lord Coleridge's theory that Greek has lost its hold on modern life, but it furnishes one of the many proofs, which we have recently had, that people are beginning to understand what is now to be expected from classical scholars, if classical scholars are to hold their own in the world of to-day, and that scholars are, in their turn, aware that they no longer constitute an esoteric guild for esoteric studies. The task of the purely philological labourer has been accomplished. During more than four centuries, succeeding schools of literal critics have been toiling to furnish mankind with the means of unlocking the treasures of classical Greece. Till withincomparatively recent times, the power of reading the Greek classics with accuracy and ease was an accomplishment beyond the reach of any but specialists. Unless a student was prepared to grapple with the difficulties of unsettled and often unintelligible texts, to make his own grammar—nay, his own dictionary—to choose between conflicting and contradictory interpretations, and, in a word, to possess all that now would be required in a classical editor, it would be impossible for him to read, with any comfort, a chorus of Æschylus or Sophocles, an ode of Pindar, or a speech in Thucydides. But now all these difficulties have vanished. Excellent lexicons, grammars, commentaries, and translations, with settled texts, and editions of the principal Greek classics so satisfactory that practically they leave nothing to be desired, have rendered what was once the monopoly of mere scholars common property. The power of reading Greek with accuracy and comfort is now, indeed, within the reach of any person of average intelligence and industry.

But prescription and tradition are tenacious of their privileges. Greek has so long been regarded as the inheritance of philologists, that they are not prepared to resign what was once their exclusive possession, without a struggle. It is useless to point out to them that, if Greek is to maintain its place in modern education, it can only maintain it by virtue of its connectionwith the humanities, by virtue of its intrinsic value as the expression of genius and art, and of its historical value as the key to the development and characteristics of the classics of the modern world; by virtue, in fine, of its relation to life, and its relation to History and Criticism. The revival, indeed, of thetriviumandquadriviumof the Middle Ages would not be an absurder anachronism than it is to draw no distinction between the functions and aims of classical scholarship, when it was, necessarily, confined to philologists and specialists, and its functions and aims at the present day. It has been the obstinate determination on the part of academic bodies not to recognise this distinction, but to preserve Greek as the monopoly of those who approach it only on the side of philological specialism, which has led to its complete dissociation in our scholastic system from what constitutes its chief, almost its sole title to preservation. At Cambridge, for example, it has been expressly excluded from the only School in which the study of Literature has been organized, and an attempt to substitute Modern Languages in its place—for a degree in arts—was only defeated by the intervention of non-resident members of the University. At Oxford a scheme for a "School of Literature," in which Greek was to have no place, might, not long ago have been carried, and the casting vote of the proctor alone saved the University from thisdisgrace, and Greek from a crushing blow.[35]But, fortunately for the cause of Greek, there is every indication that a reaction, too strong for academic bodies to resist, is setting in. Scholars are beginning to see that what Socrates did for Philosophy must now be done for Greek, if Greek is to hold its own. Thus, it has preserved, and no doubt may preserve, its esoteric side; but that which constitutes its chief, its real importance—which justifies its retention in modern education—is not what appeals, and can only appeal, in each generation, to a small circle of "specialists"—its philological interest, but what appeals to liberal intelligence, to men as men, to the poet, to the philosopher, to the orator, to the critic. To this end, to what may be described as the vitalization of Greek, all the labours of the late Professor Jowett were directed; and by his means Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle are brought into influential relation with modern life. What he effected for them Professor Jebb has effected for Sophocles, and not only has this unrivalled Greek scholar placed within the reach of any person of average intelligence all that is necessary for the elucidation of the language, art, and philosophy of the Shakespeare of the Athenian stage, but he has not disdained to furnish a popular manual of Homeric study, and a popular elementary guide-book to Greek literature.Professor Lewis Campbell has laboured in the same field and in the same cause. Great also have been the services rendered to the popularization of Greek by Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Ernest Myers, Mr. Walter Leaf, and many other distinguished scholars, all of whom have shown, both by their published works and as lecturers, that the masterpieces of ancient Greece may become as intelligible and influential in the world of to-day as they were more than two thousand years ago.

We welcome with joy the advent of Professor Butcher among these prophets. Few names stand higher than his in the roll of modern scholars, and assuredly few modern scholars possess, in so large a measure, the power of applying scholarship to the purposes of liberal criticism and exegesis. He has written a delightful book, in a pleasant style, full of learning, suggestive, stimulating, a book which no student of Greek literature can lay down without a hearty feeling of gratitude to the author. Porson said of Bentley that more might be learned from his work when he was in error than from the work of a rival scholar when he was in the right. We shall not presume to accuse Professor Butcher of error, but we are bound to say that there is much in his book which appears to us very questionable, and much also from which we entirely dissent.

Professor Butcher discusses, for example, atgreat length, the leading characteristics of the Greek temper, but, in drawing his conclusions, he has not sufficiently distinguished between what was more or less accidental and what was essentially peculiar. The fact is that nothing is so easy as generalisations of this kind, if the deduction of half truth be our aim; and nothing so difficult if whole truth, or truth which may be accepted without reserve, is to be the result. The most mobile, plastic, Protean people who have ever lived, their activity, within the strict limits of classical literature, extended over about six centuries, and, if we protract it to the point included in Professor Butcher's illustrations, to more than nine centuries. Of their literature, though we appear to have the best of it, not a third part has survived. By an adroit use of illustration, it is, therefore, easy to predicate anything of them. Go to serious epic, to serious as distinguished from passionate lyric, to tragedy, to threnody, and they were, if you please, the gravest people on earth's face; go to Aristophanes and to the poets of the Old Comedy, and they were the merriest; go to the Ionic Elegists and to the fragments of the New Comedy, and they were the saddest and most cynical; go to Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, and they were, like Dante's sages,ni tristi ni lieti. We do not quarrel with Professor Butcher's general position in his Essay on the melancholy of the Greeks, or question thatthere existed in certain moods a profound melancholy and dissatisfaction with life in the Greek temper. But of what intelligent and reflective people or individual who have ever existed is this not equally true? Where we do quarrel with Professor Butcher is on the following point, the point on which he chiefly rests in proving that the Greeks were pre-eminently distinguished by pessimistic melancholy—an assertion that we denyin toto. He tells us that, with one notable exception, to which he subsequently adds three others, the Greeks regarded hope not as a solace and support in life, but as a snare and a delusion, not as a power to cling to, but as an influence fraught with mischief. Nothing surely can be more erroneous. The wisest people who have ever lived are not likely to have confounded baseless and flighty desires or aspirations with what is implied in hope, though Professor Butcher has done so in the illustrations advanced by him in support of his theory. All through Greek literature, from Hesiod to Theocritus—not to go further—the importance and wisdom of cherishing hope, as one of the chief supports of life, are emphatically dwelt on. Professor Butcher has surely misrepresented—certainly Æschylus and the Greeks generally did not interpret it in the sense in which he has done—the fable of Pandora's chest. It was not "as part of the deadly gift of the goddess" that hope was there; it was as the oneblessing amid the crowd of ills. "As long as a man lives," says Theognis, "let him wait on hope.... Let him pray to the gods; and to Hope let him sacrifice first and last" (1143-1146). Pindar, if he warns man against baseless, wild, or extravagant expectation, is emphatic on the wisdom of cherishing hope. It is "the sweet nurse of the heart in old age," "the chief helmsman of man's versatile will." (Fragment, 233.) "A man should cherish good hope." (Isth., vii. 15.) "It is the wing on which soaring manhood is supported." (Pythian, viii. 93.) "The wise," says Euripides, "must cherish hope." (Frag. of Ino.) Again: "Prudent hope must be your stay in misfortune." (Id.) Life, he says in theTroades(628), is preferable to death, in that it has hopes. A sentiment repeated by Euripides again in theHercules Furens(105-6): "That man is the bravest who trusts to hope under all circumstances; to be without hope is the part of a coward." So Menander: "Hold before yourself the shield of good hope." (Incert. Frag.xlvii.) The passages quoted by Professor Butcher from Thucydides are not to the point. It would have been much more to the point had he quoted the passage in which Pericles eulogizes those who "committed to hope the uncertainty of success" (II. 42), or the passage (I. 70) in which the superiority of the Athenians to the Lacedæmonians in civil and military efficiencyis largely attributed to their reliance on hope. Again, what, according to Cephalus, in theRepublic, is the chief solace of old age?—"The abiding presence of sweet hope." But it would be easy to multiply indefinitely from the Greek classics what Professor Butcher calls "rare examples of hope in the happier aspect."

The most important chapters in Professor Butcher's work—indeed they occupy nearly one half of it—are those dealing with Aristotle's theory of fine art and poetry. On no subject in criticism have there been so many misconceptions current and influential even among scholars, originating for the most part from mistranslations and misunderstandings of the treatise in which they find their chief embodiment—thePoetics. This has unfortunately come down to us in a very imperfect and corrupt state, and, what is more unfortunate still, it became a classic in criticism long before it was properly understood. Thus, in the clause in the famous definition of tragedy, where Aristotle describes it asδι' ελεου και φοβου περαινουσα την των τοιουτων παθηματων καθαρσιν, "through pity and fear effecting the purgation of these emotions," the French and English critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ignoring the wordsτων τοιουτων, have totally misinterpreted the passage, and given it a meaning which was not only not intended by Aristotle, but which has falsified his whole theory of the scope and functions of tragedy.An unsound text, the insertion ofαλλαbefore the clause, sent Lessing on a wrong track. From the misinterpretation of another passage in the treatise (V. 4) has been deduced the famous doctrine of the Unities. The mistranslation ofσπουδαιοςin the definition of Tragedy, and of the same word in the comparison between Poetry and History, has led to misconceptions on other points. The scholars who did most in England to place the study of this treatise on a sound footing were Twining and Tyrwhitt. In the present century it has received exhaustive illustration from Saint-Hilaire, Stahr, Susemihl, Vahlen, Teichmüller, Ueberweg, Reinkens, Jacob Bernays, and others; while such works as E. Müller'sGeschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den Altenhave thrown general light on the question of Greek æsthetics. That Professor Butcher has not been able to advance anything new in these essays is very creditable to him, for the simple reason that, as all that is worth saying has been said, his sole resource, had he attempted to be original, would have been paradox and sophistry. With regard to the question of theKatharsis, it will probably be, for all time, a case of "quot homines tot sententiæ"; and we have certainly no intention of accompanying Professor Butcher into this labyrinth. We entirely agree with him and Bernays that the passage in thePolitics(V. viii. 7) settles conclusively at least one part of the meaning, but we differ from Bernays,in contending that the "lustratio" is included, and from Professor Butcher, in contending that the "lustratio" is not effected merely by the relief. Professor Butcher seems here indeed to be a little confused, or at all events confusing. He first explains "katharsis" as "a purging away of the emotions of pity and fear," and then explains it as "a purifying of them"; but it is neither easy to understand how "purging away" is "purifying," nor why we should "purify" what we "purge away." Surely it is better—but we speak with all submission—to take the word in two different meanings, the one signifying the immediate effect of tragedy in its direct appeal to the passions referred to, the other not to its immediate, but to its ulterior and total effect in educating the passions thus excited.

Professor Butcher, who appears to belong to the Pater School, dwells with great complacency on the fact that Aristotle "attempted to separate the function of æsthetics from that of morals," that "he made the end of art reside in a pleasurable emotion," that he says "nothing of any moral aim in poetry," and that though he often takes exception to Euripides as an artist, "he attaches no blame to him for the immoral tendency in some of his dramas," so severely censured by Aristophanes. If Professor Butcher implies, as he seems to imply by this, that Aristotle would lend any countenance to themodern art-for-art's-sake doctrine, and proceeded on the assumption that there was no necessary connection between æsthetics and morals, he does Aristotle very great injustice, and is refuted by thePoeticsthemselves. In the fifth chapter Aristotle lays stress on the fact that tragedy is, like epic, a representation of "superior or morally good characters" (μιμησις σπουδαιων)—that the characters are to be good (χρηστα). In the twenty-fifth chapter he says that nothing can excuse the exhibition of moral depravity (μοχθηρια), unless it be one of the things implicit in the plot; and that among the most serious objections which can be brought against a drama is that it is likely to do moral harm (βλαβερα). In the thirteenth chapter he shows,—and on moral grounds,—why the protagonist in a tragedy should not be a perfectly good man or a perfectly bad man. Indeed, the very definition of tragedy refutes Professor Butcher's statement. It may be said, no doubt, that Aristotle maintains that the end of poetry is pleasure, but it must be "the proper pleasure," and in the proper pleasure moral satisfaction is implied.[36]It is only by a quibble that Professor Butcher's theory can be supported, and it is a pity to quibble on subjects whichmay be so mischievously misunderstood. Aristotle was, we suspect, very much nearer to Ben Jonson and Milton than to Mr. Pater in his conception of the functions and scope of poetry.

In the interesting essay on Sophocles there are two statements which appear to us very questionable. It is surely not true to say that Sophocles was "the first of the Greeks who has clearly realized that suffering is not always penal." Who could have expressed this truth more forcibly than Æschylus? To say nothing of the well-known passage in theAgamemnon, 167-171:—

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