LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Byron.By John Nichol.(English-Men-of-Letters Series.)New York: Harper &Brothers.
"The quiet, uneventful life of a man of letters" is a phrase not infrequently used, generally by way of excuse for some dull biography. It is doubtful, however, whether the life of the poet, the novelist, or even the scholar, is not apt to be quite as varied and full of incident as those of men whose callings are considered more active and adventurous, while the interest that attaches to the relation of it is almost certain to be more personal and concentrated. The career of the statesman or the warrior is commonly merged in the events of his time; that of the discoverer or the inventor furnishes matter for a chapter in the history of scientific progress; the mere "man of the world" is one of the least important figures in the shifting scenes and disconnected pictures of which his recollections may supply the only memorial. But the man of genius whose writings we have studied with a constant sense of the influence of mind upon mind—his mind upon ours, stirring our emotions, quickening our thoughts, enlarging our conceptions—becomes in his biography a subject for close investigation and analysis, in which every fact is significant, actions and impressions have equal importance, efforts and achievements, success and failure, are viewed as the direct outcome of character and intellect, all events have a common centre, and the world's affairs are noted only in reference to the individual, whether, like Rousseau, he has given them a strong impulse, or, like Dante, has been the victim of their turbulence, or, like Goethe, has stood apart in the attitude of contemplation. The office of such men is to reveal the needs and aspirations of humanity; their voices rise above the general din in musical plaint or exultation; their utterances lead us to examine and understand ourselves; and hence their lives, even when outwardly tranquil, cannot fail, if fully and rightly portrayed, to enchain our sympathies. But it is the exception, rather than the rule, when genius is linked with an apparently serene or commonplace existence. It is the fashion now-a-days to deride the notion that a man of genius is almost necessarily deficient in prudence, and consequently little fitted to steer his way securely amid the ordinary perils of life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in the great majority of cases the most highly-gifted natures appeal as strongly to our pity or tolerance as to our admiration, that under similar circumstances their errors and misfortunes have been greater or more frequent than those of commoner natures, that with them the "inward storm and outward strife" in which the great lesson of life—"das schwer-verstandene Wort"—is learned—
Von der Gewalt die alle Wesen bindetBefreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet—
Von der Gewalt die alle Wesen bindetBefreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet—
Von der Gewalt die alle Wesen bindetBefreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet—
Von der Gewalt die alle Wesen bindet
Befreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet—
are not lighter, but more severe and destructive, than with others. And in cases where there has been a conjunction of high intellect and a fiery temperament with outward conditions equally remote from those of ordinary life, the biographer is provided with materials which the novelist would not dare to grapple with, and which the tragic writer would scarcely need to mix with any stronger element of his art.
That Byron's was one of these rare cases no one will be inclined to deny. His genius, if not of the highest order, was marvellously brilliant and fertile, and almost unparalleled in the potency of its charm. His nature was chaotic, his position full of incongruities, his fame an eruption, his career meteoric. "No one ever lived," remarks Mr. Nichol, "who in the same space more thoroughly ran the gauntlet of existence." And all the experiences of his life, all the contrasts in his character and his intellect—his nobleness and his baseness, his sincerity and his affectations, his giant power and his puerile weakness—are reflected and exhibited in his works with a directness and completeness that do not belong to the self-mirrorings of any other writer, not excepting Rousseau. Never has there been a great poet who was less of an artist; never one who could so little transmute an experience or embody a thought as to give it a universal significance; never one whose productions, however diversified in form, have an equal sameness in theme and tone, or present themselves so palpably as fragments of an autobiography. We followhim in his travels, we are witnesses of his thinly veiled adventures, we find his cravings and caprices, his piercing mockeries and fantastic imaginings, in the Selims and Conrads, the Manfreds and Cains, the Harolds and Juans, whose forms he assumes as the disguises of a masquerade, we receive the outpourings of his confidence in every mood and on every topic—we gaze, in short, incessantly into the inmost recesses and watch all the wild and wayward movements of a heart that is never at rest and that never shrinks from exposure—and, if strongly impressionable, we yield to the spell, accept the magic, echo the cry, undergo the same sensations, and identify ourselves with the being that has taken possession of us by this strange and violent egotism. One thing more must be remembered in accounting for the intensity of Byron's influence on his contemporaries, the wideness of its diffusion and the suddenness of its decline: this personality, which seems at once so peculiar and so self-engrossed, is nevertheless the child of an epoch, itself full of agitations and contradictions, feverish and tumultuous yet wearied and disgusted with its past excesses, ardent and aspiring yet scornful of its ideals, lavish of its energies yet unable to concentrate them, in revolt against conventional and outworn forms, but powerless to create fit ones for the inrushing life that seems, for lack of them, to spend its force in vain. Had Byron's been a loftier, clearer, calmer spirit, it would not have so well represented the age or impressed it so strongly: its sway would have been less transitory, but not so absolute.
Happily, the period of fascination and that of the inevitable reaction are now both past, and we can examine the phenomenon that was once thought so transcendent and afterward so trivial and delusive with an unbiased judgment. To the question whether the magic that riveted the gaze and enthralled the minds of so many and diverse observers was real or false, we find the reply easy, that it was both. It seems to us difficult to dispute the dictum of Mr. Carlyle, that "no genuine productive thought was ever revealed by Byron to mankind." It is just as undeniable, as Mr. Nichol freely allows, that his gift of expression, with its almost matchless sweep and facility, never embraces that exquisite phraseology, that suggestive and untranslatable diction, that perfect marriage of words to thought, which is of the very essence of poetry. Furthermore, no writer not palpably imitative ever betrayed in such a degree the influence of his great contemporaries, or culled more unsparingly from books to enrich his own compositions. His total lack of the dramatic faculty is admitted on all hands. It would seem impossible, therefore, to assign him a place in the creative order of minds, or to rank him, as some continental critics still do, with the great masters of poetry. Judged by the strictest tests and soundest canons, one is in doubt whether he should be reckoned as a poet: with the Romans he would have been one, no doubt, but scarcely with the Greeks. But if not a son of heaven, he is a chief among the sons of earth. His intellect is of the keenest, his wit of the sharpest, his passion of the strongest. Every scene, every event, every thought, every feeling, strikes him with electric force and is reproduced with the vividness and intensity of the original impression. His imagery has the effect of physical sensations. His descriptions do not merely represent or suggest, but steep us in the emotions of "a living presence." The sea and the mountains, the night and the storm, the "dewy morn," the "hush of eve," the "light of setting suns," the battle-field and the shipwreck, the chamber of death, the desert and the ruin, the rage of fierce passions, the calmness of despair, stamp themselves upon the reader's brain, and linger like the haunting effigies of personal experiences. Scrutiny reveals innumerable flaws, reflection discloses a want that makes the whole fabric seem little better than phantasmal; but we never lose the sense of an abounding life, of a vigor that cannot be repressed and a splendor that cannot be dimmed, of a genius always ripening, though condemned by its very nature to perpetual immaturity.
We have left ourselves little space to speak of Mr. Nichol's execution of a not too easy task. With matter so abundant his restrictions in regard to treatment could not but press hardly upon him. Too often he is compelled to summarize baldly or to rely upon the reader's previous familiarity with details. But subject to the qualifications arising from the conditions imposed upon him, his performance may be pronounced satisfactory and successful. The arrangement is skilful, the story is well told, and the criticism, if somewhat deficient in definitenessand force, shows both sympathy and comprehension and steers with tolerable directness between the extremes of praise and censure. Opposing judgments are quoted or referred to with needless iteration, and sometimes, as in the case of Carlyle and Goethe, with an exaggerated emphasis and a misapprehension of the relative points of view. It would be easy to take exception also to particular judgments or the manner in which they are expressed. When we are told, in allusion toCain, that "Lord Byron has elsewhere exhibited more versatility, fancy and richness of illustration, but nowhere else has he so nearly 'struck the stars,'" we cannot but demur to the substitution of a borrowed rhetorical phrase for the more literal statement which the preceding limitations lead us to expect. When we find it said of theVision of Judgmentthat "every line that does notconvulse with laughterstings or lashes," and of theLetter to the Editor of the British Reviewthat "no more laughter-compelling composition exists," we can only infer that Mr. Nichol's risible muscles are much more flexible than those of most people. But whatever its faults or shortcomings, this volume, as well from the deep interest of the subject as the ability with which it is handled, is one of the most agreeable, and can hardly fail to be one of the most widely read, of the series to which it belongs.
Four Centuries of English Letters.Edited and arranged by W. Baptiste Scoones.New York: Harper & Brothers.
It is hard to decide what may not be done by a clever littérateur with tolerable success in these days of hasty condensations and picturesque generalizations. An age of materialism has its advantages. If it cannot enjoy the inspiration of a distinct and vital idea to shape its own consciousness and give life and originality to its own achievements, it has a good chance to study with curious pains the methods and processes of all preceding epochs. There is, to be sure, something pathetic in our wealth of opportunity—something defeating, even impoverishing, in the very facility with which we set to work to extract the juices and essences from the dry bones of history.
Mr. Scoones must have enjoyed the labors which have their result in the book now before us. It has always seemed to us a pleasant task—worth the carrying out by a man of wealth and leisure—to select a library which should contain all the published letters of the world. The editor of this collection is no doubt familiar with such a library, and his aim has been to help others to his own sources of pleasure. He has given a fair selection of English letters, not attempting to classify them except by historical periods, which do not, however, always present them in regular sequence. This sort of book is supposed to suit the modern mind, which is understood to aim at the mastery of a little of everything. It is an attractive notion that since nobody now-a-days has time to read all the letters of a single writer, it is a capital thing to read a single letter of every writer. Yet the true significance of a book like this can only be felt by one who has studied the literature of letters familiarly and lovingly. To the student of history the mere turning of its pages brings an influx of thoughts and memories, half of pain, half of delight. In the confused medley the keynote of many a strange, melancholy strain is struck. The history of the world is a very sad one, and never seems more sad than when the relics of all the ages are thus jumbled together. Even what was in itself light-hearted and joyous becomes half tragical, because it belongs to the strange old story. Such a book, to be understood and cared about, must be read more through the imagination than through the eyes. John Dudley's letter from the Tower on the eve of his execution calls up all the passionate, painful, terrible history of one of the world's cruelest times and mirrors it anew for us. Yet it is not the duke of Northumberland's fate which makes our hearts shudder and our eyes moisten, but something that comes more nearly home to us.
Regarding the discrimination shown in the selection of the letters, there must be naturally as many opinions as there are lovers of letters. The reader turns to find the epistles he likes best, and missing them decides that much of what was most worthy has been omitted. It would seem as if Horace Walpole's letters might have been more carefully selected; Charles Lamb's have apparently been taken haphazard, without any accurate idea of their true valuation; and as for Keats's, those everybody ought to know and love him for have been left out altogether.
But unsubstantial things like letters, of which the charm is so delicate and elusive, stand less for what they are absolutely thanfor what they have come to mean for us. Sharply contrasted as now when bound up in a single volume, it becomes an interesting literary study to compare the style of one writer with that of another. Some of the "elegant letter-writers" seem barren pretenders enough when their vague, imposing, but patchwork sets of phrases are set side by side with the genuine outcome of real thought and feeling. Some very famous names are appended to tolerably indifferent effusions. It is very easy to decide whom we should have chosen for familiar correspondents. They are, after all, few, and first of all our choice would have been Cowper.
Pencilled Fly-Leaves:A Book of Essays in Town and Country.By John James Piatt.Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.
Mr. Piatt has written a pleasant series of essays on a capital list of subjects. He makes a sort of confession in the title of his book, and in his preface besides, of their being inspired by his favorite authors. They may originally have filled a particular column in some journal, and in such a case were certain to have been turned to by its readers with an expectation of pleasure which they never failed to answer. It is the fashion with critics to make mention more or less slightingly of detached pieces bound up in book-form. But, after all, how else should we have had Lamb and Hazlitt? And such essays, from their enforced brevity, are apt to contain a freshness and spirit often lacking in more ambitious papers, where, with the same amount of actual material, three times the space must be filled. Mr. Piatt is a poet, and sees the poetic side of every-day things. He is, besides, a genial optimist, and finds in the disagreeables of life—for instance, going to bed in a cold room—a delightful experience: "But blessed and thrice blessed is he for whom hardy choice or a most beneficent—even when least smiling—Fortune has made his bed and smoothed his pillow in a cold room! He sleeps in Abraham's bosom all the year, indeed. To him are given, night by night, such new sensations as those for which kings might throw away their foolish kingdoms. He conquers his Paradise at one shuddering although faithful leap, and the gentle tropics over the feathers and under the coverlets breathe their tenderest influences to confirm its enjoyments."
The last paper, "How the Bishop Built his College in the Woods," is the most interesting in the book, giving the history of Kenyon College. It is not probably generally known through what privations and struggles Bishop Chase carried his hope and his resolution to found a college in Ohio, nor how he gained his victory at last. Both the seminary and its site were named after munificent English patrons who came to the good bishop's aid when American friends turned from him. The episode of his runaway slave, Jack, the effect his emancipation had upon the fortunes of his master's beloved enterprise, is a curious one. We may add that Bishop Bedell, who now presides over the diocese of Ohio, has made Kenyon College one of the most interesting religious institutions in the United States.
The Diary and Letters of Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay).Revised and edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. 2 vols. Boston: Roberts Brothers.The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years.By Henry Martyn Dexter. New York: Harper & Brothers.The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews.By Michael Heilprin. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co.Uncle Jack's Executors.By Annette Lucille Noble. ("Knickerbocker Novels.") New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard the Third.By William J. Rolfe, A.M. New York: Harper & Brothers.A Stranded Ship.By L. Clarke Davis. ("Knickerbocker Novels.") New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.The Sisters.By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell. New York: William S. Gottsberger.American Manual of Parliamentary Law.By George T. Fish. New York: Harper & Brothers.Critical Essays and Literary Notes.By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.Judge and Jury.By Benjamin Vaughan Abbott. New York: Harper & Brothers.Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell.New York: Harper & Brothers.The Octagon Club.By E.M.H. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.Half a Century.By Jane Grey Swisshelm. Chicago: J.G. Swisshelm.Salvage. (No-Name Series.)Boston: Roberts Brothers.
The Diary and Letters of Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay).Revised and edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. 2 vols. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years.By Henry Martyn Dexter. New York: Harper & Brothers.
The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews.By Michael Heilprin. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Uncle Jack's Executors.By Annette Lucille Noble. ("Knickerbocker Novels.") New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard the Third.By William J. Rolfe, A.M. New York: Harper & Brothers.
A Stranded Ship.By L. Clarke Davis. ("Knickerbocker Novels.") New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
The Sisters.By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell. New York: William S. Gottsberger.
American Manual of Parliamentary Law.By George T. Fish. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Critical Essays and Literary Notes.By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Judge and Jury.By Benjamin Vaughan Abbott. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell.New York: Harper & Brothers.
The Octagon Club.By E.M.H. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Half a Century.By Jane Grey Swisshelm. Chicago: J.G. Swisshelm.
Salvage. (No-Name Series.)Boston: Roberts Brothers.