Chapter 13

“Whom answered thus the son of Telamon:‘My hands, too, grasp with firmer hold the spear,My spirit, like thine, is stirred; I feel my feetInstinct with fiery life; nor should I fearWith Hector, son of Priam, in his mightAlone to meet, and grapple to the death.’”

Thus Lord Derby. Chapman renders:—

“This Telamonius thus received: ‘So, to my thoughts, my handsBurn with desire to toss my lance;each foot beneath me standsBare on bright fire to use his speed; my heart is raised so high,That to encounter Hector’s self I long insatiately.’”

There is no question which version is the more energetic. Is Lord Derby’s nearer the original in being tamer? He has taken the “instinct with fiery life” from Chapman’s hint. The original has simply “restless,” or more familiarly “in a fidget.” There is nothing about “grappling to the death,” and “nor should I fear” is feeble where Chapman with his “long insatiately” is literal. We will give an example where Chapman has amplified his original (Book XVI. v. 426; Derby, 494; Chapman, 405):—

“Down jumped he from his chariot; down leapt his foe as light;And as, on some far-looking rock, a cast of vultures fight,Fly on each other, strike and truss, part, meet, and then stick by,Tug both with crooked beaks and seres, cry, fight, and fight and cry,So fiercely fought these angry kings.”[29]

Lord Derby’s version is nearer:—

“He said, and from his car, accoutred, sprang;Patroclus saw and he too leaped to earth.As on a lofty rock, with angry screams,Hook-beaked, with talons curved, two vultures fight,So with loud shouts these two to battle rushed.”

Chapman has made his first line out of two in Homer, but, granting the license, how rapid and springy is the verse! Lord Derby’s “withs” are not agreeable, his “shouts” is an ill-chosen word for a comparison with vultures, “talons curved” is feeble, and his verse is, as usual, mainly built up of little blocks of four syllables each. “To battle” also is vague. With whom? Homer says that they rushed each at other. We shall not discuss how much license is loyal in a translator, but, as we think his chief aim should be to give a feeling of that life and spirit which makes the immortality of his original, and is the very breath in the nostrils of all poetry, he has a right to adapt himself to the genius of his own language. If he would do justice to his author, he must make up in one passage for his unavoidable shortcomings in another. He may here and there take for granted certain exigencies of verse in his original which he feels in his own case. Even Dante, who boasted that no word had ever made him say what he did not wish, should have made an exception of rhyming ones, for these sometimes, even in so abundant a language as the Italian, have driven the most straightforward of poets into an awkwarddétour.

We give one more passage from Chapman:—

“And all in golden weedsHe clothed himself; the golden scourge most elegantly doneHe took and mounted to his seat; and then the god begunTo drive his chariot through the waves. From whirl-pits every wayThe whales exulted under him, and knew their king; the seaFor joy did open, and his horse so swift and lightly flewThe under axle-tree of brass no drop of water drew.”

Here the first half is sluggish and inadequate, but what surging vigor, what tumult of the sea, what swiftness, in the last! Here is Lord Derby’s attempt:—

“All clad in gold, the golden lash he graspedOf curious work, and, mounting on his car,Skimmed o’er the waves; from all the depths belowGambolled around the monsters of the deep,Acknowledging their king: the joyous seaParted her waves; swift flew the bounding steeds,Nor was the brazen axle wet with spray.”

Chapman here is truer to his master, and the motion is in the verse itself. Lord Derby’s is description, and not picture. “Monsters of the deep” is an example of the hackneyed periphrases in which he abounds, like all men to whom language is a literary tradition, and not a living gift of the Muses. “Lash” is precisely the wrong word. Chapman is always great at sea. Here is another example from the Fourteenth Book:—

“And as, when with unwieldy wavesthe great sea forefeels windsThat both ways murmur, and no way her certain current finds,But pants and swells confusedly, here goes, and there will stay,Till on it air casts one firm wind, and then it rolls away.”

Observe how the somewhat ponderous movement of the first verse assists the meaning of the words.

He is great, too, in single phrases and lines:—

“And as, from top of some steep hill, the Lightener strips a cloudAnd lets a great sky out of Heaven, in whose delightsome lightAll prominent foreheads, forests, towers, and temples cheer the sight.’(Book XVI. v. 286.)

The lion “lets his rough brows down so low they hide his eyes”; the flames “wrastle” in the woods; “rudefeet dim the day with a fog of dust;” and so in a hundred other instances.

For an example of his more restrained vigor, take the speech of Sarpedon in the Twelfth Book of the Iliad, and for poetic beauty, the whole story of Ulysses and Nausikaa in the Odyssey. It was here that Keats made himself Grecian and learned to versify.

Mr. Hooper has done his work of editing well. But he has sometimes misapprehended his author, and distorted his meaning by faulty punctuation. In one of the passages already cited, Mr. Hooper’s text stands thus: “Lest I be prejudiced with opinion, to dissent of ignorance, or singularity.” All the commas which darken the sense should be removed. Chapman meant to say, “Lest I be condemned beforehand by people thinking I dissent out of ignorance or singularity.” (Iliad Vol. I. p. 23.) So on the next page the want of a hyphen makes nonsense: “And saw the round coming [round-coming] of this silver bow of our Phoebus,” that is, the crescent coming to the full circle. In the translations, too, the pointing needs reformation now and then, but shows, on the whole, a praiseworthy fidelity. We will give a few examples of what we believe to be errors on the part of Mr. Hooper, who, by the way, is weakest on points which concern the language of Chapman’s day. We follow the order of the text as most convenient.

“Bid” (Il. i.) is explained to mean “threaten, challenge,” where “offer” would be the right word.

“And castThe offal of all to the deep.” (Il. i. 309.)

Surely a slip of Chapman’s pen. He must have intended to write “Of all the offal,” a transversion common with him and needed here to avoid a punning jingle.

“So much I must affirm our power exceeds th’ inhabitant.” (Il. ii. 110.)

Mr. Hooper’s note is “inhabiters, viz. of Troy.” “Inhabitant” is an adjective agreeing with “power.” Our power without exceeds that within.

“Yet all this time to stay,Out of our judgments, for our end, and now to take our wayWithout it were absurd and vile.” (Il. ii, 257.)

A note on this passage tells us that “out of judgments” means “against our inclinations.” It means simply “in accordance with our good judgment,” just as we still say “out of his wisdom.” Compare Il. iii. 63,

“Hector, because thy sharp reproof isout of justicegiven, I take it well.”“And as Jove, brandishing a star which men a comet call, Hurls out his curled hair abroad, that from his brand exhals A thousand sparks.” (Il. iv. 85.)

“Hector, because thy sharp reproof isout of justicegiven, I take it well.”

“And as Jove, brandishing a star which men a comet call, Hurls out his curled hair abroad, that from his brand exhals A thousand sparks.” (Il. iv. 85.)

Mr. Hooper’s note is “‘Which men a comet call’—so both the folios. Dr. Taylor has printed ‘which man a comet calls.’ This certainly suits the rhyme, but I adhere to Chapman’s text.” Both editors have misunderstood the passage. The fault is not in “call” but in “exhals,” a clear misprint for “exhall,” the spelling, as was common, being conformed to the visible rhyme. “That” means “so that” (a frequent Elizabethan construction) and “exhall” is governed by “sparks.” The meaning is, “As when Jove, brandishing a comet, hurls out its curled hair so that a thousand sparks exhale from its burning.”

“Theevickeskipping from the rock.”

Mr. Hooper tells us, “It is doubtful what this word really is. Dr. Taylor suggests that it may probably mean theevict, or doomed one—but? It is possible Chapman meant to Anglicize the Greek αἴξ; or should we read Ibex, as the αἴξ ἴξαλος was such?” The word means thechamois, and is merely the English form of the Frenchibiche. Dr. Taylor’s reading would amaze uswere we not familiar with the commentators on Shakespeare.

“And now theyout-rayto your fleet.” (Il. v. 793.)

“Out-ray—spread out in array; abbreviated from array. Dr. Taylor says ‘rush out,’ from the Anglo-Saxon ‘rean,’ to flow; but there seems no necessity for such an etymology.” We should think not! Chapman, like Pope, made his first sketch from the French, and corrected it by the Greek. Those who would understand Chapman’s English must allow for traces of his French guide here and there. This is one of them, perhaps. The word is etymologically unrelated toarray. It is merely the old Frenchoultréer, a derivative ofultra. It means “they pass beyond their gates even to your fleet.” He had said just before that formerly “your foes durst not a foot addresswithout their ports.” The word occurs again Il. xxiii. 413.

“When none, though many kings put on, could make his vaunt, he ledTydides to renewed assault or issued first the dike.” (Il. viii. 217.)

“Tydides.—He led Tydides, i. e. Tydides he led. An unusual construction.” Not in the least. The old printers or authors sometimes put a comma where some connecting particle was left out. We had just now an instance where one took the place ofso. Here it suppliesthat. “None could make his vaunt that he led (that is, was before) Tydides.” We still use the word in the same sense, as the “leading” horse in a race.

“And all did wilfully expect the silver-throned morn.” (Il. viii. 497.)

“Wilfully—willingly, anxiously.”Wishfully, as elsewhere in Chapman.

“And as, upon a rich man’s crop of barley or of wheat,Opposed for swiftness at their work, a sort of reapers sweat.”

“Opposed—standing opposite to one another for expedition’s sake.” We hope Mr. Hooper understood his ownnote, for it baffles us utterly. The meaning is simply “pitted against each other to see which will reap most swiftly.” In a note (Il. xi. 417.) we are told that “the etymology [oflucern] seems uncertain.” It is nothing more than a corruption of the old Frenchleucerve(loup-cervier).

“I would then make-in in deed and steepMy income in their bloods.” (Il. xvii. 481.)

“Income—communication, or infusion, of courage from the Gods. The word in this sense Todd says was a favorite in Cromwell’s time.” A surprising note!Incomehere means nothing more than “onfall,” as the context shows.

“To put the best inure.” (Il. xvii. 545.)

“Ure—use. Skinner thinks it a contraction ofusura. It is frequent in Chaucer. Todd gives examples from Hooker and L’Estrange.” The word is common enough, but how Mr. Hooper could seriously quote good old Skinner for such an etymology we cannot conceive. It does not mean “in use,” but “to work,” being merely the English form ofen œuvre, as “manure” is ofmanœuvrer.

“So troop-meal Troy pursued a while.” (Il. xvii. 634.)

“Troop-meal—in troops, troop by troop. So piecemeal. Tomealwas to mingle, mix together; from the Frenchmêler.... The reader would do well to consult Dr. Jamieson’s excellent ‘Dictionary of the Scottish Language’ in voce ‘mell.’”No doubt the reader might profit by consulting it under any other word beginning with M, and any of them would be as much to the purpose asmell.Troop-meal, likeinch-meal,piece-meal, implies separation, not mingling, and is from a Teutonic root. Mr. Hooper is always weak in his linguistic. In a note on Il. xviii. 144, he informs us that “Tosterveis todie; and the sense ofstarve, with cold or hungeroriginated in the 17th century.” We would it had! But we suspect that men had died of both these diseases earlier. What he should have said was that the restriction of meaning to dying with hunger was modern.

Il. xx. 239 we have “the God’s” for “the Gods’”and a few lines below “Anchisiades’”for “Anchisiades’s”; Il. xxi. 407, “press’d” for “prest.”

We had noted a considerable number of other slips, but we will mention only two more. “Treen broches” is explained to mean “branches of trees.” (Hymn to Hermes, 227.) It means “wooden spits.” In the Bacchus (28, 29) Mr. Hooper restores a corrupt reading which Mr. Singer (for a wonder) had set right. He prints,—

“Nay, which of all the Pow’r fully-divinedEsteem ye him?”

Of course it should be powerfully-divined, for otherwise we must read “Pow’rs.” The five volumes need a very careful revision in their punctuation, and in another edition we should advise Mr. Hooper to strike out every note in which he has been tempted into etymology.

We come next to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition of Lovelace. Three short pieces of Lovelace’s have lived, and deserved to live: “To Lucasta from Prison,” “To Lucasta on going to the Wars,” and “The Grasshopper.” They are graceful, airy, and nicely finished. The last especially is a charming poem, delicate in expression, and full of quaint fancy, which only in the latter half is strained to conceit. As the verses of a gentleman they are among the best, though not of a very high order as poetry. He is to be classed with theluckyauthors who, without great powers, have written one or two pieces so facile in thought and fortunate in phrase as to be carried lightly in the memory, poems in which analysis finds little, but which are charming in their frail completeness. This faculty of hitting on the preciseliltof thought and measure that shall catch the universal ear and sing themselves in everybody’s memory, is a rare gift. We have heard many ingenious persons try to explain theclingof such a poem as “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” and the result of all seemed to be, that there were certain verses that were good, not because of their goodness, but because one could not forget them. They have the great merit of being portable, and we have to carry so much luggage through life, that we should be thankful for what will pack easily and take up no room.

All that Lovelace wrote beside these three poems is utterly worthless, mere chaff from the threshing of his wits. Take out the four pages on which they are printed, and we have two hundred and eighty-nine left of the sorriest stuff that ever spoiled paper. The poems are obscure, without anything in them to reward perseverance, dull without being moral, and full of conceits so far-fetched that we could wish the author no worse fate than to carry them back to where they came from. We are no enemies to what are commonly called conceits, but authors bear them, as heralds say, with a difference. And a terrible difference it is! With men like Earle, Donne, Fuller, Butler, Marvell, and even Quarles, conceit means wit; they would carve the merest cherry-stone of thought in the quaintest and delicatest fashion. But with duller and more painful writers, such as Gascoyne, Marston, Fe11tham, and a score of others, even with cleverer ones like Waller, Crashawe, and Suckling, where they insisted on being fine, their wit is conceit. Difficulty without success is perhaps the least tolerable kind of writing. Mere stupidity is a natural failing; we skip and pardon. But the other is Dulness in a domino, that travesties its familiar figure, and lures usonly to disappoint. These unhappy verses of Lovelace’s had been dead and lapt in congenial lead these two hundred years;—what harm had they done Mr. Hazlitt that he should disinter them? There is no such disenchanter of peaceable reputations as one of these resurrectionmen of literature, who will not let mediocrities rest in the grave, where the kind sexton, Oblivion, had buried them, but dig them up to make a profit on their lead.

Of all Mr. Smith’s editors, Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt is the worst. He is at times positively incredible, worse even than Mr. Halliwell, and that is saying a good deal. Worthless as Lovelace’s poems were, they should have been edited correctly, if edited at all. Even dulness and dirtiness have a right to fair play, and to be dull and dirty in their own way. Mr. Hazlitt has allowed all the misprints of the original (or by far the greater part of them) to stand, but he has ventured on many emendations of the text, and in every important instance has blundered, and that, too, even where the habitual practice of his author in the use of words might have led him right. The misapprehension shown in some of his notes is beyond the belief of any not familiar with the way in which old books are edited in England by the job. We have brought a heavy indictment, and we proceed to our proof, choosing only cases where there can be no dispute. We should premise that Mr. Hazlitt professes to have corrected the punctuation.

“And though he sees it full of wounds,Cruel one, still he wounds it. (p. 34.)

Here the original reads, “Cruel still on,” and the only correction needed was a comma after “cruel.”

“And by the glorious lightOf both those stars, which of their spheres bereft,Only the jelly’s left.” (p. 41.)

The original has “of which,” and rightly, for “theirspheres bereft” is parenthetic, and the sense is “of which only the jelly’s left.” Lovelace is speaking of the eyes of a mistress who has grown old, and his image, confused as it is, is based on the belief that stars shooting from their spheres fell to the earth as jellies,—a belief, by the way, still to be met with in New England.

Lovelace, describing a cow (and it is one of the few pretty passages in the volume), says,—

“She was the largest, goodliest beastThat ever mead or altar blest,Round as her udder, and more whiteThan is the Milky-Way in night.” (p. 64.)

Mr. Hazlitt changes to “Round was her udder,” thus making that white instead of the cow, as Lovelace intended. On the next page we read,—

“She takes her leave o’ th’ mournful neat,Who, by her toucht, now prizeth her life,Worthy alone the hollowed knife.”

Compare Chapman (Iliads, xviii. 480):—

“Slew all their white fleec’d sheep andneat.”

The original was “prize their life,” and the use of “neat” as a singular in this way is so uncommon, if not unprecedented, and the verse as corrected so halting, that we have no doubt Lovelace so wrote it. Of course “hollowed” should be “hallowed,” though the broader pronunciation still lingers in our country pulpits.

“What need she other bait or charmBut look? or angle but her arm?” (p. 65.)

So the original, which Mr. Hazlitt, missing the sense, has changed to “what hook or angle.”

“Fly Joy on wings of PopinjaysTo courts of foolswhereas your playsDie laught at and forgot.” (p. 67.)

The original has “there.” Read,—

“Fly, Joy, on wings of popinjaysTo courts of fools; there, as your plays,Die,” &c.

“Where as,” as then used, would make it the “plays” that were to die.

“As he Lucasta nam’d, a groanStrangles the fainting passing tone;But as she heard, Lucasta smiles,Posses her round; she’s slipt meanwhilesBehind the blind of a thick bush.” (p. 68.)

Mr. Hazlitt’s note on “posses” could hardly be matched by any member of theposse comitatustaken at random:—

“This word does not appear to have any very exact meaning. See Halliwell’sDictionary of Archaic Words, art. Posse, and Worcester’s Dict.,ibid., &c. The context here requiresto turn sharply or quickly.”

The “ibid., &c.” is delightful; in other words, “find out the meaning ofpossefor yourself.” Though dark to Mr. Hazlitt, the word has not the least obscurity in it. It is only another form ofpush, nearer the Frenchpousser, from Latinpulsare, and “the context here requires” nothing more than that an editor should read a poem if he wish to understand it. The plain meaning is,—

“But, as she heardLucasta, smilesPossess her round.”

That is, when she heard the nameLucasta,—for thus far in the poem she has passed under the pseudonyme ofAmarantha. “Possess her round” is awkward, but mildly so for Lovelace, who also spells “commandress” in the same way with a singles.Processis speltprossesin the report of those who absented themselves from Church in Stratford.

“O thou, that swing’st upon the waving eare,Of some well-filled oaten beard.” (p. 94.)

Mr. Hazlitt, for some inscrutable reason, has changed “haire” to “eare” in the first line, preferring the ear of abeardto its hair!

Mr. Hazlitt prints,—

“Poor verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joysLarge and as lasting as thy peirch of grass,Bid us lay in ’gainst winter raine and poizeTheir flouds with an o’erflowing glasse.” (p. 95.)

Surely we should read:—

“Poor verdant foole and now green ice, thy joys,Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass,Bid,” &c.

i. e. “Poor fool now frozen, the shortness of thy joys, who mad’st no provision against winter, warns us to do otherwise.”

“The radiant gemme was brightly setIn as divine a carkanet;Of which the clearer was not knowneHer minde or her complexion.” (p. 101.)

The original reads rightly “for which,” &c., and, the passage being rightly pointed, we have,—

“For which the clearer was not known,Her mind or her complexion.”

Of course “complexion” had not its present limited meaning.

“ ... my future daring bayesShall bow itself.” (p. 107.)

“We should readthemselves,” says Mr. Hazlitt’s note authoritatively. Of course a noun ending insis plural! Not so fast. In spite of the dictionaries,bayswas often used in the singular.

“Do plant a sprig of cypress, not of bays,”

says Robert Randolph in verses prefixed to his brother’s poems; and Fe11tham in “Jonsonus Virbius,”

“A greener bays shall crown Ben Jonson’s name.”

But we will cite Mr. Bayes himself:—

“And, where he tookitup, resigns thebays.”“But we (defend us!) are divine,[Not] female, but madam born, and comeFrom a right-honorable wombe.” (p. 115.)

“And, where he tookitup, resigns thebays.”

“But we (defend us!) are divine,[Not] female, but madam born, and comeFrom a right-honorable wombe.” (p. 115.)

Here Mr. Hazlitt has ruined both sense and metre by his unhappy “not.” We should read “Female, but madam-born,” meaning clearly enough “we are women, it is true, but of another race.”

“In every hand [let] a cup be foundThat from all hearts a health may sound.” (p. 121.)

Wrong again, and the inserted “let” ruinous to the measure. Is it possible that Mr. Hazlitt does not understand so common an English construction as this?

“First told thee into th’ ayre, then to the ground.” (p. 141.)

Mr. Hazlitt inserts the “to,” which is not in the original, from another version. Lovelace wrote “ayër.” We have noted two other cases (pp. 203 and 248) where he makes the word a dissyllable. On the same page we have “shewe’s” changed to “shew” because Mr. Hazlitt did not know it meant “show us” and not “shows.” On page 170, “their” is substituted for “her,” which refers to Lucasta, and could refer to nothing else.

Mr. Hazlitt changes “quarrelsthestudent Mercury” to “quarrelswith,” not knowing thatquarrelswas once used as a transitive verb. (p. 189.)

Wherever he chances to notice it, Mr. Hazlitt changes the verb following two or more nouns connected by an “and” from singular to plural. For instance:—

“You, sir, alone, fame, and all conquering rhymeFile the set teeth,” &c. (p. 224.)

for “files.” Lovelace commonly writes so;—on p. 181, where it escaped Mr. Hazlitt’s grammatical eye, we find,—

“But broken faith, and th’ cause of it,All damning gold,wasdamned to the pit.”

Indeed, it was usual with writers of that day. Milton in one of his sonnets has,—

“Thy worth and skillexemptsthee from the throng,”—

and Leigh Hunt, for the sake of the archaism, in one of his, “Patience and Gentlenessispower.”

Weariness, and not want of matter, compels us to desist from further examples of Mr. Hazlitt’s emendations. But we must also give a few specimens of his notes, and of the care with which he has corrected the punctuation.

In a note on “flutes of canary” (p. 76) too long to quote, Mr. Hazlitt, after citing the glossary of Nares (edition of 1859, by Wright and Halliwell, a very careless book, to speak mildly), in whichfluteis conjectured to meancask, says that he is not satisfied, but adds, “I suspect that a fluteof canarywas so called from the cask having several vent-holes.” But flute means simply a tall glass. Lassel, describing the glass-making at Murano, says, “For the High Dutch they have high glasses calledFlutes, a full yard long.” So in Dryden’sSir Martin Mar-all, “bring two flute-glassesand some stools, ho! We’ll have the ladies’ health.” The origin of the word, though doubtful, is probably nearer tofloodthanflute. But conceive of two gentlemen, members of one knows not how many learned societies, like Messrs. Wright and Halliwell, pretending to edit Nares, when they query a word which they could have found in any French or German dictionary!

On page 93 we have,—

“Hayle, holy cold! chaste temper, hayle! the fireRaved o’er my purer thoughts I feel t’ expire.”

Mr. Hazlitt annotates thus: “Rav’dseems here to be equivalent toreav’dorbereav’d. Perhaps the correct reading may be ’reav’d.’ See Worcester’sDictionary, art.Rave?, where Menage’s supposition of affinity betweenraveandbereaveis perhaps a little too slightingly treated.”

The meaning of Lovelace was, “the firethatraved.” But what Mr. Hazlitt would make with “reaved o’er my purer thoughts,” we cannot conceive. On the whole, we think he must have written the note merely to make his surprising glossological suggestion. All that Worcester does for the etymology, by the way, is to cite Richardson, no safe guide.

“Where now oneso sospatters, t’other: no!” (p. 112.)

The comma in this verse has, of course, no right there, but Mr. Hazlitt leaves the whole passage so corrupt that we cannot spend time in disinfecting it. We quote it only for the sake of his note on “so so.” It is marvellous.

“An exclamation of approval when an actor made a hit. The corruption seems to be somewhat akin to the Italian, ’si, si,’ a corruption of ’sia, sia.’”

That the editor of an English poet need not understand Italian we may grant, but that he should not know the meaning of a phrase so common in his own language asso-sois intolerable. Lovelace has been saying that a certain play might have gained applause under certain circumstances, but that everybody calls itso-so,—something very different from “an exclamation of approval,” one should say. The phrase answers exactly to the Italiancosì così, whilesì(notsi) is derived fromsic, and is analogous with the affirmative use of the German so and the Yankeejes’ so.

“Oh, how he hast’ned death, burnt to be fryed!” (p. 141.)

The note onfryedis,—

“I. e. freed.Freeandfreedwere sometimes pronounced likefryandfryed; for Lord North, in hisForest of Varieties, 1645, has these lines:—

’Birds that long have lived free,Caught and cag’d, but pine and die.’

Here evidentlyfreeis intended to rhyme withdie.”

“Evidently!” An instance of the unsafeness of rhyme as a guide to pronunciation. It wasdiethat had the sound ofdee, as everybody (but Mr. Hazlitt) knows. Lovelace himself rhymesdieandsheon p. 269. But what shall we say to our editor’s not knowing thatfrywas used formerly where we should sayburn? Lovers used tofrywith love, whereas now they have got out of the frying-pan into the fire. In this case a martyr is represented as burning (i. e. longing) to be fried (i. e. burned).

“Her beams ne’er shed or change like th’ hair of day.” (p. 224.)

Mr. Hazlitt’s note is,—

“Hairis here used in what has become quite an obsolete sense. The meaning is outward form, nature, or character. The word used to be by no means uncommon; but it is now, as was before remarked, out of fashion; and indeed I do not think that it is found even in any old writer used exactly in the way in which Lovelace has employed it.”

We should think not, as Mr. Hazlitt understands it! Did he never hear of the golden hair of Apollo,—of theintonsum Cynthium? Don Quixote was a better scholar where he speaks oflas doradas hebras de sus hermosos cabellos. Buthairnever meant what Mr. Hazlitt says it does, even when used as he supposes it to be here. It had nothing to do with “outward form, nature, or character,” but had a meaning much nearer what we express by temperament, which its color was and is thought to indicate.

On p. 232 “wildink” is explained to mean “unrefined.” It is a mere misprint for “vild.”

Page 237, Mr. Hazlitt, explaining an illusion of Lovelace to the “east and west” in speaking of GeorgeSandys, mentions Sandys’s Oriental travels, but seems not to know that he translated Ovid in Virginia.

Pages 251, 252:—

“And as that soldier conquest doubted not,Who but one splinter had of Castriot,But would assault ev’n death, so strongly charmed,And naked oppose rocks, with this bone armed.”

Mr. Hazlitt readshisforthisin the last verse, and his note on “bone” is:—

“And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. (Judges xv. 15.)”

Could the farce of “editing” go further? To make a “splinter of Castriot” an ass’s jawbone is a little too bad. We refer Mr. Hazlitt to “The Life of George Castriot, King of Epirus and Albania,” &c., &c., (Edinburgh, 1753,) p. 32, for an explanation of this profound difficulty. He will there find that the Turkish soldiers wore relics of Scanderbeg as charms.

Perhaps Mr. Hazlitt’s most astounding note is on the wordpickear. (p. 203.)

“So within shot she doth pickear,Now gall’s [galls] the flank and now the rear.”

“In the sense in which it is here used this word seems to be peculiar to Lovelace.To pickear, orpickeer, meansto skirmish.” And, pray, what other possible meaning can it have here?

Of his corrections of the press we will correct a few samples.

Page 34, for “Lovenee’rehis standard,” read “neere.” Page 82, for “falltoo,” read “fallto” (or, as we ought to print such words, “fall-to”). Page 83, for “star-made firmament,” read “star, made firmament.” Page 161, for “To look their enemiesintheir hearse,” read, both for sense and metre,into. Page 176, for “the godshavekneeled,” readhad. Page 182, for “In beds they tumbledofftheir own,” readof. Page 184, for “in mine one monument I lie,” readowne. Page 212, for “Deucalion’sblackflung stone,” read “backflung.” Of the punctuation we shall give but one specimen, and that a fair average one:—

“Naso to his Tibullus flung the wreath,He to Catullus thus did each bequeath.This glorious circle, to another round,At last the temples of a god it bound.”

Our readers over ten years of age will easily correct this for themselves.

Time brings to obscure authors[30]an odd kind of reparation, an immortality, not of love and interest and admiration, but of curiosity merely. In proportion as their language was uncouth, provincial, or even barbarous, their value becomes the greater. A book of which only a single copy escaped its natural enemies, the pastry-cook and trunk-maker, may contain one word that makes daylight in some dark passage of a great author, and its name shall accordingly live forever in a note. Is not, then, a scholiastic athanasy better than none? And if literary vanity survive death, or even worse, as Brunetto Latini’s made him insensible for a moment to the rain of fire and the burning sand, the authors of such books as are not properly literature may still comfort themselves with anon omnis moriar, laying a mournful emphasis on the adjective, and feeling that they have not lived wholly in vain while they share with the dodo a fragmentary continuance on earth. To be sure, the immortality, such as it is, belongs less to themselves than to the famous men they help to illustrate. If they escape oblivion, it is by a back door, as it were, and theysurvive only in fine print at the page’s foot. At the banquet of fame they sit below the salt. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten, for this also is to achieve a kind of definite result by living. To hang on the perilous edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the fathomless ooze of oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude. And yet sometimes the merest barnacles that have attached themselves to the stately keels of Dante or Shakespeare or Milton have an interest of their own by letting us know in what remote waters those hardy navigators went a pearl-fishing. Has not Mr. Dyce traced Shakespeare’s “dusty death” to Anthony Copley, and Milton’s “back resounded Death!” to Abraham Fraunce? Nay, is it not Bernard de Ventadour’s lark that sings forever in the diviner air of Dante’s Paradise?

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