Chapter 14

Standing on earth, not wrapt above the pole,More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchangedTo hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days,On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues....

Standing on earth, not wrapt above the pole,

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days,

On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues....

There is the grand style in perfection; and anyone who has a sense for it, will feel it a thousand times better from repeating those lines than from hearing anything I can say about it.

Let us try, however, whatcanbe said,controlling what we say by examples. I think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry,when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject. I think this definition will be found to cover all instances of the grand style in poetry which present themselves. I think it will be found to exclude all poetry which is not in the grand style. And I think it contains no terms which are obscure, which themselves need defining. Even those who do not understand what is meant by calling poetry noble, will understand, I imagine, what is meant by speaking of a noble nature in a man. But the noble or powerful nature—thebedeutendes Individuumof Goethe—is not enough. For instance, Mr Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, zeal for liberty, and all these things are noble, they ennoble a man; but he has not the poetical gift: there must be the poetical gift, the ‘divine faculty’, also. And, besides all this, the subject must be a serious one (for it is only by a kind of licence that we can speak of the grand style in comedy); and it must be treatedwith simplicity or severity. Here is the great difficulty: the poets of the world have been many; there has been wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures; but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so circumstanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style, perfect insimplicity or perfect in severity, has been extremely rare. One poet has had the gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, without the circumstances and training which make this sustained perfection of style possible. Of other poets, some have caught this perfect strain now and then, in short pieces or single lines, but have not been able to maintain it through considerable works; others have composed all their productions in a style which, by comparison with the best, one must call secondary.

The best model of the grand style simple is Homer; perhaps the best model of the grand style severe is Milton. But Dante is remarkable for affording admirable examples of both styles; he has the grand style which arises from simplicity, and he has the grand style which arises from severity; and from him I will illustrate them both. In a former lecture I pointed out what that severity of poetical style is, which comes from saying a thing with a kind of intense compression, or in an illusive, brief, almost haughty way, as if the poet’s mind were charged with so many and such grave matters, that he would not deign to treat any one of them explicitly. Of this severity the last line of the following stanza of thePurgatoryis a good example. Dante has been telling Forese that Virgil had guided him through Hell, and he goes on:

Indi m’ han tratto su gli suoi conforti,Salendo e rigirando la MontagnaChe drizza voi che il mondo fece torti[59].

Indi m’ han tratto su gli suoi conforti,

Salendo e rigirando la Montagna

Che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti[59].

‘Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, climbing and circling the Mountain,which straightens you whom the world made crooked’. These last words,‘la Montagnache drizza voi che il mondo fece torti’, ‘the Mountainwhich straightens you whom the world made crooked’, for the Mountain of Purgatory, I call an excellent specimen of the grand style in severity, where the poet’s mind is too full charged to suffer him to speak more explicitly. But the very next stanza is a beautiful specimen of the grand style in simplicity, where a noble nature and a poetical gift unite to utter a thing with the most limpid plainness and clearness:

Tanto dice di farmi sua compagnaCh’ io sarὸ là dove fia Beatrice;Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna[60].

Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna

Ch’ io sarὸ là dove fia Beatrice;

Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna[60].

‘So long’, Dante continues, ‘so long he (Virgil) saith he will bear me company, until I shall be there where Beatrice is; there it behoves that without him I remain’. But the noble simplicity of that in the Italian no words of mine can render.

Both these styles, the simple and the severe, are truly grand; the severe seems, perhaps, the grandest, so long as we attend most to the great personality, to the noblenature, in the poet its author; the simple seems the grandest when we attend most to the exquisite faculty, to the poetical gift. But the simple is no doubt to be preferred. It is the moremagical: in the other there is something intellectual, something which gives scope for a play of thought which may exist where the poetical gift is either wanting or present in only inferior degree: the severe is much more imitable, and this a little spoils its charm. A kind of semblance of this style keeps Young going, one may say, through all the nine parts of that most indifferent production, theNight Thoughts. But the grand style in simplicity is inimitable:

αἰὼν ἀσφαλὴςοὐκ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ,οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ· λέγονται μὰν βροτῶνὄλβον ὑπέρτατον οἱ σχεῖν, οἵ τε καὶ χρυσαμπύκωνμελπομενᾶν ἐν ὄρει Μοισᾶν, καὶ ἐν ἑπταπύλοιςἄϊον Θήβαις..[61]..

αἰὼν ἀσφαλὴς

οὐκ ἔγεντ’ οὔτ’ Αἰακίδᾳ παρὰ Πηλεῖ,

οὔτε παρ’ ἀντιθέῳ Κάδμῳ· λέγονται μὰν βροτῶν

ὄλβον ὑπέρτατον οἱ σχεῖν, οἵ τε καὶ χρυσαμπύκων

μελπομενᾶν ἐν ὄρει Μοισᾶν, καὶ ἐν ἑπταπύλοις

ἄϊον Θήβαις..[61]..

There is a limpidness in that, a want ofsalient points to seize and transfer, which makes imitation impossible, except by a genius akin to the genius which produced it.

Greek simplicity and Greek grace are inimitable; but it is said that theIliadmay still be ballad-poetry while infinitely superior to all other ballads, and that, in my specimens of English ballad-poetry, I have been unfair. Well, no doubt there are better things in English ballad-poetry than

Now Christ thee save, thou proud portér, ...

but the real strength of a chain, they say, is the strength of its weakest link; and what I was trying to show you was, that the English ballad-style is not an instrument of enough compass and force to correspond to the Greek hexameter; that, owing to an inherent weakness in it as an epic style, it easily runs into one or two faults, either it is prosaic and humdrum, or, trying to avoid that fault, and to make itself lively (se faire vif), it becomes pert and jaunty. To show that, the passage about King Adland’s porter serves very well. But these degradations are not proper to a true epic instrument, such as the Greek hexameter.

You may say, if you like, when you find Homer’s verse, even in describing the plainest matter, neither humdrum nor jaunty, that this is because he is so incomparably better a poet than other balladists, because he is Homer. But take the wholerange of Greek epic poetry, take the later poets, the poets of the last ages of this poetry, many of them most indifferent, Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna, Nonnus. Never will you find in this instrument of the hexameter, even in their hands, the vices of the ballad-style in the weak moments of this last: everywhere the hexameter, a noble, a truly epical instrument, rather resists the weakness of its employer than lends itself to it. Quintus of Smyrna is a poet of merit, but certainly not a poet of a high order: with him, too, epic poetry, whether in the character of its prosody or in that of its diction, is no longer the epic poetry of earlier and better times, nor epic poetry as again restored by Nonnus: but even in Quintus of Smyrna, I say, the hexameter is still the hexameter; it is a style which the ballad-style, even in the hands of better poets, cannot rival. And in the hands of inferior poets, the ballad-style sinks to vices of which the hexameter, even in the hands of a Tryphiodorus, never can become guilty.

But a critic, whom it is impossible to read without pleasure, and the disguise of whose initials I am sure I may be allowed to penetrate, Mr Spedding says that he ‘denies altogether that the metrical movement of the English hexameter has any resemblance to that of the Greek’. Of course, in that case, if the two metres in no respect correspond,praise accorded to the Greek hexameter as an epical instrument will not extend to the English. Mr Spedding seeks to establish his proposition by pointing out that the system of accentuation differs in the English and in the Virgilian hexameter; that in the first, the accent and the long syllable (or what has to do duty as such) coincide, in the second they do not. He says that we cannot be so sure of the accent with which Greek verse should be read as of that with which Latin should; but that the lines of Homer in which the accent and the long syllable coincide, as in the English hexameter, are certainly very rare. He suggests a type of English hexameter in agreement with the Virgilian model, and formed on the supposition that ‘quantity is as distinguishable in English as in Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend to it’. Of the truth of this supposition he entertains no doubt. The new hexameter will, Mr Spedding thinks, at least have the merit of resembling, in its metrical movement, the classical hexameter, which merit the ordinary English hexameter has not. But even with this improved hexameter he is not satisfied; and he goes on, first to suggest other metres for rendering Homer, and finally to suggest that rendering Homer is impossible.

A scholar to whom all who admire Lucretius owe a large debt of gratitude, MrMunro, has replied to Mr Spedding. Mr Munro declares that ‘the accent of the old Greeks and Romans resembled our accent only in name, in reality was essentially different’; that ‘our English reading of Homer and Virgil has in itself no meaning’; and that ‘accent has nothing to do with the Virgilian hexameter’. If this be so, of course the merit which Mr Spedding attributes to his own hexameter, of really corresponding with the Virgilian hexameter, has no existence. Again; in contradiction to Mr Spedding’s assertion that lines in which (in our reading of them) the accent and the long syllable coincide[62], as in the ordinary English hexameter, are ‘rare even in Homer’, Mr Munro declares that such lines, ‘instead of being rare, are among the very commonest types of Homeric rhythm’. Mr Spedding asserts that ‘quantity is as distinguishable in English as in Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend to it’; but Mr Munro replies, that in English ‘neither his ear nor his reason recognises any real distinction of quantity except that which is produced by accentuated and unaccentuated syllables’. He therefore arrives at the conclusion that in constructing English hexameters, ‘quantity must beutterly discarded; and longer or shorter unaccentuated syllables can have no meaning, except so far as they may be made to produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the hands of a master’.

It is not for me to interpose between two such combatants; and indeed my way lies, not up the highroad where they are contending, but along a bypath. With the absolute truth of their general propositions respecting accent and quantity, I have nothing to do; it is most interesting and instructive to me to hear such propositions discussed, when it is Mr Munro or Mr Spedding who discusses them; but I have strictly limited myself in these Lectures to the humble function of giving practical advice to the translator of Homer. He, I still think, must not follow so confidently, as makers of English hexameters have hitherto followed, Mr Munro’s maxim,quantity may be utterly discarded. He must not, like Mr Longfellow, makeseventeena dactyl in spite of all the length of its last syllable, even though he can plead that in counting we lay the accent on the first syllable of this word. He may be far from attaining Mr Spedding’s nicety of ear; may be unable to feel that ‘whilequantityis a dactyl,quiddityis a tribrach’, and that ‘rapidlyis a word to which we find no parallel in Latin’; but I think he must bring himself to distinguish, with Mr Spedding,between ‘th’ o’er-wearied eyelid’, and ‘thewearied eyelid’, as being, the one a correct ending for a hexameter, the other an ending with a false quantity in it; instead of finding, with Mr Munro, that this distinction ‘conveys to his mind no intelligible idea’. He must temper his belief in Mr Munro’s dictum,quantity must be utterly discarded, by mixing with it a belief in this other dictum of the same author,two or more consonants take longer time in enunciating than one[63].

Criticism is so apt in general to be vague and impalpable, that when it gives us a solid and definite possession, such as is Mr Spedding’s parallel of the Virgilian and theEnglish hexameter with their difference of accentuation distinctly marked, we cannot be too grateful to it. It is in the way in which Mr Spedding proceeds to press his conclusions from the parallel which he has drawn out, that his criticism seems to me to come a little short. Here even he, I think, shows (if he will allow me to say so) a little of that want of pliancy and suppleness so common among critics, but so dangerous to their criticism; he is a little too absolute in imposing his metrical laws; he too much forgets the excellent maxim of Menander, so applicable to literary criticism:—

Καλὸν οἱ νόμοι σφόδρ’ εἰσίν· ὁ δ’ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμουςλίαν ἀκριβῶς, συκοφάντης φαίνεται·

Καλὸν οἱ νόμοι σφόδρ’ εἰσίν· ὁ δ’ ὁρῶν τοὺς νόμους

λίαν ἀκριβῶς, συκοφάντης φαίνεται·

‘Laws are admirable things; but he who keeps his eye too closely fixed upon them, runs the risk of becoming’, let us say, a purist. Mr Spedding is probably mistaken in supposing that Virgil pronounced his hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces them. He is almost certainly mistaken insupposing that Homer pronounced his hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces Virgil’s. But this, as I have said, is not a question for us to treat; all we are here concerned with is the imitation, by the English hexameter, of the ancient hexameterin its effect upon us moderns. Suppose we concede to Mr Spedding that his parallel proves our accentuation of the English and of the Virgilian hexameter to be different: what are we to conclude from that; how will a criticism, not a formal, but a substantial criticism, deal with such a fact as that? Will it infer, as Mr Spedding infers, that the English hexameter, therefore, must not pretend to reproduce better than other rhythms the movement of Homer’s hexameter for us, that there can be no correspondence at all between the movement of these two hexameters, that if we want to have such a correspondence, we must abandon the current English hexameter altogether, and adopt in its place a new hexameter of Mr Spedding’s Anglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like the

Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ...

of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the

Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent,After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order ...

Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent,

After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order ...

of Mr Spedding? To infer this, is to go,as I have complained of Mr Newman for sometimes going, a great deal too fast. I think prudent criticism must certainly recognise, in the current English hexameter, a fact which cannot so lightly be set aside; it must acknowledge that by this hexameter the English ear, the genius of the English language, have, in their own way, adopted, havetranslatedfor themselves the Homeric hexameter; and that a rhythm which has thus grown up, which is thus, in a manner, the production of nature, has in its general type something necessary and inevitable, something which admits change only within narrow limits, which precludes change that is sweeping and essential. I think, therefore, the prudent critic will regard Mr Spedding’s proposed revolution as simply impracticable. He will feel that in English poetry the hexameter, if used at all, must be, in the main, the English hexameter now current. He will perceive that its having come into existence as the representative of the Homeric hexameter, proves it to have, for the English ear, a certain correspondence with the Homeric hexameter, although this correspondence may be, from the difference of the Greek and English languages, necessarily incomplete. This incompleteness he will endeavour[64], as hemay find or fancy himself able, gradually somewhat to lessen through minor changes,suggested by the ancient hexameter, but respecting the general constitution of the modern: the notion of making it disappear altogether by the critic’s inventing in his closet a new constitution of his own for the English hexameter, he will judge to be a chimerical dream.

When, therefore, Mr Spedding objects to the English hexameter, that it imperfectly represents the movement of the ancient hexameters, I answer: We must work with the tools we have. The received English type, in its general outlines, is, for England, the necessary given type of this metre; it is by rendering the metrical beat of its pattern, not by rendering the accentual beat of it, that the English language has adapted the Greek hexameter. To render the metrical beat of its pattern is something; by effecting so much as this the English hexameter puts itself in closer relations with its original, it comes nearer to its movement than any other metre which does not even effect so much as this; but Mr Spedding is dissatisfied with it for not effecting more still, for not rendering the accentual beat too. If he asks mewhythe English hexameter has not tried to render this too,whyit has confined itself to rendering the metrical beat,why, in short, it is itself, and not Mr Spedding’s new hexameter, that is a question which I, whose only business is to give practical advice to a translator,am not bound to answer; but I will not decline to answer it nevertheless. I will suggest to Mr Spedding that, as I have already said, the modern hexameter is merely an attempt to imitate the effect of the ancient hexameter, as read by us moderns; that the great object of its imitation has been the hexameter of Homer; that of this hexameter such lines as those which Mr Spedding declares to be so rare, even in Homer, but which are in truth so common, lines in which the quantity and the reader’s accent coincide, are, for the English reader, just from that simplicity (for him) of rhythm which they owe to this very coincidence, the master-type; that so much is this the case that one may again and again notice an English reader of Homer, in reading lines where his Virgilian accent would not coincide with the quantity, abandoning this accent, and reading the lines (as we say)by quantity, reading them as if he were scanning them; while foreigners neglect our Virgilian accent even in reading Virgil, read even Virgil by quantity, making the accents coincide with the long syllables. And no doubt the hexameter of a kindred language, the German, based on this mode of reading the ancient hexameter, has had a powerful influence upon the type of its English fellow. But all this shows how extremely powerful accent is for us moderns, since we find not even Greek and Latinquantity perceptible enough without it. Yet in these languages, where we have been accustomed always to look for it, it is far more perceptible to us Englishmen than in our own language, where we have not been accustomed to look for it. And here is the true reason why Mr Spedding’s hexameter is not and cannot be the current English hexameter, even though it is based on the accentuation which Englishmen give to all Virgil’s lines, and to many of Homer’s,—that the quantity which in Greek or Latin words we feel, or imagine we feel, even though it be unsupported by accent, we do not feel or imagine we feel in English words when it is thus unsupported. For example, in repeating the Latin line

Ipsa tibi blandosfundentcunabula flores,

an Englishman feels the length of the second syllable offundent, although he lays the accent on the first; but in repeating Mr Spedding’s line,

Softly cometh slumberclosingth’ o’erwearied eyelid,

the English ear, full of the accent on the first syllable ofclosing, has really no sense at all of any length in its second. The metrical beat of the line is thus quite destroyed.

So when Mr Spedding proposes a new Anglo-Virgilian hexameter he proposes an impossibility; when he ‘denies altogether that the metrical movement of the Englishhexameter hasanyresemblance to that of the Greek’, he denies too much; when he declares that, ‘were every other metre impossible, an attempt to translate Homer into English hexameters might be permitted,but that such an attempt he himself would never read’, he exhibits, it seems to me, a little of that obduracy and over-vehemence in liking and disliking,—a remnant, I suppose, of our insular ferocity,—to which English criticism is so prone. He ought to be enchanted to meet with a good attempt in any metre, even though he would never have advised it, even though its success be contrary to all his expectations; for it is the critic’s first duty—prior even to his duty of stigmatizing what is bad—to welcome everything that is good. In welcoming this, he must at all times be ready, like the Christian convert, even to burn what he used to worship, and to worship what he used to burn. Nay, but he need not be thus inconsistent in welcoming it; he may retain all his principles: principles endure, circumstances change; absolute success is one thing, relative success another. Relative success may take place under the most diverse conditions; and it is in appreciating the good in even relative success, it is in taking into account the change of circumstances, that the critic’s judgment is tested, that his versatility must display itself. He is to keep his idea of the best,of perfection, and at the same time to be willingly accessible to every second best which offers itself. So I enjoy the ease and beauty of Mr Spedding’s stanza,

Therewith to all the gods in order due ...

I welcome it, in the absence of equally good poetry in another metre[65], although I stillthink the stanza unfit to render Homer thoroughly well, although I still think other metres fit to render him better. So I concede to Mr Spedding that every form of translation, prose or verse, must more or less break up Homer in order to reproduce him; but then I urge that that form which needs to break him up least is to be preferred. So I concede to him that the test proposed by me for the translator—a competent scholar’s judgment whether the translation more or less reproduces for him the effect of the original—is not perfectly satisfactory; but I adopt it as the best we can get, as the only test capable of being really applied; for Mr Spedding’s proposed substitute, the translations making the same effect, more or less, upon the unlearned which the original makes upon the scholar, is a test which can never really be applied at all. These two impressions, that of the scholar, and that of the unlearned reader, can, practically, never be accurately compared; they are, and must remain, like those lines we read of in Euclid, which, though produced ever so far, can never meet. So, again, I concede that a good verse-translation of Homer, or, indeed, of any poet, is very difficult, and that a good prose-translation is much easier; but then I urge that a verse-translation, while giving the pleasure which Pope’s has given, might at the same time render Homer more faithfully than Pope’s; and that thisbeing possible, we ought not to cease wishing for a source of pleasure which no prose-translation can ever hope to rival.

Wishing for such a verse-translation of Homer, believing that rhythms have natural tendencies which, within certain limits, inevitably govern them; having little faith, therefore, that rhythms which have manifested tendencies utterly un-Homeric can so change themselves as to become well adapted for rendering Homer, I have looked about for the rhythm which seems to depart least from the tendencies of Homer’s rhythm. Such a rhythm I think may be found in the English hexameter, somewhat modified. I look with hope towards continued attempts at perfecting and employing this rhythm; but my belief in the immediate success of such attempts is far less confident than has been supposed. Between the recognition of this rhythm as ideally the best, and the recommendation of it to the translator for instant practical use, there must come all that consideration of circumstances, all that pliancy in foregoing, under the pressure of certain difficulties, the absolute best, which I have said is so indispensable to the critic. The hexameter is, comparatively, still unfamiliar in England; many people have a great dislike to it. A certain degree of unfamiliarity, a certain degree of dislike, are obstacles with which it is not wise to contend. It is difficult to say at presentwhether the dislike to this rhythm is so strong and so wide-spread that it will prevent its ever becoming thoroughly familiar. I think not, but it is too soon to decide. I am inclined to think that the dislike of it is rather among the professional critics than among the general public; I think the reception which Mr Longfellow’sEvangelinehas met with indicates this. I think that even now, if a version of theIliadin English hexameters were made by a poet who, like Mr Longfellow, has that indefinable quality which renders him popular, somethingattractivein his talent, which communicates itself to his verses, it would have a great success among the general public. Yet a version of Homer in hexameters of theEvangelinetype would not satisfy the judicious, nor is the definite establishment of this type to be desired; and one would regret that Mr Longfellow should, even to popularise the hexameter, give the immense labour required for a translation of Homer when one could not wish his work to stand. Rather it is to be wished that by the efforts of poets like Mr Longfellow in original poetry, and the efforts of less distinguished poets in the task of translation, the hexameter may gradually be made familiar to the ear of the English public; at the same time that there gradually arises, out of all these efforts, an improved type of this rhythm; a type which some man of geniusmay sign with the final stamp, and employ in rendering Homer; a hexameter which may be as superior to Vosse’s as Shakspeare’s blank verse is superior to Schiller’s. I am inclined to believe that all this travail will actually take place, because I believe that modern poetry is actually in want of such an instrument as the hexameter.

In the meantime, whether this rhythm be destined to success or not, let us steadily keep in mind what originally made us turn to it. We turned to it because we required certain Homeric characteristics in a translation of Homer, and because all other rhythms seemed to find, from different causes, great difficulties in satisfying this our requirement. If the hexameter is impossible, if one of these other rhythms must be used, let us keep this rhythm always in mind of our requirements and of its own faults, let us compel it to get rid of these latter as much as possible. It may be necessary to have recourse to blank verse; but then blank verse mustde-Cowperizeitself, must get rid of the habits of stiff self-retardation which make it say ‘Not fewershone’, for ‘So many shone’. Homer moves swiftly: blank versecanmove swiftly if it likes, but it must remember that the movement of such lines as

A thousand fires were burning, and by each ...

is just the slow movement which makes usdespair of it. Homer moves with noble ease: blank verse must not be suffered to forget that the movement of

Came they not over from sweet Lacedæmon ...

is ungainly. Homer’s expression of his thought is simple as light: we know how blank verse affects such locutions as

While the steedsmouthed their corn aloof...

and such models of expressing one’s thought are sophisticated and artificial.

One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly the English translator’s attention to the essential characteristics of Homer’s poetry, when so accomplished a person as Mr Spedding, recognising these characteristics as indeed Homer’s, admitting them to be essential, is led by the ingrained habits and tendencies of English blank verse thus repeatedly to lose sight of them in translating even a few lines. One sees this yet more clearly, when Mr Spedding, taking me to task for saying that the blank verse used for rendering Homer ‘must not be Mr Tennyson’s blank verse’, declares that in most of Mr Tennyson’s blank verse all Homer’s essential characteristics, ‘rapidity of movement,plainness of words and style,simplicity and directness of ideas, and, above all, nobleness of manner, are as conspicuous as in Homer himself’. This shows, it seems to me, how hard it is for English readers of poetry, even the most accomplished, tofeel deeply and permanently what Greek plainness of thought and Greek simplicity of expression really are: they admit the importance of these qualities in a general way, but they have no ever-present sense of them; and they easily attribute them to any poetry which has other excellent qualities, and which they very much admire. No doubt there are plainer things in Mr Tennyson’s poetry than the three lines I quoted; in choosing them, as in choosing a specimen of ballad-poetry, I wished to bring out clearly, by a strong instance, the qualities of thought and style to which I was calling attention; but when Mr Spedding talks of a plainness of thoughtlike Homer’s, of a plainness of speechlike Homer’s, and says that he finds these constantly in Mr Tennyson’s poetry, I answer that these I do not find there at all. Mr Tennyson is a most distinguished and charming poet; but the very essential characteristic of his poetry is, it seems to me, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness of thought, an extreme subtlety and curious elaborateness of expression. In the best and most characteristic productions of his genius, these characteristics are most prominent. They are marked characteristics, as we have seen, of the Elizabethan poets; they are marked, though not the essential, characteristics of Shakspeare himself. Under the influences of the nineteenthcentury, under wholly new conditions of thought and culture, they manifest themselves in Mr Tennyson’s poetry in a wholly new way. But they are still there. The essential bent of his poetry is towards such expressions as

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars;

O’er the sun’s bright eyeDrew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud;

O’er the sun’s bright eye

Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud;

When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunnedThe world to peace again;

When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned

The world to peace again;

The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew;

The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,

The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew;

He bared the knotted column of his throat,The massive square of his heroic breast,And arms on which the standing muscle slopedAs slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,Running too vehemently to break upon it.

He bared the knotted column of his throat,

The massive square of his heroic breast,

And arms on which the standing muscle sloped

As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,

Running too vehemently to break upon it.

And this way of speaking is the leastplain, the mostun-Homeric, which can possibly be conceived. Homer presents his thought to you just as it wells from the source of his mind: Mr Tennyson carefully distils his thought before he will part with it. Hence comes, in the expression of the thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In Homer’s poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural words; in Mr Tennyson’s poetry it is all distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly this heightening and elaboration may be observed in Mr Spedding’s

While the steedsmouthed their corn aloof

(an expression which might have been Mr Tennyson’s), on which I have already commented; and to one who is penetrated with a sense of the real simplicity of Homer, this subtle sophistication of the thought is, I think, very perceptible even in such lines as these,

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,

which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be obtained only by a genius of which perfect simplicity is an essential characteristic.

So true is this, that when a genius essentially subtle, or a genius which, from whatever cause, is in its essence not truly and broadly simple, determines to be perfectly plain, determines not to admit a shade of subtlety or curiosity into its expression, it cannot ever then attain real simplicity; it can only attain a semblance of simplicity[66]. French criticism, richer in its vocabulary than ours, has invented a useful word to distinguish this semblance (often very beautiful and valuable) from the real quality. The real quality it callssimplicité, the semblancesimplesse. The one is natural simplicity, the other is artificial simplicity. What is called simplicity in the productions of a genius essentially not simple, is, in truth,simplesse. The two are distinguishable from one another the moment they appear in company. For instance, let us take the opening of the narrative in Wordsworth’sMichael:

Upon the forest-side in Grasmere ValeThere dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name;An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.His bodily frame had been from youth to ageOf an unusual strength; his mind was keen,Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs;And in his shepherd’s calling he was promptAnd watchful more than ordinary men.

Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale

There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name;

An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.

His bodily frame had been from youth to age

Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen,

Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs;

And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt

And watchful more than ordinary men.

Now let us take the opening of the narrative in Mr Tennyson’sDora:

With Farmer Allan at the farm abodeWilliam and Dora. William was his son,And she his niece. He often looked at them,And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife’.

With Farmer Allan at the farm abode

William and Dora. William was his son,

And she his niece. He often looked at them,

And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife’.

The simplicity of the first of these passages issimplicité; that of the second,simplesse. Let us take the end of the same two poems: first, ofMichael:

The cottage which was named the Evening StarIs gone, the ploughshare has been through the groundOn which it stood; great changes have been wroughtIn all the neighbourhood: yet the oak is leftThat grew beside their door: and the remainsOf the unfinished sheepfold may be seenBeside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.

The cottage which was named the Evening Star

Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground

On which it stood; great changes have been wrought

In all the neighbourhood: yet the oak is left

That grew beside their door: and the remains

Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen

Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.

And now, ofDora:

So those four abodeWithin one house together; and as yearsWent forward, Mary took another mate:But Dora lived unmarried till her death.

So those four abode

Within one house together; and as years

Went forward, Mary took another mate:

But Dora lived unmarried till her death.

A heedless critic may call both of these passages simple if he will. Simple, in a certain sense, they both are; but between the simplicity of the two there is all the difference that there is between the simplicity of Homer and the simplicity of Moschus.

But, whether the hexameter establish itself or not, whether a truly simple and rapid blank verse be obtained or not, as the vehicle for a standard English translation of Homer, I feel sure that this vehicle will not be furnished by the ballad-form. On this question about the ballad-character of Homer’s poetry, I see that Professor Blackie proposes a compromise: he suggests that those who say Homer’s poetry is pure ballad-poetry, and those who deny that it is ballad-poetry at all, should split the difference between them; that it should be agreed that Homer’s poems are balladsa little, but not so much as some have said. I am very sensible to the courtesy of the terms in which Mr Blackie invites me to this compromise; but I cannot, I am sorry to say, accept it; I cannot allow that Homer’s poetry is ballad-poetry at all. A want of capacity for sustained nobleness seems to me inherent in the ballad-form when employedfor epic poetry. The more we examine this proposition, the more certain, I think, will it become to us. Let us but observe how a great poet, having to deliver a narrative very weighty and serious, instinctively shrinks from the ballad-form as from a form not commensurate with his subject-matter, a form too narrow and shallow for it, and seeks for a form which has more amplitude and impressiveness. Everyone knows theLucy Grayand theRuthof Wordsworth. Both poems are excellent; but the subject-matter of the narrative ofRuthis much more weighty and impressive to the poet’s own feeling than that of the narrative ofLucy Gray, for which latter, in its unpretending simplicity, the ballad-form is quite adequate. Wordsworth, at the time he composedRuth, his great time, hisannus mirabilis, about 1800, strove to be simple; it was his mission to be simple; he loved the ballad-form, he clung to it, because it was simple. Even inRuthhe tried, one may say, to use it; he would have used it if he could: but the gravity of his matter is too much for this somewhat slight form; he is obliged to give to his form more amplitude, more augustness, to shake out its folds.

The wretched parents all that nightWent shouting far and wide;But there was neither sound nor sightTo serve them for a guide.

The wretched parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form is adequate to the subject-matter. But take this, on the other hand:

I, too, have passed her on the hills,Setting her little water-millsBy spouts and fountains wild;Such small machinery as she turned,Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,A young and happy child.

I, too, have passed her on the hills,

Setting her little water-mills

By spouts and fountains wild;

Such small machinery as she turned,

Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned,

A young and happy child.

Who does not perceive how the greater fulness and weight of his matter has here compelled the true and feeling poet to adopt a form of morevolumethan the simple ballad-form?

It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking; the question is about the use of the ballad-form forthis. I say that for this poetry (when in the grand style, as Homer’s is) the ballad-form is entirely inadequate; and that Homer’s translator must not adopt it, because it even leads him, by its own weakness, away from the grand style rather than towards it. We must remember that the matter of narrative poetry stands in a different relation to the vehicle which conveys it, is not so independent of this vehicle, so absorbing and powerful in itself, as the matter of purely emotional poetry. When there comes in poetry what I may call thelyrical cry, this transfigures everything, makes everything grand; the simplest form may be here even an advantage, because the flame of the emotion glows throughand through it more easily. To go again for an illustration to Wordsworth; our great poet, since Milton, by his performance, as Keats, I think, is our great poet by his gift and promise; in one of his stanzas to the Cuckoo, we have:

And I can listen to thee yet;Can lie upon the plainAnd listen, till I do begetThat golden time again.

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

Here the lyrical cry, though taking the simple ballad-form, is as grand as the lyrical cry coming in poetry of an ampler form, as grand as the

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