From the North American Magazine.
THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII;8versusTHE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.9
THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII;8versusTHE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.9
8The Last Night of Pompeii: A Poem, and Lays and Legends. By Sumner Lincoln Fairfield. New York: 1829.
9The Last Days of Pompeii: By the Author of Pelham, Eugene Aram, England, and the English, &c. 2 vols. 12mo. New York: 1834. Harper and Brothers.
While we have never failed to acknowledge and applaud the brilliant imagination and the eloquent and fascinating style of Mr. E. L. Bulwer, we have never feared to assert that he was a sophist in ethics and a libertine in love, and thateffectwas apparently the only law which influenced his mind or guided his pen. Better disguised, but not less pernicious in principle and evil in action than the Tom Jones and Count Fathom and Zeluco of Fielding, Smollett and Moore, his characters not only exist in, but actually create an atmosphere of impurity which infects the very hearts of his admirers. He invests the seducer with irresistible attractions, and paints the highwayman and the murderer as examples for imitation. But even in the execution of his execrable purposes, he is not original either in his plots or his sentiments. The old Portuguese Jew Spinoza and his disciples Hobbes, Toland, Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke have abundantly supplied him with infidel arguments; and the profligate courtiers of Charles the Second have contributed their licentious stratagems and impure dialogues to augment the claims and heighten the charms of his coxcombs, libertines and menslayers. Mr. Bulwer has read much and skillfully appropriated, without acknowledgment, all that has suited his designs. He has artfully clothed the lofty thoughts of others in his own brilliant garb, and enjoyed the renown of a powerful writer and profound thinker, when he was little more than an adroit and manoeuvering plagiary. This we long since perceived, and therefore denied his claims to a high order of genius, though we readily accorded to him the possession of much curious knowledge and a felicitous use of language. We never imagined that the labors of an unrewarded and little regarded American could be deemed by the proud,soi-disanthighborn, and affluent Mr. Bulwer as worthy of his unquestioning appropriation. We fancied that so deep a scholar would continue to dig for treasures in ancient and recondite literature, and pass triumphantly over the obscure productions of a poor cisatlantic. But we erred. As a member of the British Parliament, Mr. Bulwer is accustomed to the creation of laws; and he seems to have made one expressly for his own profit and pleasure—namely, the law of literary lawlessness. We knew that he was well content to demand high prices for his immoral novels from his American publishers; but, until this time, we were not aware that he considered any thing but gold worth receiving or plundering from Yankeeland. With his usual tact, he has managed to secure, in no slight degree, from our labors, that which those labors failed utterly to receive from our unlettered countrymen; and it is our present purpose to demand back our own thoughts, which are our property and the heritage of our children.
It is now three years since 'The Last Night of Pompeii' was written and published; and, among other English men of letters, a copy of that poem with a letter, which was never answered, was sent to Mr. Bulwer, who was, at that time, the editor of the London New Monthly Magazine. Affliction fell heavily on our heart during the spring of 1832, and, becoming indifferent to poetic fame and every thing not involved in our bereavement, we bestowed no thought upon the poem or its reception. Time has passed on; we have been intensely occupied with other concerns, and have not been anxious about it since. The apathy, if not contempt, with which American poets have ever been treated, has driven Percival into solitude, Bryant and Prentice into politics, Whittier into abolition schemes, Pierpoint into phrenological experiments, and all others far away from the barren realm of Parnassus. But lo! the poem, which was printed by hardwon subscription and left unwelcomed but by a few cheerful voices, when transmuted into a novel by Bulwer, becomes a brilliant gem, and illumines the patriotic hearts and clear understandings of the whole Western World! Who is a Yankee poet that he should be honoured? but to whom is the English Bulwer unknown? We live, however—thanks be to Providence! to claim our own and expose all smugglers, though the redrover Saxon seems to think that the Atlantic is a very broad ocean, and that the democrats of the West are very little capable of appreciating any compositions but his own.
Had Mr. Bulwer confined himself to the almost literal adoption of our title, or had certain passages in his novel betrayed even great resemblances to others in our poem, we should have said that the coincidences were somewhat remarkable, and then dismissed the matter from our thoughts. Many examples in literary history might be presented to prove that men may think and describe alike without plagiarism, but, when the incidents and descriptions are as nearly identical as prose and poetry can well be, we cannot deduce the charitable conclusion that the very strong likeness is accidental. Our readers shall judge whether, in this case, it is so.
The characters in the poem are few—in the novel many—but, in both, the whole interest depends on the adventures of two lovers. In the poem these lovers are Pansa and Mariamne, a Roman decurion and a captive Jewish maiden, both Christians; in the novel they are Glaucus and Ione, Greeks and pagans. With us, Diomede was the prætor and Pansa the victim; with Bulwer, the former is a rich merchant, and the latter, ædile of Pompeii. Here, then, there is no similarity, nor is there but one deserving a remark, until Arbaces—an Eugene Aram antiquated—one of Bulwer's learned, wise and soliloquizing villains—seduces Ione to his mansion of iniquity. The first coincidence, to which we refer, is the scene of the sacrifice,10and the oracular response. The description in the novel reads thus:
"The aruspices inspected the entrails."—"It was then that a dead silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering around the cella, another priest, naked save by a cincture round the middle, rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures, implored an answer from the goddess."—"A low murmuring noise was heard within the body of the statue; thrice the head moved, and the lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words:
10Vol. i. p. 42.
That in the poem is as follows—the oracle preceding the description of its effect upon the superstitious multitude.
Both oracles partake the same mystic character and allude obscurely to the same fearful and overwhelming event.
The character of Arbaces, the Egyptian Magus, is peculiarly after Bulwer's own heart—for he is an entire, thorough, irredeemable demon, who weeps over venomous reptiles and kills innocent men: but a very large portion of his mystic discourse, which appears on pages 81-2-3-4 of volume first, is borrowed, as customary, without even an apologetic allusion, from Moore's Epicurean. We leave that poet to reclaim his property, and proceed to assert the identity of our own. In the novel, Arbaces beguiles Ione into his house, with the resolution to possess her by fraud or violence. In the poem, the priest of Isis inveigles the virgin of Pompeii into his lascivious temple with the same intent. Both the priest and Arbaces, having conquered every obstacle, are rapidly advancing to the accomplishment of their evil designs, when they are interrupted, and their victims rescued by the very same awful occurrence;
"At that awful moment," says Bulwer, "the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsive throe—a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad! a giant and crushing power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his passion and his arts. It woke—it stirred—that dread Demon of the Earthquake," etc.11
Says our unsainted priest of Isis, when the victim cries exultingly—
11Vol. i. p. 159.
The denouement of the scene is the same in the novel and the poem—a statue, hurled from its pedestal, strikes the unhallowed violator to the earth. There is no scene in Baron more actually transcribed from the Andrian of Terence than this from 'The Last Night of Pompeii!' But the scene in the amphitheatre, where the Christian Olinthus and the lover Glaucus are doomed to perish by the fangs of the famished lion, is still more strikingly similar than any in the novel, except the description of the destruction. Arbaces, actuated by unholy love of Ione, is the author of the disgrace and ruin of both these personages; and the prætor Diomede, in the poem, resolves to sacrifice Pansa to the African lion, because he loves and determines to possess Mariamne. The earlier scenes in the amphitheatre are the same; four gladiators are represented in sanguinary strife, and two as having perished, ere the command is given to bring the Christian and lover on the arena, and to loose the Numidian lion. In neither instance, however, will the noble beast attack his destined victim; but shrinks and cowers in utter terror, though goaded on to his dreadful feast. We now solicit a careful comparison of the scenes which succeed, with those which, nearly two years before Mr. Bulwer's book was conceived, we had wrought out with no slight study, and presented to our unregarding countrymen.
The closing scene in the Pompeiian amphitheatre, as represented in 'The LastDaysof Pompeii:'
"'Behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!'"
"The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld with ineffable dismay a vast vapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk, blackness;—the branches, fire;—that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!
"There was a dead, heart-sunken silence—through which there suddenly broke the roar of the lion, which, from within the building, was echoed back by the sharper and fiercer yells of its follow beasts. Dread seers were they of the burthen of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of the wrath to come!
"Then there rose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls of the theatre trembled; and beyond, in the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more, and the mountain cloud seemed to roll towards them, dark and rapid, like a torrent; at the same time, it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes, mixed with vast fragments of burning stone! Over the crushing vines,—over the desolate streets,—over the amphitheatre itself,—far and wide,—with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea,—fell that awful shower!
"No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly—each dashing, pressing, crushing against the other. Trampling recklessly over the fallen,—amid groans, and oaths, and prayers, and sudden shrieks, the enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages. Whither should they fly?"
Now let us present the description, given in 'The LastNightof Pompeii,' of the horrors that succeeded the scene of the games:
Let the reader compare each of these extracts with the other, and form his own opinion of Mr. Bulwer's great powers and originality. These very remarkable coincidences are followed by others not less extraordinary and worthy of commemoration:
"But suddenly a duller shade fell over the air. Instinctively he turned to the mountain, and behold! one of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with a sound the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from the burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain! At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest smoke, rolling on, over air, sea, and earth."
"Bright and gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of hell, the mountain shone—a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in two; or rather above its surface there seemed to rise two monster-shapes, each confronting each, as demons contending for a world. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; butbelow, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded,—save in three places, adown which flowed, serpentine and irregular, rivers of the molten lava. Darkly red through the profound gloom of their banks, they flowed slowly on, as towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden Phlegethon."
Among the Death Cries of Pompeii, as we imagined them, is the following lyric:
Again says Mr. Bulwer, who boasts that he has succeeded where all others have failed:
"In the pauses of the showers, you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster-shapes, striding across the gloom, hustling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapors were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes,—the agents of terror and of death."
Is there nothing similar to the preceding quotation in this?
We have seen how remarkably the lions agreed on the impropriety of making an amphitheatric meal of the lovers; now it appears that the tiger, who should have eat the Christian, was of the same mind.
"At that moment a wild yell burst through the air; and thinking only of escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger of the African desert leaped among the throng, and hurried through its parted streams. And so came the earthquake, and so darkness once more fell over the earth!"
Is it not strange that we should have conceived something much like this, and explained the motive, too, of such unreasonable conduct in any wild beast starving?
We shall not protract this investigation, though many similar passages might be produced to confirm our assertion that Mr. Bulwer has appropriated our thoughts, and throughout wrought our descriptions into his story, and won great profit and fame from the robbery. Those who read his book, will readily find many descriptions closely resembling one of the last given in the poem, which we here reprint, and many references to ancient authors for facts which he derived from us.
But, though we have been more highly honored by this lastchef d'oeuvreof the honorable Eugene Aram than any author within our knowledge, yet others are entitled to their property. Speaking of the skeleton of Arbaces, Bulwer says—
"The scull was of so remarkable a conformation, so boldly marked in its intellectual, as well as its worse physical developments, that it has excited the constant speculation of every itinerant believer in the theories of Spurzheim who has gazed upon that ruinedpalace of the mind. Still, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, the traveller may survey thatairy hall, within whose cunning galleries and elaborate chambers, once thought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned, the soul of Arbaces the Egyptian!"
But Byron said, long ago, in Childe Harold, when gazing on a skull:
And, once more, the fashionable Pelham moralizes: "and as the Earth from the Sun, so immortality drinks happiness from virtue,which is the smile upon the face of God."12This he italicises as one of his most wondrous original reflections—yet it may be found in the Diary of a Physician.13
12Vol. ii. p. 196.
13In the story called 'A Young Man about Town,' we think.
Mr. Bulwer is particularly conceited and arrogant with respect to his subject. He asserts that all others have failed in attempting to describe the destruction of Pompeii, and that, therefore, he will stand alone, the intellectual monarch of the Ruins. The candid and modest and original gentleman probably forgot 'Valerius' and Croly and Milman and Dr. Gray and ourself; but the productions of such persons can be of little consequence to such a Paul Clifford in letters and Mirabeau in morals.
Mr. Bulwer, likewise, is ostentatious of his learning, and he quotes from ancient authors with an air of infinite self-complacency, though his citations had been conveniently collected, acenturysince, in the Archæologia Græca of Archbishop Potter! These volumes now lie before us, and there may all his erudition be found within a very accessible compass. His theological knowledge or deistical design, we know not which, is not more profound or canonical; for he makes his Christian Olinthus say, that "eighty years ago," that is from the birth of Christ, "there was no assurance to man of God or of a certain or definite future beyond the grave"!!
We have now done with Mr. Bulwer, his immoralities, and his plagiarisms. We have sought to be very brief in our exposition, and, for the first time that we ever expressed such a desire, we request the literary periodicals, with which we exchange, to reprint this article.
VISITS AND SKETCHES, at Home and Abroad. By Mrs. Jamieson, author of the "Characteristics of Women," &c. in 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1834.
We intended to notice these interesting volumes sooner, and recommend them to our readers as highly entertaining and instructive. Mrs. Jamieson's style, though not faultless, is very attractive; and certainly as a female writer, she is hardly surpassed in vigor and richness. Thefirstvolume is principally devoted to sketches of art, literature and character, comprisingMemorandaat Munich, Nuremburg and Dresden. It also contains a vivid account of the celebrated Bess ofHardwicke, theoldCountess of Shrewsbury,—a visit toAlthorpe, the ancient seat of the Spencers—and eloquent sketches of the private and dramatic life ofMrs. Siddons, and ofFanny Kemble. Thesecondvolume opens with three interesting stories,—theFalse One, a pathetic oriental tale, a thousand times superior to Vathek,—Halloran the Pedlar, and theIndian Mother. It also contains a very amusingdrama for little actors,—and concludes with theDiary of an Enuyeé, a performance of much and deserved celebrity. We shall make occasional selections from this work, for the benefit of such of our readers as have no opportunity of seeing the volumes themselves. For the present, we have transferred to our pages the"Indian Mother,"a most affecting story founded on a striking incident related by Humboldt. The scene being laid in South America, the reader will be struck with the strong impressions made on Mrs. Jamieson's mind of that magnificent country, through the medium of description alone.
POEMS, by William Cullen Bryant. Boston: Russell, Odiorne & Metcalfe. 1834.
This new and beautiful edition of Mr. Bryant's poems has undergone the author's correction, and contains some pieces which have never before appeared in print. As the elegant china cup from which we sip the fragrant imperial, imparts to it a finer flavor, so the pure white paper and excellent typography of the volume before us, will give a richer lustre to the gems of Mr. Bryant's genius. Not that the value of the diamond is really enhanced by the casket which contains it, but so it is that the majority of mortals are governed byappearances;and even a dull tale will appear respectable in the pages of a hot pressed and gilt bound London annual. In justice to Mr. Bryant however, and to ourselves, we will state that our first impressions of his great intellectual power—of his deep and sacred communings with the world of poetry—were derived from a very indifferent edition of his writings, printed with bad type, on a worse paper. Mr. Bryant is well known to the American public as a poet of uncommon strength and genius; and even on the other side of the Atlantic, a son of the distinguished Roscoe, who published a volume of American poetry, pronounced him the first among his equals. Like Halleck, however, and some others of scarcely inferior celebrity,—his muse has languished probably for want of that due encouragement, which to our shame as a nation be it spoken, has never been awarded to that department of native literature. Mr. Bryant, we believe, finding that Parnassus was not so productive a soil as the field of politics, has connected himself with a distinguished partizan newspaper in the city of New York. His bitter regrets at the frowns of an unpoetical public, and yet his unavailing efforts to divorce himself from the ever living and surrounding objects of inspiration are beautifully alluded to in the following lines:
LITTELL'S MUSEUM of Foreign Literature, Science and Arts. No. 151. Jan. 1835. A. Waldie. Philadelphia.
This valuable periodical has maintained a high reputation and extensive circulation for more than twelve years. The January number (1835) may be considered a new era in its history. The size of its sheet is enlarged, its type and paper are improved, and its contents display more richness and variety than usual. The plan of the "Museum" is certainly most excellent. It is to select and republish from all the British periodicals of high reputation, every thing which is either ofpresentorpermanentvalue, omitting the vast mass of matter which is local to Great Britain or not interesting to an American reader. It is in fact, a labor-saving machine, by which all the choicest flowers will be culled from British publications and transplanted in our own soil, leaving the weeds and trash on the other side of the Atlantic. We heartily wish Mr. Littell and his co-laborers increased success, and we shall occasionally draw upon his interesting paper for the use of the "Messenger." The diffusion of fine writing from abroad, will improve the taste and invigorate the efforts of our own countrymen.
The Southern Churchman, edited by the Rev. William F. Lee, and published weekly in this city, has reached its fifth number. Almost every christian denomination among us, had the benefit of a paper devoted to its own peculiar interests, except the Episcopalians, until Mr. Lee commenced the publication of the Churchman. There can be no doubt of its success, under the management of an editor of Mr. Lee's distinguished talents and piety.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
MR. WHITE:—The Optimists assert that this little world of ours, is continually and most marvellously improving in every thing. But, begging their pardon, I humbly conceive that this is claiming rather too much for its onward march towards perfectibility. Many notable instances might be adduced to prove that it is so; but I will go no further for such proof, than to contrast the Dandyism of the present age with that of the olden time. This term (by the way) although of modern coinage, is but a new name for an old thing. So old indeed, that, like the common law, it may be traced back to a period beyond which "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." From the multitude of its votaries and the indefatigable diligence with which it has always been practised, it may justly be ranked among the arts; although we must admit it to be one of no very difficult attainment by any whose taste leads them to prefer general contempt to universal esteem.
The great aim of this art being to mar effectually whatever beauty either of person or countenance nature has bestowed on us, the task would seem to be one of very easy accomplishment for most men. A simple disfigurement therefore, would be no indication of genius, since the visages upon which the laudable experiment is most frequently tried, require very little aggravation to effect the object. But an entire metamorphosis in the appearance of the whole animal, or at least such a change as to render both its genus and species doubtful, being the grand desideratum; it isherethat the modern Dandies have betrayed a most woful and egregious poverty of invention, compared to those of former times. Of this I shall presently offer indisputable testimony.
The Dandies of our day however, may justly claim the palm of superiority, at least inoneparticular; I mean, quo ad,the head, both inside and out: for, what with internal emptiness and external whiskers and mustaches, many have contrived to render not only the features of the face "perfectly unintelligible," (if I may borrow a phrase from the Pugilists,) but to disprove the long admitted dictum of philosophy, that there is no such thing in all nature as a vacuum. An instance of this most successfulface-marringhas lately fallen under my own observation, which I will endeavor to describe, although in utter despair of doing justice to the original.
Many months ago, being in a much crowded public room, I was not a little startled by the sudden appearance of a most fantastic, grim looking biped moving among the crowd, which I first took for one of those strange animals then showing about the country, that perhaps had escaped from his keepers. A more deliberate view, however, from a corner into which I had taken care to ensconce myself to keep out of harm's way, soon satisfied me that it was nothing more formidable than one of those harmless burlesques of manhood called Dandies, that so much resemble the Simia genus, as hardly to be distinguished from them. It had two large ropes (as they appeared to be) of tawny colored hair, hanging out from between the collar and the cheek bones, and reaching down some seven or eight inches over the breast. These I at first supposed might be the skins of a water dog's fore legs, forming the ends of some new fashioned comforter to keep the neck and cheeks warm in cold weather, to which these bipeds are particularly sensitive. But upon diligent inquiry among several, who seemed to be as much struck as myself with so uncommon and apparently formidable a looking animal moving upon two legs, instead of four, as might more reasonably have been expected, we were informed that these tawny appendages, in regard to which I had made such an egregious mistake, actually consisted of the united hairs of the throat and cheeks, so elongated by indefatigable culture, as to produce the grotesque appearance that had so strongly excited the wonderment of us all. The whole was surmounted by a pair of mustaches of the same tanned-leather color; which so completely obscured the countenance, that not a particle of it was discernible but the two lack-lustre eyes; andthe nose, like a sort of watch-tower overtopping the wilderness of shaggy hair by which it was surrounded.
It is the recollection of this never to be forgotten figure of an entire stranger, seen for the first and probably the last time in my life, which induced me to claim for the Dandyism of the present day, a decided superiority over that of the by-gone times; at least so far as the disfigurement of the countenance can go towards the establishment of so enviable a claim. That it is indisputable, I think certain; for neither in the pictures nor histories of past ages which have reached us, can any thing be found at all comparable to what I have just endeavored to describe, but in language so inadequate, that I am almost ashamed to send you this communication.
The bodily disfigurements of our modern Dandies having a great degree of sameness in them, and being matters of general notoriety, 'tis needless to particularise them. But to give you an opportunity of judging whether I have unjustly charged them with poverty of invention, when compared with their prototypes of the olden time, I beg leave to present you with the description of an English Dandy of the fourteenth century. It is taken from Dr. Henry's History of England, and he quotes Camden, Chaucer, and Street, as his authorities.
"He wore long-pointed shoes, calledcrackowesthe upper parts of which were cut in imitation of a church-window. The points of these were fastened to his knees by gold or silver chains. He had hose of one color on one leg, and of another color on the other; short breeches which did not reach to the middle of his thighs, and disclosed the shape completely; a coat, one half white, and the other half black or blue; a long beard; a silk hood buttoned under his chin, embroidered with grotesque figures of animals, dancing men, &c. and sometimes ornamented with gold, silver, and precious stones. This dress, which was the very top of the mode in the reign of Edward the Third, appeared so ridiculous to the Scots, (who probably could not afford to be such egregious fops,) that they made the following satirical verses upon it:
I would add to the above what the grave Doctor says of the fashionable ladies of those times; but being a great friend to the "womankind," as that queer, caustic old Batchelor Monkbarns used to call them, I forbear to run the risk of their displeasure, by disparaging their sex so much as I should be compelled to do, were I to repeat the Doctor's words. And now, my good sir, confidently trusting that you yourself, as well as your readers, will admit the irrefutable character of the proofs which I have adduced to establish my assertions, I bid you farewell, and remain
Your friend and constant reader,