‘Cecil.How much is lost when neither heart nor eyeRose-winged Desire or fabling Hope deceives;When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spyThe dubious apple in the yellow leaves;‘When, springing from the turf where youth reposed,We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more.
‘Cecil.How much is lost when neither heart nor eyeRose-winged Desire or fabling Hope deceives;When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spyThe dubious apple in the yellow leaves;‘When, springing from the turf where youth reposed,We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more.
‘Cecil.How much is lost when neither heart nor eyeRose-winged Desire or fabling Hope deceives;When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spyThe dubious apple in the yellow leaves;
‘Cecil.How much is lost when neither heart nor eye
Rose-winged Desire or fabling Hope deceives;
When boyhood with quick throb hath ceased to spy
The dubious apple in the yellow leaves;
‘When, springing from the turf where youth reposed,We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more.
‘When, springing from the turf where youth reposed,
We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;
When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,
And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more.
‘Elizabeth.The said Edmund hath also furnished unto the weaver at Arras, John Blaquieres, on my account, a description for some of his cunningest wenches to work at, supplied by mine own self, indeed as far as the subject-matter goes, but set forth by him with figures and fancies, and daintily enough bedecked. I could have wished he had thereunto joined a fair comparison between Dian ... no matter ... he might perhaps have fared the better for it ... but poet’s wits, God help them! when did they ever sit close about them? Read the poesy, not over-rich, and concluding very awkwardly and meanly.
‘Cecil.Where forms the lotus, with its level leavesAnd solid blossoms, many floating isles,What heavenly radiance swift-descending cleavesThe darksome wave! unwonted beauty smiles‘On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower,On every nymph, and twenty sate around....Lo! ’twas Diana ... from the sultry hourHither she fled, nor fear’d she sight nor sound.‘Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reedsDrew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly,Three faithful dogs before him rais’d their heads,And watched and wonder’d at that fixed eye.‘Forth sprang his favorite ... with her arrow-handToo late the Goddess hid what hand may hide,Of every nymph and every reed complain’d,And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.‘On the prone head and sandal’d feet they flew—Lo! slender hoofs and branching horns appear!The last marred voice not even the favorite knew,But bayed and fastened on the upbraiding deer.‘Far be, chaste Goddess, far from me and mine,The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon!Alas, that ‘vengeance dwells with charms divine....
‘Cecil.Where forms the lotus, with its level leavesAnd solid blossoms, many floating isles,What heavenly radiance swift-descending cleavesThe darksome wave! unwonted beauty smiles‘On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower,On every nymph, and twenty sate around....Lo! ’twas Diana ... from the sultry hourHither she fled, nor fear’d she sight nor sound.‘Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reedsDrew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly,Three faithful dogs before him rais’d their heads,And watched and wonder’d at that fixed eye.‘Forth sprang his favorite ... with her arrow-handToo late the Goddess hid what hand may hide,Of every nymph and every reed complain’d,And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.‘On the prone head and sandal’d feet they flew—Lo! slender hoofs and branching horns appear!The last marred voice not even the favorite knew,But bayed and fastened on the upbraiding deer.‘Far be, chaste Goddess, far from me and mine,The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon!Alas, that ‘vengeance dwells with charms divine....
‘Cecil.Where forms the lotus, with its level leavesAnd solid blossoms, many floating isles,What heavenly radiance swift-descending cleavesThe darksome wave! unwonted beauty smiles
‘Cecil.Where forms the lotus, with its level leaves
And solid blossoms, many floating isles,
What heavenly radiance swift-descending cleaves
The darksome wave! unwonted beauty smiles
‘On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower,On every nymph, and twenty sate around....Lo! ’twas Diana ... from the sultry hourHither she fled, nor fear’d she sight nor sound.
‘On its pure bosom, on each bright-eyed flower,
On every nymph, and twenty sate around....
Lo! ’twas Diana ... from the sultry hour
Hither she fled, nor fear’d she sight nor sound.
‘Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reedsDrew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly,Three faithful dogs before him rais’d their heads,And watched and wonder’d at that fixed eye.
‘Unhappy youth, whom thirst and quiver-reeds
Drew to these haunts, whom awe forbade to fly,
Three faithful dogs before him rais’d their heads,
And watched and wonder’d at that fixed eye.
‘Forth sprang his favorite ... with her arrow-handToo late the Goddess hid what hand may hide,Of every nymph and every reed complain’d,And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.
‘Forth sprang his favorite ... with her arrow-hand
Too late the Goddess hid what hand may hide,
Of every nymph and every reed complain’d,
And dashed upon the bank the waters wide.
‘On the prone head and sandal’d feet they flew—Lo! slender hoofs and branching horns appear!The last marred voice not even the favorite knew,But bayed and fastened on the upbraiding deer.
‘On the prone head and sandal’d feet they flew—
Lo! slender hoofs and branching horns appear!
The last marred voice not even the favorite knew,
But bayed and fastened on the upbraiding deer.
‘Far be, chaste Goddess, far from me and mine,The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon!Alas, that ‘vengeance dwells with charms divine....
‘Far be, chaste Goddess, far from me and mine,
The stream that tempts thee in the summer noon!
Alas, that ‘vengeance dwells with charms divine....
‘Elizabeth.Psha! give me the paper: I forwarned thee how it ended ... pitifully, pitifully.
‘Cecil.I cannot think otherwise than that the undertaker of the aforecited poesy hath choused your Highness; for I have seen painted, I know not where, the identically same Dian, with full as many nymphs, as he calls them, and more dogs. So small a matter as a page of poesy shall never stir my choler, nor twitch my purse-string.
‘Elizabeth.I have read in Plinius and Mela of a runlet near Dodona, which kindled by approximation an unlighted torch, and extinguished a lighted one. Now, Cecil, I desire no such a jetty to be celebrated as the decoration of my court: in simpler words, which your gravity may more easily understand, I would not, from the fountain of Honour, give lustre to the dull and ignorant, deadening and leaving in ‘cold obstruction’ the lamp of literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign to be remembered: if my actions were different from what they are, I should as ardently wish it to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and prepensely stab or suffocate their fame, when God has commanded them to stand up on high for an ensample. We call him parricide who destroys the author of his existence: tell me, what shall we call him who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey, its most faithful propagator and most firm support? The parent gives us few days and sorrowful; the poet many and glorious: the one (supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best remunerates our virtues. A page of poesy is a little matter—be it so—but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble—it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one, that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board—but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. This year they and their sovran dwell together, next year they and their beagle. Both have names, but names perishable. The keeper of my privy seal is an earl—what then? The keeper of my poultry-yard is a Cæsar. Inhonest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him: what is not natively his own, falls off and comes to nothing. I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a depraved use of the pen shall have so cramped them, as to incapacitate them for the sword and for the council-chamber. If Alexander was the Great, what was Aristoteles who made him so? who taught him every art and science he knew, except three, those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of murdering his bosom-friends. Come along: I will bring thee back again nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, and never eke out the substance of a stanza; but Edmund, if perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for the injustice we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for the mortification they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set before them. Edmund is grave and gentle,—he complains of Fortune, not of Elizabeth,—of courts, not of Cecil. I am resolved, so help me God, he shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, convey unto him these twelve silver-spoons, with the apostols on them, gloriously gilded; and deliver into his hand these twelve large golden pieces, sufficing for the yearly maintenance of another horse and groom;—besides which, set open before him with due reverence this bible, wherein he may read the mercies of God towards those who waited in patience for his blessing; and this pair of cremisin silken hosen, which thou knowest I have worne only thirteen months, taking heed that the heelpiece be put into good and sufficient restauration at my sole charges, by the Italian woman at Charing-Cross.’I.91.
We think that this is very pleasant and brave ‘fooling,’ and that our author has hit off the familiar pedantic tone of the Maiden Queen well. The sentiment with which Elizabeth seems in the foregoing Dialogue, to regard the Muses as among her Maids of Honour, and the patronage she is ready to extend to poets as the most agreeable and permanent class of court-chroniclers, must be considered as characteristic of the person and the age, and not attributed to the author.Hisliteraryfiertéis quite in the tone of the present age, nor can he be suspected of representing poets as destined to nothing higher than to be danglers upon the great. He has put his opinion on this subject beyond a doubt. In a very different style, he makes Salomon, the Florentine Jew, thus address Alfieri, the tragic poet.
‘Be contented, Signor Conte, with the glory of our first great dramatist, and neglect altogether any inferior one. Why vex and torment yourself about the French? They buzz and are troublesome while they are swarming; but the master will soon hive them.Isthe whole nation worth the worst of your tragedies?All the present race of them, all the creatures in the world which excite your indignation, will lie in the grave, while young and old are clapping their hands or beating their bosoms at yourBruto Primo. Consider, to make one step further, that kings and emperours should, in your estimation, be but as grasshoppers and beetles,—let them consume a few blades of your clover, without molesting them, without bringing them to crawl on you and claw you. The difference between them and men of genius is almost as great, as between men of genius and those higher Intelligences who act in immediate subordination to the Almighty. Yes, I assert it, without flattery and without fear, the Angels are not higher above mortals, than you are above the proudest that trample on them.’
We think Mr. Landor’s friend, the poet-laureate, cannot do better than turn this passage into hexameter verse, and present it as his next Birth-day Ode. The author’s dislike of the French has here inspired him with a contempt for emperors and kings, and with an admiration for men of genius. He sets out with a fit of the spleen, rises to the sublime, and ends in the mock-heroic. We do not soar so high. Without pretending to settle the precedence between poets and any higher order of Intelligences, we certainly think they have something better to do than to varnish over state-puppets, and hold them up to the gaze of posterity. Yet this menial use of their talents seems to have been the highest which even persons like Elizabeth formerly contemplated in their patronage of them. If Spenser had merely distinguished himself by his flattering and fanciful portraits of his royal mistress, we should think no more of him now than of ‘the lady that tied on her garter.’ He has entitled himself to our gratitude, by introducing us into the presence of his mistress, Fancy, the true Faery Queen, ‘the fairest princess under sky;’ and showing us the purple lights of Love and Beauty reflected in his tremulous page, like evening skies in pure and still waters. What is it that the poets of elder times have indeed done for us, besides paying awkward compliments and writing fulsome dedications to their patrons? They spread out a brighter heaven above our heads, a softer and a greener earth beneath our feet. They do in truth ‘paint the lily,’ they ‘throw a perfume on the violet, and add another hue unto the rainbow.’ From them the murmuring stream borrows its thoughtful music; they steep the mountain’s head in azure, and the nodding grove waves in visionary grandeur in their page. Solitude becomes more solitary, silence eloquent, joy extatic; they lend wings to Hope, and put a heart into all things. Poetry hangs its lamp on high, shedding sweet influence; and not an object in nature is seen,unaccompanied by the sound of ‘famous poets’ verse.’ They add another spring to man’s life, breathe the balm of immortality into the soul, and by their aid, a dream and a glory is ever around us. Queen Elizabeth ordered Shakespear tocontinueFalstaff. He has indeed beencontinued; for he has come down to us, and is living to this day! Otway would have thought it a great thing to have hadVenice Preservedpatronised, and a box taken by a dutchess on the night of its first appearance. But is this ‘the spur that the clear spirit doth raise?’ Is it for this that we envy him, or that so many would have wished like him to live, even though doomed as the consequence, like him to die? No, but for the sake of those thousand hearts that have melted with Belvidera’s sorrows, for those tears that have streamed from bright eyes, and that young and old have shed so many thousand times over her fate! This is the spur to Fame, this is the boast of letters, that they are the medium through which whatever we feel and think (that we take most pride and interest in) is imparted and lives in the brain, and throbs in the bosoms of a countless multitude. We breathe the thoughts of others as they breathe ours, like common air, in spite of the distance of place, and the lapse of time. Mind converses everywhere with mind, and we drink of knowledge as of a river. We ourselves (Mr. Landor will excuse the egotism of the transition) once took shelter from a shower of rain in a ruined hovel in the Highlands, where we found an old shepherd apparently regardless of the storm and of his flock, reading a number of the Edinburgh Review! Need we own that this little incident inspired us with a feeling of almost poetical vanity? From that time the blue and yellow covers seemed to take a tinge from the humid arch, that spanned the solitude before us, and our thoughts were commingled with the elements!
TheConversation between Oliver Cromwell and Walter Nobleon the beheading of CharlesI., displays a good deal of the blunt knavery of old Nol, and a mixture of honour and honesty in the old Roundhead. We here also find some touches that illustrate Mr. Landor’s political views. Thus Cromwell is made to say, ‘I abominate and detest kingship;’—to which Noble answers—‘I abominate and detest hangmanship; but in certain stages of society, both are necessary. Let them go together, we want neither now.’ The same dramatic appreciation of the intellect of the speakers, and of the literary tone of the age, appears in theEighth Conversation, between King James I. and Isaac Casaubon; and in many of the others, whether relating to ancient or modern times. The verisimilitude does not arise from a studied use of peculiar phrases, or an exaggeration of peculiar opinions, but the writer seems to be well versed in the productions andcharacters of the individuals he brings upon the stage, and the adaptation takes place unconsciously and without any apparent effort. A remarkable instance of this occurs in the dialogue between Ann Boleyn and HenryVIII., into which the rough, boisterous, voluptuous, cruel and yet gamesome character of that monarch, whose gross and pampered selfishness has but one parallel in the British annals, is transfused with all the truth and spirit of history—or of the Author of Waverley! In theFourth Dialogue‘between Professor Porson and Mr. Southey,’ we meet with an assertion which we think Mr. Landor would hardly have hazarded in the lifetime of the former, and to which we cannot assent, even to show our candour. ‘Take up,’ says the Laureate, ‘a poem of Wordsworth’s,and read it; I would rather say, read them all; and knowing that a mind like yours must grasp closely what comes within it, I will then appeal to you whether any poet of our country, since Shakespear, has exerted a greater variety of powers, with less strain and less ostentation.’ Some persons (we do not know whether the poet himself is of the number) have, we understand, compared Mr. Wordsworth to Milton; but we did not expect ever to see a resemblance suggested between him and Shakespeare. If ever two men were the antipodes of each other, they are so; and even this we think is paying compliment enough to Mr. Wordsworth. We are also of opinion, in the very teeth of thedictumof the brother bard, that let his other merits be what they may, no English writer of any genius has shownlessvariety of powers, withmoreeffort and more significance of pretension. Mr. Southey, in theImaginary Conversation, goes on to lay before the Professor ‘an unpublished and incomplete poem’ of the same author, theLaodamia, and recites it, but onlyin imagination; after which some ingenious verbal criticisms are made on one or two particular passages. This poem has since been published; and we have no hesitation in saying, that it is a poem the greater part of which might be read aloud in Elysium, and that the spirits of departed heroes and sages might gather round and listen to it! It is sweet and solemn; and, though there is some poorness in the diction, and some indistinctness in the images, it breathes of purity and tenderness, in very genuine and lofty measures. We have great pleasure in saying this—but we must be permitted to add, that we are firmly persuaded Mr. Wordsworth would never have written this classical and manly composition, but for those remarks on his former style, for which we have the misfortune to fall under the lash of Mr. Landor’s pen.
TheNinth Conversation(‘Marchese Pallavicini and Walter Landor‘) containsscandalagainst the English Government—Conversation X.(‘General Kleber and some French Officers‘)scandalagainst the French—Conversation XI.(‘Buonaparte and the President of the Senate’)scandalagainst good taste and common decency. Let Mr. Landor cancel it—let his publishers strike their asterisks through it. It is short, and not sweet. These fabulous stories about the expedition into Egypt, these low-minded and scurrilous aspersions on Buonaparte, which the Tories palmed upon the credulity of their gulls, the Jacobin poets, have been long discarded by the inventors, and linger only in the pages, rankle only in the hearts of their converts. We would recommend to Mr. Landor, before he writes on this subject again, to read over the allegory of his friend Spenser, describingOccasionandFuror, and not to be refreshing his groundless and mischievous resentments every moment with a ‘Cymocles, oh! I burn!’ It is by no means a sufficient reason to believe a thing that it provokes our anger, or excites our disgust; nor is it wise or decorous to bay the moon, and then quarrel with the echo of our own voice. Mr. Landor keeps up a clamour raised by the worst men to answer the worst purposes, only to persuade himself, if possible, that he has not been its dupe. This is the worst of our author’s style—it continually explodes anddetonates—one cannot read him in security, for fear of springing a mine, if any of his prejudices are touched, or passions roused. He is made of combustible materials—sits hatching treason, like the Guy Faux of letters, and is equally ready to blow up a Legitimate Despot, or pounce upon an usurper! Let us turn to Humphrey Hardcastle and Bishop Burnet,—in which the garrulous, credulous, acute, vulgar, and yet graphic style of the latter, is very pleasingly caricatured.
‘Hardcastle.The pleasure I have taken in the narration of your Lordship is for the greater part independent of what concerns my family. I never knew that my uncle was a poet, and could hardly have imagined that he approached near enough to Mr. Cowley for jealousy or competition.
‘Bishop Burnet.Indeed, they who discoursed on such matters were of the same opinion, excepting some few, who see nothing before them, and every thing behind. These declared that Hum would overtop Abraham, if he could only drink rather less, think rather more, and feel rather rightlier; that he had great spunk and spirit, and that not a fan was left on a lap when any one sang his airs. Poets, like ministers of state, have their parties; and it is difficult to get at truth upon questions not capable of demonstration, nor founded on matter of fact. To take any trouble about them, is an unwise thing: it is like mounting a wall covered with broken glass: you cut your fingers before you reach the top, and you only discover at last that it is within a span or two of equal height on bothsides. Who would have imagined that the youth who was carried to his long home the other day, I mean my Lord Rochester’s reputed child, Mr. George Nelly, was for several seasons a great poet? Yet I remember the time when he was so famous an one that he ran after Mr. Milton up Snow Hill, as the old gentleman was leaning on his daughter’s arm, from the Poultry, and treading down the heel of his shoe, called him a rogue and a liar, while another poet sprang out from a grocer’s shop, clapping his hands, and crying, “Bravely done! by Belzebub! the young cock spurs the blind buzzard gallantly.” On some neighbour representing to Mr. George the respectable character of Mr. Milton, and the probability that at some future time he might be considered as among our geniuses, and such as would reflect a certain portion of credit on his ward, and asking him withal why he appeared to him a rogue and a liar, he replied, “I have proofs known to few: I possess a sort of drama by him, entitled Comus, which was composed for the entertainment of Lord Pembroke, who held an appointment under the King; and this very John has since changed sides, and written in defence of the Commonwealth.”—Mr. George began with satirizing his father’s friends, and confounding the better part of them with all the hirelings and nuisances of the age, with all the scavengers of lust and all the linkboys of literature; with Newgate solicitors, the patrons of adulterers and forgers, who, in the long vocation, turn a penny by puffing a ballad, and are promised a shilling in silver, for their own benefit, on crying down a religious tract. He soon became reconciled to the latter, and they raised him upon their shoulders above the heads of the wittiest and the wisest. This served a whole winter. Afterwards, whenever he wrote a bad poem, he supported his sinking fame by some signal act of profligacy—an elegy by a seduction, an heroic by an adultery, a tragedy by a divorce. On the remark of a learned man, that irregularity is no indication of genius, he began to lose ground rapidly, when on a sudden he cried out at the Haymarket,There is no God!It was then surmised more generally and more gravely that there was something in him, and he stood upon his legs almost to the last.Say what you will, once whispered a friend of mine,there are things in him strong as poison, and original as sin. Doubts, however, were entertained by some, on more mature reflection, whether he earned all his reputation by that witticism: for soon afterwards he declared at the cockpit, that he had purchased a large assortment of cutlasses and pistols, and that, as he was practising the use of them from morning to night, it would be imprudent in persons who were without them either to laugh or boggle at the Dutch vocabulary with which he had enriched our language....Having had some concern in bringing his reputed father to a sense of penitence for his offences, I waited on the youth likewise in a former illness, not without hope of leading him ultimately to a better way of thinking. I had hesitated too long: I found him far advanced in his convalescence. My arguments are not worth repeating. He replied thus: “I change my mistresses as Tom Southern his shirt, from economy. I cannot afford to keep few: and I am determined not to be forgotten till I am vastly richer. But I assure you, Dr. Burnet, for your comfort, that if you imagine I am led astray by lasciviousness, as you call it, and lust, you are quite as much mistaken as if you called a book of arithmetic a bawdy book. I calculate on every kiss I give, modest or immodest, on lip or paper. I ask myself one question only—what will it bring me?” On my marvelling, and raising up my hands, “You churchmen,” he added, with a laugh, “are too hot in all your quarters for the calm and steddy contemplation of this high mystery.” He spake thus loosely, Mr. Hardcastle, and I confess, I was disconcerted and took my leave of him. If I gave him any offence at all, it could only be when he said, “I should be sorry to die before I have written my life,” and I replied, “Rather say before you have mended it.”—“But, doctor,” continued he, “the work I propose may bring me a hundred pounds;” whereunto I rejoined, “that which I, young gentleman, suggest in preference will be worth much more to you.” At last he is removed from among the living: let us hope the best: to wit, that the mercies which have begun with man’s forgetfulness will be crowned with God’s forgiveness.’I.164.
In theConversation between Peter Leopold and the President du Paty, there is a good deal of curious local information and sensible remark; but there is too constant a balance kept up between the arguments in favour of reform, and the difficulties attending it. Our author is one of thosecats-cradlereasoners who never see a decided advantage in any thing but indecision, one of those adepts in political Platonics, who are always in love with the theory of what is right, till it comes to be put in practice. On the subject of this dialogue, we have but one remark to repeat, which is, that in such matters to benominallyhumane is to bepracticallyso—that where there is a disposition in governments to lessen the sum of human misery, there is the power,—and that the spirit of humanity is the great thing wanting to society!
We own we like Mr. Landor best when he introduces the great men of antiquity upon the carpet. He seems then to throw aside his narrow and captious prejudices, expands his view with the distance of the objects he contemplates, and infuses a strength, aseverity, a fervour and sweetness into his style, not unworthy of the admirable models whom he would be supposed to imitate. Such in great part is the tone of the observations that pass between Demosthenes and Eubulides.
‘Eubulides.In your language, O Demosthenes! there is a resemblance to the Ilissus, whose waters, as you must have observed, are in most seasons pure and limpid and equable in their course, yet abounding in depths, of which when we discern the bottom, we wonder that we discern it so clearly: the same river at every storm swells into a torrent, without ford or boundary, and is the stronger and the more impetuous from resistance.
‘Demosthenes.Language is part of a man’s character.
‘Eubulides.It is often artificial.
‘Demosthenes.Often both are so. I spoke not of such language as that of Gorgias and Isocrates, and other rhetoricians, but of that which belongs to eloquence, of that which enters the heart, however closed against it, of that which pierces like the sword of Perseus, of that which carries us away upon its point as easily as Medea her children, and holds the world below in the same suspense and terror.—I had to form a manner, with great models on one side of me and Nature on the other. Had I imitated Plato (the writer then most admired) I must have fallen short of his amplitude and dignity; and his sentences are seldom such as could be admitted into a popular harangue. Xenophon is elegant, but unimpassioned, and not entirely free, I think, from affectation. Herodotus is the most faultless, and perhaps the most excellent of all. What simplicity! what sweetness! what harmony! not to mention his sagacity of inquiry and his accuracy of description: he could not, however, form an orator for the times in which we live. Aristoteles and Thucydides were before me: I trembled lest they should lead me where I might raise a recollection of Pericles, whose plainness and conciseness and gravity they have imitated, not always with success. Laying down these qualities as the foundation, I have ventured on more solemnity, more passion: I have also been studious to bring the powers ofactioninto play, that great instrument in exciting the affections, which Pericles disdained. He and Jupiter could strike my head with their thunderbolts and stand serene and motionless: I could not.’I.233.
The Dialogue in the second volume between Pericles and Sophocles breathes the spirit of patriotism and of antiquity, perhaps in a still higher strain, with a bastard allusion, we suspect, to recent politics. The Conversations between Aristotle and Callisthenes, and between Lord Chatham and Lord Chesterfield, (also in thesecond volume), contain an admirable estimate, equally sound and acute, of the characters of Aristotle and Plato. Our critic appears to have studied and to have understood these authors well. In our opinion, he rates Cicero too high; we do not mean as to style or oratory, but as a thinker. In this respect, there is little memorable, or new, or profound, in him; and ‘he was at best’ (as it has been said) ‘but an elegant reporter of the Greek philosophy.’ Neither can we agree that his historian, Middleton, is so entirely free from affectation as our author supposes. It is Lord Chatham who is made to pronounce the panegyric upon Locke, as ‘the most elegant of English prose writers,’ which, if our author were not a deliberate paradox-monger, might seem an uncivil irony. His eulogist does not mend the matter much by his definition of elegance, which one would think intended as a test of Lord Chesterfield’s politeness. He makes it to consist in a mean between too much prolixity and too much conciseness. Now, (supposing this to be intended seriously) Mr. Locke was certainly one of the most circuitous and diffuse of all writers. This distinguished person neither excelled in the graces of style, according to our author’s singular assertion, nor was he (according to the common opinion) the founder of the modern system of metaphysical philosophy. The credit of having laid the basis of this system, and of having completed the great outline of the plan, is beyond all question due to the philosopher of Malmesbury. Mr. Locke’s realfortewas great practical good sense, a determination to look at every question, free from prejudice and according to the evidence suggested to him, and a patient and perseveringdoggednessof understanding in contending with difficulties, and finding out and weighing arguments of opposite tendency. The most valuable parts of his celebrated Essay are those which relate not to thenaturebut to theconductof the understanding; and on that subject, he often proves himself a most sage and judicious adviser. Mr. Locke’s Treatise on Education (with all its defects, and an occasional appearance of pedantry), laid the foundation of the modern improvements in that important branch of study; and his book upon Government (written in defence of the Revolution of 1688) remained unimpeached up to the period of the battle of Waterloo. The author of theEssay on Human Understandingundoubtedly ranks as the third name in English philosophy, after Newton and Bacon; yet perhaps others, as Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Hartley, and, even in our own times, Horne Tooke, have shown a firmer grasp of mind, as well as greater originality and subtlety of invention, in the same field of inquiry. This opinion may, however, be thought by some petulant and daring, not to sayprofane; and we may be accused, in forming or delivering it, of having encroached unawares on the exercise of Mr. Landor’s exclusive right of private judgment and free inquiry.
The controversy between the Abbé Delille and our author in person, of which Boileau is the leading subject, is an amusing specimen of verbal criticism. All that it proves however is, that this kind of criticism proves nothing but the acuteness of the writer, and also that those poets who pique themselves on being most exempt from it are the most liable to it. Pope is an example among ourselves. Those who are in the habit of attending to the smallest things, do not see the farthest before them; and, in polishing and correcting one line, they overlook or fall into some fresh mistake in another. The altering and retouching, after a lapse of time, or during the probation of Horace’s ‘nine years,’ is sure to lead to inconsistency and partial oversights. Mr. Landor, in some instances, we imagine, confounds humour with blunders. Thus the truism in the line—
‘Que, si sous Adam même,et loin avant Noë,’
‘Que, si sous Adam même,et loin avant Noë,’
‘Que, si sous Adam même,et loin avant Noë,’
‘Que, si sous Adam même,et loin avant Noë,’
we should consider as a mere piece ofnaïveté, in the manner of La Fontaine. We will give up, however, without scruple, Boileau’s mock-heroics, as we would some English ones of later date. But his satire and his sense we cannot relinquish all at once, though he was a Frenchman, and, what is still worse, a Frenchman of the age of LouisXIV.! It is hard that a people who arrogate all perfections to themselves should possess none; nor can we think that so vast and magnificent a reputation as their literature has acquired, could be raised, as Mr. L. would persuade us, without either art or genius? The Dialogue between Kosciusko and Poniatowski (a subject capable of better things) is remarkable for nothing but a mawkish philanthropy, and a problematical defence of General Pichegru for betraying the Republic and leaguing with the Bourbons. We have nothing to say to this; but, as our author has dedicated one of these volumes to General Mina, will he forgive our recommending him to write a third, in order to inscribe it to Balasteros?
When our literary dramatist attempts common or vulgar humour, he fails totally, as in the slang Conversation entitledCavaliere Punto Michino, and Mr. Denis Eusebius Talcranagh. The interview between David Hume and John Home is another failure, at least in so far as relates to character. The author represents the latter as a quiet contented parish minister,—the fact being, that soon after the publication of his play, he abandoned the clerical profession, and went about a fine gentleman, with a blue coat and a pigtail. HorneTooke’s collision with Dr. Johnson produces only some meagre etymologies and orthographical pedantry, and a tolerably just and highly pointed character of Junius; that between Washington and Franklin only a dull recipe for curing the disorders of Ireland. Prince Maurocordoto and General Colocotroni defend the Greeks, in the Twelfth Conversation of the second volume, on very new and learned principles; but as we have no skill in wood craft, nor in flat-bottomed boats, we pass it over. The last Conversation (supposed to take place between Marcus Tullius Cicero, and his brother Quintus, on the night before his death) is full of an eloquent and philosophic melancholy, which makes it on the whole our favourite:—that between Lopez Banos and Romero Alpuente, we dare be sworn, is the author’s; at least it had need, it will becaviare to the multitude.Par example.
‘Banos.At length, Alpuente, the saints of the Holy Alliance have declared war against us.
‘Alpuente.I have not heard it until now.
‘Banos.They have directed a memorial to the king of France, inviting him to take such measures as his Majesty, in his wisdom, shall deem convenient, in order to avert the calamities of war, and the dangers of discord, from his frontier.
‘Alpuente.God forbid that so great a king should fall upon us! O Lord, save us from our enemy, who would eat us up quick, so despitefully and hungrily is he set against us.
‘Banos.Read the manifesto ... why do you laugh? Is not this a declaration of hostilities?
‘Alpuente.To Spaniards, yes. I laughed at the folly and impudence of men, who, for the present of a tobacco-box with a fool’s head upon it, string together these old peeled pearls of diplomatic eloquence, and foist them upon the world as arguments and truths. Do kings imagine that they can as easily deceive as they can enslave? and that the mind is as much under their snaffle, as the body is under their axe and halter? Show me one of them, Lopez, who has not violated some promise, who has not usurped some territory, who has not oppressed and subjugated some neighbour; then I will believe him, then I will obey him, then I will acknowledge that those literary heralds who trumpet forth his praises with the newspaper in their hands, are creditable and upright and uncorrupted. The courage of Spain delivered these wretches from the cane and drumhead of a Corsican. Which of them did not crouch before him? which did not flatter him? which did not execute his orders? which did not court his protection? which did not solicit his favour? which did not entreat his forbearance? which did not implore his pardon? which did not abandon and betray him?’
’Tis a pretty picture; and did the author suppose, in his blindness to the past and to the future, that the august personages of whom he speaks, after escaping from this state of abject degradation and subjection to that iron scourge, would voluntarily submit to be at the beck and nod of every puny pretender who sets up an authority over them, and undertakes to tutor andcashierkings at his discretion? But not to interrupt the dialogue, which thus continues:—
‘No ties either of blood or of religion, led or restrained these neophytes in holiness. And now, forsooth, the calamities of war, and the dangers of discord are to be averted, by arming one part of our countrymen against the other, by stationing a military force on our frontier, for the reception of murderers and traitors and incendiaries, and by pointing the bayonet and cannon in our faces. When we smiled at the insults of a beaten enemy, they dictated terms and conditions. At last, hismost Christian Majestytells his army, that the nephew of Henry the fourth shall march against us ... with his feather!
‘Banos.Ah! that weighs more. The French army will march over fields which cover French armies, and over which the oldest and bravest part of it fled in ignominy and dismay, before our shepherd boys and hunters. What the veterans of Napoleon failed to execute, the household of Louis will accomplish. Parisians! let your comic opera-house lie among its ruins; it cannot be wanted this season.
‘Alpuente.Shall these battalions which fought so many years for freedom, so many for glory, be supplementary bands to barbarians from Caucasus and Imaus? Shall they shed the remainder of their blood to destroy a cause, for the maintenance of which they offered up its first libation? Time will solve this problem, the most momentous in its solution that ever lay before man. If we are conquered, of which at present I have no apprehension, Europe must become the theatre of new wars, and be divided into three parts, afterwards into two, and the next generation will see all her states and provinces the property of one autocrat, and governed by the most ignorant and lawless of her nations.[17]
‘Banos.Never was there a revolution, or material change in government, effected with so little bloodshed, so little opposition, so little sorrow or disquietude, as ours. Months had passed away,years were rolling over us, institutions were consolidating, superstition was relaxing, ingratitude and perfidy were as much forgotten by us, as our services and sufferings were forgotten by Ferdinand, when emissaries, and gold and arms, andFAITH, inciting to discord and rebellion, crossed our frontier ... and our fortresses were garnished with the bayonets of France, and echoed with the watchwords of the Vatican. If Ferdinand had regarded his oath, and had acceded, inoursense of the wordfaith, to the constitution of his country, from which there was hardly a dissentient voice among the industrious and the unambitious, among the peaceable and the wise, would he have eaten one dinner with less appetite, or have embroidered one petticoat with less taste? Would the saints along his chapel-walls have smiled upon him less graciously, or would thy tooth, holy Dominic, have left a less pleasurable impression on his lips? His most Christian Majesty demandsthat Ferdinand the seventh may give his people those institutions which they can have from him only! Yes, these are his expressions, Alpuente; these the doctrines, for the propagation of which our country is to be invaded with fire and sword; this is government, this is order, this is faith! Ferdinandwasat liberty to give us his institutions: he gave them: what were they? The inquisition in all its terrors, absolute and arbitrary sway, scourges and processions, monks and missionaries, and a tooth of St. Dominic to crown them all.... To support the throne that crushes us, and the altar that choaks us, march forward the warlike Louis and thepreuxChateaubriant, known among his friends to be as firm in belief as Hobbes, Talleyrand, or Spinoza; and behold them advancing, side by side, against the calm opponents of Roman bulls and French charts. Although his Majesty be brave as Maximin at a breakfast, he will find it easier to eat his sixty-four cutlets than to conquer Spain. I doubt whether the same historian shall have to commemorate both exploits.
‘Alpuente.In wars the least guilty are the sufferers. In these, as in everything, we should contract as much as possible the circle of human misery. The deluded and enslaved should be so far spared as is consistent with security: the most atrocious of murderers and incendiaries, the purveyors and hirers of them, should be removed at any expense or hazard. If we show little mercy to the robber who enters a house by force, and if less ought to be shown to him who should enter it in the season of distress and desolation, what portion of it ought to be extended towards those who assail every house in our country? How much of crime and wretchedness may often be averted, how many years of tranquillity may sometimes be ensured to the worldby one well-chosen example! Is it not better than to witnessthe grief of the virtuous for the virtuous, and the extinction of those bright and lofty hopes, for which the best and wisest of every age contended? Where is the man, worthy of the name, who would be less affected at the lamentation of one mother for her son, slain in defending his country, than atthe extermination of some six or seven usurpers, commanding or attempting its invasion? National safety legitimates every mean employed upon it. Criminals have been punished differently in different countries: but all enlightened, all honest, all civilised men, must agreewhoare criminals. The Athenians were perhaps as well-informed and intelligent as the people on lake Ladoga: they knew nothing of theknout, I confess; and no family amongst them boasted a succession ofassassins, in wives, sons, fathers, and husbands: but he who endangered or injured his country was condemned to the draught of hemlock! They could punish the offence in another manner: if any nation cannot, shall that nation therefore leave it unpunished? And shall the guiltiest of men enjoy impunity, from a consideration of modes and means? Justice is not to be neglected, because what is preferable is unattainable. A house-breaker is condemned to die, a city-breaker is celebrated by an inscription over the gate. The murder of thousands, soon perpetrated and past, is not the greatest mischief he does: it is followed by the baseness of millions, deepening for ages. Every virtuous man in the universe is a member of that grand Amphictyonic council, which should pass sentence on the too powerful, and provide that it be duly executed. It is just, and it is necessary, that those who pertinaciously insist on so unnatural a state of society, should suffer by the shock things make in recovering their equipoise.’II.269.
We have given thistirade, not with any view to comment on the sentiments it conveys, but to justify what we have said of the outrageous spirit that so frequently breaks out in the present work, and that might reasonably ‘condemn the author to the draught of hellebore.’ We believe the attempt to revive the exploded doctrine of tyrannicide is peculiar to the reformed Jacobins. We remember a long and well-timed article in theFriend, some years ago, on this subject; nor do the strong allusions to the same remedy, in a celebrated journal, form an exception to this remark, at a time when a renegado from the same school directed its attacks upon the Corsican hero. These modern monks and literary jesuits, who would fain set up their own fanatic notions against law and reason, and dictate equally to legitimate kings and revolutionary usurpers, find fault with Napoleon for having thrown his sword into the scale of opinion; and now, finding the want of it, sooner than be baulked of their fancy, would (as far aswe can understand their meaning) substitute the dagger. We cannot applaud their expedients; nor sympathize with that ‘final hope’ which seems ‘flat despair.’ If these pragmatical persons could have every thing their own way—if they could confer power and take away the abuse of it—if they could put down tyrants with the sword, and give the law to conquerors with the pen—we should not despair of seeing some good result from this new theocracy. The worst we could fear would be from their fickleness, rashness, and inconsiderate thirst for novelty; but they would not, by their ill-timed servility and gratuitous phrensy, help to bring down the iron hand of power upon us, or enclose us in the dungeons of prejudice and superstition! As it is, they have contrived to throw open the flood-gates of despotism—‘to shut exceeds their power:’ they have got rid of one tyrant, to establish the principle in perpetuity, and to root out the very name of Freedom. Those of them who are sincere, who are not bribed to silence by places and pensions obtained by their momentary complaisance and seeming inconsistency, speak out, and are sorry for the part they have taken, now that it is too late. They strike ‘the marble table with their palm’—they call their country recreant and base—they invoke the shade of Leonidas—they apostrophize the spirit of Bolivar—they polish their style like a steel breastplate—they point their sentences like daggers against the bloated apathy of legitimacy—they publish satires on the constitution, and print libels on departed ministers in asterisks—they invent new modes of warfare, and recommend new modes of extermination against despots;—and, in return for all this, the Holy Allies laugh at them, their credulity, their rage, their helplessness, and disappointment. There was one man whom they did not laugh at, but whom they feared and hated; and they persuaded Mr. Landor and others that what they feared and hated above all other things, was out of love to Liberty and Humanity!
Mr. Landor has interspersed some pieces of poetry through these volumes. His muse still retains herimplicitand inextricable style. The author, some five-and-twenty years ago, published a poem under the title of Gebir, in Latin and English, and equally unintelligible in both, but of which we have heard two lines quoted by his admirers.