Chapter 18

One says his say with a difference-- More of expounding, explaining! All now is wrangle, abuse, and vociferance-- Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining-- Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

One is incisive, corrosive-- Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant-- Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive-- Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant-- Five ... O Danaides, O Sieve!

Now, they ply axes and crowbars-- Now they prick pins at a tissue Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue? Where is our gain at the Two-bars?

_Est fuga, volvitur rota!_ On we drift. Where looms the dim port? One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota-- Something is gained, if one caught but the import-- Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha!

What [with] affirming, denying, Holding, risposting, subjoining, All's like ... it's like ... for an instance I'm trying ... There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining Under those spider-webs lying?

So your fugue broadens and thickens, Greatens and deepens and lengthens, Till one exclaims--"But where's music, the dickens? Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens, Blacked to the stoutest of tickens?"

Do our readers exclaim, "But where's poetry--the dickens--in all this rigmarole?" We confess we can find none--we can find nothing but a set purpose to be obscure, and an idiot captivity to the jingle of Hudibrastic rhyme. This idle weakness really appears to be at the bottom of half the daring nonsense in this most daringly nonsensical book. Hudibras Butler told us long ago that "rhyme the rudder is of verses;" and when, as in his case, or in that of Ingoldsby Barham, or Whims-and-Oddities Hood, the rudder guides the good ship into tracks of fun and fancy she might otherwise have missed, we are grateful to the double-endings, not on their own account, but for what they have led us to. But Mr. Browning is the mere thrall of his own rudder, and is constantly being steered by it into whirlpools of the most raging absurdity. This morbid passion for double rhymes, which is observable more or less throughout the book, reaches its climax in a long copy of verses on the "Old Pictures of Florence," which, with every disposition to be tolerant of the frailties of genius, we cannot hesitate to pronounce a masterpiece of absurdity. Let the lovers of the Hudibrastic admire these _tours de force_:--

Not that I expect the great Bigordi Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose; Nor wronged Lippino--and not a word I Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's. But you are too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, So grant me a taste of your intonaco-- Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye? No churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?

* * * * * * *

Margheritone of Arezzo, With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret, (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, You bald, saturnine, poll-clawed parrot?) No poor glimmering Crucifixion, Where in the foreground kneels the donor? If such remain, as is my conviction, The hoarding does you but little honour.

The conclusion of this poem rises to a climax:--

How shall we prologuise, how shall we perorate, Say fit things upon art and history-- Set truth at blood-heat and the false at zero rate, Make of the want of the age no mystery! Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, Show, monarchy its uncouth cub licks Out of the bear's shape to the chimaera's-- Pure Art's birth being still the republic's!

Then one shall propose (in a speech, curt Tuscan, Sober, expurgate, spare of an "_issimo_,") Ending our half-told tale of Cambuscan, Turning the Bell-tower's altaltissimo. And fine as the beak of a young beccaccia The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, Soars up in gold its full fifty braccia, Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy.

How really deplorable is all this! On what theory of art can it possibly be defended? In all the fine arts alike--poetry, painting, sculpture, music--the master works have this in common, that they please in the highest degree the most cultivated, and to the widest extent the less cultivated. _Lear_ and the _Divine Comedy_ exhaust the thinking of the profoundest student, yet subdue to hushed and breathless attention the illiterate minds that know not what study means. The "Last Judgment," the "Transfiguration," the "Niobe," and the "Dying Gladiator" excite alike the intelligent rapture of artists, and the unintelligent admiration of those to whom art and its principles are a sealed book. Handel's _Israel in Egypt_--the wonder of the scientific musician in his closet--yet sways to and fro, like a mighty wind upon the waters, the hearts of assembled thousands at an Exeter Hall oratorio. To take an instance more striking still, Beethoven, the sublime, the rugged, the austere, is also, as even Mons. Jullien could tell us, fast becoming a popular favourite. Now why is this? Simply because these master minds, under the divine teaching of genius, have known how to clothe their works in a beauty of form incorporate with their very essence--a beauty of form which has an elective affinity with the highest instincts of universal humanity. And it is on this beauty of form, this exquisite perfection of style, that the Baileys and the Brownings would have us believe that they set small account, that they purposely and scornfully trample. We do not believe it. We believe that it is only because they are half-gifted that they are but half-intelligible. Their mysticism is weakness--weakness writhing itself into contortions that it may ape the muscles of strength. Artistic genius, in its higher degrees, necessarily involves the power of beautiful self-expression. It is but a weak and watery sun that allows the fogs to hang heavy between the objects on which it shines and the eyes it would enlighten; the true day-star chases the mists at once, and shows us the world at a glance.

Our main object has been to protest against what we feel to be the false teachings of a perverted school of art; and we have used this book of Mr. Browning's chiefly as a means of showing the extravagant lengths of absurdity to which the tenets of that school can lead a man of admitted powers. We should regret, however in the pursuit of this object to inflict injustice on Mr. Browning. This last book of his, like most of its predecessors, contains some undeniable beauties--subtle thoughts, graceful fancies, and occasionally a strain of music, which only makes the chaos of surrounding discords jar more harshly on the ear. The dramatic scenes "In a Balcony" are finely conceived and vigorously written; "Bishop Blougram's Apology," and "Cleon," are well worth reading and thinking over; and there is a certain grace and beauty in several of the minor poems. That which, on the whole, has pleased us most--really, perhaps, because we could read it off-hand--is "The Statue and the Bust," of which we give the opening stanzas:--

[Quotes fourteen stanzas of _The Statue and the Bust_.]

Why should a man, who, with so little apparent labour, can write naturally and well, take so much apparent labour to write affectedly and ill? There can be but one of two solutions. Either he goes wrong from want of knowledge, in which case it is clear that he wants the highest intuitions of genius; or he sins against knowledge, in which case he must have been misled by the false promptings of a morbid vanity, eager for that applause of fools which always waits on quackery, and which is never refused to extravagance when tricked out in the guise of originality. It is difficult, from the internal evidence supplied by his works, to know which of these two theories to adopt. Frequently the conclusion is almost irresistible, that Mr. Browning's mysticism must be of _malice prepense_: on the whole, however, we are inclined to clear his honesty at the expense of his powers, and to conclude that he is obscure, not so much because he has the vanity to be thought original, as because he lacks sufficient genius to make himself clear.--_The Saturday Review_.

NOTES

THOMAS GRAY

When Gray's _Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard_ appeared in 1751, the _Monthly Rev._, IV, p. 309, gave it the following curious notice:--"The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity." The immediate success and popularity of the _Elegy_ established Gray's poetical reputation; hence his _Odes_ (1757) were received and criticized as the work of a poet of whom something entirely different was expected. The thin quarto volume containing _The Progress of Poesy_ and _The Bard_ (entitled merely Ode I and Ode II in that edition) was printed for Dodsley by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, and was published on August 8, 1757. Within a fortnight Gray wrote to Thomas Warton that the poems were not at all popular, the great objection being their obscurity; a week later he wrote to Hurd:--"Even my friends tell me they [the Odes] do not succeed ... in short, I have heard nobody but a player [Garrick] and a doctor of divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them." For further comment, see Gray's _Works_, ed. Gosse, II, pp. 321-328.

Our review, which is reprinted from _Monthly Rev._, XVII (239-243) (September, 1757), was written by Oliver Goldsmith, and is included in most of the collected editions of his works. Although it was practically wrung from Goldsmith while he was the unwilling thrall of Griffiths, it is a noteworthy piece of criticism for its time--certainly far superior to the general standard of the _Monthly Review_. While recognizing the scholarly merit of the poet's work, Goldsmith showed clearly why the Odes could not become popular. A more favorable notice of the volume appeared in the _Critical Rev._, IV, p. 167.

In reprinting this review, the long quotations from both odes have been omitted. This precedent is followed in all cases where the quotations are of inordinate length, or are offered merely as "specimens" without specific criticism. No useful end would be served in reprinting numerous pages of classic extracts that are readily accessible to every student. All omissions are, of course, properly indicated.

1. _Quinault_. Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), a popular French dramatist and librettist.

2. _Mark'd for her own_. An allusion to the line in the Epitaph appended to the _Elegy_: "And Melancholy marked him for her own."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Goldsmith's _Traveller_ (1764) was begun as early as 1755--before he had expressed what Professor Dowden calls his "qualified enthusiasm" and "official admiration" for Gray's _Odes_. In criticizing Gray, he quoted Isocrates' advice--_Study the people_--and properly bore that precept in mind while he was shaping his own verses. The _Odes_ and the _Traveller_ are respectively characteristic utterances of their authors--of the academic recluse, and of the warm-hearted lover of humanity.

The review, quoted from the _Critical Rev._, XVIII (458-462) (December, 1764), is from the pen of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Apart from its distinguished authorship and the strong words of commendation in the final sentence, it possesses slight interest as literary criticism. It is, in fact, little more than a brief summary of the poem, enriched by a few well-chosen illustrative extracts. The fact that Johnson contributed nine or ten lines to the poem (see Boswell, ed. Hill, I, p. 441, n. 1, and II, p. 6) may account partly for the character of the review. Johnson's quotations from the poem are not continuous and show several variations from authoritative texts.

WILLIAM COWPER

Cowper stands almost alone among English poets as an instance of late manifestation of poetic power. He was over fifty years of age when he offered his first volume of _Poems_ (1782) to the public. This collection, which included _Table-Talk_ and other didactic poems, appeared at the beginning of the most prosaic age in the history of modern English literature; yet the critics did not find it sufficiently striking in quality to differentiate it from the level of contemporary verse, or to forecast the success of _The Task_ and _John Gilpin's Ride_ three years later.

The notice in the _Critical Rev._, LIII (287-290), appeared in April, 1782. While the same poems are but slightly esteemed to-day, it must be recognized that the attitude of the reviewer was severe for his time. The age had grown accustomed to large draughts of moralizing and didacticism in verse, and the quality of Cowper's contribution was assuredly above the average. The _Monthly Rev._, LXVII, p. 262, gave the _Poems_ a much more favorable reception.

10. _Non Dii, non homines, etc._ Properly, _non homines, non di_, Horace, _Ars Poetica_, l. 373.

10. _Caraccioli_. _Jouissance de soi-meme_ (ed. 1762), cap. xii.

11. _There needs no ghost, etc._ See _Hamlet_, I, 5. 110.

ROBERT BURNS

The Kilmarnock edition (1786) of Burns' _Poems_ was published during the most eventful period of the poet's life; the almost universally kind reception accorded to this volume was the one source of consolation amid many sorrows and distractions. Two reviews have been selected to illustrate both the Scottish and English attitude toward the newly discovered "ploughman-poet." The _Edinburgh Magazine_, IV (284-288), in October, 1786, gave Burns a welcome that was hearty and sincere; though we may smile to-day at the information that he has neither the "doric simplicity" of Ramsay, nor the "brilliant imagination" of Ferguson. Besides the poems mentioned in brackets, the magazine published further extracts from Burns in subsequent numbers. The _Critical Review_, LXIII (387-388), gave the volume a belated notice in May, 1787, exceeding even the Scotch magazine in its generous appreciation. With the generally accepted fact in mind that all of Burns' enduring work is in the Scottish dialect, and that his English poems are comparatively inferior, it is interesting to note the _Critical Review's_ regret that the dialect must "obscure the native beauties" and be often unintelligible to English readers. The same sentiment was expressed by the _Monthly Review_, LXXV, p. 439, in the critique reprinted (without its curious anglified version of _The Cotter's Saturday Night_) in Stevenson's _Early Reviews_.

There is perhaps no other English poet whose fame was so suddenly and securely established as Burns'. At no time since the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume has the worth of his lyrical achievement been seriously questioned. The _Reliques_ of Burns, edited by Dr. Cromek in 1808, were reviewed by Walter Scott in the first number of the _Quarterly Review_, and by Jeffrey in the corresponding number of the _Edinburgh_. Both articles are valuable to the student of Burns, but their great length made their inclusion in the present volume impracticable.

14. _Rusticus abnormis sapiens, etc._ Horace, Sat. II, l. 3.

15. _A great lady ... and celebrated professor_. Evidently Mrs. Dunlop and Professor Dugald Stewart, who both took great interest in Burns after the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The thin quartos containing _An Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_ were published by Wordsworth in 1793. The former was practically a school-composition in verse, written between 1787-89 and dedicated to his sister; the latter was composed in France during 1791-92 and was revised shortly before publication. The dedication was addressed to the Rev. Robert Jones, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was Wordsworth's companion during the pedestrian tour in the Alps. Though _An Evening Walk_ was published first, the _Monthly Review_, XII, n.s. (216-218), in October, 1793, noticed both in the same issue and naturally gave precedence to the longer poem. Specific allusions in the text necessitate the same order in the present reprint.

The impatience of the reviewer at the prospect of "more descriptive poetry" was due to the fact that many such productions had recently been noticed by the _Monthly_, and that the volumes then under consideration evidently belonged to the broad stream of mediocre verse that had been flowing soberly along almost since the days of Thomson. These first attempts smacked so decidedly of the older manner that we cannot censure the critic for failing to foresee that Wordsworth was destined to glorify the "poetry of nature," and to rescue it from the rut of listless and soporific topographical description. Both poems, in the definitive text, are readable, and exhibit here and there a glimmer of the poet's future greatness; yet it must be borne in mind that Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing taste.

A collation of the accepted text with the _Monthly Review's_ quotations will repay the student; thus, the twelve opening lines quoted by the reviewer are represented by eight lines in Professor Knight's edition, and only four of these correspond to the original text. The reviewer confined his remarks to the first thirty lines of the poem and very properly neglected the rest. He followed, with moderate success, the method of quotation with interpolated sarcasm and badinage--a method that was afterwards effectively pursued by the early Edinburgh Reviewers and the Blackwood coterie. There are few examples of that style in the eighteenth century reviews, but some noteworthy specimens of a later period--_e.g._, the _Edinburgh Review_ on Coleridge's _Christabel_ and the _Quarterly_ on Tennyson's _Poems_--are reprinted in this volume.

The review of _An Evening Walk_ is simply an appended paragraph to the previous article. Wordsworth evidently appreciated the advice conveyed in the reviewer's final sentence and found many of the lines that "called loudly for amendment." More favorable notices of both poems will be found in _Critical Review_, VIII, pp. 347 and 472.

_Lyrical Ballads_

The _Lyrical Ballads_ by Wordsworth and Coleridge were published anonymously early in September, 1798--a few days before the joint authors sailed for Germany. Coleridge's contributions were _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_, _The Foster-Mother's Tale_, _The Nightingale_, and _The Dungeon_; the remaining nineteen poems were by Wordsworth. As the publication of this volume has been accepted by most critics as the first fruit of the new romantic spirit and the virtual beginning of modern English poetry, the reception accorded to the _Lyrical Ballads_ becomes a matter of prime importance. It is well known that the effort was a failure at first and that the apparent triumph of romanticism did not occur until the publication of Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805); but a contemporary blindness to the beauty of two of the finest poems in English literature cannot be permitted to figure in the critics' dispassionate investigation of causes and influences.

There were four interesting reviews of the first edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, namely, (1) _Critical Rev._, XXIV, n.s. (197-204), in October, 1798, which is reprinted here; (2) _Analytical Rev._, XXVIII (583-587), in December, 1798; (3) _Monthly Rev._, XXIX, n.s. (202-210), in May, 1799, reprinted in Stevenson's _Early Reviews_; (4) _British Critic_, XIV (364-369) in October, 1799.

The article in the _Critical Review_ was written by Robert Southey under conditions most favorable for such a malicious procedure. The publisher, his friend Cottle, had transferred the copyright of the _Lyrical Ballads_ to Arch, a London publisher, within two weeks of the appearance of the volume, giving as a shallow excuse the "heavy sale" of the book. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were in Germany. Southey had quarreled with Coleridge, and was probably jealous of the latter's extravagant praise of Wordsworth. He accordingly seized the opportunity to assail the work without injuring Cottle's interests or entailing the immediate displeasure of the travelling bards.

He covered his tracks to some extent by referring several times to "the author," although the joint authorship was well known to him. While severe in most of his strictures on Wordsworth, Southey reserved his special malice for _The Ancient Mariner_. He called it "a Dutch attempt at German sublimity"; and in a letter written to William Taylor on September 5, 1798--probably while he was writing his discreditable critique--he characterized the poem as "the clumsiest attempt at German sublimity I ever saw." Southey's responsibility for the article became known to Cottle, who communicated the fact to the poets on their return a year later. Wordsworth declared that "if Southey could not conscientiously have spoken differently of the volume, he ought to have declined the task of reviewing it." Coleridge indited an epigram, _To a Critic_, and let the matter drop. Shortly afterwards he showed his renewed good-will by aiding Southey in preparing the second _Annual Anthology_ (1800).

The subsequent reviews of the _Lyrical Ballads_ adopted the tone of the _Critical_ (then recognized as the leading review) and internal evidence shows that they did not hesitate to borrow ideas from Southey's article. The _Analytical Review_ also saw German extravagances in _The Ancient Mariner_; the _Monthly_ borrowed Southey's figure of the Italian and Flemish painters, and called _The Ancient Mariner_ "the strangest story of a cock and bull that we ever saw on paper ... a rhapsody of unintelligible wildness and incoherence." The belated review in the _British Critic_ was probably written by Coleridge's friend, Rev. Francis Wrangham, and was somewhat more appreciative than the rest. For further details, consult Mr. Thomas Hutchinson's reprint (1898) of the _Lyrical Ballads_, pp. (xiii-xxviii). Despite the unfavorable reviews, the Ballads reached a fourth edition in 1805 (besides an American edition in 1802), thus achieving the popularity alluded to by Jeffrey at the beginning of our next review.

_Poems_ (1807)

Wordsworth's fourth publication, the _Poems_ (1807), included most of the pieces written after the first appearance of the _Lyrical Ballads_. It was likewise his first venture subsequent to the founding of the _Edinburgh Review_. Jeffrey had assailed the theories of the "Lake Poets" (and, incidentally, coined that unfortunate term) in the first number of the _Review_, in an article on Southey's _Thalaba_, and three years later (1805), in criticizing _Madoc_, he again expressed his views on the subject. Now came the first opportunity to deal with the recognized leader of the "Lakers"--the poet whose work most clearly illustrated the poetic theories that Jeffrey deemed pernicious.