Part 43

There he sits; his figure and his rigid bearing Let us know most clearly what is his ideal:-- Confidence in self, in his lofty standing; Thereto add conceit in his own great value. Certain, he can read--yes, and write and cipher; In the almanac no star-group's a stranger. In the church he, faithful, leads the pious chorus; Drums the catechism into young ones' noddles. Disputation to him's half the joy of living; Even though he's beaten, he will not give over. Watch him, when he talks, in how learned fashion! Drags on every word, spares no play of muscle. Ah, what pains he takes to forget no syllable-- Consonants and vowels rightly weighed and measured. Often is he, too, of this and that a poet! Every case declines with precisest conscience; Knows the history of Church and State, together-- Every Churchly light,--of pedant-deeds the record. All the village world speechless stands before him. Asking "How can _one_ brain be so ruled by Wisdom?" Sharply, too, he looks down on one's transgressions. 'Gainst his judgment stern, tears and prayers avail not. He appears--one glance (from a god that glance comes!) At a flash decides what the youngster's fate is. At his will a crowd runs, at his beck it parteth. Doth he smile? all frolic; doth he frown--all cower. By a tone he threatens, gives rewards, metes justice. Absent though he be, every pupil dreads him, For he sees, hears, knows, everything that's doing. On the urchin's forehead he can see it written. He divines who laughs, idles, yawns, or chatters, Who plays tricks on others, or in prayer-time's lazy. With its shoots, the birch-rod lying there beside him Knows how all misdeeds in a trice are settled. Surely by these traits you've our dorf-Dionysius!

[Footnote 17: Compare Goldsmith's famous portrait in "The Deserted Village".]

Translation through the German, in the meter of the original, by E. Irenætis Stevenson, for the "World's Best Literature".

BION

(275 B.C.)

Of Bion, the second of the Sicilian idyllists, of whom Theocritus was the first and Moschus the third and last, but little knowledge and few remains exist. He was born near Smyrna, says Suidas; and from the elegy on his death, attributed to his pupil Moschus, we infer that he lived in Sicily and died there of poison. "Say that Bion the herdsman is dead," says the threnody, appealing to the Sicilian muses, "and that song has died with Bion, and the Dorian minstrelsy hath perished.... Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth. What mortal so cruel as to mix poison for thee!" As Theocritus is also mentioned in the idyl, Bion is supposed to have been his contemporary, and to have flourished about 275 B. C.

Compared with Theocritus, his poetry is inferior in simplicity and naïveté, and declines from the type which Theocritus had established for the out-door, open-field idyl. With Bion, bucolics first took on the air of the study. Although at first this art and affectation were rarely discernible, they finally led to the mold of brass in which for centuries Italian and English pastorals were cast, and later to the complete devitalizing which marks English pastoral poetry in the eighteenth century, with the one exception of Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd". Theocritus had sung with genuine feeling of trees and wandering winds, of flowers and the swift mountain stream. His poetry has atmosphere; it is vital with sunlight, color, and the beauty which is cool and calm and true. Although Bion's poems possess elegance and sweetness, and abound in pleasing imagery, they lack the naturalness of the idyls of Theocritus. Reflection has crept into them; they are in fact love-songs, with here and there a tinge of philosophy,

The most famous as well as the most powerful and original of Bion's poems remaining to us is the threnody upon Adonis. It was doubtless composed in honor of the rites with which Greek women celebrated certain Eastern festivals; for the worship of Adonis still lingered among them, mixed with certain Syrian customs.

"Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded."

Thammuz is identified with Adonis. "We came to a fair large river," writes an old English traveler, "doubtless the ancient river Adonis, which at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody color, which the heathens looked upon as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountains out of which the stream issues. Something like this we saw actually come to pass; for the water was stained to a surprising redness, and, as we observed in traveling, had discolored the sea a great way into a reddish hue, occasioned doubtless by a sort of minium, or red earth, washed into the river by the violence of the rain."

The poem is colored by the Eastern nature of its subject, and its rapidity, vehemence, warmth, and unrestraint are greater than the strict canon of Greek art allows. It is noteworthy, aside from its varied beauties, because of its fine abandonment to grief and its appeal for recognition of the merits of the dead youth it celebrates. Bion's threnody has undoubtedly become a criterion and given the form to some of the more famous "songs of tears". The laudatory clegy of Moschus for his master--we say of Moschus, although Ahrens, in his recension, includes the lament under 'Incertorum Idyllia' at the end of 'Moschi Reliquiæ'--follows it faithfully. Milton in his great ode of 'Lycidas' does not depart from the Greek lines; and Shelley, lamenting Keats in his 'Adonaïs,' reverts still more closely to the first master, adding perhaps an element of artificiality one does not find in other threnodies. The broken and extended form of Tennyson's celebration of Arthur Hallam takes it out of a comparison with the Greek; but the monody of 'Thyrsis', Matthew Arnold's commemoration of Clough, approaches nearer the Greek. Yet no other lament has the energy and rapidity of Bion's; the refrain, the insistent repetition of the words "I wail for Adonis",--"Alas for Cypris!" full of pathos and unspoken irrepressible woe, is used only by his pupil Moschus, though hinted at by Milton.

The peculiar rhythm, the passion and delicate finish of the song, have attracted a number of translators, among whose versions Mrs. Browning's 'The Lament for Adonis' is considered the best. The subjoined version in the Spenserian stanza, by Anna C. Brackett, follows its model closely in its directness and fervor of expression, and has moreover in itself genuine poetic merit. The translation of a fragment of 'Hesperos' is that of J.A. Symonds. Bion's fluent and elegant versification invites study, and his few idyls and fragments have at various times been turned into English by Fawkes (to be found in Chalmers's 'Works of English Poets'), Polwhele, Banks, Chapman, and others.

THRENODY

I weep for Adonaïs--he is dead! Dead Adonaïs lies, and mourning all, The Loves wail round his fair, low-lying head. O Cypris, sleep no more! Let from thee fall Thy purple vestments--hear'st thou not the call? Let fall thy purple vestments! Lay them by! Ah, smite thy bosom, and in sable pall Send shivering through the air thy bitter cry For Adonaïs dead, while all the Loves reply.

I weep for Adonaïs--weep the Loves. Low on the mountains beauteous lies he there, And languid through his lips the faint breath moves, And black the blood creeps o'er his smooth thigh, where The boar's white tooth the whiter flesh must tear. Glazed grow his eyes beneath the eyelids wide; Fades from his lips the rose, and dies--Despair! The clinging kiss of Cypris at his side-- Alas, he knew not that she kissed him as he died!

I wail--responsive wail the Loves with me. Ah, cruel, cruel is that wound of thine, But Cypris' heart-wound aches more bitterly. The Oreads weep; thy faithful hounds low whine; But Cytherea's unbound tresses fine Float on the wind; where thorns her white feet wound, Along the oaken glades drops blood divine. She calls her lover; he, all crimsoned round His fair white breast with blood, hears not the piteous sound.

Alas! for Cytherea wail the Loves, With the beloved dies her beauty too. O fair was she, the goddess borne of doves, While Adonaïs lived; but now, so true Her love, no time her beauty can renew. Deep-voiced the mountains mourn; the oaks reply; And springs and rivers murmur sorrow through The passes where she goes, the cities high; And blossoms flush with grief as she goes desolate by.

Alas for Cytherea! he hath died-- The beauteous Adonaïs, he is dead! And Echo sadly back "_is dead_" replied. Alas for Cypris! Stooping low her head, And opening wide her arms, she piteous said, "O stay a little, Adonaïs mine! Of all the kisses ours since we were wed, But one last kiss, oh, give me now, and twine Thine arms close, till I drink the latest breath of thine!

"So will I keep the kiss thou givest me E'en as it were thyself, thou only best! Since thou, O Adonaïs, far dost flee-- Oh, stay a little--leave a little rest!-- And thou wilt leave me, and wilt be the guest Of proud Persephone, more strong than I? All beautiful obeys her dread behest-- And I a goddess am, and _cannot_ die! O thrice-beloved, listen!--mak'st thou no reply?

"Then dies to idle air my longing wild, As dies a dream along the paths of night; And Cytherea widowed is, exiled From love itself; and now--an idle sight-- The Loves sit in my halls, and all delight My charmèd girdle moves, is all undone! Why wouldst thou, rash one, seek the maddening fight? Why, beauteous, wouldst thou not the combat shun?"-- Thus Cytherea--and the Loves weep, all as one.

Alas for Cytherea!--he is dead. Her hopeless sorrow breaks in tears, that rain Down over all the fair, beloved head,-- Like summer showers, o'er wind-down-beaten grain; They flow as fast as flows the crimson stain From out the wound, deep in the stiffening thigh; And lo! in roses red the blood blooms fair, And where the tears divine have fallen close by, Spring up anemones, and stir all tremblingly.

I weep for Adonaïs--he is dead! No more, O Cypris, weep thy wooer here! Behold a bed of leaves! Lay down his head As if he slept--as still, as fair, as dear,-- In softest garments let his limbs appear, As when on golden couch his sweetest sleep He slept the livelong night, thy heart anear; Oh, beautiful in death though sad he keep, No more to wake when Morning o'er the hills doth creep.

And over him the freshest flowers fling-- Ah me! all flowers are withered quite away And drop their petals wan! yet, perfumes bring And sprinkle round, and sweetest balsams lay;-- Nay, perish perfumes since thine shall not stay! In purple mantle lies he, and around, The weeping Loves his weapons disarray, His sandals loose, with water bathe his wound, And fan him with soft wings that move without a sound.

The Loves for Cytherea raise the wail. Hymen from quenched torch no light can shake. His shredded wreath lies withered all and pale; His joyous song, alas, harsh discords break! And saddest wail of all, the Graces wake; "The beauteous Adonaïs! He is dead!" And sigh the Muses, "Stay but for our sake!" Yet would he come, Persephone is dead;-- Cease, Cypris! Sad the days repeat their faithful tread!

Paraphrase of Anna C. Brackett, in Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

HESPER

Hesper, thou golden light of happy love, Hesper, thou holy pride of purple eve, Moon among stars, but star beside the moon, Hail, friend! and since the young moon sets to-night Too soon below the mountains, lend thy lamp And guide me to the shepherd whom I love. No theft I purpose; no wayfaring man Belated would I watch and make my prey: Love is my goal; and Love how fair it is, When friend meets friend sole in the silent night, Thou knowest, Hesper!

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL

(1850-)

Those to whom the discovery of a relishing new literary flavor means the permanent annexation of a new tract of enjoyment have not forgotten what happened in 1885. A slender 16mo volume entitled "Obiter Dicta", containing seven short literary and biographic essays, came out in that year, anonymous and unheralded, to make such way as it might among a book-whelmed generation. It had no novelty of subject to help it to a hearing; the themes were largely the most written-out, in all seeming, that could have been selected,--a few great orthodox names on which opinion was closed and analysis exhausted. Browning, Carlyle, Charles Lamb, and John Henry Newman are indeed very beacons to warn off the sated bookman. A paper on Benvenuto Cellini, one on Actors, and one on Falstaff (by another hand) closed the list. Yet a few weeks made it the literary event of the day. Among epicures of good reading the word swiftly passed along that here was a new sensation of unusually satisfying charm and freshness. It was a _tour de force_ like the "Innocents Abroad", a journey full of new sights over the most staled and beaten of tracks. The triumph was all the author's own.

Two years later came another volume as a "Second Series", of the same general character but superior to the first. Among the subjects of its eleven papers were Milton, Pope, Johnson, Burke, Lamb again, and Emerson; with some general essays, including that on "The Office of Literature", given below.

In 1892 appeared "Res Judicatæ", really a third volume of the same series, and perhaps even richer in matter and more acute and original in thought. Its first two articles, prepared as lectures on Samuel Richardson and Edward Gibbon, are indeed his high-water, mark in both substance and style. Cowper, George Borrow, Newman again, Lamb a third time (and fresh as ever), Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, and Sainte-Beuve are brought in, and some excellent literary miscellanea.

A companion volume called 'Men, Women, and Books' is disappointing because composed wholly of short newspaper articles: Mr. Birrell's special quality needs space to make itself felt. He needs a little time to get up steam, a little room to unpack his wares; he is no pastel writer, who can say his say in a paragraph and runs dry in two. Hence these snippy editorials do him no justice: he is obliged to stop every time just as he is getting ready to say something worth while. They are his, and therefore readable and judicious; but they give no idea of his best powers.

He has also written a life of Charlotte Brontë. But he holds his place in the front rank of recent essayists by the three 'Obiter Dicta' and 'Res Judicatæ' volumes of manly, luminous, penetrating essays, full of racy humor and sudden wit; of a generous appreciativeness that seeks always for the vital principle which gave the writer his hold on men; still more, of a warm humanity and a sure instinct for all the higher and finer things of the spirit which never fail to strike chords in the heart as well as the brain. No writer's work leaves a better taste in the mouth; he makes us think better of the world, of righteousness, of ourselves. Yet no writer is less of a Puritan or a Philistine; none writes with less of pragmatic purpose or a less obtrusive load of positive fact. He scorns such overladen pedantry, and never loses a chance to lash it. He tells us that he has "never been inside the reading-room of the British Museum," and "expounds no theory save the unworthy one that literature ought to please." He says the one question about a book which is to be part of _literature_ is, "Does it read?" that "no one is under any obligation to read any one else's book," and therefore it is a writer's business to make himself welcome to readers; that he does not care whether an author was happy or not, he wants the author to make him happy. He puts his theory in practice: he makes himself welcome as a companion at once stimulating and restful, of humane spirit and elevated ideals, of digested knowledge and original thought, of an insight which is rarely other than kindly and a deep humor which never lapses into cynicism.

Mr. Birrell helps to justify Walter Bagehot's dictum that the only man who can write books well is one who knows practical life well; but still there are congruities in all things, and one feels a certain shock of incongruity in finding that this man of books and purveyor of light genial book-talk, who can hardly write a line without giving it a quality of real literary savor, is a prominent lawyer and member of Parliament, and has written a law book which ranks among recognized legal authorities. This is a series of lectures delivered in 1896, and collected into a volume on 'The Duties and Liabilities of Trustees.' But some of the surprise vanishes on reading the book: even as 'Alice in Wonderland' shows on every page the work of a logician trained to use words precisely and criticize their misuse, so in exactly the opposite way this book is full of the shrewd judgment, the knowledge of life, and even the delightful humor which form so much of Birrell's best equipment for a man of letters.

Mr. Birrell's work is not merely good reading, but is a mental clarifier and tonic. We are much better critics of other writers through his criticisms on his selected subjects. After every reading of 'Obiter Dicta' we feel ashamed of crass and petty prejudice, in the face of his lessons in disregarding surface mannerisms for the sake of vital qualities. Only in one case does he lose his impartiality: he so objects to treating Emerson with fairness that he even goes out of his way to berate his idol Matthew Arnold for setting Emerson aloft. But what he says of George Borrow is vastly more true of himself: he is one of the writers we cannot afford to be angry with.

DR. JOHNSON

"Criticism," writes Johnson in the 60th Idler, "is a study by which men grow important and formidable at a very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labor of learning those sciences which may by mere labor be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured: but every man can exert such judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critick."

To proceed with our task by the method of comparison is to pursue a course open to grave objection; yet it is forced upon us when we find, as we lately did, a writer in the Times newspaper, in the course of a not very discriminating review of Mr. Froude's recent volumes, casually remarking, as if it admitted of no more doubt than the day's price of consols, that Carlyle was a greater man than Johnson. It is a good thing to be positive. To be positive in your opinions and selfish in your habits is the best recipe, if not for happiness, at all events for that far more attainable commodity, comfort, with which we are acquainted. "A noisy man," sang poor Cowper, who could not bear anything louder than the hissing of a tea-urn, "a noisy man is always in the right," and a positive man can seldom be proved wrong. Still, in literature it is very desirable to preserve a moderate measure of independence, and we therefore make bold to ask whether it is as plain as the "old hill of Howth" that Carlyle was a greater man than Johnson? Is not the precise contrary the truth? No abuse of Carlyle need be looked for, here or from me. When a man of genius and of letters happens to have any striking virtues, such as purity, temperance, honesty, the novel task of dwelling on them has such attraction for us that we are content to leave the elucidation of his faults to his personal friends, and to stern, unbending moralists like Mr. Edmund Yates and the World newspaper. To love Carlyle is, thanks to Mr. Froude's superhuman ideal of friendship, a task of much heroism, almost meriting a pension; still it is quite possible for the candid and truth-loving soul. But a greater than Johnson he most certainly was not.

There is a story in Boswell of an ancient beggar-woman who, whilst asking an alms of the Doctor, described herself to him, in a lucky moment for her pocket, as "an old struggler." Johnson, his biographer tells us, was visibly affected. The phrase stuck to his memory, and was frequently applied to himself. "I too," so he would say, "am an old struggler." So too, in all conscience, was Carlyle. The struggles of Johnson have long been historical; those of Carlyle have just become so. We are interested in both. To be indifferent would be inhuman. Both men had great endowments, tempestuous natures, hard lots. They were not amongst Dame Fortune's favorites. They had to fight their way. What they took they took by storm. But--and here is a difference indeed--Johnson came off victorious, Carlyle did not.

Boswell's book is an arch of triumph, through which, as we read, we see his hero passing into eternal fame, to take up his place with those--

"Dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns."

Froude's book is a tomb over which the lovers of Carlyle's genius will never cease to shed tender but regretful tears.

We doubt whether there is in English literature a more triumphant book than Boswell's. What materials for tragedy are wanting? Johnson was a man of strong passions, unbending spirit, violent temper, as poor as a church-mouse, and as proud as the proudest of Church dignitaries; endowed with the strength of a coal-heaver, the courage of a lion, and the tongue of Dean Swift, he could knock down booksellers and silence bargees; he was melancholy almost to madness, "radically wretched," indolent, blinded, diseased. Poverty was long his portion; not that genteel poverty that is sometimes behindhand with its rent, but that hungry poverty that does not know where to look for its dinner. Against all these things had this "old struggler" to contend; over all these things did this "old struggler" prevail. Over even the fear of death, the giving up of "this intellectual being," which had haunted his gloomy fancy for a lifetime, he seems finally to have prevailed, and to have met his end as a brave man should.

Carlyle, writing to his wife, says, and truthfully enough, "The more the devil worries me the more I wring him by the nose;" but then if the devil's was the only nose that was wrung in the transaction, why need Carlyle cry out so loud? After buffeting one's way through the storm-tossed pages of Froude's (Carlyle,)--in which the universe is stretched upon the rack because food disagrees with man and cocks crow,--with what thankfulness and reverence do we read once again the letter in which Johnson tells Mrs. Thrale how he has been called to endure, not dyspepsia or sleeplessness, but paralysis itself:--