And paid them with an air so frank and bright,
As to a friend _appreciated at sight_;
That air, in short, which sets you at your ease,
Without _implying_ your perplexities,
That _what with the surprize in every way_,
The hurry of the time, the appointed day,--
She knew _not how to object_ in her confusion.--p. 29.
The meeting of the brothers, on which the catastrophe turns, is
excellent: the politeness with which the challenge is given would have
delighted the heart of old Caranza.
May I request, Sir, said the prince, and frowned,
Your ear a moment in the tilting ground?
_There_, brother? answered Paulo with an _air_
Surprized and _shocked_. Yes, _brother_, cried he, _there_.
The word smote _crushingly_.--p. 92.
Before the duel, the following spirited explanation takes place:
The prince spoke low,
And said: Before _you answer what you can_,
I wish to tell you, _as a gentleman_,
That what you may confess--
Will implicate no person known to you,
More than disquiet in _its_ sleep may do.--p. 93.
Paulo falls--and the event is announced in these exquisite lines:
Her _aged_ nurse--
Who, shaking her _old_ head, and pressing close
Her withered _lips_ to _keep the tears_ that rose--p. 101.
"By the way," does Mr. Leigh Hunt suppose that the aged nurses of Rimini
weep with their mouths? or does he mistake crying for drivelling?--In
fact, the young lady herself seems to have adopted the same mode of
weeping:
With that, a _keen_ and _quivering glance of_ tears
Scarce moves her _patient mouth_, and disappears.
But to the nurse.--She introduces the messenger of death to the
princess, who communicates his story, in pursuance of her command--
Something, I'm sure, has happened--tell me what--
I can bear all, though _you may fancy not_.
Madam, replied the squire, you are, I know,
All sweetness--_pardon me for saying so_.
My Master bade _me_ say then, resumed _he_,
That _he_ spoke firmly, when he told it _me_,--
That I was also, madam, to your ear
Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear,--
That he was forced this day, _whether or no_,
To combat with the prince;--'--p. 103.
The _second_ of Mr. Hunt's new principles he thus announces:
With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have
joined one of still greater importance--that of having a _free and
idiomatic_ cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of
nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which
affects non-affectation.--(What does all this mean?)--But the proper
_language of poetry_ is in fact nothing different from that of real
life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of
what it speaks. It is only adding _musical modulation_ to what a _fine
understanding_ might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or
enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakespeare
did,--not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than
they copied from their predecessors,--but use as much as possible an
_actual, existing language,_--omitting of course _mere vulgarisms_ and
_fugitive phrases_, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as
tragedy phrases, _dead idioms,_ and exaggerations of dignity, are of
the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of
simplicity, are of the natural.--p. xvi.
This passage, compared with the verses to which it preludes, affords a
more extraordinary instance of self-delusion than even Mr. Hunt's notion
of the merit of his versification; for if there be one fault more
eminently conspicuous and ridiculous in Mr. Hunt's work than another, it
is,--that it is full of _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, and
that in every page the language is--not only not _the actual, existing
language_, but an ungrammatical, unauthorised, chaotic jargon, such as
we believe was never before spoken, much less written.
In what vernacular tongue, for instance, does Mr. Hunt find a lady's
waist called _clipsome_ (p. 10)--or the shout of a mob "enormous" (p.
9)--or a fit, _lightsome_;--or that a hero's nose is "_lightsomely_
brought down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought" (p. 46)--or that
his back "drops" _lightsomely in_ (p. 20). Where has he heard of a
_quoit-like drop_--of _swaling_ a jerked feather--of _unbedinned_ music
(p. 11)--of the death of _leaping_ accents (p. 32)--of the _thick
reckoning_ of a hoof (p. 33)--of a _pin-drop_ silence (p. 17)--a
_readable_ look (p. 20)--a _half indifferent wonderment_ (p. 37)--or of
_Boy-storied_ trees and _passion-plighted_ spots,--p. 38.
of
Ships coming up with _scattery_ light,--p. 4.
or of self-knowledge being
_Cored_, after all, in our complacencies?--p. 38.
We shall now produce a few instances of what "_a fine understanding
might utter_," with "the addition of _musical modulation_," and of the
_dignity_ and _strength_ of Mr. Hunt's sentiments and expressions.