"I think the interest rather declines in the fourth act."
"Rises! you mean, my dear friend!"
Perhaps the most extraordinary examples of the irritation of a poet's
mind, and a man of amiable temper, are those parts of this letter in
which the author quotes large portions of his poetry, to refute the
degrading strictures of the reviewer.
This was a fertile principle, admitting of very copious extracts; but
the ludicrous attitude is that of an Adonis inspecting himself at his
mirror.
That provoking see-saw of criticism, which our learned physician
usually adopted in his critiques, was particularly tantalizing to the
poet of Amwell. The critic condemns, in the gross, a whole set of
eclogues; but immediately asserts of one of them, that "the whole of
it has great poetical merit, and paints its subject in the warmest
colours." When he came to review the odes, he discovers that "he does
not meet with those polished numbers, nor that freedom and spirit,
which that species of poetry requires;" and quotes half a stanza,
which he declares is "abrupt and insipid." "From twenty-seven odes!"
exclaims the writhing poet--"are the whole of my lyric productions to
be stigmatised for four lines which are flatter than those that
preceded them?" But what the critic could not be aware of, the poet
tells us--he designed them to be just what they are. "I knew they were
so when they were first written, but they were thought sufficiently
elevated for the place." And then he enters into an inquiry what the
critic can mean by "polished numbers, freedom, and spirit." The
passage is curious:--
"By your first criticism, _polished numbers_, if you mean melodious
versification, this perhaps the general ear will not deny me. If you
mean classical, chaste diction, free from tautologous repetitions of
the same thoughts in different expressions; free from bad rhymes,
unnecessary epithets, and incongruous metaphors, I believe you may be
safely challenged to produce many instances wherein I have failed.
"By _freedom_, your second criterion, if you mean daring transition,
or arbitrary and desultory disposition of ideas, however this may
be required in the greater ode, it is now, I believe, for the first
time, expected in the lesser ode. If you mean that careless, diffuse
composition, that conversation-verse, or verse loitering into
prose, now so fashionable, this is an excellence which I am not
very ambitious of attaining. But if you mean strong, concise, yet
natural easy expression, I apprehend the general judgment will decide
in my favour. To the general ear, and the general judgment, then, do
I appeal as to an impartial tribunal." Here several odes are
transcribed. "By _spirit_, your third criticism, I know nothing you
can mean but enthusiasm; that which transports us to every scene, and
interests us in every sentiment. Poetry without this cannot subsist;
every species demands its proportion, from the greater ode, of which
it is the principal characteristic, to the lesser, in which a
small portion of it only has hitherto been thought requisite. My
productions, I apprehend, have never before been deemed destitute
of this essential constituent. Whatever I have wrote, I have felt,
and I believe others have felt it also."
On "the Epistles," which had been condemned in the gross, suddenly the
critic turns round courteously to the bard, declaring "they are
written in an easy and familiar style, and seem to flow from a good
and a benevolent heart." But then sneeringly adds, that one of them
being entitled "An Essay on Painting, addressed to a young Artist,
had better have been omitted, because it had been so fully treated in
so masterly a manner by Mr. Hayley." This was letting fall a spark in
a barrel of gunpowder. Scott immediately analyses his brother poet's
poem, to show they have nothing in common; and then compares those
similar passages the subject naturally produced, to show that "his
poem does not suffer greatly in the comparison." "You may," he adds,
after giving copious extracts from both poems, "persist in saying that
Mr. Hayley's are the best. Your business then is to prove it." This,
indeed, had been a very hazardous affair for our medical critic, whose
poetical feelings were so equable, that he acknowledges "Mr. Scott's
poem is just and elegant," but "Mr. Hayley's is likewise just and
elegant;" therefore, if one man has written a piece "just and
elegant," there is no need of another on the same subject "just and
elegant."
To such an extreme point of egotism was a modest and respectable
author most cruelly driven by the callous playfulness of a poetical
critic, who himself had no sympathy for poetry of any quality or any
species, and whose sole art consisted in turning about the canting
dictionary of criticism. Had Homer been a modern candidate for
poetical honours, from him Homer had not been distinguished, even from
the mediocrity of Scott of Amwell, whose poetical merits are not,
however, slight. In his Amoebean eclogues he may be distinguished as
the poet of botanists.