The Trinity is the idea: the Incarnation, which implies the Fall, is the
fact: the Redemption is the mesothesis of the two--that is--the religion.
* * * * *
If you bring up your children in a way which puts them out of sympathy with
the religious feelings of the nation in which they live, the chances are,
that they will ultimately turn out ruffians or fanatics--and one as likely
as the other.
October 23. 1833.
ELEGY.--LAVACRUM PALLADOS.--GREEK AND LATIN PENTAMETER.--MILTON'S LATIN
POEMS.--POETICAL FILTER.--GRAY AND COTTON.
Elegy is the form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It _may_ treat
of any subject, but it must treat of no subject _for itself_; but always
and exclusively with reference to the poet himself. As he will feel regret
for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love become the
principal themes of elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone, or
absent and future. The elegy is the exact opposite of the Homeric epic, in
which all is purely external and objective, and the poet is a mere voice.
The true lyric ode is subjective too; but then it delights to present
things as actually existing and visible, although associated with the past,
or coloured highly by the subject of the ode itself.
* * * * *
I think the Lavacrum Pallados of Callimachus very beautiful indeed,
especially that part about the mother of Tiresias and Minerva.[1] I have a
mind to try how it would bear translation; but what metre have we to answer
in feeling to the elegiac couplet of the Greeks?
I greatly prefer the Greek rhythm of the short verse to Ovid's, though,
observe, I don't dispute his taste with reference to the genius of his own
language. Augustus Schlegel gave me a copy of Latin elegiacs on the King of
Prussia's going down the Rhine, in which he had almost exclusively adopted
the manner of Propertius. I thought them very elegant.
[Footnote 1:
Greek:
Paides, Athanaia numphan mian en poka Th_ezais
po_olu ti kai pezi d_e philato tan hetezan,
mateza Teizesiao, kai oupoka ch_ozis egento k.t.l.
v 57, &c.]
* * * * *
You may find a few minute faults in Milton's Latin verses; but you will not
persuade me that, if these poems had come down to us _as_ written in the
age of Tiberius, we should not have considered them to be very beautiful.
* * * * *
I once thought of making a collection,--to be called "The Poetical
Filter,"--upon the principle of simply omitting from the old pieces of
lyrical poetry which we have, those parts in which the whim or the bad
taste of the author or the fashion of his age prevailed over his genius.
You would be surprised at the number of exquisite _wholes_ which might be
made by this simple operation, and, perhaps, by the insertion of a single
line or half a line, out of poems which are now utterly disregarded on
account of some odd or incongruous passages in them;--just as whole volumes
of Wordsworth's poems were formerly neglected or laughed at, solely because
of some few wilfulnesses, if I may so call them, of that great man--whilst
at the same time five sixths of his poems would have been admired, and
indeed popular, if they had appeared without those drawbacks, under the
name of Byron or Moore or Campbell, or any other of the fashionable
favourites of the day. But he has won the battle now, ay! and will wear the
crown, whilst English is English.
* * * * *
I think there is something very majestic in Gray's Installation Ode; but as
to the Bard and the rest of his lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and
artificial. There is more real lyric feeling in Cotton's Ode on Winter.[1]
[Footnote 1:
Let me borrow Mr. Wordsworth's account of, and quotation from, this poem:--
"Finally, I will refer to Cotton's 'Ode upon Winter,' an admirable
composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he
lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The
middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance
of Winter, with his retinue, as 'a palsied king,' and yet a military
monarch, advancing for conquest with his army; the several bodies of which,
and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and
a profusion of _fanciful_ comparisons, which indicate, on the part of the
poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of
delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where--
a magazine
Of sovereign juice is cellared in;
Liquor that will the siege maintain
Should Phoebus ne'er return again."
Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing
what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the
treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem supplies of
her management of forms.
'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;
Matures the Young, restores the Old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.
It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;
* * * * *
Then let the _chill_ Scirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow;
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar:
Whilst we together jovial sit
Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit;
Where, though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.
We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.
But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.
We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.
The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie
Shall taste the air of liberty.
The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue, praise,
And the neglected poet, bays.
Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?
_Preface to the editions of Mr. W.'s Poems, in_
1815 and 1820.--ED.]
_November_ 1. 1833.
HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE.--DRYDEN.--DR. JOHNSON.--SCOTT'S NOVELS.--
SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY.
Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of
Shakspeare with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to
have been at school ever since. I scarcely know a more striking instance of
the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind.
Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his
chariot wheels _get_ hot by driving fast.
* * * * *
Dr. Johnson seems to have been really more powerful in discoursing _vivâ
voce_ in conversation than with his pen in hand. It seems as if the
excitement of company called something like reality and consecutiveness
into his reasonings, which in his writings I cannot see. His antitheses are
almost always verbal only; and sentence after sentence in the Rambler may
be pointed out to which you cannot attach any definite meaning whatever. In
his political pamphlets there is more truth of expression than in his other
works, for the same reason that his conversation is better than his
writings in general. He was more excited and in earnest.
* * * * *
When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, and they are almost
the only books I can then _read_. I cannot at such times read the Bible; my
mind reflects on it, but I can't bear the open page.
* * * * *
Unless Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and comprehensive way, how
large a portion of our intellectual and moral nature does it leave without
object and action!
* * * * *
Let a young man separate I from Me as far as he possibly can, and remove Me
till it is almost lost in the remote distance. "I am me," is as bad a fault
in intellectuals and morals as it is in grammar, whilst none but one--God--
can say, "I am I," or "That I am."
_November_ 9. 1833.