Damnant guod non intelligunt. CIC.
They condemn what they do not understand.
EURIPIDES, having presented Socrates with
the writings of Heraclitus[h], a philosopher famed
for involution and obscurity, inquired afterwards his
opinion of their merit. "What I understand," said
Socrates, "I find to be excellent; and, therefore,
believe that to be of equal value which I cannot
understand."
[h] The obscurity of this philosopher's style is complained of
by Aristotle in his treatise on Rhetoric, iii. 5. We make the
reference with the view of recommending to attention the whole of
that book, which is interspersed with the most acute remarks, and
with rules of criticism founded deeply on the workings of the
human mind. It is undervalued only by those who have not
scholarship to read it, and surely merits this slight tribute of
admiration from an Editor of Johnson's works, with whom a
Translation of the Rhetoric was long a favourite project.
The reflection of every man who reads this passage
will suggest to him the difference between the practice
of Socrates, and that of modern criticks: Socrates,
who had, by long observation upon himself
and others, discovered the weakness of the strongest,
and the dimness of the most enlightened intellect,
was afraid to decide hastily in his own favour, or to
conclude that an author had written without meaning,
because he could not immediately catch his
ideas; he knew that the faults of books are often
more justly imputable to the reader, who sometimes
wants attention, and sometimes penetration; whose
understanding is often obstructed by prejudice, and
often dissipated by remissness; who comes sometimes
to a new study, unfurnished with knowledge
previously necessary; and finds difficulties insuperable,
for want of ardour sufficient to encounter them.
Obscurity and clearness are relative terms: to some
readers scarce any book is easy, to others not many
are difficult: and surely they, whom neither any
exuberant praise bestowed by others, nor any eminent
conquests over stubborn problems, have entitled to
exalt themselves above the common orders of mankind,
might condescend to imitate the candour of
Socrates; and where they find incontestable proofs
of superior genius, be content to think that there is
justness in the connexion which they cannot trace,
and cogency in the reasoning which they cannot
comprehend.
This diffidence is never more reasonable than in
the perusal of the authors of antiquity; of those
whose works have been the delight of ages, and
transmitted as the great inheritance of mankind
from one generation to another: surely, no man can,
without the utmost arrogance, imagine that he
brings any superiority of understanding to the perusal
of these books which have been preserved in the
devastations of cities, and snatched up from the
wreck of nations; which those who fled before
barbarians have been careful to carry off in a hurry of
migration, and of which barbarians have repented
the destruction. If in books thus made venerable by
the uniform attestation of successive ages, any
passages shall appear unworthy of that praise which they
have formerly received, let us not immediately
determine, that they owed their reputation to dulness
or bigotry; but suspect at least that our ancestors
had some reasons for their opinions, and that our
ignorance of those reasons makes us differ from them.
It often happens that an author's reputation is
endangered in succeeding times, by that which
raised the loudest applause among his contemporaries:
nothing is read with greater pleasure than allusions
to recent facts, reigning opinions, or present
controversies; but when facts are forgotten, and
controversies extinguished, these favourite touches
lose all their graces; and the author in his descent
to posterity must be left to the mercy of chance,
without any power of ascertaining the memory of
those things, to which he owed his luckiest thoughts
and his kindest reception.
On such occasions, every reader should remember
the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour
the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming
defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence,
and suppose that the sense which is now weak was
once forcible, and the expression which is now dubious
formerly determinate.
How much the mutilation of ancient history has
taken away from the beauty of poetical performances,
may be conjectured from the light which a
lucky commentator sometimes effuses, by the
recovery of an incident that had been long forgotten:
thus, in the third book of Horace, Juno's denunciations
against those that should presume to raise
again the walls of Troy, could for many ages please
only by splendid images and swelling language, of
which no man discovered the use or propriety, till
Le Fevre, by showing on what occasion the Ode
was written, changed wonder to rational delight.
Many passages yet undoubtedly remain in the same
author, which an exacter knowledge of the incidents
of his time would clear from objections. Among
these I have always numbered the following lines:
Aurum per medios ire satellites,
Et perrumpere amat saxa, potentius
Ictu fulmineo. Concidit auguris
Argivi domus ob lucrum
Demersa exitio. Diffidit urbium
Portas vir Macedo, et subruit aemulos
Regis muneribus: Munera navium
Saevos illaqueant duces. HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xvi. 9.
Stronger than thunder's winged force,
All-powerful gold can spread its course,
Thro' watchful guards its passage make,
And loves thro' solid walls to break:
From gold the overwhelming woes
That crush'd the Grecian augur rose:
Philip with gold thro' cities broke,
And rival monarchs felt his yoke;
Captains of ships to gold are slaves,
Tho' fierce as their own winds and waves. FRANCIS.
The close of this passage, by which every reader is
now disappointed and offended, was probably the
delight of the Roman Court: it cannot be imagined,
that Horace, after having given to gold the force of
thunder, and told of its power to storm cities and to
conquer kings, would have concluded his account of
its efficacy with its influence over naval commanders,
had he not alluded to some fact then current in the
mouths of men, and therefore more interesting for
a time than the conquests of Philip. Of the like kind
may be reckoned another stanza in the same book:
--Jussa coram non sine conscio
Surgit marito, seu vocat institor,
Seu navis Hispanae magister,
Dedecorum pretiosus emptor. HOR. Lib. iii. Ode. vi. 29.
The conscious husband bids her rise,
When some rich factor courts her charms,
Who calls the wanton to his arms,
And, prodigal of wealth and fame,
Profusely buys the costly shame. FRANCIS.
He has little knowledge of Horace who imagines
that the FACTOR, or the SPANISH MERCHANT, are
mentioned by chance: there was undoubtedly some
popular story of an intrigue, which those names recalled
to the memory of his reader.
The flame of his genius in other parts, though
somewhat dimmed by time, is not totally eclipsed;
his address and judgment yet appear, though much
of the spirit and vigour of his sentiment is lost: this
has happened in the twentieth Ode of the first book:
Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
Cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa
Conditum levi, datus in theatro
Cum tibi plausus,
Care Moecenas eques: ut paterni
Fluminis ripae, simul et jocosa
Redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
Montis imago.
A poet's beverage humbly cheap,
(Should great Maecenas be my guest,)
The vintage of the Sabine grape,
But yet in sober cups shall crown the feast:
'Twas rack'd into a Grecian cask,
Its rougher juice to melt away;
I seal'd it too--a pleasing task!
With annual joy to mark the glorious day,
When in applausive shouts thy name
Spread from the theatre around,
Floating on thy own Tiber's stream,
And Echo, playful nymph, return'd the sound. FRANCIS.
We here easily remark the intertexture of a happy
compliment with an humble invitation; but certainly
are less delighted than those, to whom the
mention of the applause bestowed upon Maecenas,
gave occasion to recount the actions or words that
produced it.
Two lines which have exercised the ingenuity of
modern criticks, may, I think, be reconciled to the
judgment, by an easy supposition: Horace thus
addresses Agrippa:
Scriberis Vario fortis, et hostium
Victor, Maeonii carminis alite. Hon. Lib. i. Ode vi. 1.
Varius, a swan of Homer's wing,
Shall brave Agrippa's conquests sing.
That Varius should be called "A bird of Homeric
song," appears so harsh to modern ears, that an
emendation of the text has been proposed: but
surely the learning of the ancients had been long ago
obliterated, had every man thought himself at liberty
to corrupt the lines which he did not understand.
If we imagine that Varius had been by any of
his contemporaries celebrated under the appellation
of Musarum ales, "the swan of the Muses," the
language of Horace becomes graceful and familiar;
and that such a compliment was at least possible,
we know from the transformation feigned by Horace
of himself.
The most elegant compliment that was paid to
Addison, is of this obscure and perishable kind;
When panting Virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid.
These lines must please as long as they are understood;
but can be understood only by those that have
observed Addison's signatures in the Spectator.
The nicety of these minute allusions I shall
exemplify by another instance, which I take this
occasion to mention, because, as I am told, the
commentators have omitted it. Tibullus addressed
Cynthia in this manner:
Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,
Te teneam moriens deficiente manu. Lib. i. El. i. 73.
Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand,
Held weakly by my fainting trembling hand.
To these lines Ovid thus refers in his Elegy on the
death of Tibullus:
Cynthia discedens, Felicius, inquit, amata
Sum tibi; vixisti dum tuus ignis eram.
Cui Nemesis, quid, ait, tibi sint mea damna dolori?
Me tenuit moriens deficiente manu. Am. Lib. iii. El. ix.
56.
Blest was my reign, retiring Cynthia cry'd;
Not till he left my breast, Tibullus dy'd.
Forbear, said Nemesis, my loss to moan,
The FAINTING TREMBLING HAND was mine alone.
The beauty of this passage, which consists in the
appropriation made by Nemesis of the line originally
directed to Cynthia, had been wholly imperceptible
to succeeding ages, had chance, which has
destroyed so many greater volumes, deprived us
likewise of the poems of Tibullus.