Lady Jane, and a flash of gratified affection, half pride and half
tenderness filled her eyes. For she knew how deep was the reverence he
rendered to the earl, and how much of moral courage was in the heart
which could have the displeasure of a man so imperative and haughty, but
who had even preserved the affections as well as the fear of his family.
“Very prettily argued, my clerkly son,” replied Warwick, lightly—“but
pray can you tell me what the good people of England may think of the
nobleman, who took advantage of his power to cast a son, and heir of
that same ‘old friend’ whom you prate of into a damp hole in his palace,
to herd him with a cur like that, and drag him before a picked number of
councillors to be examined, on a question which touched his honor and
life itself? Love is a question to amuse the people more than any act of
mine. If His Grace of Somerset has seen fit to tread upon a serpent’s
nest, the world will not marvel that his foot is stung where it would
have crushed.
“No, Dudley, no—the king has rightly decided, and he who would have
heaped ignominy on my son shall drain the cup he has drugged! Even as he
forced the heir to my house to this closet in base contact with a wretch
like that cringing cur yonder, shall he go forth and in like company.”
Dudley heard his father out with habitual reverence, but still opened
his lips to expostulate once more against the course he was pursuing,
but Warwick turned impatiently away.
“Tush man,” he said with a quick wave of the hand, “have done with this
and meet me at Somerset House within the hour. The king desires it. If
your grace is ready,” he added, turning to Somerset as if extending the
most trifling invitation on earth, “we will proceed at once to the
council.”
Somerset arose, folded a cloak about him, and though his face was very
pale, moved toward the door without speaking a word. The guard closed in
around him, and he left the closet like one in a bewildering dream. He
had entered that room but an hour before, arrogant in the consciousness
of power, second to none in the kingdom; he left it a prisoner and a
ruined man.
Warwick gave a sign that the artisan should be secured and followed the
fallen duke. The old councillor kept by the side of his friend, and on
their way through the corridor the Duchess of Somerset came through a
side door and approached her husband, but seeing how pale he was, and
that many persons were around him, she drew back disappointed in the
womanly impulse which had induced her to seek an interview before he
went from the palace, that the cause of her child might be justly
understood.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PAINTED BY R. LANDSEER, Engraved by J. SARTAIN. _Return
from Hawking._ _Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine_]
* * * * *
RETURN FROM HAWKING.
ON A PICTURE BY LANDSEER.
They form a picture that appears of Eld—
The beauteous mother and the husband bold,
And smiling infant like a rose-bud held
Upon the parent-stem, but half unrolled
Yet blushing brightly in each crimson fold.
The household steed, in quiet sympathy,
Looks silent on and seems to share their glee.
The shaggy dog that wakes the forest old
With joyous echoes as he bounds along,
Starting the heron from his reedy lair—
These, while the morning sunbeams slant along
Through that old portal, massy, grim and bare,
Stand, grouped together,—emblems fit, I ween,
Of many another quiet household scene!
E.
* * * * *
THERE’S NO LAND LIKE SCOTLAND.
BALLAD.
SUNG BY MR. DEMPSTER.
COMPOSED BY
EDWARD J. LODER.
_Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns, _184 Chesnut Street_.
[Illustration: musical score]
[Illustration: musical score]
There’s no land like Scotland within the wide sea,
There’s no land like Scotland,
The fearless and free,
With her fair glens and mountains,
Her fair locks and fountains,
Her wild springing heather and modest blue bell,
No place in the world do I love half so well,
No place in the world do I love half so well,
Oh! sleepin’ or wakin’, where e’er I may be,
My thoughts aye are turning dear Scotland to thee,
Bright gem of the northern wave,
Home of the free and brave,
While life endures thou canst never depart,
Ah! while life endures thou canst never depart,
Dear pride of the north from thy throne in my heart.
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_Ballads and Other Poems. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Author
of “Voices of the Night,” “Hyperion,” &c. Second Edition. John
Owen: Cambridge._
In our last number we had some hasty observations on these
“Ballads”—observations which we now propose, in some measure, to
amplify and explain.
It may be remembered that, among other points, we demurred to Mr.
Longfellow’s _themes_, or rather to their general character. We found
fault with the too obtrusive nature of their _didacticism_. Some years
ago we urged a similar objection to one or two of the longer pieces of
Bryant; and neither time nor reflection has sufficed to modify, in the
slightest particular, our convictions upon this topic.
We have said that Mr. Longfellow’s conception of the _aims_ of poesy is
erroneous; and that thus, laboring at a disadvantage, he does violent
wrong to his own high powers; and now the question is, what _are_ his
ideas of the aims of the Muse, as we gather these ideas from the
_general_ tendency of his poems? It will be at once evident that, imbued
with the peculiar spirit of German song (a pure conventionality) he
regards the inculcation of a _moral_ as essential. Here we find it
necessary to repeat that we have reference only to the _general_
tendency of his compositions; for there are some magnificent exceptions,
where, as if by accident, he has permitted his genius to get the better
of his conventional prejudice. But didacticism is the prevalent _tone_
of his song. His invention, his imagery, his all, is made subservient to
the elucidation of some one or more points (but rarely of more than one)
which he looks upon as _truth_. And that this mode of procedure will
find stern defenders should never excite surprise, so long as the world
is full to overflowing with cant and conventicles. There are men who
will scramble on all fours through the muddiest sloughs of vice to pick
up a single apple of virtue. There are things called men who, so long as
the sun rolls, will greet with snuffling huzzas every figure that takes
upon itself the semblance of truth, even although the figure, in itself
only a “stuffed Paddy,” be as much out of place as a toga on the statue
of Washington, or out of season as rabbits in the days of the dog-star.
Now with as deep a reverence for “the true” as ever inspired the bosom
of mortal man, we would limit, in many respects, its modes of
inculcation. We would limit to enforce them. We would not render them
impotent by dissipation. The demands of truth are severe. She has no
sympathy with the myrtles. All that is indispensible in song is all with
which she has nothing to do. To deck her in gay robes is to render her a
harlot. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems
and flowers. Even in stating this our present proposition, we verify our
own words—we feel the necessity, in enforcing this _truth_, of
descending from metaphor. Let us then be simple and distinct. To convey
“the true” we are required to dismiss from the attention all
inessentials. We must be perspicuous, precise, terse. We need
concentration rather than expansion of mind. We must be calm,
unimpassioned, unexcited—in a word, we must be in that peculiar mood
which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He
must be blind indeed who cannot perceive the radical and chasmal
difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation.
He must be grossly wedded to conventionalisms who, in spite of this
difference, shall still attempt to reconcile the obstinate oils and
waters of Poetry and Truth.
Dividing the world of mind into its most obvious and immediately
recognisable distinctions, we have the pure intellect, taste, and the
moral sense. We place _taste_ between the intellect and the moral sense,
because it is just this intermediate space which, in the mind, it
occupies. It is the connecting link in the triple chain. It serves to
sustain a mutual intelligence between the extremes. It appertains, in
strict appreciation, to the former, but is distinguished from the latter
by so faint a difference, that Aristotle has not hesitated to class some
of its operations among the Virtues themselves. But the _offices_ of the
trio are broadly marked. Just as conscience, or the moral sense,
recognises duty; just as the intellect deals with _truth_; so is it the
part of taste alone to inform us of BEAUTY. And Poesy is the handmaiden
but of Taste. Yet we would not be misunderstood. This handmaiden is not
forbidden to moralise—in her own fashion. She is not forbidden to
depict—but to reason and preach, of virtue. As, of this latter,
conscience recognises the obligation, so intellect leaches the
expediency, while taste contents herself with displaying the beauty:
waging war with vice merely on the ground of its inconsistency with
fitness, harmony, proportion—in a word with το καλον.
An important condition of man’s immortal nature is thus, plainly, the
sense of the Beautiful. This it is which ministers to his delight in the
manifold forms and colors and sounds and sentiments amid which he
exists. And, just as the eyes of Amaryllis are repeated in the mirror,
or the living lily in the lake, so is the mere _record_ of these forms
and colors and sounds and sentiments—so is their mere oral or written
repetition a duplicate source of delight. But this repetition is not
Poesy. He who shall merely sing with whatever rapture, in however
harmonious strains, or with however vivid a truth of imitation, of the
sights and sounds which greet him in common with all mankind—he, we
say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a longing
unsatisfied, which he has been impotent to fulfil. There is still a
thirst unquenchable, which to allay he has shown us no crystal springs.
This burning thirst belongs to the _immortal_ essence of man’s nature.
It _is_ equally a consequence and an indication of his perennial life.
It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is not the mere
appreciation of the beauty before us. It is a wild effort to reach the
beauty above. It is a forethought of the loveliness to come. It is a
passion to be satiated by no sublunary sights, or sounds, or sentiments,
and the soul thus athirst strives to allay its fever in futile efforts
at _creation_. Inspired with a prescient ecstasy of the beauty beyond
the grave, it struggles by multiform novelty of combination among the
things and thoughts of Time, to anticipate some portion of that
loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain solely to Eternity.
And the result of such effort, on the part of souls fittingly
constituted, is alone what mankind have agreed to denominate Poetry.
We say this with little fear of contradiction. Yet the spirit of our
assertion must be more heeded than the letter. Mankind have _seemed_ to
define Poesy in a thousand, and in a thousand conflicting definitions.
But the war is one only of words. Induction is as well applicable to
this subject as to the most palpable and utilitarian; and by its sober
processes we find that, in respect to compositions which have been
really received as poems, the _imaginative_, or, more popularly, the
creative portions _alone_ have ensured them to be so received. Yet these
works, on account of these portions, having once been so received and so
named, it has happened, naturally and inevitably, that other portions
totally unpoetic have not only come to be regarded by the popular voice
as poetic, but have been made to serve as false standards of perfection,
in the adjustment of other poetical claims. Whatever has been found in
whatever has been received as a poem, has been blindly regarded as _ex
statû_ poetic. And this is a species of gross error which scarcely could
have made its way into any less intangible topic. In fact that license
which appertains to the Muse herself, it has been thought decorous, if
not sagacious to indulge, in all examination of her character.
Poesy is thus seen to be a response—unsatisfactory it is true—but
still in some measure a response, to a natural and irrepressible demand.
Man being what he is, the time could never have been in which Poesy was
not. Its first element is the thirst for supernal Beauty—a beauty which
is not afforded the soul by any existing collocation of earth’s forms—a
beauty which, perhaps, _no possible_ combination of these forms would
fully produce. Its second element is the attempt to satisfy this thirst
by _novel_ combinations among those forms of beauty which already
exist—or by novel combinations _of those combinations which our
predecessors, toiling in chase of the same phantom, have already set in
order_. We thus clearly deduce the _novelty_, the _originality_, the
_invention_, the _imagination_, or lastly the _creation_ of BEAUTY, (for
the terms as here employed are synonymous) as the essence of all Poesy.
Nor is this idea so much at variance with ordinary opinion as, at first
sight, it may appear. A multitude of antique dogmas on this topic will
be found, when divested of extrinsic speculation, to be easily resoluble
into the definition now proposed. We do nothing more than present
tangibly the vague clouds of the world’s idea. We recognize the idea
itself floating, unsettled, indefinite, in every attempt which has yet
been made to circumscribe the conception of “Poesy” in words. A striking
instance of this is observable in the fact that no definition exists, in
which either “the beautiful,” or some one of those qualities which we
have above designated synonymously with “creation,” has not been pointed
out as the _chief_ attribute of the Muse. “Invention,” however, or
“imagination,” is by far more commonly insisted upon. The word ποιησις
itself (creation) speaks volumes upon this point. Neither will it be
amiss here to mention Count Bielfeld’s definition of poetry as “_L’art
d’exprimer les pensées par la fiction_.” With this definition (of which
the philosophy is profound to a certain extent) the German terms
_Dichtkunst_, the art of fiction, and _Dichten_, to feign, which are
used for “_poetry_” and “_to make verses_,” are in full and remarkable
accordance. It is, nevertheless, in the _combination_ of the two
omni-prevalent ideas that the novelty and, we believe, the force of our
own proposition is to be found.
So far, we have spoken of Poesy as of an abstraction alone. As such, it
is obvious that it may be applicable in various moods. The sentiment may
develop itself in Sculpture, in Painting, in Music, or otherwise. But
our present business is with its development in words—that development
to which, in practical acceptation, the world has agreed to limit the
term. And at this point there is one consideration which induces us to
pause. We cannot make up our minds to admit (as some have admitted) the
inessentiality of rhythm. On the contrary, the universality of its use
in the earliest poetical efforts of all mankind would be sufficient to
assure us, not merely of its congeniality with the Muse, or of its
adaptation to her purposes, but of its elementary and indispensible
importance. But here we must, perforce, content ourselves with mere
suggestion; for this topic is of a character which would lead us too
far. We have already spoken of Music as one of the moods of poetical
development. It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains
that end upon which we have commented—the creation of supernal beauty.
It may be, indeed, that this august aim is here even partially or
imperfectly attained, _in fact_. The _elements_ of that beauty which is
felt in sound, _may be_ the mutual or common heritage of Earth and
Heaven. In the soul’s struggles at combination it is thus not impossible
that a harp may strike notes not unfamiliar to the angels. And in this
view the wonder may well be less that all attempts at defining the
character or sentiment of the deeper musical impressions, has been found
absolutely futile. Contenting ourselves, therefore, with the firm
conviction, that music (in its modifications of rhythm and rhyme) is of
so vast a moment in Poesy, as _never_ to be neglected by him who is
truly poetical—is of so mighty a force in furthering the great aim
intended that he is mad who rejects its assistance—content with this
idea we shall not pause to maintain its absolute essentiality, for the
mere sake of rounding a definition. We will but add, at this point, that
the highest possible development of the Poetical Sentiment is to be
found in the union of song with music, in its popular sense. The old
Bards and Minnesingers possessed, in the fullest perfection, the finest
and truest elements of Poesy; and Thomas Moore, singing his own ballads,
is but putting the final touch to their completion as poems.
To recapitulate, then, we would define in brief the Poetry of words as
the _Rhythmical Creation of Beauty_. Beyond the limits of Beauty its
province does not extend. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect
or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations. It has no
dependence, unless incidentally, upon either Duty or _Truth_. That our
definition will necessarily exclude much of what, through a supine
toleration, has been hitherto ranked as poetical, is a matter which
affords us not even momentary concern. We address but the thoughtful,
and heed only their approval—with our own. If our suggestions are
truthful, then “after many days” shall they be understood as truth, even
though found in contradiction of _all_ that has been hitherto so
understood. If false shall we not be the first to bid them die?
We would reject, of course, all such matters as “Armstrong on Health,” a
revolting production; Pope’s “Essay on Man,” which may well be content
with the title of an “Essay in Rhyme;” “Hudibras” and other merely
humorous pieces. We do not gainsay the peculiar merits of either of
these latter compositions—but deny them the position held. In a notice,
month before last, of Brainard’s Poems, we took occasion to show that
the common use of a certain instrument, (rhythm) had tended, more than
aught else, to confound humorous verse with poetry. The observation is
now recalled to corroborate what we have just said in respect to the
vast effect or force of melody in itself—an effect which could elevate
into even momentary confusion with the highest efforts of mind,
compositions such as are the greater number of satires or burlesques.
Of the poets who have appeared most fully instinct with the principles
now developed, we may mention _Keats_ as the most remarkable. He is the
sole British poet who has never erred in his themes. Beauty is always
his aim.
We have thus shown our ground of objection to the general _themes_ of
Professor Longfellow. In common with all who claim the sacred title of
poet, he should limit his endeavors to the creation of novel moods of
beauty, in form, in color, in sound, in sentiment; for over all this
wide range has the poetry of words dominion. To what the world terms
_prose_ may be safely and properly left all else. The artist who doubts
of his thesis, may always resolve his doubt by the single
question—“might not this matter be as well or better handled in
_prose_?” If it _may_, then is it no subject for the Muse. In the
general acceptation of the term _Beauty_ we are content to rest; being
careful only to suggest that, in our peculiar views, it must be
understood as inclusive of _the sublime_.
Of the pieces which constitute the present volume, there are not more
than one or two thoroughly fulfilling the idea above proposed; although
the volume as a whole is by no means so chargeable with didacticism as
Mr. Longfellow’s previous book. We would mention as poems _nearly true_,
“The Village Blacksmith;” “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and especially
“The Skeleton in Armor.” In the first-mentioned we have the _beauty_ of
simple-mindedness as a genuine thesis; and this thesis is inimitably
handled until the concluding stanza, where the spirit of legitimate
poesy is aggrieved in the pointed antithetical deduction of a _moral_
from what has gone before. In “The Wreck of the Hesperus” we have the
_beauty_ of child-like confidence and innocence, with that of the
father’s stern courage and affection. But, with slight exception, those
particulars of the storm here detailed are not poetic subjects. Their
thrilling _horror_ belongs to prose, in which it could be far more
effectively discussed, as Professor Longfellow may assure himself at any
moment by experiment. There are points of a tempest which afford the
loftiest and truest poetical themes—points in which pure beauty is
found, or, better still, beauty heightened into the sublime, by terror.
But when we read, among other similar things, that
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes,
we feel, if not positive disgust, at least a chilling sense of the
inappropriate. In the “Skeleton in Armor” we find a pure and perfect
thesis artistically treated. We find the beauty of bold courage and
self-confidence, of love and maiden devotion, of reckless adventure, and
finally of life-contemning grief. Combined with all this we have
numerous _points_ of beauty apparently insulated, but all aiding the
main effect or impression. The heart is stirred, and the mind does not
lament its mal-instruction. The metre is simple, sonorous, well-balanced
and fully adapted to the subject. Upon the whole, there are fewer truer
poems than this. It has but one defection—an important one. The prose
remarks prefacing the narrative are really _necessary_. But every work
of art should contain within itself all that is requisite for its own
comprehension. And this remark is especially true of the ballad. In
poems of magnitude the mind of the reader is not, at all times, enabled
to include, in one comprehensive survey, the proportions and proper
adjustment of the whole. He is pleased, if at all, with particular
passages; and the sum of his pleasure is compounded of the sums of the
pleasurable sentiments inspired by these individual passages in the
progress of perusal. But, in pieces of less extent, the pleasure is
_unique_, in the proper acceptation of this term—the understanding is
employed, without difficulty, in the contemplation of the picture _as a_
_whole_; and thus its effect will depend, in great measure, upon the
perfection of its finish, upon the nice adaptation of its constituent
parts, and especially, upon what is rightly termed by Schlegel _the
unity or totality of interest_. But the practice of prefixing
explanatory passages is utterly at variance with such unity. By the
prefix, we are either put in possession of the subject of the poem; or
some hint, historic fact, or suggestion, is thereby afforded, not
included in the body of the piece, which, without the hint, is
incomprehensible. In the latter case, while perusing the poem, the
reader must revert, in mind at least, to the prefix, for the necessary
explanation. In the former, the poem being a mere paraphrase of the
prefix, the interest is divided between the prefix and the paraphrase.
In either instance the totality of effect is destroyed.