phase of ancient thought is better reproduced than in _Ionica_, and
this gives its slight verses their lasting charm. We have had numerous
resuscitations of ancient manners and landscape in modern poetry
since the days of Keats and André Chenier. Many of these have been so
brilliantly successful that only pedantry would deny their value. But
in _Ionica_ something is given which the others have not known how
to give, the murmur of antiquity, the sigh in the grass of meadows
dedicated to Persephone. It seems to help us to comprehend the little
rites and playful superstitions of the Greeks; to see why Myro built a
tomb for the grasshopper she loved and lost; why the shining hair of
Lysidice, when she was drowned, should be hung up with songs of
pity and reproach in the dreadful vestibule of Aphrodite. The noisy
blasphemers of the newest Paris strike the reader as Christian
fanatics turned inside out; for all their vehemence they can never
lose the experience of their religious birth. The same thing is true
of the would-be Pagans of a milder sensuous type. The Cross prevailed
at their nativity, and has thrown its shadow over their conscience.
But in the midst of the throng there walks this plaintive poet of
the _Ionica_, the one genuine Pagan, absolutely untouched by the
traditions of the Christian past. I do not commend the fact; I merely
note it as giving a strange interest to these forlorn and unpopular
poems.
Twenty years after the publication of _Ionica_, and when that little
book had become famous among the elect, the author printed at
Cambridge a second part, without a title-page, and without
punctuation, one of the most eccentric looking pamphlets I ever
saw. The enthusiastic amateur will probably regard his collection
incomplete without _Ionica II_., but he must be prepared for a
disappointment. There is a touch of the old skill here and there, as
in such stanzas as this:
_With half a moon, and clouds rose-pink,
And water-lilies just in bud,
With iris on the river-brink,
And white weed-garlands on the mud,
And roses thin and pale as dreams,
And happy cygnets born in May,
No wonder if our country seems
Drest out for Freedom's natal day_.
Or these:
_Peace lit upon a fluttering vein,
And self-forgetting on the brain;
On rifts by passion wrought again
Splashed from the sky of childhood rain,
And rid of afterthought were we
And from foreboding sweetly free.
Now falls the apple, bleeds the vine,
And, moved by some autumnal sign,
I who in spring was glad repine
And ache without my anodyne;
Oh! things that were! Oh! things that are!
Oh! setting of my double star!_
But these are rare, and the old unique _Ionica_ of thirty years
earlier is not repeated.
THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT
THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT. _An Arabian Entertainment. By George Meredith.
Chapman and Hall_. 1856.
It is nearly forty years since I first heard of _The Shaving of
Shagpat_. I was newly come, in all my callow ardour, into the covenant
of Art and Letters, and I was moving about, still bewildered, in a
new world. In this new world, one afternoon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
standing in front of his easel, remarked to all present whom it should
concern, that _The Shaving of Shagpat_ was a book which Shakespeare
might have been glad to write. I now understand that in the warm
Rossetti-language this did not mean that there was anything specially
reminiscent of the Bard of Avon in this book, but simply that it was
a monstrous fine production, and worthy of all attention. But at the
time I expected, from such a title, something in the way of a belated
_Midsummer Night's Dream_ or _Love's Labour's Lost_. I was fully
persuaded that it must be a comedy, and as the book even then was
rare, and as I was long pursuing the loan of it, I got this dramatic
notion upon my mind, and to this day do still clumsily connect it with
the idea of Shakespeare. But in truth _The Shaving of Shagpat_ has no
other analogy with those plays, which Bacon would have written if he
had been so plaguily occupied, than that it is excellent in quality
and of the finest literary flavour.
The ordinary small collection of rarities has no room for three-volume
novels, those signs-manual of our British dulness and crafty disdain
for literature. One or two of these _simulacra_, these sham-semblances
of books, I possess, because honoured friends have given them to
me; even so, I would value the gift more in the decency of a single
volume. The dear little duodecimos of the last century, of course, are
welcome in a library. That was a happy day, when by the discovery of
a _Ferdinand Count Fathom_, I completed my set of Smollett in the
original fifteen volumes. But after the first generation of novelists,
the sham system began to creep in. With Fanny Burney, novels grow too
bulky, and it is a question whether even Scott or Jane Austen should
be possessed in the original form. Of the moderns, only Thackeray
is bibliographically desirable. Hence even of Mr. George Meredith's
fiction I make no effort to possess first editions; yet _The Shaving
of Shagpat_ is an exception. I toiled long to secure it, and, now that
I hold it, may its modest vermilion cover shine always like a lamp
upon my shelves! It is not fiction to a bibliophile; it is worthy of
all the honour done to verse.
Within the last ten years of his life we had the great pleasure of
seeing tardy justice done at length to the genius of Mr. George
Meredith. I like to think that, after a long and noble struggle
against the inattention of the public, after the pouring of high music
for two generations into ears whose owners seemed to have wilfully
sealed them with wax, so that only the most staccato and least happy
notes ever reached their dulness, George Meredith did, before the age
of seventy, reap a little of his reward. I am told that the movement
in favour of him began in America; if so, more praise to American
readers, who had to teach us to appreciate De Quincey and Praed before
we knew the value of those men. Yet is there much to do. Had George
Meredith been a Frenchman, what monographs had ere this been called
forth by his work; in Germany, or Italy, or Denmark even, such gifts
as his would long ago have found their classic place above further
discussion. But England is a Gallio, and in defiance of Mr. Le
Gallienne, cares little for the things of literature.
If a final criticism of George Meredith existed, where in it would
_The Shaving of Shagpat_ find its place? There is fear that in
competition with the series of analytical studies of modern life
that stretches from _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ to _One of our
Conquerors_, it might chance to be pushed away with a few lines of
praise. Now, I would not seem so paradoxical as to say that when
an extravaganza is held up to me in one hand, and a masterpiece of
morality like _The Egoist_ in the other, I can doubt which is the
greater book; but there are moods in which I am jealous of the novels,
and wish to be left alone with my _Arabian Entertainment_. Delicious
in this harsh world of reality to fold a mist around us, and out of it
to evolve the yellow domes and black cypresses, the silver fountains
and marble pillars, of the fabulous city of Shagpat. I do not know any
later book than _The Shaving_ in which an Englishman has allowed his
fancy, untrammelled by any sort of moral or intellectual subterfuge,
to go a-roaming by the light of the moon. We do this sort of thing no
longer. We are wholly given up to realism, we are harshly pressed upon
on all sides by the importunities of excess of knowledge. If we
talk of gryphons, the zoologists are upon us; of Oolb or Aklis, the
geographers flourish their maps at us in defiance. But the author of
_The Shaving of Shagpat_, in the bloom of his happy youthful genius,
defied all this pedantry. In a little address which has been
suppressed in later editions he said (December 8, 1855)
"It has seemed to me that the only way to tell an Arabian Story was by
imitating the style and manner of the Oriental Story-tellers. But such
an attempt, whether successful or not, may read like a translation. I
therefore think it better to prelude this Entertainment by an avowal
that it springs from no Eastern source, and is in every respect an
original Work."
If one reader of _The Shaving of Shagpat_ were to confess the truth he
would say that to him at least the other, the genuine Oriental tales,
appear the imitation, and not a very good imitation. The true genius
of the East breathes in Meredith's pages, and the _Arabian Nights_, at
all events in the crude literality of Sir Richard Burton, pale before
them like a mirage. The variety of scenes and images, the untiring
evolution of plot, the kaleidoscopic shifting of harmonious colours,
all these seem of the very essence of Arabia, and to coil directly
from some bottle of a genie. Ah! what a bottle! As we whirl along in
the vast and glowing bacchanal, we cry, like Sganarelle:
_Qu'ils sont doux--
Bouteille jolie--
Qu'ils sont doux
Vos petits glou-glous;
Ah! Bouteille, ma mie;
Pourquoi vous videz-vous?_
Ah! why indeed? For _The Shaving of Shagpat_ is one of those very rare
modern books of which it is certain that they are too short, and even
our excitement at the Mastery of the Event is tamed by a sense that
the show is closing, and that Shibli Bagarag has been too promptly
successful in smiting through the Identical. But perhaps of all gifts
there is none more rare than this of clearing the board and leaving
the reader still hungry.
Who shall say, in dealing with such a book, what passage in it is best
or worst? Either the fancy, carried away utterly captive, follows the
poet whither he will, or the whole conception is a failure. Perhaps,
after the elemental splendour and storm of the final scene, what
clings most to the memory is how Shibli Bagarag, hard beset in the
Cave of Chrysolites, touched the great lion with the broken sapphire
hair of Garraveen; or again, how on the black coast of the enchanted
sea, wandering by moonlight, he found the sacred Lily, and tore it
up, and lo! its bulb was a palpitating heart of human flesh; or how
Bhanavar called the unwilling serpents too often, and failed to win
her beauty back, till, at an awful price she once more, and for the
last time, contrived to call her body-guard of snakes hissing and
screaming around her.
There is surely no modern book so unsullied as this is by the modern
spirit, none in which the desire to teach a lesson, to refer knowingly
to topics of the day, or worst of all, to be incontinently funny,
interferes less with the tender magic of Oriental fancy, or with the
childlike, earnest faith in what is utterly outside the limits of
experience. It belongs to that infancy of the world, when the happy
guileless human being still holds that somewhere there is a flower to
be plucked, a lamp to be rubbed, or a form of words to be spoken which
will reverse the humdrum laws of Nature, call up unwilling spirits
bound to incredible services, and change all this brown life of ours
to scarlet and azure and mother-of-pearl. Little by little, even our
children are losing this happy gift of believing the incredible, and
that class of writing which seems to require less effort than any
other, and to be a mere spinning of gold thread out of the poet's
inner consciousness, is less and less at command, and when executed
gives less and less satisfaction. The gnomes of Pope, the fays and
"trilbys" of Nodier, even the fairy-world of Doyle, are breathed upon
by a race that has grown up habituated to science. But even for such
a race it must be long before the sumptuous glow and rich triumphant
humour of _The Shaving of Shagpat_ have lost all their attraction.
INDEX
ABBEY, Edwin A.
_Abuses stript and whipt_
Akenside, Mark
d'Alembert
Alfoxden, Wordsworth at
_All for Love_, Dryden's
_Almahide_, Mlle. de Scudéry's
_Amasia_, John Hopkins'
_Amazon Queen_, Weston's
_Amboyna_, Dryden's
Amory's _Life of John Buncle_, Thomas
_Anthony_, Earl of Orrery's _Mr_.
_Arcadia_, Sidney's
Ardelia (Lady Winchilsea)'s Poems
Arnauld, Antoine
Arnold, Matthew
_Artamenes_, La Calprenède's
_Astrée_, D'Urfé's
d'Aurevilly, Barbey
Austen, Jane
_Autobiography_ of Leigh Hunt
Avison, Charles
BACON, Lord
Baldwin, William
_Ballad of the Book Hunter_, Lang's
Balzac, Honoré de
Bancroft's _Sertorius_
Banks, Sir Joseph
Barnacle Goose Tree, The
Barrington, Hon. Daines
Bayle
Beaumont, _Peter Bell_ and Sir George
Behn, Mrs. Aphra
Bell, _Professor_ Thomas,
_Benjamin the Waggoner_
Blener Hasset, Thomas
Boccaccio
Boethius
Boileau, Nicolas,
Boisrobert, François
Boitard, Louis
Bossuet, Jacques
Boswell, James
Bouilhet, Louis
_Boxiana_, Egan's
Boyle's _Parthenissa_
Bradshaw, Library of Henry
_Britannia_, Brooke's _Discovery of Errors in_,
_Britannia_, Camden's
_British Princes_, Howard's
Brooke, Christopher
Brooke, Ralph
Browne, Sir Thomas
Browne, William
Browning, Robert
Brummell, Beau
Brunfelcius, Otto
_Buncle_, Amory's _Life of John_
Burger's _Lenore_
Burke, Edmund
Barney, Dr.
Burney, Fanny
Burton, Sir Richard
Byron
CALLIMACHUS
Calprenède, La
Cambridge described by Camden
Camden's _Britannia_
Campbell, J. Dykes
Campion, Thomas
Carew, Thomas
Carlisle's _Fortune Hunters_
_Carnival_, Porter's
_Cassandra_, La Calprenède's
Cats
Caylus, Count
Chandler, Dr.
Chapelain
Charles I.
_Cherwell Water-Lily_, Faber's _The_
Church, Dean
Cibber, Theophilus
_Citizen of the World_, Goldsmith's
_Clélie_, La Calprenède's
_Cleomina_, Eliza Haywood's _Secret History of_
_Cleopatra_, La Calprenède's
Cleveland, Duchess of
Coleridge, S.T.
Collins, William
Congreve, William
_Constant Couple_, Farquhar's
Corcoran, Peter, _i.e_. J. H. Reynolds
Corneille, Pierre
Corneille, Thomas
Cornwall, Barry
Cory, William, _see_ Johnson, William
_Couches de L'Académie_, Furetière's
Coventry, Rev. Francis
Coventry, Henry
Coypel, Drawings by
Croker, J.W.
Cromwell, Oliver
Crowne, John
"Crusions"
_Cyrus, Le Grand_
DARLINGTON, Earl of
_David_, Smart's _Song to_
Davies of Hereford, John
_Death's Duel_
De Boissat
Defoe, Daniel
Dennis, John
De Quincey, Thomas
Deshoulières, Mme.
Desmarais, Regnier
De Tabley, Lord
_Dialogues_, La Mothe le Vayer
_Diary of a Lover of Literature_, Green's
Dictionary, The Romance of a
Dioscorides of Anazarba,
D'Israeli, Isaac
D'Israeli's _Coningsby_
Dobson, Mr. Austin
Dodonaeus, Rembertus
Donne, Dr. John
Dryden, John
Dryden, Funeral of
_Dunciad_, Pope's
Dupuy, Mlle.
D'Urfé's _Astrée_
"Dwale" (nightshade)
EGANS'S _Boxiana_, Pierce
_Egoist_, Meredith's _The_
_Elegy in Country Churchyard_, Gray's
_England's Trust_, F.W. Faber's
_England's Trust_, Lord John Manners'
_England's Worthies_, Winstanley's
_English Ballads_, Lord John Manners'
_English Poets_, Winstanley's _Lives of_
_Enquiry Concerning Virtue_, Shaftesbury's
_Epistolary Poems_ of Charles Hopkins
_Epsom Wells_, Shadwell's
_Excursion_, Wordsworth's
FABER, Frederick William
_Fall of Princes_, Lydgate's
_Fancy, The_, J.H. Reynolds'
Farmer, Dr.
Farquhar, George
_Fatal Friendship_, Trotter's
_Feast of the Poets, The_
_Ferdinand Count Fathom_, Smollett's
Ferrers, George
Field, Barron
Fielding, Henry
Finch, Heneage (Earl of Winchilsea)
Finch, Poems of Anne (Lady Winchilsea)
FitzGerald, Edward
_Fortune Hunters_, Carlisle's _The_
_Française, Histoire de l'Académie_
_Francion_, Sorel's
Fuchsius, Leonard
Furetière, Antoine
_GARDEN of Florence_, Reynolds'
Gardiner, Lord Chancellor Stephen
Garrick, David
Garth, Dr.
_Gentleman's Magazine, The_
Gerard, John
Gibbon, Edward
Gibbons, Dr. (Physician)
Gifford, William
Gladstone, W.E.
Goldsmith, Oliver
Gombreville
Goose Tree, The
Grafton, Isabella, Duchess of
Gray, Thomas
Green, Thomas
Green's _Diary of a Lover of Literature_
Grierson, Professor
Grundtvig, Bishop
_Gulliver's Travels_, Swift
HANMER, Sir Thomas
Harrington's _Oceana_
Harvey, Rev. R.
Haslewood
Hawkesworth, John
Haywood, Eliza
Hazlitt, William
_Heliodorus_
Heraclitus
_Herbal_, Gerard's
----, Henry Lyte's translation of Dodonaeus'
----, Dr. Priest's translation of Dodonaeus'
Herrick, Robert
Hesketh (Yorkshire botanist)
_Hesperides_, Herrick's
Hill, Aaron
Hill, Dr. John
_Hilliad_, Smart's _The_
_Histoire de l'Académie Française_ (The Hague Edn.)
_Historic Fancies_, Lord Strangford's
Hoare, William
Holland, Philémon
_Hop Garden_, Smart's _The_
Hopkins, Charles
Hopkins, Ezekiel, Bishop of Derry
Hopkins, John
Hove, F.H. Van (Engraver)
Howard, Hon. Edward
_Humorous Lovers_, Duke of Newcastle's
Hunt, Leigh
Hurd, Dr., Bishop of Worcester
Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon
_IBRAHIM_, Mlle. de Scudéry's
_Idalia_, Eliza Haywood's
_Ionica_, William Johnson's
JAMES I
Jeffrey, Francis
Jenyns, Soame
Johnson, Dr. Samuel
Johnson, Thomas (Botanist)
Johnson, William
Jonson, Ben
Joyner, William
Jusserand, J.J., _English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_
KEATS, John
King, Dr. Henry
Kip, William
LAMB, Charles
Lang, Andrew
La Rochefoucauld
Lee, Nathaniel
Le Gallienne, Mr.
_Le Grand Cyrus_
_Lenore_, Burger's
Lerpinière, Daniel
_Les Chats_, Moncrif's
Lesdiguières, Duchess of
_Letters of Lord Chesterfield_
_Liberal, The_
Locker-Lampson, Frederick
Lombard (Antiquary)
Longueville, Mme. de
Louis XIV
_Love and a Bottle_, Farquhar's
_Love and Business_, Farquhar's
_Love in Excess_, Eliza Haywood
Loveday, Robert
Lydgate's _Fall of Princes_
MAINE, Duchess of
Manners, Lord John (_see_ Rutland, Duke of)
Manship, Samuel
Marot, Clément
Marshalsea Prison
Marvell, Andrew
Mason, William
Mazell, Peter (Engraver)
_Memoirs of a Lady of Quality_
_Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain_, Amory's
Mentzelius, Christian
Meredith's, _The Shaving of Shagpat_
Mézeray, François
Milton, John
_Mimnermus in Church_, Johnson's
_Mirror for Magistrates, A_
Mitlord, John
_Mithridates_, Lee's
_Moll Flanders_, Defoe
Moncrif, Augustin Paradis de
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley
Moore's _Tom Crib_, Thomas
Murray, John
_NASH, Beau_
Newbery, Francis
Newbery, John (Publisher)
Newcastle's _Humorous Lovers_, Duke of
Niccols, Richard
Nichols, John Bowyer
Nodier
Norden, John
Nottingham, Sonnet to the Earl of
_OCEANA_, Harrington's
Orford, Countess of (_Pompey the Little_)
Orrery, Earl of
Ortelius, Abraham
Osborne, Dorothy
Otten (Engraver)
Otway, Thomas
_PAMELA_, Richardson's
_Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained_, Milton's
_Parleying_, Brownings
Parr, Dr.
_Parthenissa_, Boyle's
Payne, John, (line-engraver)
Pellisson-Fontanier, Paul
Pennant, Thomas
Percy, Bishop of Dromore, Dr. Thomas
_Peter Bell: A Tale in Verse_, Wordsworth's
_Peter Bell; A Lyrical Ballad_, Hamilton's
_Peter Bell the Third_, Shelley's
Peter Corcoran
_Pharamond_, La Calprenède's
_Philémon to Hydaspes_, Coventry's
Phillips, John
Pindar, Peter
Plays, A Volume of Old
_Poems_ of Anne Finch (Lady Winchilsea)
_Poems_ of Christopher Smart
Poet in Prison, A (_The Shepheards Hunting_)
Poets, A Censor of
_Poets_, Winstanley's _Lives of English_
_Polexandre_, Gomberville's
_Pompey the Little_, F. Coventry's
Pope, Alexander
Porter, Major Thomas
Praed, W. Mackworth
_Prelude_, Wordsworth's, _The_
Priest, Dr.
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, Browne's
_QUARTERLY Review, The_
Queensberry, Duchess of
RABELAIS
Racine, Jean
Radcliffe, Dr. John
Raleigh, Sir Walter
Randall, John
Ravenscroft, Edward
Reynolds' _Peter Bell_, John Hamilton
---- _The Fancy_
Richardson, Samuel
Richelieu, Cardinal
_Rimini_, Leigh Hunt's
Robinson, Henry Crabb
Robinson, Perdita
Rochefoucauld, La
_Roman Bourgeois, Le_, Furetière's
_Roman Empress_, Joyner's
Ronsard
Roscommon, Earl of
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
Roubillac
Rowe, Nicholas
_Roxana_, Defoe
Roy (Poet)
Rutland, Poems of Duke of
SACKVILLE, Lord Buckhurst, Thomas
Sadler, Thomas
Sainte-Beuve
Saint-Simon
_Sampson Agonista_, Milton's
Sandford, Mrs.
Savage, Richard
Scarron
Scott, Sir Walter
Scudéry, Mlle. de
Sedley, Sir Charles
_Selborne_, White's _The Natural History of_
_Sertorius_, Bancroft's
Settle, Elkanah
Sevigné, Mme. de
Shadwell, Thomas
Shaftesbury's _Enquiry Concerning Virtue_
_Shaving of Shagpat_, George Meredith's _The_
Shelley
_Shepheards Hunting_, Wither's _The_
_Shipwreck_, Falconer's _The_
Shirley, James
Sidney's _Arcadia_
_Sir Harry Wildair_, Farquhar's
Skelton's Contribution to _Mirror for Magistrates_
Smart, Christopher
Smollett, Tobias
Smythe (_see_ Lord Strangford), George Percy Sydney
Solly, Edward
_Song to David_, Smart's
Sorel, Charles
Southerne, Thomas
Southey, Robert
_Spleen, Ode on the_
Stecchetti, Lorenzo
Stone, Nicholas
Strangford, Lord
Suckling, Sir John
_Sugar Cane_, Grainger's _The_
Swift, Dean
TEMPLE, Sir William
Thackeray, W.M.
_Tom Crib_, Moore's
_Tom Jones_, Fielding
Tooke, Horne
Tradescant, John
_Traveller_, Goldsmith's _The_
Trotter's _Fatal Friendship_, Catherine
Turner, J.M.W.
Tyers, Thomas
_Ultra-crepidarius_, Leigh Hunt's
_Usurper_, Howard's
VANBRUGH, Sir John
Vanbrugh's _Aesop_
Vaugelas
Vaughan, Henry
Vayer, La Mothe le
Verlaine, Paul
Verrall, Dr. A.W.
_View of Christianity_, Soame Jenyns'
Voltaire
_WAGGONER_, Wordsworth's _The_
_Waggoner, Benjamin the_
Walker, Anthony (Engraver)
Walpole, Horace
Walton, Izaak
Warburton, Bishop
Weston's _Amazon Queen_
What Ann Lang Read
White, Rev. Gilbert
_Wife to be Lett_, Eliza Haywood's _A_
Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of
Winstanley, William,
Wither, George
Wordsworth, William
Wordsworth's _Lyrical Ballads_
Wright, Mr. W. Aldis
Wycherley, William
YALDEN, Robert