Let it be no surprise to you that, in the close of my last Letter, I
presumed to bring the _Gierusalemme liberata_ into competition with the
_Iliad_.
So far as the heroic and _Gothic_ manners are the same, the pictures of
each, if well taken, must be equally entertaining. But I go further,
and maintain that the circumstances, in which they differ, are clearly
to the advantage of the _Gothic_ designers.
You see, my purpose is to lead you from this forgotten Chivalry to a
more amusing subject; I mean, the _Poetry_ we still read, though it was
founded upon it.
Much has been said, and with great truth, of the felicity of HOMER’S
age, for poetical manners. But, as HOMER was a citizen of the world,
when he had seen in _Greece_, on the one hand, the manners he has
described, could he, on the other hand, have seen in the West the
manners of the feudal ages, I make no doubt but he would certainly
have preferred the latter. And the grounds of this preference would, I
suppose, have been, “_the improved gallantry of the Gothic knights_;
and the _superior solemnity of their superstitions_.”
If any great poet, like HOMER, had flourished in these times, and
given the feudal manners from the _life_ (for, after all, SPENSER and
TASSO came too late, and it was impossible for them to paint truly and
perfectly what was no longer seen or believed); this preference, I
persuade myself, had been very sensible. But their fortune was not so
happy:
——omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
As it is, we may take a guess of what the subject was capable of
affording to real genius, from the rude sketches we have of it in the
old Romancers. And it is but looking into any of them to be convinced,
that the GALLANTRY, which inspired the feudal times, was of a nature to
furnish the poet with finer scenes and subjects of description in every
view, than the simple and uncontrolled barbarity of the _Grecian_.
The principal entertainment arising from the delineation of these
consists in the exercise of the boisterous passions, which are
provoked and kept alive, from one end of the _Iliad_ to the other,
by every imaginable scene of rage, revenge, and slaughter. In the
other, together with these, the gentler and more humane affections are
awakened in us by the most interesting displays of love and friendship;
of love, elevated to its noblest heights; and of friendship, operating
on the purest motives. The mere variety of these paintings is a relief
to the reader, as well as writer. But their beauty, novelty, and
pathos, give them a vast advantage, on the comparison.
So that, on the whole, though the spirit, passions, rapine, and
violence, of the two sets of manners were equal, yet there was an
elegance, a variety, a dignity in the feudal, which the other wanted.
As to RELIGIOUS MACHINERY, perhaps the popular system of each was
equally remote from reason; yet the latter had something in it more
amusing, as well as more awakening to the imagination.
The current popular tales of Elves and Fairies were even fitter to
take the credulous mind, and charm it into a willing admiration of the
_specious miracles_ which wayward fancy delights in, than those of the
old traditionary rabble of Pagan divinities. And then, for the more
solemn fancies of witchcraft and incantation, the _Gothic_ are above
measure striking and terrible.
You will tell me, perhaps, that these fancies, as terrible as they
were, are but of a piece with those of Pagan superstition; and that
nothing can exceed what the classic writers have related or feigned of
its magic and necromantic horrors.
To spare you the trouble of mustering up against me all that your
extensive knowledge of antiquity would furnish, let me confess to you
that many of the ancient poets have occasionally adorned this theme.
If, among twenty others, I select only the names of OVID, SENECA, and
LUCAN, it is, because these writers, by the character of their genius,
were best qualified for the task, and have, besides, exerted their
whole strength upon it. LUCAN, especially, has drawn out all the pomp
of his eloquence in celebrating those THESSALIAN CHARMS,
ficti quas nulla licentia monstri
Transierat, quarum, quicquid non creditur, ars est.
Yet STILL I pretend to shew you that all his prodigies, fall short
of the _Gothic_: and you will come the less reluctantly into my
sentiments, if you reflect, “THAT the thick and troubled stream of
superstition, which flowed so plentifully in the classic ages, has been
constantly deepening and darkening by the confluence of those supplies,
which ignorance and corrupted religion have poured in upon it.”
First, you will call to mind that all the gloomy visions of dæmons and
spirits, which sprung out of the Alexandrian or Platonic philosophy,
were in the later ages of Paganism engrafted on the old stock of
classic superstition. These portentous dreams, _new hatched to the
woful time_, as SHAKESPEAR speaks, enabled APULEIUS to outdo LUCAN
himself, in some of his magic scenes and exhibitions.
Next, you will observe that a fresh and exhaustless swarm of the
direst superstitions took their birth in the frozen regions of the
North, and were naturally enough conceived in the imaginations of a
people involved in tenfold darkness; I mean, in the thickest shades
of ignorance, as well as in the gloom of their comfortless woods and
forests. I call these the _direst superstitions_; for though the South
and East may have produced some that shew more wild and fantastic, yet
those of the North have ever been of a more sombrous and horrid aspect,
agreeably to the singular circumstances and situation of that savage
and benighted people.
These dismal fancies, which the barbarians carried out with them in
their migrations into the North-west, took the readier and the faster
hold of men’s minds, from the kindred darkness into which the Western
world was then fallen, and from the desolation (so apt to engender all
fearful conceits and apprehensions) which every where attended the
incursions of those ravagers.
Lastly, before the Romancers applied themselves to dress up these
dreadful stories, Christian superstition had grown to its height,
and had transferred on the magic system all its additional and
supernumerary horrors.
Taking, now, the whole together, you will clearly see what we are to
conclude of the _Gothic_ system of prodigy and enchantment; which was
not so properly a single system, as the aggregate,
—of all that nature breeds
Perverse; all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Which fables yet had feign’d or fear conceiv’d.
For, to the frightful forms of ancient necromancy (which easily
travelled down to us, when the fairer offspring of pagan invention lost
its way, or was swallowed up in the general darkness of the barbarous
ages) were now joined the hideous phantasms which had terrified the
Northern nations; and, to complete the horrid groupe, with these
were incorporated the still more tremendous spectres of Christian
superstition.
In this state of things, as I said, the Romancers went to work; and
with these multiplied images of terror on their minds, you will
conclude, without being at the pains to form particular comparisons,
that they must manage ill indeed, not to surpass, in this walk of
magical incantation, the original classic fablers.
But, if you require a comparison, I can tell you where it is to be
made, with much ease, and to great advantage: I mean, in SHAKESPEAR’S
_Macbeth_, where you will find (as his best critic observes) “the
_Danish_ or _Northern_, intermixed with the _Greek_ and _Roman_
enchantments; and all these worked up together with a sufficient
quantity of our own country superstitions. So that SHAKESPEAR’S
_Witch-Scenes_ (as the same writer adds) are like the _charms_ they
prepare in one of them: where the ingredients are gathered from every
thing shocking in the _natural_ world; as here, from every thing absurd
in the _moral_.”
Or, if you suspect this instance, as deriving somewhat of its force
and plausibility from the _magic_ hand of this critic, you may turn to
another in a great poet of that time; who has been at the pains to make
the comparison himself, and whose word, as he gives it in honest prose,
may surely be taken.
In a work of B. JONSON, which he calls THE MASQUE OF QUEENS, there are
some Witch-scenes; written with singular care, and in emulation, as it
may seem, of SHAKESPEAR’S; but certainly with the view (for so he tells
us himself) _of reconciling the practice of antiquity to the neoteric,
and making it familiar with our popular witchcraft_.
This Masque is accompanied with notes of the learned author, who
had rifled all the stores of ancient and modern _Dæmonomagy_, to
furnish out his entertainment; and who takes care to inform us, under
each head, whence he had fetched the ingredients, out of which it is
compounded.
In this elaborate work of JONSON you have, then, an easy opportunity of
comparing the ancient with the modern magic. And though, as he was an
idolater of the ancients, you will expect him to draw freely from that
source, yet from the large use he makes, too, of his other more recent
authorities, you will perceive that some of the darkest shades of his
picture are owing to hints and circumstances which he had catched, and
could only catch, from the _Gothic_ enchantments. Even such of these
circumstances, as, taken by themselves, seem of less moment, should not
be overlooked, since (as the poet well observes of them) _though they
be but minutes in ceremony, yet they make the act more dark and full of
horror_.
Thus MUCH, then, may serve for a cast of SHAKESPEAR’S and JONSON’S
magic: abundantly sufficient, I must think, to convince you of the
superiority of the _Gothic_ charms and incantations, to the classic.
Though, after all, the conclusion is not to be drawn so much from
particular passages, as from the _general impression_ left on our
minds, in reading the ancient and modern poets. And this is so much
in favour of the _latter_, that Mr. ADDISON scruples not to say, “The
ancients have not much of this poetry among them; for indeed (continues
he) almost the whole substance of it owes its original to the darkness
and superstition of later ages—Our forefathers looked upon nature with
more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning
and philosophy; and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions
of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a
village in _England_, that had not a ghost in it; the church-yards were
all haunted; every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to
it; and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with, who had not seen a
spirit.”
We are upon enchanted ground, my friend; and you are to think yourself
well used, that I detain you no longer in this fearful circle. The
glympse, you have had of it, will help your imagination to conceive
the rest. And without more words you will readily apprehend that
the fancies of our modern bards are not only more gallant, but, on
a change of the scene, more sublime, more terrible, more alarming,
than those of the classic fablers. In a word, you will find that the
_manners_ they paint, and the _superstitions_ they adopt, are the more
poetical for being _Gothic_.