almost where Mr. Lamb's ends,--with the Spectator, Tom Brown's works,
and the wits of Queen Anne. He is not bottomed in our elder writers, nor
do we think he has tasked his own faculties much, at least on English
ground. Of the merit of his _Knicker-bocker,_ and New York stories,
we cannot pretend to judge. But in his _Sketch-book_ and
_Bracebridge-Hall_ he gives us very good American copies of our British
Essayists and Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of the
water, and as proofs of the capabilities of the national genius, but
which might be dispensed with here, where we have to boast of the
originals. Not only Mr. Irvine's language is with great taste and
felicity modelled on that of Addison, Sterne, Goldsmith, or Mackenzie;
but the thoughts and sentiments are taken at the rebound, and as they
are brought forward at the present period, want both freshness and
probability. Mr. Irvine's writings are literary _anachronisms_. He comes
to England for the first time; and being on the spot, fancies himself in
the midst of those characters and manners which he had read of in the
Spectator and other approved authors, and which were the only idea he
had hitherto formed of the parent country. Instead of looking round
to see what _we are_, he sets to work to describe us as _we were_--at
second hand. He has Parson Adams, or Sir Roger de Coverley in his
"_mind's eye_"; and he makes a village curate, or a country 'squire in
Yorkshire or Hampshire sit to these admired models for their portraits
in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Whatever the ingenious
author has been most delighted with in the representations of books, he
transfers to his port-folio, and swears that he has found it actually
existing in the course of his observation and travels through Great
Britain. Instead of tracing the changes that have taken place in society
since Addison or Fielding wrote, he transcribes their account in a
different hand-writing, and thus keeps us stationary, at least in our
most attractive and praise-worthy qualities of simplicity, honesty,
hospitality, modesty, and good-nature. This is a very flattering mode
of turning fiction into history, or history into fiction; and we should
scarcely know ourselves again in the softened and altered likeness,
but that it bears the date of 1820, and issues from the press in
Albemarle-street. This is one way of complimenting our national and
Tory prejudices; and coupled with literal or exaggerated portraits of
_Yankee_ peculiarities, could hardly fail to please. The first Essay in
the _Sketch-book_, that on National Antipathies, is the best; but after
that, the sterling ore of wit or feeling is gradually spun thinner and
thinner, till it fades to the shadow of a shade. Mr. Irvine is himself,
we believe, a most agreeable and deserving man, and has been led into
the natural and pardonable error we speak of, by the tempting bait of
European popularity, in which he thought there was no more likely method
of succeeding than by imitating the style of our standard authors, and
giving us credit for the virtues of our forefathers.
[Footnote A: The description of sports in the forest:
"To see the sun to bed and to arise,
Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes," &c.]
* * * * *
We should not feel that we had discharged our obligations to truth or
friendship, if we were to let this volume go without introducing into it
the name of the author of _Virginius_. This is the more proper, inasmuch
as he is a character by himself, and the only poet now living that is a
mere poet. If we were asked what sort of a man Mr. Knowles is, we could
only say, "he is the writer of Virginius." His most intimate friends see
nothing in him, by which they could trace the work to the author. The
seeds of dramatic genius are contained and fostered in the warmth of the
blood that flows in his veins; his heart dictates to his head. The most
unconscious, the most unpretending, the most artless of mortals, he
instinctively obeys the impulses of natural feeling, and produces a
perfect work of art. He has hardly read a poem or a play or seen any
thing of the world, but he hears the anxious beatings of his own heart,
and makes others feel them by the force of sympathy. Ignorant alike
of rules, regardless of models, he follows the steps of truth and
simplicity; and strength, proportion, and delicacy are the infallible
results. By thinking of nothing but his subject, he rivets the attention
of the audience to it. All his dialogue tends to action, all his
situations form classic groups. There is no doubt that Virginius is the
best acting tragedy that has been produced on the modern stage. Mr.
Knowles himself was a player at one time, and this circumstance has
probably enabled him to judge of the picturesque and dramatic effect of
his lines, as we think it might have assisted Shakespear. There is
no impertinent display, no flaunting poetry; the writer immediately
conceives how a thought would tell if he had to speak it himself. Mr.
Knowles is the first tragic writer of the age; in other respects he is
a common man; and divides his time and his affections between his
plots and his fishing-tackle, between the Muses' spring, and those
mountain-streams which sparkle like his own eye, that gush out like his
own voice at the sight of an old friend. We have known him almost from a
child, and we must say he appears to us the same boy-poet that he ever
was. He has been cradled in song, and rocked in it as in a dream,
forgetful of himself and of the world!
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Spirit of the Age, by William Hazlitt