This is certainly an age of very merciful tendencies. The severity of
the criminal laws has been greatly abated; and, in conformity with the
views of the legislature, we have, of late years, been gradually
relaxing the stringency of our critical code. Yet we question whether
the change has been productive of good, and whether the result can be
said to have answered the expectations either of government or of
ourselves. We doubt whether crime has diminished in consequence of the
legislative clemency; and, in our own humble department, we are now
convinced that the mild method is not the best way of bringing singers
to repentance. The experiment has been fairly tried, and the numerous
trashy publications put forth by the young writers of the day,
particularly in the poetical line, convince us that our mercy has been
misplaced; and that a little well-timed severity, and a few examples
held up _in terrorem_, might have greatly benefited the literary
wellbeing of England. The "spirit of the age" might have been different
from what it is, if the just sentence of the law had been more
frequently carried into effect. Our timely strictures might not have
kindled into song any masculine intellect, but they might have prevented
the temple of the Muses from being desecrated. They might have prevented
the appearance of such a publication as this. In the days of the knout,
we believe that no such volume as Mr Coventry Patmore's could have
ventured to crawl out of manuscript into print. While we admit, then,
that we have to blame our own forbearance in some degree for its
appearance, we think it our duty to take this opportunity of amending
our code of criticism, and shall try the volume simply as it stands, and
somewhat according to the good old principles of literary jurisprudence.
We are further instigated to this act of duty by the laudatory terms in
which the volume has been hailed by certain contemporary journalists.
Had Mr Patmore's injudicious friends not thought proper to announce him
to the world as the brightest rising star in the poetical firmament of
Young England, we would probably have allowed his effusions to die of
their own utter insignificance. But since they have acted as they have
done, we too must be permitted to express our opinion of their merits;
and our deliberate judgment is, that the weakest inanity ever
perpetrated in rhyme by the vilest poetaster of any former generation,
becomes masculine verse when contrasted with the nauseous pulings of Mr
Patmore's muse. Indeed, we question whether the strains of any poetaster
can be considered vile, when brought into comparison with this
gentleman's verses. His silly and conceited rhapsodies rather make us
sigh for the good old times when all poetry, below the very highest, was
made up of artifice and conventionalism; when all poets, except the very
greatest, spoke a hereditary dialect of their own, which nobody else
interfered with--counted on their fingers every line they penned, and
knew no inspiration except that which they imbibed from Byssh's rhyming
dictionary. True that there was then no life or spirit in the poetical
vocabulary--true that there was no nature in the delineations of our
minor poets; but better far was such language than the slip-slop
vulgarities of the present rhymester--better far that there should be no
nature in poetry, than _such_ nature as Mr Patmore has exhibited for the
entertainment of his readers.
The first poem in the volume, entitled "The River," is a tale of
disappointed love, terminating in the suicide of the lover. Poor and
pointless as this performance is, it is by far the best in the book. As
Mr Patmore advances, there is a marked increase of silliness and
affectation in his effusions, which shows how sedulously he has
cultivated the art of sinking in poetry; and that the same adage which
has been applied to vice, may be applied also to folly, "_Nemo repente
fuit stultissimus_." Never was there a richer offering laid on the
shrine of the goddess _Stultia_ than the tale of Sir Hubert, with which
the volume concludes. But our business at present is with "The River."
The common practice of writers who deal with stories of love, whose
"course never did run smooth," is to make their heroes commit suicide,
on finding that the ladies whom they had wooed in vain were married to
other people. But in the poem before us, Mr Patmore improves upon this
method; he drowns his lover, Witchaire, because the lady, whom he had
never wooed at all, does not marry him, but gives her hand (why should
she not?) to the man who sues for it. Did Witchaire expect that the lady
was to propose to him? The poem opens with some very babyish verses
descriptive of an "old manor hall":--
"Its huge fantastic weather-vanes
_Look happy_ in the light;
Its warm face through the foliage gleams,
A _comfortable_ sight."