Now had fyery Phlegon his dayes reuolution ended,
And his snoring snowt with salt waues all to bee washed.
Witty Tom Nash was right enough when he called this kind of stuff, "that
drunken, staggering kinde of verse which is all vp hill and downe hill,
like the waye betwixt Stamford and Beechfeeld, and goes like a horse
plunging through the myre in the deep of winter, now soust up to the
saddle, and straight aloft on his tiptoes." It will be noticed that his
prose falls into a kind of tipsy hexameter. The attempt in England at
that time failed, but the controversy to which it gave rise was so far
useful that it called forth Samuel Daniel's "Defence of Ryme" (1603),
one of the noblest pieces of prose in the language. Hall also, in his
"Satires," condemned the heresy in some verses remarkable for their
grave beauty and strength.
The revival of the hexameter in modern poetry is due to Johann Heinrich
Voss, a man of genius, an admirable metrist, and, Schlegel's sneer to
the contrary notwithstanding, hitherto the best translator of Homer. His
"Odyssey" (1783), his "Iliad" (1791), and his "Luise" (1795), were
confessedly Goethe's teachers in this kind of verse. The "Hermann and
Dorothea" of the latter (1798) was the first true poem written in modern
hexameters. From Germany, Southey imported that and other classic metres
into England, and we should be grateful to him, at least, for having
given the model for Canning's "Knife-grinder." The exotic, however,
again refused to take root, and for many years after we have no example
of English hexameters. It was universally conceded that the temper of
our language was unfriendly to them.
It remained for a man of true poetic genius to make them not only
tolerated, but popular. Longfellow's translation of "The Children of the
Lord's Supper" may have softened prejudice somewhat, but "Evangeline"
(1847), though encumbered with too many descriptive irrelevancies, was
so full of beauty, pathos, and melody, that it made converts by
thousands to the hitherto ridiculed measure. More than this, it made
Longfellow at once the most popular of contemporary English poets.
Clough's "Bothie"--poem whose singular merit has hitherto failed of the
wide appreciation it deserves--followed not long after; and Kingsley's
"Andromeda" is yet damp from the press.
While we acknowledge that the victory thus won by "Evangeline" is a
striking proof of the genius of the author, we confess that we have
never been able to overcome the feeling that the new metre is a
dangerous and deceitful one. It is too easy to write, and too uniform
for true pleasure in reading. Its ease sometimes leads Mr. Longfellow
into prose,--as in the verse
Combed and wattled gules and all the rest of the blazon,
and into a prosaic phraseology which has now and then infected his style
in other metres, as where he says
Spectral gleam their snow-white _dresses_,
using a word as essentially unpoetic as "surtout or pea-jacket." We
think one great danger of the hexameter is, that it gradually accustoms
the poet to be content with a certain regular recurrence of accented
sounds, to the neglect of the poetic value of language and intensity of
phrase.
But while we frankly avow our infidelity as regards the metre, we as
frankly confess our admiration of the high qualities of "Miles
Standish." In construction we think it superior to "Evangeline"; the
narrative is more straightforward, and the characters are defined with a
firmer touch. It is a poem of wonderful picturesqueness, tenderness, and
simplicity, and the situations are all conceived with the truest
artistic feeling. Nothing can be better, to our thinking, than the
picture of Standish and Alden in the opening scene, tinged as it is with
a delicate humor, which the contrast between the thoughts and characters
of the two heightens almost to pathos. The pictures of Priscilla
spinning, and the bridal procession, are also masterly. We feel charmed
to see such exquisite imaginations conjured out of the little old
familiar anecdote of John Alden's vicarious wooing. We are astonished,
like the fisherman in the Arabian tale, that so much genius could be
contained in so small and leaden a casket. Those who cannot associate
sentiment with the fair Priscilla's maiden name of Mullins may be
consoled by hearing that it is only a corruption of the Huguenot
Desmoulins--as Barnum is of the Norman Vernon.
Indifferent poets comfort themselves with the notion that contemporary
popularity is no test of merit, and that true poetry must always wait
for a new generation to do it justice. The theory is not true in any
general sense. With hardly an exception, the poetry that was ever to
receive a wide appreciation has received it at once. Popularity in
itself is no test of permanent literary fame, but the kind of it is and
always has been a very decided one. Mr. Longfellow has been greatly
popular because he so greatly deserved it. He has the secret of all the
great poets--the power of expressing universal sentiments simply and
naturally. A false standard of criticism has obtained of late, which
brings a brick as a sample of the house, a line or two of condensed
expression as a gauge of the poem. But it is only the whole poem that is
a proof of the poem, and there are twenty fragmentary poets, for one who
is capable of simple and sustained beauty. Of this quality Mr.
Longfellow has given repeated and striking examples, and those critics
are strangely mistaken who think that what he does is easy to be done,
because he has the power to make it seem so. We think his chief fault is
a too great tendency to moralize, or rather, a distrust of his readers,
which leads him to point out the moral which he wishes to be drawn from
any special poem. We wish, for example, that the last two stanzas could
be cut off from "The Two Angels," a poem which, without them, is as
perfect as anything in the language.
Many of the pieces in this volume having already shone as captain jewels
in Maga's carcanet, need no comment from us; and we should, perhaps,
have avoided the delicate responsibility of criticizing one of our most
precious contributors, had it not been that we have seen some very
unfair attempts to depreciate Mr. Longfellow, and that, as it seemed to
us, for qualities which stamp him as a true and original poet. The
writer who appeals to more peculiar moods of mind, to more complex or
more esoteric motives of emotion, may be a greater favorite with the
few; but he whose verse is in sympathy with moods that are human and not
personal, with emotions that do not belong to periods in the development
of individual minds, but to all men in all years, wins the gratitude and
love of whoever can read the language which he makes musical with solace
and aspiration. The present volume, while it will confirm Mr.
Longfellow's claim to the high rank he has won among lyric poets,
deserves attention also as proving him to possess that faculty of epic
narration which is rarer than all others in the nineteenth century. In
our love of stimulants, and our numbness of taste, which craves the red
pepper of a biting vocabulary, we of the present generation are apt to
overlook this almost obsolete and unobtrusive quality; but we doubt if,
since Chaucer, we have had an example of more purely objective narrative
than in "The Courtship of Miles Standish." Apart from its intrinsic
beauty, this gives the poem a claim to higher and more thoughtful
consideration; and we feel sure that posterity will confirm the verdict
of the present in regard to a poet whose reputation is due to no
fleeting fancy, but to an instinctive recognition by the public of that
which charms now and charms always,--true power and originality, without
grimace and distortion; for Apollo, and not Milo, is the artistic type
of strength.