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[Illustration: (handwritten) Very truly yours,
Thomas de Quincey.]
THE UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
WITH
A PREFACE AND ANNOTATIONS
BY
JAMES HOGG.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1890.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
PREFACE.
'_The last fruit off an old tree!_' This, in the words of WALTER
SAVAGE LANDOR, is what I have now the honour to set before the public
in these hitherto 'UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY.'
It was my privilege to be associated intimately with the Author some
thirty to forty years ago--from the beginning of 1850 until his death
in 1859.[1] Throughout the whole period during which he was engaged in
preparing for the Press his _Selections Grave and Gay_, I assisted in
the task.
[Footnote 1: DE QUINCEY, LEIGH HUNT, and MACAULAY all died in that
year.]
Of the singularly pleasant literary intercourse of that memorable time
I have given some reminiscences in _Harper's Magazine_ for this month.
I may yet combine in a Volume with these some amusing, scholarly
letters in my possession, and a Selection of Papers from the original
sources, which I feel warranted, by the Author's own estimate, in
calling _De Quincey's Choice Works_. Meantime, in dealing with the
various Essays and Stories here gathered together, I limit myself to
such notes as are necessary to point out the special circumstances
under which some of the papers were written; in others the nature of
the evidence I have found as to the indisputable authorship.
My special opportunities, derived from constant companionship and the
continuous discussion with DE QUINCEY of matters concerning his
writings, gave me the key to some of the admirable papers here
reprinted. It also entitles me to say, that he would have included a
number of them in his Collected Works alongside the _Suspiria de
Profundis_ (Sighs from the Depths), had he lived to continue his
labours.
When we find that most part of the _Suspiria_--perhaps the highest
reach of his intellect in impassioned power--did not appear in the
_Selections_ at all, the reader will at once understand that, in the
Author's own opinion, the Essays and Stories now first collected, were
neither less dignified in purpose nor less finished in style than
those which had passed under his hand in the fourteen volumes he
nearly completed. Rather like the _Suspiria_, some of these papers
were reserved as material upon the revision of which his energy might
be fitly bestowed when health would permit.
* * * * *
The interesting papers which appeared in _Tait's Magazine_ are all
duly vouched for in that periodical. I have not touched any of the
autobiographical matter which appeared in _Tait_,--the Author having
recast that as well as the _Sketches from Childhood_, published in
_The Instructor_ in the 'Autobiographic Sketches' with which he
opened the _Selections_. _The Casuistry of Duelling_, indeed, appeared
in _Tait_ as part of the Autobiographic Series, but, practically, it
stood as an independent paper. The touching personal passage in this
article reveals the misery caused by the unbridled scurrility of
certain notorious publications of the last generation.
The paper on _The German Language_ appeared in _Tait_ in June 1836,
and the _Brief Appraisal of Greek Literature_ in December 1838 and
June 1839.
* * * * *
Two long and valuable papers on _Education; Plans for the Instruction
of Boys in Large Numbers_, which appeared in _The London Magazine_ for
April and May, 1824, were duly authenticated by the following
characteristic letter from DE QUINCEY to CHRISTOPHER NORTH. It appears
in _Professor Wilson's Life_, written by his daughter, MRS. GORDON:--
'_London, Thursday, February 24th, 1825._
'MY DEAR WILSON,
'I write to you on the following occasion:--Some time ago, perhaps
nearly two years ago, Mr. Hill, a lawyer, published a book on
Education, detailing a plan on which his brothers had established a
school at Hazlewood, in Warwickshire. This book I reviewed in the
_London Magazine_, and in consequence received a letter of thanks from
the Author, who, on my coming to London about midsummer last year,
called on me. I have since become intimate with him, and, excepting
that he is a sad Jacobin (as I am obliged to tell him once or twice a
month), I have no one fault to find with him, for he is a very clever,
amiable, good creature as ever existed; and in particular directions
his abilities strike me as really very great indeed. Well, his book
has just been reviewed in the last _Edinburgh Review_ (of which some
copies have been in town about a week). This service has been done
him, I suppose, _through_ some of his political friends--(for he is
connected with Brougham, Lord Lansdowne, old Bentham, etc.),--but I
understand _by_ Mr. Jeffrey. Mr. Hill, in common with multitudes in
this Babylon--who will not put their trust in Blackwood as in God
(which, you know, he ought to do)--yet privately adores him as the
Devil; and indeed publicly too, is a great _prôneur_ of Blackwood.
For, in spite of his Jacobinism, he is liberal and inevitably just to
real wit. His fear is--that Blackwood may come as Nemesis, and compel
him to regorge any puffing and cramming which Tiff has put into his
pocket, and is earnest to have a letter addressed in an influential
quarter to prevent this. I alleged to him that I am not quite sure but
it is an affront to a Professor to presume that he has any connection
as contributor, or anything else, to any work which he does not
publicly avow as his organ for communicating with the world of
letters. He answers that it would be so in him,--but that an old
friend may write _sub rosa_. I rejoin that I know not but you may have
cut Blackwood--even as a subscriber--a whole lustrum ago. He rebuts,
by urging a just compliment paid to you, as a supposed contributor, in
the _News of Literature and Fashion_, but a moon or two ago.
Seriously, I have told him that I know not what was the extent of your
connection with Blackwood at _any_ time; and that I conceive the
labours of your Chair in the University must now leave you little
leisure for any but occasional contributions, and therefore for no
regular cognizance of the work as director, etc. However, as all that
he wishes--is simply an interference to save him from any very severe
article, and not an article in his favour, I have ventured to ask of
you if you hear of any such thing, to use such influence as must
naturally belong to you in your general character (whether maintaining
any connection with Blackwood or not) to get it softened. On the
whole, I suppose no such article is likely to appear. But to oblige
Hill I make the application. He has no _direct_ interest in the
prosperity of Hazlewood; he is himself a barrister in considerable
practice, and of some standing, I believe; but he takes a strong
paternal interest in it, all his brothers (who are accomplished young
men, I believe) being engaged in it. They have already had one shock
to stand: a certain Mr. Place, a Jacobin friend of the School till
just now, having taken the pet with it--and removed his sons. Now this
Mr. Place, who was formerly a tailor--leather-breeches maker and
habit-maker,--having made a fortune and finished his studies,--is
become an immense authority as a political and reforming head with
Bentham, etc., as also with the _Westminster Review_, in which quarter
he is supposed to have the weight of nine times nine men; whence, by
the way, in the "circles" of the booksellers, the Review has got the
name of the _Breeches Review_.' ... [The writer then passes on to
details of his own plans and prospects, and thus concludes.]
'I beg my kind regards to Mrs. Wilson and my young friends, whom I
remember with so much interest as I last saw them at Elleray.--I am,
my dear Wilson,
'Very affectionately yours,
'THOMAS DE QUINCEY.'
* * * * *
In approaching the consideration of other papers said, in various
quarters (with some show of authority) to have been written by DE
QUINCEY, it was necessary to act with extreme care. One was a
painstaking list on the whole, but very inaccurate as regards certain
contributions attributed to DE QUINCEY in _Blackwood_. I have had the
kind aid of MESSRS. BLACKWOOD in examining the archives of _Maga_ to
settle the points in question.
I was puzzled by some papers in _The London Magazine_ set down as DE
QUINCEY'S contributions in a memorandum said to have been furnished by
MESSRS. TAYLOR and HESSEY, its Publishers. The _Blackwood_ blunders
made me very sceptical. There was one story in particular--the long
droll one of _Mr. Schnackenberger; or, Two Masters to one Dog_, about
which I remained in doubt.
I had a faint recollection that one day DE QUINCEY dwelt on the merits
of 'JUNO,' and owned the story when he was discussing 'bull-dogs.'
By the way, he was rather fond of 'bull-dogs,' and had some good
anecdotes about them. It was a kind of pet-admiration-horror which he
shared with SOUTHEY, on account of the difficulty in making a
well-bred bull-dog relax his grip. Some member of the canine 'fancy'
down at the Lakes had given them a so-called infallible 'tip' for
making a bull-dog let go. I am sorry to say I have quite forgotten
this admirable receipt. To be sure, one ought never to forget such
valuable pieces of information. So I thought one day lately before the
muzzling order came into force, when a bloodthirsty monster,--a big,
white bull-dog, sprang suddenly at me in Cleveland Gardens. Instantly
there flashed the thought--what was it that DE QUINCEY recommended? A
lucky lunge which drove the ferule of my umbrella down the brute's
throat fortunately created a diversion, and allowed a little more time
for the study of the problem. Perhaps I will be pardoned this
digression, as it affords an opportunity of recording the fact that DE
QUINCEY and SOUTHEY both looked up to the bull-dog as an animal of
very decided 'character.'
I was loth to abandon _Mr. Schnackenberger_, but unwilling to lean
too much on my somewhat hazy remembrance. It seemed almost hopeless to
obtain the necessary evidence. MESSRS. TAYLOR and HESSEY were long
dead, and after groping about like a detective, no one could tell me
what had become of the records of _The London Magazine_. Suddenly
there came light in October last. I ascertained that a son of one of
the Publishers is the ARCHDEACON of MIDDLESEX, the Venerable J. A.
HESSEY, D.C.L.
I stated the case, and the worthy ARCHDEACON came most kindly and
promptly to my assistance. As a boy he remembered DE QUINCEY at his
father's house, and recollected very well reading _Mr. Schnackenberger_.
He informed me, 'I was greatly interested in the [London] Magazine
generally, so much so, that, at my father's request, I copied from his
private list, and attached to the head of each paper the name of the
Author.... This interesting set came to me at my father's death.'
DR. HESSEY had subsequently presented the series to his old pupil, MR.
WILLIAM CAREW HAZLITT (by whose courtesy I have been able to examine
it)--'the grandson of WILLIAM HAZLITT, who was a frequent writer in
the Magazine, and an old friend of my father. I thought he would like
to possess it, and that it would thus be in fitting hands. I should
not have parted with it in favour of any but a man like MR. HAZLITT,
who was sure to value it.'
As these valuable annotations of the ARCHDEACON ramify in various
directions--touching as they do the contributions of many brilliant
men of that period--it may not be amiss (as a possible help to others
in the future) to add a few more decisive words by DR. HESSEY:--
'If any papers are not marked (he refers only to those volumes
actually published by MESSRS. TAYLOR and HESSEY) it was because they
were anonymous, or because, from some inadvertency, they were not
assigned in my father's list. _So far as the record goes, it may be
depended upon._'
By its help I was able to fix the authorship by DE QUINCEY of (1) _The
Dog Story_--translated from the German, (2) _Moral Effects of
Revolutions_, (3) _Prefigurations of Remote Events_, (4) _Abstract of
Swedenborgianism by Immanuel Kant_.
* * * * *
Another perplexing element was the letter written by DE QUINCEY to his
uncle, COLONEL PENSON, in 1819 (PAGE'S _Life_, vol. i. p. 207),
wherein reference is made to certain contributions to _Blackwood's
Magazine_ and _The Quarterly Review_.
The archives of _Maga_ I find go back only as far as 1825. As to _The
Quarterly Review_, I have MR. MURRAY'S authority for stating that DE
QUINCEY never wrote a line in it. Whether any contributions were ever
commissioned, paid for, and afterwards suppressed, I have been unable
to ascertain. As a matter of fact, the _Schiller_ Series referred to
in the letter to COLONEL PENSON was never reviewed in _The Quarterly_
at all.
DE QUINCEY as a Newspaper Editor forms the subject of a Chapter in
PAGE'S _Life_. Some extracts are there given from cuttings out of _The
Westmorland Gazette_ found amongst the Author's Papers. This
editorship (1818-19) was of short duration, and pursued under hostile
circumstances, such as distance from the Press, &c., which soon led to
DE QUINCEY'S resignation. I had hoped to add some further specimens of
the newspaper work, but have not, as yet, obtained access to a file of
the period. In any future edition I may be able to add this in an
Appendix.
* * * * *
_The Love-Charm._--In spite of the marvellous tenacity of DE QUINCEY'S
memory, even as to the very words of a passage in an Author which he
had, perhaps, only _once_ read, there were _blanks_ which confounded
himself. One of these bore on his contributions to KNIGHT'S _Quarterly
Magazine_. MR. FIELDS had been so generally careful in obtaining
sufficient authority for what he published, in the original American
edition, that DE QUINCEY good-humouredly gave the verdict against
himself, and 'supposed he _must_ be wrong' in thinking that some of
these special papers were not from his pen. Still,--he demurred, and
before including them in _The Selections Grave and Gay_, it was
resolved to institute an inquiry. Accordingly, about 1852, I was
deputed to interview MR. CHARLES KNIGHT, and request his aid. My
mission was to obtain, if possible, a correct list of the various
contributions to the _Quarterly Magazine_, including this
_Love-Charm_.
MR. KNIGHT, MR. RAMSAY (his first lieutenant, as he called him), and
myself all met at Fleet Street, where we had the archives of the old
_Quarterly Magazine_ turned up, and a list checked. I lately found
this particular story also referred to circumstantially in the annexed
paragraph contained in CHARLES KNIGHT'S _Passages of a Working Life_
(THORNE'S re-issue, vol. I. chap. x. p. 339).
'DE QUINCEY had written to me in December 1824, in the belief that, as
he expressed it, "many of your friends will rally about you, and urge
you to some new undertaking of the same kind. If that should happen, I
beg to say, that you may count upon me, as one of your men, for any
extent of labour, to the best of my power, which you may choose to
command." He wrote a translation of _The Love-Charm_ of TIECK, with a
notice of the Author. This is not reprinted in his Collected Works,
though perhaps it is the most interesting of his translations from the
German. In this spring and summer DE QUINCEY and I were in intimate
companionship. It was a pleasant time of intellectual intercourse for
me.'
There is no doubt _The Love-Charm_ would have been reprinted had the
Author lived to carry the _Selections_ farther.
* * * * *
The curious little Essay _On Novels_,--written in a Lady's Album, had
passed out of MR. DAVEY'S hands before I became aware of its
existence. The _facsimile_, however, taken for _The Archivist_, by an
expert like MR. NETHERCLIFT, shows that it is, unquestionably, in the
handwriting of DE QUINCEY. I have been unable to trace the 'FAIR
INCOGNITA' to whom it was addressed.
* * * * *
The compositions which were written for me when I edited _Titan_, and
which I now place before the public in volume form, after the lapse of
a whole generation (thirty-three years, to speak 'by the card'),
demand some special comment, particularly in their relation to the
_Selections Grave and Gay_.
_Titan_ was a half-crown monthly Magazine, a continuation in an
enlarged form of _The Instructor_. I had become the acting Editor of
its predecessor, _the New Series_ of _The Instructor_, working in
concert with my Father, the proprietor. In this _New Series_ there
appeared from DE QUINCEY'S pen _The Sphinx's Riddle_, _Judas
Iscariot_, the Series of _Sketches from Childhood_, and other notable
papers.
At that time I was but a young editor--young and, perhaps, a little
'curly,' as LORD BEACONSFIELD put it. DE QUINCEY, with a truly
paternal solicitude, gave me much good advice and valuable help, both
in the selection of subjects for the Magazine and in the mode of
handling them. The notes on _The Lake Dialect_, _Shakspere's Text and
Suetonius Unravelled_, were written to me in the form of Letters, and
published in _Titan_.
_Storms in English History_ was a consideration of part of MR.
FROUDE'S well-known book, which on its publication made a great stir
in the literary world, and profoundly impressed DE QUINCEY.
_How to write English_ was the first of a series projected for _The
Instructor_. It never got beyond this 'Introduction,' but the fragment
contains some matter well worthy of preservation.
The circumstances attending the composition of the four papers on _The
English in India_ and _The English in China_, I have explained at some
length in the introductory notices attached to them.
And now for a confession! The 'gentle reader' may, perhaps, feel a
momentary inclination to blame me when I reveal, that I rather stood
in the way of some brilliant articles which were very seriously
considered at this period.
DE QUINCEY was eager to write them, and I should have been glad indeed
to have had them for _Titan_, but for a fear of allowing the Author to
wander too far from the ever-present and irksome _Works_. Any possible
escape--even through other downright hard work, from this perplexing
labour was joyfully hailed by him as a hopeful chance of obtaining a
prosperous holiday.
For a little I wavered under the temptation (Reader,--was it not
great?)--the idea of having a little relaxation which would permit
some, at least, of these well-planned papers to be written. But I was
keenly alive to the danger which overtook us at last. We are daily
reminded that 'art is long and life is short.' I had already saved the
_Works_ from being strangled at their birth in a legal tussle with MR.
JOHN TAYLOR.[2] My Father was at my elbow anxiously inquiring about
the progress of the 'copy' for each succeeding volume. There were
eager friends also, on both sides of the Atlantic, pressing resolutely
for it. So--prudence prevailed, and we held as straightly on our way
as the Author's uncertain health would permit.
[Footnote 2: This incident was a complicated contention, concerning
the copyright of _The Confessions_, in which DE QUINCEY had long
allowed his rights to lie dormant. It was at last happily settled in
an amicable manner.]
Thus it came to pass, dear Public, that you lost some charming essays,
while you gained the fourteen volumes of the _Selections_ which the
Author all but completed.
Wherefore, seeing that you may possibly expect it of me to make some
use of my rare opportunities by doing whatever I can in these matters,
'before the night cometh,'--I have prepared this book--_ohne hast,
ohne rast_.
I cannot close these few pages better than by quoting some strong,
just, sympathetic words which appeared in two great reviews--one
American, the other British.
_The North American Review_ said:--
'In DE QUINCEY we are struck at once by the exquisite refinement of
mind, the subtleness of association, and the extreme tenuity of the
threads of thought, the gossamer filaments yet finally weaving
themselves together, and thickening imperceptibly into a strong and
expanded web. Mingled with this, and perhaps springing from a similar
mental habit, is an occasional dreaminess both in speculation and in
narrative, when the mind seems to move vaguely round in vast returning
circles. The thoughts catch hold of nothing, but are heaved and tossed
like masses of cloud by the wind. An incident of trivial import is
turned and turned to catch the light of every possible consequence,
and so magnified as to become portentous and terrible.'
* * * * *
'A barren and trivial fact, under the power of that life-giving hand,
shoots out on all sides into waving branches and green leaves, and
odoriferous flowers. It is not the fact that interests us, but the
mind working upon it, investing it with mock-heroic dignity, or
rendering it illustrative of really serious principles; or, with the
true insight of genius, discovering, in that which a vulgar eye would
despise, the germs of grandeur and beauty; the passions of war in the
contests of the rival factions of schoolboys, the tragedy in every
peasant's death-bed.'
* * * * *
'DE QUINCEY constantly amazes us by the amount and diversity of his
learning. Two or three of the minor papers in the collected volumes
are absolutely loaded with the life spoils of their author's
scholarship, yet carry their burden as lightly as our bodies sustain
the weight of the circumambient atmosphere. So perfect is his tact in
finding, or rather making a place for everything, that, while
inviting, he eludes the charge of pedantry.'
* * * * *
'It is scarcely to be expected that one who tries his hand at so many
kinds of pencraft should always excel; yet such is the force of DE
QUINCEY'S intellect, the brilliancy of his imagination, and the charm
of his style, that he throws a new and peculiar interest over every
subject which he discusses, while his fictitious narratives in general
rivet the attention of the reader with a power not easily resisted.'
_The Quarterly Review_ said:--
'DE QUINCEY'S style is superb, his powers of reasoning unsurpassed,
his imagination is warm and brilliant, and his humour both masculine
and delicate.'
The writer continues:--
'A great master of English composition, a critic of uncommon delicacy,
an honest and unflinching investigator of received opinions, a
philosophic inquirer--DE QUINCEY has departed from us full of years,
and left no successor to his rank. The exquisite finish of his style,
with the scholastic vigour of his logic, form a combination which
centuries may never reproduce, but which every generation should study
as one of the marvels of English Literature.'
JAMES HOGG.
_London, February, 1890_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE V
A BRIEF APPRAISAL OF THE GREEK LITERATURE
IN ITS FOREMOST-PRETENSIONS 23
THE GERMAN LANGUAGE, AND PHILOSOPHY OF KANT 91
MORAL EFFECTS OF REVOLUTIONS 130
PREFIGURATIONS OF REMOTE EVENTS 132
MEASURE OF VALUE 134
LETTER IN REPLY TO HAZLITT CONCERNING THE
MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF POPULATION 141
THE SERVICES OF MR. RICARDO TO THE SCIENCE
OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 154
EDUCATION, AND CASE OF APPEAL 160
ABSTRACT OF SWEDENBORGIANISM 215
SKETCH OF PROFESSOR WILSON 225
THE LAKE DIALECT 265
STORMS IN ENGLISH HISTORY 275
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA 298
ON NOVELS (WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM) 354
DE QUINCEY'S PORTRAIT 357
A BRIEF APPRAISAL OF THE GREEK LITERATURE IN ITS FOREMOST PRETENSIONS:
_By way of Counsel to Adults who are hesitating as to the
Propriety of Studying the Greek Language with a view to the
Literature; and by way of consolation to those whom
circumstances have obliged to lay aside that plan._
No. I.
No question has been coming up at intervals for reconsideration more
frequently than that which respects the comparative pretensions of
Pagan (viz. Greek and Roman) Literature on the one side, and Modern
(that is, the Literature of Christendom) on the other. Being brought
uniformly before unjust tribunals--that is, tribunals corrupted and
bribed by their own vanity--it is not wonderful that this great
question should have been stifled and overlaid with peremptory
decrees, dogmatically cutting the knot rather than skilfully untying
it, as often as it has been moved afresh, and put upon the roll for a
re-hearing. It is no mystery to those who are in the secret, and who
can lay A and B together, why it should have happened that the most
interesting of all literary questions, and the most comprehensive
(for it includes most others, and some special to itself), has, in
the first place, never been pleaded in a style of dignity, of
philosophic precision, of feeling, or of research, proportioned to its
own merits, and to the numerous 'issues' (forensically speaking)
depending upon it; nor, in the second place, has ever received such an
adjudication as was satisfactory _even at the moment_. For, be it
remembered, after all, that any provisional adjudication--one growing
out of the fashion or taste of a single era--could not, at any rate,
be binding for a different era. A judgment which met the approbation
of Spenser could hardly have satisfied Dryden; nor another which
satisfied Pope, have been recognised as authentic by us of the year
1838. It is the normal or exemplary condition of the human mind, its
ideal condition, not its abnormal condition, as seen in the transitory
modes and fashions of its taste or its opinions, which only
'Can lay great bases for eternity,'
or give even a colourable permanence to any decision in a matter so
large, so perplexed, so profound, as this great pending suit between
antiquity and ourselves--between the junior men of this earth and
ourselves, the seniors, as Lord Bacon reasonably calls us. Appeals
will be brought _ad infinitum_--we ourselves shall bring appeals, to
set aside any judgment that may be given, until something more is
consulted than individual taste; better evidence brought forward than
the result of individual reading; something higher laid down as the
_grounds_ of judgment, as the very principles of the jurisprudence
which controls the court, than those vague _responsa prudentum_,
countersigned by the great name, perhaps, of Aristotle, but still too
often mere products of local convenience, of inexperience, of
experience too limited and exclusively Grecian, or of absolute
caprice--rules, in short, which are themselves not less truly _sub
judice_ and liable to appeal than that very appeal cause to which they
are applied as decisive.
We have remarked, that it is no mystery why the decision should have
gone pretty uniformly in favour of the ancients; for here is the
dilemma:--A man, attempting this problem, _is_ or _is not_ a classical
scholar. If he _is_, then he has already received a bias in his
judgment; he is a bribed man, bribed by his vanity; and is liable to
be challenged as one of the judges. If he is _not_, then he is but
imperfectly qualified--imperfectly as respects his knowledge and
powers; whilst, even as respects his will and affections, it may be
alleged that he also is under a bias and a corrupt influence; his
interest being no less obvious to undervalue a literature, which, as
to _him_, is tabooed and under lock and key, than his opponent's is to
put a preposterous value upon that knowledge which very probably is
the one sole advantageous distinction between him and his neighbours.
We might cite an illustration from the French literary history on this
very point. Every nation in turn has had its rows in this great
quarrel, which is, in fact, co-extensive with the controversies upon
human nature itself. The French, of course, have had _theirs_--solemn
tournaments, single duels, casual 'turn-ups,' and regular 'stand-up'
fights. The most celebrated of these was in the beginning of the last
century, when, amongst others who acted as bottle-holders, umpires,
&c., two champions in particular 'peeled' and fought a considerable
number of rounds, mutually administering severe punishment, and both
coming out of the ring disfigured: these were M. la Motte and Madame
Dacier. But Motte was the favourite at first, and once he got Dacier
'into chancery,' and 'fibbed' her twice round the ropes, so that she
became a truly pitiable and delightful spectacle to the connoisseurs
in fibbing and bloodshed. But here lay the difference: Motte was a
hard hitter; he was a clever man, and (which all clever men are not) a
man of sense; but, like Shakspeare, he had no Greek. On the other
hand, Dacier had nothing _but_ Greek. A certain abbé, at that time,
amused all Paris with his caricatures of this Madame Dacier, 'who,'
said he, 'ought to be cooking her husband's dinner, and darning his
stockings, instead of skirmishing and tilting with Grecian spears;
for, be it known that, after all her _not cooking_ and her _not
darning_, she is as poor a scholar as her injured husband is a good
one.' And _there_ the abbé was right; witness the husband's _Horace_,
in 9 vols., against the wife's _Homer_. However, this was not
generally understood. The lady, it was believed, waded petticoat-deep
in Greek clover; and in any Grecian field of dispute, naturally she
must be in the right, as against one who barely knew his own language
and a little Latin. Motte was, therefore, thought by most people to
have come off second best. For, as soon as ever he opened
thus--'Madame, it seems to me that, agreeably to all common sense or
common decorum, the Greek poet should here'----instantly, without
listening to his argument, the intrepid Amazon replied ([Greek:
hypodra idousa]), 'You foolish man! you remarkably silly man!--_that_
is because you know no better; and the reason you know no better, is
because you do not understand _ton d'apameibomenos_ as I do.' _Ton
d'apameibomenos_ fell like a hand-grenade amongst Motte's papers, and
blew him up effectually in the opinion of the multitude. No matter
what he might say in reply--no matter how reasonable, how
unanswerable--that one spell of 'No Greek! no Greek!' availed as a
talisman to the lady both for offence and defence; and refuted all
syllogisms and all eloquence as effectually as the cry of _À la
lanterne!_ in the same country some fourscore years after.
So it will always be. Those who (like Madame Dacier) possess no
accomplishment _but_ Greek, will, of necessity, set a superhuman value
upon that literature in all its parts, to which their own narrow skill
becomes an available key. Besides that, over and above this coarse and
conscious motive for overrating that which reacts with an equal and
answerable overrating upon their own little philological attainments,
there is another agency at work, and quite unconsciously to the
subjects of that agency, in disturbing the sanity of any estimate they
may make of a foreign literature. It is the habit (well known to
psychologists) of transferring to anything created by our own skill,
or which reflects our own skill, as if it lay causatively and
objectively[3] in the reflecting thing itself, that pleasurable power
which in very truth belongs subjectively[3] to the mind of him who
surveys it, from conscious success in the exercise of his own
energies. Hence it is that we see daily without surprise, young ladies
hanging enamoured over the pages of an Italian author, and calling
attention to trivial commonplaces, such as, clothed in plain mother
English, would have been more repulsive to them than the distinctions
of a theologian, or the counsels of a great-grandmother. They mistake
for a pleasure yielded by the author, what is in fact the pleasure
attending their own success in mastering what was lately an
insuperable difficulty.
[Footnote 3: _Objectively_ and _subjectively_ are terms somewhat too
metaphysical; but they are so indispensable to accurate thinking that
we are inclined to show them some indulgence; and, the more so, in
cases where the mere position and connection of the words are half
sufficient to explain their application.]
It is indeed a pitiable spectacle to any man of sense and feeling, who
happens to be really familiar with the golden treasures of his own
ancestral literature, and a spectacle which moves alternately scorn
and sorrow, to see young people squandering their time and painful
study upon writers not fit to unloose the shoes' latchets of many
amongst their own compatriots; making painful and remote voyages after
the drossy refuse, when the pure gold lies neglected at their feet.
Too often he is reminded of a case, which is still sometimes to be
witnessed in London. Now and then it will happen that a lover of art,
modern or antique alike, according to its excellence, will find
himself honoured by an invitation from some millionnaire, or some
towering grandee, to 'assist,' as the phrase is, at the opening of a
case newly landed from the Tiber or the Arno, and fraught (as he is
assured) with the very gems of Italian art, inter-mingled besides
with many genuine antiques. He goes: the cases are solemnly disgorged;
adulatory hangers on, calling themselves artists, and, at all events,
so much so as to appreciate the solemn farce enacted, stand by
uttering hollow applauses of my Lord's taste, and endeavouring to play
upon the tinkling cymbals of spurious enthusiasm: whilst every man of
real discernment perceives at a glance the mere refuse and sweeping of
a third-rate _studio_, such as many a native artist would disdain to
turn out of his hands; and antiques such as could be produced, with a
month's notice, by cart-loads, in many an obscure corner of London.
Yet for this rubbish has the great man taken a painful tour; compassed
land and sea; paid away in exchange a king's ransom; and claims now on
their behalf, the very humblest homage of artists who are taxed with
the basest envy if they refuse it, and who, meantime, cannot in
sincerity look upon the trumpery with other feelings than such as the
potter's wheel, if (like Ezekiel's wheels) it were instinct with
spirit, would entertain for the vilest of its own creations;--culinary
or 'post-culinary' mugs and jugs. We, the writers of this paper, are
not artists, are not connected with artists. And yet, upon the general
principle of sympathy with native merit, and of disgust towards all
affectation, we cannot but recall such anecdotes with scorn; and often
we recollect the stories recorded by poor Benvenuto Cellini, that
dissolute but brilliant vagabond, who (like our own British artists)
was sometimes upbraided with the degeneracy of modern art, and, upon
his humbly requesting some evidence, received, by way of practical
answer, a sculptured gem or vase, perhaps with a scornful demand
of--when would he be able to produce anything like that--'eh, Master
Ben? Fancy we must wait a few centuries or so, before you'll be ready
with the fellow of this.' And, lo! on looking into some hidden angle
of the beautiful production, poor Cellini discovered his own private
mark, the supposed antique having been a pure forgery of his own. Such
cases remind one too forcibly of the pretty Horatian tale, where, in a
contest between two men who undertake to mimic a pig's grunting, he
who happens to be the favourite of the audience is applauded to the
echo for his felicitous execution, and repeatedly encored, whilst the
other man is hissed off the stage, and well kicked by a band of
amateurs and cognoscenti, as a poor miserable copyist and impostor;
but, unfortunately for the credit of his exploders, he has just time,
before they have quite kicked him off, for exposing to view the real
pig concealed under his cloak, which pig it was, and not himself, that
had been the artist--forced by pinches into 'mimicry' of his own
porcine music. Of all baffled connoisseurs, surely, these Roman
pig-fanciers must have looked the most confounded. Yet there is no
knowing: and we ourselves have a clever friend, but rather too given
to subtilising, who contends, upon some argument not perfectly
intelligible to us, that Horace was not so conclusive in his logic as
he fancied; that the real pig might not have an 'ideal' or normal
squeak, but a peculiar and non-representative squeak; and that, after
all, the man might deserve the 'threshing' he got. Well, it may be so;
but, however, the Roman audience, wrong or not, for once fancied
themselves in the wrong; and we cannot but regret that our own
ungenerous disparagers of native merit, and _exclusive_ eulogisers of
the dead or the alien--of those only '_quos Libitina sacravit_,' or
whom oceans divide from us--are not now and then open to the same
_palpable_ refutation, as they are certainly guilty of the same mean
error, in prejudging the whole question, and refusing to listen even
to the plain evidence of their own feelings, or, in some cases, to the
voice of their own senses.
From this preface it is already abundantly clear what side _we_ take
in this dispute about modern literature and the antique.[4] And we now
propose to justify our leaning by a general review of the Pagan
authors, in their elder section--that is, the Grecians. These will be
enough in all conscience, for one essay; and even for them we meditate
a very cursory inquest; not such as would suffice in a grand
ceremonial day of battle--a _justum proelium_, as a Roman would
call it--but in a mere perfunctory skirmish, or (if the reader objects
to that word as pedantic, though, really, it is a highly-favoured word
amongst ancient divines, and with many a
'philosopher,
Who has read Alexander Ross over,')
why, in that case, let us indulge his fastidious taste by calling it
an autoschediastic combat, to which, surely, there can be no such
objection. And as the manner of the combat is autoschediastic or
extemporaneous, and to meet a hurried occasion, so is the reader to
understand that the object of our disputation is not the learned, but
the unlearned student; and our purpose, not so much to discontent the
one with his painful acquisitions, as to console the other under what,
upon the old principle of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_, he is too apt
to imagine his irreparable disadvantages. We set before us, as our
especial auditor, the reasonable man of plain sense but strong
feeling, who wishes to know how much he has lost, and what injury the
gods did him, when, though making him, perhaps, poetical, they cut
short his allowance of Latin, and, as to Greek, gave him not a jot
more than a cow has in her side pocket.
[Footnote 4: In general usage, '_The antique_' is a phrase limited to
the expression of art; but improperly so. It is quite as legitimately
used to denote the _literature_ of ancient times, in contradistinction
to the modern. As to the term _classical_, though generally employed
as equivalent to Greek and Roman, the reader must not forget this is
quite a false limitation, contradicting the very reason for applying
the word in _any_ sense to literature. For the application arose thus:
The social body of Rome being divided into six classes, of which the
lowest was the sixth, it followed that the highest was the first.
Thence, by a natural process common to most languages, those who
belonged to this highest had no number at all assigned to them. The
very absence of a number, the calling them _classici_, implied that
they belonged to _the_ class emphatically, or _par excellence_. _The
classics_ meant, therefore, the grandees in social consideration; and
thence by analogy in literature. But if this analogy be transferred
from Rome to Greece, where it had no corresponding root in civic
arrangement--then, by parity of reason, to all nations.]
Let us begin at the beginning--and that, as everybody knows, is Homer.
He is, indeed, so much at the beginning that, for that very reason (if
even there were no other), he is, and will be ever more, supremely
interesting. Is the unlearned reader aware of his age? Upon that point
there are more hypotheses than one or even two. Some there are among
the chronologers who make him eleven hundred years anterior to Christ.
But those who allow him least, place him more than nine--that is,
about two centuries before the establishment of the Grecian Olympiads,
and (which is pretty nearly the same thing as regards time) before
Romulus and Remus. Such an antiquity as this, even on its own account,
is a reasonable object of interest. A poet to whom the great-grandfather
of old Ancus Martius (his grandfather, did we say--that is, avus?--nay,
his _abavus_, his _atavus_, his _tritavus_) looked back as to one in a
line with his remote ancestor--a poet who, if he travelled about as
extensively as some have supposed him to do, or even as his own
countryman Herodotus most certainly did five or six hundred years
afterwards, might have conversed with the very workmen who laid the
foundations of the first temple at Jerusalem--might have bent the knee
before Solomon in all his glory:--Such a poet, were he no better than
the worst of our own old metrical romancers, would--merely for his
antiquity, merely for the sublime fact of having been coeval with the
eldest of those whom the eldest of histories presents to our knowledge;
coeval with the earliest kings of Judah, older than the greatest of the
Judean prophets, older than the separation of the two Jewish crowns and
the revolt of Israel, and, even with regard to Moses and to Joshua, not
in any larger sense junior than as we ourselves are junior to
Chaucer--purely and exclusively with regard to these pretensions, backed
and supported by an antique form of an antique language--the most
comprehensive and the most melodious in the world, would--could--should--ought
to merit a filial attention; and, perhaps with those who had
waggon-loads of time to spare, might plead the benefit, beyond most of
those in whose favour it was enacted, of that Horatian rule--
'vos exemplaria Græca,
Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurna.'
In fact, when we recollect that, in round numbers, we ourselves may be
considered as two thousand years in advance of Christ, and that (by
assuming less even than a mean between the different dates assigned to
Homer) he stands a thousand years before Christ, we find between Homer
and ourselves a gulf of three thousand years, or about one clear half
of the total extent which we grant to the present duration of our
planet. This in itself is so sublime a circumstance in the relations
of Homer to our era, and the sense of power is so delightfully
titillated to that man's feeling, who, by means of Greek, and a very
moderate skill in this fine language, is able to grasp the awful span,
the vast arch of which one foot rest upon 1838, and the other almost
upon the war of Troy--the mighty rainbow which, like the archangel in
the Revelation, plants its western limb amongst the carnage and the
magnificence of Waterloo, and the other amidst the vanishing gleams
and the dusty clouds of Agamemnon's rearguard--that we may pardon a
little exultation to the man who can actually mutter to himself, as he
rides home of a summer evening, the very words and vocal music of the
old blind man at whose command
'----------the Iliad and the Odyssey
Rose to the murmurs of the voiceful sea.'
But pleasures in this world fortunately are without end. And every
man, after all, has many pleasures peculiar to himself--pleasures
which no man shares with him, even as he is shut out from many of
other men. To renounce one in particular, is no subject for sorrow, so
long as many remain in that very class equal or superior. Elwood the
Quaker had a luxury which none of us will ever have, in hearing the
very voice and utterance of a poet quite as blind as Homer, and by
many a thousand times more sublime. And yet Elwood was not perhaps
much happier for _that_. For now, to proceed, reader--abstract from
his _sublime_ antiquity, and his being the very earliest of authors,
allowance made for one or two Hebrew writers (who, being inspired, are
scarcely to be viewed as human competitors), how much is there in
Homer, _intrinsically_ in Homer, stripped of his fine draperies of
time and circumstance, in the naked Homer, disapparelled of the pride,
pomp, and circumstance of glorious antiquity, to remunerate a man for
his labour in acquiring Greek? Men think very differently about what
_will_ remunerate any given labour. A fool (professional _fool_) in
Shakspeare ascertains, by a natural process of logic, that a
'remuneration' means a _testern_, which is just sixpence; and two
remunerations, therefore, a testoon, or one shilling. But many men
will consider the same service ill paid by a thousand pounds. So, of
the reimbursement for learning a language. Lord Camden is said to have
learned Spanish, merely to enjoy Don Quixote more racily. Cato, the
elder Cato, after abusing Greek throughout his life, sat down in
extreme old age to study it: and wherefore? Mr. Coleridge mentions an
author, in whom, upon opening his pages with other expectations, he
stumbled upon the following fragrant passage--'But from this frivolous
digression upon philosophy and the fine arts, let us return to a
subject too little understood or appreciated in these sceptical
days--the subject of _dung_.' Now, _that_ was precisely the course of
thought with this old censorious Cato: So long as Greek offered, or
seemed to offer, nothing but philosophy or poetry, he was clamorous
against Greek; but he began to thaw and melt a little upon the charms
of Greek--he 'owned the soft impeachment,' when he heard of some
Grecian treatises upon _beans_ and _turnips_; and, finally, he sank
under its voluptuous seductions, when he heard of others upon DUNG.
There are, therefore, as different notions about a 'remuneration' in
this case, as the poor fool had met with it in _his_ case. We,
however, unappalled by the bad names of 'Goth,' 'Vandal,' and so
forth, shall honestly lay before the reader _our_ notions.