“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth—from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation, and a name.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
ASTR. Is there so potent a charm in poppies, Evelyn? You will make us
believe, soon, that opium can make a Shakspere, that genius can be
imparted by a drug.
The ghosts of fairyland, those bright emanations of a poet’s fancy,
which are wafted through the air on the thistle-down, or swing to and
fro on the filmy thread of the gossamer, sprang from a deeper source
than this. The fairy mythology of Shakspere, the beautiful creations of
the “Tempest” and the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are the very offspring
of that _innate_ genius, that “exhausted worlds, and then _imagined
new_.”
Those exquisite and tricksy spirits, the mischievous Puck and the
delicate Ariel, indeed, the whole train of ghosts which appeared to
Macbeth, and Richard, and Clarence, and Brutus, and Hamlet, and the
spirits of the “Midsummer Night,” the “Tempest,” and “Macbeth,” of
Bolingbroke and Joan of Arc, could not have been so painted, unless they
had stood before the mind of Shakspere as palpable as reality.
Look, too, on those splendid illustrations of the Gothic poets by the
eccentric, or, as Evelyn would call him, the half-mad Fuseli. Look on
the wild pencillings of Blake, another poet painter, and you will be
assured that they were ghost-seers. An intimate friend of Blake, himself
a reader of the stars, has told me the strangest tales of his visions.
In one of his reveries he witnessed the whole ceremony of a fairy’s
funeral, which he peopled with mourners and mutes, and described with
high poetic beauty. He was engaged, in one of these moods, in painting
King Edward I., who was sitting to him for his picture. While they were
conversing, Wallace suddenly presented himself on the field, and by this
uncourteous intrusion marred the studies of the painter for that day.
EV. A most unhappy comparison, Astrophel. The difference between
Shakspere and Blake is _antipodean_. Blake was a visionary, and thought
his fancies real—he was mad. Shakspere was a philosopher, and knew all
his fancy was but imagination, however real might be the facts he
wrought from. Ben Jonson told Drummond that he lay awake one whole
night, gazing in mute admiration on his great toe; surrounding which, in
miniature, appeared the inhabitants of Rome, and Carthage, and Tartary,
and Turkey; but he also was aware of the illusion.
CAST. My most gracious smile is yours, Evelyn, for this honour to my
sweet Shakspere. I pray you accord the same to the spectral visions of a
poet, in whose beautiful Aminta each line is a breath of
inspiration—the day-dreams of the elegant Tasso. Listen.
“At Bisaccio, Manso had an opportunity to examine the singular effects
of Tasso’s melancholy; and often disputed with him concerning a familiar
spirit which he pretended to converse with. Manso endeavoured in vain to
persuade his friend that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed
imagination; but the latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of
what he asserted; and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at
one of these mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to
meet him the next day, and while they were engaged in discourse, on a
sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and
remained in a manner immoveable; he called him by his name several
times, but received no answer. At last Tasso cried out, ‘There is the
friendly spirit who is come to converse with me: look, and you will be
convinced of the truth of all that I have said.’ Manso heard him with
surprise: he looked, but saw nothing except the sunbeams darting through
the window; he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive
nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when
he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes putting questions
to the spirit, and sometimes giving answers, delivering the whole in
such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated expressions, that he
listened with admiration, and had not the least inclination to interrupt
him. At last this uncommon conversation ended with the departure of the
spirit, as appeared by Tasso’s words, who, turning towards Manso, asked
him if his doubts were removed. Manso was more amazed than ever; he
scarce knew what to think of his friend’s situation, and waived any
further conversation on the subject.”
EV. I shall forfeit your smile, sweet Castaly, or change it, alas! for a
frown. I have ever thought Tasso a monomaniac, for he yielded to his
illusion. I can give you in a fragment from Lorry, the counterpart of
Tasso’s phantasy in a far different mind. “During these paroxysms she
would talk, and was accustomed to address herself to some one individual
present, with whom she conversed at first in an obscure voice, but
afterwards in a distinct and audible manner. She evidently perceived
him, and observed all his gestures; but all she said to him bore a
reference to one idea, on which she was intent. In the mean time she
appeared not to see or hear any other person, even if he exerted his
voice to the utmost to make himself heard. This fact I witnessed with
the greatest astonishment, but many other persons are living who can
attest it. The mother of this female died unexpectedly, after which the
daughter used to hold conversations with her as if she was present. She
would answer questions as if interrogated by her mother; would entreat
her to take care of her health, and recommend some physician as more
able to restore her than others. Moreover, she would talk to her mother
of her destined marriage, although it had already been some time
completed, in a manner perfectly like that of a sane and modest young
woman, making some objections to it, and replying to others, and
appeared to be revealing all her secret wishes; in a word, she seemed
perfectly collected and rational, excepting the error respecting time,
and the supposed presence of her mother. This woman had in other
respects good health, but was afraid of the smallest noise, and was
easily affected by any thing she saw or heard. At length she fell into a
consumption.”
In other cases, especially in accomplished minds, the phantasy is
usually combined with _derangement of health_. A very ingenuous and
elegant young lady, about the age of seventeen, was suddenly seized with
catalepsy. It commenced with violent convulsions of almost every muscle
of her body, and the most distressing hiccoughs. In about an hour came
on a fixed spasm, one hand being placed against her head, and the other
to support it. In about half an hour more, the spasm subsided, and then
began the reverie in a moment, her eyes and expression indicating a
fixed attention. She then conversed with imaginary persons, her eyes
being wide open, and during this _ecstasy_ she was completely insensible
to the most irritating, and indeed most violent _stimuli_.
Sir Henry Halford related to us, that on a visit to a person of exalted
rank in his chamber, he heard him with great energy request Garrick to
play a scene in “Hamlet,” reminding him of the lines in Horace’s
Epistles:
“Haud ignobilis Argis,
Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos,
In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro.”
In Dr. Darwin, too, we read of an epileptic girl, who during a fit of
reverie, when insensible to all external _stimuli_, conversed fluently
with imaginary people, and was surprised to hear of her illusions when
fully awake.
And, in Andral, of a gentleman of distinguished ability, who believed
that an absent friend was sitting among his guests, welcoming him to his
table, and, with great courtesy, handing him a chair. You remember how
pathetically Crabbe has illustrated this illusion in his poem of “Sir
Eustace Gray.”
CAST. Hark to the profane philosopher who associates poetry with
madness! Tell me, Master Evelyn, while you wandered in the Water walks
of Magdalene, with the balmy breezes of heaven around your brow, and the
mellow sunbeam streaming through the green leaves upon your cheek, with
the inspired volumes of Virgil, and Theocritus, and Bion, and Moschus,
breathing nature in all the lines of their beautiful idylls—while
Astrophel, perchance, was musing among cobwebs in Friar Bacon’s
study—tell me, felt you not the sublimity and truth of poesy? You
remind me of the quaint tradition among the shepherds of Snowdonia, that
if two persons lie down, on midsummer eve, to sleep upon a certain rock
on Snowdon, one will wake a poet, the other a maniac. I pr’ythee, think
otherwise of Tasso, whose reveries were an ecstasy of bright thoughts.
Even when the light of day is eclipsed, as when the senseless orbs of
Homer and Milton were merged in “ever-during dark,” the thoughts of a
poet may be deeper and clearer for the gloom.
IDA. And so pure and holy withal. In the “Defensio Secunda,” I remember
this gem of sentiments:—“Involved in darkness, not so much from the
imperfection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the Creator’s
wings,—a darkness which he frequently irradiates with an inner and far
superior light.”
Never did poet feel more intensely than Milton the truth of that divine
thought, that “the shadow of God is light.”
CAST. And call up that glory of the Elizabethan age, Philip Sidney,
whose life, in the words of Campbell, was “a poetry in action,” and who
more than embodied the brightest pictures of Tasso and Ariosto, and
eclipsed the glory of that Chevalier Bayard, like himself, “sans peur et
sans reproche.”
EV. I cry you mercy, fairest ladies, I speak not of the light of poetry,
but of its shadows. _Cheromania_ is the first form of _monomania_, or
the madness of one idea; and this is marked by cheerfulness and splendid
ideas, which indeed often tend to mitigate the melancholy scenes of
derangement, as if “the light that led astray was light from heaven.” I
will illustrate this by repeating to you the letter to his brother, of a
young officer, whose progressive changes of mind, from excitement to
confirmed mania, it was my duty to watch over.
_December 4th, 1832._
“To ——, Esq.
“I am Lord President of the Counsil, a most honorable situation,
and the richest gift of the Crown, which brings me in seven
thousand pounds every year. The Counsil consists of Three
Secretaries of State, of which I am one; and the Paymaster of
the Forces. When the King William the forth shall die, then
shall I be crowned King of England, and be crowned in
Westermister Abbey, By The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. I
shall on the occasion of my coronation have placed in the
different street of London one thousand pipes of wine for my
people, and at night in the Hyde Park a magnificent display of
Fireworks, and one hundred pieces of Artillery shall fire three
rounds for the amusement of my people and subjects. I have only
now to give you a list of my titles and honors:
“King of England.
First Heir Presumptive to the Crown.
Major General and Field Martial.
Duke of Leitzep.
Prince of Denmark.
Lord President of the Counsil.
Knight Banneret.
Lord Treasurer of the Exchequer.
Lieutenant Colonel ——, Lord and Baronet.
Aid de Camp to the King.
Champion of England.
“Dear ——, I wish to acquaint you that Windsor Castle belongs
to me, that the palace of Brighton also belongs to me, also I
purchased from the Duke of Wellington the splendid park and
Palace of Stratfieldsea, wherein there are very extensive
Forests of Oak and of Pines trees, together with a magnificent
sheet of Water containing Ells and Salmon Trout.
“Dear ——, I have to beg that you give my love and duty to your
wife—and give this letter to read, I pray you, according to my
desire and wish.”
I may tell you that the very onset of frenzy is often but an elevated
spirit of poesy, in which brilliancy and judgment shall be companions;
but, like Æsop’s bow, the mind shall be warped and wrung by being
constantly bent on its subject; and thus the source of brilliancy and
wit may be the source of madness. A change of subject will often do much
to unbend such a mind, as a change of posture will relieve muscular
fatigue, or as a sudden impression of fear or fright has thwarted a
suicide on the moment of his self-attempt. Indeed mania will often
appear to induce an almost inspired talent, which, I may hint to you,
may be explained by the _oxygenizing_ of the blood in the brain.
In Van Swiéten, we read of a working female who, during fits of
insanity, displayed the faculty of rhyming, or poetic talent; and (as I
am fond of analogy) in Pinel, of one who, during his insane moments,
argued (as if from concentrated memory) in an acute and intelligent
manner, on the events of the Revolution.
Then Haller tells us of an idiot, who was wounded on the head, and,
during its healing, the intellect became lucid (and this on the
principle of a counteraction); but, on the healing being completed,
again the creature was an idiot.
When we are roaming over the flowery fields of poesy, we are seldom
inclined to reflect on the mental labour by which they are embellished.
We may suppose that, whatever is born of the brain is ushered in by an
easy birth; but poesy is often attended by a pang of parturition, and
one single line may rankle in the brain for hours ere it struggle into
light; and, perhaps, require a frontal blow, as violent as that which
cleft the skull of Jupiter and gave birth to Pallas.
There are some minds which can support the effort of composition with
impunity; but when we recollect the diseases which are entailed on
genius—the melancholy of Cowper, and the distraction of the amiable
Collins, who
“passed in madd’ning pain life’s feverish dream,
While rays of genius only served to show
The thick’ning horror, and exalt his woe;”
when we remember the gloomy setting of the brilliant sun of Scott,
during the period of his apoplectic tendency, when his letter “filled
the minds of his publishers with dismay,” and he sunk into the delusive
hope that his debts were liquidated to the full; when we are told that
Ariosto was never seen to laugh, and rarely to smile; that Rousseau was
ever restless, and on the verge of mania; when we reflect on the
premature decay of unhappy White—
“When science self destroyed her fav’rite son;”
on the painful conflicts of Byron, when his dark hour was on him; on
Chatterton, “the sleepless boy who perish’d in his pride:” are incited,
almost unconsciously to echo the apostrophe of Wordsworth:—
“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.”
IDA. The laurel, then, contains more poison than that of prussic acid in
its leaf. The perils of romance are not _ever_ in these extremes; yet
the mere indulgence of poetic thoughts may so raise the beau-ideal of
beauty in the sensitive and youthful mind, as to unfit it for the common
duties of life. Like Narcissus, the heart perishes for love of its own
shadow. It becomes so acutely sensitive, as to “die of a rose in
aromatic pain:” or like the Sybarite, it cannot sleep, because a
crumpled rose-leaf lay beneath the pillow.
I have often thought that the secret of happiness may lie in this
precept: “Take the _good_ of life as it is, a divine gift, and not _an
agreeable deception_;” when _evil_ is in your path, search its cause,
analyze its nature, and if you discover not that you have yourself to
thank for it, at least you may prove that the evil _itself_ is made up
of mere trifles, and thus you will learn to be resigned.
And with the beauty and treasures of earth: if _you_ possess them, enjoy
them with a prudent and a grateful heart. If they belong to _others_,
sigh not—pine not for them, but analyze them also, and you may find
that the hope of their enjoyment was a phantom; for aggregated beauties
are often made up of deformed or unlovely atoms.
I might illustrate my remarks by relating to you an episode of the life
of my young friend Stanmore; from which I learned, with sorrow, that the
heart may droop beneath its own excess of sensibility, (a mystery to
those who were strangers to its secret,) and that the blossom of love
may be _self-blighted_:
“His existence was a withered hope, that, like the icicle in the cup of
the early flower, freezes the life-spring in which it is so deeply
embosomed. In his mind was lighted a vision of Elysium, beyond what
earth with all its virtue and beauty could give him: a spectral Utopia.
His life was a blank. He found not happiness, _because_ he knew not
contentment. He was the leader of many a forlorn hope in Spain, and fell
in a midnight enterprise among the guerillas in the Sierra Morena.”
EV. And had the sword spared him, he would have died a moral suicide.
What folly, thus to chase a butterfly, instead of yielding to the
virtuous influence of woman, which, beyond aught else, softens and
ennobles man’s heart; entrancing it in floods of human passion, which,
with all its pains, yields happiness a thousand-fold more than the
maudlin sentiments of Rousseau, that, reducing love to a mere phantom,
leave the lone heart to prey on its own sensibility.
Such was the romantic poet of Endymion, who for the phantom of his
waking dreams, gave up the study of that science, which might have
nursed and fortified a mind, so soon chilled to death by the icy finger
of criticism. Erato was the mistress of John Keats; but while he wooed,
he perished: like the Rosicrucian, who, to save the life of his lady,
took the oath of celibacy, and thus lost her love for ever. Even in the
lecture-room of Saint Thomas’s, I have seen Keats in a deep poetic
dream: his mind was on Parnassus with the muses. And here is a quaint
fragment which he one evening scribbled in our presence, while the
precepts of Sir Astley Cooper fell unheeded on his ear:—
“Whenne Alexandre the Conqueroure was wayfayringe in y^{e} londe of
Inde, there mette hym a damoselle of marveillouse beautie slepynge
uponne the herbys and flourys. He colde ne loke uponne her withouten
grete plesance, and he was welle nighe loste in wondrement. Her forme
was everyche whytte lyke y^{e} fayrest carvynge of Quene Cythere, onlie
thatte y^{t} was swellyd and blushyd wyth warmthe and lyffe wythalle.
“Her forhed was as whytte as ys the snowe whyche y^{e} talle hed of a
Norwegian pyne stelythe from y^{e} northerne wynde. One of her fayre
hondes was yplaced thereonne, and thus whytte wyth whytte was ymyngld as
y^{e} gode Arthure saythe, lyke whytest lylys yspredde on whyttest
snowe; and her bryghte eyne whenne she them oped, sparklyd lyke Hesperus
through an evenynge cloude.
“Theye were yclosyd yn slepe, save that two slauntynge raies shotte to
her mouthe, and were theyre bathyd yn swetenesse, as whenne bye chaunce
y^{e} moone fyndeth a banke of violettes and droppethe thereonne y^{e}
sylverie dewe.
“The authoure was goynge onne withouthen descrybynge y^{e} ladye’s
breste, whenne lo, a genyus appearyd—‘Cuthberte,’ sayeth he, ‘an thou
canst not descrybe y^{e} ladye’s breste, and fynde a simile thereunto, I
forbyde thee to proceede yn thy romaunt.’ Thys, I kennd fulle welle, far
surpassyd my feble powres, and forthwythe I was fayne to droppe my
quille.”