benefit his publisher, by affording him an opportunity of shewing how he
means to bring out works. We could have dispensed with the specimen;
though it is but justice to remark on the neat manner in which the work
is produced: the title-page is especially pretty.--_The Literary
Gazette_.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
_Gebir; a Poem, in Seven Books_. 12mo. 74 pp. Rivingtons. 1798.
How this Poem, which appears to issue from the same publishers as our
own work, so long escaped our notice, we cannot say. Still less are we
able to guess at the author, or his meaning. In a copy lately lent to
us, as a matter we had overlooked, we observe the following very
apposite quotation, inscribed on the title-page, by some unknown hand:
Some love the verse----
Which read, and read, you raise your eyes in doubt,
And gravely wonder what it is about.
Among persons of that turn of mind, the author must look for the _ten_
admirers who, as he says, would satisfy his ambition; but whether they
could have the qualities of taste and genius, which he requires, is with
us a matter of doubt. Turgid obscurity is the general character of the
composition, with now and then a gleam of genuine poetry, irradiating
the dark profound. The effect of the perusal is to give a kind of whirl
to the brain, more like distraction than pleasure; and something
analogous to the sensation produced, when the end of the finger is
rubbed against the parchment of the tambourine.--_The British Critic_.
_Gebir_; a Poem, in Seven Books. 8vo. pp. 74. 2s. 6d. Rivingtons. 1798.
An unpractised author has attempted, in this poem, the difficult task of
relating a romantic story in blank-verse. His performance betrays all
the incorrectness and abruptness of inexperience, but it manifests
occasionally some talent for description. He has fallen into the common
error of those who aspire to the composition of blank-verse, by
borrowing too many phrases and epithets from our incomparable Milton. We
give the following extract, as affording a fair specimen:
[Quotes about 60 lines from the beginning of the fifth and sixth books
of _Gebir_.]
We must observe that the story is told very obscurely, and should have
been assisted by an _Argument_ in prose. Young writers are often
astonished to find that passages, which seem very clear to their own
heated imaginations, appear very dark to their readers.--The author of
the poem before us may produce something worthy of more approbation, if
he will labour hard, and delay for a few years the publication of his
next performance.--_The Monthly Review_.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
_Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field_. By WALTER SCOTT, Esq. 4to. pp. 500.
Edinburgh and London, 1808.
There is a kind of right of primogeniture among books, as well as among
men; and it is difficult for an author, who has obtained great fame by a
first publication, not to appear to fall off in a second--especially if
his original success could be imputed, in any degree, to the novelty of
his plan of composition. The public is always indulgent to untried
talents; and is even apt to exaggerate a little the value of what it
receives without any previous expectation. But, for this advance of
kindness, it usually exacts a most usurious return in the end. When the
poor author comes back, he is no longer received as a benefactor, but a
debtor. In return for the credit it formerly gave him, the world now
conceives that it has a just claim on him for excellence, and becomes
impertinently scrupulous as to the quality of the coin in which it is to
be paid.
The just amount of this claim plainly cannot be for more than the rate
of excellence which he had reached in his former production; but, in
estimating this rate, various errors are perpetually committed, which
increase the difficulties of the task which is thus imposed on him. In
the _first_ place, the comparative amount of his past and present merits
can only be ascertained by the uncertain standard of his reader's
feelings; and these must always be less lively with regard to a second
performance; which, with every other excellence of the first, must
necessarily want the powerful recommendations of novelty and surprise,
and consequently fall very far short of the effect produced by their
strong cooeperation. In the _second_ place, it may be observed, in
general, that wherever our impression of any work is favourable on the
whole, its excellence is constantly exaggerated, in those vague and
habitual recollections which form the basis of subsequent comparisons.
We readily drop from our memory the dull and bad passages, and carry
along with us the remembrance of those only which had afforded us
delight. Thus, when we take the merit of any favourite poem as a
standard of comparison for some later production of the same author, we
never take its true average merit, which is the only fair standard, but
the merit of its most striking and memorable passages, which naturally
stand forward in our recollection, and pass upon our hasty retrospect as
just and characteristic specimens of the whole work; and this high and
exaggerated standard we rigorously apply to the first, and perhaps the
least interesting parts of the second performance. Finally, it deserves
to be noticed, that where a first work, containing considerable
blemishes, has been favourably received, the public always expects this
indulgence to be repaid by an improvement that ought not to be always
expected. If a second performance appear, therefore, with the same
faults, they will no longer meet with the same toleration. Murmurs will
be heard about indolence, presumption, and abuse of good nature; while
the critics, and those who had gently hinted at the necessity of
correction, will be more out of humour than the rest at this apparent
neglect of their admonitions.
For these, and for other reasons, we are inclined to suspect, that the
success of the work now before us will be less brilliant than that of
the author's former publication, though we are ourselves of opinion,
that its intrinsic merits are nearly, if not altogether, equal; and
that, if it had had the fortune to be the elder born, it would have
inherited as fair a portion of renown as has fallen to the lot of its
predecessor. It is a good deal longer, indeed, and somewhat more
ambitious; and it is rather clearer that it has greater faults, than
that it has greater beauties; though, for our own parts, we are inclined
to believe in both propositions. It has more tedious and flat passages,
and more ostentation of historical and antiquarian lore; but it has also
greater richness and variety, both of character and incident; and if it
has less sweetness and pathos in the softer passages, it has certainly
more vehemence and force of colouring in the loftier and busier
representations of action and emotion. The place of the prologuizing
minstrel is but ill supplied, indeed, by the epistolary dissertations
which are prefixed to each book of the present poem; and the ballad
pieces and mere episodes which it contains, have less finish and
poetical beauty; but there is more airiness and spirit in the lighter
delineations; and the story, if not more skilfully conducted, is at
least better complicated, and extended through a wider field of
adventure. The characteristics of both, however, are evidently the
same;--a broken narrative--a redundancy of minute description--bursts of
unequal and energetic poetry--and a general tone of spirit and
animation, unchecked by timidity or affectation, and unchastised by any
great delicacy of taste, or elegance of fancy.
But though we think this last romance of Mr Scott's about as good as the
former, and allow that it affords great indications of poetical talent,
we must remind our readers, that we never entertained much partiality
for this sort of composition, and ventured on a former occasion to
express our regret, that an author endowed with such talents should
consume them in imitations of obsolete extravagance, and in the
representation of manners and sentiments in which none of his readers
can be supposed to take much interest, except the few who can judge of
their exactness. To write a modern romance of chivalry, seems to be
much such a fantasy as to build a modern abbey, or an English pagoda.
For once, however, it may be excused as a pretty caprice of genius; but
a second production of the same sort is entitled to less indulgence, and
imposes a sort of duty to drive the author from so idle a task, by a
fair exposition of the faults which are in a manner inseparable from its
execution. To enable our readers to judge fairly of the present
performance, we shall first present them with a brief abstract of the
story; and then endeavour to point out what seems to be exceptionable,
and what is praiseworthy, in the execution.
[Here follows a detailed outline of the plot of _Marmion_.]
Now, upon this narrative, we are led to observe, in the first place,
that it forms a very scanty and narrow foundation for a poem of such
length as is now before us. There is scarcely matter enough in the main
story for a ballad of ordinary dimensions; and the present work is not
so properly diversified with episodes and descriptions, as made up and
composed of them. No long poem, however, can maintain its interest
without a connected narrative. It should be a grand historical picture,
in which all the personages are concerned in one great transaction, and
not a mere gallery of detailed groups and portraits. When we accompany
the poet in his career of adventure, it is not enough that he points out
to us, as we go along, the beauties of the landscape, and the costumes
of the inhabitants. The people must do something after they are
described, and they must do it in concert, or in opposition to each
other; while the landscape, with its castles and woods and defiles, must
serve merely as the scene of their exploits, and the field of their
conspiracies and contentions. There is too little connected incident in
Marmion, and a great deal too much gratuitous description.
In the second place, we object to the whole plan and conception of the
fable, as turning mainly upon incidents unsuitable for poetical
narrative, and brought out in the denouement in a very obscure,
laborious, and imperfect manner. The events of an epic narrative should
all be of a broad, clear, and palpable description; and the difficulties
and embarrassments of the characters, of a nature to be easily
comprehended and entered into by readers of all descriptions. Now, the
leading incidents in this poem are of a very narrow and peculiar
character, and are woven together into a petty intricacy and
entanglement which puzzles the reader instead of interesting him, and
fatigues instead of exciting his curiosity. The unaccountable conduct of
Constance, in first ruining De Wilton in order to forward Marmion's suit
with Clara, and then trying to poison Clara, because Marmion's suit
seemed likely to succeed with her--but, above all, the paltry device of
the forged letters, and the sealed packet given up by Constance at her
condemnation, and handed over by the abbess to De Wilton and Lord Angus,
are incidents not only unworthy of the dignity of poetry, but really
incapable of being made subservient to its legitimate purposes. They are
particularly unsuitable, too, to the age and character of the personages
to whom they relate; and, instead of forming the instruments of knightly
vengeance and redress, remind us of the machinery of a bad German novel,
or of the disclosures which might be expected on the trial of a
pettifogging attorney. The obscurity and intricacy which they
communicate to the whole story, must be very painfully felt by every
reader who tries to comprehend it; and is prodigiously increased by the
very clumsy and inartificial manner in which the denouement is
ultimately brought about by the author. Three several attempts are made
by three several persons to beat into the head of the reader the
evidence of De Wilton's innocence, and of Marmion's guilt; first, by
Constance in her dying speech and confession; secondly, by the abbess in
her conference with De Wilton; and, lastly, by this injured innocent
himself, on disclosing himself to Clara in the castle of Lord Angus.
After all, the precise nature of the plot and the detection is very
imperfectly explained, and we will venture to say, is not fully
understood by one half those who have fairly read through every word of
the quarto now before us. We would object, on the same grounds, to the
whole scenery of Constance's condemnation. The subterranean chamber,
with its low arches, massive walls, and silent monks with smoky
torches,--its old chandelier in an iron chain,--the stern abbots and
haughty prioresses, with their flowing black dresses, and book of
statutes laid on an iron table, are all images borrowed from the novels
of Mrs Ratcliffe [_sic_] and her imitators. The public, we believe, has
now supped full of this sort of horrors; or, if any effect is still to
be produced by their exhibition, it may certainly be produced at too
cheap a rate, to be worthy the ambition of a poet of original
imagination.
In the third place, we object to the extreme and monstrous improbability
of almost all the incidents which go to the composition of this fable.
We know very well that poetry does not describe what is ordinary; but
the marvellous, in which it is privileged to indulge, is the marvellous
of performance, and not of accident. One extraordinary rencontre or
opportune coincidence may be permitted, perhaps, to bring the parties
together, and wind up matters for the catastrophe; but a writer who gets
through the whole business of his poem, by a series of lucky hits and
incalculable chances, certainly manages matters in a very economical way
for his judgment and invention, and will probably be found to have
consulted his own ease, rather than the delight of his readers. Now,
the whole story of Marmion seems to us to turn upon a tissue of such
incredible accidents. In the first place, it was totally beyond all
calculation, that Marmion and De Wilton should meet, by pure chance, at
Norham, on the only night which either of them could spend in that
fortress. In the next place, it is almost totally incredible that the
former should not recognize his antient rival and antagonist, merely
because he had assumed a palmer's habit, and lost a little flesh and
colour in his travels. He appears unhooded, and walks and speaks before
him; and, as near as we can guess, it could not be more than a year
since they had entered the lists against each other. Constance, at her
death, says she had lived but three years with Marmion; and, it was not
till he tired of her, that he aspired to Clara, or laid plots against De
Wilton. It is equally inconceivable that De Wilton should have taken
upon himself the friendly office of a guide to his arch enemy, and
discharged it quietly and faithfully, without seeking, or apparently
thinking of any opportunity of disclosure or revenge. So far from
meditating anything of the sort, he makes two several efforts to leave
him, when it appears that his services are no longer indispensable. If
his accidental meeting, and continued association with Marmion, be
altogether unnatural, it must appear still more extraordinary, that he
should afterwards meet with the Lady Clare, his adored mistress, and the
Abbess of Whitby, who had in her pocket the written proofs of his
innocence, in consequence of an occurrence equally accidental. These two
ladies, the only two persons in the universe whom it was of any
consequence to him to meet, are captured in their voyage from Holy Isle,
and brought to Edinburgh, by the luckiest accident in the world, the
very day that De Wilton and Marmion make their entry into it. Nay, the
king, without knowing that they are at all of his acquaintance, happens
to appoint them lodgings in the same stair-case, and to make them travel
under his escort! We pass the night combat at Gifford, in which Marmion
knows his opponent by moonlight, though he never could guess at him in
sunshine; and all the inconsistencies of his dilatory wooing of Lady
Clare. Those, and all the prodigies and miracles of the story, we can
excuse, as within the privilege of poetry; but, the lucky chances we
have already specified, are rather too much for our patience. A poet, we
think, should never let his heroes contract such great debts to fortune;
especially when a little exertion of his own might make them independent
of her bounty. De Wilton might have been made to seek and watch his
adversary, from some moody feeling of patient revenge; and it certainly
would not have been difficult to discover motives which might have
induced both Clara and the Abbess to follow and relieve him, without
dragging them into his presence by the clumsy hands of a cruizer from
Dunbar.
In the _fourth_ place, we think we have reason to complain of Mr Scott
for having made his figuring characters so entirely worthless, as to
excite but little of our sympathy, and at the same time keeping his
virtuous personages so completely in the back ground, that we are
scarcely at all acquainted with them when the work is brought to a
conclusion. Marmion is not only a villain, but a mean and sordid
villain; and represented as such, without any visible motive, and at the
evident expense of characteristic truth and consistency. His elopement
with Constance, and his subsequent desertion of her, are knightly vices
enough, we suppose; but then he would surely have been more interesting
and natural, if he had deserted her for a brighter beauty, and not
merely for a richer bride. This was very well for Mr Thomas Inkle, the
young merchant of London; but for the valiant, haughty, and liberal Lord
Marmion of Fontenaye and Lutterward, we do think it was quite
unsuitable. Thus, too, it was very chivalrous and orderly perhaps, for
him to hate De Wilton, and to seek to supplant him in his lady's love;
but, to slip a bundle of forged letters into his bureau, was cowardly as
well as malignant. Now, Marmion is not represented as a coward, nor as
at all afraid of De Wilton; on the contrary, and it is certainly the
most absurd part of the story, he fights him fairly and valiantly after
all, and overcomes him by mere force of arms, as he might have done at
the beginning, without having recourse to devices so unsuitable to his
general character and habits of acting. By the way, we have great doubts
whether a _convicted_ traitor, like De Wilton, whose guilt was
established by written evidence under his own hand, was ever allowed to
enter the lists, as a knight, against his accuser. At all events, we are
positive, that an accuser, who was as ready and willing to fight as
Marmion, could never have condescended to forge in support of his
accusation; and that the author has greatly diminished our interest in
the story, as well as needlessly violated the truth of character, by
loading his hero with the guilt of this most revolting and improbable
proceeding. The crimes of Constance are multiplied in like manner to
such a degree, as both to destroy our interest in her fate, and to
violate all probability. Her elopement was enough to bring on her doom;
and we should have felt more for it, if it had appeared a little more
unmerited. She is utterly debased, when she becomes the instrument of
Marmion's murderous perfidy, and the assassin of her unwilling rival.
De Wilton, again, is too much depressed throughout the poem. It is
rather dangerous for a poet to chuse a hero who has been beaten in fair
battle. The readers of romance do not like an unsuccessful warrior; but
to be beaten in a judicial combat, and to have his arms reversed and
tied on the gallows, is an adventure which can only be expiated by
signal prowess and exemplary revenge, achieved against great odds, in
full view of the reader. The unfortunate De Wilton, however, carries the
stain upon him from one end of the poem to the other. He wanders up and
down, a dishonoured fugitive, in the disguise of a palmer, through the
five first books; and though he is knighted and mounted again in the
last, yet we see nothing of his performances; nor is the author merciful
enough to afford him one opportunity of redeeming his credit by an
exploit of gallantry or skill. For the poor Lady Clare, she is a
personage of still greater insipidity and insignificance. The author
seems to have formed her upon the principle of Mr Pope's maxim, that
women have no characters at all. We find her every where, where she has
no business to be; neither saying nor doing any thing of the least
consequence, but whimpering and sobbing over the Matrimony in her prayer
book, like a great miss from a boarding school; and all this is the more
inexcusable, as she is altogether a supernumerary person in the play,
who should atone for her intrusion by some brilliancy or novelty of
deportment. Matters would have gone on just as well, although she had
been left behind at Whitby till after the battle of Flodden; and she is
daggled about in the train, first of the Abbess and then of Lord
Marmion, for no purpose, that we can see, but to afford the author an
opportunity for two or three pages of indifferent description.
Finally, we must object, both on critical and on national grounds, to
the discrepancy between the title and the substance of the poem, and the
neglect of Scotish feelings and Scotish character that is manifested
throughout. Marmion is no more a tale of Flodden Field, than of Bosworth
Field, or any other field in history. The story is quite independent of
the national feuds of the sister kingdoms; and the battle of Flodden has
no other connexion with it, than from being the conflict in which the
hero loses his life. Flodden, however, is mentioned; and the
preparations for Flodden, and the consequences of it, are repeatedly
alluded to in the course of the composition. Yet we nowhere find any
adequate expressions of those melancholy and patriotic sentiments which
are still all over Scotland the accompaniment of those allusions and
recollections. No picture is drawn of the national feelings before or
after that fatal encounter; and the day that broke for ever the pride
and the splendour of his country, is only commemorated by a Scotish poet
as the period when an English warrior was beaten to the ground. There is
scarcely one trait of true Scotish nationality or patriotism introduced
into the whole poem; and Mr Scott's only expression of admiration or
love for the beautiful country to which he belongs, is put, if we
rightly remember, into the mouth of one of his Southern favourites.
Independently of this, we think that too little pains is taken to
distinguish the Scotish character and manners from the English, or to
give expression to the general feeling of rivalry and mutual jealousy
which at that time existed between the two countries.
If there be any truth in what we have now said, it is evident that the
merit of this poem cannot consist in the story. And yet it has very
great merit, and various kinds of merit,--both in the picturesque
representation of visible objects, in the delineation of manners and
characters, and in the description of great and striking events. After
having detained the reader so long with our own dull remarks, it will
be refreshing to him to peruse a few specimens of Mr Scott's more
enlivening strains.
[Quotes over six hundred lines of _Marmion_ with brief comment.]