any praises or observations of ours. It is superior, in our
apprehension, to all that this author has hitherto produced; and, with a
few faults of diction, equal to any thing that has _ever_ been written
upon similar subjects. Though we have extended our extracts to a very
unusual length, in order to do justice to these fine conceptions, we
have been obliged to leave out a great deal, which serves in the
original to give beauty and effect to what we have actually cited. From
the moment the author gets in sight of Flodden Field, indeed, to the end
of the poem, there is no tame writing, and no intervention of ordinary
passages. He does not once flag or grow tedious; and neither stops to
describe dresses and ceremonies, nor to commemorate the harsh names of
feudal barons from the Border. There is a flight of five or six hundred
lines, in short, in which he never stoops his wing, nor wavers in his
course; but carries the reader forward with a more rapid, sustained, and
lofty movement, than any Epic bard that we can at present remember.
From the contemplation of such distinguished excellence, it is painful
to be obliged to turn to the defects and deformities which occur in the
same composition. But this, though a less pleasing, is a still more
indispensable part of our duty; and one, from the resolute discharge of
which, much more beneficial consequences may be expected. In the work
which contains the fine passages we have just quoted, and many of nearly
equal beauty, there is such a proportion of tedious, hasty, and
injudicious composition, as makes it questionable with us, whether it
is entitled to go down to posterity as a work of classical merit, or
whether the author will retain, with another generation, that high
reputation which his genius certainly might make coeval with the
language. These are the authors, after all, whose faults it is of most
consequence to point out; and criticism performs her best and boldest
office,--not when she tramples down the weed, or tears up the
bramble,--but when she strips the strangling ivy from the oak, or cuts
out the canker from the rose. The faults of the fable we have already
noticed at sufficient length. Those of the execution we shall now
endeavour to enumerate with greater brevity.
And, in the _first_ place, we must beg leave to protest, in the name of
a very numerous class of readers, against the insufferable number, and
length and minuteness of those descriptions of antient dresses and
manners, and buildings; and ceremonies, and local superstitions; with
which the whole poem is overrun,--which render so many notes necessary,
and are, after all, but imperfectly understood by those to whom
chivalrous antiquity has not hitherto been an object of peculiar
attention. We object to these, and to all such details, because they
are, for the most part, without dignity or interest in themselves;
because, in a modern author, they are evidently unnatural; and because
they must always be strange, and, in a good degree, obscure and
unintelligible to ordinary readers.
When a great personage is to be introduced, it is right, perhaps, to
give the reader some notion of his external appearance; and when a
memorable event is to be narrated, it is natural to help the imagination
by some picturesque representation of the scenes with which it is
connected. Yet, even upon such occasions, it can seldom be advisable to
present the reader with a full inventory of the hero's dress, from his
shoebuckle to the plume in his cap, or to enumerate all the drawbridges,
portcullisses, and diamond cut stones in the castle. Mr Scott, however,
not only draws out almost all his pictures in these full dimensions, but
frequently introduces those pieces of Flemish or Chinese painting to
represent persons who are of no consequence, or places and events which
are of no importance to the story. It would be endless to go through the
poem for examples of this excess of minute description; we shall merely
glance at the First Canto as a specimen. We pass the long description of
Lord Marmion himself, with his mail of Milan steel; the blue ribbons on
his horse's mane; and his blue velvet housings. We pass also the two
gallant squires who ride behind him. But our patience is really
exhausted, when we are forced to attend to the black stockings and blue
jerkins of the inferior persons in the train, and to the whole process
of turning out the guard with advanced arms on entering the castle.
'Four men-at-arms came _at their backs_,
With halberd, bill, and battle-axe:
They bore Lord Marmion's lance so strong,
And led his sumpter mules along,
And ambling palfrey, _when at need_
Him listed ease his battle-steed.
The last, and trustiest of the four,
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow's tail, in shape and hue,
Flutter'd the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazoned sable, as before,
The towering falcon seemed to soar.
Last, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black, and jerkins blue,
With falcons broider'd on each breast,
Attended on their lord's behest.
'Tis meet that I should tell you now,
How fairly armed, and ordered how,
The soldiers of the guard,
With musquet, pike, and morion,
To welcome noble Marmion,
Stood in the Castle-yard;
Minstrels and trumpeters were there,
The gunner held his _linstock yare_,
For welcome-shot prepared--
The guards their morrice pikes advanced,
The trumpets flourished brave,
The cannon from the ramparts glanced,
And thundering welcome gave.
Two pursuivants, whom tabards deck,
With silver scutcheon round their neck,
Stood on the steps of stone,
By which you reach the Donjon gate,
And there, with herald pomp and state,
They hailed Lord Marmion.
And he, their courtesy to requite,
Gave them a chain of twelve marks weight,
All as he lighted down.' p. 29-32.
Sir Hugh the Heron then orders supper--
'Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe.'
--And after the repast is concluded, they have some mulled wine, and
drink good night very ceremoniously.
'Lord Marmion drank a fair good rest,
The Captain pledged his noble guest,
The cup went round among the rest.'
In the morning, again, we are informed that they had prayers, and that
knight and squire
----'broke their fast
On rich substantial repast.'
'Then came the stirrup-cup in course,' &c., &c.
And thus a whole Canto is filled up with the account of a visit and a
supper, which lead to no consequences whatever, and are not attended
with any circumstances which must not have occurred at every visit and
supper among persons of the same rank at that period. Now, we are really
at a loss to know, why the mere circumstance of a moderate antiquity
should be supposed so far to ennoble those details, as to entitle them
to a place in poetry, which certainly never could be claimed for a
description of more modern adventures. Nobody, we believe, would be bold
enough to introduce into a serious poem a description of the hussar
boots and gold epaulets of a commander in chief, and much less to
particularize the liveries and canes of his servants, or the order and
array of a grand dinner, given even to the cabinet ministers. Yet these
things are, in their own nature, fully as picturesque, and as
interesting, as the ribbons at the mane of Lord Marmion's horse, or his
supper and breakfast at the castle of Norham. We are glad, indeed, to
find these little details in _old_ books, whether in prose or verse,
because they are there authentic and valuable documents of the usages
and modes of life of our ancestors; and we are thankful when we light
upon this sort of information in an antient romance, which commonly
contains matter much more tedious. Even there, however, we smile at the
simplicity which could mistake such naked enumerations for poetical
description; and reckon them as nearly on a level, in point of taste,
with the theological disputations that are sometimes introduced in the
same meritorious compositions. In a _modern_ romance, however, these
details being no longer authentic, are of no value in point of
information; and as the author has no claim to indulgence on the ground
of simplicity, the smile which his predecessors excited is in some
danger of being turned into a yawn. If he wishes sincerely to follow
their example, he should describe the manners of his own time, and not
of theirs. They painted from observation, and not from study; and the
familiarity and _naivete_ of their delineations, transcribed with a
slovenly and hasty hand from what they saw daily before them, is as
remote as possible from the elaborate pictures extracted by a modern
imitator from black-letter books, and coloured, not from the life, but
from learned theories, or at best from mouldy monkish illuminations, and
mutilated fragments of painted glass.
But the times of chivalry, it may be said, were more picturesque than
the present times. They are better adapted to poetry; and everything
that is associated with them has a certain hold on the imagination, and
partakes of the interest of the period. We do not mean utterly to deny
this; nor can we stop, at present, to assign exact limits to our assent:
but this we will venture to observe, in general, that if it be true that
the interest which we take in the contemplation of the chivalrous era,
arises from the dangers and virtues by which it was distinguished,--from
the constant hazards in which its warriors passed their days, and the
mild and generous valour with which they met those hazards,--joined to
the singular contrast which it presented between the ceremonious polish
and gallantry of the nobles, and the brutish ignorance of the body of
the people:--if these are, as we conceive they are, the sources of the
charm which still operates in behalf of the days of knightly adventure,
then it should follow, that nothing should interest us, by association
with that age, but what serves naturally to bring before us those
hazards and that valour, and gallantry, and aristocratical superiority.
Any description, or any imitation of the exploits in which those
qualities were signalized, will do this most effectually.
Battles,--tournaments,--penances,--deliverance of damsels,--instalments
of knights, &c.--and, intermixed with these, we must admit some
description of arms, armorial bearings, castles, battlements, and
chapels: but the least and lowest of the whole certainly is the
description of servants' liveries, and of the peaceful operations of
eating, drinking, and ordinary salutation. These have no sensible
connexion with the qualities or peculiarities which have conferred
certain poetical privileges on the manners of chivalry. They do not
enter either necessarily or naturally into our conception of what is
interesting in those manners; and, though protected, by their
strangeness, from the ridicule which would infallibly attach to their
modern equivalents, are substantially as unpoetic, and as little
entitled to indulgence from impartial criticism.
We would extend this censure to a larger proportion of the work before
us than we now choose to mention--certainly to all the stupid monkish
legends about St Hilda and St Cuthbert--to the ludicrous description of
Lord Gifford's habiliments of divination--and to all the various scraps
and fragments of antiquarian history and baronial biography, which are
scattered profusely through the whole narrative. These we conceive to be
put in purely for the sake of displaying the erudition of the author;
and poetry, which has no other recommendation, but that the substance of
it has been gleaned from rare or obscure books, has, in our estimation,
the least of all possible recommendations. Mr Scott's great talents, and
the novelty of the style in which his romances are written, have made
even these defects acceptable to a considerable part of his readers. His
genius, seconded by the omnipotence of fashion, has brought chivalry
again into temporary favour; but he ought to know, that this is a taste
too evidently unnatural to be long prevalent in the modern world. Fine
ladies and gentlemen now talk, indeed, of donjons, keeps, tabards,
scutcheons, tressures, caps of maintenance, portcullisses, wimples, and
we know not what besides; just as they did, in the days of Dr Darwin's
popularity, of gnomes, sylphs, oxygen, gossamer, polygynia, and
polyandria. That fashion, however, passed rapidly away; and if it be now
evident to all the world, that Dr Darwin obstructed the extension of his
fame, and hastened the extinction of his brilliant reputation, by the
pedantry and ostentatious learning of his poems, Mr Scott should take
care that a different sort of pedantry does not produce the same
effects. The world will never be long pleased with what it does not
readily understand; and the poetry which is destined for immortality,
should treat only of feelings and events which can be conceived and
entered into by readers of all descriptions.
What we have now mentioned is the cardinal fault of the work before us;
but it has other faults, of too great magnitude to be passed altogether
without notice. There is a debasing lowness and vulgarity in some
passages, which we think must be offensive to every reader of delicacy,
and which are not, for the most part, redeemed by any vigour or
picturesque effect. The venison pasties, we think, are of this
description; and this commemoration of Sir Hugh Heron's troopers, who
'Have drunk the monks of St Bothan's ale,
And driven the beeves of Lauderdale;
Harried the wives of Greenlaw's goods,
And given them light to set their hoods.' p. 41.
The long account of Friar John, though not without merit, offends in the
same sort; nor can we easily conceive, how any one could venture, in a
serious poem, to speak of
----'the wind that blows,
And _warms itself against his nose_.'
The speeches of squire Blount, too, are a great deal too unpolished for
a noble youth aspiring to knighthood. On two occasions, to specify no
more, he addresses his brother squire in these cacophonous lines--
'_St Anton' fire thee!_ wilt thou stand
All day with bonnet in thy hand?'
And,
'_Stint in thy prate_,' quoth Blount, '_thou'dst best_,
And listen to our Lord's behest.'
Neither can we be brought to admire the simple dignity of Sir Hugh the
Heron, who thus encourageth his nephew,
----'_By my fay_,
Well hast thou spoke--say forth thy say.'
There are other passages in which the flatness and tediousness of the
narrative is relieved by no sort of beauty, nor elegance of diction, and
which form an extraordinary contrast with the more animated and finished
portions of the poem. We shall not afflict our readers with more than
one specimen of this falling off. We select it from the Abbess's
explanation to De Wilton.
'De Wilton and Lord Marmion wooed
Clara de Clare, of Gloster's blood;
(Idle it were of Whitby's dame,
To say of that same blood I came;)
And once, when jealous rage was high,
Lord Marmion said despiteously,
Wilton was traitor in his heart,
And had made league with Martin Swart,
When he came here on Simnel's part;
And only cowardice did restrain
His rebel aid on Stokefield's plain,--
And down he threw his glove:--the thing
Was tried, as wont, before the king;
Where frankly did De Wilton own,
That Swart in Guelders he had known;
And that between them then there went
Some scroll of courteous compliment.
For this he to his castle sent;
But when his messenger returned,
Judge how De Wilton's fury burned!
For in his packet there were laid
Letters that claimed disloyal aid,
And proved King Henry's cause betrayed.' p. 272-274.
In some other places, Mr Scott's love of variety has betrayed him into
strange imitations. This is evidently formed on the school of Sternhold
and Hopkins.
'Of all the palaces so fair,
Built for the royal dwelling,
In Scotland, far beyond compare,
Linlithgow is excelling.'
The following is a sort of mongrel between the same school, and the
later one of Mr Wordsworth.
'And Bishop Gawin, as he rose,
Said--Wilton, grieve not for thy woes,
Disgrace, and trouble;
For He, who honour best bestows,
May give thee double.'
There are many other blemishes, both of taste and of diction, which we
had marked for reprehension, but now think it unnecessary to specify;
and which, with some of those we have mentioned, we are willing to
ascribe to the haste in which much of the poem seems evidently to have
been composed. Mr Scott knows too well what is due to the public, to
make any boast of the rapidity with which his works are written; but the
dates and the extent of his successive publications show sufficiently
how short a time could be devoted to each; and explain, though they do
not apologize for, the many imperfections with which they have been
suffered to appear. He who writes for immortality should not be sparing
of time; and if it be true, that in every thing which has a principle of
life, the period of gestation and growth bears some proportion to that
of the whole future existence, the author now before us should tremble
when he looks back on the miracles of his own facility.
We have dwelt longer on the beauties and defects of this poem, than we
are afraid will be agreeable either to the partial or the indifferent;
not only because we look upon it as a misapplication, in some degree, of
very extraordinary talents, but because we cannot help considering it as
the foundation of a new school, which may hereafter occasion no little
annoyance both to us and to the public. Mr Scott has hitherto filled the
whole stage himself; and the very splendour of his success has probably
operated, as yet, rather to deter, than to encourage, the herd of rivals
and imitators: but if, by the help of the good parts of his poem, he
succeeds in suborning the verdict of the public in favour of the bad
parts also, and establishes an indiscriminate taste for chivalrous
legends and romances in irregular rhime, he may depend upon having as
many copyists as Mrs Radcliffe or Schiller, and upon becoming the
founder of a new schism in the catholic poetical church, for which, in
spite of all our exertions, there will probably be no cure, but in the
extravagance of the last and lowest of its followers. It is for this
reason that we conceive it to be our duty to make one strong effort to
bring back the great apostle of the heresy to the wholesome creed of
his instructors, and to stop the insurrection before it becomes
desperate and senseless, by persuading the leader to return to his duty
and allegiance. We admire Mr Scott's genius as much as any of those who
may be misled by its perversion; and, like the curate and the barber in
Don Quixote, lament the day when a gentleman of such endowments was
corrupted by the wicked tales of knight-errantry and enchantment.
We have left ourselves no room to say any thing of the epistolary
effusions which are prefixed to each of the cantos. They certainly are
not among the happiest productions of Mr Scott's muse. They want
interest in the subjects, and finish in the execution. There is too much
of them about the personal and private feelings and affairs of the
author; and too much of the remainder about the most trite commonplaces
of politics and poetry. There is a good deal of spirit, however, and a
good deal of nature intermingled. There is a fine description of St
Mary's loch, in that prefixed to the second canto; and a very pleasing
representation of the author's early tastes and prejudices, in that
prefixed to the third. The last, which is about Christmas, is the worst;
though the first, containing a threnody on Nelson, Pitt, and Fox,
exhibits a more remarkable failure. We are unwilling to quarrel with a
poet on the score of politics; but the manner in which he has chosen to
praise the last of these great men, is more likely, we conceive, to give
offence to his admirers, than the most direct censure. The only deed for
which he is praised, is for having broken off the negotiation for peace;
and for this act of firmness, it is added, Heaven rewarded him with a
share in the honoured grave of Pitt! It is then said, that his errors
should be forgotten, and that he _died_ a Briton--a pretty plain
insinuation, that, in the author's opinion, he did not live one; and
just such an encomium as he himself pronounces over the grave of his
villain hero Marmion. There was no need, surely, to pay compliments to
ministers or princesses, either in the introduction or in the body of a
romance of the 16th century. Yet we have a laboured lamentation over the
Duke of Brunswick, in one of the epistles; and in the heart of the poem,
a triumphant allusion to the siege of Copenhagen--the last exploit,
certainly, of British valour, on which we should have expected a
chivalrous poet to found his patriotic gratulations. We have no
business, however, on this occasion, with the political creed of the
author; and we notice these allusions to objects of temporary interest,
chiefly as instances of bad taste, and additional proofs that the author
does not always recollect, that a poet should address himself to more
than one generation.--_The Edinburgh Review_.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
_Hours of Idleness: A Series of Poems, Original and Translated_. By
GEORGE GORDON, Lord Byron, a Minor. 8vo. pp. 200. Newark. 1807.
The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor
men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a
quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that
exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no
more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant
water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly
forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the
very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of
his _style_. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems
are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular
dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law
upon the point of minority, we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea
available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a
supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought
against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court
a certain quantity of poetry; and if judgment were given against him; it
is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver
_for poetry_, the contents of this volume. To this he might plead
_minority_; but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath
no right to sue, on that ground, for the price in good current praise,
should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the
point, and, we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in
reality, all that he tells us about his youth, is rather with a view to
increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to
say, 'See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a
young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!'--But, alas, we
all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far
from hearing, with any degree of surprise, that very poor verses were
written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college,
inclusive, we really believe this to be the most common of all
occurrences; that it happens in the life of nine men in ten who are
educated in England; and that the tenth man writes better verse than
Lord Byron.
His other plea of privilege, our author rather brings forward in order
to wa[i]ve it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his
family and ancestors--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while
giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us
of Dr Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his
merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this
consideration only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place
in our review, beside our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith
abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his
opportunities, which are great, to better account.