rigmarole?" We confess we can find none--we can find nothing but a set
purpose to be obscure, and an idiot captivity to the jingle of
Hudibrastic rhyme. This idle weakness really appears to be at the bottom
of half the daring nonsense in this most daringly nonsensical book.
Hudibras Butler told us long ago that "rhyme the rudder is of verses;"
and when, as in his case, or in that of Ingoldsby Barham, or
Whims-and-Oddities Hood, the rudder guides the good ship into tracks of
fun and fancy she might otherwise have missed, we are grateful to the
double-endings, not on their own account, but for what they have led us
to. But Mr. Browning is the mere thrall of his own rudder, and is
constantly being steered by it into whirlpools of the most raging
absurdity. This morbid passion for double rhymes, which is observable
more or less throughout the book, reaches its climax in a long copy of
verses on the "Old Pictures of Florence," which, with every disposition
to be tolerant of the frailties of genius, we cannot hesitate to
pronounce a masterpiece of absurdity. Let the lovers of the Hudibrastic
admire these _tours de force_:--
Not that I expect the great Bigordi
Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose;
Nor wronged Lippino--and not a word I
Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's.
But you are too fine, Taddeo Gaddi,
So grant me a taste of your intonaco--
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye?
No churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?
* * * * * * *
Margheritone of Arezzo,
With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret,
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so,
You bald, saturnine, poll-clawed parrot?)
No poor glimmering Crucifixion,
Where in the foreground kneels the donor?
If such remain, as is my conviction,
The hoarding does you but little honour.
The conclusion of this poem rises to a climax:--
How shall we prologuise, how shall we perorate,
Say fit things upon art and history--
Set truth at blood-heat and the false at zero rate,
Make of the want of the age no mystery!
Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras,
Show, monarchy its uncouth cub licks
Out of the bear's shape to the chimaera's--
Pure Art's birth being still the republic's!
Then one shall propose (in a speech, curt Tuscan,
Sober, expurgate, spare of an "_issimo_,")
Ending our half-told tale of Cambuscan,
Turning the Bell-tower's altaltissimo.
And fine as the beak of a young beccaccia
The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally,
Soars up in gold its full fifty braccia,
Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy.
How really deplorable is all this! On what theory of art can it possibly
be defended? In all the fine arts alike--poetry, painting, sculpture,
music--the master works have this in common, that they please in the
highest degree the most cultivated, and to the widest extent the less
cultivated. _Lear_ and the _Divine Comedy_ exhaust the thinking of the
profoundest student, yet subdue to hushed and breathless attention the
illiterate minds that know not what study means. The "Last Judgment,"
the "Transfiguration," the "Niobe," and the "Dying Gladiator" excite
alike the intelligent rapture of artists, and the unintelligent
admiration of those to whom art and its principles are a sealed book.
Handel's _Israel in Egypt_--the wonder of the scientific musician in his
closet--yet sways to and fro, like a mighty wind upon the waters, the
hearts of assembled thousands at an Exeter Hall oratorio. To take an
instance more striking still, Beethoven, the sublime, the rugged, the
austere, is also, as even Mons. Jullien could tell us, fast becoming a
popular favourite. Now why is this? Simply because these master minds,
under the divine teaching of genius, have known how to clothe their
works in a beauty of form incorporate with their very essence--a beauty
of form which has an elective affinity with the highest instincts of
universal humanity. And it is on this beauty of form, this exquisite
perfection of style, that the Baileys and the Brownings would have us
believe that they set small account, that they purposely and scornfully
trample. We do not believe it. We believe that it is only because they
are half-gifted that they are but half-intelligible. Their mysticism is
weakness--weakness writhing itself into contortions that it may ape the
muscles of strength. Artistic genius, in its higher degrees, necessarily
involves the power of beautiful self-expression. It is but a weak and
watery sun that allows the fogs to hang heavy between the objects on
which it shines and the eyes it would enlighten; the true day-star
chases the mists at once, and shows us the world at a glance.
Our main object has been to protest against what we feel to be the false
teachings of a perverted school of art; and we have used this book of
Mr. Browning's chiefly as a means of showing the extravagant lengths of
absurdity to which the tenets of that school can lead a man of admitted
powers. We should regret, however in the pursuit of this object to
inflict injustice on Mr. Browning. This last book of his, like most of
its predecessors, contains some undeniable beauties--subtle thoughts,
graceful fancies, and occasionally a strain of music, which only makes
the chaos of surrounding discords jar more harshly on the ear. The
dramatic scenes "In a Balcony" are finely conceived and vigorously
written; "Bishop Blougram's Apology," and "Cleon," are well worth
reading and thinking over; and there is a certain grace and beauty in
several of the minor poems. That which, on the whole, has pleased us
most--really, perhaps, because we could read it off-hand--is "The Statue
and the Bust," of which we give the opening stanzas:--
[Quotes fourteen stanzas of _The Statue and the Bust_.]
Why should a man, who, with so little apparent labour, can write
naturally and well, take so much apparent labour to write affectedly and
ill? There can be but one of two solutions. Either he goes wrong from
want of knowledge, in which case it is clear that he wants the highest
intuitions of genius; or he sins against knowledge, in which case he
must have been misled by the false promptings of a morbid vanity, eager
for that applause of fools which always waits on quackery, and which is
never refused to extravagance when tricked out in the guise of
originality. It is difficult, from the internal evidence supplied by
his works, to know which of these two theories to adopt. Frequently the
conclusion is almost irresistible, that Mr. Browning's mysticism must be
of _malice prepense_: on the whole, however, we are inclined to clear
his honesty at the expense of his powers, and to conclude that he is
obscure, not so much because he has the vanity to be thought original,
as because he lacks sufficient genius to make himself clear.--_The
Saturday Review_.
NOTES
THOMAS GRAY
When Gray's _Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard_ appeared in 1751,
the _Monthly Rev._, IV, p. 309, gave it the following curious
notice:--"The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its
want of quantity." The immediate success and popularity of the _Elegy_
established Gray's poetical reputation; hence his _Odes_ (1757) were
received and criticized as the work of a poet of whom something entirely
different was expected. The thin quarto volume containing _The Progress
of Poesy_ and _The Bard_ (entitled merely Ode I and Ode II in that
edition) was printed for Dodsley by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill,
and was published on August 8, 1757. Within a fortnight Gray wrote to
Thomas Warton that the poems were not at all popular, the great
objection being their obscurity; a week later he wrote to Hurd:--"Even
my friends tell me they [the Odes] do not succeed ... in short, I have
heard nobody but a player [Garrick] and a doctor of divinity [Warburton]
that profess their esteem for them." For further comment, see Gray's
_Works_, ed. Gosse, II, pp. 321-328.
Our review, which is reprinted from _Monthly Rev._, XVII (239-243)
(September, 1757), was written by Oliver Goldsmith, and is included in
most of the collected editions of his works. Although it was practically
wrung from Goldsmith while he was the unwilling thrall of Griffiths, it
is a noteworthy piece of criticism for its time--certainly far superior
to the general standard of the _Monthly Review_. While recognizing the
scholarly merit of the poet's work, Goldsmith showed clearly why the
Odes could not become popular. A more favorable notice of the volume
appeared in the _Critical Rev._, IV, p. 167.
In reprinting this review, the long quotations from both odes have been
omitted. This precedent is followed in all cases where the quotations
are of inordinate length, or are offered merely as "specimens" without
specific criticism. No useful end would be served in reprinting numerous
pages of classic extracts that are readily accessible to every student.
All omissions are, of course, properly indicated.
1. _Quinault_. Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), a popular French dramatist
and librettist.
2. _Mark'd for her own_. An allusion to the line in the Epitaph appended
to the _Elegy_: "And Melancholy marked him for her own."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Goldsmith's _Traveller_ (1764) was begun as early as 1755--before he had
expressed what Professor Dowden calls his "qualified enthusiasm" and
"official admiration" for Gray's _Odes_. In criticizing Gray, he quoted
Isocrates' advice--_Study the people_--and properly bore that precept in
mind while he was shaping his own verses. The _Odes_ and the _Traveller_
are respectively characteristic utterances of their authors--of the
academic recluse, and of the warm-hearted lover of humanity.
The review, quoted from the _Critical Rev._, XVIII (458-462) (December,
1764), is from the pen of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Apart from its
distinguished authorship and the strong words of commendation in the
final sentence, it possesses slight interest as literary criticism. It
is, in fact, little more than a brief summary of the poem, enriched by a
few well-chosen illustrative extracts. The fact that Johnson contributed
nine or ten lines to the poem (see Boswell, ed. Hill, I, p. 441, n. 1,
and II, p. 6) may account partly for the character of the review.
Johnson's quotations from the poem are not continuous and show several
variations from authoritative texts.
WILLIAM COWPER
Cowper stands almost alone among English poets as an instance of late
manifestation of poetic power. He was over fifty years of age when he
offered his first volume of _Poems_ (1782) to the public. This
collection, which included _Table-Talk_ and other didactic poems,
appeared at the beginning of the most prosaic age in the history of
modern English literature; yet the critics did not find it sufficiently
striking in quality to differentiate it from the level of contemporary
verse, or to forecast the success of _The Task_ and _John Gilpin's Ride_
three years later.
The notice in the _Critical Rev._, LIII (287-290), appeared in April,
1782. While the same poems are but slightly esteemed to-day, it must be
recognized that the attitude of the reviewer was severe for his time.
The age had grown accustomed to large draughts of moralizing and
didacticism in verse, and the quality of Cowper's contribution was
assuredly above the average. The _Monthly Rev._, LXVII, p. 262, gave the
_Poems_ a much more favorable reception.
10. _Non Dii, non homines, etc._ Properly, _non homines, non di_,
Horace, _Ars Poetica_, l. 373.
10. _Caraccioli_. _Jouissance de soi-meme_ (ed. 1762), cap. xii.
11. _There needs no ghost, etc._ See _Hamlet_, I, 5. 110.
ROBERT BURNS
The Kilmarnock edition (1786) of Burns' _Poems_ was published during the
most eventful period of the poet's life; the almost universally kind
reception accorded to this volume was the one source of consolation amid
many sorrows and distractions. Two reviews have been selected to
illustrate both the Scottish and English attitude toward the newly
discovered "ploughman-poet." The _Edinburgh Magazine_, IV (284-288), in
October, 1786, gave Burns a welcome that was hearty and sincere; though
we may smile to-day at the information that he has neither the "doric
simplicity" of Ramsay, nor the "brilliant imagination" of Ferguson.
Besides the poems mentioned in brackets, the magazine published further
extracts from Burns in subsequent numbers. The _Critical Review_, LXIII
(387-388), gave the volume a belated notice in May, 1787, exceeding even
the Scotch magazine in its generous appreciation. With the generally
accepted fact in mind that all of Burns' enduring work is in the
Scottish dialect, and that his English poems are comparatively inferior,
it is interesting to note the _Critical Review's_ regret that the
dialect must "obscure the native beauties" and be often unintelligible
to English readers. The same sentiment was expressed by the _Monthly
Review_, LXXV, p. 439, in the critique reprinted (without its curious
anglified version of _The Cotter's Saturday Night_) in Stevenson's
_Early Reviews_.
There is perhaps no other English poet whose fame was so suddenly and
securely established as Burns'. At no time since the appearance of the
Kilmarnock volume has the worth of his lyrical achievement been
seriously questioned. The _Reliques_ of Burns, edited by Dr. Cromek in
1808, were reviewed by Walter Scott in the first number of the
_Quarterly Review_, and by Jeffrey in the corresponding number of the
_Edinburgh_. Both articles are valuable to the student of Burns, but
their great length made their inclusion in the present volume
impracticable.
14. _Rusticus abnormis sapiens, etc._ Horace, Sat. II, l. 3.
15. _A great lady ... and celebrated professor_. Evidently Mrs. Dunlop
and Professor Dugald Stewart, who both took great interest in Burns
after the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The thin quartos containing _An Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_
were published by Wordsworth in 1793. The former was practically a
school-composition in verse, written between 1787-89 and dedicated to
his sister; the latter was composed in France during 1791-92 and was
revised shortly before publication. The dedication was addressed to the
Rev. Robert Jones, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was
Wordsworth's companion during the pedestrian tour in the Alps. Though
_An Evening Walk_ was published first, the _Monthly Review_, XII, n.s.
(216-218), in October, 1793, noticed both in the same issue and
naturally gave precedence to the longer poem. Specific allusions in the
text necessitate the same order in the present reprint.
The impatience of the reviewer at the prospect of "more descriptive
poetry" was due to the fact that many such productions had recently been
noticed by the _Monthly_, and that the volumes then under consideration
evidently belonged to the broad stream of mediocre verse that had been
flowing soberly along almost since the days of Thomson. These first
attempts smacked so decidedly of the older manner that we cannot censure
the critic for failing to foresee that Wordsworth was destined to
glorify the "poetry of nature," and to rescue it from the rut of
listless and soporific topographical description. Both poems, in the
definitive text, are readable, and exhibit here and there a glimmer of
the poet's future greatness; yet it must be borne in mind that
Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent
despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the
absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the
correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing
taste.
A collation of the accepted text with the _Monthly Review's_ quotations
will repay the student; thus, the twelve opening lines quoted by the
reviewer are represented by eight lines in Professor Knight's edition,
and only four of these correspond to the original text. The reviewer
confined his remarks to the first thirty lines of the poem and very
properly neglected the rest. He followed, with moderate success, the
method of quotation with interpolated sarcasm and badinage--a method
that was afterwards effectively pursued by the early Edinburgh Reviewers
and the Blackwood coterie. There are few examples of that style in the
eighteenth century reviews, but some noteworthy specimens of a later
period--_e.g._, the _Edinburgh Review_ on Coleridge's _Christabel_ and
the _Quarterly_ on Tennyson's _Poems_--are reprinted in this volume.
The review of _An Evening Walk_ is simply an appended paragraph to the
previous article. Wordsworth evidently appreciated the advice conveyed
in the reviewer's final sentence and found many of the lines that
"called loudly for amendment." More favorable notices of both poems will
be found in _Critical Review_, VIII, pp. 347 and 472.
_Lyrical Ballads_
The _Lyrical Ballads_ by Wordsworth and Coleridge were published
anonymously early in September, 1798--a few days before the joint
authors sailed for Germany. Coleridge's contributions were _The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner_, _The Foster-Mother's Tale_, _The Nightingale_, and
_The Dungeon_; the remaining nineteen poems were by Wordsworth. As the
publication of this volume has been accepted by most critics as the
first fruit of the new romantic spirit and the virtual beginning of
modern English poetry, the reception accorded to the _Lyrical Ballads_
becomes a matter of prime importance. It is well known that the effort
was a failure at first and that the apparent triumph of romanticism did
not occur until the publication of Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_
(1805); but a contemporary blindness to the beauty of two of the finest
poems in English literature cannot be permitted to figure in the
critics' dispassionate investigation of causes and influences.
There were four interesting reviews of the first edition of the _Lyrical
Ballads_, namely, (1) _Critical Rev._, XXIV, n.s. (197-204), in October,
1798, which is reprinted here; (2) _Analytical Rev._, XXVIII (583-587),
in December, 1798; (3) _Monthly Rev._, XXIX, n.s. (202-210), in May,
1799, reprinted in Stevenson's _Early Reviews_; (4) _British Critic_,
XIV (364-369) in October, 1799.
The article in the _Critical Review_ was written by Robert Southey under
conditions most favorable for such a malicious procedure. The publisher,
his friend Cottle, had transferred the copyright of the _Lyrical
Ballads_ to Arch, a London publisher, within two weeks of the appearance
of the volume, giving as a shallow excuse the "heavy sale" of the book.
Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were in Germany. Southey had quarreled
with Coleridge, and was probably jealous of the latter's extravagant
praise of Wordsworth. He accordingly seized the opportunity to assail
the work without injuring Cottle's interests or entailing the immediate
displeasure of the travelling bards.
He covered his tracks to some extent by referring several times to "the
author," although the joint authorship was well known to him. While
severe in most of his strictures on Wordsworth, Southey reserved his
special malice for _The Ancient Mariner_. He called it "a Dutch attempt
at German sublimity"; and in a letter written to William Taylor on
September 5, 1798--probably while he was writing his discreditable
critique--he characterized the poem as "the clumsiest attempt at German
sublimity I ever saw." Southey's responsibility for the article became
known to Cottle, who communicated the fact to the poets on their return
a year later. Wordsworth declared that "if Southey could not
conscientiously have spoken differently of the volume, he ought to have
declined the task of reviewing it." Coleridge indited an epigram, _To a
Critic_, and let the matter drop. Shortly afterwards he showed his
renewed good-will by aiding Southey in preparing the second _Annual
Anthology_ (1800).
The subsequent reviews of the _Lyrical Ballads_ adopted the tone of the
_Critical_ (then recognized as the leading review) and internal evidence
shows that they did not hesitate to borrow ideas from Southey's article.
The _Analytical Review_ also saw German extravagances in _The Ancient
Mariner_; the _Monthly_ borrowed Southey's figure of the Italian and
Flemish painters, and called _The Ancient Mariner_ "the strangest story
of a cock and bull that we ever saw on paper ... a rhapsody of
unintelligible wildness and incoherence." The belated review in the
_British Critic_ was probably written by Coleridge's friend, Rev.
Francis Wrangham, and was somewhat more appreciative than the rest. For
further details, consult Mr. Thomas Hutchinson's reprint (1898) of the
_Lyrical Ballads_, pp. (xiii-xxviii). Despite the unfavorable reviews,
the Ballads reached a fourth edition in 1805 (besides an American
edition in 1802), thus achieving the popularity alluded to by Jeffrey at
the beginning of our next review.
_Poems_ (1807)
Wordsworth's fourth publication, the _Poems_ (1807), included most of
the pieces written after the first appearance of the _Lyrical Ballads_.
It was likewise his first venture subsequent to the founding of the
_Edinburgh Review_. Jeffrey had assailed the theories of the "Lake
Poets" (and, incidentally, coined that unfortunate term) in the first
number of the _Review_, in an article on Southey's _Thalaba_, and three
years later (1805), in criticizing _Madoc_, he again expressed his views
on the subject. Now came the first opportunity to deal with the
recognized leader of the "Lakers"--the poet whose work most clearly
illustrated the poetic theories that Jeffrey deemed pernicious.
The article here reprinted from the _Edinburgh Rev._, XI (214-231), of
October, 1807, and Jeffrey's review of _The Excursion_, in _ibid._, XXIV
(1-30), are perhaps the two most important critiques of their kind. No
student of Wordsworth's theory of poetry, as set forth in his various
prefaces, can afford to ignore either of these interesting discussions
of the subject. (For details, see A.J. George's edition of the
_Prefaces_ of Wordsworth, Gates' _Selections_ from Jeffrey, Beers'
_Nineteenth Century Romanticism_, Hutchinson's edition of _Lyrical
Ballads_, etc.) It was undoubtedly true that Jeffrey, although an able
critic, failed to grasp the real significance of the new poetic
movement, and to appreciate the influence wrought by the doctrines of
the Lake Poets on modern conceptions of poetry. Yet he was far from
wrong in many of his criticisms of Wordsworth. While deprecating the
latter's theories, it is clear that Jeffrey regarded him as a poet of
great power who was being led astray by his perverse practice. The
popular conception of Jeffrey as a hectoring and blatant opponent of
Wordsworth is not substantiated by the review. The impartial reader must
agree with Jeffrey at many points, and if he will take the trouble to
collate Jeffrey's quotations with the revised text of Wordsworth, he
will learn that the poet did not disdain to take an occasional
suggestion for the improvement of his verse.
We recognize Wordsworth to-day as the most unequal of English poets.
There is little that is common to the inspired bard of _Tintern Abbey_,
the _Immortality Ode_ and the nobler _Sonnets_, and the unsophisticated
scribe of _Peter Bell_ and _The Idiot Boy_. Like Browning, he wrote too
much to write well at all times, and if both poets were capable of the
sublimest flights, they likewise descended to unimagined depths; but the
fault of Wordsworth was perhaps the greater, because his bathos was the
result of a deliberate and persistent attempt to enrich English poetry
with prosaically versified incidents drawn at length from homely rural
life.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE