"I say, continuing, that long before unto
the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
unto its summit upward went, cause of two
flamelets that we saw there placed; while
signal back another gave from far; so far the
eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
And who are they that made it?"
We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchià" would have set him
right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
the following lines:--
Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
learning; witness such lines as these:--
"My parents natives of Lombardy were."
"They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
"Like as at Palo near the Quarnãro."
"I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author
declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He
says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a
specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one,
the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear
until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for
which we may yet have to wait some time.
We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of
Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character
of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name
to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious
participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will
soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent
translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long
since, bearing their imprint.
* * * * *
_City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and
other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became
light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric
in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which
we cannot find some novel image, _some Shakspearian felicity_ of
expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the
"Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another
exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the
luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
* * * * *