This is an exquisite satire on the attempts at criticism which were
current in _pre-Edinburgh Review_ days, when the majority of the
journals were mere touts for the booksellers. The papers in
question are taken from Nos. 11 and 12 of the _Microcosm_,
published on Monday, February 12th, 1787--when Canning was
seventeen years of age.
The epic poem on which I shall ground my present critique has for its
chief characteristics brevity and simplicity. The author--whose name I
lament that I am, in some degree, prevented from consecrating to
immortal fame, by not knowing what it is--the author, I say, has not
branched his poem into excrescences of episode, or prolixities of
digression; it is neither variegated with diversity of unmeaning
similitudes, nor glaring with the varnish of unnatural metaphor. The
whole is plain and uniform; so much so, indeed, that I should hardly be
surprised if some morose readers were to conjecture that the poet had
been thus simple rather from necessity than choice; that he had been
restrained, not so much by chastity of judgment, as sterility of
imagination.
Nay, some there may be, perhaps, who will dispute his claim to the
title of an epic poet, and will endeavour to degrade him even to the
rank of a ballad-monger. But I, as his commentator, will contend for
the dignity of my author, and will plainly demonstrate his poem to be
an epic poem, agreeable to the example of all poets, and the consent of
all critics heretofore.
First, it is universally agreed that an epic poem should have three
component parts--a beginning, a middle, and an end; secondly, it is
allowed that it should have one grand action or main design, to the
forwarding of which all the parts of it should directly or indirectly
tend, and that this design should be in some measure consonant with,
and conducive to, the purposes of morality; and thirdly, it is
indisputably settled that it should have a hero. I trust that in none
of these points the poem before us will be found deficient. There are
other inferior properties which I shall consider in due order.
Not to keep my readers longer in suspense, the subject of the poem is
"The Reformation of the Knave of Hearts". It is not improbable that
some may object to me that a knave is an unworthy hero for an epic
poem--that a hero ought to be all that is great and good. The objection
is frivolous. The greatest work of this kind that the world has ever
produced has "the Devil" for its hero; and supported as my author is by
so great a precedent, I contend that his hero is a very decent hero,
and especially as he has the advantage of Milton's, by reforming, at
the end, is evidently entitled to a competent share of celebrity.
I shall now proceed to the more immediate examination of the poem in
its different parts. The beginning, say the critics, ought to be plain
and simple--neither embellished with the flowers of poetry, nor turgid
with pomposity of diction. In this how exactly does our author conform
to the established opinion! He begins thus:
"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts".
Can anything be more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true
spirit of simplicity? Here are no tropes, no figurative expressions,
not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his
readers by any needless circumlocution, by unnecessarily informing them
what he _is_ going to sing, or still more unnecessarily enumerating
what he _is not_ going to sing; but, according to the precept of
Horace:--
_In médias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit--_
That is, he at once introduces us and sets us on the most easy and
familiar footing imaginable with her Majesty of Hearts, and interests
us deeply in her domestic concerns. But to proceed--
"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day".
Here indeed the prospect brightens, and we are led to expect some
liveliness of imagery, some warmth of poetical colouring; but here is
no such thing. There is no task more difficult to a poet than that of
rejection. Ovid among the ancients, and Dryden among the moderns, were
perhaps the most remarkable for the want of it. The latter, from the
haste in which he generally produced his compositions, seldom paid much
attention to the _limæ labor_, "the labour of correction", and seldom,
therefore, rejected the assistance of any idea that presented itself.
Ovid, not content with catching the leading features of any scene or
character, indulged himself in a thousand minutiæ of description, a
thousand puerile prettinesses, which were in themselves uninteresting,
and took off greatly from the effect of the whole; as the numberless
suckers and straggling branches of a fruit-tree, if permitted to shoot
out unrestrained, while they are themselves barren and useless,
diminish considerably the vigour of the parent stock. Ovid had more
genius but less judgment than Virgil; Dryden more imagination but less
correctness than Pope; had they not been deficient in these points the
former would certainly have equalled, the latter infinitely outshone
the merits of his countryman. Our author was undoubtedly possessed of
that power which they wanted, and was cautious not to indulge too far
the sallies of a lively imagination. Omitting, therefore, any mention
of sultry Sirius, sylvan shade, sequestered glade, verdant hills,
purling rills, mossy mountains, gurgling fountains, &c., he simply
tells us that it was "All on a summer's day". For my own part I confess
that I find myself rather flattered than disappointed, and consider the
poet as rather paying a compliment to the abilities of his readers,
than baulking their expectations. It is certainly a great pleasure to
see a picture well painted; but it is a much greater to paint it well
oneself. This, therefore, I look upon as a stroke of excellent
management in the poet. Here every reader is at liberty to gratify his
own taste, to design for himself just what sort of "summer's day" he
likes best; to choose his own scenery, dispose his lights and shades as
he pleases, to solace himself with a rivulet or a horse-pond, a shower
or a sunbeam, a grove or a kitchen-garden, according to his fancy. How
much more considerate this than if the poet had, from an affected
accuracy of description, thrown us into an unmannerly perspiration by
the heat of the atmosphere, forced us into a landscape of his own
planning, with perhaps a paltry good-for-nothing zephyr or two, and a
limited quantity of wood and water. All this Ovid would undoubtedly
have done. Nay, to use the expression of a learned brother
commentator--_quovis pignore decertem_, "I would lay any wager", that
he would have gone so far as to tell us what the tarts were made of,
and perhaps wandered into an episode on the art of preserving cherries.
But _our_ poet, above such considerations, leaves every reader to
choose his own ingredients, and sweeten them to his own liking; wisely
foreseeing, no doubt, that the more palatable each had rendered them to
his own taste, the more he would be affected at their approaching loss.
"All on a summer's day."
I cannot leave this line without remarking that one of the Scribleri, a
descendant of the famous Martinus, has expressed his suspicions of the
text being corrupted here, and proposes instead of "all on" reading
"alone", alleging, in favour of this alteration, the effect of solitude
in raising the passions. But Hiccius Doctius, a high Dutch commentator,
one nevertheless well versed in British literature, in a note of his
usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In
support of the present reading he quotes a passage from a poem written
about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes
Pastor[230], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate",
wherein the gentleman declares that, rather indeed in compliance with
an old custom than to gratify any particular wish of his own, he is
going--
"All hanged for to be
Upon that fatal Tyburn tree ".
Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author than the concurrence
of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius' opinion, and
to consider the "All" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly
phrases it _elegans expletivum_. The passage therefore must stand
thus:--
"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day."
And thus ends the first part, or beginning, which is simple and
unembellished, opens the subject in a natural and easy manner, excites,
but does not too far gratify our curiosity, for a reader of accurate
observation may easily discover that the hero of the poem has not, as
yet, made his appearance.
I could not continue my examination at present through the whole of
this poem without far exceeding the limits of a single paper. I have
therefore divided it into two, but shall not delay the publication of
the second to another week, as that, besides breaking the connection of
criticism, would materially injure the unities of the poem.
Having thus gone through the first part, or beginning of the poem, we
may, naturally enough, proceed to the consideration of the second.
The second part, or middle, is the proper place for bustle and
business, for incident and adventure:--
"The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts".
Here attention is awakened, and our whole souls are intent upon the
first appearance of the hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at
his making his _entree_ in so disadvantageous a character as that of a
thief. To this I plead precedent.
The hero of the Iliad, as I observed in a former paper, is made to
lament very pathetically that "life is not like all other possessions,
to be acquired by theft". A reflection, in my opinion, evidently
showing that, if he _did_ refrain from the practice of this ingenious
art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember,
too, that in Virgil's poem almost the first light in which the pious
Æneas appears to us is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him
that the deer were wandering without keepers, for however he might,
from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property
they were, he might, I think, have been pretty well assured that they
were not his.
Having thus acquitted our hero of misconduct, by the example of his
betters, I proceed to what I think the master-stroke of the poet.
"The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts,
And--took them--quite away!!"
Here, whoever has an ear for harmony and a heart for feeling must be
touched! There is a desponding melancholy in the run of the last line!
an air of tender regret in the addition of "quite away!" a something so
expressive of irrecoverable loss! so forcibly intimating the _Ad
nunquam reditura!_ "They never can return!" in short, such an union of
sound and sense as we rarely, if ever, meet with in any author, ancient
or modern. Our feelings are all alive, but the poet, wisely dreading
that our sympathy with the injured Queen might alienate our affections
from his hero, contrives immediately to awaken our fears for him by
telling us that--
"The King of Hearts
Called for those tarts".
We are all conscious of the fault of our hero, and all tremble with
him, for the punishment which the enraged monarch may inflict:
"And beat the Knave full sore!"
The fatal blow is struck! We cannot but rejoice that guilt is justly
punished, though we sympathize with the guilty object of punishment.
Here Scriblerus, who, by the by, is very fond of making unnecessary
alterations, proposes reading "score" instead of "sore", meaning
thereby to particularize that the beating bestowed by this monarch
consisted of twenty stripes. But this proceeds from his ignorance of
the genius of our language, which does not admit of such an expression
as "full score", but would require the insertion of the particle "a",
which cannot be, on account of the metre. And this is another great
artifice of the poet. By leaving the quantity of beating indeterminate,
he gives every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion
to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his hero,
that by thus amply satisfying their resentment they may be the more
easily reconciled to him afterwards.
"The King of Hearts
Called for those tarts,
And beat the Knave full sore."
Here ends the second part, or middle of the poem, in which we see the
character and exploits of the hero portrayed with the hand of a master.
Nothing now remains to be examined but the third part, or end. In the
end it is a rule pretty well established that the work should draw
towards a conclusion, which our author manages thus:--
"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts".
Here everything is at length settled; the theft is compensated, the
tarts restored to their right owner, and poetical justice, in every
respect, strictly and impartially administered.
We may observe that there is nothing in which our poet has better
succeeded than in keeping up an unremitted attention in his readers to
the main instruments, the machinery of his poem, viz. the _tarts_;
insomuch that the afore-mentioned Scriblerus has sagely observed that
"he can't tell, but he doesn't know, but the tarts may be reckoned the
heroes of the poem". Scriblerus, though a man of learning, and
frequently right in his opinion, has here certainly hazarded a rash
conjecture. His arguments are overthrown entirely by his great
opponent, Hiccius, who concludes by triumphantly asking, "Had the tarts
been eaten, how could the poet have compensated for the loss of his
heroes?"
We are now come to the _dénouement_, the setting all to rights: and our
poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his
great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they
have, is so interwoven with the main body of their work, that in
endeavouring to unravel it we should tear the whole. Our author has
very properly preserved his whole and entire for the end of his poem,
where he completes his main design, the reformation of his hero, thus--
"And vowed he'd steal no more".
Having in the course of his work shown the bad effects arising from
theft, he evidently means this last moral reflection to operate with
his readers as a gentle and polite dissuasive from stealing.
"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts,
And vowed he'd steal no more!"
Thus have I industriously gone through the several parts of this
wonderful work, and clearly proved it, in every one of these parts, and
in all of them together, to be a "due and proper epic poem", and to
have as good a right to that title, from its adherence to prescribed
rules, as any of the celebrated masterpieces of antiquity. And here I
cannot help again lamenting that, by not knowing the name of the
author, I am unable to twine our laurels together, and to transmit to
posterity the mingled praises of genius and judgment, of the poet and
his commentator.
[Footnote 230: More commonly known, I believe, by the appellation of
Jack Shepherd.]