THE GREAT COMMENTATOR.
"Eccovi un de' compositor di libri bene meriti di republica,
postillatori, glosatori, construttori, additatori, scoliatori,
traduttori!..,...
... O bella etimologia, e di mio proprio Marte or ora _deprompta_!
Or dunque quindi _prope jam versus movo_ il gresso, per che voglio
notarla _majoribus literis_ nel mio _propriarum elucubrationum
libro_."--GIORDANO BRUNO. _Candelajo_.
During this conversation between the lovers, another pair of
undeclared lovers were standing on the steps of the terrace, "talking
of lovely things that conquer death," and yielding themselves up to
the luxury of a _tête-à-tête_, wherein glances were more eloquent
than tongues, and hearts fluttered like new-caught birds, at the most
seemingly insignificant phrase.
These were Cecil and Blanche. I call them undeclared lovers, because
not only were they ignorant of each other's feelings, but ignorant
also of their own. Blanche's love had been of gradual growth. The
lively, handsome, accomplished Cecil had early made a deep impression
on her, though her shy, retiring disposition gave no signs of it; and
his attentions on the evening before had been so delightful that she
was still under their influence.
That in relinquishing Violet, he should turn to her complete
opposite, Blanche, is nothing but what one may have anticipated. Her
charms were brought into stronger relief by the contrast; and it has
always been remarked that the heart is never so susceptible to a new
impression as when it has been in any way robbed of an old affection.
Partly, no doubt, because the feelings are best attuned to love when
in that state of unsatisfied excitement; for,--
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart,
still, the sacrifice is so sweet, that it is with difficulty we
forego it; and if the _object_ change, the _feeling_ still remains.
Partly, also, because the _amour propre_, outraged by a defeat, is
glad to be flattered by the chance of a new success.
There they stood, enchanting and enchanted, when Meredith Vyner put
his head out of the glass door of the drawing-room which opened on to
the terrace, and said, "Mr. Chamberlayne, you are not doing anything
particular, are you?"
"Not at all, sir."
"Then, if you have nothing better to amuse you, just step with me
into my study; I have a new discovery to communicate, which will, I
think, delight you."
Nothing better to amuse him! to leave Blanche for some twaddle about
Horace! was it not provoking? But he was forced to go, there was no
escaping, If anything could have compensated him, it would have been
the expression of impatience on Blanche's face, and the look with
which she seemed to say, "Don't stay too long."
When they were in the study, Meredith Vyner placed his snuff-box on
the table, and, resting his left foot on the fender, began stroking
his protuberant calf in a very deliberate manner. This was a certain
sign of his being at that moment struggling with some conception,
which demanded the greatest clearness and composure, adequately to
bring forth. His mind was tottering under the weight of an unusual
burden. As the left hand slowly descended the inner part of his leg,
from the knee to the ankle, and as slowly ascended again the same
distance, Cecil saw that he was arranging in his head something of
more consequence than a verbal criticism. "The discovery I am about
to impart," he said at last, with a slight pomposity, "is not
perfectly elaborated in my mind, since the first gleam of it only
came to me last night. It kept me sleepless. I have meditated
profoundly on it since, and I am now in a condition to communicate it
to you."
In spite of the solemnity of this introduction, Cecil, whose thoughts
were on the terrace, found great difficulty in assuming a proper air
of attentive interest. Vyner did not remark it, but continued:--
"The discovery is so simple when once mentioned--like all truly great
discoveries--that one asks oneself, is it possible that hitherto it
should have been overseen? It goes, however, to nothing less than
the entire revolution of the Horatian Sapphic. Look here: you must
often, I am sure, have been disagreeably affected by the absurdity of
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante,
_u_xorius amnis.
"This sort of caprice is very funny in Canning's
_U._
-niversity of Güttingen;
but only tolerable in comic verse: in a serious ode it is detestable,
and I cannot believe so careful and fastidious a poet (who was no
innovator, recollect! none of your _école romantique!_) guilty of
it..."
"You propose a new reading?" suggested Cecil, feeling called upon to
make some remark.
"New reading! no: that is the paltry trick of a commentator, who
endeavours to escape a difficulty by denying its existence. No, no;
my edition will have none of these trivialities. Everything I print
shall have a solid substance. I intend my edition _to last_. To the
point, however; the difficulty vanishes at once if we suppose, as is
most natural to believe, that Horace's Sapphics, were not composed of
four lines but of three--the fourth line being really nothing but the
Adonic termination to the third--like the tail to an Italian
sonnet--or better still, like the lengthening of the concluding line
in the Spenserian stanza: which has a magnificent swing and sweep in
its amplitude, as if gathering up into its mighty arms the rich
redundancy of poetic inspiration. Thus instead of
Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, _u_-orius amnis.
The verses read thus:--
Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, uxorius amnis.
And so throughout. Does not the sweep of this last line carry a fine
harmony with it? Is it not incomparably superior to the mean,
niggling, clipping versification as we usually receive it? There
cannot be a question about it. And if you come to reflect, you will
see how the error has crept in by the copyists being cramped for
room, and writing the Adonic addition below, as if it were a new
line. But it is no more a new line, than the additional syllables in
Spenser are new lines; nevertheless, we often see printers forced to
break a line into two. Here is an example," taking up a volume,
"which occurs in Tennyson, whom I opened this morning." And he read
aloud:--
"They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be
Queen _o' the May_."
"There," throwing the book down, "now suppose a few centuries hence
all our literature to have perished, except half a dozen poets, some
noodle of a commentator will imagine that 'Queen o' the May' is a
separate verse, and will write learned twaddle on the versification
of the English!"
An ample pinch closed this triumphant peroration; and Vyner holding
his head slightly downwards to bring his nose in contact with his
finger and thumb, looked up over that finger and thumb at Cecil, who
had for some minutes ceased to hear what he was saying, having caught
a glimpse of Blanche walking on the lawn with Captain Heath. Cecil
disliked the Captain; and now a vague sentiment of jealousy hovered
about his mind. No wonder, then, if he paid little heed to his host,
and his host's observations on an idle point of philology. Of late
he had become horribly bored by these consultations, and had often
wished Horace and his amateur editor buried irrecoverably beneath the
dust of Herculaneum; but never was his inattention so ill-timed as on
that occasion!
"What are you looking at?" inquired Vyner, in a tone which his
politeness could not completely subdue.
"Looking at? Nothing," said Cecil embarrassed. "I was
reflecting----."
"Oh! on my discovery?"
"Yes. It occurs to me that I have met with it before somewhere."
Cecil said this by way of cutting short the discussion, perfectly
aware that Vyner was too much of a commentator to care one straw
about an opinion, unless he were the originator.
"Impossible! Im-poss-ible!" ejaculated Vyner, much in the strain
that Dominie Sampson may have ejaculated 'prodigious!'
"It's very ingenious," said Cecil, who did not know a word about it,
"very; and true."
"Yes, yes, but you think it is not original? Its originality is
everything with me."
"Perhaps as some compromise between your theory and the ordinary one,
you might say that the _orius amnis_ and the Adonic termination
generally is only a termination, not a new verse."
"Compromise!" exclaimed the astonished Vyner, "why that is my theory!"
Cecil was posed. Convicted of such palpable inattention as to have
suggested as an improvement the very idea which had just been
explained to him, he could but stutter out some incoherent phrases of
excuse.
Vyner was doubly hurt. The inattention was one offence, but that was
nothing to the careless way in which Cecil had proposed as an
indifferent modification the grand discovery he, Vyner, had made,
which was to immortalize him. With an air of quiet dignity, which
Cecil had never seen before, the offended philologist assuring him he
was not ripe yet for such subjects, which could scarcely be a matter
of surprise at his age, he bowed him out.