Putney, where he remained nearly two years. After leaving this school,
he went abroad again for some months; and, in October 1822, became the
pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an Assistant Master of Eton College.
At Eton he continued till the summer of 1827. He was now become a good
though not perhaps a first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek
languages. The loss of time, relatively to this object, in travelling,
but far more his increasing avidity for a different kind of knowledge,
and the strong bent of his mind to subjects which exercise other
faculties than such as the acquirement of languages calls into play,
will sufficiently account for what might seem a comparative deficiency
in classical learning. It can only, however, be reckoned one,
comparatively to his other attainments, and to his remarkable facility
in mastering the modern languages. The Editor has thought it not
improper to print in the following pages an Eton exercise, which, as
written before the age of fourteen, though not free from metrical and
other errors, appears, perhaps to a partial judgment, far above the
level of such compositions. It is remarkable that he should have
selected the story of Ugolino, from a poet with whom, and with whose
language, he was then but very slightly acquainted, but who was
afterwards to become, more perhaps than any other, the master-mover of
his spirit. It may be added, that great judgment and taste are
perceptible in this translation, which is by no means a literal one;
and in which the phraseology of Sophocles is not ill substituted, in
some passages, for that of Dante.
The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reckoned at that School
the chief test of his literary talent. That of Arthur was good without
being excellent; he never wanted depth of thought, or truth of
feeling; but it is only in a few rare instances, if altogether in any,
that an original mind has been known to utter itself freely and
vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a language the capacities
of which are so imperfectly understood; and in his productions there
was not the thorough conformity to an ancient model which is required
for perfect elegance in Latin verse. He took no great pleasure in this
sort of composition; and perhaps never returned to it of his own
accord.
In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was led away more and
more by the predominant bias of his mind, from the exclusive study of
ancient literature. The poets of England, especially the older
dramatists, came with greater attraction over his spirit. He loved
Fletcher, and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, for their energy of
language and intenseness of feeling; but it was in Shakespeare alone
that he found the fulness of soul which seemed to slake the thirst of
his own rapidly expanding genius for an inexhaustible fountain of
thought and emotion. He knew Shakespeare thoroughly; and indeed his
acquaintance with the earlier poetry of this country was very
extensive. Among the modern poets, Byron was at this time, far above
the rest, and almost exclusively, his favourite; a preference which,
in later years, he transferred altogether to Wordsworth and Shelley.
He became, when about fifteen years old, a member of the debating
society established among the elder boys, in which he took great
interest; and this served to confirm the bias of his intellect towards
the moral and political philosophy of modern times. It was probably,
however, of important utility in giving him that command of his own
language which he possessed, as the following Essays will show, in a
very superior degree, and in exercising those powers of argumentative
discussion, which now displayed themselves as eminently characteristic
of his mind. It was a necessary consequence that he declined still
more from the usual paths of study, and abated perhaps somewhat of his
regard for the writers of antiquity. It must not be understood,
nevertheless, as most of those who read these pages will be aware,
that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-living effusions of
genius which the ancient languages preserve. He loved Aeschylus and
Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did justice), Lucretius and Virgil;
if he did not seem so much drawn towards Homer as might at first be
expected, this may probably be accounted for by his increasing taste
for philosophical poetry.
In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in the Eton Miscellany,
a periodical publication, in which some of his friends in the debating
society were concerned. He wrote in this, besides a few papers in
prose, a little poem on a story connected with the Lake of Killarney.
It has not been thought by the Editor advisable, upon the whole, to
reprint these lines; though, in his opinion, they bear very striking
marks of superior powers. This was almost the first poetry that Arthur
had written, except the childish tragedies above mentioned. No one was
ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. Poetry with him was not
an amusement, but the natural and almost necessary language of genuine
emotion; and it was not till the discipline of serious reflection, and
the approach of manhood, gave a reality and intenseness to such
emotions, that he learned the capacities of his own genius. That he
was a poet by nature, these Remains will sufficiently prove; but
certainly he was far removed from being a versifier by nature; nor was
he probably able to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write
easily and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines on the story of
Pygmalion are so far an exception, that they arose out of a momentary
amusement of society; but he could not avoid, even in these, his own
grave tone of poetry.
Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he accompanied his parents to
the Continent, and passed eight months in Italy. This introduction to
new scenes of nature and art, and to new sources of intellectual
delight, at the very period of transition from boyhood to youth,
sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his mind, and taught him,
too soon for his peace, to sound those depths of thought and feeling
from which, after this time, all that he wrote was derived. He had,
when he passed the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance with the Italian
language; but during his residence in the country he came to speak it
with perfect fluency, and with a pure Sienese pronunciation. In its
study he was much assisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate
Pifferi, who encouraged him to his first attempts at versification.
The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it is to be remembered,
written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen years old, and after a very
short stay in Italy. The Editor might not, probably, have suffered
them to appear even in this private manner, upon his own judgment. But
he knew that the greatest living writer of Italy, to whom they were
shown some time since at Milan, by the author's excellent friend, Mr.
Richard Milnes, has expressed himself in terms of high approbation.
The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry led him naturally
to that of Dante. No poet was so congenial to the character of his own
reflective mind; in none other could he so abundantly find that
disdain of flowery redundance, that perpetual preference of the
sensible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat better and less
fleeting than earthly things, to which his inmost soul responded. Like
all genuine worshippers of the great Florentine poet, he rated the
_Inferno_ below the two latter portions of the _Divina Commedia_;
there was nothing even to revolt his taste, but rather much to attract
it, in the scholastic theology and mystic visions of the _Paradiso_.
Petrarch he greatly admired, though with less idolatry than Dante; and
the sonnets here printed will show to all competent judges how fully
he had imbibed the spirit, without servile centonism, of the best
writers in that style of composition who flourished in the sixteenth
century.
But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time in his mind. His
eyes were fixed on the best pictures with silent intense delight. He
had a deep and just perception of what was beautiful in this art, at
least in its higher schools; for he did not pay much regard, or
perhaps quite do justice, to the masters of the seventeenth century.
To technical criticism he made no sort of pretension; painting was to
him but the visible language of emotion; and where it did not aim at
exciting it, or employed inadequate means, his admiration would be
withheld. Hence he highly prized the ancient paintings, both Italian
and German, of the age which preceded the full development of art. But
he was almost as enthusiastic an admirer of the Venetian, as of the
Tuscan and Roman schools; considering these masters as reaching the
same end by the different agencies of form and colour. This
predilection for the sensitive beauties of painting is somewhat
analogous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on which he laid more
stress than poets so thoughtful are apt to do. In one of the last days
of his life, he lingered long among the fine Venetian pictures of the
Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
He returned to England in June 1828; and, in the following October,
went down to reside at Cambridge; having been entered on the boards of
Trinity College before his departure to the Continent. He was the
pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In some respects, as soon became
manifest, he was not formed to obtain great academical reputation. An
acquaintance with the learned languages, considerable at the school
where he was educated, but not improved, to say the least, by the
intermission of a year, during which his mind had been so occupied by
other pursuits, that he had thought little of antiquity even in Rome
itself, though abundantly sufficient for the gratification of taste
and the acquisition of knowledge, was sure to prove inadequate to the
searching scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon, therefore, saw
reason to renounce all competition of this kind; nor did he ever so
much as attempt any Greek or Latin composition during his stay at
Cambridge. In truth he was very indifferent to success of this kind;
and conscious as he must have been of a high reputation among his
contemporaries, he could not think that he stood in need of any
University distinctions. The Editor became by degrees almost equally
indifferent to what he perceived to be so uncongenial to Arthur's
mind. It was, however, to be regretted that he never paid the least
attention to mathematical studies. That he should not prosecute them
with the diligence usual at Cambridge, was of course to be expected;
yet his clearness and acumen would certainly have enabled him to
master the principles of geometrical reasoning; nor, in fact, did he
so much find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a want of
interest, and a consequent inability to retain them in his memory. A
little more practice in the strict logic of geometry, a little more
familiarity with the physical laws of the universe, and the phenomena
to which they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency to
vague and mystical speculations which he was too fond of indulging. In
the philosophy of the human mind, he was in no danger of the
materializing theories of some ancient and modern schools; but in
shunning this extreme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest
pursuit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, and that
the physiology of man must always enter into any valid scheme of his
psychology.
The comparative inferiority which he might show in the usual trials of
knowledge, sprung in a great measure from the want of a prompt and
accurate memory. It was the faculty wherein he shone the least,
according to ordinary observation; though his very extensive reach of
literature, and his rapidity in acquiring languages, sufficed to prove
that it was capable of being largely exercised. He could remember
anything, as a friend observed to the Editor, that was associated with
an idea. But he seemed, at least after he reached manhood, to want
almost wholly the power, so common with inferior understandings, of
retaining, with regularity and exactness, a number of unimportant
uninteresting particulars. It would have been nearly impossible to
make him recollect for three days the date of the battle of Marathon,
or the names in order of the Athenian months. Nor could he repeat
poetry, much as he loved it, with the correctness often found in young
men. It is not improbable, that a more steady discipline in early life
would have strengthened this faculty, or that he might have supplied
its deficiency by some technical devices; but where the higher powers
of intellect were so extraordinarily manifested, it would have been
preposterous to complain of what may perhaps have been a necessary
consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural result of their
exercise.
But another reason may be given for his deficiency in those
unremitting labours which the course of academical education, in the
present times, is supposed to exact from those who aspire to its
distinctions. In the first year of his residence at Cambridge,
symptoms of disordered health, especially in the circulatory system,
began to show themselves; and it is by no means improbable, that these
were indications of a tendency to derangement of the vital functions,
which became ultimately fatal. A too rapid determination of blood
towards the brain, with its concomitant uneasy sensations, rendered
him frequently incapable of mental fatigue. He had indeed once before,
at Florence, been affected by symptoms not unlike these. His
intensity of reflection and feeling also brought on occasionally a
considerable depression of spirits, which had been painfully observed
at times by those who watched him most, from the time of his leaving
Eton, and even before. It was not till after several months that he
regained a less morbid condition of mind and body. This same
irregularity of circulation returned in the next spring, but was of
less duration. During the third year of his Cambridge life, he
appeared in much better health.
In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize for an English
declamation. The subject chosen by him was the conduct of the
Independent party during the civil war. This exercise was greatly
admired at the time, but was never printed. In consequence of this
success, it became incumbent on him, according to the custom of the
college, to deliver an oration in the chapel immediately before the
Christmas vacation of the same year. On this occasion he selected a
subject very congenial to his own turn of thought and favourite study,
the influence of Italian upon English literature. He had previously
gained another prize for an English essay on the philosophical
writings of Cicero. This essay is perhaps too excursive from the
prescribed subject; but his mind was so deeply imbued with the higher
philosophy, especially that of Plato, with which he was very
conversant, that he could not be expected to dwell much on the praises
of Cicero in that respect.
Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means inclined him to strict
research into facts, he was full as much conversant with the great
features of ancient and modern history, as from the course of his
other studies and the habits of his life it was possible to expect. He
reckoned them, as great minds always do, the groundworks of moral and
political philosophy, and took no pains to acquire any knowledge of
this sort from which a principle could not be derived or illustrated.
To some parts of English history, and to that of the French
Revolution, he had paid considerable attention. He had not read nearly
so much of the Greek and Latin historians as of the philosophers and
poets. In the history of literary, and especially of philosophical and
religious opinions, he was deeply versed, as much so as it is possible
to apply that term at his age. The following pages exhibit proofs of
an acquaintance, not crude or superficial, with that important branch
of literature.
His political judgments were invariably prompted by his strong sense
of right and justice. These, in so young a person, were naturally
rather fluctuating, and subject to the correction of advancing
knowledge and experience. Ardent in the cause of those he deemed to be
oppressed, of which, in one instance, he was led to give a proof with
more of energy and enthusiasm than discretion, he was deeply attached
to the ancient institutions of his country.
He spoke French readily, though with less elegance than Italian, till
from disuse he lost much of his fluency in the latter. In his last
fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly acquiring a readiness in the
language of that country. The whole range of French literature was
almost as familiar to him as that of England.
The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at Eton and at the
University, was formed of young men, eminent for natural ability, and
for delight in what he sought above all things, the knowledge of
truth, and the perception of beauty. They who loved and admired him
living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as of one to whom, in
the fondness of regret, they admit of no rival, know best what he was
in the daily commerce of life; and his eulogy should, on every
account, better come from hearts which, if partial, have been rendered
so by the experience of friendship, not by the affection of nature.
Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in January 1832. He resided
from that time with the Editor in London, having been entered on the
boards of the Inner Temple. It was greatly the desire of the Editor
that he should engage himself in the study of the law; not merely with
professional views, but as a useful discipline for a mind too much
occupied with habits of thought, which, ennobling and important as
they were, could not but separate him from the everyday business of
life, and might, by their excess, in his susceptible temperament, be
productive of considerable mischief. He had, during the previous long
vacation, read with the Editor the _Institutes_ of Justinian, and the
two works of Heineccius which illustrate them; and he now went through
Blackstone's _Commentaries_, with as much of other law-books as, in
the Editor's judgment, was required for a similar purpose. It was
satisfactory at that time to perceive that, far from showing any of
that distaste to legal studies which might have been anticipated from
some parts of his intellectual character, he entered upon them not
only with great acuteness, but considerable interest. In the month of
October 1832, he began to see the practical application of legal
knowledge in the office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters of
Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he continued till his departure from
England in the following summer.
It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired by any one who
knew how to value him, that he should at once abandon those habits of
study which had fertilized and invigorated his mind. But he now, from
some change or other in his course of thinking, ceased in a great
measure to write poetry, and expressed to more than one friend an
intention to give it up. The instances after his leaving Cambridge
were few. The dramatic scene between Raffaelle and Fiammetta was
written in 1832; and about the same time he had a design to translate
the _Vita Nuova_ of his favourite Dante; a work which he justly
prized, as the development of that immense genius, in a kind of
autobiography, which best prepares us for a real insight into the
_Divine Comedy_. He rendered accordingly into verse most of the
sonnets which the _Vita Nuova_ contains; but the Editor does not
believe that he made any progress in the prose translation. These
sonnets appearing rather too literal, and consequently harsh, it has
not been thought worth while to print.
In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor Rosetti's
_Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale_, in which the writings of
Arthur's beloved masters, Dante and Petrarch, as well as most of the
mediæval literature of Italy, were treated as a series of enigmas, to
be understood only by a key that discloses a latent Carbonarism, a
secret conspiracy against the religion of their age, excited him to
publish his own Remarks in reply. It seemed to him the worst of
poetical heresies to desert the Absolute, the Universal, the Eternal,
the Beautiful and True, which the Platonic spirit of his literary
creed taught him to seek in all the higher works of genius, in quest
of some temporary historical allusion, which could be of no interest
with posterity. Nothing, however, could be more alien from his
courteous disposition than to abuse the licence of controversy, or to
treat with intentional disrespect a very ingenious person, who had
been led on too far in pursuing a course of interpretation, which,
within certain much narrower limits, it is impossible for any one
conversant with history not to admit.
A very few other anonymous writings occupied his leisure about this
time. Among these were slight memoirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and
Burke, for the Gallery of Portraits, published by the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.[112] His time was, however, principally
devoted, when not engaged at his office, to metaphysical researches,
and to the history of philosophical opinions.
From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a gradual but very
perceptible improvement in the cheerfulness of his spirits gladdened
his family and his friends; intervals there doubtless were when the
continual seriousness of his habits of thought, or the force of
circumstances, threw something more of gravity into his demeanour; but
in general he was animated and even gay, renewing or preserving his
intercourse with some of those he had most valued at Eton and
Cambridge. The symptoms of deranged circulation which had manifested
themselves before, ceased to appear, or at least so as to excite his
own attention; and though it struck those who were most anxious in
watching him, that his power of enduring fatigue was not quite so
great as from his frame of body and apparent robustness might have
been anticipated, nothing gave the least indication of danger either
to their eyes, or to those of the medical practitioners who were in
the habit of observing him. An attack of intermittent fever, during
the prevalent influenza of the spring of 1833, may perhaps have
disposed his constitution to the last fatal blow.
To any one who has watched the history of the disease by which "so quick
this bright thing came to confusion," and who knows how near its subject
must often, perhaps all his life, have been to that eternity which
occupied so much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of which
were so soon to open on his young eyes, there is something very touching
in this account. Such a state of health would enhance, and tend to
produce, by the sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual
seriousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that tendency to look at
the true life of things--that deep but gentle and calm sadness, and that
occasional sinking of the heart, which make his noble and strong inner
nature, his resolved mind, so much more impressive and endearing.
This feeling of personal insecurity--of life being ready to slip away--the
sensation that this world and its on-goings, its mighty interests, and
delicate joys, is ready to be shut up in a moment--this instinctive
apprehension of the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment--all this would
tend to make him "walk softly," and to keep him from much of the evil that
is in the world, and would help him to live soberly, righteously, and
godly, even in the bright and rich years of his youth. His power of giving
himself up to the search after absolute truth, and the contemplation of
Supreme goodness, must have been increased by this same organization. But
all this delicate feeling, this fineness of sense, did rather quicken the
energy and fervour of the indwelling soul--the [Greek: ti thermon pragma]
that burned within. In the quaint words of Vaughan, it was "manhood with a
female eye." These two conditions must, as we have said, have made him
dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of life, having that organ out of
which are the issues of life, under a sort of perpetual nearness to
suffering, and so liable to pain, he would be more easily moved for
others--more alive to their pain--more filled with fellow-feeling.