Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to Vienna from Pesth,
a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very
slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood
to the head put an instantaneous end to his life on the 15th of
September 1833. The mysteriousness of such a dreadful termination to a
disorder generally of so little importance, and in this instance of
the slightest kind, has been diminished by an examination which showed
a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want of sufficient energy in
the heart. Those whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and whose
hopes on this side the tomb are broken down for ever, may cling, as
well as they can, to the poor consolation of believing that a few more
years would, in the usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail
union of his graceful and manly form with the pure spirit that it
enshrined.
The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on the 3rd
of January 1834, in the chancel of Clevedon Church, in Somersetshire,
belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, a place
selected by the Editor, not only from the connection of kindred, but
on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that
overhangs the Bristol Channel.
More ought perhaps to be said--but it is very difficult to proceed.
From the earliest years of this extraordinary young man, his premature
abilities were not more conspicuous than an almost faultless
disposition, sustained by a more calm self-command than has often been
witnessed in that season of life. The sweetness of temper which
distinguished his childhood, became with the advance of manhood a
habitual benevolence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted
principle of love towards God and man, which animated and almost
absorbed his soul during the latter period of his life, and to which
most of the following compositions bear such emphatic testimony. He
seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world; and in
bowing to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him,
perfected by so short a trial, and passing over the bridge which
separates the seen from the unseen life, in a moment, and, as we may
believe, without a moment's pang, we must feel not only the
bereavement of those to whom he was dear, but the loss which mankind
have sustained by the withdrawing of such a light.
A considerable portion of the poetry contained in this volume was
printed in the year 1830, and was intended by the author to be
published together with the poems of his intimate friend, Mr. Alfred
Tennyson. They were, however, withheld from publication at the request
of the Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was written for the University
prize in 1829, which it did not obtain. Notwithstanding its too great
obscurity, the subject itself being hardly indicated, and the
extremely hyperbolical importance which the author's brilliant fancy
has attached to a nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the
grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep philosophy upon which he has
built the scheme of his poem. This is, however, by no means the most
pleasing of his compositions. It is in the profound reflection, the
melancholy tenderness, and the religious sanctity of other effusions
that a lasting charm will be found. A commonplace subject, such as
those announced for academical prizes generally are, was incapable of
exciting a mind which, beyond almost every other, went straight to the
farthest depths that the human intellect can fathom, or from which
human feelings can be drawn. Many short poems, of equal beauty with
those here printed, have been deemed unfit even for the limited
circulation they might obtain, on account of their unveiling more of
emotion than, consistently with what is due to him and to others,
could be exposed to view.
The two succeeding essays have never been printed; but were read, it
is believed, in a literary society at Trinity College, or in one to
which he afterwards belonged in London. That entitled _Theodicaea
Novissima_ is printed at the desire of some of his intimate friends. A
few expressions in it want his usual precision; and there are ideas
which he might have seen cause, in the lapse of time, to modify,
independently of what his very acute mind would probably have
perceived, that his hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin
of evil, resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its
necessity. It has, however, some advantages, which need not be
mentioned, over that of Leibnitz; and it is here printed, not as a
solution of the greatest mystery of the universe, but as most
characteristic of the author's mind, original and sublime, uniting,
what is very rare except in early youth, a fearless and unblenching
spirit of inquiry into the highest objects of speculation, with the
most humble and reverential piety. It is probable that in many of his
views on such topics he was influenced by the writings of Jonathan
Edwards, with whose opinions on metaphysical and moral subjects he
seems generally to have concurred.
The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication now
extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the
suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and have
been already mentioned in this Memoir.
We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its subject
and its manner--for what in it is the father's as well as for what is the
son's. There is something very touching in the paternal composure, the
judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to reach
through tears, the calm estimate and the subdued tenderness, the
ever-rising but ever-restrained emotion; the father's heart-throbs
throughout.
We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends
which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out, in
different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual
worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection.
The following extract from one seems to us very interesting:
Outwardly I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits,
except _an irregularity with regard to times and places of study_,
which may seem surprising in one whose progress in so many directions
was so eminently great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some
friend's room, reading or canvassing._ I daresay he lost something by
this irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_.
I never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing
himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact,
his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of
outward aid.
There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his
probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves, to glide on
at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps
too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any
art or device. The same friend sums up his character thus:
I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man
his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose
views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of
humanity were more large and generous, and enlightened.
And all this said of a youth of twenty--_heu nimium brevis aevi decus et
desiderium_!
We have given little of his verse; and what we do give is taken at random.
We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art,
but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to
truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he
was on his way to God, and could rest in nothing short of Him, otherwise
he might have been a poet of genuine excellence.
Dark, dark, yea, "irrecoverably dark,"
Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles
Through th' impenetrable gloom to fix
That master light, the secret truth of things,
Which is the body of the infinite God!
* * * * *
Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower,
Fed by a sap that never will be scant,
All-permeating, all-producing mind;
And in our several parcellings of doom
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole.
Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain
Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be
The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near.
* * * * *
Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart,
Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure,
I know not in what region now thou art,
Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure.
Not the old hills on which we gazed together,
Not the old faces which we both did love,
Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather,
Not these, but others now thy fancies move.
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears,
All thy companions with their pleasant talk,
And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears:
So, though in body absent, I might walk
With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood
Did sanctify mine own to peerless good.
* * * * *
Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,
Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall
On a quaint bench, which to that structure old
Winds an accordant curve. Above my head
_Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves_,
Seeming received into the blue expanse
That vaults this summer noon.
* * * * *
Still here--thou hast not faded from my sight,
_Nor all the music round thee from mine ear:
Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year,
And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light_.
Still am I free to close my happy eyes,
And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form,
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm,
And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies:
With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while
That I can lift at will each curvèd lid,
And my fair dream most highly realize.
The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs,
When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid
True light restore that form, those looks, that smile.
* * * * *
The garden trees _are busy with the shower_
That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,
Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour,
One to another down the grassy walk.
Hark the laburnum from his opening flower,
This cheery creeper greets in whisper light,
While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,
Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore.[113]
What shall I deem their converse? would they hail
The wild grey light that fronts yon massive cloud,
Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire?
Or are they fighting faintly for desire
That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,
And dews about their feet may never fail?
In the Essay, entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following
passages are taken, to the great injury in its general effect, he sets
himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the
existence of such things as sin and suffering, in the universe of a being
like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of
his friend's words:
An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near.
It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavour to get
nearer God--to assert His eternal Providence, and vindicate His ways to
men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might
have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains
where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there
across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied
night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God.
Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick
cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or
will ever, come--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to
whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night
shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a
certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in
this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says;
and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean
heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy
ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticize the
speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of Augustine,
_Verius cogitatur Deus quam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur_.
I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the present
Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as constituting the
higher philosophy, than in its far more important bearing upon the
hearts and destinies of us all. I shall propose the question in this
form, "Is there ground for believing that the existence of moral evil
is absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for
Christ?" (_i.e._ of the Father for Christ, or of [Greek: ho patêr] for
[Greek: ho logos]).
"Can man by searching find out God?" I believe not. I believe that the
unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established the existence
and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the Deist imagines.
However sublime may be the notion of a supreme original mind, and
however naturally human feelings adhered to it, the reasons by which
it was justified were not, in my opinion, sufficient to clear it from
considerable doubt and confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I
derive from Revelation a conviction of Theism, which, without that
assistance, would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that
the Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man and I
believe it to be God's book because it is man's book._ It is true that
the Bible affords me no additional means of demonstrating the falsity
of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do with the formation of the
Universe, doubtless whatever had was competent also to make the
Bible_; but I have gained this advantage, that my feelings and
thoughts can no longer refuse their assent to _what is evidently
framed to engage that assent; and what is it to me that I cannot
disprove the bare logical possibility of my whole nature being
fallacious? To seek for a certainty above certainty, an evidence
beyond necessary belief, is the very lunacy of scepticism_: we must
trust our own faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that
moment we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its
name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as Divinely
authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things which it
contains, as essentially true._
* * * * *
In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and Perfect
Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old divine, are
two several notions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions
of Opposition to Love and Opposition to Bliss. _Unless, therefore, the
heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot
but be miserable._ Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing for
ever partly with God and partly against Him: we must either be capable
by our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be
incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for a while "not
impute our trespasses to us," that is, He may interpose some temporary
barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For in the Eternal Idea
of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen, as a series of successive
states_, of which some that are evil might be compensated by others
that are good, _but as one indivisible object of these almost
divisible modes_, and that either in accordance with His own nature,
or in opposition to it....
Before the Gospel was preached to man, how could a human soul have
this love, and this consequent life? I see no way; but now that Christ
has excited our love for Him by showing unutterable love for us; now
that we know Him as an Elder Brother, a being of like thoughts,
feelings, sensations, sufferings, with ourselves, it has become
possible to love as God loves, that is, to love Christ, and thus to
become united in heart to God. Besides, Christ is the express image of
God's person: in loving Him we are sure we are in a state of readiness
to love the Father, whom we see, He tells us, when we see Him. Nor is
this all: the tendency of love is towards a union so intimate as
virtually to amount to identification; when then by affection towards
Christ we have become blended with His being, the beams of eternal
love, falling, as ever, on the one beloved object, will include us in
Him, and their returning flashes of love out of His personality will
carry along with them some from our own, since ours has become
confused with His, and so shall we be one with Christ, and through
Christ with God. Thus, then, we see the great effect of the
Incarnation, as far as our nature is concerned, _was to render human
love for the Most High a possible thing_. The law had said, "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength"; and could men have lived by law, "which is
the strength of sin," verily righteousness and life would have been by
that law. But it was not possible, and all were concluded under sin,
that in Christ might be the deliverance of all. I believe that
Redemption (_i.e._, what Christ has done and suffered for mankind) is
universal, in so far as it left no obstacle between man and God, but
man's own will; that indeed is in the power of God's election, with
whom alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality; but as far as
Christ is concerned, His death was for all, since His intentions and
affections were equally directed to all, and "none who come to Him
will He in any wise cast out."
I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as novelties.
Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustine says, "pulchritudo tam
antiqua"; but he adds, "tam nova," for it is capable of presenting to
every mind a new face of truth. The great doctrine which in my
judgment these observations tend to strengthen and illumine, _the
doctrine of personal love for a personal God_, is assuredly no
novelty, but has in all times been the vital principle of the Church.
Many are the forms of anti-christian heresy, which for a season have
depressed and obscured that principle of life, but its nature is
conflictive and resurgent; and neither the Papal Hierarchy with its
pomp of systematized errors, nor the worst apostasy of latitudinarian
Protestantism, have ever so far prevailed, but that many from age to
age have proclaimed and vindicated the eternal gospel of love,
believing, as I also firmly believe, that any opinion which tends to
keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether it substitute for
Him an idol, an occult agency, or a formal creed, can be nothing
better than a vain and portentous shadow projected from the selfish
darkness of unregenerate man.
The following is from the Review of Tennyson's Poems; we do not know that
during the lapse of years anything better has been said:
Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all his conceptions,
to the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty tree, and may shoot up
far beyond our grasp, but its roots are in daily life and experience.
Every bosom contains the elements of those complex emotions which the
artist feels, and every head can, to a certain extent, go over in
itself the process of their combination, so as to understand his
expressions and sympathize with his state. _But this requires
exertion_; more or less, indeed, according to the difference of
occasion, but always some degree of exertion. For since the emotions
of the poet during composition follow a regular law of association, it
follows that to accompany their progress up to the harmonious prospect
of the whole, and to perceive the proper dependence of every step on
that which preceded, it is absolutely necessary _to start from the
same point_, _i.e._, clearly to apprehend that leading sentiment of
the poet's mind, by their conformity to which the host of suggestions
are arranged. _Now this requisite exertion is not willingly made by
the large majority of readers. It is so easy to judge capriciously,
and according to indolent impulse!_
Those different powers of poetic disposition, the energies of
Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate emotion, which in former times
were intermingled, and derived from mutual support an extensive empire
over the feelings of men, were now restrained within separate spheres
of agency. The whole system no longer worked harmoniously, and by
intrinsic harmony acquired external freedom; but there arose a violent
and unusual action in the several component functions, each for
itself, all striving to reproduce the regular power which the whole
had once enjoyed. _Hence the melancholy which so evidently
characterizes the spirit of modern poetry_; hence that return of the
mind upon itself, and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyncrasies
rather than community of interest. _In the old times the poetic
impulse went along with the general impulse of the nation._
One of the faithful Islâm, a poet in the truest and highest sense, we
are anxious to present to our readers.... He sees all the forms of
Nature with the _eruditus oculus_, and his ear has a fairy fineness.
There is _a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty_, which
throws a charm over his impassioned song more easily felt than
described, and not to be escaped by those who have once felt it. We
think that he has _more definiteness and roundness of general
conception_ than the late Mr. Keats, and is much more free from
blemishes of diction and hasty capriccios of fancy.... The author
imitates nobody; _we recognize the spirit of his age, but not the
individual form of this or that writer_. His thoughts bear no more
resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or
Calderon, Ferdusi or Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive
excellences of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of imagination,
and at the same time his control over it. Secondly, his power of
embodying himself in ideal characters, or rather modes of character,
with such extreme accuracy of adjustment, that the circumstances of
the narration seem to have a natural correspondence with the
predominant feeling, and, as it were, to be evolved from it by
assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, picturesque delineation of
objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them
_fused_, to borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium of strong
emotion. Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and exquisite
modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of
the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought,
implied in these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of
tone, more impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn up a
set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the understanding,
_rather than to communicate the love of beauty to the heart_.
What follows is justly thought and well said:
And is it not a noble thing that the English tongue is, as it were,
the common focus and point of union to which opposite beauties
converge? Is it a trifle that we temper energy with softness, strength
with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with pliancy of idiom? Some,
I know, insensible to these virtues, and ambitious of I know not what
unattainable decomposition, prefer to utter funereal praises over the
grave of departed Anglo-Saxon, or, starting with convulsive shudder,
are ready to leap from surrounding Latinisms into the kindred,
sympathetic arms of modern German. For myself, I neither share their
regret, nor their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial homage to
the shades of Hengist and Horsa, and to admit they have laid the base
of our compound language; or, if you will, have prepared the soil from
which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our British oak, must be
derived, I am yet proud to confess that I look with sentiments more
exulting and more reverential to the bonds by which the law of the
universe has fastened me to my distant brethren of the same Caucasian
race; to the privileges which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy North,
share in common with climates imparadized in perpetual summer, to the
universality and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which,
while it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of
peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into
communion with humanity at large; and, in the "sublimer spirit" of the
Poet, to make us feel
That God is everywhere--the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our Father, and the world our home.
What nice shading of thought do his remarks on Petrarch discover!
But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I refer, _as to the
general modulation of thought, that clear softness of his images, that
energetic self-possession of his conceptions, and that melodious
repose in which are held together all the emotions he delineates_.