Though such was, doubtless, the general cast of his opinions at this
time, it must be recollected, before we attach any particular
importance to the details of his creed, that, in addition to the
temptation, never easily resisted by him, of displaying his wit at the
expense of his character, he was here addressing a person who,
though, no doubt, well meaning, was evidently one of those officious,
self-satisfied advisers, whom it was the delight of Lord Byron at all
times to astonish and _mystify_. The tricks which, when a boy, he
played upon the Nottingham quack, Lavender, were but the first of a
long series with which, through life, he amused himself, at the
expense of all the numerous quacks whom his celebrity and sociability
drew around him.
The terms in which he speaks of the university in this letter agree in
spirit with many passages both in the "Hours of Idleness," and his
early Satire, and prove that, while Harrow was remembered by him with
more affection, perhaps, than respect, Cambridge had not been able to
inspire him with either. This feeling of distaste to his "nursing
mother" he entertained in common with some of the most illustrious
names of English literature. So great was Milton's hatred to
Cambridge, that he had even conceived, says Warton, a dislike to the
face of the country,--to the fields in its neighbourhood. The poet
Gray thus speaks of the same university:--"Surely, it was of this
place, now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of Babylon, that
the prophet spoke when he said, 'The wild beasts of the deserts shall
dwell there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and
owls shall build there, and satyrs shall dance there,'" &c. &c. The
bitter recollections which Gibbon retained of Oxford, his own pen has
recorded; and the cool contempt by which Locke avenged himself on the
bigotry of the same seat of learning is even still more
memorable.[87]
In poets, such distasteful recollections of their collegiate life may
well be thought to have their origin in that antipathy to the trammels
of discipline, which is not unusually observable among the
characteristics of genius, and which might be regarded, indeed, as a
sort of instinct, implanted in it for its own preservation, if there
be any truth in the opinion that a course of learned education is
hurtful to the freshness and elasticity of the imaginative faculty. A
right reverend writer,[88] but little to be suspected of any desire to
depreciate academical studies, not only puts the question, "Whether
the usual forms of learning be not rather injurious to the true poet,
than really assisting to him?" but appears strongly disposed to answer
it in the affirmative,--giving, as an instance, in favour of this
conclusion, the classic Addison, who, "as appears," he says, "from
some original efforts in the sublime, allegorical way, had no want of
natural talents for the greater poetry,--which yet were so restrained
and disabled by his constant and superstitious study of the old
classics, that he was, in fact, but a very ordinary poet."
It was, no doubt, under some such impression of the malign influence
of a collegiate atmosphere upon genius, that Milton, in speaking of
Cambridge, gave vent to the exclamation, that it was "a place quite
incompatible with the votaries of Phoebus," and that Lord Byron,
versifying a thought of his own, in the letter to Mr. Dallas just
given, declares,
"Her Helicon is duller than her Cam."
The poet Dryden, too, who, like Milton, had incurred some mark of
disgrace at Cambridge, seems to have entertained but little more
veneration for his Alma Mater; and the verses in which he has praised
Oxford at the expense of his own university[89] were, it is probable,
dictated much less by admiration of the one than by a desire to spite
and depreciate the other.
Nor is it genius only that thus rebels against the discipline of the
schools. Even the tamer quality of Taste, which it is the professed
object of classical studies to cultivate, is sometimes found to turn
restive under the pedantic _manège_ to which it is subjected. It was
not till released from the duty of reading Virgil as a task, that Gray
could feel himself capable of enjoying the beauties of that poet; and
Lord Byron was, to the last, unable to vanquish a similar
prepossession, with which the same sort of school association had
inoculated him, against Horace.
--"Though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought,
If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor.
"Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse."