Page images
PDF
EPUB

which, for the sake of simple readers, ourselves amongst them, we would make a protest. Poetry should give pleasure, and also it should be made ready to hand, and not given to the reader in the rough, to sort and arrange according to his ability. It should not be more hard to read than an Act of Parliament; and the sense so disjoined from the rhythm, that the most obvious things are made unintelligible. Yet what pleasure is there in working the way through interminable lines, where the necessary pauses are constant interruptions to the sense, falling in the middle of words, or between trivial words and those they lead up to; and which need being read two or three times over before either meaning or tune will show themselves? We speak of the seven-foot Iambic measure, such as was in use in the times of early English versification, before it was reduced to rules, when Virgil was translated into such poetry as this,—

'His countenance deep she draws, and fixed fast she bears in breast

His words also, nor to her careful heart can come no rest,'-Phear's Virgil. but which has long been discarded by more cultivated ears. And now it seems discovered that there is a virtue in these discords, and a sort of charm in a general defiance of quantity, pause, and accent: that there are certain ideas which need a jingling, halting gait for their appropriate expression. We can only say that we receive with suspicion all sentiments which come to us through so turbid a channel, and regard this medium as so much shuffling and prevarication, as if the writer were afraid to speak out.

There are many-footed trochaic verses, popular with modern. new-light authors, open to the same objection,-popular often, no doubt, because it is found convenient to dispense with rhythm and melody; for our great living master in the art of verse manages this measure in his Locksley Hall' as skilfully as he does all others, retaining a peculiar cadence, and luxuriating in the long words it makes room for; yet majestic, sweet, or passionate as the subject requires, and always high-sounding and melodious. Some verses in Mr. Patmore's volume, as well as elsewhere, have given cause to these remarks. We will substantiate our complaint by an example, though no example can convey an idea of the weariness a long poem after this method creates:'Let none ask joy at the highest, save those who would have it end: There's weight in earthly blessings; they are earthly, and they tend, By predetermin'd impulse, at their highest, to descend.

'I still for a happy season, in the present, saw the past, Mistaking one for the other, feeling sure my hold was fast On that of which the symbols vanished daily: but at last,

'As when we watch bright cloud-banks round about the sun low ranged, We suddenly remember some rich glory gone or changed,

All at once I comprehended that her love was grown estranged.

From this time forward, glimpses of a darker fear came on:
They came; but how, I know not, were no sooner come than gone.
At times, some gap in sequence frees the spirit, and we, anon,

'Are aware of states of living ended ere we left the womb,
And see a vague aurora flashing to us from the tomb,
The dreamy light of new states, dash'd tremendously with gloom.'
Poems by Coventry Patmore, p. 61.
Who could recognise these lines for the same kind of verse
as that smoothest of all measures, common metre,' as the hymn-
books call it?-which is essentially the same, except that the
necessity that the eighth syllable should be the end of a word and
should introduce a pause, compels to the choice of a shorter and
therefore more poetical wording. It is curious to mark the dif-
ference that cadence makes, and the due recurrence of accent
and quantity, to the entire destruction of all similitude:-
"Twill murmur on a thousand years,

6

And flow as now it flows.'

'And far below the Roundhead rode,

And humm'd a surly hymn.'

Or Cowper's sweetest invocation, which departs somewhat from the rigid laws of this measure:

'Return, oh holy Dove, return,

Sweet messenger of rest;

I hate the sins that made thee mourn,

And drove thee from my breast.'

Not, of course, that it is a desideratum that all verse should be as musical and flowing as these; but the contrast is curious. Our present author can, when he chooses, furnish as good examples of smoothness as another, as in his pathetic lament for poor Blanche's loss:

'O bolt foreseen before it burst!

O chastening hard to bear!
O cup of sweetness quite reversed,
And turned to void despair!'

But it is time to pass on to the next poet on our list. Mr. Arnold's opening story classes him amongst those we have been trying to define; but his subjects are so various, and run through so wide a range, as prove his muse to be versatile, at any rate, and prompt to be inspired by every theme. His lines are smooth and scholarlike, and evidently flow readily from the pen. His recent academical successes, indeed, might have been anticipated from the style of his printed volume, which revives recollections of prize poems and their transient fervours gracefully expressed in familiar and conventional language. He has strong sympathies with progress, and an admiration for great deeds, whether right or wrong: as where a man is made a hero for deliberately perjuring himself in a court of justice, in a fit of

Irish generosity. The author's morals and politics are alike of this sympathetic complexion. Ardent aspirations after freedom are expressed without conveying any definite-idea of the meaning of the term, and promises are given at random. He desires to join in some European struggle;-literally promises Italy the assistance of a thousand northern swords so soon as she shall strike one stroke in her own cause; and to Venice exclaims:

'Oh, Venice! Venice! Venice! Would that I,

I, even I, the weakest of the weak,

Were of thy children; then the ancient cry,

Though but so late, should rouse thee, One should speak
The words too long unspoken.'-Arnold's Poems, p. 107.

But the temper of wishing requires judicious guidance; and Mr. Arnold sometimes indulges in wishes beyond what can ever have been a very real state of mind, even in the moment of poetic frenzy. The following longings after classical antiquity are a little startling to a less impassioned mood. We almost wonder how their author could correct them for the press without a pause of self-questioning:

'Fair Academe-most holy Academe,

Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.

I would be numbered now with things that were,
Changing the wasted fever of to-day

For the dear quietness of yesterday:

:

I would be ashes, underneath the grass,

So I had wandered in thy platane walks

One happy summer twilight-even one:'-Ibid. p. 29.

Who does not remember the classical Miss Blimber, and her one longing but to have been personally acquainted with Cicero ? For us, we must say such a passage is a 'perpetration,' not only condemning the present, but taking away much hope of truth or earnestness for the future. We are tempted to quote, for the moderating of such rash transports, a warning from the judicious pen of one of the coming writers on our list, which appears to us eminently appropriate to the exigencies of the occasion:

'There is a tribute due to common sense,

To fail in this is sure to bring offence.'

We

The muse of Mr. Alexander Smith takes a bolder flight. He has purpose in his writings, such as it is. His book is clearly the picture of a mind, and a mind of some power. But what a picture! We see that the discontent and restlessness are real,-the envy, the pride, the licence of thought. have already mentioned his book in connexion with the greater freedom of expression now taken by poets on one subject; but we know not whether to treat Mr. A. Smith's notions (youthful notions, we imagine them to be) of ladies and ladies'

[ocr errors]

love seriously, as being very wrong and shocking, or laughingly, as being very ridiculous. The absurdity thrown over his highflown conceptions is at least a fortunate circumstance. His poem which is called a Life Drama,' introduces several females to our notice scarcely more like humanity than so many impersonations of the Hours or Zephyr with Aurora playing." Indeed, we excused the improprieties of the first lady,' who remains singing songs and telling stories with the hero in a wood till four o'clock in the morning, as supposing her only to represent the feminine element of the poet's mind, which might be considered exempt from the observance of the laws of society. However, we become convinced in the course of the story, when other ladies come forward, that he does mean us to imagine real women saying and doing the things which he describes. We can then only say that he does not connect with his female ideal any notion of right or wrong, principles or manners, modesty or decorum, and that his own language of description is as unscrupulous as his subject. Even an abstraction, if personified, should have some feminine consciousness. Everything that is called 'she' should have some air of self-respect and proper pride.' Even the Genius of commercial speculation to be seen adorning the Hall of Commerce at Frankfort -though the thing itself we know can run off in the wildest vagaries-shows some sense of decorum, and a woman's attention to proprieties. But a sort of tipsy forgetfulness of all such regards, is our author's favourite and most bewitching condition of feminine attractiveness. The dreamy, far-seeing eyes always swim to us in this light; even their ringlets-and very long ones we need not say they are 'reel' down the couches on which they half recline; or, again, 'reel' to the dewy grass: and this is only characteristic of the universal hazy, vinous atmosphere of imagery which surrounds them.

But these beauties, though we have a great deal too much of them, are not so much Mr. Smith's main subject as the poets who sing them, and whom they inspire and influence. Poets, poetry, and fame, these are his theme, and that of all the personages one after another of the drama. A poet is his hero, (and no doubt embodies the author's own feelings and conceptions,) conscious to himself of genius, but perplexed by occasional misgivings of failure in the accident of adequate expression. Unfairly enough, this humbler mood always makes him fall foul of the critics; as if the critics ought to be able to see his meaning, and even turn his fine thoughts into good verse for him. But all aspirants for fame rail at the critics,' as if they withheld that great good from them

'Fame, fame, fame! next grandest word to God!'—Ibid. p. 6.

As if they could give it them if they chose. Whereas the decision of the world is that the most authentic critics, those who sit in high places and give judgment ex cathedra have no power whatever in the long run. They may blow up a specious, momentary fame, they may keep down for a short space the world's acclamations, but they can do nothing in the long run; they can neither make people read books, on the one hand, praise as they will; nor prevent men from reading and admiring, on the other, where there is matter really to touch their hearts and feelings. Let any one refer to the pages of the Quarterly' and 'Blackwood' of some twenty years back for their reviews of Tennyson, and he can judge how little the most biting, contemptuous, quenching criticism can do to keep down a rising pcet. The reviews were clever, everybody read them, and laughed with the critic and at the poet; but all the while something in the despised verses stuck to the memory and the fancy -something earnest, passionate, tender, true to nature, in midst of the awkwardness and juvenile affectations which disfigured them. The poet acted with sense and spirit. He indulged his vexation at Christopher' in a few testy verses, which are remembered for their boyish liveliness, though he has suppressed them; and he took the Quarterly's' just criticism so far in good part, in spite of its unpalatable form, as to correct the faults so spitefully dwelt upon:-in one or two places, we think even to the disadvantage of the first freshness of the thought. He wrote more and better verses; the world read them, and before many years had passed, the great reviews altered their tone. Mr. Smith's ground of discontent with the critics is, however, that they speak the truth, or would speak the truth, of his ideal poets. After, for example, giving his readers a specimen of the thought and language of a friend of his, from a song in which he rails against mankind, makes love, invokes fame, fumes at heaven and earth, and prophesies of long blissful ages, all in turns, he tells us that he died. When,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'No sooner was he hence than critic worms
Were swarming on the body of his fame,

And thus they judged the dead.'—Ibid. p. 36.

and we must say gave a more favourable verdict than any but a packed jury would have agreed upon

'Poet he was not in the larger sense;

He could write pearls, but he could never write

A poem, round and perfect as a star.'

If language moderate as this meets with such vituperation, what can the critics hope for who have to deal with Mr. Smith in his own person. We, speaking for one critical unit, must own to thinking his poetry anything but 'pearls,' nor yet a 'rich

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »