Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes Part 31

_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the genius of a country's cla.s.sics. But the attempt covers such critics with shame, and undying ridicule pursues them and their abettors. The Lake Poets began this senseless clamour against the genius of Pope.

ON BYRON

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, October, 1825]

_North._ People say, James, that Byron's tragedies are failures. Fools!

Is Cain, the dark, dim, disturbed, insane, h.e.l.l-haunted Cain, a failure?

Is Sardanapalus, the pa.s.sionate, princely, philosophical, joy-cheated, throne-wearied voluptuary, a failure? Is Heaven and Earth, that magnificent confusion of two worlds, in which mortal beings mingle in love and hate, joy and despair, with immortal--the children of the dust claiming alliance with the radiant progeny of the skies, till man and angel seem to partake of one divine being, and to be essences eternal in bliss or bale--is Heaven and Earth, I ask you, James, a failure? If so, then Appollo has stopt payment--promising a dividend of one shilling in the pound--and all concerned in that house are bankrupts.

_Tickler._ You have n.o.bly--gloriously vindicated Byron, North, and in doing so, have vindicated the moral and intellectual character of our country. Miserable and pernicious creed, that holds possible the lasting and intimate union of the first, purest, highest, n.o.blest, and most celestial powers of soul and spirit, with confirmed appetencies, foul and degrading l.u.s.t, cowardice, cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy, avarice, and impiety! You,--in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the nature of Byron as deformed by all these hideous vices,--you, my friend, reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser.

ON DR. JOHNSON

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829]

_North._ I forgot old Sam--a jewel rough set, yet shining like a star, and though sand-blind by nature, and bigoted by Education, one of the truly great men of England, and "her men are of men the chief," alike in the dominions of the understanding, the reason, the pa.s.sions, and the imagination. No prig shall ever persuade me that _Ra.s.selas_ is not a n.o.ble performance--in design and execution. Never were the expenses of a mother's funeral more gloriously defrayed by son, than the funeral of Samuel Johnson's mother by the price of _Ra.s.selas_, written for the pious purpose of laying her head decently and honourably in the dust.

_Shepherd._ Ay, that was pittin' literature and genius to a glorious purpose indeed; and therefore nature and religion smiled on the wark, and have stamped it with immortality.

_North._ Samuel was seventy years old when he wrote the _Lives of the Poets_.

_Shepherd._ What a fine old buck! No unlike yoursel'.

_North._ Would it were so! He had his prejudicies, and his partialities, and his bigotries, and his blindnesses,--but on the same fruit-tree you see shrivelled pears or apples on the same branch with jargonelles or golden pippins worthy of paradise. Which would ye show to the Horticultural Society as a fair specimen of the tree?

_Shepherd._ Good, kit, good--philosophically picturesque. (_Mimicking the old man's voice and manner._)

_North._ Show me the critique that beats his on Pope, and on Dryden-- nay, even on Milton; and hang me if you may not read his essay on Shakespeare even after having read Charles Lamb, or heard Coleridge, with increased admiration of the powers of all three, and of their insight, through different avenues, and as it might seem almost with different bodily and mental organs, into Shakespeare's "old exhausted,"

and his "new imagined worlds." He was a critic and a moralist who would have been wholly wise, had he not been partly--const.i.tutionally insane.

For there is blood in the brain, James--even in the organ--the vital principle of all our "eagle-winged raptures"; and there was a taint of the black drop of melancholy in his.

_Shepherd._ Wheesht--wheesht--let us keep aff that subject. All men ever I knew are mad; and but for that law o' natur, never, never, in this warld had there been a _Noctes Ambrosianae_.

CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES"

MISS MITFORD

_North._ Miss Mitford has not in my opinion either the pathos or humour of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners.

Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are pervaded by a genuine rural spirit--the spirit of merry England. Every line bespeaks the lady.

_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi'

sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seeing themsels in lookin-gla.s.ses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o' me, is her pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin' by the wayside, and the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres, and barns, and stackyards, and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, and at the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and la.s.ses as laigh in life as the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the praise. But ae word explains a'--Genius--Genius, wull a' the metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.-- _Nov, 1826._

HAZLITT

_Shepherd._. He had a curious power that Hazlitt, as he was ca'd, o'

simulatin' sowl. You could hae taen your Bible oath sometimes, when you were readin him, that he had a sowl--a human sowl--a sowl to be saved-- but then, heaven preserve us! in the verra middle aiblins o' a paragraph, he grew transformed afore your verra face into something b.e.s.t.i.a.l,--you heard a grunt that made ye grue, and there was an ill smell in the room, as frae a pluff o' sulphur.--_April, 1827._

WORDSWORTH

_Shepherd._ Wordsworth tells the world, in ane of his prefaces, that he is a water-drinker--and its weel seen on him.--There was a sair want of speerit through the haill o' yon lang "Excursion." If he had just made the paragraphs about ae half shorter, and at the end of every ane taen a caulker, like ony ither man engaged in geyan sair and heavy wark, think na ye that his "Excursion" would hae been far less fatiguesome?--_April, 1827._

_North._ I confess that the "Excursion" is the worst poem, of any character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as well as sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite ineffectual. Then, what labour the builder of that lofty rhyme must have undergone! It is, in its own way, a small tower of Babel, and all built by a single man.--_Sept., 1825._

COLERIDGE

_North._ James, you don't know S.T. Coleridge--do you? He writes but indifferent books, begging his pardon: witness his "Friend," his "Lay Sermons," and, latterly, his "Aids to Reflection"; but he becomes inspired by the sound of his own silver voice, and pours out wisdom like a sea. Had he a domestic Gurney, he might publish a Moral Essay, or a Theological Discourse, or a Metaphysical Disquisition, or a Political Harangue, every morning throughout the year during his lifetime.

_Tickler._ Mr. Coleridge does not seem to be aware that he cannot write a book, but opines that he absolutely has written several, and set many questions at rest. There's a want of some kind or another in his mind; but perhaps when he awakes out of his dream, he may get rational and sober-witted, like other men, who are not always asleep.

_Shepherd._ The author o' "Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," had better just continue to see visions, and dream dreams--for he's no fit for the wakin' world.--_April, 1827._

FASHIONABLE NOVELS

_North._ James, I wish you would review for Maga all those fashionable novels--Novels of High Life; such as _Pelham_--the _Disowned_.

_Shepherd._ I've read thae twa, and they're baith gude. But the mair I think on't, the profounder is my conviction that the strength o' human nature lies either in the highest or lowest estate of life. Characters in books should either be kings, and princes, and n.o.bles, and on a level with them, like heroes; or peasants, shepherds, farmers, and the like, includin' a' orders amaist o' our ain working population. The intermediate cla.s.s--that is, leddies and gentlemen in general--are no worth the Muse's while; for their life is made up chiefly o' mainners,-- mainners,--mainners;--you canna see the human creters for their claes; and should ane o' them commit suicide in despair, in lookin' on the dead body, you are mair taen up wi' its dress than its decease.--_March, 1829._

WILL CARLETON

_Shepherd._ What sort o' vols., sir, are the _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_ [W. Carleton], published by Curry in Dublin.

_North._ Admirable. Truly, intensely Irish. The whole book has the brogue--never were the outrageous whimsicalities of that strange, wild, imaginative people so characteristically displayed; nor, in the midst of all the fun, frolic, and folly, is there any dearth of poetry, pathos, and pa.s.sion. The author's a jewel, and he will be reviewed next number.

--_May, 1830._

BURNS

_Shepherd._ I shanna say ony o' mine's [songs] are as gude as some sax or aucht o' Burns's--for about that number o' Robbie's are o' inimitable perfection. It was heaven's wull that in them he should transcend a' the minnesingers o' this warld. But they're too perf.e.c.kly beautifu' to be envied by mortal man--therefore let his memory in them be hallowed for evermair.--_August, 1834._

_Shepherd_. I was wrang in ever hintin ae word in disparagement o'

Burn's _Cottar's Sat.u.r.day Night_. But the truth is, you see, that the subjeck's sae heeped up wi' happiness, and sae charged wi' a' sort o'

sanct.i.ty--sae national and sae Scottish--that beautifu' as the poem is-- and really, after a', naething can be mair beautifu'--there's nae satisfying either paesant or shepherd by ony delineation o't, though drawn in lines o' licht, and shinin' equally w' genius and wi' piety.-- _Nov., 1834._

LEIGH HUNT

_Shepherd_. Leigh Hunt truly loved Sh.e.l.ley.