Poe's Defect of Humour.

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He excels in the power of associating the most exceptional physical conditions with the most exalted and ideal feelings, so as to produce that' eeriness' which can be accepted as a pleasurable relief only by a people of exceptionally high-wrought organization (in which climate may play its own part). In all this-in the cold calculation, in the exalté' feeling alternating with it, and yet in the solitariness and sudden escape from common interests on a sphere of dream, rather than of spirit proper, Poe is distinctly American; and the form of his work could hardly have been what it is, if he had not been so. He believed more in the realm of fact from which he retreated, than in that of dream into which he made his escape; and the root of his unrest, and self-condemnation, and fevered remorse lay here, precisely as the unrest and dissatisfaction of American life may be said to lie in a materialism which intrudes itself under all its religious, or rather spiritualistic, reactions, and too often makes them seem hollow.

It needs to be said, too, that the fact that Poe so fails at any point sympathetically to touch real life himself, and so to qualify his dominant moods, suggests a defect in him fatal to his taking the highest rank. He is destitute of humour. He sometimes essays wit, but it is only verbal. He is a dreamer, and a dreamer so absorbed in his dream, that real life remains shadowy and distant, and no contact with it can shake him out of his own fancies, or tickle him for a moment into a hearty laugh. They smile, but laugh no more;' and the smile is a smile of individual self-assertion of the sort that is not hateful only because it is transcendently indifferent. He is an egotist of a kind that would be most. unattractive in real life, unless, as in his case, the egotism is associated with peculiar gifts. His lack of interest in ordinary human affairs is physiognomic; he dwells shrouded in a world of fancy and symbol. What concerns him first, even in criticising poetry, is the symbol which stands between him and the essential truth sought to be expressed. The more real and human the truth, the more persistently it would seem does the symbol assert its claim to his attention, precisely as his own vision stood between him and the steady report of the real world. Even when he does receive his initiative from actual occurrences, he must withdraw the facts into the mid region' of symbol or cipher, and so work out his abstract theory. A lawyer can state a very intricate affair in the form of an A B case, and can give the law upon it; but he certainly cannot take account thus of the emotional elements in which the case had rise, and by which the relations of the parties were constantly qualified. So with Poe. All these tales of his,

which are based upon abstract reasonings, may be said to seem more ingenious than they really are; but we can appreciate them fully when saying this, and can, without injustice, condemn Griswold for saying it, as he did, without support of impartial critical

reason.

As it is essential for Poe to isolate, and to readjust in this region of symbol what of the facts of life he is content to receive and to deal with, it is inevitable that the more complete and satisfactory his performance, the more should it shut out mystery and the sense of it from the mind of the producer, and to some extent also from the mind of the reader. Thus it comes about that Poe's analytic art may be said to empty the real world of mystery, and make it half-mechanical, as 'Eureka'-in which the universe is treated very much as in one of his sketches he treats the automaton chess-player-incontestably proves. The assumption of the majesty of the individual intellect supervenes. It has been well said therefore that 'his proud assumption of the superi'ority of the individual soul was but an expression of its recoil from the haunting phantoms of death and annihilation.' The only religion possible to Poe was worship of intellect, or self-worship, to which all beauty perceived in nature or in art is tributary. Both as thinker and as artist he was thus materialistic and pantheistic, and stands as the representative of a tendency of the time. Especially is he representative of that assumption of knowledge, that unwillingness to admit mystery, and that individual self assertion, which are more and more becoming characteristic of American life and thought, sucking away the reverence which is so essential to real greatness, national or individual.

That fatal withdrawal from the healthy interest which sympathetic human association affords, was not, with Poe, the result of circumstances. We have seen it pointed out (and apparently Baudelaire had the same idea in his mind when he wrote that passage about the United States being a prison to Poe) that Poe's inherited aristocratic tastes were offended by the lack of grace and beauty in the social circumstances surrounding him. Not so. Place such a nature where you will, for it to live freely is to dream. Circumstances as correctives are repellent to it. Its fatality is to be in opposition; for the 'powers that be' are doomed to be contemptuously ignored by it, until they come forward with their demands. Therefore we think ourselves justified in saying that the 'common-sense order of the world' would have made any place a prison to Poe as well as the United States.

* The italics are ours here, as elsewhere in quotations throughout the article.

Poe and Hawthorne.

217

And we may note that here Poe radically differs from Hawthorne. Hawthorne, along with his wistful, dreamy far-sightedness, had the sagacious patience with fact, the discerning shrewdness and quiet observation that enabled him constantly to seek and to enjoy the verification and correction of his own impressions from new standpoints, and to make canny, humorous note of the disparities of the world and humanity. Hawthorne is no dreamer in the sense we mean when we say that Poe is so. He delighted to recover his normal relations, if we may speak so, after his art-work. Those wonderfully realistic sketches, especially that prefixed to The 'Scarlet Letter,' no less than his Note-books, abundantly attest this. The necessity was never so much as felt by Poc. It is in this sense that he is void of conscience, as a man, so far, and not as an artist.

Then, again, the totally different ways in which the two men view the spiritual world, would of itself be conclusive when once pointed out. Who that has ever read that passage in Hawthorne's Note-book, where he relieves a besetting doubt by the conviction that in the next world we shall be able freely to communicate ourselves-where the Babel of words' will not stand between soul and soul-can forget it? And where in the range of all Poe's writings can you find trace of the expression of such a healthy human religious faith? Poe seems to draw no satisfaction from the thought-if he ever entertains it-of the freedom that shall come to the enfranchised spirit, or from the compensations of Providence and of spiritual relation; he falls back, for fleeting satisfaction rather, on his individual dreams, or if he escapes from them at all, it is only to seek a momentary suggestion from elements of sensuous beauty. Hawthorne, in a word, had faith-faith in men, faith in a future-Poe had not; and the remorse and hoplessness of his prose as well as of his poetry-qualities radical and essential to them-at once and decidedly differentiate his art from that of Hawthorne, in spite of some superficial points of external resemblance.

Another very noticeable point is that, whereas Poe suffered almost chronically from low spirits,' blue devils,' as his friend Mr. White graphically called them-and was hurried by reaction from joy to sorrow, from despondency to ecstasy, Hawthorne, on his own confession, lived a life of equable content, seldom visited by low spirits. And in spite of the problems with which he occupied himself, this is not so surprising when we reflect how he kept himself en rapport with life, eschewed solitude, and regarded nothing as more healthful for a literary man than to have much to do with

those who could not sympathize with his peculiar views and employments.

We had intended to follow out this comparison into much fuller instance and detail. Space forbids; but it is easy to verify the suggestion here given, which we trust many of our readers may be tempted to do for themselves-at the same time gaining more intimate acquaintance with the style and thought of two of the greatest masters of the English language in recent times.

CONTEMPORARY

LITERATURE.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS.

6

The Renaissance in Italy-the Age of the Despots. By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Author of An Introduction to the 'Study of Dante,' &c. Smith, Elder, and Co.

In a certain wide sense of the term Mr. Symonds' attractive work on "The Renaissance in Italy' may be called a chapter in the philosophy of history. Bound by no formula, and free to follow wherever his inquiry may lead, without reference to the requirements of any dogmatic scheme, the author is able to take a comprehensive view of the causes of the phenomena under discussion, and the consequences to which they may have afterwards led. In addition, Mr. Symonds is master of a rich and graceful style, which in certain parts of his inquiry, when the subject admits of it, blossoms into luxuriance; but is never chargeable with redundancy. The chapter on Savonarola, and the final chapter on the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy, by which the culture and artistic refinement of Italy were brought into immediate contact with the European world, are excellent examples of what we mean. The author never allows his style to carry him away, but keeps it strictly subordinate to his subject. Therefore, while there is much admirable and attractive literary work, there is no fine writing merely for its own sake.

Mr. Symonds takes a large view of the Renaissance. The term is variously applied by different writers to signify the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, the revival of art, the dawn of political freedom, or the new movement in thought, which was afterwards to culminate in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and to humanise with its influence the one-sided tendency of a purely ecclesiastical and religious transformation. To Mr. Symonds the 'Renaissance' is none of these singly, but it includes them all. He regards it as the growth of the human intellect at the period when, after long previous preparation, it became ready to break the heavy fetters by which it was bound during the Middle Ages and the period of feudalism. After a slumber of many centuries the

History, Biography, and Travels.

219

thought of humanity awoke from its sleep, and, strong in the dawning consciousness of a new life and fresh energies, spread itself abroad on every side. The causes of such a transformation defy analysis, if we seek for their ultimate explanation in the region of the phenomenal. What analysis is alone able to do is to mark the conditions under which the new life began, and to trace the manifestations of its energies and force. In this view we find that the Renaissance' cannot be isolated either from that which preceded or that which followed it. It is comparatively easy to mark off a period during which the new life of the fifteenth century exhibited its force and freshness, and to call that the Renaissance.' But, in truth, the Renaissance' is still with us. The whole complex result called modern civilisation is its fruit. The Reformation was a 'moment' in the great progress it inaugurated; and the French Revolution, which carried the same impulses into the political sphere as had been before manifested in the religious, is another step forward in the same process. The Renaissance,' thus regarded, is the emancipation of the reason for the modern world. Italy took the lead in it because Italy was already in advance of the other nations of Europe in possessing the conditions necessary to the free development of thought. Before the other countries that have since played their parts in the drama of modern history, Italy possessed a language;' she had a favourable climate, political freedom, 'and commercial prosperity;' and she became the means of bridging the gulf between the Middle Ages and modern civilisation. Mr. Symonds, in dealing with the Renaissance in Italy,' sketches the history of that country during the Age of the Despots' and the period of the Republics, in order to exhibit to us the features of Italian civilization. Amid the literary influences that were prominent are the Florentine Historians and Machiavelli's political theories. The consideration of the influence of the Popes of the period leads to a review of the relations of morality and the Church, into which a new element was infused by Savonarola. The Florentine Reformer is a prominent character in the volume, and the chapter on him is one of the most eloquent of the work. The volume closes with a sketch of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., and an exhibition of the effects which that event produced in connection with the progress of the Renaissance.' In subsequent volumes we are promised a history of the Fine Arts and the Revival of Learning, and of Italian Literature. The volume before us, though complete by itself, is therefore also a part of a larger whole. The ground requiring to be gone over is extensive, and the objects of interest are very numerous. In tracing the origin of the Italian 'Renaissance,' for example, it is requisite to consider the political conditions of Italy in the fourteenth century; and strict chronological consistency sometimes requires to be sacrificed in order to exhibit a general view of the nature and issues so far of the entire movement. Of course, the author goes over ground, much of which has been trodden before; but he brings a new spirit of inquiry to the old task, and the result is a work of a truly fascinating description, which throws light on some of the most important movements of human thought at a period which was the birth-time of a new age.