And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature's teardrops, as they pass! Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,-alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 25 30 And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Showing no visible sign,—for such things are untold. There is next an apostrophe to Napoleon, graduating into a series of general reflec Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 85 tions, expressed with infinite beauty and In its next verdure! when this fiery mass And burning with high hope, shall fall and After some brief commemoration of the 40 worth and valor that fell in that bloody field, the author turns to the many hopeless mourners that survive to lament their extinction; the many broken-hearted families, whose incurable sorrow is enhanced by the 45 national exultation that still points, with importunate joy, to the scene of their destruction. There is a richness and energy in the following passage which is peculiar to Lord Byron, among all modern poets. a throng of glowing images, poured forth at once, with a facility and profusion which must appear mere wastefulness to more economical writers, and a certain negligence and harshness of diction, which can belong 55 only to an author who is oppressed with the exuberance and rapidity of his conceptions. 50 earnestness, and illustrated by another cluster of magical images;-but breathing the very essence of misanthropical disdain, and embodying opinions which we conceive not to be less erroneous than revolting. After noticing the strange combinations of grandeur and littleness which seemed to form the character of that greatest of all captains and conquerors, the author proceeds, 5 15 delivered with much more than poetical earnestness, and recurs, indeed, in other forms in various parts of the volume, we must really be allowed to enter our dissent somewhat at large. With regard to conquerors, we wish with all our hearts that this were as the noble author represents it: but we greatly fear they are neither half so unhappy, nor half so much hated as 10 they should be. On the contrary, it seems plain enough that they are very commonly idolized and admired, even by those on whom they trample; and we suspect, moreover, that in general they actually pass their time rather agreeably, and derive considerable satisfaction from the ruin and desolation of the world. From Macedonia's madman1 to the Swede2-from Nimrod to Bonaparte, the hunters of men have pur20 sued their sport with as much gaiety, and as little remorse, as the hunters of other animals-and have lived as cheerily in their days of action, and as comfortably in their repose, as the followers of better pursuits. For this, and for the fame which they have generally enjoyed, they are obviously indebted to the great interests connected with their employment, and the mutual excitement which belongs to its hopes and hazards. It would be strange, therefore, if the other active, but more innocent spirits, whom Lord Byron has here placed in the same predicament, and who share all their sources of enjoyment, without the guilt and the hardness which they cannot fail of contracting, should be more miserable or more unfriended than those splendid curses of their kind. And it would be passing strange, and pitiful,3 if the most precious gifts of Providence should produce only unhappiness, and mankind regard with hostility their greatest benefactors. 25 30 35 40 45 We do not believe in any such prodigies. to feverish and restless efforts-to jealGreat vanity and ambition may indeed lead ousies, to hate, and to mortification-but these are only their effects when united to inferior abilities. It is not those, in short, who actually surpass mankind, that are un50 happy; but those who struggle in vain to surpass them: and this moody temper, which eats into itself from within, and provokes fair and unfair opposition from without, is generally the result of pretensions 55 which outgo the merits by which they are 1 Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia (336323 B. C.). 2 Charles XII, King of Sweden (1697-1718). See Byron's Mazeppa (p. 569). 3 See Othello, I, 3, 160-61. supported-and disappointments, that may be clearly traced, not to the excess of genius, but its defect. 10 20 It will be found, we believe, accordingly, that the master spirits of their age have always escaped the unhappiness which is here supposed to be the inevitable lot of extraordinary talents; and that this strange tax upon genius has only been levied from those who held the secondary shares of it. Men of truly great powers of mind have generally been cheerful, social, and indulgent; while a tendency to sentimental whining, or fierce intolerance, may be ranked among the surest symptoms of little souls 15 and inferior intellects. In the whole list of our English poets, we can only remember Shenstone and Savage-two, certainly, of the lowest-who were querulous and discontented. Cowley, indeed, used to call himself melancholy;-but he was not in earnest; and, at any rate, was full of conceits and affectations; and has nothing to make us proud of him. Shakespeare, the greatest of them all, was evidently of a free and 25 joyous temperament; -and so was Chaucer, their common master. The same disposition appears to have predominated in Fletcher, Jonson, and their great contemporaries. The genius of Milton partook 30 something of the austerity of the party to which he belonged, and of the controversies in which he was involved; but even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues,1 his spirit seems to have retained its serenity as well as its dignity; and in his private life, as well as in his poetry, the majesty of a high character is tempered with great sweetness, genial indulgences, and practical wisdom. In the succeeding age our poets 40 were but too gay; and though we forbear to speak of living authors, we know enough of them to speak with confidence, that to be miserable or to be hated is not now, any more than heretofore, the common lot of 45 those who excel. If this, however, be the case with poets, confessedly the most irritable and fantastic of all men of genius-and of poets, too, bred and born in the gloomy climate of England, it is not likely that those who have surpassed their fellows in other ways, or in other regions, have been more distinguished for unhappiness. Were Socrates and Plato, the greatest philosophers of antiquity, remarkable for unsocial or gloomy tempers?-Was Bacon, the greatest in modern times?-Was Sir Thomas More-or 1 See Paradise Lost, 7, 26. 35 50 55 Erasmus-or Hume-or Voltaire?-Was Newton-or Fenelon?-Was Francis L., or Henry IV., the paragon of kings and conquerors?-Was Fox, the most ardent, and, in the vulgar sense, the least successful of statesmen? These, and men like these, are undoubtedly the lights and the boast of the world. Yet there was no alloy of misanthropy or gloom in their genius. They did not disdain the men they had surpassed; and neither feared nor experienced their hostility. Some detractors they might have, from envy or misapprehension; but, beyond all doubt, the prevailing sentiments in respect to them have always been those of gratitude and admiration; and the error of public judgment, where it has erred, has much oftener been to overrate than to undervalue the merits of those who had claims on their good opinion. On the whole, we are far from thinking that eminent men are actually happier than those who glide through life in peaceful obscurity: but it is their eminence, and the consequences of it, rather than the mental superiority by which it is obtained, that interferes with their enjoyment. Distinction, however won, usually leads to a passion for more distinction and is apt to engage us in laborious efforts and anxious undertakings: and those, even when successful, seldom repay, in our judgment, at least, the ease, the leisure, and tranquillity, of which they require the sacrifice: but it really surpasses our imagination to conceive that the very highest degrees of intellectual vigor, or fancy, or sensibility, should of themselves be productive either of unhappiness or general dislike. In passing Ferney and Lausanne, there is a fine account of Voltaire and Gibbon;1 but we have room for but one more extract, and must take it from the characteristic reflections with which the piece is concluded. These, like most of the preceding, may be thought to savor too much of egotism; but this is of the essence of such poetry, and if Lord Byron had only been happier, or even in better humor with the world, we should have been delighted with the confidence he has here reposed in his readers: as it is, it sounds too like the last disdainful address of a man who is about to quit a world which has ceased to have any attractions-like the resolute speech of Pierre 1 Stanzas 105-8. For this vile world and I have long been jangling, And cannot part on better terms than now.-1 The reckoning, however, is steadily and sternly made, and though he does not spare himself, we must say that the world comes off much the worst in the comparison. The passage is very singular, and written with much force and dignity. [111] Thus far I have proceeded in a theme shall anticipate the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty-far from it; indeed, we have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance, we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond the 10 first of the four books of which this "Poetic Romance" consists. We should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on our parts, were it not for one consolation-namely, that we are no better acquainted with the meaning of the book through which we have so painfully toiled, than we are with that of the three which we have not looked into. We are not what we should be;-and to steel 15 Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal,- [113] I have not lov'd the world-nor the world me! In worship of an echo. In the crowd [114] I have not lov'd the world, nor the world me! But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing! I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; That two or one, are almost what they seem,That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. 20 25 30 35 40 It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody), it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of fancy, and gleams of genius-he has all these; but he is unhappily a disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney poetry, which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language. Of this school, Mr. Leigh Hunt, as we observed in a former Number,2 aspires to be the hierophant. Our readers will recollect the pleasant recipes for harmonious. and sublime poetry which he gave us in his Preface to Rimini, and the still more facetious instances of his harmony and sublimity in the verses themselves; and they will recollect above all the contempt of Pope, Johnson, and such poetasters and pseudocritics, which so forcibly contrasted itself with Mr. Leigh Hunt's self-complacent approbation of -all the things itself had wrote, Of special merit though of little note. This author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt; but he is more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and absurd than his prototype, who, though he impudently presumed to seat himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his own stand1 A nickname applied by Lockhart and other English critics to the poetry of Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Keats. and others. See Black rood's Magazine, Oct. and Nov., 1817 (Vol. 2, 38-41: 194-201) July and Aug., 1818 (Vol. 3, 45356; 519-24). 2 See The Quarterly Review. Jan. 1816 (Vol. 14, 473-81), and Jan., 1818 (Vol. 18, 324-35). For a selection from The Story of Rimini, see pp. 866 fr. For the Preface, see Critical Note on Hunt's The Story of Rimini. ard, yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats had advanced no dogmas which he was bound to support by examples; his nonsense, therefore, is quite gratuitous; he writes it for its own sake; and, being bitten by Mr. Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his poetry. Mr. Keats's Preface hints that his poem was produced under peculiar circumstances.1 "Knowing within myself (he says) the manner in which this poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public. What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished."-Preface, p. vii. 40 Mr. Keats, however, deprecates criticism. on this "immature and feverish work" in 35 terms which are themselves sufficiently feverish; and we confess that we should have abstained from inflicting upon him any of the tortures of the “fierce hell" of criticism, which terrify his imagination, if he had not begged to be spared in order that he might write more; if he had not observed in him a certain degree of talent which deserves to be put in the right way, or which, at least, ought to be warned of the wrong; and if, finally, he had not told us that he is of an age and temper which imperiously require mental discipline. 45 Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be mythological, 50 and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion; but of this, as the scope of the work has altogether escaped us, we cannot speak with any degree of certainty; and must therefore content ourselves with giv- 55 ing some instances of its diction and versification; and here again we are perplexed and puzzled. At first it appeared to us that 1 See Critical Note on Keats's Endymion. * perfection Mr. Keats had been amusing himself and wearying his readers with an immeasurable game at bouts-rimés;1 but, if we recollect rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play, that the rhymes when filled up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at random, and then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested by the rhyme with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete couplet inclosing a complete idea in the whole book.2 He wanders from one subject to another, from the association, not of ideas but of sounds, and the work is composed of hemistichs which, it is quite evident, have forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the catchwords on which they turn. We shall select, not as the most striking instance, but as that least liable to suspicion, a passage from the opening of the poem.* -Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms; And such, too, is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; ete., -[1. 13-21] etc. |