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LECTURES ON POETRY 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
LECTURES ON POETRY 
 
 DELIVERED AT OXFORD 
 
 BY SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE, BART. 
 
 // 
 
 PROKKSSOR OF POETRY IN JHK 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1877 
 
 [A ll rights reserved] 
 
* 
 
TO 
 
 THE WARDEN AND FELLOWS OF 'ALL SOULS COLLEGE 
 
 IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF 
 MANY KINDNESSES RECEIVED AT THEIR HANDS 
 
 iM) MANY PLEASANT HOURS SPENT IN THEIR SOCIETY 
 DURING THE LAST TEN YEARS 
 
 Cbis Volume is Jnscribtb 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 '/76709 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I APPREHEND that the University, though she exacts 
 nothing of the kind, in some degree expects that those 
 whom she has honoured with her Professorships should 
 give what they have to give sooner or later to the 
 world. Such being the case, I need advance no other 
 reason for publishing these Lectures. The lectures which 
 I have delivered in my time are of course more in 
 number than those contained in this volume, but owing 
 to a variety of accidents my manuscripts fell into con- 
 fusion, and have many of them gone astray. I am 
 obliged, therefore, to content myself with what comes 
 readiest to my hand. 
 
 Of the Lectures that are missing I rather regret 
 some, particularly two on ' Jason and Medea ' and one 
 on the tragedy of ' Hamlet.' My examination of 
 ' Hamlet ' ought to have come in between what I say 
 of ' Othello ' and what I say of ' Macbeth/ and its 
 absence leaves rather a disastrous gap in the Shakspere 
 series. It cannot, however, be helped now, and so many 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 able men have written about ' Hamlet ' that the world, 
 perhaps, needs nothing more. 
 
 Of the Lectures which do appear, I have only to say 
 in other words much the same as I said on a former 
 occasion. When people talk of a feeling for poetry 
 they are guided by a just instinct. The north country 
 mathematician observed, after reading ' Virgil ' through, 
 * It proves nought ; ' now what he says of one poet we 
 may extend to poets in general : poetry proves nought, 
 and is too impalpable to be cut up into abstract pro- 
 positions. 
 
 Any listeners, moreover, that I might have were not 
 bound to come, nor if they did come were they bound 
 to stay : my business, having once got hold of them, 
 was to keep them in the Taylor Building till I had done 
 speaking, if I could : accordingly, I thought it better 
 to avoid all attempts at subtle criticism. I tried instead 
 to interest my audience (and I may perhaps be pardoned 
 for saying that I do not consider myself to have failed 
 in doing so) by what the Greeks used to call Epideictic 
 Orations. I trust, therefore, that any reader of mine, 
 disposed to think my style too florid, or again too light 
 and familiar, for a University lecturer will bear in mind 
 what I have aimed at, will bear in mind that I claim 
 for my Addresses every privilege of a speech : a speech, 
 too, belonging to a particular class of orations, namely, 
 as I have just said, Epideictic Orations. Now, for such 
 a speech, in my judgment, ' tous les genres sont bons, 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 hors le genre ennuyeux.' With regard to another point, 
 my experience is, that if you choose remote and recon- 
 dite subjects to lecture upon, nobody comes to hear you ; 
 if, on the other hand, you choose such well-worn topics 
 as the genius of Wordsworth, or of Scott, or of Shak- 
 spere, you incur, almost of necessity, obligations to 
 previous writers. I have endeavoured to acknowledge 
 honestly such debts, when I was clear to whom they 
 were owing ; but of course much that I pass over in 
 silence may be, and probably is, derived more or less, in 
 one way or another, from older critics ; I hope that for 
 this class of obligations a general acknowledgment may 
 suffice. I plead guilty also (the Lectures having been 
 delivered at times often widely separated from each 
 other) to a certain amount of repetition, but I do not 
 repeat myself unless I consider the subject worth re- 
 turning to ; I have, therefore, had my manuscripts 
 printed just as I found them. 
 
 With regard to the Poems at the end of the book, I 
 have had lately so few opportunities of spending either 
 time or thought upon versifying, that I certainly should 
 not have published them, had it not been that to write 
 an ode in honour of Lord Salisbury, for the Oxford 
 Commemoration of 1870, became my duty as Poetry 
 Professor ; indeed, it was perhaps the chief single act of 
 my professorship. It seemed, therefore, but reasonable 
 that I should attach this Ode to the Lectures, and, that 
 once done, the few pieces of verse lying about in my 
 drawers naturally followed in its wake. 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 Two of these poems namely, ' The Loss of the 
 Birkenhead ' and ' The Red Thread of Honour,' have 
 appeared before in a volume of mine long since out of 
 print. 
 
 I republish these two poems here for different reasons : 
 I republish ' The Loss of the Birkenhead ' because, at 
 the request of Mr. Palgrave, I made in it, to suit his 
 
 
 
 excellent st* action of verses for children, some slight 
 alterations. 
 
 ' The Red Thread of Honour ' I republish without 
 any alteration at all, upon quite other grounds ; it has 
 been, I understand, translated into Pushtoo, and has 
 become a favourite among the villagers of the North- 
 western frontier of India ; my informant added that the 
 tradition of * The Red Thread ' was universally known 
 among them. I was gratified to learn this unexpected 
 fact, I confess, partly perhaps from the vanity natural to 
 the genus irritabile, but partly, also, because it showed 
 that I have managed to express the strong interest I feel 
 in any gallant barbarians who try to hold their own 
 against the overwhelming resources of a civilised power, 
 with some tolerable effect. 
 
 Of the longest among the poems, ' Neamet and 
 Noam,' I have nothing to say, except a few words in 
 reference to its versification. The story struck me, when 
 I happened to be more at leisure than usual, as suscep- 
 tible of poetical treatment ; I hesitated for some time 
 as to the form in which I should put it, and finally 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 decided upon the rhymed heroic of Dryden and Pope : 
 for certain purposes this old-fashioned measure is yet 
 unsurpassed. With regard to what we may perhaps call 
 the serious epigram, such as that, God 
 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent. 
 
 Or again, 
 
 The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine, 
 Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. 
 
 And other phrases of this kind, they cannot be expressed 
 with the same force and terseness in any other metre 
 that I know of. But a narrative poem, written in such 
 strong and stinging couplets, would over-stimulate the 
 critical palate would remind us, in fact, of the Irishman's 
 matchless apple pie that was to be made entirely of 
 quince. Dryden, therefore, had recourse to triplets, to 
 Alexandrines, and other poetical stratagems in the hope 
 of making his verses more fluent and less monotonous. 
 I have followed Dryden in this, I have even gone a little 
 beyond him ; Shelley, and others since his time, have 
 thrown a new light on the capabilities of the rhymed 
 heroic, and I have not scrupled to take the hints that 
 they afford. Still, however, I have endeavoured, in the 
 main, to keep to the well-known metre of ' Theodore 
 and Honoria,' 'Palamon and Arcite,' and other such 
 poems, belonging to the end of the seventeenth or the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century. Mr. Morris's 
 rhymed decasyllabics may be just as good, may be 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 better, if you will, for a narrative poem, but they are not 
 the same. My object has been to go on in the old 
 groove, though I wish to make my lines as free as pos- 
 sible, consistently with what would, I suppose, be called 
 in politics a liberal conservatism. 
 
 Having said thus much, I have nothing more to 
 do, except to gladly avail myself of this opportunity 
 to express my grateful thanks to the University in 
 general, and to the Members of my own College in par- 
 ticular, for the kindness with which I have been met 
 throughout my tenure of office. 
 
 ALL SOULS COLLEGE : 
 February 10, 1877. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 LECTURE PAGE 
 
 I. 'THE PRELUDE' &c. . . . . i 
 
 II. *THE PRELUDE ;' ' THE EXCURSION ' &c. . 21 
 
 III. 'THE EXCURSION' &c. . . . .1 
 
 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 IV. POSITION IN LITERATURE; 'THE BALLADS' . . 78 
 
 V. ' THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL ; ' ' MARMION ' . 103 
 
 VI. 'MARMION' AND OTHER POEMS . . . 127 
 
 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 VII. 'LEAR;' 'OTHELLO' . . . . .150 
 
 VIII. 'MACBETH' . . . . . . . 178 
 
 IX. 'MACBETH;' 'THE TEMPEST 1 .... 203 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 INSTALLATION ODE FOR 1870 . . . . . . 231 
 
 NEAMET AND NOAM ...... 239 
 
 THE QUICK MARCH OF THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT . . 266 
 
 IPHITION ........ 270 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE Loss OF THE 'BIRKENHEAD' .... 272 
 
 THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR . . . . 275 
 
 LINES TO JULIA . . . . . . . 279 
 
 DARKNESS AND LIGHT . . . . . 280 
 
 FROM HEINE, ETC. ...... 282 
 
 ANDALUSIAN CANZONET . . . . . 284 
 
 HELEN (FROM THE FRENCH) ..... 285 
 
 SECRET AFFINITIES (FROM THE FRENCH) . . . 287 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN (FROM THE FRENCH) .... 290 
 
 THE HUT (FROM THE FRENCH) . . . . 292 
 
 Erratum. 
 Page 77, line 13, for he and I read we are. 
 
. ) . . 
 
 . 
 
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 LECTURE I. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ' THE PRELUDE ' ETC. 
 
 1 THE PRELUDE,' Wordsworth's longest poem, it is my purpose 
 to examine to-day. At the same time, I do not propose to 
 look at it entirely by itself. I have come to this decision 
 mainly because it is connected in a remarkable from some 
 points of view, in a melancholy manner, with all that is 
 highest in Wordsworth's poetical achievements, with all that is 
 likely to be most enduring in his poetical renown. Even on 
 its own merits it well deserves a close and careful -examination; 
 but we must travel outside of this poem, and beyond it, if we 
 wish to understand its full significance, both whilst the author 
 was writing his * Prelude,' and again, immediately after it had 
 been written and completed. Taken by itself, it is, if not the 
 best, at any rate, one of the most interesting productions of 
 the age to which it belongs. Indeed, in one respect it stands, 
 so far as I know, alone. No other poem occurs to me of equal 
 length, of equal importance, composed by a great poet, at the 
 very time when all his faculties were in their fullest vigour, 
 which yet was kept apart and hidden away for so many years. 
 ' Nonumque prematur in annum ' has become a proverb to ex- 
 press the ne plus ultra of discreet reticence and self-criticising 
 suppression. But Wordsworth suppressed ' The Prelude/ not 
 for nine years only, but for forty years at least. Nay, as far as 
 he personally is concerned, when we remember how profound 
 
' > t 
 
 2 WORDSWORTft. 
 
 " * * * * 4 * * ***%* 
 
 1} < V * ( 
 
 was his instinct of immortality, how deeply-rooted his faith in 
 the future destinies of the human spirit, we cannot help saying 
 even more than this. According to his notions, everything that 
 earth can bestow becomes, immediately after man's transfer- 
 ence to a higher state of things, absolutely valueless and 
 childish : We may then fairly say that ' The Prelude ' was sup- 
 pressed for good and all. This I affirm, because it was not 
 given to us by him, but rescued from oblivion by others after 
 his death ; and because, in this very poem by him so sup- 
 pressed, we see of how little importance what is called posthu- 
 mous fame appeared to Wordsworth, in comparison with all 
 that is reserved for man, after he has passed beyond the limits 
 of time. With solemn emphasis he, ranking among the few to 
 whom a lasting reputation has been vouchsafed, finely expresses 
 his conviction that the immortal soul, whatever its intellectual 
 achievements here, must discover, as soon as it has been up- 
 lifted into other conditions of existence, that it has outgrown 
 all the trappings and equipments belonging to its infancy on 
 earth. It will have passed out of the atmosphere and surround- 
 ings where such things have any reality or purpose. Accordingly, 
 in speaking of the power and permanence of man's literary 
 work, this is what he says : 
 
 Thou also, man, hast wrought, 
 For commerce of thy nature with itself, 
 Thoughts that aspire to unconquerable life : 
 And yet we feel, we cannot choose but feel, 
 That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart 
 It gives, to think that our immortal spirits 
 No more shall need such garments. 
 
 If, therefore, I do not misinterpret him, Wordsworth delibe- 
 rately sacrificed this gigantic composition, during all those years 
 when to publish it would have had a meaning for him. That 
 this was anything but a light sacrifice for a poet possessed, and 
 worthily possessed, by so high an opinion of himself and his 
 own works, I nsed scarcely tell you. To proceed, however, 
 
WORDSWORTH. 3 
 
 let us hear his own account of what ' The Prelude ' was, or, 
 at least, was intended to be : 
 
 ' Several years ago, when the author retired to his native mountains, 
 with the hope of being able to construct a literary work that might live, it 
 was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and 
 examine how far nature and education had fitted him for such an employ- 
 ment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record in verse 
 the origin and progress of his own powers, so far as he was acquainted 
 with them. The preparatory poem (that is, this very Prelude), is biogra- 
 phical, and conducts the author's rhind to the point where he was embol- 
 dened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured, for entering on 
 the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works 
 (namely "The Prelude," and "The Recluse," which came to nothing as 
 a whole), have the same kind of relationship to each other as the ante- 
 chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. ' 
 
 One would have said that this passage, instinct as it is with 
 a modest confidence and a noble self-dedication to the poet's 
 art, augured well for the poet's hopes. But, alas for the vanity 
 of all human wishes ! Alas for the evanescence of all human 
 expectations! * The Prelude' was begun in 1799, it was 
 finished in the summer of 1805. Now, after 1805 or 1806, at 
 latest, the history of Wordsworth's mental progress was, com- 
 paratively speaking, of little importance to mankind. Those 
 faculties which * The Prelude ' was to test and gauge may have 
 been matured, but they were also somewhat chilled. Much fruit 
 ripened, no doubt, after these years ; but it did not ripen as 
 genially as it should have done ; and it is out of the beauty of 
 promise, not out of the beauty of fulfilment, or the fondly 
 anticipated harvests of perfection, that Wordsworth's wreath of 
 immortality has, after all, to be woven. It is, if we may borrow 
 his own metaphor, ' Of budding roses, not of roses in full bloom/ 
 that his unfading coronal has been framed. * The Prelude,' 
 begun, as I have said in 1799, and ended in 1805, was looked 
 upon by its author scarcely as a poem in itself ; it was rather 
 the stedfast and solemn preparation for a poetical career. In 
 other words, it was, as. he tells us, only a prelude. The great 
 
 B 2 
 
4 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ode of his life was destined to be sung to higher music ; when 
 the self-examination had been carried into effect, the education 
 completed, the strength measured and ascertained. Alas ! 1 
 say again, for the vanity of human wishes ! for the evanescence 
 of human expectations ! The trained poet, who was so eager 
 and so confident, rejoicing as a giant to run his course, did in- 
 deed run his course as a giant ; but he ran it whilst the prelude 
 was being written whilst the process of education was going 
 on not after it had been accomplished and left behind. And 
 this, perhaps, may be one reason a somewhat melancholy 
 reason, as I have said why the world at large knew little or 
 nothing of ' The Prelude,' till all worldly reputation had become 
 ' the dream of a shadow/ till the eyes and ears of the poet were oc- 
 cupied by other lights, and other harmonies, than those of earth. 
 I know very well that the imagination helps us, when we 
 speak of Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, and the like, to raise up 
 forms and pictures for the mind, without consciously analysing 
 them into their ultimate elements. But if they are so analysed 
 what we really mean is this. By Lord Byron we now mean 
 ' Childe Harold/ ' Manfred/ ' The Siege of Corinth/ < Don 
 Juan/ &c. By Shelley, ' Alastor/ Adonais/ ' The Cenci/ and 
 so on. By Wordsworth, in like manner, we mean little more 
 than a certain number of his poems. And if we look into the 
 matter, we shall find that, when ' The Prelude ' was written and 
 finished, these poems, or, at any rate, the great majority of 
 them, were written and finished also. You can easily verify 
 this statement for yourselves. Without wearying you by a long 
 list of names, I will only observe that the ' Lines on Revisiting 
 Tintern Abbey ' were written in 1799 ; ' The Brothers ' in iBoo - } 
 and the l Ode on the Anticipations of Immortality/ the latest, 
 I think, of Wordsworth's productions, revealing his genius at 
 its highest point of energy, between 1803 and 1806. 
 
 The principal effort made by him to surpass his earlier self, 
 in the after years, was, perhaps, when he wrote ' The Excursion ' 
 
WORDSWORTH. 5 
 
 a poem not published till 1814. It was, undoubtedly, a noble 
 effort, &fluctiis decumanus, if you will ; but \hzfluctns decumanus 
 of a tide, in my judgment, already on the ebb. 
 
 There will be, I dare say, many good critics dissenting 
 vehemently from me upon such points ; and against such critics 
 I have nothing to say, except that I am bound to give utterance 
 to my own opinions and not to theirs. Poetry is in some res- 
 pects like personal beauty. If all opinions were absolutely in 
 unison about them they would both be less interesting, and from 
 the narrowing of their influence, they would affect men less than 
 they do now. Nature herself throughout her realm seems to abhor 
 monotony. You may, perhaps, recollect a story about Paley; how, 
 with his broad Yorkshire dialect, he astonished his Bishop 
 when that right reverend person condescended to inform his sub- 
 ordinate, that the day before them was the anniversary of his 
 wedding day, and that during all the forty or fifty years that had 
 elapsed since the auspicious event had taken place, no angry 
 word had ever passed between him and his wife. ' Moighty 
 dool, moighty dool, indeed, my lord ! ' broke at once from the 
 lips of the unsympathising Archdeacon. Everybody agreed 
 with Paley, of course ; but, in justice to Mrs. Barrington, I 
 must add, that the Bishop nobody believed. 
 
 Now, with regard to personal beauty, as with regard to 
 poetry and art, Nature, abhorring as I have said monotony, has 
 exerted herself to prevent this ' moighty doolness.' The end- 
 less varieties of temperament, of caprice, of eccentricity itself, 
 are always in action ; and looking to the interests of the whole, 
 in healthy action, too. There are, in almost every constitution, 
 certain special fibres that throb in answer to certain influences, 
 and are silent to others ; just as one /Eolian harp may respond 
 to a gust that meets with no reply but from it, though many 
 similar /Eolian harps may be close at hand. 
 
 Such varieties of impulse, acting upon various characters, 
 are always at work in a thousand ways, and create a thousand 
 
6 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 complications. They insinuate themselves into our judgments, 
 to float between them and the absolute truth, colouring and mo- 
 difying even the justest and clearest conceptions. They keep 
 varying thus like clouds or shiftings of the atmosphere (at one 
 moment in this valley, at another over the next), that colour 
 and modify the white light of the sun. 
 
 When, therefore, 1 say that the poem of ' The Brothers,' 
 written in 1800, constitutes for me Wordsworth's high-water 
 mark, I do not expect, I do not ask for, universal acquiescence. 
 Still, I believe that most of his admirers would agree that about 
 the time when Wordsworth wrote ' The Brothers,' and other 
 exquisite poems whose name is legion, he was moving onwards 
 in all the freshness and power and majesty of his genius; and 
 that, to the years 1799 and 1800, his greatest advance in poetry 
 belongs. This being so, we can picture to ourselves with what 
 buoyancy and strength, with what proud serenity, and in how 
 exulting a spirit, the earlier portions of ' The Prelude ' were 
 written. 
 
 Taking for the moment ' The Brothers 'as Wordsworth's finest 
 poem, let us put this ' Prelude ' aside for a little while, in order 
 that we may sympathise with the stately self-reliance of the 
 lonely bard, as he sat apart in his mountain home and felt 
 
 Divinity within him breeding wings 
 Wherewith to scorn the earth. 
 
 We know now how he paused at intervals in his noble task; 
 and how he employed those intervals ; or how, if he ever rested 
 absolutely, it was to fix his eyes upon the future, in the sure 
 and certain hope that he should behold, ere long, the temple 
 of his glory rising, as it were, to the sound of solemn music, 
 * like a golden exhalation of the dawn.'. 
 
 It is probably not necessary to trouble you with an analysis 
 of * The Brothers.' In order, however, to take nothing for 
 granted a great fault in argument, in criticism, in life itself- 
 I must ask you to pardon me if I recall to your minds the 
 
WORDSWORTH. 7 
 
 outline of this well-known composition. Two brothers of an 
 ancient family among the Cumberland dalesmen, whose love 
 for each other has been rendered more intense by poverty, by 
 orphanage, by the absence of other kindred, and by the closest 
 companionship from childhood, have had (after seeing the little 
 freehold, owned for centuries by men of their names, swallowed 
 up in a gulf of debt) to submit to one of the commonest forms 
 of our English sorrow one of our English greatness at the 
 same time inevitable separation for years, if not for ever. 
 
 These, whether it blew fair or foul, these two 
 
 Were brother Shepherds on their native hills. 
 
 They were the last of all their race : and now, 
 
 When Leonard had approach'd his home, his heart 
 
 FaiFd in him ; and, not venturing to enquire 
 
 Tidings of one whom he so dearly loved, 
 
 Towards the church-yard he had turn'd aside ; 
 
 That, as he knew in what particular spot 
 
 His family were laid, he thence might learn 
 
 If still his brother lived, or to the file 
 
 Another grave was added. He had found 
 
 Another grave, near which a full half-hour 
 
 He had remain'd ; but, as he gazed, there grew 
 
 Such a confusion in his memory, 
 
 That he began to doubt ; and he had hopes 
 
 That he had seen this heap of turf before, 
 
 That it was not another grave; but one 
 
 He had forgotten. He had lost his path, 
 
 As up the vale, that afternoon, he walk'd 
 
 Through fields which once had been well known to him : 
 
 And oh what joy the recollection now 
 
 Sent to his heart ! He lifted up his eyes, 
 
 And, looking round, imagined that he saw 
 
 Strange alteration wrought on every side 
 
 Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks, 
 
 And everlasting hills themselves were changed. 
 
 Leonard then hears from the Vicar that 
 
 If there were one among us who had heard 
 That Leonard Ewbank was come home again, 
 From the great Gavel, down by Leeza's Banks, 
 And down the Enna, far as Egremont, 
 That day would be a day of festival. 
 
8 W-ORDS WORTH. 
 
 These words naturally carried to the heart of him who heard 
 them Leonard Ewbank himself a rush of exhilaration and 
 hope ; such joy, such congratulations, would be impossible, if 
 he came back only to count the graves of his family, and to 
 find that their number had been increased by one, so that he 
 alone was left. For at last Leonard Ewbank, after twelve years 
 of hardship and adventure, of slavery among the Moors, and 
 other calamities cutting him off from all communication with 
 his friends at home, is in his native valley once more. Being 
 a sensitive man, however, his nerves are on the stretch ; there 
 is a fighting at his heart, so that he cannot bring himself to ask 
 his old friend, the Vicar, who takes him for a stranger, the plain 
 direct question which he thirsts to have answered. Any sensible, 
 straightforward man of business would have gone up at once to 
 the Parson, and said, ' Reverend Sir, can you tell me whether 
 James Ewbank is alive or dead ? ' 
 
 But Leonard Ewbank, it seems, was anything but a sensible 
 straightforward man of business, and to that fortunate infirmity 
 of his we owe one of the most beautiful poems in the English 
 or, indeed, in any other language. The scheme of the poem is 
 simply this : Leonard, afraid of encountering the dreadful 
 announcement of his brother's death, dares not to ask a direct 
 question, but seeks, by one innocent stratagem after another, to 
 extract the truth without revealing himself. The Priest, how- 
 ever, with whom he is discoursing, puts aside all these simple 
 manoeuvres, insists upon talking about Leonard, in whom he 
 naturally takes more interest than in the dead James, and 
 unknowingly baffles every suggestion, just as if he did it on 
 purpose. At one time he unconsciously alarms, at another ignor- 
 antly encourages, his questioner Leonard, till, in the end, all 
 possibilities of delay are exhausted, and the fatal truth, so long 
 suspended in vain, falls heavily upon the despairing enquirer. 
 
 The process by which this is effected the gradual fulfilment 
 of the first ominous indications the gradual deepening of the 
 
WORDSWORTH. 9 
 
 gloom chequered, as it is, by hopeful gleams and flashes, even 
 till we reach the absolute catastrophe, fills me with admiration. 
 It is not only exquisite in itself, but what is much rarer in 
 Wordsworth, a masterpiece of dramatic and tragic power. This 
 quality it is, so seldom found in our author, that gives to the 
 poem before us its exceptional value in my eyes. 
 
 I confess, also, that my own personal temper sympathises so 
 much with that of Leonard, when he shrinks from directly 
 challenging the perilous truth, that perhaps I am bribed, as it 
 were, by such sympathies, to place this poem above one or two 
 others which many good critics place above it. But no one, 
 though he may perhaps prefer the ' Leech-gatherer,' or ' The 
 Platonic Ode ' (as Wordsworthians used to call it), will deny, 
 I am sure, that the struggle in Leonard's mind is conceived 
 and executed with consummate genius, and also with, what I 
 have already said, is less common in our author consummate 
 art. 
 
 The first blow struck is the answer of the clergyman to 
 Leonard, who has pointed out to him certain changes in the 
 scenery, and the aspects of the dale. These changes, you must 
 bear in mind, had been welcomed by Leonard as inconsistent 
 with his boyish recollections ; as tending, therefore, to show 
 that his memory need not be infallible, and that consequently 
 he might be mistaken in fancying that he recognised a new 
 grave in that part of the churchyard, where his kinsmen and 
 ancestors lay buried. 
 
 He addresses the Priest to whom such casual changes were 
 of small importance, and forces him at last to acknowledge one 
 change that has indeed taken place. 
 
 But, surely, yonder. 
 
 To this ejaculation the Priest makes answer in a passage not 
 the most sublime, not the most powerful, but perhaps the most 
 exquisitely beautiful in all Wordsworth ; if I added in the whole 
 
io WORDSWORTH. 
 
 range of English poetry, I do not know that I should be far 
 wrong. 
 
 There was a foot-way all along the fields 
 By the brook-side 'tis gone- and that dark cleft ! 
 To me it does not seem to wear the face 
 Which then it had. 
 
 PRIEST. 
 
 Nay, sir, for aught I know, 
 That cleft is much the same 
 
 LEONARD. 
 
 But, surely, yonder 
 
 PRIEST. 
 
 Ay ! there, indeed, your memory is a friend 
 That does not play you false. On that tall pike 
 (It is the loneliest place of all these hills) 
 There were two springs that bubbled side by side, 
 As if they had been made that they might be 
 Companions to each other : the huge crag 
 Was rent with lightning one hath disappear'd ; 
 The other, left behind, is flowing still. 
 
 This is the* first hint of the approaching catastrophe, the 
 first stealthy advance of the shadow of death. The memory of 
 Leonard Ewbank, therefore, had not failed him ; the dark 
 mountain cleft had changed its aspect and character, the brother- 
 hood of the two fountains existed no more, and the vanishing 
 of that old companionship must have struck with its weight 
 of suggestion on the heart of Leonard Ewbank then, just as 
 it strikes on the heart of the reader now. It must have carried 
 with it the chill presentiment of a dissolution of that other 
 companionship, an extinction of that other brotherhood, then 
 actually in question. Nay, by establishing how accurately 
 Leonard remembered what was, and what was not, the unas- 
 certained grave, the doubtful addition to the family burial- 
 place, recovers for itself and for us (though scarcely as yet for 
 Leonard) a dismal reality and truth. It shows that, in think- 
 
WORDSWORTH. 11 
 
 ing he had found another grave, there was no confusion in 
 his thought ; he has not forgotten, but remembered only too 
 well. ' Bodings, unsanctioned by the will,' must, in spite 
 of his struggles to continue unconvinced, have inflicted them- 
 selves upon his spirit, and given him, for a moment at least, 
 an unwelcome insight into the fatal certainty. But ' Hope 
 springs eternal in the human breast,' and the art of the poet in 
 this poem, as I have said, not less consummate than his genius, 
 intervenes with an exquisite touch of dramatic skill. A cheer- 
 ing thought gathered from the Vicar's story breaks through the 
 thickening gloom, here and there, like an unexpected outburst 
 of sunshine, such as 
 
 Ay, sir, that passed away : 
 He was the child of all the Dale, &c. 
 
 But, still every impartial person must have foreseen the end 
 from a distance : soon we learn always kept off from the 
 
 truth, that 
 
 When his brother 
 
 Was gone to sea, and he was left alone, 
 The little colour that he had was soon 
 Stolen from his cheek ; he droop'd, and pined, and pined. 
 
 Then comes the splendid exclamation, the last despairing 
 flash of hope, the last appeal for life, as it were, from the guns 
 of a foundering ship : 
 
 But these are all the graves of full-grown men. 
 
 The interest of ' The Brothers ' culminates here, but it 
 moves on to the end in quiet beauty, with an absolute perfec- 
 tion of style and thought, making us feel that ' Laodamia,' 
 i Dion,' and other poems, all of high merit, belonging to Words- 
 worth's later years, are stilted and cold in comparison- 
 rather fine specimens of his semi-poetical rhetoric than his 
 poetry itself. 
 
 It may be as well, perhaps, that I should read the end of 
 ' The Brothers ' before passing on. 
 
12 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The Priest here ended 
 
 The Stranger would have thank'd him, but he felt 
 A gushing from his heart, that took away 
 The power of speech. Both left the spot in silence. 
 .... 
 The other thank'd him with a fervent voice ; 
 But added, that, the evening being calm, 
 He would pursue his journey. So they parted. 
 It was not long ere Leonard reach'd a grove 
 That overhung the road : he there stopp'd short, 
 And, sitting down beneath the trees, review'd 
 All that the Priest had said : his early years 
 Were with him in his heart : his cherish'd hopes, 
 And thoughts which had been his an hour before, 
 All press' d on him with such a weight, that now, 
 This vale, where he had been so happy, seem'd 
 A place in which he could not bear to live : 
 So he relinquish'd all his purposes. 
 He travell'd on to Egremont : and thence 
 That night, he wrote a letter to the Priest, 
 Reminding him of what had pass'd between thern^ 
 And adding, with a hope to be forgiven, 
 That it was from the weakness of his heart 
 He had not dared to tell htm who he was. 
 
 This done, he went on shipboard, and is now 
 A seaman, a grey-headed mariner. 
 
 \ 
 
 So much for ' The Brothers.' My special favourite, as I 
 have told you ; but there are at least twenty other poems 
 written, I believe without exception, in those hours of ease 
 when ' The Prelude ' was hung up for a moment. I will name 
 only two, ' The Lines on Revisiting Tintern Abbey/ and the 
 Ode called shortly by its admirers l The Platonic Ode/ 
 Can we wonder then that the man who in the intervals of his 
 self-appointed task, indulged himself, by way of relaxation, in 
 writing poetry fit to match itself against the greatest efforts of 
 our greatest masters, should imagine that when his task was 
 over, when his final first-class degree (if I may be pardoned the 
 local metaphor) was awarded and registered, it would be his 
 natural destiny to soar upwards, ' like a pyramid of fire,' into the 
 
WORDSWORTH. 13 
 
 highest heaven of invention and renown ? But the wind blow- 
 
 o 
 
 eth where it listeth, and the breath of poetical inspiration is 
 like that wind in its uncertainty and seeming caprice. 
 
 Wordsworth * grew immortal in his own despite ' -I had 
 almost said against his conscience. He grew immortal because 
 the austere efforts, through which he was teaching himself to 
 become a poet, wearied him at times ; and whenever that was 
 the case, he deviated into poems (though still, from his own 
 point of view, little better than a learner and a disciple) scarcely, 
 if at all, to be surpassed. Poems, and perhaps this is one 
 explanation of their supreme excellence, with all the flavour and 
 relish upon his palate of stolen waters and bread eaten in secret. 
 In writing them, he was like an Eton boy out of bounds ; he 
 was a truant from * The Prelude ; ' he was shirking school, he 
 was dodging his tutor, he was claiming his natural liberty in 
 defiance of a formal promise and a self-recorded law. 
 
 Now the delight of such an escape must have been intense, 
 for the yoke of * The Prelude ' cannot but often have lain heavy 
 upon him ; and in proportion to its weight and pressure, must 
 have been the sense of relief, when he broke away from it to 
 rush into glorious songs as they rose up unbidden around him, 
 taking no thought of the morrow. 
 
 Again, to write this * Prelude,' he tells us that he retired, 
 after solemn deliberation, to his native mountains. Retired ! 
 yes ! and from what? From London, from Paris, from a world 
 fermenting with hopes and aspirations, such as had never re- 
 vealed themselves to earth's struggling millions since the first 
 birth of time hopes and aspirations, taking Wordsworth himself 
 captive, as we may see, above all ordinary men, and filling his 
 heart with passionate enthusiasm. He is retiring, we may say, 
 from the fall of the Bastile, from the convulsions of Europe, 
 from the newsman's horn, as it announces, hour after hour, some 
 new glory of Nelson, some fresh triumph of Bonaparte, some 
 earthquake shock of victory or defeat, perplexing nations and 
 
H WORDSWORTH. 
 
 shattering thrones. From all this he retires, and again I ask 
 To what? To Cumberland shepherds and shepherdesses, to a 
 thinly-peopled district, walled off from the intensities of life 
 by a dim solitude of hills and moors and waters. He must 
 have come into this solitude, one would think, trusting that the 
 forces already accumulated within him were sufficient to main- 
 tain, in spite of waste and absorption, a current of unexhausted 
 power. He must have come as the Nile comes, when it dashes 
 into the desert, roaring onwards beneath the rush of an Abys- 
 sinian rainfall. Down upon that desert the Nile leaps, as we 
 all know, to roll along thenceforwards without any affluent 
 worth speaking of ; without a single drop of water from the 
 parching skies to enrich its channel or inspirit its life, till it 
 reaches its home in the distant sea. A mighty river always ; but, 
 during these latter aspects of its course, in proportion as the 
 stormy influences of old, the hurricanes and tempests that 
 clothed its youth with thunder, are left behind and forgotten, 
 a river lessening rather than increasing in strength, and lessen- 
 ing for this reason only, that it relies, and has to rely, upon 
 itself alone. 
 
 I cannot but think that to this mistake of Wordsworth's 
 we may attribute the partial failure of hopes and expectations, 
 which, as all men would now agree, were fully justified at the 
 outset. In my judgment it is hardly wise, for one who wishes 
 1 virum volitare per ora] to separate himself thus, in his daily 
 habits and needs, from the greater interests and passions of 
 mankind. 
 
 Wordsworth, however, thought differently. Nature, and 
 meditations upon Nature, revealed themselves to him as the 
 true fountains of a poetic life ; and when we learn by reading 
 his works what these two fountains have given us, we scarcely 
 know how to blame the decision he came to. Still, it is open 
 to us to believe, if we like, that a Wordsworth who had not 
 buried himself among the Cumberland Fells, who had not, as it 
 
WORDSWOR TH. 1 5 
 
 were, called upon the hills to cover him, would have been a 
 different Wordsworth, a Wordsworth more illustrious than even 
 now he is. 
 
 Another element that I think did not work for good during 
 these hermit-like and self-centred years, was the hardness and 
 loneliness of his own character. At the beginning of his career, 
 whilst his mind was yet unformed and unset, this masculine, 
 and somewhat cold indifference to others was possibly an 
 advantage and a help. But afterwards, it is to be doubted 
 whether a more genial temper, more power of entering into the 
 merits and feelings of his contemporaries, might not have en- 
 livened and strengthened his mind. There is a story told of 
 his visiting Abbotsford : at the moment of his arrival Walter 
 Scott was engaged, and sent down an apology for not welcom- 
 ing him on the instant ; when he did make his appearance he 
 found that the Bard of Rydal had taken a book from the shelf. 
 It was a volume of his own poems, out of which he was reading 
 verses of his own, to his own sister to wile away the time. He 
 might, perhaps, in that new place, full of other associations, 
 have recollected with advantage, in reference, I will not say to 
 the volume, but to the woman at any rate, this well-known 
 scriptural text, ' The poor you have always with you.' 
 
 A third reason, perhaps, why he did not soar so high as the 
 ^glorious promises of his youth warranted him in anticipating, was 
 not so much his own fault as the fault of othemen. He was 
 at first a somewhat unsuccessful and unpopular poet ; that 
 being so, what Sir Henry Taylor so well calls ' the leaden spirit 
 of defeat ' may have weighed him down, and depressed him 
 below himself. Proud as he was, and likely to resent the 
 suggestion of such a possibility as an insult, no man can escape 
 from what Person once called, on a celebrated occasion, the 
 ' Nature of Things.' l 
 
 1 Person is reported to have said, on having his attention called to the 
 
16 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Lastly, the death of that unknown Lucy, of whom he never 
 spoke, and about whom none of his friends ventured to question 
 him, inflicted, perhaps, a wound, skinned over and healed at 
 the surface, but ever bleeding inwardly, so as to dull the 
 elasticity, and tarnish the gloss and splendour of his early 
 strength. 
 
 That there was an element of some sort or other interfering 
 with, and rebelling against, his pre-conceived plan of self-edu- 
 cation, we learn from the first book of ' The Prelude.' 
 
 It is shaken off, 
 
 That burthen of my own unnatural self, 
 The heavy weight of many a weary day 
 Not mine, and such as were not made for me. 
 
 That hope hath been discouraged, welcome light 
 Dawns from the East, but dawns to disappear, 
 And mock me with a sky that ripens not 
 \ Into a steady morning : if my mind, 
 
 Kemembering the bold promise of its past, 
 Would gladly grapple with some noble theme, 
 Vain is her wish : where'er she turns she finds 
 Impediments from day to day renewed. 
 
 Whatever impediments, however, may have arisen in France 
 or London, after this he was again at liberty perhaps too much 
 at liberty. He could sit down in his native vale, and meditate 
 on his future achievements after this fashion: 
 
 Sometimes, the ambitious power of choice, mistaking 
 Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea, 
 Will settle on some British theme, some old 
 Romantic tale by Milton left unsung. 
 
 
 
 Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate 
 How vanquished Mithridates northward passed, 
 And, hidden in the cloud of years, became 
 Odin, the Father of a race, by whom 
 Perished the Roman empire .... 
 
 fact that it was impossible to light his candle so long as the extinguisher 
 remained upon it, * Curse the Nature of Things. ' 
 
WORDSWORTH. 17 
 
 How Gustavus sought 
 Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines ; 
 How Wallace fought for Scotland ; left the name 
 Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower, 
 All over his dear country, left the deeds 
 Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts, 
 To people the steep rocks, and river banks. 
 
 
 
 Then a wish 
 
 My last and favourite aspiration, mounts 
 "With yearning towards some philosophic song 
 Of Truth, that cherishes our daily life ; 
 With meditations passionate from deep 
 Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse 
 Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre. 
 
 Prelude, Book i., between lines 164-231. 
 
 ^ 
 
 His dreams_of_ajnbition varied, as we see, with his varying 
 moods of mind. Before, however, undertaking any one of 
 these noble tasks, he was determined to plunge into the past ; 
 and, as another great poet has expressed himself, to trace 
 Home to its cloud, the lightning of the mind. 
 
 I have hinted that Wordsworth perhaps weakened the life 
 of that vital soul on which, in this very poem, he prides himself, 
 by cherished habits of self-isolation ; I had almost said, of self- 
 worship. At the same time it cannot be denied that the 
 mischief, if mischief there were, grew out of this after his 
 character had been fixed and hardened, not whilst it was in the 
 process of fixing itself. We all know that a love, or I would 
 rather say a habit, of solitude, and solitary thoughts, is one of 
 the common, if not one of the necessary conditions combining 
 to make up the poetic temper. 
 
 There are men, with powers to have gained distinction in 
 other ways, who seem to be cradled into poetry by some 
 peculiarities of character or position, which separate them from 
 contemporaries and equals during the docile period of their 
 youth. The lameness and early ill-health of Scott; the lameness 
 and wounded pride of Byron, a man of high rank crippled 
 
 c 
 
i8 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 by poverty ; splendid talents, marred by inherited vice and a 
 freakish perversity of disposition ; splendid personal beauty, 
 darkened by one incurable physical defect, descended from an 
 ancient and noble family, with yet a cloud and a taint hanging 
 over it ; the illused and unsocial childhood of Shelley ; but 
 why finish the sentence? Why multiply instances when there 
 is really no question before us ? 
 
 We must all remember that a boy, who obtruded poetic 
 reveries and aspirations into the cricket and football of his 
 companions at a public school, was very apt to be laughed at 
 and to be christened Mad Jones, or Mad Tompkins, or Mad 
 Shelley as the case might be. Now there is no Jones who 
 desires to be laughed at, no Tompkins who likes to be called 
 Mad Tompkins, in the little world, which, for the time, is a 
 great one to him ; and, therefore, in proportion as his impulses 
 to poetry are strong, in that proportion is he driven back upon 
 himself, and lifted away into solitude. Accordingly, Words- 
 worth's early education seems to have been, for him, in these 
 respects most fortunate. He was sent to a rough public school, 
 
 * 
 
 where the boys, dotted about in cottages, appeared to have done 
 pretty much what they liked. These cottages were kept each 
 of them by some aged dame, and the boyish inmates of these 
 little homes enjoyed, if Wordsworth's recollections were ac- 
 curate, a degree of independence not approached even in those 
 famous schools with which we are more familiar : schools 
 certainly not erring on the side of over- watchfulness or priggish 
 restrictions. 
 
 There do not seem to have been any bounds, any vexatious 
 limitations to amusement or exercise ; any enquiry, in a word, 
 as to how the scholars employed or wasted their time when out 
 of school. The dames and tutors, relying, I daresay, on the 
 remoteness of the place, and the absence of all ordinary 
 temptations, left everything to fate and chance. For Words- 
 worth's peculiar genius and disposition nothing could have 
 
WORDSWORTH. 19 
 
 been better at the time. Though a man of earnest mind, he 
 never was a student, in the common I might say, in any sense 
 of the word ; but he felt and thought deeply, and his 'passion 
 for all natural objects was such that Nature impressed herself 
 upon him instantly and irresistibly. A school, therefore, which 
 allowed him to wander at will, in communion with Nature, his 
 nurse and mistress, suited him far better than any place where, 
 cooped up in a narrow playground, he might have received the 
 soundest instruction about Dawes's Canons, or the dogmas of 
 Person as to the fifth foot of an iambic trimeter. Even before 
 he left home for the first time, his delight in his own thoughts 
 and his own company had begun to show itself. 
 
 Oh ! many a time have I, a five years' child, 
 In a small mill-race severed from the stream, 
 Made one long bathing of a summer's day ; 
 Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again 
 Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured 
 The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves 
 Of yellow ragwort, or where rock and hill, 
 The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height 
 Was bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone 
 Beneath the sky, as if I had been born 
 On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut 
 Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport 
 A naked savage in the thunder shower. 
 
 Prelude, Book i. 
 
 Even at this early age, therefore, when most children are 
 under the care of nurses, to be slapped and shaken, if, as real 
 children are bound to do, they hide themselves away from 
 grown-up people, spoil their clothes, and transact the proper 
 amount of mischief, he seems to have been left unshaken and 
 unslapped ; and thus to have tasted, in a most unusual degree, 
 the joys of solitary enterprise and unchartered freedom. To 
 his school, where, out of school at least, there seems to have 
 been but little more discipline, he carried with him this semi- 
 barbaric spirit of independence. 
 
 Moreover, as, of course, so young a creature must often, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 when unguarded and far away, have been stricken by vague 
 terror, or at any rate touched with awe from presences of Nature 
 in the sky, or on the earth ; from ' visions of the hills/ and ' souls 
 of lonely places,' his imagination was not left uninfluenced 
 by the two great stimulants of reverence and fear; by emotions 
 which, to use his own words, 
 
 Impressed upon all forms the characters 
 
 Of danger and desire, 
 
 And thus did make 
 
 The surface of the universal earth, 
 
 With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, 
 
 Work like a sea. 
 
 There is a magnificent description of the feelings engen- 
 dered in his mind by the life he led, and the imaginative loneli- 
 ness of spirit in which he indulged himself, without having, as 
 would have been the case at Eton, to stay afterwards :- 
 
 'One summer evening' (Book I. line 355, down to 'and 
 were a trouble to my dreams '). I refer you to this passage 
 without quoting it at length here, because I shall want to do 
 that on a future occasion. 
 
 This was the manner in which Cumberland educated her 
 poet-child for Cambridge, with small promise of a Senior 
 Wranglership or a Chancellor's medal, I must admit. Not a 
 good education, certainly, for these days of competitive exami- 
 nation ; for average boys, possibly, not a good education at any 
 time. Though I daresay Wordsworth's companions grew up 
 into a resolute and stalwart manhood enough ; and may, with 
 time given them, have played their parts reasonably well in an 
 England that then ooked to something else than a stall-fed 
 memory as the one infallible preparation for life. At any rate, 
 whatever maybe the value of our existing Chinese system for the 
 rank and file of each generation, that Wordsworth escaped it 
 altogether, God be praised ! That future Wordsworths may 
 also escape it, when their time comes, let us devoutly hope ! 
 This is a prayer in which the Civil Service examiners themselves 
 will not, I am sure, refuse to join. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 21 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 * THE PRELUDE ' ETC. continued. 
 
 WORDSWORTH the Cantab presents himself to us as quite a 
 different person from Wordsworth the Hawkshead schoolboy. 
 He describes the change that has taken place with some 
 humour, and with a sincerity as if he were in a confessional. 
 Among other quaint instances of his amusement and perplexity 
 under this new aspect of life, which might be given if it were 
 worth while, we learn how his introduction to the University 
 affected him from the following lines : 
 
 Questions, directions, warnings, and advice, 
 Flowed in upon me from all sides, fresh day 
 Of pride and pleasure. To myself, I seemed 
 A man of business and expense, and went 
 From shop to shop about my own affairs, 
 To tutor, or to tailor, as befel. 
 
 As if the change 
 
 Had waited on some fairy's wand, at once 
 Behold me rich in monies, and attired 
 In splendid garb, with hose of silk and hair 
 Powdered like rimy trees when frost is keen. 
 
 There were many things certain to interest Wordsworth in 
 Cambridge, and upon such topics he touches with all his usual 
 power. The window through which 
 
 When from my pillow, looking forth by light 
 Of moon and favouring stars, I could behold 
 The ante-chapel where the statue stood 
 Of Newton, with his prism and silent face, 
 The marble index of a mind, for ever 
 Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone. 
 
22 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The reminiscences of Chaucer in * The Hawthorn Shade, 
 beside the pleasant mill of Trumpington,' also came back to 
 him, though not exactly the same in kind. I think Wordsworth 
 was quite right in * laughing with Chaucer.' A poet who has to 
 deal with the whole of human nature ought not to be prudish. 
 At the same time, to call the story to which he refers 'A Tale of 
 Amorous Passion/ is certainly making the best of things. It 
 would have given the admirable Bowdler no end of trouble to 
 file down the narrative in question into a fitness for lying upon 
 a drawing-room table. 
 
 Again, he dwells with proper zeal on the memory 
 
 Of that gentle bard, 
 
 Chosen by the Muses for their page of state- 
 Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven 
 With the moon's beauty, and the moon's soft pace ; 
 Of our blind poet, who in his later day 
 Stood almost single, uttering odious truth 
 Darkness before, and danger's voice behind. 
 
 Such associations worked with their full effect on the fresh 
 and untarnished mind of the boy-poet. Nay, even setting these 
 shadowy impressions aside, the general spirit of his new home, 
 the traditional glories hanging over every corner of that vene- 
 rable place, and breathing forth influences scarcely to be re- 
 sisted by anyone within their reach, could not fail to arrest 
 his attention and touch his heart : 
 
 He could not print 
 
 Ground, where the grass had yielded to the steps 
 Of generations of illustrious men, 
 Unmoved, he could not always lightly pass 
 Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept, 
 Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old, 
 The garden of great intellects, undisturbed. 
 
 Still, after making every allowance for what he thus gained, 
 after admitting freely that he could not behold with undelighted 
 mind 
 
WORDSWORTH. 23 
 
 So many happy youths, so wide and fair 
 
 A congregation in its budding time 
 
 Of health and beauty ; could not see unmoved 
 
 That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers, 
 
 Decking the matron temples of a place 
 
 So famous through the world. 
 
 We feel that in spite of these tributes to its memory, Words- 
 worth did not like Cambridge. Directly, at any rate, he profited 
 little by it, as we can judge : nor did he look back in after 
 years upon his residence there with any special tenderness or 
 affection. He felt 
 
 A strangeness in the mind, 
 A feeling that he was not for that hour, 
 Nor for that place. 
 
 No high emotion, derived from a thirst for living praise, and 
 from a fit reverence for the noble dead, ever touched him at all 
 -at least, so as to act upon his character materially. No en- 
 thusiasm was awakened strong enough to shake the stability of 
 those foundations on which his original genius was beginning 
 to build itself up. 
 
 Indeed, if we content ourselves with plain fact with the 
 unadorned truth of the case, in sonorous blank verse, extend- 
 ing over many pages, he tells us little else than this, that he was 
 not a reading man. There is, I may say, no great reason to 
 wish that he had been. Mountain torrents have other work in 
 the world than to supply manufactories or fill kettles ; reser- 
 voirs and pumps are good enough for these ordinary transac- 
 tions. Medallists and wranglers are, no doubt, eminent and 
 valuable men. Still, medallists and wranglers you can have for 
 the asking year after year. But a ruined Wordsworth is a loss 
 not to be repaired. Such a loss would have left a gap in 
 Nature, and if Cambridge had been powerful enough to dwarf 
 or distort the pre-ordained growth of his faculties, Wordsworth 
 might thus have been ruined. 
 
 The youth who from Nature and her overflowing sources had 
 
24 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 received so much, that ( all his thoughts were steeped in feeling/ 
 who had stood 
 
 If the night blackened with the coming storm, 
 
 And drank in visionary power 
 
 Beneath some rock, listening to tones that are 
 
 The ghostly language of the ancient earth. 
 
 
 
 Who says of himself 
 
 A track pursuing, not untrod before. 
 
 To every natural form, fruit, rock, and flower, 
 
 I gave a moral life, I saw them feel, 
 
 Or linked them to some feeling ; the great mass 
 
 Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all 
 
 That I beheld respired with inward meaning. 
 
 A young man such as this, it is obvious, was not fitted to 
 fight hard for University prizes, or to make a high place upon 
 the Tripos, with a fellowship to follow, the engrossing hope of his 
 life. We all remember, I make no doubt, Mazeppa's horse 
 
 In the full foam of wrath and dread, 
 
 To me the desert-born was led ; 
 
 In truth he was a matchless steed, 
 
 A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 
 
 Who looked as though the speed of thought 
 
 Were in his limbs ; but he was wild, 
 Wild as the wild deer and untaught. . . 
 'Twas but a day since he was caught. 
 
 Such an untamed and un tameable courser would have been 
 as much at home among the sleek well-groomed animals of 
 Rotten Row, as Wordsworth was among the public school am- 
 bitions and conventional anticipations of the future, urging on 
 every right-minded undergraduate whom he met. He hated 
 everything artificial, still more everything like restraint, rightly 
 perhaps, for he was no hot-house plant, and as the ballad 
 sings : 
 
 For the tender beech and the sapling oak, 
 
 That grow by the shadowy rill, 
 You may cut down both at a single stroke, 
 
 You may cut down which you will ; 
 
WORDSWORTH. 25 
 
 But this you must know, that as long as they grow, 
 
 Whatever change may be, 
 You never can teach, either oak or beech, 
 
 To be aught but a greenwood tree. 
 
 Here, however, he found himself for the first time in his 
 life entangled in formalities, and subject to restraint. For in- 
 stance, he hated going to chapel a practice against which he 
 inveighs with somewhat fierce and one-sided emphasis. Whether 
 the restraint being the same, if a simple absence, as we call 
 it at Eton, had been substituted for the religious formality that 
 revolted him, he would have been better pleased, I cannot say. 
 Altogether, it is a relief to get him away from Cambridge ; 
 where, perhaps, the most notable fact recorded is, that finding 
 himself in the room associated with the name of Milton, he 
 tossed off bumper after bumper to the memory of that illus- 
 trious man, the soberest of mortals, until, for the first and last 
 time in his life, he got drunk, and staggered into chapel, half 
 proud of the impulse to which he had yielded, though half 
 ashamed of the result : 
 
 Oh ! temperate Bard ! 
 Be it confessed that, for the first time seated 
 Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, 
 One of a festive circle, I poured out 
 Libations to thy memory ; drank till pride 
 And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain 
 Never excited by the fumes of wine 
 Before that hour or since, &c. &c. 
 
 We must not, however, think too much of this dithyrambic 
 exploit. A worthy clerical friend of mine, one of the best 
 poetical critics I know, and also one of the soundest judges of 
 port wine, always shakes his head about it, and says : ' Words- 
 worth's intentions were good, no doubt, but I greatly fear that 
 his standard of intoxication was miserably low.' 
 
 In the fourth book Wordsworth relates how he returned to 
 Hawkshead. He tells us again and again how his deeper 
 
26 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 nature broke through the thin crust of alien habits, through 
 the forced submission to alien circumstances, and shook off the 
 torpor laid upon it by a depressing and uncongenial atmosphere. 
 This book, however, and the seventh, entitled * Residence in 
 London,' interest us less than the three first. Fine passages are 
 not wanting, and the pure beautiful English, which makes every- 
 thing written by Wordsworth so valuable to a student of our 
 language, flows on like a pellucid stream. Nay, besides this, 
 ever and anon, half-buried thoughts and feelings, all the while 
 shaping his character, though doing their work in silence, rise 
 to the surface and sweep away the film of new ice that was be- 
 ginning to press them down, with more than their usual force. 
 Take, for instance, the splendid description of a ' Summer 
 Dawn,' and the profound effect thereby produced upon him, 
 after a night spent in rustic revelry : 
 
 Ere we retired 
 
 The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky 
 Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse 
 And open field, through which the path-way wound 
 And homeward led my steps. Magnificent 
 The morning rose, in memorable pomp, 
 Glorious as e'er I had beheld. In front 
 The sea lay laughing in the distance ; near 
 The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, 
 Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light. 
 And in the meadows, and the lower grounds, 
 Was all the sweetness of a common dawn ; 
 Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, 
 And labourers going forth to till the fields. 
 Ah ! need I say, dear friend, that to the brim 
 My heart was full ? 1 made no vow, but vows 
 Were then made for me : bond unknown to me 
 Was given, that I should be else sinning greatly 
 A dedicated spirit 
 
 The one new element introduced into his mind about this 
 time, I take to have been the sentimental element. The love 
 of Nature, originally a simple instinct, an influence streaming 
 in through every pore, until his whole being was saturated with 
 
WORDSWORTH. 27 
 
 happiness and light, began to be reacted upon from within. The 
 landscape, seen at first in its native colours and not otherwise, 
 had now to pass as it were through tinted glass, clothing itself, 
 accordingly, with an aspect not altogether its own. This self- 
 surrender to the dreams of a wayward fancy did not last long. 
 ' Plain imagination and severe ' was the guide finally preferred 
 by him. Still, we may conclude that as no wave breaks even 
 against a granite headland without an effect which, combining 
 with a series of other similar effects, produces in the long run 
 a permanent alteration, so also this tide of imaginative sensi- 
 tiveness did not beat against Wordsworth's mind so ineffectu- 
 ally as to leave no result behind it. There is a fine poem of 
 his on * Yew Trees,' written in the first years of the century, 
 which shows how, when the occasion justified it, Wordsworth 
 could recall these dormant elements and employ them with re- 
 markable intensity and power : 
 
 But worthier still of note 
 Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, 
 Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ; 
 Huge trunks ! and each particular trunk a growth 
 Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, 
 Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved, 
 Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks 
 That threaten the profane ; a pillared shade, 
 Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
 By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged 
 Perennially beneath whose sable roof 
 Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked 
 With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes 
 May meet at noontide Fear and trembling Hope, 
 Silence and Foresight Death the Skeleton 
 And Time the Shadow, there to celebrate, 
 As in a natural temple scattered o'er 
 With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 
 United worship ; or in mute repose 
 To lie, and listen to the mountain flood 
 Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves. 
 
 This new element, carrying into the heart of Nature a sym- 
 
28 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 pathy derived from the study of mankind and the play of 
 life and passion, disposes the poet to consider, as next in order, 
 the depositories of all that is highest in human expression ; the 
 accumulated record of man's thought, of man's creative and 
 imaginative faculties. Accordingly, he devotes the fifth sub- 
 division cf this great work to the subject of Books. 
 
 Books of poetry and mathematical treatises constitute, ap- 
 parently for Wordsworth, all that is of lasting value ; all, the 
 loss of which would be absolutely disastrous and without 
 remedy. As for the numberless other printed volumes, such as, 
 according to Charles Lamb, no gentleman's library should be 
 without, he treats them cavalierly enough. 
 
 Wordsworth begins his discourse on this important matter 
 by relating a dream which had surprised him whilst reading by 
 the sea shore; a dream built up out of some haunting fancies, 
 as to the perishable nature of those registers wherein are lodged 
 the great thoughts, the great discoveries, and other intellectual 
 achievements of the past : 
 
 A thought is with me sometimes, and I say, 
 Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes 
 Be wrenched ; or fire come down from far, to scorch 
 Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare ; 
 Yet would the living Presence still subsist 
 Victorious, and composure would ensue, 
 And kindlings like the morning. 
 
 So far so good : 
 
 But all the adamantine holds of truth, 
 The consecrated works of bard or sage, 
 Sensuous, or intellectual, wrought by man, 
 Where would they be ? 
 
 Under the pressure of this melancholy question, he then 
 falls asleep and slides into a dream. Now the verse-makers are 
 numberless to whom such visions have been vouchsafed in pen 
 and ink. But Wordsworth was so sincere and genuine a man 
 that everything actually took place, I am persuaded, just as it 
 
WORDSWORTH. 29 
 
 is set down. He dreams, then, that an Arab of the Desert, 
 mounted on a dromedary, rushes past him, holding in one hand 
 a stone, as the symbol of mathematical, in the other a shell, as 
 the symbol of poetical, power. His desire is to bury both stone 
 and shell somewhere out of the reach of a ruinous deluge close 
 at hand; whether he succeeds or not cannot now be ascer- 
 tained. The last that Wordsworth sees of him is this : 
 
 He, with his twofold charge 
 Still in his grasp, before me in full view, 
 Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, 
 With the fleet waters of a drowning world 
 In chase of him ; whereat I waked in terror. . . 
 
 We may well agree with Wordsworth's studious friend, to 
 whom he imparted his apprehensions, that this is ' going far to 
 seek disquietude ; ' though it cannot be denied that the mind 
 of man has dwelt upon such terrible pictures often enough, long 
 before Wordsworth was born. 'The Legend of the Lost 
 Island Atlantis,' the theory put forward by Plato, apart from, 
 and in addition to, this legend, that, at certain revolutions, the 
 whole earth is given over to fire, to flood, to earthquake, or 
 some other world-wide convulsion ; and that the human race 
 has had to rise up renewed over and over again, out of bar- 
 barous mountain tribes, or the like miserable relics of the past; 
 these, and other such speculative fancies, whether growing out 
 of some faint, but unforgotten tradition, or whether merely 
 imagined, must recur to everyone's memory. 
 
 They probably helped to colour Wordsworth's musings, as 
 he brooded over the possibility of such abnormal catastrophes ; 
 they probably helped afterwards to shape the dream wherein he 
 beheld such a ruin actually bearing down upon him, and noted 
 the precise moment of its arrival. 
 
 There is, however, another conceivable form of evil threat- 
 ening, or at least tending to threaten, all the splendid accumu- 
 lations of those years that are behind us ; and on this Words- 
 
30 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 worth makes no comment. I trust that it is hardly more likely 
 to crush our present system than any chance collision of the 
 earth with a comet, or any outburst of malignant eccentricity 
 on the part of the sun, such as certain astronomers blandly 
 look forward to and predict. Still, if we are to calculate con- 
 tingencies thus remote, it is a menace, I think, at least as for- 
 midable as those physical aberrations and cataclysms that 
 weighed so heavily upon Wordsworth's imagination. The des- 
 tructive agent to which I refer, is the spirit of democratic envy, 
 raised to its highest point and intoxicated by some sudden, un- 
 expected, and universal triumph. That spirit, appearing in its 
 worst form, and armed with a power not to be withstood, might 
 show itself more overwhelming than the waters of the great 
 deep, more implacable than any fire sent down from heaven, 
 to wither in a day what mankind has wrought for itself by con- 
 tinuous effort out of countless ages. Happily for us, the Eng- 
 lish people, not being a vain people, nor one given over to 
 bitter egotism, is comparatively untainted by this poison in the 
 blood. Nay, even in other countries, where the disease is per- 
 haps more virulent, we may hope that the sounder and finer 
 national qualities will prevail over it in the long run. Still, 
 when we see how often men, infected by this baneful spirit, are 
 driven mad as it were by its venomous influence, so that they 
 run on with the slaver of jealous hatred on their lips, snapping 
 to the right hand and to the left hand, at every form of recog- 
 nised superiority when we see how this grudging temper, 
 though it may begin, perhaps, more pardonably in the denun- 
 ciation of mere rank or mere wealth, tends more and more to 
 resent intellectual gifts, profounder wisdom, even superior vir- 
 tue (as if such distinctions were an oppression and an insult to 
 ordinary men), I confess that the prospect of the future is not, 
 in my eyes, a cheerful one. We cannot but remember how the 
 orthodox civic austerity of the first French Revolution refused 
 a day's grace to Lavoisier, intent upon scientific discoveries to 
 
WORDSWORTH. 31 
 
 him more precious than life, because, forsooth, true patriots 
 needed no such superfine addition to Liberty, Equality, and 
 Fraternity. Even in this country, the disposition on the part of 
 our working classes to prevent a man of ability and energy from 
 taking his own course lest he should earn more or rise higher 
 than his stupid and indolent companions, strikes me as ominous 
 of evil ; and I must acknowledge that if great names are to be 
 obliterated, and the achievements of genius cancelled, I am 
 much more afraid of a moral earthquake, of a living deluge 
 from that great abyss beneath the smiling surfaces of modem 
 life, of a volcanic upheaval of barbarism from below, than of 
 any physical portents or prodigies such as Wordsworth dreamed 
 of. These, however, are speculations not of immediate inte- 
 rest. We must be content with hoping, even if our street 
 Arabs eventually conquer us, that they will not set about burn- 
 ing Alexandrian or British Museum libraries, after the manner of 
 their Eastern predecessors. 
 
 Returning to Wordsworth's account of books and theories 
 of education, it is pleasant to see how genius and common sense 
 unite, and arm him as it were with a two-handed sword, to 
 strike down the champions of a plan for educating hardly boys 
 and girls little lay figures rather, able to eat and drink and 
 talk, certainly to talk. A plan that came into fashion some 
 sixty or seventy years ago, and, even now, is not as much dis- 
 credited as one could wish. You of a younger generation can 
 hardly realise the intense hatred with which all right-hearted 
 children of my time regarded Harry and Lucy, and those other 
 little prigs, gathering buttercups I beg their pardon, ranunculos 
 something or other, under the eye of an omniscient tutor, in 
 * Evenings at Home.' I can only say, that having been robbed, at 
 one period of my life, of the ' Arabian Nights,' and ' Robinson 
 Crusoe,' and fastened down to these quasi-scientific dogmas in 
 exchange, I have been imbued with an unjust prejudice against 
 many respectable plants ever since. Papilionaceous flowers, in 
 
32 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 particular, I have always regarded as personal enemies. The 
 true answer to all the nonsense talked about useful knowledge 
 is now obvious enough j it has almost become a truism, on the 
 other side. But there can be no doubt, I think, that the 
 earliest form and the most effective form of this unanswerable 
 answer this 'reponse sans replique] is to be assigned I had 
 almost said, is to be scored, to Wordsworth in ' The Prelude.' As 
 the keen though not unkindly banterer of unfortunate urchins, 
 trimmed and dwarfed into premature wisdom, like those Chinese 
 oaks and pines, that by some mysterious process are stunted 
 and drugged into early perfection (a perfection that never over- 
 flows the limits of a flowerpot), he displays powers not often 
 exercised by him. Powers they are, which prove that, as a 
 satirical poet of the highest order a satirist, I mean, not con- 
 descending to personal invective or superficial fashions ; but 
 attentive only to matters of high and lasting importance he 
 might have attained to unquestionable eminence. He shows 
 also, by his utterances here how deep an insight into the truth 
 was his, when any great problem of human nature was brought 
 before him for consideration : 
 
 This model of a child is never known 
 
 To mix in quarrels that were far beneath 
 
 Its dignity 
 
 And natural or supernatural fear, 
 Unless it leap upon him in a dream, 
 Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see 
 How arch his notices, how nice his sense 
 Of the ridiculous ; not blind is he 
 To the broad follies of the licensed world. 
 ... 
 
 A miracle of scientific lore, 
 Ships he can guide across the pathless sea, 
 And tell you all their cunning ; he can read 
 The inside of the earth, and spell the stars ; 
 He knows the policies of foreign lands. 
 ..* 
 
 He must live, 
 
 Knowing that he grows wiser every day, 
 Or else not live at all, and seeing, too, 
 
WORDS IVOR TH. 33 
 
 Each little drop of wisdom as it falls 
 Into the dimpling cistern of his heart, 
 For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, 
 Pity the tree. 
 
 * 
 
 Oh give us once again the wishing cap 
 Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat 
 Of Jack the Giant-Killer, Robin Hood, 
 And Sabra in the Forest with St. George. 
 The child whose love is here, at least does reap 
 One precious good that he forgets himself. 
 
 This passage, touched as it is with a flavour of wholesome 
 bitterness, is eminently interesting and eminently wise. It is 
 moreover, so far as I know, the first distinct protest against 
 those Aikens's and Edgeworth's, 1 who, deceived by their own 
 fluent plausibilities, set themselves to the unpromising task of 
 reaping corn fit to make bread, and gathering ripe fruit, in the 
 early spring. The great aspiring faculties of wonder and 
 reverence, together with the great creative faculty of the im- 
 agination, are apt to sicken and wither away, unless cultivated 
 at the proper season. We know now that when Mirabeau said 
 of Barnard, 'C'est un arbre qui cro'it pour etre, un jour, mat de 
 vaisseau,' he was not speaking of a man who had been educated, 
 before his time, into diminutive symmetry and premature per- 
 fection. Such an oak is meant to bear his acorns as Nature had 
 decreed ; and then, well ribbed up into the sides of a seventy- 
 four, to resist hostile cannon-balls. But this sort of knowledge 
 we owe, in no small degree, to Wordsworth, and to the men 
 whom Wordsworth influenced. 
 
 In the next book Wordsworth recounts his visit to the 
 Alps. We should have fancied that the impression upon his 
 mind would have been deeper than it is, and the results of that 
 impression more valuable ; but, somehow or other, we are dis- 
 appointed. Poet of Nature as Wordsworth was professionally 
 
 1 Of course I am not speaking of Miss Eclgeworth as a novelist. 
 
 D 
 
34 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 so we may say there is nothing of his here on a level with 
 Coleridge's ' Sunrise Hymn in the Vale of Chamounix.' Nay, 
 when Wordsworth honours Mont Blanc by mentioning it, he 
 merely gives utterance to a feeling well known to his readers, 
 namely, ' You, being William Wordsworth, when you supplant 
 the imaginative dream, created by yourself and cherished by 
 yourself, of any place, either famous from natural or romantic 
 associations by actually beholding it, lose more than you gain ; 
 inasmuch as the reality disturbs the vision, and is a poor 
 substitute for it.' This refinement may, perhaps, not be always 
 wholly false ; but it strikes ordinary ' Christians and eaters of 
 beef as somewhat morbid and fantastical. After all, it was 
 God, I suppose, who created the Alps, and they have hitherto 
 ranked among His successful operations. 
 
 That very day 
 
 From a bare ridge, we also first beheld, 
 Unveiled, the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved 
 To have a soulless image on the eye, 
 Usurping on a living thought a thought 
 That never more could be. 
 
 Soon, however, the Vale of Chamounix repaid our travellers 
 for the dethronement of their ideal Mont Blanc, and is finely 
 described. 
 
 The wondrous vale 
 
 Of Chamounix stretched far below, and soon, 
 With its dumb cataracts, and streams of ice, 
 A motionless array of mighty waves ; 
 Five rivers broad and deep, made rich amends, 
 And reconciled us to realities. 
 
 In spite, however, of Chamounix, he seems to have felt 
 more love for the milder beauty and brighter colouring around 
 the Italian lakes, than for the solemn glaciers and rugged pre- 
 cipices of the higher Alps. There is a very fine passage, nar- 
 rating how he and his friend, deceived by irrelevant foreign 
 clocks, went out into the massive forests about the town of 
 Gravedona, in the belief that dawn was at hand. 
 
WORDS WOK TIL 35 
 
 We left the town 
 
 Of Gravedona, with this hope, but soon 
 Were lost, bewildered among woods immense, 
 And on a rock sate down to wait for day. 
 An open place it was, and overlooked 
 From high, the sullen water far beneathj 
 On which a dull red image of the moon 
 Lay bedded, changing often times its form 
 Like an uneasy snake. From hour to hour 
 We sate and sate, wondering, as if the night 
 Had been ensnared by witchcraft. On the rock 
 At last we stretched our weary limbs for sleep, 
 But could not sleep. 
 
 The cry of unknown birds, 
 The mountains, more by blackness visible, 
 And their own size, than any outward light ; 
 The breathless wilderness of clouds ; the clock 
 That told, with unintelligible voice, 
 The widely-parted hours ; the noise of streams, 
 And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand, &c. 
 
 In this gloomy resting-place, a prey to that indescribable 
 feeling called by Walter Scott ' eeriness/ (that is, to get as 
 near as we can, superstitious depression dominating the nerves, 
 in defiance both of man's reason and his will,) these two 
 Englishmen waited wearily for sunrise. To judge from what 
 has been given us, whatever befell his companion, Words- 
 worth himself carried away from that summer night's watching 
 more food for his imagination than from any other natural 
 influence encountered by him in his Alpine tour. From any 
 other natural influence, I say I confine myself to that: be- 
 cause Wordsworth then first hailed, as a stimulus and a tonic, 
 the rising breeze of the French Revolution. 
 
 I know of no book that brings before our eyes, with more 
 liveliness and truth than this ' Prelude/ the happy delirium of 
 that marvellous time. 
 
 For Europe in those days was thrilled with joy, 
 France standing on the top of golden hours 
 
 So that human nature seemed, as it were, to be born again. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 We can see with our own eyes, after reading this book, what we 
 have hitherto known only as a fact. We can actually make a 
 picture for ourselves, from Wordsworth's verses, of the intense 
 anger and mortification with which Burke's warnings and pro- 
 phecies, breaking in upon this rapturous exultation, like some 
 funereal bell into the middle of a wedding feast, were received 
 and resisted by all men, especially by the young. Carlyle has, 
 no doubt, painted for us the French Revolution from the life 
 with wonderful force j but, not to mention the contemptuous 
 sarcasm underlying the movements of his pencil, he is a spec- 
 tator only, and a spectator from a distance. 
 
 Wordsworth was an actor on the stage, a sharer in all those 
 theatrical hopes and pleasures. He was, moreover, when he 
 surrendered himself to these glorious self-deceptions, in the first 
 freshness of youth. There was nothing then but flowers and 
 garlands, and moonlight dances in the open air, to the honour 
 
 of Liberty. 
 
 Unhoused beneath tfce evening star, we saw 
 
 Dances of Liberty, and in late hours 
 
 Of darkness, dances in the open air, 
 
 Deftly prolonged, though grey-haired lookers on 
 
 Might waste their breath in chiding. 
 
 The French Revolution was felt as a balmy breeze, just 
 strong enough to make the waters ripple and the blossoms laugh 
 in the sun. No one, except Burke, discerned in it the first 
 breath of a hurricane, destined, not only to shake down flowers 
 and fruits, but also to uproot the trees of the forest, and send 
 ' temple and tower to the ground.' Wordsworth returned to 
 France, as I have said, and took up his residence there for 
 many months, in a more ominous season. The history of his 
 feelings then (and to them I shall come back by-and-by) is at 
 least as interesting as any part of the book ; though his 
 description of them is somewhat more bitterly written, and 
 tinged with gloomier colouring than of old. Between his first and 
 his second landing in France, however, two books are inter- 
 
WORDSWORTH. 37 
 
 posed, one entitled ' Residence in London,' the other ' Retro- 
 spect/ and on both of these it is perhaps desirable to touch in 
 passing. The Life in London is not one of the most important 
 parts of the poem. It gives a diffuse account, in pompous blank 
 verse that is hardly poetry, of matters very little worth recording, 
 either in poetry or in prose. For instance, we have described 
 for us, at a length quite unnecessary, the transactions of Bar- 
 tholomew Fair. Nor does he seem, as far as we know, to have 
 mingled at all with the leaders of the time. His descriptions 
 of the Law Courts, of the Parliament, of the fashionable preacher, 
 are of little merit. His satire, when he satirises, is languid ; 
 his life without interest, and his narrative dull. If there had 
 been nothing better in ' The Prelude ' than this, it would not 
 have been within a hundred miles of Cowper's ' Task. 1 Al- 
 together, this part of his career is the reverse of satisfactory. 
 He seems, moreover, to suffer in mind; whether from the pres- 
 sure of private sorrow, or from disappointment at the turn 
 public affairs were taking, I do not know. 
 
 After spending a year in London, without much profit or 
 pleasure, he proceeds to France once more, and becomes again 
 a sharer in the hopes and fears, in the dangers and triumphs, of 
 the great Revolution. It would seem, however, that either this 
 latter half of ' The Prelude ' must have rushed along at railroad 
 speed ; or that the present arrangement is not conclusive as to 
 the order in which the books were written. We are told that 
 the poem, begun in 1799, was finished in 1805, yet this seventh 
 book (there are in all fourteen) begins as follows : 
 
 Six changeful years have vanished since I first 
 Poured forth, saluted by the evening breeze, 
 A glad preamble to this verse. 
 
 We may suppose, indeed, if we please, that after having 
 roughly finished his task, he then revised the whole, and that the 
 passage here referred to was then introduced for the first time. 
 It is not a matter of great importance, except that if he did 
 
38 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 revise his work, I think it would have enhanced the interest of 
 the poem if this seventh book and the next also had been 
 placed somewhere else. We should then have had his accounts 
 of France, and of the influence she exercised upon him, growing 
 together with the growth and progress of the Revolution, as a 
 continuous interest, a narrative without a break. Now this 
 seventh book, containing the somewhat commonplace account 
 of a somewhat commonplace life in London, and the eighth 
 book, full of beauty no doubt, but of a beauty that might have 
 been given to the world in some other form, are thrust in be- 
 tween his first and his second visit to the Continent. Great 
 part of the eighth book, entitled ' Retrospect/ is devoted to the 
 calling of the shepherd an employment always stimulating 
 Wordsworth's imagination to a degree hardly conceivable by 
 us who live ' in populous cities pent.' His praise of shepherds, 
 however, in ' Retrospect/ though I think it somewhat encumbers 
 and retards the march of ' The Prelude,' is very interesting in 
 one respect. I frankly confess that I do not belong to the first 
 and highest order of Wordsworthians. I am an admirer but 
 not a worshipper. There are some men who cling to. him with 
 a sort of Tichborne faith ; who think that there is no poem of 
 his, no stanza, no line almost, but what is ' discreetest, wisest, 
 virtuousest, best.' To this faith I have no great objection, so 
 far as it honours Wordsworth ; but I do object to it when it 
 tends, as it does tend, to the depreciation of others the poets 
 of passion, and, if I may venture upon the expression, of pace 
 the poets whose chariot wheels get hot with driving, like Byron, 
 and Campbell, and Scott. In the meantime, my original sen- 
 tence has sunk itself in this quagmire of a parenthesis, and I 
 must turn back to extricate it. ' Retrospect/ therefore, as I 
 have just said, or rather was just beginning to say, is very in- 
 teresting to me, on account of the melody of its versification. 
 One of my heresies with regard to Wordsworth is this : that 
 excellent as his style and diction may be, he is not usually a 
 
WORDSWORTH. 39 
 
 great master of metrical effects. There is hardly any ring in 
 his verses. His method is cold and unelastic, without pulsa- 
 tion or thrill in it. Here, however, whilst he is speaking of the 
 shepherd's life whilst he runs through all its varieties, from the 
 days of Theocritus down to our own time he seems, like the 
 Roman orator of old, to draw to himself a spirit of modulation 
 from the pipes behind that are ever sounding in his ears. Their 
 unseen harmonies hang over the pauses of his verse, and enrich 
 it with a grace that we have often missed and often longed for, 
 even whilst reading his highest poetry: 
 
 Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time, 
 
 Long springs and tepid winters, on the banks 
 
 Of Delicate Galesus ; and no less 
 
 Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores. 
 
 Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd 
 
 To triumphs and to sacrificial rites 
 
 Devoted, on the inviolable stream 
 
 Of rich Clitumnus ; and the goat-herd lived 
 
 As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows 
 
 Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard 
 
 Of Pan, invisible God, thrilling the rocks 
 
 With tutelary music, from all harm 
 
 The flock protecting, &c. &c. 
 
 I stop here, but I need not do so, as page after page is 
 marked by the same liquid ease and fluency, tending to show 
 that if Wordsworth sometimes failed in melody, it was not be- 
 cause the gift was out of his reach, but because he neglected 
 it for the sake of other aims that appeared to him higher and 
 nobler. And here we must all admit that Wordsworth was a 
 thoroughly original poet, endowed with a peculiar genius and a 
 special organisation, entitling him above all men to compose 
 what is understood by the poetry of thought. But unless a 
 man is very sure that he possesses an organisation of the same 
 kind, he had better, perhaps, accept Milton's view of poetry, 
 that it ought to be ' simple, sensuous, and passionate.' Philo- 
 sophy should walk with steadiness. At times it may even leap up 
 
40 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and climb the heights of reason, but it is not expected to dance 
 or to sing. Doctor Darwin, moreover the great authority, as 
 we are told, on human nature at present believes that all 
 music and rhythm sprang out of the impulses and inward 
 struggles of half-human courtship ; that the first eruption of 
 language was a kind of rude love-song ; if so, he would seem 
 to agree with Milton, that the earliest fountain-head of poetry 
 was not thought, but passion. 
 
 Now when Darwin and Milton, starting from such opposite 
 quarters, come thus to an unexpected agreement, they surely 
 are worth listening to. Accordingly, whilst we go on admiring 
 this true poet, in spite of his egotism in spite of the arid 
 deserts of prosaic discussion mixed up with those grander 
 elements that ensure lasting honour to ' The Prelude,' we can- 
 not at times refrain from wishing, ungrateful as it may be, that 
 he had been less didactic, less intent upon searching his own 
 heart ; that he had devoted himself, whilst in the plenitude of 
 his power, to some one of the subjects referred to in the first 
 book. Oh that * the ambitious power of choice,' to use his 
 own words, had settled on some British theme ' some old 
 romantic tale,' such as the story of Arthur, ' by Milton left 
 unsung/ or upon the Legend of Mithridates, deified as Odin, 
 and pouring down from the ' frozen loins of the North ' his 
 avenging multitude of warriors upon an exhausted and demora- 
 lised Rome. Any one of the subjects that he thus names 
 might have given him an opening for the exhibition, on a larger 
 scale, of such dramatic power as is shown in ' The Brothers,' 
 and for a more various and more exciting music in the verse, 
 than we are commonly indulged with. 
 
 Enough, however, of this. Wordsworth in the seventh and 
 eighth books having recapitulated most of the topics before 
 touched upon, more particularly shepherd life, and the sterner 
 aspects of London, hesitates for a moment ; but soon is drawn 
 back, as it were by a kind of magnetic sympathy, into the irre- 
 
WORDSWORTH^ 41 
 
 sistible Maelstrom of the French Revolution. At first, indeed, 
 he was a spectator and nothing more. His enthusiasm was 
 factitious. Even the relics of the Bastile, though, as the friend 
 of humanity, he felt bound to pocket some of them, awakened 
 no real interest in his mind. He affected, as he tells us plainly, 
 more enthusiasm than he felt. Having passed through Paris, 
 he takes up his abode in a pleasant town, 
 
 Washed by the current of the stately Loire, 
 
 There unmoved, 
 
 I stood, 'mid these concussions unconcerned, 
 Tranquil almost and careless as a flower, 
 Glassed in a greenhouse, or a parlour shrub, 
 That spreads its leaves in unmolested peace, 
 When every bush and tree the country through 
 Is shaking to its roots. 
 
 A strange indifference, and one that could not last. Very 
 soon he began to share the passions, the hopes, the dreams of 
 Frenchmen, as a Frenchman. The terrible intensity of the 
 times passed into his blood, and he became what he calls a 
 patriot that is to say, a man possessed by a fanatical zeal for 
 the country with which our Mother England was then wrestling 
 for her life. We may here remark that there is a strange want 
 of consistency between this distorted patriotism a patriotism 
 of which Wordsworth, so far as he tells us, never repented to 
 the day of his death and the admiration, nay the absolute 
 reverence, expressed for Burke in a former book. 
 
 Genius of Burke forgive the pen seduced 
 By specious wonders. . . . 
 Some (say at once a froward multitude) 
 Murmur (for truth is hated where not loved), 
 As the winds fret within the ^olian cave, 
 Galled by their monarch's chain. 
 
 Prelude, Book vii. 
 
 Of these some, Wordsworth, to judge by his bitter invec- 
 tives against the government of his country invectives never 
 withdrawn or even modified, was apparently one. At any rate, 
 
42 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 these encomiums are not reconcilable with the revolutionary 
 sympathies of the ninth and tenth books. We know from the 
 Sonnet of 1802 
 
 We all are with you now from shore to shore 
 
 that Wordsworth in that year was graciously pleased to admit 
 the impossibility of peace, and to acknowledge that Napo- 
 leon, the rebellious child of that democracy which the Bard 
 of Rydal had lately been worshipping, was not likely to bring 
 back, on the edge of his bayonets, the golden age. Even then, 
 however, I cannot understand how the Wordsworth of the 
 ninth and tenth books of * The Prelude ' could have written 
 seven lines about Burke such as I have just quoted. He 
 adopts, as we shall see directly, the conventional phrases, and 
 indulges in the wild anticipations of those very men, against 
 whom Burke's heaviest thunderbolts have been launched. We 
 know that the antagonists of Burke have replied, not without 
 effect. In truth, there is a short but powerful criticism upon 
 him, philosopher and statesman as he was, that still presses for 
 an answer. Mr. Burke ' pities the plumage, but he forgets the 
 dying bird/ This terrible apothegm involves for us, even now, 
 a question touching the roots of life. We may acquiesce in 
 the evils of society as in a state of things inseparable from the 
 gifts of our gloomy and crowded civilisation ; as their purchase- 
 money in fact ; but it is the acquiescence of despair, not of con- 
 tentment. Because much that we see fills us with dismay, we 
 cannot therefore turn back the march of history. We feel, we 
 have been taught, indeed, by this very French Revolution that 
 changes in the outward form of government can do but little to 
 promote the public good ; that the power of tradition and 
 custom is great, and not easily to be trampled under foot ; 
 that happiness, in truth, must come to us mainly, if it comes at 
 all, from within and not from without. Still, in spite of Burke 
 and all his wisdom, to many of my generation it appears as if 
 the times were big with ominous change, as if this, our era of 
 
WORDSWORTH. 43 
 
 humanity, was coming to an end ; whilst the aspects of the 
 future are shapeless, uncertain, and alarming. It is of course 
 well for men not to relax their efforts, to make head against the 
 dangers which threaten, or seem to threaten, us from day to 
 day. I trust that much, that enough, may still be done ; but 
 certainly we have no time to lose. There are moments, in- 
 deed, when I cannot but remember a painful story of the Alps. 
 You have all heard of it, I make no doubt. You have heard 
 how an Alpine hunter, searching among the mountain clefts to 
 find out why the stream, that hitherto had fed his valley with 
 life, was ceasing to flow, discovered that a barrier of ice had 
 fallen across the river bed, high up among the crags. Against 
 that barrier beat, in alliance with the summer sun, a lake ever 
 rising higher as the fountains from above kept trickling down. 
 He saw before him, therefore, a reservoir of ruin, waiting full 
 of menace till the appointed instant came. The stalwart 
 villagers laboured hard in their own defence. They cut a 
 gallery here, and they cut a gallery there, and thus a certain 
 amount of mischief was drained away. But the frail parapet 
 that kept destruction back grew thinner and weaker from hour 
 to hour, and long before their puny efforts had made any real 
 impression upon the army of waters imprisoned within, that 
 rocking rampart suddenly gave way, and everything within 
 reach was buried at once beneath the pitiless outburst of de- 
 vastation. We must hope and endeavour to be more fortunate 
 than these Swiss herdsmen. We must try to cut our galleries 
 through the icy mass that sunders from us, whilst it holds back 
 for the moment, the ever-gathering flood of wrath and wretched- 
 ness, as it rises up against our present effeminate civilisa- 
 tion. We must endeavour to cut them neither too recklessly 
 nor yet too languidly, so as to drain away all such threatening 
 reservoirs of ruin before they overwhelm us for ever. 
 
 Meanwhile, returning to Wordsworth's eulogy on Burke, as 
 Wordsworth cares nothing for the plumage, if we may revert to 
 
44 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 that metaphor, and is entirely overmastered by his sympathies 
 with the dying bird, this eulogy is quite out of keeping with 
 the sentiments which he expresses, and apparently still adhered 
 to even when he became old and a poet-laureate. He stands 
 before us as a regular disciple of the French Revolution, and 
 reconciled himself, like many other estimable men, to its darker 
 features, by some general notions about Liberty and Progress; 
 by the ever-recurring, but ever-defeated hope, that each new 
 atrocity was certain to be the last; aye, and above all, for this 
 is more than all, by 
 
 Not caring if the wind did now and then 
 Blow keen upon an eminence, that gave 
 So large a prospect to futurity. 
 
 I am not sure whether I interpret these lines rightly. If 
 I do understand them, they seem much upon a level with 
 Barrere's famous expression about the September massacres : 
 ' Ce sang, etoit-il done si pur ? ; For this I am not blaming 
 Wordsworth much. He partook of a sublime drunkenness, 
 that for the moment was all but universal. Under this ex- 
 citement, every minor interest, even the interest of his own 
 country, was lost and swallowed up in a golden haze and fer- 
 mentation of illimitable light. It is this vivid picture of the 
 typical youth of the time that gives to these books of ' The 
 Prelude' their permanent value. We see that the soberest 
 intellects were driven wild, by a kind of oracular vapour like 
 that of Delphi, rising, as we may say, out of the ground, and 
 filling the souls of men with a madness wiser and truer, so at 
 least they deemed it, than the ordinary wisdom of earth. It 
 is, nevertheless, painful to reflect now, that in Wordsworth's own 
 case, one of the saddest consequences of party-spirit fell upon 
 him. I mean that he rejoiced in the disasters and defeats of his 
 own countrymen. It will be said, perhaps, that if our country is 
 clearly in the wrong, reason, bare reason, may justify a man in 
 this perverse exultation. Even reason, however, is not at her best 
 
WORDSWORTH. 45 
 
 when she confines herself to the narrow limits of the present 
 
 not looking before or after. At any rate, right or wrong, I prefer 
 those unreasoning instincts that lead men to stand, shoulder to 
 shoulder, in defence of their national flag. I prefer the spirit 
 of the republican Blake, serving under Cromwell, whom he 
 regarded as a tyrant, against the enemies of England. I prefer, 
 to the anti-English philanthropy of Wordsworth, the one 
 generous impulse recorded of James II., who, when he saw 
 the fortunes of his house, the hope of relief from humiliating 
 dependence, the chances of an early restoration, broken down 
 together by the defeat of the Spaniards at the Battle of the 
 Dunes ; nevertheless, in that disastrous rout, cared, at the 
 moment, for none of these things. No, he fixed his eyes upon 
 Cromwell's contingent (upon a body of British seamen who, 
 after sweeping everything before them, burst sword in hand into 
 a redoubt, which had just been pronounced impregnable by 
 the ablest engineers of Spain), and shouted aloud in irrepres- 
 sible triumph ' Look there ! Look there ! See how my brave 
 English fight ! ' 1 It pains me, I repeat, that Wordsworth should 
 have clung to these bitter decisions of his youth. But as, 
 apparently, he did cling to them without repentance or shadow 
 of turning, I cannot understand him when he eulogizes 
 Burke ; inasmuch as the fierce desire in Wordsworth to see the 
 blood of England poured out like water, and the honour of 
 England trampled in the dust, was languid and irresolute, if 
 compared with the angry demonism inspiring Burke to level 
 his untiring blows at the heart of France. Burke, implacable 
 in his hatred of those golden hours, as the poet calls them, 
 would certainly not have agreed with Wordsworth, that, because 
 according to the then laws of France, the father of a most con- 
 temptible young Frenchman, a certain Vaudracour, was enabled 
 to detain his son in prison, lest he should embarrass the family 
 
 1 See Macaulay's Essays. 
 
46 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 by an unequal marriage, it was, therefore, just and expedient 
 that the four corners of Europe should be set on fire. 
 
 Oh much have they to account for who could tear 
 By violence, at one decisive rent, 
 From the best youth of England their dear pride, 
 Their joy in England. 
 
 
 
 Our rulers, this say truly, at that time 
 Acted, or seemed to act at least, like men 
 Thirsting to make the guardian crook of law 
 A tool of murder. 
 
 * 
 
 As if their wish had been to undermine 
 Justice, and make an end of liberty. 
 
 This is* the tone in which the future poet-laureate speaks 
 of what, I at least, have always been taught to consider a just, 
 nay, an inevitable war. Proceedings, inveighed against by him, 
 and unsuited, no doubt, to the ordinary tenour of our English 
 life, are accounted for by the old maxim, ' Inter arma silent 
 leges.' And if the lawless cruelty of the French Revolution 
 seemed to him nothing worse than the accidental keenness of 
 a refreshing and invigorating breeze, it may surely be said on 
 our side, that we had no choice, when the vessel of the State 
 was labouring in the storm, but to cut away any treacherous 
 timbers that had parted from us had thrown themselves, as 
 it were, overboard, and were threatening, in alliance with that 
 hostile tempest, to rush up and shatter the devoted ship. 
 These matters, however, belong to the past. Both Wordsworth 
 and Burke were great men, and it matters little now that they 
 differed then, as youth naturally differs from age, about the 
 French Revolution. What remains as really important to 
 mankind, is that Wordsworth here records for us his feelings 
 and impressions in immortal verse. 'The word of the poet/ 
 so a high authority informs us, ' lives longer than the deeds of 
 other men.' And, accordingly, the vivid photographs preserved 
 
WORDSWORTH. 47 
 
 by Wordsworth ; first, of the loyal soldier, blighted by that 
 dreadful season ; 2ndly, of the land 
 
 That swarmed with passion, like a plain 
 Devoured by locusts ; 
 
 3rdly, of his high-minded and enthusiastic friend, Beau-puis, 
 sacrificing all the prejudices of his caste, and all the ties of 
 friendship, to the welfare of mankind as he understood it. 
 These pictures, I say, are destined to outlast the effect of battles 
 and sieges, and to remain as an abiding presence before the 
 memory of all future generations. 
 
 The later books, after the French Revolution is disposed of, 
 treat, among other things, of his bitter disappointment at the 
 failure of hopes so proudly entertained. His dream that he 
 should see the man to come, ' parted, as by a gulph,' from him 
 who had been, was rudely broken up. He still, indeed, strove 
 to take pleasure in natural objects in the winds and roaring 
 waters ; the lights and shades, 
 
 That marched and counter-marched along the hills 
 In glorious apparition. 
 
 But these pleasures were comparatively superficial pleasures 
 of the eye merely, whilst the inner faculties slept. The heart 
 lay dead. By slow degrees, however, he recovered, as he tells 
 us, peace of mind. And separating himself from all artificial 
 things from the worship of wealth, and the luxurious arts 
 that weigh down the many, to pander to effeminate appetites 
 in the few, he gave himself up to the study of his great object 
 the universal heart of man. These books are full of noble 
 thoughts nobly expressed, and the poet takes leave of Cole- 
 ridge, the brother of his soul, in this spirit of stately self- 
 confidence : 
 
 And now, oh Friend ! this history is brought 
 To its appointed close ; the discipline 
 And consummation of a Poet's mind 
 
48 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 In everything that stood most prominent, 
 Have faithfully been pictured ; we have reached 
 The time, our guiding object from the first, 
 When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, 
 Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such 
 My knowledge, as to make me capable 
 Of building up a work that shall endure. 
 
 In comparing this great poem with ' The Excursion,' we 
 must bear in mind that it was left more or less unfinished and 
 unrevised by its author. Here and there lines and passages 
 seem somewhat roughly hewn, and a want of clearness, both 
 in point of thought and of expression, is every now and then 
 discernible : as if the manuscript had not been looked over 
 when once copied. 
 
 If Wordsworth had chosen to give it to the world himself, I 
 daresay it would have been partially remodelled and rearranged, 
 possibly shortened. It is too long, no doubt, and must always 
 be open to the objection that for a man, even a great man, to 
 write a poem in fourteen books, all about himself, is a strong 
 measure. Of this objection I myself think very little. Even in 
 common life, egotists are often extremely agreeable men. 
 People talk with so much more spirit, ease, and zeal about 
 themselves than about things in general, that the manner of 
 their conversation on this interesting topic often compensates 
 for the matter. The real reason for disliking an egotist, I be- 
 lieve to be, that he preoccupies the ground that his egotism, 
 in a word, interferes with our own ; otherwise we should con- 
 sider the hopes, fears, and interests of our neighbour, when im- 
 parted to us on his own, the highest, authority, at least as 
 amusing as discussions about the weather and the crops. 
 
 It is also certain that the autobiography that is, the printed 
 and published egotism of a very inferior man, provided it be 
 candid and conscientious, always commands an attentive 
 hearing. And, such being the case, it appears to me that the 
 memorials of a great soul have at least as much claim upon 
 
WORDSWORTH. 49 
 
 our indulgence as * The Memorials of a Quiet Life,' or other 
 such biographies and autobiographies. They interest me, I 
 confess, not so much as perhaps they ought to ; I greatly prefer 
 ' The Prelude.' 
 
 The other continuous effort of Wordsworth's poetical mind 
 was, as I have just said, * The Excursion.' This being so, I 
 think * The Prelude ' stands above its rival in point of concep- 
 tion. In point of execution it is more unequal, as indeed we 
 might expect from our knowledge that it never received the 
 last touches and improvements of its author's hand. But it is 
 a more definite whole. It gives us a much deeper insight into 
 Wordsworth's own character, and leaves us much more certain 
 that a purpose has been accomplished, than when we turn 
 over the somewhat desultory pages of the sister poem. As to 
 the comparative splendour of the great passages in these twc 
 poems, I am hardly prepared to pass a judgment, nor is it 
 necessary to decide now whether the immense amount of 
 thought and feeling, the treasures of imagination, and the 
 general poetical power shown, might not, under other conditions, 
 have done more for mankind whether, in a word, the formal 
 character of this self-imposed labour did not somewhat weary 
 and exhaust the man who undertook it. 
 
 For my own part I cannot help expressing once more my 
 regret that some one or other of the mighty tasks contemplated 
 as his own (for so you will recollect he tells us) in the fresh youth 
 of his ambition, never took shape, but remained as dreams and 
 shadows till all was over. 
 
 He accomplished much in his later years, and for all that 
 he has left behind him we are bound to be grateful ; but still, I 
 doubt whether, as far as mere fame is concerned, his position 
 before future ages as a great poet would not have been more 
 distinct and refulgent, if he had never written another line after 
 'The Prelude' was completed, or at least after 1806. By that 
 time * Tintern Abbey,' ' The Leech-gatherer/ * The Brothers,' 
 
 E 
 
50 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 * Ruth,' ' She was a Phantom of Delight/ ' The Platonic Ode/ 
 the majority of the great Sonnets, and fifty other poems that 
 need not be enumerated, had become enrolled among the 
 immortal possessions of our English tongue. 
 
 Whether, however, Wordsworth was writing early or was 
 writing late, this may be said of him, that throughout his career 
 he looked upon poetry, not as a mere branch of polite literature 
 a passport to the idle applauses of unthinking men but as 
 an austere and sacred calling a priesthood, that required him 
 to devote all his faculties of body and mind to the service of 
 truth of beauty and of God. To use his own words 
 
 Never did I, in quest of right and wrong, 
 Tamper with conscience from a private aim, 
 Nor was in any public hope the dupe 
 Of selfish passion nor did ever yield, 
 Wilfully, to mean cares, or low pursuits. 
 
 Men of genius are comparatively common. But the man 
 of genius who shapes his life according to this noble ideal is 
 rare indeed, and we are bound to reverence him accordingly. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 ' THE EXCURSION ' ETC. 
 
 IN my last lecture I observed that the book called ' Memorials 
 of a Quiet Life ' had been one of the popular books of the last 
 season. Against such books I have nothing to urge. They 
 do not happen to interest me much, and of this particular book 
 it may, I think, be said that the letters of the two worthy 
 ladies which are preserved in it are not of remarkable ex- 
 cellence. Many women do write excellent letters ; not a few 
 unknown Mesdames de Sevignes have wielded a pen that has 
 only failed of attaining fame because it has not asked for it. 
 Bundles of letters, not a few, that would have put to shame 
 the mass of books printed whilst they were being written, have 
 been flung carelessly into the fire, or are at this moment turn- 
 ing yellow in dusty desks, with the names of the dead engraven 
 upon them. Any one of these bundles would probably excite 
 at least as much interest as the book just mentioned. If this 
 be so, I think it proves my point. It proves, I mean, that the 
 egotism of a great soul, even though it takes up fourteen books 
 of noble poetry, ought not to be too severely criticised by those 
 who fight at the circulating library for the * Egotism of a Quiet 
 Life,' in two volumes of somewhat humdrum prose. 
 
 Leaving ' The Prelude ' here then, and passing on to ' The 
 Excursion/ it seems to me ' The Excursion ' is very much 
 
 Prelude ' over again, only in a looser and slacker form. 
 
 ^.^ ^^^ ' j 
 
 It lackstEe backbone of that sublime egotism, giving unity to 
 
 E2 
 
 ^ 
 
52 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 the earlier poem, giving it an original meaning, a progress, and 
 an aim(j)The soulpf the unparalleled Pedlar in ' The Excur- 
 sion ' has been shaped by exactly the same influences as the 
 
 soul of the immortal Poet in ' The Prelude. VV^he great differ- 
 ence is that Wordsworth sings cnanfsTperhaps, is the better 
 
 word (so at least Coleridge tells us) 
 
 An Orphic song indeed, 
 
 A song divine of high and passionate thoughts 
 To their own music chanted ; ( C\ 
 
 whilst the Pedlar undoubtedly preaches. W T hen Wordsworth 
 ^TellS uS what he himself has gone, through, there is the colour- 
 ing of absolute truth, the movement of genuine passion, in all 
 his thoughts and words. Whilst, as to many parts of ' The 
 Excursion/ the endless harangues of the mythical Scotchman, 
 admirable in point of morality and generally fine specimens of 
 philosophical rhetoric, are often, to my mind, scarcely poetry at 
 all. To show what I mean by saying that in both cases the 
 shaping influences were the same, let me read to you a very 
 fine passage from ' The Excursion,' and compare it with one, 
 to my mind, still finer from 'The Prelude.' Their purpose is 
 to describe how these two separate minds were severally affected 
 by the same spirit^nf Na^nre-^-thar spirit of Nature deified by 
 the ancients as the god Pan the lord of mysterious and in- 
 effable terrors, as well as of rural minstrelsies, and the simple 
 pleasures belonging to mountain life. 
 
 From his sixth year, the Boy of whom I speak, 
 In summer, tended cattle on the Hills ; 
 
 From that bleak Tenement 
 He, many an evening, to his distant home 
 In solitude returning, saw the Hills 
 Grow larger in the darkness, all alone 
 Beheld the stars come out above his head, 
 And travell'd through the wood, with no one near 
 To whom he might confess the things he saw. 
 So the foundations of his mind were laid. 
 In such communion, not from terror free, 
 
WORDSWORTH. 53, 
 
 While yet a Child, and long before his time, 
 He had perceived the presence and the power 
 Of Greatness ; and deep feelings had impress' d 
 Great objects on his mind, with portraiture 
 And colour so distinct, that on his mind 
 They lay like substances, and almost seem'd 
 To haunt the bodily sense. 
 
 So much for the Pedlar. Now let us see how the mind of 
 the Poet forms itself in ' The Prelude.' 
 
 One summer evening, led by her, l I found 
 A little boat, tied to a willow tree 
 Within a rocky cave its usual home. 
 Straight I unloosed the chain, and stepping in 
 Pushed from the shore ; it was an act 
 Of stealth and troubled pleasure. 
 
 Not without the voice 
 Of mountain echoes did my boat move on, 
 Leaving behind her still, on either side, 
 Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 
 Until they melted all into one track 
 Of sparkling light. But now, like one who was 
 Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point 
 With an unswerving line, I fixed my view 
 Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, 
 The Horizon's utmost boundary, for above 
 Was nothing but the stars, and the grey sky. 
 She was an elfin pinnace ; lustily 
 I dipped my oars into the silent lake, 
 And as I rose upon the stroke, my boat 
 Wentheaving through the water like a swan ; 
 ^PVhen from behind that craggy steep, till then 
 The Horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, 
 As if with voluntary power instinct, 
 Upreared its head ; I struck, and struck again ; 
 And growing still in stature, the grim shape 
 Towered up between me and the stars, and still, 
 For so it seemed, with purpose of its own 
 And measured motion, like a living thing, 
 ^Strode after me. K.T.\. 
 
 Other passages abound, showing how identical the tone of 
 
 1 Nature. 
 
54 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 thought and feeling appears to be in both. But I need quote 
 no more. The Pedlar repeats pretty much what Wordsworth 
 has already said ; only that a stronger feeling is awakened in 
 me by the real than by the imaginary utterances. Words- 
 worth's plan, moreover, of exciting a factitious interest on 
 behalf of his own shadow, is not particularly happy. The 
 Pedlar-shadow preaches away by the yard, giving certainly, as 
 I have no doubt was his practice in all business transactions, 
 very ample measure. And then Wordsworth in propria per- 
 sona begins to praise him, just as if he were not praising him- 
 self; or else he calls up the rector, or the rector's wife, or 
 anybody else within reach, to talk after this fashion : 
 
 I love to hear that eloquent old man 
 
 Pour forth his meditations, and descant 
 
 On human life, from infancy to age ; 
 
 How pure his spirit ; in what vivid lines 
 
 His mind gives back the various hues of things, 
 
 Caught in their fairest, happiest, attitudes. 
 
 There is to me something singularly inartistic in this round- 
 about way of glorifying one's self ; and though I am far from 
 denying that Wordsworth, or the Pedlar, if you please, has 
 been eloquent (rhetoric, indeed, abundantly, overbundantly 
 poured upon us, is the great defect of the poem, as a poem) ; 
 still I doubt if the natural effect of eloquence is here skilfully 
 presented to the reader. The magnates of Hungary, when 
 moved by the eloquent words, by the tears still more eloquent, 
 of their injured Queen, did not remark to each other, * How 
 finely Her Majesty has spoken ! how impressively she has 
 wept ! ' No. Their swords flashed out from the scabbard all 
 together, under the impulse, as it seemed, of a single will ; and 
 they shouted as one man, ' Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria 
 
 /Theresa.' 
 ' The Prelude ' is a great poem in every sense of the word. 
 Of ' The Excursion ' it would not be accurate to say as much. 
 But it is full of smaller poems, many of them extremely beauti- 
 
WORDSWORTH. 55 
 
 ful ; and even the less inspired portion, the reasonings and 
 speculations, somehow linking together the separate idylls that 
 give to the work its claim upon posterity, have their own merit 
 and importance. Wordsworth may be heavy ; he may be 
 prolix ; he may drop down from poetry to rhetoric ; from rhe- 
 toric to rather solemn prose, but he never writes mere rubbish. 
 That is more than we can say of many poets great poets too. 
 Of Byron, for instance, not unfrequently ; and of Campbell, I 
 might almost say, as a general rule. 
 
 ' The Excursion,' after introducing us to its hero, opens with 
 the well-known story of Margaret. The story, that is, of a 
 woman deserted by her husband, not from wantonness, not from 
 any failure of affection, but because, during a season of bitter 
 distress, when many rich 
 
 Sank down r as in a dream, among the poor, 
 And of the poor did many cease to be, 
 And their place knew them not, 
 
 / 
 
 he had not courage enough, or faith enough, to watch the 
 misery of those whom he loved. He therefore enlisted, with- 
 out giving his wife any notice of his intention ; and, leaving 
 his bounty money behind him, disappeared, as a wave dis- 
 appears, into the great ocean of human life. The woman 
 sought him day after day ; she wandered up and down like a 
 troubled spirit, enquired of beggars and wayfarers if they had 
 seen her husband. 
 
 This tale did Margaret tell with many tears : 
 And, when she ended, I had little power 
 To give her comfort, and was glad to take 
 Such words of comfort from her mouth as served 
 To cheer us both : . 
 
 
 
 And many days 
 
 About the fields I wander, knowing this 
 Only, that what I seek I cannot find ; 
 And to myself, said she, have done much wrong, 
 And to his helpless infant. 
 
56 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The story is told, from beginning to end, in Wordsworth's 
 best manner. The high and . tender Muses, to adopt his own 
 carefully chosen expression, must have filled his mind whilst 
 he was writing it, with one of their happiest and noblest inspi- 
 rations. So much so, that zealous Wordsworthians, whilst they 
 admit that ' The Excursion ' may not be, throughout its whole 
 length, a perfect poem, always maintain that, if the story of 
 Margaret had been published by itself, it would have awakened, 
 without any drawback at all, absolute and universal enthusiasm. 
 It may be so. Indeed, I am quite willing to believe that it 
 must have been so. This pathetic poem, however, has been 
 criticised, and criticised in so provoking a manner as to leave 
 us without any answer ; though we cannot but feel, all the 
 time, that it is a criticism buzzing and playing about upon the 
 surface without reaching the heart of the matter. Men, say 
 Margaret's enemies, do not enlist into the abyss of space ; or 
 even, as might be more natural, into the planet Mars, beyond 
 the reach of post-office or mail cart. They enlist into the 33rd 
 Foot, distinguished as the Duke of Wellington's regiment ; or 
 into the 5oth, known to fame, so De Quincey tells us, as the 
 Dirty Half Hundred. It would have been easy, the blas- 
 phemers add, to ascertain what particular regiments had sent 
 recruiting parties into that particular district, at any given time. 
 Hence, if Margaret, instead of wandering up and down, and 
 confiding in the philosophical pedlar, who seems on this 
 occasion to have been a most feckless and unprofitable coun- 
 sellor, had gone to the rector of the parish, or better still, to 
 the local attorney, either of these gentlemen would at once 
 have written to the War Office, and received an answer back 
 in two or three days, with * On His Majesty's Service ' written 
 outside ; which letter would have given a full account of the 
 absconding Robert's whereabout and future prospects. One 
 hostile commentator even goes so far as to declare that Mar- 
 garet, instead of being sympathised with and uplifted to the 
 
WORDSWORTH. 57 
 
 stars in immortal poetry, should have been sent to gaol on the 
 charge of murdering her infant child by systematic neglect. 
 Nay, he is so far lost to decency as to add, that Wordsworth's 
 incomparable Pedlar ought to have accompanied her there as 
 an accessory before the fact. We feel, however, that this, after 
 all, is but a piece of half- malicious fun. Whatever may be the 
 bald, literal truth contained in this criticism, no man of sense 
 would allow it to affect, in the smallest degree, his estimate of 
 the poem. We grant Wordsworth his TTOV orw on this occasion, 
 just as in Mr. Browning's ' Good News from Ghent,' we for- 
 bear to enquire how he applies his facts to a town obviously 
 neither besieged nor blockaded. Just as in the magnificent 
 storm scene of the ' Antiquary,' we close our eyes against the 
 obtrusive suggestion that it is not usual, to say the least of it, 
 for the sun to set over the sea on the east coast of Scotland. 
 Margaret therefore remains, and will remain, a beautiful idyll 
 a poem not only admired but beloved, so long as the English 
 language keeps its life, and we feel half inclined to refute 
 her traducers after the manner of Dr. Johnson, when he 
 refuted Bishop Berkeley ; or to speak more seriously, we might 
 observe that the fact of the enlistment is a mere arbitrary fact, 
 and could be at once got rid of by substituting the navy or the 
 merchant-navy, or some other form of concealment, for the 
 supposed soldiership, that thus the objection would fall to the 
 ground, and men would be left to appreciate the beauty of the 
 tale in peace. 
 
 The next section of ' The Excursion ' is also, I think, the 
 most important one. It is here that the gems lie thickest it 
 is here that both Wordsworth's poetry' and Wordsworth's philo- 
 sophy are seen in their noblest proportions. Here, also, we 
 find that the French Revolution has been at worE upon his 
 mind. His own thoughts and feelings, such as we remember 
 them in 'The Prelude,' are again presented to us, under a 
 thin disguise. And accordingly, the verse glows with a spirit 
 
58 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 reflected from the passions of his youth a spirit which I, at 
 least, often find wanting in his more domestic and homely 
 compositions. 
 
 The Pedlar's friend and fellow-countryman has retired, after 
 leading a life of great excitement, to be happy with a wife whom 
 he loves, 
 
 To a low cottage, in a sunny bay, 
 Where the salt sea innocuously breaks, 
 And the low breeze as innocently breathes, 
 On Devon's leafy shores. 
 
 The loss, however, of this devoted wife, preceded, and, as 
 far as man can judge, produced, by the untimely deaths of two 
 lovely children, shatters the fabric of his happiness for ever. 
 Hope is over for him now, and life, however long, must con- 
 tinue grey and without sunlight to the end. Grief, nevertheless 
 that is the active throbbing and stinging of grief, dies away 
 sorrow exhausts itself, in his case, as in that of all others \ and 
 though the manner in which the memory of the dead is, or seems 
 to be, forgotten sometimes jars upon the heart, if this were 
 not so, the work of the world could hardly be carried on. 
 
 He fell at first, as men do, into a state of uncomplaining 
 apathy of restless indifference, letting the days slip by him 
 as they would. From that abstraction he was roused, but how ? 
 
 Even as a thoughtful shepherd, by a flash 
 Of Lightning startled in a gloomy cave 
 Of these wild Hills ; for lo ! the Dread Bastile, 
 With all the chambers in its horrid towers, 
 Fell to the ground by violence overthrown. 
 
 
 
 And straightway from the arch 
 A golden palace rose, or seemed to rise 
 The appointed seat of equitable law 
 And mild Paternal sway. 
 
 Here we have the revolutionary Wordsworth over again ; 
 Just as in the natural influences shaping the Pedlar's mind, we 
 have a repetition of Wordsworth's youth as it appears in the two 
 

 WORDS IVOR TH. 59 
 
 % 
 
 ' books called ' Childhood ' and 'Schooltime.' The Pedlar, more- 
 over, as well as Wordsworth, is a poet, one sown by Nature 
 indeed, and having taught himself, somehow, to engraft upon 
 this original stock or root no small amount of prose, but still a 
 poet. 'The mountains and the mists,' 'the presences of 
 Nature/ and ' the souls of lonely places,' act upon these two, 
 just as if the two were one. So also, when we come to the 
 French Revolution, the Pedlar's solitary friend introduces us 
 to all those passions and sympathies with which Coleridge, at 
 least, was familiar in Wordsworth then and long before. In 
 these respects, as I have said, the men are not two but one. 
 Hence ' The Excursion ' owes much to the* suppression of ' The 
 Prelude.' And if the former poem had been given to the 
 world in its due season, * The Excursion ' would hardly, I think, 
 have appeared exactly in its present shape. 
 
 When, however, the Solitary has to surrender himself to 
 another disappointment to a second despair, and when the 
 two despairs combine to form a pressure on the heart worse 
 than any bitterness of death, we find ourselves in a new scene, 
 and treading fresh ground. We know already how in a delirium 
 of self-deceit he broke faith 
 
 with those, whom he had laid 
 In earth's dark chambers with a Christian's Hope. 
 
 But on awakening from this dream, he found that recollec- 
 . tions and feelings supposed to be dead were still strong enough 
 to pierce and torture his spirit to its inmost depths. This dis- 
 covery was made on shipboard, where escape from his returning 
 anguish was impossible. He then describes his grief and 
 remorse in a strain of poetry that makes us angry with the 
 public and the critics of that time for listening so coldly : 
 
 But oh ye powers 
 
 Of soul and sense, mysteriously allied ! 
 Oh never let the wretched, if a choice 
 Be left him, trust the freight of his despair 
 
60 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 To a long voyage on the silent deep 
 
 For like a plague will memory break out, 
 
 And, in the blank and solitude of things 
 
 Upon his spirit, with a fever's strength, 
 
 Will conscience prey. Feebly must they have felt 
 
 Who in old times attired with whips and snakes 
 
 The vengeful Furies. Beautiful regards 
 
 Were turned on me. The face of one I loved 
 
 The wife, the mother pitifully fixing 
 
 Tender reproaches insupportable. 
 
 Disappointed, finally, both in Europe and America ; and 
 having thus lost all faith in the perfectibility of man, he retires 
 to a lonely recess among the mountains with shattered fortunes 
 and with a broken heart. He has formed no plan, and looks 
 forward to nothing better than dreaming away the remainder 
 of his time in a sort of lethargy half-scepticism and half-in- 
 difference believing nothing, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, 
 and loving nothing. His fellow-countryman, however, and early 
 friend, still trusts that the inborn energy of his active, intense, 
 and glowing mind, originally derived from Nature, is only 
 overlaid for a time, and has not been altogether extinguished 
 among the ashes of that unhappy and ill-spent life. He, 
 accordingly, invades the solitude, accompanied by Words- 
 worth. 
 
 After. much earnest discourse, lofty speculation, and pro- 
 found argument, the infidel hermit is so far influenced by these 
 reasonings as to accompany them, multa reluctans, on their 
 holiday tour. And we are given to understand that the various 
 aspects of humanity presented to him, one by one, do not fail 
 of their intended effect. 
 
 It is believed by his friends that the every day life of man, 
 with its lights and shadows, its sorrows and consolations, will 
 not be thrown open to his inspection in vain. The cure, 
 indeed, is imperfect, but a seed is sown, we are led to hope, 
 that cannot wither a fire kindled within that must burn on till 
 the needful purification is accomplished. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 61 
 
 The plot of the poem, as far as there is plot, is thus before 
 you. And though, as I shall point out by and by, there are many 
 fine passages, indeed many separate poems, beautiful in them- 
 selves, embedded in the latter half of 'The Excursion/ the 
 finest continuous poetry occurs just whilst the outline of the 
 plot is coming into shape just whilst our Solitary is struggling 
 against the benign influences put forth on his behalf by these 
 wise and true-hearted friends. As soon as this obstinate resist- 
 ance is overcome, and they pass onward together, the interest 
 of the dialogue slackens, and the narrative becomes weaker 
 and less poetical ; we then join company with a model Rector, 
 known both to Wordsworth and the Pedlar. There comes 
 in also the Rector's Wife, though of this particular lady little is 
 said. 
 
 The introduction of the worthy ecclesiastic does not add to 
 the spirit of the poem. The second, third, and fourth books 
 are still those to which we most frequently turn. It is in them 
 that, for the most part, we find those magnificent descriptions 
 of scenery, intuitions, as it were, into the heart of Nature herself 
 such as, whether found here or elsewhere, place Wordsworth, 
 in one quality of a poet I mean as the interpreter between God 
 as the Creator of the world and less inspired men above all his 
 rivals and contemporaries. I content myself with only men- 
 tioning the unsurpassed description of the collapsing storm in 
 the second book, that you may refe,r to it if you will. The bio- 
 graphy, I think I may so call it, of the mountain heights which 
 overhang the secluded home occupied by the Solitary is, I doubt 
 not, also familiar to you, but I wish to quote it, as showing with 
 what exquisite grace and subtlety, both of feeling and language, 
 Wordsworth sets forth the analogies, existing in Nature, between 
 the separate senses, at any rate as far as man is concerned. 
 
 Many are the notes 
 
 Which, in his tuneful course, the wind draws forth 
 From rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and dashing shores : 
 And well those lofty brethren bear their part 
 
62 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 In the wild concert chiefly when the storm 
 
 Rides high ; then all the upper air they fill 
 
 With roaring sound that ceases not to flow, 
 
 Like smoke, along the level of the blast, 
 
 In mighty current ; theirs, too, is the song 
 
 Of stream and headlong flood that seldom fails ; 
 
 And, in the grim and breathless hour of noon, 
 
 Methinks that I have heard them echo back 
 
 The thunder's greeting : nor have Nature's laws 
 
 Left them ungifted with a power to yield 
 
 Music of finer tone ; a harmony, 
 
 So do I call it, though it be the hand 
 
 Of silence, though there be no voice ; the clouds, 
 
 The mist, the shadows, light of golden suns, 
 
 Motions of moonlight, all come thither touch, 
 
 And have an answer thither come, and shape 
 
 A language not unwelcome to sick hearts 
 
 And idle spirits. 
 
 There is, I think, a picture of the same kind, seen by the 
 same inner eye, or rather, seen and heard together, by the same 
 poet-instinct, which is ear and eye at once, in a smaller 
 poem, more beautiful still. It is where the poet, buried deep 
 in a woodland recess, discerns that the evening breeze has 
 entered the glade \ because, although the oak trees remain un- 
 moved, the more sensitive ash feels the touch and ripple of 
 that voiceless wind, and makes, in obedience thereto, 
 A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs. 
 
 These exquisite descriptive passages, however, were not, 
 according to all probability, in Wordsworth's own opinion, and 
 are not, I apprehend, in the opinion of his disciples, the most 
 valuable portions of his work. Great poets, I believe, and 
 small ones also perhaps, in their degree, are to be found in two 
 very different kinds of men. The Bard, or born singer of the 
 tribe, whose stormy verses record the battles of his countrymen, 
 whose love ditties give renown to their bright-haired maids 
 whose mournful numbers attest the grief and loyalty of the 
 clan, when some great chief passes away into the land of 
 
WORDSWORTH. 63 
 
 shadows. He is one figure : quite another one is the natural 
 lawgiver, prophet, and sage, whose strains are of a graver 
 mood, and flow forth under an inspiration more austere. To 
 this latter class, to the brotherhood of Orpheus or Empe- 
 docles, rather than that of Homer and Pindar, Wordsworth 
 belongs. 
 
 It is, I say, in the treatment of these Orphean topics that 
 there become visible those elements of original genius, on 
 which his worshippers rely, when they claim for him the poetical 
 primacy of his time. 
 
 I might read page after page imbued with a lofty spirit of 
 reverence towards God and humble faith in the inherent im- 
 mortality and unfathomable destinies of man ; but it is perhaps 
 better that you should read them for yourselves, and find them 
 out for yourselves. Now, one of the most indispensable 
 qualities for a student or critic of poetry is to make himself 
 sensible of the special merits of what he is studying, to try and 
 sympathise with the character of the writings and of the writer, 
 and thus to bring himself, as far as may be, within the sphere of 
 the poet's influence and dominion. I hope that I have taught 
 myself to do this in some degree ; and whilst I confess my own 
 native preference for poetry with more blood and pulsation in 
 it, I yet feel for Wordsworth much of the admiration and rever- 
 ence that is his due ; that is, indeed, owing to him, as a sacred 
 debt, by those of my generation. Nor am I prepared to say, 
 if anyone condemn this preference of mine, as somewhat 
 illiberal and shallow, that he is altogether wrong. It is not 
 Wordsworth's fault that I am unable to breathe ( the difficult air 
 of the iced mountain top ' as easily as others. The fact un- 
 doubtedly is, that whether Wordsworth's meditations might have 
 been congenial to me or not, my imagination in boyhood and 
 in youth was so entirely pre-occupied by Byron and Scott, that 
 Wordsworth was never able to dislodge them from their vantage 
 ground. I need not inform you that the masters and disciples 
 
64. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 of the two schools of poetry are not always on the best terms 
 with one another. Byron characterises the work we are now 
 discussing as 
 
 A drowsy, frowsy poem called ' The Excursion, ' 
 Writ in a manner that is my aversion. 
 
 The brilliant author of ' Nightshade Abbey/ on the other 
 hand, ridicules Byron as the great Mr. Cypress, with the 
 happiest humour ; and in another novel bestows upon us, 
 glancing I presume at Scott, what he calls the epitome and 
 essence of all the war songs and epics that ever were written. 
 These verses are so witty, that although they have not much to 
 do with our present subject, I hope you will allow me to indulge 
 myself by reading them to you. 
 
 The mountain sheep are sweeter, 
 
 But the valley sheep are fatter, 
 We therefore deemed it meeter 
 
 To carry off the latter. 
 We made an expedition, 
 
 We met a host and quelled it, 
 We stormed a strong position, 
 
 And killed the men who held it. 
 Ednyfed, King of Dyfed, 
 
 His head was borne before us, 
 His wine and beasts supply our feasts, 
 
 And his overthrow our chorus. 
 
 To return, however, to our immediate theme. One of the 
 most interesting portions of ' The Excursion ' (and here, surely, 
 not even Byron could complain of Wordsworth as heavy or 
 tedious) is where the spiritual instincts of mankind developing 
 themselves according to nationalities, climates, and diverging 
 traditions, are rapidly and brilliantly sketched ; the central 
 solitude of the heavenly abyss is occupied, of course, by 
 
 Jehovah, shapeless power above all powers, 
 Single and one, the Omnipresent God 
 By local utterance, or blaze of light, 
 Or cloud of darkness localised in heaven. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 65 
 
 On earth enshrined within the wandering ark, 
 Or out of Zion thundering from His throne 
 Between the cherubim. 
 
 After the Hebrew, the Persian is brought before us who 
 
 Zealous to reject 
 
 Altar and image, the inclusive walls, 
 And roofs of temples built by human hands ; 
 , To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops 
 Presented sacrifice to moon and stars, 
 And to the winds and mother elements, 
 And the whole circle of the heavens, for Him 
 A sensitive existence, and a God. 
 
 Afterwards, the more sensual Babylonian comes before us, 
 uprearing in honour of Belus, with toil immense, 
 
 Tower eight times planted on the top of tower. 
 
 Then we see how the Chaldean shepherds were taught to 
 watch the stars floating in el her above the boundless East- 
 ern plains, until they passed beyond these natural observa- 
 tions into a region where the imaginative faculty becomes 
 lord ; and so believed that the constellations overhead carried 
 along with them in their courses the inevitable future, and 
 were charged with solemn messages from the gods to man. 
 Finally, it is pointed out to us that whatever outward shape 
 this faith may have assumed, even in Greece, the abode of a 
 livelier, lighter, and a less earnest people, it rested everywhere 
 upon deep foundations of truth, so that doubtless in all countries 
 
 
 
 alike 
 
 A thought arose 
 
 Of life continuous, being unimpaired, 
 
 That hath been, is, and where it is shall be ; 
 
 Yea ! shall endure, existence unexposed 
 
 To the blind walk of mortal accident ; 
 
 From diminution safe and weakening age, 
 
 Whilst man grows old, and dwindles, and decays, 
 
 And countless generations of mankind 
 
 Depart, and leave no vestige where they trod. 
 
 
 
 The end of this fourth book becomes tedious, and the later 
 
66 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 books of the poem more tedious still. They are, no doubt, 
 deserving of high esteem and respectful admiration, as embody- 
 ing noble ideas of morality, and a noble system of religion, in 
 excellent English. But the interminable harangues of the 
 Pedlar and the Rector have this one fatal fault, that they are 
 interminable. Their extreme diffuseness, moreover, and sonorous 
 amplifications, belong, I think, less to poetry than to rhetoric ; 
 and rhetoric, however weighty in point of thought, however 
 elevated in point of style, is an alloy that should be admitted 
 very sparingly into the golden mintage of the poet's mind. To 
 me, again, the living biography of ' The Prelude,' with its intense 
 presentations of the revolutionary fever in France, and the effect 
 /Tthat contagious fever upon Wordsworth himself, is much more 
 (interesting than this reproduction of the same state of things by 
 yhejDhantom Pedlar and his Scotch friend. In spite of much 
 splendid poetry in the earlier half, it is hardly to be wondered 
 at that ' The Excursion ' has never been a great favourite with 
 the general public ; nor do I think it ever will be; not but that 
 even in the last five books, those who look for them may find 
 beautiful idylls seated in the midst of those moral and philoso- 
 phical dissertations that abound. 
 
 I would particularly direct your attention to the Rector's 
 sketch of a parishioner, deaf and dumb from his birth. This 
 poem for a separate poem it is appears to me most exqui- 
 sitely written and full of tender pathos ; a pathos not confined 
 to the individual case, but diffusing far and wide what Words- 
 worth elsewhere calls 
 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 
 He grew up 
 
 From year to year, in loneliness of soul, 
 And this deep mountain valley was to him 
 Soundless with all its streams. The bird of dawn 
 Did never rouse this cottager from sleep 
 With startling summons ; not for his delight 
 Murmured the labouring bee. When stormy winds 
 Were working the broad bosom of the lake 
 
WORDSWOR TH. 6 7 
 
 Into a thousand, thousand sparkling waves, 
 
 Rocking the trees, and driving cloud on cloud 
 
 Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crag; 
 
 The agitated scene before his eye 
 
 Was silent as a picture evermore 
 
 Were all things silent whereso'er he moved. 
 
 And so on. At length the slow disease insensibly consumed 
 the powers of nature, and a few short steps of friends and 
 kindred bore him from his home 
 
 To the profounder stillness of the grave, 
 
 And yon tall pine tree, whose composing sound 
 
 Was wasted on the good man's living ear, 
 
 Hath now its own peculiar sanctity, 
 
 And at the touch of every wandering breeze 
 
 Murmurs, not idly, o'er his peaceful grave. 
 
 To all human things, however even to Harley Street, as 
 poor Sydney Smith gasped out in his dying moments an end 
 must come sooner or later. ' The Excursion ' ends, as I have 
 i said, with an intimation that some degree of healing and reno- 
 / vation had been brought to the wounded spirit of the Solitary 
 by a communion with purer and healthier souls. And future 
 excursions are projected, so as to complete the cure, and restore 
 him entirely to self-respect and peace. Whether this was 
 accomplished or not whether he afterwards suffered any re- 
 lapse, does not appear. The other excursions, if they ever took 
 place, have never been communicated to the world, and now, 
 I should think, never will be. 
 
 Before passing away from ' The Excursion,' it may not be 
 amiss to remind you that when Wordsworth began his career, 
 he attacked with great vehemence what he called * poetic 
 diction.' To a diction for poetry, as distinguished from prose 
 diction, he denied any real existence. I shall return to con- 
 sider this point in a moment. In the meantime, it is to be 
 observed, that as far as ' The Excursion ' is concerned, he 
 quietly drops his theory without any notice to his readers 
 
 without, I suppose, any distinct consciousness on his own part. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Much of the diction indeed and for this I find no fault with 
 him, seeing that the topics treated of, and the manner of their 
 treatment, render such a style expedient is more than in most 
 poets elaborate and stately. Sometimes, indeed, so over stately, 
 that we are tempted to smile, and to wonder how Wordsworth 
 would have reconciled such phraseology with his earlier ukase 
 on the subject. For instance, the Pedlar's friend a Scotch 
 parson became chaplain to a Highland regiment that is the 
 way how men state such a fact in prose. This, on the other 
 hand, is the manner in which the antagonist of poetic diction 
 thinks fit to tell us of it in verse : 
 
 Filled with vague hopes, he undertook the task 
 Of military chaplain to a troop 
 
 Cheered by the Highland Lag-pipe ; as they marched, 
 In plaided vest, his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Putting aside, however, such passages as mere slips, we 
 may add that in many of his later poems, such as ' Dion,' ' Lao- 
 damia' and the like, his style is just as much, or rather just as 
 little, like prose as the style of any other poet. In truth, it does 
 not appear to me that he had considered this matter deeply 
 enough to arrive at any very exact conclusion. There is a logical 
 opposition between prose and verse (we have been taught that 
 much by the ' Bourgeois Gentilhomme ') ; they are opposed, 
 as the two outward forms of expression the two separate 
 methods of using language, so as to communicate thought ; but 
 between prose and poetry, there is no such necessary opposition. 
 Many sentences formally prose are full of the purest poetry, 
 and a memoria technica is just as really verse as the 'Iliad.' 
 It is true, no doubt, that the inevitable rhythm and flow (such 
 as the passions and emotions out of which poetry grows tend 
 to generate) has been systematically cultivated, and gradually 
 matured into regular systems of versification. Verse, accord- 
 ingly, by common consent, is now recognised as the natural 
 body the fit fleshly tabernacle, if I may so speak appropriated 
 
WORDSWORTH. 69 
 
 to the spirit of song ; but the voice of poetry, whether heard 
 through the medium of verse or not, is a special voice. It is 
 not necessarily less simple or more ornate than the unimpas- 
 sioned talk or writing of ordinary men ; but, nevertheless, it 
 remains, and always will remain apart, and instinct with a life 
 and fire of its own. 
 
 Let us take as an example six lines of Cowper. Some 
 people might call them plain, if not rather coarse ; but every 
 jot of them is poetical diction in the true sense of the word. 
 They are no more prose than the finest parts of ' Paradise 
 Lost' 
 
 The lines in question form part of an angry, though loving 
 remonstrance to England in her then state, as Cowper thought 
 it, of degradation and decay : 
 
 Whilst yet thou wast a grovelling, puling chit, 
 Thy bones unfashioned, and thy joints unknit, 
 The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow, 
 Though twice a Caesar could not bend thee now. 
 For thou wert nursed amid the din of arms, 
 And sucked a breast that panted with alarms. 
 
 What Wordsworth meant to condemn, no doubt, was the 
 sham feeling, the conventional whine then in vogue, repeating 
 and imitating, without passion, forms of language that only 
 poetic passion can justify; and in that respect he certainly did 
 good service. The souls of poets may be likened to trees in 
 the Spring, with the thrill of life upon them from root to leader. 
 They break forth spontaneously into leaves and blossoms, 
 into colour, and light, and fragrance ; but it is because they are 
 in harmony with the breath of heaven, with the sunshine, and 
 the rain. There is nothing meretricious about these flowers 
 nothing false nothing out of keeping with Nature and truth ; 
 but still they are, and must be, chestnut blooms, or lilacs, or 
 roses not faggots and walking sticks. What Wordsworth really 
 protested against was a habit men had fallen into, during a 
 temporary eclipse and winter of poetical feeling. They went 
 
70 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 about hanging artificial flowers upon sapless and leafless 
 branches, and then pretended that they were just as good as 
 real gardens and orchards. Wordsworth's censure of that kind 
 of diction, whether it occur in verse or in prose, is sound. His 
 practical instincts guided him rightly, and his example is of the 
 highest value. Still, I do not think in the discussion which he 
 raised, he saw his way clearly enough to be regarded as an in- 
 fallible critic a judge without appeal. 
 
 From all that has gone before, you will probably infer that 
 I do not look upon ' The Excursion ' as one great work. It 
 combines together mechanically, but not vitally, various poems 
 unequally beautiful. The connecting disquisitions, admirable 
 from many points of view, do not possess, in my opinion, high 
 poetical merit. But is this, after all, of much importance ? The 
 notion that no one can be a great poet who is not also a long 
 poet, is perhaps one of those idola fori those illusions of the 
 market-place and stock exchange, justly condemned by 
 Bacon. We do not know that Pindar ever passed beyond 500 
 lines. ' Sappho, the Tenth Muse,' as they called her; Archilo- 
 chus, the only man fitted in the judgment of Greece to rank 
 with Homer ; were both writers of what we should now call 
 fugitive pieces ; Archilochus, it might be said, I believe, particu- 
 larly ; but I did not intend the pun. When we .come to the 
 fugitive pieces of Wordsworth, they have wings to soar ; but, 
 happily, no feet to run away with. ' The Ode on Immortality,' 
 called for shortness by many the ' Platonic Ode,' is remarkable 
 on many accounts, particularly on this account, that it extorts 
 often, from the most bigoted anti-Wordsworthians, a reluctant and 
 growling admiration. They cannot understand how so sublime 
 an effort of imagination can have proceeded from such a writer; 
 but so it is. The inmost fibres of the human soul respond to 
 it the dreams and visions that come to all men, have come 
 also to Wordsworth, only in his case they are clothed in diviner 
 presences, and touched with a glow of diviner light. Again, 
 
WORDSWORTH. 71 
 
 under a lyrical inspiration of a different kind, in his own line he 
 moves alone 
 
 Within that circle none can walk but he. 
 
 'She was a Phantom of Delight,' 'Three years she grew in Sun 
 and Shower/ ' Lucy Gray,' and a score of other masterpieces, 
 could have been written by no one but Wordsworth. Their cha- 
 racteristic merit is a union of grace, tenderness, and depth, that 
 we look for in vain elsewhere. I pay this tribute to them' readily, 
 nay, eagerly. Because their beauty, however exquisite, strikes 
 me always as being a little cold; I like perhaps it is a boyish, 
 if not a vulgar taste more effervescence, more fire. Some of 
 Campbell's verses, some also of Scott's, keep ringing in my 
 ears, even whilst I admit that the songs just named by me 
 may demand a higher and rarer inspiration. 
 
 We now come to the Sonnets, In this branch of his art 
 Wordsworth has no rival but Shakspere ; and I would not con- 
 fidently affirm that even he stands higher. Our great dramatist 
 is too monotonous, and, in spite of the wonderful strength and 
 sweetness of his style, leaves a sense of pain and oppression 
 behind him ; whilst Wordsworth is fresh and healthful as to- 
 day's buoyant south-west breeze, after the hateful easterly winds 
 that have gnawed at us for months. Our author's Sonnets, 
 moreover, require a separate notice from me, if only upon this 
 account. I mean that one objection I took to Wordsworth in 
 a former lecture namely, that for a poet who claims, or has 
 claimed for him, so very exalted a rank, he is but an indifferent 
 melodist does not apply to them. Of the grave and solemn 
 harmony suited for that kind of composition he is, undoubtedly, 
 a perfect master. All things considered, indeed, those who are 
 happily able to believe that no one can be a great poet who is 
 not also a good man who think as Robert Grant, unless I mis- 
 take not, once poetised : 
 
 That all the dread sublimities of song, 
 These, Virtue, these, to thee alone belong 
 
72 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 may well assert that of the mighty epoch during which he lived 
 he was the leading spirit. But in order to settle that question, 
 we must endeavour, as Samuel Johnson once advised Boswell 
 emphatically, to clear our minds of cant. We may say, I appre- 
 hend, truly enough, that there have been poets possessed by 
 their genius in much the same sense as men of old, according to 
 the Jewish belief, were possessed by the Devil ; and that genius, 
 in such cases, is not a blessing but a curse. In estimating 
 degrees of intellectual power, however, it is scarcely relevant 
 to talk about moral excellence. Eustacius, in Scott's novel of 
 ' The Abbot,' sensibly remarks about Mary's enemies, whom 
 her partisans were disparaging before the battle 'They are 
 evil men, no doubt; but the trade of war demands no saints : 
 Kirkcaidy of Grange was long ago pronounced by the constable 
 de Montmorency to be the first soldier in Europe.' As in war 
 so in poetry. If Belial fiend though he be sings better and 
 more powerfully than Israfil the angel, it is our business, as 
 critics, to say so without hesitation. 
 
 There are, moreover, several writers, not Belials, of whom 
 I should like to say a word. Scott, the poet of the young, as 
 it is now the fashion to call him, not without a covert sneer ; I, 
 on the contrary, look upon it as a high compliment. For whom 
 is poetry meant, I should like to know, if not for the young ? 
 Are Jared and Methusaleh the typical judges and critics whom 
 we should seek to please ? There is also Campbell that most 
 anomalous of singers, who seems every now then to be swept 
 off his legs by some mighty rushing wind of inspiration, and 
 lifted up, nolens volens, into the high places of poetry ; but who, 
 when that wind drops, does not only become weak and as 
 other men, but absolutely a great deal weaker. No gentleman 
 of fair abilities and decent education could have written things 
 that Campbell gave unhesitatingly to the world, without posi- 
 tive discredit. But I have not time to speak of Scott or 
 Campbell to-day ; for, after all, the rival with whom Words- 
 
WORDSWORTH. 73 
 
 worth had to reckon, was neither of them, but Byron standing 
 alone. 
 
 Many of the young may wonder that I make no mention of 
 Shelley or of Keats. The fact is, that neither of these two poets 
 interfered with, or helped to overshadow, Wordsworth at all. 
 The premature death of Keats, indeed, was perhaps the greatest 
 blow of its kind, the severest blighting of her poetical bloom, 
 that England ever sustained ; but till after he had passed away 
 the world at large knew nothing about him. 
 
 In order that I may prove to you how Shelley also was un- 
 known and unregarded, I am tempted and for this I hope you 
 will pardon me to embark upon a digression. 
 
 Some three and forty years ago, I brought forward a motion 
 in the Oxford Union that Shelley was a greater poet than 
 Byron. The debate, after the ordinary fashion of n on- political 
 debates, would probably have been a languid one ; but friends 
 of mine at Cambridge (the motion, I may say, was an echo of 
 Cambridge thought and feeling) took the matter up, and ap- 
 peared suddenly on the scene of action. The first of these 
 friends was Arthur Hallam, the Marcellus of our time. Of him 
 I need not speak, I need not tell you how, as combining perfect 
 sweetness of nature with most extraordinary intellectual gifts, 
 he left upon the minds of all who knew him an impression never 
 to be effaced. I need not do this, I say, for has not his monu- 
 ment urn are perennius been raised in all men's sight by another 
 and a nobler hand ? 
 
 The second was also a very remarkable man Mr. Sunder- 
 land. By common consent he was an orator unequalled in 
 promise, and at that moment rapidly expanding into unequalled 
 power. His fate, alas ! was even more appalling than that of 
 Arthur Hallam. Just as he was issuing forth into life, all the 
 stormy hopes all the struggling energies all the tumultuous 
 aspirations of his impassioned soul were suddenly arrested by 
 the grasp of some mysterious brain disease. For forty years he 
 
74 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 remained dumb, torpid, and motionless, recalling to our minds 
 that mighty image, suggesting itself to the poet among the 
 glaciers of Switzerland, of 
 
 A cataract 
 Frozen in an instant. 
 
 The third member of the trio happily survives Lord 
 Houghton known to all men alike for his brilliant talents and 
 for the sympathetic tenderness of his nature ; for the helping 
 hand eagerly stretched out to raise up and guide any struggling 
 wayfarer of literature who happens to falter or faint upon the 
 road. The first two found no difficulty in obtaining permission 
 to come here. But Lord Houghton, though at least as great 
 an enthusiast for Shelley as either of the other two, was un- 
 luckily at the moment, as I was told, a gated enthusiast. In 
 order to fulfil his mission he had to escape from the iron vigi- 
 lance of Trinity, triumphant but breathless, without an exeat, 
 and also without a hat. However, here he was ; here they 
 were ; and the benches of the Union, instead of being scantily 
 dotted with indifferent occupants, swarmed and murmured like 
 a hive of bees. Lord Houghton, some of you may perhaps 
 remember, has described the discussion that ensued. So also 
 has His Grace, or rather His Eminence, the Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster. But the recollections, both of the one 
 and of the other, are hazy and incorrect. Lord Houghton, for 
 instance, has picturesquely introduced Mr. Gladstone, who 
 really had very little to do with the business, except that he 
 came afterwards to supper a feat that might have been accom- 
 plished with equal success by a man of much inferior genius. 
 The Cardinal fancies that Hallam and Milnes spoke before 
 Sunderland, who then, according to him, came in like Jupiter 
 Tonans, and electrified his hearers. This was not so. Sunder- 
 land, a politician and not a man of letters, imagined, perhaps, 
 that Arthur Hallam's greater knowledge of the subject and pro- 
 founder philosophical faculty might take the wind out of his sails. 
 
WORDSWORTH. 75 
 
 At any rate, he spoke first, and spoke with great effect, though 
 scarcely, I believe, with the same fire that he often put forth on 
 more congenial subjects. Then followed Hallam, with equal, 
 if not superior force. After him jumped up a gentleman from 
 Oriel, who, in a bluff and burly manner, began to pooh-pooh 
 the pretensions of Shelley, as to which, I need hardly say, he 
 was absolutely ignorant ; when, all at once, he caught sight of 
 Mr. Richard Milnes, now Lord Houghton, sitting in his place. 
 He caught sight of him, as of one still competent to speak in 
 answer still competent to make a pounce, and tear him limb 
 from limb. The two former orators, then, were the mere velites, 
 the skirmishers of the expedition, the foraging parties, in advance 
 of the real army; whilst Lord Houghton represented in his own 
 person the triarii of the tenth legion, the Macedonian phalanx, 
 the Old Guard of Napoleon, irresistible in attack and inexor- 
 able to resistance. In the presence of that terrible antagonist 
 the gentleman from Oriel lost heart and faltered. He changed 
 his front at once, and went over to the enemy like the Saxons 
 at Leipsic, in the very middle of the action, recording, as a 
 deserter, his vote for Shelley, to the amazement and amuse- 
 ment of his hearers. Lord Houghton then stood up, and 
 showed consummate skill as an advocate. In order to prove 
 Shelley's gradual approximation out of his boyish atheism to the 
 principles of Christian truth, he read, with great taste and 
 feeling, that fine chorus from the ' Hellas/ one of Shelley's latest 
 works, the chorus I mean opening thus 
 
 A power from the unknown God, 
 
 A Promethean conqueror came ; 
 Like a triumphal path, he trod 
 
 The thorns of death and shame. 
 
 Anxious, however, perhaps over-anxious, to inculcate, or as 
 somebody once phrased it, to tread the truth into the ignorant 
 and unthinking multitude before him, he passed somewhat 
 lightly over the fact that the chorus in question is a dramatic 
 
76 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 chorus, and put by the poet into the mouths of captive Chris- 
 tian women. After him there was silence in the Union for 
 several minutes, and then Mr. Manning, of Balliol, perhaps at 
 that particular time the actual leader of our debates, with great 
 propriety rose. He felt that it would be a somewhat clownish 
 and inhospitable proceeding, if these bold guests went away 
 unchallenged if their shields were not touched with the arms 
 of courtesy, by some daring Oxford cavalier. He spoke well, 
 exceedingly well, but the framework of his argument the back- 
 bone of his oration amounted just to this : Byron is a great 
 poet, we have all of us read Byron ; but (and this is my justifi- 
 cation for introducing the topic at all) if Shelley had been a 
 great poet, we should have read him also j but we none of us 
 have done so. Therefore Shelley is not a great poet a fortiori 
 he is not so great a poet as Byron. In hanc sententiam, an im- 
 mense majority of the Union went pedibus : the debate was 
 over, and we all of us, including Mr. Gladstone, adjourned, as 
 I have said, to supper. 
 
 Returning from this digression to the point where I left off, 
 I may say that the era, looked at as a poetical era, to which 
 both Byron and Wordsworth belonged, was one of unusual I 
 may say of almost unparalleled, splendour. Byron, Scott, Shelley, 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Keats, Campbell, Moore, the 
 ninth among them, whichever he may be, is still a considerable 
 name. Nay, besides these, there are many others, such as Leigh 
 Hunt, Barry Cornwall, and Landor, who ought not to be, and are 
 not likely to be, soon forgotten. The headship of this mighty 
 clan of poets is, as far as I can judge, now assigned- by professed 
 English critics to Wordsworth. By the English public, by 
 foreign critics, by the world at large from St. Petersburg to Cape 
 Horn if anybody reads poetry at Cape Horn it is awarded, 
 I am sure, to Byron. It is true that the volcanic genius of 
 Byron, working on in its inexhaustible affluence, poured forth, 
 intermingled with higher products, smoke, and sulphur, and 
 
WORDSWORTH. 77 
 
 mud, and scoriae, but it remained also to the last a fountain of 
 living fire. Poems like * Don Juan ' or 'The Vision of Judgment ' 
 may be open to criticism on many grounds ; still, in point of 
 power, passion, and effect, they are marvellous productions. 
 And though his more serious poetry may not always be as 
 original and unforced, it has, nevertheless, a life and vigour 
 about it that purer and more conscientious poets might often 
 envy. After all, why should we not admire both Byron and 
 Wordsworth, without measuring their respective heights to an 
 inch ? Why not remember Goethe's speech, when a question 
 arose as to whether he or Schiller were the greater man ? ' You 
 should thank your stars that you have got two such fellows as 
 he and I, instead of wasting time in so frivolous a discussion.' 
 I will conclude with a passage from our author, conceived much 
 in the same spirit a passage written to show that all true poets, 
 whatever their degree, should receive a just and generous 
 
 recognition. 
 
 Yet is it just, 
 
 That here, in memory of all books that lay 
 Their sure foundations in the heart of man, 
 Whether by native prose or numerous verse, 
 That, in the name of all inspired souls, 
 From Homer, the great thunderer, from the voice 
 That roars along the bed of Jewish song, 
 And that, more varied and elaborate, 
 Those trumpet-tones of Harmony, that shake 
 Our shores in England ; from those loftiest notes, 
 Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made 
 For cottagers and spinners at the wheel, 
 And sunburnt travellers resting their tired limbs. 
 'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, 
 And of the men that made them, whether known, 
 Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, 
 That I should here assert their rights, attest 
 Their honours ; and should, once for all, pronounce 
 Their benediction speak of them as powers 
 For ever to be hallowed ; only less 
 For what we are, and what we may become, 
 Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 
 Or His pure word by miracle revealed. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY popularity is like bloom upon fruit, while yet 
 attached to the tree. Though afterwards its substantial qualities 
 may still be there ; nay, though in some cases they may even 
 be matured and developed ; all that freshness and splendour, 
 derived from the sap and spirit of life, cannot but imperceptibly 
 fade away, to return no more. Just so everything that is 
 transitory (and there is often much that is transitory in the 
 reputation of celebrated authors) must be allowed to evapo- 
 rate and disappear before their real station in literature can be 
 finally determined. For this reason, among other reasons, it is 
 desirable that great writers great writings rather, for it comes 
 after all to that should be weighed and sifted at certain inter- 
 vals, with a view to their more accurate revaluation. I say at 
 certain intervals, because I am by no means clear that the 
 revised estimate, sure to be made as soon as the fashion of an 
 author's day has become a little obsolete, is the one which will 
 be, or ought to be, accepted in the end by mankind. 
 
 The generation that immediately follows a great writer is 
 tired of hearing him called Aristides the Just by predecessors, 
 for whose literary judgment they often entertain, I am sorry to 
 say, no great reverence. 
 
 They see, and see truly, that interests purely personal 
 interests that grow up out of the man's special character out 
 of the accidental circumstances of his career, his political con- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 79 
 
 nections, his brilliant social qualities ; perhaps, even out of his 
 dazzling faults account for some, if not for much, of the glory 
 that he has won. 
 
 They soon, therefore, come to think that this favourite of 
 their fathers has been over-praised. They lose their tempers 
 on the subject, and rush into the contrary extreme, under-rating 
 him as much as he has been over-rated of old. It is not until 
 these prepossessions and antagonisms die off; until everything 
 that does not spring, as it were, out of the root of the matter, 
 has been weeded away, that a satisfactory decision is attainable. 
 Then, and not till then, is the verdict of time, never to be dis- 
 turbed again, engrossed and registered for all generations. 
 
 All this is true of Scott ; true, perhaps, to an extent more 
 than common. Nevertheless, it affects me but little on the 
 present occasion. If I came forward as a profound judge, or 
 subtilising critic, to estimate his pretensions, you might fairly, 
 from the point of view natural to youth, address me thus :- 
 4 You are too old ; your notions have been superseded ; your 
 mind is warped by prejudices, from which we, happily, have freed 
 ourselves. For us, the genius you insist upon our admiring is 
 like salt that has lost its savour ; so that we toss his works aside 
 on behalf of poets and novelists of our own.' Out of such diffi- 
 culties I escape, when I frankly confess that I appear before 
 you to-day as an advocate an advocate and a partisan. By 
 doing this, I think I act in harmony with the principles laid down 
 by me on the delivery of my opening lecture. I said then, as 
 I say now, that any man competent to decide, with unfaltering 
 impartiality, under the guidance of that intellectual light called 
 by Bacon ' dry light,' upon all the varieties and modifications 
 of genius to weigh them one against the other, and then to 
 organise with exact skill proper tables of precedence must be 
 a second Aristotle. But Anstotles are not so easy to find. It 
 is surely better to be less ambitious, to confess to yourself and 
 to others that your judgment must be tinged by passion and 
 
8o WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 prejudice must have steeped itself, once for ?.ll, in the enthu- 
 siasms of a vanished youth. It is of course quite right ; nay. 
 whether right or not, it is inevitable, that influences of the sort 
 should vary from generation to generation, perhaps almost 
 from year to year, exactly as new modes of thought, new 
 phases of feeling, new manifestations of human nature, new 
 yearnings after the infinite and unknown, are created by the 
 changing circumstances and necessities of the time. Even 
 then, however, it is well to remind those for whom the im- 
 mediate future is reserved, that their youth is not the only 
 youth that has flourished, their enthusiasm not the only en- 
 thusiasm that has thrown its light upon life ; and that the 
 fashions of their day, like other fashions, are destined to lose 
 their gloss of novelty, and to wax old like a garment. How- 
 ever this may be, I repeat that I come forward to-day as an 
 advocate, and not as a judge. It was during my childhood 
 that Scott rose to the height of his renown and I make it my 
 business to hold up, through good report and evil report, the 
 poetical banner under which I enlisted as a boy. I knew the 
 battle in ' Marmion ' by heart almost before I could read, and 
 I cannot raze out I do not wish to raze out of my soul, all 
 that filled and coloured it in days gone by. When I point out 
 to you, therefore, why and how I admire this great poet, let it 
 be understood that my criticisms are partial ; partial in every 
 sense of the word ; that it belongs perhaps as much to the 
 animal spirits and the circulation of the blood, as to any in- 
 tellectual faculties, if the unflagging energy of Scott's narra- 
 tive power, and the unaffected vigour of his epical style, have 
 still charms for me, such as subtler, and profounder, and more 
 delicate compositions do not possess ; if to sackbut, and 
 shawm, and dulcimer, and psaltery, and all manner of musical 
 instruments, I yet prefer, as I do prefer, the sound of the 
 trumpet. Notv as surely as Milton is lord of the organ, with 
 all its mighty utterances and solemn modulations, so surely, 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 81 
 
 among English singers, is Scott the undoubted inheritor of that 
 trumpet note, which, under the breath of Homer, has made the 
 wrath of Achilles immortal. 
 
 It is true that with regard to Walter Scott, considered 
 merely as a verse- poet, there is room for much difference of 
 opinion. I, his advocate, should say that he was essentially a 
 poet sown by Nature ; that he sprang up like a forest tree 
 from the heart of the soil a forest tree, on whose behalf it may 
 be said that little defects of symmetry or smoothness are 
 amply redeemed by a massive grandeur of stem, and an un- 
 dying strength of vegetation. I do not expect the same kind 
 of beauty in a towering oak as in a rosebush or a rhododen- 
 dron ; but other people, who do hope to find in such an oak 
 what it does not and cannot possess, who look out for flowers 
 and fruit, for medicinal gums, and precious spices, will un- 
 doubtedly be disappointed. Being so disappointed, they may 
 turn away with indifference, or even speak of the tree with 
 contempt, as but a commonplace piece of timber after all. 
 Taking Scott, however, as not merely a writer of verse, but as 
 a great power in literature, as one standing before the world 
 for many years, who poured forth the flood of his genius from 
 inexhaustible reservoirs of imagination, wit, sense, humour, 
 and inventive power, all of them ready to his hand, I cannot 
 but wonder at the tone in which I hear him spoken of some- 
 times. One reason of this I suspect to be, that his depreda- 
 tors, having but little time to ' spare from contemporary poets 
 and novelists, just glance at him grudgingly, and justify their 
 neglect by criticising his works before they have read them. 
 In the meantime, however, it is well to bear in mind that Scott, 
 together with Byron, stands in one respect apart from and 
 above all rivalry. 
 
 Our nineteenth century, here in England, has many names 
 to be proud of. Shelley recalls to us the fabled bird of para- 
 dise a bird with wings strong enough to soar for ever, but 
 
 G 
 
82 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 footless, and therefore incapable of touching earth. In spite of, 
 or perhaps in some degree because of, this incapacity, he floats 
 through the lights of heaven Mike an unbodied joy/ and bathes 
 himself in the golden haze ' that gathers above the sunken sun/ 
 but it is for English eyes alone that he has done so. 
 
 Wordsworth, again, proves how deeply he felt, how pro- 
 foundly he sympathised with, both God's nature and man's 
 nature. We at home discern that it was open to him to have 
 become one of the greatest among moral philosophers, if he 
 had not preferred to bid for immortality as a poet ; but Europe 
 knows him not. The gifts of Coleridge, again, were various 
 and exquisite ; and, alas for that irreparable loss ! the un- 
 paralleled promise of Keats, nipped in the bud, has left behind 
 it a sorrowful yearning, and a sense of deprivation within us 
 that nothing can fill up. 
 
 Still there is this fact, not to be set aside or escaped from. 
 Two voices, and two voices only, in that glorious age of English 
 literature, have made their way beyond our island barriers, to 
 the ear and the heart of the world. The voice of Byron, I 
 mean, and the voice of Scott. Of Byron it is not now neces- 
 sary to speak ; but whatever may be said of him, Scott, at any 
 rate, owed this distinction to no personal qualities or casual 
 events, but to his literary power alone. Now this is a dis- 
 tinction easily perhaps overvalued. We cannot, however, treat 
 it as one of small importance. I should not of course accept 
 the opinion of Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, or the like, with 
 reference to the comparative merits of two English poets, as an 
 opinion that ought to override our verdict at home. But still, 
 from one point of view, the judgment of contemporary foreigners 
 has a relationship to the judgment of our own posterity not to 
 be overlooked. The eyes of both are removed, though in 
 different ways, to a certain distance, and therefore the mere 
 blossoms of a style in fashion for the moment, produce but 
 little effect upon them. That which belongs, not to one gener- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 83 
 
 ation or to one country, but to time and the world that which 
 rests upon foundations that are broad and deep, engages and 
 fixes their attention. Hence, if through some unexpected co- 
 incidence, some accidental similarity of grouping, or unforeseen 
 repetition, as it were, of history and the local circumstances of 
 life, there is found a kinship between the new lays and those 
 ancient lays that exercise dominion, not over this people or 
 that people, but over all the children of men, the result is 
 inevitable. We cannot wonder if foreign countries should, I 
 may say, anticipate posterity, and the hearts of all, far and near, 
 incline themselves to such a revival of song. They incline to 
 it because it seems to touch upon chords beloved already, and 
 to speak with the voice of an old familiar friend. Now after 
 the immortal ballads of Homer, there are no ballad poems so 
 full of the spirit of Homer as these of Scott. In his hands, the 
 noble instrument that had hardly uttered a sound since poetry 
 was young becomes again a thing of life. 
 
 This was not because Scott imitated Homer because he 
 was influenced by the reading of Homer because he hoped 
 to rival Homer; but simply because they both echoed the 
 feelings of, and derived their inspiration from, two states of 
 society, widely separated indeed by time, but not otherwise 
 unlike. Mediaeval Scotland (the observation is not mine), with 
 its septs and clans, looking up as they did in unquenchable 
 loyalty to their hereditary chieftains (sons of Zeus, as it were, 
 in their eyes, like the primitive sovereigns of Hellas), had much 
 in common with the armed confederation that gathered itself 
 together in front of Troy. 
 
 The bold pirate of the ^Egean seas may strike the imagina- 
 tion more than the Borderers harrying Northumberland when 
 their stock of beef ran low, or the Highland onset that smote 
 some Saxon village like an earthquake, to leave it 
 
 A mass of ashes slak'd with blood ] 
 
 but the point of honour was the same in both the hope of 
 
 G 2 
 
84 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 profit was the same the impulses that urged them on the life 
 they led, the distinctions they coveted, were the same in kind ; 
 in both countries also the traditions of the clan the great 
 deeds of those gone before the mighty names that starred their 
 unwritten history, were entrusted to bards or rhapsodists, who 
 lent an additional charm by their recitations to the solemn festi- 
 vals of the tribe. The Seer, revealing his visions of hope or 
 dread, supplies the place of the Delphic priestess, or the oracular 
 voice at Dodona with its mysterious words of encouragement 
 and warning. Out of the one set of influences rose up Homer,, 
 out of the other rose up Scott. They were nourished upon 
 similar intellectual food, open to similar imaginative impres- 
 sions, and therefore they are poets, however different in rank, 
 belonging pretty much to the same order. The Nile, to which 
 Homer has been often compared, may roll over vaster spaces 
 a more imposing volume of waters than the Tweed ; but, at 
 any rate, they are equally rivers, derived from natural forces,, 
 and obedient to natural laws identical for both. 
 
 Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus. 
 
 To such occasional somnolence Scott, I am afraid, is more- 
 prone even than his illustrious predecessor. 
 
 The fact is, I apprehend, that Scott, like all writers of a true 
 and living ballad like all genuine narrative poets, possessed an 
 instinctive confidence in his power to interest the audience 
 before him ; he troubles himself but little therefore in polishing 
 bad lines, or in accumulating exquisite poetical phrases to fill 
 up the interstices of his tale. His great object is to get on, to 
 avoid delay, the mother of dulness. His metaphors are short 
 cuts to his readers' understanding, and his poetry, when it 
 shines shines as the armour of a knight ready for battle under 
 the morning sun ; not like the purple robes or cloth of gold 
 that encumber men at a lamp-lighted festival. To this desire 
 of his not to waste time he sacrifices, I daresay, a good deal ; 
 but he thought, or rather perhaps he felt, that although he 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 85 
 
 might improve particular passages and write generally in a 
 more finished style, he should run the risk of chilling and 
 stiffening the march of his story as it moved along. Hence it 
 seems as if his occasional slovenliness, his frequent slovenliness 
 if you will, of metre and diction was accepted by him de- 
 liberately, and was not the result of a want of power to write 
 otherwise. This may be inferred, I think, first, from the ease 
 and grace with which he manages (if he chooses to under- 
 take them) metres more difficult and complicated than his 
 favourite octo- syllabic ; and secondly, from the sure-footed 
 certainty with which he becomes a poet, and a great poet, 
 whenever any adequate occasion summons up his genius to 
 cope with it. The Arab horse in Job went often, I daresay, 
 languidly enough in his slow paces ; but the breath of the ap- 
 proaching battle never failed to clothe his neck with thunder; 
 so is it at all times with Scott. 
 
 Overleaping, however, the gulf of three thousand years, and 
 looking at Scott no longer as the legitimate heir of Homer, but 
 as a modern English poet, we may pronounce that a certain 
 portion of his early career was fortunate for himself, and still 
 more fortunate for the world. One of the most usual charac- 
 teristics of genius particularly of genius as it comes out of 
 the chrysalis, to struggle upwards unevenly on half- developed 
 wings is the instinctive tendency to separate itself from ordin- 
 ary companionship. Its delight is in its own thoughts, in 
 secret dreams, and fanciful pre-occupations that rise up from 
 within, overshadowing the common daylight, and shutting out 
 the ordinary interests of the street and the market-place. Now 
 the mischief to a young man of such reserve of such visionary 
 seclusion within the recesses of his own mind, is this that 
 although, for a time, it may seem to foster and animate some 
 special gift, it tends afterwards to impair the temper, and dull 
 the edge of the very genius that it has helped to create. 
 
 A mathematician like Newton, indeed, who deals with ab- 
 
86 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 stractions and nothing but abstractions may perhaps remain,, 
 at whatever cost to himself, still without much loss to mankind, 
 a mere intellectual engine ; he may spin his original thoughts 
 and discoveries out of his own bowels, and link them together 
 from within, as the spider spins and fastens her web. But the 
 principal subject-matter with which a poet has to deal is the 
 life of man ; and he who shrinks from that life, and dwells 
 apart, in however gorgeous a cloud-land of his own, is pro tanto 
 weakened and maimed in his capacity to excel ; still more, 
 perhaps, in his capacity to influence others. Now if ever there 
 was a youth of simple masculine tastes and straightforward 
 energy of character, Scott was that youth. So much so, that 
 if to him unbroken health and the natural activity of boyhood 
 had been granted from his first years, we may well believe, from 
 all we know of him, that he would have thrown himself body 
 and soul into some career of action. He must always have 
 been a leader of men, but it probably would have been 
 
 O'er grim Busaco's iron ridge, 
 
 or on the deck of a seventy-four not from Paternoster Row, 
 or Constable's bookshop in Edinburgh, that his leadership 
 would have been made manifest. As it happened, however, 
 early lameness and serious ill health spitting of blood, the 
 repeated breaking of blood vessels ill-health, in short, threaten- 
 ing to end in premature death, afflicted his childhood. Thus, 
 while the foundations of his mind were being laid, against his 
 will, against his very nature, he fell exactly into conditions such 
 as genius of a more effeminate type selects, and cherishes and 
 clings to. He was thrown upon solitary fancies and solitary 
 reading. He had to commune with his own soul, and to find 
 a relaxation, denied to him through ordinary channels, in the 
 indulgence of impassioned feelings, and in the silent and se- 
 questered play of a creative imagination. These things did 
 their work for him ; they brought all that they bring to those 
 who think that the author, in proportion to his merit and sue- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 87 
 
 cess, is entitled to usurp upon the qualities of the man . Scott, 
 however, was of a different opinion : The moment his strength 
 returned, the moment the world was open to him again, he 
 ceased to dream, he ceased to care for solitude, and what 
 Cowper somewhere calls * the pleasure of poetic pains ; ' his 
 natural pursuits were eagerly resumed, and all his natural 
 forces, put aside till then, reappeared at once in full operation. 
 Hence, he united the keen interest of youth in all that life can 
 promise or give in all the raw materials, we perhaps may say, 
 of Poetry and Art ; with those tendencies habitual to genius, 
 which, if yielded to overmuch, are apt to defeat, more or less, 
 the very purposes they ought to serve. The hackneyed line of 
 Terence 
 
 I lomo sum, human! nihil a me alienum puto 
 
 a line well worthy of being meditated upon by many who 
 devote themselves to literature, became the rule of his conduct, 
 and his guide to the sources of a genuine inspiration. In such 
 a progress he added to his fine talents and quick sensibilities a 
 robust good sense, a breadth of view, and a masculine simplicity 
 of mind, not always to be found in the genus irritabile vatum. 
 
 From these causes also, combined, no doubt, with a native 
 generosity of temper, hewas a much better acceptor and ad- 
 mirer of what his contemporaries produced than some other 
 distinguished men of the time. Whether it was to encourage 
 the young, to attract notice to the humble and obscure, or to 
 support and animate some half-desponding veteran of litera- 
 ture, he was always ready with his cheerful approbation, with his 
 advice, with his assistance, and, when necessary, with his purse. 
 He did not insult Wordsworth and Coleridge, like Byron, or 
 splenetically under-value Byron, like Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge ; far from it ; whatever was good of its kind he recognised 
 instinctively and at once. Whether it came from Johnson or 
 Crabbe, from the Ettrick Shepherd or Wilson, from Miss 
 Edgeworth or Miss Austen, his generous sympathy was alive 
 
88 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 
 
 and eager to meet it ; nay, more : in the midst of his own in- 
 cessant labours, under the oppression of exhausting toil and 
 constant anxiety, he could always find time to bestow upon 
 lesser men, who had done well in their degree, some word of 
 honest praise, or some useful suggestion. One great indis- 
 cretion, no doubt, he committed an indiscretion that recalls his 
 own dictum, 'how the most sensible men often crowd the whole 
 amount of folly, that is due from them as average human 
 beings, into a single action, whilst by men of smaller capacity 
 it is distributed over a long series of details, in a long series of 
 years.' One astonishing error, I repeat, precipitated him, when 
 at the height of his prosperity, into sudden ruin, and darkened 
 all the closing years of his life I mean, of course, that he en- 
 tangled himself in commercial speculations with the Ballantynes. 
 But we may yet say of this disaster, now that the sorrow is past 
 and gone, Without that fatal mistake we never should have 
 known the iron strength of his resolution or the inveterate 
 nobleness of his temper. If he had gone to his grave, from 
 those restless and glittering scenes of anxious enjoyment 
 through which he was passing when the blow fell, we should 
 have loved and admired his memory, no doubt ; but we should 
 never have regarded the prosperous author with as deep and 
 warm an interest as we do regard the hero and martyr ; as we 
 regard him, who in the hour of trial, refused to accept all 
 doubtful facilities all offers of a questionable compromise 
 who sacrificed ease and health and comfort, nay, who sacrificed 
 life itself, in order that he might walk straight along the path of 
 duty, and uphold his honour to the end, without a stain. 
 
 It cannot be necessary to recall to you at any great length 
 the first steps of Walter Scott's literary career. He began, we 
 all know, as a painstaking author, who worked on in obscurity, 
 rather than as a great original genius. He edited l Dryden,' he 
 edited ' Swift,' he presided over the Annual Register of Edin- 
 burgh. Besides all this taskwork, however, he collected, as a 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 89 
 
 labour of love, and began to publish in 1802 the ' Minstrelsy of 
 the Scottish Border.' This last undertaking, though it might 
 be looked upon as one that belongs at least as much to an 
 archaeologist or historian as to a poet, prepared his way, never- 
 theless, for more serious poetical efforts at a future time. 
 During these years of preparation he also gave to the world 
 his first original poems that is to say, several powerful ballads, 
 well known now, ' Glenfinlas,' < The Eve of St. John,' ' The 
 Gray Brother,' ' Cadyow Castle/ and others. These early pro- 
 ductions, received as they were, must have encouraged him to 
 hope for success in more important literary ventures. But 
 besides the actual verses then written, the studies and researches 
 into which he was drawn filled his imagination with the spirit 
 of all those ancient traditions that cling to the soil. Each 
 breath of song, each yet unextinguished superstition,, all the 
 unforgotten legends of faithful love, of rugged fidelity, or of 
 wild revenge, floated into his mind. There, in that congenial 
 home, concentrated, perhaps, and consolidated by the pressure 
 of ordinary life, they lay hid to shape and crystallise themselves 
 by degrees, even as the unernbodied vapours of the diamond 
 ripen slowly to gems in the silence of their native mine. 
 
 Moreover, we must not forget that Scott practised at the Bar 
 for some years, with a fair prospect of success ; and throughout 
 life made, as he said himself, literature his crutch, and not his 
 staff. In so strong a man, it was, I think, very advantageous 
 that such should be the case. Weaker natures may be dis- 
 tracted and broken by the conflicting claims of duty and incli- 
 nation. They may neglect their business, and yet neglect it in 
 vain, going languidly and remorsefully to their self-chosen 
 labours, because they are haunted by a shadow of the duties 
 that for their sake they have put aside. Scott, however, always 
 tried to do whatever was to be done as well as possible. He 
 prided himself on being an efficient clerk of session, an influen- 
 tial sheriff, a barrister who knew the law, a country gentleman 
 
90 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 fully competent to understand and perform the duties of his 
 station. And to no man would he have been less obliged than 
 to one who sought, in deference to his literary powers, to carry 
 him across those ordinary difficulties in the path, over which he 
 chose to stride on his own legs. In this manner, without look- 
 ing behind him, or hesitating, or wasting time on fruitless 
 regrets, he obeyed the Roman precept, ' Hoc age ; ' or as the 
 Scripture phrases it, ' Whatever thou hast to do, do it with all 
 thy might' This being so. he was enabled to leap back into 
 literature with a strong rebound, as it were, and a living elas- 
 ticity, all the greater in proportion to the pressure exercised 
 against himself and his own fancies. We may well imagine 
 therefore, if his ambition had not been turned into another 
 channel by his solitary dreams whilst a young invalid, that he 
 would have chosen to devote himself to the Bar, instead of to 
 authorship, and sought to distinguish himself as a public man. 
 It is an interesting question to think over, whether, in such case, 
 he would ever have achieved a first-rate success. 
 
 'My own belief is that the orator and the poet, if they are^/f/z/- 
 timi at all, as Cicero, or let us say frankly, as the Latin Grammar 
 has it, are so very near of kin that the relationship is within the 
 prohibited degrees. Hence, except in the case of some special 
 and almost infallible dispensation, they are never united. The 
 poet touches a string, and leaves it to vibrate in the minds of 
 his hearers. In proportion as the touch is delicate and slight, 
 and yet the consequent vibrations numerous, lasting, and 
 intense, exactly in that proportion is his power shown. But the 
 orator who tried to do this, would ruin himself at once. The 
 occasions are rare indeed when he can lean upon the sympa- 
 thising emotions of his audience so confidingly as to feel that 
 the slightest hint will at once be caught up the most evanes- 
 cent allusions universally accepted and understood. The power 
 of driving home by one blow after another, his opinions, his 
 arguments, his passions the power of capturing by successive 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 91 
 
 assaults, all the detached redoubts and outworks of the place, 
 and from thence bringing up his artillery to crush the main de- 
 fences of some strong fortress that he has undertaken to storm 
 -these are his methods of war, this is the strength on which he 
 relies. 
 
 I am far from denying that Cicero may be thus far right. 
 The ultimate elements of both arts are much the same. Imagi- 
 nation, passion, power of sympathy, power of language, are 
 needed by the poet and the orator alike only by the determi- 
 nation, either of some accident, or perhaps of some original 
 difference in the foundations of the character, these apparently 
 identical qualities form a different chemical combination. It 
 may well be that a great orator could turn himself into a poet, 
 and a great poet into an orator, by study, thought, and practice. 
 But even then, not so as to possess both faculties in full perfec- 
 tion at once. I believe that just as the bard's rhetoric became 
 more effective, so would his ethereal spirit of poetry thicken and 
 grow coarse ; just as the orator's verses lifted themselves into 
 real song, would the impact of his spoken eloquence strike more 
 feebly and drop to the ground, a tdum imbelle sine ictu. 
 
 Enough, however, of this. Whether Scott would have suc- 
 ceeded at the Bar, or in Parliament, if he had addicted himself 
 to pursuits other than literary, has long been an idle specu- 
 lation. * The Lay of the Last Minstrel ' took the public favour 
 by storm, and left him hardly any choice but to proceed in a 
 career so brilliantly and prosperously begun. This success, 
 great as it was, might well have been anticipated by any judi- 
 cious reader of the ballads referred to above. There is also a 
 magnificent fragment given us, I believe, for the first time, 
 by Lockhart in his well-known ' Life and Memoirs of Scott/ 
 A poem unfinished, indeed, but quite as noble, both in concep- 
 tion and execution, as any part of ' The Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel.' In all these compositions it is noticeable, with how fine a 
 spiritual electricity Scott's imagination responds to those unseen 
 
92 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 influences, which steal across the mysterious something, sun- 
 dering, as the Laureate tells us, ghosts and demons from ' sha- 
 dow-casting men.' In ' Glenfinlas/ for instance, we cannot but 
 feel with what consummate skill, or, as I should prefer to say, 
 with how sure an instinct, with how noble an unconsciousness, 
 the grief-stricken prophet Moy, forlorn of hope and happiness, 
 is prepared for an intercourse with phantoms. 
 
 Whether, according to the views of the poet, the conditions 
 of mind under which Moy is suffering create such phantoms for 
 the mind itself from within, or whether, by exposing the nerves 
 naked and bare to some supernatural touch that cannot take 
 effect upon ordinary men, his soul becomes vulnerable to them 
 from without, we know not, and do not care to know. Any- 
 how, the gloomy spirit of prophecy settles upon him like a 
 cloud. Before he lets his brave and joyous companion, accom- 
 panied by his favourite hounds, depart on his doubtful errand, 
 the seer is already overmastered and chilled by an ominous 
 foresight. Hence, from the moment Ronald leaves him, that 
 plague, well known to many (the waiting I mean under cir- 
 cumstances of reasonable or unreasonable alarm, in impotent 
 anxiety, whilst the pressure of increasing terror fastens itself 
 upon the nerves and the will) kept paralysing his animal 
 spirits, and choking his natural courage, more and more. 
 How much, then, must these shuddering apprehensions have 
 grown upon him, when those (as none knew better than 
 Scott) patterns of ideal fidelity, the dogs, who would have 
 watched over their prostrate master, without food or sleep, 
 through the fiery tumult of a battle-field, or fought away wolves 
 and vultures from his corpse at the solitary mountain tarn, 
 forgot their duty, deserted their beloved lord in the face of some 
 unknown and inconceivable danger, and slunk home in an 
 agony of selfish fear, just as if they had been men ? Nor was 
 this all. The harp naturally, I suppose, inanimate, seems to 
 have drawn into itself, through communication with the soul 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 93 
 
 / 
 
 of man, an element of sensitive and sympathetic life, and 
 trembles half-con sciously, beneath the influence of that name- 
 less terror : 
 
 Within an hour return'd each hound ; 
 
 In rush'd the rousers of the deer ; 
 They howl'd in melancholy sound, 
 Then closely couch'd beside the Seer. 
 . 
 
 Sudden the hounds erect their ears, 
 
 And sudden cease their moaning howl ; 
 
 Close press'd to Moy, they mark their fears 
 By shivering limbs and stifled growl. 
 
 Untouch'd, the harp began to ring, 
 
 As softly, slowly, oped the door ; 
 And shook responsive every string, 
 
 As a light footfall press'd the floor. 
 
 And by the watch-fire's glimmering light, 
 Close by the minstrel's side was seen 
 
 An huntress maid, in beauty bright, 
 All dripping wet her robes of green. 
 
 All dripping wet her garments seem, 
 Chilled was her cheek, her bosom bare, 
 
 As, bending o'er the dying gleam, 
 
 She wrung the moisture from her hair. 
 
 It was a summer night, and as yet there is no mention of 
 rain or tempest This is true ; but then, her mother was the 
 lady of the flood that mischievous drowning fairy whom all 
 men dread this one trace, accordingly, of her unearthly parent- 
 age she was unable to hide. There seems to be some recog- 
 nised law of magic, as here in the dripping garments of this 
 unreal woman, as in the cloven hoof of the legendary Satan and 
 the like, from which demon creatures making themselves visible 
 on earth cannot escape. There must, I mean, be something 
 still retained as a mark of separation something to warn the 
 unwary mortal whom they address. 
 
 However completely such indications might be thrown 
 away upon a youth like Ronald, self-deceived through his pas- 
 sions, they were not likely to cheat the eyes of the gifted chief- 
 
.94 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 tain, sundered by thought and grief from his kind of the doomed 
 foreteller, to whom 
 
 Full many a charm and spell was known, 
 Which wandering spirits shriek to hear, 
 
 And many a lay of potent tone, 
 That is not meant for mortal ear. 
 
 Upon him, therefore, the studied allurements of the seeming 
 huntress were wasted, although 
 
 With maiden blush she softly said, 
 
 * O gentle huntsman, hast thou seen, 
 In deep Glenfinlas' moonlight glade, 
 
 A lovely maid in vest of green ? ' 
 
 We need not dwell on the final stanzas, nor on the dreadful 
 fate of the chieftain, who returns no more ; but we may well 
 accept this whole legend, as interpreting, by the voice of a true 
 poet, the spirit which broods over the mist-covered fells of 
 Scotland, and moulds from his cradle the spirit of the Celtic 
 mountaineer. 
 
 The superstition, however, upon which the next ballad 
 ' The Eve of St. John ' rests, is deeper and more universal, 
 and, as a natural consequence, less dependent upon local influ- 
 ences. It arises for the poet now, as it always has arisen, and will, 
 I believe, always continue to arise, out of instincts unquenchable 
 in the heart of man. I am speaking, as doubtless you know 
 already, of a belief in the return, or, if you will, in the final 
 appearance, half-earthly, half- spiritual, of the dead or dying, 
 under the strong urgency of passionate affection. These aspects 
 show themselves at a distance from the scene of death, to those 
 upon whom they desire to fix a last lingering look, or else to 
 impress a last ineffaceable presence. They do this just as they 
 have passed, or are in the act of passing, to a life beyond. This 
 is a form of apparition, capable of being used effectively even 
 now, whenever the hand of a master bends itself to the task. It 
 is effective for this reason : events of such a nature are vouched 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 95 
 
 for so often, and on authority seemingly so unexceptionable, as not 
 unfrequently to stagger every-day scepticism ; so that each fresh 
 instance (and they are poured upon us continually) meets with 
 no stronger contradiction than a shake of the head, and a semi- 
 articulate protest. How this operates it is easy to conceive. 
 Take ' Macbeth ' for instance. The popular belief in witchcraft 
 gave to the witchcraft portions of the play a deep and living 
 interest an interest such as we are obliged to build up for our- 
 selves by a laborious exercise of the historical imagination. 
 Now, though for us witchcraft no longer exists, this later super- 
 stition retains substance enough to animate a poem with real 
 colour and warmth. In Shakspere's time, I daresay there were 
 many sensible men, who gave as little credit to witches then as 
 we give to ghosts now ; but still they were not far enough 
 away beyond the belief to escape altogether from the last lin- 
 gering touches of that old superstition. Witches were seen 
 everywhere not only in remote villages, blighting cattle and 
 terrifying neighbours by the help of the Devil ; but also in 
 Courts of Assize, holding up their hands when called upon, 
 without any assistance from that perfidious ally. Nay, by taking 
 a little trouble, you might get burned as a witch or a wizard 
 yourself. Here was reality with a vengeance reality which it 
 was dangerous, if not difficult, to impugn. Accordingly, in 
 dealing with such subjects, the poet, whether credulous or in- 
 credulous himself, worked in harmony with the spirit of his 
 time, and was inspired by a reflected, if not by an actual faith. 
 So now most educated people would explain the legends float- 
 ing about society, as to mysterious appearances of the loved 
 and lost, before they were known to be lost, by referring them 
 to states of nervous excitement, or to accidental coincidences. 
 They would, at any rate, insist upon the undoubted fact that 
 those only among these visions, upon which the seal of confir- 
 mation is afterwards set, are remembered and recorded, whilst 
 other similar fancies, not being so confirmed, drop into oblivion 
 
96 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 and trouble us no more. Still, when all is said that can be 
 said, there remains a tremulous inclination to listen, at least, to 
 such stories, and of this tremulous inclination Scott has made 
 use with such force and spirit as to sweep away all criticism 
 and doubt before it. 
 
 My lady, each night, sought the lonely light 
 
 That burns on the wild Watchfold ; 
 For, from height to height, the beacons bright 
 
 Of the English foemen told. 
 
 The bittern clamour'd from the moss, 
 
 The wind blew loud and shrill ; 
 Yet the craggy pathway she did cross 
 
 To the eiry Beacon Hill. 
 
 
 
 The second night I kept her in sight 
 Till to the fire she came, 
 
 And, by Mary's might ! an Armed Knight 
 Stood by the lonely flame. 
 
 * 
 
 ' At the lone midnight hour, when bad spirits have power, 
 
 In thy chamber will I be.' 
 With that he was gone, and my lady left alone, 
 
 And no more did I see. 
 
 There is, no doubt, some slight difference between this 
 legend and the ordinary form of such legends, but still it is the 
 same in essence, still it recognises the power of love, as the one 
 power capable of bridging over the gulf that separates life from 
 death, and explains for us, by the help of the poet, how things 
 undreamt of in our philosophy may yet be possible, though we do 
 not accept them as true. The phantom of the knight, who has 
 just been murdered by a jealous husband, feels, even beyond the 
 grave, that silent evocation emanating from his mistress's pas- 
 sionate will and intense desire will and desire that go forth 
 unconsciously into the place of souls, seeking, and finding, 
 and drawing back to her side the loved one wherever he may 
 be. Accordingly, he is there standing at the usual trysting- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 97 
 
 place, together with the unfaithful wife. He is not, however, 
 unseen, a page watches them, and listens to their talk as related 
 above. 
 
 After this the Eve of Saint John arrives, a deep stupor falls 
 upon the Baron, and the terrified lady sees, as she thinks, her 
 lover drawing near in ignorance of her husband's return. She 
 is, however, soon undeceived. The phantom unfolds all that 
 is necessary for her to learn, and the Poem ends with the 
 following impressive stanzas : 
 
 ' At our trysting place, for a certain space, 
 
 I must wander to and fro ; 
 But I had not had power to come to thy bower 
 
 Hadst thou not conjured me so.' 
 
 Love master'd fear her brow she cross'd ; 
 
 ' How, Richard, hast thou sped? 
 And art thou saved, or art thou lost ?' 
 
 The vision shook his head ! 
 
 ' Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life ; 
 
 So bid thy lord believe : 
 That lawless love is guilt above, 
 
 This awful sign receive.' 
 
 He laid his left palm on an oaken beam ; 
 
 His right upon her hand ; 
 The lady shrank, and fainting sank, 
 
 For it scorch'd like a fiery brand. 
 
 The sable score of fingers four 
 
 Remains on that beam impress'd ; 
 And for evermore that lady wore 
 
 A band about her wrist. 
 
 There is a nun in Dryburgh bower, 
 
 Ne'er looks upon the sun ; 
 There is a monk in Melrose tower, 
 
 He speaketh word to none. 
 
 'Cadyow Castle' is very spirited and powerful; but it belongs 
 to a different kind of poetry altogether, being a ballad drawn 
 from real history. Except in point of the colouring, which is 
 
 H 
 
98 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 certainly true to nature, and probably not untrue, even as to 
 the minuter facts of the case, it differs little from the orthodox 
 prose account : Accordingly the supernatural is not touched 
 upon at all. We have to deal with the embittered hearts of 
 men and the furious passions (we have seen them at work in 
 our own day, though happily not in our own country) which 
 arise out of defeat and broken hope, and a baffled spirit in civil 
 war. 1 From this point of view, the savage joy of the murderer, 
 as he looks back upon his successful crime, is pourtrayed with 
 Scott's usual force. His vigorous conception, indeed, of. the 
 whole scene will continue to produce upon those readers (a 
 somewhat oppressed and down-trodden class) who value in 
 verse picturesque vividness and just thinking above what is 
 called profound thinking who value simple and striking poetry 
 above elaborate philosophical rhetoric, the full effect intended 
 by its author. 
 
 From the wild Border's humbled side, 
 
 In haughty triumph marched he, 
 Whilst Knox relaxed his bigot pride, 
 
 And smiled the traitorous pomp to see. 
 
 But can stern Power, with all his vaunt, 
 
 Or Pomp, with all her courtly glare, 
 The settled heart of vengeance daunt, 
 
 Or change the purpose of despair ? 
 
 Dark Morton, girt with many a spear, 
 
 Murder's foul minion, led the van ; 
 And clashed their broadswords in the rear 
 
 The wild Macfarlane's plaided clan. 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 'Mid pennoned spears, a steely grove, 
 
 Proud Murray's plumage floated high ; 
 Scarce could his trampling charger move, 
 
 So close the minions crowded nigh. 
 
 All these precautions are idle against the adventurer who 
 carries his life in his hand, ready to die if need be, but sternly 
 determined not to swerve from his long-meditated purpose by 
 
 1 refer of course to the assassination of President Lincoln. 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 99 
 
 so much as a hair's breadth. All these signs of power there- 
 fore, all these semblances of protection around the destined 
 victim, serve only to embroider, as it were, the murderer's 
 triumph, and to enhance his gloomy exultation. 
 
 The last of Scott's ballads which I shall notice here is not, 
 I think, included in the common editions of his works. The 
 superstition on which it rests, though not the same as that re- 
 ferred to in 'The Eve of Saint John,' is hardly less universal. It 
 is based upon the magical efficacy of words spoken, either under 
 the influence of intense and bitter passion ; or, at any rate, in 
 harmony with strange and solemn conjunctures, beyond the 
 reach of our human will, or human knowledge. It takes various 
 forms, as for instance, the form of unwilling or unconscious 
 prophecy. I need not remind you of the well-known Scriptural 
 question, ' Art thou King of the Jews ? ' taken together with 
 the Divine answer, ' Thou hast said it.' In other words, our 
 Saviour declares, ' The question comes from you in mockery ; 
 but a power that you wot not of has overmastered your words 
 and filled them though intended only to convey a momen- 
 tary sneer, with a truth immortally the same through all the 
 ages to come/ There is, however, another form of the same 
 mysterious instinct and with this we are more immediately 
 concerned. It is exemplified in that well-known proverb, 
 * Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.' This proverb 
 originally implied, I suppose, that a temper in human beings 
 overpassing the permitted limits of human frailty, and trespass- 
 ing upon qualities belonging, in their nature, to the spirit of 
 absolute evil, lays men open, as creatures abandoning God, to 
 an evil influence immediately. It marks them off as belong- 
 ing to the class under a demoniacal power, and bestows upon 
 them the blessings of the wicked genii, which, as the Eastern 
 apothegm tells us, are curses in disguise. Upon this tradition 
 this superstition, if you will the noble ballad I am referring 
 to depends for its interest. He who suffers therein from the 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 malice of the fiend, unconsciously evoked, is one of those 
 Puritan enthusiasts of the seventeenth century, hunted down 
 for his opinions by Claverhouse and the Tories. The moral 
 lesson to be derived from his fate is perhaps this : That he 
 who surrenders himself to unchristian rancour and a ferocious 
 desire of revenge, cannot escape from the consequences that 
 wait upon these passions, even when they hide themselves 
 under the mask of religion. A mysterious personage tempts the 
 fugitive into a gloomy cavern by the hope of revenge and the 
 promise of empire, but his courage fails him, and he is cast 
 forth again to die. 
 
 The brand he forsook, and the horn he took 
 
 To say a gentle sound ; 
 But so wild a blast, from the bugle brast, 
 
 That the cavern rocked around. 
 
 With clank, and clang, that cavern rang ; 
 
 The steeds did stamp and neigh ; 
 And loud was the yell, as each warrior fell 
 
 Starts up with whoop and cry. 
 
 ' Woe, woe,' they cried, ' thou caitiff coward, 
 
 That ever thou wert born 
 Why drew ye not the knightly sword, 
 
 Before ye blew the horn ? ' 
 
 The finest stanzas, however, are those which contain the de- 
 scription of the slumbering army, waiting to be roused by the 
 appointed master of the spell. 
 
 He led him through an iron door, 
 
 And up a winding stair ; 
 And in wild amaze did the wanderer gaze 
 
 On the sight which opened there. 
 
 Through the gloomy night flashed ruddy light, 
 
 A thousand torches glow. 
 The cave rose high, like a vaulted sky, 
 
 O'er stalls in double row. 
 
 In every stall of that endless hall 
 
 Stood a steed in barbing bright. 
 At the foot of each steed, all arm'd save the head, 
 
 Lay stretch'd a stalwart knight. 
 
1 > 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 WALTER SCOTT. I0i 
 
 In each mailed hand was a naked brand ; 
 
 As they lay on the black bull's hide, 
 Each visage stern did upwards turn, 
 
 With eyeballs fixed and wide. 
 
 The casque hung near each cavalier ; 
 
 The plumes waved mournfully 
 At every tread, which the wanderer made, 
 
 Through the Hall of Gramarye. 
 
 And onward seen in lustre sheen 
 
 Still lengthening to the sight, 
 Through the endless hall, stood steeds in stall, 
 
 And by each lay a sable knight. 
 
 Still as the dead lay each horseman dread, 
 
 And moved nor limb nor tongue j 
 Each steed stood stiff as an earth-fast cliff, 
 
 Nor hoof nor bridle rung. 
 
 We have thus far accompanied this great man to the period 
 of his life when he first descended into that arena where he 
 reigned so long, and won so many triumphs. With what tropi 
 cal rapidity he flooded everything around him in light, cannot 
 be unknown to anyone here ; nor can you be ignorant either of 
 all that followed ; how the winds beat and the storm arose 
 how the darkness of misfortune encompassed him round, to 
 drown all that early radiance in melancholy vapours, and cloud 
 the setting of his day. There is something, I have always 
 fancied, of that unconscious impulse towards prophecy spoken 
 of just above, in a famous chapter of his ' Antiquary.' I mean 
 where he describes at length a stormy sunset a stormy sunset 
 after a brilliant morning after a brilliant, though harassed 
 and struggling afternoon. He seems to rehearse in that chap- 
 ter his own career to paint his own future fortunes, and inevi- 
 table fate. It is true that he compares the dying sun before 
 him to a monarch and not to a poet ; but in that metaphor, 
 seemingly foreign to himself, we feel that he is uttering, after 
 the manner of such blind predictions, a veiled but indisputable 
 truth. It is certain, no doubt, that he never wielded a common 
 
102 WALTER - SCOTT. 
 
 sceptre, that he never wore a mere golden crown ; but he lived 
 and died, nevertheless, a bom king of men. I hope you will 
 pardon me if I read the passage over to you. 
 
 The Sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level 
 ocean, and gilded the accumulation of huge clouds through which he had 
 travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like 
 misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire, or a falling monarch. 
 Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the 
 massive congregation of vapours, forming, out of their unsubstantial gloom, 
 the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with 
 purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. 
 
 
 
 The disk of the Sun became almost totally obscured, ere he had 
 altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early and livid shade of darkness 
 belted the serene twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to 
 rise, but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its 
 effects became visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on 
 shore. The mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift 
 itself in larger ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose 
 high in foam among the breakers, and burst upon the beach with a sound 
 resembling distant thunder. 
 
 It was thus, like the sunset here made his own, whilst he 
 still fought hard to the last against such ominous signs against 
 such ever-increasing gloom that Walter Scott, to borrow Sir 
 Philip Sidney's noble image derived also from the sun, ' still 
 showing at intervals his greatest countenance in his lowest 
 estate,' went to his rest. 
 
103 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT CONTINUED. 
 
 To begin at once where I left off when we parted a month 
 ago. 
 
 1 The Lay of the Last Minstrel ' was Walter Scott's first step 
 out of the debateable land of literary amateurship, into those 
 regions which he was soon to claim as his own into the high 
 places of poetry, into wide-spread popularity, and still- enduring 
 renown. Remarkable, however, as the success of this work 
 may have been, it is scarcely entitled, -I think, to rank as a 
 whole with ' Marmion.' Though it is not without some re- 
 luctance, that Scott's sworn admirers are driven to accept 
 this conclusion. For such is the freshness and grace, such 
 the half-unconscious originality, of ' The Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel,' that it always retains, even for those who cannot 
 help setting other poems above it, a separate and peculiar 
 charm. 
 
 We picture to ourselves that Scott, whilst writing it, must 
 have felt a power within him growing day by day, a power like 
 the wind, blowing at will, and sending ships before it exultingly 
 into port. This kindling of the spirit, half animal and half 
 intellectual, seems to be like wine in his veins, making itself 
 perceptible in the ring of the verse, the careless grace of the 
 composition, and the unbroken swiftness of the narrative. 
 Moreover, in spite of this seeming carelessness and real ease, 
 
104 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 greater pains were taken with the diction and versification, by 
 Scott in this poem, thaji he ever condescended to take after- 
 wards. In ' Marmion,' and l The Lady of the Lake/ he was 
 advancing, as he well knew, to an assured victory. Here the 
 battle was still doubtful ; and therefore, like his own Lockesley 
 in l Ivanhoe ' (who shot, as you will remember, heedlessly 
 enough, when he had nothing to fear, but took care that his 
 bowstring was flawless and his arrows truly feathered on critical 
 occasions), Scott, in i The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' left com- 
 paratively little to chance. Even here, however, quite early 
 indeed in our companionship with him, a captious reader might 
 find something to cavil at ; for instance, I do not quite under- 
 stand the Poet's method of reasoning in these well-known 
 
 lines : 
 
 His wither'd cheeks and tresses grey 
 Seem'd to have known a better day. 
 
 Withered cheeks and tresses grey prove nothing, so far as I 
 know, about former fortunes, but if I were forced to conclude 
 from them, whether I would or no, I should rather infer that 
 the minstrel had been having a hard time of it, than a better 
 day. I may add, however, that I d'o not bring up such little 
 mistakes, if they are mistakes, as a charge against Scott in 
 particular. 
 
 It is astonishing what bad verses good, ay even great, poets 
 can write, without losing or endangering their reputation. The 
 mass of mankind,, for whom, after all, poetry is written, measure 
 a man by the sweep and reach of his spring-tides, and trouble 
 themselves but little about his low-water mark. Take Camp- 
 bell for instance ; he has left us perhaps a dozen immortal odes, 
 he has left us also a certain number of moderate compositions, 
 whilst as for the remainder of his work, a large remainder, it 
 would be gross flattery to call that even moderate. But who, 
 in his estimate of Campbell, attends to anything except what is 
 excellent ? Indeed, not to waste time upon lesser lights, ' Ali- 
 
WALTER SCOTT. . 105 
 
 quando bonus dormitat Homerus ' has passed into a proverb, 
 and of Shakspere himself, we know that 
 
 He wanted or forgot 
 The greatest art of all, the art to blot. 
 
 In point of fact, it is hard to name any considerable verse- 
 writer who is not full of faults, although the faults may not be 
 quite as obvious, or quite so much on the surface, as those of 
 Scott. Of our English poets, now in esteem, the only one, I 
 believe, who does not write poorly now and then, is the 
 Laureate ; and even with regard to him, I have heard it doubted, 
 whether, if he had surrendered himself more freely and spon- 
 taneously to the impulse of his genius, although his plumage 
 might have been somewhat less sleek and perfect, he would not 
 have soared higher upon a stronger wing. 
 
 To return, however, to the author more immediately before 
 us, it is necessary to recur to the formal poetical style of the 
 eighteenth century, in order fully to appreciate Scott's original 
 power, and to understand how his popularity swept over the 
 barren flats of an exhausted literary tradition, like the spate of 
 one of his own Highland rivers. His metrical romances at once 
 took possession of the public heart, in England as well as in 
 Scotland, and the Whig reviewers of Edinburgh, startled in the 
 midst of an old literary supremacy by this unexpected Tory 
 success, murmured with impotent dissatisfaction in vain. 
 
 It would indeed be most unjust to deny the high merit of 
 Cowper, a poet who may be put out of fashion for a moment, 
 but who never can be extinguished : still his sphere is some- 
 what narrow in comparison ; he was rather a solitary prophet, 
 profoundly impressed by a few noble thoughts and aspirations, 
 than a writer, dealing with the various emotions with the wide 
 circle of human life. 
 
 I must also admit that there were other poems loftier and 
 of rarer beauty, it may be, than those of Scott, already open to 
 the world already, I was going to say, published but, except 
 
106 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 in a technical and trading sense, published they were not. I am 
 far from denying that Wordsworth's actual position a position 
 reached by slow degrees, is in the main well deserved ; still I 
 plead guilty to a prejudice, a vulgar prejudice perhaps, in favour 
 of a poem that instantly publishes itself ; and if this universal 
 and eager acceptance of Scott's border epics became, after a 
 time, somewhat less universal, and less eager, we must recollect 
 that, by their very popularity, they gave an impulse to other 
 writers to Byron, to Moore, to a host of inferior imitators, who 
 rose up between Scott and the eye of the public, like after- 
 growths, surrounding and partly masking the original forest 
 tree. When I spoke of poems which, however excellent, failed 
 to obtain a hearing at once, I was not, of course, alluding to 
 Byron, his works published themselves fast enough in all con- 
 science. He may be even thought to have surpassed Scott in 
 his own line ; Scott appears to have thought so himself. And 
 yet, if we turn to Byron's Oriental tales, and take the best of 
 them (shall we say ' The Siege of Corinth J ?) for the purpose 
 of measuring it with ' Marmion,' I think, upon the whole, that 
 'Marmion' has the advantage. No doubt, when you pass 
 on to * Manfred,' to the Third and Fourth Cantos of ' Childe 
 Harold,' and to the better parts of i Don Juan,' Scott has little 
 to set against these masterpieces of his friend and rival. But it 
 was not in * Manfred ' or ' Don Juan/ it was in those Oriental 
 tales, that Byron's popularity culminated it was by their help 
 that he bet Scott, to use Scott's own homely expression, in 
 poetry. Now whether the victory was achieved afterwards or 
 not, To common eyes it was, up to that moment still uncertain, 
 and but for ' Waverley ' and his companions, Scott might still 
 have fought on, as far as I can see, with no unreasonable hope 
 of ultimate triumph. He was destined, however, to tread a 
 somewhat different path, and to reap his principal harvest on 
 another field ; of that hereafter. To return now to our text. 
 It is a great point in literary art to begin well; the necessity of 
 doing so has passed into a formal proverb : 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 107 
 
 Dimidium facti, qui bene coepit, habet. 
 
 Now, the grace and pathos of Scott's Introduction to ' The Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel ' at once predisposes every reader in his 
 favour even now. To his contemporaries, in addition to this, 
 it bore the stamp of genuine original power. As far as we are 
 concerned, the very currency of the coin, and the many spurious 
 imitations struck from it, have somewhat dimmed its splendour, 
 and impaired its character in that respect; still, though 
 Scott, like his own aged harper, may have known a better 
 day, that venerable and picturesque figure can never cease to 
 interest us : 
 
 The way was long, the wind was cold, 
 The Minstrel was in6rm and old : 
 
 
 
 
 The last of all the Bards was he, 
 
 Who sung of Border chivalry ; 
 
 For, welladay ! their date was fled, 
 
 His tuneful brethren all were dead ; 
 
 And he, neglected and oppress'd 
 
 Wish'd to be with them, and at rest. 
 
 No more on prancing palfrey borne, 
 
 He caroll'd light as lark at morn ; 
 
 No longer courted and caress'd, 
 
 High placed in hall, a welcome guest, 
 
 He pour'd, to lord and lady gay, 
 
 The unpremeditated lay : 
 
 Old times were changed, old manners gone ; 
 
 A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne ; 
 
 The bigots of the iron time 
 
 Had call'd his harmless art a crime. 
 
 A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor, 
 
 He begg'd his bread from door to door, 
 
 And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, 
 
 The harp a king had loved to hear. 
 
 The concluding lines of this celebrated Introduction are remark- 
 able, not only in themselves, but also because they awakened 
 an unforeseen and unhoped-for sympathy in the wearied soul of 
 Pitt. This great statesman has often been reproached with his 
 
io8 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 indifference to literature. His friends might perhaps reply that 
 the Pilot, in the act of weathering the storm, has but little time 
 to waste upon such distractions. The Memmi clara propago is 
 too intensely occupied with love for his country 
 
 Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti. 
 
 Nevertheless, even whilst his accumulated anxieties were slowly 
 wearing him down into his grave, even as he was looking 
 upon the gathering strength of the tempest, and closing, with a 
 broken heart, after one of Napoleon's annihilating victories, the 
 map of Europe for twenty years ; even then, we are told, he 
 was stolen away for a moment into Fairy land stolen away 
 from care and disease and swiftly advancing death, whilst he 
 repeated to himself, in charmed surprise, the lines at the end 
 the lines, I mean, describing the aged harper's embarrassment, 
 in the presence of those noble ladies, whom he had entreated, 
 perhaps rashly entreated, to listen to his song. ' This sort of 
 feeling,' said the great master of language (whom his enemies 
 ironically complimented as the man able to deliver a king's 
 speech offhand) ' I never could conceive as possible to be ex- 
 pressed in words,' and he quoted, with the delight of a school- 
 boy, the famous passage: 
 
 Perchance he wish'd his boon denied : 
 For, when to tune his harp he tried, 
 His trembling hand had lost the ease 
 Which marks security to please ; 
 And scenes, long past, of joy and pain 
 Came wildering o er his aged brain 
 He tried to tune his harp in vain ! 
 The pitying Duchess praised its chime, 
 And gave him heart, and gave him time, 
 Till every string's according glee 
 Was blended into harmony. 
 And then, he said, he would full fain 
 He could recall an ancient strain 
 He never thought to sing again. 
 It was not framed for village churls, 
 But for high dames and mighty earls ; 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 109 
 
 
 He had play'd it to King Charles the good, 
 
 When he kept court at Holyrood ; 
 And much he wish'd, yet fear'd, to try 
 The long-forgotten melody. 
 Amid the strings his fingers stray'd, 
 And an uncertain warbling made, 
 Then oft he shook his hoary head 
 But when he caught the measure wild, 
 The old man raised his face, and smiled ; 
 And lighten'd up his faded eye, 
 With all a poet's ecstasy ! 
 In varying cadence, soft or strong, 
 He swept the sounding chords along ; 
 The present scene, the future lot, 
 His toils, his wants, were all forgot : 
 Cold diffidence, and age's frost, 
 In the full tide of song were lost ; 
 Each blank in faithless memory void, 
 The poet's glowing thought supplied ; 
 And, while his harp responsive rung, 
 'Twas thus the Latest Minstrel sung. 
 
 
 
 The opening of the tale, thus given to the world, sets before 
 us, in the simple and energetic style of Homer, what life was 
 among those warlike border clans, who spread themselves, in 
 the sixteenth century, along the rough- frontier and fighting 
 ground between England and Scotland. The graceful frame- 
 work in which the old story is set may perhaps be a concession 
 to the demands of poetry, as an art to the unreasonable re- 
 quirements of a reading, substituted (in an evil hour, as far as 
 bards are concerned) for a listening generation. This remark, 
 however, does not apply to the description of the feudal castle, 
 where 
 
 Nine-and-twenty knights of fame 
 
 Hung their shields in Branksome-Hall ; 
 Nine-and-twenty squires of name 
 
 Brought them their steeds to bower from stall ; 
 Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 
 Waited, duteous, on them all : 
 They were all knights of mettle true, 
 Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 
 
I io WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 The whole picture, I say, of this gloomy fortress and its inhabi- 
 tants carries us back far into the past. It is so instinct with the 
 Homeric spirit, that I believe if, by some necromantic artifice, 
 such as is resorted to in the second part of t Faust/ these verses 
 could have been made known to the Homeridae, as judges of 
 poetry, they would have at once discerned in their sound a like- 
 ness to the tones of their great ancestor, and would have unani- 
 mously voted to our Northern rhapsodist the freedom of Chios 
 in a golden box. When, however, we get beyond these first para- 
 graphs, I confess that, whilst I am reading the dialogue between 
 the river spirit and the mountain spirit, a certain chill comes 
 over me. This part of the poem strikes me as being written in 
 a falsetto tone, and I miss the natural Walter Scott. It is not 
 that he is weak in that most important element of genius, the 
 power of dealing adequately with the supernatural with the 
 half-heard voices and fitful shadows that encompass the imagi- 
 nation, if not the life of man. Far from it, so far, that if the 
 poet who wrote of Shakspere 
 
 Within that circle none durst walk but he 
 
 were now among us, the line would either not have been 
 written at all, or would, at least, have been qualified by some 
 reference to Walter Scott. The reason why we miss the ring of 
 the true metal here, I take to be the temporary admixture with 
 Scott's genius of a German alloy. He had been attracted by 
 Monk Lewis, and, through him, by Goethe into Teutonic my- 
 thology. These outlandish legends are, I daresay, excellent of 
 their kind and in their proper place, but they do not suit our 
 Northern wolds. They do not harmonise with the brown man of 
 the moors, or Lord Cranstoun's goblin page. 
 
 Each country has its own appropriate form of mystery its 
 collection of fables, half awful, and half attractive ; but they 
 will not always bear transplanting. I think, therefore, that Scott 
 might have found among the treasures of his native folk-lore, or 
 might even have invented, some form of Border superstition 
 
WALTER SCOTT. m 
 
 more homely and impressive, than these exotic mountain spirits 
 and river spirits. They are phantoms which bring us into com- 
 panionship with the printer's devil rather than with the genuine 
 prince of darkness with the imitator rather than with the 
 real poet. To me, at any rate, it is a relief when I escape from 
 these thin spectral voices to middle earth, and William of 
 Deloraine: 
 
 A stark moss trooping Scot was he, 
 As e'er couch'd Border lance by knee ; 
 Through Solvvay sands, through Tarras moss, 
 Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross ; 
 By wily turns, by desperate bounds, 
 Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds ; 
 In Eske or Liddel, fords were none, 
 But he would ride them, one by one ; 
 Alike to him was time or tide, 
 December's snow, or July's pride ; 
 Alike to him was tide or time, 
 Moonless midnight, or matin prime : 
 Steady of heart, and stout of hand, 
 As ever drove prey from Cumberland. 
 
 It is not, however, till the Second Canto that the young writer, 
 when he has ascertained his latent power, and measured his 
 energies, begins to put forth his full strength. If the account 
 of Deloraine's appearance before the walls of the moon-lighted 
 abbey, if his interview with the aged monk, and his return to 
 Branksome, with the mysterious book heavy upon his breast, 
 be not fine poetry, I know not where, nor under what condi- 
 tions, fine poetry is to be found. Let us, if you please, examine 
 this part of the story a little in detail. The Knight starts on 
 his mission, as an iron-hearted moss-trooper, a rider thoroughly 
 trained up in all the ruthless lore of those Border wars. He is 
 rough and indifferent to human life, though neither ungenerous 
 nor revengeful ; he is a man, in short, with the hard heart and 
 unsleeping craft of the Red Indian, although, thanks to a sort of 
 chivalrous and Christian instinct, without his meanness and 
 cruelty. You would have thought him as inaccessible to all 
 
ii2 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 influences that press upon the nerves of weaker men, as coldly 
 impervious to fear as his sword but he has a human soul and 
 a living imagination beneath this iron crust ; so that, no sooner 
 has he passed into a region where the power of crossing Solway 
 sands, and of baffling Percy's best blood-hounds, becomes a 
 useless accomplishment, than this Border Samson weakens at 
 once, and is as another man. 
 
 Often had William of Deloraine 
 Rode through the battle's bloody plain, 
 And trampled down the warriors slain, 
 
 And neither known remorse nor awe ; 
 Yet now remorse and awe he own'd ; 
 His breath came thick, his head swam round; 
 v When this strange scene of death he saw, 
 Bewilder'd and unnerv'd he stood, 
 And the priest pray'd fervently and loud : 
 With eyes averted prayed he : 
 He might not endure the sight to see, 
 Of the man he had loved so brotherly. 
 
 And when the priest his death-prayer had pray'd, 
 
 Thus unto Deloraine he said : 
 
 * Now, speed thee what thou hast to do, 
 
 Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue ; 
 
 For those, thou may'st not look upon, 
 
 Are gathering fast round the yawning stone ! ' 
 
 Then, Deloraine, in terror, took 
 
 From the cold hand the Mighty Book, 
 
 With iron clasp'd, and with iron bound : 
 
 He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd ; 
 
 But the glare of the sepulchral light, 
 
 Perchance, had dazzled the warrior's sight. 
 
 It is a shame to quote such a passage piecemeal ; one -breath 
 of inspiration runs through it, from beginning to end, and the 
 whole scene ought to be before the hearer's imagination at once, 
 but it is impossible, in a lecture like this, to recite whole cantos. 
 There is, however, one paragraph, to which I would call your 
 particular attention. Scott, as we all know, does not rank 
 among the poets of thought, he is sneered at as superficial, 
 commonplace, homely, and so on. These supposed demerits 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 113 
 
 of his are then contrasted with the exquisite subtleties and deli- 
 cacies, with the deeper and rarer forms of the imagination, that 
 have superseded his clumsy fluency, in the good graces of our 
 professed critics. Yet, if we are satisfied with just thinking, 
 which puts forward no metaphysical pretensions, and has 
 nothing transcendental about it, we cannot fail to be struck 
 by the sure-footed sagacity with which be tracks men's emotions 
 home to their birth-place, and photographs, so to speak, a pass- 
 ing mood of the mind with an infallibility like that of the sun 
 acting upon the artist's plate : 
 
 Again on the Knight look'd the Churchman old, 
 
 And again he sighed heavily ; 
 For he had himself been a warrior bold, 
 
 And fought in Spain and Italy. 
 And he thought on the days that were long since by, 
 When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high: 
 Now, slow and faint, he led the way, 
 Where, cloister d round, the garden lay ; 
 The pillar'd arches were over their head, 
 And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead. 
 
 Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright, 
 Glisten'd with the dew of night ; 
 Nor herb, nor floweret, glisten'd there, 
 But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair. 
 The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon, 
 
 Then into the night he looked forth ; 
 And red and bright the streamers light 
 Were dancing in the glowing North. 
 So had he ssen, in fair Castile, 
 
 The youth in glittering squadrons start ; 
 Sudden the flying jennet wheel, 
 
 And hurl the unexpected dart. 
 He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, 
 That spirits were riding the northern light. 
 
 For three score years he has been wearing out with his knees 
 the flint pavement of the Abbey cloisters, in bitter and possibly 
 unavailing remorse ; for three score years the outside world has 
 been unseen and unthought of, just as if it had ceased to exist. 
 
 i 
 
U4 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 If, during those three score years, he had ever looked out, from 
 the monastery garden, upon former northern lights, they would 
 have played before his eyes idly, and without a meaning they 
 would have awakened no memories of the past, no buried touches 
 of association with the gallant knights and warlike exercises of 
 Castile ; but the iron clang of Deloraine's armour, and the 
 stately bearing of the dauntless cavalier, broke upon the 
 dreamy torpor that had gathered round his heart, the dreary 
 mists of the cloister fled away like a vision of the night, and he 
 was again the ardent youth, who 
 
 In Paynim countries had far trod, 
 And fought beneath the cross of God. 
 
 This, to me, is the true kind of poetry ; I, at least, prefer it, 
 as a rule, to what is known and admired as the Poetry of 
 Thought. There is also a night piece in ' Marmion,' that 
 has always delighted me, for the like reason ; I may perhaps 
 be allowed to refer to it here, though somewhat out of its 
 proper place, in order that we may avoid needless repetitions. 
 You all of you recollect, I doubt not, how Marmion rode forth 
 to encounter the phantom on Gifford Moor : 
 
 \ 
 
 So sore was the delirious goad, 
 I took my steed and forth I rode, 
 And, as the moon shone bright and cold, 
 Soon reach'd the camp upon the wold. 
 The southern entrance I pass'd through, 
 Then halted, and my bugle blew. 
 Methought an answer met my ear, 
 Yet was the blast so low and drear, 
 So hollow, and so faintly blown, 
 It might be echo of my own. 
 
 Thus judging, for a little space 
 
 I listen'd, ere I left the place ; v 
 
 But scarce could trust my eyes, 
 Nor yet can think they served me true, 
 When sudden in the ring I view, 
 In form distinct of shape and hue, 
 
 A mounted champion rise. 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 115 
 
 I've fought, Lord-Lyon. many a day, 
 In single fight, and mix'd affray, 
 And ever, I myself may say, 
 
 Have borne me as a knight ; 
 But when this unexpected foe 
 Seem'd starting from the gulf below, 
 I care not though the truth I show, 
 
 I trembled with affright ; 
 And as I placed in rest my spear, 
 My hand so shook for very fear, 
 
 I scarce could couch it right. 
 
 I have quoted enough to enable me to point out with what 
 extreme skill, or rather, with how unerring an instinct, all the 
 words in this narrative are chosen : Marmion sees, he has just 
 told us so, 'in form distinct of shape and hue, a mounted cham- 
 pion rise.' We, however, are in the secret, and know that he 
 has seen nothing of the kind. The phantom rode quietly into 
 the ring, on Blount's charger, borrowed for this very purpose, 
 ten minutes before from the inn stable. But the single word 
 rise, sets before us more effectively, than a long psychological 
 paragraph in blank verse could do, how, in such conjunctures, 
 the nervous system acts, how ghost stories grow up, because 
 inference is unconsciously confounded with genuine obser- 
 vation. 
 
 To the imagination of Marmion, stung into feverish irrita- 
 bility by remorse, it was inevitable that the unexpected foe 
 ' seemed starting from the gulf below ; ' inevitable, that 
 
 * 
 
 Ne'er from vizor raised did glare 
 A human visage with a stare 
 So grimly and so ghast ; 
 
 inevitable, that when to good St. George he pray'd (there is a 
 touch of Shaksperian humour in making this worldly master of 
 statecraft 
 
 who scarce received 
 
 For Gospel what the Church believed 
 I 2 
 
n6 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 surrender himself at once to superstition under the influence of 
 fear), the demon rider 
 
 Should, on his courser mounting light, 
 Appear to vanish from his sight. 
 
 With how sure a touch, also, is presented to us the manner in 
 which Marmion pours his half-confidences into Lindesay's 
 ear. The oppression of these horrible thoughts was so great 
 that he was driven to unbosom himself- -in Shakspere's 
 
 words, 
 
 To cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff, 
 That weight upon the heart ; 
 
 but, in order to do so, he had to invent all the preliminaries. 
 
 Nought of the Palmer said he there, 
 And nought of Constance or of Clare ; 
 The thoughts that broke his sleep, he seems 
 To mention but as feverish dreams. 
 ' In vain, ' said he, ' to rest I spread 
 My aching limbs, and couch'd my head : 
 
 Fantastic thoughts returned ; 
 And, by their wild dominion led, 
 
 My heart within me burn'd.' 
 
 In answer to this, how forcibly must the wise old Scotchman's 
 comment have fallen upon the guilty conscience- 
 
 'For seldom have such spirits power 
 To harm, save in the evil hour 
 When guilt we meditate within, 
 Or harbour unrepented sin.' 
 
 De Wilton again, later on in the poem, gives his own account 
 of the same transaction. With an equally accurate insigh{ into 
 the human mind, he is represented as quite in the dark about 
 Marmion's superstitious fancies ; he believes that Marmion 
 recognised him in the flesh, and that his enemy was cowed, 
 not by preternatural terrors, but by the dread of an earthly 
 
 vengeance 
 
 ' Oh then my helmed head he knew, 
 The Palmer's cowl was gone.' 
 
WALTER SCOTT. ny 
 
 In such flashes of intuition are to be recognised, I think, 
 the spirit of a master a master of thinking, though the thoughts 
 may never pass out of simple words, or take the forms of meta- 
 physical analysis. 
 
 Coming back from this digression to the poem immediately 
 before us, we may say that it proceeds, from first to last, with 
 unfaltering spirit and power. I need hardly recall it to you, in 
 all its details. Each canto opens, as you will recollect, with an 
 outburst of poetry, purporting to be an expression of the min- 
 strel's own feeling, ere he glides into the narrative again these 
 famous exordiums, as for instance 
 
 He who would visit fair Melrose aright, 
 Must vi>it it by the pale moonlight, &c. &c.- 
 
 have become so completely a part of the English language, 
 that even Dr. Parr, eminent among the Whig depreciators of 
 our stout-hearted Scotch Tory, could hardly, I should think, 
 have escaped from their influence, by pretending to be ignorant 
 of them. In spite, however, of their being so well known, one 
 of these introductions I shall quote, because I think it pos- 
 sesses a subtler and more aerial beauty than is often found in 
 our vigorous and straightforward writer. I should have ex- 
 pected to meet with such lines in ' Christabel,' or in some other 
 of Coleridge's melodious dreams, rather than in one of Scott's 
 plain bold epics. 
 
 Call it not vain : they do not err, 
 
 Who say, that when a Poet dies, 
 Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, 
 
 And celebrates his obsequies : 
 Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone, 
 For the departed Bard make moan ; 
 That mountains weep in crystal rill ; 
 That flowers in tears of balm distil ; 
 Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, 
 And oaks, in deeper groan, reply ; 
 And rivers teach their rushing wave 
 To murmur dirges round his grave. 
 
n3 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn 
 
 Those things inanimate can mourn ; 
 
 But that the stream, the wood, the gale, 
 
 Is vocal with the plaintive wail 
 
 Of those, who, else forgotten long, 
 
 Lived in the poet's faithful song, 
 
 And, with the poet's parting breath, 
 
 Their memory feels a second death. 
 
 The Maid's pale shade, who wails her lot, 
 
 That love, true love, should be forgot, 
 
 From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear 
 
 Upon the gentle Minstrel's bier : 
 
 The phantom Knight, his glory fled, 
 
 Mourns o'er the field he heap'd with dead, 
 
 Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain, 
 
 And shrieks along the battle plain : 
 
 The Chief, whose antique crownlet long 
 
 Has sparkled in the feudal song, 
 
 Now, from the mountain's misty throne, 
 
 Sees, in the thanedom once his own, 
 
 His ashes undistinguished lie, 
 
 His place, his power, his memory die ; 
 
 His groans the lonely caverns fill, 
 
 His tears of rage impel the rill : 
 
 All mourn the Minstrel's harp unstrung, 
 
 Their name unknown, their praise unsung. 
 
 i 
 
 I have not however time, with ' Marmion ' scarcely touched 
 upon, to linger over the ' Lay.' I will only repeat that I think 
 Scott took more pains with it than he did with any subsequent 
 poem. In proof of this, I could point out to you the exquisite 
 art with which the ballads of Albert Graeme, from the Debateable 
 Lands, of Fitzraver, from the Italianised civilisation of England, 
 of Harold, from the storm-swept Orcades, are attuned, as it 
 were, in different keys, according to their different schools of 
 song. 
 
 Again, let us remark upon the curiosa feliritas of Deloraine's 
 vision at the end of the poem. 
 
 At length, by fits, he darkly told, 
 With broken hint, and shuddering cold 
 That he had seen, right certainly, 
 
WALTER SCOTT. u 9 
 
 A shape with amice wrapped around, 
 With a wrought Spanish baldric bound, 
 
 Like pilgrim from beyond the sea ; 
 And knew but how it mattered not 
 It was the wizard, Michael Scott. 
 
 The repetition of the lines in italics, from the second canto, 
 is not only distinctly impressive in itself, but also of great value, 
 as enabling the poet to escape from the conventional flatness 
 of an ordinary conclusion ' and so they were married, and 
 lived happily ever afterwards.' It opens a way for him to end 
 magnificently with a noble translation, or rather adaptation, of 
 the Dits Ira ; so that the reader is dismissed to the sound of 
 that grand monkish hymn pealing around him, like a cathedral 
 organ, and pleading with solemn intensity for the soul of the 
 penitent necromancer, before the throne of a merciful God. 
 
 Of Walter Scott's three principal poems if ' The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel ' attracts us more by its freshness and originality, 
 and ' The Lady of the Lake ' by its grace and tenderness yet, 
 as far as I can judge, * Marmion ' unquestionably stands first in 
 point of power ; there is, 1 think, no story of its kind in our 
 language that I place above it ; none, at any rate, since the 
 knight's tale in Chaucer. 
 
 Dryden's fables, violently praised by critics contemporary 
 with Scott, are no doubt fine specimens of versification. But 
 his ' Palamon and Arcite,' besides that it is rather a love- 
 story than a battle-song is, after all, only Chaucer over 
 again Chaucer vulgarised and grown coarse ; whilst ' Theodore 
 and Honoria/ full of strength as it is, and though displaying 
 more imagination than is usually found in Dryden's Rhymed 
 Heroics, seems to me revolting rather than sublime. For 
 Byron's Eastern Tales, now fallen somewhat in public esti- 
 mation since his premature death, I still acknowledge a 
 weakness. Energetic, however, and passionate though they 
 be, it would be hard to name one among them which fills 
 the same space in our literature as this ' Tale of Flodden 
 
120 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Field/ * Marmion,' indeed, in one respect, made his ap- 
 pearance under certain disadvantages. Scott was, I believe, 
 misled by the success of the beautiful introductory passages (I 
 have already referred to them), in l The Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel,' and thought fit to repeat the process more elaborately, 
 and on a larger scale in his second poem. But the attempt 
 was not crowned with the same success. He was perhaps 
 tempted into this experiment by the opportunity which it 
 afforded him of showing forth to the world, in defiance of the 
 Edinburgh Whigs, his ardent and unquenchable Toryism. But 
 after all, even Tories must admit, this was a moral and not a 
 literary excellence, and it is a pity that he did not reserve the 
 exhibition of it for some other time. He forgot that, whereas 
 those little prefaces in ' The Lay of the Last Minstrel ' were 
 living portions of a true and living song, these longer addresses 
 to the Rev. John Marriott, and other forgotten notabilities of 
 the day, rose up, like dead walls, between the natural divisions 
 of his poem. Now this misfortune is all the greater, inasmuch 
 as the construction of the tale is a perfect triumph of art ; there 
 is nothing better of the kind, perhaps nothing so good, in his 
 prose romances. However, this being once understood, we can 
 pass these interludes over, to be read by themselves when we 
 please, without reference to Marmion ; and then in despite of 
 John Marriott, George Ellis, or other tiresome interlopers, we 
 can enjoy the admirable shaping and development o^ the plot 
 without interruption. 
 
 Hostile critics tell us, since they cannot impugn his power 
 of managing a narrative, that Scott is not to be accounted great, 
 because he has written little which men are accustomed to 
 quote, as men quote passages from Horace or Pope. I have 
 not time to stop and enquire whether the same thing might not 
 be said of Homer ; at any rate it does not seem to be an in- 
 fallible criterion of good poetry, even if the statement were true. 
 An image, a description, a burst of passion, may be excellent 
 
IV ALTER SCOTT. 121 
 
 in its place, which, if detached from its natural surroundings, 
 would be more or less disfigured or smirched just as a firefly 
 or other brilliant insect, pinned down in a drawer after death, is 
 robbed of half the gloss and splendour that coloured its life. But, 
 in the second place, is the statement true ? I should have said, 
 on the contrary, that, though epigrammatic beauty and polished 
 compactness of style be not what he aims at (and these are the 
 qualities to which men who quote usually turn), few writers im- 
 print themselves on the mind more easily or firmly. Let us 
 take, for instance, the introduction of De Wilton in the first 
 canto. We have been prepared for him so skilfully by the 
 mysterious hints of George Selby, as to feel sure that he is des- 
 tined to play an important part in the story about to be told. 
 We therefore wait for his arrival in breathless expectation. 
 And it is thus he comes : 
 
 When as the Palmer came in hall, 
 
 Nor lord, nor knight, was there more tall, 
 
 Or had a statelier step withal, 
 
 Or look'd more high and keen ; 
 P'or no saluting did he wait, 
 But strode across the hall of state, 
 And fronted Marmion where he sate, 
 
 As he his peer had been. 
 But his gaunt frame was worn with toil ; 
 His cheek was sunk, alas the while ! 
 And when he struggled at a smile, 
 
 His eye look'd haggard wild : 
 Poor wretch ! the mother that him bare, 
 If she had been in presence there, 
 In his wan face, and sun-burnt hair, 
 
 She had not known her child. 
 Danger, long travel, want, and woe, 
 Soon change the form that best we know 
 For deadly fear can time outgo, 
 
 And blanch at once the hair ; 
 Hard toil can roughen form and face, 
 And want can quench the eye's bright grace, 
 Nor does old age a wrinkle trace 
 
 More deeply than despair. 
 Happy whom none of these befall, 
 But this poor Palmer knew them all. 
 
122 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Again, in the second book, who does not remember the 
 Trial of Constance ? It is full of passages that, once read, can 
 never be forgotten. The gloomy power with which the Dark 
 Justice-chamber of the Abbey, with its inexorable judges, is 
 pourtrayed, and the passionate energy of the unhappy nun's 
 defence, or rather expostulation, are too well known to need 
 enlarging upon. 
 
 But though I refrain from further quotations, I cannot help 
 asking you to observe with what vigour of imagination the death 
 of Constance is made, by means of some spiritual affinity, as it 
 were, to throw a shadow upon the haughty heart of Marmion. 
 Out of this over-shadowing gloom, arises, on the instant, supersti- 
 tious terror and helpless remorse. And we are shown, in the 
 magic mirror of poetry, the hidden soul of the ruthless be- 
 trayer a soul torn by conflicting emotions, till it is altogether 
 unhinged ; unhinged, in spite of its natural strength and long 
 habits of worldly experience, to the surprise of his unsophisti- 
 cated squire: 
 
 For little did Fitz-Eustace know, 
 That passions, in contending flow, 
 
 Unfix the strongest mind ; 
 Wearied from doubt to doubt to flee, 
 We welcome fond credulity, 
 
 Guide confident, though blind. 
 
 < 
 
 To proceed, however. If passages specially fitted for quotation 
 are necessary to establish a poet's fame, where shall we find 
 an answer given to a hostile sovereign more dignified more 
 forcible more becoming than the answer given by Marmion 
 to James in the fifth book ? 
 
 As coming from an ambassador penetrated with the respon- 
 sibility of his position, from a veteran statesman and soldier 
 alive to all the evils of war, it is impossible to desire a reply 
 firmer, more spirited, and yet more temperate than that of the 
 English Envoy, when King James indulges his spleen in bitter 
 
WALTER SCOT7. I23 
 
 sarcasms against him and England, amid the festivities of Holy 
 rood : 
 
 Displeased was James that stranger view'd 
 
 Ami tamper'd with his changing mood. 
 
 ' Laugh those that can, weep those that may ' 
 
 (Thus did the fiery Monarch say,) 
 
 ' Southward I march by break of day ; 
 
 And if within Tantallon strong 
 
 The good Lord Marmion tarries long, 
 
 Perchance our meeting next may fall 
 
 At Tamworth, in his castle-hall.' 
 
 The haughty Marmion felt the taunt, 
 
 And answer'd grave that royal vaunt : 
 
 ' Much honour'd were my humble home, 
 
 If in its halls King James should come ; 
 
 But Nottingham has archers good, 
 
 And Yorkshire men are stern of mood ; 
 
 Northumbrian prickers wild and rude. 
 
 On Derby hills the paths are steep ; 
 
 In Ouse and Tyne the fords are deep ; 
 
 And many a banner will be torn, 
 
 And many a knight to earth be borne, 
 
 And many a sheaf of arrows spent, 
 
 Ere Scotland's King shall cross the Trent. ' 
 
 But whilst Marmion is thus displaying the better qualities of 
 his nature at Holyrood, earthly agencies are at work to over- 
 throw all his cherished schemes. The powers of Darkness also 
 are mustering their strength against him. They are allowed by 
 God to add his fate to the fate of those anxious thousands, for 
 whom life is about to end, and eternity to begin, on the hitherto 
 unnoticed pastures and sheepwalks of Flodden. With the 
 same mastery of his art that has been shown throughout, 
 Walter Scott brings us nearer and nearer to the identification of 
 his mysterious Palmer with the dishonoured and exiled knight, 
 Ralph de Wilton. It is to his own hand that the Abbess, in 
 her ignorance, entrusts the proof of the treacheries employed to 
 ruin him, the proofs of his rival's guilt. On receiving these 
 all-important papers, the emotion of the Palmer is visible to 
 the Abbess at once ; but, though we seem to be on the brink 
 
124 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 of a discovery and a confession, the end is not yet. By a happy 
 accident, the demon summons, addressed to those about to fall 
 at Flodden, intervenes with wonderful effect, and still the 
 interest of the story is suspended and maintained. This cita- 
 tion, Scott informs us, is mentioned by all the Scotch historians 
 of the time, and he adds, for the benefit, no doubt, of Longman, 
 Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, together with their Southern 
 clients, that it was probably an attempt, by those adverse to the 
 war, to impose upon the superstitious temper of James. Very 
 likely, but we know, nevertheless, that Scott has no real belief 
 in any such modern and cockney probability, and that his faith 
 the faith, at any rate, of his nerves and imagination, is as 
 undoubting as that of any of the historians whose authority 
 he affects to undervalue. Happily, as undoubting because 
 therefore it is, that the vision, seen by us through his eyes, is 
 ^so full of spirit and genuine life. 
 
 v 
 
 Then on its battlements they saw 
 A Vision, passing Nature's law 
 
 . 
 
 Yet darkly did it seem, as there 
 Heralds and pursuivants prepare, 
 With trumpet sound and blazon fair, 
 A summons to proclaim : 
 
 
 
 It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud, 
 From midmost of the spectre crowd, 
 This awful summons came : 
 
 ' Prince, prelate, potentate, and peer, 
 
 Whose names I now shall call, 
 Scottish, or foreigner, give ear ; 
 
 I summon one and all : 
 
 . , 
 
 I cite you by each deadly sin, 
 
 That e'er hath soil'd your hearts within : 
 
 . . . 
 
 By wrath, by pride, by fear, 
 By each o'er-mastering passion's tone, 
 By the dark grave, and dying groan ! 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 125 
 
 When forty days are pass'd and gone, 
 I cite you, at your Monarch's throne, 
 
 To answer and appear.' 
 Then thunder'd forth a roll of names : 
 The firrt was thine, unhappy James ! 
 
 Then all thy nobles came ; 
 
 
 
 And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye, 
 Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye ; 
 De Wilton, erst of Aberley, 
 The self-same thundering voice did say. 
 
 What an air of truth does the lawyerlike accuracy of the 
 demon herald give, in * De Wilton, erst of Aberley,' and 
 how fine, on the other hand, is the poetical vagueness of 
 
 But then another spoke : 
 ' Thy fatal summons I deny, 
 And thine infernal lord defv, 
 Appealing me to Him on High 
 
 Who burst the sinner's yoke.' 
 
 One more step is made, which brings us to the very threshold 
 of the Secret, but even yet it remains unrevealed. 
 
 At that dread accent, with a scream, 
 Parted the pageant like a dream, 
 
 The Summoner was gone. 
 Prone on her face the Abbess fell, 
 And fast, and fast, her beads did tell ; 
 Her nuns came, startled by the yell, 
 
 And found her there alone. 
 She mark'd not, at the scene aghast, 
 What time, or how, the Palmer pass'd. 
 
 We have now brought Marmion down ' to the rough edge of 
 battle, where it joins.' In my last lecture, it was as the poet of 
 war that is of human nature, with all its noblest and all its 
 meanest impulses alike in a state of tension as the northern 
 heir of Homer in those moods when 
 
 The meeting of his champions proud 
 Is like the bursting thundercloud, 
 
 that I professed an allegiance to Scott. And in this respect, I 
 
126 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 maintain, that, among modern poets, he stands supreme. But 
 the clock warns me that I cannot discuss this claim of his ade- 
 quately on the present occasion. To adopt the words of Attila, 
 as the sun went down upon the plain of Chalons, whilst the 
 fiercest and bloodiest world-fight recorded in history was yet 
 roaring around ' He has not time to conquer to-night.' 
 
127 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 WALTER SCOTT CONTINUED. 
 
 BEFORE coming to the battle canto in ' Marmion,' I wish to 
 explain and qualify a little what I have said about Scott as 
 compared with Homer. It is where Homer displays that 
 quality somewhat difficult to define, but recognised readily 
 enough when we meet with it, and known as poetical spirit, 
 that the resemblance I insist upon is especially to be found. 
 Now, though we are always attracted, if not fascinated, by this 
 gift with its half- spiritual and half-physical influence, there are, 
 no doubt, elements in poetry that rank higher elements and 
 powers, to which it bears much the same relation as brilliant 
 military marches bear to the sublimer creations of Handel or 
 Beethoven. It is hardly necessary to say that I am not com- 
 paring the whole of Scott with the whole of Homer. Parts of 
 ' The Iliad/ the interview of Priam with Achilles after the death 
 of Hector, for instance are beyond the genius of Scott. And 
 the exquisite pictures in 4 The Odyssey ' belong to another 
 department of poetry altogether. I say this, because having 
 turned a few lines of Homer into Scott, not for their own sake, 
 but just by way of illustration, I do not wish you to infer 
 that the whole of ' The Iliad,' still less the whole of ' The 
 Odyssey,' can be adequately interpreted by the octo- syllables of 
 * Marmion.' Under the immense variety of thought, and feeling, 
 and passion, and imagination, summed up in the one word 
 Homer, any single metre now possessed by the English 
 language must, I fear, break down. 
 
 Nay, I have sometimes doubted whether there be any good 
 
128 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 reason why these two famous old poems should be Englished, 
 as the phrase, now perhaps obsolete, used to run, in one and 
 the same measure throughout. Why they should have been 
 originally composed in one and the same measure throughout 
 there are many excellent reasons, but none of them apply to us. 
 Neither Pope nor Lord Derby were obliged to know by heart 
 all they had written, in order that they might declaim their 
 verses in a certain key of recitation, according to a traditional 
 rhythm, for the benefit of a crowd of listeners, every man of them 
 alike unable to read. Again, we are now in an age of printed 
 books, poetry is a luxury, or little more, instead of being, as it 
 then was, the only means of instruction ; or if that be demurred 
 to, at any rate the surest and easiest method of transmitting, 
 from one generation to another, such events as were fit to be 
 recorded in a national song ; it cannot therefore now be neces- 
 sary to take such especial care that these songs should at once 
 pass should, as it were, flow down in an unbroken channel, 
 from one memory to another. It occurred to me, accordingly, 
 that as a translator moved through Homer's various styles, he 
 might also move from the metre he had been using to a new 
 one. That he might try, by constant changes and alternations, 
 to rival, more or less, the many excellences that are united in 
 the classical hexameter. I am bound to add, that, on submit- 
 ting this fancy of mine to the existing high priest of the Bard, 
 I mean to Mr. Gladstone, as well as to other critics, in 
 whose judgment I had confidence, it was received with more 
 or less disfavour. Hence, nothing was left for me but to con- 
 fess myself mistaken, and to shuffle out of the proposition as 
 well as I could. The result, therefore, is that, so far as I am 
 concerned, we remain in this position, For much of Homer, 
 our blank verse is, in my opinion, too heavy and stilted ; for 
 other portions the ballad metre, though often to be employed 
 with excellent effect, is too loose and broken-backed ; the 
 rhymed heroic, again, though occasionally very suitable, is, as 
 a rule, too artificial and too cramping for that ancient .river of 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 129 
 
 poetry, when it has to be forced into a new channel. Whilst 
 as to the so-called English hexameter, with its six false quan- 
 tities, to my Eton ear and eye, in every line, I hate it so, that 
 I am not a fair judge. Repressing, however, my private and 
 personal abhorrence, as an impartial critic I would ask, whether 
 the classical hexameter itself was not a very ugly and tuneless 
 measure until great artists had taught it to flow in protracted 
 cadences and sonorous undulations. That this was the case in 
 Latin we know, and if we had the original prae- Homeric 
 hexameters, we should probably find that the early rhapsodists of 
 Greece hobbled and limped along much in the same manner. 
 In England, up to this time at any rate, no such artists have 
 arisen ; l when they do, we shall be ready to listen to them. 
 Having said this much, I will quote a few lines which caught 
 my eye by accident the other day lines carrying us back at 
 once to Branksome Castle, and seeming as if they ought to 
 have been written on Tweed side, by Sir Walter Homer of 
 that ilk : 
 
 Fifty swift ships, the King heaven-graced, 
 
 Achilles, led to Troy ; in each 
 Fifty stout comrades, fitly placed, 
 
 RowM on their vessel to the beach. 
 To rule each ten barks, captains five, 
 
 In whom he trusted, came at call ; 
 But he, the bravest knight alive, 
 
 Was High Chief over all. 
 
 The second passage which struck me, whilst accidentally 
 turning over the leaves of ' The Iliad,' as having a decided like- 
 ness to the style and manner of Scott, occurs in the same book ; 
 it is a little longer than the paragraph just quoted. In both 
 cases, I must ask you to take the Greek for granted, and to 
 remember that for the moment I am not so much translating 
 Homer as be-Scottifying him by way of illustration : 
 
 1 Lord Houghton, in one of his early volumes, showed, I think, although 
 he confined himself to very short flights, more skill than I have seen elsewhere. 
 
 K 
 
130 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Don these my arms ; 'tis time indeed 
 
 On to this field my clan to lead, 
 
 My Myrmidons, who take their way 
 
 Ever with joy to battle fray : 
 
 For, round our ships, the thunder cloud 
 
 Of Trojan war sweeps on apace, 
 And pressed together, crowd on crowd, 
 Along the rough edge of the deep, 
 Their ground our men can scarcely keep, 
 
 So narrow is the space. 
 Ah, had Lord Agamemnon willed 
 
 To do me right, here, as they fled, 
 Hot on their track, we should have filled 
 
 Yon trenches to the brim with dead ; 
 Not watch their circling ranks begin 
 To hem our broken army in. 
 Not now, in hands of Diomed, 
 Mad in its wrath, the spear burns red 
 To guard from death each Argive head ; 
 Nor hear I still, through lips accurst, 
 Your Agamemnon's war-cry burst, 
 'Tis the man-quelling Hector's shout 
 That breaks around us, ringing out 
 
 To cheer his Trojans on : 
 Who, giving back that call again, 
 Thrill through with yells the whole wide plain, 
 
 And count the battle won. 
 
 You will understand, no doubt, that in offering to you these 
 hasty adaptations from ' The Iliad,' my object has been not to 
 accomplish any feat in the way of translation, but simply to put 
 before you, as distinctly as possible, the Marmion element, dis- 
 cernible among many other elements, in the great Lay of the 
 Acheans, and from thence to pass on to our modern epic. 
 
 It was the Duke of Wellington, I think, who said on some 
 occasion, that a battle was very like a ball that everyone 
 knows, at each particular moment, with whom he is dancing, 
 and who is dancing opposite to him, but is unable to realise, as 
 a whole, the general progress of the entertainment. Poets have 
 not been slow to feel this ; and, accordingly, the artifice of 
 placing the ebbs and flows of a battle, or the changing aspects 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 131 
 
 of any great procession, or solemn public event, under the eye 
 of a spectator ; nominally for the purpose of being described 
 to some less experienced companion, really for the benefit of 
 the Singer's audience, suggested itself long ago. We find 
 Helen, in this manner, pointing out to Priam and his senate, 
 from the walls of Troy, all the leaders of the Achaean host. 
 This, I think, is the earliest instance of a form of poetical in- 
 vention that has been constantly produced ever since ; though 
 none of Homer's imitators have yet equalled the beauty and 
 pathos of his concluding verses : 
 
 I Jut ihere are two Leaders of men, whom here 
 I cannot find at all my brethren clear 
 
 eed-mastering Castor; with the cestus strong 
 His twin ; Me too with them one mother bore. 
 
 ther, from lovely Lacedaemon's shore, 
 They have not crossed the other chiefs among, 
 
 , if in ships thai brave the sea, they came, 
 They go not down to battle, dreading shame 
 And ceaseless taunts that hover round my name. 
 She spake; but these long since, within her breast, 
 Sparta, their mother earth, had lulled to rest. 
 
 Euripides, in the * Phcenissae/ is the next writer, so far as I 
 recollect, who adopts this device. The old family servant 
 shows to the young Antigone those haughty leaders who, on 
 behalf of Polynices, are marshalling their host to destroy her 
 native Thebes. Anything like a careful research would, I 
 doubt not, guide us to many other passages of a similar kind ; 
 certainly this poetical stratagem did not spring, like Minerva in 
 full armour, from the brain of Goethe. From him, by certain 
 Philo-Teutons, Scott is accused of borrowing it. Personally, 
 I presume to think, that Scott, like Capulet's servant in ' Romeo 
 and Juliet,' had a head to find out so much for himself, without 
 troubling Peter or Goethe in the matter. 
 
 However this may be, he has turned this inherited poetical 
 device, both in his novels and his poems, to excellent account. 
 
 It is true, that, on looking into the battle-scene of Marmion,' 
 
 K 2 
 
132 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 the outside spectators do not so much narrate, as discuss with 
 one another, what they see. Practically, however, by con- 
 versing together, they narrate to us, and to Clara de Clare. It 
 is thus that the poet enables his readers to see what was shown 
 to Blunt and Fitz Eustace, and to no one else. As they stood 
 apart, they overlook the progress of the battle as a whole. The 
 combat at the Trosacks, again, is related by one who had seen 
 it, unexpectedly, from a distance but it is not related at the 
 moment of its taking place so that one element of a picturesque 
 character is lost to it; I mean, the vivid sense of change and sur- 
 prise, coming as suddenly on the narrator himself as upon those 
 who listen. In the novel of ' Old Mortality ' we get perhaps 
 still nearer to the orthodox form of this literary invention. Cuddie 
 Headrigg and Henry Morton talk eagerly about the skirmish, 
 as it fluctuates before them, and thus explain its more important 
 vicissitudes to Kettledrummle and Cuddie'smother, as they arise. 
 
 Here also the dramatic element is brought in with very 
 great power. The retreat of Claverhouse, under the bitter 
 Ezekiel-like denunciations of the grim old Puritan widow, 
 passes into another, perhaps into a higher, department of poetry. 
 
 As for the poetical invention itself, it is in ' Ivanhoe/ I 
 think, that it appears among us moderns under its noblest 
 aspect How tame and commonplace does Goethe's common- 
 place soldier, climbing a tree to overlook the distant battle 
 with perfect safety to himself, appear, when compared with the 
 picture of Rebecca, standing before the open window, above 
 the defences of Torquilstone Rebecca steeled against fear by 
 the engrossing influence of her unhappy passion, and exposing 
 herself eagerly, rather than fearfully, to the slings and arrows of 
 the besiegers, in order to describe to her wounded companion 
 the progress of the struggle, on which both their fates depend. 
 
 How much is the force of the whole scene enhanced by her 
 ignorance of all that she is describing, and by the impatient 
 corrections of Ivanhoe, from his bed of fever, whenever she falls 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 133 
 
 into a technical error ; by our knowledge, and his ignorance, of 
 the emotions fighting at her heart, which lead her to disregard 
 danger, and to welcome death if he comes, as a comforter and 
 a friend. 1 
 
 In * Marmion,' however, as I said before, it is a conference 
 rather than a pure narrative that is set before us. 
 
 Sadly to Blount did Eustace say, 
 ' Unworthy office here to stay ! 
 No hope of gilded spurs to-day. 
 But see ! look up ! on Flodden bent 
 The Scottish foe has fired his tent.' 
 
 And sudden, as he spoke, 
 From the sharp ridges of the hill, 
 All downward to the banks of Till, 
 
 Was wreathed in sable smoke. &c. &c. 
 
 We are not told whether this was a tactical scheme, adopted 
 to baffle the English archers, and to enable the Scottish men- 
 at-arms to bring their swords and axes into standing fight, 
 without seeing beforehand, according to the Song of Chevy 
 Chase, 'the gray goose feather on the English shafts,' wet in the 
 heart's blood of their best and bravest. I suppose Scott 
 derived this fact from some historical source ; if he did, the 
 stratagem may have been so intended, may even, it appears, 
 have been partially successful. Whether this were so or not, we 
 may be sure that many a gallant English knight and yeoman 
 must have unconsciously repeated in spirit, the noble prayer of 
 Ajax in ' The Iliad ' -must have vowed silver candlesticks and 
 . hides of land to his patron saint, if only he were permitted to 
 face death by daylight. 
 
 Oh that some friend were here to go, 
 
 And bear the tidings dread 
 To Peleus' son ; for well I know 
 He has not heard this tale of woe, 
 How his lov'd comrade, stricken low, 
 
 Upon the plain lies dead. 
 
 1 These sheets were in the printer's hands before I read ' Harold,' or I 
 should of course have dwelt upon Mr. Tennyson's effective revival of the 
 old device. 
 
IJ4 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 But none such now can I behold, 
 
 For cloud on cloud, about us rolled, 
 
 Hath wrapped both man and horse in night. 
 
 Oh, Father Zeus, to thee we pray ; 
 
 Scatter this evil gloom away, 
 
 Fill once again the air with light, 
 
 To our dulled eyes, give back their sight, 
 
 Then slay us underneath the sun ; 
 
 If such thy will that will be done. 
 
 This darkness heaven-sent against the Greeks, man-created 
 against the English in neither case lasted long. How the 
 prayer of Ajax was answered, though he said nothing about 
 candlesticks or hecatombs, we all know. 
 
 He spoke, the Father God on high, 
 
 In pity o'er him, whilst he wept, 
 Flung light into the shaking sky ; 
 
 As off the shrouding gloom he swept, 
 Out flashed the sun. On every side 
 The war up-started, wild and wide ; 
 And Ajax shouted straight with speed, 
 To Menelaus, good at need. 
 
 It is perhaps not out of place to remark here, that the 
 Northern Point of Honour, identifying manliness with an 
 absolute repression of the softer emotions, under grief or pain, 
 had no place among the Greeks. Ajax himself, though the 
 hardest specimen of heroism in the rough that Homer presents 
 to us, has no more sense of self-abasement, because he gives 
 way to tears on the death of his friend, than if he were a girl 
 of fifteen. Grief, to him, like hunger or thirst, is a natural 
 appetite to be appeased by yielding moderately to its require- 
 ments. Still less does the haughty Achilles, when these evil 
 tidings reach the camp, put any restraint upon his passionate 
 sorrow. Prone on the ground, he mutters and weeps among 
 the captive women, until his mother goddess, accompanied by 
 her sisters, rises up to mitigate his despair by the prospect of 
 revenge. 
 
 We need not discuss the question in all its bearings. Some 
 of us may think that this Northern stoicism, though perhaps, 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 135 
 
 upon the whole, the higher condition of mind, does not bring 
 with it unmixed advantages they may believe that, if our 
 rugged ancestors gained thereby much of strength and practical 
 energy in the hour of trial, they also lost much on the side of 
 spontaneity and liveliness of feeling, and that this unyielding 
 temper of the Northern nerves was derived, mainly, it may be, 
 from their greater robustness, but also, to a certain degree, 
 from their partial ossification. 
 
 We can see something of the kind in the case of the Red 
 Indian, who pays to this form of the point of honour an exag- 
 gerated devotion. By him we are regarded with pitying con- 
 tempt, because, though tough enough in all conscience, tears 
 are not absolutely prohibited. 
 
 The spirit of the white man's heaven 
 Forbids not you to weep. 
 
 That is the view taken by a model Cherokee. Looked at from 
 the other side, we might perhaps have appeared to the Greek 
 of Homer's time much as the Huron, of legend it may be, 
 rather than of history, now appears to us. 
 
 To return, however, from this digression. The direct inter- 
 vention of Zeus restores light to the Achaeans. On Flodden, the 
 fighting men of England are indebted to nothing more than 
 the ordinary agencies of Nature. 
 
 At length the freshening western blast 
 Aside the shroud of battle cast ; 
 And, first, the ridge of mingled spears 
 Above the brightening cloud appears ; 
 And in the smoke the pennons flew, 
 As in the storm the white sea-mew. 
 
 A very fine and picturesque simile, by the way. Many of Scott's 
 noble images miss their due meed of admiration, because he 
 makes no fuss about them. 
 
 Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, 
 The broken billows of the war, 
 
136 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 And plumed crests of chieftains brave, 
 Floating like foam upon the wave ; 
 
 But nought distinct they see : 
 Wide raged the battle on the plain ; 
 Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain ; 
 Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ; 
 Crests rose, and stoop'd, and rose again, 
 
 Wild and disorderly. 
 Amid the scene of tumult, high 
 They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly : 
 And stainless Tunstall's banner white 
 Bear itself bravely in the fight : 
 
 Although against them come, 
 
 described, as Homer would have described them the choicest 
 troops of Scotland. It was there that Scotland was the strongest; 
 with her left wing, far in the distance, defeat was busy 
 
 But Fortune, on the right, 
 With fickle smile, cheer'd Scotland's fight. 
 
 ** 
 
 But still Lord Marmion's falcon flew 
 
 
 The Border slogan rent the sky ! 
 
 * 
 
 Loud were the clanging blows ; 
 
 Advanced, forced back, now low, now high, 
 
 
 
 As bends the bark's mast in the gale, 
 When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, 
 It waver'd 'mid its foes. 
 
 Till, at the last, in spite of the gallant onset of Blount and his 
 companions, 'like pine-tree rooted from the ground,' it falls 
 not to rise again. 
 
 Of the death of Marmion I shall say little more, than that 
 ominous song of the Fourth Canto- 
 
 In the last battle, borne down by the flying, 
 There shall he be lying, 
 
 is repeated here, as it rises up before the soul of the doomed 
 sinner, with solemn effect. 
 
 But if these struggles of remorse and despair are finely 
 painted, still finer is the poetic art, by the help whereof the 
 
WALTER SCOTT. I37 
 
 warlike Baron is dismissed from life, whilst all the noble 
 qualities of his nature are in the ascendant like his wounds, 
 it might perhaps be said, all in front. Hence, if we may so 
 speak without irreverence, the first thing to strike the all-seeing 
 eye, when the spirit comes before it for judgment will not be 
 its heartless treachery against Constance, nor the miserable 
 self-seeking that made light of crime and dishonour to attain 
 its ends ; but the unselfish loyalty of a patriotic soldier and 
 statesman, who loves his country so deeply that, when her in- 
 terests are at stake, even the terrors of the grave cease to. 
 appal him ; whatever may happen afterwards, it matters not. 
 His last thought must be hers. 
 
 The fact is, that Scott's ineradicable sympathy with a power- 
 ful and masculine character, depraved though it might be, and 
 distorted from its original promise, led him, almost without his 
 own consent, to keep alive an interest for one 
 
 who died a gallant knight, 
 With sword in hand for England's right. 
 
 Under some such influence Shakspere also, I fancy, takes leave 
 of Macbeth with a certain tenderness takes leave of him as of 
 one born for better things. His illusions have ceased to dazzle 
 him ; his hopes are maliciously baffled, and his ill-gotten 
 empire is broken up, like morning mists. But when the end 
 comes, calamity acts upon him like a tonic, and his higher 
 qualities are recalled once more to confront the presence of 
 death. He is lifted by the sense of military honour, suspended 
 but not extinguished within him, out of the slough of tyranny, 
 suspicion, and selfish fear ; and, therefore, as he has lived the 
 life, so is he allowed to die the death, of a soldier. 
 
 Before passing on from * Marmion,' I may just mention a 
 fact, which has, unless I am mistaken, come to light very 
 lately. I mention it as a further illustration of what I meant 
 in my last lecture, when I was talking about the representative 
 power of Scott's imagination, and his justness of thought. 
 
138 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 One great proof of this, I take to be, the skilful precision with 
 which he fuses together his picturesque fancy, with the conclu- 
 sions of a wide practical experience, and a keen estimate of all 
 human probabilities. You will recollect, I doubt not, that 
 Marmion was buried, not in Lichfield Cathedral, as proposed, 
 not as a baron of high rank and great position, but carelessly 
 and in a nameless grave whilst a humble Scotch peasant 
 took his place, by some mistake, under the stately canopy in- 
 tended for the English baron. Now it has just been ascer- 
 , tained, as I am told, that such a mistake did really occur in 
 the case of the Archbishop of St. Andrews. * This Prelate, a 
 natural son of James IV., seems to have been one of those 
 marvellous youths born only to die, who give us a melancholy 
 feeling that whatever man has done, human nature may still 
 have been defrauded of possibilities greater than anything yet 
 brought to perfection. He was little more than a boy when he 
 accompanied his father to Flodden, and fell with him there. 
 
 His friends, according to the common belief, recovered his 
 body, and buried it under the high altar of St. Andrews. Re- 
 cent investigations, however, made I know not why, having 
 been made, it turns out that the skeleton so interred, instead 
 of being the skeleton of a young man of twenty, must have 
 belonged to a veteran soldier forty years old at the least. I 
 say a veteran soldier, because the traces of older wounds that 
 had not proved fatal are still discernible upon the remains. 
 It is obvious, therefore, that the quasi-historical details invented 
 
 by Scott 
 
 To point a moral, and adorn a tale, 
 
 are, in a certain sense, actually true and true of the very 
 battle to which he has appropriated them. This surely has 
 not happened according to blind chance not through a mere 
 coincidence. But because Scott's insight into the heart of life 
 was unerring. Because he had a power of extracting the spirit 
 
 1 I state this fact on the authority of the Dean of Westminster. 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 139 
 
 of history out of vast masses of knowledge, duly assimilated 
 and digested, as the bee gathers her honey from a thousand 
 flowers. The death of Marmion, however, important as it may 
 be to the story before us, still leaves the public character of the 
 battle, and the epic interest of a great war unexhausted, and 
 almost unexplored. The finest statue in the last Paris Exhibi- 
 tion was one of a dying soldier. He still grasps the broken 
 sword ; he still confronts in the spirit those implacable 
 enemies, whom his nerveless arm and perishing body can no 
 longer struggle against in the flesh. 
 
 Upon the pedestal of this statue these memorable words 
 are inscribed ' Gloria Victis.' Actuated by feelings akin to 
 those of the French sculptor, the greatest among Scotchmen 
 has shed a pathetic light upon the ruins of a terrible national 
 disaster. 
 
 But as they left the dark'ning heath, 
 More desperate grew the strife of death. 
 The English shafts in volleys hail'd, 
 In headlong charge their horse assail'd ; 
 front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep 
 To break the Scottish circle deep, 
 
 That fought around their King. 
 But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, 
 Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, 
 Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, 
 
 Unbroken was the ring ; 
 The stubborn spear-men still made good 
 Their dark impenetrable wood, 
 Each stepping where his comrade stood, 
 
 The instant that he fell. 
 No thought was there of dastard flight ; 
 Link'd in the serried phalanx tight, 
 Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 
 
 As fearlessly and well ; 
 Till utter darkness closed her wing 
 O'er their thin host and wounded King. 
 Then skilful Surrey's sage commands 
 Led back from strife his shatter' d bands ; 
 
 And from the charge they drew, 
 As mountain-waves, from wasted lands 
 
 Sweep back to Ocean blue. &c. &c. 
 
I 4 o WALTER SCO'S7. 
 
 Again, I ask, where, out of Homer, will you find so grand a 
 song of battle ? and it is all the grander to us, because it is not 
 a hymn of victory, but of sublime defiance, under the frowns of 
 hostile fortune. It belongs, I think, to the finer instincts of 
 humanity, to the finer instincts of our British nature, at any 
 rate, that we take more interest in defeat bravely met, in crush- 
 ing misfortunes nobly confronted, than in any ordinary triumph. 
 Take Leonidas at Thermopylae : his presence is more alive 
 within us, than that of Themistocles at Salamis, or the Athe- 
 nians at Marathon. ' Nothing succeeds like success ' is the 
 common proverb. This may be so in commerce, in diplomacy, 
 in politics ; but wherever the great faculty of the imagination, 
 without which the salt of life would lose its savour, exercises 
 dominion, it is not true. If nothing, under all circumstances, 
 succeeded like success, a mortal wound would be inflicted on 
 poetry. We should have no Prometheus, no Antigone, no 
 Ajax, no Juliet, no Desdemona, no Hamlet. I might even 
 go further ; but I do not wish to pass out of my own depart- 
 ment into higher regions, and, accordingly, I forbear. 
 
 This instinct acts so decisively upon Walter Scott, that 
 patriotic as he was, actually the most ardent of Scotchmen, the 
 defeats of his country light up within him a stronger poetical 
 fire than her proudest triumphs. His ' Flodden ' is written in a 
 far grander epical style than his ' Bannockburn.' Nay, so 
 keenly is he alive to such influences, that even there, even in 
 his ' Lord of the Isles,' it is not so much the victorious shouts 
 of his advancing countrymen, as the brave, though fruitless re- 
 sistance of the overmatched English archery as the unselfish 
 temper and bright chivalrous impulses of the dying English 
 knight, D' Argentine, that awaken the most intense sympathy in 
 the soul of our high-hearted poet. 
 
 Awhile, with stubborn hardihood, 
 Their English hearts the strife made good. 
 Borne down at length on every side, 
 CompelPd to flight, they scatter wide. 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 141 
 
 Let stags of Sherwood leap for glee, 
 And bound the deer of Dallom-Lee ! 
 The broken bows of Bannock's shore 
 Shall in the greenwood ring no more ! 
 Round Wakefield's merry May-pole now, 
 The maids may twine the summer bough, 
 May northward look with longing glance, 
 For those who used to lead the dance, 
 For the blithe archers look in vain ! 
 
 * 
 
 Now cumbering Bannock's bloody plain. 
 
 There is another beautiful tribute to the hostile archers, as a 
 fine and peculiar type of English manhood, in the dramatic 
 sketch of ' Halidon Hill.' 
 
 SWINTON. 
 
 De Vipont, thou look'st sad ? 
 
 DE VIPONT. 
 
 It is because I hold a Templar's sword 
 Wet to the cross'd hilt with Christian blood. 
 
 SWINTON. 
 
 The blood of English archers what can gild 
 A Scottish blade more bravely ? 
 
 DE VIPONT. 
 
 Even therefore grieve I for those gallant yeomen, 
 
 England's peculiar and appropriate sons, 
 
 Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth 
 
 And field as free as his lord's barony, 
 
 Owing subjection to no vassalage, 
 
 Save to their King and Law. Hence are they resolute, 
 
 Leading the van on ev'ry day of battle, 
 
 As men who know the blessings they defend. 
 
 Hence are they frank and generous in peace, 
 
 As men who have their portion in its plenty. 
 
 No other kingdom shows such worth and happiness 
 
 Veil'd in such low estate therefore I mourn them. 
 
 It is true, no doubt, that this eulogy is put into the mouth 
 of a crusader, whose sympathies with Scotland, though living 
 yet, though strong enough to make him ready to die for her, 
 
H2 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 still tend to absorb themselves, like a brook lost in a river, into 
 his deeper sympathy with the Christian against the Infidel. 
 
 But here again, making all allowances, Scott's interest is 
 excited by the unexpected defeat and slaughter, not by the 
 victory, of the English. When their conquering shafts fell like 
 rain upon Flodden, they had no special character, no separate 
 individuality to the poet's eye. They remain an ordinary corps 
 of the Southern army, a mere impersonal engine of destruction, 
 in the hands of Surrey, against King James. 
 
 Putting aside ' The Lady of the Lake ' for a moment, three 
 other poems of importance were given to the world by Scott, in 
 the following order: ' Rokeby,' 'The Bridal of Triermain,' 'The 
 Lord of the Isles ; ' of these three poems, * Rokeby,' I think, 
 possesses the least merit. For some unexplained reason, Scott 
 did not lend himself to the metrical ebb and flow of his earlier 
 epic ballads, but used the octo-syllabic measure in its dullest 
 uniformity. The effect is unpleasing. Had ' Rokeby ' been his 
 first poem, men probably would not have remarked upon the 
 stiffness of the rhythm in a very critical spirit. We should 
 have been glad t take what we could get. As it is, however, 
 we miss the alternation of longer and shorter lines, the varying 
 cadences, of ' Marmion ' and ' The Lay.' Hence we are accom- 
 panied throughout by a certain sense of disappointment, which 
 chills our admiration of the finer parts of the poem. 
 
 In addition to this, the Tale is neither* so skilfully con- 
 structed, nor so well told as usual. 
 
 For my part, I never was crammed in Modern History, and 
 have picked up my knowledge thereof in a rambling sort of 
 way. Hence I may be wrong, but I shall be surprised to learn 
 that, even when the Puritan dominion was most oppressive and 
 vexatious, it would have been in the power of Oswald Wycliffe 
 not one of Cromwell's major-generals, not holding any military 
 command, not distinguished in any way over other wealthy 
 adherents to the Parliament to send suspected Cavaliers to the 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 143 
 
 scaffold, without trial, at his own will and pleasure; and yet this 
 is the turning-point of the whole story. The diction also is 
 unusually careless, even for Walter Scott. 
 
 At the same time, many of the characters are powerfully 
 drawn, and the closing scene is impressively narrated ; whilst 
 many of the lyrics introduced are very beautiful. 
 
 Edmund's first song in * Rokeby Castle ' ' My harp alone ' 
 is well worth noticing on account of its grace and sweetness 
 qualities which we prize the more in Scott, because, though 
 quite within his reach whenever he chose to stretch out his 
 hand, he did not often seek to obtain them. 
 
 Again, the dreadful legend of Wild Dayrell, with its dark 
 background of ruffians, half seen through the gloom, haunts 
 us like a picture by Rembrandt or Spagnoletto ; and, besides 
 its intrinsic merit, is brought in with wonderful dramatic 
 effect 
 
 There is, moreover, a little incident connected with 'Rokeby/ 
 of which, if there are any aspiring young poets before me, it 
 may be as well to remind them. Mr. Morritt, of Rokeby, 
 observed that, whilst Scott was his guest, and already medi- 
 tating upon his subject, that he noted carefully every minute 
 peculiarity of the ground, every bush and wild flower native to 
 the place. ' Surely,' said Morritt, ' you need not take all that 
 trouble about such trifles.' ' Nay,' replied the true Poet ; ' not 
 so ; every imagination has its limits, but Nature is inexhaust- 
 ible ; and, by watching her in all her moods by taking, as it 
 were, the silent advice, which she is always ready to give you 
 secure for your verses a truth and freshness, not the less felt, 
 because the real cause of it may not always be exactly under- 
 stood.' 
 
 * The Bridal of Triermain ' was one of those mystifications, 
 in which Scott, notwithstanding the general openness and frank- 
 ness of his character, at all times took a strange pleasure. 
 
 It was published anonymously, together with two other 
 
144 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 short poems, avowedly to imitate one of them the manner of 
 Crabbe ; the other, that of Moore ; whom in l The Bridal of 
 Triermain ' Scott meant to emulate, is more doubtful. It now 
 seems to be assumed that Scott wished to write a poem in his 
 own style, with certain calculated differences, in the hope that 
 the wise ones of Edinburgh might attribute it to his friend 
 Erskine. But I think the better opinion is, that one of Cole- 
 ridge's imaginative poems was the model he had before him 
 for a moment at least. Such lines as 
 
 And faintly gleamed each painted pane, 
 In the lordly halls of Triermain, 
 
 and the like, sound like reminiscences of ' Christabel/ of those 
 ethereal melodies that steal upon us from the harp of Coleridge, 
 like music softened by distance at night. 
 
 Scott, however, soon got tired of writing in fetters, and 
 whenever a breath of battle comes across him, he relapses at 
 once into his own natural manner. 
 
 The bursting crash of a foeman's spear 
 
 As it shiver'd against his mail, 
 Made merrier music to his ear 
 
 Than courtier's whisper'd tale ; 
 And the clash of Caliburn more dear, 
 When on a hostile casque it rung, 
 Than all the lays 
 To their monarch's praise, 
 That the harpers of Reged sung. 
 
 This is Scott all over ; still something of the original scheme 
 clings to the poem throughout ; the subject is more fanciful ; 
 the machinery, to use that word in its technical sense, differs in 
 kind from any employed elsewhere by Scott, and he seems to 
 aim at greater delicacy and finish of style than he cared to work 
 for when writing under his own name. 
 
 The result is, at any rate, a very beautiful and interesting 
 fairy tale, which, when you have swept away some irrelevant 
 rubbish about Lucy and her lover, introduced heaven knows 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 why, will compare favourably either with ' Rokeby ' or ' The 
 Lord of the Isles.' 
 
 This last poem may be dismissed in a few words, as a 
 weaker ' Marmion ' ; it was probably written under some dis- 
 couragement, arising out of a sense that the public favour was 
 ebbing away from him, in consequence of the sudden popu- 
 larity of Byron. 
 
 Splendid passages are to be found in it, and even if it con- 
 tained nothing that was good, except the blessing of Bruce by 
 the Abbot in the first canto, and the famous voyage-chant, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, bounds the barque ; 
 She bounds before the gale, 
 
 we could not be too grateful to the author; considering, 
 however, the grandeur of the theme and the many glorious asso- 
 ciations connected with the name of Bruce, it is hardly what 
 we were entitled to expect from such a writer upon such a 
 subject. 
 
 Of ' The Lady of the Lake ' we may perhaps say, that if 
 
 * Marmion ' be Scott's ' Iliad,' the ' Lady of the Lake ' must 
 rank as his ' Odyssey ' ; with less fire, it has more sweetness and 
 grace, and by many persons is looked upon as the most perfect 
 and artistically developed poem that he ever published. Ellen 
 Douglas, with her high truth, high breeding, and lofty spirit 
 relieved as these more imposing attributes are by the touching 
 simplicity and frank tenderness of a character without a stain 
 upon it without a tarnish from the rank breath of the world, is 
 indeed a beautiful vision. She may well take her place by the 
 side of Nausicaa in the old Greek fable, or of Miranda in the 
 
 * Tempest.' 
 
 In one respect there is more of ' Marmion ' in ' The Lady 
 of the Lake ' than of ' The Iliad ' in ' The Odyssey.' In ' The 
 Odyssey ' there is but little fighting, and that little is not dwelt 
 upon with any great degree of genial enthusiasm ; whereas in 
 
 * The Lady of the Lake, the Skirmish of Bear an Duine, 
 
 L 
 
146 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 though it wants the breadth and historical interest of the battle 
 in ' Marmion,' is presented to us with hardly less force ; whilst 
 the picturesque incident at the close of the contest, so vividly 
 described by the Poet, gives this scene of war a character of its 
 own. 
 
 Scott also tried his hand at the Drama, but he never gave 
 his whole mind to it, except perhaps in the l Ayrshire Tragedy.' 
 This attempt of his has not, I think, received quite the attention 
 it deserves. It failed, at any rate, to renew the interest of the 
 public in Scott as a Poet, taking the word in its technical 
 sense. Men would only attend to him from thenceforward as 
 the author of ' Waverley.' 
 
 That Scott might have made himself a name among English 
 tragedians is probable, not only because of this 'Ayrshire 
 Tragedy,' but also from those endless fragments, full of power 
 and spirit, improvised by him under the general name of Old 
 Play, whenever he was at a loss for a motto wherewith to head 
 some chapter in his novels. With those novels, however, that 
 Old Play is so intimately connected, that I shall reserve what 
 I have to say of it for some other opportunity. 
 
 I have now run hastily through the principal poems of 
 Scott ; such poems at least as were written in verse. Other 
 works of as great, or even greater importance, and quite as fully 
 informed by the spirit of poetry, must, as I have just implied, 
 remain for future consideration. 
 
 About the man himself, one thing may perhaps be added to 
 what I said in the first lecture, namely, that Scott was essen- 
 tially a bard, a born singer, a genuine descendant of the min- 
 strels and rhapsodists of old. Unlike many cultivated authors, 
 he was rather damaged than enriched, by not being a barbarian 
 ignorant of books. Gifts of his, that, in our mere literary 
 epoch, only served him well, in earlier times, and ruder states 
 of society, would have been of absolutely priceless value. The 
 Muses, we know, according to the old proverb, were the children 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 147 
 
 of MeiAory. But we hardly feel how true this was when first 
 uttered, until we realise that where no writing exists, it is the 
 bard who carries about, in his own breast, and that without 
 appeal, the living history of his tribe and people. He is the 
 depository of all their traditions ; his verses mark out for them 
 territorial boundaries and hereditary claims. On all questions 
 of genealogy, of origin, settlements, emigrations, alliances, and 
 the like, he is the chief, if not the sole authority. Great need, 
 therefore, lies upon him, to invoke and propitiate, by all the 
 arts in his power, these coy daughters of Mnemosyne. 
 
 Even with us, a strong memory opens out wider regions for 
 the imagination to soar over ; but in the old days, little indeed 
 could be done without it. Now Scott, though not trained 
 among rhapsodists, possessed, without any training, all their 
 powers. As one of them, he would have accumulated, in a 
 brain that never let anything go, such stores of the learning 
 required by his art, as, when fused together with his ardent feel- 
 ings and vivid historical imagination, must have raised him to 
 an eminence, perhaps even greater than he has now attained. 
 More especially, as when he recorded a glorious victory, or 
 sorrowed over a noble death, he would have been allowed to 
 pay honour to chiefs who led their clans to conquest, or fell, 
 sword in hand, whilst protecting them, without having his songs 
 interrupted and carped at by the Peace Preservation Society. 
 The poet of battle fares ill in modern England. Successive 
 governments seem equally ready equally eager, I might almost 
 say to throw overboard all the treasures, all the heirlooms of 
 our English past. We are to put off our whole armour, simply 
 because it is armour, without much enquiring whether it be the 
 armour of God or not. Such phrases as, fighting the good 
 fight, quitting ourselves like men, holding fast the sword of the 
 spirit such appeals as that of Demosthenes to the immortal 
 shadows that glorify Marathon are now quite out of fashion. 
 
 Perhaps the most eloquent and impressive sentences heard 
 
 L 2 
 
148 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 in this generation were those delivered by Mr. Bright against 
 the Crimean War I should rather say against all war, just or 
 unjust, necessary or unnecessary, war sought at home, or war 
 forced upon us from without. 
 
 ' The angel of death/ he told his hearers, was passing con- 
 tinually between England and the East ; he added, and the 
 effect was very great : ' Even now I seem to hear the beating 
 of his wings.' Yes ! But alas, those wings beat ever by day 
 and by night. The coal mine, and the overloaded ship, and 
 the foul-smelling factory, and the fever-stricken suburb, and all 
 the haunts of Mammon are darkened by their evil shadow as 
 well as the battle-field. If Peace has her victories no less than 
 War, Peace also has her defeats, more ignominious, more un- 
 redeemed by noble qualities, and not less cruel. And indeed, 
 if the men who cheered that eloquent speech to ' the echo,' 
 had studied their Homer as the earnest statesmen of England 
 studied him long ago, it might have occurred to them that 
 Sarpedon, in * The Iliad,' had refuted Mr. Bright, by anticipa- 
 tion, three thousand years before Mr. Bright was born. 
 
 Sarpedon's argument is perfectly simple, and amounts to 
 this. If you could secure everlasting life and unfading youth 
 by fleeing from danger, it might be worth while to skulk at 
 home, lapped in effeminate pleasures, and to leave the difficult 
 path of honour to some one else ; but since you may sacrifice 
 your country, your friends, your self-respect, and yet fail in 
 bribing fate to the extent of one additional hour, it is better to 
 fulfil cheerfully the duties of your station, and die, if die you 
 must, like a patriot and a king. I wish we had a Sarpedon or 
 two in the House of Commons. I confess it makes my blood 
 boil, when minister after minister gets up and boasts, on behalf 
 of the English people, that nothing will ever make them submit 
 to a consciiption. As if it were a matter of pride that we, who 
 claim to be the salt of the earth, should have been brought so low, 
 by our superior freedom, civilisation, enlightenment, and all 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 149 
 
 that sort of thing, as to repudiate, on purely selfish grounds, the 
 great primordial duty of mankind. Why is ' 1'homme qui se 
 bat et conseille' to shrink from /iax 1 ? Kvtitaveipri his business, 
 when the due time for it 'comes and calls upon him ? why is he 
 to wrap himself up in cotton, whilst women go on facing the 
 risk, which is their business, without complaint or hesitation ? 
 Is Mr. Bright prepared to enforce perpetual celibacy upon man- 
 kind because child-birth sometimes ends in death ? He wishes, 
 I suppose, our women to go on dying, if need be, for us, and 
 so for their country ; but when it comes to our laying down our 
 lives for them, or for our country, which is the same thing in 
 the long run, Mr. Bright, like Gyges in Herodotus, * prefers to 
 survive.' In spite, however, of all the Quakers that ever wore, 
 or abandoned drab, this duty of not over-valuing life when 
 honour calls upon us to risk it, will always be held paramount 
 among duties by every clan, and tribe, and commonwealth, 
 and nation, and empire that finds a home upon this earth. It 
 has been so held since the days of Chedorlaomer and Sesos- 
 tris, and will last on without any loss of strength, at any rate 
 till the Millennium. 
 
 Well, all this, it may be said, is no business of mine. Still, 
 as Poetry Professor, and without stepping away from my own 
 proper province, I may at least affirm, not, I think, of the 
 British people, but of those among us who cry peace when 
 there is no peace who will make no sacrifice either of time or 
 wealth, or life, in order to defend and protect their native land 
 -that they are not fit to be readers of Homer, or to take rank 
 as fellow-countrymen with Scott. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 LEAR.' ' OTHELLO.' 
 
 AN Englishman, criticising Shakspere, is not unlikely to bring 
 a hornet's nest about his ears. Our national poet is known, 
 more or less, by every one, and yet those who can speak of him 
 with full authority, so as to command assent, are still to seek. 
 In Dr. Johnson's instructive but not very lively story, familiar 
 to men, by name at least, as ' Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia/ 
 the sage Imlac, a learned but, as you will remember, not an 
 amusing person, enumerates the qualifications without which 
 no one can claim to be a poet. 
 
 It takes so much time to reckon them all up, that the 
 royal pupil, accustomed to his own way in the Happy Valley, 
 and as impatient of des longueurs as the most vivacious 
 Parisian extant, cuts him short with this natural interruption 
 ' Enough, you have convinced me that it is impossible for any 
 man to be a poet.' 
 
 This, however, does not suit Imlac's purpose, who begins 
 again at once without mercy. ' To be a poet is indeed 
 difficult, but not impossible/ Imlac's object is, unless my 
 memory fails me, to insinuate that he himself might have been 
 great in verse, if he had not preferred being greater still in 
 philosophy ; but I forget how the homily ends, nor is it of much 
 importance. Taking the Abyssinian professor, however, as our 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 example, we may acknowledge that to be a complete, ex- 
 haustive, and infallible critic on Shakspere is nearly as diffi- 
 cult as to stand forth an accredited poet after the order of 
 Imlac. 
 
 Of our great dramatist we may say, as I believe one of the 
 Fathers said of the Bible : ' There are to be found here bright 
 shallows along which a lamb may wade, and dark places deep 
 enough to drown an elephant.' And, indeed, many illustrious 
 elephants, German as well as English, whether drowned or not, 
 have at least got out of their depth, and found their footing 
 fail them, whilst splashing and trumpeting among our author's 
 plays. Still, however, acting in the spirit of Imlac, I would 
 say this is no reason for abandoning in despair the task 
 before us. 
 
 Any criticism upon Shakspere must be, at best, a criticism 
 of contributions. A. may have a keener feeling as to one phase 
 of his genius, and a deeper insight into its causes and conse- 
 quences, than B. B., again, may be better worth listening to on 
 other points than A. Thus a knowledge is gradually built up, 
 by no means at one time, nor in exactly the same style, but like 
 a cathedral, united together and mellowed down into one great 
 whole a whole not unworthy of the illustrious poet in whose 
 honour it has been upreared. From this point of view I have 
 undertaken to discuss some of Shakspere's tragedies. 
 
 A field lies before me which, no doubt, has been reaped 
 long ago, but it is so rich that gleaners can still go on, and find 
 something left in it from generation to generation. The tra- 
 gedies selected by me are, or rather were, ' Lear,' ' Othello,' 
 1 Hamlet,' 1 and ' Macbeth.' I believe that, in the general 
 opinion, these tragedies stand out pre-eminently above the rest, 
 so that none of the others, although many among them have 
 singular and special merits of their own, attain unto the first 
 four. 
 
 1 Hamlet is one of the lectures which have disappeared. 
 
152 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Before, however, beginning an analysis of our four selected 
 plays, I must make one or two qualifying remarks. 
 
 In the deeper and more austere tragedies, the play of com- 
 plicated motives, that change and glance and recover their 
 primitive colouring, as the circumstances change around them, 
 is not what we have mainly to look for. As with the flickering 
 of a shot-silk, or of a piece of Labrador spar, alternations of 
 light and gradations of shadow are required, to do full justice to 
 all the hidden elements of character. 
 
 Without, therefore, being absent in such tragedies, this par- 
 ticular dramatic excellence I mean the complete analysis of 
 character is usually made subordinate to the great central pas- 
 sions of the play. The shifting gleams of common life, under 
 which alone such delicate variations start out before our eyes, 
 are swallowed up in the gathering darkness that runs onward 
 before the earthquake and the hurricane. It is in the brilliant 
 comedies, and in the tragedies of a less awful power, that cha- 
 racters are lingeringly dwelt upon, and painted with a loving 
 minuteness of detail, setting the whole man or woman before 
 us. We cannot have everything at once, images such as those 
 of Miranda, Prospero, Caliban, Perdita, and Rosalind. 
 Falstaff again, and all the quaint portraits belonging to the 
 Falstaff gallery, rise up more naturally where the artist is work- 
 ing with a lighter hand, and less intent upon fathoming one 
 form of passion, or one part of man's nature, to its lowest 
 depths. Nor is it true of Shakspere alone. CEdipus and 
 Medea are revealed to us but partially, and in connection with 
 each terrible circumstance of their respective positions ; whilst 
 Neoptolemus, in * The Philoctetes ' according to our notions 
 not a tragedy at all charms us as the complete representation 
 of chivalrous generosity, natural to a high-born youth, over 
 whom ambition has less hold than a love of truth and a sense 
 of honour. Mrs. Siddons, who certainly knew ' Macbeth ' better 
 than we do, is reported, when she was asked if she could 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 153 
 
 name a single virtue that the savage tyrant possessed, to have 
 replied in her deepest tones : ' At any rate, he was a good 
 husband.' 
 
 This remark, though perhaps not a very wise one, illustrates 
 sufficiently what I mean. There are endless aspects, whole 
 sides of Macbeth's character, of Lear's, of Othello's, left in 
 shadow, designedly and necessarily so left ; whilst as to Portia, 
 or Miranda, to Falconbridge, or Falstaff, we have absolutely 
 nothing to learn. 
 
 We cannot, as I said just now, have everything at once ; and 
 intensity of passion, the primal quality of a great tragic drama, 
 must be bought, as a rule, by sacrificing, in some degree, variety 
 and completeness of delineation. 
 
 There is one other subject as to which I wish to say a few 
 words before embarking upon the separate plays. 
 
 I find, as I stated in my preface, that I recur to this point 
 in the lecture on * Macbeth.' A considerable time intervened 
 between the delivery of the two lectures ; they were thus ad- 
 dressed to different audiences. It was not unnatural, therefore, 
 that I should return to a subject, on which I entertain very 
 strong and decided opinions, and I have not thought it neces- 
 sary to cancel any part of either lecture in consequence. 
 
 I refer to those comic scenes occurring every now and then 
 in the pauses even of the deepest tragedy. 
 
 It is rather the fashion at present to look askance at these 
 interruptions, to pass lightly over them, as hardly worthy of 
 Shakspere's pen ; nay, at times to strike them out bodily, as 
 not coming from Shakspere's hand at all. 
 
 Great names, such as the name of Coleridge, are cited in 
 support of this opinion. Now I may be wholly in error, but I 
 promised to myself when I undertook my present office, that, 
 whether right or wrong, I would always speak out exactly what 
 I felt. Accordingly, no name however great shall hinder me 
 from saying that I consider this opinion to be, in point of taste, 
 
154 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 r 
 
 a pestilent heresy. Shakspere, doubtless, admonishes his fools 
 not to speak anything but what is set down for them ; and here 
 and there a joke or an expression, accepted as authentic, may 
 have crept irregularly into the text ; however this may be, those 
 intrusive speeches were, I apprehend, almost without exception 
 the offspring of the moment, and as such were not ever written 
 down. At any rate they do not, I am sure, afford the least 
 justification for the erasure of whole scenes, because Coleridge, 
 who had about as much sense of humour as the Monument on 
 Fish Street Hill, did not approve of them. 
 
 To treat of this matter generally. The great tragic artists, who 
 stand at the head of the great tragic schools, agree in this, as 
 well they may, that the human mind cannot endure, for any 
 great length of time, an extreme tension of the faculties without 
 collapsing. Hence it was that the Greeks, by solemn choric 
 songs, impassioned music, and majestic dancing, arrested for an 
 instant the march of their tragedies, and gave the relief and 
 repose that is needed. If the murderous jealousy of Medea had 
 developed itself without pause or relaxation, if the terrible 
 destiny that coils itself round CEdipus had kept tightening its 
 grasp from first to last with monotonous intensity of pressure, 
 the nerves of those who listened would have been over- 
 wrought then, as surely as our nerves would be overwrought 
 now, if whole plays of Shakspere were made up of passages like 
 the most tempestuous and heart-rending outbursts in * Othello ' 
 and ' Lear. 7 
 
 Nay, even on the French stage, whenever the narrower 
 limits and the more conventional treatment of human passion 
 forced by circumstances upon France are transgressed, the 
 great instincts of art act upon them as they acted upon the 
 Greeks. The plot is retarded in ' Esther,' for instance, and in 
 1 Athalie,' just as it would have been on the theatre at Athens 
 by lyrical interludes, which enable the hearer to recover his 
 overstrained powers and reinforce his exhausted attention. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 155 
 
 1 J'aime,' as Napoleon (of whom we may perhaps say, that 
 if his generalship had been no better than his criticism, the 
 history of Europe would have been altogether different) once 
 observed to Goethe ' J'aime les styles tranche's.' That is, I 
 apprehend, in tragedy continuous rant, stilted monotony, and 
 the absence of all natural emotion. Shakspere, on the other 
 hand, meant to teach us (not playing the tutor consciously of 
 course) that whereas the more formal and pedantic tragedies 
 stand apart from ordinary human interests, like cut flowers 
 that have no connection with, or root in, our mother earth, 
 the true heartfelt passions of mankind cannot detach them- 
 selves from her and live. He uses therefore necessary refresh- 
 ments and slackenings in order to make us feel, that, in spite of the 
 dark criminals working together in secret, in spite of the terrible 
 catastrophes about to sweep away kingdoms and dynasties into 
 utter ruin, human life in its vastness underlies these shallow 
 irritations. That God, still as ever, causes his sun to shine and 
 his rain to fall upon the unjust as well as the just, still guides 
 our globe forward through space, bearing with it the innocent 
 and the guilty, the happy and the miserable alike. Therefore 
 Goneril's steward in ' Lear,' though charged by her with a mes- 
 sage which is, as it were, the first throb of a realm-devouring 
 earthquake, must still anxiously enquire, just like a steward in 
 real life, where he is to put up his horses ; therefore the porter 
 in ' Macbeth ' is brought before us to explain, while the dark 
 tragedy is burning within, how the compliment of a royal visit 
 to his master has been appreciated in the servants' hall. Do 
 those who condemn this scene ask us to believe that Shakspere 
 would have jumped at once from the dialogues between Macbeth 
 and his wife to an immediate discovery of the murder ; and if 
 not, as everyone acquainted with Shakspere's manner will be 
 ready to maintain, how is it that they propose to fill up the 
 gap ? As a rule, I, belonging to the old school, am provoked 
 rather than convinced when a German commentator blandly 
 
156 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 / 
 
 informs me that I have been drinking, to borrow a sentence 
 from De Quincey, not the fragrant wine the /jiiXirjSea olvov of 
 Homer, but the vapid swipes of some nameless rhapsodist. As 
 for Homer, indeed, we have learnt at last that he never lived 
 at any particular time, or in any particular place. That Solon, 
 Pisistratus, Thucydides, and Aristotle knew nothing of their 
 own national poet. But I did hope that this critical dry rot, 
 eating away the life of great names, would be less mischievous 
 among more modern writers. Not a bit of it. I turn to Pindar, 
 and read in one of his Odes a sentence over which I hang in 
 lingering admiration. It seems to me that it is one of the 
 weightiest, one of the most brilliant gems to be found in that 
 great poet, who is remarkable, perhaps beyond any other of 
 the ancient singers, for the splendour of his exceptional pass- 
 ages : 
 
 8' epy/ictTcoj 
 Ke avv Xapirwv 
 
 The adamantine compactness, the purity, and if I may use 
 the expression, the matchlessly fine water, of this immortal 
 phrase are such that it defies all translation ; its meaning, how- 
 ever, in the rough is something like this : 
 
 The word all deeds shall over-live, 
 That word to which the Graces give 
 Their charm, with happy chance combined, 
 Just as, through spirit-depths outflung, 
 It rushes to the Poet's tongue 
 Forth from the Poet's mind. 
 
 My German commentator, however, tells me without remorse, 
 that this particular Ode was not written by Pindar at all, but 
 by one of his anonymous imitators. Rebuked, and baffled 
 once more, I fall back upon another poet whom I love, Theo- 
 critus he, at least, in a regular literary age, with an esta- 
 blished police force of literary criticism on foot, with libraries 
 and librarians, and the multiplication of MSS. all round him 
 
SHAKSPERE. 157 
 
 must be safe from such amputations. Accordingly I read a 
 passage, saying to myself : How characteristic of the author 
 are these lines, in their intense picturesqueness. He is, unless 
 I deceive myself, the most picturesque of all Greek writers, and 
 this passage is perhaps his special achievement, as far as that 
 one special excellence is concerned. It is too long to read in 
 the original Greek, but this hasty translation of a part of it, may 
 give you some faint idea of its character. 
 
 Hercules is describing, in his own person, one of his own 
 renowned achievements the death-grapple with the terrible 
 Nemean lion. You must remember, however, that Theocritus, 
 in his mere diction, is always exquisite ; that his words have 
 a value of their own, and fit into their place as perfectly as gems 
 and agates fit into an enamelled table, so that a translator is 
 more baffled by him than by almost any other writer. 
 
 His neck 
 
 Rose filled with lust of battle, and the hair 
 Of his red mane bristled in burning wrath, 
 Whilst his spine bent together, like a bow, 
 With huge "frame drawn within itself, upon 
 The flanks behind ; as when some artisan, 
 A man well skilled in every form of work, 
 Is busy to compact a well-built car; 
 And warming first in fire, then forces down 
 Into a circle, fit for chariot wheels, 
 Wild fig-tree shoots that easily are cleft. 
 But, all at once, that slender fig-tree pole, 
 The hand that bent it overmastering, 
 Leaps with one bound to its full length afar, 
 So leapt the fierce beast, lengthening out, on me. 
 
 This is only one part of the description, which goes on with 
 unabated vigour and picturesqueness. The translation has 
 little merit, but I hope it may lead you to look at the original 
 poem. 
 
 My German commentator, however, silences me in an in- 
 stant. ' You do not know,' says he, ' what you are talking about ; 
 the writer of these lines is an impostor ; it comes from the pen 
 
158 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 of Panyasis, or some such late epical writer, whose name (he is 
 nothing but a name) you will doubtless find, if you choose to 
 look for it, in the tenth book of Quintilian.' The learned 
 Teuton is too heavy metal for me to encounter, therefore I sub- 
 mit in despair, and turn to Shakspere. But the representa- 
 tives ' of slashing Wolfius with his desperate hook J are not to be 
 daunted or turned aside from their prey, and the scythes of 
 German criticism, I mean criticism in the spirit of the Germans, 
 are even now setting our teeth on edge by being sharpened 
 against him. On this head I can only say that whilst I am 
 ready to listen to any sound reason for excluding lines or 
 speeches, or even whole plays if you will, from a perfected 
 edition, I object to the maiming of any poet, be he Homer, or 
 Pindar, or Theocritus, or Shakspere, on arbitrary grounds, and 
 in defiance of old traditions. Men hack at them, because 
 perhaps they may have treated the same legend in two different 
 ways, or otherwise rendered themselves obnoxious to vague 
 conjectures, suggested, as it seems to me, by nothing better 
 than individual caprice. With regard to Shakspere in particu- 
 lar, I would add that he was a playwright as well as a dramatic 
 poet ; and that very often you are astonished how effective por- 
 tions of a play become upon the stage which, as a reader, you 
 had passed over with comparative indifference. 
 
 In ' Lear ' the principal characters are Lear himself, Edmund, 
 Kent, and Cordelia. This drama has the merit of a plot which 
 developes itself naturally, and keeps increasing in interest to 
 the end. In this respect it surpasses both ' Hamlet ; and 
 * Macbeth.' 
 
 The plot of ' Hamlet ' languishes and drags, whilst even in 
 ' Macbeth/ the fifth act is of necessity (I am not blaming Shak- 
 spere for it) rather bustling stage business than transcendent 
 poetry like the rest of the play. 
 
 As to Lear himself, we may remark that, though of an open, 
 generous, and confiding temper, he is impatient of all control- 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 159 
 
 ready to discard his nearest and dearest friends, on slight pro- 
 vocation, with but little after-feeling, apparently, of their loss. 
 Again, though capable of intense sympathy, he shows that he 
 is so capable by sympathising, in the first instance at least, in- 
 tensely with himself. Nor must we forget in forming our esti- 
 mate of the character of his daughters, that what Goneril says 
 of him is true : ' You see how full of changes his age is ; the 
 observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always 
 loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now 
 cast her off, appears too grossly.' And again : ' The best and 
 soundest of his time hath been but rash/ &c. 
 
 These peculiar conditions of a character naturally sympa- 
 thetic, but narrowed down to sympathise mainly with itself, 
 because all other men, were seen far below in the distance 
 from the isolation of a throne, are conceived and described by 
 Shakspere as he only could conceive and describe them. His 
 presentation of Lear reminds us of many court stories. We are 
 reminded, for instance, of Miss Burney's narrative of her suffer- 
 ings under Queen Charlotte and Madam von Schwellenburg. 
 
 Queen Charlotte, though really a benevolent old woman, 
 had grown to believe (one would almost say in harmony with 
 some natural law) that, beneath the presence of Royalty, legs 
 could never tire, nor backs ache, so that by withdrawing Miss 
 Burney, as a reward for her literary talents, from that literary 
 profession in which continued success was certain, in order to 
 turn her into a very incompetent and ill-paid court menial, 
 she had secured her happiness for ever. From her point of 
 view, she had conferred upon the girl herself, and her whole 
 family, such inestimable favours, that black ingratitude alone 
 could account for Miss Burney's even hesitating about the 
 sacrifice of her health, her prospects, and possibly her life, to 
 the maintenance of such a position. We may add, that our. 
 sense of Shakspere's accuracy and depth of portraiture in this 
 respect doubles for us the pathos of all those passages wherein 
 
160 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Lear, having broken through the benumbing atmosphere which 
 environs kings, expresses his remorse for not having passed out 
 of himself to think of the poor and needy. As for instance: 
 
 I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. 
 Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, 
 That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 
 How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, 
 Your looped and window'd raggedness, defend you 
 From seasons such as this ? Oh, I have taken 
 Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp ; 
 Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
 That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, 
 And show the heavens more just. 
 
 In order to understand Lear's temper, and to explain why he 
 has so little power to stand up against those fearful gust of pas- 
 sion, tearing his heart to pieces and threatening, at intervals, to 
 extinguish his reason, we must accept him, and study him as he 
 is. He is presented to us as a king, whose gracious manners 
 and generous impulses are coloured, if not created, by an in- 
 tense desire to be loved for himself. It is no uncommon desire 
 among persons highly placed, and it often poisons the life of 
 men, who are forced into this ambition by having nothing else 
 to wish for. They yearn for an assurance which few of them 
 except perhaps the traditional Lord of Burleigh, can bring 
 home to triemselves, with absolute certainty. 
 
 Lear, indeed, as a popular monarch, worshipped and flat- 
 
 \ 
 
 tered for many years, seems nearly to have worked himself into 
 the belief, that men invariably mean what they say; but the 
 repressed doubt is unconquerable, and rises to the surface at 
 last, leading him to impose upon his daughters a test that 
 cannot be verified. 
 
 The high-spirited Cordelia, as we know, refuses to bind 
 herself by idle words ; and then the furious anger that springs 
 up in his heart, on meeting with an amount of love short of 
 adoration, gives to the audience a certain measure of his fretful 
 self-esteem. Accordingly, when, in the after time, the veil 
 
SHAKSPERE. 161 
 
 before his mind is rent in twain, and he sees Regan and 
 Goneril as they are, the violence of the change is overwhelming, 
 almost as overwhelming as that of the Sultan in the Eastern 
 tale, who, at the bidding of a magician, plunges his head into a 
 vessel of water. You remember what happened to him; how 
 he straightway passed through a life of strange adventures, 
 before he was withdrawn from the basin to find himself the 
 same Sultan who took the dip some thirty seconds before. 
 The prince in that case bought his knowledge, that time has 
 only a relative existence, at a high price ; whilst poor Lear 
 gained a conviction that flattery is not truth, and that words do 
 not always mean what they seem to imply, at a still higher. 
 
 His two odious daughters, Regan and Goneril, are not pour- 
 trnyed by Shakspere in his happiest manner. They serve their 
 purpose, and that is all. As important elements in an im- 
 portant play, they are perhaps nearer lay figures, and conven- 
 tional impersonations of stage wickedness, than any other 
 characters in the whole compass of Shakspere's works. Every- 
 thing spoken by Regan might belong to Goneril. Everything be- 
 longing to Goneril might come from Regan. There is no differ- 
 ence between them, unless we say that Goneril, as the elder 
 vixen, and therefore separated from Cordelia by a wider interval, 
 is the more enterprising and unscrupulous she-devil of the two. 
 
 It may also be suggested that the pregnant phrase ' He al- 
 ways loved our sister best/ carries with it some explanation of 
 their conduct The family nature was a hard nature. Lear's happi- 
 ness does not, at first, seem to be impaired by the loss of Kent, 
 or even of his favourite daughter ; nay, there is a certain dryness 
 and stoniness of fibre in Cordelia herself, coupled, moreover, with 
 that specially unfeminine quality or non-quality, want of tact. 
 
 These are deficiencies which hinder us from believing that 
 Shakspere intended Cordelia as a representative of the very 
 highest class of women. She is pure, and true, and bold, but, 
 though better than her sisters, she possibly would not have been 
 
 M 
 
1 62 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 so very- much better, if the finer elements within her had not 
 been encouraged if she had not bloomed and ripened under 
 the sunshine of indulgence if she had not, in plain English, 
 been, what some people foolishly call, a spoilt child. This is 
 plain English, no doubt, but it is also, I think, false English. 
 We quote Solomon the infallible, when he says : ' Whoso spareth 
 the rod, spoileth the child,' just as if Rehoboam had been a 
 great success. Just as if Solomon himself had occupied the 
 position of a model European father ; whereas he was, in reality, 
 much more like the master of a great public school, driven by 
 circumstances over which he had no control, to enforce disci- 
 pline among two or three hundred boys, of different ages, 
 tempers, and capacities, living together under the same con- 
 ditions, within certain limits, but otherwise only slightly con- 
 nected with each other. 
 
 Now, from my point of view, though children ought to be 
 indulged, they have a right to expect equality of indulgence. 
 It is probably better to be austere with all than to make obvious 
 favourites of any. But Lear, rashly open and self-confident, 
 was not likely to do what he did by halves. So that Cordelia, 
 whilst his favourite, was, I am sure, everything to him. 
 
 He may not have treated Regan and Goneril with palpable 
 injustice, but would, nevertheless, make it universally felt and 
 known how little he cared for them in comparison with his 
 youthful darling. When a bitter jealousy had entered into 
 their souls a jealousy dangerous even to the -gentlest nature, 
 who can measure the effects produced upon such haughty and 
 sullen spirits? All healthier impulses would be withered in 
 the bud, as if beneath an unsparing north-east wind, until the 
 whole character had sickened off into wintry barrenness into 
 blight, and cankers, and thorns. 
 
 That some such possibilities of mis-education were before 
 Shakspere's mind, whilst he was writing this play, is shown, I 
 think, by the pains which he has taken with Edmund. Edmund 
 
SHAKSPERE. 163 
 
 belongs to the same class of villains as lago; the crime that 
 suits their purposes is reconciled to their intellectual conscience 
 (and they acknowledge no other) by a venomous discontent 
 with life, and a bitter contempt for mankind ; they stand so 
 far aloof from their fellow- creatures, that they feel no compunc- 
 tion in putting out of the way, to advance themselves, any 
 number of human vermin animals, in the eyes of unprejudiced 
 philosophers such as they have become, of no higher value 
 than so many rats or weasels. 
 
 Of lago hereafter ; but what a flood of light is thrown upon 
 Edmund's character in the very first scene of the play ! 
 
 The brutal insolence of Gloucester, about his mother and 
 himself, enables us to travel backwards in imagination, and to 
 see, as it were, with our own eyes, how he was brought up in 
 boyhood and in youth. The haughty Earl really loved and 
 was proud of the promising lad, but from a sense of shame he 
 disguises the extent of that affection under an appearance of 
 half-angry contempt. Gloucester took care, we must presume, 
 that Edmund had all the outward advantages, all the material 
 comforts of high rank ; but to judge from his speech and manner, 
 he must have flung these gifts at him, as if he were flinging 
 bones to a dog. We can easily believe that the retainers of the 
 Earl imitated their master's conduct as far as they dared, and 
 were not slow to insult and slight his bastard son. A gentler 
 spirit than his might have been crushed by such repeated 
 affronts and mortifications ; but with him this was not likely to 
 be the case. Vanity, when wounded and irritated, the most 
 ruthless of all human passions, is, I think, the main-spring of 
 his character, the source of all his vices, and the spur to all his 
 ambitious hopes. Now this vanity of his, from the circum- 
 stances of his birth and position, was not so much wounded as 
 chafed into one huge wound ; so that each of the inevitable 
 rubs and disappointments that he encountered in life, kept 
 inflaming an incurable sore and mixing up fresh poison with 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 his blood at every moment. Hence he grew up into implac- 
 able egoism, ready to deliver up an aged father to the tor- 
 mentors, or to drive 'a brother noble' into exile, on the smallest 
 prospect of advantage to himself ; nay, even without that pros- 
 pect, the mere wicked delight of triumphing intellectually over 
 those whom he betrays and hates, would of itself tempt him to 
 any amount of crime. This ruling passion of his, according to 
 the well-known adage, is strong in death. We see how when 
 all his hopes are baffled, he dies fearlessly nay, exultingly, 
 because two royal ladies, upon whom he does not even bestow 
 pity in return for their devoted affection, in seeking to win him, 
 had thrown away their lives and their souls : 
 
 Yet Edmund was beloved. 
 The one the other poisoned for my sake, 
 And after slew herself. 
 
 Nay, so completely for the moment is this savage passion 
 satisfied and slaked, that his mind for once is open to a generous 
 emotion. Because his dominant avidity has been fed up to 
 fulness beyond all expectation, he passes out of himself and 
 endeavours to save Lear and Cordelia. 
 
 Kent belongs to a type of character much in favour with 
 Shakspere the honest, bold humourist. Upon such a man's 
 fidelity and loyal affection you may rely. But his sense of 
 honour and duty is, nevertheless, helped by his originality, 
 by his somewhat scornful independence of mind. He values 
 the goods of this world according to an estimate of his own ; 
 and always acts nobly, partly, no doubt because his temper is 
 a noble cne, but partly, also, because it amuses him to indulge 
 a quietly sarcastic contempt for the meanness and weakness 
 which he sees everywhere around him. He is unambitious, 
 because 1 e cannot play the game of ambition without surren- 
 dering some portion of his intense personality an idea not to 
 be entertained in the presence of such ridiculous temptations 
 as human life affords. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 165 
 
 These are the central characters upon whom the storm of 
 the tragedy beats ; around whom its angry lightnings fall. 
 
 Of that tragedy I need not give, I am sure, any detailed 
 account. We all know with what art the double plot is arranged, 
 and how skilfully the events of that double plot are made to 
 dovetail into each other, when Lear and Gloucester severally 
 fall into the pits dug for them by their unnatural children. 
 
 Nor can it be necessary to tell you how the elements, 
 though Lear * had never given them kingdoms, nor called them 
 
 children/ 
 
 As servile ministers, 
 
 Did yet with two pernicious daughters join 
 Their high-engendered battles 'gainst a head, 
 So old and white as his. 
 
 Nor yet how the terrible storm, convulsing nature, harmonises 
 with the inward tempest that is tearing to pieces the heart and 
 intellect of the afflicted King. 
 
 None can fail to see what wonderful force these outward 
 coincidences and sympathies lend to every outburst of passion 
 and despair, and how all this helps to make those scenes in which 
 the reason of Lear is torn away in fragments, as planks are torn 
 away from under a broken ship, sublimer than anything in 
 ^schylus or Milton ; sublimer, perhaps, in the strictest sense 
 of the word, than anything to be found elsewhere in Shakspere 
 himself. 
 
 In contrasting Gloucester and Lear, we may observe that 
 whilst Regan and Goneril are coarse flatterers, whose excessive 
 professions would have disgusted anybody, unless his relish for 
 adulation had, to use Goldsmith's phrase, ' grown callous almost 
 to disease,' the art of Edmund is devilish and supreme. The 
 bold cynicism of wickedness which prompts him to tell his 
 father the naked truth, in order to deceive ; and to put into the 
 mouth of Edgar an exact description of his own schemes, so 
 that if imputed to him, the imputation may not be believed ; 
 and again, the easy power wherewith he keeps his father and 
 
1 66 SHAKSPRRE. 
 
 brother apart, show us how formidable his nature is. Catiline or 
 Borgia could hardly have trod, with more certainty and self-con- 
 fidence, the difficult path of treason. 
 
 EDMUND. 
 
 I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or 
 taste of my virtue. 
 
 This policy, and reverence of age, makes the world bitter to the best of 
 our times. 
 
 * 
 
 Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep 
 till I wake him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the 
 beloved of your brother, Edgar. 
 
 We cannot wonder that Gloucester is like wax in the 
 hand of this able intriguer, and that he should exclaim, ' Oh 
 strange and fastened villain, would he deny his letter:' nor is 
 the profound skill of the poet less conspicuous in the retri- 
 bution that overtakes this Edmund and the vile women whom 
 he uses as his tools. They are 'bold, bloody, and resolute ' 
 far too strong and able for the weaker virtue that opposes them. 
 But still punishment overtakes them in the most natural way. 
 It is when all their plans are triumphant, when all resist- 
 ance is beaten down, and their fortunes, to use the expression 
 of the Psalmist, are ' flourishing like a green bay tree/ that their 
 own vices become fatal to them. 
 
 The evil affinity between evil souls drew the three wicked 
 natures mysteriously together, and the result is ruin to all of 
 them. We feel when the tragedy ends that God is just, crush- 
 ing in his anger those who have broken through the holiest ties 
 of nature, when prompted to do so by avarice and ambition ; 
 and with his utmost gentleness dismissing Lear, in spite of his 
 weaknesses every inch a king, to the gracious and healing rest 
 of death. 
 
 Vex not his ghost : oh let him pass ! he hates him 
 That would upon the rack of this tough world 
 Stretch him out longer. 
 
 It is almost impertinent in me to point out the beauty of 
 
SHAKSPERE. 167 
 
 this speech, or of others like it, in what may be called the minor 
 key of passion. Who needs to have such passages recalled to 
 
 him as 
 
 Pray do not mock me: 
 I am a very foolish fond old man, 
 Four-score and upwards, not an hour more nor less; 
 And, to deal plainly, 
 I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 
 Methinks I should know you, and know this man; 
 Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant 
 What place this is ; and all the skill I have 
 Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not 
 Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me, 
 For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 To be my child Cordelia. 
 
 CORDELIA. 
 
 And so I am I am. 
 
 This desire to close their great and passionate creations with 
 a soothing and harmonising modulation, with a placid glory of 
 sunset light, freed, as it were, from the oppression of heat, is 
 often observable in the highest poets. We have it before us 
 here, we have it in the ' CEdipus Coloneus ' of Sophocles ; and 
 as an instance of its most perfect expression I need only turn 
 to the last book of 'The Iliad,' where Achilles, no longer 
 breathing pestilence and death, like the baleful star Sirius, 
 manifests to the aged Priam how gracious and noble his cha- 
 racter naturally is. Or again, I might refer you to the gentle 
 pastoral ending of the Book of Job, where we finally take leave 
 of the venerable Patriarch, who has been buffeted by the malice 
 of Satan, who has wrestled, we might almost say, in the agony 
 of his spirit on equal terms with God ; we leave him, as you all 
 recollect, listening to the joyous laughter of sons and daughters 
 on the air around him ; to the lowing of thousands of oxen, 
 and to the tinkling of innumerable sheep-bells, under the star- 
 revealing skies of his happy Arabia. 
 
 In moving on from ' Lear ' to ' Othello/ we leave behind us a 
 tragedy, thought by many to be absolutely the highest produc- 
 
1 68 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 m 
 
 tion of Shakspere ; and pass to one in my judgment still higher. 
 The end of ' Othello ' is above all praise, above everything but 
 wonder and reverence. It has, moreover, this advantage over 
 the play just spoken about, that we can enter more perfectly 
 into the feelings of the sufferers, and surrender ourselves to the 
 natural emotion thence arising, without hesitation or doubt. 
 We are not dealing with kings and princesses, but with men 
 and women like ourselves. There is a lost drama of Euripides, 
 ' The Merope,' characterised by Aristotle as the most tragic 
 of all the dramas belonging to the Athenian stage ; what he 
 means by most tragic, though open to some doubt, amounts, I 
 presume, to this : that though inferior to the noblest produc- 
 tions of ^Eschylus in austere grandeur, inferior also to the 
 completest works of Sophocles in art, finish, and harmony, it 
 yet awakened in the human heart, more vividly than anything 
 found elsewhere, the emotions of pity and terror ; and upon 
 these emotions, according to him, as upon her necessary foun- 
 dations, tragedy is built. 
 
 If Aristotle were alive now, he would say, I believe, that 
 ' Othello,' of all the plays of Shakspere, corresponded most 
 nearly with this lost ' Merope ' of Euripides. Lear, but for his 
 broken heart, would have been not much better than an ordi- 
 nary self-complacent king, one of those rulers over whose death 
 or accession the cry is raised, without special grief or special 
 enthusiasm, ' Le roi est mort, vive le roi/ Cordelia, as I have 
 said before, though honest and true, is somewhat hard and 
 unfeminine, so that it is rather the terrible pressure of destiny 
 upon these characters than anything in the characters themselves, 
 that awakens our interest and compassion. 
 
 With Othello this is not so. There surely never was a 
 happier dramatic juxtaposition than that of the simple-souled 
 African, preserving, under all his acquired talents for war and 
 statecraft, the untutored heart of one fresh from the mint of 
 nature; and of Desdemona keeping alive, through all the 
 
SHAKSPERE. 169 
 
 licentious refinements of Venetian civilisation, a purity and ten- 
 derness worthy of the first woman. 
 
 Both of them, therefore, are open beyond all others to the 
 influence of intrigue, and are, so to speak, the natural prey of 
 unscrupulous schemers, like lago. 
 
 We see that Othello, by reason of his merits by reason of 
 the clearness and nobleness of his character, is a necessary 
 victim. As, in spite of all his strength and royal qualities, he 
 cannot escape from the toils, we never lose our sympathy with 
 him. Whilst as to Desdemona, * the gentle lady married to 
 the Moor,' it is surely needless to speak of her. 
 
 lago, one of the most famous and effective characters in 
 Shakspere, is also one of the most puzzling. The risk he nins, 
 and the odium he incurs for objects seemingly inadequate, 
 perplex the reader. Having acquired a reputation for honesty 
 by his bluntness and bold indifference to public opinion, 
 trusted by his superiors as a valuable officer, and sure to rise 
 in his profession, if not as quickly as he expected, at least 
 without any serious interruption to his hopes, it is difficult to 
 explain the bitterness and rashness of his conduct. I have no 
 better solution at hand than the one already presented to you 
 in the case of Edmund. Shakspere meant, I think, to show 
 how implacably wicked a man can become under the stings of 
 wounded vanity and baffled intellectual pride. 
 
 Mankind has not done him justice, and therefore he holds 
 that mankind is deserving of punishment in return. Injuries, 
 fancied injuries, perhaps, have created and fed a hidden sore 
 within him, that has gnawed away his envious and discontented 
 youth. It is, therefore, not only that he wishes to make sport and 
 profit out of his fellow-creatures, but every stab that he inflicts 
 upon them is, in his eyes, a legitimate retaliation. If this impulse 
 of vanity, joined, as it is, with a sense of venomous intellectual 
 triumph over his hated dupes, be not .enough to explain his 
 actions, I must leave the explanation to some critic more subtle 
 
170 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 than myself. That wounded vanity is the predominant pas- 
 sion in lago's mind, we may gather, I think, from his first intro- 
 duction to us. For it is obvious that if we take into conside- 
 ration his character, his age (only twenty-eight), and his 
 prospects, we need some stronger incentive than a temporary 
 disappointment, or a vague jealousy, to account for the reck- 
 lessness with which he encounters the risk of absolute ruin. 
 
 If then, this wounded vanity be not accepted as the cause 
 of his crimes, I, at least, cannot find another. We must 
 remember that up to the very verge of the catastrophe, all men 
 trust him wholly ; he is ' honest lago ' throughout. Othello 
 first mentions him in these words : 
 
 Please your Grace, my ancient; 
 A man he is of honesty and trust : 
 To his conveyance I assign my wife. 
 
 Cassio relies upon him with equal confidence. Desdemona, 
 on hearing his name, at once exclaims : ' Oh, that's an honest 
 fellow,' and in her earliest agony of doubt and terror, what 
 immediately suggests itself to her mind is to seek his advice. 
 
 Prithee, to-night 
 
 Lay on my bed my wedding sheets remember 
 And call thy husband hither. 
 
 Yet in the opening of the play he unbosoms himself to Rode- 
 rigo, and actually boasts of being the unscrupulous self-seeker 
 that we find him at the end. 
 
 For when my outward action doth demonstrate 
 The native act and figure of my heart, 
 In compliment externe, 'tis not long after 
 But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve, 
 For daws to peck at. I am riot what I am. 
 
 He knows that such a snipe, as he calls Roderigo, oppressed, 
 moreover, with guilty secrets and guilty hopes of his own, is 
 not dangerous; that even if the profligate youth were to turn 
 upon him, he is too firmly rooted in the general esteem to be 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 171 
 
 shaken by so weak a hand ; so secure does he feel, that he in- 
 dulges himself in the rare pleasure of taking off his mask, and 
 giving his inmost thoughts a moment's liberty and air. From these 
 inmost thoughts we see that it is not so much the loss of pro- 
 motion, a loss to be repaired hereafter, as the slight put upon him 
 by preferring Cassio, an irreparable mortification, that cuts 
 him to the heart. 
 
 Mere prattle, without practice, 
 
 Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th' election ; 
 And I of whom his eyes had seen the proof 
 At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds, 
 Christian and heathen must be be-leed and calmed 
 By debitor and creditor ; this counter-caster ; 
 He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, 
 And I (God bless the mark !) his Moorship's ancient. 
 
 Again, when to extinguish, I suppose, for good and all, some 
 flickerings of remorse, he finds it necessary to strengthen his 
 evil impulses by conjuring up a belief that Othello has in- 
 trigued with his wife; it is not the actual fact that he cares 
 for, since he looks upon Emilia with but little affection. What 
 falls from him is this, ' so is it thought abroad ' To imagine 
 himself the object of such a suspicion, though he has nothing 
 but his own wicked fancy to go upon, 
 
 Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw his inwards. 
 
 Irritable vanity, therefore, coupled with a cold intellectual 
 delight in playing upon the feelings of other men, furnishes us 
 with a key to his conduct. Moreover, a high opinion of his 
 own powers, and a bitter contempt for all the rest of mankind, 
 lead him to believe that he will emerge victorious from his 
 complicated and perilous game. Emerge from it, refreshed by 
 a pleasurable sense of triumph in his own superior ingenuity ; 
 of scornful joy, at the folly of those whom he has succeeded in 
 betraying. 
 
 To any readers unsatisfied with this explanation, the almost 
 
172 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 certain ruin to which this cynical man of the world, 'who 
 knows all qualities with a learned spirit of human dealings,' 
 exposes himself for very inadequate reasons, must remain the 
 one element in this glorious tragedy open to criticism. But if 
 a sufficient cause for lago's plottings be once granted, it is im- 
 possible to conceive anything more perfect than they are in 
 point of execution. No high-bred Italian artist from the school 
 of Borgia, who has decided that any hurrying towards the goal 
 misbecomes a true politician, and that revenge is a more ex- 
 quisite ragout when eaten cold than when eaten hot, can sur- 
 pass this < ancient of exceeding honesty ' in malicious fore- 
 thought, patience, and skill. 
 
 As for his wife, he trusted, I suppose, that he could terrify 
 her into silence ; at the worst he was ready, as the event proves, 
 to silence her in one way or another; but with Emilia, as with 
 the Moor, his learned knowledge of human nature failed him a 
 little. He had studied Italians mostly, and now discovers 
 that his inferences do not altogether hold good for Africa. He 
 did not expect Desdemona to be killed quite so soon. The 
 barbaric suddenness of Othello took him therefore by surprise. 
 At the most critical period of his enterprise, he is placed in 
 the position of a chemist who, having calculated on an explo- 
 sion according to the strength of gunpowder, finds too late that 
 he is dealing with nitrate of silver or gun cotton. Moreover, 
 though he may have known men thoroughly, his knowledge of 
 women is less accurate ; his cold-blooded selfishness blinded 
 him to this great truth, that women, even timid and frivolous 
 women, are often visited by a breath of noble emotion, not to 
 be measured or gauged beforehand ; that they are often lifted 
 up, under the influence of some generous passion, to a height 
 of daring and self-devotion careless of consequences, reached 
 but seldom even by the bravest of men. Shakspere undoubt- 
 edly meant to tell us that Emilia, in her ordinary life, was 
 afraid of lago. -There are speeches of hers full of latent bitte^- 
 
SHAKSPERE. 173 
 
 ness against the husband, whom yet, as we see, she will not 
 openly provoke ; Speeches hinting at an estimate of his charac- 
 ter very different from tne prevailing one. She never says 
 anything about his honesty, nor lends any confirmation to what 
 is said of it by others. She is coarse-minded, no doubt, with 
 a certain ton de garnison, as the French say, about* her ; but 
 there is one bright spot in her character, and that is a disin- 
 terested affection for her angelic mistress. When Desdemona 
 is dead, all fears for herself, all thoughts of herself, die also. 
 All care for her husband's fortune, her husband's character, for 
 her own life, are swallowed up in the one overmastering pas- 
 sion of horror and despair. It is to be observed further, that 
 this is the only place in the tragedy where lago loses command 
 over himself. He thought that his wife, either through love or 
 fear, would stand by him, and so perhaps she would have 
 done, if time had been given to her; but the first irresistible im- 
 pulse of generous womanly anger had not entered into his cal- 
 culations. Then it was that the iron temper, strong enough 
 beforehand, and strong enough afterwards, to face the rack and 
 the scaffold in self-controlling silence, broke down for a 
 moment under this unlooked-for disappointment. 
 
 It is necessary also to remark, in extenuation of Othello's 
 violence, that Desdemona has come within the grasp, has sub- 
 jected herself to the unflinching laws of tragedy, by not speaking 
 the truth about her handkerchief at the critical moment ; she 
 is guilty of what easy-going moralists call a white lie, perhaps 
 it is hardly as much as a white lie; hoping to find the hand- 
 kerchief immediately, she might excusably consider it as mis- 
 laid for a moment, rather than lost ; this mistake, however, of 
 hers links itself into the fatal chain of destiny a chain that 
 had begun to coil itself around her, when Brabantio whispered 
 his bitter hint : 
 
 Look to her, Moor, have a quick eye to see: 
 She has deceived her father, and may thee. 
 
174 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 This momentary tampering with truth gives lago an extra 
 power and purchase to bind her fast in his net. I need not 
 say how skilfully Shakspere paves the way to this venial error, 
 and prepares our minds for its terrible results. Desdemona is 
 naturally of an open and confiding temper ; her frankness, 
 indeed, at first nearly baffled lago's insinuations; but this frank- 
 ness arises, not so much from a high spirit, as from having 
 been always loved and indulged. Against unlooked-for severity 
 she is rather a coward. 
 
 That blundering old Brabantio, who describes her as ' a 
 maiden never bold,' ' of spirit so still and quiet that her motion 
 blushed at itself/ drew, no doubt, from his insight into these 
 qualities, a wrong inference. He failed to discern that it was 
 this special womanliness this vine-like habit of clinging to 
 others, which dissatisfied her with ' the wealthy curled darlings 
 of her nation.' She turns accordingly from them, to recognise 
 instinctively, ' as the natural male of her species,' as the true 
 complement to her own gentle and feminine nature, that daunt- 
 less warrior who stood unmoved at the cannon, 
 
 When it had blown whole ranks into the air, 
 And like the devil, from his very arm 
 Puffed his own brother. 
 
 But though Brabantio reasons ill from what he knew of her cha- 
 racter, he sets that character distinctly before us ; thence we 
 see how it came to pass that she was startled out of her usual 
 sincerity, and shrank into herself, like a sensitive plant, at the 
 first approach of Othello's anger. 
 
 In this sort of lecture, tied to time, and delivered to fluc- 
 tuating audiences, the lecturer can hardly do more than give 
 hints, and scatter his impressions broadcast, in the hope that 
 some seed of thought or feeling may take root in a congenial 
 soil, and bear fruit in due season. I shall not, therefore, apolo- 
 gise the clock apologises for me if I proceed at once to a con- 
 clusion. Now, in summing up, I think f Othello ' may fairly 
 
SHAKSPERE. 175 
 
 claim to be the greatest achievement of Shakspere, as a playwright. 
 A mere playwright, however, as such, ranks below the true dra- 
 matist. He never reaches, does not, I suppose, aim at reaching, 
 the kind of reputation attained to by Sophocles and Shakspere, 
 as poets of all time. We may add that though Shakspere, as 
 he has shown in ' Lear,' * Othello,' and elsewhere, possesses this 
 power, he often neglects to use it. In point of fact, as to this 
 department of his art, he is by no means the supreme artist. 
 He must yield, I presume, the first place to Calderon or 
 Lopd de Vega. Still, however, a happy conception and develop- 
 ment of the plot, a careful arrangement of the incidents, and a 
 well considered advance to the catastrophe ; all these things, 
 though they may perhaps display dexterity of intellect and fer- 
 tility of resource rather than absolute genius, nevertheless 
 enhance very greatly any powers of passion and true poetry 
 which may belong to the writer. 
 
 If, therefore, a critic were influenced by a combination of 
 excellences differing in kind, such as ' Othello ' presents by 
 the skill and strength of intellect shown in framing and pressing 
 forward the story, as well as by the intense passion and noble 
 poetry pervading the whole drama influenced, I mean, so much 
 as to call it the master-piece of Shakspere, I have little objec- 
 tion to make ; it is rather a matter of feeling and individual 
 taste than of definite criticism. I myself consider that ' Mac- 
 beth ' soars into a higher region of the imagination, and dives 
 lower down into the deep places of the human soul, than any 
 other human composition except perhaps the Book of Job. 
 I consider, also, that ' Hamlet ' is richer in thought, in medi- 
 tative feeling, in the union of high poetry with high philosophy, 
 than ' Othello,' or any other drama in existence. Still, if any- 
 one meets me thus, What you say of * Macbeth ' is true ; what 
 you say of ' Hamlet ' is true ; but we are talking of tragedies, 
 and ' Othello,' according to Aristotle's canon of pity and terror, 
 is a more perfect tragedy than either ; I do not think I could 
 
176 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 encounter him with a direct contradiction. The rapid onset of 
 events, as they push each other forward like huge sea waves, 
 irresistible and unturnable as fate itself, beats the breath out of 
 one's body and the ground from beneath one's feet, whilst the 
 terrible pathos of the scenes, ending with the murder of Desde- 
 mona, was too much tor Samuel Johnson himself. Little indul- 
 gent as the tough old moralist was to irregular emotions and 
 wild impulses of undisciplined feeling, he gave way, nevertheless, 
 ' beneath the piteous fate of the loving Venetian girl, and sym- 
 pathised with the remorse of the self-condemned Moor so 
 keenly as to say, ' 1 lejoice that I have finished my annotations, 
 that I may escape from these dreadful and heartrending scenes.' 
 Then comes the close. The intrigues of lago have brought 
 about all, more than all, the mischief he intended. We look 
 forward in vain, and can anticipate for Othello no escape from 
 despair, except through a commonplace and vulgar suicide. 
 
 This we feel, we cannot but feel, is an inadequate and un- 
 satisfying catastrophe a catastrophe unworthy of all that has 
 gone before unworthy of the noble, though misguided, heart 
 that has wandered astray into darkness and the shadow of death. 
 Happily for mankind, Shakspere felt this also, and bent his 
 mighty genius to the task of reconciling our minds to the last 
 appearance before us of his unhappy Moor. There is nothing 
 in any drama that surpasses nay, if we consider them as uniting 
 poetry, passion, technical skill, and knowledge of stage effect, 
 I would almost say there is nothing that equals these last 
 speeches of Othello. 
 
 The judges are listening with grave sympathy to a seeming 
 defence: but just when their hearts are softened within them; 
 just when the culprit has made them feel how loyal and 
 faithful a servant he has ever been to his employers ; how, 
 if passionate and impetuous, his passion and impetuosity 
 were never uncontrollable, except when insults and injuries 
 were aimed at Venetians or at Venice ; then by a sudden 
 turn, wonderful as a piece of theatrical art, he shows to the 
 
SIIAKSPERE. 177 
 
 world, that though others are ready to pardon him, he cannot 
 accept forgiveness ; and thus forces us to acknowledge that 
 life having become impossible, he does not so much commit 
 suicide as take the law into his own hands ; He creates in his 
 own breast a tribunal without appeal ; and inflicts a retribution 
 upon himself, after it has been decreed by himself, as a just 
 though inexorable judge. 
 
 N 
 
i 7 8 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 * MACBETH.' 
 
 ANY approach to creations, whether human or divine, that 
 stand alone in their excellence, is accompanied by a very pecu- 
 liar emotion. 
 
 The Falls of Niagara, the sublimest peak of the Himalayas, 
 the ' Principia ' of Newton, the tragedy of ' Macbeth ' if, as I 
 believe, that tragedy be the chief expression of Shakspere's 
 dramatic genius alien from each other as they may be, are all 
 alike in this ; That the cataract next in majesty, the mountain 
 second as to height, the science by ever so little shallower, the 
 tragedy only a shade less powerful, are separated, each of them, 
 from its one superior by a gulf of thought, and seem to differ 
 in kind rather than in degree ; We feel that in the one case the 
 Hand of God,' and in the other the soul of man, has done its 
 best for us ; That anything materially greater must be looked 
 for in worlds of a type nobler than ours anything intellectually 
 greater among natures raised above ourselves in the scale of 
 Being. 
 
 Nor do I think that anyone, though he might prefer ' Ham- 
 let ' or ' Othello ' to ' Macbeth ' though he might perhaps find 
 in unexplored African recesses a precipice more awful or a 
 waterfall mightier than those hitherto known would deny the 
 general truth of the above statement; would deny, I mean, 
 that the sense of finding ourselves in communion with whatever 
 is greatest and highest of its kind, does exercise upon us a 
 
SHAKSPERE. I79 
 
 special influence, easy to be recognised, though difficult to 
 analyse or to name. It is in this spirit, a spirit of reverence 
 and silent admiration, that I always have drawn near to the, play 
 of ' Macbeth.' My sense of attraction towards its beauty, of 
 subjugation under its power, run together into a third feeling, 
 compounded of, yet distinct from both, and I seem to hear a voice 
 calling out to me that it is holy ground I am standing upon. 
 
 I was therefore both surprised and shocked to discover that 
 two able critics Mr. G. W. Clark, and Mr. Wright raise the 
 question, raise it too with the easiest placidity, as if it were wholly 
 unimportant to us, whether some other writer besides Shak- 
 spere may not have had a hand in the composition of this 
 matchless drama. Their first theory is that Shakspere divided 
 the labour with Middleton or someone else. And they state, 
 as an example, how Shakspere assisted Fletcher in the compo- 
 sition of the 'Two Noble Kinsmen.' This, they observe, is 
 generally admitted. No doubt it is generally admitted, and 
 for this excellent reason, that on the title-page of the ' Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ' we find it plainly declared to be the produc- 
 tion ' of those two eminent hands, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. 
 William Shakspere.' The argument, therefore, from the ' Two 
 Noble Kinsmen,' rightly considered, tells the other way. A simi- 
 lar partnership being assumed for ' Macbeth,' we are entitled to 
 ask for a similar declaration ; Let Mr. Clark and Mr. Wright 
 produce one, and we will listen to their pleadings ; Till then, 
 as far as the precedent of the ' Two Noble Kinsmen ' is con- 
 cerned, they are out of court. 
 
 These gentlemen then go on to tell us how Mr. Spedding 
 has shown conclusively, as they think, that Fletcher assisted 
 Shakspere in the composition of * Henry VIII.' This is quite 
 another matter. I have heard, if I am not mistaken, that Mr. 
 Tennyson, as great a master of poetical criticism as of poetry 
 itself, has at times pronounced an opinion that l Henry VIII.' 
 wai written entirely by Fletcher, and that Shakspere had nothing 
 
 N 2 
 
I So SHAKSPERE. 
 
 to do with it. There is, however, so far as I know, no stage 
 tradition to that effect no reason why Fletcher, then at the 
 height of his popularity, should not have claimed the play if it 
 were his. This judgment, therefore, a conversational judgment, 
 held with I know not what consistency and firmness, rests alto- 
 gether I presume, upon internal evidence and on comparison 
 of styles. Now I own frankly that my experience of life, my 
 reading, such as it is, and my orthodox disbelief in Papal, or 
 Quasi- Papal infallibility, all tend to shake the faith which I 
 
 
 
 might otherwise have put in these delicate and elastic methods 
 of reasoning. 
 
 I recollect the noble metaphor of Longinus, when he 
 brushes away the subtleties of the separatists by comparing * The 
 Iliad ' to a meridian, ' The Odyssey ' to a setting sun. Whether 
 he is absolutely right in the particular instance is perhaps hard 
 to say ; but the spirit of this criticism I accept as true and 
 sound. A great poet, in the morning and noon of his genius, 
 naturally thinks more of light and heat and strength ; in its 
 evening, of beauty and colour and grace. If this be so, then, 
 whilst he is rejoicing as a giant to run his course, by parity of 
 reasoning every movement must be a gradation, every process 
 a variation of aspect, every instant must bring a change. Tak- 
 ing such changes as certain to occur ; With regard to ' Henry 
 VIII.,' the author is writing of men almost, if not altogether, 
 his contemporaries. He might well desire to shed over the 
 play some tinge of common life, and might make his verses 
 looser and more conversational of set purpose, in order that 
 they should appear easier and more natural to the audience. 
 Why, even of Mr. Tennyson himself, we may predict without 
 unreasonable boldness, that about the year of Our Lord 2600, 
 some heir-general or surviving executor of German criticism 
 will pronounce authoritatively, once for all, that the system of 
 blank verse in the later idylls is so different from the system 
 of the first (perhaps 1 should now call it the last) as to render 
 
SHAKSPERE. 181 
 
 it impossible for a capable scholar to accept them as the work 
 of the same hand. 
 
 This being so, even if I were compelled to admit that in 
 ' Henry VIII.' the manner of expression and the modulations 
 of the verse belong apparently to Fletcher rather than to Shak- 
 spere, I should not, therefore, decide at once, in defiance of all 
 tradition, that Fletcher, instead of Shakspere, must be credited 
 with the authorship. 
 
 We know that for a time, for a good number of years indeed, 
 Fletcher was a greater favourite with the public than his illus- 
 trious contemporary. 
 
 Is it not then possible that Shakspere, buoyed up as he must 
 have been by a half-indignant and half-humorous sense of his 
 own immeasurable superiority, may on some particular occasion 
 have said to himself, ' The groundlings prefer Fletcher do they? 
 then Fletcher they shall have ; This is just the play, bringing 
 as it does upon the stage before us, those whom many still living 
 have seen and known in the flesh, to make use of his lax, fluent, 
 and conversational metre.' 
 
 From my point of view, in order to say positively that such 
 a man must have written this, or could not possibly write 
 that, all the complicated threads of motive and impulse, all 
 the fluctuating circumstances and inmost secrets of a vanished 
 life, all the roots of human character, should be laid bare. We 
 cannot tell how it is that many great men should, on particular 
 occasions, have fallen below themselves ; How, on the other 
 hand, smaller men should rise, as they often do for a moment, 
 far above themselves ; We cannot explain the matter, I have 
 said, at least I cannot \ and therefore on such occasions I think 
 more of external and traditional evidence, and less of unerring 
 consciousness and judicial intuition, than many abler critics. 
 
 Even the most original men are not always displaying a 
 peculiar colour of thought and style : There must be some 
 neutral tints, some passages that would not be out of place in 
 
i82 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 the works of more than one : Indeed, I think it probable that 
 these gentlemen, Messrs. Clark and Wright, would not have 
 been so eager, like Bacchus in ' The Frogs,' to weigh single 
 lines and short phrases in their balance, had it not been for 
 Middleton's play of ' The Witch : ' There is, no doubt, a cer- 
 tain likeness between the witches of the two dramas, and Stevens, 
 maintained that Shakspere had copied from Middleton. 
 
 This theory, however, with a view of showing that Middle- 
 ton was the interpolator of, or the partner in, ' Macbeth ' (I wish 
 these two very different suggestions were kept properly distinct), 
 is summarily dismissed by Messrs. Clark and Wright. We 
 are told : ' Given two works, one of transcendent merit and one 
 much inferior, it is much more probable that the latter should 
 be plagiarised from the former if plagiarism there be than 
 the former from the latter/ Indeed ! I am not so sure of 
 that. Power of any kind has a most lordly idea of its own 
 rights and privileges. It is not the fish-hawk that plagiarises 
 from the eagle, but the eagle from the fish-hawk not the igno- 
 rant savage, but his civilised and Christian neighbour, who seizes 
 upon hunting-ground after hunting-ground because the rightful 
 owners cannot turn them to the best account : And, as we all 
 know, the man who sat upon a dunghill raking it for pearls was 
 not Ennius but Virgil. 
 
 Putting aside this question for the moment, the lines and 
 passages cited by the two editors as spurious are after all so 
 few and unimportant that to regard them as assigned, in an 
 avowed partnership, to a regular associate seems an incredible 
 supposition. 
 
 Their other theory, that the play was interpolated after 
 Shakspere's death or retirement from the stage is more probable ; 
 and if they mean no more than this, that a song or two may have 
 crept into the text, or that some stage business put at the end 
 was made more bustling and noisily effective such a possibility 
 is hardly worth contesting, though also it is hardly worth noticing. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 183 
 
 It may, however, be as well to come to particulars. Messrs. 
 Clark and Wright contend that the second scene of the first 
 act was not written by Shakspere : that scene, as we all know, 
 opens with Duncan's question, ' What bloody man is that ? ' 
 
 I must confess to a prejudice in favour of this paragraph, not 
 strictly legitimate. All barristers of thirty years' standing, who used, 
 in times gone by, to roar over a whimsical book called ' Arabin- 
 iana,' or the sayings and doings of an eccentric Serjeant Arabin, 
 would regret to learn that the motto of that undying work was 
 derived, not from Shakspere, but from some inferior poet ; the 
 motto in question was, I need hardly say, * What bloody man is 
 that? that is the Serjeant/ 
 
 Overstepping, however, this prejudice of my youth, what 
 strikes me in this impeached scene is, first, that the text appears 
 to be slovenly and corrupt, so as greatly to require correction 
 and readjustment. 
 
 Secondly, although maimed in point of style, it is finely 
 conceived from a dramatic point of view, and useful in intro- 
 ducing us to the plot. 
 
 Thirdly, that though, as it now stands, it may be somewhat 
 clumsy and confused, it nevertheless contains passages which I 
 must insist on attributing to Shakspere himself. Take for 
 instance the lines describing the aspect of the battle 
 
 Doubtfully it stood, 
 
 Like two spent swimmers that do cling together, 
 And choke their art. 
 
 That, upon my ear, rings like Shakspere all over. 
 
 As to their final reason against the authenticity of this 
 scene that Shakspere's good sense would hardly have tolerated 
 the absurdity of sending a severely wounded soldier to carry the 
 news of a victory. Nothing, I think, but the consciousness of 
 a weak case could have induced such able critics to press so 
 lame an argument into their service. 
 
 In the first place, there is no evidence that the sergeant was 
 
1 84 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 carrying despatches at all ; he is encountered, on his road to a 
 surgeon, by the King and his courtiers, as they are moving 
 down towards the field of battle ; and they naturally give him 
 due honour, after stopping to ask what is about to happen, or 
 has happened. But secondly, supposing he were the carrier 
 of despatches, how does this impugn Shakspere's or anybody 
 else's good sense? Why, the faithful messenger, who expires 
 with the cry of victory on his lips, is one of the commonplaces 
 of Poetry nay, why do I speak only of Poetry ; History her- 
 self abounds with instances of a like kind. 
 
 Surely, about the very battle of battles, when the men of 
 Marathon, 1 fighting for their country, saved, without knowing it, 
 the inheritance of the whole human race, there arose some such 
 legend- Surely, unless my memory deceives me, we learn that 
 he who bore the immortal tidings home to Athens rushed in, 
 covered with dust and blood, to fall down and die whilst telling 
 his story to die whilst, with his latest breath, he called upon 
 
 
 
 his fellow-citizens to rejoice with him. This legend may be 
 true, or it may be false, but the solemn poetical instinct of the 
 Greeks decreed that destinies like his must be consecrated, as 
 it were, by the lightning stroke That to carry such a message 
 was like touching the Ark of God a greater thing than any 
 man could accomplish and live. 2 
 
 Again, if Marathon and Morat seem to be too far off, we can 
 summon Mr. Browning into court for the defence. 3 As to the 
 
 1 The same story is told in almost identical terms of the battle of Morat. 
 
 2 The above paragraph was suggested by, and partly borrowed from, a 
 fine passage in Archer Butler's ' Platonic Dialogues.' 
 
 3 Then off there flung in smiling joy, 
 
 And held himself erect 
 By just his horse's mane, a boy : 
 
 You hardly could suspect 
 (So tight he kept his lips compressed 
 
 Scarce any blood came through), 
 You looked twice e'er you saw his heart 
 
 Was all but shot in two. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 185 
 
 general style of the sergeant's declamation, it is bombastic no 
 doubt ; perhaps Shakspere meant to imply that a subordinate 
 officer, brought suddenly into the presence of his sovereign, 
 with functions to which he was unaccustomed thrust upon him, 
 would cease to speak simply, as was his wont, and use the 
 biggest words that came into his head. When, however, the 
 critics say that his bombastic phraseology is not like Shakspere's, 
 even when Shakspere is most bombastic, we pass, I think, into 
 vagueness, and cannot agree upon a decision": I believe, on 
 the contrary, that the insincere emphasis of Macbeth, when he 
 too is speaking unnaturally, and forcing himself to use strong 
 expressions, lest men should see into his heart, and recognise 
 him as the murderer of Duncan, by ' his faltering speech and 
 visage discomposed,' resembles very, much the sergeant's loud- 
 sounding address : 
 
 Here lay Duncan, 
 
 His silver skin laced with his golden blood, 
 
 And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in Nature, 
 
 For Ruin's wasteful entrance. 
 
 Another point taken by these critics is a supposed inconsist- 
 ency between the second scene and the third of the first act. 
 They affirm that Cawdor is represented under certain circum- 
 stances in the one, and under different circumstances in the 
 
 * Well,' cried he. ' Emperor, by God's grace 
 
 We've got you Ratisbon ! 
 The Marshal's in the market-place, 
 
 And you'll be there anon 
 To see your flag-bird flap his vans 
 
 Where I, to heart's desire 
 Perched him.' The Chief's eye flashed ; his plans 
 
 Soared up again like fire. 
 The Chiefs eye flashed ; but presently 
 
 Softened itself, as sheathes 
 A film the mother eagle's eye 
 
 When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
 
 * You're wounded.' ' Nay '--his soldier's pride 
 
 Touched to the quick he said : 
 ' I'm killed, sire,' and his chief beside 
 Smiling the boy fell dead. 
 
1 86 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 other. I do not admit that this inconsistency is made out. The 
 sergeant knows nothing of Cawdor, who therefore was not in the 
 battle, not fighting against Macbeth. The ' assistance ' (a most 
 general term) given by him to Norway, was probably 'the 
 hidden help and vantage ' referred to by Angus. There is, 
 therefore, no reason why Macbeth should not reply to the salu- 
 tation of the witches ' The Thane of Cawdor lives a prosperous 
 gentleman,' nor again why he should not afterwards repeat, 
 
 The Thane of Cawdor ! why do you dress me 
 In borrowed robes ? 
 
 It is Angus, not present in the prior scene, who answers 
 him, ' Who was the Thane lives yet/ &c. But the answer of 
 Angus, perhaps higher in rank and therefore the natural spokes- 
 man, is sufficient for the purpose, and there was no necessity 
 for entering into further details. I am ashamed of wasting 
 your time upon such trifling points of criticism : but, after all, it 
 is not a trifling matter to be told that the greatest effort of un- 
 inspired genius is more or less the work of patchers and 
 cobblers. Such judgments carelessly thrown out, and carelessly 
 assented to, seem to take all solid ground from underneath 
 our feet, and to plunge us into bogs and quicksands. 
 
 For instance, it may be true that if scene five, act three, had 
 occurred in a drama not attributed to Shakspere, no one would 
 have discovered in it a trace of Shakspere's manner : 
 
 This night I'll spend 
 Unto a dismal and a fatal end. 
 Great business must be wrought ere noon. 
 Upon the corner of the moon 
 There hangs a vaporous drop profound ; 
 I'll catch it ere it come to ground : 
 And that, distilled by magic sleights, 
 Shall raise such artificial sprites, 
 As, by the strength of their illusion, 
 Shall draw him on to his confusion ; 
 He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear 
 His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear ; 
 And, you all know, security 
 Is mortals' chiefest enemy. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 187 
 
 These seem to me fine choral lyrics, but how far I am in- 
 duced to think so by reading them as Shakspere's I am now 
 driven to doubt. I can only say that to talk of Shakspere's 
 manner here is, in my judgment, beside the question. The 
 witch element of * Macbeth ' stands quite alone ; there is 
 nothing the least like it in any of Shakspere's other works. We 
 have, therefore, no guide as to the manner, but must leave 
 these bold choruses to be their own interpretation. It is, 
 moreover, a strange mode of proceeding to argue after that 
 fashion. The lines DO occur in a play attributed to Shakspere, 
 and we have to deal with them accordingly. I recollect my 
 narrow escape from a flogging a great many years ago. 1 1 
 stood with bated breath and whispering humbleness ' before Dr. 
 Keate, of famous memory ; just because a puzzle-headed old 
 clock, coeval, for aught I know, with Shakspere himself, chose 
 to strike three quarters instead of the proper hour of two. The 
 Doctor bellowed down my excuses with what might fairly be 
 called * purpureo ore/ and fiercely delivered himself of this 
 ukase. ' Clock, sir ! Don't talk to me about clocks ! Even if 
 there were no clock, you were bound to be in time/ ' Yes, 
 sir,' I ventured to reply, ' if there were no clock, but there is a 
 clock f- -This seemed to strike him as reasonable. He could 
 not well say that I was either a fool or a liar (his usual dilemma); 
 therefore he subsided gradually into a milder growl, and I went 
 my way unflogged. 
 
 So I say now, here is a play of Shakspere's and here are 
 the choruses in it. What we should think about the matter if 
 we stumbled upon them elsewhere, and they did not exist in 
 * Macbeth,' is little to the purpose. 
 
 Next, with regard to the Porter. Some of you may possibly 
 recollect that I referred to him in a former lecture. Messrs. 
 Clark and Wright observed that Coleridge long ago said : ' This 
 low soliloquy of the Porter, and his few speeches afterwards, 
 I believe to have been written for the stage by some other hand/ 
 
1 88 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I urged upon you, when I spoke of ' Macbeth ' last time, 
 that in all tragedy of the highest order, if there were no interval 
 between the mighty conflicts of passion no respite or lull the 
 tension of the mind would be too great and too continuous I 
 suggested that this lull or cessation of feeling was produced 
 upon the Greek stage (I might add that it is also, to a certain 
 extent, produced in ' Macbeth/ where there is less comedy than 
 usual) by majestic dances, by solemn music, by the brilliant 
 strains of a carefully-chosen chorus I pointed out, moreover, 
 that even the French dramatists, when under the influence of 
 an enthusiasm deeper and stronger than usual, were driven by 
 a similar poetical instinct (as in ' Esther ' and * Athalie ') to vary 
 their methods and break up the traditional monotony of French 
 tragic verse. 
 
 With reference to our own writers, I went on to observe 
 that they aimed at reaching the same end by a different road 
 that not the rouged and varnished passions of queens and confi- 
 dantes, but the living mass of human nature as a whole, was the 
 raw material on which their genius worked. 
 
 They strove, therefore, to tone down all over-mastering ex- 
 citement, to withdraw all undue pressure from the nerves, by 
 bringing home to us in every form, this undoubted truth, that, 
 after all, the main ocean of human existence is wider, deeper, 
 and more enduring than the transitory joys and sorrows of par- 
 ticular men and women, however high in place. Some top- 
 most wave or so may break into foam, and perish thus beneath 
 the fury of the tempest; But still, far below, the inner fountains 
 of the great deep, unvexed by these petty agitations over the 
 surface, keep on for ever with a majestic sameness, feeding its 
 life according to the eternal laws. 
 
 This dim sense of the greatness and unchangeableness of 
 the world, underlying all personal calamities and all individual 
 entanglements of passion and sin, lends, I think, a breadth and 
 
SHAKSPERE. 189 
 
 a depth to many tragic situations that doubles their interest 
 for us. 
 
 It surely adds much to the pathos of any such calamitous 
 surprises, to reflect that mighty kings may perish without warn- 
 ing ; that lovely and beloved queens may be cut off by the most 
 miserable of fates, whilst the unsympathising stars of heaven 
 roll on as usual, and the great ebb and flow of our common 
 humanity is not affected even for a moment. I know, as far as I 
 am concerned, that no regular history of the French Revolution 
 ever sent so keen a thrill of pity into my heart for its victims 
 as a little Paris almanack which I once possessed, for 1792, 
 1793, and 1794. There you saw the ruthless indifference of 
 those dreadful years to the grim events that have since been 
 distilled into large volumes as if they were all that men at that 
 period cared for or thought of. 
 
 On Monday a man slipped down in the frost and broke 
 his leg ; on Tuesday a cart was upset, and two casks of Bour- 
 gogne rouge were spilt in the gutter; on Wednesday, Vergniaud 
 Guadet Gensonne', et cinquante-trois autres, k la guillotine j on 
 Thursday a new comedy was successful at one of the minor 
 theatres ; on Friday the winepress of the national wrath over- 
 flowed again, with a redness, alas ! that was not the redness of 
 the grape ; Veuve Capet a la guillotine ; on Saturday a fire 
 at a baker's shop in the Faubourg St. Antoine was discovered, 
 but soon extinguished without doing any damage. It was when 
 I felt the heart-rending pathos of these dreadful juxtapositions, 
 that a strange sense came over me, how the French nation was 
 here departing from its old tragic canons, and proving, perhaps 
 against its will, how much truer a conception of the drama 
 those barbarians, sneered at by Voltaire, in reality had. It was 
 by the instinct of genius that our old dramatists lighted upon a 
 truth which I learnt painfully from the Paris almanack. Ac- 
 cordingly, they never allow us to forget the world beyond, and 
 give a profound philosophical harmony to their creations by 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 making us feel and see that behind the special passions which 
 they paint, the multitude of other men go on eating and drink- 
 ing, laughing and playing, working and resting, as usual that 
 no single unit among the infinities of number occupies more 
 than a very limited portion of space or time. 
 
 Hence, also, that other low dialogue between the Grave- 
 diggers in ' Hamlet.' Hence a hundred other comic scenes, not 
 necessary to dwell upon. In * Macbeth,' indeed, as I have 
 said, this comic element is more sparingly introduced than is 
 common with Shakspere ; but why ? Because, as anyone can 
 see for himself, like Sophocles or ^Eschylus, he makes his chorus 
 do its work. When, however, he does introduce it in the per- 
 son of this discredited Porter, the sudden transition from a most 
 intense interest to the unthinking mirth and easy indifference of 
 the servants' hall, is, to my mind, more remarkable in one respect 
 than anything of the same kind to be met with elsewhere. It 
 differs from other similar passages ; and it differs thus whereas 
 each of them is interposed like an armistice between two neigh- 
 bouring outbursts of tragic passion, this passage, on the 
 other hand, is linked to the tragedy on each side of it by a 
 mysterious kinship, by a tie, as it were, of electrical affinity. 
 
 The same trivial incident, which is the immediate origin of 
 the Porter's humorous grumblings, breaks in upon Macbeth and 
 his wife like the summoning trumpet of the judgment day. They 
 are standing apart in a sort of trance, hag-ridden by the nightmare 
 of murder, with an unfordable river of innocent blood flowing 
 between them and the rest of mankind ; when suddenly, upon 
 the muttered remorse of the half-delirious assassin, upon the 
 gloomy comfortings of the savage woman, upon the intense 
 isolation of the guilty pair, comes back the reaction of ordinary 
 life -j To them, as to the drunken Porter, there arrives the 
 knocking at the gate. 1 Now if these knockings be two, and 
 not one ; if Shakspere heard only the first, and Middleton only 
 
 1 See De Quincey on the knocking at the gate in ' Macbeth.' 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 191 
 
 the second, I, at any rate, and I believe most Englishmen with 
 me, must go to school again and learn the alphabet of criticism 
 afresh. I shall pass over as comparatively unimportant several 
 points of difference between the editors and myself, and pro- 
 ceed to the end of the play at once. They will not have Mac- 
 beth's last speech, nor will they have the succeeding forty lines 
 with which the audience is dismissed. Of course if Middleton 
 were Shakspere's coadjutor throughout, he may well have 
 written the last scene ; but the editors play fast and loose with 
 that supposition, and indeed, unless a great deal more is spurious 
 than they have noted, the idea of a regular partnership seems 
 to me quite untenable. Again, the hypothesis, thrown out at 
 random, that Shakspere, after sketching out the plot of ' Mac- 
 beth,' reserved to himself only the scenes where Macbeth and 
 Lady Macbeth appear, will not answer their purpose any better, 
 seeing that several speeches of Macbeth are no more safe from 
 burglarious intrusion than other portions of the play. Whilst, 
 if we suppose, according to the somewhat hesitating inference at 
 the end, that the last forty lines were interpolated, or rather, to 
 coin a word for this occasion only, postpolated after Shakspere's 
 death, how was the original catastrophe disposed of? Shak- 
 spere's play, before it was meddled with, had, I presume, an end. 
 What then became of that end ? There is not, perhaps, with 
 the exception of old Siward's speech, much poetry in the last 
 
 scene. 
 
 Had he his hurts before ? 
 
 ROSSE. 
 Ay, on the front. 
 
 SIWARD. 
 
 Why then, God's soldier be he ! 
 Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
 I would not wish them to a fairer death : 
 And so, his knell is knolled. 
 
 This is worthy of Shakspere, and reminds us of the Duke of 
 Ormonde's proud and loving sorrow, ' I would rather have my 
 
192 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 dead son than any living son in Christendom/ There is not, I 
 say, with this exception, anything of high poetical merit after 
 Macbeth's final exit but why ? Just because high poetical 
 merit is not required. * Retreat,' ' Flourish/ ' Enter, with 
 drums, trumpets, and colours, old Siward, Rosse, the other 
 Thanes, Malcolm, and soldiers.' Shakspere is here in his sub- 
 ordinate character, not the poet of the world, but the manager 
 and playwright of ' the Globe.' ^Esthetic and philosophical 
 critics are too apt to forget that he was, at all times, both ; that 
 he composed his play, in the first instance at any rate, for the 
 stage and not for the closet. In this, his inferior capacity, he 
 may well have thought that all this noise, bustle, and move- 
 ment needed no more, by way of help, than a few words of 
 ordinary theatrical commonplace ; l and that the business 
 speeches before us were good enough, taking in Siward's 
 speech, more than good enough, to answer his immediate pur- 
 pose. As to Macbeth's last speech, it is a fine one, whoever 
 wrote it. We mtist bear in mind that he is a man of excitable 
 imagination, conscious that the time has been when 
 
 His senses would have cool'd 
 To hear a night shriek, and his fell of hair 
 Would, at a dismal treatise, rouse and stir 
 As life was in it. 
 
 He was stung to fresh crimes because he could not rest, because 
 he was compelled 
 
 To lie upon the torture of the mind 
 
 In restless ecstasy. 
 
 And because his wild imagination, overreaching his judgment, 
 kept painting pictures of peace and happiness and security if 
 but one more step in blood were taken. Shakspere, however, 
 felt that although Macbeth has yielded to a sudden and excep- 
 tional temptation, he is still a knight and a soldier. As soon 
 
 1 Several plays of Euripides end with one and the same formula a 
 very prosaic one just because, I suppose, as in England so at Athens, high 
 poetry would have been thrown away upon men fidgeting in their seats, or 
 beginning to make their way out of the theatre. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 193 
 
 as hope is absolutely quenched, as soon as ruin is inevitable 
 and close at hand, his gloomy fancy, so long preternaturally 
 excited and abused, falls away into the background of his cha- 
 racter for ever : He recalls the instincts of his youth, recovers 
 his self-respect as he draws his sword, and braces his nerves to 
 
 die like a man : 
 
 I will not yield, 
 
 To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, 
 And to be baited with the rabble's curse. 
 Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, 
 And thou opposed, being of no woman born, 
 Yet will I try the last. Lay on, Macduff ; 
 And damn'd be he that first cries, ' Hold enough.' 
 
 I do not know who wrote this speech, but it reminds me 
 not a little of Homer I mean, of course, that it reminds me 
 of the Hellenic Middleton who composed that particular 
 portion of the so-called ' Iliad ' containing the Death of 
 Hector. 
 
 Hector also, as long as he trusted in Apollo and in Zeus, 
 sought, if not by guilty, at least by ignominious methods, to 
 prolong his life ; but when inevitable Death frowned upon him 
 face to face, the spirit of the hero and the patriot rose up to 
 meet it without flinching : He emerged, from a strange cloud 
 of terror and despair, to die like the Sun, to die amid a flush of 
 glory, bright enough to keep alive in the minds of men, the 
 memory of that setting for evermore : 
 
 ' Fate grasps me, yet I will not die ashamed ; 
 
 Die without Honour, without energy ; 
 But after some great deed, long to be named, 
 
 Among the men who are about to be.' 
 He spake, and drew forth the keen blade that hung 
 
 Down by his side, blade strongly forged and great, 
 Massing himself together, as he sprung. 
 
 Thus the high-soaring eagle dashes, straight 
 Through murky clouds, upon the plain, to tear 
 Some tender lamb away, or trembling hare. 
 So Hector sprang, his sword a quivering flame ; 
 Achilles rushed to meet him, as he came. 
 
 O 
 
i 9 4 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I fear too much time has been spent in examining these 
 minutice but the destructive criticism, the architecture of ruin, 
 originated by Wolfe, and followed up by his pupils in Germany 
 and here, irritates me more than enough ; not so much on 
 account of the results aimed at (a critic must perform his ap- 
 pointed task regardless of consequences), as on account of the 
 curious self-complacency, with which the members of this bande 
 noire turn to these unwelcome labours : They break up the 
 cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples 
 of the Past, without sympathy without any feelings of rever- 
 ence or regret ; on the contrary, they exult, as the former Sans- 
 culottes did, whilst attacking one venerable building after 
 another. 
 
 However, come what may, at last we have got ' Macbeth/ 
 whether written by Shakspere alone, or by Shakspere and Mid- 
 dleton, or by Shakspere and some anonymous coadjutor. Let 
 us be thankful for that. As I said on a former occasion, the 
 Greek and English elements of tragedy meet therein with 
 astonishing, if not with unequalled, dramatic force : Besides 
 this, unless I am wrong in fancying that the unhappy Jewish 
 King Ahab, and his terrible wife, have re-shaped themselves 
 here under new names, through the transfiguring imagination of 
 the poet, then there is a third element the element, it may 
 perhaps be called, of Hebrew intensity brought in to enrich 
 and to animate this master-piece of original creative genius. l 
 
 Returning, however, to the Greek idea of Destiny, as it was 
 conceived by yEschylus and Sophocles ; the whole play is over- 
 hung by it, from first to last. To borrow an expression from 
 Plato, its place is upon the ' knees of the Goddess Necessity/ 
 Accordingly, I think it most important that no time should be 
 lost in impressing this aspect of the tragedy upon the mind of 
 
 1 I had discussed these points at some length in the previous lecture 
 the lecture on ' Hamlet.' Having said my say about ' Hamlet, ' I touched 
 upon 'Macbeth' before concluding. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 '95 
 
 the hearer or reader : we must be lifted at once out of common 
 life into a life of vision. 
 
 Within that sphere of the unearthly and phantasmal, where 
 all the limits of truth and falsehood are undistinguishably 
 blended together in a haze of alternating light and darkness, 
 whilst the unchanging cloud of Fate remains fixed and implac- 
 able above, we must be prepared to see Macbeth suddenly 
 solicited by devilish temptations, temptations known to us 
 beforehand from the very opening of the drama. 
 
 For this reason, therefore, among other reasons, I cannot 
 surrender to the knives of these amputating editors the first 
 scene, with its well-known chorus, 
 
 When shall we three meet again, 
 In thunder, lightning, or in rain ? 
 
 This self-introducing appearance of the Midnight Hags, is in 
 my judgment, absolutely necessary. If we had not already learnt 
 that the Witches were coming expressly to meet Macbeth after 
 the battle, their approach for the first time upon the blasted 
 heath, without any precise explanation of their purposes, would 
 be somewhat awkward and inartistic. 
 
 As it is, we feel that they have flown right ' through the fog 
 and filthy air,' to apply their dangerous wiles, just at the most 
 dangerous moment ; to sow their poisoned seeds in the soul 
 of Macbeth, and to win him over to treason and murder by 
 skilfully inflaming his wild and wayward imagination. 
 
 I suppose that every criminal finds out for himself some 
 specious excuses, that soothe his own mind, and hide away under 
 certain veils and coverings the ugly nakedness of his guilt. 
 
 As for Macbeth, it is probable that Shakspere conceived 
 him as throwing his original fault upon that Destiny which seizes 
 him as her helpless instrument. He tries to persuade himself 
 that the pressure of Fate (and but for that he might have re- 
 mained innocent and loyal) is an irresistible pressure 
 
 o 2 
 
196 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 \ 
 
 If chance will have me king, 
 
 Then chance may crown me/ 
 
 This supernatural soliciting 
 
 Cannot be ill, and cannot be good, &c. 
 
 At any rate, he is deceived in no other way. Nothing, indeed, 
 can be more remarkable than his keen insight into all the con- 
 sequences of the deed before it lias been perpetrated. His 
 vivid imagination presents, to the eye of conscience, a picture 
 complete in all its details, and the numerous reasons against 
 himself stand before him, apparelled in their fullest and clearest 
 
 light j 
 
 He 's here in double trust : 
 
 First, as I am his kinsman and his subject ; 
 Strong both against the deed: then, as his host, 
 Who should against his murderer shut the door, 
 Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan 
 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
 So clear in his great office, &c. 
 
 His resolution even seems to oscillate for a moment, and he 
 tries to think that he is meditating repentance ; seems to oscil- 
 late, I say, and tries to think, for the ebbing of the will is 
 not real, and he knows that it is not real knows that it will 
 soon come back upon him with fresh power, like a returning 
 
 tide : 
 
 We will proceed no further in this business, &c. 
 
 The one thing that Macbeth has not sufficiently apprehended 
 is the power of punishment reserved to itself by that same 
 representative faculty, when the possible has passed into the 
 actual, and when the fantastical thought of murder has made 
 
 itself incarnate and become 
 
 /, 
 
 Portion and parcel of the dreadful Past. 
 
 This sting of conscience acting, not so much upon the 
 moral sense as upon the fancy and the nerves, is the pecu- 
 liarity that distinguishes Macbeth from other criminals ; Though 
 Jie knows all the time, that his eyes are made the fools of his 
 
SHAKSPERE, 197 
 
 other senses, that the dagger seen by him is but ' a dagger of 
 the mind/ a false creation, ' proceeding from the heat-oppressed 
 brain;' nevertheless, he cannot put it aside. Influenced by 
 the same natural constitution, although he feels but little true 
 remorse, as soon as the deed is done, he falls under (what may 
 be called) a regular possession. Every corner of his soul is 
 occupied and held fast by the abiding presence of an inexor- 
 able phantom ; He can think of nothing else, not because he 
 feels regret, but because the bloody details have become a part 
 of himself, and are reflected without any respite from all the 
 facets of his imagination. He has no capacity of self-restraint 
 no capacity of self-deception, or even of momentary forget- 
 fulness, so that memory presses upon him with a heavy and 
 ever-increasing weight ; It galls him so that he cannot keep 
 still, and is driven to devise new plans of ruin and murder, 
 not so much for their own sake, or in hopes of security, as 
 because perpetual action is his only way to escape from 
 agony his only way of freeing himself from the grasp of these 
 merciless reminiscences. For such a mind as his we may well 
 grant that the form of the temptation, clothing itself, as it does, in 
 all the attributes of supernatural power, was calculated to exer- 
 cise an influence alike strong and lasting. Creatures, possessed 
 of knowledge more than human, have prophesied that he is set 
 apart and foredoomed to reign. He accepts this destiny as a 
 gift, not understanding, in the first instance, how high a price 
 he will have to pay for it. Very soon, however, the desire to 
 obtain what Fate has decreed is kindled within him, like a con- 
 suming fire, so that when he discovers that to earn the fiend's 
 wages he must do the fiend's work, he fixes his eyes upon the 
 result alone, overleaps all his scruples, and nerves himself to 
 accomplish the task required by Hell with the least possible 
 delay ; This he does, in spite of the clearest self-knowledge. 
 
 That Shakspere intended to paint Macbeth as yielding 
 to an exceptional and artfully devised allurement, I think 
 
198 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 one may learn by considering the character and position of 
 Banquo. 
 
 This rival general is, no doubt, described by Macbeth in 
 terms of high admiration, but he is so described, because the 
 usurper, according to the instincts of his nature, imaginatively 
 bestows upon Banquo's character all the qualities that fit him 
 to become a watchful observer and a formidable enemy. 
 Banquo, however, as he is, not as he is seen by Macbeth, 
 presents himself to us, I think, as one also affected by the 
 blighting influence of the weird sisters. 
 
 Thou hast it now King Cawdor Glamis all 
 As the weird women promised ; and, I fear, 
 Thou'st played most foully for it ; yet 'twas said, 
 It should not stand in thy posterity, 
 But that myself should be the root, and father 
 Of many kings if there come truth from them. 
 
 
 
 May they not be my oracles as well, 
 And set me up in Hope ? 
 
 Immediately after this, Banquo, unlike Macduff, whose loyalty 
 to Duncan is unquenchable, accepts the character of servant 
 and courtier to the new king. 
 
 He is waiting, not certainly upon Providence in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the word, but upon Fate waiting, to overlook, 
 perhaps to hurry on, if he can, the accomplishment of those 
 predictions belonging to himself and his progeny. 
 
 He shows no sympathy with or affection for, Malcolm ; 
 he is urged by no generous impulse to vindicate 'his bloody 
 cousins ' from the accusations of that man whom he himself 
 knows to be the real assassin. It is, moreover, worth a remark 
 that this trafficking with the accursed thing this misprision of 
 treason and murder probably caused his own death. Had he 
 been single-minded and true-hearted, like Macduff, he would 
 not have drifted into the web of treachery spun by Macbeth to 
 catch his life, but removed himself at once out of the usurper's 
 reach. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 
 
 199 
 
 Of Banquo, however, or the rest of the dramatis persona, 
 it is unnecessary to say much. The power of the play is not 
 shown in the subordinate characters. It is less rich in this 
 respect than many of the other plays for example, than ' The 
 Tempest.' Its power, as I have said before, is shown rather in 
 the grandeur and untiring march of the plot ; in the astonishing 
 force of the marvellous and supernatural element ; but above 
 all, in the display of feminine strength and masculine weakness, 
 as shown forth by Lady Macbeth and her husband. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind always, that this is not sham 
 masculine, but real feminine strength. Lady Macbeth is a bad 
 woman, but she is a woman throughout. Mrs. Siddons always 
 affirmed that she herself was too tall, and dark, and powerful, 
 to give full effect to her favourite character ; She maintained, 
 and I think rightly, that Lady Macbeth's concentrated intensity 
 of will and awful presence of mind are not logically opposed 
 to the weak remorse and vacillating temper lodged in the huge 
 limbs of her mediaeval fighting man, unless we mask them by 
 the outward form of a delicate, graceful, and attractive woman. 
 
 Duncan, you will recollect, is delighted with her, ' as his 
 most gracious hostess/ Even Macduff, in the first agony of his 
 loyal sorrow, addresses her thus: 
 
 Oh gentle lady, 
 
 'Tis not for you to hear, what I can speak. 
 The repetition in a woman's ear 
 Would murder it as fell O Banquo, Banquo ! 
 
 And when, in order to direct the attention of those around 
 from Macbeth, she pretends to faint, he calls out eagerly, 
 * Look to the Lady.' Her claims upon this complimentary 
 deference and chivalrous attention are not to be shaken, even 
 by the brutal murder of his beloved master, bitterly as he feels 
 it ; Her character was hidden from him under the semblance 
 of ' a gentle lady.' 
 
 The hand also, as we know well, ' that all the perfumes of 
 
2co SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Arabia could not sweeten,' was a little hand : And finally, the 
 grim reticence and self-mastery, never allowing any conscious- 
 ness of crime to embarrass her demeanour, or spoil her high 
 breeding, are followed by effects which all the sufferings and 
 struggles of her husband fail to produce upon him. He pours 
 himself out in storms of passionate remorse, but we do not 
 hear that the doctor is called in to prescribe for any bodily 
 ailment of his : His frame, it would seem, is too vigorous to 
 wither away because the mind is distempered. Her wounds 
 bleed inwardly, and simply kill her as she smiles ; the spirit 
 may be unconquerable, but the flesh is weak. 1 
 
 I think, on referring to one or two of the more important 
 scenes, we shall see how much the tragical splendour of the 
 situation is enhanced by adopting Mrs. Siddons's belief. Nor 
 should we overlook the fact that these -terrible feminine qualities 
 of hers are qualities, and not in themselves faults. 
 
 Whether there be any essential difference between men and 
 women ; whether, for instance, the instincts of motherhood 
 either presuppose or awaken something in the female soul which 
 the male is without ; or whether, as Plato in his ' Republic ' de- 
 clares, social habits, acting without intermission, through thou- 
 sands of years, have gradually modified the respective types of 
 character, I do not know; possibly it never will or can be known. 
 This, however, is obvious to all men, that women, on many occa- 
 sions, exercise powers beyond all masculine rivalry I might 
 add, all masculine comprehension. Whenever I see a woman 
 through continuous nights and days at the side of a sick bed, or 
 under the avalanche of some unexpected calamity, ordering 
 literally as it were ordering her nerves to become fibres of 
 steel, and facing what has to be faced with intense directness 
 of purpose and presence of mind, I always feel rather ashamed 
 of myself and my sex : We have, I trust, good points of our 
 
 1 I do not believe that she committed suicide. We assist at her death, 
 and hear nothing about it. What could Malcolm know of the matter ? 
 
SHAKSPERE. 201 
 
 own : But in the difficulties of life, when emotion has to be 
 sternly repressed, anxiety muffled and kept silent; even despair 
 postponed, because the present moment needs and summons 
 us with its cry of l Hoc age '- -we do not shine. A woman says 
 to herself, ' You may grieve, or give way, or die, if you please, at 
 your leisure hereafter, but now this thing, and this thing only, 
 has to be done do it with all your heart.' In such difficulties 
 of life, I say, men and women usually stand to each other in 
 relations very much like (mutatis mutandis, let us hope) those 
 of Macbeth towards his wife. The worthier gender, for so 
 grammarians presume to call it, scarcely exhibits itself as the 
 superior article. So deeply rooted, indeed, in the woman's 
 nature is this power over her own thoughts, that even in the 
 midst of these exhausting visions that drain away her life, Lady 
 Macbeth does not lose her gifts of self-restraint and pre-emi- 
 nence of will ; She still encourages and supports her irresolute 
 accomplice ; she still suggests and acts over each careful stra- 
 tagem meant to baffle enquiry and to achieve success. Shak- 
 spere is always great in dealing with sleep; certainly never 
 greater than when the Royal Lady, so smooth, so gracious, 
 and self-possessed, under the light of the sun, is cheated 
 out of her secresy by a dreaming conscience, and reveals to 
 midnight listeners the memories that rise up and sting her 
 to death. 
 
 In this scene also, we find, I think, another proof how accu- 
 rate the insight of Mrs. Siddons was into Shakspere's concep- 
 tion of the character. This proof is afforded by the nature of 
 Lady Macbeth's regrets. It is the disgust of the gently nurtured 
 lady at the outward disfigurement and taint of blood, rather 
 than genuine remorse for the deed of murder, that occupies 
 her soul in secret, and forces those ill-omened words through 
 her unconscious lips. It is not, I believe, generally known 
 that in this scene Mrs. Siddons departed from the old stage 
 tradition. I recollect hearing, when I was a boy, her account 
 
202 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 of the dispute with Sheridan (the playhouse manager) upon this 
 point. She narrated to a company, of whom I formed one, how 
 she battled, and how she prevailed. Mrs. Yates, her famous 
 predecessor in the part, always kept the candle in her hand 
 whilst the imaginary washing of it was going on. Mrs. Siddons, 
 whose instincts were truer to nature, determined, in the teeth 
 of the strongest opposition, to get rid of it first, as a waking 
 person would undoubtedly do : Sheridan gave way with much 
 reluctance, and as the play proceeded, a sense of danger from 
 this bold innovation, before such staunch conservatives as play- 
 goers then were, seized him with redoubled force. He ham- 
 mered at the door of her dressing room, he plied her with 
 entreaties that she would forego her rash purpose. 'No/ she 
 replied (I recollect now the deep tones of the fine old lady, as 
 she triumphantly recalled that ancient struggle). ' Go away, Mr. 
 Sheridan. I am dressing, sir; you cannot be admitted; my mind 
 is made up. J Accordingly, on she came, and set the candle 
 down. For a moment she felt, or fancied, that something 
 like doubt, something like disapproval, was in the air, and her 
 heart beat hard with anxiety. It was only for a moment, 
 however ; a breath of sympathy seemed to pass through the 
 silence of that crowded theatre, and then, all at once, the 
 watchful attention of the spectators relaxed itself, and broke 
 forth into a tempest of applause. 
 
20' 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ' MACBETH ; ' 'THE TEMPEST.' 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to examine ' The Tempest,' we may as well 
 put into form the conclusions reached by us about ; Macbeth.' 
 These, you will recollect, are that this play, though it may not 
 equal ' Hamlet ' in depth of thought or breadth of vision ; 
 though it does not reproduce the heart-rending pathos of 
 1 Lear ' or ' Othello/ surpasses them both in grandeur of con- ' 
 ception, and in the continuous intensity with which the poet 
 marches onward towards his goal. It is, I believe, of all Shak- 
 spere's dramas, the one most likely to have been envied by 
 .^Eschylus ; to have been selected by Aristotle for special 
 honours ; to have been accepted as a prophet-like revelation of 
 Jehovah's dealings with the children of men, by Isaiah and 
 Ezekiel. It abounds also, more than any other, I think, even 
 of Shakspere's works, with those wonderful flashes of suggestion 
 those pregnant phrases, wherein to my mind the highest poetry 
 abides phrases, I mean, perfectly simple in themselves, that 
 might and would be unpretending prose, if made use of on any 
 ordinary occasion. They are above all exquisiteness of diction, 
 and without the slightest colour of ornament, spotless and 
 transparent indeed as rock-crystal itself; but through that 
 perfect transparency, we are enabled to behold in them infinite 
 reflections of thought and feeling, from the remotest corners 
 and crevices of the human heart. 
 
204 SHAKSPRRE. 
 
 You know the passages referred to, I dare say, quite as well 
 as I know them ; still, as they cannot be dwelt upon too often 
 I may perhaps be permitted to recall a few of them to your 
 attention ; and to point out, as shortly as I can, what consti- 
 tutes their matchless power. To begin with Macbeth 's first 
 approach to the confiding Duncan : 
 
 There is no art, 
 
 To find the mind's construction in the face : 
 He was a gentleman on whom I built 
 An absolute trust Oh worthiest cousin ! 
 
 Here, on the first ominous appearance of the deeper and dead- 
 lier traitor, these three commonplace words, l Oh worthiest 
 cousin,' coming as they do immediately after Macbeth's earliest 
 interview with the weird sisters, contain the germ of the whole 
 tragedy. They make us feel that great events, possible only 
 through the unguarded simplicity of Duncan, who never sus- 
 pects till discovery has made suspicion useless, are impending, 
 and close at hand. We know that Macbeth's ambition has 
 been awakened and his imagination debauched, by the skilful 
 suggestions of that juggling fiend, who has just been paltering 
 with him in a double sense, and we see how Duncan's easiness 
 gives him an opportunity to act at once. 
 
 Again, what a wonderful revelation of Lady Macbeth's inner 
 mind opens itself before us when, for one moment, she is startled 
 into dangerous sincerity by this unexpected announcement, 
 * The King comes here to-night/ ' Thou art mad to say so ' 
 breaks out against and beyond her will But this irrepressible 
 disclosure of all that is at work within her troubled mind, though 
 it may fall idly on the ear of the unthinking messenger, is a 
 weakness on her part, and she feels it to be a weakness : How 
 impressive is the power over herself, retrieving this imprudence 
 with a bitter irony intelligible only to herself and God 
 
 Give him tending : 
 He brings great news. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 205 
 
 What a lesson also we learn from the first dialogue between 
 Macbeth and his wife : 
 
 My dearest love, 
 Duncan comes here to-night. 
 
 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 And when goes hence ? 
 
 MACBETH. 
 To-morrow as he purposes. 
 
 LADY MACBETH. 
 
 Oh never 
 Shall sun that morrow see. 
 
 Macbeth needs firm anchoring ground to keep his resolu- 
 tion stedfast and fixed ; he finds it, where he knew he would 
 find it, in the stern tenacity of his wife. In the very next scene 
 how fine the art by which Macbeth is made to assume prema- 
 turely, though darkly, the Royal manner : 
 
 If you shall cleave to my consent when 'tis, 
 It shall make honour for you. 
 
 The effect of his strange speech, addressed to a kinsman 
 and an equal, is evident from Banquo's reserved and suspicious 
 
 reply : 
 
 So I lose none, 
 
 In seeking to augment it, but still keep 
 My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear, 
 I shall be counselled. 
 
 In these few words we see the birth of that reciprocal dis- 
 trust between Banquo and Macbeth, inspiring Banquo's subse- 
 quent speech : 
 
 Thou hast it now King Cawdor Glamis all 
 That the weird sisters promised ; and, I fear, 
 Thou'st played most foully for it. 
 
 And impelling Macbeth to land his rival in that ditch 
 
206 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Where safe he lies, 
 
 With twenty trenched gashes on his head, 
 The least a death to nature. 
 
 Then, after the murder of Duncan has been committed, 
 with how light and easy a touch does the great master of life 
 and passion anatomise, and lay bare for us, the minutest fibres 
 of the murderer's conscience : 
 
 Goes the king hence to-day ? 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 He does he did appoint so, 
 
 Lady Macbeth would have said, he does, and stopped there; 
 but in the less determined and more sensitive criminal, some 
 blind throbs of honour, some useless reaction of a perishing 
 moral sense, shrank from and qualified the lie : 
 
 He does he did appoint so. 
 
 Again, what a picture of intense anxiety Macbeth exhibits 
 whilst waiting, as if for the explosion of a mine beneath his feet, 
 till the cry of discovery makes itself heard : He has to listen, 
 or pretend to listen, to Lennox babbling about the weather, 
 just able to croak out, with a vague sense of what is fretting his 
 ear, ' 'Twas a rough night.' This form of poetry I value much; 
 because, according to me, such passages give us poetry in its 
 essence : with no infusion of rhetoric, no amalgamation with 
 what is called thought, but Poetry itself. If the poet is a 
 rhetorician, so much the better ; if he is a philosopher, so much 
 the better; if he is a man of good sense and experience, so much 
 the better. Rhetoric, philosophy, good sense, and experience 
 are the natural alloys used in his mint. A poem, poetry and 
 nothing else, could not circulate freely any more than a 
 sovereign could circulate like its fellows, if it were made up 
 entirely of the purest gold. Still, after all, the other elements, in 
 both, are alloys not the intrinsic substance or dominant metal. 
 
 At any rate, we may say, perhaps, that, whether my views 
 
SHAKSPERE. 207 
 
 about poetry are consented to or not, such illuminating drama- 
 tic revelations are never given to the world except by poets of 
 the highest order. 
 
 I repeat and recur to the words, flash and illumination, 
 because they alone express my meaning fully. I seek in vain 
 to put aside the metaphor for another equally forcible and just. 
 When I dwell upon such phrases as those quoted above, I seem 
 to see rising before me a summer night, over-loaded with thun- 
 der-cloudsa night, dark, to use the proverbial expression, as 
 a wolfs mouth : out of whose depths, suddenly and without 
 notice, the lightning rushes forth ; It flings forward the whole 
 hidden landscape into almost painful distinctness and life ; so 
 that every cottage, every spire, every wood, every hill, down to 
 the silver strip of sea glancing up under the distant horizon, 
 become clearer and more manifest than by day. 
 
 Difficult as it may be to leave ' Macbeth,' still it must be 
 done and who should lure us away more successfully than 
 Prospero and Miranda? One last word, however, I must add, 
 in reference to the Witches. I have an impression on my mind 
 that I have already said something of the kind ; but as the 
 witches belong to ' Macbeth/ you will perhaps pardon me for 
 recurring to the point here, even though 1 am repeating myself 
 more or less. 
 
 If the effect produced by these weird sisters when presented 
 before us in the flesh be, even now, immense, what must it have 
 been when judges and bishops proved their faith in witchcraft 
 by condemning and burning accused persons every day ? 
 When the King wrote against sorcerers, when no spectator at 
 the play could be sure that some undiscovered witch or wizard 
 was not sitting on the bench behind him ? 
 
 We cannot doubt that this brilliant poetical embodiment of 
 a faith still alive must, like the analogous introduction of the 
 Eumenides on the Athenian stage, have produced an interest 
 and an agitation as a matter of course which cannot be 
 
2o8 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 revived or created, for us sceptics now, by any effort of the 
 imagination. 
 
 In turning from ' Macbeth ' to ' The Tempest,' we pass 
 from the deepest gloom into the most vivid sunshine. Instead 
 of the crushing oppression of the thunderstorm, we are refreshed 
 by ocean breezes akin to those that blew across Pindar's Elysian 
 islands, ruled by Saturn the beneficent. The whole atmosphere 
 of ' The Tempest,' indeed, seems impregnated with Elysian 
 influences ; and I am at once reminded of the lovely lyrical 
 outburst in the second Olympiad. The Greek is too long to 
 read to you here. Perhaps, therefore, you will accept of an 
 inadequate English translation : 
 
 Then, then, the Good, beneath a sun, whose light 
 Shines ever, without setting, day and night, 
 
 Their happy years begin : 
 
 By their worn hands the earth is vexed no more, 
 Nor the sea smitten with the toiling oar, 
 
 A scanty meal to win. 
 Zeus leads them on, crowning their brave endeavour, 
 
 To Time's far home of happy rest, 
 Where the soft Ocean-breezes float for ever 
 
 Around the island of the blest. 
 There golden bloom to bloom succeeds, 
 Through Springs that never tire ; 
 
 They fill with light the ground below, 
 
 Athwart the shining trees they glow ; 
 Their growth the very water feeds, 
 Hid under flowers of fire. 
 
 In spite, however, of the difference between these two plays, 
 they are alike in one respect. They are both lyrical dramas, 
 and in both the lyrics are assigned to creatures partaking of an 
 unearthly character. Here, however, the resemblance ends. In 
 the tragedy the writer's mood touches upon that mood of the 
 
 sister art, 
 
 When some great painter dips 
 
 His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. 
 
 In ' The Tempest,' 
 
 All things are drawn 
 
 From May-time, and the cheerful dawn. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 209 
 
 Some critics may say, perhaps, that it is less powerful 
 than one or two of the serious dramas ; but after all, though 
 less spasmodically impressive, sunshine is stronger than 
 storm ; and ' The Tempest,' whether less powerful or not than 
 * Macbeth,' is certainly not less wonderful. To borrow a phrase 
 from the one man whose phrases are fit to describe it, 'It 
 ascends the highest heaven of Invention : ' And if we were 
 called upon to publish those plays of Shakspere which no one 
 else could have written, in the order of their impossibility, I, for 
 one, should head with ' The Tempest ' the title-page of that 
 golden book : It is to ' The Tempest,' no doubt, that the great 
 Doctor refers, when, shaking off for a moment the creeping 
 prejudices that be-mossed and be-lichened his massive under- 
 standing, he penned those noble lines : 
 
 Each phase of many-coloured life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me : I still think ' Macbeth ' the 
 highest achievement of human genius that I know of; but if 
 I may venture to introduce here a homely metaphor, derived 
 from the habits and pursuits of Yorkshire, my native county, 
 Beaumont, the author of the passionate dialogues in the 'Maid's 
 Tragedy ' and * Philaster ; ' Fletcher, to whom, in ' Thierry 
 and Theodoret,' Charles Lamb assigns the honour of having 
 written the finest serious scene out of Shakspere ; Webster and 
 Ford, would, each and all of them, have run a better second to 
 their master, in competing with * Macbeth/ than any man that 
 ever lived could have accomplished, in competing with ' The 
 Tempest.' In the first of these cases, Shakspere, if I may be 
 pardoned for pursuing the analogy, only wins in a canter ; in the 
 other, to employ a phrase of Turf origin, no doubt, but which 
 yet has passed into common speech, and been applied to other 
 subjects, it is ' Eclipse first, and all the rest nowhere.' Nay, 
 further, in saying that ' The Tempest ' is a play such as no one 
 but Shakspere could have written even then I hardly express 
 
 p 
 
210 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 my whole meaning. Shakspere himself, I believe, could not, or at 
 least would not, have been its author had he flourished at any 
 other period of our history. The end of the sixteenth and 
 the beginning of the seventeenth centuries were times, as we 
 all know, filled to overflowing with energy and life ; The dis- 
 covery of America, for one thing, and, as it gradually dawned 
 upon the public mind, the ever-growing splendour of that dis- 
 covery, raised up, for all poets, for all statesmen, for every man 
 of high spirit, and adventurous temper, many new worlds be- 
 fore the outlook of hope and fancy, in addition to the one new 
 world already made known by geographers and buccaneers. 
 Golden cities, hidden far away in the depth of inaccessible 
 deserts ; fairy islands planted, in their tropical loveliness, like 
 thickets of flowers upon a summer sea ; potent emperors, 
 stooping from their gorgeous thrones to receive, with all due 
 humility, the lessons of the true faith ; royal ladies, on the 
 banks of mighty rivers, or amid realms of blossoming forest, 
 strong to govern their warlike Amazons with unquestioned 
 sway All these dreams and legends acted with almost magical 
 force upon the national heart, and, lending a fresh intensity 
 even to Shakspere's faculties, crystallised themselves under 
 his organising imagination into the perfect beauty of 'The 
 Tempest.' 
 
 There is also a special charm found, or fancied, in this play 
 by many enthusiasts, notably by Campbell the poet. Shak- 
 spere's retirement from the stage, before the eye of his genius 
 had grown dim, or its natural force abated, must always remain 
 a curious, if not a singular phenomenon. Successful authors, 
 and among successful authors dramatists certainly not the least, 
 have usually clung to their profession. The ordinary danger for 
 them is the temptation to imitate the Archbishop of Grenada 
 in ' Gil Bias : ' They persevere, I mean, in vain attempts to 
 create, when the creative faculty is worn out. In this respect, as 
 in all others, Shakspere placed himself apart, for some reason or 
 
SHAKSPERE. 211 
 
 other, when about fifty. He decided that he had done enough ; 
 He would not even linger near the scene of his triumphs, or 
 watch the growth of his popularity. No, he left behind him 
 all the excitements of London life ; all the splendours of the 
 Court ; all (and this must have been the hardest part of his 
 sacrifice) the wit and intellectual brilliancy of his friends and 
 disciples. He left all this to. become once more a Warwick- 
 shire yeoman, a quiet inhabitant, like his forefathers, of a small 
 provincial town. It does not appear that any disappointment or 
 disgust was the cause of this premature retirement, though we 
 know so little about Shakspere's everyday proceedings that it 
 would be unreasonable to speak positively on such a point. In 
 this perplexity, ingenious men have identified the poet with his 
 own magician Prospero. According to them, Prospero's pro- 
 found soliloquies, his recapitulation of the mighty powers about 
 to be renounced, and the solemnity of repentance prepared for 
 his closing years, have all a covert reference to the writer's own 
 feelings represent, as in a glass darkly, his own career ; and 
 shadow forth his fixed intention to extricate himself from the 
 pleasures and dangers of his theatrical life. If this be so (un- 
 less, indeed, Hamlet be the youth of Shakspere, as Prospero is 
 his serene old age), Shakspere, for the first time, has separated 
 himself from absolute art, and infused into one of his characters 
 thoughts and emotions, deriving their warmth and colour from 
 his own soul : 
 
 But this rough magic 
 I here abjure ; and, when I have required 
 Some heavenly music (which even now I do) 
 To work my end upon their senses, that 
 This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, 
 Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 
 And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, 
 I'll drown my book. 
 
 These beautiful lines may well bear the inner meaning 
 assigned to them ; nor is it possible, without the deepest interest, 
 
 p ?. 
 
212 SHAKSPERE, 
 
 to picture to ourselves this ava avZpwv this leader of our race 
 putting aside all temptations to intellectual pride, feeling that 
 to him also were applicable Daniel's lines 
 
 Unless, above himself, he can 
 
 Erect himself how poor a thing is man ! 
 
 And, therefore, deciding that, even for a Shakspere, there is and 
 can be nothing better than to pass the autumn of his days in 
 peace of mind, self-contemplation, and communion with God. 
 This notion of Campbell's, though rather a fanciful one, may 
 well be dwelt upon in sympathy and reverence. It is true that 
 Shakspere thus is stepping out of the circle of pure Art, yet so- 
 does Milton step out of it in ' Paradise Lost : ' and who would 
 give up the opening lines of the third book : * Hail holy 
 light!' - 
 
 Who does not rather wish that Homer had indulged in 
 digressions of a like kind, and taken opportunities, whilst de- 
 scribing the haunts of his boyhood, or the cities which he had 
 visited, to tell us something of himself. Nay, why do I say who 
 does not wish this ? We have, in the ' Hymn to Apollo,' a frag- 
 ment of autobiography or pseudo-biography, genuine enough, at 
 any rate, to raise up for us an image of the benign old man wan- 
 dering delightedly, with his gift of song, from island to island, and 
 from festival to festival. He stands before us triumphant over 
 all the changes of this mortal life, and calls upon the world to 
 sympathise with his exulting consciousness that, even now, in 
 spite of age and blindness, he can charm the Ionian maidens 
 with legends of more absorbing interest, and melodies of a 
 diviner influence, than any his rivals can invent or remember. 
 I am not bold enough to claim for the original Homer the 
 authorship of the verses I am speaking of (Thucydides, we have 
 learnt, is a mere ignoramus on such matters) ; but at least they 
 occur in one of the older hymns, and we may hope that they 
 perpetuate a living tradition, even if the blind old bard be here 
 personated by some descendant or successor : 
 
SHAKSPERE. 213 
 
 Farewell, now, all my maidens, and hereafter 
 
 Remember me, when some worn traveller 
 
 Comes in my place, and asks you this * What man 
 
 Of all the bards most sweetly sings for you, 
 
 In whom, above the rest, take ye delight ? ' 
 
 Then, with one gentle voice unanimous, 
 
 Make answer, pausing not ' The blind old man, 
 
 Who dwells among the rugged cliffs of Chios.' 
 
 I, therefore, am quite willing to accept the above supposi- 
 tion, and to believe that we read the thoughts of Shakspere 
 himself in certain passages of * The Tempest ' ; that we hear 
 the voice of Shakspere himself underlying the gentle and 
 gracious accents of the wise magician, Prospero. The Shak- 
 spere of the Sonnets, with a heart disturbed by remorse, and 
 sore from the treacherous ill-usage of those whom he loved and 
 trusted, renews himself here, under a nobler and serener aspect 
 We now see one who has ceased to rail and murmur ; who, 
 having mastered the secrets of life, and fathomed human 
 nature to its lowest depths, can afford to look upon it with a 
 godlike indulgence. For a time, indeed, he struggled and 
 fought against destiny, till its fetters eat into his flesh : But at 
 the last he stands forth, like the ideal sage of his brother-poet, 
 a man who 
 
 Metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum 
 
 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. 
 
 The latter portrait, even if it be a fancy one, is the pleasanter 
 one of the twain to contemplate, and it may be a real likeness ; 
 If I had power in the matter, I should say, as the captain of a 
 man of war says about twelve o'clock, ' Make it so.' 
 
 The opening scene of l The Tempest/ as we all know, is 
 full of bustle, ardour, and energy ; nay, it almost seems fraught 
 with a tragic excitement ; for it is thus that Miranda describes 
 its effect upon her own mind. 
 
 O ! I have suffered 
 With those that I saw suffer : a brave vessel, 
 
214 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her, 
 
 Dashed all to pieces. O! the cry did knock 
 
 Against my very heart. Poor souls ! they perish'd. 
 
 Had I been any god of power, I would 
 
 Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er 
 
 It should the good ship so have swallow' d and 
 
 The fraughting souls within her. 
 
 Observe, by the way, the extreme delicacy of this remonstrance, 
 as addressed to her father. His magical skill, quite capable of 
 preserving ' the good ship and all the fraughting souls within 
 her,' has remained (so at least she sadly believes) indifferent 
 and inert. And yet, she does not say bluntly, ' had I been a 
 magician such as you are;' this would have been too much 
 like a direct reproach ; but, ' had I been any god of power : ' 
 He may take the hint for the future (it was indeed uncalled 
 for), and yet feel that her filial tenderness and delicate affection 
 have no spot or blemish upon them. 
 
 Miranda thinks, no doubt, that all the crew have perished ; 
 but we know better. Shakspere has not sketched out, in such 
 vivid outlines, Gonzalo, the Boatswain, and the rest, only to 
 drown them in our sight, before his Play has well begun ; We 
 feel certain, therefore, that our acquaintance with them, how- 
 ever apparently interrupted, will not be extinguished by the 
 shipwreck. 
 
 De Quincey's elder brother, it is true, when a school-boy, 
 composed a most appalling tragedy f Amurath the Sultan/ 
 In that bloodstained composition the misbelieving monarch 
 was so liberal of the bowstring, the poison-cup, and the axe, 
 that, at the end of the first act, the unsparing Padishah, whether 
 he called it peace or not, had made a solitude, and but for the 
 author's unquenchable activity of mind, the Play must have 
 stopped, and the money paid (supposing there had been any 
 money paid) been returned at the doors. The fifth form boy, 
 however, was equal to the occasion, though the same difficulty 
 presented itself again and again ; five times did he reconstruct 
 
SHAKSPERE. 215 
 
 his subordinate characters, five times did he pour in reinforce- 
 ments for the gibbet and the rack, till at length the curtain fell, 
 at the time when it was bound to fall, upon that sullen tyrant, 
 wearied out, but still unsatisfied, with his unending executions. 
 
 Shakspere, however, when he wrote ' The Tempest ' was older, 
 possibly also wiser, than the dramatist in question ; and as his 
 characters were worth more than those of young De Quincey, 
 he could not afford to throw them away in such reckless pro- 
 fusion. The storm, however, though not carrying death upon 
 its wings, is set before us, in all its terrors, with great pic- 
 turesqueness and life. The courtiers lose their temper the 
 moment they see their danger, and vex the unfortunate sailors 
 with idle talk ; These sailors appear to behave perfectly well ; 
 even the Boatswain, the best abused man among them, commits 
 no fault, in our presence, to justify the violence of his assailants : 
 He seems to lack neither spirit nor resource, encouraging his 
 men to the last, and throwing himself heart and soul into his 
 necessary duties. 
 
 Sebastian and Antonio, selfish unprincipled men, give way 
 to vulgar fury, because immediate danger strips off the outer 
 coating of varnish the superficial good-breeding, which belongs 
 to the habits of their station, not really to themselves. 
 
 Even Gonzalo, the worthy old Gonzalo, is too hard upon 
 the Boatswain, though he redeems his injustice by his humour. 
 His dry fun, with his doom staring him in the face, is a good 
 example of what we often hear of * the ruling passion strong 
 in death.' 
 
 I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks he hath no drowning 
 mark upon him his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, 
 to his hanging : make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth 
 little advantage us. If he be not born to be hanged, then is our case 
 miserable. 
 
 The Boatswain again, when he tells his passengers, ' Hence ! 
 you mar our labours, you do assist the storm,' shows more 
 
216 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 / 
 
 temper and manhood than the usurping Duke, or the treacher- 
 ous Prince. Again, when they begin to scream and bewail them- 
 selves, his natural anger is not rougher than seems becoming to 
 an old salt so that our sympathies are with him and his 
 crew, not with the useless and obtrusive noblemen. 
 
 The second scene is perhaps the most important in the 
 Play. The narration of Prospero, beginning with this assurance, 
 * That there is not so much perdition as a hair betid to any 
 creature in the vessel,' then proceeds to lay the foundations of 
 the whole plot, by revealing to his daughter the secret of her 
 birth, and by unfolding the long history of his misfortunes. 
 This scene is written (if we may so say of Shakspere) with 
 very great care. The i native woodnotes wild ' here blend to- 
 gether in a combination of the highest poetical genius and the 
 highest dramatic art. In it, moreover, we are introduced to 
 Miranda and Ariel : Now Miranda and Ariel, in the exquisite 
 fineness of conception and perfect truth of keeping which dis- 
 tinguish them, are two of the most original characters in 
 Shakspere : Caliban also, however much he stands opposed 
 in other respects, has with them this merit in common. 
 Puck, in the ' Midsummer Night's. Dream,' admirably delineated 
 though he may be, grows more naturally out of the common 
 superstitions of the time, and is more akin to the traditional 
 elf; but Ariel, though like him a sylph of Ether, stands apart 
 and alone. Without true human feelings, he possesses, in the 
 place of conscience, a guiding idea of beauty and harmony 
 making that the central principle of his life ; to him vice is 
 ugly and discordant ; mere ugliness and discord he hates, there- 
 fore he pinches Caliban with right good-will, and rejoices to 
 mislead Stephano and Trinculo, repulsive to him on account of 
 their coarse animal natures, into the stinking pool : Therefore 
 he was too delicate a spirit to obey ' the earthy and abhorred 
 behests ' of Sycorax : Therefore, when the question arises, 
 whether Prospero's affections are to become tender to his 
 
SHAKSPERE. 217 
 
 enemies, he discerns that grace and beauty, and something akin 
 to those ethereal melodies wherein he delights, will result from 
 this glorious effort of Christian forgiveness. Accordingly he 
 replies without hesitation, ' Mine would, Sir, were they human.' 
 How grandly Prospero answers, we all know. 
 
 And mine shall. 
 
 Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 
 Of their afflictions ? and shall not myself, 
 One of their kind, that relish all as sharply 
 Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art ? 
 
 Ariel, moreover, for whom his instincts towards Nature, in 
 accordance with the inner harmonies of his being, are the whole 
 of existence, differs from Puck in this also that he is a solitary, 
 not a gregarious spirit. He conveys instructions, no doubt, to 
 his subordinate fellow-servants ; but is never seen to associate 
 with them for any purpose of his own : This being so, when he 
 has accomplished his final task, and given to the king's ship 
 
 Calm seas auspicious gales ; 
 And sail so expeditious, that shall catch 
 Your royal fleet far off, 
 
 Prospero lets him go not to return in the fresh fire of his 
 well-earned freedom, to old sylph-like friendships, or loves ; but 
 to the elements To mingle with them, and drink in life re- 
 joicingly, from the sun, the sea, the clouds, and the ether, with- 
 out other companionship than that derived from the soul of 
 Nature herself, such is the destiny reserved for him 
 
 Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, 
 
 Under the blossom that hangs from the bough. 
 
 In speaking of Miranda, as in speaking of Ariel, it is diffi- 
 cult not to repeat in substance, if not in actual words, what 
 others have thought and said before our time. We can only 
 echo back Alexis Piron's mad poet in the ' Metromane.' All 
 that our predecessors in that respect have achieved are but 
 
 Des vols qu'ils nous ont fait d'avance ; 
 
2i 8 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Overshadowed by these illustrious thieves, I wish I could go on 
 with Piron's hero 
 
 Faisons comme eux, 
 
 Us nous ont derobes, derobons nos neveux ; 
 Et tarissant la source oil puise un beau delire, 
 A la Posterite ne laissons rien a dire. 
 
 Not, however, having sufficient confidence in my powers of 
 literary felony, to give me hopes of stealing what is not yet 
 before us to steal, I must be content to walk more humbly, 
 and to glean what I can out of the reapings of the past. Now, 
 in looking at Miranda and her exquisite sisters, Perdita, 
 Imogen, Desdemona, and the rest, there is one thing of which 
 Englishwomen may well be proud ; and that is their conscious- 
 ness how our greatest Englishman has appreciated and 
 described them. 
 
 Laudari a laudato viro has always been looked upon as one 
 of the tests of successful excellence ; and it is something for a 
 woman to know, that when Shakspere, with his intuitive and 
 infinite knowledge of human nature, turned himself to delineate 
 her sex, the outlines that naturally mirrored themselves upon 
 his mind, in order that his poet-pen might turn them to shapes, 
 were of such divine and unapproachable loveliness. 
 
 Miranda is a high-born lady, educated, as we cannot doubt, 
 by her princely father, in all the accomplishments and graces 
 of the time ; but, as far as knowledge of the world goes, or of 
 any of those conventional habits that, during the long centuries 
 since Eve, have been growing into fashion, she is as ignorant as 
 Eve herself in the garden of Eden : She has not even learnt that 
 a woman should be sought before she is won : And, therefore, she 
 surrenders her maiden affections to Ferdinand with a simplicity, 
 and discloses her love with a frankness, that nothing could re- 
 concile us to, except an almost superhuman delicacy of touch 
 on the part of the poet. We are, however, reconciled to this 
 disclosure, and sympathise with the noble virgin, because we 
 
SHAKSPERE. 219 
 
 are made to feel that it is out of the purity and crystal clearness 
 of her mind, not out of any forwardness of temper, that these 
 self-revelations come. Amidst all the surrounding circumstances, 
 the attraction to Ferdinand, as to something hitherto unknown, 
 yet beautiful and full of a subtle charm, was, from the delightful 
 unconsciousness and spontaneity of her whole nature, abso- 
 lutely inevitable. Miranda, perhaps, must be placed at the 
 head of that company of fair women with whom Shakspere has 
 enriched all time : There is certainly more inventive and con- 
 structive power shown in creating and delineating her than in 
 creating and delineating any of the others. The one most akin 
 to her is Perdita, in the ' Winter's Tale.' She also is a princess, 
 ignorant of her birth, and brought up without the natural advan- 
 tages of rank and station : Instead, however, of being sepa- 
 rated by a great gulph from the commonplace struggles of life, 
 Perdita is, as it were, lost and buried in the midst of them. 
 Such, however, is her inborn grace, such the inherited refinement 
 of her beauty, her character, her demeanour, that she outshines 
 every rival, glittering through the clouds of her destiny ' like the 
 morning star : ' Surely we may go on with the quotation, ' Never 
 lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more 
 delightful vision.' Indeed, Florizel's account of her dancing 
 
 speaks for itself : 
 
 When you do dance I wish you 
 A wave of the sea, that you might ever do 
 Nothing but that ; move still still, so, 
 And own no other function. 
 
 This implies just the same charm in the lovely Shepherdess, 
 as Burke found in the peerless Queen. We share in Florizel's 
 enthusiasm, and agree that his chosen one is herself 
 
 A fairer flower 
 
 Than any which Proserpina let fall 
 From Dis's waggon Daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty, &c. 
 
220 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Perdita, however, is somewhat less tender and more self- 
 reliant than Miranda. Affectionate as Prospero was, his mys- 
 terious communion with invisible spirits, his austere demeanour 
 and habitual melancholy, must have awed into meditative 
 gentleness and reserve the solitary virgin, in that solitary place. 
 But Perdita, a born Queen, felt, from her cradle, an undoubted 
 superiority to everything that surrounded her. No one, seeing 
 her even for a moment, could fail to echo the praise of 
 Polixenes : 
 
 This is the prettiest love-born lass, that ever 
 Ran on the greensward ; nothing she does, or seems, 
 But smacks of something greater than herself, 
 Too noble for her place. 
 
 Had the positions of the two girls been exchanged, Miranda 
 would have hesitated more ere she entered into an engagement 
 with the King's son ; whilst Prospero might have found in 
 Perdita a sprightlier and bolder daughter, one who would have 
 established, through their common love of music and flowers, a 
 friendship with the delicate and melodious Ariel, whether Pros- 
 pero liked it or not. 
 
 Perhaps, however, it would be better to say simply, that 
 Perdita is of a more vivacious and enterprising temper than 
 Miranda : For there seems to be in Shakspere's mind this idea, 
 that between mortals and those elementary spirits over whom 
 Prospero, by strange, if not by forbidden arts, exercises such 
 unlimited power, a wall of separation naturally exists. 
 
 Ariel conies and goes, expostulates and submits, with 
 Miranda apparently quite unconscious of his presence ; and, 
 what is stranger, he apparently quite unconscious of hers. In- 
 deed, when I say this idea possesses the mind of Shakspere, I 
 need not confine myself to Shakspere. The common human 
 instinct inclines, I think, to this belief: that it requires some 
 special circumstance to remove a human being from the ordi- 
 nary protection of God and nature, and to bridge over the 
 
SHAKSPERE. 221 
 
 chasm sundering the embodied man from the bodiless spirit ; 
 The normal state of both seems to be mutual exclusion. 
 
 A notion somewhat of this kind has passed, I think, through 
 all history without interruption ; even from the blood-drinking 
 ghosts of * The Odyssey,' whereby the aspects of the dead, or as 
 Homer poetically calls them, the out-wearied ones, regain a 
 momentary life, thinking and feeling, as of old, till the mo- 
 mentary stimulus is exhausted ; down to our modern times ; 
 down, we may say, to the HSwXov of John Keate, who appeared, 
 as we all know, not in his habit as he lived, but, under the 
 image of a fair girl, with blue eyes and golden hair. He, how- 
 ever, no less than Anticlea, the mother of Odysseus, according 
 to the theory here put forward, stands apart and inaccessible, 
 except through traditional rites and sacrifices j whereby alone 
 an entrance into these dark places of the universe can be 
 obtained. Now, so far from wishing to initiate Miranda into 
 any of his secrets, or to smooth away the obstacles that inter- 
 vened between her and the unearthly side of Nature, Prospero, 
 I apprehend, has this one object before him : to educate her 
 into the ideal perfection of womanliness : His flower that grew, 
 septis secrdns in hortis, was not to be shrivelled up by the harsh 
 breath of an ungenial world; but, neither was it tempted to put 
 forth strange blossoms, or to clothe itself with a preternatural 
 flush of colour, beneath that magical atmosphere within which 
 Prospero was working. 
 
 The island princess had to keep her virgin whiteness, as of 
 a lily, and her saintly maidenhood, until she floated down the 
 gentlest of human angels to her appointed place upon the 
 throne of Naples. Therefore she was kept apart, as it seems, 
 from all Prospero's mysteries to share with him the human 
 portion of his life, never passing beyond it. We have no reason, 
 that I can recall to myself, for thinking that she had ever seen 
 a spirit. Though she might know generally her father's practice 
 
222 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 of employing magical arts, she was apparently not even con- 
 scious, as Caliban was, that 
 
 The isle was full of noises, 
 Sounds, and sweet airs, that gave delight, and hurt not. 
 
 To explain this we must suppose either that Prospero meant 
 Caliban to feel that his agents were ever close at hand, and 
 therefore opened his eyes and ears to the influence of sorcery, 
 whilst he kept Miranda far away out of its reach. Or else 
 Caliban himself, as a demi-devil, had some inborn affinity with 
 the phantasmal inhabitants of the place ; just as we find in the 
 1 Arabian Nights ' that Beder, though son to the orthodox King 
 of Persia, derives from his mother, the Sea-Queen, all qualities 
 and powers enabling him to live as the Sea-Kings live, safe and 
 at home in the depths of the ocean. 
 
 In this manner Caliban, of himself and before Prospero 
 landed on the coast, might have been familiar with the music 
 and the visions of which he speaks, though a mere man, unless 
 acted upon by a magician, would have seen and heard nothing. 
 But that whilst Caliban, no matter how or why, was subject to 
 these necromantic influences, Miranda was carefully shielded 
 from them, may be gathered, I think, from the masque at the 
 end of the play: Prospero, about to finish with all questionable 
 
 arts, speaks thus : 
 
 Go, bring the rabble, 
 
 O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place : 
 Incite them to quick motion ; for I must 
 Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple 
 Some vanity of my art ; it is my promise, 
 And they expect it from me. 
 
 The young couple, as we see, rank together, and the whole 
 fantastic exhibition is obviously a fresh delight and surprise to 
 Miranda, exactly as it is to Ferdinand. 
 
 As for Caliban mis-shapen monster as he is he is yet not 
 without some justification. There is something in his early 
 speech that touches us, though I must admit that the first words 
 are not sentimental : 
 
SHAKSPERE. 223 
 
 I must eat my dinner 
 This island's mine, by Sycorax, my mother. 
 .. 
 
 When thou earnest first, 
 
 Thou strok'dst me, and made much of me ; would give me 
 Water with berries in't ; and teach me how 
 To name the bigger light, and how the less, 
 That burn by day and night and then I lov'd thee. 
 
 
 
 He speaks the truth the island was his, and he finds 
 himself deprived of it, and reduced to abject slavery, by one, 
 upon whom he had lavished his uncouth gratitude and half- 
 human affection. We feel, as he felt with his struggling and 
 purblind reason, that Prospero had no business to apply the 
 rules and language of civilised society in his intercourse with 
 so crude and undeveloped a creature. Putting aside his 
 demon parentage altogether, had he been only a deserted 
 child of Adam a mere wild man, with nothing but his sensa- 
 tions and instincts to teach him he would, according to his 
 dim insight into the mysteries of right and wrong, have done 
 no evil. Prospero might justly, perhaps, have used his power 
 to place Caliban on some other island ; He might even, to 
 adopt the received euphemism, have put him out of the 
 way on the plea of necessity as you destroy a wild beast ; 
 but to punish him formally (besides lecturing him, in defiance 
 of the well-known Negro protest), as if he were answerable 
 to Archbold's * Criminal Practice,' or the * Code Napoleon,' 
 is unfair, and the poor monster, with his infantine or dog- 
 like sensibility to the stings of injustice, feels it to be unfair. 
 
 You shoot a tiger for pouncing, or to prevent him from 
 pouncing, upon your pet heifer ; but it would be ridiculous to 
 indict the said tiger for assaulting the said heifer with intent to 
 cause her grievous bodily harm. Good heavens ! what a rush- 
 ing evasion out of court there would be, in spite of fines and 
 admonitions, if the said accused tiger could insist upon a jury 
 de medietate lingua. Fancy six respectable London tradesmen 
 
224 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 locked up with six Bengal tigers locked up without meat, drink, 
 fire, or candle till they could agree upon a verdict. Fancy, the 
 senior Bengal tiger coming into court next morning with a de- 
 mure face, licking his lips, and praying a tales. Now I say of 
 Caliban, as of the tiger, Prospero might, if he thought fit, have 
 made him safe in death ; but he had no right to treat him as a 
 responsible human culprit ; still less right had he to make his 
 act of injustice profitable to himself by turning him into a slave 
 one forced to make the fire, fetch in wood, and perform all 
 menial offices. Naturally, therefore, poor Caliban is furious, 
 with all the fury of uneducated animal impulse, against Pros- 
 pero, the man whom he had so loved. That this man, after pre- 
 tending to treat him kindly, should take advantage of his first 
 fault (a fault which Prospero might well have foreseen and 
 guarded against) should stye him into the hard rock, shut him 
 out from all his accustomed pleasures and pursuits, vex him 
 with necromantic tortures, and make use of him under pretence 
 of punishment pierces, as might be expected, the wretched 
 savage to the heart. Caliban, as I have said, in point of 
 moral sense is a child, with the child's power of indignation 
 against anything that looks like injustice ; he has, moreover, 
 whatever his bad qualities may be, a spirit of loyal affection 
 that redeems everything. From this, and from the fact that his 
 mind has been shaped by nature by nature streaming in 
 upon him through every pore it results that, though brutal, 
 he is never vulgar. There are no specimens of Shakspere's 
 wonderful art more wonderful than the vivid, passionate imagery 
 of Caliban's speeches, as they contrast themselves with the low 
 wit of Trinculo, and the city-bred conceit of the drunken Butler, 
 It is impossible not to sympathise with the poor bully mon- 
 ster, when he finds out for the second time how his intensely 
 loyal affection is driven back upon himself, and exclaims in his 
 angry repentance 
 
SHAKSPERE. 225 
 
 What a thrice double ass 
 Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, 
 And worship this dull fool ! 
 
 Let us hope, that if Prospero did not choose to train him 
 up, through his power of loving and hating, that he was, at least, 
 set free to enjoy his hereditary kingdom, without any dread of 
 being pinched to death, by the Magician's vassal spirits, after 
 the Magician himself had left him alone. 
 
 One of Caliban's most remarkable qualities is the fearless 
 candour and sincerity of his temper. He never stoops to flatter 
 Prospero, or to disguise, through fear, the bitterness of his re- 
 sentment ; 
 
 You taught me language; and my profit on it 
 
 Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you, 
 
 For learning me your language ! 
 
 And again, when under the pressure of terrible threats, he sub- 
 mits it is simple submission, without any tendency to cringe 
 to or fawn upon his tyrant ; 
 
 No, prithee ! 
 
 I must obey: his art is of such power, 
 It would control my dam's God, Setebos, 
 And make a vassal of him. 
 
 Again, though he blames himself with perfect openness, for wor- 
 shipping the foolish drunkard Stephario ; though he shows his 
 natural good sense and the fairness of his understanding by 
 making no excuses; we may, to a certain extent, plead his 
 cause ; We may, at least, say for him this much, that if Bacchus, 
 
 who, 
 
 out of the grape, 
 
 After the Tuscan mariners transformed, 
 Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine ; 
 
 If Bacchus, I say, founded upon that performance a just title 
 to godhead among the intellectual Greeks, and was accord- 
 ingly accepted by them as an orthodox deity at once; he 
 
 Q 
 
226 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 who invents for you a whole butt of Sherry, ready-made, with- 
 out crushing grapes, or fermentation, or delay of any kind, 
 ought, d fortiori, we think, to be held divine. Now this, for 
 the poor monster, was Stephano's avatar upon the enchanted 
 island; who can wonder then, if Caliban thought him a more 
 potent magician than Prospero himself? 
 
 We, at any rate, cannot reproach him with this natural in- 
 fatuation, since we owe to it those brilliant comic scenes be- 
 tween Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban, which are almost 
 unequalled in their humorous perfection. Stephano's absurd 
 assumption of dignity on the strength of his hoarded liquor ; 
 the admiring humbleness of his devoted slave, and Trinculo's 
 pettish disgust, caused by pure jealousy, at the unexpected 
 elevation of his fellow-servant as specimens of the true vis 
 comica must always delight us ; whilst the marvellous skill with 
 which the wild poetic nature of the untaught savage is brought 
 into contact and contrasted with the vulgar hopes and fears of 
 these mean underlings the dregs and offscourings of a vicious 
 civilisation creates for us a series of dramatic pictures, alike 
 admirable to study in the closet, or laugh at on the stage. 
 
 The character of Prospero is also wonderfully pourtrayed. 
 Gentle, generous, and high-minded, he has yet been driven to 
 perilous courses, if not to actual sin, in order to retrieve fallen 
 fortunes, and draw his enemies together within the net of his 
 power. It cannot be held an indifferent thing, that a Christian 
 prince should, by the help of disembodied spirits, who, what- 
 ever else they may have been, certainly were not angels of light, 
 
 have bedimmed 
 
 The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, 
 And 'twixt the green sea and the armed vault 
 Set ruinous war. 
 
 Above all, that 
 
 graves, at his command, 
 
 Should wake their sleepers, ope, and let them forth 
 By his so potent art. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 227 
 
 He abjures, indeed, this rough magic for the future, but he 
 feels also that the mere fact of having once practised it, calls 
 for a solemn expiation ; He contemplates, therefore, retiring to 
 some hermitage in the neighbourhood of his own Milan, where 
 he may spend all that remains to him of life in religious exer- 
 cises ' Every third thought his grave.' 
 
 In the meantime, however, this rough magic and he have 
 been struggling together, and we find in this fact a clue to the 
 imperiousness of his temper, and the bitter severity of his rule. 
 His harshness to Caliban, to Ariel, nay, to Ferdinand and 
 Miranda, we must not suppose to be altogether assumed ; it is 
 the indignation of one accustomed to wield irresistible power, 
 at the first check to his will the first hint of disobedience or 
 delay. 
 
 A sorcerer, according to the well-understood laws of that 
 profession, was forced to be a tyrant, and to rule his intractable 
 vassals with a rod of iron. Caliban's account, indeed, of their 
 relations to Prospero 
 
 They all do hate him, 
 As rootedly as I 
 
 may not be absolutely true ; The down-trodden savage looks at 
 the matter through a mist of disappointed malevolence ; It 
 contains, however, some truth. We gather from the sullenness 
 of Ariel, his favourite minister, that these spirit-services were not 
 willingly given, and that monarchy absolute monarchy watch- 
 ful, suspicious, and unrelenting in punishment, is the only form 
 of rule possible between Prospero and his dangerous satellites. 
 Walter Scott tells us a story, how a persecuted Covenanting 
 fugitive was offered by a mysterious personage (who met him in 
 the wild solitude of the Cheviot Fells) the realm of broad Scot- 
 land, upon certain conditions ; These conditions were that he 
 should assume (having in his own nature what such an assump- 
 tion requires) the character of a magician ; This being done, 
 he was to break the spell laid by the mighty wizard, Sir 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SHAKSPERE. 
 
 Michael Scott, upon an immeasurable army of phantom war- 
 riors, lying from century to century in their enchanted slumbers 
 underneath the hill. 
 
 The terror-stricken neophyte makes a wrong choice; instead 
 of grasping the sword the true sceptre over that phantom 
 army he puts white and trembling lips to a bugle, and perishes 
 accordingly. 
 
 Now, the state of Prospero is so far unlike that of the half- 
 hearted Puritan just disposed of, that it exhibits, on the other 
 hand, a complete victory over vassal spirits, and puts him before 
 us in the very act of wrestling successfully with principalities 
 and powers ; But we must not, because of the triumph, make 
 light of what he has to undergo. 
 
 Even success in such a struggle implies a mailed watchful- 
 ness, and an unsleeping caution, beyond the strength of any 
 but the most exceptional men, and exhausting even to them. 
 Prospero, therefore, though not one over whom the jubilant 
 chorus of the spiritual rebels was ever likely to cry out, as in 
 the case of the feeble-minded Scotchman 
 
 Woe to the coward that e'er he was born, 
 
 Who did not draw the sword, before he blew the horn 
 
 was none the more, on that account, out of the reach of danger. 
 We know that, year after year, his sword must have been held 
 out at arm's length, and the protecting circle of necromantic 
 fires kept ever trimmed and alight ; lest his slaves, becoming 
 masters in their turn, should rush in and tear the baffled sor- 
 cerer to pieces. 
 
 Hence the intense refreshment, always reanimating his heart, 
 from the sweet human presence of Miranda, which came upon 
 him like the gleam of cool fountains, or the shadows of a blos- 
 soming palm-tree in the desert land ; Hence, also, an addi- 
 tional reason, if it were needed, for keeping her as she was, 
 pure from all mysterious knowledge, and untouched by the 
 
SHAKSPERE. 229 
 
 magical interventions that were ever near her, and yet ever 
 remote. 
 
 We gather also, why it was that, in spite of recovered pros- 
 perity, with happiness apparently at his feet, the deepest long- 
 ing of his soul must have been, as it was, for absolute rest. He 
 returns from his island to the world, not to mingle in the strife 
 of men not to use his art in acquiring wealth, or reaching at 
 empire but to turn away from the glare and pressure of life, 
 so that he might meditate in silence and peace on the healing 
 powers of repentance, and the gracious promises of God. 
 
INSTALLATION ODE 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE OXFORD COMMEMORATION OF 1870 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE, BART. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
233 
 
 ODE FOR MUSIC. 
 
 TO BE SUNG IN THE SHELDONIAX THEATRE, OXFORD, 
 AT THE ENC&NIA, JUNE 1870 
 
 ON THE FIRST VISIT OF THE MOST HON. THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 Now let us praise our famous men, 
 With melodies, whose eager flight 
 Throbs through the trembling air as light, 
 
 With all that blended influence, when 
 Sweet harp-like voices thrill around, 
 Above the organ's thunder sound, 
 
 Die faintly off, then soar again : 
 
 So let us praise our famous men. 
 
 As lulled by each mysterious note, 
 
 On vanished hopes and hours we dwell, 
 Low murmurs through the music float, 
 
 As of some murmuring ocean shell. 
 From the pale distance of the dead 
 
 A faint breath wavers to and fro, 
 Like unforgotten fragrance shed 
 
 On May morns long ago. 
 
 Oxford, full many a child of thine, 
 We yearn for now with hearts forlorn, 
 
 Who poured away fresh youth, like wine, 
 And sunk, with noble toils outworn. 
 
234. ODE FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Unchanging now, by day or night, 
 
 Before these dim and aged eyes, 
 For ever young, for ever bright, 
 
 Our early lost arise. 
 
 Herbert, the loved of all, whose smile 
 
 Upon each memory lingers yet, 
 Like sun-light, hovering for a while 
 
 After the sun himself hath set. 
 Elgin, who held his life alway 
 
 A thing to spend for England's use ; 
 Who left in death another ray 
 
 Round the proud name of Bruce. 
 
 Lewis, the calm and just ; he too, 
 
 Through Fate's dark void has passed afar, 
 Unselfish, loyal, wise, and true, 
 
 And stainless ever as a star. 
 Last that great sire's great son, 1 who when 
 
 The steams of blood choked Indian air, 
 And fear made others cruel, then 
 
 Rose strong enough to spare. 
 
 Now full of hope, though sad, we meet 
 
 The silent place of one to fill ; 
 Whose knightly heart has ceased to beat, 
 
 Whose silver voice for earth is still ; 
 Our Derby, to new work gone forth, 
 
 We here must honour as we can : 
 But grateful toilers of the North 2 
 
 Praise best that famous man. 
 
 1 Lord Canning. 
 
 2 Alluding to the late Lord Derby's exertions during the Lancashire 
 cotton famine. 
 
ODE FOR MUSIC. 235 
 
 Hard is the task for those who seek 
 
 A coming age to shape, like thee ; 
 Still, Cecil, if the soul grow weak, 
 
 Look back, look back, in faith, and see 
 How amid threatening clouds, which hung 
 
 Erewhile around each honoured name, 
 On the storm's very heart were flung 
 
 The rainbow lights of fame. 
 
 In these uncertain hours, when gloom 
 
 Walls the weird Future from our eyes, 
 And Time, before his wavering loom, 
 
 Steeps the dim thread in sullen dyes ; 
 Although for us, harsh Fate may will 
 
 To blight the years not yet unrolled ; 
 Nor man, nor God, hath power to kill 
 
 The hero-work of old. 
 
 The fathers of our ancient race, 
 
 Together not their chiefs alone 
 Strong, each in his appointed place, 
 
 Have made a matchless Past our own ; 
 Must these proud memories fail and sink, 
 
 i 
 
 Like white sparks flashing on the shore ? 
 Or will God's hand shine out, and link 
 Heart unto heart once more ? 
 
 When Spain's insulting keels essayed 
 
 To crush the soul of our wild sea, 
 Even as her brooding power had weighed 
 
 Upon the spirits of the free ; 
 Time tells us how the people rose, 
 
 Like tides, onsweeping in their flow 
 To lift the great as foam, that shows 
 
 An ocean's strength below. 
 
236 ODE FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Then moved thy sire, in light above 
 
 The mighty wave of England's heart : 
 One with it resting on its love ; 
 
 Too wise to dream of life apart. 
 Danger frowns near, and must be met ; 
 
 We may be called to front again 
 A tyranny more baleful yet, 
 
 A deadlier foe, than Spain. 
 
 The stealthy tread of hate and greed, 
 How it creeps on half heard, we feel ; 
 
 Yet trifle still, and take no heed 
 Of smilers whetting hidden steel. 
 
 When the war leaps on us at length, 
 From silence, and without a sign ; 
 
 To whom should England turn for strength, 
 
 If not to Burleigh's line ? 
 
 \ 
 He, 'gainst the rush of peril, showed 
 
 Fresh courage as the foe drew nigher, 
 And fused men's thoughts, until they glowed, 
 
 Like one great breath of living fire. 
 Seek thou, as he sought, to uplift 
 
 To her old height our English soul ; 
 To heal each wound, to close each rift, 
 
 To make our armour whole. 
 
 So shalt thou face the struggle stern, 
 
 That lies before thee on thy way ; 
 And victor thus, or vanquished, earn 
 
 A wreath more lasting than the bay. 
 So shalt thou find that other feet 
 
 Tread other paths, to the same end; 
 And under one high influence, greetj 
 
 Each true man as a friend. 
 
ODE FOR MUSIC. 237 
 
 To sow, for years remote, the seed 
 
 Of knowledge soothe intestine strife ; 
 To cheer the land with hope, to feed, 
 
 And guide, not quench, the fires of life ; 
 To serve untired, whate'er befall, 
 
 To save, renew, create, unfold ; 
 Is not this work that claimeth all ? 
 
 For wise the words of old , 
 
 Easy, indeed, to shake a state ; l 
 
 That much at least may do 
 Some slight and worthless man, but great 
 
 And tasking wrestlers' limbs, the feat 
 To fix her in her former state, 
 
 And build the whole anew. 
 
 Yea, tasking sinew, brain, and soul, 
 
 From harm the ancient fane to keep, 
 Whilst overhead harsh thunders roll, 
 
 And outbursts billowing from below, 
 
 The deepset earth whirl to and fro. 
 
 The dead have done their work, they sleep, 
 
 Safe from all chance of ill ; 
 But yet, unfaltering in its flight, 
 
 From their cold hands with fiery leap, 
 Before the breath of God's high will, 
 
 The torch of Fate right onward runs, 
 
 And England calls her living sons, 
 Ere they are left alone with night, 
 To grasp and raise that quenchless light. 
 
 She calls on each with ill to cope, 
 Mailed in bright aims and self-less hope, 
 
 1 Pindar, 4th Pythian. 
 
238 ODE FOR MUSIC. 
 
 To thrust all meaner lusts aside, 
 And love his country as a bride ; 
 . So all the good, for her dear sake, 
 
 Close joining hand to hand, 
 Shall of one glorious toil partake, 
 
 Till peace hath filled the land. 
 
 Hence, whilst we praise our famous men, 
 With melodies, whose eager flight 
 Throbs through the living air, as light, 
 
 With all that music lendeth, when 
 Sweet harp-like voices thrill around, 
 Above the organ's thunder-sound, 
 
 Dreamlike die off, then soar again 
 
 Thy name shall sound among them then. 
 
239 
 
 '. NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 FOUNDED ON ONE OF THE MINOR STORIES IN LANE'S 
 
 ARABIAN NIGHTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 WHERE swift Euphrates, full of life, as when 
 
 Nimrod towered high above the sons of men, 
 
 Sweeps past his tamarisks and willows, round 
 
 Forgotten tombs, and many a haunted mound, 
 
 Cufa the Moslem city stood ; of old 
 
 By zealous Omar planted to uphold 
 
 Whate'er the Prophet taught, that more and more 
 
 Wise men might build up knowledge, and explore, 
 
 With Faith still growing into perfect sight, 
 
 Mysterious depths of God's unfathomed light. 10 
 
 There, among many names to honour known, 
 On loving lips one lingered, one alone ; 
 Wealthy, and wise, and kind, of noble race, 
 Hatim the Good was ever first in place. 
 E'en she whose evil eye strikes at the great, 
 Pale Envy, grudged him not his prosperous fate ; 
 E'en the fierce viceroy masked in smiles his silent hate. 
 
 Yet though his life as happy men may greet, 
 For whom on earth is happiness complete ? 
 
240 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Shades of old sorrow kept his palace chill, 20 
 
 Old wounds, unhealed by Time, were bleeding still. 
 
 A troop of bright- eyed striplings should have ridden, 
 
 And romped about his bridle-rein unchidden ; 
 
 A laughing band of gentle daughters prest 
 
 Close to his side, and sung him into rest. 
 
 But Allah willed it not : when she who bore 
 
 His child, died in her prime, he sought no more 
 
 The love of women ; his whole heart was set 
 
 Upon that child the youthful Neamet. 
 
 And well a father's eye might rest with pride 30 
 
 On that wild boy, deep-haired and purple-eyed, 
 
 When through the glades he flashed like light, and went 
 
 Exulting in his airy merriment 
 
 Full of sweet hope, like a bloom-crowded tree, 
 
 And beautiful as sunrise o'er the sea ; 
 
 For not till then had Nature toiled to give 
 
 Such wondrous charms to aught about to live, 
 
 Nor poet's thought, nor art's divine endeavour 
 
 Enriched the world with such a vision never 
 
 Has Phidian shape or dream of Raphael 40 
 
 Embodied childhood's heavenly grace as well ; 
 
 So that where'er he passed in brightness, Love, 
 
 Like his own shadow, with him seemed to move, 
 
 And blessings, from all hearts about him shed, 
 
 Lay like spring- dews upon that flower-like head. 
 
 Oft on his couch, just ere the day-break, laid, 
 When stars grow large and white before they fade, 
 Thrice happy thus to wake, in tender joy 
 Hatim lay musing on that peerless boy, 
 
 Till glowed the years to be with rapture, drawn 50 
 
 From fountains brighter than that coming dawn. 
 Oft said he (when like some far river's flow 
 These dreams of bliss within were murmuring low), 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 2 4I 
 
 * Riches I ask not riches now are mine ; 
 
 I ask no daughter of a royal line 
 
 To welcome on our knees ; enough for me 
 
 If one as bright in loveliness there be 
 
 By Allah sent to share his destiny. 
 
 What though for him no wealthy foreign scold, 
 
 Hard as her gems, and yellow as her gold 60 
 
 (A barren heiress, a mere name of wife), 
 
 Sit sullen at the board, discolouring life ; 
 
 Nor yet some haughty maid, to kings allied, 
 
 Invade the house, a tyrant, not a bride. 
 
 Still, if divinely granted to our prayer, 
 
 A mate be found, gracious, and wise, and fair, 
 
 Outshining other maids and dowered like him 
 
 With powers to make all rival beauty dim ; 
 
 If on our hearth, when these young lives unite, 
 
 Float down from heaven a blessing and a light, 70 
 
 This rude earth, touched and wanned by their soft eyes, 
 
 May blossom as with flowers from Paradise, 
 
 And Hatim's house, a fire that shines apart, 
 
 Be known as holding empire o'er the heart, 
 
 Known by that gift of God through regions wide, 
 
 As a fair shrine to beauty sanctified : 
 
 And thus enriched and graced may well contemn 
 
 The Caliph's, or the Sultan's diadem 
 
 May well from such a glorious height look down 
 
 On the White Czar who threatens Othman's crown.' 80 
 
 By such thoughts led, when Spring, through fluttering 
 
 showers, 
 
 With her gay voice broke on the dream of flowers, 
 When, underneath the flushing almond trees, 
 The splendour of the bright anemones 1 
 
 1 This district of Asia, as Mr. Lane informs us, was called 'Anthe- 
 
 R 
 
242 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Ran, like a scarlet flame along the ground, 
 
 Up to the white rose thickets gleaming round, 
 
 Through the clear lights of morning Hatim went, 
 
 Urged onward by some deep presentiment ; 
 
 It seemed as if a hidden spirit still 
 
 Moved with his pulse, and quenched all human will, 90 
 
 For breaths of strange emotion on him fell, 
 
 Rapid as lightning, irresistible. 
 
 Like one who walks in charmed sleep alone, 
 
 Following some hand of power through ways unknown, 
 
 Into the ancient market-place hard by 
 
 He passed, nor knew he how, nor knew he why. 
 
 There slaves from every land, of every hue, 
 
 In ordered files were ranked for public view. 
 
 Ionian girls, with glance of liquid jet, 
 
 Half- fire, half softened by some fond regret, 100 
 
 And fragrant tresses darker than the violet ; l 
 
 Proud Gothic captives, golden-haired and slim, 
 
 Frowned near, amid a knot of Nubians grim ; 
 
 Next whom in stately beauty, tall and fair, 
 
 Caucasian youths and virgins gathered there, 
 
 Bright with new hopes, and fresh from mountain air. 
 
 Here, dragged by pirates o'er the wild sea-foam, 
 
 With deep blue eyes yet weeping for her home 
 
 Beside Halzaphron's cliff, a British maid ; 
 
 Close to her from the lion-haunted glade no 
 
 Through which Tacazze rolls his roaring flood, 
 
 Slight, graceful women of Amharic blood, 
 
 Just free from the fierce Arab's cramping chain, 
 
 Moved their lithe limbs, and rose erect again. 
 
 musia,' or 'The Flowery Land,' by the Greeks. It is still remarkable for 
 its flowers, more especially for an abundance of white roses. 
 
 1 I have kept this one line as a protest against the foolish theory, that 
 the coesura in the Alexandrine must be on the sixth syllable. I altered 
 others in deference to friendly criticism because the matter was not worth 
 contesting. 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 243 
 
 These one and all Hatim regarded not, 
 Drawn onward, onward to the appointed spot ; 
 Where, shrinking from the tumult and the press, 
 A woman stood, dark, pale, and motionless. 
 Well might we weep for her weep to behold 
 One brought so low, that was so great of old 120 
 
 If hers were now the story to be told : 
 But life for her, burnt into darkness blind 
 As a spent fire, lay choked and dead behind. 
 That wasted form drooped feeble and forlorn, 
 Like the moon waning in a winter morn, 
 And o'er her beauty, once a world's delight, 
 The stain of grief spread like a clinging blight, 
 So that men came and went with heedless eye, 
 And Hatim, like the rest, had wandered by, 
 But that before him, clinging to her side, 130 
 
 Shone like the morning star, that hoped-for bride. 
 Scarce five years old she seemed, of beauty rare, 
 Matching that lovely boy beyond expression fair ; 
 So looked, we well might deem, that mystic child l 
 By Helen's phantom from her nurse beguiled, 
 Whose wondrous legend in the days of old, 
 With bated breath each Dorian mother told, 
 O'er that unconquered land of proud renown, 
 Where, from Boreum's cliff, flung sparkling down 
 Through his massed oleander blooms, that quiver 140 
 With double life, glassed on the shining river 
 In rose-hued curves, beneath a southern sun, 
 The limpid waters of Eurotas run 
 Yes ! in Laconia's mountain-guarded vale, 
 Each maiden heard delightedly the tale, 
 How when a Spartan girl was doomed to lie 
 On grim Taygetus, and there to die, 
 
 1 For the story of Ariston's wife here referred to, vide Herodotus, 
 Book vi. ch. Ixi. 
 
 R2 
 
244 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Lest her foul features should bring down disgrace 
 
 On a stern sire, and mar his ancient race ; 
 
 As by a faithful slave, beyond the throng 150 
 
 Of jeering chiefs, the babe was borne along, 
 
 A stately woman, not of mortal birth, 
 
 Silently rose out of the sacred earth, 
 
 Smote numb that nurse, with one imperial look, 
 
 Then from her powerless arms the infant took ; 
 
 To be restored when each harsh human line 
 
 Was changed to beauty, under love divine ; 
 
 Whilst all that marred her form was lifted then, 
 
 As a vile mask, not to be worn again ; 
 
 And radiance from within was round her thrown, 160 
 
 Like the gleams flushing through an opal stone. 
 
 Such seemed this heaven-sent maid as if from far 
 
 She had been touched by some empyrean star 
 
 Kindling unearthly charms. Why need I say 
 
 That Hatim bore her from the mart away ? 
 
 Whilst the wan mother, slowly reconciled 
 
 To life that dawned in brightness for her child, 
 
 Became less sad, yea, smiled at times to see 
 
 Those fair young things laugh in their tameless glee ? 
 
 All know how fast on to Death's shoreless deep 170 
 
 The unending tides of life's great river sweep 
 
 How childhood merges into youth, and so 
 
 Man's ages into one another flow ; 
 
 Enough to say, that as the years went by 
 
 These children bloomed in bright tranquillity 
 
 That Neamet, with fearless grace, would rein 
 
 The wildest war-horse in his father's train ; 
 
 That, when her song throbbed through the flowering dales, 
 
 Amid the silence of the nightingales, 
 
 Fair Noam's lute and lay all hearts could thrill, 180 
 
 As if touched by the angel Israfil. l 
 
 1 The great musician among the Mahometan angels. 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 245 
 
 The boy, though full of joyous youth, and strong 
 
 O'er rough and smooth to urge the chase along 
 
 Though wild, as haggard falcon in her flight, 
 
 He ever sought on danger's edge delight ; 
 
 Would for an asking look all sport forego, 
 
 Fling down the spear, unstring his favourite bow, 
 
 To lie beneath the light of those sweet eyes, 
 
 Whilst the moon stole into the deepening skies ; 
 
 And twine amid her raven curls the red 190 
 
 Pomegranate blossoms that grew over-head : 
 
 Careless, though hounds and eager vassals wait 
 
 Round his white Arab, snorting at the gate. 
 
 Thus side by side, and hand in hand, the two 
 
 Linked like a double star, in beauty grew. 
 
 O'er the bright flowers, and under echoing trees 
 
 Their welcome laughter rippled as a breeze, 
 
 Till childhood passing swift through cloudless days, 
 
 Melted behind them to a golden haze; , 
 
 And, spreading its sweet leaves from hour to hour, 200 
 
 Their bud of love became a living flower. 
 
 Thus all men watched them lovers without guile 
 
 And read their open secret with a smile 
 
 Read and rejoiced, in looks so fresh and gay, 
 
 As men rejoice to greet a blithe spring day, 
 
 Till Hatim, gladdened by the general joy, 
 
 Betrothed with solemn rites the girl and boy 
 
 That boy, the gem of Cufa's youth ; that girl 
 
 Of Cufa's maidenhood the flawless pearl. 
 
 Whilst thus in Hatim's house reigned mirth and love, 210 
 Far other passions the fierce Viceroy move. 
 Hardened he was, and one without remorse, 
 Who passed from force to fraud, from fraud to force ; 
 Keen still to keep his evil powers secure, 
 He bribed the great, and then oppressed the poor. 
 
246 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Long had he raised himself above the laws, 
 
 Giving his cruel will the rein, because 
 
 An aged monarch, dozing in his hall, 
 
 Had almost let the golden sceptre fall. 
 
 But to that weary heart death brought release, 220 
 
 So with his fathers slept the King in peace : 
 
 And now a youthful prince, who sought renown 
 
 By justice to his people, wore the crown; 
 
 Whilst the sleek flatterers who had basely sold 
 
 Blinding their lord the lives of men for gold, 
 
 Trembled themselves, and scarce had strength to send 
 
 Faint messages, warning each ruthless friend, 
 
 Still, somehow, in the Viceroy's startled ear, 
 
 These words of warning sounded low but clear : 
 
 'The taint of blood, from thy far province blown, 230 
 
 Creeps mist-like onward, and infects the throne ; 
 
 Low cries of women and of children beat 
 
 Like wailing winds upon the judgment- seat. 
 
 In the old days we may have been as thou, 
 
 And let our passions have their way; but now 
 
 Perforce we are reformed; devoutly bent, 
 
 Like echoes to the Caliph we assent, 
 
 Thy name the burthen is of our lament. 
 
 Thy long career of what we now call crime, 
 
 For vengeance marks thee out be wise in time ! ' 240 
 
 ' Enough/ he thought ; ' though Fortune flout me thus, 
 
 Yet is the Caliph young and amorous; 
 
 A lion in the net will strive in vain, 
 
 To bind this lion we have beauty's chain. 
 
 Noam's sweet eyes and angel voice must fill 
 
 His heart with dreams, relax that iron will, 
 
 And drain all purpose from his heart, until, 
 
 Whilst the fresh hours their fresh allurements bring, 
 
 He shrink and dwindle to a common king. 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 247 
 
 Fair Noam must be mine, and his through me ; 250 
 
 Yet is there need of night and secresy. 
 
 That house in wealth, in friends, in arms is strong, 
 
 We may not venture upon open wrong 
 
 Though swift, we must be patient, even as Fate, 
 
 They garner all who know but how to wait.' 
 
 From that day forth he coiled his wiles around 
 Her gentle life ; without a sign or sound 
 He overhung her careless steps, and knew 
 All she had done, and all she hoped to do : 
 Her comings and her goings watched, but she 260 
 
 Heeded no more than laughing infancy. 
 So the fierce python, floating in his wrath 
 From tree to tree above the forest path, 
 By which their way all trembling creatures take, 
 At night, to some clear stream or shining lake, 
 Through the thick leafage shoots his baleful slope 
 Down on an unsuspecting antelope, 
 Tightening his nets of death, ring over ring, 
 Around that innocent and lovely thing. 
 
 Still, help he needed to prepare the way 270 
 
 Help to decoy his victim, and betray ; 
 But well man's heart he knew, and looking round, 
 Among the falsely good his tool he found. ' 
 
 There was a woman, old, and worn, and white, 
 Loud in her prayers by day, and loud by night ; 
 Austere of life and speech, by fasting grown 
 A ghastly hide stretched over nerve and bone. 
 Yet though behung with rosaries and beads, 
 She drawled her chapters out, and chanted creeds 
 Though God's name, ever- wise and ever-great, 280 
 
 Sat on her bloodless lips, early and late, 
 
248 NBA MET AND NOAM. 
 
 This seeming saint was but a living lie, 
 
 Greedy and base, a tool for gold to buy. 
 
 She asked a month to lure away the maid : 
 
 ' Expect me then, and her with me,' she said ; 
 
 And in that month, from dawn throughout the day, 
 
 At Noam's door she prayed, or feigned to pray, 
 
 Till that bright creature, easy of access, 
 
 Revered her life, and pitied her distress 
 
 Relieved her, loved her, trusted her, and deemed 290 
 
 That she was even holier than she seemed 
 
 So holy that no evil could come near 
 
 One to the Prophet, yea, to God, so dear. 
 
 Whilst Neamet, contemptuously kind, 
 
 With love, and hope, and youthful ardour blind, 
 
 Although he loathed the crone, yet heeded not ; 
 
 Though his heart warned him often, he forgot 
 
 How instinct, surer than all thought, shrinks more 
 
 From the asp hissing than the lion's roar. 
 
 Soon then, it chanced that in her simple way, 300 
 
 Young Noam from her house was led astray ; 
 
 Some vain pretext there was of things divine 
 
 To hear how holy men pray round their shrine, 
 
 Some mosque to view, some blessing to obtain, 
 
 She went undoubting forth nor came again. 
 
 Alas for Neamet ! who that day stood 
 Far from her in the forest solitude 
 With Syrian weapons armed ; from sunrise there 
 He tracked the mother-wolf home to her lair ; 
 Or, having tamed and trained his mighty horse, 310 
 
 Till it became a mere mechanic force, 
 Flung that fierce steed, as men a javelin fling, 
 To meet the wounded panther in her spring. 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 249 
 
 Yet, amid all the pleasure and the pride 
 
 The wild emotions that the chase supplied, 
 
 The hard-won triumph, and the daring ride 
 
 An unseen presence seemed his heart to fill, 
 
 Low whispers muttered of some coming ill ; 
 
 And over all the rising floods of bloom 
 
 There fell, he thought, a shadow and a gloom, 320 
 
 Darkening the mid- day sun, so that for him, 
 
 Without a cloud, the bright blue sky grew dim. 
 
 Alas for Neamet, when he returned ! 
 No lamp within his lady's window burned. 
 By a sad restlessness disquieted 
 The household servants moved and murmured ; 
 As, when on summer summer storms are thrown, 
 The tree-tops of the forest toss and moan ; 
 With stammering lips, bowed heads, and faces pale, 
 They falter forth their version of the tale. 330 
 
 Alas for Noam, from her lover torn ! 
 Alas for Neamet, left there to mourn ! 
 All day he rested not, but sought and sought 
 The eve no peace, the night no slumber brought ; 
 One feeling never slacked its rush of pain, 
 But like the sea, beat round his wavering brain. 
 Or if he slept, he felt dim sorrow press, 
 And moved, bewildered and companionless, 
 He knew not why, through some grey wilderness ; 
 Then waking with a start, across his soul 340 
 
 Yet doubting, mists of gloomy wonder roll, 
 Till straight the piercing shafts of memory flew, 
 And poisoned wounds within began to burn anew. 
 So was he racked ; but soon delirium came, 
 And fever parched him, withering like a flame. 
 
250 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Then all men gave him up to death, except 
 
 His father, who still wrestled, prayed, and wept 
 
 Wrestled with God convulsively, and poured 
 
 Mind, heart, and spirit out before the Lord ! 
 
 At that dread moment, in the halls below, 350 
 
 A sudden step was heard to live and grow ; 
 
 The gates, untouched, their folds wide open spread, 
 
 The whole house throbbed to that mysterious tread, 
 
 And, in strange garb, there shone within the door 
 
 A stately presence never seen before. 
 
 As drifted snows his hair and beard were white, 
 
 His eye gleamed full of wild, yet solemn light, 
 
 Across his massive forehead lines were wrought, 
 
 That spake of years of strife and years of thought ; 
 
 Yet like a granite headland in its place, 360 
 
 Against whose scorning front, and steadfast base, 
 
 The bitter hatred of the maddened main 
 
 Flings itself, raging ever, but in vain, 
 
 Through his long struggles, worn but unsubdued 
 
 By warfare more than human, firm he stood ! 
 
 They guessed him soon to be that Median sage, 
 
 Whose deeds were kncwn, unknown his name or age ; 
 
 Some whispered, that, before the Prophet's birth, 
 
 He had foretold that gift of heaven to earth, 
 
 That, still unchanged, whilst on the slow years rolled, 370 
 
 Clad in the heirship of enchantments old 
 
 From Kingly Magian priests, he dwelt apart 
 
 To worship, and all-powerful in his art, 
 
 Won by no compact, serving foul desire, 
 
 But through consuming thought, and zeal like fire, 
 
 He ruled dark spirits with an iron rod, 
 
 And bade them toil to do the work of God. 
 
 We cannot tell if these wild tales be true, 
 
 But yet strange gifts were his; full well he knew 
 
 The secret virtue of all herbs that grew ; 380 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 251 
 
 Heard often, when no earthly sound was there, 
 Oracular voices on the midnight air ; 
 Or felt, through heaven's great silence, from afar 
 The music floating round each ancient star. 
 
 With gracious looks on stepped that aged man, 
 And thus to speak in solemn tones began : 
 ' Nay, tremble not my friends, ye need not fear, 
 For not without a warrant am I here ; 
 To save thy son from death, thee from despair, 
 I come, for great the strength and life of prayer ! 390 
 Thine hath availed thee much ; not Solomon 
 In all his treasury of spells had one 
 Of half the strength to master and compel 
 The struggling powers of earth, and air, and hell ; 
 That word of thine, with faith and passion blent, 
 By God's acceptance armed, to me was sent 
 To me, whom now He deigns to make His instrument 
 And on its silent wing have I been borne 
 From distant hills beneath the earliest morn. 
 Rise Hatim, rise, and lead me to thy son, 400 
 
 For now or never must this task be done ! ' 
 He went, and raised that form so faint, so frail ; 
 Kissed the dry lips, and touched the temples pale, 
 Fixing, then soft with tears, on that white face 
 The eye, which demons shrank from into space. 
 At once that look, intense with rays divine, 
 Warmed his dull blood, as by the warmth of wine ; 
 Youth, health, and love, like birds in spring, returned ; 
 His heart dilated, and his spirit burned. 
 Like a cloud rushing off the sun, beneath 410 
 
 That radiant glance the deepening mist of death 
 Rolled fast away from the blind nerves and brain, 
 And light shone out of those dim eyes again. 
 
252 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Then said the sage, ' I bring thee hope for lo 
 
 Where weeping sits the faithful maid I know ; 
 
 I could send vassal genii on her track, 
 
 By my strong art, and waft her wondering back 
 
 Swift as the lightning's flash ; but He who tries 
 
 The hearts of men has willed it otherwise. 
 
 The Caliph on his throne must learn from me 420 
 
 That he is raised so high the truth to see, 
 
 That he whose will towards evil hath been bent, 
 
 Although a King, must suffer and repent 
 
 Must, under God, renew his right to sway, 
 
 By full atonement in the blaze of day. 
 
 But now, arise ! no hour is to be lost, 
 
 Lest by some evil star our path be crossed ; 
 
 Saturn not long his malice idle keeps, 
 
 Not long, unharming, the red planet sleeps ; 
 
 We must go forth, whilst yet to us is given 430 
 
 A light of hope from yonder smiling heaven.' 
 
 Then Hatim blest his son, and for the Mede 
 
 Bade them lead out his noblest Arab steed. 
 
 Joy, mixed with awe, on that glad household fell, 
 
 Whilst they closed round to bid their boy farewell, 
 
 Thence by Hit's sullen wells they journeyed on, 
 
 Towards Tadmor, summoned up by Solomon, 
 
 Whose demon columns yet unbroken stand, 
 
 Snow-white against the Desert's yellow sand 
 
 Past Antar's iron ridge they toil, to reach 440 
 
 Kuteifah's crag, and Bahret's glittering beach ; 
 
 Till Asia's pearl in her full lustre met 
 
 Their eyes, amid her emerald meadows set 
 
 There shone she in the sunset's mellow gleams, 
 
 Damascus city of the lucid streams. 
 
 * At length/ exclaimed the Mede, ' our goal is won ; 
 
 I am thy father, thou art now my son ! ' 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 253 
 
 PART II. 
 
 And thus as father and as son, the two 
 
 Passed with their slaves the royal city through, 
 
 Here earnest work, there careless mirth was loud, 450 
 
 Bee-like, or drone-like hummed that swarming crowd, 
 
 For there was held a solemn festival. 
 
 X 
 
 When these two reared, on pillars firm and tall, 
 
 Their spacious tent close to the Harem wall. 
 
 Merchants they seemed, and gems they brought to sell, 
 
 Veined through with splendours inconceivable 
 
 None such 'mid Ava's glowing pebbles are, 
 
 Nor in the river-beds of Malabar. 
 
 Gems were they, that had shot their dazzling rays 
 
 Around some angel brow, in ancient days, 460 
 
 Ere yet in heaven was heard the sound of strife, 
 
 Or the red clay grew quick with Adam's life. 
 
 But whence, or how, the Magian called them through 
 
 Space measureless and void, He only knew. 
 
 Robes, too, shone there woven beneath the light 
 
 Of fairy lands, by fairy fingers white, 
 
 Steeped, as it were, in living smiles, that played, 
 
 Like many-coloured flames, about the braid. 
 
 For healing, too, strange elements they kept 
 
 Wherein lost powers and hidden magic slept ; 470 
 
 Thus soon through that old city, built by man 
 
 From Eden fresh, the tale of wonder ran ; 
 
 How chased by them, like baffled beasts of prey 
 
 Before the sun, diseases fled away. 
 
 So all men reverenced the sage, and yet 
 
 With deeper love they followed Neamet. 
 
254 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Beautiful was he, and without a peer ; 
 
 But not for that alone they held him dear. 
 
 The sage around him breathed an atrnosphere- 
 
 A subtle essence of delight and power, 480 
 
 Clothing his youth, as fragrance clothes a flower ; 
 
 And in that atmosphere he moved and dwelt, 
 
 Till underneath his presence all men felt, 
 
 Down to the roots of being, a sweet sense 
 
 Of swift, inexplicable influence, 
 
 That drew their hearts out of themselves away, 
 
 Each motion of his spirit to obey ; 
 
 As the numb soul of iron wakes to own 
 
 Life, thrilling through it, from the mystic stone. 
 
 But Time passed on ; day after day, the same, 490 
 And still no tidings of lost Noam came. 
 She, when that traitress foul had given her up 
 To drink the bitter dregs of sorrow's cup, 
 Had found no mosque, no blessing but was taken 
 Straight to the Viceroy's hall, and there forsaken. 
 He sneered and said, ' Those glorious eyes are wet 
 With angry tears, that heart is sore, but yet 
 The queen I make to-day with thanks shall own her debt. 
 As the sun quenches moonlight, so the ray 
 Of power's bright orb will drive faint love away ; 500 
 
 Or, if that love to Neamet still clings, 
 Think, short the life of those who rival kings. 
 It rests with you to save him or to kill.' 
 'Twas thus, with beating heart and broken will, 
 The bride of Neamet no more a bride 
 Was borne, escorted, and accompanied 
 By fifty horsemen, on in hurrying flight, 
 Unto the Caliph's mansions of delight. 
 There, though betrothed with Moslem rites, they gave 
 Her to the King, as paramour and slave. 510 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 255 
 
 He, doting on her beauty, left no art 
 
 Of love untried to touch and win her heart ; 
 
 Poured out as gifts, in wild magnificence, 
 
 All that could glad the eye or charm the sense ; 
 
 But vainly all, she, fixed and silent there, 
 
 Sat like a marble shape, in dumb despair. 
 
 To her, bewildered and disconsolate, 
 
 The Caliph seemed like an embodied Fate 
 
 A Fate from whose stern grasp she might not fly, 
 
 Though, true to Neamet, she yet could die ; 520 
 
 Her lord and master wondered, ne'er till then 
 
 His love had failed to win back love again. 
 
 But knightly was his nature, and he thought, 
 
 Like other youths, to earn the prize he sought. 
 
 And so she daily grew more thin and weak, 
 
 And the rose-blush upon her tender cheek, 
 
 Through changes never-ending, ebbed away 
 
 As sunset clouds wane into dimness grey. 
 
 Her memory to the loved one's image clung, 
 
 His voice within her ears for ever rung ; 530 
 
 Too well she knew, yea, seemed almost to see, 
 
 How sad, how lost, how changed by grief was he. 
 
 Or if she slept, in dreams she saw him still, 
 
 But saw him dead, and felt Death's icy chill ; 
 
 Then, waking with a scream, she lay forlorn, 
 
 And sobbed, and moaned, and shivered till the morn. 
 
 Just at that time it chanced the Caliph heard 
 
 How the great city to its depth was stirred 
 
 By the strange lore and power of that strange man, 
 
 The aged Mede, the wise magician ; 540 
 
 One trusted by the King at once was sent, 
 
 Though with scant hope, to seek the sage's tent. 
 
 A daughter, fading in her youth, she said, 
 
 Had made her bold to ask the Magian's aid. 
 
256 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 He answered : ' Ere I search yon orbs of heaven, 
 Her name, her age, her birth-place must be given ; 
 For if the voice of her own stars be dumb, 
 Knowledge availeth not the end must come/ 
 
 * In Cufa were we born/ she said, and lied ; 
 
 1 My daughter Noam is an Emir's bride ; 550 
 
 Scarce sixteen springs have touched her with their breath, 
 Now winter threatens, and the frost of death.' 
 
 * Thy words are false/ he answered straight; ' but still 
 Insight they give me how to use my skill. 
 
 She shall not die. Do thou, my son, prepare 
 
 Our balms from Eden mixed with spices rare. 
 
 Thy horoscope and hers are one ; though mine 
 
 The saving thought, the fated hand is thine.' 
 
 The boy went forth, re-entering soon he bore 
 
 A casket of white moon-stone ! from their store. 560 
 
 ' Take this, a charm it holds whose destined scope 
 
 Is to relight the dying lamp of Hope ; 
 
 Pain in its presence, sorrows are no more, 
 
 It will the maid to loving arms restore. 5 
 
 The woman took the gift with reverence due, 
 
 And to her lady's chamber straight withdrew. 
 
 By mystic letters here and there embrowned, 
 
 With gold embossed that casket was, and bound, 
 
 And this the healing balm that Noam in it found : 
 
 * My love, I come to die, or to regain thee, 570 
 
 Noam, to die for thee, long- sought ; 
 
 Nor let my death, even for a moment pain thee, 
 For life, if lonely life, is nought. 
 
 Long mateless years would be but death for either 
 False death, since far from wicked men 
 
 The true death joins us. Let us die together, 
 Or live, as we have lived, again.' 
 
 1 A kind of translucent feldspar, not Mr. Wilkie Collins's diamond. 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 257 
 
 Poor Noam trembled, shaken from her grief, 
 From head to foot she trembled as a leaf, 
 Then, bathed in tears, half bitter and half sweet, 580 
 
 Threw herself down before the woman's feet. 
 ' O my friend, look in pity on our lot, 
 Save him, and help him, and betray him not.' 
 And then she told her all from first to last : 
 How their blue sky of love was overcast, 
 How on their heads the sudden thunder fell, 
 She told her, pleading passionately well, 
 Until that aged woman, weeping too, 
 Recalled past years when she was warm and true, 
 And vowed to aid them in that dangerous hour 590 
 
 With her whole spirit, her whole heart, and power ; 
 Yea, though the Caliph should the deed mislike, 
 She would face death to save them let him strike ! 
 Then, seeking Neamet, she led him through 
 A wicket gate by windings known to few ; 
 Next, as a girl disguised, she placed him where 
 To Noam's chamber rose an ivory stair. 
 * Be calm/ she said, ' be cautious the sixth door 
 As you move through yon golden corridor 
 Pass it, and find yourself at Noam's feet. 600 
 
 The sixth, I say ; be silent and discreet.' 
 But Neamet, impetuous and young, 
 As from the leash a greyhound, onward sprung, 
 His heart beat wildly, many-coloured light 
 Flashed round his dim and palpitating sight, 
 His knees fail under him, he seems to hear 
 The voice of a great flood within his ear ; 
 The rooms come gliding past him, and the ground 
 Heaves into billows like a sea around. 
 What wonder, then, if 'mazed and passion-tost, 610 
 
 The clue went from him and the path was lost ? 
 
 s 
 
258 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 What wonder that amid the gathering gloom 
 
 He reeled on blindly to that royal room, 
 
 Where the maid Leila, on her maiden throne, 
 
 Twin sister to the Caliph, mused alone ? 
 
 * Nay, who is this ? ' she cried ; ' new come, I trow ; 
 
 Why, Noam's self is not so fair as thou. 
 
 Still she gazed on ; but when from Neamet 
 
 Her gracious looks and words no answer met, 
 
 She rose, and touched his breast, then in surprise 620 
 
 She started back, scarce trusting her own eyes. 
 
 Then half in wrath, she cried, and half in fear, 
 
 1 Thou art no maiden, what has brought thee here ? 
 
 What hast thou done, rash youth ? Why thus disguised ? 
 
 Back, back at once, if life be not despised. 
 
 I would not see thee slain ; ' but then he fell 
 
 At her feet, pleading passionately well, 
 
 And told her the whole tale from first to last : 
 
 How their blue sky of love was overcast, 
 
 And what the Mede had done for him, and what 630 
 
 The aged slave, and how he heeded not, 
 
 But lost in passion's mist had gone astray 
 
 To place his life in her fair hands that day. 
 
 Then his great beauty, and yet more the spell 
 
 Wrought by the mighty master, served him well. 
 
 At length she spake, thrilled through with the sweet pain 
 
 Of pity, which she could not hide, though fain : 
 
 ' I vow to guide you through this dangerous hour, 
 
 With my whole spirit, my whole heart and power ; 
 
 Yea, though my brother should the act mislike, 640 
 
 And in his anger slay me let him strike ! 
 
 Yet lose not hope ; who knows him if not I ? 
 
 Trust but in Allah, and we shall not die.' 
 
 Then to her maids she called, ' At once begin, 
 
 My children, to set forth a feast within ; 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 259 
 
 With incense, flowers, and crimson hangings graced, 
 Let the hall brighten only make ye haste. 
 And thou, Mamouna, tell my brother dear, 
 That I entreat his gracious presence here, 
 And as thou goest, through the dim light guide 650 
 
 This rival fair one to fair Noam's side.' 
 She said and smiled, then whispered, ' Neamet, 
 Take heed, for snares around thee may be set. 
 None but myself must speak to him ; and oh, 
 Would it were over ! His great heart I know ; 
 But yet the will of kings who can foretell 
 As the sea, fathomless, inscrutable ? 
 This, this at least, young Neamet, I give, 
 One golden moment thou hast now to live ; 
 I would forego all possibilities 660 
 
 Of sceptred pomp, all that before me lies 
 The mocking splendours, whilst the heart is dead, 
 When I draw near my joyless marriage bed, 
 As Caliph's sister, not as woman wed. 
 Away with them ! I could lose all to be 
 Noam, whose rush of rapture waiteth thee, 
 Though with my blood I bought the dear delight 
 Of love, for one sweet hour, in Fate's despite. 
 At least that one sweet hour is thine ; no eye 
 Upon that meeting, worth a life, shall pry. 670 
 
 Go, and be happy, but return before 
 The Caliph comes, or ye may meet no more.' 
 Why tell how lovers one another greet, 
 With no eye watching, no tongue to repeat 
 How their joy, sparkling out to upper air 
 From gloom, made rich the bleak wastes of despair ; 
 As that flood, conscious of the Prophet's hand, 
 Leapt from black rocks in Horeb's thirsty land, 
 To hide with flowers and fruit the desert sand. 
 
 s 2 
 
26o NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 Enough to say it passed, as all things will, 680 
 
 And they returned to wait and tremble still. 
 
 The Princess soothed them ever with a smile, 
 
 That cheered, though sick at heart herself the while 
 
 Till silver trumpets sounded, and the beat 
 
 Was heard without of slowly-stepping feet ; 
 
 Then leaving guards without, the Caliph came : 
 
 She rose, and called him by his childish name 
 
 A name of early love, with power to bring 
 
 A breath from dawn, a freshness as of spring. 
 
 She placed young Neamet before his eyes, 690 
 
 Whilst his strong heart grew soft with memories, 
 
 And cried, ' Behold, this is my gift ; I pray 
 
 That what I give thee thou wilt love alway.' 
 
 The Caliph gazed upon the seeming bride 
 
 Delightedly, and laughing low, replied, 
 
 1 Thanks, thanks, sweet sister mine, no need to fear 
 
 Lest I hold not this bright young creature dear ; 
 
 Thy slave is fair as Noam is, and they 
 
 Shall live together from this very day. 
 
 But tell me, Leila, how it comes that thou 700 
 
 Hast wept ? There is a trouble on thy brow, 
 
 Thy cheeks are pale, and dark around thine eyes 
 
 The trace of tears from some fresh sorrow lies/ 
 
 ' Tell me, my own,' she answered, ' am I pale ? 
 
 In truth, but now I heard a piteous tale 
 
 Of two unhappy lovers, into pain 
 
 By foes entrapped, and mercilessly slain.' 
 
 And then she told him all from first to last, 
 
 . * 
 
 Much as from Neamet to her it passed, 
 
 But added this : * He unto whom the maid 710 
 
 Was by that wicked chief but now betrayed, 
 
 The king, regarding not their plighted troth, 
 
 In his own halls has foully murdered both : 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 2 6i 
 
 Red-reeking on the steps of his divan, 
 
 Their young blood cries aloud to God from man ! ' 
 
 Ere the last word had died upon her lips, 
 
 As the sun frowns, pressed by some dark eclipse, 
 
 A gloom of instant anger blackly flies 
 
 Across his broad clear brow and radiant eyes ; 
 
 Then all at once, aflame with righteous ire, 720 
 
 Up leapt the Caliph like a beacon fire. 
 
 ' A most unroyal act/ he cries, ' indeed; 
 
 Could not their love, their beauty, for them plead ? 
 
 There are three reasons strong against the deed: 
 
 First, all who love should pardon lovers ; all 
 
 Who know how beauty can the heart enthrall 
 
 Must feel for other men, as true must hold 
 
 That by the poet sung so well of old ; 
 
 Though law be trampled on, and power defied, 
 
 " The faults of love by love are justified." 730 
 
 But here no fault there was, no wrong was done, 
 
 The daring lover but reclaimed his own. 
 
 Who risks his life for love, to him belong 
 
 The praise and tears of youth, the poet's song ; 
 
 And whoso lays on him a murderous hand 
 
 Accurst through all the years to come shall stand. 
 
 Next, the king's house gives shelter ; The king's face 
 
 Should be known there but as a sign of grace. 
 
 Who once sees God may not be shut from bliss ; 
 
 We kings should emulate our God in this. 740 
 
 And my third reason, stronger yet I deem : 
 
 Justice should shine as the sun's perfect beam; 
 
 No colour on its whiteness should infringe, 
 
 To cloud that pure ray with an alien tinge. 
 
 Nor is there any truth more clear than this, 
 
 " He who decides in haste, though right, decides amiss. 
 
 We, above all, who stand in Allah's place, 
 
 His delegates, should weigh the lightest case 
 
262 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 With a grave patience and deliberate care 
 
 (As Heaven is), slow to punish, quick to spare. 750 
 
 Beyond this general duty to the laws, 
 
 If I, the king, am judge in my own cause, 
 
 Surely, then, surely there is tenfold need 
 
 Of wrath, and urging passion to take heed, 
 
 To silence them when they grow loud, and steel 
 
 The heart against their blind and bitter zeal. 
 
 But this man, neither reverencing love 
 
 Nor his own roof-tree (brooding shamed above 
 
 The shameful act), nor yet the eternal claim 
 
 Of justice upon every royal name, 760 
 
 A stain on us, his brethren, hath let fall, 
 
 Together with himself, dishonouring all; 
 
 I know not where he reigns, perchance afar, 
 
 Beyond the reach of this bright scimitar ; 
 
 But this, at least, the caitiff wretch shall know, 
 
 That if I meet him here on earth below, 
 
 Aye, or in heaven itself, I hold him as a foe/ 
 
 He paused ; at once the Princess, half-afraid, 
 
 Yet full of hope, the truth before him laid. 
 
 ' Nay, he is ruler of no rival state 770 
 
 From thee remote ; nor is there need of hate, 
 
 If thou wilt be but to thyself a friend ; 
 
 Thou art the man all but the bitter end. 
 
 * See now ; ' and then she placed them side by side, 
 
 ' The daring lover here, and there the bride ; 
 
 Kneel, Noam, in thy mournful loveliness, 
 
 To ask of this great judge a great redress ; 
 
 Kneel, Neamet, let thy just claim be heard, 
 
 Our Caliph never has recalled his word.' 
 
 A flush of dark red anger flitted o'er 780 
 
 His cheek, to leave it paler than before ; 
 
 His eye shot savage fire, a scarlet stain 
 
 Rushed o'er his wounded lip, then dropped like rain ; 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 263 
 
 But when he saw the lovers prostrate lie, 
 
 He smiled once more, though somewhat bitterly. 
 
 * Fear not,' he said, ' I can be firm and strong 
 
 Against myself ye shall not suffer wrong ; 
 
 But thou, my sister, thou with whom I strayed, 
 
 From my first youth, through sunshine and through shade, 
 
 I should have deemed that thou, so wise and kind, 790 
 
 With all our childish memories intertwined, 
 
 With our twinned souls laid bare to one another, 
 
 Whilst yet thou wast but sister to thy brother, 
 
 Without a thought why I was called the prince, 
 
 Might know my heart as none have known it since. 
 
 Leila, was this well done ? I thought that we, 
 
 What then we were, till death till death should be, 
 
 That through thy spirit, crystal-clear as glass 
 
 From the sea-city, truth should ever pass 
 
 Undimmed and undistorted ; but, alas ! 800 
 
 It is the curse of kings that they must live 
 
 Ever alone ; and, therefore, I forgive. 
 
 Yet learn thou also, lady, to be just ; 
 
 Loving me still love with a nobler trust. 
 
 But it is time these children to release 
 
 From doubt and fear ; Go, little ones, in peace ; 
 
 This hand of mine shall on your foemen fall, 
 
 Ruthless as that which gloomed along the wall, 
 
 When Cyrus came in wrath at Allah's call ; 
 
 So dread them not, your debt is fully paid 810 
 
 If the wise Median will but lend his aid, 
 
 And teach me how to rule ; with such a guide 
 
 I scarce can swerve from the straight path aside.' 
 
 The Magian straight was summoned from his tent, 
 
 His stately form before the Caliph bent ; 
 
 From the throne questioned then, he would not hide 
 
 Aught from the Caliph, but at once replied : 
 
264 NEAMET AND NOAM. 
 
 * I come,' he said, ' of a forgotten race, 
 
 Once mighty amongst nations ; now their place 
 
 Knows them no more. My very name will sound 820 
 
 Strange in your ears, though widely once renowned ; 
 
 It tells of a dim past, an older creed, 
 
 For I was named Deioces the Mede. 
 
 That name a dauntless chief in days of yore, 
 
 From whom 1 here inherit it, first bore. 
 
 Long years have fled since I was taught in youth 
 
 To ride, to draw the bow, to speak the truth ; 
 
 Great rivers in that time have turned aside 
 
 Their course ; great forests have been born and died ; 
 
 Great empires have arisen, but to fall ; 830 
 
 Great hearts are dust, yet I live on through all. 
 
 From the dead summers that have dropped away, 
 
 From centuries old that bloomed but to decay, 
 
 I have drawn out the spirit and the power, 
 
 As the bee, murmuring on from flower to flower, 
 
 Draws virtue forth ; then, faithful to a trust, 
 
 Reels home beneath her load of golden dust. 
 
 All I have hived and garnered thus, is due, 
 
 Great King, to justice-loving kings, like you 
 
 Hence, if your will avouch it, I abide, 840 
 
 A loyal servant, ever at your side.' 
 
 So near the throne Deioces remained, 
 
 Shared his lord's toil, his mighty life sustained ; 
 
 His great soul, through its depths, with wisdom fed, 
 
 Till it was filled, as is the ocean bed, 
 
 For ever with a light of waters overspread ; 
 
 And thus in strength and nobleness he grew, 
 
 Nor did love fail, nor friendships firm and true. 
 
 Through a long reign his power, his wealth, his fame, 
 
 By peace and war increased, until his name, 850 
 
 Motar the Just, beneath the sun unfurled, 
 
 Shone like a banner streaming o'er the world ; 
 
NEAMET AND NOAM. 265 
 
 And when his days were done, and Azrael 
 
 Called him to reap the harvest sown so well, 
 
 The nations that lay safe beneath his wing 
 
 Had but one heart to mourn their noble King. 
 
 'Tis said that when the funeral rites were o'er, 
 
 Deioces the Mede was seen no more ; 
 
 He vanished, silent as a drop of dew, 
 
 Or voiceless cloud that melts amid the blue ; 860 
 
 Men turned, and he was gone ; to reappear 
 
 Perchance, when Islam's danger draweth near. 
 
 Still, why swift hours of golden sunshine mar 
 
 With shadows from a darkness yet afar ? 
 
 Let the grim future claim its prey but now 
 
 A mandate from the Court tells Hatim how 
 
 He is to execute a righteous doom, 
 
 And rule his province in the dead man's room, 
 
 Like a house built on shifting sands alone, 
 
 By the King's breath that power was overthrown ; 870 
 
 So fell the Viceroy, and the land had rest, 
 
 Whilst high and low the name of Motar blest ; 
 
 His noble heart rejoiced to see meanwhile 
 
 Those married lovers on each other smile, 
 
 And showered his favours down with bounteous hand, 
 
 Till they asked leave to go to their own land. 
 
 Dismissed with royal gifts and speeches fair, 
 
 Thus home to Cufa went that lovely pair. 
 
 Soon goodly sons and daughters, graced by Heaven 
 
 With strength and beauty, to their arms were given ; 880 
 
 They rose, fulfilling Hatim's early dream, 
 
 Like palm-trees rising by a silver stream j 
 
 And thus with joy, with love that could not pall, 
 
 They dwelt together in that stately hall, 
 
 Till the divider, Death, came down and ended all. 
 
266 
 
 THE QUICK MARCH OF THE 
 FOURTEENTH REGIMENT. 
 
 FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE ' CORNHILL MAGAZINE.' 
 
 [On May 23, 1793, my grandfather Welbore Ellis Doyle rallied his regi- 
 ment the 1 4th of the Line then wavering under a heavy fire, and 
 stormed the fortified camp of Famars, after a very severe action, to the 
 tune of $a Ira. For many years this tune continued to be the quick 
 march of the I4th Regiment. I understand that of late years the tradi- 
 tion has ceased to operate, and. that the march is disused, or, at least, 
 that its origin has been forgotten.] 
 
 WHEN first the might of France was set 
 'Gainst creeds and laws, long years ago, 
 And the great strife not ended yet 
 Tossed crowns and nations to and fro, 
 Now buried deep beneath those wars 
 That since have made the earth their prey, 
 Our hard-won triumph at Famars 
 Was famous in its day. 
 
 Here trained through stedfast work, and drilled 
 Till as one thought they moved along, 
 By the old land's old memories filled, 
 Our English lads were calm and strong. 
 There drunk on hope as on new wine, 
 That in their veins like madness wrought, 
 With power half-devilish, half-divine, 
 Each restless Frenchman fought 
 
QUICK MARCH OF THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT. 267 
 
 Wealth, numbers, skill they heeded not, 
 Trampling them down as common things ; 
 Man's spirit was a fire, made hot 
 To burn away the strength of kings. 
 Thus armed, as roars before the blast 
 At forest trees a prairie flame, 
 On our firm silence, fiercely fast 
 Their howling frenzy came 
 
 Until (why shun the truth to speak ?) 
 The courage rooted in the past 
 Struck, as by sudden storms, grew weak, 
 And wavered like a wavering mast : 
 Still kept their time the well-taught feet, 
 Nor dreamed the soldier yet of flight, 
 Though deepening shadows of defeat 
 Fell on him, like a blight. 
 
 . 
 
 Straight out in front their leader dashed 
 
 (A God-given king of men was he), 
 
 And from his bright looks on them flashed 
 
 One sparkle of heroic glee : 
 
 ' They hold us cheap ' (he cried) ' too soon, 
 
 We'll break them, frantic as they are, 
 
 Unto their own accursed tune ; 
 
 Strike up then fa Ira' 
 
 The drums exulting thundered forth, 
 Whilst yet with trumpet tones he spoke, 
 And in those strong sons of the North 
 The old Berserker laugh awoke. 
 Their bayonets glowed with life, their eyes 
 Shone out to greet that eagle glance, 
 And, in her rush, a strange surprise 
 Palsied the steps of France. 
 
268 QUICK MARCH OF THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT. 
 
 Then, like a stream that bursts its banks, 1 
 To fa Ira from fifes and drums, 
 Upon their crushed and shattered ranks 
 The cataract charge of England comes ; 
 Whilst their own conquering music leapt 
 Forth in wild mirth to feel them run ; 
 Right o'er the ridge that host was swept, 
 And the grim battle won. 
 
 Thus, in the face of heaven and earth, 
 From their first home those notes he tore 
 To live, as by a second birth, 
 Linked fast with England evermore. 
 Yes, evermore, that through them still 
 To coming ages might be shown, 
 Whose arrowy thought and iron will 
 Had made that prize his own. 
 
 Thence, as each panting year rushed by 
 With garments rolled in blood His march 
 Went sounding onwards, far and nigh 
 Beneath cold rains, or suns that parch, 
 Northward or southward east or west, 
 Where still the heirs of that renown, 
 Behind some other colonel, pressed 
 To the field hurrying down. 
 
 For him, alas ! on Java's shore 
 It throbbed unheard through purple skies, 
 Nor marked he, under dark Bhurtpore, 
 The blood-bought battle-hymn arise. 
 
 1 This line is from ' Rokeby. ' I borrowed it unconsciously at the 
 moment, and thought afterwards that Scott was quite rich enough to lend 
 it to me \\ithcVit fcelirg tr.e .ess. 
 
QUICK MARCH OF THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT. 269 
 
 New Zealand's fern-gloom, as they stept, 
 Might quiver to that piercing tone, 
 But him it stirred not, where he slept 
 In a far land alone. 
 
 And, whilst o'er its old ground, the strain 
 
 Smote with high scorn our ancient foe, 
 
 Called he upon those drums again ? 
 
 Shared he their closing rapture ? No ! 
 
 His grave lay deep in dust, before 
 
 They pealed through Belgian corn-crops, when 
 
 The baffled Eagle fell, no more 
 
 To tear the hearts of men. 
 
 Yes, he died young, and all in vain 
 
 We dream how much he left undone, 
 
 Painting, upon an idle brain, 
 
 The glorious course he should have run. 
 
 Forgotten by the reckless years, 
 
 He rests apart and makes no sign 
 
 Even his proud march no longer cheers 
 
 The Fourteenth of the Line. 
 
 Still, if elsewhere of this no trace 
 Remain, by some as worthy deed, 
 Oh, youthful soldiers of his race, 
 Against oblivion for it plead. 
 Thus, if his death-lamp have grown dim, 
 Re-light it ; thus force Time to spare 
 This leaf of laurel, earned by him 
 For the old name we bear. 
 
270 
 
 IPHITION. 
 
 FROM THE 'CORNHILL MAGAZINE.' 
 
 'Ei/ 8' 'AxtAevs Tpcbevffi 6ope, . . 
 0>iep5aAea idx" ' irp&Tov 5' 
 
 bv 8' I6vs 
 
 ecnrrji/ /ca/c Ke^aA^jj/. 7/zW, xx. 381, K.r.A 
 
 How, facing an unconquerable foe, 
 Silent and firm in the lost battle's roar, 
 
 Iphition fell, three thousand years ago, 
 
 We learn ; let him have praise for evermore. 
 
 What ! though his slayer, drunk with Eastern blood, 
 Be borne aloft on wider wings of fame, 
 
 Two words, by Homer dropped in careless mood, 
 Give light enough to read a hero's name. 
 
 The shout that shattered armies into flight, 
 
 The godlike form in heaven's own armour clad, 
 
 The golden plumes divine that lived with light 
 At every step, for him no terrors had. 
 
 Right on he rushed, though to a certain doom, 
 Hephaestian mail and matchless strength defied ; 
 
 And, carrying with him proudly to the tomb 
 The whiteness of his honour, so he died, 
 
IPHITION. 271 
 
 There Homer leaves him, like a tall ship wrecked 
 Leaves him to wolves and vultures where he lay ; 
 
 But that which makes the man, no bard's neglect 
 To beast, or bird, or Time can yield a prey. 
 
 Thus ever, through eternity, we dream 
 
 That he by looking back is comforted, 
 That the long sunless hours of Hades gleam, 
 
 With radiance from the past around him shed ; 
 
 That inward still he murmurs, as the wind 
 
 Murmurs through roofless halls : * At least I know 
 
 None find a spot in my young life behind, 
 Nor dread I here what all must undergo. 
 
 ' Death cometh ay ! but after death to say 
 What I with truth can say is given to few. 
 
 Achilles, thine the fame yet well I may 
 Believe myself the better of the two. 
 
 ' Armed by no god, but as my fellow-men, 
 I faltered not in fight, though others fled, 
 
 Till my safe conqueror struck me down, and then 
 Against his lance, the blood leapt warm and red. 
 
 1 And even here, on this unhoping coast, 
 
 With spirit unexhausted I can bow 
 To what Fate sends ; Achilles, as a ghost, 
 
 Whines, weak without his god-given armour now. 
 
 1 Though all life lent my soul no longer aid ; 
 
 The memory that I never quailed, for me 
 Keeps vital warmth within. I scorn the shade 
 
 That, to touch earth again, a slave would be/ l 
 
 1 Odyssey,' b. xi. 488-90. 
 
272 
 
 THE LOSS OF THE 'BIRKENHEAD 
 
 SUPPOSED TO BE TOLD BY A SOLDIER WHO SURVIVED. 
 
 RIGHT on our flank the sun was dropping down ; 
 The deep sea heaved around in bright repose ; 
 When, like the wild shriek from some captured town, 
 A cry of women rose. 
 
 The stout ship ' Birkenhead ' lay hard and fast, 
 
 Caught without hope upon a hidden rock ; 
 Her timbers thrill'd as nerves, when through them pass'd 
 The spirit of that shock. 
 
 And ever like base cowards, who leave their ranks 
 
 In danger's hour, before the rush of steel, 
 Drifted away disorderly the planks 
 From underneath her keel. 
 
 So calm the air so calm and still the flood, 
 
 That low down in its blue translucent glass 
 We saw the great fierce fish, that thirst for blood, 
 Pass slowly, then repass. 
 
 They tarried, the waves tarried, for their prey ! 
 
 The sea turned one clear smile ! Like things asleep 
 Those dark shapes in the azure silence lay, 
 As quiet as the deep. 
 
THE LOSS OF THE ' BIRKENHEADS 73 
 
 Then amidst oath, and prayer, and rush, and wreck, 
 
 Faint screams, faint questions waiting no reply, 
 Our Colonel gave the word, and on the deck 
 Form'd us in line to die. 
 
 To die !- -'twas hard, while the sleek ocean glow'd 
 
 Beneath a sky as fair as summer flowers : 
 All to the boats ! cried one he was, thank God, 
 No officer of ours. 
 
 Our English hearts beat true we would not stir : 
 
 That base appeal we heard, but heeded not : 
 On land, on sea, we had our Colours, sir, 
 To keep without a spot. 
 
 They shall not say in England, that we fought 
 
 With shameful strength, unhonour'd life to seek ; 
 Into mean safety, mean deserters, brought 
 By trampling down the weak. 
 
 So we made women with their children go, 
 The oars ply back again, and yet again ; 
 Whilst, inch by inch, the drowning ship sank low, 
 Still, under steadfast men. 
 
 What follows, why recall ? The brave who died, 
 
 Died without flinching in the bloody surf, 
 They sleep as well beneath that purple tide 
 As others under turf. 
 
 They sleep as well ! and, roused from their wild grave, 
 
 Wearing their wounds like stars, shall rise again, 
 Joint-heirs with Christ, because they bled to save 
 His weak ones, not in vain. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE LOSS OF THE ' BIRKENHEAD? 
 
 If that day's work no clasp or medal mark ; 
 
 If each proud heart no cross of bronze may press, 
 Nor cannon thunder loud from Tower or Park, 
 This feel we none the less : 
 
 That those whom God's high grace there saved from ill, 
 
 Those also left His martyrs in the bay, 
 Though not by siege, though not in battle, still 
 Full well had earned their pay. 
 
275 
 
 THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR, 
 
 TOLD TO THE AUTHOR BY THE LATE GENERAL 
 SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 
 
 ELEVEN men of England 
 A breastwork charged in vain ; 
 Eleven men of England 
 Lie stripped and gashed and slain 
 Slain, but of foes that guarded 
 Their rock-built fortress well, 
 Some twenty had been mastered, 
 When the last soldier fell. 
 
 Whilst Napier piloted his wondrous way 
 
 Across the sand- waves of the desert sea ; 
 
 Then flashed at once, on each fierce clan, dismay, 
 
 Lord of their wild Truckee. 
 
 These missed the glen to which their steps were bent, 
 Mistook a mandate, from afar half heard, 
 And in that glorious error, calmly went 
 
 To death without a word. 
 
 The Robber-chief mused deeply 
 Above those daring dead. 
 ' Bring here/ at length he shouted, 
 ' Bring quick, the battle thread. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. 
 
 Let Eblis blast for ever 
 Their souls, if Allah will, 
 But we must keep unbroken 
 The old rules of the Hill. 
 
 ' Before the Ghiznee tiger 
 Leapt forth to burn and slay, 
 Before the holy Prophet 
 Taught our grim tribes to pray ; 
 Before Secunder's l lances 
 Pierced through each Indian glen ; 
 The mountain laws of honour 
 Were framed for fearless men. 
 
 ' Still, when a chief dies bravely, 
 We bind with green one wrist ; 
 Green for the brave for heroes, 
 One crimson thread we twist- 
 Say ye, oh gallant Hill men, 
 For these whose life has fled, 
 Which is the fitting colour, 
 The green one, or the red ? ' 
 
 ' Our brethren, laid in honoured graves, may wear 
 
 Their green reward,' each noble savage said 
 
 { To these, whom hawks and hungry wolves shall tear, 
 
 Who dares deny the red ? ' 
 Thus conquering hate, and stedfast to the right, 
 Fresh from the heart that haughty verdict came, 
 Beneath a waning moon each spectral height 
 
 Rolled back its loud acclaim. 
 
 Once more, the Chief gazed keenly 
 Down on those daring dead ; 
 From his good sword their heart's blood 
 Crept to that crimson thread ; 
 
 1 Alexander. 
 
THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. 277 
 
 Once more he cried, ' The judgment, 
 Good friends, is wise and true ; 
 But though the red be given, 
 Have we not more to do ? 
 
 ' These were not stirred by anger, 
 Nor yet by lust made bold, 
 Renown they thought above them, 
 Nor did they look for gold. 
 To them their leader's signal 
 Was as the voice of God, 
 Unmoved and uncomplaining, 
 The path it showed they trod. 
 
 1 As, without sound or struggle, 
 The stars unhurrying march, 
 Where Allah's finger guides them, 
 Through yonder purple arch ; 
 These Franks, sublimely silent, 
 Without a quickened breath, 
 Went, in the strength of duty, 
 Straight to their goal of death. 
 
 ' If I were now to ask you 
 To name our bravest man, 
 Ye all at once would answer, 
 They called him Mehrab Khan l 
 He sleeps among his fathers, 
 Dear to our native land, 
 With the bright mark he bled for 
 Firm round his faithful hand. 
 
 1 The songs they sing of Roostum 
 Fill all the past with light ; 
 
 1 Mehrab Khan died, as he said he would, sword in hand, at the door 
 of his own zenana. Newspaper report. 
 
278 THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR. 
 
 If truth be in their music, 
 
 He was a noble knight. 
 
 But were these heroes living, 
 
 And strong for battle still, 
 
 Would Mehrab Khan, or Roostum, 
 
 Have climbed, like these, the Hill ? ' 
 
 And they replied ' Though Mehrab Khan was brave 
 As chief, he chose himself what risks to run ; 
 Prince Roostum l lied, his forfeit life to save, 
 Which these had never done.' 
 
 ' Enough/ he shouted fiercely ; 
 
 ' Doomed though they be to Hell, 
 
 Bind fast the crimson trophy 
 
 i 
 
 Round both wrists bind it well. 
 
 1 Who knows but that great Allah 
 May grudge such matchless men, 
 With none so decked in heaven, 
 To the fiends' flaming den.' 
 Then all those gallant robbers 
 Shouted a stern amen, 
 They raised the slaughtered sergeant, 
 They raised his mangled ten. 
 
 And when we found their bodies 
 
 Left bleaching in the wind, 
 
 Around both wrists, in glory 
 
 That crimson thread was twined. 
 Then Napier's knightly heart, touched to the core, 
 Rang, like an echo, to that knightly deed ; 
 He bade its memory live for evermore, 
 That those who run may read. 
 
 1 Roostum, overcome in the first instance, escaped death by imposing 
 upon the simple good faith of his son Zohrab, whom he afterwards killed 
 (ignorantly, of course). 
 
279 
 
 VERSES FOR THE FIRST PAGE OF 
 
 A SHAKSPERE. 
 
 PRESENTED TO MISS JULIA TOLLEMACHE ON HER MARRIAGE. 
 
 IF by some wizard Shakspere's pen 
 To me for one short hour were lent, 
 
 This heart of mine, sweet Julia, then 
 Might find fit words for all it meant : 
 
 Words that should make your name as dear 
 
 To other times as it is now, 
 And still shine on, year after year, 
 
 A wreath of stars around your brow. 
 
 But as, alas, this may not be, 
 
 I can but say your soul is such 
 That could our Shakspere know it, he 
 
 Would love you as I love you much. 
 
 For what you are, that once were they 
 
 Whose bloom he watched with grave delight, 
 
 Then smiled in his benignant way 
 
 (As on May rose-buds fresh and white). 
 
 Trusting that each young flower was sure 
 
 To reach a larger, warmer life ; 
 And from a maiden, perfect pure, 
 
 Become a pure and happy wife. 
 
 May 1873. 
 
280 
 
 DARKNESS AND LIGHT. 
 
 WE stood in silence, weak, and worn, and hapless, 
 With Death's pale coming seen at length by all ; 
 Whilst withered hopes beneath our feet lay sapless, 
 Like leaves that fall. 
 
 But, as a fair girl through an opening door, 
 
 Smiles on her father's servant, who has come 
 From wearying tasks, and pastimes prized no more, 
 To bear her home 
 
 So upon Death our dying maiden smiled ; 
 
 Then laid her head upon that Father's breast, 
 And sank, as sinks at eve a happy child, 
 Into sweet rest. 
 
 Then, though to me that night of bitter pain 
 
 Kept whispering through its frozen gloom, ' Why stop 
 For sorrow? life, too heavy to sustain, 
 May be let drop.' 
 
 And through the vigil, desolate and drear, 
 Vainly I listened, vainly looked, to find 
 Some voice beyond the void, some ray to cheer 
 That darkness blind. 
 
DARKNESS AND LIGHT. 
 
 Yet deem I not that God remained apart ; 
 
 Though I saw nought, nor heard the sound of speech, 
 Yet He drew near, and pitied the dead heart 
 He could not reach. 
 
 For in those hours, by His especial grace, 
 
 Peace came to one pure breast then wounded sore, 
 And in a dream not all a dream that face 
 Was seen once more. 
 
 Straight, o'er her sleeping sister's head, the blue 
 
 The chill deceiving blue called heaven was rent, 
 And other Heavens within, divinely true, 
 To sight were lent. 
 
 And there, but not alone, our lost one knelt ; 
 
 Before her mother bent in sweet surprise, 
 She seemed to whisper all she feared and felt, 
 Beneath soft eyes. 
 
 Just so she looked of old, to that fond mother 
 
 Confessing some child-fault of days gone by ; 
 One angel arm shone round her thrown, the other 
 Was raised on high, 
 
 And pointed to a light that burned above, 
 
 Immeasurably distant but yet near ; 
 Radiant though soft, the perfect light of love 
 Which casts out fear. 
 
 Thus from those presences a blessing fell, 
 
 First on the sorrowing girl, direct from Heaven, 
 Thence, even to me, because I too loved well, 
 Through her was given. 
 
282 
 
 FROM HEINE. 
 
 A PINE-TREE standeth lonely 
 
 On a bleak northern hill. 
 And sleeps with ice surrounded 
 
 With snow that falleth still. 
 
 There is one palm he dreams of, 
 
 Far in the morning land, 
 Who mourns alone, and silent, 
 
 Mid rocks and burning sand. 
 
 STANZAS SUGGESTED BY THE ABOVE. 
 
 THEY dream, but dreams are of the night ; 
 
 Will not the sun rise by-and-by ? 
 Or is the hope that thirsts for light 
 
 Only a mocking lie ? 
 
 A wondrous dawn may wake, and turn 
 To floods of life the phantom snows, 
 
 Whilst desert sands that drift and burn 
 Shall blossom as the rose. 
 
 The pine and palm may feel that then 
 Both cold and heat, and Time and Space, 
 
 On polar crag, in tropic glen, 
 To other laws give place. 
 
STANZAS. 283 
 
 Through them, whilst the young heavens grow rife 
 
 With joy, and airs divinely sweet, 
 Distance dies off from spirit-life, 
 
 That severed hearts may meet. 
 
 Oh leave that thought to float above, 
 
 Each parching leaf, each blighted bough ; 
 
 It breathes of hope, it breathes of love, 
 It worketh on even now, 
 
 In that dark pine's despairing breast, 
 
 To melt the bitter frost of pain ; 
 And on his drooping palm-tree's crest 
 
 Falls like the early rain. 
 
284 
 
 ANDALUSIAN CANZON EJT. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF TH^OPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 DOWN sliding from my snow-white bosom, 
 Fell lost a red carnation blossom 
 
 Within the whirling river. 
 Alas ! that blossom how recover, 
 By the rude torrent washed all over, 
 
 Then borne away for ever ? 
 Oh, lovely floweret, earth's bright daughter, 
 
 Why trust the stream, to ruin hasting ? 
 Had I not tears enough to water 
 
 Thy sweet life, slowly wasting ? 
 
285. 
 
 HELEN. 
 
 IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH. 
 
 AMID the green brook-fringing grasses 
 
 Droops Helen, with her young life shattered. 
 
 O'er brow and arm, in shining masses, 
 The golden curls are scattered. 
 
 Her white feet play within the river, 
 As throbs her heart, so play they faster, 
 
 With sand and foam -bells troubling ever 
 Each crystal wave flung past her. 
 
 From a branch o'er the bright flood leaning, 
 
 To watch each shadow as it glances, 
 A bird sings with such force and meaning, 
 
 She hears (it seems) not fancies. 
 
 Remonstrance warbled thus : ' Oh, maiden, 
 
 Why taint my pure stream thus ? Why wrong her ? 
 
 With sand and foam, and tears o'erladen, 
 She mirrors heaven no longer. 
 
 ' The sun, the moon, the stars within her, 
 
 Lost nothing of their living beauty. 
 Depart then, leaving Time to win her 
 
 Back to the light of duty.' 
 
286 HELEN. 
 
 + 
 
 The maiden murmured, ' Yes ! too surely 
 She brightens when I am not near her. 
 
 The blue sky, since she floweth purely, 
 Holds her as dear, or dearer. 
 
 * But woe is me for endless sorrow 
 A maiden's soul, unlike this river, 
 
 Once darkened, knows no brighter morrow. 
 Her heaven is gone for ever.' 
 
28; 
 
 SECRET AFFINITIES: 
 
 A PANTHEISTIC FANTASY, FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 DEEP in the vanished time, two statues white, 
 On an old temple's front, against blue gleams 
 
 Of an Athenian sky, instinct with light, 
 Blended their marble dreams. 
 
 In the same shell imbedded (crystal tears 
 Of the sad sea mourning her Venus flown), 
 
 Two pearls of loneliest ocean, through long years, 
 Kept whispering words unknown. 
 
 In the fresh pleasaunce, by Grenada's river, 
 
 Close to the low-voiced fountain's silver showers, 
 
 Two roses, from BoabdiFs garden, ever 
 Mingled their murmuring flowers. 
 
 Upon the domes of Venice, in a nest 
 
 Where love from age to age has had his day, 
 
 Two white doves, with their feet of pink, found rest 
 Through the soft month of May. 
 
 Dove, rose, pearl, marble, into ruin dim 
 Alike dissolve themselves, alike decay ; 
 
 Pearls melt, flowers wither, marble shapes dislimn, 
 And bright birds float away. 
 
288 SECRET AFFINITIES. 
 
 I 
 
 Each element, once free, flies back to feed 
 The unfathomable Life-dust, yearning dumb, 
 
 Whence God's all-shaping hands in silence knead 
 Each form that is to come. 
 
 By slow, slow change, to white and tender flesh 
 The marble softens down its flawless grain ; 
 
 The rose, in lips as sweet and red and fresh 
 Refigured, blooms again. 
 
 Once more the doves murmur and coo beneath 
 The hearts of two young lovers, when they meet 
 
 The pearls renew themselves, and flash as teeth 
 Through smiles divinely sweet. 
 
 Hence sympathetic emanations' flow, 
 
 And with soft tyranny the heart controul ; 
 
 Touched by them, kindred spirits learn to know 
 Their sisterhood of soul. 
 
 Obedient to the hint some fragrance sends, 
 Some colour, or some ray with mystic power, 
 
 Atom to atom never swerving tends, 
 As the bee seeks her flower. 
 
 Of moonlight visions round the temple shed, 
 Of lives linked in the sea, a memory wakes, 
 
 Of flower- talk flushing through the petals red 
 Where the bright fountain breaks. 
 
 Kisses, and wings that shivered to the kiss, 
 On golden domes afar, come back to rain 
 
 Sweet influence ; faithful to remembered bliss, 
 The old love stirs again. 
 
 
SECRET AFFINITIES. 289 
 
 Forgotten presences shine forth, the past 
 
 Is for the visionary eye unsealed ; 
 The breathing flower, in crimson lips recast, 
 
 Lives to herself revealed. 
 
 Where the laugh plays a glittering mouth within 
 The pearl reclaims her lustre softly bright ; 
 
 The marble throbs, fused in a maiden skin 
 As fresh, and pure, and white. 
 
 Under some low and gentle voice the dove 
 Has found an echo of her tender moan ; 
 
 Resistance grows impossible, and love 
 Springs up from the unknown. 
 
 Oh ! thou whom burning, trembling, I adore, 
 
 What shrine, what sea, what dome, what rose-tree 
 bower, 
 
 Saw us, as mingling marble, joined of yore, 
 Or pearl, or bird, or flower ? 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 A FOUNTAIN bubbles forth, hard by the lake, 
 Between two stones up-sparkling ever, 
 
 And merrily their course the waters take, 
 As if to launch some famous river. 
 
 Softly she murmurs, 'What delight is mine ! 
 
 It was so cold and dark below ; 
 But now my banks green in the sunlight shine, 
 
 Bright skies upon my mirrow glow ; 
 
 ' The blue forget-me-nots through tender sighs, 
 " Remember us," keep ever saying ; 
 
 On a strong wing the gem-like dragon-flies 
 Ruffle me, as they sweep round playing. 
 
 ' The bird drinks at my cup ; and now who knows 
 After this rush through grass and flowers, 
 
 i 
 
 I may become a giant stream, that flows 
 Past rocks and valleys, woods and towers. 
 
 ' My foam may lie, a lace-like fringe, upon 
 Bridges of stone, and granite quays, 
 
 And bear the smoking steam-ship on, and on, 
 To earth- embracing seas.' 
 
THE FOUNTAIN. 291 
 
 Thus the young rivulet prattled as it went, 
 With countless hopes and fancies fraught ; 
 
 Like boiling water in a vessel pent, 
 
 Throbbed through its bed the imprisoned thought. 
 
 But close upon the cradle frowns the tomb ; 
 
 A babe the future Titan dies, 
 For in the near lake's gulph of azure gloom 
 
 The scarce-born fountain buried lies. 
 
THE HUT. 
 
 FROM THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 UNDER thick trees, about it swaying, 
 A hump-backed hovel crouches low ; 
 
 The roof-tree bends the walls are fraying, 
 And on the threshold mosses grow. 
 
 Each window-pane is masked by shutters, 
 Still, as around the mouth in frost 
 
 The warm breath rises up and flutters, 
 Life lingers here not wholly lost. 
 
 One curl of silver smoke is twining 
 Its pale threads with the silent air, 
 
 To tell God that there yet is shining 
 A soul-spark in that ruined lair. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SrOTTlSWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
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