ffZ-t rfCfjcxr.rs
<:<:<:<;<:-. 15
jee two hundred proud players jet in their silka, vvtien
five hundred poor people starve in the streets,"
As the taste for theatrical exhibitions increased, the
task of providing the theatres with plays became a pro-
fession. Most of the precursors, contemporaries, and
Buccessors of Shakspeare, were young men of education,
who came down to the city from the universities, to pro
vide themselves with a living by whatever cunning there
was in their brain and ten fingers. Some became actors
as well as writers. The remuneration of the dramatist
was small. Poverty and dissoluteness seem to have
characterized the pioneers of the drama. As the thea-
tre was popular as well as fashionable, the " ground-
lings," who paid their sixpences for admission, had their
tastes consulted. This accounts, in some degree, for the
rant and vulgarity which strangely disfigure so many of
the plaj^s. The usual miseries and vices which charac-
terize men of letters in an unlettered age, when authors
are numerous and readers are few, distinguish the lives
of many of the elder dramatists. Ben Jonson, in the
Poetaster, makes Tucca exclaim, with a side reference to
the poets of his own day, that " they are a sort of poor,
starved rascals, that are ever wrapt up in foul linen ; and
can boast of nothing but a lean visage peering out of a
seam-rent suit, the very emblem of beggary." We sup-
pose this was too true a picture of many, whose minds
deserved a better environment of flesh and raiment.
Of those who preceded Shakspeare, the best known
names (leaving Buckhurst and Still out of the list) are
Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Greene, Lodge, and Marlowe. Much
cannot be said in praise of these, if we except the latter,
Ly',y is full of daintiness and conceit, with sweet fancy
and sentiment occasionally thrown in. He translates
1.6 ESSA S AND REVIEWS.
everything into quaint expression. Thus, his End) n.ion
professes that " his thoughts are stitched to the stars."
Another of his characters looks forward to the time
when " it shall please the fertility of his chin to be
delivered of a beard." Peele has melody of versification,
and a sort of Della-Cruscan fancy. His David and
Bethsabe contains striking passages, as when Zephyr is
addressed : —
" Then deck thee with thy loose, delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes ; " —
or the resolution of David : —
" To joy her love I 'II build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundrea streams.^*
Kyd wrote The Spanish Tragedy, a play bad enough in
itself, but celebrated from the additions made to it by
" eminent hands." Its bombast was probably popular.
Ben Jonson was one of those engaged to write addi-
tional scenes ; but he has ridiculed the whole play in
Every Man in his Humor, in the scene between Bobadil
and Master Mathew, the town gull. Bobadil says, " 1
would fain see all the poets of these times pen such
another play as that was ! " Greene's death was more
tragic than anything he wrote or conceived. He is now
principally remembered for having called Shakspeare
" an upstart crow."
But a more potent spirit than any of these, and
beyond all question the first in rank among the pre-
cursors of Shakspeare, was Christopher Marlow^e.
His " mighty line " has been celebrated by Ben Jon
son ; Drayton finely ascribes to him " those brave sub
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. iTf
lunary things that the first poets had ; " and according to
old George Chapman, —
" He stood
Up to the chin in the Pierian flood."
Marlowe, indeed, towers up among his contemporaries,
huge, lawless, untamable, the old Adam burning fiercely
within him, his frame of mind
" Betokening valor and excess of strength,"
and in his strange compound of sublimity and rant,
giving an impression half-way between a thunder-scarred
Titan and an Alsatian bully. From the impress of per-
verse and turbulent power that his dramas bear, and the
evident heartiness with which he deifies self-will, we may
well suppose that his life diverged considerably from the
strait line of the commandments. The two prominent
features of his biography are exceedingly characteristic.
In his life, he labored under the imputation of infidelity,
and is said to have blasphemed the Holy Trinity ; and
he died in a tavern brawl, in 1593, or 1594, about the
time that Shakspeare was writing Richard the Second.
Campbell suggests, that, had Marlowe lived, Shakspeare
might have had something like a competitor. This we
think is too high praise; for Marlowe, with all his fire
and fancy, is limited in his range of character, and
stamps the image of himself on all his striking deline-
ations. He is intense, but narrow. The central princi-
ple of his mind was self-will, and this is the bond which
binds together his strangely huddled faculties. Of all
English poets, he most reminds us of Byron ; ruder, it
may be, but at the same time more colossal in his pro-
portions. He is a glorious old heathen, " large iu heart
^'•OL. TI. 2
18 iJSSAYS AND REVIEWS.
and brain," — a fiery and fickle Goth, on whose rough
ana. savage energies a classical culture has been piled,
tossed among the taverns, and theatres, and swelling
spirits of London, to gratify the demands of his senses
in some other way than by acts of brilliant pillage. In
his .ustiness, his absence of all weak emotions, his fierce
delight in the mere feeling of self, in the heedlessness
with which he heaps together rubbish and diamonds,
and in the frequent " starts and strange far-flights of his
imagination," he is the model of irregular genius. His
mind, in its imperiousness, disregarded by instinct the
natural relations of things, forced objects into the form
of his individual passions, and lifted his vices into a
kind of Satanic dignity, by exaggerating them into
shapes colossal. His imagination, hot, swift, impatient
of control, pervaded by the fiery essence of his blood,
and giving wings to the most reckless desires, riots in the
maddest visions of strength and pride. Of all writers,
he seems to feel the heartiest joy in the mere exercise
of power, regardless of all the restraints which make
power beneficent. His most truculent characters, Tam-
burlaine, Eleazar, Barabbas, Faustus, all have blazoned
on their brows, " Kit Marlowe, his mark." There is no
mistaking his heaven-defying energy, nor his Ishmael
itish strut and swagger. His soul tears its way through
his verse, " tameless, and swift, and proud," scorning al
impediments, and ever ambitious to go
" Right forward, like the lightning
And the cannon-ball, opening, with murderous crash,
Its way to blast and ruin."
from this headlong haste come his bombast and extrav-
agance, " his lust of power, his hunger and thirst afte
^ OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 19
anrighteousness, his glow of imaginatior. unhallowed
save by its own energies." Whether his muse cleave
the upper air, or draggle in the dirt, it ever gives unity
of impression. In Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious
Queen, the rapid movement of the man's mind is very
characteristic, — rattling recklessly on through scenes of
murder, cruelty, and lust, — now striking off " burning
atoms " of thought, and now merely infusing fire into
fustian, — his faculties at times stretched on the rack,
writhing in fearful contortions, and smiting the ear with
the wild screams of a tortured brain, — but still marching
furiously forward, daring everything, and playing out
the game of tragedy freely and fearlessly. In this play
he somewhat reminds us of the actor who blacked him-
self all over when he performed Othello, and called that
" going thoroughly into the part," Marlowe scatters
lust and crime about in such careless profusion, that
they cease to excite horror. His Muse must too often
have appeared, to him in some such form as the hideous
phantom in Clarence's dream, —
" A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood."
But amidsi all his spasmodic and braggart lines in the
vein of King Cambyses, his mind continually gives evi-
dence of possessing pathos, sweetness, and true power.
Imaginations of the greatest beauty and majesty will
sometimes rush up, like rockets, from the level extrava-
gance of his most ranting plays, " streaking the darkness
radiantly;" — as in that celebrated passage in Tam-
ourlaine, which Shakspeare condescended to ridicule
through the lips of Ancient Pistol : —
'^O TjsSAYS AND REVIEWS.
" Enter Tamburlaine, drawn in his chariot by Trehizon and ikiria,
with bits in their mouths, reins in his left hand, in his right hand a
whip, with which he scourgeth them.
" Tamb. Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia!
What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day,
And have so proud a chariot at your heels, ^
And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine ?
But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you,
To Byron here, where thus I honor you 1
The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven.
And blow the morning from their nostrils.
Making their fiery gate above the glades.
Are not so honored in their governor
As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine."
From the same play, which has passed into a syno-
nyme of bombast and " midsummer madness," but which
contains lines that Beaumont and Milton have not hesi-
tated to appropriate, Leigh Hunt extracts the following
exquisite passage : —
" If all the pens that ever poet held
Had fed the feeling of their master's thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
And minds, and muses, on admired themes ;
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy.
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit ;
If these had made one poem's period,
And all combined in beauty's worthiness ;
Yet shoidd there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the best,
Which into words no virtue can digest."
The description of Tamburlaine's person has a rude
Titanic grandeur, which still tells on the ear and brain
as in the lines, —
OLD ENGLISH DEA]\IATISTS. '2i
" Of stature tall, and straighlly fashioned ;
Like his desire, lift upwards and divine,
So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas' burthen."
ji the whole description, Marlowe's predominating
desire to accumulate round his characters images of
strength and majesty, and to dwarf all other men in
comparison, is finely exemplified. Tamburlaine is
" Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion ;"
his eyes are " piercing instruments of sight,"
•' Whose fiery citcles bear encompassed
A heavea of heavenly bodies in their spheres."
The breath of heaven " delights " to play with his curls
of " amber hair ; " his bent brows " figure death," their
smoothness, " amity and life ; " his " kindled wrath can
only be quenched in blood ; " and he is " in every part
proportioned like a man " who has the right divine to
subdue the world. We are astonished that Carlyle has
not yet puffed Tamburlaine as made after Marlowe's
image. The Scythian shepherd deserves a proud place
among his heroes.
Most of Marlowe's powerful scenes are well known.
His best plays are The Eich Jew of Malta; Edward
the Second, the " reluctant pangs of whose abdicatmg
royalty," says Lamb, " furnished hints which Shakspeare
scarce improved in Eichard the Second ; " and the Trag-
ical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, which
is his greatest and most characteristic performance, sadly
disfigured, however, by bathos and buffoonery, and in*
29. ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
spired in part by the very imp of mischief. Barabbas,
the Jew, has been mentioned as suggesting Shylock.
The character, however, has little resemblance to Shak-
speare's Jew. It is Marlowe all over. In the celebrated
scene where Barabbas gloats over his vast wealth, his
imagination glows like his own " fiery opals." The
death-scene in Edward the Second, according to Lamb,
" moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or
modern," with which he is acquainted. We think this
praise altogether too extravagant, affecting as the scene
undoubtedly is.
We take leave of Marlowe with an extract from the
last scene in Faustus. The verse has the sinewy vigor
and sonorous chime which generally distinguish his
style. It is, however, intensified by the agony i.ue
might feel on viewing his own name traced in fiarr ii^
characters on the black rolls of the damned.
" Faustus alone. — The clock strikes eleven.
" Faust. O Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually.
Stand stillj you ever-moving spheres of iieaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come.
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day: or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and sa re his soul.
O lentc, lente currite, noclis equi !
The stars move still, time runs, the clock ■« ill strike
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O, I will leap to heaven ! Who pulls me down 7
See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament :
One drop of blood will save me ; O, my Christ,
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ !
Yet will I call on him. O spare me, Lucifer !
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 23
Where is it now ? 't is gone !
And see, a threatening arm, and angry brow !
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven.
No ? then I will headlong run into the earth •
Gape, earth. O no, it will not harbor me.
You stars that reigned at my nativity.
Whose influence have allotted death and hell.
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon laboring cloud ;
That when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
But let my soul mount, and ascend to heaven.
[The watch strikes.'\
O half the hour is past ! 'twill all be past anon.
O if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Lnpose some end to my incessant pain !
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved:
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul ?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
O Pythagoras, Metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be changed
Into some brutish beast.
All beasts are happy, for when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolved in elements ;
But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.
Curst be the parents that engendered me :
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer,
That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
It strikes, it strikes ; now, body, turn to air.
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.
O soul, be changed into small water-drops.
And fall into the ocean ; ne'er be found.
[Thunder, and enter the DeviU.]
mercy, Heaven, look not so fierce on me !
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while .
Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer ;
1 'U burn my books : O Mephistophilis ! "
24 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
It is supposed that Marlowe wrote the principal por-
tion of the old plays which Shakspeare altered into the
Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth. Malone
on comparing the latter with their originals, found that
1771 lines had been taken without alteration, 2373
altered, and only 1899 had been added. Greene, in his
Groat'sworth of Wit, published in 1592, addressing, it is
conjectured, Marlowe, exclaims, — " Yes, trust them not
[the players], for there is an upstart crow, beautified with
^ur feathers, that, with a tiger's heart wrapped in a play-
er's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out
i blank verse as any of you, and, being an absolute
Johannes factotum, is, in his conceit, the only Shake-
scene in a country."
Next to Shakspeare, there is no dramatist of the period
whose name is so familiar to English ears as that of Ben
JoNSON, though he is probably less read than either Mas-
singer or Fletcher. The associations connected with his
name have contributed towards keeping it alive, for he
is, in most points of his character, the very embodiment
of England, a veritable, indubitable John Bull. The
base of his character is sound, strong, weighty sense,
with that infusion of insular prejudice which keeps every
true Englishman from being a cosmopolite, either in
literature, arts, government, or manners. He has also
that ingrained coarseness, which, in the Anglo-Saxon
mind, often coexists with the sturdiest morality, and,
though it disconnects virtue from delicacy, prevents vice
from allying itself with refinement. In reading Jonson
we contiimally fall upon expressions which " no young
lady ought to read ; " but there is nothing which tends
to corrupt the morals, as well as to vulgarize the speech.
Virtue and vice, honesty and baseness, indulge in no
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 25
coquetry in his representations. We are acquainted
with no dramatist whose characters, bad and good, are
better adapted to excite in us the same feelings that we
should experience, if we met them in actual life.
With this basis of sound English sense, Jonson has
fancy, humor, satire, learning, a large knowledge of men
and motives, and a remarkable command of language,
sportive, scornful, fanciful, and impassioned. One of
the fixed facts in English literature, he is too strongly
rooted ever to be upset. He stands out from all his
contemporaries, original, peculiar, leaning on none for
aid, and to be tried by his own merits alone. Had his
imagination been as sensitive as that of many of his
contemporaries, or his self-love less, he would probably
have fallen into their conscious or unconscious imitation
of Shakspeare ; but, as it was, he remained satisfied
with himself to the last, delving in his own mine. His
"mountain belly and his rocky face" are good symbols
of his hard, sharp, decided, substantial, and arrogant
mind. His life and writings both give evidence of great
vitality and force of character. Composition must have
been with him a manual labor, for he writes with all his
might. The weaknesses of his nature, his perversity,
his bluff way of bragging of his own achievements, his
vanity, his domineering egotism, his love of strong food,
his deep potations, and the heartiness, good-will, and
.latent sense of justice, which underlie all, are thoroughly
English, and make him as familiar to the imagination as
a present existence. We speak of Shakspeare's mind,
but Jonson starts up always in bodily proportions. He
seems some boon companion, whom we have seen in a
preexistent state. Shakspeare's creations, from Hamlet
to FalstafT, are more real to us than Shaksneare h"m
26 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
self; but we have a more intense conception of Ji.nson
than we have of any of his characters, not even excepting
Bobadil and Sir Epicure Mammon. His life was com-
mensurate with the whole generation of great poets to
which he belonged. He survived Shakspeare twentv-
one years. His biography is better known than that of
any of his contemporaries.
Jonson's life was checkered by many vicissitudes.
He was born in the city of Westminster, in the year
1574. His father went out of the world about a month
after our poet came into it ; and his worthy mother
shortly after married a master-bricklayer. By the aid
of some friend, whose name is unknown, he was sent to
Westminster school, and transferred thence to Cam-
bridge university. After staying there a short time, his
resources failed him, and he returned home to work at
the trade of his father-in-law. This occupation, how-
ever, he could not long endure, and he went as a volun-
teer in the army serving in Flanders. He distinguished
himself by his valor, and prided himself no little on hav-
ing conquered and killed an enemy, in the view of both
armies, in single combat. The trade of arms, however,
does not appear to have been attended in his case with
any lucrative results, and he returned home at the end
of one or two campaigns. Shortly after, at about the
age of nineteen, he went upon the stage, as actor and
journeyman writer ; but for four years seems to have
done little more than make additions to old plays, or
furnish scenes to other dramatists. In 1596, hov/ever,
when he was only twenty-two years old, his Every
Man in his Humor, the most generally popular of
his plays, was produced. Previously to this, he had
killed a brother-player in a duel, and came iiear being
OLr ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 2T
nanged for it; had turned Roman Catholic, and been
suspected of a share in a Popish conspiracy ; and had
got marriod ; three incidents in the life of a young man
just at maturity, which show quite an extraordinary
aptitude for affairs.
The scene of Every Man in his Humor, as originalljf
written, was laid in Italy. It was popular from the first.
In 1598, Jonson became acquainted with Shakspeare,
and through his influence was enabled to bring out his
play, as now remodelled with English names, at the
Blackfriars theatre. Shakspeare is supposed to have
acted the part of the elder Knovvell in this comedy. In
1599, Jonson brought out Every Man out of his Humor,
the first representation of which was attended by Queen
Elizabeth. In the epilogue to the play, hyperbole is
racked to find terms of adoring admiration for the queen.
Jonson, in his conversations with Drummond, did not
hesitate to give his real opinion about the haughty
Tudor's susceptibility to flattery. In this play the author
shows that contempt for public opinion which breaks out
in so many of his prefaces. He calls the public " that
inany-mouthed, vulgar dog." Cynthia's Revels was
acted in 1600, and excited much opposition. Decker
and Marston we^e prominent among those it offended ;
and in consequence, Jonson's next play, The Poetaster,
was especially devoted to satirizing them and exalting
himself. To any one who desires to know Jonson's
sway over the vocabulary of scorn, contempt, hatred, and
invective, we would commend this comedy. Decker and
Marston are introduced under the names of Crispinus
and Demetrius, and remorselessly ridiculed. The opin-
"ons they are made to express of Jonson himself are
exceedingly racy, and enable us to judge what were tlie
28 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
feelings experienced towards him by some of his contem-
poraries. Thus, Demetrius (Marston) says, — "Horace'
he is a mere sponge ; nothing but humors and observa
tion ; he goes up and down sucking from every society,
and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again."
Another calls him " a sharp, thorny-toothed, satirical
rascal ;" one that would " sooner lose his best friend than
his least jest ;" a thing " all dog and scorpion, that carries
poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail." In the
arraignment, Decker is called poetaster and plagiary;
Marston, play-dresser and plagiary ; and they are
accused of taxing Jonson falsely of *' self-love, arrogance,
impudence, railing, filching by translation," . &c., for a
base and envious purpose. In their sentence we are
favored with a view of the " local habitations " of the
poets of the day; for they are forbidden to defame our
poet " at booksellers' stalls, in taverns, two-penny rooms,
tyring-houses, noblemens' buttresses, and puisne's cham-
bers." The enemies of Jonson are summed up as " fools
or jerking pedants," " buffoon, barking wits," tickling
" base, vulgar ears," with " beggarly and barren trash."
In the " Apologetical Dialogue," at the end of the play,
all phrases of scorn and contempt are exhausted to covel
his opponents with infamy. He speaks of his own
works as
" Things that were born when none but the still night
And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes ;"
aid he closes with a lofty expression of his own studious
habits and devotion to letters : —
" I that spend half rmj nights and all ray days
Here in a cell, to get a dark, pale face
To come forth with the ivy or the bays,
And in this age can hope no other grace, —
Lsave me ! there 's something come into my thought
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 29
That must and shall be sun^ high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass^s hoof."
There is in this play a good representation given \.i
the different feelings with which different classes at that
day .regarded poetry. Thus, one of the characters calls
Homer " a poor blind rhyming rascal, that lived ob-
scurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and
scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the ^*^
hungry beggar;" while Jonson, speaking through the
lips of another, exclaims,
" Would men but learn to distinguish spirits,
And set true difference 'twixt those jaded wits
That run a broken pace for common hire,
And the high raptures of a happy Muse,
Borne on the wings of her immortal thought.
That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel,
And beats at heaven's gates with her bright hoofs,
They would not then, with such distorted faces
And desperate censures, stab at Poesy ;
They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds
Should ne'er descend on so unworthy objects
As gold, or titles."
The character of Virgil, in this play, has been conjec-
tured to refer to Shakspeare, and Horace's (Jonson's
encomium on him is characteristic and true.
" Hot. His learning savors not the school-like gloss,
That most consists in echoing words and terms,
And soonest wins a man an empty name ;
Nor any long, or far-fetched circumstance.
Wrapt in the curious general'ties of arts ;
But a direct and analytic sum
Of ail the worth and first effects of arts.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life.
That it shall gather strength of life, with being.
And shall live h?reaft<=c more admired than now."
Lamb, Vol. ii., p. «8.
30 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
The Poetaster made Jonson many enemies, as well it
might. Decker replied in The Satiroraastrix, or the
Untrussing of a Humorous Poet. It contains some
beautiful poetry, and some capital hits. One of the
females in the play says, " That same Jonson has a most
ungodly face, by my fan ; it looks for all the world like
a rotten russet apple, when 't is bruised. It 's better than
a spoonful of cinnamon-water next my heart, for me to
hear him speak; he sounds it so i' th' nose; — and oh,
to see his face make faces, when he reads songs and
sonnets! " Again, — " Look at his par-boiled face, look,
— his face puncht full of eyelet holes, like the cover of a
warming-pan." This is characteristic, and gives proba-
bly as true a representation of the personal appearance of
Jonson, as the " dark, pale face " he has himself cele-
brated.
In 1603, Jonson produced his weighty tragedy of
Sejanus, a noble piece of work, full of learning, ingenuity,
and force of mind in wielding bulky materials. It was
brought out at the Globe theatre, with the greatest poet
the world ever saw acting in one of the inferior characters.
It is difficult to conceive that a man who had at this time
produced A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like it,
Hamlet, and Henry Fourth, should play in one of Ben
Jonson's tragedies. Jonson and Shakspeare seem at this
period to have been at the height of their friendship.
The " wit-contests " at the Mermaid Tavern date from
the appearance of Sejanus. Fuller, speaking of these,
compares Shakspeare to an English man-of-war, and
Jonson to a Spanish great galleon. '' Master Jonson
was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his
performance : Shakspeare, lesser in bulk, but lighter in
sailing, ould turn with all tides, and take advantage 0/
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATLSTS. 31
rU winds, by the quickness of his wit and imention."
Fuller speaks further of Ben, as a man whose parts
"were not so ready to run of themselves as able to
answer the spur ; so tliat it may be truly said of him,
that he had an elaborate wit, wrought out by his own
industry." Those must have been great meetings where
Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Raleigh, Sel-
den, Camden, and Donne, were among the party. Beau-
mont, in a letter to Ben, gives his testimony to the
brilliancy of the conversation, when he exclaims, —
" What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one, from whom they came,
Had put his whole wit in a jest."
Jonson seems to have held anger but a short time, and
was far from being malignant. On the accession of
James, he chose his old opponent Decker to be his associ-
ate in designing an entertainment for the reception of the
kino-, — a metrical job given to him by the court and
city ; and was connected, also, shortly after, with Mars-
ton and Chapman, in writing Eastward Hoe, a comedy
which came near subjecting all three to the grossest
mdio-nities, on account of some satire it contained against
the Scotch. They were all imprisoned for a short time,
and it was rumored that their ears, and noses were to be
slit. Jonson's mother, who appears to have been a
strong-minded woman, told her son, after he had been
liberated, that she intended to have mixed some " strong
and lusty poison in his dr'mk,'" sooner than have him
thus diso-raced. This little event in his life does not
aopear to have injured him with King James, who was
his patrol through life. Betweea the yoars 1605 and
32 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
IGU, he wrote his three comedies, Volpone, Epicoene, and
The Alchemist, and also his tragedy of Catiline, togethel
with a number of masques represented at court. These
last contain much of his most delicate and fanciful poetry,
and many of his most bewitching lyrics. About the year
1616, he succeeded Daniel as poet laureate, and probably
wrote his noble poetical tribute to Shakspeare soon after-
wards. In the summer of 1618, he set out on his cele-
brated pedestrian journey to Scotland. After some
hospitable delays, he arrived at the house of Drummond
of Hawthornden, in April, 1619. He talked rather
recklessly to his brother-poet, and probably swaggered
considerably on his reputation. The record left by his
host of this fr=ee and easy conversation is honorable to
neither, and has irretrievably damned Drummond. His
name, which might have been preserved as an agree-
able bewailer of imaginary love miseries, has become
associated with treachery and inhospitality.
In 1625, King James died. From this period, Jonson's
life assumes its darker aspects. Poverty, sickness, and
palsy, came upon him. In 1629, he had sufficiently
recovered to produce his play of The New Inn. This
was unsuccessful, though it contains some of his best
scenes, and the character of Lovel has sweet and noble
traits, not common to Jonson's heroes. Level's definition
of true love in this play is Platonic in its fineness and
purity. The following lines, in which he speaks of the
power of the passion on himself, have a winning beauty
i)f expression which is exquisite.
" Lev. There is no life on earth, but being in love !
There are no studies, no delights, no business,
No intercourse, or trade of sense, or soul,
But what is love ! I was the laziest creature,
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 33
I'he most unprofitable sign of nothing-,
The veriest drone, and slept away my life
Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love !
And now I can out-wake the nightingale,
Out-watch an usurer, and out-walk him too,
Stalk like a ghost that haunted 'bout a treasure ;
And all that fancied treasure, it is love ! "
Lamb, Vol. ii., pp. 7S, 79.
In this comedy, also, the author's tough diction melts,
at one moment, into this melodious imagination • —
" Then showered his bounties on me, like the Hours,
That open-handed sit upon the clouds,
And press the liberality of heaven
Down to the laps vf thankful men."
The last eight j'-ears of Jonson's life vacillated between
comfort and want. He seems to have had friends, who
came to his assistance in his extreme need. His habits
of expensive living must have kept him poor. To sup-
port a man of his " unbounded stomach " required more
than the ordinary remvmerations of literature. He seems,
however, to have had intervals of prosperity in his later
years. Howell, writing in 1636 to Sir Thomas Hawk,
has a most vivid picture of him, as he appeared in all
the glory of conviviality. " I was invited yesternight to
a solemn supper, by B. J., where you were deeply re-
membered. There was good company, excellent cheer,
choice wines, and jovial welcome. One thing intervened
which spoiled the relish of the rest, — that B. began to
engross all the discourse, to vapor extremely of himself,
and by vilifying others to magnify his own Muse. . . .
. . But, for my own part, I am content to dispense with
the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time has snowed
upon his pericranium." In Sir John Suckling'? Session
VOL. n. 3
34 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
of the Poets, we have another most characteristic pirtrail
of Jonson, as he appeared in his old age.
" The first that broke silence was good old Ben,
Prepared before with Canary wine,
And he told them plainly he deserved the bays,
For his were called works where others' were but plays
*****
" Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on ;
'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption.
Mast carry 't ; at which Ben turned about,
And m great choler offered to go out.'"
Jonson died on the sixth day of August, 1637, a< the
age of sixty-three. He survived both his wife and his
children. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. A
common pavement-stone, laid over his grave, bears the
inscription, " Rare Ben Jo/aison ! " (not Jonson, as it
is always printed,) — a phrase which has passed into the
current speech of England..
Jonson drenched his large and heavy brain freely with
stimulants. It was said that every line of his poetry cosi
nim a cup of sack. " He would," according to Aubrey,
" many times exceed in drink ; Canary was his beloved
liquor ; then he would tumble home to bed, and when he
had thoroughly perspired, he would then to study." In
the bacchanalian phraseology of that day, he was called
a Canary bird. He is said to have weighed twenty
stone. Barry Cornwall has the courageous gracelessness
to commend Ben's festivities, saying that " the Muses
should be fed generously, — that good meats and sound
wines nourish and invigorate the brain, and enable the
imagination to send forth spirited and sounding strains."
In Jonson 's case, we imagine wine was necessary to set
the huge substance of his brain in motion. Charles the
First probably understood the poet's wants, when h»
VL.D ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.
35
added trie tierce of Canary wine to liis yearly stipend of
£100, as poet laureate. Habits of hard drinking were
common in those days.
With the exception of this too potent conviviality, and
bating some inherent faults of character, Jonson seems
to have been one of the best men of his time. He was
honest and honorable. He had a hearty hatred of mean-
ness and baseness, and shot his sharp invective at the
crimes and follies of his day with commendable courage.
More than most of his contemporaries, he estimated the
dignity of the poet's vocation. In the dedication of Vol-
pone he feelin^^v alludes to the bad reputation into which
his order had fallen ; and in the midst of much pedantry
and arrogance, we discern a true love for his art. He
anticipates Milton in asserting "the imposs'bility of any
man's being the good poet, without first being a good
man." With terrible force he lashes those of his craft
who have bettayed the good cause by ribaldry and
profaneness, and also declaims against the depravity of
the age which supports them in their sins. But that all
the dramatic poets are " embarked on this bold adventure
to hell," he calls a malicious slander ; and to show his
own innocence, pounces on those " miscelline interludes,"
where, he says, " nothing but the filth of the time is ut-
tered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty
of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so
racked metaphors, with brothelry able to violate the ear
of a pagan, and blasphemy to turn the blood of a Chris-
tian to water." He laments, that, through the insolence
of these writers, the name of poet, once so honorable, has
become " the lowest scorn of the age ; " and in a sen-
tence wortliy of Mi'-ton, asserts, that, if the Muses be
ivufi to him. he will " raise the despised h(!ad of poetry
36 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
again, and, stripping her out of those rotteti and base
rao-s wherewith the times have adulterated fier form,
restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty,
and render her worthy to be embraced and kissed of all
the great and master spirits of our world." These are
brave and bright words, and show deep feeling. His
works display, in a hundred places, a similar spirit. He
rails at the age continually for its degeneracy and wick-
edness; and takes the strong ground, that the "principal
end of poesie is to inform men in the best reason of liv-
ing." Jonson really scorned the office of pander to de-
praved tastes. We do not think that he ever consciously
surrendered principle to profit. The exaggerated notion
he entertained of his own powers made him more dis-
posed to lead than to follow ; and the worst that can be
said of him is, that, if he failed in an honest effort, he
went growling back into his den, savage but uncon-
quered. Fletcher's lighter brain and looser principles
allowed him to slide more easily into the debasing habit
of meeting a demand for brilliant profligacy with ample
supplies.
The dramas of Jonson are formed of solid materials,
bound and welded rather than fused together. Most of
his comic characters are local, and representative of par-
ticular traits or humors, — dramatic satires on contem-
porary follies and faults. His greatest delineation we
tonceive to be Sir Epicure Mammon, in The Alchemist,
ihough Volpone and Bobadil might contest the palm.
The " riches fineless" of learning and imagery lavished
upon this character perfectly astound the imagination
Nothing can be more masterly than the manner in which
it is sustained; — the towering sensuality of the man
the visions of luxury and wealth in which his mind roam»
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 37
and revels, las intense realization of the amazing fictions
he himself creates, the complete despotism established
by his imagination over his senses, and the resolute
credulity with which he accommodates the most obstinate
facts to his desires, make up a character which, in origin-
ality, force, and truth of delineation, seems to us only
second to FalstafT, or, at least, to have, out of Shak-
speare, no peer among the comic creations of the English
drama,
Volpone, Bobadil, Sejanus, and Catiline are strong
delineations, which we cannot pause to consider. As a
specimen, however, of Jonson's ponderous style, we can-
not refrain quoting a few lines in the tragedy of Catiline,
from the scene in the first act, on the morning of the con-
spiracy. Lentulus says : —
" Lent. It is methinks a morning full of fate.
It risetli slowly, as her sullen car
Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it.
She is not rosy-fingered, but swoln black.
Her face is like a water turned to blood,
And her sick head is hound about with clouds,
As if she threatened night ere noon of day.
It does not look as it would have a hail
Or health wished in it, as on other morns."
Catiline, in allusion to the massacres of Sylla, gives a
stern and terrible image of death : —
" Slaughter hestrid the streets, and stretched himselj'
To seem more huge ; "
and he exclaims afterwards : —
" Cinna and Sylla
Are set ani gone ; and we must turn our eyes
On him that is and shines. Noble Cethegus,
But view him with me liere ! He looks already
As if he shook a sceptre o'er the senate,
.t& ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
And the awed purple dropt their rods and axes.
The statues melt again, and household gods
In groans confess the travails of the city ;
The very walls sweat blood before the change;
And stores start out to ruin, ere it comes."
It would be easy to extract largely from Jonson's play?
to illustrate his powers of satire, fancy, observation, and
wit ; and to quote numberless biting sentences, that seem
steeped " in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like
salt in fire." His masks are replete with beautiful po-
etry, as delicate as it is rich. We have only space, how-
ever, to introduce from The Sad Shepherd one specimen
of his sweetness, which seems to have been overlooked
by others.
" Here she was wont to go ! and here ! and here !
Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow:
The world may find the spring- by following' her,
For other print her airy steps ne'er left.
Her treading would not bend a blade of grass,
Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk !
But like the soft west wind she shot along.
And where she went, the flowers took thickest root,
As she had soieed them with her odorous foot."
Tennyson has a similar idea in The Talking Oak, bu*
has added a subtle imagination, which our old bard's
mind would not have been likely to grasp : —
" And light as any wind that blows,
So fleetly did she stir,
The flowers, she touched on, dipt and rose,
And turned to look on her."
The plays of Thomas Decker, honest old Decker, are
the records of one of the finest and most lovable spirits
in English literature. His name has suffered much from
Jonson's cutting scorn, and, indeed, with many readers
he still bears about the same relation to old Ben tha/
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 39
Cibbcr does to Pope. But he has found strong and acute
friends in Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt, and his rare merits
as a poet have been felicitously presented. He is, in fact,
one of the most fascinating dramatists of his generation,
and, with much vulgarity and trash, has passages worthy
of the greatest. He is light, airy, sportive, humane, for-
getive, and possesses both animal and intellectual spirits
to perfection. He seems flushed and heated with the
very wine of life ; throws off the sunniest morsels of wit
and wisdom with a beautiful heedlessness and unstudied
ease ; and in his intense enjoyment of life and motion
appears continually to exclaim, with his own Matheo,
" Do we not fly high ? " Though he experienced more
than the common miseries and vexations of his class,
still, like old Fortunatus, he seems to be " all felicity up
to the brims ; " to have " revelled with kings, danced
•vith queens, dallied with ladies, worn strange attires,
seen fantasticoes, conversed w^ith humorists, been rav-
ished with divine raptures of Doric, Lydian, and Phry-
gian harmonies." Everything in him is swift, keen,
sparkling, full of quicksilver briskness and heartiness.
His sentiment and his fancies run out of him in the
overflowing exuberance of a happy disposition. There
is something delightfully simple in his cheerfulness and
humanity. His genial imagination plays with divinities.
His qui\ ?r is full of those winged arrows which strike
the mark in the white, though seemingly sent with a care-
less aim. His sympathies with nature and his kind are
wide, deep, and instinctive. His mind speeds freely out
among external things, with nothing to check its wide-
jvandering flights. His Muse leaps, laughs, and sings,
Df its own sweet will. Even when he condescends to
9(rhat Hunt calls an " astounding coarseness," in repre-
40 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
senting tti3 bloods and men of wit and pleasure about
town, which inhabit most of the comedies of the time,
there is still a sharpness and quickness of movement
which carries the mind swiftly through the mud into o.
oetter region. Decker has, strictly speaking, no moral-
ity ; for nothing in his works seems to depend on will or
principle, but to spring from instinctive sentiments ; and
when these are delicate or noble he is among the purest
of writers. His sweetness and humanity are exquisitely
fine. Thus, one passage in his celebrated lines on
Patience has become almost world-renowned.
" Patience, my lord, why, 't is the soul of peace ;
Of all the virtues, 't is nearest kin to heaven ;
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer^
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed."
In the same spirit is his dialogue between the Christian
lady and the angel, in The Virgin Martyr, a tragedy
written in connection with Massinger. The refinement
of the feeling is almost unmatched by any dramatist
under Shakspeare. Dorothea is attended by an angel,
disguised as a page, — a " smooth-faced, glorious thing,"
El thousand blessings " dancing upon his eyes."
"Angelo. Dorothea. I'he time, midnight.
" Dor. My book and taper.
" Ang. Here, most holy mistress.
" Dor. Thy voice sends forth such music, that I never
Was ravished with a more celestial sound.
Were every servant in the world like thee,
So full of goodness, angels would come down
To dwell with us : thy name is Angelo,
And like that name thou art. Get thee to rest ;
Thy yoi'th with too much watching is opprest.
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 41
" Ang. No, my dear lady. I could weary stars.
And force the wakeful moon to lose her eyes,
By my late watching, but to wait on you.
When at your prayers you kneel before the altar,
Methinks I 'm singing with some quire in heaven,
So blest I hold me in your company.
Therefore, my most loved mistress, do not bid
Your boy, so serviceable, to get hence :
For then you break his heart.
"Dor. Be nigh me still, then.
In golden letters down I '11 set that day
Which gave thee to me. Little did I hope
To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself.
This little, pretty body, when I, coming
Forth of the temple, heard my beggar-boy,
My sweet-faced, godly beggar-boy, crave an alms,
Which with glad hand I gave, with lucky hand ;
And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom
Methought was filled with no hot wanton fire,
But with a holy flame, mounting since higher,
On wings of cherubims, than it did before.
" Ang. Proud am I that my lady's modest eye
So likes so poor a servant.
" Dor. I have ofiereJ
Handfuls of gold but to behold thy parents.
I would leave kingdoms, were I queen of some,
To dwell with thy good father ; for, the son
Bewitching me so deeply with his presence,
He that begot him nmst do 't ten times more.
I pray thee, my sweet boy, show me thy parents ;
Be not ashamed.
" Aug-. I am not : I did never
Know who my mother was ; but, by yon palace
Filled with bright heavenly courtiers, I dare assure you,
And pawn these eyes upon it, and this hand.
My father is in heaven ; and, pretty mistress,
If your illustrious hour-glass spend his sand
No worse than yet it doth, upon my life.
You and I both shall meet mv father there,
And he shall bid you welcome.
" Dor, A blessed day ' "
42
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Decker's brain was fertile in fine imaginations and
choice bits of wisdom, expressed with great directness
and point. We give a few specimens.
" See, from the windows
Of every eye Derision thrusts out cheeks
Wrinkled with idiot laughter ; every finger
Is like a dart shot from the hand of Scorn."
" The frosty hand of age now nips your blood,
And strews her snowy flowers upon your head,
And gives you warning that within few years
Death needs must marry you ; those short minutes,
That dribble out your life, must needs be spent
In peace, not travail."
" Beauty is as a painting ; and long life
Is a long journey in December gone.
Tedious, and full of tribulation."
' Though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
2 Vere 's a lean follow beats all conquerors."
"An oath ! why 't is the traffic of the soul.
The law within a man ; the seal of faith ;
The bond of every conscience ; unto whom
We set our thoughts like hands."
The Duchess of Malfy, and The White Devil, by
John Webster, are among the grandest tragic produc-
tions of Shakspeare's contemporaries. They are full of
" deep groans and terrible ghastly looks." " To move a
horror skilfully," says Lamb, "to touch a soul to the
quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to xcean
and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in
with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit, — thi?
onlv a Webster can do," Few dramatists, indeed, equa
hmi in the steadiness with which he gazes into the
OLD ENGLISH DUAMATISTS. 43
awful depths of passion, and the stern nerve with which
he portrays the dusky and terrible shapes which flit
vaguely in its dark abysses. Souls black with guilt, or
burdened with misery, or ghastly with fear, he probes to
their innermost recesses, and both dissects and represents.
His mind had the sense of the supernatural in large
measure, and it gives to many of his scenes a dim and
fearful grandeur, which afTects the soul like a shadow
cast from another world. He forces the most conven-
tional of his characters into situations which lay open
the very constitution of their natures, and thus compels
them to act from the primitive springs of feeling and
passion. He begins with duke and duchess ; he ends
with man and woman. The idea of death asserts itself
more strongly in his writings than in those of his con-
temporaries. In The White Devil, the poisoned Bra-
chiano exclaims, —
" On pain of death, let no man name death to me :
It is a word most infinitely terrible."
No person could have ^vritten the last line without hav
ing brooded deeply over the mystery of the grave. It
belongs to that " wild, solemn, preternatural cast of grief
which bewilders us " in Webster. He fully realized, in
relation to tragic effect, that present fears are less than
" horrible imaginings." With this sombre and unearthly
hue tinging his mind, he is still not deficient in touches
of simple nature, wrought out with exquisite art and
knowledge, and producing effects the most pathetic or
sublime. The death-scene of the Duchess of Malfy is a
grand example. This proud, high-hearted woman is
persecuted by her two brothers with a strange accumu-
lation of horrors, designed, with a devilish ingenuity
44 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
gradually to break hei heart and madden her brain.
Lamb very truly remarks, — " She speaks the dialect of
despair, her tongue has a snatch of Tartarus and the
souls in bale. What are ' Luke's iron crown,' the brazen
bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images
which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen,
the tomb-maker, the bellman, the living person's dirge,
the mortification by degrees ! "
Vittoria Corombona, the White Devil, is a great bad
character, "fair as the leprosy dazzling as the light-
ning." Her conduct at her arraignment is the perfection
of guilt in all its defying impudence. We have no space
for extracts. Webster seems to hare imitated the spirit
of Shakspeare more directly than any of his brother
dramatists. In the preface to this play he has a curious
reference to his master, alluding to the " right happy and
copious industry of Master Shakspeare, Master Decker,
and Master Heywood."
Marston, Heywood, Chapman, and Middleton, are
stirring names of this era, John Marston is a bitter
satirist of crime and folly, and often probes the heart to
its core in his dark thrusts at evil. He shows a large
acquaintance with the baseness and depravity of men,
and exposes them mercilessly. His mind was strong,
keen, and daring, with hot and impatient impulses, con-
trolled by a stern will, and condensed into scorn. He
seems to have borne somewhat the same relation to his
contemporaries that Hazlitt did to the authors of our
time. He quarrelled and fought with many of themi in
metrical battles. In one of the satires of the time, he is
termed a " ruffian in his style," one who
"Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoe'er he meets ;'
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 45
one who in his satire is not content with " modest, c.ose-
couched terms," but uses
*' Plain, naked words, stript from their shirts,
That might beseem plain-dealing Aretine."
We have already referred to his quarrels with Ben
Jonson. He was doubtless unpopular, as most satirists
must be. Jonson accuses him of envy, and other bad
passions. His comic scenes, though often brilliant, have
no hearty mirth ; but his stern, sharp, scornful mind
repeatedly touched the sources of pathos and terror,
though, in his tragedy, he was too apt to shed blood as
fluently as ink. We extract some short passages from
his plays, clipped from their connection with character
and incident, to show the strength of his powers, and
their poetical side. The first has great sweetness and
beauty.
" As having clasped a rose
Within my palm, the rose being ta'cn away,
My hand retains a little breath of sweet ;
So may jnan's trunk, his spirit slipped away,
Hold still a faint perfume of his sweet guest."
The eloquent ravings of Andrugio, in Antonio and
Mellida, are replete with imagination, as when he
asks, —
" Is not yon gleam the shuddering Morn that flakes
With silver tincture the east verge of heaven ? "
A.ni again : —
" Wouldst have me go unarmed among my foes ?
Being besieged by Passion, entering lists
To combat with Despair and mighty Grief:
My soul beleaguered with the crushing strength
Of sharp Impatience. Ha, '_iucir> ; go unarmed 7
46 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Come, soul, resume the valor of thy birth ;
Myself, myself will ilare all opposites :
I '11 muster forces, an unvanquished power :
Cornets of horse shall press the ungrateful eart
This hollow-woinbed mass shall inly groan
And murmur to sustain the weight of arms:
Ghastlij Amazement, loitli upstarted hair,
Shall hurry on before, and uslier us,
Whilst trumpets clamor with a sound of deatli."
The tollowing is very powerful and impressive, — mis-
iiry dressed out in the very robes of despair, and dark
ening earth and heaven with its baleful gloom.
" The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps
The fluent summer's vein ; and drizzling sleet
Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numbed earth,
While snarling gusts nibble the juiceless leaves
From the naked shuddering branch, and pills* the skin
From off the soft and delicate aspects.
O, now meihinks a sullen tragic scene
Would suit the time with pleasing congruence.
*****
" But if a breast,
Nailed to the earth with grief ; if any heart,
Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring;
If there be any blood, whose heat is choked
And stifled with true sense of misery :
If aught of these strains fill this consort up,
They arrive most welcome."
The following passages tell their own story, in strong
and sometimes terrible language : —
" Day breaking:
" See, the dapple gray coursers of the morn
Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs.
And chase it through the sky."
* PeeU.
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 4*7
" One who died, slandered.
" Look on those lips,
Thdse now lawn pillows, on whose tender softness
Chaste, modest Speech, stealing from out his breast,
Had wont to rest itself, as loth to post
From out so fair an Inn : look, look, they seem
To stir,
And breathe defiance to black obloquy."
" Description of the Witch Erictho.
•' Here in this desert the great Soul of charms
Dreadful Erictho lives : whose dismal brow
Contemns all roofs, or civil coverture.
Forsaken graves and tombs (the ghosts forced out)
She joys to inhabit.
A loathsome yellow leanness spreads her face,
A heavy hell-like paleness loads her cheeks,
Unknown to a clear heaven. But if dark winds
Or black thick clouds drive back the blinded stars,
When her deep magic makes forced heaven quake
And thunder, spite of Jove : Erictho then
From naked graves stalks out, heaves proud her head
With long unkembed hair loaden, and strives to snatch
The night's quick sulphur."
Lamb calls Thomas Heywood, very finely, " a sort of
prose Shakspeare," and adds, "his scenes are to the full as
natural and affecting. But we miss the poet, that which
in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface
of the nature. Heywood's characters, his country gen-
tlemen, &c., are exactly what we see (but of the best
kind of what we see) in life. Shakspeare makes us
believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that
they are nothing but what Ave are familiar with, as in
dreams new things seem old ; but we awake, and sigh
for the difference." Heywood was a rapid writer, claim-
ing, in one of his prefaces, the authorship of some two
hundred and twenty plays, in which he had " either ao
48 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
entire hand, or at least a main finger." Of these, but
twenty-five have been preserved. He appears to have
been a modest, amiable man, not especially stirred by
the fiercer passions, and writing with singular facility a
sweet and harmonious, though not poetical, style. Haz-
litt calls it " beautiful prose put into heroic metre." It
is not dotted over with those sharp and fiery points of
passion and fancy, nor brightened by those quick flashes
of imagination, which characterized the general styk of
the period. A Woman Killed with Kindness is his most
affecting play. The character of Mrs. Frankford in this
drama has been advantageously compared with that of
Mrs, Haller, in The Stranger. The Englishman of the
seventeenth century is a better moralist than the German
of the nineteenth. Lamb's extracts from four of Hey-
wood's plays will give the reader a good idea of his
manner and his powers. The most celebrated passage
in his works is the shipwreck by drink, related in The
English Traveller, in his peculiar frank, light-footed
style.
George Chapman, the translator of Homer, was the
author of several tragedies and comedies. Lamb places
him next to Shakspeare in didactic and descriptive pas-
sages, but " he could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare
could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other
existences." His genius was reflective rather than dra-
matic. His plays, are full of striking imaginations, and
stern, deep comments on life, with here and there starts
of tragic passion. Hazlitt says that he " aims at the
highest things in poetry, but tries in vain, w^anting imag-
ination and passion, to fill up the epic moulds of traged}
with sense and reason alone, so that he often runs into
Dombast and turgidity, — is extravagant and pedantic af
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 49
one and the same time." This does not do just ice to
what Webster called " the full and heisfhtened style of
Master Chapman." Though not a man of harmoniously-
developed genius, there are few writers of the period,
who:^e personal character, as stamped on their serious
poetry, makes a graver and deeper impression than that
of Chapman. He is the impersonation of a lofty, dar-
ing, self-centred soul, feeling within itself a right to
achieve the mightiest objects of human pursuit, and
reposing with a proud confidence on the sense of its own
power and dignity. His feeling is Titanic, but his
capacity is not up to his feeling. He resolutely plants
himself on the soul, and subordinates all things to it,
like some of our modern Transcendentalists ; but he
holds a braver, fiercer, and more defying attitude towards
external things than they. In some respects he reminds
us of Marlowe, but slower, more weighty, more intensely
reflective and self-sustained. Perhaps he may be called
the Fuseli of our old dramatists. We can imagine him,
as he sat patiently and painfully fashioning, in " the
quick forge and working-house of thought," his colossal
and irregular shapes of power, making some such remark
as Fuseli made to the pleasant gentleman who asked him
if he believed in the existence of the soul : — "I don't
know, sir, as you have any soul ; but by I hnov) I
have." There is about Chapman a rough grandeur,
firmly based, and as sufficient for itself as an old, knotty
and gnarled tree, rooted in rocks, and lifting itself up in
defiance of tempests, — not without fine foliage, but
principally attractive from its hard vitality, its capacity
of resistance, and the sullen content with which it ex-
poses to the eye its tough, ragged, and impenetrable
nodosities. He has no need of bluster or bombast to
VOL. II. 4
50 ESSAYS AND REVlEWb.
confirm his good opinion of himself, as is often the case
with Marlowe and Byron ; but his mind is calm, fixed,
and invincible in its self-esteem. The citadel of self
cannot be conquered, can hardly be attacked, though the
universe marshals all its pomp and circumstance to
shame him from his complacency.
" I am a nobler substance than the stars :
And shall the baser overrule the better ?
Or are they better since they are the bigger?
I have a will, and faculties of choice.
To do or not to do ; and reason why
I do or not do this : the stars have none.
They know not why they shine, more than this taper.
Nor how they work, nor what. I '11 change my course :
I '11 piecemeal pull the frame of all my thoughts :
And where are all your Caput Algols then ?
Vour planets all being underneath the earth
At my nativity : what can they do 7 "
And again, hear the brave old heathen discourse o.
the invulnerability of a true master spirit who has trust
m himself : —
" The Master Spirit.
" Give me a spirit that on life's rough sea
Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind.
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack.
And his rapt ship run on her side so low.
That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air.
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is : there 's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it laicfui
That he should stoop to any other law ;
He goes before them and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational."
The lines in Italics furnished Shelley a fit motto fo,
his Revolt of Islam.
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 51
Ch?ii.i.idn is supposed by Dr. Drake to be the author
of those lines On Worthy Master Shakspeure and his
Poems, signed J. M. S., and commencing, —
" A mind reflecting ages past," —
the noblest and justest of the poetical tributes to Shaks-
peare's supreme genius. We think the conjecture a
shrewd one, and borne out by the internal testimony
which the lines themselves offer. They are in Chap-
man's labored and " enormous " manner, — the images
huge and intellectual, and shown through the dusky light
of his peculiar imagination. Here is a specimen : —
" To outrun hastj' time, retrieve the fates.
Roll hack the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where confused lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality."
The reputation of Thomas Middleton, with modem
readers, is chiefly based on his Witch, several often
quoted scenes of which have been supposed to have suo-.
gested to Shakspeare the supernatural machinery of
Macbeth. If this be true, it only proves Coleridge's
remark, that a great genius pays usurious interest on
what he borrows. The play itself is tedious, and not
particularly poetical, and the witches are introduced to
effect an object very far from sublime. Lamb, after
extracting copiously from the play, adds the following
eloquent and discriminative remarks : —
" Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms
in Macbeth and the incantations in this play, which is supposed
to .-.ave preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from
the onginalitv of Shakspeare. His witches are distinguished
52 - ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
from the witches of Middleton by essential differencts. Tlies
are creatures to A'hom man or woman plotting some dire mis-
chief might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate
deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the mo-
ment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound.
That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fas-
cination. These witches can hurt the body : those have power
over the soul. — Hecate, in Middleton, has a son, a low bufibon :
the hags of Shakspeare have neither child of their own, nor
seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul Anoma-
lies, of whom we know not wlience they are sprung, nor whether
they have beginning or ending. As they are without human
passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They
come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music.
This is all we know of them. — Except Hecate, they have no
names ; which heightens their mysteriousness. Their names,
and some of the properties which Middleton has given to his
hags, excite smiles. The weird sisters are serious things.
Their presence cannot coexist with mirth. But, in a lesser
degree, the witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their
power, too, is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise
jars, jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf o'er life." — Lamb,
Vol. I., p. 163.
The plays of Middleton are not, in general, up to the
level of the time. He rambles loosely through his work,
and taxes the patience of his readers without adequately
rewarding it. Numerous passages in his dramas, how-
ever, show that he had that sway over the passions, and
that fertility of fancy, which seemed native to all the
dramatists of the period. Hazlitt concedes to his Women
beware Women "a rich, marrowy vein of internal senti
ment, with fine occasional insight into human nature
and cool, cutting irony of expression." In this play
occurs the noted rhapsody on marriage, spoken by one
who was returning, as he supposed, to a faithful wife
OLD ENGLISH DRAMA flSTS. 5J
but Arho finds her a vixen and adulteress. It reminds ua
nf an early chapter in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.
■' The treasures of the deep arc not so precious
As are the concealed comforts of a man
Locked up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings when I come but near the house :
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth!
The violet bed 's not sweeter. Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden,
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight
To cast their modest odors.
H* Jr "l* I* V
53 " Now for a welcome
Able to draw men's envies upon man :
A kiss now, that will hang upon my lip,
As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
And full as long."
Cyril Tourneur is a prominent name among the
dramatists of the period. His two plays. The Atheist's
Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, are copiously
quoted by Lamb. He has touches of the finest and
highest genius. There runs through him a vein of the
deepest philosophy. His tragedies evince a mind that
has brooded long over its own thoughts, and sent search-
ing glances into the unsounded depths of the soul. In
his delineation of the stronger passions, he often startles
and thrills the mind by terrible and unexpected flashes
of truth. His diction is free, fearless, familiar, and
t irect, pervaded by fancy and imagination, and rarely
bald and prosaic. * There is one passage in The Reveng-
er's Tragedy which is almost unequalled for tragic
grandeur, Castiza is urged by her mother and her dis-
guised brofher to accept the dishonorable proposals of a
iuke. V'uidici, the brother, whose object is simply to
test the virtue of his sister, eloquently sets forth the
54 ESSAYS ANl flEVIEWS.
advantages she will gain by sacrificing her honor. The
mother adds : — " Troth, he says true :" and them Cas-
tiza vehemently exclaims : —
" False ! I defy you both!
I have endured you with an ear of fire ;
Your tongues have struck hot irons on my fact.
Mother, come from that poisonous woman there,'
" Moth. Where ?
" Cast. Do you not see her? she 's too inward, then."
At the close of this scene, there is one of those beau-
tiful touches of nature, conveyed by allusion, in which
the old dramatists excel. Vindici says : - -
" Forgive me, Heaven, to call my mother wicked !
O, lessen not my days upon the earth !
I cannot honor her."
Lamb says, that the scene in which the brothers
threaten their mother with death for consenting to the
dishonor of their sister surpasses, in reality and life, any
scenical illusion he ever felt. " I never read it," he
says, " but my ears tingle, and I feel a hot blush spread
my cheeks, as if I were presently about to ' proclaim '
some such ' malefactions ' of myself, as the brothers here
rebuke in their unnatural parent, in words more keen
and dagger-like than those which Hamlet speaks to his
mother."
We extract one passage from this tragedy. Vindic
addresses the skull of his dead lady : —
" Here 's an eye,
Able to tempt s great man, — to serve God ;
A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble.
Melhinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble
A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em,
To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.
Here 's a cheek keeps her color, let the wir go whislV
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISiTS. 55
Spout Tdai, we fear llice not : be hot or cold,
All 's one with us : and is not he absurd,
Whose fortunes are upon their faces set?
That fear no other God but wind and wet?
Does every proud and self-affecting dame
Camphire her face for this ? and grieve her Maker
In sinful baths of milk, when many an infant starves
For her superfluous outside, for all this?
Who now bids twenty pound a night? prepares
Music, perfumes, and sweet-meats ? all are hushed.
Thou mayst lie chaste now ! it were fine, methinks,
To have thee seen at revels, forgetful feasts,
And unclean brothels : sure, 't would fright the sinnei,
And make him a good coward: put a reveller
Out of his antick amble.
And cloy an epicure with empty dishes. »
Here might a scornful and ambitious woman
Look through and through herself. — See, ladies, with false foms,
You deceive men, but cannot deceive worms."
Lamb, Vol. i., pp. 171, 172.
Those renowned twins of poetry, Beaubiont and
Fletcher, long held a rank among English dramatic
writers second only to Shakspeare ; as, in a more profli-
gate period, they were deemed his superiors. Though
as poets, lyrical and descriptive, they are entitled to a
high place for fancy and sentiment, yet they appear to
us thin men, when compared with Marlowe, Jonson,
Webster, Chapman, and some others. In the delineation
of character, and in the exhibition of great passions, they
lack solidity, depth, condensation of style, rapidity of
action ; and we cannot mention two prominent English
writers more destitute of moral principle. Fletcher, it
must be allowed, is the more volatile and fertile sinner
of the two. During their lives, they enjoyed a vast rep-
Jtatioc , for they were preemmentl/ the panders of their
generation. The commendatory verses on their tvorka
56 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
would fill a small volume. Shirley, in a prtface to /he
folio edition of their plays, published in 1647, signs him-
self their "humble admirer,'' and pours out his admira-
tion for their genius in the highest strain of panegyric
To mention them, he says, "is but to throw a cloud
upon all other names, and benight posterity; this book
being, without flattery, the greatest monument of the
scene that time and humanity have produced, and must
live, not only the crown and sole reputation of our own,
but the stain of all other nations and languages." It
would be easy to quote other eulogies almost as insanely
extravagant.
Both these dramatists were men of family and educa-
tion. Beaumont was born in 15S6, ten years after
Fletcher, and died in 1615, ten years before him. His
faculties ripened early. At the age of ten, he became a
gentleman commoner at college. When only sixteen,
he published a translation of one of Ovid's fables ; and
was a close friend of Ben Jonson, and one of the lights
of the Mermaid, at the age of nineteen. His "judg-
ment" seems to have been as universally admitted as
Fletcher's "fancy." Jonson, it is said, consulted him
often about the plots of his plays. His partnership with
Fletcher seems to have commenced when he was about
twenty-two, and to have run to his death.
Fletcher was born in 1576, and was less precocious
than Beaumont. There is no evidence that he wrote
for the stage before 1606, when he was thirty years old.
He seems to have had expensive habits, and some prop-
erty; the latter probably left him in advance of the
former. The fact, that during the last four years of his
life he wrote eleven plays, seems to indicate a depend
ence on his pen for support. He died in 16f!5, of the
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 57
plugue. Of the fifty-two plays published under his and
Beaumonc's name, it has been contended that th; latter
had a part in only seventeen. Among these, however,
are The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and King and No
King, — three of the most celebrated in the collection.
There is also some reason to believe that Beaumont had
a share, more or less, in Valentinian, and Thierry and
Theodoret; but none in The Faithful Shepherdess or
The Two Noble Kinsmen. Many critics have thought
they traced indubitable marks of Shalcspeare's mind and
manner in some scenes of the latter. Lamb counte-
nances this conjecture from the internal evidence afford-
ed by some of the striking Shakspearian scene;;. He
says that the manner of the two dramatists is essentially
different. Fletcher's " ideas move slow; his versification,
though sweet, is tedious; it stops every moment; he
lays line upon line, making up one after the other, add-
ing image to image so deliberately, that we see where
they join. Shakspeare mingles everything ; he runs
line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors;
before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched,
and clamorous for disclosure." Fletcher wrote twenty-
seven plays after Beaumont's death, and, it is supposed,
four before ; and there are eight written in connection
with other authors, which swells the whole list from
fifty-two to sixty.
This speaks volumes for Fletcher's fruitfulness of
fancy ; and if the dramas evinced a range and depth of
character corresponding to their number, it might well
excite wonder. But this is not the case. The frame-
work of Fletcher's dramatis persoius is generally light
md thin, and he continually repeats a few t}^es of char-
»cter. What he lacks in depth and intensity of mind.
58 ESSAYS AND REVIEAVS.
he seeks to make up in point, bustle, incident, intriguo,
and comic or tragic situation. If we subtract from his
plays all their wit, fancy, imagination, and passion, leav-
ing whatever is mere buffoonery, ribaldry, or exaggerate.!
commonplace, we shall have a larger and more detest-
able mass of ignoble depravity and slang than could he.
scooped out of the works of any other man of genius.
When he began to write, the morality of the fashionable
and educated classes had become relaxed. The court
of James the First was dissolute and intrinsically vul-
gar. The ears of high-born ladies did not tingle at the
coarsest jests, nor their cheeks burn in viewing the most
licentious situations. A change had come over the
" public " taste, since the time of Sidney and Spenser.
Debauchery and the maxims of libertinism were more
in vogue. The line separating the gentleman from the
rake had imperceptibly narrowed, not to be altogether
obliterated until the reign of Charles the Second. False-
hood, folly, sin, and decay, seemed natural attendants on
the Stuarts. Fletcher mu3t be set down as a poet who
wilfully or heedlessly prostituted his genius to varnish
this " genteel rottenness." His mind freely obeyed
external direction. Like his own Mistress Bacha, in
Cupid's Revenge, he seems to say to the age : —
" I do feel a weakness in mysell
That can deny you nothing; if you tempt me,
I shall embrace sin as it were a friend,
And run to meet it."
His quick animal spirits, and his absence of depth, pre-
serve his immorality from that malignity and brutality
which shock us in some of his successors at the Restor
ation ; and as the sweetness of the poet ne'v er absolutelj
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 69
eaves him, he rarely exhibits their hardness of heart.
But where he is better than they, it seems more the
result of instinctive sentiment than any moral principle.
His volatility makes his libertinism shallow, brisk, and
careless, rather than hard and determined. It is Belial
with the friskiness of Puck. He was as bad as his
nature would admit, — as bad as a mind so buoyant,
a|->preheusive, and susceptible of romantic ideas and feel-
ings, would allow him to be. Shakspeare did not yield
to these corrupting tendencies of his da3^
It is generally conceded t-hat Beaumont and Fletcher
are more effeminate and dissolute than the band of dra-
matic authors to which they must be still considered to
belong. Their minds had not the grasp, tension, insight,
and collected energy, which characterized others who
possessed less fertility. Their tragic Muse carouses in
crime, and reels out upon us with bloodshot eyes and
dishevelled tresses. From this relaxation of intellect
and looseness of principle comes, in a great degree, their
habit of disturbing the natural relations of thinafs in their
representations of the sterner passions. The atmosphere
01 tlieir tragedy is too often hot, thick, and filled with
pestilential vapors. They pushed everything to excess.
Their weakness is most evident when they strain the
fiercest after power. Their strength is flushed, bloated,
spasmodic, and furious. They pitch everything in a
high key, approaching to a scream. In what has been
considered the most imaginative passage in their whole
works, — the speech of Suetonius to his soldiers before
battle, in Bonduca, — the lines seem torn from tie thinat
-♦f the speaker : —
" The gods of Rome fight for ye ; loud Fame raUs ye,
Pitched on the topless Apennine, and blows
BO ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
To all the under world, all nations,
The seas, and unfrequented deserts where the snow dwells
Walcens the ruined monuments, and there,
Where nothing but eternal death and sleep is,
Informs again the dead bones with your virtues."
Even their hernism has generally the lightness (r
romance, — something framed from fancy, not frona
nature. Their heads grow giddy among the true horrors
of tragedy, and their action becomes hurry and bustle
instead of progress. The style of their dramas, where
the text is not butchered by misprinting, is sweet, col-
loquial, voluble, and voluptuous, but rarely condensed
and powerful. It has been finely said, in respect to
their agency in weakening the diction of the drama, that
" Shakspeare had bred up the English courser of the air
to the highest wild condition, till his blood became fire,
and his sinews Nemean ; Ben Jonson put a curb into
his mouth, subjected him to strict manege^ and fed him
on astringent food, that hardened his nerves to rigidity ;
but our two authors took the reins off, and let him run
loose over a rank soil, relaxing all his fibres again."
The flush and hectic heat of this unbitted racing is evei
observable ; but the bright hoofs of the courser strike oflf
"ew lightning sparks, atid he is a long time arriving at
his goal.
The Maid's Tragedy — which Hallam gravely says is
no tragedy for maids, and one which, with all its be£U-
ties, no respectable woman can read — contains much
exquisite poetry among its portentous obscenities, The
iharacter of Aspatia is the model of a love-lorn, patien
naiden,
" Whose weak brain is overladen
With the sorrow of her love ; "
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 61
Buch as we meet, in a degraded state, among the Ara-
bella Dieways of old novels. Shirley probably refers
to the vein of sentiment touched in this arama, when he
says, " Thou shalt meet, almost in every leaf, a soft,
purling passion, or spring of sorrow, so powerfully wrought
high by the tears of innocence and wronged lovers, it
shall persuade thy eyes to weep into the stream, and yet
smile when they contribute to their own ruins." Lysip-
pus thus describes Aspatia : —
" This lady
Walks discontented, with her watery eyes
Bent on the earth : the unfrequented woods
Are her delight ; and when she sees a bank
Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell
Her servants what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in ; and make her maids
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.
She carries with her an infectious grief
That strikes all her beholders : she will sing'
The mourn fulV si. things that ever ear hath heard,
And sigh, and sing again ; and when the rest
Of our young ladies, in their wanton blood,
Tell mirthful tales in course that fill the room
With laughter, she will with so sad a look
Bring forth a story of the silent death
Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief
Will put in such a phrase, that, ere she end,
She '11 send them weeping one by one away."
Amintor, in this play, forsakes Aspatia and marries
Evadne, at the command of the king. The scene in
which his wife avows herself the mistress of the monarch,
and tells Amintor that her marriage with him is merely
one of convenience, is wrought out in Fletcher's most
characteristic manner. That, also, in which the brother
of Evadne compels her to promise to inurder the king, is
spirited and powerfu The following scene between
62 SSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Aspatia and her maidens has much softness and richness
of diction and sentiment : —
"ASPATIA, ANTIPHILA. OLYMPIAS.
"Asp. Come, let's be sad, my girls.
That down-cast of thine eye, Olympias,
Shows a fine sorrow ; mark Antiphila,
Just such aiiollier v;as the nympth CEnone,
When Paris brought home Helen : now a tear,
And then thou art a piece expressing fully
The Carthage queen, when from a cold sea rock,
Full with her sorrow, she tied Just her eyes
To the fair Trojan ships, and having lost them,
Just as thine eyes do, down stole a tear, Antiphiia.
What would this wench do, if she were Aspatia ?
Here she would stand, till some more pitying god
Turned her to marble : 't is enough, my wench ;
Show me the piece of needle-work you wrought.
"Ant. Of Ariadne, Madam ?
"Asp. Yes, that piece.
This should be Theseus, h' as a cozening face ;
You meant him for a man ?
"Ant. He was so. Madam.
"Asp. Why, then 't is well enough. Never look back,
You have a full wind, and a false heart, Theseus.
Does not the story say, his keel was split.
Or his masts spent, or some kind rock or other
Met with his vessel?
"Ant. Not as I remember.
"Asp. It should ha' been so : could the gods know this,
And not of all their number raise a storm ?
But they are all as ill. This false smile was well exprest ;
Just such another caught me ; you shall not go so, Antiphila;
In this place work a quicksand.
And over it a shallow smiling water.
And his ship ploughing it, and then a fear.
Do that fear to the life, wench.
"Ant. 'T will wrong the story.
"Asp. 'Twill make the story, wronged by wanton poets
Live long and be believed ; but where 's the lady ?
"AjU. There, Madam.
"Asp. Fie, you have missed it here, Antiphila.
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. &.i
You are much mistaken, wencti ;
These colors are not dull and pale enough,
To show a soul so full of misery
As this sad lady's was ; do it by me,
Do it again by me, the lost Aspatia,
And you shall find all true but the wild island.
I stand upon the sea-beach now, and think
Mine arms thus, and mine hair blown with the wind,
Wild as that desert, and let all about me
Tell that I am forsaken ; do my face
(If thou liadst ever feeling of a sorrow)
Thus, thus, Antiphila ; strive to make me loon.
Like Sorrow's monument ; and the trees about mCi
Let them be dry and leaveless ; lei the rocks
Groan icilh conlinual surges, and behind me
Make all a desolation ; look, look, wenches,
A miserable life of this poor picture.
"Ohjm. Dear Madam!
"Asp. I have done ; sit down, and let us
Upon that point fix all our eyes, that point there ;
Make a dull silence, till you feel a sudden sadness
Give us new souls."
l*hil.aster has much romantic sweetness, and deserv-
sdly takes a high rank among the joint creations of our
authors. Bellario is especially beautiful. Beaumont
and Fletcher's fair and fine women have been considered
models of womanhood by many critics, and by some
placed above those of Shakspeare, — as if their best
delineations of passion or constancy approached Juliet
or Cordelia ! Shakspeare's women are ideal ; theirs,
romantic. The following passage, in which Bellario
discovered to be a woman, tells the story of her jove foi
Philaster, is exceedingly sweet and touching : —
" My father would oft speak
Your worth and virtue, and as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so praised : but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing ; to be 1' st
B4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
As soon as found ; till, sitting in my windo'SE',
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god
1 thought, (but it was you,) enter our gates ;
My blood flew out, and back again as fast
As I had puft it forth and sucked it in
Like breath ; then was I called away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man
Heaved from a sheep-cot to a sceptre, raised
So high in thoughts as I ; you left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
From you forever ; I did hear you talk
Far above singing ; after you were gone,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched
What stirred it so. Alas! I found it love.
Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
In presence of you, I had had my end.
For this I did delude my noble father
With a feigned pilgrimage, and drest myseh
In habit of a boy, and, for I knew
My birth no match for you, I was past hope
Of having you. And understanding well,
That when I made discovery of my sex,
I could not stay with you, I made a vow
By all the most religious things a maid
Could call together, never to be known.
Whilst there was hope to hide me from men's eyes,
For other than I seemed ; that I might ever
Abide with you: then sate I by the fount
Where first you took me up."
A King and No King is another play in which Beau
.nont and Fletcher's characteristic faults and beauties
lire displayed. Arbaces is well delineated, and so is
Bessus, — both braggarts in different stations. Hallam
and Hazlitt concur in admiring this drama. Thierry
and Theodoret contains two female characters, Brunhalt
and Ordella, representing the two phases under which
Fletcher commonly delineated women. The latter, Lamb
pronounces, we think incorrectly, to be " tlie most jierfect
idea of the female heroic character, next to Calanfha, in
OLD ENGLISH DRABIATISTS. 65
The Broken Heart, of Ford, that has been embodied in
fiction." The former is a monstrosity, compounded of
fiend and beast. Valentinian is one of the best tragedies
in the collection, though the plot is absurdly managed.
There are three songs in it of peculiar merit, one relating
to love, another to wine, and a third, full of solemn
beauty, addressed to sleep, which we extract. Valen-
tinian is brought in sick, in a chair, and the song is intro-
duced as an expression of the deep and silent love of
Eudoxia, the empress, who leans over him.
" Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, —
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince: fall like a cloud
In gentle showers ; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers ; — easy, sweet,
And as a purling stream, thou son of night,
Pass by his troubled senses : — sing his pain,
Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain :
Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide,
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride ! "
The scene which succeeds this reminds us of the last
in King John. The ravings of the poisoned emperor,
however, though clothed in a drapery of similar imagery,
have not the intense grandeur of the death- scene of
Shakspeare's monarch.
Fletcher's comedies are light, airy, fluttering, viva
cious, full of diverting situations, and often sparkling
with fancy and wit ; but still superficial and farcical, com-
pared with Shakspeare's and Jonson's. They have none
of that intensity of humor, little of that s\:.bstantial life,
which we demand in English comedy. The gentleman,
as understood by Fletcher, is of a different type from
that indicated by old Decker. Beaumont and Fletcher
according to Dryden, understood and imitated much bet
VOL. II. 5
ft5 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
ter than Shakspeare " the conversation of gentlemcTL
whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repar
tees, no poet can ever paint as they have done." We
trust that they never will be equalled in this department
of character. Their " studiously protracted " indecency,
and their command of all the gibberish and slang of lust
and vulgarity, make their comedies curious libels on the
t'.ste and morals of their audiences. Fletcher could not
escape from the foul imp that had taken possession of
his imagination, even in The Faithful Shepherdess,
which, with all its poetic beauty and pastoral sweetness,
is still so defiled in parts as to merit Schlegel's ironical
comment, of its being an immodest defence of modesty.
The tone and pitch of Fletcher's mind, as compared with
Milton's, may be seen in the contrast between The
Faithful Shepherdess and Comus. Milton is indebted
to Fletcher for the suggestion of his subject, but this
debt is paid a thousand-fold in the treatment of it.
Of Massinger and Ford we have space to say but
little. Hazlitt remarks, that " Massinger is harsh and
crabbed, Ford, finical and fastidious; " and that he can-
not find much in their works, but " a display of great
strength or subtlety of understanding, inveteracy of pur-
pose, and perversity of will." Hunt accuses them of
beginning that corruption of the dramatic style into
prose, " which came to its head in Shirley." Hallam,
on the contrary, ranks Massinger as a tragic writer sec-
ond only to Shakspeare ; but Hallam is often strangely
infelicitous in his judgments on the old poets. The
truth seems to be, that Massinger's spirit was unimpas-
sioned, compared with his great contemporaries ; his
imagination was not pervaded by that fiery essence which
gives to their style its figurative condensation, its abrup
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS 67
lurns, and its quick, startling flights. His mind was
more gentle, equable, and reflective. There is a majestic
sadness in Massinger, — an indication tif great energies
preyed upon and weakened by inward sorrow, — a stifled
anguish of spirit, — which seem to point to unfortunate
circumstances in his life. There is every reason to
believe that he was a disappointed man, though little
of his biography is known. He was born in 1584. His
father was a gentleman in the service of the Earl of
Pembroke. At the age of eighteen he was sent to
Oxford, and after residing there four years, left without
taking a degree, and went to London, where he gained
a precarious subsistence as a dramatic writer. Anthony
Wood says, that while at Oxford he " gave his mind
more to poetry and romance, for about four years or
more, than to logic and philosophy, which he ought to
have done, being patronized to that end." This shows
that he offended a patron. Massinger's spirit was inde-
pendent, though not fiery, and probably would not brook
any exercise of power which controlled his disposition.
There runs through his plays an almost republican
hatred of arbitrary rule. As a man, Massinger seems to
have been much esteemed for his virtues. The panegyi
ists of his plays address to him terms almost of endear
ment ; he is their " beloved," " dear," " deserving,"
" long known," and " long loved friend." As a dram-
atist, however, though his plays appear to have been suc-
cessful, and written at the rate of two or three a year, he
never raised himself above the poor gentleman. Rey-
nolds and Morton, at the close of the last century, gen-
erally obtained five hundred pounds for their five act
farces and sentimental dramas , Massinger, in his day,
could not hope to average more than fifteen for his com ■
68 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
edies and tragedies. He is known to have written, in
all, thirty-seven plays, of which sixteen and the fragment
of another are extant. Eleven of them, in manuscript,
were in the possession of a Mr. Warburton, whose cook
found them very serviceable as waste paper, in the pros-
ecution of culinary operations.
Massinger died on the 17th of March, 1640, at the
age of fifty-six. According to Langbaine, he went to
bed in good health, and was found dead in the morning.
He was buried in the church-yard of St. Saviour's. No
stone marks the place of his interment ; and " the only
memorial of his mortality," says GifTord, " is given with
a pathetic brevity, which accords but too well with the
obscure and humble passages of his life : ' March 20,
1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger.^ "
Massinger did not \viute so closely to the heart of
things as some of his contemporaries. His sweet and
serious mind was better fitted for description and con-
templation than for representation. Possessing neither
wit nor humor in any eminent degree, he had not that
quick,, joyous sympathy with external things, which sent
the souls of many of his brethren running genially out
to animate other forms of being. His characters are
framed rather in the region of the understanding and
the moral sentiments, than conceived by the imagina-
tion ; and though often morally beautiful, have not the
free, flowing, substantial life, which we require in dra
matic representation. The resistance of virtue to all
temptations is his favorite theme ; but the temptations
are often contrived out of the natural course of things,
and exist rather as possibilities to the intellect than
realities to the imagination. Had he possessed a little
more of spontaneous creative energy, he would h'lve
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 69
been a great dramatist. Pis reflective habi\ of mind
tended at once to restrain his passionateness within the
bounds of a preconceived order, and to dim that keen
vision by which the poet penetrates into the inmost
recesses of the soul, and lays open the finest veins of
thought and sentiment. Still, Massinger is one of the
most original of the old dramatists, and his plays, though
they do not reach the heights nor strike the depths of
some others, are sustained throughout with more skill
and level power. His style has been long celebrated
for its sweetness and majesty of march, and its free-
dom from " violent metaphors and harsh constructions."
" He is read," says Lamb, " with composure and placid
delight." His plays exhibit a more pervading religious
feeling than those of his contemporaries ; and, strange to
add, a coarseness of expression, in some parts, more
vulgar and disgusting than the same quality in others,
because utterly wanting in wit and fancy. His inde-
cencies seem coldly and atrociously contrived in the
understanding, without the concurrence of his other
powers, and only introduced in obedience to "the spirit
of the age." They are most essentially of the mud,
muddy. They affect us like lewdness muttered from
the lips of age ; and his jests must be considered, on the
whole, more tragical than his pathos. We never gaze
on his fine serious face, as it looks out so mournfully
from the canvas, without feeling how sad and degrad-
ing, how replete with that self-contempt " bitterer to
^rink than blood," must have been to him the task of
coining vile indecencies, and bespattering his creations
with the phraseology o^ tne fish-market. It is due to
Massinger to say, that his coarseness is introduced,
vather than woven, into his drama, and that the string
70
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
which binds the seraph to the corpse can be easily
severed.
Massinger's most powerful male characters are Sforza,
in The Duke of Milan, Sir Giles Overreach, in the
New Way to pay Old Debts, and Luke, in The City
Madam. The second of these still keeps the stage, an J
the third sometimes appears in a modern version, called
Riches. Luke is a fine villain, forcibly conceived and
strongly sustained.
John Ford, a scholar and gentleman, occupies a prom-
inent place in English dramatic literature, as a poet of
pathos and sentiment. His most splendid successes are
in the handling of subjects which are, in themselves,
unwritten tragedies, — the deepest distresses of the heart
and the terrible aberrations of the passions. His works
make a sad, deep, and abiding impression on the mind,
though hardly one that is pleasing or healthy. He had
little of that stalwart strength of mind, and heedless
daring, which characterize the earlier dramatists. Like
Massinger, he is deficient in wit and humor, and like
Massino-er resorts to dull indecencies as substitutes. His
sentiment is soft, rich, and sensuous, informed by a
mild, melancholy heroism, often inexpressibly touching,
and expressed in a fine, fluent diction, which melts into
the mind like music. The celebrated contention of a
bird and a musician, described in The Lover's Melan-
choly, is a specimen of his grace and sweetness of
mind. In Lamb's opinion, it almost equals the strife it
celebrates.
Lamb, in a note to the last scene of The Broken
Heart, ranks Ford in the first order of poets. "He
sought for sublimity," he says, " not by parcels, in met-
aphors an>l visible images, but directly, where sho has
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 71
her full residence in the heart of man ; in the actions
and sufferings of the greatest minds." We do not think
this is the impression that his works make as a whole ;
it is true only of the high-wrought grandeur of detached
scenes. Ford, in manners and character, seems to have
been, like Jacques, melancholy and gentleman-like.
Little is known regarding his life. He is supposed to
have been a lawyer, and seems to have had a dislike to
the reputation of a dramatist, in so far as it confounded
him with those who were authors by profession ; for, as
Dr. Farmer says in reference to Shakspeare, with ex-
quisite meanness of expression, " play-writing, in this
poet's time, was hardly considered a creditable employ."
Ford probably had something of the vanity which Con-
greve manifested to Voltaire, in desiring to be considered
rather as a gentleman than as a dramatist. There was
much of the " nice man " in his disposition. He evi-
dently belonged not to the school of " irregular" genius,
so far as regarded worldly reputation ; and we can
imagine what disdain would have shot from the burning
eves of Marlowe, had that sublime vagabond lived to see
a dramatist studious of conventional decorum, and fas-
tidious in small things. A contemporary satire. The
Lines, quoted by Gifford, has a thrust at Ford, which
illustrates as well as caricatures his peculiarity : —
" Deep in a dump, John Ford by himself gat,
With folded arms and melancholy hat."
He wrote sixteen plays, four of which, in manuscript,
shared, with eleven of Massinger's, the distinguished
honor of being consumed by Mr. Warburton's remorse-
less cook, for waste-paper. He seems to have retired to
the country or the grave, it is uncertain which, shortly
72 ESSA'Vs AiND REVIEWS.
before the breaking out of the civil wars. The date of
his last published play, The Lady's Trial, is 1639.
In this hurried survey of some of the Old English
Dramatists, we have not been able to do more thar,
faintly indicate their genius and individual peculiarities.
It would be impossible in our limited space to do full
justice to the merits of each. Indeed, though separated
by individual differences, and influenced by the changes
which came over the spirit of their age, they have all ?i
general resemblance. Fletcher and Ford, perhaps, best
indicate the gradual relaxation of the old sturdy strength,
— that passage of comedy from humorous character into
diverting incident, of tragedy from the sterner into the
softer passions, — that gradual weakening of poetic dic-
tion by too strong an infusion of sweetness, — which
distinguish an age slowly sinking from the region of
heroic ideas into those merely romantic. But still, all
these writers have, more or less, that depth, daring,
vitality, comprehension, objectiveness, — that quick ob-
servation of external life and nature, and that ready
interpretation of both by inward light, — that variea
power and melody of versification, at times so soft and
lingering, bending beneath its rich freight of delicious
fancies, at others so fierce and headlong, glowing in
every part with the fire of passion, — that wide sway
over the heart's deepest and most delicate emotions, —
and that thoroughly English cast of nature, — whicli
associate them all in the mind, as belonging to one era
of literature, and partaking of the general charactei
stamped upon it. It would be impossible to point out a
class of authors, who have appeared in any of the Augus-
tan ages of letters, more essentially brave and strong,—
any who have spoken the language of thought and pas
OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. 73
sion more directly from the heart and brain, — any who
more despised obtaining fame and producing effects by
elaborate refinements -nd petty brilliancies, — any who
h&ve stouter muscle ana bone. Whenever English liter-
ature has been timid and creeping, whenever the natural
expression of emotion has been debased by a feeble or
feverish " poetic diction," it has been to the old drama-
tists that men have recurred for exa^'nples of a more
courageous spirit and a nobler style
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY.
That this is a great world is a maxim forced upon
the attention, by the moral aspect of every-day events.
It is especially apparent, when we consider the room it
affords for the operations of knaves. The great brother-
hood of rogues, who live by cheating and corrupting the
species, now occupy some of the most important posts in
society, science, and letters, and, as missionaries of the
devil, are threading every avenue to the heart and brain
of the community. Sin, every day, takes out a patent
for some new invention. One of its latest and most
influential is the Romance of Eascality, To a man
who knows what it is to have his pocket picked, or a
Icnife insinuated into his ribs, there may appear little
that is romantic in the operation ; but to a large and
increasing portion of society it is otherwise. Thieves
and cut-throats have come to be considered the most
important and interesting of men, and virtuous medi-
ocrity to be valuable only as affording them subjects for
experiment. There is a certain piquant shamelessness
a peculiarly ingenious dishonesty, in some of the forms
of literary chicane, which nothing can equal in impu-
dence ; for it is practically assumed that the final cause
of human society is the provision of a brilliant theatre
for the exploits of its outcasts.
At one time, it was considered settled that the domain
pf ideality was closed to vulgar criminals, and tha
ROMANCE OF RASCALITY. 75
footpads and windpipe-slitters had no pretenbions to th«
honors of romance. For persons to act as heroes of
stirring adventures and lovers of beautiful women, maudlin
miseries, the tender heart of angelic woman wu. pity and
purchase his misfortunes. All the " little feeblenesses "
generated in the atmosphere of " conventionalism's air-
tight stove," which make his mind the seat of more
infirmities than the pharmacopoeia dreams of, he expects
90 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
will find an answering response in a isex which has
always enough old women of its own.
The poets who thus snivel in rhyme generally labor
under the hallucination that their mawkish foolery finds
sympathizing hearers. Bound up and circumscribed by
their own petty world of consciousness, and brooding
over their own little sorrows and cares, they are incapa-
ble of giving any free and fresh expression to natural
thought and emotion. They hug the phantom of their
conceit close to their breasts, and deem it of universal
interest and love. Everything which occurs to them-
selves, from a pain in the heart to a pain in the head,
they deem worthy of commemoration in metre. Their
idiosyncrasies, follies, maladies, moonshine, and misery,
are never satisfied until they have been tortured into
rhyme. The public take interest in the psychological
history of great poets, because those poets have earned
their title to such distinction by works of great genius,
in which all can sympathize. Shakspeare's sonnets are
invaluable, because we desire to know everything which
can be learned of the author of Hamlet and Macbeth.
But the class of metrical snivellers would reverse this,
and have the world's curiosity excited for the mental
diseases of complaining mediocrity. All the "decent
drapery " that decorum casts over those private medita-
tions which every healthy intellect dislikes to divulge,
they throw ofT with the utmost carelessness, and glory
in an indelicate exposure of mind. Every little event of
their mental or bodily life they deem worthy of being
celebrated in a poem. If a thought happens accidentally
to stray into their craniums, they rush instantly into
rhyme. A sonnet to them is a soothing-syrup, and
Ivrics flow from their lamentations. They would tura
THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY AND LrrERATURE. 91
their whine into a warble. They mistake their mentsu
diseases for general laws. They would re-construct life
after the image of their own sick imaginations, and
make a nation of snivellers. An inelegant imbecility,
like the mingling of moonbeams with fog, drearily illum-
ines the intense inane of their rhetoric.
When we consider the importance of energy and hope
in the affairs of the world, and contemplate the enfee-
bling if not immoral result of indulging in a dainty and
debilitating egotism, we cannot bat look upon the snivel-
lers of social life as great evils. Even when the habit
of selfish lamentation is accompanied by talent, it should
be treated with contempt and scorn. There are so many
inducements in our time to pamper it, that there is no
danger that the opposition will be too severe. Whither-
soever we go, we meet with the sniveller. He stops us
at the corner of the street to intrust us with his opinion
on the probability that the last measure of Congress will
dissolve the Union. He fears, also, that the morals and
intelligence of the people are destroyed by the election
of some rogue to office. He tells us, just before church,
that the last sermon of some transcendental preacher
has given the death-blow to religion, and that the waves
of atheism and the clouds of pantheism are to deluge
and darken all the land. Next he informs us of the
starvation of some poor hack, engaged as assistant e^i^'tor
to a country journal, and infers from it that, in the
United States, literature cannot flourish. In a time of
general health, he speaks of *he pestilence that is to be.
The mail cannot be an hour late but he prattles of rail-
road accidents and steamboat disasters. He fears that
his friend who was married yesterday will be a bank-
rupt in a year, and whimpers over the trials which he
92 ESSAYS AJSTD REVIEWS.
will then endure. He is ridden with an eternal night*
mare, and emits an eternal wail.
Recklessness is a bad quality, and so is blind and
extravagant hope ; but neither is so degrading as inglori-
ous and inactive despair. We object to the sniveller,
because he presents the anomaly of a being who has the
power of motion without possessing life. His insipid
languor is worse than tumid strength. Better that a
man should rant than whine. The person who has no
bounding and buoyant feelings in him, whose cheek never
flushes at anticipated good, whose blood never tingles and
fires at the contemplation of a noble aim, who has no
aspiration and no great object in life, is only fit for the
hospital or the band-box. Enterprise, confidence, a dis-
■ position to believe that good can be done, an indisposition
to believe that all good has been done — these constitute
important elements in the character of every man who is
of use to the world. We want no wailing and whimper-
ing about the absence of happiness, but a sturdy deter-
mination to abate misery. The world should have too
much work on its hands to lend its ear to the plaints of
its individual members. The laborers should have no
mercy for the do-nothings. The man of serious purpose
has no time to be miserable. Into the very blood and
brain of our youth there should be infused energy and
power. The literature of the country should breathe the
bracing air of a healthy inspiration, not the hot atmos-
phere of a spurious spiritualism and silly sentimentality.
Instead of brooding over his own diseased consciousness,
and aggravating the malady which enfeebles his mind,
the jaded hlast should cure his unhappiness by minister-
ing to the comfort of others. And we would say to the
Door sniveller, whether he dawdles in a drawing-room o
THE CROAKERS OF SOCIETY AND LITERATURE. 93
tottles in a tavern, in the words of the sagacious Herr
Teufelsdrockh, — " Produce ! produce ! were it but the
pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it
in God's name ! 'T is the utmost thou hast in thee ;
out with it, then. Up, up ! whatsoever thy hand findeth
to do, do it with thy whole might. Work, while it is
called to-day, for the night cometh wherein no man can
work."
BRITISH CRITICS.*
The British revieAVS and reviewers of the early pan
of the present century are closely connected with the
history of English literature, not only on account of th*".
influence they exerted on public opinion, but for the
valuable contributions which a few of them made to
literature itself. Some of the most masterly disquisi-
tions in the whole range of English letters have appeared
in the three leading periodicals of the time, — the
Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly Review, and Black-
wood's Magazine. Almost all systems of philosophy,
theology, politics and criticism, have been vehemently
discussed in their pages. They have been the organs
through which many of the subtlest and strongest intel-
lects have communicated with their age. In classifying
historical events under ideas and principles, in tracing
out the laws which give pertinence to seemingly confused
facts, in presenting intellectual and historical epochs in
vivid pictures, they have been especially successful. But
* 1. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. By Francis Jeffrey, now on
of the Judges of the Court of Sessions in Scotland. London : Longman & Co
i vols. Svo.
2. Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading: Characters of Shak
speare. By William Hazlitt. New York. 16mo.
3. Imagination and Fancy. By Leigh Hunt. New Ifom; Wiley it
Putnam. 16mo. — North American Review, October, 1S45.
BRITISH CRITICS.
95
although containing papers of the gi-eatest merit, their
general tone has been too much that of the partisan.
Being political as well as literary journals, their judg-
ments of authors have often been determined by consid-
p.rations independent of literary merit. In criticism, they
havp repeatedly violated the plainest principles of taste,
morality, and benevolence. Their dictatorial " we " haa
been assumed by some of the most unprincipled hacl«
that ever lifted their hoofs against genius and virtue.
Though they did good in assisting to purge literature of
much mediocrity and stupidity, it is questionable whether
their criticism on contemporaries was not, on the whole,
productive of evil. The rage for strong writing, which
the success of their example brought into fashion, at one
time threatened to destroy all discriminating criticism.
An article was more effective by being spiced with sar-
casm and personalities, and the supply was equal to the
demand. The greatest poets of the day found themselves
at the mercy of anonymous writers, whose arrogance was
generally equalled only by their malice or ignorance, and
by whom a brilliant libel was considered superior to the
fairest critique.
It is impossible to look over the current criticism of
that day, and observe the meanness and injustice which
so often characterize it, without a movement of indigna*
tion. This is mingled with surprise, when we discover
in it traces of the hand of some distinguished man of
talent, who has lent himself to do the dirty work of fac-
tion or prejudice. The great poets of the period were
compelled to suffer, not merely from attacks on their
writings, but from all that malice could bring against
their personal character, and all that party hostility could
bring- ajr.iinst their notions of o-overnment. It was unfor-
96 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
tunate, that the same century in which an important
revolution occurred in the spirit and character of poetry,
was likewise that in which political rancor raged and
foamed almost to madness. The exasperated passions
groAving out of the political dissensions of the time, which
continually brought opposite opinions in a rude shock
against each other, and turned almost every impressible
spirit into a heated partisan, gave a peculiar character of
vindictiveness to literary judgments. The critics, being
politicians, were prone to decide upon the excellence of
a poet's images, or a rhetorician's style, by the opinion he
entertained of Mr. Pitt and the French Revolution. The
same journal which could see nothing but blasphemy and
licentiousness in the poetry of Shelley, could find matter
for inexpressible delight in the poetry of John Wilson
Croker. Criticism, in many instances, was the mere
vehicle of malignity and impudence. Whigs libelled
tory writers, tories anathematized whigs. Eminence
in letters was to be obtained only by men gifted with
strong powers of endurance or resistance. The moment
a person became prominent in the public eye, he was
considered a proper object of public contempt or derision.
As soon as his head appeared above the mass, he was
certain that some journal would deem him worthy of
being made the butt of merciless satire or scandalous
personalities. Every party and clique had its organ of
" public " opinion ; and, in disseminating its peculiar
prejudices or notions, exhibited a plentiful lack of justice
and decorum. The coarseness and brutality which party
spirit thus engendered brought down the moral qualifica-
tions of the critic to a low standard. Every literary
bully, who was expert in the trade of intellectual assassi
nation, could easily find employment both for his cow
BRITISH CRITICS. 97
ardice and his cruelty. The public looked admiringly
on, month after month, as these redoubtable torturers in
the inquisition of letters stretched some bard on the rack,
and insulted his agonies with their impish glee. If the
author denied, in meek or indignant tones, the justice of
the punishment, the repl}' which they sometimes conde-
scended to make was in the spirit of the taunt with which
the judges in "The Cenci" mocked the faltering false-
hoods of their tortured victim : —
" Dare you, wiih lips yet white from tlie rack's kiss,
Speak false ? Is it so soft a questioner,
That you can bandy lovers' talk with it,
Till it wind out your life and soul ? "
From this insolence and vindictiveness few British
periodicals have been free, though there are wide differ-
ences in the ability and learning of the contributors, and
in the artistical form which their bad qualities have
taken. No eminent man, of any party, has escaped
criticism of the kind we have noticed, — criticism hav-
ing its origin in the desire to pamper a depraved taste,
in envy, and hatred, and political bigotry, — a criticism
which considered the publication of a book merely as an
occasion to slander its author. Insignificance was the
only shield from defaination.
But perhaps the authors of the time suffered less
vexation from those critical structures directly traceable
to malevolence and political fanaticism, than from those
which were dictated from a lack of sympathy with the
spirit of their works. There can hardly be a more
exquisite torture devised for a sensitive man of genius,
than to have the merit of his compositions tested by
canons of taste which he expresslj'' repudiates, and dog-
VOL. II. 7
98 ESSAYS AJVD REVIEWS.
matically judged by one who cannot co: nprehend the
qualities which constitute their originality and peculiar
excellence. If the critic has the larger audience of the
two, and his decisions are echoed as oracular by the mob
of readers, the thing becomes doubly provoking. The
personal feelings of the poet are outraged, and his writ-
ings are, for the time, prevented from exerting that
influence which legitimately belongs to them. As an
earnest man, conceiving that he has a message of some
import to deliver to the world, he must consider his critic
as doing injury to society, as well as to himself. This
impression is apt to engender a morbid egotism, which
makes him impatient even of just censure, and to render
the gulf between him and the public wider and more
impassable. Much of the narrowness and captiousness,
which we observe in ludicrous connection with some of
the noblest thoughts and most exalted imaginations of
the poets of the present century, had their source in the
stings which vindictive or flippant reviewers had planted
in their minds. Thus unjust or ignorant criticism sub-
verts the purpose it proposes to accomplish, arid makes
the author suspicious of its capacity to detect faults,
where it is so plainly incompetent to apprehend beauties.
Besides, though it seems to annihilate its object, its
effect is but transitory. That silent gathering of thought
and sentiment in the minds of large bodies of people,
which, when it has assumed distinct shape, we call pub-
lic opinion, reverses the dicta of self-constituted literary
tribunals; indeed, it changes the tone of the tribunals
themselves. In 1816, the Edinburgh Review assumes
an attitude of petulant dictatorship to Wordsworth,
and begins a critique on "The Excursion" with, —
"This will never do ;" in 1831, it prefaces an objection
iSKITISH CRITICS. 9U
kO one characteristic trait of iiis descriptions of nature
with the words, — " In spite of the reverence we feel for
the genius of Mr. Wordsworth ! "
Among the essayists and reviewers of the time, Francis
Jeffrey occupies a prominent position. • He was one of
the projectors of the Edinburgh Review, — the earliest,
ablest, and most influential of the periodicals of the nine-
teenth century, — and from 1S03 to 1829 its editor. A
selection from his contributions, occupying four octavo
volumes, has been lately published under his own super-
intendence. These evince a mind of versatile talents
and acquirements, confident in its own capacity, and
delivering unhesitating judgments on all matters relating
to politics, literature and life, without the slightest self-
distrust. It would be useless to deny that mai.y of the
opinions in these volumes are unsound and presumptu-
ous, that they are far in the rear of the critical judg-
ments of the present day, and that some of their most
dogmatic decisions have been reversed in the journal
where they originally appeared, — some by himself, but
more by Macaulay, Carlyle, Hazlitt, and others. The
influence of ver}' few of his articles has been permanent.
Written for the most part to serve a transitory purpose,
and deficient in fixed and central principles, their influ-
ence has ceased with the controversies they excited.
With a few exceptions, they will be read rather for the
merits of their style and the peculiar individuality they
embody, than for any additions they have made to
thought or knowledge. When we consider that their
author assumed to show the poets and thinkers of f.
whole generation how to write and to think, and that he
has not left behind him a single critical principle con-
100 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
nected with his name, his pretensions are placed in a
disadvantageous contrast with his powers.
A prominent defect of Jeffrey's literary criticism arose
from liis lack of earnestness, — that earnestness which
comes, not merely from the assent of the understanding
to a proposition, but from the deep convictions of a man's
whole nature. He is consequently ingenious and plausi-
ble, rather than proicund, — a man of expedients, rather
than of ideas and principles. In too many of his articles,
he appears like an advocate, careless of the truth, or
sceptical as to its existence or possibility of being reached,
and only desirous to make out as good a case for his own
assumed position as will puzzle or unsettle the under-
standings of his hearers. His logical capacity is shown
in acute special pleading, in sophistical glosses, more
than in fair argument. He is almost always a reasoner
on the surface ; and the moment he begins to argue, the
reader instinctively puts his understanding on guard,
with the expectation of the ingenious fallacies that are
to come. He cannot handle universal principles, founded
in the nature of things, and he would not, if he could ;
for his object is victory rather than truth. When a
proposition is presented to his mind, his inquiry is not
whether it be true or false, but what can be said in its
favor or against it. Tl e sceptical and refining character
of his understanding, leading him to look at things
merely as subjects for argument, and the mockerj'' and
persiflage of manner which such a habit of mind induces,
made him a most provoking adversary to a man who
viewed things in a more profound and earnest manner.
As an effect of this absence of earnestness, and of the
■ sonsequent devotion of his faculties to the mere attain
ment of immediate objects, we may mention this subor
BillTISH CRITICS. 101
Jmatinn of principle to tact, both in his own writings
and ill his management of the Eeview. There is no
critic more slippery, none who can shift his position so
nimbly, or who avoids the consequences of a blunder
with such brilliant dexterity. He understood to perfec-
tion the art of so mingling praise and blame, that, while
the spirit and effect of the critique was to represent its
object as little better than a dunce, its mere letter was
consistent with a more favorable view. Thus, while it
was the fashion to underrate and ridicule any class of
poets, there was none who could do it with more con-
summate skill than Jeffrey, — none who could gain
more reputation for sense and acumen in the position he
assumed; but whenever public feeling changed, he could
still refer confidently to his course, and prove that he had
always acknowledged the extraordinary gifts of his vic-
tims, and only ridiculed or mourned their misdirection.
He thus made his writings oracular amonof all talkera
about taste and letters, among all who felt and thoughl
superficially. He was popular with them, not because
he gave them deeper principles by which to judge of
merit, but because he reconciled them to their own shal.
lowness. The lazy and the superficial, who considei
everything as nonsense which they have not the sense to
perceive, are especially gratified with the writer who
confirms their own impressions by plausible arguments,
and expresses them in brilliant language. Profound and
earnest feeling, sentiments of awe, wonder, and rever-
ence, a mind trained to habits of contemplation on man
and the universe, were needed in the critic who should
do justice to Wordsworth and Coleridge. These Jeffrey
did not possess ; but instead, he had a subtle under-
standing, considerable quickness of apprehension, sen
102 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
sibility, and fancy, a great deal of wit, a most remark-
able fluency of expression, and, with little insight beyond
the surface of things, an acute perception of their prac-
tical and conventional relations. In the exercise of these
powers on their appropriate subjects, he appears to great
advantage. No one could demolish a dunce more effect-
ively, or represent in clearer light the follies and crimes
of knavish politicians. But when he came to discuss
the merits of works of high and refined imagination, or
to criticize sentiments lying deeper than those which
usually appear in actual life, he did little more than
express brilliant absurdities. It is here that we discover
his lack of power to perceive the thing he ridicules ; and
accordingly his wit only beats the air.
In saying this, we are by no means insensible to the
charm of Jeffrey's wit, nor to the facile grace of his dic-
tion. The reviews of Wordsworth's different works are
masterpieces of impertinence. The airiness and vivacity
of expression, the easy arrogance of manner, the cool and
provoking dogmatism, the insulting tone of fairness, the
admirable adaptation of the sarcasm to tease and irritate
its object, the subordination of the praise of particular
passages to the sweeping condemnation passed on the
whole poem, and the singular skill with which the lof-
tiest imaginations are represented as commonplace or
nonsensical, are good examples of Jeffrey's acuteness and
wit. Of "The Excursion" he remarks : — -"It is longer,
veaker, and tamer, than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other
productions ; with less boldness of originality, and less
even of that extreme simplicity and lowlinefs of tone
which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads
between silliness and pathos. We have imitations of
Cowper, and even of Milton, here, engrafted on the
BRITISH CRITICS. 103
natural drawl of the Lakers, — and all diluted into har-
mony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness which
deluges all the blank verse of this school of poetry, and
lubricates and weakens the whole structure of their
style."
Then the critic informs us, that, if he were to describe
the volume very shortly, he should characterize it " as a
tissue of moral and devotional ravings, in which innu-
merable changes are rung upon a very few simple and
familiar ideas ; but with such an accompaniment of long
words, long sentences and unwieldy phrases, and such
a hubbub of strained raptures and fantastic sublimities,
that it is often difficult for the most skilful and attentive
student to obtain a glimpse of the author's meaning — and
altogether impossible for an ordinary reader to conjecture
what he is about The fact accordingly is,
that in this production he is more obscure than a Pinda-
ric poet of the seventeenth century ; and more verbose
' than even himself of yore ; ' while the wilfulness with
which he persists in choosing his examples of intellectual
dignity and tenderness exclusively from the lowest ranks
of society, will be sufficiently apparent from the circum-
stance of his having thought fit to make his chief prolo-
cutor in this poetical dialogue, the chief advocate of
Providence and Virtue, an old Scotch pedler — retired
indeed from business, but still rambling about in his
former haunts, ana gossiping among his old customers,
without his pack on his shoulders. The other persons
of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, wlio has
grown half an atheist and half a misanthrope — the wife
of an unprosperous weaver — a servant-girl with her nat
ural child — a parish pauper, and one or two other per
nonages of equal rank and dignity,"
104 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
After condemning some of the most splendid and
some feeble passages in the poem, and extracting a few
which are thought really beautiful or pathetic, this hon-
est critic concludes thus : —
" The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glar-
ing ; but it is exactly of the same nature with that which infects
the whole substance of the work — a puerile ambition of singu-
larity engrafted on an unlucky predilection for truisms ; and an
aifecled passion for simplicity and humble life, most awkwardly
combined with a taste for mystical refinements, and all the
gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste for simplicity
is evinced by sprinkling up and down his interminable declama-
tions a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with
wet brims ; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assur-
ing us that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and
allegorizes all the heathen mythology, was once a pedler — and
making him break in upon his magnificent orations with two
or three awkward notices of something that he had seen when
selhng winter raiment about the country — or of the changes in
the state of society, which had almost annihilated his former
calling."
In the review of " The White Doe of Rylstone," Jeffrey
is even more emphatic in his censures. He had given
up Wordsworth, on the appearance of " The Excursion,"
as beyond the reach of his teachings; and accordingly, in
this article, he merely libels and parodies the poem.
We are told that, " In the Lyrical Ballads, he was exhib-
ited, on the whole, in a vein of very pretty deliration ;
but in the poem before us he appears in a state of low
and maudlin imbecility, which would not have mis-
become Master Silence himself, in the close of a socia'
day The seventh and last canto con
tains the history of the desolated Emily and her faithfu
doe ; but so very discreetly and cautiously written, tha
BRITISH CRITICS. 105
ive will snjraofe that the most tender-hearted reader shall
peruse -t without the least risk of any excessive emotion.
The poor lady runs about indeed for some years in a
very disconsolate way, in a worsted gown and flannel
night-cap : but at last the old white doe finds her out,
and takes again to following her — Avhereupon Mr.
Wordsworth breaks out into this fine and natural jup-
ture," &c., &c.
The importance which should attach to criticism like
this may be estimated by a short contrast of the char-
acter and pursuits of the poet and critic : Wordsworth,
living amid the most magnificent scenery, impressed
with a mysterious sense of the spiritualities of things,
pure, high-minded, imaginative, contemplative, earnest ;
— Jeffrey, passing his life in the bustle of politics and
courts of law, brisk, vivacious, plausible, sarcastic, prac-
tical, available. Was ever poet matched with critic so
well calculated to discern excellences, so capable of cor-
recting faults ?
In his articles on the poetry of Crabbe, Campbell,
Byron, Scott, Moore, Keats, Rogers, and Mrs. Hemans,
although we think he has not always perceived their
highest merits, or accurately estimated their relative
position, Jeffrey still appears to considerable advantage.
The happy facility of his expression, the neatness and
precision of his thinking, his occasional glow of feeling
and fancy, and his sly, stinging wit, make them very
fascinating compositions. But we see nothing in them
that indicates the highest taste, — nothing that gives
evidence of profound feeling or thought. They are kept
studiously vvithin the tone of "good society." Though
vigorous and brilliant, they rather sparkle than burn,
and have little of the living energy of earnest feeling.
i06 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS,
Though Jeffrey evidently felt contempt for the taste of
Wordsworth and Coleridge, none of his articles on poetry
can be compared, in point of true insight into critical
principles, with their prefaces and essays on ti:c same
theme. But these articles still have a charm, apari from
their critical value ; and we have no doubt tha'" they will
loniT be read for their shrewdness and point, -.nd their
peculiar sweetness and grace of diction. The practical
remarks are always acute, and evince uncommon power
of distinct expression. The review of Moore's " Lalla
Rookh " — a work just calculated to display his qualities
of mind and manner in their best light — is full of fancy
and observation, conveyed in a style of exuberant rich-
ness. There is one sentence which well illustrates the
affluence and ease of expression which he had so readily
at command. " There are passages," he says, " and
those neither few nor brief, over which the very Genius
of Poetry seems to have breathed his richest enchant-
ment, — where the melody of the verse and the beauty
of the images conspire so harmoniously with the force
and tenderness of the emotion, that the whole is blended
into one deep and bright stream of sweetness and feel-
ing, along which the spirit of the reader is borne pas-
sively away, through long reaches of delight ."
The passage on Shakspeare, in the review of Hazlitt,
is another instance of his sweetness and luxuriance of
diction. Though it is well known, we cannot resist the
inclination to quote it.
" In the exposition of these is room enough for originality, —
and more room than Mr. Hazlitt has yet filled. In many points,
however, he has acquitted himself excellently; — partly in th«
development of the principal chara",ters with which Shakspear
has peopled the fancies of all English readers — but principally
BRITISH CRITICS. 107
A'e think, in the delicate sensibility with which he has traced,
md the natural eloquence with which he has pointed out, that
amiliarity with beautiful forms and images — that eternal re
uirrence to what is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of
nature — that indestructible love of flowers and odors, and dews
and clear waters, and soft airs and sounds, and bright sides, and
woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, which are the mate-
rial elements of poetry — and that fine sense of their undefinable
relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying
soul, and which it the midst of Shakspeare's most busy anc.
atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and
ruins, contrasting with all that is rugged and repulsive, and
reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements,
which he alone has poured out from the richness of his own
mind, without effort or restraint, and contrived to intermingle
with the play of all the passions and the vulgar course of this
world's aflairs, without deserting for an instant the proper busi-
ness of the scene, or appearing to pause or digress from love of
ornament or need of repose ; — he alone, who, when the object
requires it, is always keen, and worldly, and practical — and
who 3''et, without changing his hand, or stopping his course,
scatters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweet-
ness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and
freshness, and peoples them with spirits of glorious aspect and
attractive grace — and is a thousand times more full of fancy,
and imagery, and splendor, than those M'ho, for the sake of such
qualities, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or
passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares.
More full of wisdom, and ridicule, and sagacity, than all the
moralists and satirists in existence, — he is more wild, airy, and
inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poet.^
3f i'L. regions and ages of the world — and has all those ele-
ments so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties
so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of
him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensitii'c
for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything in him is
in unmeasured abundance, and ui.equalled perfection — but
evejything so balanced and kept in subordination, as not to
lOS ESSAVS AND REVIEWS.
|ostle, or disturb, or take the place of another. The most exquJ
site poetical conceptions, images and descriptions, are given
with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to
adorn, without loading, the sense they accompany. Although
his sails are purple and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold,
they waft him on his voyage, not less but more rapidly and
directly than if they had been composed of baser materials.
All his excellences, like those of Nature herself, are thrown
out together ; and instead of interfering with, support a id
recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands,
nor his fruits crushed into baskets — but spring living from the
soil, in all the dew and freshness of youth ; while the graceful
foliage in which they lurk, and the ample branches, the rough
and vigorous stem, and the wide-spreading roots on which they
depend, are present along with them, and share, in their places,
the equal care of their Creator."
Every reader will appreciate the voluble beauty of this
loving description ; and passages almost equal to it, in
richness and melody, are not infrequently found in the
multifarious critiques of the author. The elaborate dis-
quisition on Beauty, though founded on a mistaken
theory, is M^ritten with a grace and unstudied ease
which cannot fail to interest and charm. We could not,
without trespassing beyond our limits, enter into a dis-
cussion to test the force of its reasoning or the pertinence
of its illustrations ; but we think that no poet, who ever
created new beauty, could subscribe to Jeffrey's theory
without doing violence to his nature. By making beauty
dependent on the association of external things with
the ordinary emotions and affections of our nature, by
denying its existence, both as an inward sense and as an
Dutward reality, he substantially annihilates it. His
theory of " agreeable sensations " would find but little
toleration from any whose souls had ever been awed be-
bre the presence of the highest Beauty which the mind
BRITISH CRITICS. 109
tan recognize. Jeffrey has not made out his case even
from his own point of view; and a reader, who carefully
follows the ingenious twists and turrfs of his argument,
finds that the theory is radically superficial, or continu-
.ally supposes the /ery principles it aims to reason away.
He misconceives the nature and processes of the imag-
ination, or, rather, in the dazzling fence of his rhetoric,
imagination is used more as a meaningless word than as
that power which,
"Like to the fahled Cytherea's zone,
Binding all things with beauty,"
IS not only the bond which unites the soul with external
objects, and gives the feeling and sense of beauty, but
likewise suggests a loveliness grander than both, com-
pared with which all finite beauty is insignificant. The
contempt with which he refers to a " rapturous Platonic
doctrine as to the existence of a Supreme Good and
Beauty, and of a certain internal sense, by which both
beauty and moral merit are distinguished," shows that
his consciousness had never been disturbed by a class of
phenomena vitally important to a settlement of the ques-
tion he discusses. Carlyle, in an article in the Edin-
burgh Review, published in 1S29, entitled " Signs of the.
Times," quietly sneers at the editor's whole theory, we
believe, without condescending to expend any argument
upon it. The same writer has contradicted, in the Edin-
burgh Review, Jeffrey's estimate of Goethe, of German
'iterature in general, and of Burns, wiih the most pro-
voking coolness.
Perhaps the ablest and most interesting contributions
of Jeffrey to the review were those in which he por-
trayed the characters of eminent authors and politicians.
10 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Euch as his articles on Swift, Warburton, Burns, Frank-
lin, Alfieri, Mackintosh, Curran, Richardson, and Cowper.
The impeachment of Swift of high crimes and misde-
meanors, before the bar of liistory, is a masterpiece of
its kind, and has obtained deserved celebrity. The vices
of his character are exposed with tremendous force, and,
considered as an argument drawn simply from the actions
of the man, the article is conclusive. But even in this
able and powerful paper the deficiencies of Jeffrey are
still apparent. In delineating character, he did it from
the " skin inwards, and not from the heart outwards."
His own character was the test he ever applied. He had
not imagination enough to identify himself with another,
and look at things from his point of view. Thus, all the
palliations which bad or questionable actions might re-
ceive from original temperament or mental disease were
not taken into consideration; but the individual was
judged from an antagonist position, according to the very
letter which killeth. This is the mode of the advocate,
rather than of the critic. In the case of Swift, the
feelina: that the article excites against the man is one of
unmitigated detestation. A more profound knowledge
of his internal character might have modified the harsh-
ness of this feeling with one of commiseration. A simi-
lar remark is applicable to the judgment expressed of
Burns. As regards Warburton, however, we think Jef-
frey was essentially right. Nothing can be finer than
the casligation he gives the insolent and vindictive
bishop, at the same time that he acknowledges his tal-
ents and erudition.
Jeffrey's political articles are very spirited composi-
tions, full of information and ability, displaying an
admirable practical intellect and talent for affairs, anii
BRITISH CRITICS. Ill
threat command over the weapons both of logic and
sarca&m. The course of the Edinburgh Review, in
opposing with courage and skill the numeiDus political
crimes and corruptions of the day, and the vigor with
which it scourged tyranny and its apologists, though too
often alloj^ed bj' wilful injustice to authors who happened
to be classed with the tory party, will always be remsm
bered in its favor. The part which the editor took in
the political warfare of the time was honorable to his
talents and his integrity. Though the extreme practical
view he takes of government and freedom is not always
to our taste, and though we could have wished that he
possessed a deeper faith in human nature, and principles
deeper grounded in right and less modified by expedien-
cy, it would be unjust to deny his claim to be considered
among the most prominent of those who, in small minor-
ities and with the whole influence of the government
against them, warred for years, with inflexible zeal, to
overthrow great abuses, and remove pestilent prejudices.
The critical and historical essays contributed to the
Edinburgh Review by Thomas Babington Macaulay
have obtained a wide celebrity. Compared with Jeffrey,
he may be said to have more earnestness, industry, learn-
ing, energy of feeling, more intellectual and moral hardi-
hood, and a wider range of argumentation, but less grace,
ease, subtilty, and sweetness. There are few contempo-
rary writers more purely masculine, more free from all
feminine fastidiousness of taste and sentiment, more
richly endowed with the qualities of a hard and robust
manhood, than Macaulay, His diction acd style of
thmking indicate physical as well as mental strength,
and a contemptuous impatience c/ all weak emotions.
He never commits himself on an- suoject until he Jias
112 ESSAYS AND REVIE rs.
fully mastered it, and then he writes like a person who
neither expects nor gives quarter, — who shows no mercy
for the errors of others, because he cares not to have any
shown to his own. Though a good analyst, his chief
strength lies in generalization. He would hardly conde-
scend, like Jeffrey, to pause and play with the details of a
subject, or fritter away his acuteness in petty refinements ;
but he always aims to grasp general principles. He has
one power that Jeffrey lacks, — the capacity to learn from
other minds. Accustomed to look before and after, to
view a literary or a political revolution in its connection
with general history, his taste and judgment are compre-
hensive in the sense of not being fettered by conventional
rules. He has considerable rectitude of intellect, and a
desire to ascertain the truth of things. His literary crit-
icism refers to the great elements or the prominent char-
acteristic of an author's mind, not to the minutise of his
rhetoric or his superficial beauties and faults. With Jef-
frey, the reverse is often true. His wit and acuteness
are so continually exercised in detecting and caricaturing
small defects, that the result of his representation is to
magnify the faults of his author into characteristics, and
to consider his excellences as exceptions to the general
rule. Macaulay, by taking a higher point of view, by
his willingness to receive instruction as well as to admin-
ister advice, contrives to give more effect to his censures
of faults, by keeping them in strict subordination to his
warm acknowledgment of merits. The skill with which
he does this entitles him to high praise as an artist. He
has attempted to delineate a large number of eminent
men o^ action and speculation, many of whose charac-
ters present a seemingly tangled web of virtues and vices;
ftud he has been almost always successful in preserving
BRITISH CRITICS. 113
»he keeping of character, and the relation which different
qualities bear to each other. He places himself in the
position of the man whose character and actions he
judges, seiz>3s upon his leading traits of mind and dispo-
sition, and ascertains the relation borne to them by his
other powers and feelings. As his object is to represent
his subject pictorially to the imagination, as well as ana-
lytically to the understanding, and at all events to stamp
a correct portrait on the mind of the reader, he sometimes
epigrammatically exaggerates leading traits, in order that
the complexity of the character may not prevent the per-
ception of its individuality. This epigrammatic manner
has often been censured as a fault, — in some instances
mstly censured ; but we think that his use of it often
evinces as much wisdom as wit; for his object is to con-
vey the truth more vividly, by suggesting it through the
medium of a brilliant exaggeration. No person is so
simple as to give the epigram a literal interpretation ;
and all must acknowledge, that at times it is an arrow of
light, sent directly into the heart of the matter under
discussion.
There is probably no writer living who can hold up a
great criminal to infamy with such terrible force of invec-
tive and sarcasm as Macaulay. Scattered over his
essays, we find references to men and events that have
become immortal through their criminality ; and he has
allowed few such occasions to pass without a flash of
scorn or an outbreak of fiery indignation. All instances
of bigotry, meanness, selfishness, and cruelty, especially
if they are overlaid with sophistical defences, he opposes
with a force of reason and energy of passion which ren-
der them as ridiculous as they are infamous. He is
especially severe agains; those panders to tyranny who
VOL. II. 8
il4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
attempt to reason base actions into respectability, and to
give guilt the character of wisdom. He crushes all such
opponents with a kind of merciless strength. Even
when his view of a person is on the whole favorable, he
never defends any crime he commits. This is the case
in the most difficult and delicate task he ever undertook,
— the character and actions of Warren Hastings. No
one can be more severe than he on Mr. Gleig, the biog-
rapher and apologist of Hastings. Every instance of
oppression and cruelty which comes under his notice he
condemns with the utmost indignation ; but in summing
up the character, he balances great crimes against great
difficulties and strong temptations. The reader is at lib-
erty to take an opposite view, and, indeed, is supplied
with the materials of an impartial moral judgment.
Macaulay's admiration for great intellectual powers and
talent for administration is preserved amid all the detest-
ation he feels for the crimes by which they may be
accompanied. This is the amount of his toleration for
Warren Hastings. In the case of Barcre, however, he
had to do with a man as mean in intellect as he was
fiendlike in disposition ; and his delineation of him is
masterly. The skill with which the essential littleness
of the man is kept in view amid all the greatness of his
crimes, the mingled contempt and horror which his
actions inspire, and the felicity with which his cruelty is
always associated with his cowardice and baseness, are
in Macaulay's finest manner.
We have introduced this notice of Macaulay rather to
silustrate the objection to JefTr^.y, than from any hope or
mtention to give his various \ writings a strict review ;
and we accordingly pass to another eminent essayist and
critic, Sir James Mackintosh. His miscellaneous com-
BRITISH CRITICS.
115
positions are now in the course of publication in London.
He is known as the author of various political, literary,
and philosophical articles, in the Edinburgh Review. It
would be difficult to mention any writer, whose name
has been connected with the literary journals of the nine-
teenth century, who has carried into the task of criticism
so much fairness and moderation as Mackintosh. His
nature was singularly free from asperity and dogmatism.
To a large understanding, and boundless stores of know! •
edge, he united candor, and even humility, in their
employment. His mind was eminently judicial. From
the character of his intellectual powers, and the moral
qualities from which they received their direction, it was
natural for him to look at things with an impartial desire
to arrive at truth, and to view both sides of every ques-
tion. He had no intellectual pride, no love for principles
simply because they were his by discovery or adoption.
His mind was always open to new truth. As far as his
perceptions extended, he ever did full and complete jus-
tice to all systems of philosophy or legislation which
came under his notice. He was incapable of misrepre-
senting a personal enemy or a political opponent. We
have sometimes thought that an argument for the whig
party of Great Britain might be built on the simple fact
that their general principles and conduct were warmly
approTed by a man of so much comprehensiveness of
heart and understanding, and so much freedom from
partisanship, as Sir James Mackintosh.
The intellectual and moral character of this eminent
man are so closely connected that it is difficult to view
theai separately. We do not think his works a -e fair
and full exponents of his nature ; and his reputaticn was
%lways justly greater for what he was than for wl at he
ll6 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
performed, valuable as were most of his performances
His friends and associates were among the greatest intel«
lects of his time, and he was respected and venerated
by them all. His name always carried with it a moral
influence ; and wherever heard, it was always associated
with sound and weighty views of philosophy, with lib-
eral principles of government, with learning, humanity,
justice, and freedom. His influence was great, although
it was not so palpable as that of many among his con-
temporaries; and it will be permanent. A man of so
much uprightness and virtue, placed in such a promi-
nent position, and mingling daily with his contemporaries
as a practical statesman and -philosopher, could not fail
to wield unconsciously great power over the opinions and
actions of his generation ; and the beauty of his charac-
ter v.'ill long continue to exert an influence, in insensibly
moulding the minds of scholars and statesmen, and giv-
ing a humane and moral direction to their powers.
Among the critical essays contributed by Mackintosh
to the Edinburgh Review, the most distinguished are his
two articles on Dugald Stewart's review of the " Pro-
gress of Ethical, Metaphysical, and Political Science."
These are eminently characteristic of his mind and char-
acter, being remarkable rather for largeness of view than
strength of grasp, and free altogether from the fanaticism
of system. The sketches of Aquinas, Bacon, Descartes,
Hobbes, Locke, Boyle, Leibnitz, Machiavel, Montaigne
Grotius, Puffendorf, Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor, abound
in profound remark, and often in delicate criticism. The
different thinkers who pass before him for review he
treats with admirable fairness, and sets forth their lead-
ing principles in a clear light. Though the style is
elegant and condensed, it is at times languid, as if it
BRITISH CRITICS. 117
paused in its movement with the pauses of the writer's
judgment, or its pace was retarded by the mass of
thought and erudition it conveyed. Occasionally it
becomes a little verbose, from the introduction of words
to restrain the full force of general epithets, or to indicate
minute distinctions. A large number of striking thoughts
might be quoted from these articles. They can be read
again and again, with pleasure and instruction. The
weight, solidity, and coolness of understanding, of which
Mackintosh's disquisitions give so marked an example,
remind the reader more of the judicial minds of the old
English prose writers, than of the pugnacious and parti-
san intellects of the moderns. They lack the fire both
of passion and prejudice ; but their mingled gravity and
sweetness of feeling, and amplitude of comprehension,
will always preserve their interest. His miscellaneous
essays and reviews, when collected, will occupy, we
think, a permanent place in the higher literature of the
generation of thinkers to which he belongs.
The various disquisitions of Sir William Hamilton
seem to have attracted but little attention on this side of
the Atlantic, from the fact that they deal with subjects
somewhat removed from popular taste and popular appre-
hension ; yet it would be difficult to name any contribu-
tions to a review which display such a despotic com-
mand of all the resources of logic and metaphysics as
his articles in the Edinburgh Review on Cousin, Dr.
Brown, and Bishop Whately. Apart from their scien-
tific value, they should be read as specimens of intellect-
ual power. They evince more intense strength of un-
derstanding than any other writings of the age ; and in
the blended merits of their logic, rhetoric, and learning,
they may challenge comparison with the best works of
il8 ESSAYS AND REVIKWS.
any British metaphysicians. He seems to have read
every writer, ancient and modern, on logic and metaphy-
sics, and is conversant with every pliilosophical theory,
from the lowest form of materialism to the most abstract
development of idealism ; and yet his learning is not so
remarkable as the thorouo-h manner in which he has
digested it, and the perfect cominand he has of all i(&
stores. Everything that he comprehends, no matter
how abstruse, he comprehends with the utmost clear-
ness, and employs with consummate skill. He is alto-
gether the best trained reasoner on abstract subjects of
his time. He is a most terrible adversary, because hia
logic is unalloyed by an atom of passion or prejudice;
and nothing is more merciless than the intellect. No
fallacy, or sophism, or half-proof, can escape his analysis,
and he is pitiless in its exposure. His method is to
strike directly at his object, and he accomplishes it in a
few stern, brief sentences. His path is over the wreck
of opinions, which he demolishes as he goes. After he
has decided a question, it seems to be at rest forever, for
his rigorous logic leaves no room for controversy. He
will not allow his adversary a single loop-hole for escape.
He forces him back from one position to another, he trips
up his most ingenious reasonings, and leaves him at the
end naked and defenceless, mournfully gathering up the
scattered fragments of his once symmetrical system.
The article on " Cousin's Course of Philosophy," and
that on " Reid and Brown," are grand examples cf this
gladiatorial exercise of intellectual power.
Hamilton is not only a great logician, but a great rhet«
i>rician. His matter is arranged with the utmost art
his style is a model of philosophical clearness, concise
ness, and energy. Every word is in its right place, ha.
BRITISH CRITICS. 119
ii precise scientific meaning, can stand the severest tests
of analysis, and bears but one interpretation. He is as
impregnable in his terms as in his argument; and with
all the hard accuracy of his language, the movement of
his style is as rapid, and sometimes as brilliant, as that
of Macaulay. It seems to drag on the mind of the
student by pure force. The key to a whole philosophical
system is often given in a single emphatic sentence,
vhose stern compression has sometimes the effect of
Bpigram, — as when he condenses the results of the
Scotch philosophy into these few words : — "It proved
that intelligence svpposed principles, which, as the con-
ditiojis of its activity, could not be the results of its oper-
ation ; and that the mind contained notions, which, as
primitive, necessary, and universal, were not to be ex-
plained as generalizations from the contingent and par-
ticular, about which alone our external experience was
conversant. The phenomena of mind were thus distin-
guished from the phenomena of matter, and if the impos-
sibility of materialism were not demonstrated, there was,
at least, demonstrated the impossibility of its proof."
The mastery of his subject, which Hamilton possesses,
the perfect order with which his thoughts are arranged,
and his exact knowledge of terms, free him altogether
from that comparative vassalage to words which so often
confuses the understandings of metaphysicians. His
style has the hard brilliancy of polished steel ; its lustn
comes from its strength and compactness.
Among his contributions to the Edinburgh Review,
besides tho^e already enumerated, are the articles on the
" Universities of England," on "Recent Publications on
Logical Science," and on "Johnson's Translation of
Tenneman's History of Philosophy." The most pleas-
120 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
ing to the general reader would be the article on Cousin
although that on the Philosophy of Perception displayf
to greater advantage his immense stores of metaphysica.
learning and his intensity of thought. None of his
articles have ever been answered. Indeed, on logical
principles, they are probably unanswerable. The disqui-
sition on Cousin, which comprehends not only a review
of his philosophy, but a consideration of the whole
ground of -Rationalism, and a course of argument directed
against all philosophical theories of the Infinite, is admi-
rably calculated for the present state of speculation in
this country, however unpalatable may be its doctrines.
He takes the position, that our knowledge is restricted
within the domain of the finite, — that we have no im-
mediate knowledge of things, but only of their phenom-
ena, — and that, in every attempt to fix the absolute as
a positive in knowledge, " the absolute, like the water in
the sieves of the Danaides, has always hitherto run
through as a negative into the abyss of nothing." As a
specimen of the style, we extract his statement of the
opinions " which may be entertained regarding the un-
conditioned as an immediate object of knowledge and
thought."
" These opinions may be reduced to four : — 1. The uncon-
ditioned is incognizable and inconceivable ; its notion being
only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be posi-
tively known or conceived. 2. It is not an object of knowledge ;
but its notion, as a regulative principle of the mind itself, is
more than a mere negation of the conditioned. 3. It is cogniz-
able, but not conceivable ; it can be known by sinking back
into identity with the absolute, but is incomprehensible by con-
sciousness and reflection, which are only of the relative and the
different. 4. It is cognizable and conceivable by consciousness
and reflection, under relation, diflference, and plurality.
BRITISH CRITICS. 121
" The first of these opinions we regard as true ; the second
IS held by Kant ; the third by Schelling ; and the last by our
author.
" 1. In our opinion, the mind can conceive, and consequently
can know, only the limited and the conditionally limited. The
ii nconditionally unlimited, or the infinite, the unconditionally
limited, or the absolute, cannot positively be construed to the
mind ; they can be conceived at all only by a thinking away,
or abstraction, of those very conditions under which thought
itself is realized ; consequently the notion of the unconditioned
is only negative, — negative of the conceivable itself. For ex-
ample, on the one hand, we can positively conceive neither an
absolute whole, that is, a whole so great that w^e cannot also
conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole ; nor an
absolute part, that is, a part so small that we cannot also con-
ceive it as a relative whole, divisible into smaller parts. On
the other hand, we cannot positively represent to the mind an
infinite whole, for this could only be done by the infinite syn-
thesis in thought of finite w^holes, which would itself require an
infinite time for its accomplishment ; nor, for the same reason,
can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts.
The result is the same, whether we apply the process to limita-
tion in space, in time, or in degree. The unconditional afl[irm-
ation of limitation — in other words, the infinite and the absolute,
froperly so called* — are thus equally inconceivable to us.
"As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the
conditioned) is thus the only object of knowledge and of positive
thought, thought necessarily supposes conditions ; to think is
therefore to condition, and conditional limitation is the funda-
mental law of the possibility of thought. How, indeed, it could
CTer be doubted that thought is only of the conditioned, m^y
well be deemed a matter of the profoundest admiration,
* " It is proper to observe thai though we are of opinion that the terms
Infinite aiid Absolute, and Unconditioned, ouglil not to I)e confounded, and
accurately distinguish them in the staiement of our own view ; yet, in
speaking of the doctrines of those by whom th?y are indifferently employed,
we have not thought it necessary, or rather we have found it impossible, to
adhere to the distinction."
122 ESSAYS AND REVIEV/S.
Thought cannot transcend consciousness ; consciousness is oiilj
possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought,
known only in correlation and mutually limiting each other •
while, independently of this, all we know either of subject or
object, either mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of
the particular, of the different, of the modified, of the phenome-
nal. We admit that the consequence of this doctrine is, that
philosophy, if viewed as more than a science of the conditioned,
is impossible. Departing from the particular, we admit that we
can never, in our highest generalization, rise above the finite j
that our knowledge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing
more than a knowledge of the relative manifestations of an ex-
istence which, in itself, it is our highest wisdom to recognize as
beyond the reach of philosophy : — Cognoscendo ignorari, et igno-
rando cognosci."
A collection of Sir William Hamilton's articles, as far
as they are generally known, might easily be contained
in a moderately sized volume, and we trust it will soon
be made. Such a book could not fail to be successful,
even in the publisher's notion of that word ; and it would
familiarize the minds of our students with far more
rioforous habits of thinking- and investigation than are
now in vogue. Three or four of the ablest of these
papers have already been translated into French, and
published in a single volume at Paris.
William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review,
seems to have united in himself all the bad qualities
of the criticism of his time. He was fierce, dogmatic,
bigoted, libellous, and unsympathizing. Whatever may
have been his talents, they were exquisitely unfitted for
his position — his literary judgments being contemptible
where any sense of beauty was required, and principally
distinguished for malice and word-picking. The bittei
and snarling spirit with which he commented on the
BRITISH CRITICS. 123
excellence he could not appreciate ; the extreme narrow-
ness and shallowness of his taste ; the labored black-
guardism in which he was wont to indulge, under the
impression that it was satire ; his detestable habit of
carrying his political hatreds into literary criticism ; his
gross personal attacks on Hunt, Hazlitt, and others who
might happen to profess less illiberal principles than his
c wn ; made him a dangerous and disagreeable adversary',
and one of the worst critics of modern times. Through
his position as the editor of an influential journal, his
enmity acquired an importance due neither to his talents
nor his character. His notoriety was coextensive with his
malignity ; his fame consisted in having the power to
wound better men than himself; and consequently, from
being a terror and a scourge, he has now passed into
oblivion, or is only occasionally rescued from it to be an
object of wondering contempt. As far as his influence
in the management of the review extended, it was em-
ployed to serve the meanest and dirtiest ends of his
party, and the exploded principles of a past literary taste ;
and it was owang to no fault of his, tljp.t the journal did
not become a synonyme of malignant dulness and fero-
cious illiberality, and feed to the full the vulgar appetite
for defamation. Nothing but the occasional contribu-
tions of eminent writers and scholars prevented it from
sinking to the dead level of his intellect and prejudices.
The blindness which partisan warfare produces, even in
men of education and courtesy, could alone have per-
mitted the organ of a great party to be under the
management of this critical Ketch, this political Quilp.
His acumen was shown in his prifound appreciation of
works which died as soon as puffed, and in his insensi-
bility to those whose fame was destined to begin with
T'
124 ESSAYS AND RE\riEWS.
his oblivion ; and his statesmanship, in the low abuse o(
individuals, in a resolute defence of the rotten parts of
toryism, and in assiduous libels on foreign countries. I(
is to him, we presume, that we are indebted for the liea
and blunders about the United States for which tnt
Quarterly was once distinguished.
To GifTord for a time belonged the equivocal fame of
killing John Keats ; but we are glad that a disclosure of
the facts has lately robbed him of this laurel of slander.
It is quite a satisfaction to know, that even the tenderest
and most sensitive of poets was beyond the reach of his
envenomed arrov/s. Shelley, in a monody on the death
of Keats, — then supposed to have been accelerated by
the brutal article in the Quarterly, — has, in a strain of
invective hot from his heart, fixed a brand on GifTord's
brow, which may keep it above the waters of oblivion foi
some years to come.
" Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame !
Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me,
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name !
But be ihjtf elf, and know thyself to be !
And ever at thy season be thou free
To spill the venom, when thy fangs o'erflow:
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ;
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now.
" Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
Far from these carrion-kites thai scream below :
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ;
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now, -
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow
Back to the burning fountain whence it came,
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow
Through time and change, unquenchably the same.
Whilst thy cold ambers choke the sordid hearth of shaine.'
BRITISH CRITICS. 125
The various critical writings of William Hazlitt are
aden with original and striking thoughts, and indicate
an intellect strong and intense, but narrowed by prejudice
and personal feeling. He was an acute but somewhat
bitter observer of life and manners, and satirized rather
than described them. Though bold and arrogant in the
expression of his opinions, and continually provoking
opposition by the hardihood of his paradoxes, he does not
appear to have been influenced so much by self-esteem
'is sensibility. He was naturally shy and despairing of
his own powers, and his dogmatism was of that turbulent
kind which comes from passion and self-distrust. He
had little rep('«:e of mind or manner, and in his works
almost always appears as if his faculties had been stung
and spurred into action. His life was vexed by many
troubles, which rendered him impatient and irritable,
prone to opposition, and inclined to take delight in the
mere exercise of power, rather than to produce the effects
for which alone power is valuable. Contempt and bitter-
ness too often vitiate his notions of men and measures ;
and his political writings, especially, often exhibit him as
one who courts and defies opposition, and who is more
desirous of making enemies than converts. He would
often give the results of patient reasonings in headlong
Lssertions, or paradoxical impertinences. In attacking
ignorance and prejudice, he did not distinguish them
from positive vices. If any one of his opinions was more
heretical than another, he sought to enunciate it with a
startling abruptness of expression, in order that it might
give the more offence. There was bad temper in this,
and it made him violent enemies, and subjected his char-
acter and writings to the most unscrupulous attacks.
The element in which Hazlitt's mind was most geni-
126 ESSAYS ANl- REVIEWS.
ftlly developed was literature. If he was lacking in love
for actual human nature, or viewed men in too intolerant
a spirit, his affections clustered none the less intensely
around the " beings of the mind." His best friends and
companions he found in poetry and romance, and in the
world of inidgination he lived his most delightful days.
As a critic, in spite of the acrimony and prejudice which
occasionally dim his insight, he is admirable for acute-
ness, clearness, and force. His mind pierces and delves
into his subject, rather than gracefully comprehends it ;
but his labors in the mine almost always bring out its
riches. Where his sympathies were not perverted by
personal feeling or individual association, where his
mind could act uninfluenced by party spirit, his percep-
tions of truth and beauty were exquisite in their force
and refinement. When he dogmatizes, his paradoxes
evince a clear insight into one element of the truth, and
serve as admirable stimulants to thought. His com-
ments on passages of poetry or traits of character which
have struck his own imagination forcibly, are unrivalled
for warmth of feeling and coloring. His criticism inspires
the reader with a desire to peruse the works to which it
refers. It is not often coldly analytical, but glows with
enthusiasm and " noble rage." His style is generally
sharp and pointed, sparkling with ornament and illus-
tration, but alm.ost altogether deficient in movement
Though many of his opinions are unsound, their un
soundness is hardly calculated to mislead the taste of
the reader; from the ease with which it is perceived, and
referred to its source, in caprice, or a momentaiy fit ot
spleen. He is a critic who can give delight and instruc
tion, and infuse into his readers some of his own veh«»
BRITISH CRITiOS.
12T
ttient eniLusiasni for letters, without makijg them par-
hicipants of his errors and passions.
Some of the most distinguished of Hazlitt's critical
writino-s are, — " Lectures on the Comic Writers,"
"Spirit of the Age," " Characters of Shakspeare's Plays,"
" Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth," " Lectures on the
English Poets," and " Criticisms on Art." These cover
a wide ground, and are all more or less distinguished by
his characteristic merits and faults. They all startle the
reader from the self-complacency of his opinions, and
provoke him into thought.
Leigh Hcnt is well known as the author of a large
number of agreeable essays, and for his friendly connec-
tions with many of his eminent conte.mporaries. He
has been more a victim of criticism than a critic. It
has been truly said of him by Macaulay, "that there is
no man living whose merits have been more grudgingly
allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated "
In his character there is such a union of pertness and
kindliness, that he is always open to attack. He made
the public his confidant, poured into its ear his little
frailties and fopperies, expressed his opinions on all sub-
jects with the most artless self-conceit, and at times
exhibited a kind of Richard Swiveller order of good feel-
ing, in speaking of such men as Shelley and Byron.
These follies, though most of them venial, made him a
continual butt for magazine scribblers ; and the fine qual-
ities of heart and intellect, which underlie his affect-
ations, have not, until lately, been generally acknowl-
edged. He is, in truth, one of the pleasantest writers
of his time, — easy, colloquial, genial, humane, full of
fine fancies and verbal niceties, possessing a loving if
flot a "learned spirit," with hardly a spice of bittcrne'"
t28 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
in his composition. He is an excellent commentator on
the minute beauties of poetry. He has little grasp or
acuteness of understanding, and his opinions are value-
less where those qualities should be called into play;
but he has a natural taste, which detects with nice
accuracy what is beautiful, and a power of jaunty expres-
sion, which conveys its intuitive decisions directly to
other minds. He surveys poetry almost always from a
luxurious point of view, and his criticism therefore is
merely a transcript of the fine and warm sensations it
has awakened in himself. He is a sympathizing critic
of words, sentences, and images, but has little success in
explaining the grounds of his instinctive judgments, and
i^ feeble and jejune in generalization. He broods over
a dainty bit of fancy or feeling, until he overfloAvs with
ati'ection for it. He dandles a poetic image on his knee
as though it were a child, pats it lovingly on the back,
and addresses to it all manner of dainty phrases; and,
consequently, he has much of the baby-talk, as well as
the warm appreciation, which comes from affection. This
billing and cooing is often distasteful, especially if it be
employed on some passages which the reader desires to
keep sacred from such handling; and we cannot see him
approaching a poet like Shelley without a gesture of
impatience ; but generall}'- it is far from unpleasant.
His "Imagination and Fancy" is a delightful book.
" The Indicator " and " Seer " are filled with essays of
peculiar excellence. Hunt's faults of style and thinking
are ingrained, and cannot be weeded out by criticism ;
and to get at what is really valuable in his writings
considerable toleration must be exercised towards his
effeminacy of manner and daintiness of sentiment. That
with ail his faults, he has a mind of great delicacy and
VHITISII CRITICS. 129
fulness, a fluent fancy, unrivalled good-will to the whole
world, a pervading sweetness of feeling, and that he
occasionally displays remarkable clearness of perception,
must be cheerfully acknowledged by every reader of hia
essays.
In these hurried remarks on some of the essayists and
critics of the time, we have not noticed two, who are
well entitled to an extended consideration. We refer to
Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. The influence
of Carlyle on the whole tone of criticism at the present
day has been po verfully felt. Mill is principally known
on this side of the Atlantic by his work on Logic ; but
he has been for a number of years a writer for the West-
minster Review, over the signature of A, and his articles,
especially his masterly disquisition on Jeremy Bentham,
evince uncommon solidity, fairness, penetration, and
reach of thought. These are worthy of a more elabo-
rate review than our limits will now pennit ; but we
trust at some early period to repair the deficiency.
VOL. u. 9
RQFUS CHOATE.*
To give a strict analysis of a mind so complex, van-
aus, and richly gifted, as that of Mr. Choate, we feel to
be a difficult and delicate task. What is peculiar in his
genius and character is provokingly elusive; and though
an unmistakable mdividuality characterizes all his pro-
ductions as a lawyer, orator, and statesman, it is an
individuality so modified by the singular flexibility of
his intellect, that it can be more easily felt than analyzed.
We propose to give a few dates illustrating his biogra-
phy ; to allude to some of his masterly expositions of
national policy as a statesman ; and to touch slightly
that rare combination in his character of the poet and
the man of wfFairs, by which the graces of fancy and the
energies of impassioned imagination lend beauty and
power to the operations of his large and practical under-
standing.
Mr. Choate was born in Ipswich, Mass., on the 1st
day of October, 1799. He entered Dartmouth College
in 1815, and was distinguished there for that stern devo-
tion to study, and that love of classical literature, which
have accompanied him through all the distractions of
political and professional life. Shortly after graduating
he was chosen a tutor in college ; but, selecting the law
* American Review, January, 1847.
RUFUS CirOATE. 131
for his profession, he entered the Law School at Cam-
bridge, and afterwards completed his studies in the office
of Judge Cummins, of Salem. He also studied a year
in the office of Mr. Wirt, Attorney-General of the
United States. He commenced the practice of his pro-
fession in the town of Danvers, in 1824. But a consid-
erable portion of the period between his first entry into
his profession and his final removal to Boston, in 1834,
was passed in Salem. He early distinguished himself
as an advocate. His legal arguments, replete with
knowledge, conducted with admirable skill, evincing
uncommon felicity and power in the analj^sis and appli-
cation of evidence, blazing with the blended fires of
imagination and sensibility, and delivered with a rapid-
ity and animation of manner which swept along the
minds of his hearers on the torrent of his eloquence,
made him one of the most successful advocates at the
Essex bar. In 1825, he was elected a representative to
the Massachusetts Legislature ; and in 1827 he was in
the Senate. He took a prominent part in the debates,
and the energy and sagacity which he displayed gave
him a wide reputation. In 1832 he was elected mem-
ber of Conofress from the Essex district. He declined a
reelection, and in 1834 removed to Boston, to devote
himself to his profession. He soon took a position
among the most eminent lawyers at the Suffolk bar,
and for seven years his legal services were in continual
request. In 1841, on the retirement of Mr. Webster
from the Senate, he was elected to fill his place by a
large majority of the Massachusetts Legislature, — an
honor which Massachusetts bestows on none but men of
signal ability and integrity. Since Mr. Choate resigned
his seat in the Senate, he has been more exclusively
132 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
3evotcd to his profession than at any previous period oi
his life. The only public office he now holds is that of
Regent of the Smithsonian Institute. The country is
principai.y indebted to his efforts for the promising form
which that institution has now assumed.
Mr. Choate's powers as a statesman are to be esti-
mated chiefly by his course while a member of the
United States Senate, especially by his speeches on the
Tariff, the Oregon question, and the Annexation of
Texas. These appear to us among the ablest which
were delivered during the agitation of those inflammable
questions. Beneath an occasional wildness of style,
there can easily be discerned a sagacious and penetrating
intellect, well trained in dialectical science ; capable of
handling the most intricate questions arising under the
law of nations and constitutional law; keen to perceive
the practical workings of systems of national policy ;
possessed of all the knowledge relating to the topics
under discussion ; fertile in arguments and illustrations,
and directing large stores of information and eloquence
to practical objects. In his speech, March 14, 1842, on
the right and duty of Congress to continue the policy of
protecting American labor, he presents a lucid and
admirable argument to prove that Congress has the con-
stitutional power " so to provide for the collection of
the necessary revenues of Government as to afford
reasonable and adequate protection to the whole labor of
the country, agricultural, navigating, mechanical, and
manufacturing, and ought to afford that protection;" and
in the course of the argument he gives a review of the
opinions current on the subject about the period of the
adoption of the Constitution. This displays an exten
«ive acquaintance with the political history of the time
KUFUS CHOaTE.
13.T
rtie result of oi.ginal research. In this speech he 3eclaies
the origin of the objection to the protective policy, based
on the assumption of its unconstitutionality, to have
arisen in "a subtle and sectional metaphysics;" and
adds, in a short paragraph, well worthy to be pondered
by all who are exposed to the fallacies springing up in
the hot contests of party, that " it is one of the bad hab-
its of politics, which grow up under written systems and
limited systems of government, to denounce what we
think impolitic and oppressive legislation as unconstitu-
tional legislation. The language is at first rhetorically
and metaphorically used ; excited feeling, producing inac-
curate thought, contributes to give it currency ; classes of
states and parties inweave it into their vocabulary, and
it arrows into an article of faith."
The best and most characteristic of his speeches on
the tariff, however, is that delivered in the Senate on the
12th and 15th of April, 1844. It shows a most intimate
acquaintance with the history of our legislation on the
question ; the subject is taken up in its principles and
details, and exhibited in new lights; it glows with enthu-
siasm for the honor, glory, and advancement, of the
nation; and its illustrations, allusions, and arguments,
have the raciness of individual peculiarity. The philos-
ophy of the manufacturing system is given with great
clearness in respect to principles, and at the same time
is presented to the eye and heart in a series of vivid
pictures. The problem, he says, which the lawgiver
should propose to himself is this, — " How can I procure
that amount of revenue which an economical administra-
tion of government demands, in such manner as most
impartially and most completely to develop and fostei
the universal industrial capacities of the country, of
134 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
whose -fast material interests 1 am honored with the
charge ? " We should like to quote the whole of that
passage in which he enforces the importance of manu-
factures, on the ground that they give the laborer the
choice between mar-y occupations, and do not absolutely
confine him to one or two. " In a country," he says,
" of few occupations, employments go down by an arbi-
trary, hereditary, coercive designation, without regard to
peculiarities of individual character. But a diversified,
advanced, and refined mechanical and manufacturing
industry, cooperating with those other numerous em-
ployments of civilization which always surround it,
offers the widest choice, detects the slightest shade of
individuality ; quickens into existence and trains to per-
fection the largest conceivable amount and utmost possi-
ble variety of national mind." He proceeds to illustrate
this idea by supposing a family of five song, who, in
some communities, would all be compelled to follow one
occupation, as fishermen, or farmers, or servants. He
then sketches the history of four of these sons, in a com-
munity where the diversified employments of civilization
give scope to the ruling passion of each. The allusion
to the fifth boy is as honorable to the statesman as the
poet. " In the flashing eye, beneath the pale and beam-
ing brow, of that other one, you detect the solitary first
thoughts of genius. There are the sea-shore of storm or
3alm, the waning moon, the stripes of summer evening
clcid, traditions, and all the food of the soul, for him.
Ai«d so all the boys are provided for. Every fragment
of mind is gathered up. The hazel-rod, with unfailing
potency, points out, separates, and gives to sight every
^raiu of gold in the water and in the sand. Ever?
RUFUS CHOATE.
135
taste, every faculty, every p( culiarity of mental powei,
finds its task, does it, and is made the better for it."
We should like to refer, at some length, to Mr.
Choate's speech on the bill to provide further remedial
justice in the court? of the United States, delivered in
the Senate, May, 1842. It is one of the most ingenious,
learned, and vehement of his speeches. Replete with
logical passion, rapid, animated, high-toned, it at one
moment transfixes an objection with those radiant shafts
which speed from- the mind only in periods of excited
reasoning, and at another overthrows an antagonist
proposition by a series of those quick, trampling inter-
roo-ations by which argument is gifted almost with mus-
cular power. There is one passage, illustrating the idea
that the condition of national existence is to be under the
obligations of the law of nations, from which we quote a
characteristic sentence or two : " You may cease to be a
nation ; you may break the golden unseen band of the
constellation in which we move along, and shoot apart,
separate, wandering stars, into the infinite abyss; you may
throw down the radiant ensign, and descend from the
everlasting and glittering summits of your freedom and
your power ; but while you exist as now you do, the only
nation of our system known to the other nations, you are
under, you must obey, and you may claim upon the com-
mon code of all civilized and Christian commonwealths."
The closing passage of the speech is even more pas-
sionately imaginative : " The aspect," he says, " which
our United America turns upon foreign nations, the
aspect which 3ur constitution designs she shall turn
upon them, the guardian of our honor, the guardian of
our peace, is, after all, her grandest and her fairest
9.«!pect. We have a right to bo proud w ten we look od
136 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
that. Happy and free empress-mother of states them-
selves free ! unagitated by the passions, unmoved by the
dissensions, of any one of them, she watches the rights
and fame of all ; and reposingj-secure and serene, among
the mountain summits of her freedom, she holds in one
hand the fair olive-branch of peace, and in the other the
thunderbolt of reluctant and rightful war. There may
she sit forever; the stars of union upon her brow, the
rock of independence beneath her feet ! " This image
has the splendor and energy of one of Burke's, with a
slight touch, perhaps, of Mr. Jefferson Brick. The
shock it may give to the finer filaments of taste is
owinsr to the ridicule which has been cast on the senti-
ment of national exaggeration, through the nonsense and
bombast of fifth-rate declaimers. In this connection we
may as well allude to Mr. Choate's sympathy with those
general feelings of patriotism, as they are felt, not by
tasteful students, but by great bodies of people. Though
one of the first classical scholars in New England, and
a diligent student of the great productions of English
genius and taste, he is still exceedingly open to impres-
sions from the common mind and heart, and has none of
that daintiness, which, in the man of letters, contemptu-
ously tosses aside all sentiment, expression, and imagery,
which the pharisees of scholarship may choose to con-
pi'der vulgar and ungenteel. The greatest English
otatesmen have always addressed these common senti-
ments of large classes of the people — have often
spoken in their speeches as DibJni wrote in his songs
— and have been indebted for a great deal of their
influence to passages which wrinkle with scorn the lips
of elegant scholars and ^contributors tC; the reviews.
Tha speech delivered by Mr. Choate on March 2T
RUFTJS CHOATE. 137
1844, on the Oregon question, in reply to Mr. Buchanan,
is dotted all over with splendid sentences : the general
course of the argument is well sustained and happily
enforced ; and there is a joyous spring in the style, even
in its occasional inflation, which seems to indicate that
most of it was delivered without any more preparation
than the facts and arguments demanded. It is an ex-
ceedingly spirited and brilliant speech, but has the
inequalities of merit common to purely extemporaneous
productions, in which argument is diversified by personal
matters of reply and retort. The tone of most of the
speech is that of excited conversation, with the exaggera-
tion, both of passion and wit, common in colloquial dis-
putes. The invective, provoked by a remark that the
American people cherish a feeling of deep-rooted hatred
to Great Britain, is perhaps its intensest passage. " No,
sir," he indignantly observes, "we are above all this!
Let the Highland clansman, half naked, half civilized,
half blinded by the peat-smoke of his cavern, have his
hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep
the keen, deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of hell,
alive if he can ; let the North American Indian have his,
and hand it down from father to son, by Heaven knows
what symbols of alligators, and rattlesnakes, and war-
clubs smeared with vermilion and entwined with scarlet ;
let such a country as Poland, — cloven to the earth, the
armed heel on the radiant forehead, her body dead, her
soul incapable to die, — let her remember the wrongs of
days long past ; let the lost and wandering tribes of
Israel remember theirs — the manliness and the sympa-
thy of the world may allow oi pardon this to them : but
ghall America, young, free, and prosperous, just setting
out on the highway of heaven, ' decorating and cheering
138
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
the elevated sphere she just begins to move in, glittering
like the morning star, full of life and joy,' — shall she
be supposed to be polluting and corroding her noble and
happy heart, by moping over old stories of stamp-act
and tea-tax, and the firing of the Leopard on the Chesa-
peake, in time of peace ? No, sir ; no, sir ; a thou-
sand times no ! «= ^ * ^ We are born to happier
feelings. We look on England as we look on France.
We look on them from our new world, — not unrenowoied,
yet a new world still, — and the blood mounts to our
cheeks, our eyes swim, our voices are stifled with the
consciousness of so much glory ; their trophies will not
let us sleep: but there is no hatred at all — no hatred;
all for honor, nothing for hate ! We have, Ave can have,
no barbarian memory of wrongs, for which brave men
have made the last expiation to the brave."
We have not by us the great speech of Mr. Choate on
the Annexation of Texas, but we remember being im-
pressed at the time with its strength and felicity ; and
the position taken in it regarding the consequences of
the measure have been realized almost to the letter.
He was one of the most ardent opponents of annexa-
tion, and both in the Senate and in addresses to the
people, made his resistance felt.
Tn what we have said regarding his other speeches, we
have not, of course, done justice to their merit as argu-
ments, or stated the wide variety of topics and principles
they discuss. We have merely, in our quotations, given
prominence to a few sentences which illustrate the essen
*ial solidity and correctness of his views of national pol
icy, amid all the exaggeration and ornament of thei.
expression, it is one of his peculiarities, and a very
striking one, that he combines a conservative intellect
RUFT7S CHOATE. 139
vith a radical sensibility ; and those irregular impulses
)f fancy and passion, which usually push men into the
iidoption of reckless, desperate, and destructive princi-
ples of legislation, he employs in the service of the calm-
est, most comprehensive, and most practical political
^visdom, rooted deep in reason and experience. His
ire seevis to be of that kind which sweeps, in a devour-
^g flame, to blast and desolate what is established and
accredited; but it really is that heat, which infuses
energy and breathing life into maxims and principles,
which are in danger of becoming ineffective, from their
usual disconnection with the sensibility and imagination.
He is a kind of Mirabeau-Peel.
In what we have now to say in regard to Mr. Choate's
mind and character, we shall have to consider him chiefly
as a lawyer and advocate, and only incidentally as a
statesman. His greatest triumphs have been at the bar ;
and to unfold from any central principle the character of
that genius by which he often works such wonders — to
give anything like the philosophy of his influence —
is a task full of difficulty. We desire to present a por-
trait which shall suggest to the reader the character and.
qualities of the man, but we feel able to do it but imper-
fectly.
Mr. Choate's mind is eminently large, acute, flexible,
vigorous, versatile, enriched with the most various ac-
quirements, and displaying in its exercise a rare union
of understanding and imagination, shrewdness and sen-
sibility, tact and fire. He is one of the most sagacious
as well as one of the most brilliant and impassioned, of
orators. An unwearied fire seems to burn in the very
centre of his nature, penetrating every faculty, flaming
out in almost every expression , yet his iatelle:t pre-
140 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
serves its clearness of view, amid his most fervent dec-
lamation, and he is never himself whirled along in that
rush of passion which hurries away the minds of all
who come within its influence. With the keenest sen-
sitiveness to impressions, he is distinguished as much for
his power of self-control as his power of self-excitation ,
and his emotions, like well-trained troops, " are impet-
uous by rule." In this singular combination of qualities
the puzzle of his character seems to lie ; and it brings us
at once to the prominent characteristic of his mind — his
swift sympathy with any given events and persons, by
force of imagination. Facts and principles are not with
him abstract data for an abstract conclusion; but he
instinctively grasps them in the concrete, and realizes
them to his own mind as living things. The most care-
less glance at his productions will reveal this tendency
of his intellect to the most superficial reader. Whatever
may be the subject or object of his speech, he endows it
with personal life. Thus he speaks of the system of
American manufactures as a " refined, complicated, sen-
sitive industry." He ever impersonates the country, and
sections of the country, whenever he alludes to them.
They appear always to rise up to his mind as personal
existences. Thus, New York, with him, is not simply a
city distinguished for commercial energy, but a city
which " with one hand grasps the golden harvests of the
West, and with the other, like Venice, espouses the ever-
lasting sea." Again he observes, that after we came out
of the war of 1S12, " the baptism of fire and blood was
on our brow, and its influence on our spirit and legisla-
tion."
The most inanimate things start into life beneath hi*
touch. We recollect that he once objected to the recep
RUFUS CHOATE. 141
lion of an illiterate constable's return of service, bristling
all over with the word having, on the ground that it was
bad. The judge remarked that though inelegant and
ungrammatical in its structure, the paper still seemed to
be good in a legal sense. " It may be so, your honor,"
replied Mr. Choate, " but it must be confessed he has
greatly overworked the participle," — a humorous imag-
ination worthy of old Dr. Fuller. Again, in referring to
the misgovernment and weakness of the Confederation,
he remarked that, " when at last the Constitution was
given to the longing sight of the people, they threw them-
selves upon it like a famished host on miraculous bread."
But, perhaps, the finest specimens of his imaginative
power are those little minor touches, which are occasion-
ally inserted in the throng and impatient pressure of his
fanciful illustrations, and to a critical eye are more pleas-
ing than his most splendid and flaring images. They
evince that an acuteness and intense clearness of mind
ever accompanies, if it be not the result of, his most vehe-
ment excitement. This is an important point of separa-
tion between the orator and the mere declaimer.
From this power of intense conception comes the
force of Mr. Choate's eloquence, and also its seeming
exaggeration. A vivid insight into one particular fact c
truth, and a statement of it in corresponding warmth o
language, practically draws it out of its natural relations,
and converts the less into the greater reason. This is
the advantage which the great advocate holds over the
merely learned and logical lawyer. He can make the
little have the effect of the great by his power of im-
pressing it upon the mind ; and it requires a correspond-
ing intensity of conception on the part of hiis opponent,
to restor.e the intrinsically more important ff.ct to its
142 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
rightful precedence. Force in the orator often compc*
sates for deficiencies in the evidence. When this fore;,
this power of giving prominence to facts and principV;?
which are really of secondary importance, is wielded ry
one who controls the restless faculties of imaginati'-n
and sensibility by which it is performed, the effect is
proportionably increased. The dramatic poet is all the
more powerful in delineating character, when he intensely
sympathizes with the passions he creates, without beitJg
blinded and borne away on their impetuous flood. A
prominent characteristic of genius, says John Foster,
" is the power of lighting its own fire."
The object of Mr. Choate, in the discussion of a ques-
tion, and the object of every great orator, is not primi-
rily to convince the intellect or please the fancy, but to
influence the will. He attempts to storm the citadel of
the mind. His arguments, consequently, do not address
the understanding alone, nor his passion the sensibility
alone, but fact, argument, fancy, and passion, are fused
together in one glowing mass, and boldly directed at the
very springs of action and volition. Though, for the
purposes of classification, we speak of the mind as a col-
lection of sentiments and faculties, we should never for-
get that it is still not an aggregation but a unit, and
that its unity is its leading and vital characteristic, amidsi
all the variety of its manifestation. Though this fact is
commonly overlooked by the logician, the great reasoner,
no less than the great orator, keeps it constantly in view,
Vi^hen his object is to produce a practical effect upon the
will of his audience. There is little force in abstract
principles, but immense power in living ideas. It is the
commonest of truisms that men do not necessarily act
from the barren commonplaces to which their understand-
KUFUS CHOATE.
143
mgs may yield assent. Many of Queen Elizabeth's most
peaceable subjects were Roman Catholics, who believed
they would be justified in being her assassins. Many
of the bishops who assisted in driving James the Second
from his throne were champions of the divine right ot
kino-s, and believers in the doctrine of non-resistance to
their authority. The orator, therefore, instinctively
appreciating the difference between notions which are
civilly assented to by the intellect, and operative ideas
which produce corresponding action, addresses the whole
nature of his audience, and moves as well as convinces.
Mr.Choate possesses this power in a large measure ; and
it is especially seen in his legal arguments.
This fiery and fusing imagination lies at the centre ot
his flexible nature, and constitutes, in fact, the real char-
acteristic of his eloquence, and is the chief source of his
power. But the most obvious characteristic of his mind
is fancy ; and certainly it is one of exhaustless opulence
and almost unbounded range. For every idea, event, or
action, which comes into his mind, he has a fancy to sug-
gest something which bears to it a seeming likeness. His
analogical power, indeed, both of understanding and fan-
cy, is immense, and it is difficult in the rush of his elo-
quence always to distinguish real from apparent analogies,
— analogies in the nature of things, from analogies in
the appearances of things. The latter class are profusely
scattered over his various speeches, and lend to his style
a character of gorgeous, but often ungraceful ornament.
His productions should be viewed with reference to the
fact that they were intended to be spoken, and spoken
by the orator himself. To a 30ol taste, the printed ora-
tions, disconnected from the excitement under which
they were delivered, and the purpose they were intended
144 ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS.
to serve, would seem occasionally turgid in style and
meretricious in metaphor. Even in this respect, how-
ever, his ornament is not of that kind which makes the
speeches of Counsellor Phillips a continual shock to
taste, nor that style of elaborated frenzy and careful taw-
driness which stiffens the diction of Sheridan's speeches ;
but there is behind all a force and fire hurrying the mind
onwards, and never allowing it to stop for criticism. His
most exaggerated images seem forced from him in mo-
ments of excitement, and are all infused with the life of
the occasion. His eloquence, fierce, rapid, and bold, con-
scious of power, and feeling a kind of wild delight in its
exercise, dares everything, forces the minds of the hear-
ers into appropriate moods, and at times accomplishes its
object by main strength. He fires the whole mass of his ,
facts, arguments and images, until they blaze, and the
grotesque flashes of flame which sometimes impatiently
dart from the main body are hardly noticed as incon-
gruous. It would be easy to adduce specimens of his
fierce and exaggerated fancies — comparisons clutched in
moments of raised passion, and made to harmonize witli
the thought or feeling of the moment. In an argument
before a Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, on
the petition for a new railroad from Salem to Boston, he
drew a very vivid picture of the different towns the pres-
ent road did not pass through, and referred especially to
Dan vers, which is only two or three miles from Salem.
" Her people," he said, "were just near enough to hear
the whistle of the locomotive, and gaze at the sparks of
that flying giant; yet, for all practical purposes, they
might as well stand under the sky at midnight, gazing
U ^firmament of falling meteors.^''
Mr. Choate's fancy usually accompanies, and some-
RUFUS CHOATb.
145
times almost blends with, the exercise of his imagina-
tion ; but it is still to be distinguished from its nobler
companion. By imagination he apparently exaggerates
a thing through the intensity which he conceives it ; by
fancy, ae really magnifies it by comparison with larger
objects. From the manner in which these two powers
of his mind play into each other's processes, and also
from his frequent practice of overtopping an imagination
with a fanciful decoration, the charge of exaggeration
against his eloquence has its foundation. The phrase
" clothed upon," which is often applied to the operations
of imagination, is more properly applicable to those of
fancy ; and in Mr. Choate's productions, the shining
garment of comparison, which he has placed upon his
vital thought, may easily be disconnected from it, and
leave the original idea, grasped and modified by imag-
ination, in its own intense and living beauty. Even if
the fancy, as is sometimes the case with him, grows out
of the imaijination, it can be severed from it without
striking at the life of its parent, — as we can lop the lux-
uriant foliage from a tree without injuring its root and
trunk. The truth is, that, in respect to ornament, fancy
is more effective than imagination, because it is more
readily apprehended ; and Mr, Choate's real poetic
power has generally suflfered most from the praises of
such as have been captivated by his swollen comparisons
ani ilaring illustrations.
Mr. Choate has a peculiar kind of mirth in his com-
position, and also that readiness which commonly accom-
panies ludicrous perception ; but his wit is rather witty
fancy, and his humor, humorous imagination. He has
1 kind of playful sympathy with the ludicrous side of
things, and is often exceedingly felicitous in its expres-
VOL. II. 10
146 ESSAYS ajvd reviews.
sion. Such is his grotesque image, in his speech on the
Oregon question, of the Legislature putting its head out
of the window, and, in a voice audible all over the world,
speaking to the negotiators of the impending treaty, bid
ding them God-speed, but insinuating that if ihej did
not give up the whole subject in dispute, it would be
settled by main strength. But perhaps his best passage
in this way is his picture of a New England summer,
introduced in his second speech on the tariff, to illus-
trate the idea tl)at irregularity is not ruin.
" Take the New England climate in summer ; you would
think the world was coming to an end. Certain recent heresies
on that subject may have had a natural origin there. Cold to-
day ; hot to-morrow ; mercury at 80^ in the morning, with
wind at south-west ; and in three hours more a sea-turn, wind
at east, a thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a
fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit ; now so dry as to kill all the
beans in New Hampshire ; then floods carrying ofi" the bridges
of the Penobscot and Connecticut ; snow in Portsmouth, in
.%ly ; and the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by
ightning in Khode Island. You would think the world was
twenty times coming to an end ! But I don't know how it is :
we go along ; the early and the latter rain falls, each in its
season ; seed-time and hardest do not fail ; the sixty days of
hot corn weather are prett / sure to be measured out to us.
The Indian Summer, with its bland south-west, and mitigated
sunshine, brings all up ; and on the twenty-fifth of November,
or thereabouts, being Thursday, three millions of grateful peo-
ple, in meeting-houses, or around the family board, give thanks
for a year of health, plenty, and happiness."
The reader of Mr. Choate's speeches will readily call
to mind many sentences in which the serious and the
ludicrous shake hands as cordially, and with as little
detrjiaent to each other, as in the nreceding extract.
RUFUS CHOATE. 141
TJ.iis pe:;uliur sportiveness, which Mr. Choate can
command at pleasure, is an element in the general im-
pression conveyed by his genius, and it makes the
character complete. Will, understanding, imagination,
passion, fancy, humor, subtlety in the perception of
distinctions, subtlety in the perception of resemblances,
sympathy with the ideal, and sympathy with the famil-
iar ; these, both in their separate exercise, and their
subtle interpenetration, are resources which he com-
mands and blends at will. In this play and interchange
of imagination and humor, in this union of the" high
with the common, there is established in his mind a
kind of fellowship with the things he describes and
the persons he addresses. Througli this he contrives, in
his legal arguments, to lift the familiar into the ideal,
by the strength of his conception of both ; and when his
materials are at all tractable, he can achieve the task
without suggesting the ludicrous. When they are not,
he does it by pure force and determination. He dis-
cerns, instinctively, the unconscious poetry in characters
and actions which are prosaic to the common eye ; and
he. does not, perhaps, so often superadd as evolve. His
arguments have often the artistical effect of a romantic
poem, even when they are most firmly based on law and
evidence. His client is the hero of the narrative ; and
spectators, if not juries, always desire that the hero of
Mr. Choate's epic argument may not come to an end
" by edge of penny cord and vile reproach." The im
mense fertility of his mind, in possibilities and plausibil-
ities, enables him to account for everj^ action on other
principles than those whirh are obvious ; and the warm
blood never glows and rushes through his sentences with
nore intensity than when he is giving to the secondary
14!? ejsays and reviews.
the promiivence and life of the primitive. There is a
constant appeal, in his arguments, tr generous senti-
ment, — an implied assumption that men will always
act honestly and without prejudice, — that a jury will
as heartily pronounce in favor of his client, as the reader
of a romance in favor of persecuted virtue. And, for the
time, the orator himself is earnest and sincere. By force
of sympathy, he has identified himself with his client,
and realized everything to his own mind. He pleads as
if his own character or life was at stake. Ideas, suppo-
sitions, possibilities, drawn into his own imagination, are
vitalized into realities, and he sees them as living things,
— sees them as Dante saw Farinata rise from his glow-
ing tomb, — as Shakspeare saw Cordelia bending over
Lear. And while thus giving breathing life to charac-
ters and events, he does not overlook a single particle of
evidence, or neglect to urge a single point of law, which
bears upon the case. Indeed, a legal argument, as con-
ceived and delivered by Mr. Choate, has the merit of
combining an influence upon the will and understanding,
with an artistical effect upon the imagination. He
makes no parade of logic; the skeleton is not always
forcing itself through the flesh, as in the arguments of
men of dryer brains and less skill; yet he ranges his
/".ase with consummate art around its great leading
points, to which he binds, in the strictest sequence, and
with a masterly power of concentration, every fact and
every argument. His fancy leads him into no illogical
discursicns, but plays like heat-lightning along the lines
of his argument, while his imagination, interpenetrating
and working with his logic, at once condenses and
sreates.
It is needless to say that his arguments cannot be
RUFUS CHUAlii. 149
reported. In a newspaper, they have the effect of
' champagne in decanters, or Herodotus ir Beloe's
version."
It would be impossible to convey an idea of this power
of Mr. Choate by single passages, as it is something
which animates, unites, and vivifies the whole argument.
It is imagination, not a series of imaginations, which
produces the result. Sentences cut apart from the main
body of one of his productions can only suggest his
manner through the process of caricature. Thus, we
recollect that an honest master-mason, in one of his
arguments, rose to the dignity of " a builder and beauti-
fier of cities." In another, he represented the skipper of
a merchant vessel, who had been prosecuted by his crew
for not giving them enough to eat, as being busily
studying some law-book, while passing the island of St.
Helena, to find out his duty in case the vessel was short
of provisions. "Such," said Mr, Choate, "were his
meditations, as the invisible currents of the ocean bore
him by the grave of Napoleon." A witness once testi-
fied, in reference to one of his clients, that he had called
upon him on Friday evening, found him crying, and, on
asking: him what was the matter, received in answer, —
" I 'm afraid I 've run against a snag." This was ren-
dered by Mr. Choate somewhat in this way : — " Such
were his feelings, and such his actions, down to that
fatal Friday night, when at ten o'clock, in that flood of
tears, his hope went out like a candle."
These instances convey an idea of the process by
which Mr. Choate makes " strange combinations out of
common things," but a little more accurate than an in-
tentional parody of his manner.
The style of Mr, Choate is the style of an orator, not
150 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
of an author. It will hardly bear a minute criticism
founded on general principles of taste, but must be
judged with reference to the character of the speaker and
the object of his speech. The tone of his diction is
pitched on too high a key for written composition. The
same splendid oration v/hich thrilled a popular assembly,
or influenced the verdict of a jury, would lose a very
important portion of its charm when subjected to the
calm, cold judgment of the reader. Besides, it must be
admitted that Mr. Choate's immense wealth of language,
and opulence of fancy, urge him into redundance of ex-
pression, and sometimes overload his style with shining
words. This is principally seen in his use of adjectives.
He will pour out in one breath five or six of them, some-
times because he has not time to choose the most express-
ive one, sometimes from the desire to point out all the
qualities of the thing defined. It has been said of him,
that he " drives a substantive and six." He is often ex-
ceedingly felicitous in this accumulation of epithets, and
really condenses where he seems to expand. Thus he
once spoke of the Greek mind, as " subtle, mysterious,
plastic, apprehensive, comprehensive, available " — a
page of disquisition in one short sentence. But com-
monly, we think, it tends to weaken his diction, espec-
ially when it is disconnected from his peculiar manner
of speaking. It is the vice of a fertile intellect, always
in haste, and rusting to its own wealth to supply at the
moment the words which are wanted. Perhaps this
peculiarity has been unconsciously caught from a study
of the later writings of Burke, especially those on the
French Revolution. Burke often " drives a substantive
and six," but he has his reins upon them all, and each
performs a service to which all the others would be ir
t/FTJa CHOATE. 151
adequate. His epithets do not clog his style, howevev
they may modify the rapidity of its movement. They
are selected by his mind; Mr. Choate's seem to occur tt
his mind.
We cannot conclude these hurried observations on
some of the characteristics of Mr. Choate, without ex-
pressing the hope that his large, fertile, and available
intellect, so rich in experience and scholarship, may be
directed, at some period, to the production of a work, in
which his genius and acquirements may be fairly ex-
pressed. Everything which he has performed, heretofore,
has been done on the spur of the occasion, and to serve
some particular object connected with his party or his
profession. He is capable of producing a work which
will give his name that literary prominence to which his
great powers seem to point. In the prime of life, and in
the vigor of his genius, having achieved early the high-
est political and professional objects of a manly ambition,
we trust that his splendid intellect will not pass away
without leaving behind something which shall embody
its energies, and reflect honor upon the literature of his
eouatry.
PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES.*
The publication of Mr. Prescott's " Peru " affords us
Ml opportunity for which we have long waited, to attempt
an estimate of his powers as a historian, and to give
some account of his works. To him belono-s the rare
distinction of uniting solid merit with extensive popular-
ity. He has been exalted to the first class of historians,
both by the popular voice and the suffrages of the learned.
By avoiding all tricks of flippancy or profundity to court
any class of readers, he has pleased all. His last history
is devoured with as much avidity as the last novel ;
while, at the same time, it occupies the first place in the
pages of the reviews. His fame, also, is not merely
local, or even national. It is as great at London, Paris,
and Berlin, as at Boston or New York. His works have
been translated into Spanish, German, French, and
Italian ; and into whatever region they have penetrated
they have met a cordial welcome, and done much to
raise the character of American letters and scholarship.
In England his success has probably been beyond that
of any other American author. The tone of the English
press towards our publications has too often been either
patronizing or insolent. But Mr. Prescott's histories
have been spared both the impertinence of condescension
ind the impertinence of abuse, and judged according to
their intrinsic merits. The best eviden:e, per)iaps, of
* Methodist Quarterly Review, Januari 184S
prescott's histories. 153
ais transatlantic reputation is to be found in his member-
ship of numerous literary associations abroad. We per-
ceive that since the publication of The Conquest of
Peru, he has been chosen a member of the Royal Soci-
ety of Literature, and also of the Society of Antiquaries.
The last honor he shares with but one other American.
It is needless to say that a reputation so extensive
could only result from sterling excellences. Some of
Mr. Prescott's popularity may, doubtless, be attributed
to the peculiar disadvantages under which he has pros-
ecuted his historical researches. That a man nearly
blind should collect a large mass of rare chronicles and
MSS., and attempt the composition of histories requiring
the utmost industry', sagacity, and toil, is of itself suffi-
cient to awaken attention, and almost to confer fame.
But Mr. Prescott's works require no apolog}' founded on
the obstacles he has surmounted. They can stand the
tests we apply to similar compositions without any call
upon the charity of reader or reviewer. Indeed, though
the historian cannot dispense with the use of his eyes
without being subjected to numberless annoj^ances vhich
might well discourage the most patient and energetic of
men, the value of his history must come, after all, from his
own mind and character. It is not the channel through
which facts and authorities pass into the head, lut the
shape in which they come out of the head, which is of
the most importance. The real difficulties which Mr.
Prescott has surmounted are intellectual, and inherent
in his subjects and materials. These difficulties can
hardly be appreciated by a superficial reader of his his-
tories. They are not perceived until we consider out of
♦vhat obstinate materials he has drawn his consistent
wiimated and picturesque narrative, and reflect upon
.54 ESSA\S AND REVIEWS
that peculiar combination of qualities by which he hat
been enabled to perform it with such splendid success.
The distinguishing merit of Mr. Prescott is his powei
of vividly representing characters and events in their just
relations, and applying to them their proper principles. He
thus presents a true exhibition of the period of time he
has chosen for his subject, enabling the reader to com-
prehend its peculiar character, to realize its passions and
prejudices, and at once to observe it with the eye of a
contemporary, and judge it with the calmness of a philos-
opher. To succeed in this difficult object of historical
art, requires not only mental powers oi" a high order, but
a general healthiness of moral and intellectual consti-
tution, which is uncommon, even among historians who
evince no lack of forcible thought and intense conception.
History is false, not only when the historian wilfully lies,
but also when facts, true in themselves, are forced out
of their proper relations through the unconscious opera-
tion of the historian's feelings, prejudices, or modes of
thought. He thus represents, not his subject, but his
subject as modified by his own character. Certain facts
and persons are exaggerated into undue importance,
while others are unduly depressed, in order that they
may more readily fall within the range of his general-
izations, or harmonize with his preconceived opinions.
He may have a system so fixed in his mind, or a passion
so lodged in his heart, as to see facts in relation to it,
instead of seeing them in relation to each other. An
honest sectarian or partisan, an admirable moralist or
philanthropist, might make his history a tissue of fallacies
and falsehoods, Avithout being justly chargeable with
intentional untruth. This is done by confounding indi-
vidual impressions with objective facts and principles.
prescott's histories. 155
Now, Mr. Prescott's narrative of events and delineations
of character are characterized by singular objectiveness.
By a fine felicity of his nature, he is content to consider
his subject as everything, and himself as nothing. Ob-
jects stand out on his page in clear light, undiscolored
by the hues of his own passions, unmixed with any pecu-
liarities of his own character. This disposition and
power to see things as they are iiWhemselves, when
joined to a corresponding capacity ro convey them to
other minds in their true proportions, indicates a finely
balanced as well as largely endowed nature, and implies
moral as well as intellectual strength. The moral qual-
ities evinced in Mr. Prescott's histories, though they are
seen in no ostentation of conscience and parade of noble
sentiments, are still of a fine and rare order, and consti-
tute no inconsiderable portion of his excellence as a his-
torian. These are modesty, conscientiousness, candor,
toleration, — a hatred of wrong, modified by charity for
the wrong-doer, — a love of truth, expressed not in re-
sounding commonplaces, but in diligence in seeking it
out, — and a comprehension of heart which noiselessly
embraces all degrees of the human family, just and mer-
ciful to all, looking at motives as well as actions, and
finding its fit expression in a certain indei.eribable sweet-
ness of tone pervading his style like an invisible essence.
It is one of the greatest charms of his compositions, that
these qualities are so unostentatiously displayed that
the} can be best described in negatives. Thus we speak
of his absence of egotism, of intolerance, of narrowness,
of rancor, of exaggeration, rather than of the positive
qualities through which such faults are avoided.
The intellectual power displayed in Mr. Prescott's
works has a similar character of unobtrusiveness and
156 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
reserve. It would, doubtless, appear to many readers
inuch greater were it asserted With more emphasis, and
occasionally allowed to disport itself in the snapping
contrasts of antithesis, or the cunning contortions of dis-
putation. A writer may easily gain the reputation of a
strong and striking thinker, by sacrificing artistical effect
to momentary surprises, or by exhibiting his thoughts in
their making, before they have attained precision and
viefiniteness, and taken their place in the general plan of
his work. To the generality of readers, depth of thought
is confounded with confusion of thoughts. Events and
ideas, heaped and huddled together, and lit up here and
there with flashes of wit and imagination, are often
received in their chaotic state as indications of greater
mental power than they would be if reduced to order
and connection by the stringent exercise of a patient,
penetrating, and comprehensive intellect. Now, pure
force of understanding is principally shown in so grap-
pling with the subject as to educe simplicity from com-
plexity, and order from confusion. According to the
perfection with which this is done will be the apparent
ease of the achievement ; and a thinker who follows this
method rarely parades its processes. His mind, like that
of Mr. Prescott, operates to the reader softly and without
noise. Any strain or contortion in thought or expression
would indicate imperfect comprehension of his subject,
and exhibit the pains of labor instead of its results. Far
from desiring to tickle attention by giving undue prom-
inence to iingle thoughts or incidents, such a thinker
would be chiefly solicitous to keep them in subjection to
his general purpose ; for it is violating the first principle
vt art to break up the unity of a subject into a series o.
exaggerated individual parts.
pkescott's histories. 157
The moment we consider the materials M'hich fonn
the foundation of Mr. Prescott's elaborate histories, we
perceive the high degree of intellect they imply in the
writer, and are able to estimate that healthiness of mind
by which he shunned the numerous temptations to bril-
liant faults which beset his path. In the collection of
these materials he has displayed all the industry and
diligence of an antiquary. With the utmost indifference
to labor and expense, he has gathered from every quarter
all books and MSS. which could elucidate or illustrate
his subjects, and nothing which could cast the minutest
thread of light into any unexplored corner of history
seems to have escaped his terrible vigilance. With all
his taste for large views, which comprehend years in
sentences, the most mole-eyed analyst has not a keener
sight for the small curiosities of history. No chronicle
or personal history, happy in the consciousness of its
insignificance, can hide itself from his quick eye, if it
chance to contain a single fact which he needs. He
has shown more industry and acuteness than almost any
other contemporary resurrectionist in the grave-yards of
deceased books. Yet he has not one of the faults which
cling so obstinately to most antiquaries. He does not
estimate the importance of a fact or date by the trouble
he experienced in hunting it out. He does not plume
himse.f on the acquisition of what has baffled others.
None of the dust of antiquity creeps into his soul. His
style glides along with the same unassuming ease in
tl e narration of discoveries as of common facts.
Indeed, it is not so much in the collection as in the ure
of his materials that Mr. Prescott claims our regard as a
historical artist. These materials are, it is true, original
«nd valuable beyond any which have fallen into the hands
I58 ESSAYS AND REVIK-Ws.
of any contemporary historian; but to analyze them, and
to compose accurate histories from their conflicting state-
ments, required judgment in its most comprehensive
sense. They are the productions of men who looked at
persons and events from different points of view. They
are vitiated with the worst faults of bad historians. They
all reflect their age in its common passions and preju-
dices, and each is disfigured by some unconscious or wil-
ful misrepresentations, springing from personal bias or
imperfect comprehension. They are full of credulity and
b'gotry, of individual and national prejudices, — some-
times the mere vehicles of private malice, almost always
characterized by a bad arrangement of facts and confu-
sion of principles. Together they present so strange a
medley of shrewdness and fanaticism, of fact and fiction,
and throw over the subject they are intended to illus-
trate such a variety of cross lights, and entangle it m
such perplexing contradictions, that to sift out the truth
requires the most cautious consideration and comparison
of authorities. The testimony of kings, statesmen, schol-
ars, priests, soldiers, philanthropists, each inaccurate after
a fashion of his own, Mr. Prescott was compelled to
e'stimate at its exact worth, disregarding all the exag-
gerations of pride, interest, and sensibility. To do this,
he was necessarily obliged to study the personal history
of his authorities, to examine the construction of their
minds, and to consider all inducements to false coloring
which would result from their position and character.
Those who have carefully read the critical notes of his
authorities, subjoined to each division of his histories,
must admit that Mr. Prescott has shown himself abun-
dantly capable of performing this difficult and delicate
♦ask. He analyzes the mental an^ moral constitution of
PRESCOTT'S HISTORIES. 159
Di's veterans with singular acuteness, laying open to the
eye their subtlest excellences and defects, and sno\\ing in
every sentence that in receiving their statements of facts,
he has allowed much for the medium through which they
have passed. This portion of his duty, as a historian,
demanded a judgment as nice in its tact as it was broad
in its grasp. The scales must have been large enough
to take in the weightiest masses of details, and perfect
enough to show the slightest variation of the balance.
Mr. Prescott's understanding is thus judicial in its
character, uniting to a love for truth diligence in its
search and judgment in its detection. But this does not
comprehend all his merits as a historian cH the past ;
and, indeed, might be compatible with an absence of life
in his narrative, and vitality in his conceptions. Among
those historians who combine rectitude of purpose with
strength of understanding, Mr. Hallam stands preeminent.
All his histories have a judicial character. He is almost
unexcelled in sifting testimony, in detecting inaccuracies,
in reducing swollen reputations to their proper dimen-
sions, in placing facts and principles in their natural
order. He has no prepossessions, no preferences, no
prejudices, no theories. He passes over a tract of his-
tory sacred to partisan fraud and theological rancor,
where every event and character is considered in relation
to some system still acrimoniously debated, without
adopting any of the passions with which he comes in
contact. No sophistical apology for convenient c:.ime,
no hypocrite or oppressor pranked rut in the cciors of
religion or loyalty, can deceive his cold, calm, austere,
remorseless intellect. He sums up each case which comes
before him for judgment with a surly impartiality, apply-
ing to external events or acts two or three rigid rules,
160 ESSAYS AN. REVIEWS.
and then fixing on them the brand of his coiiden-.j\atioii.
The shrieks of their partisans he a?.ems the most flatter-
ing tribute to the justice of his judgment. This method
of writing history has, doubtless, its advantages ; and,
in regard to Mr. Hallam,it must be admitted that he has
corrected many pernicious errors of fact, and overthrown
many absurd estimates of character. But, valuable as
his histories are in many important respects, they gener
ally want grace, lightness, sympathy, picturesqueness,
glow. From his deficiency of sensibility and imagina-
tion, and from his habit of bringing everything to the
tribunal of the understanding, he rarely grasps character
or incidents in the concrete. Both are interesting to him
only as they illustrate certain practical or abstract prin-
ciples. He looks at external acts without being able to
discern inward motives. He cannot see things with the
same eyes, and from the same position, as did the persons
whom he judges ;' and, consequently, all those extenua-
tions and explanations of conduct which are revealed m
an insig-ht into character are of little account with him.
He does not realize a past age to his imagination, and
will not come down from his pinnacle of judgment to
mingle with its living realities. As he coldly dissects
some statesman, warrior, or patriot, who at least had a
living heart and brain, we are inclined to exclaim with
Hamlet, " Has this fellow no feeling of his business ? "
It is the same in his literary criticisms. He gives the
truth as it is about the author, not as it is in the author.
He describes his genius in general terms, not in charac-
teristic epithets. Everything that is peculiar to a partic-
ular writer slips through his analysis. That mysterious
'nterpenetration of personality with f(;elings and poweis
which distinguishes one man's genius from another's
prescott's histories. 161
escapes the processes of his understanding. Persons, in
Mr.Hallam's hands, commonly subside into general ideas,
events into generalizations. He does not appear to think
tl.at persons and events have any value in themselves,
apart from the principles they illustrate ; and, conse-
quently, he conceives neither with sufficient intensity to
bring out always the principles they really contain.
We have already ^aid that this mode of writing his-
tory has its advantages, but it is still so over-informed
with understanding as to sink representation in reflection.
Now, the historian should address the eye and heart, as
well as the understanding, to enable the reader really to
understand his work. Mr. Prescott possesses the quali-
ties by which this object is attained, and he possesses
them in fine harmony with the qualities of his under-
standing. He has a quick sensibility, and a high degree
of historical imagination — an imagination which, though
it cannot create character and events which never existed.
can still conceive facts in the concrete, and represent
them instinct with their peculiar life. In studying a past
age, he is not content with appending to a rigid digest of
facts certain appropriate reflections, but he brings the age
up to his mind in its characteristic form, costume, and social
condition. He, in a manner, sees and feels its peculiar
life, and comprehends, with his heart, as well as his
head, the influences which shaped character, and sup-
plied motives and palliations of conduct. He distin-
guishes between crimes which result from wickedness of
heart and crimes which result from accredited error, and
discerns those intricate operations of the mind by which
superstition hallows vices into virtues, and prejudice
obliquely justifies inhumanity and persecution. By con
ceiv'.ng character, also, as a whole, his page is filled with
VOL. II. 11
.62 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
men instead of monstrosities. He sees that the progress
of opinion has stamped with reprobation many practices
which were once commanded by conventional morality
and perverted religion ; and he discriminates between
evil performed from a false idea of duty, and evil per-
formed from selfish passion. At the same time, he
understands all those unconscious hypocrisies of selfish-
ness by which vice and error are gradually sanctified to
the conscience and ennobled to the imagination. He
comprehends, likewise, that apparent anomaly in human
nature, the commission of great crimes by persons who
are not destitute of elevated sentiment and disinterested
action ; and in the delineation of men whose lives pre-
sent a strange medley of folly and wisdom, virtue and
wickedness, he presents complete and consistent portraits,
recognized at once as harmonizing with the principles of
our common nature. History, as often written, is false
in the impressions it conveys, from an absence of this
vitality, vividness, and picturesqueness. We do not per-
ceive the connection betw'een past and present events ;
and do not meet the actors in them on the common
ground of humanity. Mr. Prescott always recognizes
one nature in the different personages of history, however
strange may be the combination of its elements, however
novel the circumstances among which it is placed.
Connected with this power of pictorial representation
and imaginative insight, he possesses a large share of
sensibility ; and from the combination of these arises, in
a great degree, the peculiar charm and interest of his
histories. By the readiness with which he himself sym-
pathizes wilh his incidents and characters, he awakens
the sympathies of the reader, and bears him willingly
along the stream of narrative. Take, for nstance the
prescott's histories. 16iJ
histories of the conquest of Mexico and Pern. Almost
everything seems presented directly to the imagination
— the physical characteristics of the countries, the char-
acter and varying fortunes of the conquerors and their
motley followers, the manners, customs, government,
religion, of the conquered race. With exquisite artistical
effect, our sympathies are made to gather round each in
its turn, and to realize each in its peculiar form of life
Scenery, persons, and events, are thus fixed in the imag-
ination in their proper relations, and together make up a
comprehensive whole, the contemplation of which exer-
cises almost every faculty and feeling of the mind. The
same thing presented simply to the understanding,
divested of its coloring and characterization, would cer-
tainly lose as much in instruction as attractiveness. Mr.
Prescott understands what has made historical novels so
much more readable than histories, and he has succeeded
in making history as fascinating as romance. In accom-
plishing this, it was not necessary that he should intro-
duce anything fictitious. The nearer his narrative
approached the truth of the matter, the more complete
would be the interest it would awaken. But he had the
sagacity to perceive that a mere detail of events however
remarkable, and a mere estimate of persons however
eminent, did not constitute history until they had been
informed again with their original life.
In performing this difficult task, Mr. Prescott has
avoided another fault, scarcely less injurious than its
opposite extreme ; we mean the fault of producing con-
fusion of objects by the intensity with which each is
conceived and expressed. Michelet, a man of splendid
talents and accomplishments, is an illustration of this
brilliant defect. His histories are as intense as Childe
164 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Harold or Manfred. He writes, as old John Dennis
would say, in a perfect " fury and pride of soul." He
conceives char-dcter and events with such vividness as to
adopt the passions of the age he describes, blending them
with his own life, and making their expression a matter
of personal concern. He is whirled away by the spirits
he has evoked. " Thierry," he once remarked, " called
history narration ; and M. Guizot, analysis. I have
named it resurrection, and it will retain the name."
This remark conveys a fair impression of his historical
method. He wakes from the sleep of ages kings, states-
men, warriors, and priests, and they start up into con-
vulsive life. Each individual object glares upon the
reader with eyes of fire, distracting his attention from
relations. The historian is not upon an eminence sur-
veying the whole field, but amid the noise and dust of
the melee. There are in his histories detached sentences
of extraordinary depth, single impersonations of wonder-
ful grandeur, but the calm and comprehensive judgment,
unfolding events and characters in their true connection,
is generally wanting. Much of his finest narrative is
disfigured by bursts of declamation which would be
deemed extravagant in a political meeting, with driz-
zles of mysticism which would puzzle a transcendental-
ist. He has whole chapters which display a strange
combination of qualities, made up of Lord Byron, Jacob
Behmen, and Mr. Jefferson Brick. Mr. Prescott, per-
haps, lias nothing in his histories equal to Michelet's
delineations of Joan of Arc, Charles of Burgundy, Han-
nibal, or Caesar. But if he is not so vivid and powerful
in detached parts, he excels him in the unity and propor-
tion of his whole matter, and the sustained life and
nterest of his narrative. The healthy combination anc
prescott's histories. 165
balance of powers in Mr. Prescott's mind are more
valuable to him, as an accurate historian, than would
be the impassioned imagination of Michelet, or the
judicial understanding of Mr. Hallam.
The style of Mr. Prescott's works, as might be ex-
pected from his character, is manly, perspicuous, pictur-
esque, lucid, equally removed from stateliness and levitj',
disdaining all tawdry ornaments and simulated energy,
and combining clearness and simplicity with glow. In
the composition of a long work, it is a delicate matter to
fix upon a proper form. The style which would delight
in an essay might grow intolerably tedious in a volume.
When brilliancy or dignity, intensity or melody, become
monotonous, they tire nearly as much as dulness or dis-
cord. The only safe style for a long history is one with-
out peculiarities which call attention to itself, apart from
what it convejrs. It must be sufficiently elevated to be
on a level with the matter, or its meagre simplicity and
plainness would distract attention as much as luxuriant
ornament, while it must vigorously resist all temptations
to display for the mere sake of display. Mr. Prescott
has been compared with Robertson in respect to style.
The comparison holds as far as regards luminous arrange-
ment of matter and clearness of narration ; but, with the
exception, perhaps, of passages in " America," not in the
graces of expression. The manner of Robertson is a fair
representation of his patient, passionless, elegant mind.
Its simplicity is often too prim, its elegance too nice. The
smooth-rubbed mind of the Scotchman risks nothing; is
fearful of natural graces, fearful of English verbal crit-
icism, fearful of violating the dignity of histoiy. His
diction loses sweetness and raciiess in its effort after cor-
rectness, and, as a general thing, is colorless, character-
J6b ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS.
less, without glow or pictorial effect. The water is clear
and mirrors facts in beautiful distinctness, but it neither
sparkles nor flows. His diction, however, has the rare
quality of never being tedious, and fixes the pleased
attention of the reader when the labored splendor of
Gibbon would fatigue from its monotony. Mr. Prescott
has the characteristic merits of Robertson, with other
merits superadded. His style is flowing, plastic, all
alive with the life of his mind. It varies with the
objects it describes, and is cautious or vehement, concise
or luxuriant, plain or pictorial, as the occasion demands.
It glides from object to object with unforced ease, passing
from discussion to description, from the council-chamber
to the battle-field, without any preliminary flourishes,
without any break in that unity which declares it the
natural action of one mind readily accommodating itself
to events as they rise. Such a style is to be judged not
from the sparkle or splendor of separate sentences or
paragraphs, but from its effect as a whole. A person can
only appreciate it by following its windings through a
long work. Of course, we speak of Mr. Prescott's style,
in this connection, in its general character, after his
powers of composition had been well trained by exercise.
The diction of the earlier chapters of " Ferdinand and
Isabella " displays an effort after elegance, and an occa-
sional timidity of movement, natural to a man who had
not learned to dare, and mistook elegant composition for
a living style. He soon worked himself free from such
shackles, and left off writing sentences. With the ex-
ceptions we have mentioned, there is no fine writing —
no writing for the sake of words instead of things — in
Mr. Prescott's works. His mind is too large and healthy
or such vanities. Perhaps the perfection of his style, iu
prescott's histories 161
ts flowing inovement, is seon in The Coi.quest of Peru.
There are passages in that which seem to have run out
of his mind, clear as rilis of rock water. They are like
beautiful improvisations, where passions and objects so
fill the mind that the words in which they are expressed
are at once perfect and unpremeditated.
We have thus attempted to pass beneath the surface
of Mr. Prescott's works, to show out of what combina-
tion of elements, moral and intellectual, they have taken
their present form. It is only in this way that we can
estimate the amount of industry, candor, intellect, and
command of expression, he brought to bear upon his
difficult labors. The analysis would have been easier
had his mind presented more positive points, or his works
displayed more stubborn individual traits. The different
powers of his mind so interpenetrate each other, that the
critic is puzzled to hit the right point which exhibits their
relative size and strength. It is needlebs to say that
intellects like that of Mr. Prescott are often underrated,
from the very harmony of their proportions. It is only
by going carefully over their processes that we appre-
ciate their results.
Mr. Prescott's first work was the History of the Reign
of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the labor of ten years,
and of ten years well spent. He was as fortunate in the
selection of his subject as in its treatment. It was in
this reign that the Spanish monarchy may be said to
have been organized, and the Spanish character perma-
nently formed. Yet, either from the paucity of mate-
rials, or from an under-estimate of its importance, Euro-
pean writers left to an American the honor of firs't
wTitmg a classic history of the period. Two inconsider-
able compilations, one in French oy ]\Iignot, the other
<.(5b ESSAYS AND KEVIEWb.
n German by Becker, were the only records of n.a
attempt to grapple with the subject as a whole. At fhe
:ime Mr. Prescott selected it, the materials for its proper
treatment were more numerous and available than at
any preceding period. The researches of Llorente,
Marina, Sempere, Capmany, Conde, Navarette, and
Clemenein, had cleared up the darkness which previ-
ously enveloped some of the most important and inter-
esting features of the subject. Through friends abroad
and at home, he was able to collect almost everything,
both in a printed and MS. form, which could illustrate
the period, comprehending chronicles, memoirs, private
correspondence, legal codes, and official documents.
Then occurred an untoward circumstance, which cannot
be better related than in his own words : —
" Soon after my arrangements were made, early in 1826, for
obtaining the necessary materials from Madrid, I was deprived
of the use of my eyes for all purposes of reading and writing,
and had no prospect of again recovering it. This was a serious
obstacle to the prosecution of a work, requiring the perusal of a
large mass of authorities in various languages, the contents of
which were to be carefully collated and transferred to my own
pages, verilied by minute reference. Thus shut out from one
sense, I was driven to rely exclusively on another, and to make
the ear do the work of the eye. With the assistance of a reader,
uninitiated, it may be added, in any modern language but his
own, I worked my way through several venerable Castilian quar-
tos, until I was satisfied of the practicability of the undcrtak-
ug. I next procured the services of one more competent to aid
me in pursuing my historical inquiries. The process was slow
and irksome enough, doubtless, to both parties, at least till my
ear was accommodated to foreign sounds, and an antiquated,
ottentimes barbarous phraseology, when my progress was more
sensible, and I was cheered with the prospect of success. It
certainlv would have been a far more serious misfortune to tw
PREf;COTT'S HISTORIES 169
led ihiis blindfold through the pleasant paths of literature ; bul
my track stretched for the most part across dreary wastes,
where no beauty lurked to arrest the traveller's eye and charm
his senses. After persevering in this course for some years,
my eyes, by the blessing of Providence, recovered sufficient
strength to allow me to use them with tolerable freedom in the
prosecution of my labors, and in the revision of all previously
written."
The range of Mr. Prescott's subject was extensive, and
its different portions had to be taken up in their order,
and their relative importance and influence rigidly pre-
served. In a long and labored Introduction, embodying
a large amount of thought and research, he gives a view
of the Castilian monarchy before the fifteenth century,
and a review of the constitution of Aragon to the middle
of the same period. This comprehends a luminous sur-
vey of all those manners, customs, and institutions,
which represent national life and character; and it
places the readers at once among the people of Spain as
they were in the fifteenth century. His history, then,
naturally divides itself into two parts ; the period when
the different kingdoms of Spain were first united under
one monarchy, and a thorough reform introduced into
their internal administration, and the period when, the
interior organization of the monarchy having been com-
pleted, the nation entered on its schemes of discovery
and conquest. The first part illustrates the domestic
policy of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the second their
foreign policy. Both are filled with great events and
striking personages. In the first we have a detail of
those measures by which two kingdoms, distracted bji
civil feuds or foreign wars, and seemingly without even
the elements of national greatness and power, wera
170 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
united, reformed, and enabled to act with such effect
abroad as fventually to threaten the liberties of Europe,
This part covers all those events in Castile and Aragon
v/hich preceded the marriage of Isabella with Ferdinand :
the war with Portugal which followed ; the measures by
which the overgrown privileges and possessions of the
nol^les were reduced, the laws rigidly enforced, and the
powers and revenues of the crown increased; the estab-
lishment of the modern Inquisition ; the war of Granada,
and the addition of that kingdom to the Castilian pos-
»iessions, after a desperate struggle of ten years; the
application of Columbus to the Spanish court, and hi&
first and second voyages ; the expulsion of the Jews ;
and a general view of Castilian literature.
Ihe second part, which is about half of the whole
work, opens with a masterly view of the affairs of
Europe at the close of the fifteenth century, and the first
invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France. This we
think unexcelled for that clearness of statement by which
the most complex relations of states are rendered intelli-
gible to the least informed reader. The narrative of the
Italian wars then follows, and the steps are minutely
traced by which the policy of Ferdinand, and the valor
and ability of Gonsalvo de Cordova, eventually suc-
;ev/ded in expelling the French from Naples, and adding
that kingdom to Spain. The rise of Cardinal Ximenes,
his ecclesiastical reforms, the terrible zeal with which he
persecuted the conquered Moors of Granada into insur-
rection, and the wonderful conversions he effected by the
logic of fire and sword ; the third and fourth voyages of
Colunbus, and the general character of the colonial
policy of Spain ; the death of Isabella ; th'j dissensions
of Ferdinand with Philip, his son-in-law, ^''ith regard tc
PRESCOTT S HISTORIES. . Ill
the regency of Castile ; the reign and death of Philipj
and regency of Ferdinand; the conquests of Ximenes in
Africa, and his foundation of the University of Alcala ;
the wars and politics of Italy, arising from the League
of Cambray ; the conquest of Navarre, by which the
only remaining independent kingdom in Spain waj>
blended with the Spanish monarchy ; the death of Fer-
dinand and the administration of Xiinenes ; and a gen-
eral review of the administration of Ferdinand and Isa-
bella, — are the leading subjects of the second portion of
Mr. Prescott's history.
Great events generally arise from the conjunction of
powerful natures and fitting opportunities. We call a
man great when he has the sagacity to perceive these
opportunities, and the will to execute what they teach.
Individual character never appears in such strength as
when it works in harmony with the spirit of the age. It
is strong not only in its own strength, but in the accu-
mulated energies of vast masses of men. There is a
mysterious power urging it on, which, for want of a more
accurate name, we call the general tendency of the time.
No human mind can possibly grasp all the elements
ivhich enter into the spirit of an age ; for this spirit is
l)ut one expression of the general life of humanity, one
step in its progress or retrogression, and holds inscruta-
ble relations to everything which has preceded it. To
give a perfect philosophy of an age, would be to under-
stand the philosophy of God's providence, and to know
the history of the future as well as the past. The near-
est approximation to correctness in history is where cir-
cumstances and men are properly connected in respect
lo the production of events. It will not do to refer
»vents wholly to individual character, or to the soirit of
172 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
the age In the one case, the man is isolated from
humanity; in the other, a tendency is confounded with
an act. Thousands of nnen have opportunities and
inspirations to perform great things, but men of genius
are none the less rare. The Almighty seems to eniow
some persons with the power to anticipate the progress
of events, and to produce at once what the operation of a
general tendency upon a generation of men would post-
pone for years. A historian, therefore, fairly to describe
an age, must have the powers of characterization and
generalization so related as to operate harmoniously.
The general tendency of the age which forms the sub-
ject of Mr. Prescott's history was, in the domestic affairs
of European nations, to a concentration of power; and,
m their external relations, to combinations for conquest
or defence, and contests for preeminence. The sov-
ereigns under which this revolution in the domestic and
foreign system of the European states was accomplished
were admirably suited to their task. By the union of
Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella th-^
subsequent conquests of Granada, Navarre, and Naples,
the acquisition of a new world in America, and. the
marriage of the heiress of the Spanish dominions with
the son of the Emperor Maximilian, Spain, under the
house of Austria, became the most important power in
Europe, and long threatened its liberties. Robertson, in
his History of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, has taken
up the history at about the period where Mr. Prescott's
ends, and exhibited the Spanish-Austrian power in its
most colossal form. Our countryman has traced it from
Its commencement, and developed the causes of its
g^rowth. To understand Robertson, such a history was
wanted ; and certainly its subject would not yield in
prescott's histories 173
aterest lo that of the reign of Charles the Fifth. As
ihe period which Mr. Prescott selected was that in which
the modern systei\i of Europe maybe said to have taken
its lise, and was in an especial degree encumbered with
falsehood and sophistry, it was a subject which seemed
at once to tempt the historian by its importance and
repel him by its difficulties.
The History of Ferdinand and Isabella shows that Mr.
Prescott thoroughly comprehended the revolution to
which we have referred ; and his expo'^ition of it is
admirable. His work accurately reflects the spirit of
the age and the character of its prominent actors ; and
we have been especially struck with his felicity in
developing character, not in an isolated analysis of
qualities, but in the narration of the events which called
them forth. He so blends character with events that
their mutual relation is distinctly seen. The reader
instinctively connects persons with actions, — what they
are Avith what they perform ; and, in doing this, he has
not merely an idea of their external conduct, but a clear
insight into their inward aims and motives. Thus to
diffuse the results cf analysis through the very veins of
narration, an.a picture forth character to the imagination,
is a fine triumph of art. That mechanical delineation of
character, which consists in summing up a man's various
qualities at the end of a narration of his objects and actions,
Mr. Prescott also possesses ; but in him it seems like a
repetition of what he has continually suggested through-
out his whole narrative. In his accounts of events we
are able to estimate better the degree of power in the
actors, by his exhibiting the actors as following or resist'
ing current tendencies.
Among the wide variety of person s and events to which
74 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Mr. Prescott's first hi:jtory relates, five characteis stand
prominently forth : — Isabella, Ferdinand, Columbus, Gon-
salvo de Cordova, and Ximenes. The character of Isa-
bella Mr. Prescott has skilfully developed, through all
her various relations, as queen, wife, and mother. It
seems to us that her moral qualities were fully equalled
by her intellectual, and that she excelled Ferdinand in
both. Indeed, the important events of the reign are all
traceable, in a greater or less degree, to her. She ob-
tained the crown of Castile as much by her virtue,
prudence, and sagacity, as her right. Her intellect, as
well as her affection, was shown in her selection of
Ferdinand as her husband. It was she who made force,
yield to law in Castile, and the reforms in its administra-
tion refer to hei* as their source. The conquest of Gra-
nada might not have been achieved, had it not been for
her providence, forecast, and determination. At the
time almost every one despaired, it was her indomitable
resolution that infused new life into the army. It was
she who appreciated and aided Columbus, when the
sharp, wily intellect of Ferdinand was blind to the
grandeur and practicability of his plan; and to her it
was owing that the new world was added to the domin-
ions of Spain. Ac^ainst the advice and entreaty of Fer-
dinand, she raised Ximenes to the see of Toledo, and
provided a fitting station for the development of his vast
energies. Her sagacity detected the military genius of
Gonsalvo de Cordova, when he was acting in a subordi-
nate capacity in the war of Granada, and to her it was
owing that he had the command of the army in the
Italian wars. It is conceded that her influence was
paramount in the domestic policy of the kingdom, in al
those measures which gave it power to act with vigo
prescott's histories. 1.75
abroad ; but it appears to is that, in her selections of
Columbus anu Gonsalvo, si.^ was also the spring of the
foreign acquisitions of Spain. Ferdinand, with all his
capacity as a warrior and statesman, and with all that
unscrupulousness which gave him a command of the
whole resources of perfidy and craft, was too selfish
ever to be wisely and greatly politic. He did the dirty
work of government and conquest with inimitable ability
and appearance of cleanliness. His dark and cunning
mind fairly circumvented every crowned and triple-
crowTied contemporary plotter. But he had not sufficient
elevation of character to comprehend a great nature.
The great navigator, the great captain, the great priest,
whose genius the genius of Isabella instinctively recog-
nized, were all treated by him with suspicion and ingrati-
tude. The faults of Isabella were faults engrafted on her
nature by superstition ; and the persecutions she allowed
or countenanced arose from a mistaken sense of religious
duty, stimulated by a bigoted confessor. Ferdinand had
no more religion than Machiavelli, and was a persecutor
from policy or interest. The greatest satire on the
Catholicism of the period is contained in his title of
Ferdinand the Catholic. We are aware of no female
sovereign with whom Isabella can be compared in the
union of energy and intelligence with grace, sweetness,
and humane feeling. Mr. Prescott has instituted an
ino-enious parallel between her and Elizabeth of England,
in which he happily traces their points of resemblance
and contrast. The Castilian queen diflfered from the
great English virago in being a woman i)i reality as well
as name.
In all of Mr. Prescott's histories he has to do with
Spanish character, and this he has profoundly studied
»76 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
both in itself and as it was gradually moulded by relig
ious and political institutions. He has considered the
Spaniard in his character as crusader and oppressor, and
skilfully developed tne connection of his religion with
his rapacity. Spain was especially calculated to be the
Catholic country of Europe; for there Catholicism was
associated with the national existence and glory, and
with the gratification of every selfish passion. For seven
or eight hundred years previous to the reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella, Spain had been the theatre of a fierce
"holy" war between Christian and Mussulman, for the
possession of the country. Under the banner of the
cross the infidel had been gradually beaten back from
position to position, until his power was confined within
the kingdom of Granada. All the passions which Chris-
tianity rebukes, all the passions which war stimulates,
Catholicism sanctified. There was a fatal divorce be-
tween religion and morality. Lust, avarice, cruelty,
murder, all raged under a religious garb. Every devout
Christian might practise any enormity upon the heretic
or infidel ; and devout Christians might plunder each
other, if the church sanctioned the robbery. The mis-
chievousness of the system was, that the imagination and
religious sentiments of the people were affected, as well
as their bad passions, and strong faith sided with devilish
lusts. It is doubtful whether the Spaniard could have
endured the privations which accompanied his conquests
in America, unless he had been sustained by some relig-
ious fanaticism : yet his zeal did net stay his hand from
pillage and massacre. His bigotry was strong enough to
deceive his humanity, and endowed the wolf with the
heroism of the missionary.
In the History of Ferdinand and Isabe,lla we peittve
prescott's histories. 177
the religion of Spain, France, and Italy, in connection
with public affairs, and are able to estimate the degree
of moral control it exercised over the action of states.
In the Histories of the Conquest of Mexico and Peru we
see it more directly in its influence upon individuals,
taken from various classes of society, and pretty well
representing their age. No reader who profoundly
studies both aspects of this phenomenon can fail to
acknowledge the wonderful flexibility and power of adapt-
ation of Catholicism. He will see clearly reflected, in
Mr. Prescott's page, the ductility with which it adapted
itself to the natural disposition of its believers, binding
equally saints and sinners to its communion, and strong
with the strength of the worst and best men of the time.
The policy of Spain, during the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, was to have all its enterprises stamped with a
religious character. Its relations with the Pope are
among the most curious points in its history. It is hardly
a paradox to say that Spain would have seceded from the
church, had its interests or passions been crossed instead
of aided by the Papacy. Ferdinand's dealings with the
Pope are exceedingly characteristic. When the latter
interfered with the internal affairs of his kingdom, or
opposed him abroad, he had no scruples in covering him
with public disgrace, or in making war upon him. He
found the Pope a very convenient person to use, but he
fook care not to be used by him.
The second work of Mr. Prescott, the History of the
Conquest of Mexico, appeared in six years after the pub-
lication of his first. The materials for this were such
as no other historian had ever enjoyed. From Madrid
alone he obtained unpublished documents, consisting of
military and private journals, contemporary chionicles.
VOL. II. 12
178 ESSAYS AND REVLT.WS.
legal instruments, correspondence of the actors in thp
conquest, etc., amounting to eight thousand folio pages
From Mexico he gleaned numerous valuable MSS.
which had escaped the diligence of Spanish collectors.
These, with M'hat he derived from a variety of other
sources, including the archives of the family of Cortes,
placed in his possession a mass of materials sufficient to
give a basis of undoubted facts to his wonderful narra-
tive, and subdue the scepticism of the modern reader by
the very accumulation of testimony. It is needless to
add that he also obtained everything in a printed form
which had reference to his subject. The result of all
his labors, of research, thought and composition, was
a history possessing the unity, variety, and interest,
of a magnificent poem. It deals with a series of facts,
and exhibits a gallery of characters, which, to have
invented, would place its creator by the side of Homer;
and which to realize and represent, in the mode Mr.
Prescott has done, required a rare degree of historical
imagination. It may be that the imperfection of the
historian's eyes was one cause of his success. He was
compelled to develop his memory to the full extent of
its capacity; but memory depends, to a considerable
degree, upon understanding, sensibility, and imagination.
To recollect facts, they must be digested, methodized and
realized. The judgment must place them in their nat-
ural order; the heart must fasten its sympathies to them ;
the imagination must see them as pictures. They are
then a possession forever. To the inward vision of the
mind they are as much living realities as though they
were present to the outward eye.
In our limited space we cannot give anything which
would approach to an account of this work. In its gen-
prescott's histories. 179
tral plan and composition, it illustrates what we have
previously said of Mr. Prescott's processes as a historian.
We had marked our copy on every page, ir tending to
notice numerous passages for comment or quotation ; and
certainly the work is full enough of strange facts and
wonderful adventures to awaken new views of the pow-
ers and perversions (>f human nature. Mr. Prescolt
first introduces the reader to the people and country of
Mexico, and gives a luminous view of the ancient Mex-
ican civilization. In the space of two hundred pages
he com.prehends a survey of the races inhabiting the
country, and brings before us their character, history,
government, religion, science, arts, domestic manners,
everything, in short, necessary to a comprehension of
their intellectual, moral, and political condition, at the
period Cortes commenced his enterprise. This introduc-
tion is mostly confined to the Aztecs, as they were the
fiercest, most sanguinary, most intelligent, and most
powerful, of the Mexican races ; and as it was against
their empire that the efforts of the conquerors were prin
cipally directed. Then follows the story of the conquest,
with all its remarkable features of heroism and cruelty.
Cortes is, of course, the cent-^l figure of the group, — the
soul, and almost the body, of the enterprise; and around
him are gathered some of the bravest warriors that
romance ever imagined, encountering dangers and sur
viving miseries which, in a romance, would be pronounced
impossible. The picture presents the meeting of two
civilizations, brought in a rude shock against each other,
and the triumph of the race which was superior in craft
and science. In the followers of Cortes we have what
we would now call a gang of thieves, pirates, ravishers,
and assassins, yet displaying in their worst excesses the
180 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
courage and endurance of heroes, and sustained in theii
worst calamities by what they were pleased to call their
religion. The pagan Aztec gave the first place m tiis
bloody pantheon to his terrible war-god, and with a can-
nibal appetite devoured the body of his captive. We
have some consolation for this in knowing the Aztec was
a heathen, and his god a chimera. But the deity the
Spanish Catholic worshipped, and to whom he prayed for
aid in his schemes of avarice, lust, and murder, was also
of Mexican origin, however much he may have deceived
himself into the belief he was addressing the Christian's
God. Moloch, Mammon, and Belial, were the inspiration
of his schemes of conquest and deeds of massacre.
The great checks upon rapacity are conscience and
natural humanity. It is one of the objects of true reli-
gion to strengthen and increase these natural obstacles
to crime. When, however, bigotry sides with rapacity
against human feeling, and breaks, instead of tightening,
the bond- of brotherhood, it produces those monstrosities
of action so difficult to reconcile with the common prin-
ciples of human nature. We can conceive of men as
becoming demons, but the difficulty is to conceive of
them as performing demoniacal acts from motives partly
religious, and preserving any humanities in their char-
acter after the performance. Yet this we are compelled
continually to do, in following the Spaniards in theii
American conquests. It is one of the charms of Mr.
Prescott's histoiy, that his worst characters are so fully
developed that we perceive their humanity as well as
their rascality. They never appear as bundles of evil
qualities, but as men.
Mr. Prescott places his readers in a posit "on to ur.cer
stand the moral condition of his personages, as that con
prescott's histories. 181
dition was influenced by the current practices of their
age, and by their individual lives. Crimes, in their
fiffect upon character, change their nature as the con-
ventional standard of morals varies. To commit any
delinquency whatever exercises a pernicious effect upon
character ; but its effect is not so pernicious, when it is
hailed as the sign of the hero, as when it is hooted at
as the brand of the felon. In the one case a man may
discharge many of the social and public duties of life,
and preserve that degree of morality and religion con-
veyed in the phrase of " a respectable citizen ; " in the
other case, he sinks into the common herd of profligates
" nd criminals, and makes war upon respectable citizens,
xn one sense, shedding blood in battle is murder ; yet
there is still a great difference in the moral character of
General Scott and Jonathan Wild. No well-minded
person can now follow the career of Cortes without an
expression of horror and indignation ; yet the country-
men of Cortts applauded his exploits, as our countr^^men
applaud those of the victor of Monterey and Buena
Vista.
There is another very important fact to be considered
in our estimate of the Spaniards. The Pope, in whom
was lodged the power to dispose of the kingdoms of the
heathen, had given the new world to Spain, to be con-
quered and converted. Cortes, as a devout Catholic,
had nc scruples about the right of conquest. Mexico
was clearly his, or his sovereign's, provided he could get
it. Now, assuming the right of conquest, all the crimes
in which he was directly implicated might be extenuated
by the right of self-defence. The truth is, he had no
right to Mexico at all ; and tie chief crime he committed
was in its invasion: but the head of Christendom had
82 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
iecided for him that this was not a crime, but a right
Many good Catholics aiight have been, and doubtless
were, shocked at llie barbarities which accompanied the
conquest : but Cortes might have replied that what he
did was necessary to obtain his rightful objects ; that the
question simply was, whether he and his followers should
be sacrificed to the Mexican gods, or a certain number
of Aztecs should be massacred. We know that his
cruelties sprang from no disregard of his religion, such
as it was. For that religion he was ready to die at any
moment ; for that religion he repeatedly risked the suc-
cess of his enterprise ; and it required all the address of
Father Almedo to prevent his zeal for the conversion of
the natives and the overthrow of their gods from involv-
ing himself and his cause in a common ruin.
Cort.'s was in all respects a remarkable man, whether
we consider the strength or the versatility of his genius.
He attempted an enterprise as daring as ever entered the
head of a maniac, and brought it to a successful result by
the resources of his own mind. He was at once the
most enthusiastic and most prudent of men, — a heart
all fire, and a head all ice. His intellect was large,
flexible, capacious of great plans, inexhaustible in expe-
dients, and preserving, in the fiercest inward excitement
of his passions, a wonderful coolness, clearness, and
readiness. He seems to have been naturally a man of
quick sensibility, rather than of deep feeling, — a cava-
lier elegant in person, lax in morals, with much versa-
tility but little concentration of power, and chiefly
distinguished for qualities which captivate, rather than
command. It was not until his mind had been possessed
by one dominant idea that the latent powers of his nature
were displayed. This idea he held wirh the grasp of
prescott's histories. 183
Ij'int, and it tamed his volatile passions, and concentrated
his flashing powers, and put iron into his will. Every-
thing, including life itseU" was to him of little import-
ance, compared with the conquest of Mexico. In his
darkest hours of defeat and despondency, when hope
appeared to all others but the insanity of folly, he never
gave up his project, but renewed his attempts to perform
the " impossible " with the coolness of one setting about
a commonplace enterprise. It is needless to say that
this idea made him unscrupulous, and silenced all objec-
tions to the commission of convenient crime. He was
not cruel by nature ; that is, he took no pleasure in
viewing or inflicting pain : but his mind was remorseless.
Like other conquerors, he never allowed his feelings to
interfere Avith his plans, and carelessly sacrificed friends
and foes to the success of a project. His hand executed
at once what his mind conceived, not so much because
he excelled other men in vigor, but because he was not
eterred from action by any scruples. Remorselessness
.s almost ever the key to that vigor which is so much
praised in great warriors and statesmen. If human
nature consisted simply of intellect and will, the world
would be full of vigorous characters ; but the vigoi
would be demoniacal. To a cruel man the bloodshed
which attended the conquest of Mexico would have been
pleasant of itself; to Cortes, who was its cause, it was a
meie means to an end. The desolation of a province
and the butcheiy of its inhabitants were merely pro-
c(!sses of working out a practical problem. The remorse-
lessness of thought produces more suffering than the
cruelty of passion. The latter may be glutted with n
lew victims at a time ; the former may scatter firebrands
irrows, and death, over an empire. Cortts, in thi.'
184 fiSSAYS AND REVIEWS-
respect, was nr.,< worse than a hundred others whose
' vigor" is the admiration of the world, and the inspira-
tion of the devil.
No general ever excelled Cortes in the command he
exercised over the minds and hearts of his followers
He knew them better than they knew themselves, and
his ready eloquence reached the very sources of their
volitions. He was at once their commander and com-
panion. He could bring them round to his plans against
the evidence of their five senses, and make them dance
in the very chains of famine and fatigue. The enter-
prise would have been repeatedly abandoned, had it not
been for his coolness, intrepidity, and honeyed eloquence.
His whole lawless and licentious crew he held by a fas-
cination for which they could not themselves account.
They suspected him of making their lives and fortunes
subsidiary to his ambition ; they taxed him with deceit
and treachery; they determined again and again to
leave him ; and yet they followed him — followed him,
against their desires and reason, to encounter the most
appalling dangers, for an object which receded as they
advanced, and which they constantly pronounced a
chimera. The speeches of Cortes, given by Mr. Prescott,
are master-pieces of practical eloquence. Indeed, wher-
ever Cortes was, there could be but one will ; and whac
authority was unable to do, he did by finesse and persua-
sion.
Cortes was brave in almost every sense of the term.
He combined the courage of the knight-errant and the
martyr. His daring in battle, perhaps, was not greatei
than that exhibited by some of his officers, — Alvarado, foi
example ; but he excelled all in the power of endurance
His constancy of purpose had tlie obstinacy of sliee'
prescott's histories. 18f>
stupidity, and seems almost incompatible with his fiery
valor. Famine, fatigue, pestilence, defeat, every extreme
of mental and physical wretchedness, could present r virtue.
His qualities, liije diamonds, derived their value from
their rarity. There were enough courageous stabbers
and reckless intrimiers in the country ; there was no lack
of gold, and silver, and merchandise ; but truth and
honesty were scarce and inestimable. The usual laws
which regulate supply and demand began to operate.
Among a set of liars, and perjurers, and traitors, and
murderers, a true, faithful, loyal, and just man, was at
once a phenomenon and a priceless treasure. At the
same time, he comprehended all Peru in his capacious
mind, and he ruled it because he knew all its inhabitants
better than they knew themselves. Virtuous himself, all
the resources and tricks of vice were more visible to ma
eye than if he had mastered them by experience. No
plotter, who had passed all his life in intrigue, was so
sure in his judgment of rascality, so certain in the means
he took to circumvent it. He was one of those wise
men who read things in their principles, and he therefore
never made mistakes. He saw, as in prophetic vision,
the remotest results of all his acts ; and accordingly,
when he had commenced a course of policy, he never
wavered, never experienced a doubt of his success,
because he knew what must happen from the nature of
things. This insight into the principles of events, this
settled faith based on the clearest intelligence, is the
crowning glory of the genius of action. Gasca, in Peru,
evinced a capacity for government which the complex
affairs of a European empire would not have exliausted.
In order to do full justice to Mr. Prescott's work, we
should present to our readers some extracts illustrating
ts excellences of n irration and description ; but this our
206 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
limits will not permit. The mind of the author yields
itself with a beautiful readiness to the inspiration of his
subject, and he leads the reader along with him through
every scene of beauty and grandeur in which the stirring
adventures he narrates are placed. We would refer par-
ticularly to the description of the passage of the Andes,
as an evidence of the accuracy with which pictures of
scenery maybe impressed on the historian's imagination,
and, through him, upon the reader's, without the original
objects ever having been present to the eye of either.
The account of the massacre at Caxamalca is also
exceedingly vivid and true, and is probably one of the
most splendid passages in Mr. Prescott's works. After
this bloody, treacherous, and cowardly murder, Pizarrc
addressed his troops before they retired for the night.
When he had ascertained that not a man was wounded,
" he bade them offer up thanksgivings to Providence for
so great a miracle — without its care they could never
have prevailed so easily over the host of their enemies ;
and he trusted their lives had been reserved for still
greater things." No invective, though steeped in fire
and gall, is calculated to excite so much detestation as
this simple statement of the murderer's blasphemous
hypocrisy. It is one of those monstrosities of canting
guilt, " on which a fiend might make an epigram."
It is curious to observe, in the tangled web of intrigue,
treachery, and murder, which meets us in the history of
the conquest, how the moral laws which were violated
by the conquerors avenged themselves. Murder gener
ated murder, and misery brought forth misery. First
Atahualpa was murdered by a legal farce got up bj
Almagro and Pizarro ; then Almagro was murde:ed ir
the same way by Pizarro ; Pizarro, in his turrx was assas-
PRESCOTT's conquest Of i MIU. 207
bfnated by the followers of Almagro's son, Diego and
the latter fell in battle with the Spanish authorities, under
Vaca de Castro. Hernando Pizarro passed the largest
portion of his life in a Spanish prison ; Juan, the best of
the brothers, was lulled by the Peruvians ; and Gonzalo,
n man of some generosity and openness of mind, and of
a chivalrous temper, after having arrived by rebellion tc
the supreme command in Peru, was betrayed by his fob
lowers, and executed as a traitor. In these various feuds,
most of the original gang of pirates who conquered the
country either fell in battle or were executed on the scaf-
fold ; their stolen property passed into the possession of
others ; and even the few who did mt die a violent death
were under the control of two masters — gambling and
licentiousness — which gave them poverty and disease
for wages. As their crimes brought no good to them-
selves, so, also, they laid Peru under a curse from which
she has not yet recovered. The seeds of a new empire
can never be sown by the outcasts of an old one ; and
those who look upon a country with the eyes of a pick-
pocket will soon ruin everything in it which nature will
allow human folly and wickedness to destroy. The his-
tory of the conquest of Peru, as presented in the vivid
pages of Mr. Prescott, is capable of conveying many les-
sons on the retribution which follows conquest and rapine,
which late events in our own history show that we have
incompletely learned. It would seem that every man of
sommon intelligence and common patriotism would rather
«ee the power of his country palsied, than made the
•jistrument of crime. Such a misuse of strength never
aas been and never can be successful. The poisoned
chalice will inevitably be returned to our own lips, for the
vorld is ruled by divine, not demoniacal agencies. Look
208 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
at the subject in what lie^ht we may, frorc the view of
religion or the view of common sense, we must still admit
that we cannot balk or elude those eternal laws of the
universe, which deny lasting power to the energies of
robbery and the schemes of rapine. The laws of God,
in their slow, silent, and terrible operation, will still
move tranquilly on, turning all our glory to shame, all
our strength to weakness ; though we, in the mad exult-
ation of our guilt, turn niglit into day with our bonfires,
and rend the skies with our huzzas.
SHAKSPEARE'S CRITICS.*
Those who consider the science of criticism as nothing
more than a collection of arbitrary rules, and the art of
criticism but their dextrous or declamatory application;
rejoice in a system of admirable simplicity and barren
results. It has the advantage of judging everything and
accounting for nothing, thus gratifying the pride of intel-
lect without enjoining any intellectual exertion. By a
steady adherence to its doctrines, a dunce may exalt
himself to a pinnacle of judgment, from which the first
authors of the world appear as splendid madmen, whose
enormous writhings and contortions, as they occasionally
blunder into grace and grandeur of motion, show an
undisciplined strength, which would, if subjected to rule,
produce great effects. A Bond-street exquisite compla-
cently surveying a thunder-scarred Titan through an
opera-glass, is but a type of a Grub-street critic meas-
uring a Milton or a Shakspeare with his three-foot rule.
But the golden period of this kind of criticism, when
mediocrity sat cross-legged on the body of genius, and
* Shakspeare's PJays, wilh his Life. Illustrated with many hundred
Woodcuts, executed by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadow9,
Harvey, and others. Edited by Gulian C. Verplanck, LL.D., with Critical
Introductions, Notes, etc., Original and Selected. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 3 vols. 8vo.
Lectures on Shakspeare. By H. N. Hudson. New York: Baker St. Scrib
ner. 2 vols. 12mo. — North American Review, July, 1848.
VOL. II. 14
210 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
sagely delivered its oracular nonentities, has happily
passed away. The fat bishop of the elder time who
discovered that the Paradise Lost was a licentious and
blasphemous poem, and the lean authorling who first
informed the world that Shakspeare was an inspired
idiot, have both departed into the void inane. The
period has gone by when France could dismiss Shak-
speare from the company of Corneille and Racine as a
clever barbarian, or England herself rate him as a sort
of miraculous monstrosity, — neither so elegant as Wal-
ler, nor so correct as Mr. Pope. The old antithesis
between genius and judgment, taste and creative power,
which has sparkled and rung in so many knowing sen-
tences, has now lost most of its point, and is enjoyed only
as a gem from the antique. It is no longer the fashion
for beauty to be tested by elegance, or truth by mechani-
cal correctness, or nature by convention, or art by arti-
fice. Mr. Prettyman, with his conceited lisp, and Sir
Artegal's Talus, with his iron flail, have both been
banished from the gardens of the Hesperides.
This substitution of a philosophy of criticism for an
anarchy of dogmas is especially seen in the recent edi-
tions of Shakspeare. Fifty years ago, he was compared,
in reference to h"is commentators, to Actseon hunted to
death by his own dogs. But the present generation has
witnessed a marked change in the spirit and principles
of the criticism by which he has been tried. Could all
those Sir Francis Wrongheads of the last century, who
undertook to patronize Shakspeare as a wild, unregulated
genius, and kindly volunteered their praise on the score
of his great faults being balanced by great beauties, sud-
denly start up in the present age, we may well imagine
with what a stare of blank amazement they would observe
&.MlL/rSPEARE's CRITICS. 211
his eJevation to the throne of art. It might reas( nably
be supposed that old John Dennis and Mr. Rymer would
retire in disgust to their tombs, rather than accept the
boon of life in a generation devoted to so Egyptian an
adoration of deformities. The difference between an
old critic picking flaws in Shakspeare's expression of
passion, and a modern critic raving about the artistic
significance of Shakspeare's puns, indicates the extremes
of criticism through which the " myriad-minded " has
passed. At present there appears to be no danger that
his intellectual supremacy will be questioned. The
antiquary who ventures to stammer a little in the old
jargon is quietly dropped by good society ; the sciolist
who blurts out a blunt objection is vehemently hissed
into non-exi§tence. Schlegel's prediction, that Shak-
speare's fame for centuries to come would " continue to
gather strength, like an Alpine avalanche, at every
moment of its progress," seems to be in the process of
verification ; for with every new edition and criticism the
giant dilates into larger and larger dimensions. He has
invaded France ; he has conquered Germany. The
principalities and powers of literature find no safety but
in the acknovAdedgment of his supremacy. To the old
republic of letters he comes as the intellectual Caesar,
who is to establish a universal dominion. The diflferent
orders of the literary state, far from opposing his preten-
sions, are engaged in hymning his divinity. Here and
there some lean Cassius mutters treason against the god,
complains that he bestrides the world like a Colossus,
and leaves other poets little to do but peep about for
dishonorable graves ; but all peevish exceptions are
drowned in the universal shout which lifts hiis name to
the skies.
212 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
" Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven ;
No pyramids set off his memories
But the eternal substance of his greatness."
This idolatry of Shakspeare is partly the cause and
partly the effect of a new school of criticism, which
assumes to judge works of art after a new code of princi-
ples. The mistake which the old order of critics made
consisted in overlooking the doctrine of vital powers.
They judged the form of Shakspeare's works by certain
external rules, before they had interpreted the inward
life which shaped the form. Shakspeare's genius was
always felt as supreme above others, because its reality
and force could not be resisted ; but the criticism which
should have made it understood as well as felt, which
should have accounted for its effects, pursued exactly the
opposite course. Instead of attempting to translate it to
the understanding by evolving its principles, it placed it
in antagonism to certain notions in the understanding,
which were unfounded in the nature of things. Because
genius has its own laws, it is not therefore to be con-
sidered lawless ; yet such was the judgment passed upon
Shakspeare's genius by men who, substituting dogmatism
for analysis, did not possess the first requisite of a critic,
that of understanding the thing criticized. The conse-
quence was, an absurd opposition between judgment and
feeling, taste and genius. Men were compelled to admire
what they were taught to condemn. We perceive the
effect of this even in a man of such comprehensive sym-
pathies as Dryden. Nothing can be more contemptible
than Dryden's criticism on Shakspeare's art; yet when
he abandoned his rules, and trusted to his own conceptions
of excellence, — when he ceased to judge as a critic and
spoke as a poet, — nothing can excel the warmth or the
shakspeare's critics. 213
accuracy of his rhapsodies. Eliminate from his cele-
brated passage on Shakspeare every term which may h/t
called critical, and there is nothing in English literature,
from Ben Jonson to Coleridge, which contains so true a
representation of Shakspeare's mind.
Now, the critical revolution which has taken place in
the present century does not pretend so much to increase
our sympathy with Shakspeare as to increase our knowl-
edge of him ; and accordingly we perceive its influence
not merely in the opinions of men of imagination and
sensibility, but in those of critics chiefly distinguished
for sense and understanding. The revolution, being one
of principles, has affected the judgments of writers who
bear, in mind and character, the same relative position
to the present period which the old critics bore to their
time. It would be unjust to compare Schlegel and Cole-
ridge with Johnson and Malone, as indicating a change in
the general scope and spirit of literary judgments ; but if
we compare Johnson with Hallam, we are still conscious
of a great and essential difTerence, — a difference not so
much in the faculties employed as in the principles by
which they are guided. This is so true, that the mean-
ing of judgment and taste, so far as the results obtained
by their exercise are concerned, has completely altered.
When Dr. Johnson said of Cymbeline, that to notice its
defects and improbabilities in detail were " to waste criti-
cism on unresisting imbecility," he proved himself a per-
son of great judgment, according to the principles of the
eighteenth century ; but a man who hazarded such an
opinion now would be set down, we will not say as an
ignoramus, but as one whose taste was under the domin-
ion of individual caprice, and whose judgment was
wholly deficient in correctness.
?14 ESSAYS A]\D EEVIEWS.
The two works named at the head of the present
article, Mr, Verplanck's edition of Shakspeare, and Mr.
Hudson's Lectures, are a fair indication of the progress
which criticism has made within a century. Neither
could have been produced fifty years ago, for the materi-
als were wanting. Mr. Verplanck had the wide field of
English antiquarian, verbal, and sesthetical criticism
open to him, and he has swept over the whole domain.
He has especially availed himself of the researches of
various commentators, without, however, adopting then
insufferable prolixity of statement. His edition, thougti
it has the character of a rifacimento, stWl combines a
greater nmnber of positive merits, and is calculated for u
wider variety of readers, than any with which we are
acquainted ; but it is so in virtue of the judgment the
editor has evinced in selecting the peculiar excellences
of many editions, and in avoiding the peculiar faults of
each. He had at his command a singularly rich collec-
tion of materials, embodying the results of a century of
research, and containing the separate items of a good
edition floating about in an ocean of words. There was,
therefore, a constant strain upon his judgment and taste
in the mere task of selection and compression. Antiqua-
rians and commentators are apt unconsciously to rate
their discoveries and illustrations as of more value than
the things to which they refer; and Shakspeare espec-
ially has been victimized by a class of lynx-eyed dog-
matists, always quarrelling among themselves, and each
claiming for the morsels of useful knowledge he has con-
tributed a ludicrous importance.
Mr. Verplanck has shown much strength and catho-
licity of mind, in not being embarrassed by the varying
ipmions of this army of acute triflers, at the same time
shakspeare's critics. 215,
iiiat he has largely availed himself of their labors. In
the notes to each play; in tracing out the sources, his-
torical and romantic, of the plots ; in the bibliographical
discussion as to the order in which the plays were
printed, he blends his own learning very gracefully with
what he has condensed from others. The text appears
to be the portion of the work on which he has expended
the greatest care, and is the result of a most cautious
comparison, word by word, of the original quarto editions
of the various plays with the original folio published by
Heminge and Condell, and of both with the editions of
Malone, Collier, and Knight. Though, from the nature
of the case, the text of no one editor can be so perfect as
to settle all disputes regarding particular passages, we
think it must be conceded to Mr. Verplanck that he has
executed this difficult and delicate task with a great deal
of acuteness and sagacity, and displayed a much clearer
yisight into the spirit and form of Shakspeare's style
than a large majority of those who have undertaken the
drudgery of its arrangement.
But it is as a critic, rather than as an editor, that Mr.
Verplanck claims our attention here. His introductions
to the plays are really additions to the higher Shaks-
pearian criticism, not so much for any peculiar felicity
in the analysis of character, as in the view, partly
bibliographical, partly philosophical, which he takes of
(he gradual development of Shakspeare's mind and the
different stages of its growth. It is the first connected
attempt to trace out Shakspeare's intellectual history
and character, gathering, to use Mr. Verplanck's own
words, " from various, and sometimes slight and circum-
stantial, or collateral, points of testimony, the order and
»uccession of his works, assigning, so far as possible, each
, 216 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
one to its probable epoch, notino^ the variations or differ-
ences of style and of versification between them, and
in some cases (as in Romeo and Juliet, Henry Fifth,
and Hamlet) the alterations and improvements of the
same play by the author himself, in the progress of his
taste and experience ; thus following out, through each
successive change, the luxuriant growth of his poetic
faculty and his comic power, and finally, the still nobler
expansion of the moral wisdom, the majestic contem-
plation, the terrible energy, the matchless fusion of the
impassioned with the philosophical, that distinguished
the matured mind of the author of Hamlet, of Lear, and
of Macbeth." In this portion of his labors, Mr. Ver-
planck has shown a solidity and independence of judg-
ment, and a power of clearly appreciating almost every
opinion from which he dissents, which give to his own
views the fairness and weight of judicial decisions. His
defects as a critic are principally those which come from
the absence in part of sensitive sympathies, and of the
power of sharp, minute, exhaustive analysis. He is
of the school of Hallam, a school in which judgment and
generalization rule with such despotic control, that the
heart and imagination hardly have fair play, and strongly
marked individualities too often subside into correct gen-
eralities.
Before hazarding any remarks on Mr. Hudson's strik-
ing Lectures, it may not be out of place to refer to a few
of the philosophical critics who have preceded him, in
order that his station among them may be calculated
with some degree of accuracy. After a careful perusal
of his work, we have been forced to the conclusion, that,
m spite of its faults, there is no single critical pro^ction
on Shakspeare which equals it in completeness and force
shakspeare's critics. 217
of thought in the examination of individual cliaracters.
It is a work which no person could have written without
devoting himself with rare constancy to one object, and
without availing himself to some extent of the labors
of his predecessors in the same department of thought.
The materials for a critical view of Shakspeare are widely
scattered. Almost every eminent poet and critic of Ger-
many and England has, within the last half-century,
recoi'ded his impressions of the world's master mind ;
and perhaps in the stray observations of Goethe we have
glances into the nature of Shakspeare's genius as pro-
found and accurate as ever were won by the intensest
toil of inspection. Hallam, Carlyle, Campbell, and many
others, have presented striking criticisms on the plays,
or thrown out valuable suggestions respecting the char-
acters, in works not exclusively devoted to Shakspeare.
Hazlitt, Mrs. Jameson, and Ulrici, have produced sep-
arate volumes on the subject. Of the professed critics,
however, Schlegel and Coleridge, as they are first in
point of time, appear to us first in respect to excellence.
They were, to a great extent, the originators of the school
of philosophical criticism, and we find in them a sys-
tematic statement of its principles, in their application to
all forms of imaginative literature.
The history of the variations of criticism with regard
to Shakspeare would involve a consideration of all critical
theories, from those founded on individual impressions to
those based on an observation of the essential laws of
mental growth and production. These two extremes of
criticism, as different as subject and object, are often con-
founded, — a work of art as it affects a particular mind
being commonly a convertible phrase for a work of art
as it is in itself The middle ground between the two
218 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
has niust obtained among those who are called men of
culture. This consists in testing the value of all works
of art by their conformity to certain rules generalized
from the productions of a particular school, — as if the
romantic drama, as seen in Shakspeare, should be judged
by the principles of the classic drama, as seen in Sopho-
cles. It is evident, we think, that if criticism be a
science, if it assume to convey any real knowledge, it
deals not with individual impressions or arbitrary rules,
but with laws ; and its progress will be determined by
Its success in employing a right method to discover the
laws of the objects to which it refers. As the philoso-
pher is content to investigate and establish the laws of
the human mind and the phenomena of nature, leaving
to the sceptic or the idealist the luxury of denying their
existence or supplying better from his own resources,
so the critic is bound to pursue a similar method with
regard to a work of art, and to interpret, if he can, its
inward meaning and significance. This, at least, is the
process in all other sciences. If a plant, insect, fish,
or other animal, is to undergo a scientific examination,
a savan is not welcomed with a shower of honorary
degrees because he has felicitously ridiculed its external
form, or shown its want of agreement with some other
natural object, but because he has investigated its inward
mechanism, indicated its purpose, and shown that its
form is physiognomical of its peculiar life. Now, we
think that Hamlet and Lear are as worthy of this toler-
ant ti?atment as a bird or a fish ; at least, we are confi-
dent that no scientific knowledge of either can be obtained
in any other vvay. Because the principle implies that a
true creation of the intellect has thus an independent
existence and merit of its own, and is to be judged by its
shakspeare's critics. 219
>wn laws, or its own fitness to serve th' purposes »)f its
creation, it does not thence follow, tha., its relative merit,
as compaieu with other works of art, is altogether put
6eyond tho jurisdiction of criticism. Because a rose
may be considered a finer flower than a violet, we are
not bound to test the beauty of one by its agreement with
the other. At least, in regard to the productions of the
intellect, there can be no accurate classification, no settle-
ment of their position in the sliding-scale of excellence
or greatness, without understanding the spirit and life
of each.
Now, the great merit of Schlegel consisted in discard-
ing from his system all quibbles respecting superficial
differences in the form of works of genius, and looking
directly at the inward life which animated and shaped
the form. His view of Shakspeare, which did so much
to revolutionize the tone of English criticism, is con-
tained in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature,
delivered in Vienna, in the spring of 1S08. Had he
written nothing else, this work would be sufficient to
place him among the greatest critics of the world. It
not only develops a system of principles of uncommon
reach and depth, but contains a review of the dramatists
and dramatic literature of Greece, Rome, France, Italy,
England, Spain, and Germany, grappling sturdily with
all the vexed questions of dramatic art which start up in
each stage of the inquiry. Almost for the first time, we
find, in his work, a critic who profoundly appreciates at
once the drama of Greece, England, and Spain, and does
It in virtue of following out the central principle of a
comprehensive critical system. Sweeping over the whole
field of dramatic literature, he detects, in the variety of
Its kinds, in its metempsychosis through various forma.
220 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
the true charac.'er of each period of its devplopment, and
considers the genms of each period in relation to th-e
materials it assimilated and the purposes it served. He
.'! an ardent and intelligent admirer of ^schylus and
Sophocles, and for that very reason contemns all attempts
to reproduce them in other ages. As he really under-
stands the great Greek dramatists, he sees the excellence
of Shakspeare and Calderon in their departure from the
Greek models. Starting with a distinct idea of the dif-
ference between mechanical regularity and organic form
he is at once a remorseless critic of mediocrity and an
interpretative critic of genius ; for, by demanding that a
work of art, however modest its pretensions, shall be an
organic whole with a central principle of life, he discards
from his sympathies the productions of the most accom-
plished artisans of letters, and the most ingenious
combinations of inanimate parts. His work is the first
attempt at viewing the dramatic literature of the world
under the light of a principle broad enough to include
every variety of intellectual excellence, and overlooking
nothing informed with a living soul.
Had the author been entirely free from individual bias,
and had he possessed also the faculty of contracting his
vision with as much facility as he dilated it, his work
would hardly have left much for later critics to perform ,
but we perceive, here and there, the effect upon his mind
of the literary controversies in which he had been en-
gaged, and some of his individual judgments are contrary
to the catholicity of his principles. Besides, as his com-
prehensiveness was not accompanied by corresponding
acuteness, he not unfrequently becomes the dupe of hia
own refinements, especially in criticizing the details of a
work of art ; for we imagine a truly acute man is not sc
shakspeare's critics. 221
likaly to be deceived in a criticism of particulars, as a
Eomprehensive otie is, who affects subtilty in order to
bring the details of a thing into harmony with his
general conception In Schlegel's celebrated view of
Shakspeare's mind and art, we perceive the influence of
this defect. Nothing can be more lucid than his expo-
sition of the general character and scope of Shakspeare's
genius, an I of the principles by which it should be
judged ; but, when he comes to review the particular
plays, his very determination to find excellence in every-
thing often leads to his missing the greatest excellence.
He is so occupied in tracing out the main design of the
piece, and exhibiting the pervading unity through all the
variety of parts, that he comparatively overlooks the
characterization. Now, the fundamental idea, the ulti-
mate principle, the living root, of one of Shakspeare's
plays, can be reached only by an intense conception or
exhaustive analysis of the characters, — for these give to
the main design its peculiar Shakspearian coloring and
significance ; and to exhibit the dependence of the parts
on the main design, without fully appreciating the parts,
results in reducing the whole to something little above
commonplace. Every attempt to follow a purely syn-
thetic process in an exposition of Shakspeare's plays has
been a failure, because it requires a mind capable of
reproducing Shakspeare's own conceptions, and grasping
with one effort of imagination a Shakspearian whole.
To exhibit a tragedy like that of Hamlet as it grew up
in the creator's mind, indicating the exact period when
the different characters necessarily branched off from the
trunk in obedience to the law at its root, would seem to
require a genius such as has not yet taken criticism for a
location, Goethe seeatis to have had some inward idea
222 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
of the secret of Shakspeare's processes, but the scattered
observations in which he hinted his knowledge are but
stammering expressions of his conception.
The leading merit of Schlegel, as we have already
said, is rather in breadth of view than in any surpassing
felicity of individual criticism ; and in regard to Shak
speare, we think him inferior to Coleridge in strong and
vivid conception, and in the power of flashing a great
impression of a character or incident upon the mind,
through modes of expression which only a poet can com-
mand. With all his wilfulness and vagaries, Coleridge
possessed, as a critic, not only grand glimpses of the
inmost spirit of a work of art, but a remarkable faculty
of intellectual analysis ; and as he had made Shakspeare
and his creations the subject of profound and contem-
plative study, he was eminently calculated for the office
of his interpreter, both to the understanding and the
imagination of his countrymen. But he lacked the
talent of writing clearly in prose. A series of concep-
tions as they stood in his mind never found adequate
expression on his page. He has sentences of wonder-
ful beauty, distinctness, and force, embodying separate
thoughts of the greatest originality and depth ; but there
is little connection or orderly arrangement of matter in
his prose works. He offends against the first principle
of his own critical code, being essentially a writer of
parts, not of wholes, — .of fragments, not of systems. In
respect to principles, he is probably the first critic of the
century ; in respect to criticisms, he occupies a much
lower rank. His fragments on Shakspeare are of great
value, but their value consists chiefly in their suggestive-
ftess, in the brighi hints they have aflbrded to those whc
SHAKSFEARE'S CKITICS. 223
liave had tlie sagacity to plant them in their own mindsi
and allowed them to germinate.
Hazlitt's work on the Characters of Shakspeare's
Plays is a medley of great and small matters, ranging
from criticism to vituperation, from the exliibition of
Shakspeare to the exhibition of himself. Hazlitt's sense
of his own individuality was so strong, that he could not
altogether forget it in the contemplation of the most
objective of poets ; and though his volume bears on every
page the marks of his acute and penetrating intellect, and
is animated by bursts of his captivating but distempered
eloquence, the general impression it leaves on the mind
is unsatisfactory. It is supposed that many of the finest
observations in his work were gathered in conversations
with Coleridge.
Mrs. Jameson's volume on the Female Characters is
a most eloquent and passionate representation of Shak-
speare's women, and in many respects is an important
contribution to critical literature. Its defects are so cov-
ered up in the brilliancy and buoyancy of its style, that
they are likely to escape notice. In the beautiful tumult
of bright words, and the uniform glare of the represent-
ation, we are apt to overlook the lack of close and search-
ing examination. Fine and true as are many of her
remarks, and valuable as is much of the information she
dares to give, she still is too ap: to blend her own indi-
viduality with the individualities she is describing, and
to think she is comprehending Shakspeare when Shak-
speare is simply comprehending her. We feei it difficult
to say thus much in abatement of the praise cheer-
fully awarded to one of the most fascinating books in the
language, but vve hardly think that any judicious admirer
»f Mrs. Jameson can suppose that Shakspeare's heroines
224 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
could pass through the medium of her mind without a
modification of their essential character.
But exceeding all books on the great dramatist in built
and pretension is Ulrici's big octavo on Shakspeare'a
Dramatic Art. This is German in the worst sense of
the word, being so strange a conglomeration of sense and
fanaticism, of sagacity and dulness, that it is impossible
to call it either excellent or execrable. It is learned,
ingenious, acute, often eloquent, often profound, gives
evidence of careful research and deep thought, and
is worthy to be read by every man who can muster
courage to read it ; but it hardly conveys any impression
of Shakspeare at all. The author regards his system
first, himself second, and his nominal subject last. He
takes as high ground for Shakspeare's genius as can pos-
sibly be assumed, and then impresses on his whole works
the peculiar form of his own dominant dogma. Shak
speare, according to him, consciously or unconsciously,
wrote in perfect harmony with the truth of things, and
the " ground-idea " of every one of his plays is a theo-
logical doctrine. When he comes to develop this general
principle, we find that he is not taking Shakspeare as an
object of critical investigation, but as an illustration of
his own philosophical and theological opinions ; and the
" thousand-souled " Shakspeare, the " oceanic mind,"
dwindles down into a mere auxiliary of the " one-idea'd "
Ulrici. The characters are not analyzed, and are viewed
only in reference to the axiomatic moral they are said to
convey. The great "ground-idea" of the book may^ be
said to consist in the assumption that Shakspeare wrote
his plays to illustrate the five points of Calvinism. We
do not say that these poirts cannot be found in Shak-
speare, for almost every subjective mind finds there
SHAXSPEARE S CKITICS.
225
exactly what it brings ; but it is somewhat ridiculous for
a person to suppose that he has measured the genius of
the world's master dramatist, when he has merely given
the measure of himself. Ulrici's ingenuity and learning
are sufficient to enable him to make out a plausible case ;
but he appears to us as far from Shakspeare in spirit as
old Rymer himself.
Ulrici is an indication of the extravagances to which
the principles of an interpretative criticism may seem to
lead, when they are employed as a mere cover under
which to smuggle individual impressions. In the Lec-
tures of Mr. Hudson, we perceive that a right applica-
tion of the same principles may result in a positive addi-
tion to knowledge. Although the American critic has
his own ec ;entricities of opinion and expression, and dis-
plays occasionally a disposition to fight his own battles
under Shakspeare's banner, he still contrives generally to
maintain a marked line of distinction between his own
impressions and the laws of the objects he investigates.
His work, apart from its independent merits of compo-
sition and criticism, stands in intimate relation to the
productions of his predecessors, especially to those of
Schlegel and Coleridge. Possessing in a considerable
degree the power of learning from other minds without
becoming their vassal, Mr. Hudson's Lectures are the
result of a study both of Shakspeare and his critics. By
thus embodying in his own work the most valuable por-
tion of former Shakspearian criticism, he is enabled to
advance beyond it. The leading characteristic of the
philosophical critics, thit of excessive generalization,
which led them comparatively to neglect the analysis of
Shakspeare's characters, he has unconsciously avoided,
from the instinctive antipathy of his mind to all general
VOL. II. 15
226 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
ities not vitally connected with objects. Though his pas-
sionate dislike of abstractions deprives his Lectures of
that appearance of comprehensiveness which comes from
a suppression, rather than an inclusion, of details, ana
thouoh it is sometimes felt as a real defect, still it is that
quality of his mind which has enabled him to succeed in
the most neglected department of Shakspearian criticism,
that of evolving the elements and laws of the individual
characters, and indicating their application to practical
jfe.
Before, however, we attempt a consideration of Mr.
Hudson's positive merits as a thinker and critic, we must
notice some obvious peculiarities of his character and
style. These can hardly be allowed to elude criticism
on the ground of their genuineness, for we are by no
means inclined to give the critic the advantage of being
judged in accordance with the philosophical principles he
may apply to poets. The first impression which a reader
obtains of Mr. Hudson is undoubtedly that of a powerful
but somewhat perverse writer, gifted with more than an
ordinary degree of combativeness, and battling for opin-
ions with all the energy of a man engaged in a personal
conflict. Possessing a strong and sturdy understanding,
quick and deep sympathies, an affluent fancy, and a biting
wit, with a large command of the most vigorous and
apposite language, and a perfect fearlessness as to whon^
or what he hits, he stalks into the company of decorous
critics and prim essayists with his Shakspearian thesis in
his hand, and, on the slightest intimation of a desire for
controversy, incontinently rains down on his opponents a
storm of propositions, arguments and epigrams, from
which they are glad to escape by a precipitate flight,
'Nothing can be more unphilosophical than Mr. Hudson's
shakspeare's critics. 227
jnannei, and it is in strange contrast with the polite
sneer, and somewhat prim and reserved contempt, with
which Schlegel dismisses an opponent, or the exclama-
tory regret with which Coleridge mourns the narrowness
of a critic's creed. Alike in narrative, in the exposition
of principles, in the analysis of characters, in side
thrusts at popular foibles and delusions, Mr. Hudson's
style is characterized by intensity and intellectual fierce-
ness. His only mode of conquering an adversary is to
overthrow him, and when he has him down he ends the
matter by pommelling him to death. He enters the lists
as Shakspeare's champion ; and woe to the unlucky wight,
no matter how accredited his reputation as an author,
who has at any time dropped incautious expressions
raising a doubt of Shakspeare's supremacy. Thus, Mr.
Hume's unfortunate remark respecting the Elizabethan
age, as regards the correctness and taste of its literature,
affords the occasion of a furious attack on that acutest of
metaphysicians, in which every weak point in his mind
is pricked and pierced with the most remorseless cer-
tainty of aim, until he expires at last in an agony of
epigrams. Some miserable heretics against the true
critical faith, whose stupidity and insignificance preserve
them from being roasted in the slow fires of wit, but who
have been lifted into some celebrity by the enormity of
their crimes in attempting to improve Shakspeare down
to popular taste, are loaded with nicknames and pelted
with scornful epithets. Nahum Tate, one of these ple-
beian butchers of the poet's plots and style, is hooted at
as a '-wooden-headed man," and his improved Lear is
kicked from sentence to sentence down a truculent para-
graph, until at last our sympathies plead for poor Nahum
on the ground of the wrong iriplied in cruelty to am-
228 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
mals. This feeling, that meddling with Shakspeare's
plays is literally sacrilege, and objecting to them is auda-
cious heresy, indicates how thorough is our author's
worship of his subject, and how intensely he has realized
it to his mind as a living reality.
The style of Mr. Hudson is a fair image of his intel-
lect and character, admitting considerable variety of
expression, but stamped throughout with strongly marked
and peculiar traits. It is the vehicle, not merely of anal-
ysis and reflection, but of wit, satire, scorn, passion, and
fancy. Often, indeed, the former qualities find their
raciest expression under the latter, and the reader is
favored with a chain of logical deduction the links of
which are epigrams, or with a theory impaled on a scalpel
festooned with imagery. It would be difficult to describe
the style, for it varies with the writer's moods and the
subjects treated, and is restrained neither by self-imposed
nor rhetorical rules. Now bristling with antithesis, now
flashing with satire, — at one time melting into softness
and sweetness of diction, at another bringing out the
thought with a jerk in a perfect verbal spasm, — now
sharp, crisp, biting, scornfully defiant, each short sentencu
exploding into sparkles, and then again rolling on in a
grand succession of harmonious periods, — it always has
the merit of clearness and precision, and in all its alter-
nations, from scientific terms which approach the obscure
to homely phrases which fall plump into the inelegant,
there is little chance of missing the meaning. It is a
style full of the energy of life, but a life which is some-
limes galvanized into spasmodic strength.
The author's command of language is despotic, and
like all despots he not unfrequently exercises his powel
capriciously. This is shown principally in extravagance
shakspeare's critics 229
of statement and in repetition of thuuglu. The first is,
to a great extent, the result of his greatest merit, foi
extravag-ance in expression comes as often from intense
as from feeble conception, resulting in one case from the
boiling over of the mind in vehement language, in the
excitement produced by proximity to a great object
which awakens all its powers, and in the other being
merely an attempt to make words perform the office both
of thinking and expression. Mr.- Hudson, except, per-
haps, in his analysis of Shakspeare's female characters,
does not give to his subjects that remoteness which
admits of their calm contemplation, but writes close to
the vital truth of the thing he describes, with that tin-
gling of the blood which such an immediate contact with
the soul of passion and the life of thought produces and
prolongs. To dive into the depths of Hamlet's mind, or
to follow step by step the p.^gress of crime in the heart
and imagination of Macbeth, or to pass resolutely into
that awful region of passion whose terrible gusts rend
the frames of OtheKo and Lear, is not a thing to be done
Dr recorded with an even pulse and a cool brain. We
accordingly think that, in such instances as these, Mr.
Hudson's extravagance of expression, though not always
strictly accurate as to thought, is eminently true to feeling,
and will be more successful in stamping on the reader's
mind a living impression of the characters than if he had
weighed his words with more scrupulous care. But he
has an exago-eration of statement of another kind, which
consists in lifting persons into the perfection of prin-
ciples, and of confounding possibilities with realities.
Thus, in the view of Shakcpeare's mind, in many re-
spects a masterly specimen of thought and composition,
he makes Shakspeare to be what he really only ap*
2*J0 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
proaclied, and seems to forget that, after all which can be
said of hin as a great man, with large powers harmoni-
ously combmed, he was still a man, and not humanity.
This extravagance we know is simply the extravagance
of epigram, aiming to suggest the truth more vividly by
exaggerating it ; but an analyst so close, fierce, and sub-
tile, as Mr. Hudson, with his felicity and pride in limita-
tions, has hardly a right to expect that his readers or
critics will allow him to claim exemption from the very
letter of the law.
The other fault of Mr. Hudson, that of repetition, is
common to him with almost all lecturers. He has less of
it than Cousin and Villemain, in whose discourses the
leading ideas are made to perform an amount of labor,
in the mere changing of dress and attitude, which at
last wears and wastes them away. The repetition we
observe in Mr. Hudson results from an occasional fanati-
cism of acuteness, which is sceptical of the ability of a
proposition to convey a complete idea, and is eager to
express all its elements. Though he embodies the most
refined distinctions of analysis with uncommon skill and
verbal certainty, he lingers occasionally too long on one
subtilty, presents it in a variety of attitudes through a
succession of brilliant sentences, and, indeed, indulges
his power of condensed expression at the expense of real
condensation of thought. Thus, an acute or profound
ooservation is often first stated in language whose mean-
ing Ignorance itself cannot miss, then embodied in an
image, then again forced into an antithetic or epigram-
matic form, and afterwards, perhaps, slyly made to per-
form the office of sting to a gibe, until, in the end, it is
hammered out of the head m the very attempt tc
hammer it in. This characteristic is more especiallj
SHAKSPEARE S CRITICS. 231
observable in the earlier lectures, in wl ich, being com-
pelled to present the profoundest principles of philosophi-
cal 'riticism in a popular form, his eagerness to make
them readily apprehended leads him to push them into
every minor avenue to the mind, as well as to send them
on the direct road to the understanding.
We have one more cause of quarrel with Mr. Hudson
before we proceed to the positive merits of his book. I*
is so rare to have a critic before our court of literary
justice, that when we do, it is proper to make him feel
how " sharper than a serpent's tooth" is the bite of
criticism to an author. Our present objection refers tc
the explosions of Mr. Hudson's individuality in the
guerilla warfare which he wages against the reformers
and transcendentalists of our enlightened age. This
bush-fighting along the main road of the text, though ii
lends raciness to the style, and will doubtless deligh<
many who have no appreciation of his great merits as a
thinker and critic, is often carried to the extreme limits
of a reviewer's forbearance. Many of his remarks are
unquestionably acute and just, and as far as they ridicule
strutting pretension, presumptuous imbecility, and com
placent ignorance, — as far as they unmask the " moral
bullies and virtuous braggadocios " who are engaged in
beating up a little conscience into a great deal of ethical
and political froth, or probe sharply those small coteries
of elegant souls, where
*" Self-inspecVion sucks his little thumb," —
we have little to say in objection, except that his digres-
sions somewhat break the unity of his discourse ; but he
himself is sometimes forced by his contempt or indigna-
tion to the opposite extreme, and to class, in apjiearince
232
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
at least, the principles of civil and religious liberty under
the general head of conceit and spiritual pride, and to
exalt conformity to church and state into the perff;ction
of wisdom and piety. This seems to us " more excel
lent foolery than the other ;" and though we woujd not
directly charge it upon Mr. Hudson, there are rash and
peevish expressions in his book, which might be forced
to bear such a construction.
We have thus noticed at some length Mr. Hudson's
peculiarities of manner, not because they affect the in-
tegrity of his interpretation of objects, or seriously
detract from the intrinsic value of his work, but because
they are calculated to raise false issues regarding its
merits, apart from the shock they sometimes give to
good taste. Admitting everything which can be said
against it on these points, it has still solid excellences of
thought and style which require a different treatment.
We shall, therefore, now attempt to indicate its leading
characteristics as a work of philosophical criticism.
Mr. Hudson has thrown the whole strength of his
mind into the analysis of the plays, especially the char-
acters. In this respect, Schlegel, Coleridge and Hazlitt,
are imperfect and meagre in comparison with him,
though for his own success he is considerably indebted to
their previous labors. He has practically established one
important fact in regard to Shakspeare's characters, that
each is not only an individual, but a whole class individ-
ualized ; and that, as the ideal or common h^d of a
class, it is not only admirable as a character, but indicates
the tendencies of a large body of men. So intense is
the individuality of each character, that it is only when
a powerful analysis has resolved it into its elements that
ve perceive the vast amount of thought and observation
SHAKSPEARE S CRITICS. 233
it embodies. This analysis, applied to all his characters,
conveys a living idea of the amazing force, clearness,
and grasp of Shakspeare's mind, in its relative compre-
hension of the actual and possible of human nature, and,
better than all vague panegyric, demonstrates his unap-
proachable greatness. For the first time in the history
of the intellect, we find in him a mind whose creative
vitality is commensurate with its comprehension ; reach-
ing down into the heart of things with as much facility
as it stretches over and around them ; seizing, at once,
the elements of human nature, and generalizing the
world of men, interpreting the latter by light derived
from the former, and by the harmonious action of his
powers of conception, combination, and observation,
enabled to express mankind in men, and womankind in
women. When to this we add the capacity of combin-
ing the elements of humanity into new and strange
forms of being, which are neither natural nor unnatural,
but supernatural, we have an object for contemplation
which criticism cannot exhaust, and which it has hardly
begun to conceive. The wonder is, not that Shakspeare
could have created so many characters, but that he could
have comprehended a world in so few; that he was so
rare a combination of the poet and philosopher as to
grasp truth in the concrete, and embody the most
gigantic generalizations of the intellect in living forms.
Were his characters merely individuals, or merely per-
sonified ideas, they would not contain within themselves
a fraction of their present applicability to life. As it is,
he has occupied almost eveiy department of thought.
Goethe has testified that he found it difficult to avoid an
"unitation or repetition of Shakspeare, when he strovp
234 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
most conscientiously to express himself or his own crea-
tions.
In this analytic portion of his labors, Mr. Hudson has
opened and worked many rich veins of thought, and
indicated practically what is meant by Shakspeare's
opulence and breadth of mind. If, however, he had
merely analyzed the characters, and exhibited their wealth
of suggestiveness, he would have performed but one im-
portant portion of a critic's duty. He has not only done
this, buf has forcibly conceived the characters as indi-
viduals, and happily blends their personal traits with
their general significance, in reproducing them to the
imagination and understanding. Shakspeare's plays
constitute a kind of world in themselves, and no person
of deep and delicate sympathies can dwell in it long
without giving a positive existence to its men and wo-
men, and referring to Hamlet and FalstafT and Cordelia
as though they were the companions of his eye as well
as mmd. This is especially true of Mr. Hudson. He
appears as the lover or enemy of many characters whom
Shakspeare is content to represent ; and considers what
they are and what they do as subjects of approval or
condemnation, as much as if they were veritable persoii-
ages in actual life. This intense realization is, perhaps,
the greatest charm of his book, though at the same time
it is one of the disturbing forces in his style, and the
occasion of many a gust of intellectual wrath. It gives
a certain heartiness to his most abstract discussions of
principles, and through its influence the peculiar Shak-
spearian quality of each character rarely escapes hi,s
imagination when it eludes his analysis. Indeed, in
this interchange of the synthetic and analytic processes
of criticism, his various powers appear in all their force
SHAKSPEARE*S CRITICS. 235
and refinement, for he commonly cor trives to leave a
concrete impression of a character upon the mind after
he has subjected its elements to the minutest scrutiny
The result of his examination of each play is a view of
its plot and design through the characters, and he thu?
lifts it into a Shakspearian region of thought, action, and
being. The mistake of the German critics, as we have
remarked, consists in bringing down the play into a
comparatively commonplace region of existence, by over-
looking the modification which everything receives from
Shakspeare's own individuality, and from not adequately
perceiving that it is the characters which lend greatne^'s
to the action and plan of the piece.
In exhibiting the mutual dependence of the characters,
and their connection with the drama in which they
appear, Mr. Hudson is very successful. He clearly
understands that individuals in Sl.^kspeare, as in life,
are developed by mutual contact and collision ; and
accordingly he views each person in his relations, and
interprets his character in the light cast upon it from all
parts of the play. For instance, in the masterly analy-
sis of lago, he sometimes discards the little demon's own
self-communings as furnishing evidence of his motives,
on the ground of his being a measureless liar ; and indi-
cates, in many instances, the s'lreness and subtilty of
Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature, in making his
deceivers thus practise deception upon themselves, and
lie even in soliloquies. In this portion of his labors, Mr.
Hudson displays a delicacy of thought, a capacity to
follow the minutest and most complex operations of the
mind, and occasionally a iracroscopic nicety of vision,
which would not discredit the nost accomplished meta<
physician.
236
ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS.
It would be difficult to decide whether our critic has
been more successful in delineating Skakspeare's men or
women. Certainly no reader, who judged of the scope
of his powers by their exercise in controversy, or in grap-
pling sturdily with some knotty difficulty which had to
be removed by main strength, would give him credit for
the delicacy and clearness of his perception of moral
beauty, and the refinements of the affections. The ex-
quisite felicity with which he touches without profanely
handling the most ideal of Shakspeare's heroines, and
his constant sense of a certain sacredness attaching tc
the sex, are in strange contrast, not only to his rough-
and-tumble mode of upsetting a critical dunce, but to hi?
close and fierce exposition of an lago and a Goneril
His delineations of Rosalind, Beatrice, Viola, Perdib
Juliet, Cordelia, Desdemona, Hermione, not to mentio»
others, are conceived with great subtilty of sentiment
and imagination, and have an indefinable charm caught
from an intense sympathy with their natures. These
ideal creations of the great poet, more truly and vitally
natural than most of the women of actual life, he has
contrived to reproduce whole upon his page, in the clear
sweetness and beautiful dignity of their characters, and
has been especially successful in setting forth their in-
nate, unconscious purity of soul, shining through the
most equivocal circumstances, and lending a glory to
the simplest acts and expressions. It would be vain to
look elsewhere for so complete a demonstration of Shak-
speare's unrivalled success in exhibiting womankind in
women, or a more thorough exposure of the fallacy tha
Beaumont and Fletcher excelled him in female characters.
No extracts would convey a full impression of the felicity
?i^ith which Mr. Hudson has entered into the spirit of
shakspeare's critics. Vin
Shakspeare's heroines ; and we can quote but one speci-
men in justification of our praise. The following is a
portion of his remarks on Perdita : —
"The second part ofWinter's Tale introduces us to very dif-
ferent scenes and persons from those which make up the first.
The lost princess, and heir-apparent of Bohemia, two of the
noblest and loveliest beings that ever fancy conceived, occupy
the centre of the picture, while around them are clustered rustic
shepherds and shepherdesses, amid their pastimes and pursuits,
the whole being enlivened by the tricks and humors of a merry
Dedler and pickpocket. The most romantic beauty and the
lost comic drollery are here blended together. For simple
purity and sweetness, the scene which unfolds the loves and
characters of the prince and princess is not surpassed by any-
thing in Shakspeare, and of course is not approached by any
thing out of him. All that is enchanting in romance, lovely in
innocence, elevated in feeling, sacred in faith, is here brought
together, bathed in the colors of heaven. The poetry is the very
innocence of love, embodied in the fragrance of flowers. Clad
in immortal freshness, this scene is one of those things which
we always welcome as we do the return of spring, and over
which our feelings may renew their youth forever : in brief, so
long as nature breathes, and flowers bloom, and hearts love,
they will do it in the spirit of what is here expressed.
"Perdita is a fine illustration of native intelligence as dis
tinguished from artificial acquirements, and of inborn dignity
jursting through all the disadvantages of the humblest station.
Schlegel somewhere says, ' Shakspeare is particularly fond of
showing the superiority of the innate over the acquired ; ' but
he has nowhere done it more beautifully or more powerfully
than in this unfledged angel.
'The pret'fest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the green-sward, nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself.'
Tust as much a queen as if she were brought up at court, ane
jUFT as rnu^h a shepherdess as if she were born a shep'ierd's
238 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
daughter, the graces of the princely and the simplicities of the
pastoral character seem striving which shall express her loveli-
est. She is not a poetical being; she is poetry itself ; and
everything lends or borrows beauty at her touch. A playmate
of the flowers, when we see them together, we can hardly tell
whether they take more inspiration from her, or she takes more
Irom them ; and while she becomes the sweetest of poets in
making nosegays, the nosegays in her hands become the richest
of crowns. Courted by the prince in disguise at one of then
rustic festivals, herself the mistress of the feast, she transforms
the place into a paradise." — Vol. i.. pp. 331, 332.
There is too wide a variety of subjects included in Mr.
Hudson's volumes to allow us room for a special criti-
cism on his treatment of each. His lectures on As You
Like It, The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream,
Cymbeline, and Romeo and Juliet, afford perpetual stim-
ulants both to attention and controversy. In these he
has given powerful, and for the most part accurate,
delineations of Prospero, Shylock, Jaques, Romeo, Mer-
cutio, and Caliban, not to mention Ariel, the Nurse, and
Bottom. His sketches of Malvolio as " self-love-sick,"
— of Jaques as a refined epicure of sentimental emotion,
"an utterly useless, yet perfectly harmless man, seeking
wisdom by abjuring its first principle," — of Parolles,
" that prince of braggarts, that valiant word-gun, that
pronoun of a man, a marvellous compound of wit, volu-
bility, impudence, rascality, and poltroonery," as a
" bugbear of pretension and shadow in man's clothing,"
— of Master Slender, as a " most potent piece of imbe-
c lity, an indescribable and irresistible nihility, who is
obliged to be sui generis from a lack of force of charac-
ter to imitate or resemble anybody else," — of Caliban,
as "a strange, uncouth, malignant, yet marvellously life
like confusion of natures, part man, part demon, part
sjakspeare's critics. 239
Drute, whom Prospero by his wonderful prt and science
has educated into a sort of poet," — are all adir.irably
done and faithful to the subject ; but we can only allude
to them. In the sharp analysis and genia reproduction
of the comic characters, Mr. Hudson shows that he is as
capable of understanding th*^ philosophy of the ludicrous
as of sympathizing with its mirth.
But the finest portion of his work is that devoted to
the four great tragedies, Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and
Othello. These bear evident marks of much elaboration
in thought and diction, and rank, in our opinion, with
the best specimens of philosophical criticism in English
or German literature. The vigor and brilliancy of the
style, and the verbal felicities and Hudsonisms with
which it is variegated, are likely to dazzle away atten-
tion, in some degree, from the real weight and import-
ance of the matter. It would be absurd to say that
they are altogether original, for complete originality on
subjects which have engaged the attention of so many
powerful intellects would be another name for extrava-
gance and paradox ; but they are original in the sense
of containing the deeply meditated opinions of one mind,
who, while he has freely sought light from other minds,
has evidently adopted no opinions which he has not
scrupulously examined. Some views which are promi-
nent in other writers he has included in his own, by
altering their relations and limiting their applicaticn ;
but he has not hesitated to reject many which are well
accredited. The wt)nder:ul characters of these dramas
he appears to have profoundly stadiid, especially in
regard to the practical wisdom which may be evolved
from then by close study; and his elucidation of their
morjil and mental constitution is always able, eren wher
240 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
it leaves room for controversy. No one critic haa
excelled him in the forcible presentation to the under-
standing and imagination of such a gallery of characters
as Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Polonius, Ophelia,
Lear, Cordelia, Othello, lago, and Desdemona.
Mr. Hudson's general idea of Hamlet, Shakspeare's
enigma in character, is that of " conscious plenitude of
intellect, united with exceeding fulness and fineness of
sensibility, and guided by a predominant sentiment of
moral rectitude ;" and he attempts to show, with great
force and ingenuity, that Harnlet is withheld from
action, not from the lack of will, but by the strife in his
mind between incompatible duties ; filial piety prompting
him to obey the commands of the ghost, conscience for-
bidding him to comm.it regicide and murder; and the
result is, that the greatness of his nature can be ex-
pressed only in thought. It might be objected to this,
that will is a relative term, and even admitting that
Hamlet possessed more will than many who act with
decision and rapidity, the fact that his other powers
were larger in proportion justifies the common belief,
that he was deficient in energy of purpose. Mr. Hud-
son says that he always acts with decision, where his
moral nature is not divided between incompatible duties :
but this might be said with as much truth of the most
inefficient person, it being the characteristic of a healthy
mind that the will is in such harmony with the con-
science and the intellect that there can be no strife
between duties, but there must be a resolute choice of
one course of action as on the whole the wisest and best.
The truth is, Hamlet is so complex a creation, and
includes within the general unity of his character such a
variety of elements, that it is almost impossible to start*
shakspeare's critics. 24i
any theory regarding him which shall adequately translate
our feeling of his individuality into an intellectuarl form;
and Mr. Hudson himself is compelled to admit that there
is a mystery about him which " baffles the utmost efforts
of criticism," and to present his own view with more
indecision and less positiveness than is usual with him.
It would be easy to prove that the play of Hamlet,
considered as a work of art, is not so great as two or
three of the other tragedies ; but the feelings of men will
always pronounce in favor. of its containing the greatest
of Shakspeare's characters. Considered in respect to
its universality, Lear, Macbeth, and Othello, are but
great specialities in comparison ; more distinctly appre-
hended, it is true, and addressing with more potency the
strongest passions and affections, but rather invigorating
us with a grand impression of human powers and ca-
pacities, than prompting those " thoughts which wander
through eternity," or touching that inward sense of our
inefficiency as moral beings, which is the mournful fas-
cination of Hamlet. The reading or representation of
the other plays produces a rush and glow of the blood, a
feeling of power and greatness as connected with the
energies of guilt and the struggles of passion, a wonder-
ful sense of what man is able to effect both in obeying
and conquering conscience. The impression left by
Hamlet is that of profound melancholy.
Many of the various elements in Hamlet's character
Mr. Hudson has distinctly exhibited, and acutely recon-
ciled some of its apparent inconsistencies; and, as a
whole, we think his essay will bear comparison w^ith
the best which have been written on this exhaustless
subject. The other characters of the play, especially
Ophelia and Polonius, are admirably discriminated
VOL. II. 16
242 ESbAy - AND REVIEWS.
The lecture on Macbeth is the ablest in the volume
for sustained vigor of thought and style. Its leading
excellence consists in that absorption of the writer's
mind in his subject which lends to his essay a portion
of the grandeur of the play itself, while it prevents him
from indulging in any freaks of digression. The general
view taken of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth we think is
as original as it is true, and it is sustained with much
power. Imagination, considered both as a faculty of the
mind and as an element of character, is most profoundly
analyzed ; and in a passage of which we can give but a
small part, it is applied to the settlement of various
disputes regarding the degree and kind of guilt whicli
should attach respectively to these partners in crime.
" A strong and excitable imagination, set on fire of con-
science, naturally fascinates and spell-binds the other faculties,
.i.nd thus gives an objective force and effect to its own internal
workings. Under this guilt-begotten hallucination, the subject
loses present dangers in horrible imaginings, and comes to be
tormented with his own involuntary creations. Thus conscience
inflicts its retributions, not directly in the form of remorse, but
indirectly through imaginary terrors which again react on the
conscience, as fire is kept burning by the current of air which
itself generates. In such a mind the workings of conscience
may be prospective and preventive ; the very conception of
crime starting up a swarm of terrific visions to withhold the
subject from perpetration. Arrangement is thus made in our
nature for a process of compensation, in that the same faculty
which invests crime with unreal attractions also calls up unreal
terrors to deter from its commission. A predominance of this
faculty everywhere marks the character and conduct of Mac-
beth. Hence his apparent freedom from compunctious visitings,
even when he is in reality most subject to them. He seems
conscienceless from the very form in which his conscience
works ; seems flying from outward dangers, while conscious
guilt is the very source of his apprehensions. It is probablj
shakspeare's critics. 243
Irom oveisight of this that some have pronounce'I him a mere
cautious, timid, remorseless villain, restrained I'rom crime only
by a shrinking, selfish apprehensiveness. Undoubtedly there is
much in his conduct that appears to sustain this view : he does
indeed seem dead to the guilt, and morbidly alive to the dangers
of his situation ; free from remorses of conscience, and filled
with terrors of imagination ; unchecked by moral feelings, and
oppressed by selfish fears : but whence his wonderful and un-
controllable irritability of imagination ? How comes his mind
so prolific of horrible imaginings, but that his imagination its If
is set on fire of hell ? The truth is, he seems remorseless only
because in his mind the agonies of remorse project and trans-
late themselves into the spectres of a conscience-stricken imag
ination.
" In Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, the workings of con
science can only be retrospective and retributive : she is too
an imaginative either to be allured to crime by imaginary splen
dors, or withheld from it by imaginary terrors. Without an
organ to project and embody its workings in outward visions,
her conscience can only prey upon itself in the tortures of
remorse. Accordingly, she knows no compunctious visiting;;
before the deed, nor any suspension or alleviation of them after
it. Thus, from her M-ant or weakness of imagination, she
becomes the victim of a silent but most dreadful retribution.
Conscience being left to its own resources, she may indeed pos-
sess its workings in secret, but she can never for a moment
repress them ; nay, she cannot reYeal them if she would, and
she dare not if she could ; the fires burn not outwards into
spectres to sear her eyeballs and frighten her out of her self-
possession, but concentrate themselves into hotter fury within
her. This is a form of anguish to which Heaven has apparently
denied the relief or the mitigation of utterance. The agonies
ol an imbosomed hell cannot be told, they can only be felt ; or,
at most, the awful secret can be but dimly shadowed forth, in
the sighings of the furn.vce when all is asleep but the unquench-
able fire, or in the burning asunder of the cords that unite the
sou. to its earthly dwelAng-place. With such imazing depih
and power of insight does Shakspeare detect and unfold the
jecret workings of the human mind ! " — Vol. ii., pp. 165- -167.
2-14 ESSAiS AND REVIEWS.
The Weird Sisters Mr. Hudson has painted in al
their moral hideousness and grotesque grandeur.
" The Weird Sisters, indeed, and all that belongs to them^
are but poetical impersonations of evil inlhiences: they are the
imaginative, irresponsible agents or instruments of the devil ;
capable of inspiring guilt, but not of incurring it ; in and
through whom all the powers of their chief seem bent up to the
accomplishment of a given purpose. But with all their essen-
tial -udckedness, there is nothing gross or vulgar or sensual
about them. They are the very purity of sin incarnate ; the
vestal virgins, so to speak, of hell ; radiant with a sort of
inverted holiness ; fearful anomalies in body and soul, in whom
everything seems reversed ; whose elevation is downwards ;
whose duty is sin ; whose religion is wickedness ; and the law
of whose being is violation of law! Unlike the Furies of
jEschylus, they are petrific, not to the senses, but to the
thoughts. At first, indeed, on merely looking o? them, we can
hardly keep from laughing, so uncouth and grotescjne is their
appearance : but afterwards, on looking i7ito them, we find them
terrible beyond description; and the more we look into them,
the more terrible do they become ; the blood almost curdling in
our veins, as, dancing and singing their infernal glees over
embryo murders, they unfold to our thoughts the cold, passion-
less, inexhaustible malignity and deformity of their nature." - -
Vol II., p. 148.
The essay on Lear is full of admirable matter, show-
ing, however, a struggle with the difficulties of the sub-
ject. In some respects it is the rnost powerful and the
most characteristic of Mr. Hudson's Lectures. Leai
himself is analyzed at considerable length, and the amaz-
ing grandeur of the character, as it develops itself undei
the pressure of unnatural wrong, and the might and vari
Bty of passions which are let loose throughout the drama
are set forth with great distinctness and a firm clutch ot
Uie subject in all its parts. Edmund is finely dissectet
shakspeare's' critics. 245
and wel\ discriminated from lago and Richard. Kent
and Edgar are clearly portrayed in their connection with
the general design of the play. The description of Cor-
drlia we have referred to before ; but her heavenly
beauty is not more fully shown than the selfishness and
" hell-bom tact " of her sisters. " There is a smooth,
glib rhetoric," says Mr. Hudson, " in their professions,
unsweetened with the least infusion of feeling, and a
. dry, hard, icy alertness of thought and speech in what
afterwards comes from them, which is almost terrific, and
which burns an impression into our minds from its very
coldness ; " and further on he does full justice to the
" wantonness and intrepidity of their malice." The
Fool has ever been a stumbling-block to critics of the
play ; but Mr. Hudson, instead of denying his right to be
in it at all. has wisely attempted to show Shakspeare's
object in placing him there. We extract the concluding
paragraph of his view of the character.
"I know not, therefore, how I can better describe the Fool,
than as the soul of pathos in a sort of comic masquerade ; one
in whom fun and frolic are sublimed and idealized into tragic
beauty j with the garments of mourning showing through and
softened by the lawn of playfulness. In his ' laboring to out-
jest Lear's heart-struck injuries,' we see that his wits are set
a-dancing by grief; that his jests are secreted from the depths
of a heart struggling with pity and sorrow, as foam enwreathes
the face of deeply troubled waters. So have I seen the lip
quiver and the cheek dimple into a smile, to relieve the e^'e of a
burden it was reeling under, yet ashamed to let fall. There is
al. along a shrinking, velvet-foUed delicacy of step in the Fool's
antics, as if, awed by the holiL.ess of the ground, they had put
the shoes from off their feet ; and he seems bringing diversion
to our thoughts, that he may the better steal a sense of woe into
lur hearts ; as grief som< times puts on a face of mirth, and
ben gets betrayed by its very disguise. It is truly hard to
246 tSSAYS AND REVIEWS.
teH wh'sccer the inspired antics which glitter and sparkle from
/he surface of his mind be in more impressive contrast with the
dark, tragic scenes into which they are thrown, like rockets intc
a midnight tempest, or with the undercurrent of deep, tragic
thoughtfulness out of which they falleringly issue and play." —
Vol. II., pp. 273, 274.
We have little space left to remark on Mr. Hudson's
criticism of the tragedy of Othello. lago, Othello, and
Desdemona, characters well fitted to test the strength
and delicacy of his powers of analysis and interpretation,
he has treated very differently from most of Shakspeare's
critics. lago he considers as acting, not from revenge, but
from a certain intellectual pride and "lust of the brain;"
in regard to his own assignment of the motives for his
deeds, our critic agrees with Coleridge in callhig it " the
motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity." This char-
acter is Mr. Hudson's masterpiece of intellectual anat-
omy, lago is the perfection of demoniacal cleverness,
and it is pleasant to see the wonderful inward mechan-
ism of his unmatched malignity of nature thus exhibited
in all its subtilty and complexity of arrangement and
movement. Othello is represented as the exact opposite
of lago, even in respect to jealousy, which, being a mean
and despicable passion, is more appropriate to our honest
Ancient than to the noble Moor. Mr. Hudson thinks
that Othello acted neither from jealousy nor revenge, but
from a sense of justice, in destroying Desdemona; that
he killed her, not from suspicion, but from evidence of
her guilt; and the fact that this evidence was the manu
:*acture of lago's diabolical ingenuity does not alter tht
Motives of his conduct. There can be little doubt that
this view is substantially the true one. Othello gives
eridenci^, not only in his character taken by itself, but ir
sharspej! re s critics.
HA"!
rariuus portions of the plajr, that jealousy and revenge
can have no place in his open and ingenuous mind; and
in the last scene he particularly discriminates between
murdering Desdemona and sacrificing her. But we
think that the critic does not sufficiently consider in his
eloquent admiration of Othello's character, that though
the intention of the latter is to punish crime, he has a
wild way of doing it, and that the frightful tempests of
passion which sweep over his mind, and hurry him into
the commission of the deed, are characteristic not so
much of a just man as of a noble barbarian, who mis-
takes the object of justice from the very fact that justice
with him is a passion rather than a principle. We do
not believe, as Mr. Hudson seems to do, that Shakspeare
intended Othello as a model of manhood, but as an
instance of the weakness of a noble nature, in being the
victim of hot and treacherous impulses, when those
impulses pointed in the direction of honor. The fact
that he does not act from jealousy, revenge, or any mean
motive, but from passions noble and generous when
properly restrained, does not vindicate his manhood from
the reproach of folly in giving himself up to the excesses
of his sensibility. Mr. Hudson praises the objectiveness
of Othello's mind, and if we consider the Moor only in
his calm moments, the praise is deserved ; but no person,
who has ever felt the stir of a fierce impulse when he
has thought himself wronged or insulted, need be told
that passion not only blinds the best intellect, but draws
the conscience itself into its boiling depths; not only
irnpd.s to act without a clear view of the case, but for
'he time sanctifies the impulse as right and just. Every
vrue and great man, therefore, distrusts what his pas-
248
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
sions teach, and no person can be a model of manhood
whose nature is their victim.
The most beautiful portion of the lecture is that
devoted to the representation of Othello and Desde-
mona, in respect to their fitness for each other ; and
a triumphant answer is given to the many objections to
the match on the score of color and character. Mr.
Hudson calls it " the chaste union of magnanimity and
meekness." In his delineation of Desdemona, he devel-
ops the exceeding beauty of this most delicate and ex-
quisite of Shakspeare's women, with uncommon refine-
ment of sentiment and certainty of minute analysis, —
at the same time a little injuring the efTect by snapping
his epigrammatic torpedoes in the faces of the champions
of woman's rights. This delineation is an illustration
of the flexibility with which the writer adapts his style
to the tone and character of his subject, and of his
singular felicity in exhibiting the pathos of gentleness,
and the beauty of deep, strong and quiet affection.
Mr. Hudson, in these lectures on Shakspeare, has
made the analysis of every character the occasion of
observations on a wide variety of subjects which its
nature suggests. He has thus given his philosophy of
life, in relation to the practical operation of the passions
and beliefs of men ; and we think he has been especially
successful in treating that important branch of ethics
which refers to the passage of virtues into vices,
Through their connection with pride, vanity, or extrav
vtgant enthusiasm. As a large portion of the world's
goodness is, like King Richard's frame, but half made
up, and offends from its inharmonious and partial char
acter where it is most impressive by its separate quali
ties, the field open to the ethical analyst is unbounded
shakspeare's cRiiics. 249
wid as we havi rather ungently touched on some of Mr,
Hudson's digre. sions, it is but just to observe that he has
sv^inced throughout a disposition to disconnect virtue
from cant, fanaticism, and conceit ; that he has detected
with a sure eye, and whipped with an honest ardor, the
excellence which is self-conscious, and the purity which
is proudly malignant ; and that he has exhibited, with a
fine union of sagacity and eloquence, the beauty of that
humble goodness which seeks to elude the eye, which
" vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up." In a period
like the present, Avhen conscience rushes to the rostrum
anu explodes in fifth-rate heroics, and every " puny
whipster" of morality mistakes his appetite for noto-
riety for a call from the seventh heaven to rail at every
person wiser and better than himself, such lessons in
ethics may not be without their effect, recommended as
they are bv a vigor and wit as inexhaustible as the folly
and fanaticism on which they are exercised. We trust
that the present volumes will not be the last in which
the author's keen intellect and sturdy character will find
adequate expression. He has not, as yet, touched the
historical plays of Shakspeare, a sphere of investigation
and interpretation where he may win additional honors.
In choosing the world's great poet as the text for his
inquiries into human nature, he has a svibject which,
however it may exhaust the resources of criticism, is in
Itself exhaustless. The present work we consider an
■evidence rather than the measure of his capacity ; and
when we next meet him on the open field of literature,
we trust to find some extravagances retrenched and some
peculiarities suppressed, w^hich now to some extent injure
*us stvle, and encumber the movement of his mind.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.*
The elegant edition of Sheridan's dramatic works,
published by Moxon, betrays one strange blunder, in
including the entertainment of The Camp, a feeble farce
written by Sheridan's friend Tickell, and altogether
unworthy of preservation in any form. The biography
furnished by Leigh Hunt possesses little merit beyond
an occasional luckiness of phrase and an occasional
felicity of criticism. It is written with more than his
usual languid jauntiness of style, and with less than his
usual sweetness of fancy. Indeed, that cant of good
feeling and conceit of heartiness, which, expressed in a
certain sparkling flatness of style, constitute so much of
the intellectual capital of Hunt's sentimental old age, are
as out of place, in a consideration of the sharp, shining
wit, the elaborate diction, and polished artifice of Sheri-
dan's writings, as in the narration of the brilliant deprav-
ities and good-natured good-for-nothingness of Sheridan's
character. Like all Hunt's essays, however, it is exceed-
ingly an '.using, even in its vivacious presumption and
*The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. With a Biographi
cal and Critical Sketch. By Leigh Hunt. London : Edward Moxon. 8vc
pp. 153.
Speeches of the Right Honorable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Edited by
Constitutional Friend. London : Henry G. Bohn. 3 vola. 8vo. - - Norl
imeriean Review, January, 1S48.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 26 J
genial pertness ; but a man like Sheridan, tlie dramatist,
the orator, the politician, the boon companion,
" The pride of the palace, the bowe , and the haU,"
deserved a less supercilious consideration. Hunt's sketch
conveys a far more vivid impression of himself than of
his subject.
The prominent qualities of Sheridan's character were
ambition and indolence, the love of distinction and the
love of pleasui-e ; and the method by which he con-
trived to gratify both may be said to constitute his biog-
raphjr. From the volatility of his mind and conduct,
it would be a misuse of language to say that he had
good principles or bad principles. He had no principle?
at all. His life was a life of expedients and appearances,
in which he developed a shrewdness and capacity, made
up of talent and mystification, of ability and trickery,
which were found equal to almost all emergencies. He
most assuredly possessed neither great intellect nor great
passions. There was nothing commanding in his mind,
nothing deep and earnest in his heart. A good-humored
selfishness and a graceful heartlessness were his best
substitutes for virtue. His conduct, when not determined
by sensuality, was determined by vanity, the sensuality
of the intellect; and in both he followed external direc-
tion Yet, such as he was, the son of an actor, indolent,
immoral, unlearned, a libertine and a drunkard, without
fortune and without connections, he achieved high social,
literarj', and parliamentary distinction. His life was one
long career of notoriety and sens:iality. At the age of
twenty-six he had written some of the most sparklinr
tomedies in the English language From that period he
became a politician, and eventually was ranked with
S52 ESSAYS AND REVIEW I.
Burke, Fox, and Pitt, among the most accomplished ora-
tors in the House of Commons. No other man with
such moral habits, joined to such slender acquirements,
ever raised himself to such an elevation by pure force of
tact and talent. It might be said that Fox was as dissi-
pated ; but then Sheridan, unlilce Fox, had not been
educated for a legislator; and more than all, he had none
of Fox's power of impassioned argumentation, none of
his greatness and generosity of jiul. Burke, like Sheri-
dan, attained a prominent position in the most aristocratic
of parties, without the advantages of birth and connec-
tions ; but then he had the advantage of being the greatest
statesman of his country, and Sheridan could make nc
pretensions to Burke's force of character and amplitude
of comprehension, to his industry, his learning, or to that
fiery and flexible imagination which penetrated all with
life. It must be allowed that Sheridan approached
neither of these men in solid reputation ; but as his
ambition was but one side of his love of pleasure, the
notoriety which immediately succeeded his efforts was
all he desired. His vanity fed and his senses gratified,
there was little left for ambition to seek or pleasure to
crave. All that there is in immediate fame to intoxicate
the possessor, all that there is in fame which can be
enjoyed, he obtained with the smallest possible scorning
of delights, and the smallest possible living of laborious
days.
Sheridan was essentially a man of wit. By this we
do not mean that he was merely a witty man, but that
wit was as much the predominant element in his charac'
ter as it was the largest power of his mind. From his
labit of looking at life and its duties through the mediurr
iif epigram, he lost all sincerity of thought and earnest
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHEKIDAJJ. 25u
less of passion From his power of detecting what
was inconsistent, foolish, and bad in the appearances of
things, he gradually came to estimate appearances more
thr.n realities, and to do everything himself for effect.
His intellect became an ingenious machine for the man-
ufacture of what would tell on the occasion, without
regard to truth or falsehood. The consequence was a
wonderful power of contrivance, of shrewdness, o^ finesse,
of brilliant insincerity, without any vitality of thought
and principle, without any intellectual character. His
moral sense, also, gradually wore away under a habit of
sensual indulgence, and a habit of overlooking moral
consequences in ludicrous relations. His conscience
:;ould give him no pang which a jest could not heal.
Vice, therefore, appeared to his mind as pleasantry as
well as pleasure, and wit " pandered will." For instance,
he was notoriously unfaithful to his marriage vow. To
no man could adultery wear a more jocose aspect. " In
marriage," he says, " if you possess anything good, it
makes you eager to get eveiything else good of the same
sort." He made no scruple of cheating his creditors, but
to his mind dishonesty was merely a practical joke. It
was the same with everything else. Crime appeared to
him as a kind of mischievous fun, and Belial always
reeled into his meditations hand in hand with Momus.
Blasphemy, intemperance, adultery, sloth, licentiousness,
trickery, — they were mere jests. No man ever violated
all the common duties of life with such easy good-nature
and absence of malignant passions. He became unmoral
rather than immoral.
In considering Sheridan's career, we continually meet
this wit as a disposition of character as well as a power
i)f mind. It gives a lightness and airiness to the many
^54 ESSAYS AND KKVIEWS.
rascalities and insincerities of his life. No man's vices
have been more leniently treated, because their verj'
relation provokes a smile. He fascinates posterity as he
fascinated his contemporaries. Falsehood, heartlessness,
sensuality, insincerity, all those qualities which bring
contempt on other men, in him wear an attractive aspect ;
and in consideration of his being such a " good fellow,"
the common rules by which we judge of character have
been waived in his case by general consent.
It would be impossible to set forth the talents of this
remarkable adept in mystification and Regius Professor
of appearances, without some sketch of his life. He
was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and elocu-
tionist, and was born in Dublin, in the month of Septem-
ber, 1751. His father was a man of no mean capacity,
but spoiled by an obstinate conceit of his powers, which
made his talents pass with others for less than they were
worth. His mother, whom Dr. Parr pronounced quite
celestial, was the writer of two or three plays, the novel
of Sidney Biddulph, and the Tale of Nourjahad. Her
nature was much finer than her husband's, a fact she con-
trived to conceal almost as much from herself as from
him. Richard early displayed an indisposition to learn ;
and rather than relinquish the sports for the studies of
boyhood, he endured with heroical resignation the stigma
fastened upon him by his father, of being an " impene-
trable dunce." In 1762, he was sent to Harrow, then
under the direction of Dr. Robert Sumner, and having
for one of its under-masters no less distinguished a per-
son than Dr. Parr. Neither of these eminent scholars
could overcome, either by command or persuasion, his
ndolence and indifTerence, though their exertions were
prompted by the conviction that his mind was naturaUj
\
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 2bt»
of no common order. The fact that some of his aristO"
cratical school-fellows taunted him with being "a player's
son," however much it might sting his sensitiv(j vanity,
could not rouse in him the spirit of emulation. He pre-
ferred to make both masters and pupils his friends by his
good-humor and engaging manners, and was soon the
most popular person in the school. The boys emulously
prompted him in the recitations of his class ; and his
brilliant mischievousness as often amused as provoked
the masters. He seems to have escaped the discipline
of the rod even under such a believer in the birch as Dr.
Parr. That good-natured audacity and that fascinating
address, which captivated so many in his subsequent
career, and rarely forsook him in the wreck of character
and fortune, were partially developed in his youth. But
he was not happy at school. He was constantly in that
state of wretchedness which results from the struggle of
vanity with indolence, — for years always behind his
companions, and trustir)g to momentary expedients to
escape the consequences of idleness.
At Harrow he remained until his seventeenth year,
and left it with but a distant acquaintance with any
branch of knowledge, imperfectly versed even in gram-
mar and spelling, but still with some dexterity ii. Eng-
lish verse, and some knowledge of polite literature. We
should judge that Pope and Wycherley had been his
favorite authors, not merely because his rhymes were
modelled on the one and his plays betray the influence
of the other, but because he always uretended to dislike
Pope and to be ignorant of Wycnerley. He nevei
seems thoroughly to have mastered the mystery of spell-
ing. At the age of twenty he spelt thing, think, whether,
wether, which, wic.h, where, were, and appeared to take a
256 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
malignant delight in interfering with the domest.c felicity
of double w's and s's. At Harrow he was not considered
vicious by Dr. Parr, who charged his subsequent irregu-
larities upon his being thrown upon the world without a
profession. At the period of his leaving school he waa
strikingly handsome, with that fire and brilliancy in his
eyes which afterwards added so much to the effect of his
oratory.
He was not sent to the university, either from his
lather's inability to bear the expense, or from a despair
of its effect in makina; him a student. The elder Sher-
idan took him home, and undertook to complete his edu-
cation under his own eye ; but Eichard proved as indo-
cile a pupil there as at school, and carelessly followed
his own tastes. At Harrow he had formed a friendship
with a vivacious school-fellow, named Halhed, who was
afterwards a judge in India, and in connection with him
had translated into English verse some of the poems of
Theocritus. Halhed went to Oxford, but kept up a cor-
respondence with Sheridan at Bath. They projected
various works, among which was a farce entitled Jupiter,
a volume of loose stories to be called Crazy Tales, and a
translation of Aristsenetus. The latter was completed,
though Sheridan's portion was long delayed by his indo-
lence, and the incessant references he was con .pelled to
make to his dictionary. It was published in 1771, but
failed to bring either the fame or profit which the juve-
nile book-makers had anticipated. The book in itself is
worthless, both in the original and translation ; but the
latter is curious as indicating the light and libertine
tone of thought, and the command of florid common
places of diction, which Sheridan had acquired at the
age of nineteen. Neither in its morality nor composi
RICHARD BRINSLtKY SHERIDAJN. 25'i
tion does it give any promise of future excellence in life
or letters.
But the peculiar character of his mind, and the style
in which he was eventually to excel, are well displayed
m a small ironical essay, written about the year 1770,
and devoted to a mock assignment of reasons why the
Duke of Grafton should not lose his head. The mean-
ness, fickleness, unpunctuality, and licentiousness, of the
noble dukej are quite felicitously caricatured. The posi-
tion is gravely taken, that his Grace's crimes are not of
such a nature as " to entitle his head to a place on
Temple Bar;" and to the charge of giddiness and neg-
lect of public duty the author triumphantly opposes some
undoubted facts,
" I think," he observes, " I could bring several instances which
would seem to promise the greatest steadiness and resolution. I
have known him to make the Council wait, on the business of
the whole nation, when he had an appointment to Newmarket.
Surely this is an instance of the greatest honor ; — and if we
see him so punctual in private appointments, must we not con-
clude he is infinitely more so in greater matters ? Nay, when
Wilkes came over, is it not notorious that the Lord Mayor went
to his Grace on that evening, proposing a scheme, which, by
securing this fire-brand, might have put an end to all the
troubles he has caused ? But his Grace did not see him ; — no,
he was a man of too much honor ; — he had promised that even-
ing to attend Nancy Parsons to Ranelagh, and he would not
disappoint her, but made three thousand people witnesses of his
punctuality."
We perceive here that covert, sharp edge of ingenious
wit, which was silently fashioning Sheridan's mind and
vharacter.
During the first few years after leaving school, Sheri
VOL. II. 17
258 ESSAYS AND FE VIEWS.
dan seems to have lived in his father's family, without
any definite purpose in life, and only varying the monot-
ony of gayety and idleness with occasional experiments
in composition. In 1771, he published a poem called
Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished, in which the
principal beauties of Bath are celebrated in some four
hundred rather loose-jointed octosyllabic lines. There is
one couplet, however, which has become classic : —
•' You write with ease to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading."
m this poem, also, there are eight lines which altogether
exceed any other poetical attempts of Sheridan, where
the least pretension is made to sentiment.
" Marked you her cheek of rosy hue?
Marked you her eye of sparkling blue?
That eye in liquid circles moving ;
That cheek abashed at man's approving ;
The one Love's arrows darting round ;
The other blushing at the wound :
Did she not speak, did she not move,
Now Pallas, now the Queen of Love ? "
At Bath, Sheridan fell in love with Miss Linley, a
fascinating young singer of sixteen, whose beauty and
accomplishments had turned the heads of the whole
town. In his management of the affair he displayed as
much finesse as passion. Among a crowd of suitors, he
seems to have been the only one who had touched hei
heart, and the only one whose intentions were concealed.
His brother, Charles Francis Sheridan, and his friend
Halhed, were among his rivals, yet both were ignorant
of his passion, and both made him their confidant. The
father of Miss Linley seems to have looked upon hei
RICHARD BRINSLEV SHERIDAN. 259
from an exclusively business point of view, and would
of course, naturally oppose her engagement to a penni
less idler like Sheridan. His project of her life was
simply this : money was to be made by her profession as
a vocalist, and her singing was to lead the way to a
profitable marriage. Indeed, he had already engaged
her hand to an honest-hearted elderly gentleman by the
name of Long ; but she escaped from the engagement just
before th-- period set for the marriage, by secretly repre-
senting to him the impossibility of his ever gaining her
affections. He magnanimously broke off the alliance,
without betraying the reason ; and when Mr. Linley
threatened a prosecution, generously settled £3000 upon
her to satisfy the father's demands. Romance has
hardly a nobler instance of disinterestedness, and cer-
tainly Miss Linley never possessed, in lover or husband
so true and unselfish a friend.
Then followed her elopement, and the scandal about
Captain Mathews. This portion of domestic history is
still involved in perplexing contradictions. As far as we
can glean the facts, they are these : Miss Linley had
become disgusted with her profession, partly from the
intrigues of Sheridan to push his suit, partly from her
being pestered with the dishonorable advances of a mar-
ried libertine by the name of Mathews. It has been
asserted that the latter had touched her heart, as well as
awakened her fears, and also that Sheridan assisted or
prompted his addresses, probably as a refined stratagem to
force her into a position which would make his services
necessary to her peace and honor. In that tumult of
mind springing from the conflict of various fears and pas-
:;ions, she formed the romantic determination, advised or
supported by Sheridan, of elcping to France and enter-
263 ESSAYS AMD REVIEWS.
ing a convent. Fe offered to be her protector in the
journey, was accepted, and the design was at once car-
ried into effect. On arriving at London, he raised the
necessary funds for the expedition from an old brandy
inerchant, a friend of his father, by representing that he
was running away to France witli an heiress. At Calais,
according to the most trustworthy accounts, he persuaded
her that her character was so compromised by her elope-
ment, that its salvation depended on an immediate mar-
riage with him. They were accordingly secretly united,
in March, 1772. Mr. Linley overtook them at Calais,
but not before the ceremony had been performed ; and
after some explanation of the affair from. Sheridan, in
which the private marriage does not appear to have been
mentioned, took his daughter back to England. Sheri-
dan also returned, to brave an exasparated father, and
to fight a couple of duels with Captain Mathews, in the
last of which he was seriously wounded. But with all
his fine-spun intrigues and their unpleasant results, there
did not appear to be any hope of his being able to claim
his wife. The elder Sheridan and Mr. Linley were
both opposed to the union, and both seemingly ignorant
that a marriage had occurred. Every precaution was
employed to keep the lovers apart. Mr. Thomas Sheri-
dan made his son take an oath never " to marry " Miss
Linley. Mr. Linley cautiously watched his daughter.
A year's war of cunning and contrivance ensued, in
which Sheridan was of course victorious. Amonw other
expedients to see her, he at one time disguised himself
as a hackney-coachman, and drove her home from the
concert-room. They were finally married, according to
the English fashion, in April, 1773, — having fairly out
witted their parents in all their schemes, and at last
RinHARD BUINSLhV SHERIDAN, 261
(>btained their consent or connivance to the union. The
elder Sheridan, however, discarded his son, and wa5 not
reconciled to him for years.
During this excited period of his life, Sheridan did not
sacrifice his characteristic indolence and habit of procras-
tination. A shamefully libellous account of his second
duel with Captain Mathews was published in a Bath
paper. Indignant at this impudent lie, he resolved to
answer ii immediately, but first told his friend Woodfall
to publish it in his paper, in order that the public might
see the charge and the refutation. Woodfall followed
his directions, circulated the scandal through his columns,
but never could induce Sheridan to write the promised
exposure of the calumny. This is in perfect character,
— to hazard his life in two duels, and then bear the
imputation of cowardice rather than take the trouble of
writing a letter !
The circumstances which attended his courtship and
marriage gave him great notoriety. His own talents and
fascinating manners, together with the musical and per-
sonal accomplishments of his wife, naturally brought him
into much society. For nearly two years, he subsisted,
after his own mysterious fashion, with no known income
except the interest on the £3000 settled by Mr. Long on
Mrs. Sheridan. Though he was entered as a student in
the Temple, neither his intellectual nor social tastes
would admit of a serious study of the law. But during
this period he wrote the exhilarating comedy of The
Rivals, which was produced at Covent Garden in Jan-
uary, 1775. It failed on the first night, from the stupid-
ity or indifference of the actor who performed Sir Lucius
O'Trigger. Another having been substituted in this part,
the play was very successful, and has been popular ever
262 ESSAYS AND REVIEWfe,
since. It placed Sheridan, at the age of twenty-three, ai
the head of living dramatists. Nothing so brilliant had
been brought out on the English stage since Farquhar ;
and while its wit and hilarity suggested the old school
of comic dramatists, it was open to no objection on the
score of decency.
■ The design of Sheridan in The Rivals was not dra-
matic excellence, but stage effect. In seeing it per-
formed, we overlook, in the glitter and point of the dia-
logue, the absence of the higher requisites of comedy.
The plot is without progress and development. The
characters are overcharged into caricatures, and can
hardly be said to be conceived, much less sustained.
Each has some oddity stuck upon him, which hardly
rises to a peculiarity of character, and the keeping of
this oddity is carelessly sacrificed at every temptation
from a lucky witticism. The comic personages seem
engaged in an emulous struggle to outshine each other.
What they are is lost sight of in what they say. Spar-
kling sentences are bountifully lavished upon all. Fag
and David are nearly as pungent as their masters. The
scene in the fourth act, where Acres communicates to
David his challenge to Beverley, is little more than a bril-
liant string of epigrams and repartees, in which the coun-
try clown plays the dazzling fence of his wit with all the
skill of Sheridan himself. When Acres says that no
gentleman will lose his honor, David is ready with the
brisk retort, that it then " would be but civil in honoi
never to risk the loss of a gentleman." Acres swears
" odd crowns and laurels," that he will not disgrace his
ancestors by refusing to fight. David assures him, iiv
an aciite non sequitur, that the surest way of not dis
gracing his ancestors is to keep as long as he can out of
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIUAN. 26tJ
their coriipany. " Look'ee now, mastei, to go to them in
Buch haste — with an ounce of lead in your brains — I
should think might as well be let alone. Our ancestors
are a very good sort of folks, but they are the last people
1 should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with "
No dramatist whose conception of character was strong
would fall into such shining inconsistencies.
The truth is, in this, as in Sheridan's other comedies,
we tacitly overlook the keeping of character in the blaze
of the wit. Everybody laughs at Mrs. Malaprop's mis-
takes in the use of words, as he would laugh at similar
mistakes in an acquaintance who was exercising his
mgenuity instead of exposing his ignorance. They are
too felicitously infelicitous to be natural. Her remark to
Lydia, that she is " as headstrong as an allegory on the
banks of the Nile," — her scorn of "algebra, simony,
fluxions, paradoxes, and such inflammatory branches of
learning," — her quotation from Hamlet, in which the
royal Dane is gifted with the " front of Job himself," —
her fear of going into "hydrostatic fits," — her pride in
the use of " her oracular tongue and a nice derangement
of epitaphs," — are characteristics, not of a mind flip-
pantly stupid, but curiously acute. In the scene where
Lydia Languish tells her maid to conceal her novels ai
the approach of company, the sentimentalist is lost in
the witty rake ; " Lord Ainsworth " being ordered to be
thrust under the sofa, and " The Innocent Adultery " U>
be put into "The Whole Duty of Man."
Sir Anthony Absolute is the best character of the
piece, and is made up of the elder Sheridan and Smoi-
let's Matthew Bramble. Doubtless Sheridan had many
a conversation with his father, of which the first scene
between Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute is but a
264 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
ludicrously heightened description. The scenes, also
where the doctrine and discipline of duelling are dis
cussed, and in which Acres and Sir Lucius shine with
so much splendor, the author may have obtained in the
course of his difficulties with Captain Mathews. Falk-
land is a satire on a state of mind which Sheridan him-
self experienced during his courtship of Miss Linley.
The fine talk of Falkland and Julia is as unintentionally
ludicrous as any comic portion of the play. We can
easily imagine how the author himself might have made
Puff ridicule it. Indeed, Sheridan's attempts at serious
imagery rarely reached beyond capitalizing the names of
abstract qualities, or running out commonplace similes
into flimsy and feeble allegories. His sentiment, also, is
never fresh, generous, and natural, but almost always as
tasteless in expression as hollow in meaning. The
merit of The Rivals is in its fun and farce ; and the
serious portions, lugged in to make it appear more like a
regular comedy, are worse than the attempts of Holcroft,
Morton and Reynolds, in the same style.
The farce of St. Patrick's Day, which Sheridan brought
out a few months after The Rivals, though written in
evident haste, bears, in a few passages, marks of that
elaborate and fanciful wit in which the chief strength of
his mind consisted. In the second scene of the first act,
the dialogue between Lauretta and her mother, on the
relative merits of militia and regular nfficers, is keen and
sparkling. "Give me," says Lauretta, " the bold, up-
right youth, who makes love to-day, and has his head
shot off to-morrow. Dear ! to think how the sweet fel-
lows sleep on the ground and fight in silk stockings and
lace ruffles." To this animated burst of girlish admira-
tion, Mrs. Bridget contemptuously replies : — "To want
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 205
a husband that may wed you to-day and be sent the
Lord knows where before night ; then in a twelvemonth,
perhaps, to come home like a Colossus, with one leg at
New York and the other at Chelsea Hospital ! " This is
one of the most startlingly ludicrous fancies in Sheridan's
works.
The success of The Rivals seems to have inspired
Sheridan with industry as well as ambition, for during
the summer of this year he wrote the delightful opera
of The Duenna. It was produced at Covent Garden, in
November, 1775, and had the unprecedented run of
seventy-five nights, exceeding even the success of The
Beggar's Opera by twelve nights.
The diction of The Duenna, and the management of
its character and incident, evince a marked improvement
upon The Rivals. The wit, though not so intellectual
as that of The School for Scandal, is so happily com-
bined with heedless animal spirits, as often to produce
the effect of humor. It glitters and plays like heat-
lightning through the whole dialogue. Epigram, repar-
tee, and jest, sparkle on the lips of every character. The
power of permeating everything with wit and glee, —
love, rage, cunning, avarice, religion, — is displayed to
perfection. It touches lightly, but keenly, on that point
in every subject which admits of ludicrous treatment,
and overlooks or blinks the rest. The best of the songs
are but epigrams of sentiment. There is a spirit of joy-
ous mischievousness and intrigue pervading the piece,
which gives a delicious excitement to the brain. Little
Isaac, the cunning, overreaching, and overreached Jew,
is the very embodiment of gleeful craft, — "roguish, per-
haps, but keen, devilish keen." The scene in which he
woos the Due ma, and that which succeeds wih Don
266 ESSAYS ASiD REVIEWS.
Jerome, are among the most exquisite in the play. Th
sentiment of the piece is all subordinated to its fun and
mischief. The scene in the Priory with the jolly monks
is the very theology of mirth. Father Augustine tells
his brothers of some sinner who has left them a hundred
ducats to be remembered in their masses. Father Pau\
orders the money to be paid to the wine-merchant, and
adds, " We will remember him in our cups, which will
do just as well." When asked if they had finished their
devotions, their reply is, " Not by a bottle each."
The wit of The Duenna is so diffused through the dia-
logue as not readily to admit of quotation. It sparkles
over the piece like sunshine on the ripples of running
water. There are, however, a few sentences which stand
npart in isolated brilliancy, displaying that curious inter-
penetration of fancy and wit, in which Sheridan after-
wards excelled. Such is Isaac's description of the proud
beauty, — "the very rustling of her silk has a disdainful
sound;" and his answer to Don Ferdinand's furious
demand to know whither the absconding lovers have
gone : — "I will ! I will ! but people's memories differ ;
some have a treacherous memory: now, mine is a cow-
ardly memory, — it takes to its heels at the sight of a
drawn sword, it does i' faith ; and I could as soon fight
as recollect." In the same vein is Don Jerome's observa-
tion on the face of the Duenna : — "I thought that
dragon's front of thine would cry aloof to the sons of
gallantry; steel-traps and spring-guns seemed writ in
ever}' wrinkle of it." The description of the same old
lady's face, as " parchment on which Time and Deform-
ty have engrossed their titles," was omitted in the pub-
Vished copy ; though brilliant, he could afford to lose it
The Duenna's delineation of little Isaac, after tha
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 26^
leluded Jew has called her as " old as his mother and
as ugly as the devil," reaches the topmost height of con-
temptuous hyperbole. " Dare such a thing as you," she
exclaims, "pretend to talk of beauty ? — A walking ron-
deau ! — a body that seems to owe all its consequence to
the dropsy ! — a pair of eyes like two dead beetles in a
wad of brown dough ! — a beard like an artichoke, with
diy, shrivelled jaws which would disgrace the mummy
of a monkej ! " But perhaps the most purely intellect-
ual stroke of pleasantry is the allusion to Isaac,- — who
has forsworn the Jewish faith, and " has not had time to
get a new one," — as standing " like a dead wall between
church and synagogue, or like the blank leaves between
the Old and New Testament."
Mr. Moore has given a few sentences from the manu-
script of The Duenna which do not appear in the printed
copy. Among these is the following fine soliloquy of
[iopez, the servant of Don Ferdinand : —
" A plague on these haughty damsels, say 1 : — when they
ilay their airs on their whining gallants, they ought to consider
that we are the chief sufferers, — we have all their ill humor?
at second-hand. Donna Louisa's cruelty to my master usuallv
converts itself into blows by the time it gets to me ; she can
frown me black and blue at any time, and I shall carry the
marks of the last box on the ear she gave him to my grave.
Nay, if she smiles on any one else, I am the sufferer for it ; if
she says a civil word to a rival, I am a rogue and a scoundrel ;
and if she sends him a letter, my back is sure to pay the
postage."
Sheridan's brilliant success as a dramatist led to his
investments in theatrical property, — a fertile source of
pecuniary difficulties to him in after years. In June,
1776, he purchased a portion of Garrick's share in th«
268 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
patent of Drury Lane Theatre. For this pioperty he
paid £10,000. How he obtained the money has nevet
been ascertained. Hunt conjectures that it was borrowed
from some wealthy nobleman. But the mysterious prin-
ciples of Sheridan's science of finance, or finesse, have
never been laid open. He aftervv'ards, in 1778, bought
Mr. Lacy's moiety for £45,000, and thus having the con-
trol of the theatre, he made his father the manager, — a
reconciliation having taken place a short time before
In raising all this money Sheridan must have displayed
a power of persuasion and management which would
have done honor to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. It
is doubtful if even Mr. Pitt, who performed miracles in
the way of loans, ever equalled it.
The first fruit of Sheridan's new interest in the drama
was A Trip to Scarborough, altered, with but few addi-
tions, from Sir John Vanbrugh's Relapse. This was
really a service to the cause both of comedy and decency,
for the original play, though one of the most richly
humorous in the language, and in Lord Foppington, Sir
Tunbelly Clumsey, and Miss Hoyden, containing char-
acters which could not well be lost to the stage, was still
conceived in so libertine a spirit, and deformed with so
audacious a coarseness of expression, that it must soon
have passed from the list of acting plays. This comedy
shows us at once the superiority of Vanbrugh to Sheri-
dan in humor and dramatic portraiture, and his inferior-
ity in wit and polish. Sheridan could not have delineated
ivith such consistency of purpose that prince of coxcombs,
Lord Foppington. As an illustration of the difference
oetween the manner of the two dramatists, we extract a
ooriion of the dialogue between Young Fashion and his
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 269
Wother, on the return of the former to his n-'tive country.
fi penniless adventurer : —
"■Fashion. Now your people of business are gone, brother, I
dope I may obtain a quarter of an hour's audience, with you.
" Lord Fop. Faith, Tam, I must beg you '11 excuse me ai
this time, for I have an engagement which I would not break
for the salvation of mankind.
" Fash. Shall you be back to dinner?
" Lord Fop. As Gad shall judge me, I can't tell ; for it is
passible I may dine with some friends at Donner's.
" Fash. Shall I meet you there ? For I must needs talk
with you.
" Lord Fop. That I 'm afraid may n't be quite so praper j for
those I commonly eat with are a people of nice conversation;
and you know, Tam, your education has been a little at large.
But there are other ordinaries in town, very good beef ordina-
ries, — I suppose, Tam, you can eat beef? — However, dear
Tam, I 'm glad to see thee in England, stap my vitals."
This is the perfection of coxcombical heartlessness
and egotism, — the sublime of ideal frippery. It is easy
to distinguish here between the hearty exaggeration of
humor and the hard caricature of wit.
Sheridan reached the height of his dramatic fame in
May, 1777, by the production of The School for Scandal,
a comedy which still occupies the first place on the stage,
and which will ever be read with delight for the splen-
dor, condensation, and fertility of its wit, the felicitous
contrivance of some scenes and situations, the general
brilliancy of its matter, and the tingling truth of its
satirical strokes. As a representation of men as they
appear, and manners as they ire, it has the highest
merit. The hypocrisies of life were never more skilfully
probed, or its follies exposed to an ordeal of more polistied
Korn. It was triumphantly successful from the first,
270 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
and during its long run exceeded most other attractions
of town life. Probably no comedy ever cost its author
more toil, or was the slow result of more experiments in
diction and scenic effect It was commenced before The
Rivals. With his usua. sagacity, Sheridan contrived
that it should appear, in a great measure, as the hasty
product of an indolent genius, spurred into activity b;;
the pressure of business engagements. Mr. Moore, in
his life of the author, has introduced us into the work-
shop of the literary mechanician, shown us the scattered
limbs of the characters, the disjointed sentences of the
dialogue, and the little grains of diamond dust as they
first sparkled into substantial being. Every portion was
elaborated with the nicest care, — not to purchase ele-
gance by dilution, but to fix the volatile essence of
thought in the smallest compass of expression, to sharpen
the edge of satire to the finest point, to give scorn itb
keenest sting. Beginning with weakness and verbiage,
he did not end until he had reduced his matter to the
consistency as well as glitter of the most polished steel.
The last contribution of Sheridan to dramatic litera-
ture was the farce of The Critic, produced in 1779 ; we
say the last, for his adaptations of Pizarro and The
Stranger, twenty years after, were contributions neither
to literature nor the stage. The Critic excels everything
of its kind in the English language, for it is to be com-
pared with Buckingham's Rehearsal and Fielding's
Mi(lfls, not with Beaumont's Knight of the Burning
Pestle. The wit always tells, and never tires.
Thus, at the age of tu^enty-eight, Sheridan, the *"' im
penetrable dunce " of his first schoolmaster, had contrived
to enrich English letters with a series of plays which
are to English prose what Pope's satires are to Englisk
RICJIARU BRINSLEY SHEKIUAN. "71
rerse. We may now pauss to consider the nature and
sxtent of his comic powers, and his claim to be ranked
among the masters of comic genius.
Sheridan's defects as a dramatist answer to the defects
of his mind and character. Acute in observing external
appearances, and well informed in what rakes and men
of fashion call life, he was essentially superficial in mind
and heart. A man of great wit and fancy, he was sin-
gularly deficient in the deeper powers of humor and
imagination. All his plays lack organic life. In plot,
character, and incident, they are framed by mechanical,
not conceived by vital, processes. They evince no genial
enjoyment of mirth, no insight into the deeper springs
of the ludicrous. The laughter they provoke is the
laughter of antipathy, not of sympathy. It is wit detect-
ing external inconsistencies and oddities, not humor rep-
resentinp- them in connection with the inward constitution
whence they spring. The great triumphs of comic genius
have been in comic creations, conceived through the pro-
cesses of imagmation and sympathy, and instinct with
the vital life of mirth. Such are the comic characters
of Shakspeare, of the elder dramatists generally, of
Addison, Goldsmith, Fielding, Sterne, Scott, and Dick-
ens. A writer who grasps character in the concrete
gives his creation a living heart and brain. His hold
upon the general conception is loo firm to allow his fancy
to seduce him into inconsistencies for the sake of fine
separate thoughts. Everything that the character says
is an expression of what the character is. Such a crea-
tion impresses the mind as a whole. Its unity is never
'ost in the variety of its manifestation. This is endent
enough in the case of FalstafT, for the living idea of the
-nan impressed on our imaginations gives more r "rthful
272
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
delight than his numberless witticisms. The vritticisms,
indeed, owe much of their effect to their intimate rela-
tion with the character. But the principle is no less
true, though less evident, of Mercutio, Beatrice, and the
airier creations of mirth generally. We conceive of
them all as living beings, whose wit and humor do not
begin with their entrance, or cease with their exit from
the scene, but overflow in fun, whether we are by to
hear or not. Such creations represent the poetry of
mirth, and spring from profound and creative minds.
Now, Sheridan's comic personages display none of this
life and genial fun. They seem sent upon the stage
simply to utter brilliant things, and their wit goes out
with their exit. Everything they say is as good as the
original conception of their individuality, and character
is therefore lost in the glare of its representation. In
truth, Sheridan conceived a character as he conceived a
jest. It first flashed upon his mind in an epigrammatic
form. In his Memoranda, published by Moore, we find
the hints of various dramatic personages embodied in
smart sayings. Thus, one is indicated in this significant
sentence : — "I shall order my valet to shoot me, the
first thing he does in the morning." Another is sketched
as "an old woman endeavoring to put herself back into
a girl;" another, as a man "who changes sides in all
arguments, the moment you agree with him ;" and an-
other, as a " pretty woman studying looks, and endeavor-
ing to recollect an ogle, like Lady , who has learned
to play her eyelids like Venetian blinds." In all these
we perceive wit laughing at external peculiarities, and
subjecting them to the malicious exaggeration of fancy
but not the dramatist searching for internal qualities, and
cnoulding them into new forms of mirthful being. The
RICHARD BKliMSLEV SHERIDAN. 273
character is but one of the many pleasantries it is made
to speak. In those instances where Sheridan most
nearly produces the effects of humor, it is done by the
cooperation of brisk animal spirits with fancy, or by
adopting and refining upon the delineations of others.
We would not, in these remarks, be considered as
underrating Sheridan's real powers. He is undoubtedly
to be placed among the wittiest of writers and speakers.
His plays, speeches, and the records of his conversation,
sparkle with wit of almost all kinds, from the most
familiar to the most recondite. Though seldom genial,
it is never malignant ; and if it rarely reaches far
beneath the surfaces of things, it plays over them with
wonderful brilliancy. No English comic writer, who
was not also a great poet, ever approached him in hne-
ness and remoteness of ludicrous analogy. In delicacy
of allusion, in exquisite lightness and certainty of touch,
in concise felicity and airiness of expression, his wit is
almost unmatched. It has been asserted that he had
not a fertile fancy, and that he gained much of his repu-
tation by the care with which he husbanded his stores.
He was doubtless often complimented for his readiness
when he least deserved it, and was cunning in the
poncealment of preparation. But we think he was so
entirely a wit as to be choice to daintiness in what he
employed, and to aim at perfection in its verbal expres-
sion. He would not always trust to a mere flow of
animal spirits to fashion the light idea of the minute ;
for his object was not mere hilarity, but the keen, subtile,
piercing strokes^of the intellect. We believe he sup-
pressed more sparkling jokes than he ever wrote or
uttered ; that the fertility of his fancy was great, but
that its expression was checked by his taste. There are
VOL. II. 18
Z / « ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
as many stones of his readiness as of his premeditatiOK
His calling Whitbread's image of the phoenix "a poul-
terer's description of a phcenix," and his objecting to a
tax on mile-stones as unconstitutional, because "they
were a race who could not meet to remonstrate," are as
happy as any of his most elaborated epigrams.
Brilliant as had been the success of Sheridan as a
dramatist, he commenced, shortly after the production of
The Critic, a still more brilliant career as an orator and
politician. His powers of conversation, and his delight
in social pleasures, brought him into terms of intimacy
with many prominent members of the Whig opposition
who could appreciate both his talents and good-fellow-
ship. Through Lord John Townsend, he became ac-
quainted with Mr. Fox, and they were mutually pleased
at their first meeting. Fox declared Sheridan the wit-
tiest man he had ever known. An introduction to
Burke soon followed. He soon became one of the most
welcome visiters at Devonshire House, " where politics
was made to wear its most attractive form, and sat
enthroned, like Virtue among the Epicureans, with all
the Graces and Pleasures for handmaids." At Brooks's
Club-house, where the Whig politicians blended con-
viviality with business, he soon shone preeminent among
the hardest drinkers and wittiest talkers, — the very man
to do honor to that
" liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill
Is hasty credit and a distant bill ;
Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."
There his spirits were repressed by no attempt on the
Dart of his associates, noble by birth or genius, to assert
JUCHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 275
the lora or the Right Honorahle. The usual style of
address was Jack Towusend, Ned Burke, Tom Gien-
ville, Dick Sheridan, and the like. The tase and famil-
iarity of the whigs in their social intercourse, and those
signs of the times which indicated their approachirg
change from opposition to administration, offered stimu-
lants both to Sheridan's love of pleasure and to his ambi-
tion. He joined the party, and, with a few exceptions,
was faithful to its creed and leaders through life. His
brilliancy and adroitness made him an able coadjutor of
Burke and Fox in assailing the corruptions of the court,
and defending the liberties of the people. He was to be
1 thorn in the side of toryism.
After performing some minor services to his party, he
was sent to the House of Commons as a member for the
borough of Stafford, in October, 17S0. The nation was
Euffering under the calamities of the American war, and
Lord North's administration was assailed with every
weapon of argument and invective, by an opposition
strong in popular favor and aristocratic connection, but
bitterly hated by the king. Sheridan's first speech was
a comparative failure. It was on the subject of a petition
complaining of the undue election of himself and his
colleague. He launched into an indisfnant vindication
of his constituents. When he had concluded, Mr,
Rigby, a member of the tory administration, coolly
ridiculed his elaborated rage. Sheridan was not pre-
pared to reply ; out Fox came to the rescue of his friend
and informed the right honorable gentleman that, " those
ministerial members who chiefly robbed and plundered
their constituents might afterwards affect to despise
them, yet gentlemen who felt properly the nature of
liieir trust would always treat them and speak of them
276 EjoAYS and REVIt /S.
with respect." In an assembly where such language aa
this was the commonplace of debate, it was evident that
a man, ta keep his position, must learn to think quick
and strike hard; and Sheridan felt that he had much to
learn before he could rank high in his new profession
He asked his friend Woodfall to tell him candidly what
he thought of his first attempt, and received the dis-
couraging reply, that speaking did not appear to be in
his line, and he had much better have adhered to his
former pursuits. "It is in me, however," said Sher
idan, after a short pause, " and by , it shall come
out!" From this moment his training as a debater
commenced, and he spared no effort to perfect himself in
his art.
He had many personal advantages suitable to an
orator, — a powerful frame, a face which, though coarse
in some of its features, was capable of great variety of
expression, a deep, clear voice, and an eye of piercing
brilliancy, which never winked. Beneath all his indo-
lence and sensuality, he possessed a desire for distinction,
and an ambition for effect, which inspired him with
sufficient industry to master the details of particular
questions, and prepare sparkling declamation to delight
his audience. He had not that depth of feeling and
earnestness of purpose by which the great orator iden-
tifies himself with his subject; but he could imitate
those qualities admirably. His sly, subtile intellect was
always on the watch for occasions for display, and he
seized them with exquisite tact. Besides, he had a long
training in the House of Commons ; and though as a
debater he never reached the first rank, from his lack of
perfect readiness and his want of familiarity with princi
pies, he still developed in the end a sturdy politica
illCHARD BRINSLEY SHLRIUAN. '-ill
ourage, and a command of expedients, which enabled
nim to meet without flinching the fiercest attaclts of the
treasury her "-h, and to bear bravely up even against the
arrogant scorn of Pitt.
During the first few years of Sheridan's political life,
he prod .i^ed but a small impression ; but he was steadily
feeling his way into notoriety. Enjoying the friendship
of Fox, Burke, and all the prominent whig>, he was
insensibly educating himself into a politician. On the
overthrow of Lord North's administration, and the forma-
tion of the Marquis of Rockingham's, in March, 1782, he
•vas appointed one of tne under-secretaries of state. This
office he occupied but four months. The death of Lord
Rockingham split the whig party into two divisions. One
of these, the Rockingham confederacy, led by the Duke
of Portland and Mr. Fox, and to which Burke and
Sheridan belonged, was the traditional whig party, the
heir of the principles of the Revolution, and was sup-
ported by the strength of the old whig families. It was
essentially aristocratic in its constitution, and derived
much of its power from the weai li, stability, and parlia-
mentary influence of the great whig lords. The other
was the remnant of Lord Chatham's party, who had
combined with the Rockinghams in the opposition to
Lord North, and, on the overthrow of the latter, had
■^ceii^ed a share of the spoils. It was led by Lord Shel-
njme, father to the present Marquis of Lansdowne, and
was more popular in its character than the other division
I f the wdiigs. George the Third, who bitterly hated the
whig oligarchy, seized the opportunity presented by the
death of the Marquis of Rockingham of dealing it a
heavy blow. He appointed Lord SI dburne, instead of
'he Duke of Portland, prime ix>inister. Shelburne, with-
?79 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
out consulting his colleagues, accepted. Fox, Burke, and
the other " old whigs," immediately resigned and wen
into opposition.
There were thus three parties ia the House of Com-
mons, the tory adherents of Lord North making the
third. To carry on the government, it was necessary
for two of these to unite. After some negotiations be-
tween the two divisions of the whigs, which resulted in
nothing, Fox formed a coalition with Lord North, and,
after a short, sharp struggle, came into power. This was
the most imprudent thing, judged by its effects, ever done
by the whig party ; for by the great body of the nation
it was considered a scandalous contempt of public princi-
ple, and it fixed an odium on Fox and Burke from which
they never wholly recovered. Sheridan, who, from his
lack of strong passions and high purposes, oft^n excelled
his greater contemporaries in his judgment of the temper
of the people, strenuously opposed the coalition. He
could not appreciate the objects of Fox and Burke, but
he was shrewd enough to discover the inefficiency of
their means.
In the new ministry Sheridan was made secretary of
the treasury, and gained thereby some knowledge of
arithmetic, which he often paraded afterwards in discuss-
ing the financial measures of Mr. Pitt. The coalition
ninistry did not long exist ; it was detested both ty the-
king and people. The most ridiculous and atrocious
falsehoods were manufactured with regard to the objects
of its leaders. Its fate was sealed when Mr. Fox's East
India Bill was introduced. This great measure passed
the House of Commons by a large majority, but it was
defeated by intrigue and treachery when it came to the
House of Lords. On the failure of the bill. Fox and hi
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. i7U
colleagues were instantly dismissed by the king, although
they still possessed a majority of votes in the lower house.
William Pitt, then just entering upon his political career,
was made prime mini«*er, — fought for three months,
against a majority of the House of Commons, one of the
greatest parliamentary battles on record, — and on the
dissolution of parliament, and the election of a new
House of Commons, found himself firmly seated in
power. The whigs went into long and hopeless oppo-
sition.
This was one of the most exciting periods in English
political history, but its consideration belongs rather to
the biography of Burke and Fox than of Sheridan. One
of his most felicitous retorts, however, occurred in an
early scene of this hurried drama. While Pitt was
serving under Lord Shelburne, Sheridan fired some
epigrams into the ministry, which would have shone
bright among his happiest dramatic sallies. Pitt, in that
vein of arrogant sarcasm for which he was afterwards so
much distinguished, informed him, that if such dramatic
turns and epigrammatic points were reserved for their
proper stage, they would doubtless receive the plaudits
of the audience ; but the House of Commons was not the
proper scene for them. Sheridan, who was morbidly
sensitive to any allusion which connected him with the
stage, determined to silence such insinuations forever.
He felt, he said, flattered and encouraged by the right
honorable gentleman's panegyric on his talents, and if
he ever engaged again in the compositions to which ho
alluded, he might be tempted to an act of presumption,
— to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's
best characters, — the character of the ylngry Boy in The
Alchemist. Nothing could have been better and bitterer
2S0 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
than this retort ; and it pleased Sheridan so much, that
he made a cast of the whole play, assigning each of the
prominent opponents of his party a character in harmony
with the whig doctrine regarding his disposition. Lord
Shelburne was Subtle ; Lord Thurlow, Face ; Mr. Dun-
das, Doll Common ; Mr. Rigby, Sir Epicure Mammon ,
General Conway, Dame Pliant ; and His Majesty himself
was honored with the part of Surly.
In an extravagantly burlesque sketch of Sheridan,
written by his friend Tickell in a copy of The Rivals,
there is a finely ludicrous account of the popular clamor
against the leaders of the coalition ministry, the humor
of which will be appreciated by all who know the politi-
cal history of the time, and the means used to prejudice
both king and people against the cormection. It con-
tains also a pertinent allusion to Sheridan's devotion to
the bottle, and, through the exaggeration of caricature,
enables us to judge of his habits and character at this
period.
"He [Sheridan] was a member of the last parliaments that
were summoned in England, and signalized himself on many
occasions by his wit and eloquence, though he seldom came to
the House till the debate was nearly concluded, and never
spoke unless he was drunk. He lived on a fooling of great
intimacy with the famous Fox, who is said to have coni-^rted
with him the audacious attempt which he made, about the year
1783, to seize the whole property of the East India Company,
amounting at that lime to about £12,000,000 sterling, and thtn
to declare himself Lord Protector of the Realm by the title uf
Carlow Khan. This desperate scheme actually received the
consent of the lower house of parliament, the majority of whoit
were bribed by Fox, or intimidated by his and Sheridan
threats and violence ; and it is generally believed that the revc
Imion -ivould have taken place, if the lords of the king s be'.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 2S1
chamber had not in a body surrounded the throne, and shown
the most determined resolution not to abandon their posts but
with their lives. The usurpation being defeated, parliament
was dissolved, and loaded with infamy. Sheridan was one of
the few members of it who were reelected ; — the burgesses of
Stafford, whom he had kept in a constant state of intoxication
for three weeks, chose him again to represent them, which he
yas well qualified to do."
The fact of his reelection, mentioned in the last sen-
tence of this fine caricature, is the more to be noted, as
a hundred and sixty members of the old parliament,
favorable to Fox and North, were defeated. These
called themselves, with much truth as well as pleasantry,
" Fox's Martyrs."
In following Mr. Fox into opposition, Sheridan soon
Decame one of his most efficient supporters. Mr. Pitt's
administration found in him a powerful opponent; and
he was especially felicitous in ridiculing the pretensions
of the tories, and galling them with pointed declamation.
Incapable of projecting leading measures, and deficient
m those higher qualities of mind which made Burke and
Fox great statesmen, he was the most effective of parti-
sans. When pressed to speak on topics which required
extensive knowledge, or an appeal to authorities, ne
would say humorously to his political friends, — "You
know I 'm an ignoramus, but here I am ; instruct me,
and I will do my best." As a man of wit, — of 'Vit not
only as^a power of mind, but as a quality of character, —
he detected weak points in argument, or follies in decla
mation, with an instinctive insight. In the habit of
recording in a memorandum-book his most ingenious
thoughts as they occurred to him, ne had ever at hand
«ome felicities to wea'J'5 into every speech. A few of
2S2 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
his brilliant ideas absolutely haunted him, and he took
especial pleasure in varying their application, and mak
ing them tell on different occasions. One of these ia
well known. In his private memoranda he speaks of
one "who employs his fancy in his narratives, and keeps
his recollections for his wit." This idea was afterwards
directed against a composer of music turned wine-mer-
chantj - — a man, he said, "who composed his wine and
imported his music;" — and was finally shot off, in a
seemingly careless parenthesis, in a speech in reply to
Dundas, — a right honorable gentleman, ("who depends
on his imagination for his facts, and his memory for his
wit,") &c. Again, he had a great love of a witty met-
aphor drawn from the terms of military science. It first
appears as a kind of satire on his own reputation for
extempore jests. " A true-trained wit," he says, " lays
his plans like a general, — foresees the circumstances of
the conversation, — surveys the ground and contingen-
cies, — and detaches a question to draw you into the
palpable ambuscade of his ready-made joke." In another
memorandum he sketches a lady who affects poetry. "1
made regular approaches to her by sonnets and rebuses,
— a rondeau of circumvallation, — her pride sapped by
an elegy, and her reserve surprised by an impromptu;
proceeding to storm with Pindarics, she, at last, saved
the further effusion of ink by a capitulation." Exquisite
as this is, it is even exceeded in the shape in which he
presented the general idea in the House of Commons.
Among the members of the whig party who had " rat-
ted," and gone over to the administration, was the Duke of
Richmond, a man who had been foremost in the extreme
radical ranks of his former connections. In the sessioD
of 1786, the duke brought forward a plan for the fortifi
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. i?83
cation of dock-yards. Sheridan subjected his report to
a scoiohing speech. He complimented the duke for the
proofs he had given of his genius as an engineer.
"He had made liis report," said Sheridan, "an argument
of posts ; and conducted his reasoning upon principles of trig-
onometry as well as logic. There were certain detached data,
liiie advanced works, to keep the enemy at a distance from the
main object in debate. Strong provisions covered the flanks
of his assertions. His very queries were in casements. No
impression, therefore, was to be made on this fortress of soph-
istry by desultory observations ; and it was necessary to sit
down before it, and assail it by regular approaches. It was
fortunate, however, to observe, that, notwithstanding all the
skill employed by the noble and literary engineer, his mode of
defence on paper was open to the same objections which had
been urged against his other fortifications ; that if his adver-
sary got possession of one of his posts, it became strength
against him, and the means of subduing the whole line of his
From 1780, the period of his entering parliament, to
1787, Sheridan, though he had spoken often, had made
no such exhibition of his powers as to gain the reputa-
tion of a great orator. But about this time the genius
and moral energy of Burke started a subject, which not
only gave full expression to his own great nature, but
afforded the orators of his party a rare occasion for the
most dazzling displays of eloquence. We refer, of
course, to the impeachment of Hastings. In all matters
relating to the atiairs of India, Burke bore sovereign
sway in his party. It was he who projected the unsuc-
cessful India bill, on which the coalition ministry was
wrecked. Defeat, however was iiot likely to damp the
energies of a mind like his when it had once fastened
on an object; and he kept alive among his ; ssociates
2S4 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
the determination to bring the spoilers of India to a pub-'
lie account for their misdeeds, and to hold them up to
hatred and execration as worthy successors of Cortes
and Pizarro, in plundering and depopulating the empire
they had conquered. Burke was the only man in Eng-
land in whom the prosecution of Indian delinquency and
atrocity was a fixed passion as well as a fixed principle.
By his ardor and complete comprehension of the subject,
he communicated his enthusiasm to his party, — a party
which always appeared best when it had public criminals
to brand and public corruptions to expose. In brino-ino-
forward in the House of Commons the various charo-es
o
against Hastings, the charge relating to the spoliation
of the Begums was allotted to Sheridan. He was prob-
ably well supplied by Burke with materials, and he
resolutely determined to give the subject that attention
which would enable him to make an effective speech.
Of all the men engaged in the prosecution, he was per-
haps the most superficial in the feeling with which he
regarded the crimes against which he was to declaim.
His conscience and passions were not deeply stirred
against the criminal. Hunt says, in his light way, that
the inspiration of Burke in this matter was a jealous
hatred of wrong, the love of right that of Fox, " and the
opportunity of making a display at somebody's expense
that of Sheridan, without any violent care either for
right or wrong." With regard to the latter, at least, the
remark is just. We can conceive of nothing more ludi-
crous than the idea of Sheridan sitting down with his
bottle and documents, and, by dint of hard drinking anC
cautious reading, concocting ingenious epigrams out o
the frauds, and framing theatrical thunder against tli
trimes, of the great oppressor of India.
RICHARD BKINSLEY SHERIDAN. 285
However, the event was such as to reward all his dili-
gence. His speech was made on February 7, 1787, and
occupied five hours and a half in the delivery. All par-
ties agreed in its extravagant praise. Fox said, that all
he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when com-
pared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like
vapor before the sun. Burke and Pitt declared it to be
unequalled in ancient or modern eloquence. Logan,
who had written a defence of Hastings, went that even-
ing to the House with the strongest prepossession against
Sheridan and in favor of Hastings. After the former
had been speaking an hour, he observed to a friend, —
" All this is declamatory assertion, without proof." When
he left the House, at the end of the speech, he exclaimed,
— " Of all monsters of iniquity, the most enormous is
Warren Hastings." Windham, who was no friend to
Sheridan, said, twenty years afterwards, that, in spite of
some faults of taste, it was the greatest speech within
the memory of man. The most significant sign of its
efTect was the adjournment of the House, on the ground
that the members were too much excited to render a fair
judgment on the case, — a ground that Burke very hap-
pily ridiculed. The practice of cheering at the end of a
good speech commenced with this splendid effort of
Sheridan.
There can be little doubt that this was, on the whole,
the greatest production of Sheridan's mind. There is no
report of it deserving the name. Although he had the
speech written out, he would never publish it. With his
usual sagacity, he judged that tne tradition of its effects
would give him more fame than the production itself.
To account for his success is difficult. A great deal is
to be referred to the materials which his subject fr>
2S6 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
sented for oratorical display, to his beautiful delivery of
particular passages, to the care with which he elaborated
the whole, and to the surprise of the House at its superi
ority over all his previous speeches. He most certainly
did not possess that deep feeling of horror and detestation
for the crimes of HastinQS which animated the breast of
Burke. Several years afterwards, when the Prince of
Wales introduced him to Hastings, he had the meanness
to tell the latter that he had attacked him merely in the
way of his vocation as a whig politician, and trusted
that it would not be considered as a test of his private
feelings. Hastings did not condescend to answer him,
but turned scornfully away. If the passion was thus in
a great measure simulated, it certainly was not expressed,
as far as we can judge from passages here and there in
the imperfect printed report, in a style very much above
verbiage and fustian. The passages which would have
best vindicated the eulogies it received were probably the
epigrammatic portions ; and these must have been of sur-
passing brilliancy, not only from the ingenuity of Sheri-
dan's mind, but from the startling contrasts with which
the subject itself was replete. Thus, the most felicitous
passage which can be gleaned from the printed report is
that in which reference is made to the sordid spirit of
trade which blended with all the operations of the East
India Company as a government, and disgraced even
their boldest achievements, which showed the meanness
of pedlers and the profligacy of pirates. " Alike," he
says, " in the political and military line, could be observed
auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals ; — and
thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an
army employed in executing an arrest ; a town besiegea
on a note of hand ; a prince dethroned for the balance of
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 28'V
RH account, Thus it was they exhibited a government
which unite I the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and
the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house, — wield-
ing a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket
with the other."
On the 3d of June, 17S8, Sheridan, having been
appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of
Hastings, delivered before the Lords in Westminster
Hall another oration on the same charge he had so bril-
liantly urged in the House of Commons. The fashion-
able excitement caused by this great state trial is said to
have reached its height on the occasion of his speech.
Fifty guineas were known to have been paid for a ticket.
The oration, including the examination of evidence,
occupied four days; and although it did not wring the
hearts and overpower the understandings of the audience,
like the impassioned and comprehensive orations with
which Burke opened the impeachment, it still produced
the liveliest sensation. Burke, whose whole soul was in
the success of the cause, and who was delighted with
everything which helped it forward in popular estimation,
was heated with admiration during its delivery. " There,"
he exclaimed to Fox, while listening to some passages,
" there, that is the true style ; something between poetry
and prose, and better than either." Fox replied, that he
thought the mixture w'as likely to produce poetic prose,
or, what was worse, prosaic poetry.
On the fourth day Sheridan strained his powers to the
utmost to charm and dazzle his auditory. In referring
to one crime of Hastings, he made an allusion to the
great historian of the age. Gibbon was present, and in
his Memoirs has recorded the pleasure he experienced in
receiviffg such a compliment before all that was great
iiSS ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
and noble in the nation. " Not in the annals of Tacitus,"
said Sheridan, " not on the luminous page of Gibbon,
could be found described such a monstrous act of cruelty
and treachery." At the conclusion of the speech, he
sunk back in the arms of Burke, as if overcome with
fatigue and emotion. One of his prosaic whig friends
came up to him and said, — "Why, Sherry, did you
compliment that tory. Gibbon, with the epithet lumi-
nous? " " I meant vo-lumijious,'" answered Sheridan, in
a hoarse whisper.
It is commonly believed that the speech in West-
minster Hall was substantially the same as that delivered
in the House of Commons, although, in its diffusion
through two days. Fox and many others considered it
inferior to his first effort. Burke, however, in his cele-
brated eulogy on the oration, said, that from poetry up to
eloquence, there was not a species of composition of which
^ complete and perfect specimen might not be culled from
t. Now, there is extant a verbatim report of the speech ;
vnd Mr. Moore, in his Life of Sheridan, has quoted all
\liose passages which even the partiality of a biographer
could pronounce excellent. It is scarcely necessary to
say, that there is hardly a page in Burke's own works
which is not worth the whole of Sheridan's fine writing,
as far as eloquence can be estimated from the written
composition. Burke's extravagant praise is to be referred
partly to the magnanimity of a rival orator, emulous to
outdo all others in hearty recognition of another's merits,
and partly to his intense enthusiasm for every effective
speech delivered on his side of the subject. In him the
success of the impeachment swallowed up every desire
for personal notoriety or fame in its prosecution, and he
naturally exaggerated the merit of all arguments and elo
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 289
quence which illustrated or enforced his own views. Sheri-
dan cared little for the impeachment, but cared much for
the reputation of a brilliant speech. Posterity has dealt
fairly with both. Burke has succeeded in fixing an ineradi-
cable brand of guilt on the brow of an able and unprincipled
public criminal, whose great capacity and great services
seemed to overawe the world's moral judgment, and has
consigned him to an immortality of infamy in orations as
imperishable as literature. Sheridan has succeeded in
gaining the reputation of an infinitely clever and dextrous
speaker, the records of whose speeches are read only in a
vain attempt to discover by what jugglery of action such
ingenious combinations of words ever imposed upon an
audience as the genuine language either of reason, imag-
ination, or passion.
As an orator, Sheridan belongs to a peculiar class.
He was certainly the most artificial of speakers, when
his ambition led him to imitate Fox in impassioned
declamation, or Burke in luminous disquisition and im-
aginative flights. Moore, in a strain of exquisite flattery,
celebrates him as one
" Whose eloquence, brightening whatever it tried,
Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave,
Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide
As ever bore Freedom aloft on its wave."
Nothing, as Moore well knew, was more incorrect than
the impression of spontaneousness which this eulogy con-
veys. The private memoranda of Sheridan's speeches
show the exact place wnere the " Good God, Mr. Speak-
er," is to be introduced ; and exhibit painfully elaborated
" bursts " of passion, into which it was his intention to
be " hurried." With regard to imagery, those figures
VOL. II. 19
i90 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
which start up in the mind of the true orator in the
excitement of the moment, instinct with the life of the
occasion, were in Sheridan's case carefully fashioned
out beforehand and bedizened with verbal fnppery, cold
and lifeless in themselves, but made to tell upon the
audience by grace and energy of manner. It has been
repeatedly noticed, that in the notes of Burke's speeches
nothing is observable but the outline of the argument
and the heads of the information ; in the notes of Sheri-
dan's, little is seen but images, epigrams, and exclama-
tions.
Sheridan has been often classed with Irish orators,
that is, with orators having more feeling and imagination
than taste. Irish oratory, it is very certain, is not con-
fined to Hibernians, neither does it comprehend all Irish
speakers. Its leading characteristic is sensibility. But
this sensibility is good or bad, according to the mental
powers by which it is accompanied. In Burke, it
appeared in connection with an understanding and an
imagination greater than any other orator ever possessed,
and second, if second at all, only to Bacon among states-
men. In Grattan, it took the form of fiery patriotism,
stimulating every faculty of his intellect, and condensing
the expression of thought and fancy by pen'ading both
with earnest passion. In Curran, it quickened into
almost morbid action one of the readiest and most fertile,
though not comprehensive minds, ever placed in a human
brain. In Shiel, it is seen in the rapidity, intensity, and
intellectual fierceness, given to the expression of blended
argument and fancy. In all of these, sensibility is more
or less earnest and genuine, penetrating thought with
fire, and thus giving it force to the will as well as per-
suasion to the understanding. In another class of Irish
UICILjVRD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 29)
orators, of which Phillips was once considered the repre
sentative, this sensibility is little more than the boiling
over of warm blood, without corresponding power ot
thought or imagination ; and it runs into all excesses
of verbose declamation and galvanized commonplace
Execrable as it is, liowever, and doomed to instant
damnation in a tempes. of hisses as soon as it is printed,
it is still not without effect upon uncultivated or excited
audiences. This style of oratory is sometimes called
imaginative, although its leading absurdities are directly
traceable to a want of imagination. It is no more imag-
inative than Swift's mocl< reasoning to prove that Par-
tridsfe was dead is argumentative.
Now, to neither of these classes of Irish orators does
Sheridan belong ; for genuine sensibility, either in the
expression of reason or nonsense, does not enter into the
composition of his speeches. He feels neither like Burke
nor like Phillips. In serious declamation, he simply
attempts an imitation of intense and elevated feeling ;
and his passion, as artificial and as much made up as
the thunder of Drury Lane, finds suitable expression in
a diction curiously turgid, in meretricious ornaments,
and in a style of imagery plastered upon the argument,
instead of growing out of it. If, as a speaker, he had
used this florid style without stint, he must have failed.
We believe that it did not please his contemporaries
much more than it does posterity, and that it was gen-
erally held by them to bear about the same relation to
the peculiar merits of his speeches, which the fine talk
of Falkland and Julia bears to the fun of Acres and the
wit of Captain Absolute. What placed him by the side
of Burke, Fox, and Windham, as an orator, was not hia
earnestness of feeling, but his equalling them in the
292 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
felicity with which they exposed crime, corruption, soph
istry, and hypocrisy, to ridicule and contempt. His most
successful imitations of Burke consist in the employment
of verbal pai'adoxes and ironical fancies, in which the
opinions and statements of an opponent are exaggerated
into a kind of gigantic caricature, and then scornfully
eulogized. Pretence of all kinds soon collapses, when
subjected to this ordeal of wasting ridicule. The bubble
bursts it once, and " is resolved into its elemental suds."
As far as we can judge of Sheridan's great speech on
the Begums, his most effective weapon of attack was a
sarcastic mockery of Hastings's assignment of patriotic
motives for his crimes, an epigrammatic expression of
hatred and scorn for oppression and rapine, and a singu-
lar felicity in dragging down the governor of a vast
empire to the level of the common herd of profligates and
criminals, by connecting his greatest acts with the same
motives which influence the pickpocket and the cut-
throat. By bringing the large conceptions and beneficent
aims which should characterize a ruler of nations into
startling contrast with the small personal objects which
animate the heroes of Hounslow Heath, he had an oppor-
tunity to play the dazzling fence of his wit with the most
brilliant effect. Many of his most swollen comparisons
and strained metaphors are redeemed from absolute con-
tempt only by the presence of this mocking spirit. That
his great strength consisted in this power of viewing
everything under its ludicrous relations is seen in the
rapidity with which he ever extricated himself frcsn the
consequences of failure in his florid flights. Mr. Law
the counsel for Hastings, very successfully ridiculed one
of the hectic metaphors of his speech. " It was the first
rime in his life," r-^plied Sheridan, "he had ever heard
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 293
01 special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment
ftgamst a trope. But such was the turn of the learned
counsel's mind, that when he attempted to be humorous,
no jest could be found, and when serious, no fact was
visible." This retort is worth a thousand such tropes as
occasioned it.
Up to the impeachment of Hastings, Fox, Burke, and
Sheridan, were closely united ; but the illness of the
king, which soon followed, brought a question before
parliament, which, while it seemed to promise the acces-
sion of the whigs to power, resulted only in sowing the
seeds of distrust among their leaders. George the Third
became insane, and it devolved upon the legislature to
appoint or recognize a regent. The Prince of Wales, a
selfish debauchee and spendthrift, was the person that
would naturally be appointed ; and the prince, hating
his father and hated by him, was a whig. Mr. Pitt and
the tories were determined to restrict his prerogative ;
the whigs struggled to have him endowed with the full
powers of majesty. A fierce war of words and princi-
ples was the consequen-^e, in which Fox and Burke gave
way to unwonted gusts of passion, and Burke, especially,
indulged in some unwise aUusions to the king's situation.
Sheridan, who for a long time had been the companion
of the prince in his pleasures, and in some degree his
ngent in the House of Commons, was suspected by his
friends of intriguing for a higher office than his station
in the party would warrant. The king's recovery put
an end to the debates, and to the hopes of each. A por-
tion of the disappointment which Burke and Fox ex-
perienced was transmuted into iislike of each other, each
feeling that the violence of the discussion had injured
^he party, and each placing the blame upon the other.
294 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Both were suspicious of Sheridan, also, and doubted hia
honorable dealing in the matter.
This slight feud would probably have been soon
healed, if the brealcing out of the French Revolution
had not given an immediate occasion for all the discon-
tent in the party to explode. Burke, from the first,
looked upon that portentous event with distrust ; Fox
and Sheridan hailed it as an omen of good. The debate
on the Army Estimates, in 1790, was the first public
sign of the schism between the leaders of the whigs.
Sheridan, who seems to have foreseen that Fox and
Burke must eventually dissolve their connection, took
this opportunity, in an animated but indiscreet speech
against Burke's views, to hasten the separation ; but he
only succeeded in bringing Burke's wrath down upon his
own head, and a public disavowal of their friendship.
The progress of the Revolution, however, soon brought
on a final division of the whig party, upon which a
majority of its most influential members went over with
Burke to the support of the ministry. Fox and Sheri-
dan, not on the most cordial terms themselves, were left
to battle, in the House of Commons, both against their
old enemies and a powerful body of their old friends.
There is no portion of Sheridan's political life which
is more honorable than his services to freedom during
the stormy period between 1793 and 1801. It was a
time of extreme opinions. The French Revolution had
unsettled the largest intellects of the agCj and seditious
and despotic principles clashed violently against each
other. The tories, to preserve order, seemed bent ot
destroying freedom ; and the radicals, enraged at the
attacks on freedom, or deluded by the abstract common-
places of the French schoc;, overlooked order in thei
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 2i)5
struggle against oppression. Fox, Sheridan, Grey, Tier-
ney, Erskine, were the nucleus of a legal opposition to
the ministry, and, at the head of a small minority of
whigs, defended the free principles of the constitution
against the court, the administration, and popular clamor.
Sheridan adhered generally to his party, though he con-
trived to escape some of its glorious unpopularity by
giving a hearty support to the government on a few try-
ing occasions. His various speeches during this period
display his usual brilliancy, with passages here and there
of powerful declamation. It is needless to say that his
dissipation and debts were on the increase. His patriot-
ism was not allowed to dull the edge of his sensuality.
In his habits of mystification, too, in the preparation of
his speeches, he displayed his customary cunning. In
1794, when called upon, as one of the prosecutors of
Hastings, to reply to Mr. Law, he spent two or three
days in such close application to reading and writing, as
to complain to a friend of having motes in his eyes.
When he entered Westminster Hall, he was asked bv
one of his brother-managers for his bag and papers. He
answered, that he had none, and must get through with
his speech as he best might ; — "he would abuse Ned
Law, ridicule Plumer's long orations, make the court
laugh, please the women, and, in short, go triumphantly
through his task." Much to the surprise of the man
agers, he succeeded admirably.
In 1792, Mrs. Sheridan died. She was a woman of
fine mind, warm heart, and uncommon beauty, entering
with zeal into her husband's interests, and making his
home as happy as the home of a libertine could be, who
was gifted with good-nature rather fnan principle, with
ifectionate sensations rather than a heart. In 1795,
?*96 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
Sheridan married again. The lady was Miss Ogle
daughter of the Dean of Winchester, and represented
as young, accomplished, and thoroughly in love. Sheri-
dan's powers of fascination neither dissipation nor the
reputation of a roue, could weigh down.
During this stormiest period of English politics, Sheri-
dan preserved the same virtue in his speeches, and the
same self-indulgence in his conduct, which characterized
his whole life. When Pitt resigned, and the Addingtor
ministry was formed, in 1801, he, following the example
of a few other whigs, gave that feeble government, with
its toothless toryism, a kind of support. But the inflated
incapacity of that administration could not fail to draw
laughter from him, the prince of laughers. Addington
was nicknamed " The Doctor." When one of his meas-
ures was suddenly opposed by the Scotch members,
usually loyal to ministers, Sheridan set the House of
Commons in a roar by addressing the premier from Mac-
beth, — " Doctor, the thanes fly from thee ! " On the
return of Pitt to power, Sheridan went again into oppo-
sition. Of all his later speeches, his most celebrated is
one which he made in 1805, on his motion for repealing
the Defence Act. It was written during the debate, at a
coffee-house near Westminster Hall, and was full of the
fiercest attacks upon the premier. Pitt, commonly so
insensible, is said to have writhed under its declamatory
siarcasm ; and many who were present thought they dis-
cerned at times in his countenance an intention to fix a
personal quarrel upon his flashing adversary. After the
death of Pitt, in 1806, and the formation of the Fox and
'rrenville ministry, Sheridan was appointed Treasurer
tf the Navy, an office which he deemed altogether
oelow his deserts, and which indicated ;hat his position
KICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 297
m the party had not advanced since 1789. The admin-
istration was dissolved shortly after the death of Fox,
owing to the determination of Lord Granville to push the
Catholic claims. Sheridan, though an Irishman himself,
and with every feeling of nationality arrayed on the side
of Catholic emancipation, was still vexed at the ministry
for committing itself to the measure, from his selfish fear
of losinof office. He knew the kins: would not consent to
it, and he had not the high Roman feeling of Lord Gren-
ville, who was indisposed to shape his course according
to the path marked by the bigotry of the monarch. "He
had heard," Sheridan said, " of people knocking out their
brains against a wall ; but never before knew of any one
building a wall expressly for the purpose."
After his loss of office, Sheridan's efforts in parlia-
ment were not frequent. He became engaged in various
intrigues regarding the formation of new administra-
tions, in which he lost the confidence of his political
friends. His intimacy with the Prince of Wales, and
his declining health and reputation, seem equally to
have hurried him into dishonorable tricks and insinceri-
ties. At last, in 1812, rendered desperate by the loss
of his theatrical property, embarrassed in purse, and
almost bankrupt in character, he closed a brilliant politi-
cal life by an act of treachery which will ever stain his
name. On the death of Mr. Perceval, great difficulty
was experienced in forming an administration. There
was a probability of the vvhigs again coming into power ;
overtures were made to Lords Grey and Grenville to
Jorm a ministry. They would not accept, unless the
household were dismissed. Lord Yarmouth, one of this
number, requested Sheridan to convey to the two whig
'ords their intention to resign, rather than be an obstacle
298 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
lo the formation of a ministry. Had Sheridan done
lais, the political history of England might have been
essentially different, and measures of reform might have
dated from 1812, instead of 1832. But he betrayed his
trust, partly because he was aware that me Prince
Regent did not really desire the accession of the whigs,
and partly because he disliked the inflexible character
of the lords who would have been at the head of affairs.
He not only did not communicate the offer of Lord Yar-
mouth, but, when a rumor of it had transpired, offered
to bet five hundred guineas that it was not in contem-
plation. His treachery was discovered too late to be
repaired. Lord Liverpool, " commonplace and loving
place," obtained the premiership, and held it during
fifteen years of tory rule.
Closely following this shipwreck of character, Sheri-
dan lost his seat in parliament. This was almost equiv-
alent to a loss of his personal liberty, for he was no longer
safe from arrest. From this time to his death, he gath-
ered in the harvest of long years of indolence, extrava-
gance, and vice. Disease was secretly wearing away his
originally powerful constitution. His face, once so full
of intelligence and beauty, had become deformed and
bloated with intemperance. His old friends looked
coldly upon him. Brilliant powers of conversation and
fascinating address no longer characterized the faded
wit and shattered debauchee. The Prince Regent, foi
whom he had so often sacrificed his interest and honor,
left him " naked to his enemies." All the mortifications
which could result from wounded pride and vanity, and
the sense of decaying intellect, thickened upon him. His
ruin was swift and sure. His creditors seized upon
.very thing which the pawnbroker bad not already taken
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 299
Eve.i Reynolds's portrait of his first wife as Saint Cecilia
passed from his possession. In the spring of 1815, he
was arrested and carried to a sponging-house, where he
was retained two or three days. His life sufficiently
shows that his sense of shame was not quick, but he
was deeply humiliated at this arrest, feeling it as "a
profanation of his person."
And now came the misery of his last scene. He
appeared to feel that his life was drawing to a close.
To some sharp remonstrances from his wife on his con-
tinued irregtilarities, he replied in an affecting letter.
" Never again," he wrote, " let one harsh word pass
between us during the period, which may not perhaps
be long, that we are in this world together, and life,
however clouded to me, is spared to us." His last ill-
ness soon followed. Even his dying bed was not free
from the incursions of writs and sheriffs. He was ar-
rested, and would have been taken away in his blankets,
had not his physician threatened the officer with the
consequences of committing murder. At last, on the
seventh of July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died.
Then came the mockery of a splendid burial. Dukes,
royal and noble, bishops, marquesses, earls, viscounts,
right honorables, emulously swelled the train of his
funeral. " France," said a French journalist at the
time, " is the place for an author to live in, and England
the place for him to die in." In the Poet's Corner of
Westminster Abbey, the jnly spot remaining unoccupied
was reserved for the body of him whose death-bed was
not safe from the sheriffs writ. Tom Moore, in a fine
strain of poetical indignation, published just after Sheri-
dan's death, thus cuttingly refers to the noble lcx«is who
' honored " the funeral : —
300 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
'• How proud they can press to the funeral array
Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow!
How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,
Whose pall shall be held up by nobles lo-morrow ! "
The task of lightening the misery of Sheridan's last
nours was left to such commoners as Samuel Rogers
Thomas Moore, and good Doctor Bain.
The moral of Sheridan's life lies on the surface, and
we shall not risk any commonplaces of ethical horror in
commenting upon its hoUowness and its sins. The
vices for which he was distinguished are generally repro-
bated, and their position in the scale of wickedness is
sufficiently marked ; but they are not the darkest kind
of vices. We are not of that number who select him
from his contemporaries, and expend upon his follies and
errors the whole strength of their indignation. Allow-
ing him to have been as bad as his nature would allow,
we believe he was a much better man than inany of his
contemporaries who are commonly praised as virtuous.
The man who brings misery upon himself and his fam-
ily by intemperance and sloth is justly condemned, but
he is innocent compared with one who, from bigotry or
lust of power, would ruin or injure a nation. George
the Third is praised as a good king ; but the vices of
Sheridan's character were mere peccadilloes compared
with the savage vices which raged and ruled in the heart
of his Majesty. In a moral estimate which included all
grades of sin, Sheridan would compare well even with
Lord North, William Pitt, or Spencer Perceval, with all
their social and domestic merits. The American war
and the war with France originated, or, at least, were
continued, in a spirit which approaches nearer to the
diabolical than the sensuality of Sheridan ; and we fee
RICHARB BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 30]
little disposed to chine in with that morality which
passes over all the rats and liberticides, the servile poli-
ticians and selfish statesmen, the bad and bigoted spend-
thrifts of blood and treasure, during a whole generatior ,
to hurl its heaviest anathemas upon one poor, weak, vol-
atile, brilliant, and hard-pressed rone,.
But while we thus remember that there are natures
which have contrived to indulge darker pas^sions than he
ever dreamed, without coming under the ban of either
historian or moralist, and while we therefore have little
sympathy with one class of Sheridan's judges and critics,
we do not join in the absurd sentimentality of another
class, who strive hard to place his case among the infirm-
ities and calamities of genius. The sources of his errors
were not those which have sometimes hurried large and
unregulated minds into evil, and there is something
ridiculous in placing him by the side of the Otways, the
Savages, the Chattertons, the Burnses, and the Byrons.
With regard to liis calamities, there is hardly another
instance in literary history of a man who enjoyed so
much fame with such moderate powers, and who was
enabled to run so undisturbed a career of sensuality from
manhood to within three years of his death. What
commonly goes under the name of enjoyment of life he
had in full measure, not only without the check which
comes from means limited by honest scruples, but almost
without the remorse with which conscience usually
dashes unhallowed pleasure. And with respect to the
desertion of which he complained in the last years of his
ife, it was, as far as regarded his political connections,
the result of his political treachery ; and as his personal
friendships sprang from the fellowship of vice rathe-
302 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
than feeling, he had no right to expect that the rakea
and good fellows, his companions of the bottle and the
debauch, would be the bankers of his poverty, or the
consolers of his dying hours.
HENRY FIELDING.*
There is no word more provokingly equivocal than
history. In one sense, it simply indicates a department
of literature ; in another, the sum and substance of all
departments. He who should read all the so-called his-
torians of the world, from Herodotus to Hallam, would,
in common phrase, be considered as possessing a knowl-
edge of history ; but in respect to the thing itself, he
might be more ignorant of many ages and nations than
one who had devoted his time to plays and novels. In
regard to the history of England, especially, it is curious
how small a portion of our realized and available knowl-
edge of the English mind and people is derived from the
standard narratives of public events. When, after ex-
hausting the strictly historical department of English
literature, we turn to its works of imagination, and from
these to the numerous trifles in poetry and romance
which every age has poured forth, we discover that we
are increasing our historical information, while we are
seemingly gratifying only taste, indolence, or whim.
Indeed, it is impossible to understand the causes of
England's material supremacy in any summary now ex-
tant of the persons and events connected witJi its diifer-
* The WorKs of Henry Fielding, with a Life of the Aj!-hor. By Titira*
Roscoe. London : Henry G. Bohn 1843. 8vo. pn. 1116. — iVor/4 A»K-iVa»
Review, January, 1849.
304 , ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
ent stages. That peculiar combination of virti/cs and
vices, of practical sense and stubborn prejudice, which
occurs to us when we think of an Englishman, never
was obtained from Hume alone. The literature of the
country, in the most generous meaning of that word, is
therefore a portion of its history, conducting us close to
the heart, character, and external costuHxU, the body anu
soul, of the nation, and enabling us to realize the people
as living beings. A drama by Fletcher, a pamphlet by
Nash, a satire by Donne, a novel by Mrs. Behn, a com-
edy by Congreve, not to mention the stores of information
in Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, may
convey more real historical knowledge, and enable us
better to understand England in its manners and un-
written institutions, than Holinshed and Carte, than
Oldmixon and Burnet. A person whose notions of
dignity prevent him from penetrating into such minor
avenues of letters will never gain much more than the
shell of history. If the object of historical studies be
thus to give an idea of a past age, approaching as neai
as possible in vividness to that which we have of our
own, then certainly no student of the eighteenth century
should overlook the life and works of Henry Fielding, —
dramatist, lawyer, journalist, magistrate, novelist, and
man of wit and pleasure about town. Tom Jones and
Joseph Andrews may not seem of so much importance
as George II. and Sir Robert Walpole ; but no one evei
followed the adventures of the former without acquiring,
unconsciously, a vast amount of information shedding
light on the policy of the latter.
Of all the English authors, the most exclusively Enc-
ash, the two into whose very being the life of their age
and country passed most completely., are Ben JonsoD
HENRY FIELDING. 305
and Henry Fielding; and no person can be pronounced
Ignorant of England who has studied their works, and
obtained a living conception of their personal characters.
Our present concern is with Fielding, who, somewhat
leficient in that positiveness and dogmatism of the Eng-
lish character which appear so grandly in old Ben, and
in heedless animal spirits suggesting the Irishman rather
than the Englishman, still in mind and disposition rep-
resents that basis of sensuality, humor, coarse and strong
morality, that practical grasp of things in the concrete,
and that thorough -going belief in the senses, which char-
acterize the genuine Saxon. Scott, indeed, thinks that
Fielding can hardly be relished and understood by per-
sons not habitually conversant with old English life.
Doubtless, this is true to a certain extent ; but we can
name no novelist who so felicitously exhibits human
nature through its modification of English nature, or
conveys so vivid an idea of both, in modes so universally
appreciable.
The period in which Fielding lived and wrote pre
sented a society richly diversified in character and man
ners, and affording to the novelist exhaustless material
of humor and observation. It had already, in Pope
Swift, Young, Arbuthnot, and others, found its satirists
men who made its crimes and follies the butt of theii
»ggressive wit ; but it had not as yet been mirrored o»
Jie page of a deep and genial humorist, combining the
requisite insight with the requisite toleration to represent
it in its peculiar life and costume. The profligacy and
levity which disgraced the higher classes had been par-
tially reflected in the comedies of Congreve ; and Van-
brugh, with a stronger grasp of character, had brought
up Sir Tunbelly Clumsey and Sir Francis Wronghead
VOL. u. 20
306 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
from the country, to introduce them to the Lord Fop-
pingtons and Sir John Brutes of the town ; but the man
who should exhibit church and state, town and country,
in characters at once national, local, and individual, and
be able to present pictures by which after ages might
recognize the form and spirit of the time, was yet to
appear. Fielding not only possessed the jovial tempera-
ment and mental power to perform this truthfully, but
the vicissitudes of his life brought him face to face with
every order of English society. Born of a noble family,
but thrown at an early age into the world to make his
own living, he knew almost every form of poverty and
distress, and obtained his knowledge of mankind by the
scientific process of observation and experience. He
knew equally well the mansion of the aristocrat and the
garret of the author, the palace and the sponging-house,
the court and St. Giles, Westminster Hall and Wapping,
the cathedral and the Methodist meeting, the manor-
house and the country inn. To dine with the Duke of
Roxburgh or his Grace of Bedford in the West End, to
sup with Savage or Boyce in a cellar, — to converse
with Lord Chesterfield at Pulteney's, and with a country
coachman at an ale-house in Dorsetshire, ■ — to hear some
member of the great whig connection expatiate on the
blessings of the Hanover succession, and to hear some
old Jacobite squire roar out a song to Charlie over the
water, after the fifth bottle, — to know all varieties of
fortune, and consequently all varieties of company, and
intensely to enjoy everything short of misery itself, —
was the common experience of the great delineator of
English character and manners. No other author of
his time had his experience of life ; and his experience
would have converted almost any other author into a
HENRY FIELDING. S07
fipitrire satirist, or moody misanthrope. Tovvwouse
Squire Western, Parsons Adams, Barnabas, and Trul-
liber, Dr. Harrison, Colonel Bath, Square, Thwackum,
Bliful, Alhvorthy, Partridge, Fanny, Sophia Western,
Mis. Slipslop, Lady Bellaston, — almost every form
which selfishness, baseness, levity, licentiousness, cleri-
cal vvorldliness, political corruption, as well as honesty,
innocence, and truth, assumed in the men and women
of his age, — Fielding knew with a certainty and accu-
racy almost approaching the perfection of science. And
he surveyed the whole with a kind of inimitable absence
of spleen and egotism, more wonderful than his knowl-
edge. His works represent greater varieties of rascality
and hard-heartedness than those of almost any other
writer ; yet he never leaves the impression that human
nature is to be given over as beyond redemption, or that
the world is effete.
Fielding was born April 22, 1707. He was the son
of Edmund Fielding, an officer who served with some
distinction under Marlborough, and who eventually was
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-genera' By his
father's side, Henry was connected with the noble fam-
ilies of Kingston and Denbigh, and thrpugh the latter
with the renowned house of Hapsburg, from which
Austria has drawn her emperors. Gibbon, in that burst
of enthusiasm for literary fame in which he exhorts the
noble Spensers, enriched by the trophies of Marlborough,
to consider still " the Fairy Queen as the most precious
jewel in their coronet," also finely alludes to Fielding's
noble descent. " Far different," he says, " have been
the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the
family of Hapsburg ; the former, the knights and sheriffs
of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a
308 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
peerage ; the latter, the emperors of Germany and kings
of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the Old and
invaded the treasures of the New World. The succes-
sors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of Eng-
land ; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite pic-
ture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the
Escu*-iiil and the imperial eagle of Austria." This con-
fident prophecy seems in the present year to be in the
course of fulfilment.
Fielding received the rudiments of education from
the Rev. Mr. Oliver, a coarse, avaricious, and narrow-
minded priest, whom he afterwards immortalized in the
character of Parson Trulliber. From the hands of this
clerical bear he was removed, when he arrived at a suit-
able age, to Eton, where he distinguished himself for
his quickness of parts, and laid the foundation of that
classical knowledge which he always loved, and which
he was so fond of parading even in his novels. At this
school he formed the acquaintance of many boys who
afterwards became eminent, and among others of Lord
Lyttelton, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt. It was his father's
intention to make him a lawyer, and accordingly he was
sent from Eton, to Leyden, in his eighteenth year, to
study the civil law. How he conducted himself abroad
n^e are not informed ; but launched, as he was, into life
m the heyday of youth, and with a constitution which
could bear any excesses into which his irresistible animal
spirits might impel him, we have always thought that
his knowledge of law was principally obtained in experi-
encing the consequences of its violation. His biogra-
phers are careful to inform us that he studied hard with
the celebrated Professor Vitriarius, and some of them
mournfully regret that his father could not sustain the
HENERY FIELDING. 309
txpense of carrying him through a course of study so
auspiciously commenced, and which was winning him
the approbation of the learned Thebans of Leyden.
The probability is, that Fielding's expenses were consider-
ably larger than properly belong to a simple devotee of
knowledge, and that General Fielding had to support
the bon vivant as well as the scholar. At any rate, his
father's remittances failed after he had enjoyed the ines-
timable companionship of Professor Vitriarius for a period
short of three years, and he was compelled to return to
Eno-land. It cannot be doubted that he returned with
some knowledge of the world and of the classics, with a
keen sense of the pleasurable, and a disposition to gratify
it in the elecfant recreations suitable to a rake and a
blood ; but of his civil law we hear no more.
General Fielding was married four times, and had a
large and constantly increasing family, which in respect
to number was compared to King Priam's ; and accord-
ingly, on Fielding's arrival in England, he found his
good-natured father perfectly willing that he should be
his own master, and willing also to settle on him £200
X year, — an allowance, however, which was never paid.
Thus, at the age of twenty, Fielding was cast upon the
world of London, with nobody to assist or check him,
and with five particularly ravenous senses to provide
with objects of necessity or indulgence. He immediately
renewed his aaquaintance with many of his schoolboy
friends, and plunged resolutely into the dissipation of the
time. Witli a handsome person, a constitution of iron,
a fund of spirits which glorified the hour and disregarded
the future, with brilliant conversational powers and
irresistible bonhomviie of manner, he soon became popu-
lar, and ranked among his a&aociates all the good fellows
•{10 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
of the day, from the noble profligate to the ne^Ay author.
But this kind of life requires money, and Fielding prob-
ably soon found that there is a limit to the patience
of unpaid landladies and the liberality of fashionable
friends, and that he must choose an occupation. It is
needless to say that Professor Vitriarius and the civil
law were forgotten, and that his thoughts were at once
turned to the stage, as presenting the best means of
solving the problem, how a young adventurer, whose wit
and sprighthness were the talk of London society, could
gratify an insatiable love of pleasure without heaping up
a portentous mountain of debts. At the early age of
twenty, therefore, he became a playwright, having no
alternative, as he expressed it, but to be a hackney
writer or a hackney coachman.
His first comedy. Love in Several Masques, was pro-
duced in 1707. Though it succeeded The Provoked
Husband, which had attracted large audiences for twenty-
eight nights, it still met with a moderate share of suc-
cess. Wilks, Gibber, Mrs. Booth, and Mrs. Oldfield, did
all that good acting could do in promoting the author's
interest. When published, the play was dedicated, in
an elegant preface, to Lady Mary Wortley Montague,
who was a connection of Fielding's. The author may
be considered to have started fair in his dramatic career,
with nothing to prevent his reaching the most profitable
summits of theatrical excellence, provided his genius was
calculated for the drama. Congreve, at about the same
asre, had, under somewhat similar circumstances, laid
the foundations of his fortune in The Old Bachelor.
But Love in Several Masques indicates none of Con-
ij-reve's orio-inal merit. It is a well-written imitation of
the latter's style, bearing about the same relation to its
HENRY FIELDING.
311
tuodjl which Hayley bears to Pope, or the Right Honor-
aUe John Wilson Croker to Scott. In character, plot,
.and diction, it is but a repetition of the established the-
atrical commonplaces of that period. In the throng of
affected similes and ingenious comparisons, which the
author forces into his dialogue to make it seem brilliant,
we look in vain for one touch of Fielding's peculiar
genius, as afterwards evinced in his novels. The play-
simply exhibits fashionable life after the approved fashion.
The beau is " everything of the woman but the sex, and
nothing of the man beside it ;" the loi:d considers " beauty
as the qualification of a mistress, fortune, of a wife,"
" virtue so scarce as not to be worth looking after, and
beauty so common as not worth the keeping ; " and the
brisk town wit of the play, with the usual cant of his
function, svvears that a charming woman, divested of her
fortune, is like " Beau Grin out of his embroidery, or
my Lady Wrinkle out of her paint." The dialogue is
smart and glib rather than witty, with a continual effort
after brilliancy. The only thing which distinguishes the
play from the hundred forgotten productions of its school
is an occasional touch of humanity or hearty sentiment,
proving that the best-humored and most joyous man in
Great Britain could not altogether forget his nature, even
when cramped in the most artificial of styles. There is
something amusing in the moral tone of the prologue,
whether we consider the freedom of the particular
comedy it introduces, or the coarseness of the plays
which succeeded it. It expresses, in rather indifferent
verse, the ethical object which at that time every fifth-
rate professor of ribaldry and licentiousness affected to
have in view, however scandalous might be his language
ai\d dramatis persoiice : —
'^12 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
" No private character these scenes expose ;
Our bard at vice, not at the vicious, throws.
*****
Humor still free from an indecent flame.
Which, should it raise your mirth, must raise your shame.
Indecency's the bane to ridicule.
And only charms the libertine or fool.
Nought shall offend the fair one's ears to-day.
Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say. '
Fielding was now fairly entered upon his occupatior
of man of letters, and during the ensuing ten yearf
produced eighteen comedies and farces. The Temple
Beau, which succeeded Love in Several Masques, was
brought out in 1729. The introductory scene, between
Lady Lucy Pedant and Lady Gravely, is a good speci-
men of malignant genteel raillery; and the scene in
which Sir Harry Wilding breaks into his son's chambers
in the Temple, and discovers the peculiar kind of law
which his darling student is practising, is finely ludi-
crous ; but the play is generally uninteresting and devoid
of originality. With these two comedies. Fielding
seems to have bid adieu to the school of Congreve, and
resolved to try a kind of writing which less tasked his
fancy, and which he could despatch in more haste.
Tom Thumb, a grand caricature of the popular tragedies
of the day, including those of Dryden, and aiming to
produce laughter by the broadest gushes of drollery,
appeared in 1730, and still keeps the stage. In a
similar, though even coarser style, is the Covent Garden
Tragedy, produced in 1732. The Coffee-House Politi-
'jian, which Arthur Murphy gravely praises, could have
been written only when the author was drunk. The
fumes of gin and tobacco, we think, can be detected it
most of his plays after he had been two years at work
HENRY FIELDING. 313
«i ^Wih <.\. ti brazen vulgarity about them which
oiitmu at least, to
350 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
represent the weaknesses, follies, and improvidence, which
characterized himself. Nothing can be more beautiful
than the fidelity with which Amelia adheres to her affec-
tionate but uuv u'thy husband, the refinement of love she
displays in concealing from him her knowledge of his
intrigue with Miss Matthews, and the full-hearted affec-
tion with which she greets him on his return from every
adventure in which his imprudence has laid up a nev
store of sorrows for herself. Booth never thinks her
unreasonable but on two occasions, when she insists on
his breaking off* his acquaintance with two friends, appar-
ently from mere caprice. He afterwards discovers that
they were pestering her with dishonorable proposals, and
that she would not tell him the true reason of her dis-
like, from the apprehension that the result would be a
duel.
Most of Fielding's pathos is unintentional and uncon-
scious, and is commonly overlooked both by readers and
critics; but there is one scene in this novel which goes
directly to the heart. We refer to that where Amelia is
represented alone at evening in her little room, expect-
ing, after a weary day of anxiety and care, her husband
to supper, and pleased at the idea that she has prepared
a meal of which he is particularly fond. She waits hour
after hour until midnight, but he does not come. It
appears that lie is at the gaming-table with Captain
Trent, hazarding and losing guineas by the score, and
iaying up fresh troubles for himself and her. She, the
same afternoon, had checked a desire to buy some little
luxury for herself, because it would cost sixpence, a sum
she thought she could not spare from their small hoard
We are inclined to forgive Captain Booth all his errors
«»u.t this disappointment to Amelia. No reader eve
HENRY FIELT NG, 351
nustercd sufficient charity to cover that cruel thought>
essness, ahhough the wife pardoned it at once.
The characters of this novel are delineated in Field
ing's most felicitous manner, and pcssess sufficient vari
ety to have established a reputation for any other author.
Dr. Harrison, a clergyman after the style of Parson
A-dams, but discriminated from him by his abruptness of
tone, his greater knowledge of the w^orld and a cyni
cism assumed to veil a boundless beneficence, is a grand
personation of practical Christianity. Sergeant Atkin-
son, with his deep, quiet, humble love, iiis devotion to
Booth and Amelia, his self-sacrificing generosity, is one
of those embodiments of goodness of heart which Field-
ing, to his honor, delighted to represent. The fair and
frail and malicious Miss Matthews; the shrewd, knowing,
learned, equivocal Mrs. Bennet ; the vapid Mrs. James ;
Colonel Bath, with his high sense of honor, and perfect
willingness to blow out the brains of his best friend on
a punctilio ; Colonel James, the polite town rake, com-
placent in his shallow baseness ; the dogmatic young
theological student, who violently disputes with Dr.
Harrison, to the great chagrin of his politic father, who
appreciates benefices better than logic ; the little, round,
fat Mrs. Ellison, the best-natured of pimps ; and espec-
ially that wretched devotee of lust, and embodiment of
all which is disgusting in sensuality, the lord who is her
employer, — are characters which Fielding in his best
days hardly excelled. The descriptions of town life,
also, are so graphic, tl at we seem transported to the
London of 1750. The masquerade at Ranelagh, and the
scene at Vauxhall, where the two brainless town-bloods
frighten Amelia and the children with their profanity
and insolence, are caguerreotypes of manners. The
352 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. ,
author evidently intended that the novel should have a
moral effect upon his readers, and the fact that many
scenes would now be accounted coarse or licentious only
proves that manners have changed. The Beaux Strat-
agem, or Love and a Bottle, would now be considered
strange productions to find in the hands of a lady ; yet
the virtuous and tender Amelia, who reads Barrow's
sermons with so much profit, and whom Dr. Harrison
considers the saint of his church, is represented as
solacing a weary hour of impatient watching in perusing
" the admirable comedies " of Farquhar.
The comparative failure of Amelia threw Richardson
and his admirers into ecstacies. Mrs. Donallan asks him
if he is going to leave them to Captain Booth and Betty
Thoughtless for their examples. " As for poor Amelia,
she is so great a fool, we pity her, but cannot be humble
enough to desire to imitate her." Richardson, hi reply,
assures her that Captain Booth has done his own busi-
ness ; that the piece is as dead as if it had been published
forty years ago, as to sale ; and that Mr. Fielding
" seems in his last journal ashamed of it himself, and
promises to write no more." He compliments his corre-
spondent on her " admirable " remark, that, by several
strokes in the novel, Fielding " designed to be good, but
lost his genius, low humor, and spirit, in the attempt."
Again, he chuckles over the assumed fact, that Fielding
had been beaten by his own imitators, and that since the
time " his spurious brat, Tom Jones," met with its
" unaccountable success," the public have discovered
what " stuff" they have been admiring. But his happi-
est expression of petty rancor is contained in that letter,
svritten in 1752, in which he affects to pity Fielding
describes how he insulted the sisters of the latter, by his
HENRY FIELDING. 353
depreciation of their brother ; and narrates the whole in
a strain of moral coxcombry unexcelled in the annals of
Pharisaic criticism. " I could not help telling his sisters
that I am equally surprised at, and concerned for, his
continual lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born
in a stable, or been a runner at a sponging-house, one
should have thought him a genius, and wished he had
had the advantage of a liberal education, and of being
admitted into good company." He goes on to say, that
it is beyond his conception, that a- man of family, having
*' some learning, and who really is a writer, should
descend so excessively low in his pieces. Who can care
for any of his people ? " But the most ludicrous outbreak
of conceit, both of respectability and wit, follows this
precious specimen of Christian commiseration. " A per-
son of honor," he says, " asked me, the other day, what
he could mean by saying in his Covent Garden Journal
that he had followed Homer and Virgil in his Amelia.
I answered, that he was justified in saying so, because
he must mean Cotton's Virgil Travestied, where the
women are drabs and the men scoundrels." Keats rep-
resents himself as once being in a very genteel circle
of wit-snappers, who, in speaking of Kean, the actor,
affected to regret that he kept such low company. Keats
remarks, that he wished at the time he was one of that
company. No one can read Richardson's correspondence,
and be bored by the insipidity of his female toadies
and persons of honor, without being perfectly willing
to exchange their refinement for Fielding's " excessive
lowTiess."
Fielding was superior to the small malice and misera-
ble vanity which would prompt such a mode of attack
IS that adopted by EicnardSon. To his large and tol
VOL. u. 23
354 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
erant mind, it would have appeared ridiculous to wreak
a personal spiia against an author by depreciating his
works. Pope and Swift had both referred to him in early
life, with a contemptuous fleer at his talents ; but it never
entered his brain to refuse to quote and praise them be-
cause they disliked him. In the fifth number of the
Jacobite Journal, published at a time when he knew that
Richardson was exulting over his supposed failures, and
making his genius the butt of his insolent pity, he speaks
in terms of high eulogy of Clarissa Harlowe. He knew
human nature too well not to divine the meanness to
which the delineator of Clarissa and Clementina would
descend, when his sensitive vanity was stung by ridicule ;
but it was a part of his philosophy to view such things
with good-natured indulgence, and not hesitate to ac-
knowledge the good qualities which might exist in
connection with vices so paltry and so malignant.
Millar, Fielding's publisher, paid a thousand pounds
for Amelia, thinking it would meet with the success of
Tom Jones ; but while it was in press, he obtained a
hint that it was an inferior work, and might turn out a
bad speculation. His stratagem to save himself from
loss indicated the ingenuity of a master-mind in " the
trade." At a general sale to the booksellers, he told
them, with his accustomed tipsy gravity, that he should
sell his other publications at the usual terms, but that
there was such a demand for Amelia he should be com-
pelled to decline all ofTers for that except at a reduced
discount. The booksellers, cunning as they were, were
all deceived by his manner, greedily swallowed the bait,
Bnd the whole edition was ordered before it was pub-
lished.
After the publication of his last novel, Fielding
HENRY FIELDING. 355
returned to his former occupation of newspapc r essayist,
and commenced, in 1752, The Covent Garden Journal.
In this paper he published some of his most agreeable
essays. His style in these has the cosiness and aban-
donment of an after-dinner chat, and is peculiarly felic-
itous in gossiping comments on literature and manners.
In this journal he was drawn into a verbal quarrel with
Smollett, who had established a fame, by Roderick Ran-
dom and Peregrine Pickle, second only to his own. The
Journal was discontinued on account of Fielding's health,
which now suffered from a complication of diseases, of
which the principal were asthma, dropsy, and jaundice.
The physicians recommended a milder climate as the
only means of preserving his life, and Lisbon was fixed
upon for his residence. Before he went, however, he
undertook, at the request of the Duke of Newcastle, and
for a fee of six hundred pounds, to extirpate some gangs
of robbers and murderers who infested the metropolis.
After performing this duty with great sagacity and com-
plete success, he prepared for his voyage. On the 26th
of June, 1754, he took that melancholy leave of his
children which he has described with such affectionate
pathos in his Voyage to Lisbon. This, his latest work,
cut short by death, indicates that his mind was bright and
his spirits joyous to the very verge of the tomb. He
died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October, 1754, in the
forty-eighth year of his age. His family, consisting of a
wife and four children, were left penniless, but were pre-
served from want by the kindness of Sir John Fielding,
and the ever-active charity of Ralph Alien.
It would seem that the most rigid moralist, in review-
ing the events of a life illustrated by virtues so imper-
fectly rewarded, and by vices so severely expiated, as
356 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
that of Fielding, would be inclined rather to regret his
misfortunes than harshly to condemn his faults. His
whole existence, from the age of twenty, was one long
struggle with fortune, in which he bore humiliations and
experienced distresses which would have crushed a more
sensitive spirit at the outset. His life, judged by its ex-
ternal events, without taking into account the character
of the man, appears as wretched as any chronicled in
the calamities of genius. But it was the peculiar consti-
tution of his nature, that those qualities which Avhirled
him into excesses blunted the edge of the miseries into
which his excesses plunged him. In his lowest state, he
rarely desponded, rarely lost the vigor of his intellect
and the gladness of his disposition. Lady Montague,
WTiting soon after she heard of his death, says that " his
happy constitution (even when he had with great pains
half demolished it) made him forget every evil, when he
was before a venison pasty or over a flask of champagne ;
and I am persuaded," she adds, " he knew more happy
moments than any prince upon earth. His natural
bpirits gave him rapture with a cook-maid, and cheer-
fulness when he was starving in a garret." As a conse-
quence of this felicity of disposition, he never whined
about his misfortunes, never scolded the public for
neglecting him, never represented his sensualities and
weaknesses as the result of his ardent genius. From
all nauseous cant of this kind, which so commonly in-
fects authors and their biographers, Fielding's sense of
humor would have preserved him, even if he had not
been saved from it by his sense of the pleasurable. And
that much abused noun of multitude, the World, against
whose injustice poets have ever stormily inveighed, may
6nd two consolations, at least, for its comparative neglec
HENRY FIELDING. 357
of Fielding; — in the thought that it could not possibly
have lavished upon him an amount of wealth which his
improvidence would not instantly have wasted ; and in
the reflection that, but for his poverty, he never would
have produced those exquisite creations of humor and
imagination, with their large knowledge of human nature
and their large toleration of human infirmity, wkio-h
have made his name immortal.
J)ANA^S POEMS AND PROSE WRITINGS.*
This collection of the writings of one of our deepest
and most suggestive thinkers ought to have been made
before, although, from the preface, we should judge that
the author had undertaken a somewhat unwilling duty
in making- it even now. It contains all of Mr. Dana's
poems and prose writings formerly published, together
with a large addition, in the shape of reviews and essays
originally contributed to various periodicals, and now for
the first time collected. The matter in the second vol-
ume will be new to most readers who are familiar with
The Buccaneer and The Idle Man, it being wholly
composed of articles reprinted from the North American
Review, the Spirit of the Pilgrims, and a few other
sources. The volumes will undoubtedly take a promi-
nent place in American literature, among the best men-
tal productions of the country; and our object in the
present article is, to give a hasty view of the qualities
of mind and disposition they display, and the peculiar
Individuality pervading the whole. We would not do
Mr, Dana the injustice to judge his writings by any less
exacting principles than those which apply to the higher
class of minds.
* Poems and Prose Writings. By Richard Henry Dana. New York
Baknr and Scri.mer. 1850. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 4i3, 4.4.0. — Christian Es
amtner, March, 1860.
Dana's poems and prose writings. 359
In Mr. Dana's nature there is evidently no divorce
between literature and life, and he belongs to a class of
authors widely different from those who follow letters as
a profession, as a trade, as a means of amusing others
or displaying themselves. His writings carry with them
the evidence of being the genuine products of his own
thinking and living, and are full of those magical signs
which indicate patient meditation and a nature rooted in
the realities of things. From his prevailing seriousness,
eA'^erything, too, has a meaning and purpose, and bears
directly on the conduct of life ; and there are passages
of a certain still and deep intensity which seem forced
from a mind eloquent from restrained agony, and ex-
pressive at the expense of impairing its vitality. The
objects of thought seem to press so closely upon his
heart and brain, that he cannot remove them to that safe
distance which admits of their being cheerily contem-
plated ; and he therefore has little of that free swing and
felicitous audacity of manner, natural to thinkers in
whom subject and object are in genial companionship.
The general impression which his works leave on the
mind is the combination of earnestness and conscien-
tiousness in the spirit of the author, — an earnestness
which, in spite of his clear-seeing and quick-shaping
imagination, is apt to become didactic when it might be
representative, and a conscientiousness which has a nerv-
ous and morbid, as well as a muscular and healthy
movement.
There is, indeed, in Mr. Dana's nature a singular
disagreement between faculty and disposition. His in-
tellect has an instinctive tendency to objects ; is clear,
sure, and bright, in its vision; endowed with the discern-
ng power of the observer and the divining power of the
360 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
poet, and, in its natural action, equally capable m the
region of facts and in the region of principles. His
sensibility, also, is strong and direct, quick to feel the
flush and stir of great passions, and impatient of obstacles
which obstruct the expression of its wealth of eniotion.
As far as regards intellect and passion, he appears the
most objective and sympathetic of our poets ; but the
moment we pass into the more subtile sources of charac-
ter, curious to scan the qualities which lie nearer the
heart of his being, we discover widely different elements
at work in the region of his sentiments. As shy and
sensitive as they are deep and delicate, these sentiments
exact more of society and mankind than either can give ;
and the result is a peculiar development of mental dis-
gust, compounded of self-distrust and dissatisfaction with
the world, which reacts both upon his intellect and his
sensibility, introduces a subjective element into his clear-
est representations, and sometimes hurries his mind from
objects into ideal reveries suggested by objects. His
finer affections, the saint-like purity of his moral feelings,
the sentiments of awe, wonder, reverence, and beauty,
mcorporated with his religious faith, though fine and
rare elements of his soul, are hardly elements of power,
for they have not been harmoniously blended with the
other qualities of his character. Had these, which are
most assuredly the deepest things in his nature, flowed
in a healthy current through his intellect, the creative
Dower of his mind would have been increased, a more
joyous and elastic spirit would bound through his pro-
ductions, and his large nature would have had a grander
impetus in its lyric expression, and a sunnier energy in
its representations of external life. As it is, we have in
these volumes the records of a great mind, but of one
dana's poems and prose writings. 361
which a], pears to have been placed in circumstances not
conducive to its genial development, — a mind in whom
noble virtues and refined sentiments have acted as
restraints rather than inspirations ; — humility being
separated from force ; modesty producing a slightly
morbid self-consciousness, generating self-distrust, and
impairing the will's vital energies; exquisite sensibility
to the beautiful expended more in contemplating than in
creating beauty ; moral sentiment divorced from moral
audacity; — and all these subtile inward workings and
cross movements of elusive emotions going on in a really
broad and high mind, resolute in its grasp of the realities
of things, with instincts for the great in thought and the
daring in action, and, at times, tearing its way into ex-
pression with a fierce rending' apart of the fine web of
feelings in which its activity is entangled. In many of
his writings he seems a kind of Puritan-Cavalier, with
the Puritan's depth of religious experience without his
self-will, with the Cavalier's tastes and accomplishments
without his self-abandonment ; and he accordingly has
neither the strength of fanaticism nor the impetus of
sensibility.
This inward shrinking from the exercise of undoubted
power, this moral fastidiousness of a strong moial
nature, this mental disgust " sickling o'er " the energi'iS
of a great mind, though doubtless to be referred, in. some
degree, to inward constitution, must be accounted for
principally by the fact that Mr. Dana's life has been one
of antagonism to the tastes and opinions of the com-
munity in which he was placed. As a poet, as a critic,
as a speculator on government and social phenomena,
he has shown the force, grasp, and comprehensiveness,
of his intellect ; but he has always been in opposition to
j2 essays and reviews.
-urrent schools and systems. If this had been owing tc
♦ natural combativeness of disposition, it would have
brought with it its own " exceeding great reward ; " for,
on the ground of mere self-satisfaction, few persons are
more to be envied than pugnacious disputants : but Mr.
Dana's nature is as averse to controversy as it is
solicitous for the truth, and he found himself in opposi-
tion because he had positive principles in art and phi-
losophy as distinguished from conventional rules and
empirical generalizations. At present his views would
generally, excite nothing more than respect and admira-
tion for the thinker ; but at the time they were first
announced they fell upon a politely unsympathizing
.audience, disposed to consider them as the freaks of
spiritual caprice, and perfectly masters of that subtile
superciliousness which eats into the very heart of a man
who is at once modest and earnest. His critical princi-
ples were radically those of Lessing and Schlegel, of
Wordsworth and Coleridge, principles which are an
accurate philosophical statement of the processes of all
creative minds ; but he did not possess the peculiai
egotism which enabled Wordsworth, and the peculiai
dogmatism which enabled Coleridge, to bear with dog-
ged contempt, or voluble and passionate replication, the
common smiling indifference and the occasional sharp
attacks of his opponents. This lack of recognition when
there is really nothing in the mode of presentation to
excite silent or stormy opposition, — this struggle of one
man against ten thousand, to substitute positive princi
pies for empirical rules, — is especially saddening to a
nature as sympathetic as it is strong, and as shy as it is
earnest. Mr. Dana persisted, in spite of unpopularity, i>
is true, and wrote in verse and prose according to hif
dana's poems and prose writings. 363
Dwn iueas ; but his persistence lacked geniality. A
notion appears' to have risen in his mind of a natural
antithesis between popularity and excellence, — a sure
sign, perhaps, that popularity was necessary to the
healthy action of his nature ; that he required echoes of
his mind from without to assure him that there was
really power within. Cheerfulness, and the joyous exer-
cise of creative energy, are so characteristic of assured
genius, that we doubt if such an antithesis ever arose in
a thoroughly live and sunny nature. If Mr. Dana had
been as popular as he deserved, if the richness and depth
of his mind had been gladly recognized, the present
volumes would hardly have been a tithe of his contribu-
tions to literature, and we should have had now a differ-
ent class of personal qualities to emphasize as character-
istics. There are, in authorship, professors of the impu-
dent and supercilious, who require a sharp resistance on
the part of the public to tame their wilful and aggressive
egotism ; but Mr. Dana belongs to a class who arrive at
the fact of their excellence rather by an induction from
the results they produce on the public mind than by
self-esteem ; and to such, a lack of recognition is hurt-
ful.
The compositions of Mr. Dana, produced under the
circumstances we have hidicated, evince sufficient intens-
ity both of sensibility and intellect ; but it is that kind
of intensity which declares rather than disputes with
power, — which is strong on positive grounds, but una-
vailable in attack. Accordingly, in many of the articles
published in the second volume, we discern, in the side
references to opposite opinions, no hearty invective, no
bold strokes of satire ; but the hne superciliousness of
the mechanical school of critics is met, on his own part
364 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
with a scorn as fine. Mr. Dana is not a got)d hater^
because his mind needs sympathy more than it dislikes
antagonism, and because austere principles are connected
in his mind with gentle feelings, not with aggressive
passions ; and his impatience at error, theretore, rather
frets than foams into expression.
Though there is hardly a page in Mr. Dana's writings
which does not declare him a poet, his poems are com-
paratively few. These are now generally well known,
though their rare merit has not yet been heartily recog-
nized. Mr. Dana is properly of no particular " school "
of poetry, but in the direction given to his poetic faculty
we perceive the influence and inspiration of Wordsworth
and Coleridge. In his preface to The Idle Man, he speal j
of his friend Bryant as having lived, when quite young,
where few works of poetry were to be had, "at a period,
too, when Pope was still the great idol in the Temple of
Art ;" and that, upon his opening Wordsworth's Ballads,
" a thousand springs seemed to gush up at once in his
heart, and the face of nature, of a sudden, to change
into a strange freshness and life." Something of this
effect Wordsworth appears to have exerted upon Mr.
Dana ; ua effect, however, which never was manifested
in a conscious or unconscious imitation of his author,
and which tended to develop rather than submerge his
individuality. Though he looks at nature somewhat in
Wordsworth's spirit, he never looks with Wordsworth's
eyes, but always with his own. The leading character-
istics of his poems are the calm, clear intensity of his
vision of objects, and his power of penetrating them,
through and through, with life and spiritual significance.
His imagination has a Chaucerian certainty in repre-
senting a natural obiect in its exact form, color an
©ana's poems and prose avritings. 365
dimensions, the image before his intellect being as real
as if it were before his eyes ; and if he fail at all as an
objective poet, he fails in interpreting its true life and
meaning. Nature to him is ever symbolical of spirit;
but, instead of evolving hers, he will often superadd his
own. In both processes there is life as well as form, but
lYi one case we have the life of nature, in the other the
life of the poet. There are grand examples of pure
objective imagination in Mr. Dana's poems, in which
what is peculiar in the author's spirit does not penetrate
the description, and the whole scene has the delicious
remoteness of artistical creation ; but commonly a subtile
tinge of individual sentiment is diffused over the picture
he so distinctly presents, and the impression which it
leaves tells us that the life communicated to our hearts
is not the life of nature, but of one individual's experi-
ence. Were Mr. Dana a purely subjective poet, his
imagination playing Avhatever freaks with objects the
caprices of his individuality might dictate, the difficulty
of describing the action of his mind would be greatly
lessened ; but the elusive quality in his genius, which
analysis is continually toiling after in vain, comes from
the conflict in his nature between the objective tendency
of his intellect and the subjective tendency of his dispo-
sition. We will give a few extracts illustrative of the
varying operation of his imagination, according as it
works impersonally or with his peculiar moods. The
following, for instance, is pure picture : —
" And inland rests the green, warm dell ;
The brook comes tinkling down its side ;
From out the trees the Sabbath bell
Rings cheerful, far and wide,
Mingling its sound with ileatings of the flocks.
That feed about the vale among the rocks."
366 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Here w£ have complete self-forgetfulness, the mind
gazing at the scene it has conjured up, and representing
it as a distinct reality. In the following there is a faint
intrusion of the individual in the picture : —
" 'T was twiliglit then ; and Dian hung her bow
Low down the west ; and there a star
Kindly on hee and tne, from far,
Looked out, and blessed us through the passing glow."
In the following exquisite poem, the imagery is so
clear, that we are at first hardly aware that the whole
takes from the sadness of the mood in which it is con-
templated a dreamy melancholy, delicious but slightly
morbid.
"THE LITTLE BEACH- BIRD.
" Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea.
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Along the breakers fly?
O, rather. Bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice !
" Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea ;
Thy cry is weak and scared,
As if thy mates had shared
The doom of us : Thy wail, —
What doth it bring to me ?
" Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge
Restless and sad : as if, in strange accord
With the motion and the roar
Of waves that drive to shore.
One spirit did ye urge, —
The Mystery, — the Word.
"Of thousands, thou, both sepulchre and pa.l,
Old Ocean ! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells,
A tale of mourning tells, —
Dana's poems and prose writings. 367
Tells of man's woe and fall,
His sinless glory fled.
' Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight
Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring
Thy spirit never more ;
Come, quit with me the shore,
And on the meadows light,
Where birds for gladnes^ «ing ! "
VoL I., pp. .129, 130.
We might extract from Factitious Life, Thoughts
Du the Soul, The Dying Raven, and Daybreak, nu-
merous passages where this melancholy deepens into
gloom, if not despair, and while the poet's hold upon the
form of natural objects is as sure as ever, the spirit is
thoroughly individual. These poems could only have
come from a deep experience of life, and there is a
breadth of solemnity to them whi:h is not \vithout its
charm ; but the fatal objection to them is, that they do
not communicate life. Their tendency is rather to
awaken a conviction of wickedness than to inspire the
energy of virtue. As lessons in psychology, however,
they have great value.
One of the best of Mr. Dana's minor poems is. that on
Chantrey's Washington. We extract it, as one of the
fery few tributes to Washington worthy the grandeur
of the subject.
" Father and Chief, how calm thou stand'st on'B more
Upon thine own free land, thou wonn'st with toil .
Seest thou upon thy country's robe a soil,
As she comes down to greet thee on the shore ?
" For thought in that fine brow is living still, —
Such thought as, looking far off" into time,
Casting by fear, stood up in >iTength sublime,
When odds in war shook vale and shore anr hill:—-
168 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
" Such thought as th -n possessed thee, when was laid
Our deep foundation, — when the fabric shook
With the wrathful surge which high against it broki, —
When at thy voice the blind, wild sea was stayed.
'' Hast heard our strivings, that thou look'st away
Into the future, pondering slill our late
With thoughtful mind? Thou readest, sure, the date
To strifes, — thou seest a glorious coming day.
' For round those lips dwells sweetness, breathing good
To sad men's souls, and bidding them take heart,
Nor live the shame of those who bore their part
When round their towering chief they banded stood.
" No swelling pride in that firm, ample chest !
The full, rich robe falls round thee, fold on fold,
With easy grace, in thy scarce conscious hold :
How simple in thy grandeur, — strong in rest !
" 'Tis like thee : such repose thy living form
Wrapped round. Though some chained passion, breaking forth
At times swept o'er thee like the fierce, dread north,
Yet calmer, nobler, cam'st thou from the storm.
*' O mystery past thought ! — that the cold stone
Should live to us, take shape, and to us speak, —
That he, in mind, in grandeur, like the Greek,
And he, our pride, stand here, the two in one !
" There 's awe in thy still form. Come hither, then,
Ye that o'erthrong the land, and ye shall know
What greatness is, nor please ye in its show, —
Come, look on him, would ye indeed be men ! "
V)l. 1., pp. 127, 12&.
The Buccaneer is the most celebrated of Mr. Dana's
poems, and though the plan of the story is open to
objections, and it fails to reach that mystical element
of the mind which it addresses, the characterization and
scenery evince great closeness and force of imagination.
With some obvious faults, it appears to us to exhibit
Dana's poems and prose writings. 369
more of the depth, strength, and daring of genius, thar
any other American poem. Everything is realized with
such intensity that it could not have been written with-
out tears and shudderings, and there are portions of it so
vividly real and lifelike that the reader almost reproduces
the author's mental agony in reproducing his concep-
tions. The stern condensation of the diction corresponds
admirably with the concentrated strength with which the
author grasps the central idea and every minor detail of
the poem. The fierce passions raging through the whole
are relieved by numerous passages replete with the sun-
niest beauty and repose. Throughout the whole, noth-
ing is described, everything is represented ; and we can
hardly recollect a stanza in which the attention is drawn
away from objects to note the words which present
them.
But in this poem, and in all of Mr. Dana's poems, we
notice two defects which must always interfere with his
popularit) as a poet. He has great distinctness of men-
tal vision, but little visionary charm ; a shaping imagina-
tion, but no poetic atmosphere encircling the forms he
creates. He realizes with great power, but the ideal is
almost lost in the realization. This is the more remark-
able, as it is in atmosphere more than form that the
great poets of the present century, and especially his own
favorites among them, excel all others. The other defect
of his Muse is a lack of melody. This, we think, is not
a natural, but a somewhat wilful defect, — a mode of
st\)wing his contempt for the smooth conventional versi-
fication which he has so much decried as a critic. As a
prose-writer he is often exquisitely melodious. Let the
••eader compare the essay on Domestic Life, or that enti-
tled Musings, with any poem in the present coUection,-
VOL. II. 24
370 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS,
and he cannot but be struck with the musical flow of the
one, as contrasted with the comparatively rugged tramp
of the other.
As a prose-writer Mr. Dana is principally known by
his essays and stories published in The Idle Man. The
second volume of the present collection of his works
contains, in the shape of fugitive articles originally con-
tributed to periodicals, as strong evidences as are fur-
nished by his more elaborate production that his rank as
a wr'ter, in respect to mere excellence of style, is second
to no other author in the country. The prominent fig-
ure in The Idle Man is Paul Felton, certainly a creation
which no reader could have dreamed would glare out
upon him from the pages of a book bearing such a
title. In respect tc mere power over the sensibilities, the
story of Paul and Esther is the greatest of Mr. Dana's
works, and it exhibits a mingled firmness and vividness
of vision, in gazing into the blackest gulfs of Satanic
passion, which cannot but awaken at times the reader's
admiring wonder. But the impression it leaves upon
the mind is one of unrelieved horror; and we suppose
that the author, on his own principles of taste, would
declare that such an impression was altogether removed
from the purpose of art. Should an actor imitate nature
so perfectly, that, when he is stabbed on the stage, he
conveyed to our minds the same feelings we should
experience in witnessing a murder committed in the
streets, he would be called a bad actor. The line separ-
ating the sympathies awakened by ideal and actual dis-
tress cannot be mistaken, and the novelist who aims to
call out the latter succeeds only in producing the horri-
ble, not ihe beautiful or sublime. The power displayed
in Caul Felton, therefore, is not communicated to 'he
Dana's poems and prose w/itings. 371
"•eadar, .mt leaves him both weak and miserable. In the
story of Tom Thornton, we have almost equal power,
with more relief. Edward and Mary is a simple story,
in wnich the author throws himself confidingly upon the
finer sentiments in their primitive action, and the result
is true romance. The article on Kean's Acting is proba-
bly the finest piece of critical writing which any English
performer ever called forth. In a far difTerent style
are the essays entitled Domestic Life, and Musings.
The serene and beautiful wisdom so melodiously con-
veyed in these has a still, searching power, which pene-
trates into the very substance of the soul, and both
lurifies and tranquillizes.
As a critic, Mr. Dana manifests the same hold upon
the solidities and realities of life, and the same dislike
for the superficial in intellect and the conventional in
manners, which characterize the whole strain of his
meditations. His sensibility to poetic excellence has a
depth and acuteness which no mere critic could reach,
and his statements are often better and truer than the
most labored analysis of a less sympathetic and imagina-
tive mind. The articles in the present collection, on
AUston's Sylphs of the Seasons, Hazlitt's Lectures on
the English Poets, PoUok's Course of Time, The Sketch
Book, and Edgeworth's Readings on Poetry, are gen-
erally of the highest order of critical merit. The author
deals always with concrete principles, not with abstract
propositions, and his articles are therefore full of original
power and beauty, and ever contributions to the subjects
he discusses. They contam sentences of clear sweetness,
of vivid desciiption, of penetrating remark, which leave
a lingering senoe of delight in the mind long after it has
nassed on to t ie topic which succeeds. The observa*
372 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
tions with which Mr. Dana commences the review of
Allston's poem are more poetical than any extracts he
makes from it. " His mind," he says, " seems to have
in it the glad but gentle brightness of a star, as you
look up to it, sending pure influences into your heart,
and making it kind and cheerful He has not
only an eye for nature, but a heart too ; and his imag-
ination gives them a common language, and they talk
together He views his scenc^ with a curious and
exquisite eye, instillir)g some delicate beauty into the
most common thing that springs up in them, imparting
to it a gay and fairy spirit, and throwing over the whole
a pure, floating glow.'''' Allston's satire, he says, " ap-
pears so bright and playful, that the fairest prospects
look gladder in it, and we see it flickering along the
more gloomy, like a stream of moonlight, stretching a
glittering and silvery line over the steely blackness of
the waters, as they lie sleeping under the brown, solemn
hills."
The following extract, relating generally to the poet,
is exceedingly beautiful, and illustrates that union of
power and repose which constitutes so much of the charm
of Mr. Dana's prose style : —
"Little, indeed, do such men see, that the out-of-door indus-
Iry, which leads to wealth and importance, owes much to the
^oet for its thriving existence ; that the poetry of a pec.ple ele-
vates their character, and makes them proud of themselves ;
quickens the growth of the nicer feelings, and tones the higher
virtues ; that it causes blessings to shoot up round our homes ;
smooths down the petty roughness of domestic life, and softens
and lays open the heart to the better affectio-is ; that it calls the
mind off from the pursuits of the tainted and wearing pleasures
0] the world, and teaches it to find its amusements in the exer
ciso of its highest and purest powers : that it makes the iiite
D4NA S POEBIS AND PROSE WRITtNGS. 373
lecf ri\acious, and gives an interest and stir to the society oi
(he wise ; shames us from our foUies and crimes, turns us to
the love and study of what is good, gives health to the moral
system, and brings about what must always go along with the
virtue of society, the beauty of order and security. Little, too,
do they know of the poet's incessant toil. His eyes and thoughts
are ever busy amidst the forms of things. He looks into the
intricate machinery of the heart and mind of man, and sees its
workings, and tells us to what end it moves. He goes forth
with the sun over the earth, and looks upon its vastness and
sublimity with him, and searches out with him every lesser
thing. His studies end not with the day ; but when the splen-
dor of the west has died away, and a sleepy and dusky twilight
throws a shadowy veil over all things, and he feels that the
spirit which lifted him up and expanded his frame, as he looked
forward on the bright glories of the setting sun, has sunk slowly
ind silently down with them, and that the contemplative light
about him has entered into his heart, and the gladness of the
day left him, he turns and watches the lighting up of the reli-
gious stars, by which he studies in soberer and more intent
thought the things that God has made."
The essays in the second volume on Old Times, The
Past and Present, and Law as suited to Man, are among
the best evidences which Mr. Dana has given of the
philosophical capacity of his mind. They are good
illustrations of the difference between principles and
propositions, the author's imagination and sentiment, as
well as his understanding, being active throua^hout.
Thej are characterized by the intensest spirit of medita-
tion, and a calm, strong grasp, and close application, of
principles. The introspective and retrospective elements
of his nature, however, appear in these essays in their
most refined operation. The past is subtly identified
tvith its ideals, the present is criticized in the light of
those ideals, and tested by their most exacting require-
374 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
ments. The result is a kind of despair for the present,
and a lack of hopefuhiess in surveying the future. De-
mocracy, especially, has little justice done to it. But
still, the most besetting sins and dangers of the country
are exhibited in an original and forcible manner, without
any appeal to the controversial passions, and the essays
leave a profound impression of the author's depth of
nature.
From the exceedingly complex character of Mr. Dana's
genius, we have been able, in these hasty observations,
to give but an imperfect exhibition of that peculiar com-
bination of mental and moral qualities which constitutes
the life of his writings. The best criticism on the pres-
ent volumes is that which most strongly directs the pub-
lic attention to them, for they cannot be read without
mental and spiritual improvement; and we trust that
their circulation will be large enough to give a flattering
idea of the estimate placed in the United States upon
great and rare powers devoted to high purposes.
APPENDIX.
THOMAS HOOD.*
The name of Thomas Hood is knoivn wherever language is put
upon the rack. Every civilized Englishman who uses words is
acquainted with the great word-twister. He is the acknowledged
monarch of Pun-land. All other luminaries " pale their inef-
fectual fire " before the quick sparkle of his multitudinous quib-
bles. He has made punning a kind of genius. He has redeemed
it from the detractions of the dull and pedantic. Any man may
now play upon words, without having his friend point significantly
to the gallows, and murmur that " he who makes a pun would
pick a pocket." What King James, and Bacon, and Shakspeare,
and Donne, and Cowley, could not do, — what Canning and the
whole Anti-Jacobin club could not effect, — has been done by
Thomas Hood. The analogies of sound seem now as much prized
as those of thought. The fact that the greatest men in aU ages
have displayed a love for this kuid of wit, must be admitted as a
strong argument in its favor. The " verbal Unitarians," as Hood
calls his opponents, have been compelled to abate the insolence of
their censures, and relax the grimness of feature with which they
once frowned defiance on double-meanmgs. The great family of
Words, which might be supposed most interested in the issue of
the struggle, have willingly given up their frames to the torture,
and suffer martyi-dom daily. The priests in the Inquisition of
Verbiage, with their racks, wheels, scourges, and hot-irons, ai-e
* " Whims and Odd. -es," i-jd "Prose and Yerse."
376 APPENDIX.
doing what is called a " fair business;" and every shriek drawn
from the agonies of a tortured word is registered as a pun.
Hood, then, has so far influenced the legislation of letters as to
turn quibbling from a crime into a fashion ; but liis own popular-
ity as a humorist is not owing altogetlier to his word-twistiugs.
He has one of the most singular minds ever deposited in a human
brain. Whims and oddities come from him, because he is himself
a whim and oddity. He seems of diiierent natures mixed. He
has the fancy, if not the imagins^tion, of a poet, and some touches
of pathos almost equal to the most brilliant scintillations of his
wit. Behind his most grotesque nonsense, there is generally some
moral, satiiical, or poetic meaning. He often blends feeling,
fancy, wit, and chough tfulness, in one queer rhyme, or quaint
quibble. The very extravagance of his ideas and expression; the
appearance of strain and effort in his puns; the portentous
jumbling together of the most dissimilar notions by some merry
craft of fancy ; and the erratic, dare-devil invasion of the inmost
sanctuaries of conventionalism, have, in his writings, a peculiar
charm, which we seek for in vain among his imitators, or among
the ti'ibe of extravagant wits generally. We do not believe he
would be so fine a humorist, if he were not so much of a poet.
There is a vein of genial kindliness in his nature, which modifies
the mocking and fleering tendencies of his wit.
Hood was no humorist in the sense in which the word is some-
times employed. He was no mere provoker of barren laughter,
but a man whose mirth had its roots deep in sentiment and
humanity. He saw the serious side of life as clearly as the ludi-
orous. He knew wliat tliin partitions separate in tliis world tears
from laughter; that the deepest feeling often expresses itself in
the quaint oddities of caricature; that wisdom sometimes conde-
scends to pun, and grief to wreathe its face in smiles. Indeed,
there is occasionally a little misanthropy in him, A close observer
of his writings will often see a bitter personal experience of the
author embodied in the most farcical and bewildering freaks of his
fun. Hood makes us sympathize more quickly with the troubles
of his life, from not tlirusting them in our faces, Avith the usua»
parade of sorrow and lamentation. We laugh with him, and fee.
for him. Few writers have ever succeeded in blending so much
thought and sentiment, so much true liumor and no less tru«
THOBIAS HOOD. 377
pathos, with the most extravagant drollery and fanciful exagger-
ation.
Two of the most ludicrous of Hood's punning poems are the
lachrymose ballads of "Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter,"
at-d "Faithless Nelly Gray." The mockery, in these exquisite
morceaux, of the plaintive style of the modern ballad, glistens with
wit and humor. They are so well known that to extract from
them would be an impertinence. "The Wee Man" is another
queer specimen of his drollery. In the poem called " Jack Hall,"
(Jackal) the resurrectionist, he commences with wailing the cus-
tom of disinterring bodies, and remarks, with much logical feel-
ing:—
" 'T is hard one cannot lie amid
The mould beneath a coffin lid,
But thus the Faculty will bid
Their rogues break through it !
If they don't want us there, why did
They send us to it 7 "
The situation of the lover, who comes to sentimentalize over hie
mistress's grave, is thus vividly portrayed : —
" The tender lover comes to rear
The mournful urn, and shed his tear —
Her glorious dust, he cries, is here I
Alack ! alack !
The while his Sacharissa dear
Is in a sack! "
Here is a grave, grim, and dismal pun : —
" Death saw two players playing at cards,
But the game was not worth a dump,
For he quickly laid them flat with a spade,
To wait for the final trump ! "
Hood's wit plays about the tomb somewhat daringly, but still
he can hardly be said to disturb its sanctities. In the ballad of
" Mary's Ghost" he makes the poor spirit lament the distribution
of her former body among the physicians. She cries - -
" O William dear ! O William dear I
My rest eternal ceases ;
Alas ! my everlasting peace
Is broken into pieces.
Ur78 APPENDIX.
"The body-snatchers, they have come,
And made a snatch at me ;
It 's very hard them kind of meh
Won't let a body be."
After mueti agonizing description, respecting the disposition of
the several parts of her once compact frame, she concludes : —
" The cock it crows — I must be gone !
My William, we must part !
But I '11 be yours in death, although
Sir Astley has my heart.
" Uon't go to weep upon my grave,
And think that there I be ;
They have n't left an atom there
Of my analomie."
One of the finest things in "Prose and Verse " is the piece
called " The Great Conflagration." It refers to the burning of
the Houses of Parliament, in 1834, and consists chiefly of letters
written by Sir Jacob Jubb, M. P., and various members of his
household, descriptive of the event. Sir Jacob -was severely burnt,
" by taking his seat in the House, on a bench that was burning
under him. The danger of his situation was several times pointed
out to him, but he replied that his seat had cost him ten thousand
pounds, and he could n't quit. He was at length removed by
force." The richest epistolary gem is the letter of Ann Gale,
housemaid. Her speculations on the fire are very deep. She
understands that " The Lords and Commons was connected with a
grate menny historiele associashuns, zvich of coarse will hav to
make good all dammage." Her feelings are strongly enlisted
in favor of the members. " Ware the poor burnt-out creturs will
go noboddy nose. Sum say Exetur Hall, sum say the Refudge for
the Destitut, and sum say the King will lend them his Bensh to
set upon." She tells her correspondent that the fear of fire leaves
her no peace. " I don't dare to take my close off to go to bed,
and I practise clambering up and down by a rop in case, and I giv
Police Man 25 a shillin now and than to keep a specious eye to
nuu;"7;r fore, and be reddy to ketch anny one in his harms. * "
♦ * ! Mary, how happy is them as livs lick you, as the
Bons says, ' Fur from the buzzy aunts of men.' Don't neglect tc
rake out ewery nite, see that ewery sole in the howa is turned
THOMAS HOOD. 379
down xtinguished, and allways bio youreself out befoure you go to
youre piller."
" The Bridge of Sighs," " The Lady's Dream," and the " Song
uf the Sliirt," all having relation to the claims of poverty and
wretchedness, are included in this collection. The long prose
paper, entitled " Copyright and Copywrong," originally contrib
uted to the London Athenseum, represents Hood pleading for his
own craft, in his own peculiar way. The question never was dis-
cussed with more liveliness, if with more cogency. In alludmg to
American republications, he disclaims hostility to the United
States in very characteristic expression. " The stars and stripes,"
he says, " do not affect me like a blight in the eye, nor does Yankee
Doodle give me the ear-ache. I have no wish to repeal the Union
of the United States ; nor to alter the phrase in the Testament into
* repubUcans and sinners.' In reality, I have rather a Davidish
feeling toward Jonathan, remembering whence he comes, and what
language he speaks ; and holding it better in such cases to have
the wit that traces resemblances, than the judgment which detects
differences, — and perhaps foments them." Toward the close of
one portion of his quaint pleadings for the rights of authors. Hood
bursts out in an eloquent acknowledgment of his obligations to
literature, and to men of genius. " They were," he says, " my
interpreters in the House Beautiful of God, and my Guides among
the Delectable Mountains of Nature. They reformed my preju-
dices, chastened ray passions, tempered my heart, purified my
tastes, elevated my mind, directed my aspirations. I was lost in
a chaos of undigested problems, false theories, crude fancies,
obscure impulses, and bemldering doubts, — when these bright
intelligences called my mental world out of darkness like a new
creation, and gave it ' two great lights,' Hope and Memory, — the
past for a moon, and the future for a sun."
This touches the real point in every discussion respectuig the
rights of authors. We owe them a debt of gratitude, which we
should taKe pleasure in repaying. Instead of doing this, we avail
ourselves of every subterfuge of quibbling, to justify the most
selfish and heartless conduct trwards them. The book that comes
to us as a benefactor, — which opens to our view boundless
domains of beauty and grandeur, — which makes itself " feit in
the blood, and felt along the heart; " is it consistent that w«
380 APPENDIX.
should be so careful to reckon its exact value in the current coin
of the land ? Is it not ridiculous for us to play a huckstering
trade with the man who is to pour into our minds the ' infinite
riches of his genius ? While our hearts are overflowing with
kindliness for him who has peopled our solitude with beings of
unearthly sweetness and majesty, — who has thrown celestial
light around the bed of sickness and pain, — who has spoken a
word of cheer to us in many a f)eriod of sorrow and abasement, —
whose great heart has beaten close to ours in many a moment of
passionate exaltation ; — who, by the sweat of his brow and the
sweat of his brain, has passed long years of labor in order that
our lives might be made more beautiful and happy, — shall we
grudge him the just rewards of his labor, — shall we compliment
ourselves on our shrewdness in being able to steal from him the
means of subsistence ? AVhat an antithesis is here, — what won-
derful exaltation of thought and feeling, — what consummate
littleness and meanness of action ! We treat our greatest friend
and benefactor, for whom our love and gratitude should be bound-
less, not only worse than we would treat a common acquaintance,
but worse than we would treat our butcher or tailor. We would
have our imaginations exalted, our hearts kindled, our minda
stored; and then pride ourselves principally on our cunning in
evading all payment for such a priceless good. We fear that our
shrewdness here overleaps itself. It may be questioned whether
or not the serene and beautiful face of literature can be seen in ita
loveliness, or felt m its power, while it is in such close approxima-
tioi i; the all-absorbing Dollar.
LEIGH HUNT'S POEMS.
Theee are some authors whose writings and conduct we do not
applaud or condemn by any fixed " laws " of taste or propriety.
They are free of the " Principles of Khetoric." They are allowed
to sing and sin, of their own sweet will, without regard to Doo
tors Blair and Whately. At first they are ridiculed and de
nounced; but, after the time-honored tortures of criticism liav%
LEIGH HUNT S POEMS. 381
been rigorouslj applied to discover -whether their peculiarities are
ingraiued or merely aflectatious, they are allowed to practise
whatever verbal gymnastics and pyrotechnics they please. Critics
gradually grow weary of stretching them on the rack. Readers,
after a few petulant remonstrances, silently assent to the claims
of their individuality. Conservatism nods its sullen acquiescence.
And thus literary radicals, whose first sallies brought down upon
their heads the most scorchmg satire, are soon seen side by side
with the legislators and scrupulous Pharisees of letters, and their
praise is echoed from lips which once curled in polite disgust at
their outrages. It is discovered that there is originality, perhaps
genius, in their singularities of thought and diction, and that a
man may wi'ite agreeable works without taking the " best models"
for his pattern.
Leigh Hunt must be considered, on the whole, to belong to this
class. In spite of his faults, there is something quite bewitching
in his character and poems. We hardly judge him by the same
laws we apply to other poets; we are willing to take him as he is.
The same errors and fooleries which would be insufferable in
another, alter their aspect, if not their nature, as observed in the
easy impudence of his chirping egotism. No man has been more
severely attacked, no man is more open to censure; yet we fee?
that none can bear it with a more careless philosophy. The true
object of punishment is to reclaim, and Hunt was past reclaiming
before critics began to punish. All severity is lost upon him.
He is what he is by virtue of his nature. The jauntiness, the
daintiness, the vanity, the flippancy, the accommodating morality,
which look upon us from his life and writings, and which, in their
rare combination in one peculiar mind, made Byron call him an
honest charlatan who believed in his own impostures, would be
disgusting if less in harmony with the character of the individual;
but, considered as part and parcel of Leigh Hunt, and of him
alone, they are often pleasing.
Hunt has had bitter enemies and warm friends ; but, from his
position as a liberal, his enemies have possessed the advantage of
arraying against him the pi'ejudices of party, as well as skilfully
availing themselves of the weak points in his transparent nature.
For many years he was pursued with the fiercest animosity of
polHical and personal hatred. His name has beei? used by a
382 APPENDIX.
clique of unscrupulous wi'iters as a synonyme of everythlDg base,
stupid, brainless, and impudent. His poems have been analyzed,
parodied, misrejiresented, covered with every epithet of contempt,
pierced by eveiy shaft of malice. Men like Giifoi-d and Wilson
have sacked the vocabulary of satu-e and ridicule, have heaped
together all phrases and images of contumely, to destroy his repu.
tation, and render him an object of universal scorn. It must be
confessed that the faults of his mind and manner, the faults of his
taste and conduct, the presumption witii which he spoke of his
eminent co temporaries, the flippancy Avith which he passed judg-
ments on laws and government, laid liim open to animadversion,
and were, in some instances, apologies for the malice and severity
of his adversaries. For a number of years he was so pertina-
ciously attacked in Blackwood's Magazine, in connection with liis
friends, Keats and Hazlitt, that it almost seemed as if the promi-
nent object of that flashing journal was to crush one poor poet and
his associates. He was stigmatized as the founder and exponent
of the " Cockney school of poetry." His poems were held up as
a strange compound of vulgarity and cliildishness — as a sort of
neutral ground between St. Giles and the nursery. His style was
represented as a union of all in expression which is coarse and
aflected, with all that is feeble and babyish. Byron, who pre-
tended at one time to be his friend, says, in a letter to Moore —
" He believes his trash of vulgar phrases, tortured into compound
barbarisms, to be old English;" and adds, of the " Foliage," that
" of all the ineffable centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love
upon a nightmare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most
prodigious."
That tliis cruelty, and, in numerous cases, elaborate dishonesty
of criticism, has produced no apparent change in his disposition,
has never led him to correct or alter any of the besetting sins of
his style, And ha.s not diminished his popularity, is a singular fixct,
and one calculated to illustrate how small can be the influence of
malignant criticism, both upon the mind of the object and the
taste of readers. The friends of Hunt have borne patiently all the
attacks which theu" association with him has pi'ovoked, and
those who have suflered most by the connection have been the
most uncompromising of his advocates. There must be much
frankness and genial kmdness in his nature, there must be mucli
LEIGH HUNT a 1OEM.S.
383
in him to bve, or he could not have numbei-ed among his friends
men so opposite in taste and opinion as Shelley, Talfoiu-d, Lamb
and Proctor. Shelley, at one time, gave him £1400 to extricate
him from pecuniary difficulties.
The character of Hunt is so closely com^ected with all he has
svritten, that it is difficult to consider them apart. " Rimini " is
the most popular of his poems, and it contains qualities which
will long sustain its reputation. Its excellences and its faults are
both individual and peculiar, and we hai-dly know of a poem mor«
open to criticism. The subject itself is not pleasant to contem-
plate, and it requires the nicest tact and most cunning sophistry
to reconcile it to the moral sense of the reader. We are required
to confound misfortune with crime, and express pity instead of
indignation at unnatural wrong. The morality, separated from
the poetry, is pernicious. There may be solitary instances where
the greatest injui-y that can be inflicted on a husband may be
performed by a brother, and the crime spring from cii'cumstances
which seem to mitigate its enormity, hut it is dangerous to tamper
with such instances, and attempt to reconcile them with the usual
impulses. of aiiection. If such a deviation from nature and recti
tude be made the subject of an elaborate poem; if it be accom
panied by a luxury of description which lulls the conscience, and
creates an unconscious sympathy with the offenders ; if the parties
be represented as superior beings, worthy of our esteem and love-,
if they are decked in all the trappings of fancy and sentiment,
and the steps from weakness to crime be taken over a velvet path,
which gives no echo and leaves no footprint ; and if the author,
all the while, is himself fooled by his own casuistry, and warmlji
sympathizes with his creations, we do not see how the effect of
such an assault upon the conscience, through the affections and
eense of beauty, can be otherwise than injurious. The poet who
deals with such a subject should have an exact perception of
moral distinctions, and no loose notions about the intercourse
between the sexes ; but Hunt is not such a person. His are the
"self-improved morals of elegant souls." We believe that he
might have taken the plot of Hamlet, and converted the crime of
(Jertrude and the King into a dainty weakness, en(.ling tragically
hut with such sadness and pathos that his readers would hav*
384 APPENDIX
justified him in burying the lovers in " one grave, beneath a tree *
and not have wondered that
"on fine nights in Wlay,
Young hearts betroihed used to go there to play."
We are ia the custom of congratulating ourselves on the purity
of English literature in this age, as contrasted with the coarseness
of the elder time. This purity, in many cases, is only in expres-
sion. A person of delicacy may be offended with many words in
Shakspeare, may be disgusted with the hardy licentiousness of
Rochester and Sedley, but may be corrupted with the smooth
decency of verbiage which covers so much immorality of principle
in much contemporary poetry and romance.
We perhaps err in treating Hunt as if he were amenable to the
usual laws of morality and taste, after having exempted him from
their dominion; but still no reader of healthy mind can fail at
times to be provoked by his lack of manliness, his effeminacy in
morals, his foppei'y in sentiment. There is a want of depth,
seriousness and intensity, in him, which often justify petulance,
if not anger, in the reader. His sense of physical beauty is ex-
ceedingly keen and nice, but it rarely rises to spiritual beauty.
He may almost be described as a man with a fine fancy and fine
senses. Outward objects awake his feeling of luxury, fill him
with delicious sensations, and that is all. But judged by himself
alone, thinking of him as Leigh Hunt, we cannot fail to find much
in him to admire. His perception of the poetry of things is ex-
quisitely subtle, and his fancy has a warm flush, a delicacy, an
affluence, which are almost inimitable. He is full of phrases and
images of exceeding beauty, which convey not only his thoughts
and emotions, but also the subtlest shades and minutest threads
of his fancies and feelings. To effect this, he does not always
observe the proprieties of expression. He often produces verbal
combinations which would make a lexicographer scowl, if not
curse, and his daintiness and effeminacy sometimes produce pret-
tinesses and "little smallnesses," which arc not in the best taste.
He is full-of such epithets and phrases as "balmy briskness,"
"firming foot," "feel of June," "sudden-ceasing sound of
wateriness," " scattei'y light. " He manufactures words without
any fear of the legislators of language. He liaks serious ideas to
LEIGH HTJNT S POEMS.
385
expressions Avliich convey ludicrous associations to other minds.
But with all abatements, it cannot be denied that his style, in its
easy flow, its singing sweetness, and the numberless fancies with
Avhich it sparkles, is often of rare merit. Many phrases and lines
of exquisite delicacy and richness might be caught at random in
carelessly reading one of his poems. "Low-talking leaves,"
"dim eyes sliding into rest," "heaped with strength," "the
w>»d ^7note crushingly," are examples. The following is fine : —
" Far away
Appeared the streaky fingers of the dawn ; "
and this line : —
" The peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea ; "
and this : —
" The least noise smote her like a sudden wound."
The following lines convey an image of a different kind :—
" A ghastly castle, that eternally
Holds its blitid visage out to the lone sea."
Here is a condensed and splendid description : —
" Giovanni pressed, and pushed, and shifted aim,
And played his weapon like a tongue of flame."
In the "Feast of the Poets," the most delightful, fancifiil,
witty and impudent, of Hunt's poems, there are numerous passages
worthy of being garnered in the memory. The judgments of
Hunt's Apollo are not always correct, but they have the advantage
in sprightliness over most criticisms. At times we are reminded,
in the style, of the " polished want of polish " of Sir John Suck-
ling. The following description of Phoebus has a mingled richness
and raciness to which none can be insensible : —
" Imagine, however, if shape there must be,
A figure sublimed above mortal degree.
His limbs tlie perfection of elegant strength —
A fine flowing roundness inclining to length —
Aback dropping in — an expansion of chest,
(For the god, you 'U observe, like his statues waa drest )
/OL. II. 25
3S6 APPENDIX.
His throat like a pillar for smoothness and grace,
His curls in a cluster — and then such a face,
As marked him at once the true offspring of Jove,
The brow all of wisdom, the lips all of love ;
For though he was blooming, and oval of cheek,
And youth down his shoulders went smootliing and sleok,
Yet his look with the reach of past ages was wise.
And the soul of eternity thought through his eyes."
The satire in this " Feast," on some of the poets and dramatisva
of the period, is often very felicitous. After mentioning a number
of scribblers, who called upon Apollo, he fleers at two of them in a
oouplet of much point : —
" And mighty dull Cobb, lumbering just like a bear up,
And sweet Billy Dimond, a patting his hair up."
He accounts for the absence of Colman and Sheridan, by remarking
that " one was in prison, and both were in liquor." The following
s a good fling at Giflbrd : —
"A hem was then heard consequential and snapping.
And a sour little gentleman walked with a rap in."
Dr. Wolcott has a hard rap given to him in a very characteristic
couplet : —
"And old Peter Pindar turned pale, and suppressed.
With a death-bed sensation, a blasphemous jest."
The following lines contain a magnificent description of the god oi
the lyre, in all the glory of his di^dnity : —
" He said ; and the place all seemed swelling with light.
While his locks and his visage grew awfully bright ;
And clouds, burning inward, rolled round on each side,
To encircle his state, as he stood in his pride ;
Till at last the full deity put on his rays.
And burst on the sight in the pomp of his blaze!
Then a glory beamed round, as of fiery rods,
With the sound of deep organs and chorister gods ;
And the faces of bards, glowing fresh from their skies,
Came thronging about with intentness of eyes —
And the Nine were all heard, as the harmony swelled —
And the spheres, pealing in, the long rapture upheld —
And all things above, and beneath, and around.
Seemed a wot'd of bright vision, set floating in sound."
THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN. 387
These passages must be allowed to display wit, fancy and senti-
ment, even by the haters of Hunt. Indeed, there is a charm in
his grace of expression, and often in his light impertinence and
flippant egotism, which no criticism can destroy. There is every
reason to suppose that hin poems will long survive the life of their
author, and the reputation of the majority of his assailants.
THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN.
It would doubtless be unjust to deny Carlyle's claim to be con-
sidered a thinker on practicaJ subjects ; but he is an intense rather
than a calm and comprehensive one. A comprehensive thinker
looks at everything, not singly, but in its relations; an intense
thinker seizes hold of some particular thing, exaggerates it out of
its proper place in the economy of the world, and looks at every-
thing in its relation to his own hobby. In reasoning on the evils
of society and government, there is nothing so unphilosophical as
to growl or snarl. If a man cannot look an e^al in the face with-
out rushing into rage at its prevalence, and considering that evil
as the root of all others, he will do little for reform. Indeed,
Carlyle appears to us to find delight in getting the world into a
corner. Nothing pleases him more than to shoot a sarcasm a1
statesmen and philanthropists who are grappling practically witli
some abuse; in this way wai'ning everybody to avoid particular
medicines, and come to him for a universal panacea. Thus his
works on social evils are substantially little more than savage jests
at the depravity of mankind, and contemptuous fleers at those who
are attempting to mitigate it. It is needless to remark that he is
not always consistent; but this is the general character of his
political writings He criticizes human life as he would a play or
a novel, and looks to his own taste alone in passing his judgments.
In "Past and Present," and "Chartism," Carlyle states his
views regarding the source and character of the evils afflicting the
British nation, and the means by which they may be mitigated and
removed. " Past and Present ' ' is the most splendidly written and
iiarefully meditated of the two. It contains many sentences of
388
APPENDIX.
remarkable force and beauty, with numerous touches of that sly
savage humor peculiar to ihe author. The tone of the work, how-
ever, is one of perfect discuutent. The style bristles with Carlyle's
usual extravagance about society and government, declaring both
to be shams and unveracities, and sneering at all plans for improve-
ment which the ingenuity or benevolence of others has framed.
If we understand Carlyle aright, he considers that the constitu-
tional government of England is a humbug; that William the
Conqueror and Oliver Cromwell were the best governoi's that
England has evei' had; that since Cromwell's time the country has
been governed by Sir Jabesh Windbag, strong in no faith but that
" paragraphs and plausibilities will bring votes;" and that every-
body is a fool or a flunkey except Thomas Carlyle. He hates every
form of government which it is possible to establish in this world
— democracy among the rest. If his work may be said to have
any practical bearing on politics, it is this — that a governor is
wanted with force enough to assume arbitrary power, and exercise
it according to the dreams of mystics and sentimentalists. His
system is a compound of anarchy and despotism. His ideal "gov-
ernor is a man blessed with an incapacity or indisposition to explain
himself, who rises up some day and cries — " The government of
this country is a lie, the people cannot make it a reality, but I can
and will." His notion of the wretched condition of society is dis-
heartening enough. Man, he tells us, has lost all the soul out of
him. "This is vei'ily the plague-spot — centre of the universal
social gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death.
You touch the focal centre of all our disease, of our frightful
nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no
religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks
antiseptic salt. Vainly; in killing kings, in passing Reform Bills,
in Fi-ench Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no
•eraedy. The foul elephantine leprosy reappears in new force and
desperateness neiit hour." Sad condition of poor depraved hu-
manity ! A wJiole generation, except one man, without souls, and
thnt one exception without his senses ! It is curious to notice the
illusions of an understanding so powerful, when governed by a
sensibility so tempestuous. It would be unjust, however, to ques-
tion the depth of many detached thoughts, and truth of some of
the speculations, in thii volume.
* * * ♦ •
THOIMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN. 359
II would be useless to deny that Carlyle's work on Cromwell is
Dne of grent merit; that it places many equivocal acts of Cromwell
in a truer light than that in which they have formerly been viewed,
— that there is an attempt to represent the subject dramatically
ft'om the heart of the man — and that the whole representation
blazes with that stern, rougli, intense, and iiery eloquence, which
flames through the other writings of the author ; — but still no
reader, with a grain of moral sense, or common sense, can fail to
see that Carlyle's zeal for Crorawcl" has completely blinded him to
all the bad qualities of his character; and tliat, in the remarks on
the Irish war, at least, he has compromised every principle of
morals, and every instinct of humanity, in his eagerness to make
out a case for his hero. In his contempt for what he is pleased to
call the "rose-colored" sentimentality of those who love peace,
and shrink with horror from rapine and murder, he hardly seems
aware that, under the influence of a morbid sentimentality of
another kind, he himself has come forward to whitewash Oliver
Cromwell. We may judge of his love for his subject, by his
willingness to sacrifice justice, mercy and truth to it. In his
justification of Cromwell's wholesale massacres in Ireland — in
echoing the bigoted or crafty religious phrases under which Crom-
well himself veiled their enormity — in that perversion of sympathy
by which he would try to make us honor, not the heroic men who
fought for their cause against hope, but their cold-blooded mur-
derer — and, finally, for attempting to give the sanction of religion
to the whole — Carlyle appears as a sort of compound historian,
made up of Machiavelll, Sir Harry Vane, Jack Ketch and Mi".
Squeers. It would be just as easy to defend the master of " Dothe-
boys Hall," and make him out a philanthroi^ist, as to give any
character of religion or mercy to Cromwell's cruelties in Ireland.
Besides, the great Protector needs none of this puffing. His fame,
iStained as it is with some crimes, is as clear as that of many other
great men of action. But the mode pursued by Carlyle would
make hlstoi-y and biography more immoral and detestable than the
most licentious fictions. It would canonize all guilt which has
been accompanied by energy; it would hold up bigotry, tyranny,
hypocrisy, murder, as things noble and great; it would make
Hampden and Washington give way to Dantjn and Mirabeaa.
^esidjs, it destroys all discrimination in judging character, and
390 APPENDIX
daubs vices with the same eulogy it occasionally vouchsafes to vir-
tues. The thing would appeal* ridiculous in any other mode of
representation *han that adopted by Carlyle, but he possesses a
siagular power in corrupting the moral sense through appeals to
the senses and the imagination, and in making the reader ashamed
of the axioms of morals and religion, by stigmatizing those who
abide by them as superficial, incapable, and deficient in insight.
The English Revolution of 1640 began in a defence of legal priv-
ileges, and ended in a military despotism. It commenced in with-
standing attacks on civil and religious rights, and ended in the
dominion of a sect. The point, therefore, where the lover of free-
dom should cease to sympathize with it is plain. It is useless for
the republican to say that every revolution of the kind must neces-
sarily take a similar course, for that is not an argument for Crom-
well's usurpation, but an argument against the expediency of
opposing a king's assaults on the rights and privileges of the peo-
ple. The truth is that the English Revolution was at first a
popular movement, having a clear majority of the property, intel-
ligence, and numbers, of the nation on its sid^ The king, in
breaking the fundamental laws of the kingdom, made Avar on the
community, and was to be resisted just as much as though he had
been king of France or Spain, and had invaded the country. It
is easy to trace the progress of this resistance, until, by the action
of religious bigotry and other inflaming passions, the powers of
the opposition became concentrated in the hands of a body of mil-
itary fanatics, commanded by an imperious soldier, and represent-
ing a small minority even of the Puritans. The king, weak and
vacillating, made an attempt to establish arbitrary power, was
resisted, and after years of civil war, ended his days on the scaf-
fold. Cromwell, "without any of those palliations which charity
might urge in extenuation of the king on the ground of the prej-
udices of his station, took advantage of the weakness of the
country, after it had been torn by civil war, usurped supreme
power, and became the most arbitrary monarch England had seen
since William the Conqueror. No one doubts his genius, and it
Bcems strange that any one should doubt his despotic character.
This, however, is growing into fashion, even among sturdy demo-
crats and republicans.
The truth is, that Cromwell's natural character, even on the
THOMAS CARLYLE AS A POLITICIAN 391
hypothesis of his sincerity, was arbitrary, and the very opposite
of the character of a champion of freedom. It seems to us
Bupremely ridiculous to talk of such a man as being ca]/able of
having his conduct determined by a parliament or a council. He
pretended to look to God, not to human laws or fallible men, for
the du-ection of his actions. In the name of the Deity he charged
at the head of his Ironsides. In the name of the Deity he mas-
sacred the Irish garrisons. In the name of the Deity he sent
dragoons to overtiu-n parliaments. He believed neither in the
sovereignty of the people nor the sovereignty of the laws ; and it
made little diiference whether Ms opponent was Charles I. or Sir
Harry Vane, provided he were an opponent. In regard to the
inmost essence of tyranny, that of exalting the individual will over
everything else, and of meeting opposition and obstacles by pure
fbrce, Charles I. was a weakling in comparison with CromweU.
Now, if, in respect to human governments, democracy and repub-
licanism consist in allowing any great and strong man to assume
the supreme power, on his simple assertion that he has a commis-
sion from Heaven so to do, — if constitutional liberty is a govern-
ment of will instead of a government of laws, — then the partisans
of Cromwell are justiiied in then- eulogies. It appears to us that
the only ground on which the Protector's tyranny can be consid-
ered more endurable than the king's, consists in the fact that from
its nature it could not be permanent, and could not establish itself
into the dignity of a precedent. It was a power depending neither
on the assent of the people, nor on laws and institutions, but sim-
ply on the character of one man. As far as it went, it did no
good in any way to the cause of freedom; for to Cromwell's gov-
ernment, and to the fanaticism which preceded it, we owe the
reaction of Charles the Second's reign, when licentiousness in man-
ners, and sei'vility in politics, succeeded in making virtue and
freedom synonymous with hypocrisy and cant.
In regard to Cromwell's massacres in Ireland, he simply acted
as Cortes did in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru, and deserves no
more charity. If he performed his barbarities from policy, as
Carlyle intimates, he must be considered a disciple of Machiavelli
and the Devil ; if he performed them from religious bigotry, he
iuay rank with St. Dominic and Charles the Ninth. A¥e are sick of
hearing brutality and wickedness, either in Puritan or Catholic
?92 APPENDIX.
extenuated on the gi-ound of bigotry. The bigotry whijh prompts
inhuman deeds is not an excuse for sin, but the greatest of spirit
ual sins. It indicates a condition of mind in which the individual
deifies his malignant passions.
The style of the book on Cromwell is occasionally a trial even
to the lovers of Carlyle's picturesque and shaggy diction, and few
men can pronounce some of tlie sentences aloud without running
the risk of being throttled. To follow the course of his thought
through the sudden turns and down the abrupt declivities of his
style, exposes one at times to the danger of having his eyes put out
of joint. Carlyle is said to have copied his style from Jean Paul;
but we should think he had copied it rather from Swiss scenery.
Of all English styles, it reminds us most of the terrible alexan-
drines of old George Chapman's Homer, whose words we are
sometimes compelled to dodge, as though they were missiles hurled
at us by the gigantic combatants they so graphically describe.
Carlyle, indeed, sometimes speaks as Ajax spoke, who, when
enraged, according to Chapman, " throated his threats." His
style is a faithful symbol of his powerful but perverse nature, in
all the iaconsistency of its formal contempt of formulas and cant-
ing hatred of cant.
NOVELS OF THE SEASON.*
Theke was a time when the appearance of a clever novel would
lustify its separate examination in a review, and a nice discussion
of the claims of its Mr. Herbert or Lady Jane to be enrolled among
men and women. But in this age of ready writers, romances
must be reviewed in battalions, or allowed to pass unchallenged.
Every week beholds a new irruption of emigrants into the sunny
land of fiction, sadly disturbing the old balance of power, and
introducing a fearful confusion of names and habits. Within n
few years, all the proprieties of the domain have been violated bj
the intrusion of hordes of ruffians, pickpockets, and vagabonds
Sir Charles Grandison finds himself face to face with Jack Shei>
*Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. The Tenanl ofWildfell ilall, Hawkatona
Bachelor cf the Albany, Harold, Ciranlley Manor, Vanity Fair.
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 393
pard, and no scorn sparkling in the eyes of Di Vernon can abash
the impudence of Mr. Richard Turpin. The swagger of vulgar
villany, the lisp of genteel imbecilitj^ and the free and easy man-
ner of Wapping, are now quite the rage in the Elysian fields of
romance. Another evil is the comparative absence of individual-
ities, amid all the inci'ease of population. Oijinions have nearly
supplanted characters. We look for men, and discern propositions;
for women, and are favored with woman's rights. Theologians,
metaphysicians, politicians, reformers, philanthropists, prophets
of the general overturn and the good time coming, the march-of-
intellect boys in a solid phalanx, have nearly pushed the novelist
aside. The dear old nonsense which has delighted the heart for so
many centuries is so mixed up with nonsense of another kind, that
it cannot be recognized either in dramng-room or kitchen. The
sacred flame, it is true, still burns in some sixpenny or ninepenny
novelettes, the horror of the polite and the last hope of the senti-
mental; but it burns in a battered copper lamp, and it burns
among ruins.
Accordingly, in the novels whose titles grace the head of the
present article, our readers must not expect to find, in its full per-
fection, that peculiar aspect of human weakness of which the nov-
elist is the legitimate exponent. They must be content with a
repast of matters and things in general, among which may be
named some good philosophy, several dishes of controversial theol-
ogy, much spicy satire, a little passable morality, a little imperti-
nent immorality, and a good deal of the philosophy of history and
the science of the alfections.
The first thi'ee novels on our list are those which have proceeded
from the firm of Bell & Co. Not many months ago, the New Eng-
land States were visited by a distressmg mental epidemic, passing
under the name of the " Jane Ej-re fever," which defied all the
usual nostrums of the established doctors of criticism. Its effects
raried with difierent constitutions, — in some producing a soft
iithical sentimentality, which relaxed all the fibres of conscience,
and in othci's exciting a general fever of moral and religious
indignation. It was to no purpose that the public were solemnly
assured, thi'ough the intelligent press, that the malady was not
likely to have any permanent effect either on the intellectual or
moral constitution. The book which caused the distemper would
394 APPENDIX.
protsably have been inoffensive, had not some sly manufacturer of
mischief hinted that it was a volume which no respectable man
should bring into his family circle. Of course, every family soon
had a copy of it, and one edition after another found eager pur-
chasers. The hero, Mr. Rochester, (not the same person who
comes to so edifying an end in the pages of Dr. Gilbert Buniet,')
became a great favorite in the boarding-schools, and in the wor
shipful society of governesses. That portion of Young America
known as ladies' men began to swagger and swear in the pres-
ence of the gentler sex, and to allude darkly to events in their
lives which excused impudence and profiuity. Accordingly,
while one portion of the community was clamoring for the reap-
pearance of the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, another waa
vociferating impotent Bj'ronics against conventional morality.
While fathers and mothers were in a state of inconceivable
agony at this strange conduct of their innocents, and with a pai*-
donable despair were looking for the dissolution of all the bonds of
society, the publishers of Jane Eyre announced Wuthering Heights,
by the same author. When it came, it was purchased and read
with universal eagerness; but, alas ! it created disappointment
almost as universal. It was a panacea for all the suiferers under
the epidemic. Society returned to its old condition ; parents were
blessed in hearing once more their children talk common sense,
and rakes and battered profligates of high and low degree fell
instantly to their proper level. Thus ended the last desperate
attempt to corrupt the virtue of the sturdy descendants of the
Puritans.
The novel of Jane Eyre, which caused this great excitement,
purports to be edited by Currer Bell, and the said Currer divides
the authorship, if we are not misinformed, with a brother and
sister. The work beai's the marks of more than one mind and one
sex, and has more variety than either of the novels which
acknowledge the paternity of Acton Bell. The family mind is
strikingly peculiar, giving a strong impression of vmity; but it is
still male and female. From the masculine tone of Jane Eyre, it
might pass altogether as the composition of a man, were it not for
Bome unconscious feminine peculiarities, which the strongest
minded woman that ever aspired after manhood cannot supp roea
I'hese peculiarities refer not only to elaborate descriptions o.
NOVELS OF THE SEASON.
395
dress, and the minutise of the sick-chambei-, but to varioas super-
ficial refinements of feeling in regard to the external relations of the
Bex. It is true that the noblest and best representations of female
character have been produced by men, but then; are riceties of
thought and emotion in a v/oman's mind which no man can delin-
eate, and whi(.h only escape unawares from a female writer.
There are numerous examples of these in Jane Eyre. The lead-
ing characteristic of the novel, however, and the secret of its
charm, is the clear, distinct, decisive style of its representation of
character, maimers, and scenery; and this continually suggests a
male mind. In the earlier chapters there is little, perhaps, to break
the impression that we are reading the autobiography of a bold,
powerful and peculiar female intellect; but when the admii-able
Mr. Rochester appears, and the profanity, brutality, and slang of
the misanthropic profligate give their torpedo shocks to the nervous
system, — and especially when we are favored with more than one
scene giTen to the exhibition of mere animal appetite, and to
coui'tship after the manner of kangaroos and the heroes of Drydeu's
plays, — we are gallant enough to detect the hand of a gentleman
in the composition. There are also some scenes of passion, so hot,
emphatic, and condensed in expression, and so sternly masculine
in feeling, that we are almost sure we observe the mind of the
author of Wuthering Heights at work in the text.
The popularity of Jane Eyre was doubtless due to the freshness,
raciness, and vigor of mind, it evinced ; but it was obtained not so
much by these qualities as by its frequent dealings in moral para-
dox, and the hardiliood of its assaults upon the prejudices of proper
people. Nothing causes more deliglit, to at least one third of every
community, than a successful attempt to wound the delicacy of
theii- scrupulous neighbors, and a daring peep into regions which
xckuowledge the authority of no conventional rules. The authors
of Jane Eyre have not accomplished this end without an occasional
violation of probability, and considerable confusion of plot and
character; and they have made the capital mistake of supposing
that an artistic representation of character and manners is a literal
imitation of individual life. The consequence is, that in dealing
with vicious personages they confound vulgarity with truth, and
ftwaken too often a feeling of disgust. The writer who colors too
trarmly the scenes through which his immasulate hero passes if
396 APPENDIX.
rightly held as an equivocal teacher of purity; and it "s not liy the
bold expression of blasphemy and ribaldry that a great novelist
conveys the most truthful idea of the misanthropic and the disso-
lute. The truth is, that the whole firm of Bell & Co. seem to have
a sense of the depravity of human nature peculiarly their own. It
is the yahoo, not the demon, that they select for representation ;
their Pandem inium is of mud rather than fire.
This is especially the case with Acton Bell, the author of Wuth-
ering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and, if we mistake not,
of certain offensive but powerful portions of Jane Eyre. Acton,
when left altogether to his own imaginations, seems to take a
moroBe satisfaction in developing a full and comjDlete science of
human brutality. In AVuthering Heights he has succeeded in
reaching the summit of this laudable ambition. He appears to
think that spiritiial wickedness is a combination of animal feroci-
ties, and has accordingly made a compendium of the most striking
qualities of tiger, wolf, cur, and wild-cat, in the hope of framing
out of such elements a suitable brute-demon to serve as the hero of
his novel. Compared with Heathcote, Squeers is considerate and
Quilp humane. He is a deformed monster, whom the Mephisto-
pheles of Goethe would disdain to acknowledge, whom the Satan of
Milton would consider as an object of simple disgust, and to whom
Dante would liesitate in awarding the lienor of a place among those
whom he has consigned to the burning pitch. This epitome of
brutality, disavowed by man and devil, Mr. Acton Bell attempts
in two wliole volumes to delineate , and certainly he is to be con-
gratulated on his success. As he is a man of uncommon talents, it
is needless to say that it is to his subject and his dogged manner
of handling it, that we are to refer the shriek of dislike with which
the novel was received. His mode of delmeatmg a bad character
is to narrate every oiFensive act and repeat every vile expression
which are characteristic. Hence, in Wuthering Heights, he details
all the ingenuities of animal malignity, and exhausts the whole
rhetoric of stupid blasphemy, in order that there may be no mis-
take as to the kind of person he intends to hold up to the popular
gaze. Like all spendthrifts of malice and profanity, however, he
overdoes the business. Though he scatters oaths as plentifully as
lentimental writers do interjections, the comparative parsimony
»f great novelists in this respect is productive of infinitely mora
NOVELS OK THE SEASON. 391
iflFect. It must be confessed that this coarseness, though the
prominent, is not the only characteristic of the writer. His attempt
iit originality does not stop with the conception of Heathcote, but
he aims further to exliibit the action of the sentiment of love on the
natui-e of the eqmvocal being whom his morbid imagination has
created. This is by far the ablest and most subtile portion of his
labors, and indicates +hat strong hold upon the elements of char-
acter, and that decision of touch in the delineation of the most
evanescent qualities of emotion, which distinguish the mind of the
whole family. For all practical pui-poses, however, the power
evinced in Wuthering Heights is power thrown away. Nightmares,
and dreams through which devils dance and wolves howl, make
bad novels.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is altogether a less unjaleasing story
than its immediate predecessor, though it resembles it in the excess-
ive clumsiness with which the story is arranged, and the promi-
/lence given to the brutal element of human nature. The work
seems a convincing proof that there is nothing kindly or genial in
the author's powerful mind, and that, if he continues to write
novels, he will introduce into the land of romance a larger number
of hateful men and women than any other writer of the day.
Gilbert, the hero, seems to be a favorite with the author, and to be
intended as a specimen of manly character ; but he would seiwe as
the ruflSan of any other novelist. His nature is fierce, proud,
moody, jealous, revengeful, and sometimes brutal. We can see
nothing good in him except a certain rude honesty, and that
quality is chiefly seen in his bursts of hatred, and his insults to
women. Helen, the heroine, is doubtless a strong-mmded woman,
and passes bravely through a great deal of sutfering ; but if there
be any lovable or feminine virtues in her composition, the author has
managed to conceal them. She marries a profligate, thinking to
reform him; but the gentleman, with a full knowledge other pur-'
pose, declines reformation, goes deeper and deeper into vice, and
becomes at last as fiendlike as a very limited stock of brains will
allow. This is a reversal of the process carried on in Jane Eyre;
but it must be admitted tha^ the profligate in The Tenant of Wild
fell Hall is no Rochester. He is never virtuously inclined, except
in those periods of iL'ness and feebleness Avhich his debaucherie»
Vave occasioned, thus illustrating the old proverb, —
398 APPENDIX.
"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he."
He lias almost constantly by him a choice coterie of boon compan-
ions, ranghig from the elegant libertine to the ferocious sensualist,
and the reader is favored with exact accounts of their drunken
orgies, and with numerous scraps of their profane conversation.
All the characters are drawn with great power and precision of
outline, and the scenes are as. \'ivid as life itself. Everywhere is
seen the tendency of the author to degrade passion into appetite,
and to give prominence to the selfish and malignant elements of
human nature; but while he succeeds in making profligacy dis-
gusting, he fails in making virtue pleasing. His depravity is total
depravity, and his hard and impudent debauchees seem to belong
to that class of reprobates whom Dr. South considers " as not so
much born as damned into the world." The reader of Acton Bell
gains no enlarged view of mankind, giving a healthy action to his
sympathies, but is confined to a narrow space of life, and held
down, as it were, by main force, to witness the wolfish side of his
nature literally and logically set forth. But the criminal courts
are not the places in which to take a comprehensive view of human-
ity, and the novelist who confines his observation to them is not
likely to produce any lasting impression except of horror and
disgust.
The next work on our list is Hawkstone. This is a theological
novel, the hero of which is a knight-errant of the Church of Eng-
land. Though the book contains many powerful and some pathetic
scenes, and 'is written with considerable force and beauty, events
are made so subsidiary to doctrines, that it can hardly claim the
dubious honor of being called a novel. Its authorship is ascribed
to Professor Sewall, of Oxford, a learned gentleman, who took a
prominent part in the disgraceful scene at that university on the
occasion of presenting President Everett with an honorary degree.
From his connection with that paltry outburst of religious and
political bigotry, the character of his opinions may be inferred
He looks upon the world through a pair of theological spectacles,
and instead of seeing things as they are, he views them altogether
In relation to his creed. Were he a fanatic, we might excuse liia
lliberality, for passion is some extenuation of dogmatism ; but the
Dip'otry of our author is of that cool, smooth, contemptuous, self
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 399
Mktiefied kind, which irritates without stimulating. Assuming to
speak by the authority of the Church, he quietly makes his own
perceptions the limits of human intelligence, and from his pinnacle
of self-content judges mankind. His whole wisdom consists in
opposmg the world as it is, and taking the exact opposite ^'iew of
every question from that taken by liberal men. He is not content
with stigmatizing Chartists, Radicals, and Whigs, but takes every
opportunity to inform his readers what poor creatures are Sir
Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington. It is difficult to say
whether he most dislikes Papists or Dissenters, but we should
judge there was more rancor in his representations of the former
than the latter. To be sure, the sects he despises may have the
consolation of knowing that he has represented his own church in
the person of a young clergyman whom every reader must con-
sider an impertinent puppy ; but he has done it with a beautiful
unconsciousness of the fact.
We hardly know of a book which shows a greater ignorance of
the world, or more intolerance and dogmatism based on so small a
foundation of common sense. If the writer confined himself to
theology, and contented his egotism with connecting all dissent
from his o-\vn dogmas with folly or sin, he might be allowed to
pass with a herd of other self-constituted popes, of whom Ranke
makes no mention; but when he invades every department of
moral, social, and political science, and views with a certain pity-
ing contempt the labors of great and good men, convicting them
of ignorance, presumption, or wickedness, because they do not
hold the same extreme notion of the functions and oifices of the
Church of England which he is pleased to entertain, it is difficult
to treat his absurd intolerance with common couitesy. In his
speculations on political economy, especially, he revels in all the
impertinence of ignorance, and wantons in helpless and hopeless
fatuity. He has discovered that it is a sin to take interest en
money, and has made a masterly assault on the laAv of supply and
demand. In his next work he will probably take ground against
the attraction of gravitation. The only allusion he makes to the
United States is quite in character; he speaks pityingly of "that
unhappy country." He did not probably think, at the time, that
\Jie country was happy in possessing persons who would call tor
Sie editions of his book, and that om- tolerant novel-readers
400 APPENDIX.
fvould vouchsafe to it the same attention they give to Harrison
Ainsworth and George Sand.
Hawkstone is interesting in one respect, as it exhibits the degree
of dogmatism of which every true Englishman is capable, and in
which he is only equalled by the Russian serf. Education seems
to work but little change in him, as far as regards the solidity of
his self-esteem, though it may mitigate the blindness and ferocity
of its expression. Here is a man having all the characteristics
of a scholar and a gentleman, whose mmd from early youth has
been trained in what are called liberal studies, and yet he has
acquired no power of learning from other minds, no toleration for
what he considers error, no comprehension either of heart or head.
It is true that this bigotry is one cause of England's colossal
power. It makes every man self-sufficient, places him in a surly
antagonism to other nations, and by teaching him to despise for-
eigners, stimulates the courage by which he is enabled to violate
their rights. The moment the mind of the nation rose from its
local ethics to general pi'Lncijjles of reason or morality, its man-
ners and institutions, and with these its material supremacy,
would pass away.
Very different from Hawkstone, both in style and opinion,
are the sparkling and pungent Bachelor of the Albany, and The
Falcon Family. Both are not so much novels as dashing essays
on Ufe and manners cast in a narrative form ; but they are replete
with brilliant common-sense, and the interest they lack in regard
to events and characters is supplied by the unflagging vigor and
elastic spring of the style, and the perpetual sparkle of satire and
epigram. The author's mind preserves that due balance between
sharpness and good-nature which is the condition of pleasantry,
and touches in a light and graceful, but decisive manner, on a
hundred topics, without exhausting one. His style is strewn with
verbal felicities, and there are passages exhibiting one continuous
glitter of the glancmg lights of fancy and wit. Occasionally a
string of sentences goes off in epigrams, one sentence after
another, like a series of percussion-caps.
The author is a sensible but superficial English whig, and like
all his class, whether brilliant or stupid, he has a contempt for ex-
iremes, without understanding the internal causes which lead men
into extremes. The most exhilarating portions of his novels ari
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 401
those ifl which he subjects the pedantic absui'dities of the " ear-
nest" men of the day to a process of meny caricature, or with a
few probing witticisms emancipates the air shut up in a political
bubble. He takes life himself in evident good humor, and is
troubled very little with the mysteries of his nature or his mission
to the hviman race. He does not appear to think that the eyes of
the world are upon him, or that his utterance of an axiom is to
make an era in the history of humanity. But it must be admitted
that in avoiding bathos he also avoids depth, and purchases his
persiflage at the expense of all serious thought. Life with him
is composed of two portions, a portion to be enjoyed and a portion
to be laughed at, and with this comprehensive philosophy it can-
not be expected that he should succeed in the exhibition of charac-
ter or passion. Most of his personages are embodied epigrams, or
rather jokes elevated to the dignity of persons. There is a great
diiference between being jocose and being a jest.
In Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, Sir Bulwer Lytton has
attempted an historical romance, and has certainly displayed
scholarship, research, and remarkable talent, in the undertaking.
But we fear that the work derives little help from the subject.
The author is master of a style which is singularly attractive, and
contrives to give a degree of interest to everything his pen touches,
whether he treats it well or ill. No one can read Harold without
feeling the force of this charm, but we think it is less felt in this
novel than in manj' of his less ambitious productions. Neither in
Harold, nor in The Last of the Barons, does he evince the power
of a great historical novelist. The great defect of Harold, espec-
ially, is its heterogeneousness. Fact and fiction are either placed
side by side or huddled together, instead of being fused into one
consistent narrative. Harold, the Saxon king of history, and
Harold, the hero of Sir Bulwer Lytton's romance, so modify each
other, that the result somewhat resembles Mrs. Malaprop's Cerbe-
rus, — he is " two gentlemen at once." Indeed, though it cannot
be said that the author is devoid of imagination, he does not
possess the faculty for any available purpose of history or romance-
As he unconsciously blends his own morbid feelings with his
representations, he cannot vi>/idly reproduce the persons and
events of a past age in theh' original life and coloring, as the
historian Thierry has done in his Norman Conquest ; and tliere-
voL. II. 26
iU2 APPEINULS.
fore, though his imagmation, considered separately, may be largei
than that of many graphic and picturesque historians, he has not
in any degree their power of historical imagination. We think
that this will be evident to any clear-headed person wh j will take
Harold and Duke William as they appear in the charming pages
of Thierry, and compare them with the same princes as conceived
by Sir Bulwer Lytton. If this defect in regard to historical pei-
sonages was balanced by a power of combining the elements of
human nature into new forms of character, througli the creative
processes of the imagination, he might still be a great novelist;
but in this respect, also, Bulwer is deiicient. Though in romance
and the drama the power of creating or delineating character
supposes a healthy mind, gifted with a sure vision of extei'nal
objects, and capable of a quick sympathy with opposite natures,
this power is still often possessed in a limited degi-ee by men who
can create original characters, but are incapable of reproducing
real persons. In Godwin's Life of Chaucer, and in his historical
productions generally, his kings, dukes, barons, and rebels, are as
dead as those of Mr. Hallam ; and yet the power of vital concep-
tion cannot be denied to the author of Caleb Williams and St.
Leon. Though a creative imagination is thus sometimes possessed
by persons deficient in its inferior form of historical resurrection,
all ample minds will be found to possess both. An intellect
thoroughly alive cannot be content with names of persons or with
aggregates of abstract qualities, in contemplating either actual or
possible life, but by its very nature conceives living beings.
Now, we must profess our inability to discover any capacity in
Sir Bulwer Lytton to conceive character at all. With considerable
respect for his talents and accomplishments, we tliink that he
always fails in every attempt demanding creative energy or clear
I'epresentation. As an historical novelist, lie stands half-way
between Scott and James, between truth and truism. He is often
taithful to the external fact, but never penetrates to its internal
meaning. The readers of his novels are made acquainted with life
and character in the past or present, not as they are in themselves,
but as his own ingenious and brilliant, but morbid and discoloring
mind, has conceived them. He is an illustration of Kant's theory,
that the qualities of objects are not perceive 1 by the mind, but
{)rojected from it ; and accordingly all his »ovels, whether tin
NOVELS OF THE SEASON.
403
hero be Pelham or Wanvick, Devereux or Harold, leave a eimilar
impression. A character goes into his head aa Duke William or
Lafranc, but it ever comes out Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Burt.
T his absence of objective perception, this confinement of the
mind Trithiu itself, is not only fatal to Buhver's claims to dramatic
delineation, but it explains the sombre and unsatisfying tone of
Ms productions. There is a singular lack of cheerfulness in his
novels, and they are accordmgly read mthout any refreshment to
the intellect. Compare him with Fielding, or Goldsmith, or Scott,
or Dickens, novelists widely differing from each other, and it will
be readily seen how different is his feverish excitement and hectic
flush fi-om theii- healthy and bracing tone. After reading one of
Bulwer's novels, we have a feeling that mankind is composed of
scoundrels and sentimentalists, and that the world is effete. The
atmosphere is that of a hot-house, not the exhilarating breeze of
the moors. The vices of the novelist have that character of sickly
licentiousness which we might expect from the rhetorical character
of his vii-tues. He is not a free-spoken fellow like Fielding, and
in his whole writings there is not one burst of honest and hearty
sensuality, such as we often meet in the author of Tom Jones ; but
instead of this we have plentiful quantities of the " self-improved
morals of elegant souls," in which adultery and seduction are
gracefully adorned in alliu'ing sentiments, and saunter, with a
mincing gait, to the pit that is bottomless.
In Harold, to be sure, there is a marked improvement in our
author's literary morals. As Thomas Moore wi-ote pretty little
hymns to offset his pen's eavly peccadilloes, so Bulwer ventures in
the present novel on Platonic love to compensate for the peculiar
Ivind of passion he has inculcated in other novels. It must be de-
lightful news to many good people, that the author of Pelliam and
Paul Clifford has sown his wild oats, and now ranks " in the fii'st
file of the virtuous;" and as he formerly seemed to object to mar-
riage because it interfered with the natural rights of passion, he
now has no other quarrel witli it than that it is needless to the
piu-e love of the soul The lady whom history pronounces to be
Harold's mistress Bulwer converts into the object of Harold's
spirit love, while he follows history in giving Harold a wife, but
nne whom he marries as a matter of state convenience and policy
404 APPENDIX.
This is a notable reconciliation of the conflicting claims of earth
and heaven, which will doubtless much edify the saints.
There are two besetting peculiarities of Bulwer's mind which
are more prominent, perhaps, in Harold than in any other of hia
novels. These are an affectation of philosophy, and an affectation
of noble sentiments. By the former we do not mean that pervad-
ing air of thoughtful ennm which is not always an unpleasing
characteristic of his diction, but his assiduous personification
of abstract terms, his emphatic mode of uttering commonplaces,
and his way of reaching climaxes in dissertation by fiercely print-
ing axiomatic phrases in capital lettei-s. These are cheap substi-
tutes for depth of thought, but to us they are more endurable than
his substitutes for depth of feeling. His fine sentiments and
delicate emotions can hardly impose on any mind which has
arrived at the consciousness of sentiment and emotion, or under-
stands the difference between elegance and genuineness. They
are the cheap manufactures of mere rhetoric, contrived with
malice aforethought to awaken the reader's admiration. The
heart never speaks its own language in Bulwer's writings. No
outbreak of genuine passion seizing and shaping its own expres-
sion, no touch of humanity falling from the pen with a beautiful
unconsciousness, ever surprise and delight us in his pages. There
is one infallible test of a man's sincerity which Bulwer's expression
of sensibility cannot stand for a moment. Natural emotion com-
pels the mind to lose itself for the time in the objects which stir
and arouse it. Now, Bulwer, instead of celebrating the beauty and
grandeur of what he feels, is continually celebrating the beauty
and grandeur of his feeUngs. This is the exact difference between
real and rhetorical passion, and it is a difference of some moment.
Indeed, allowing to Bulwer the merit of wit, fimcy, learning,
an ingenious mechanical apparatus of understanding, and consid-
erable power of appropriation, he is still, in all that relates to the
living movements of the heart and brain, the most superficial
writer that ever acquired the reputation of a great novelist. As
his capacity, such as it is, is under the control of a morbid egotism
and a still more morbid vanity, his productions appear more like
the consequences of intellectual disease than like intellectual nutri
ment. Tliis disease is as regularly taken by i^ersons at a cei'taij
ige of the mind, as the measles are at a certain age of the body
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 405
If Bulwerism, however, saves any intellect fi-om Byronism, it
doubtless has its uses. The varioloid is bad in itself, but it ia
better than the small-pox. There is, strictly speaking, no food
for the mind in Bulwer, bad or good — nothing which the intellect
can assimilate. "With Byi-on it is different ; the gi-eat English
poet's vitality may be the vitality of poison, but it is still life.
We cannot pass from Bulwer to Ladj' Georgiana Fullerton with-
out taking a perilous leap. Grantley Manor is a novel having the
rose-color of Young England and the purple light of Puseyism on
its pages, and doubtless presents a very one-sided view of many
important matters with which it deals ; but it evinces talent of a
very high order, and is one of the most pleasing novels of the sea-
son. The author is perhaps too elaborate in her diction, and is
stirred too often by an ambition for the superfine, to catch that
flo^ving feUcity of style which should be the aim of the novelist —
a style in which sentences should only represent thought or fact,
and never dazzle away attention from the matter they convey.
But with some faults of manner and some blunders in plot, the
novel evinces considerable dramatic power, and has a number of
striking characters. The intei'est is well sustained, though
rapidity of movement in the story is ever subsidiary to complete-
ness of delineation in the characters. Perhaps the chief element
in the plot, and the source of all the agony which torments the
principal personages, is too provokingly slight to be strictly prob-
able; but it serves its purpose of developing the piety of Ginevra
and the selfishness of Neville. No one can criticize the novel with
any justice to the writer, without keeping constantly in mind that
her object is not so much a consistent, or even probable story, as a
forcible and subtile representation of character, as influenced by
events best calculated to bring out all its hidden virtues or vices.
Thus, Neville, who is about as abject a combination of arrogance,
selfishness, and littleness of spirit, as ever was chosen for a hero,
would probably pass in ordinary life for a free, hearty, indepen
dent, and high-toned gentleman. One event converts him into a
compendium of small vices such as Sir Forcible Feeble himself
might hoot at. Besides, his degradation was necessary to bring
out all the resources of Ginevi'a's nature, and it is but common
gallantry tr admit the right of a lady ^vriter to abase the hcrr
rather than the heroine when it is necessary to degrade either
406 APPENDIX.
Ginevra is an oviginal and beautiful delineation, the founiation
of whose character is imagination, intensified by passion and
purified by religion. So fine a union of sensibility and fortitude,
of impulse and will, is a rare appearance in a popular novel.
Margaret, her half-sister, a sweet, good-natured creature, with a
magnanimous superficiality of feeling, is well conceived and sus-
tained, though the wi-iter ventures on some perilous edges of experi-
ment in her case, and barely saves her, in two or three instance?,
from being a taUure. Walter is genuine and manly in genera.
vatii an occasional touch of sickliness and feebleness. Though far
from being a lady's man, he is unmistakably a man delineated
by a lady. Colonel Leslie is a bore and a blunder. Perhaps, to
those who appreciate results from the difficulties in the way of
their production, the delineation of the amiable but commonplace
old people of the novel will be considered a great proof of the
writer's skill in character. It evinces much of the shrewdness
and nicety of Miss Austen — qualities which we should hardly
expect to see in connection with so strong an idealizing tendency,
and with so much passionateness.
Vanity Fair, by W. M. Thackeray, one of the most brilliant of
English magazine writers, is an attempt, somewhat after the
manner of Fielding, to represent the world as it is, especially the
selfish, heartless, and cunning portion of it. The author has
Fielding's cosy manner of talking to his readers in the pauses of
his narrative, and, like Fielding, takes his personages mostly from
ordinary life. The novel, though it touches often upon topics
which have been worn threadbare, and reproduces many common-
place types of character, is still, on the whole, a fresh and vigorous
transcript of English life, and has numerous profound touches of
humanity and humor. Sir Pitt Crawley, coarse, uneducated,
sordid, quarrelsome, his sharp, narrow mind an epitome of vulgar
shrewdness, is a sort of combination of Sir John Brute, Sir Tun-
belly Clumsey, and Squire Western; but though exceedingly
ludici'ous, is hardly natural. George Osborne, Dobbin, and
Amelia, are characters almost literally true, and are developed
with most consummate skill and fidelity. Mr. Osborne, we fear
is too fail* a representative of the English man of business of the
middle class, — selfish, arrogant, purse-proud, cringing to superi.
ors and ferocious to inferiors, rejoicing in a most profound igno
NOVELS OF THE SEASON. 401
ranee of his own meanness and cruelty, and ever disposed to rise
on the ruin jf his neighbors. That disposition in English society,
of every class, to trample on the one immediately beneath it, and
to fawn on the one immediately above it, Thackeray felicitously
represents in this and other characters of his novel. Nothing can
be more edifying than Mr. Osborne's conversations with his son
George on his intimacy with men of rank who fleece him at cards,
and on his duty to break off a match with Amelia, after her father
has become bankrupt. But the finest character in the whole novel
is Miss Rebecca Sharp, an original personage, worthy to be calle^i
the author's own, and as true to life as hypocrisy, abUity, and
cunning, can make her. She is altogether the most impoitant
person in the work, being the very impersonation of talent, tact,
and worldliness, and working her way with a graceful and execu-
tive impudence unparalleled among managing women. She infli-
cates the extreme point of worldly success to which these qualities
will carry a person, and also the impossibility of their providing
against all contingencies in life. Becky steadily rises in the world,
reaches a certain height, makes one inevitable mistake, and then as
steadily falls, whUe many of her simple companions, whom she
despised as weaklings, succeed from the very simplicity with which
they follow the instinctive sagacity of pure and honest feeling.
Colonel Rawdon Crawley, a brainless sensualist, whom Becky mar-
ries, and in some degree reforms, but who, by having an occasional
twinkle of genuine sentiment in his heart, always was her superior,
is drawn with a breadth and a nicety of touch which are rare in
such delineations. The exact amount of humanity which coexists
with his rascality and stupidity, is given with perfect accuracy.
Old Mr. Sedley is a most truthful representation of a broken-down
merchant, conceived in the spirit of that humane humor which
blends the ludicrous ajid the pathetic in one. Joe Sedley, the
East Indian, slightly suggests Major Bagstock. He has the Major's
physical circumference, apoplectic turn, and swell of manner, with
the addition of Cockney vulgarity and cowardice. His retreat from
Brussels, just before the battle of Waterloo, is described with the
ftrt of a comic Xenophon.
Of all the novels on our list. Vanity Fair is the only one in which
die author is content to represent actual life. His page swarma
with personages whom we recognize at once as genuine. It is also
408 APPENDIX.
noticeable, that Thackeray alone preserves himself from the illusions
of misantlu-opy and sentimentality; and though dealing with a host
of selfish and malicious characters, his book leaves no impression
that the world is past praying for, or that the profligate have it.
His novel, as a representation of life, is altogether more compre-
hensive and satisfying than either of the others. Each may excel
him in some particular department of character and passion, but
each is confined to a narrow space, and discolors or shuts out the
other portions of existence. Thackeray looks at the world from no
exclusive position, and his view accordingly includes a superficial
if not a substantial whole; and it is creditable to the healthiness
of his mind, that he could make so wide a survey without contract-
ing either of the opposite diseases of misanthropy or worldliness
THE END.
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