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ESSAYS 
 
 IN 
 
 BIOGRAPHY JJtft jlRIJICISM. 
 Library* 
 
 Of cwjfflW^ 
 
 PETERjBAYNE, M. A. 
 
 AUTHOR OV "THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, SOCIAL AND 
 INDIVIDUAL," ETC. 
 
 FIRST SERIES, 
 
 •BOSTON: 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 59 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 
 
 CINCINNATI: GEO. S. BLANCHARD. 
 
 1860. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 
 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 / 
 
 W^J 
 
 PEINTED BT 
 
 GEORGE C. RAND & AVERY. 
 
 G. J. STILKS, 
 
 ELECTRO-STEREOTYPER, 
 
 BOSTO N . 
 
\ » 'V > \ 
 
 ^ ff 
 
 2. 
 
 
 
 PEEPACE* 
 
 The papers here published consist in part of con- 
 tributions to an Edinburgh Magazine, and in part of 
 compositions which have not previously appeared. 
 Of the former, some have undergone only a slight 
 revision ; others have been so modified as to be mate- 
 rially changed in character ; while several, though, 
 save in a single instance, retaining their original titles, 
 may be considered altogether new. The series from 
 which the republished articles are selected was entered 
 upon about the commencement of the author's twenty- 
 second year, during the prosecution of theological 
 studies in Edinburgh ; the occasion of the step being 
 an inaptitude and distaste for private tuition, and a 
 facility and pleasure, experienced from an early age, 
 in literary composition. The selected essays were 
 published, with one or two exceptions, in the two suc- 
 ceeding years. 
 
 * The remarks in this preface are intended to apply both to the 
 contents of the present volume, and also to those of a Second 
 Series, the publication of which will immediately follow. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 An apology may be deemed requisite for offering 
 to the public a work, of which even the germ is found 
 in pieces composed at so early an age. Two consid- 
 rations chiefly weighed with the writer in permitting 
 the publication. He could not let slip the opportunity 
 offered of bringing together that portion of his early 
 performances, to which, however sensible of their 
 defects, he could yet deliberately append his signa- 
 ture, setting them apart from that far larger portion 
 which he would now altogether cast behind him, as 
 mere confusions of a too much wasted youth. And 
 still more powerfully was he influenced by the reflec- 
 tion, which has for a long time had a firm hold on his 
 mind, that, where a reading public is so extended as 
 that of America, capacities of literary enjoyment, and 
 susceptibilities to instruction, will vary so much, both 
 in kind and degree, that it is by no means easy, if 
 possible, to judge, within certain limits, from the ab- 
 stract character of a book, whether it will or will not 
 prove useless : and that, therefore, an author, abdi- 
 cating, in great measure, the right to decide as to the 
 worthiness or unworthiness of his compositions, ought 
 to bow to the unsought expression of public will. 
 Such an expression seemed to be found in the offer 
 of American publishers to issue these volumes : and 
 the author screens himself against all attack, by the 
 plain declaration, that they would not now, perhaps 
 would never, have appeared, but for ihe enterprise and 
 generosity of Messrs. Gould and Lincoln. 
 
 The general contents of these Essays, apart from 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 their inherent qualities, is such as affords some coun- 
 tenance to the belief that they may not altogether fail 
 in usefulness. They partake largely of the character 
 of an introduction, in successive chapters, to the works 
 of great authors living or deceased. Sir Archibald 
 Alison has testified to the correctness of the view 
 given of his political theories; and it may be added 
 that Mr. De Quincey expressed a very favorable 
 opinion of the essay to which his name is appended. 
 It must not be thought that the writer affirms on 
 every occasion the views he endeavors to define : but 
 to open the way, though defectively, to an intelligence 
 of any mind exercising a powerful influence upon the 
 age, must always be a task of importance. 
 
 The papers on Mrs. Barrett Browning, on Mr. Ten- 
 nyson, and on Mr. Ruskin are, with several others, 
 now first published. To these more weight is attached 
 than to the earliest essays. It struck the author, in 
 glancing over his paper on Mr. Ruskin, that the very 
 strength of his convictions had impeded him in ex- 
 hibiting their grounds, that his feeling of the total 
 powerlessness of his opponents had made him careless 
 in the use of his weapons. There are things too ghostly 
 to stand the blow of an argumentative club ; it passes 
 through them as through air ; and so profound is his 
 belief that a large proportion of the critical accusations 
 brought against Ruskin are of this sort, that he was 
 unconsciously heedless in his assault upon them. It 
 may be added that he fell into a mistake as to the 
 •identity of one of the reviewers whom he attacks ; a 
 
Xn PREFACE. 
 
 mistake, however, which he hardly regrets and does 
 not alter, since no man is better entitled to bear blows 
 intended for the real, than the supposed, reviewer. 
 
 The writer cannot refrain, before letting fall his 
 pen, from expressing in one word his sense of the 
 manner in which the American press treated his former 
 appearance before the American public. Frankness, 
 cordiality, unmerited and exaggerated generosity char- 
 acterized the welcome received by one totally un- 
 known, the native of another land. The thought of 
 this will be ever among his most proud and sacred 
 recollections : and has added one other to those man- 
 ifold and profound considerations, which had formerly 
 drawn him, in admiration and affection, accompanied, 
 he ventures to think, by a more deep and manly 
 intelligence than is common in Great Britain, towards 
 the American people. If the present publication is 
 received less favorably than the last, if even it draws on 
 itself decided disapproval and rebuke, he will be liable 
 to no mistake as to the reason of the change. 
 
 Berlin, April 18th, 1857. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND HIS WORKS, . 15 
 
 II. 
 
 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS, « , ft % , 50 
 
 III. 
 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING, . « tj . 146 
 
 IV. 
 
 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART, . » t .211 
 
 Y. 
 
 RUSKIN AND HIS CRITICS, . . . . .281 
 
 FIRST 8EBIBS. """ fl — 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HUGH MILLER, . • • - * . . 334 
 
 VII. 
 
 ( 
 THE MODERN NOVEL,— Dickens— Bulweb— Thackeray, 363 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CURRER BELL,— Ellis — Acton— Curreb, . . .393 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 IN 
 
 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 I. 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND HIS WORKS. 
 
 On entering upon the study of De Quincey's writings, 
 the first thing with which we are impressed is a certain 
 air of perfect ease, and as it were relaxation, which breathes 
 around. "The river glideth at his own sweet will;" now 
 lingering to dally with the water lilies, now wandering into 
 green nooks to reflect the gray rock and silvery birch, now 
 rolling in stately silence through the rich, smooth meadow, 
 now leaping amid a thousand rainbows into the echoing 
 chasm, while the spray rises upwards in a wavering and 
 painted column. Mildness, or majesty, or wild Titanic 
 strength may be displayed, but the river is ever at the 
 same perfect ease, all unconscious of the spectator. " My 
 way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own 
 humors, than much to consider who is listening to me ; " — 
 these words, used with express reference to the mode in 
 which he composed the " Confessions," may be taken as 
 characterizing, in a degree more or less eminent, De 
 
16 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 Qumcey's universal manner. The goal, indeed, is always 
 kept in view ; however circuitous the wandering may be, 
 there is always a return to the subject ; the river's course 
 is always seawards : but there are no fixed embankments, 
 between which, in straight, purposeJike course, the stream 
 is compelled to flow : you are led aside in the most way- 
 ward, unaccountable manner, and though you must allow 
 that every individual bay and wooded creek is in itself 
 beautiful, yet, being a Briton, accustomed to feed on facts, 
 /ike the alligators whom the. old naturalists asserted to live 
 upon stones, and thinking it right to walk to the purpose 
 of a book with that firm step and by that nearest road 
 which conduct you to your office, you are soon ready to 
 exclaim that this is trifling, and that you wish the author 
 could speak to the point. But there is some witchery 
 which still detains you ; the trifling seems to be flavored 
 by some indefinable essence, which spreads an irresistible 
 charm around ; you recollect that nature has innumerable 
 freaks, and may present, in one quarter of a mile, the giant 
 rock and the quivering blue-bell, the defiant oak and the 
 trodden lichen, the almost stagnant pool and the surging 
 cataract : at length the thought dawns upon you, that this 
 author is great because he cannot help it; that he is a 
 force in the hand of nature ; that, whether you smile, or 
 frown, or weep, or wonder, he goes on with the same 
 absolute ease, speaking with pure spontaneity the thoughts 
 that arise within him. Then your trust becomes deeper, 
 your earnestness of study redoubles ; you are profoundly 
 convinced that here is no pretence, no unnatural effort; 
 your murmuring turns to astonishment at the complexity, 
 richness, and strangely blended variety of nature's effects. 
 If your experience is the same as ours most honestly was, 
 you will proceed from a certain pleasurable titillation, 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 17 
 
 produced by what you deem twaddle, though twaddle 
 deliciously spiced by genius, to the conviction that, how- 
 ever hampered, however open to objection, here is an 
 intellect, in all the great faculties of analysis, combination, 
 and reception, of a power and range which you are at a 
 loss to measure or define. "We must take into account, in 
 judging of the powers of De Quincey, the fact that his life 
 has been shadowed by one great cloud, which would have 
 fatally obscured any ordinary intellect ; that he has seen the 
 stars through a vail, and that we have to mete the power 
 of that vision which could pierce such an obstruction. It 
 must be remembered, too, that the mind of De Quincey is, 
 on all hands, allowed to be one of a very singular and 
 original kind, fit is pre-eminently characterized by two 
 qualities, which are partially regarded with suspicion by 
 hard thinkers, and tend to lower the expectation of the 
 reader who is in search of substantial intellectual suste- 
 nance : we mean humor, and what we can only call mysti- 
 cism. De Quincey is essentially and always a humorist ; a 
 humorist of a very rare and delicate order, but whose very 
 delicacy is mistaken by hard minds for feebleness or silly 
 trifling. He is also, to some extent, an intellectual mystic. 
 We use this word in no disparaging sense ; nor do we lay 
 emphasis upon the fact, that he has devoted years of study 
 to the works of express mystics. We indeed think that 
 this last is not of material importance in estimating his 
 writings ; the influence of these writers was not, it appears 
 to us, of sufficient power materially to color his originality. 
 By the quality of mysticism, as attaching to the mind of 
 De Quincey, we mean rather a certain affinity, so to speak, 
 for the mysterious, — a strange idiosyncrasy, in which asso- 
 ciations of terror, of gladness, or of gloom, link themselves 
 with certain seasons and places. Voices of sympathy 
 2* 
 
18 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 awaken for him, where no sound falls on the general ear ; 
 sorrows, from which the common mail of custom and 
 coarseness, or even active practical occupation, defends 
 other men, affect him with poignant anguish; and joys 
 which are far too delicate and aerial to approach the hard 
 man of the world, float over his soul like spiritual music. 
 He has a sure footing in dim and distant regions, where 
 phantasy piles her towers, and raises her colonnades, and 
 wraps all in her weird and wondrous drapery. He tells us 
 that, " like Sir Thomas Brown, his mind almost demanded 
 mysteries in so mysterious a system of relations as those 
 which connect us with another world;" and we cannot 
 hesitate to use the hint for the explication of much to which 
 he does not, in that connection, intend it to apply. We 
 are met by expressions of sentiment, regarding summer, 
 and death, and solitude, which may appear strange or far 
 fetched, and told of woes which our duller imaginations 
 and less tremulous sympathies almost compel us to deem 
 fantastic. Altogether, to the matter of fact English reader, 
 the phenomena presented by these works are astonishing 
 and alarming ; and it is well for him, if his hasty practicality 
 does not prompt him to close them at once, deciding that 
 here is no real metal for life's highway, but only such airy 
 materials as might be used by some Macadam of the clouds. 
 Yet we are confident that De Quincey has performed intel- 
 lectual service for the age, which could be shown to be 
 practically substantial to the most rigorously practical mind. 
 We would specially urge, moreover, that it is quite possible 
 that writings may be of the highest value, although one 
 cannot trace their association with any department of 
 economic affairs. We are practical enough, and make no 
 pretension to having u wjngs for the ether." But let it at 
 once be said, that the world is not a manufactory. There 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 19 
 
 are regions where the spirit of man can expatiate above the 
 corn field or the counter; it is lawful for the immortal 
 principle to rise for a time out of the atmosphere of the 
 labor curse ; the universe is really wonderful, and it is not 
 well to forget the fact ; nay, finally, it is well for a man, 
 perhaps at times it is best for him, to spread the wings of 
 his mind for regions positively removed from, antipodal to, 
 practice, if haply he may gain glimpses of habitations 
 higher than earth, and destinies nobler than those of time. 
 Bold as the assertion looks, we should question the power 
 of any man to be a docile and accurate disciple of the 
 Comte school of philosophy, who found the highest enjoy- 
 ment of understanding and sympathy in the works of Do 
 Quincey ! 
 
 When, beneath all its drapery of cloud and rainbow, the 
 grand physiognomic outlines of De Quincey's mind reveal 
 themselves to the reader, his primary observation will prob- 
 ably be, that it is marked by an extraordinary analytic 
 faculty. De Quincey's own opinion declares this to be the 
 principal power in his mind ; and though we should not 
 deem this in itself conclusive, we cannot but think it strongly 
 confirmatory of the general evidence gathered from other 
 quarters. "My proper vocation," these are his words, "as I 
 well knew, was the exercise of the analytic understanding." 
 The more we know of De Quincey's writings, the more are 
 we driven to the conviction, that his mind is, in this regard, 
 of an extremely high order. His intensely clear perception 
 of the relation between ideas, the delight with which he 
 expatiates in regions of pure abstraction, where no light 
 lives but that of the " inevitable eye" of the mind, the ease 
 with which he unravels and winds off what appears a mere 
 skein of cloud streamers, too closely twined to be taken 
 apart, and too delicate not to rend asunder, afford irresist- 
 
20 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 ible evidence of rare analytic power. That our words may 
 be seen to be no rhetorical painting of our own fancies, but 
 a feeble attempt to indicate a fact, we shall glance cursorily 
 at one or two of those portions of De Quincey's works which 
 give attestation of this power. 
 
 The science of political economy is remarkable as one of 
 those in which the abstract and the concrete are seen most 
 clearly in their mutual relations. Beginning with mere 
 abstractions, or what appear such, with factors which must 
 be dealt with algebraically, and seem absolutely independent 
 of practice, it proceeds onwards until it embraces every 
 complexity of our social existence, until every mathematical 
 line is turned into an actual, visible extension, and every 
 ideal form has to take what shape it can amid the jostling 
 and scrambling of life. It is thus, in our opinion, perhaps 
 the very best study in which a man can engage for the cul- 
 ture of his argumentative nature. For, as we say, it has 
 every stage : it demands mathematical accuracy in one part, 
 and lays down rigidly the ideal law ; it brings you on till 
 you are in the field and workshop, till you have to calculate 
 the strength of varied desires, the probable upshot of com- 
 plicated chances, the modifications produced by a thousand 
 nameless influences. From the mathematical diagram to 
 the table of statistics, from the academy to the street, from 
 the closet of the philosopher to the world of the statesman, 
 political economy conducts the student. Whatever the 
 practical value of the science to the merchant, legislator, 
 moralist, or philanthropist, — and we have no leisure to 
 demonstrate, as we think is posssible, its practical value to 
 each, — it scarcely admits of a doubt, that, as an instrument 
 of mental culture, it is invaluable. But this remark is 
 incidental : we have glanced at the general nature of the 
 science of political economy, in order that we may exhibit 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 21 
 
 clearly the particular department in which De Quincey is 
 distinguished. This, of course, is the abstract portion. 
 The fundamental laws of the science, or rather the one 
 fundamental law on which it is all built, furnished his mind 
 with occupation. This one fundamental law is the law of 
 value. It determines what is, viewed abstractly, the grand 
 cause which fixes the relative value of articles, — how much 
 of any one will exchange for so much of any other. Once 
 this is found, you know whence all deviations depart, you 
 know how each modifying element will act, you have, so to 
 speak, formed your theory of the seasons, although you 
 cannot tell what showers may fall, what winds may blow, 
 what ripening weeks of sunshine may usher in the harvest. 
 " He," says De Quincey, " who is fully master of the subject 
 of value, is already a good political economist." We agree 
 with him, and think that political economy first and forever 
 became an established science, when the theory of value 
 was perfected. The honor of having published the demon- 
 stration belongs to David Ricardo; but De Quincey, as 
 has so often happened, found himself anticipated with the 
 public. He had arrived at the same results; but little 
 remained for him to .do, save to silence a few objectors 
 who long continued to oppose Ricardo. This he did in 
 the " Templars' Dialogues," in a manner so clear and con- 
 clusive, that assent may be said to have become synony- 
 mous with comprehension. It is difficult to convey any 
 idea of these papers to one who has not read them. To 
 quote any passage were an improvement upon the brick 
 sample of the house, for it would be to offer a stone as 
 sample of an arch ; to abridge is out of the question, for 
 they are models of terseness. Considered as pieces of 
 reasoning, they are truly masterly. There is an artiste 
 perfection about them. The beauty of precision, of clear- 
 
22 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 ness, of absolute performance of the thing required, is the 
 only beauty admissible. Accordingly, there is not an illus- 
 tration which is not there simply because it- speaks more 
 clearly than words ; there are no flourishes of rhetoric ; all 
 is quiet, orderly, conclusive, like the British line advancing 
 to the charge, and with the same result. It is true that, 
 even in them, De Quincey could not be dull, and so there is 
 the slightest infusion of humor, which adds a raciness to the 
 whole, and is thus promotive of the general effect. Mr. 
 M'Culloch, a man not given to enthusiasm, says of these 
 papers, that they "are unequalled, perhaps, for brevity, 
 pungency, and force." 
 
 De Quincey's introduction to political economy was char- 
 acteristic, and illustrates remarkably the nature of his 
 powers. He took to it as an amusement, when debility had 
 caused the cessation of severer studies. About the year 
 1811, he became acquainted with a great many books and 
 pamphlets on the subject ; but it seems that what had 
 employed the concentrated, protracted, and healthful ener- 
 gies of men for about a couple of centuries, could not for a 
 moment bide the scrutiny of his languishing eye. Thus 
 politely and composedly does he indicate his general impres- 
 sion of what books, pamphlets, speeches, and other compo- 
 sitions bearing on political economy had come in his way: — 
 "I saw that these were generally the very dregs and rinsings 
 of the human intellect ; and that any man of sound head, 
 and practised in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, 
 might take up the whole academy of modern economists, 
 and throttle them between heaven and earth with his finger 
 and thumb, or bray their fungus heads to powder with a 
 lady's fan." Such sudden and amazing proficiency, we 
 presume, scientific professors would not extremely desire. 
 Howe^r, this surprising pupil was soon to meet the mas- 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 23 
 
 tor: — "At length," he proceeds, "in 1819, a friond in 
 Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's book ; and, recur- 
 ring to my own prophetic anticipation of the advent of 
 some legislator for this science, I said, before I had finished 
 the first chapter, * Thou art the man ! » Wonder and 
 curiosity were emotions that had long been dead in me. 
 Yet I wondered once more : I wondered at myself, that I 
 could once again be stimulated to the effort of reading ; 
 and, much more, I wondered at the book. Had this pro- 
 found book been really written in England during the 
 nineteenth century ? * * * * Could it be that an En- 
 glishman, and he not in academic bowers, but oppressed by 
 mercantile and senatorial* cares, had accomplished what all 
 the universities of Europe, and a century of thought, had 
 failed to advance even by one hair's breadth ? All other 
 writers had been crushed and overlaid by the enormous 
 weight of facts and documents ; Mr. Ricardo had deduced 
 a priori, from the understanding itself, laws which first gave 
 a ray of light into the unwieldy chaos of materials, and had 
 constructed what had been but a collection of tentative 
 discussions into a science of regular proportions, now first 
 standing on an eternal basis." 
 
 Are our readers acquainted with the "Principles of Politi- 
 cal Economy and Taxation," by David Ricardo ? If not, 
 they will hardly appreciate De Quincey's enthusiasm, or 
 understand what it implies. Butler and Edwards are by no 
 means drawing-room authors, yet the perusal of their works 
 seems to us to approach the nature of an intellectual recre- 
 ation, compared with that of this book of Ricardo's. We 
 consider it that volume which, of all we know, requires the 
 highest tension and effort of intellect. It has a thousand 
 
 * "Senatorial:" — this is a mistake. Ricardo entered the House of 
 Commons in 1819 ; his work was published in 1817. » 
 
24 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 times been charged with obscurity, and a filmy subtlety of 
 speculation ; yet its difficulty consists principally in that it 
 is the production of a mind so exceedingly clear, that it 
 could completely master and fully embrace a subject, by 
 seeing its great leading points of illumination, without 
 tracing the path from the one to the other. Thus the 
 reader is, as it were, carried from eminence to eminence by 
 the writer, without being shown the way he travels ; and 
 having reached each, not by the usual step by step method, 
 he is moved to question the reality of his progress, and to 
 object to the extraordinary new method of instruction, in 
 which he must ever and anon commit himself to the strong 
 arm or wing of the preceptor, to be carried to a higher 
 station. He feels that too large a demand is made on his 
 faith ; he wishes to walk a little by sight. Ricardo coolly 
 sets him down, with the assurance ' that his progress has 
 been real, and that now he stands on a higher platform than 
 he ever occupied before ; but with the declaration, that he 
 must find some other to explain pedagogically the mode of 
 advancement, since there are further heights to which his 
 guide must forthwith ascend. Now, De Quincey had the 
 supreme satisfaction of going side by side with Ricardo in 
 his aerial voyagings ; he knew well whither he was going, 
 and the absolute certainty that it was onwards ; he could 
 look down, with a satisfied, half-sneering smile, upon the 
 strugglers below, who jogged honestly but slowly along, 
 proclaiming their distrust in all aerial carriages. In those 
 "Templars' Dialogues" he seems to sit in the chariot with 
 Ricardo, laughing at Malthus and other disbelievers, and 
 calling to them to look up, and see that all their difficulty 
 of apprehension lies in the fact, that the one path is through 
 the air, straight as an arrow's flight, while the other is along 
 the ground, amid sand heaps and tangled jungles. De 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 25 
 
 Quincey himself has admirably described the nature of 
 Ricardo's obscurity, by saying that, if it can be fairly 
 alleged against him at all, it can arise only from " too keen 
 a perception of the. truth, which may have seduced him at 
 times into too elliptic a development of his opinions, and 
 made him impatient of the tardy and continuous steps which 
 are best adapted to the purposes of the teacher. For," 
 he adds, " the fact is, that the laborers of the Mine (as I am 
 accustomed to call them), or those who dig up the metal 
 of truth, are seldom fitted to be also laborers of the Mint, 
 — that is, to work up the metal for current use." " Seed 
 corn," says Goethe, " should not be ground." Such were the 
 difficulty and the obscurity of Ricardo. Now, we certainly 
 should found no claim to an extraordinary analytic faculty 
 on the mere power to comprehend any author ; but the fact 
 of keen enjoyment, of free, exulting pleasure being derived 
 from the perusal of a book, is always conclusive proof of 
 an affinity with the powers it exhibits; and the instant 
 recognition with which De Quincey welcomed Ricardo's 
 discoveries, as well as the perfect comprehension, nay, light 
 and graceful, and absolutely commanding mastery, with 
 which he ever after used and expounded them, may be 
 regarded, even independently of his own words, as suffi- 
 cient evidence that he himself had trodden the same high 
 path, that the same laws unfolded themselves, almost con- 
 temporaneously, to the analytic intellects of De Quincey and 
 Ricardo. We claim not for the former any honor which 
 the succession of the years denied him ; but when the ques- 
 tion is not of the honor of a discovery, but the possession 
 of a faculty, our argument is irresistible. We think, there- 
 fore, that in the mere power of analysis, leaving all else 
 out of account, an equality may be vindicated for De 
 Quincey with the great legislator in political economy. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 3 
 
26 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 More than this we do not claim ; but no one who has any 
 acquaintance with the works of Ricardo, will require a fur- 
 ther proof that the English Opium Eater is a writer whose 
 works deserve earnest study from all who love clear and 
 far seeing thought. 
 
 Leaving political economy, and entering the wider field 
 of history, professing also no longer to abide with psycho- 
 logical correctness by the faculty of analysis, but seeking 
 the traces of general power and clearness of intellect, we 
 would advance the general proposition, That De Quincey 
 has looked over the course of humanity with such a search- 
 ing, philosophic glance, that, desultory though his teaching 
 has been, he has discerned and embodied in his works 
 certain truths of the last importance. They are of that 
 sort which may be called illuminative; they are rays of 
 light which go along the whole course of time, revealing 
 and harmonizing ; their value can be fully appreciated only 
 when one traverses history, carrying them as lamps in his 
 hand, and observing how, in their light, the confused 
 becomes orderly, the dark becomes bright. 
 
 We cannot find a better instance than in his ideas 
 regarding war. These furnish, indeed, a remarkable case, 
 and that with which we have been most struck ; we think 
 it of itself sufficient to justify what we have above advanced. 
 We had long been of opinion that the ideas regarding war, 
 which not only floated in the public mind, but found coun- 
 tenance from men of high and unquestionable powers, were 
 singularly superficial and unsound ; from Foster and Carlyle 
 to John Bright, we heard no word on the subject with 
 which we could agree. It was the first general glance, 
 and that alone, which was taken ; the observations on 
 which the arguments were based, were such as every 
 child must again and again have made,- — that war was 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 27 
 
 accompanied with great effusion of blood, that in its scowl 
 the face of the world gathered blackness as of death, that 
 there was no enmity or personal quarrel between the indi- 
 vidual combatants, and the like. Foster we found unable 
 to thrill to the ardors of the "Iliad;" or, if he did ex- 
 perience a rising sense of its glories, we saw him shrinking 
 as from sin, and likening the poem to a beautiful but 
 deadly knife. Carlyle, with a satire whose intense clever- 
 ness made cool examination of the philosophic value of 
 his words almost impossible, resolved our French wars into 
 the aimless volleys by which the peaceful inhabitants of 
 two far-separated French and English villages of " Dumb- 
 drudge" exterminated each other. "We found no clear 
 conception of the function, in the evolution of human 
 civilization, of agencies in themselves calamitous : no phil- 
 osophic conception of war in its real nature, as the most 
 direful yet indispensable of the effects of reason acting 
 under the curse of labor and the obscuration of sin, — the 
 sublimely fearful yet necessary lightning, which has flashed 
 in the night of human history. Such were our notions, 
 when we happened to fall in with an article by De Quincey, 
 in which he treated of war. A glance was sufficient. The 
 germs of a whole philosophy of war were before us ; every 
 lingering doubt was dissipated. And it was a consoling 
 assurance that our views were not, as they looked, pecu- 
 liarly savage, to find that De Quincey, whose womanly 
 tenderness is, to our knowledge, unexampled in literature, 
 yet sympathized, with calmest deliberation and profound 
 intensity, in those feelings to which men have ever attached 
 sublimity, from the shouts of Marathon to the thunders of 
 Trafalgar. But could we have imagined a linguistic garb 
 like that in which his reasonings were arrayed? How 
 perfect was the mastery with which the whole theme was 
 
28 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 grasped ! He played with his subject ; he touched it with 
 his magician wand, and it took what colors he chose. 
 Whatever of dimness had attached to our ideas, was dissi- 
 pated as mist by sunlight ; all was boldly, clearly, definitely 
 evolved. The thoughts leaped forth in the mail of logic 
 and the plumes of poetry. 
 
 This paper on war we would cite as, on the whole, singu- 
 larly characteristic of De Quincey. Here, most emphati- 
 cally, is there attested the danger of trusting to first 
 appearances and impressions. Philosophy and fun so inter- 
 mingle their parts, that one is astonished and startled. 
 Now all seems mirth and jollity ; the writer is intent on 
 proving that the ancients pilfered jokes on a large scale 
 from the moderns ; that it must have been the former and 
 not the latter, is plain, from the fact, that those were 
 "heathens, infidels, pagan dogs." Then you have a long 
 detail respecting a fund which is to be commenced by a 
 half-crown legacy of De Quincey's, and which is to be put 
 into requisition when the Peace Congress has prevailed, 
 and war vanishes from human history. The fund may 
 accumulate at any interest ; ere required, it will, under any 
 circumstances, have reached to the moon; therefore the 
 man in the moon is named a trustee. The destination of 
 the fund is the support of all those to be put out of em- 
 ployment when armies and fleets are disbanded; and the 
 trustees are eloquently and earnestly charged to deal hand- 
 somely, nor bring disgrace on the testator's memory by 
 niggardliness. And all this giggling alternates with flashes 
 of revealing intuition, which rectify your every idea of 
 human history, with truths which open up to you the 
 vista of the past, and enable you to define the position of 
 humanity in the present. It is an intermingled dance of 
 northern lights, and far-illumining gleams of precious 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 29 
 
 radiance. The writer is as one sitting in a chariot at 
 a Roman carnival, and flinging, from the same hand, 
 crackers, and sugar plums, and lumps of pure gold. Ill 
 is it for him who sees the crackers and sugar plums, and 
 thinks there can be no gold ! The remark applies more 
 or less to the whole range of De Quineey's writings. No 
 man can fail to perceive the jocularity of the paper we 
 have been describing ; but if it is important or indicative 
 of high powers to see beneath all the superficial phenomena 
 of war, and discern its true function in human history, if 
 it is a proof of profundity, that a clear, indubitable light 
 is cast into regions where Foster and Carlyle stumbled 
 about as if blindfold, then we can appeal to the same article 
 as a triumphant vindication of the sterling value of De 
 Quineey's intellectual powers. And how strongly does 
 this confirm what we have said respecting the perfect ease, 
 the absolute want of effort, the free, careless naturalness 
 with which he writes. 
 
 De Quincey has devoted several papers to an attempted 
 proof that the sect of Essenes, mentioned by Josephus, 
 were none other than the early Christians. The series is 
 distinguished by great acuteness of argument, and possesses 
 that fascination of style which characterizes every produc- 
 tion of the author. The whole logic of the case is brought 
 out in a figure, so simple, so precise, and yet so graceful, 
 that we may quote it: — "If, in an ancient palace, reopened 
 after it had been shut up for centuries, you were to find a 
 hundred golden shafts or pillars, for which nobody could sug- 
 gest a place or a use ; and if, in some other quarter of the 
 palace, far remote, you were afterwards to find a hundred 
 golden sockets fixed in the floor, — first of all, pillars which 
 nobody could apply to any purpose, or refer to any place ; 
 secondly, sockets which nobody could fill, — probably even 
 
 a* 
 
30 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 'wicked Will Whiston' might be capable of a glimmering 
 suspicion that the hundred golden shafts belonged to the 
 hundred golden sockets. And if it should turn out that 
 each several shaft screwed into its own peculiar socket, why, 
 in such a case, not ' Whiston, Ditton, and Co.' could resist 
 the evidence, that each enigma had brought a key to the 
 other ; and that by means of two mysteries there had 
 ceased even to be one mystery." The unoccupied sockets 
 are the several heads in the description of the Essenes by 
 Josephus ; the missing pillars, the early Christians. Thus 
 is the whole argument seen at a glance. But we cannot say 
 that we have been convinced. We indeed think it remark- 
 ably probable that the early Christians and the Essenes 
 were one and the same ; but we cannot bring ourselves to 
 regard Mr. De Quincey's manner of accounting for the name 
 satisfactory. We cannot admit the theory of an assumed 
 disguise on the part of the Christians. The plain command 
 to confess Christ before men ; the almost excessive valor of 
 the early Christians, prompting them to court martyrdom ; 
 the contrariety of such a method of defence to the whole 
 genius of the opposition by the true religion of all that is 
 false in every age, which has always been to unsheathe the 
 sword in the face of the foe, to fling away the scabbard, 
 and to defy him in the name of the Lord; the scarcely con- 
 ceivable possibility of Christians suddenly, as it were, duck- 
 ing their heads before the wave of persecution, and emerg- 
 ing again, unrecognized, as Essenes; — these and similar 
 considerations close the avenues of our mind to the most 
 plausible array of proofs which could be adduced against 
 them. But not only are these papers marked by high 
 ingenuity ; they contain striking gleams of insight into the 
 whole course of the development of Christianity. We 
 think, for instance, that the following remark is not more 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 31 
 
 daring than it is important : — "In strict philosophic truth, 
 Christianity did not reach its mature period, even of infancy, 
 until the days of the Protestant Reformation." This casts 
 a light before and after. And it is a sublime idea to which 
 it leads ; — the idea of the whole human race, through long 
 millenniums, gazing upon the handwriting of God, and only 
 in the slow course of centuries spelling it out. There is 
 also, in the articles before us, an exactness of conception as 
 to what Christianity really is, which sets De Quincey at a 
 quite immeasurable distance from your general Christian 
 litterateur. He does not confound it with " virtue," or any 
 conceivable ethical theory ; he does not, with a mouth 
 homage which is but disguised atheism, lay artistic hands 
 on Christianity, and take it, like any old mythology, to play 
 a part, or to act as a background, in an art novel ; he recog- 
 nizes the perennial, supernatural element inextricably in- 
 volved in its very idea, the continual action from age to 
 age of the Spirit of God on the mind of man. In various 
 parts of his works, indeed, De Quincey exhibits a profound 
 insight into the spirit and nature of Christianity, — its 
 essential distinction from Paganism, as a system of doc- 
 trines and morals, and not a mere ritual, and its absolute 
 agreement with what is darkest and deepest in the human 
 heart and history. 
 
 We have lingered perhaps too long on the subject of De 
 Quincey's strictly intellectual powers ; but we regret the 
 less having done so, because it is here that our remarks may 
 be of the greatest practical value. All men acknowledge 
 De Quincey's genius ; all men appreciate, more or less, the 
 grandeur and the delicacy of his imagination ; all own the 
 supremacy of his command over the English tongue. But 
 we think it is not so generally conceded, that he is a sub- 
 stantially valuable thinker ; that there is not only treasure 
 
32 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 of intellectual amusement, that there are not only master- 
 pieces of style, within the compass of his works, but that 
 there is much also of that intellectual stuff with which one 
 might build up his system of opinion, or on which he might 
 nourish his highest powers. Even this we have not so much 
 proved, as indicated the means of proving. We might have 
 enlarged on the vast stores of his learning, and still more on 
 the perfect command he has over them all ; how with the 
 true poetic might he can fling a subject into the furnace of 
 his genius, shapeless, rugged, and drossy as it may be, and 
 show us it again flowing out in the purity and brightness 
 of molten gold ; how at eleven he was a brilliant Latin 
 scholar, and at fifteen could talk Greek, with such fluency 
 and correctness, that his master said he could address an 
 Athenian mob better than his instructor an English ; how 
 he studied mathematics, and metaphysics, and theology, 
 and scholastic logic, and all which could give exercise to his 
 soul in the herculean youth of its powers. But we say no 
 more. We think we have said enough to make good our 
 point. We differ from De Quincey in several respects : we 
 fear that, in theology, we march nearer to the standard of 
 Calvin than he would approve ; we have already intimated 
 our discontent with certain of his arguments on the identity 
 of the early Christians and Essenes ; we think he has under- 
 rated John Foster, and he has certainly outstripped our 
 charity in the case of Judas : but yet we esteem him, and 
 we think our readers will agree with us in esteeming him, a 
 really powerful thinker, whose criticism upon human knowl- 
 edge, and whose direct contributions to its stores, are 
 worthy of being eagerly seized and earnestly scrutinized 
 by thoughtful minds. 
 
 Wc have spoken hitherto of what may be figured as the 
 skeleton or bare framework of De Quineey's mind. We 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 33 
 
 have found him here comparable with Ricardo. But now 
 we pass to a different delineation. We leave Ricardo and 
 all dry algebraists, geometricians, metaphysicians, and 
 scholastics behind. We come to look upon the glorious 
 garment of sympathy in which De Quincey's mind is robed, 
 and his grand imaginative eye, whose glance can clothe 
 every algebraic formula in light as of the stars. He him- 
 self speaks of the " two hemispheres, as it were, that com- 
 pose the total world of human power, — mathematics on the 
 one hand, poetry on the other ; " and we must think that he 
 can expatiate in both. It is our belief, indeed, that every 
 mind of a very high order can. It is of beneficent arrange- 
 ment that men in general are furnished with distinct ten- 
 dencies and powers : it is well that each man does his own 
 work best, and even has a certain suppressed feeling that 
 his special work is the most important in this world. But 
 it is a positive and confounding error to apply the general 
 rule to the few individual minds which rise far above the 
 common level. Of these minds we think no assertion can 
 be made with less of hesitancy or qualification, than that 
 their powers and sympathies are diverse. We can trace 
 the smothered gleams of a burning imagination through the 
 works of Jonathan Edwards, like volcanic fires kept under 
 by the solid ground, and towered cities, and stable moun- 
 tains, of some Italy or Trinacria. Plato was the greatest 
 prose poet that ever lived; the softening radiance of poetic 
 light which played over the massive intellect of Luther gave 
 it a beauty which will never fade ; and we have no doubt 
 that imaginative fire burned in the unwavering, far-search- 
 ing eye of Calvin. To borrow a suggestion from those words 
 of De Quincey regarding the hemispheres, we would say, 
 that all great men have an intellectual night and an intel- 
 lectual day : in the still, vast night, when no color rests on 
 
34 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 the earth, and the stars in their courses are treading the 
 fields of immensity, they look up calm and abstracted, to 
 learn, by pure, unimpassioned thought, the laws of nature 
 and of truth ; in the blaze of day's sunlight, when the world 
 is arrayed in its robe of many colors, and clouds, waves, and 
 forests are rejoicing in beauty, they also share the joy, and 
 take of the glories of nature to clothe the thoughts revealed 
 to them in the silent night. 
 
 We are not prepared to say that what De Quincey has 
 actually accomplished will prove sufficient to vindicate for 
 him a place among the mighty ones of bygone ages, among 
 the few who occupy the intellectual thrones of the world ; 
 but we do say, that there are unmistakeable traces that his 
 natural endowment was of this royal order, that, in the two 
 great forms of intellect — the. imaginative and the abstrac- 
 tive — he was magnificently gifted. The reader has seen 
 how he was affected by Ricardo's political economy, — it was 
 a case of positive, rapturous delight. But now hear this : — 
 u A little before that time (1799), Wordsworth had published 
 the first edition f in a single volume) of the ' Lyrical Bal- 
 lads;' and into this had been introduced Mr. Coleridge's 
 poem of the ' Ancient Mariner,' as the contribution of an 
 anonymous friend. It would be directing the reader's atten- 
 tion too much to myself, if I were to linger upon this, the 
 greatest event in the unfolding of my own mind. Let me 
 say, in one word, that, at a period when neither the one nor 
 the other writer was valued by the public, — both having a 
 long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule, before 
 they could rise into their present estimation, — I found in 
 their poems ' the ray of a new morning,' and an absolute 
 revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and 
 beauty as yet unsuspected among men." These are the 
 words of De Quincey. Now, we think it a very remarkable 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 33 
 
 fact, and one to which, in forming any estimate of the 
 author of whom we treat, great importance is to be attached, 
 that he was the first, or among the first, to hail the rising, 
 in quarters of the literary heaven so widely apart, and with 
 such an antithetic diversity of radiance of two such stars as 
 Wordsworth and Ricardo. The light of Ricardo is perhaps, 
 in every sense, good and bad, the driest in English literature ; 
 the general intellect even of practical England turns away 
 from it. Wordsworth is, of all poets, the furthest removed 
 from the practical world : he is the listener to the voice of 
 woods, the watcher of the wreathing of the clouds ; he 
 can drink a tender and intense pleasure from the waving of 
 the little flower, from the form of its star-shaped shadow ; 
 he can even enter, by inexpressible delicacy of poetic sym- 
 pathy, into the feelings which his own creative power im- 
 parts, and wish that little flower 
 
 " Conscious of half the pleasure that it gives :* 
 
 from him, too, the general intellect of practical England, as 
 proved in the case of Arnold, turns away dissatisfied. In 
 the range of De Quincey's sympathies — and the sympathies 
 are the voices or the ministers of the powers, the leaves by 
 which the plant drinks in the air of heaven — there was 
 compass for both. 
 
 It is no fable of poetry or dream of a fevered brain, 
 that the human mind is a macrocosm of nature ; it is a 
 fact to which even physiological science is now according 
 her assent, and which a psychological comparison of the 
 intellects of the great and the small in all ages would 
 irresistibly demonstrate. Weakness of intellect and little- 
 ness of intellect are found, when well examined, to mean 
 narrowness of intellect : trace men, through all their grades, 
 from those humble forms of the " world school," where 
 
36 THOMAS DE QUIXCEY 
 
 sit the artisan, the husbandman, and the private soldier, 
 until you reach that august region where human history 
 and all time seem to be spread out, one imperial domain, 
 beneath the sky-like dome of the mind of Shakspeare ; you 
 will find every increase of greatness accompanied by, we 
 had almost said synonymous with, expansion of range. And 
 we certainly know of nothing in modern literary history so 
 boldly and strikingly demonstrative of a superb natural 
 endowment, as the delight, which his own words show to 
 have been rapturous, with which De Quincey watched, on 
 the one hand, the unimpassioned Ricardo threading with 
 his safety-lamp the unexplored labyrinths of political econo- 
 my ; and gazed, on the other, on nature in the dewy light 
 cast over it by Wordsworth, and marked, yet again, the 
 magician Coleridge, as he blended the glories of chaos and 
 creation in one wondrous phantasmagoria round his spectral 
 ship and his spectral mariner. I am a man, and nothing 
 human do I deem foreign to me : the sentiment is too true 
 to grow Old ; and the more human I am, the nearer I ap- 
 proach to what a man may be, the less is there, in all that 
 can be seen or heard, thought or imagined, in air, earth, or 
 ocean, in literature, science, or art, in all this universe, 
 which will be foreign to me. 
 
 And since the sympathies are, as we said, but the ministers 
 of the powers, since sympathy is the reconciling, and win- 
 ning, and gathering invitation, at whose voice all that there 
 is of beauty in stars, and clouds, and dew drops, and the 
 golden leaflets with which summer fringes her robe of green, 
 comes obsequiously to the imagination which can marshal 
 them in a new order, or bid a new creation arise from their 
 combination, the question here presses itself upon us — 
 What has De Quincey himself done, and what field of 
 truth has lie opened up, what great poetic structure has he 
 
AND HIS WORKS. • 37 
 
 built ? The answer is one which can be easily rendered, 
 but which must create sad reflections. We unhesitatingly 
 say De Quincey has done much, but we profoundly and 
 sorrowfully feel that he might have done much, incalculably 
 much, more. Coleridge rose gloriously sunward in his 
 mighty youth, sweeping at once into fields of the poetic 
 heaven which had not been entered since the days of Milton. 
 But, as if some maddening or bewildering enchantment had 
 fallen on him, it was seen that the aerial poise of his wings 
 became unsteady, he seemed to stagger in the sky, and never 
 again, however grand his convulsive flappings, however de- 
 termined his efforts to sustain his upward flight, did he sail 
 with aught of the Miltonic strength or the Miltonic majesty. 
 That maddening enchantment was opium. Under its tre- 
 mendous sway fell also De Quincey. The English tongue 
 seems somewhat too practically framed to serve well the 
 purpose of lamenting ; it affects rather the battle melody, 
 or the song of the worker ; and whatever its powers may be 
 in this direction, we shall not here tune it to elegaic mur- 
 murings. It is a truly British sentiment which Carlyle 
 expresses, when he says : — 
 
 " "lis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad ; 
 "lis a thriftless thing to be sad." 
 
 We shall abandon then the language of regret, and en- 
 deavor rather to find cause of rejoicing in what has actually 
 been realized for us by De Quincey. And truly, if it may 
 appear startling or absurd to speak of the English language 
 as inexpressive of sorrow, when it is the language in which 
 De Quincey has written, while yet what we allege remains 
 true, — since it is a noble, an elevating sorrow, a sorrow which 
 makes us weep no weak or ignoble tears, and is immeasur- 
 ably removed from whining, to which De Quincey has given 
 
 FIRST SERIES, 4 
 
38 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 expression, — we may say that the sorrow with which we 
 regard the influence exerted over De Quincey by opium, is 
 one which is unusually and wondrously chequered by gleams 
 of gladness. We confess that sorrow is, on the whole, the 
 prevailing emotion in our minds, when we regard the total 
 phenomenon ; for we are convinced that nature in perfect 
 health will always work more grandly than nature in any 
 conceivable state of disease, and we doubt not that all the 
 beauty which we now admire in the writings of De Quincey, 
 had been secured and enhanced had he never known the 
 delirious joys or sorrows of opium. Yet who that has 
 looked in wondering admiration at what he has actually 
 done, can pretend to say that he can know, by any effort of 
 conceptive sight, and not solely by faith, what potentialities 
 of grander performance De Quincey did possess ? Are we 
 sure that, had there been no opium in the case, such efforts 
 had been suggested, or that a canvass would have been 
 found for such picturings ? 
 
 We suppose it will be agreed that there is nothing in our 
 language to be compared with De Quincey's dreams ; nay, 
 to speak of comparison is inadmissible, for they are abso- 
 lutely alone ; all other authors who have ventured on vision- 
 ary delineations — and of these there are enough — would 
 grant that their dreams were generically different from his. 
 In Germany, there have been two writers who can be put 
 in comparison with him, — Richter and Novalis. His own 
 translations and Carlyle's have made us familiar with the 
 terrors and the glories of Jean Paul's dreams. The 
 " Dream upon the Universe," which De Quincey rendered 
 into English in the " London Magazine," and various others 
 which are widely known, enable us to form a definite opinion 
 regarding his general manner ; and we record it as our de- 
 cided impression, that it may be maintained as a general 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 39 
 
 truth, that there reigns over De Quincey's dream creations 
 a taste more austerely classic, more chaste, more majestic, 
 than ruled those of Richter. The " Suspiria " have been 
 much lauded; we acknowledge their surpassing power; 
 but it is to the " Dream Fugue," founded on the " Vision of 
 Sudden Death," that we point, with calmest assurance, as 
 illustrating our general remark, and demonstrating the su- 
 periority of De Quincey over Jean Paul. In the visions of 
 the latter there is a certain barbaric splendor, a chaotic 
 wildness, a bewildering accumulation of fearful or of gor- 
 geous images, suggestive rather of the fury and might of 
 the tempest than of the strength of light. The supremacy 
 of order seems, as it were, questioned or questionable. The 
 picture is hidden by its own drapery ; the melody scarce 
 traceable in the immeasurable volume of sound. Right or 
 wrong, the British intellect cannot tolerate indistinctness. 
 Now, in that succession of dreams which we have mentioned, 
 and which seems to us to constitute De Quincey's master- 
 piece, there is, over all the splendor and terror, a clear 
 serenity of light which belongs to the very highest style of 
 poetic beauty. The conceptions are very daring, but each 
 form of spurious originality is absent, — the fantastic and 
 the grotesque ; there is the mystery of the land of dreams, 
 yet so powerful is the imagination which strikes the whole 
 into being, that the wondrous picture has the vividness and 
 truth of reality ; while, with every change of scene and 
 emotion, the language changes too — now rich, glowing, 
 and bold, when the idea is free, sunny joyousness — now 
 melting into a gentle, spiritual melody of more than iEolian 
 softness — and now rising to a Homeric swell, that echoes 
 the everlasting gallop of the steeds which drag that trium- 
 phal car. This " Dream Fugue " is of no great compass, 
 but we think that it would alone have been sufficient to 
 
40 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 secure a literary immortality. Taken in connection with 
 the incident which was its occasion ; considered as a poetic 
 idealization of reality, and an effort of linguistic power ; 
 tried by the severe rules of art, as demanding the very high- 
 est manifestation of order and harmony possible by man, 
 we think we could maintain against all comers that this is, 
 for its size, the noblest production in English prose. And 
 we cannot but think that nothing so perfect ever rose before 
 the imagination of Jean Paul Richter. The little we know 
 of the dream paintings of Novalis leads us to think that 
 there is a closer similarity between his manner and De 
 Quincey's, than subsists in the case we have mentioned. 
 The delicacy, the mildness, and the powerful imagination of 
 Novalis, remind us strongly of De Quincey ; but we do not 
 know enough of his writings to draw a detailed parallel. 
 
 We are utterly unable to justify to our readers the above 
 opinion respecting the " Dream Fugue ; " and we have a 
 certain reluctance to associate any description we could 
 give with the impressions which the original is fitted to 
 produce. But we feel it necessary to give at least some- 
 thing like positive proof that our words are not those of 
 extravagance ; and therefore we compel ourselves to at- 
 tempt to extract one or two such pieces from the "gorgeous 
 mosaic" of this dream, as may, though faintly, suggest an 
 idea of the whole. 
 
 During the French war, De Quincey used to come down 
 annually on the mail-coach from London to Lancashire. It 
 was the office of the mail to spread the news of the great 
 victories. On one occasion, he came down after a great 
 battle. An incident which occurred on the way was the 
 occasion of the "Dream Fugue." It was a night which De 
 Quincey alone was capable of describing : — 
 
 " Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 41 
 
 also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating 
 the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmos- 
 phere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal 
 lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn 
 were now blending ; and the blendings were brought into 
 a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, 
 motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields ; 
 but with a vail of equable transparency. ***** 
 Still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear 
 every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no 
 door is closed, we, in that sabbatic vision which sometimes 
 is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with 
 easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upwards 
 to the sandals of God. Suddenly from thoughts like these 
 I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on 
 the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment ; I 
 listened in awe ; but then it died away." 
 
 The coachman was last asleep, and could not be awaked ; 
 the horses were going at a fearful pace ; the mail was 
 heavy. It was on the wrong side of the road. Any living 
 thing, or any vehicle containing such, which came across 
 its path, must go to shivers. All this and more De Quincey 
 comprehended at one intuitive glance. " Ah, reader ! what 
 a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to 
 steal upon the air, as again the far off sound of a wheel was 
 heard!" On they dashed; every effort he made in the 
 way of remedy was vain ; at last the horses, by this time 
 at fiery speed, swept round an angle of the road, and all 
 was revealed. "Before us lay an avenue, straight as an 
 arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the 
 umbrageous trees which rose in a regular line from either 
 side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a 
 cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the 
 
42 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 early light ; but there was still light enough to perceive, at 
 the further end of this Gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in 
 which were seated a young man, and by his side a young 
 lady." These are either married, or in the highest state 
 of love ; for a reason which De Quincey and we do not 
 understand, the young man "carries his lips forward to 
 hers." "The little carriage is creeping on at one mile 
 an hour; and the parties within it being thus tenderly 
 engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Be- 
 tween them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is 
 but a minute and a half." De Quincey shouts ; at the 
 second shout the young man takes the alarm. He has just 
 time to raise his horse's fore feet by a strain on the reins, 
 •> and pull him round, and make him take one leap forward, 
 v * when the mail tears past. In its way, it gives a stroke to 
 . y the little gig, which makes it shiver as a thing alive ; those 
 who sit there all but taste the agony of death, yet are 
 safe. M The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded 
 terrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we 
 might have caused. From my elevated station I looked 
 down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment 
 told its tale, and wrote all its records on my heart forever. 
 
 ********* 
 
 "But the lady ! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle 
 
 ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon 
 her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to 
 heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, faint- 
 ing, praying, raving, despairing ! Figure to yourself, 
 reader, the elements of the case ; suffer me to recall before 
 your mind the circumstances of the unparalleled situation. 
 From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer 
 night, — from the pathetic Mendings of this sweet moon- 
 light, dawn-light, dream-light, — from the manly tenderness 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 43 
 
 of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love, — suddenly 
 as from the woods and fields, — suddenly as from the cham- 
 bers of the air, opening in revelation, — suddenly as from 
 the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the 
 flashing of cataracts, Death, the crowned phantom, with 
 all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his 
 voice. 
 
 " The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an 
 eye, our flying horses had carried us to the termination of 
 the umbrageous aisle ; at right angles, we wheeled into our 
 former direction ; the turn Vf the road carried the scene 
 out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams 
 forever." 
 
 The elements with which the writer works in the "Dream 
 Fugue" are now before the reader : the coach at an unusual 
 pace, and laurelled with the tokens of victory, the umbrage- 
 ous avenue like a cathedral aisle, the narrow escape of the 
 lady. These reappear in the "Fugue" in various forms, 
 and transfigured by the light of an imagination which 
 creatively remodels, recombines, and illumes the whole. 
 The mail-coach becomes a triumphal car, on whose path all 
 nations attend, and which carries to all peoples, hi letters 
 of mystic light, the tidings of a victory which has broken 
 the bonds of the world ; over the heads of the horses the 
 tidings go, embodied in this legend, which casts around a 
 golden light, "Waterloo and Recovered Christendom." 
 The gates of cities fly open ; rivers are silent, as the car, in 
 its tremendous gallop, dashes across them; "the infinite 
 forests" shiver in homage to the word. The umbrageous 
 avenue becomes an immeasurable cathedral aisle, along 
 which the tireless steeds sweep onwards in almost viewless 
 speed. In the far distance is seen a vast necropolis, "a 
 city of sepulchres, built within the saintly cathedral for the 
 
44 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 warrior dead that rested from their feuds on earth." " Of 
 purple granite was the necropolis ; yet, in the first minute, 
 it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon, — so mighty was 
 the distance. In the second minute it trembled through 
 many changes, growing into terraces and towers of won- 
 drous altitude, so mighty was the pace. In the third 
 minute, already, with our dreadful gallop, we were enter- 
 ing its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having 
 towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, 
 strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with 
 mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcoph- 
 agus showed many bas-reliefs, — bas-reliefs of battles, bas- 
 reliefs of battle fields; of battles from forgotten ages, — 
 of battles from yesterday, — of battle fields that, long since, 
 nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet 
 oblivion of flowers, — of battle fields that were yet angry 
 and crimson with carnage." And the lady, — what has 
 become of her ? Does she still occupy a place in the 
 wondrous pageant ? Yes : her transformation is the most 
 strange, and yet, in its beauty, the most perfect of all. 
 Look again : — " And now had we reached the last sarcoph- 
 agus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already 
 had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable 
 central aisle, when, coming up this aisle to meet us, we 
 beheld a female infant that rode in a carriage as frail as 
 flowers. The mists which went before hid the fawns that 
 drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers 
 with which she played, — but could not hide the lovely 
 smiles, by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathe- 
 dral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from 
 the topmost shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was 
 meeting us ; face to face she rode, as if danger there 
 were none. ' Oh, baby ! ' I exclaimed, ' shalt thou be the 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 45 
 
 ransom for Waterloo ? Must we, that carry tidings of 
 great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee ?' " 
 By sudden and magnificent changes in the dream pageantry 
 the baby is delivered ; and perhaps the boldest yet finest 
 effort of imagination in the whole occurs soon after these 
 sentences. But we can quote no more, and, save quotation, 
 we have no resource in such a case. We have given the 
 outline of only one of the visions. We find, in the others, 
 the original elements variously transformed ; we have the 
 coach changed into a stately vessel, the avenue into tower- 
 ing cathedral aisles grouped from the mists of the sea, the 
 lady into one who sits in a fairy pinnace on the ocean. The 
 dangers and the splendors are always such as are accordant 
 with the situation. 
 
 But we pause ; we think we have already vindicated 
 all our assertions. And now will our readers be prepared 
 to estimate the difficulty which attends a decision of the 
 question, whether, on the whole, it is to be regretted that 
 De Quincey fell under the influence of opium ? Our own 
 feeling we have already expressed. We think De Quincey 
 was naturally fitted to take his station among the great 
 systematic thinkers of the olden time, and something 
 unique in literature might have been achieved by the 
 combined operation of such a piercing intellect and so 
 imperial an imagination on the pedestal of the nineteenth 
 century. When his arms, in the strength of manhood, 
 and with all their gigantic powers untrammeled, might 
 have been piling mountain upon mountain, he had still to 
 wrestle in mortal agony with a serpent of deadlier venom 
 and more overwhelming power than ever coiled around 
 an ancient hero. No man has more than a certain force 
 allotted him by nature ; it may be greater or less, but it 
 is measured ; and it cannot be expended twice. Consider 
 
46 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 the intellectual might necessary to vanquish opium in the 
 three fearful assaults of which De Quincey informs us, and 
 then decide concerning the powers of him whose works, 
 wondrous as they are, were all accomplished in the breath- 
 ing spaces between paroxysms of convulsive warfare. It 
 may, of course, be alleged, that without the opium we 
 never should have had those writings which are most 
 closely associated with the name of De Quincey. But it 
 is our decided opinion that the dreams produced by opium 
 were but the occasion of the visions wherewith the opium 
 eater has amazed the world. These are strictly works of 
 imagination, and may be tried by the same tests as the 
 dreams of Richter and Novalis. We concede that much 
 of their terrific coloring is traceable to opium ; but De 
 Quincey's imagination, we are assured, would have worked 
 under any conditions. 
 
 We have done little more than glance at the extraor- 
 dinary man and the extraordinary works of which we have 
 been treating. We have left ourselves no space to speak 
 of his taste, which yet so well deserves notice. We merely 
 remind our readers of his account of the little heroine 
 of Easedale and her infant brothers and sisters, and bid 
 them think of the perfect simplicity of the narrative, of 
 the absence of all rhetoric, of the tender delicacy of the 
 feeling. We merely ask them to consider the grace and 
 ease, the softened glow without glitter, the chastely ar- 
 ranged flower wreaths from which every gaudy weed is 
 instinctively bidden away, in one word, the peace and 
 moderation, which everywhere meet us in the writings of 
 De Quincey. Nor can we speak of him further as a 
 humorist, although this is perhaps his most important 
 and prevailing aspect. Often his humor is merely an 
 exquisite flavor of drollery, a half hidden smile, a something 
 
AND HI S WORKS. 47 
 
 which fills you with a certain quiet comfort, but does not 
 make you laugh outright; sometimes it is broad farce, 
 when you do laugh, and cannot but laugh, were it only 
 at the imperturbable gravity of the comic actor; some- 
 times it is downright horse play, as when old " Toad in the 
 hole " is kicked out, by universal consent of the company 
 and of readers, " despite his silvery hairs and his angelic 
 smile." Sometimes, although very rarely, De Quincey's 
 humor intrudes into places where its presence is utterly 
 indefensible. We shall instance one; by far the most 
 striking. We think it were difficult to match in our late 
 literature, if indeed in our whole literature, the pathetic 
 effect realized in his paper on the Maid of Orleans. De 
 Quincey has there enabled us to define, clearly and con- 
 clusively, the function which such as she have, even in 
 their death, performed for mankind. We have so much to 
 harden us in this world, so stern is the struggle of exist- 
 ence, so sadly do the morning dew drops and the early 
 flowers vanish or wither in life's hot day, that you actually 
 confer a precious boon and benefit on a man, when you 
 make him shed a noble tear. No man ever wept with 
 Cordelia by the bed of her stricken father, no man ever 
 saddened at the tale of Margaret's sorrows in the " Excur- 
 sion," no man ever hung over the dying bed of a true 
 friend, without being a better and a gentler man. And 
 who does not see that, besides all else of instruction and 
 of consolation which arises from the pyres of the martyrs 
 of Christianity, besides the deathless lessons of courage, 
 of devotion, of purest holiness, which they convey, there 
 is this also in the legacy of the fathers to the human race, 
 that, by sympathizing sorrow over their woes, each gen- 
 eration is elevated, and humanized, and ennobled. This 
 great lesson De Quincey has embodied, with an almost 
 
48 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 unexampled felicity, in his paper on Joan of Arc. But 
 what must we say to the fact that even here humor is 
 permitted to intrude, that even here there is the sacri- 
 legious play of wit and fun ? We must not approach that 
 awful and beautiful spectacle, round which angels were 
 weeping, through a porch painted with satyrs and baccha- 
 nals ; no " insulting light " must " glimmer on our tears ; " 
 we must approach through an avenue of cypress, under 
 whose shade we may weep alone. We can pardon the 
 gambolings of an irrepressible humor when the matter 
 is argumentative, but the heavens must be hung with 
 sackcloth around the pyre of Joan of Arc. 
 
 The time has probably not yet arrived to attempt a 
 final portraiture of De Quincey, to estimate the value of 
 his works, and to ascertain their rightful place among 
 English classics. The public mind has yet, in great meas- 
 ure, to be introduced to these works, and a few introduc- 
 tory remarks, a few almost colloquial hints, are all we 
 have here offered. It will, indeed, whensoever attempted, 
 be a task of no common difficulty to portray, in its com- 
 plete and united proportions, the extraordinary mind of 
 which these multiform and many-tinted writings are the 
 production and manifestation. We must not attempt it 
 here. To speak of separate characteristics is, indeed, 
 easy, whether they be those of the author or his composi- 
 tions. One may mark the indications of a gigantic recep- 
 tive faculty, seizing, hundred-handed, and gathering into 
 one storehouse, from all lands and centuries, what intel- 
 lectual treasures it chooses to make its own; proof may 
 be adduced of that power of original thought, which 
 penetrates into untrodden regions, but dimly pointed 
 towards before, and of that creative, imaginative glance 
 which gives form and life to what therefore was airy 
 
AND HIS WORKS. 49 
 
 nothing; special attention may be called to a sympathy- 
 resembling a musical instrument of unmeasured range, 
 which can distil a melody more tender than the tear of 
 childhood, but has yet chords to voice the roar of ocean 
 or the thunders of war; and you may enlarge indefinitely 
 on the style, on that astonishing mastery over the English 
 language, by which, in swiftly changing variation, you are 
 startled, animated, melted, terrified, amused, and which 
 at times attains a softness, a beauty, an aerial glow, to be 
 claimed as peculiarly De Quincey's, and which compel the 
 describer, sensible of his weakness, to borrow the colors 
 of the master himself, and liken them to the timid trem- 
 blings of the dawn, or the blending of moon-light, dawn- 
 light, dream-light. But these are at best scattered traits, 
 — individual instances ; it is their union which is the 
 wonder and the peculiarity, and of this union we present 
 no theory at present. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 5 
 
II. 
 
 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Mek seem by universal consent to have associated the 
 genius of Scott with something of magic and enchantment ; 
 not enchantment of a stern or gloomy character, but of a 
 gay, glittering, Arabian sort. A peculiar and natural 
 fitness appears to have been recognized in that household 
 phrase, The "Wizard of Waverley. And I cannot but 
 believe that the general sense has in this instance been 
 specially felicitous. How can we better represent Scott 
 in our imagination, than as a kindly magician, surrounded 
 by groups of eager and delighted children, before whose 
 eyes he evokes group after group, in endless procession, 
 in that broad, clear, wondrous mirror of his; himself 
 smiling the while, as he half reclines on his well-padded 
 seat, less in complacency at the power of his enchantments, 
 than in pleasure, mingled with mild surprise, at the ecsta- 
 cies of wonder and joy into which, by every waving of 
 his wand, he throws the children around him? Swiftly, 
 gracefully, 'beautifully, that long procession moves, the 
 scene ever changing into new forms of loveliness, while 
 an airy music, now rapid and shrill as the sound of clang- 
 ing arms,, now faintly, slowly sinking into mournful 
 cadence, now swelling and glowing into the richer har- 
 mony of love, is breathed around. The scene is now 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 51 
 
 the courtly hall, and jewelled figures move stately through 
 the dance. These sweep past and there float into the 
 mirror's magic deeps the grand forms of a mountain land ; 
 the cataract leaping to music from the precipice, river 
 hastening to meet river with bridal kiss, and the lake, 
 bearing on its bosom bright island gems, lying placid 
 beneath the crag. Presently, at a sudden turn of the 
 mountain path, there emerges the knight of chivalry, 
 pride and dauntlessness on his brow, a smile of kingly 
 gentleness on his lip. Startled by the sound of his hunts- 
 man's horn, the Lady of the Lake, fair as a vision, 
 glides in her skiff, from the glassy deep, into some silvery 
 cove. The scene swims gradually away, and thick clouds, 
 rolling slow before the blast, gather on the moorland, 
 to hang their dim curtains round opposing armies. The 
 battle commences. The pomp and circumstance of feudal 
 war, the plumes, the pennons, the mail-clad steeds, are 
 before us, every form lifted into full, distinct light, and 
 the war cries ringing round. Thus we truly represent 
 to ourselves the poetry of Scott : where aU_jsclejir,_viyid, 
 instinct with life and motion ; where there floats not one 
 cloud of dishonest obscurity, not one film of affected 
 sensibility; where a thousand tints of loveliness glance 
 and gleam before our eyes, like dew drops in clear dawn, 
 or sunbeams on wavering foliage ; (where the nice definition 
 of form, the elaborate refinement and richness of color, 
 the studied and perfect symmetry, pertaining to the ideal 
 of Greece and of Goethe, ; are indeed wanting,) but where 
 sympathy and love, rejoicing in dewy copse and sparkling 
 flower, in golden corn and smiling meadow, in bounding 
 stream and purple mountain, hav^J^come the unconscious 
 ministers of a high artistic perfection, but shed over all 
 a vivacity, an airy sprightliness, a smiling grace, such as 
 
52 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 were perhaps never won by the more conscious efforts of 
 Art. 
 
 Remove from the poetry of Scott the vail of remoteness 
 and enchantment ; for that softly glittering morning light, 
 substitute a fierce red glare ; let the spirit of the modern 
 time be breathed in its utmost intensity over every scene 
 and into every character ; let skilful narrative give place to 
 grand lyric bursts, and sympathetic memory, exhaustless 
 in its stores, to the poetic imagination in its highest might : 
 and for the poetry of Scott you have the poetry of Byron. 
 Passionate, vivid, excitable, sensitive, Byron was the ideal 
 embodiment of lyric poetryy His personality was too 
 intense to permit him to separate himself from his poetic 
 characters, so as to represent them in the whole breadth and 
 symmetry of their relations, in the fashion of a Shakspeare 
 or a Scott. He has himself incidentally informed us that 
 he regarded poetry from the lyrical point of view. " No 
 poetry," he says, in a letter to Murray, " is generally good, 
 — only by fits and starts, — and you are lucky to get a 
 sparkle here and there." Like the lyric poet, he concen- 
 trated his powers upon particular passages ; like the lyric 
 poet, his own emotion colored all he saw; and, like the 
 lyric poet, his dearest theme was passion. When he 
 describes nature, he always, if his genius is in its strength, 
 bathes it in a transforming light, robes it in a grandeur 
 not its own. Herein it is that his essential superiority 
 to Scott, in regard of strict poetic power, is demonstrated. 
 Scott is opulent in detail, and has nature's sweet change- 
 fulness, freshness, and variety. But in all the poetry of 
 Scott, there is no such description as Byron's thunder-storm 
 in the Alps. Besides that accurate realism, that broad, 
 natural truth, which it might well have had from Scott, 
 that description burns with a poetic personification such 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 53 
 
 as Scott could never have imparted. The live thunder 
 leaps from crag to crag. The mountains have the hearts 
 of men, and exult to each other in the commotion they 
 produce. Scott describes a battle. We know precisely 
 how the divisions were commanded, and when and where 
 they charged. But where, in all the pages of Scott, do 
 we find a line like this, — 
 
 " Red Battle stamped his foot, and nations felt the shock?" 
 
 And if the eye of Byron rolled in that fine lyric frenzy 
 which spreads over nature the hues of human emotion and 
 thought, no less was he a lyrist, and no less was he power- 
 ful in the delineation of passion. Since the days of Shak- 
 speare, the burning heart of passion had not been so laid 
 bare. The Corsairs, the Laras, the Gulnares, the Medoras 
 of Byron, perfectly absurd as actual personages, are ad- 
 mirable mouthpieces of lyric emotion, of uncontrollable 
 passion. Totally inadequate to body forth the spirit and 
 tenor of a life, they represent with great effect the feelings 
 of individual exceptional periods. There are such periods 
 in life ; volcanic epochs, brief but terrible, when sky and 
 earth are mingled in wild fire-lit commotion, and the 
 peaceful vineyards, ripening in the calm light of long 
 summer days, as yet are not. The emotions of such 
 times, in their burning intensity, in their ethereal tender- 
 ness, in the rapture of their joy and the agony of their 
 sorrow, are depicted by Byron with surpassing power. 
 It is when we consider the pure might of imagination 
 exhibited in the individual passages, of which, with a 
 cement of versified prose, the larger poems of Byron 
 have been truly declared by Macaulay to consist, — and 
 the marvellous truth and power with which human passion 
 is everywhere depicted, — that we feel constrained to rank 
 5* 
 
54 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Byron among the master intellects of mankind, and almost 
 to agree with Goethe that his genius was incommensurable. 
 But not even in considering the excellence and enduring 
 popularity of literary effort, is it permissible, if it is possi- 
 ble, to abstract any part of the whole life and character. 
 The poetry of Byron is inseparably connected with his life 
 and character. Through the latter there was a fatal flaw ; 
 and the former is pervaded by a moral taint, which, as the 
 eye of humanity becomes purer and purer in the lapse of 
 ages, will more and more endanger its literary immortality. 
 The spectacle presented by Byron, in his life and death, is 
 one of which the mysterious sadness may be called infinite. 
 By all we can reverentially assume as to the intentions of 
 the Almighty, and by all the analogy of nature and history, 
 greatness of intellect ought to be one of the forces to keep 
 the soul stable, to preserve a calmness and completeness in 
 the life. So it seems radically to have been with the Platos 
 and Ciceros, the Dantes and Luthers, the Miltons and 
 Leibnitzes, the Pascals and Berkeleys of history. Diverse 
 as the genius of such might be, its power tended to steady 
 them, not to set them rocking like pillars shaken of earth- 
 quake. Never for a moment have such faltered in their 
 deliberate assent and submission to the infinite Tightness, 
 beauty, and power of moral law. "Not even in Swift's case 
 do we find a strict parallel to the phenomenon, so tragically 
 common in these days, of passion conquering genius, and 
 quenching the heaven-soaring flame in its own foul ashes. 
 Mirabeau, Burns, and Byron, to go no further, seem to me 
 to present a spectacle new under the sun. These all had 
 iron constitutions. Physically speaking, they were good 
 for the whole of the threescore years and ten. Yet all 
 three were laid in the dust in the prime of their years ; 
 and whatever the palliations we may admit, or the qualifi- 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 55 
 
 cations we may make, it remains a simple fact that they 
 were, in too literal a sense, their own murderers. No 
 cowardly feebleness, no false humility, no " haunting admi- 
 ration of the grandeur of disordered power," no accursed 
 "hero-worship," ought to be permitted to stifle in us the 
 still small voice which proclaims the awful magnitude of 
 this sin. God and nature affirm the declaration of that 
 still small voice ; affirm it in the fevered frame, the burn- 
 ing brow, the early grave : and we are weak, blind, or 
 rebellious, if we do not acknowledge the fact and learn 
 the lesson. 
 
 An allusion to the moral taint which pervades the poetry 
 of Byron brings us naturally to the poetry of Words- 
 worth ; which forms the third great school of this opulent 
 period. It is my profound conviction that it was rather 
 to the moral elevation of his poetry, than to his intel- 
 lectual or aesthetic capacities, that Wordsworth owed the 
 fame and influence he acquired. As you yielded yourself^ 
 to his guidance, you passed into a region removed alike 
 from that in which the genius of Scott, and that in which 
 the genius of Byron, loved to expatiate. You left behind 
 that joyous land of faery, ringing with the voice of streams 
 and birds, bright with flower and foam, in which you 
 wandered with the border minstrel. You passed beyond 
 the troubled atmosphere where the cloudy grandeurs of 
 the Byronic poetry were unfolded. You stood on the 
 mountain's brow. There at last was the still, unfathom- 
 able azure, seeming to look, with calm, eternal smile, on 
 the wild glittering, far below, of the lightnings of passiony 
 The mind of man, the crowning wonder of nature, is in no 
 way more surprising than in its power of sympathy and 
 response. It is easy to cast a spell over it. Any sort of 
 syren chiming allures and subdues it. But its nobler sym- 
 
56 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 pathies, inextinguishable though deeply slumbering, have 
 only to be awakened by the tones of a holier melody, when 
 it arises, like a child that has fallen asleep in an unknown 
 land, and looks round, in wistful surprise, listening for 
 that strain which sounded so strangely of home. So it 
 was with the generation that had thrilled to the notes of 
 Scott and Byron. The unchanging verities of faith in 
 God and love to man, proclaimed in their simple majesty, 
 asserted once more the supremacy of their greatness. The 
 still, genial light, diffused in mild and equable radiance 
 through the atmosphere, and gradually whitening the fields 
 into harvest, was recognized as more nobly beautiful than 
 the wild gleaming of volcanic fires. As men stood with 
 Wordsworth on that mountain's brow, they seemed to 
 feel around them the waving of angels' wings, and they 
 looked upon his face as if it were the face of an angel. 
 
 And what was it that Wordsworth told his listeners? 
 He told them the world-old truth, that earth's greatest joy 
 and beauty are centred in home ; and he turned their eyes 
 once more to that future of immortality, towards which the 
 inarticulate yearning of the human spirit is stronger even 
 than the yearning of passion. Over the natural world, in 
 all the range and richness of its phenomena, he shed a sym- 
 pathy, more loving, tender, thoughtful, saintly, than had 
 ever been cast over it by any poet. He showed the 
 heaven-light clothing the flowers of earth. With the love 
 of a poet, and the reverence of a high priest, he looked 
 upon the clouds until they smiled down on him unutter- 
 able love, and upon the little flowers until they woke in 
 him thoughts too deep for tears. When he looked upon 
 humanity it was rather to pity than to admire the beating 
 of its mighty heart ; and the materialism of his age shrunk 
 abashed from the majesty of his disdain. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 57 
 
 If this is true, it is not surprising, nor in any way to be 
 regretted, that Wordsworth attained a lofty eminence of 
 fame, and that he exercised an influence of vast potency 
 over his age. But it would be highly absurd to permit 
 it to blind us to the obvious, radical, and demonstrable 
 defects of Wordsworth's poetry, pis mind was irremedi- 
 ably wanting in all those qualities which give keenness 
 and intensity to emotion, rapidity and practical force to 
 thought, terseness and brilliancy to style. The absence 
 from his mental composition of any sense of wit or humor 
 was, in its completeness, scarcely human. If one may be 
 pardoned the expression, his soul wanted crystalizingy Had 
 you cleared his eye by one flash of that critical penetration 
 which dwelt in the eye of Pope, had you edged his glance 
 with one ray of that quick, piercing, caustic fire which 
 belonged to Byron, how you would have enriched him! 
 The value of wit, and of the critical faculty, is perhaps not 
 so great to the world at large, as to their own possessor. 
 They warn him, by silent, instinctive monitions, from the 
 ridiculous, the / childish, the inane. Such things as The 
 Seven Sisters and Ellen Irwin are purely, perfectly, un- 
 approachably bad. Parody is cheated by anticipation. 
 We involuntarily exclaim, Every poet his own satirist ! If 
 a boy of nine had written Ellen Jrwi?i, and died, it would 
 hardly have been pardonable in his mother to publish it. 
 No theory is here of any avail; no arguing can make 
 feebleness impressive, or render art synonymous with com- 
 monplace. But for original defect of mind, no theory 
 could have blinded Wordsworth himself to the absurdity 
 of such rigmarole. But not only was the want of wit,, 
 humor, and the critical faculty deplorably manifest in 
 Wordsworth. An honest and searching criticism must 
 explicitly allow that he possessed neither the penetrative 
 
58 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 and grasping imagination which seizes passion, nor the 
 kindling, creative imagination, which gives life and person- 
 ification. Of this last power, which I believe to be the 
 reflection in man, as the image of God, of the Divine 
 creative energy, and to which can therefore, with no lack 
 of reverence, be applied the term which, immediately, 
 could be applied to God alone, there is scarcely an in- 
 stance, if there is one, in the whole range of Wordsworth's 
 poetry. 
 
 Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth will mainly represent to 
 posterity the great schools of British poetry which shed 
 lustre over the earlier part of the nineteenth century. But 
 these were not alone, nor is it certain that they produced 
 the finest poetical pieces of the time e It would not be 
 easy to make even the slightest descriptive reference to 
 each of the men whose poetical genius, in its full vigor at 
 that period, made their country and their age illustrious, 
 A separate critique might well be devoted to the incom- 
 parable battle songs of Campbell, or to the stern, truthful, 
 melodious wailings of Crabbe, or to the ornate .erudition 
 of Southey, or to the tuneful tenderness and brilliancy of 
 Moore, or to the delicate, sportive, many-tinted fancies 
 of Hogg, or even to the occasional vigor and intermittent 
 glow of Wilson. Such, however, is here impossible. 
 
 But there are three poets to whom special allusion must 
 be made, if not for their transcendant merits, at least for 
 their influence on the poetry which is at present our 
 particular object. I mean Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley. 
 Although the collected poetry of Coleridge does not make 
 a large volume, yet it may be asserted that in few if any 
 more voluminous collections would a systematic critic find 
 more instances of the exercise of genuine poetical genius, 
 wherewith to illustrate his canons. In the Odes of Colo- 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 59 
 
 ridge, in his Religious Musings, and scattered through 
 other pieces, are to be found personifications, which have 
 never been surpassed, and which it defies conception to 
 improve. If I were asked what to me individually appears 
 the most sublime piece of poetical description with which I 
 ever met, in any writer, ancient or modern, British or 
 foreign, I should point to these lines in The Rime of the 
 Ancient Mariner : — 
 
 " Still as a slave before his lord, 
 The ocean hath no blast ; 
 His great bright eye most silently 
 Up to the moon is cast. 1 * 
 
 No purely realistic description could be conceived, com- 
 parable, in power and sublimity, to this. The silent, lorn, 
 appealing look of the eye, is perhaps the most pathetic of 
 all human expressions. In the mere transference of the 
 wearied, despairing gaze of human agony to the ocean, 
 there is an idea conveyed of solitude, dreariness, and woe, 
 which concentrates the descriptions of a thousand calms. 
 Whole poems are gathered up in this marvellous effort of 
 the pure imagination. From the Religious Musings I 
 might quote several instances of personification worthy of 
 being compared with the above ; but it is needless. It is 
 sufficient to add that in rich and delicate melodiousness, in 
 deep " inwoven harmony," in aerial glow of coloring, there 
 are passages in the poetry of Coleridge which defy descrip- 
 tion, and turn all praise to shame. There are touches in 
 Christabel and Genevieve of a pure loveliness, dewy and 
 roseate as the dawn, spirit-like, ethereal, indescribable. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle has in one of his essays incidentally charac- 
 terized the genius of Keats as mere sensibility and random 
 tunefulness of nature. The passage will remain perhaps 
 
60 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 the most remarkable illustration in literature of the danger, 
 even in the case of writers of great power and general 
 caution, that lies in incidental expression of opinion on 
 important points. Keats sunk into his grave ere he had 
 attained the fulness of his years, pierced by the arrows of 
 cruel mediocrity and withered by disease. Yet there is in 
 his case no necessity to demand an arrest of judgment, on 
 the plea that his genius was undeveloped. Midymion, 
 indeed, was a youthful effort, and with all its delicate 
 luxuriance of fancy, is not unmarked by boyish diffuseness, 
 or even, perhaps, by boyish affectation. But (The Eve of 
 St. Agnes is no youthful effort : it (may challenge com- 
 parison with anything of its kind ever written. There is 
 a mellow yet transparent glow in its coloring, a finish and 
 melody in its versification, a perfection of form and propor- 
 tion in its whole execution, which belong exclusively to 
 consummate skiiy And what shall we say of Hyperion t 
 Is that a youthful effort ? Is that characterized only by 
 sensibility and random tunefulness? Even in its present 
 state it is one of the grandest things ever accomplished by 
 the human intellect ; and I hold it to be demonstrable that, 
 if it had been finished as it was commenced, it would have 
 found its place among the solitary masterpieces of the 
 world, the greatest philosophical poem that exists. It is 
 well that the central idea of the poem is so clearly indicated 
 in the fragment we have, and that the general plan of the 
 poetic treatment of this idea contemplated by the author is 
 so distinctly suggested, that criticism can view the poem 
 as it must have presented itself to the mind of the poet. 
 The central idea is expressed in these words : — 
 
 " 'T is the eternal law, 
 That first in beauty shall be first in might;" 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 61 
 
 and the plan of Keats manifestly was, to exhibit the illus- 
 tration of this idea afforded by the mythology of Greece. 
 He intended to portray the procession of beauty, from 
 mythology to mythology, and might have brought his 
 whole poem to a glorious close with the transfiguration 
 of all material loveliness in the spiritual beauty of Christi- 
 anity. It is perhaps impossible to exaggerate the excel- 
 lence of this idea or of this plan, whether philosophic 
 depth or poetic capability be the ground of estimate. 
 Of all the nations who have passed along the stage of 
 time, the ancient Greeks are most closely associated with 
 all that relates to beauty. In the practical working of 
 the human mind, there never yet was bodied forth any 
 manifestation of the Beautiful, to be for a moment com- 
 pared, in the chasteness yet grandeur of its perfection, 
 with the mythology of Greece. So intensely perceptive 
 of the Beautiful were the Hellenic race, that it may be 
 considered a philosophic and historical certainty, that it 
 was the fact of their more chastened and delicate love- 
 liness which secured to the Olympians, in preference to 
 the Titans, the homage of the Greek mind. Keats had 
 therefore chosen the very best means afforded him by 
 human history, for setting forth the whole doctrine of 
 the Beautiful in its own garb of beauty. This choice alone 
 demonstrates the master mind. But the execution was, 
 so far as it went, if possible, still more amazing. The 
 colossal vigor of Michael Angelo, and the ethereal delicacy 
 and sense of beauty of Raphael, unite in the wondrous 
 delineations of Hyperion. 
 
 u Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape 
 Is Saturn's ; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice 
 Of Saturn ; tell me, if this wrinkling brow, 
 
 FIRST BKRIES. 6 
 
62 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Naked and bare of its great diadem, 
 
 Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power 
 
 To make me desolate ? Whence came the strength ? 
 
 How was it nurtured to such bursting forth, 
 
 While Fate seemed strangled in my nervous grasp ? n 
 
 Is it absurd to say that we have here a terseness as of 
 Shakspeare, and a majesty as of Milton? Or to believe 
 that, if the genius of Keats had fully developed in the 
 direction in which it was unmistakeably tending, it might 
 have won him an undisputed eminence, above all the poets 
 who have arisen in Great Britain since the age of Milton ? 
 
 " Creiis was one ; his ponderous iron mace 
 Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock 
 Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined. 
 Iapetus another ; in his grasp, 
 A serpent's plashy neck ; its barbed tongue 
 Squeezed from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length 
 Dead ; and because the creature could not spit 
 Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. 
 Next Cottus : prone he lay, chin uppermost, 
 As though in pain ; for still upon the flint 
 He ground severe his skull, with open mouth 
 And eyes at horrid working." 
 
 Is that not a group which might have come from the 
 chisel of Michael Angelo ? 
 
 " Have ye beheld the young god of the seas, 
 My dispossessor ? Have ye seen his face ? 
 Have ye beheld his chariot, foamed along 
 By noble winged creatures he hath made ? 
 I saw him on the calmed waters scud, 
 With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, 
 That it enforced me to bid sad farewell 
 To all my empire." 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 63 
 
 Are there not here touches worthy of the pencil of 
 Raphael ? 
 
 Consider also the might of the poetic imagination which 
 devised, as the place of meeting for the fallen Titans, a 
 scene like this: — 
 
 "It was a den where no insulting light 
 Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans 
 They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar 
 Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse, 
 Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where. 
 Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seemed 
 Ever as if just rising from a sleep, 
 Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns." 
 
 But does the thought — for thought must at times 
 reveal itself in all poetry — which is to be found in Hype- 
 rion, partake of juvenile excitement or feeble enthusiasm ? 
 The poem, to make use of an expression in itself, is 
 throughout stubborned with the iron of most massive 
 and manly thought. 
 
 " Be thou therefore in the van 
 Of circumstance ; yea, seize the arrow's barb 
 Before the tense string murmur. 
 
 ***** * 
 
 In thy face 
 I see, astonied, that severe content 
 Which comes of thought and musing. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 't is pain; 
 O folly ! for to bear all naked truths, 
 And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 
 That is the top of sovereignty." 
 
64 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 These and similar expressions have the true Shakspear- 
 ean compactness, shrewdness, practicality, and strength. 
 They embody the maxims on which the great silent 
 workers of human history have proceeded. They amply 
 demonstrate that the genius of Keats was no j>articular 
 development, no mere sentimental rapture, thrilling in 
 melodious flute-notes at sight of the Beautiful, but that 
 his mind was at once mighty in its strength and sym- 
 metrical in its proportions; the two sides of the intel- 
 lectual arch, reason and imagination, supporting and 
 balancing each other. "When Keats died at twenty-four, 
 the grave closed over one of the greatest men of his time. 
 
 Keats died in 1820, aged twenty-four. Two years after- 
 wards, a pale corpse was washed ashore in the Bay of 
 Spezzia, with an open volume of the poetry of Keats 
 in one of the pockets of its dress. It was the body of 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. His life had been six years longer 
 than that of Keats, and his writings were far more exten- 
 sive. But he died at thirty ; and, in his case too, the rush 
 and roll of the rising waters had not given place to the 
 reposing strength of the full tide. 
 
 One is tempted, if but for a moment, to resign himself 
 to that enthusiasm, which a first contemplation of the 
 genius and history of Shelley so mightily awakens. Glow- 
 ing with Platonic enthusiasms, confident that love burned 
 in the heart of humanity, though to him it presented only 
 a bosom cold as marble, moved by external loveliness to 
 irrepressible, weeping ecstacy, the beautiful, gentle-hearted 
 boy took up his lyre, and shook from it floods of wild, 
 thrilling, ethereal melody. If it were at all safe or per- 
 missible to consider poetry a thing apart from the general 
 life and the broad sympathies of mankind ; if we could 
 regard beauty in pure and remote abstraction, as a blend- 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 65 
 
 ing of prismatic hues on the central azure, where eye 
 never looked and breath was never drawn; if it were 
 not the instinctive declaration of every manly breast, 
 echoed by all that is soundest in criticism, that what is 
 most human is greatest ; we might set the poems of 
 Shelley above all the poetical productions of his time. 
 But we are imperatively forbidden to yield to the impulse. 
 Gazing, in finest frenzy, over the world, Shelley could not 
 think that what he saw was a vision ; he could not see that 
 the film in his own eye softened the rugged features of 
 men, and vailed the rocky sternness of the world in 
 enchantment : but we dare not forget these facts. The 
 human eye, accustomed to look upon clear, golden corn 
 fields, and loving the simple, unvailed beauty of garden 
 flowers, will ever behold, in much of Shelley's poetry, no 
 more than the wavering and unhealthful scenery of dreams, 
 or than "the pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream." 
 Marvellous as is the wreathing of that mist, gorgeous as 
 are the hues of its trailing draperies, men will continue to 
 prefer the steady rainbow on the summer shower, and 
 healthful criticism will not forget that mildew and pesti- 
 lence may lurk behind those lighted folds. 
 
 The Revolt of Islam, Shelley's most extended and per- 
 haps most elaborate work, must always be regarded as a 
 wonderful achievement of genius. Its human groundwork 
 is, indeed, supremely weak and puerile. A nation is set 
 free, a great revolution is accomplished, by a promising 
 young gentleman, somewhat mealy-mouthed, and a senti- 
 mental young lady, both promoters of the vegetarian 
 movement. But considered as a mere allegory or ideal- 
 ization, in which light, Shelley, no doubt, wished it to be 
 chiefly regarded, the poem loses much of its absurdity, 
 and is seen to partake, in many places, of an epic grandeur. 
 6* 
 
66 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 What is very remarkable, it contains some of the strongest 
 realistic word-painting in the language. Its descrip- 
 tions of the plague turn the most terrible passages of 
 Wilson's poetic drama on the same subject into infantile 
 lisping. 
 
 The Cenci may be taken to mark an epoch in the devel- 
 opment of Shelley's genius, in some respects corresponding 
 to that marked by Hyperion in the case of Keats. It is, 
 indeed, extremely improbable, that a mind, so superbly- 
 gifted in one set of faculties as Shelley's, should have 
 proved ultimately and essentially defective in the stabler 
 elements of intellectual power. However this may be, the 
 severe majesty of Hyperion is hardly further removed from 
 the loose-flowing exuberance of JEndymion^ than the human 
 strength of The Cenci is from the gorgeous dreaming of 
 The Revolt of Islam. 
 
 But I am inclined to think that, on the whole, the most 
 perfect, and perhaps the most nobly characteristic, of the 
 poems of Shelley, is the Adonais. It is an elegaic poem 
 on the death of Keats. It is not, indeed, wholly undefaced 
 by Shelley's peculiar dreaminess of fancy. But the theme is 
 one capable of commanding universal sympathy, and its 
 treatment is not such as to repel any mind gifted with a 
 real sense of the Beautiful. The poem is no less classic in 
 its symmetry and unity, than superb in its imagery. The 
 dead poet lies under the blue Italian sky, the fitting charnel 
 house for such an one as he. Nature mourns around him. 
 
 " All he had loved and moulded into thought, 
 From shape, and hue, and odor, and sweet sound, 
 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
 Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 67 
 
 Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; 
 
 Pale ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 
 
 And the wild winds flew around, sobbing in their dismay •" 
 
 If absolute perfection could be predicated of any human 
 thing, I should call that stanza perfect ; utterly faultless, at 
 once in feeling, imagery, diction, and rhythm. The descrip- 
 tion of the poets who come to join their lamentations with 
 those of nature is of corresponding excellence. The close 
 is very sublime. In its majestic sadness, the stately Spen- 
 serian stanza reaches a swell and grandeur, perhaps un- 
 equalled in any passage in which it has ever been used. 
 
 " The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
 Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
 I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ; 
 Whilst burning through the inmost vail of heaven 
 The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." 
 
 And words from the pen of Keats were probably the last 
 which ever passed through the lips of Shelley ! 
 
 The last tones of the grand old music had died away. v 
 Scott and Byron, Campbell and Coleridge, Keats and Shel- 
 ley, had ceased to cast abroad their vocal spells ; and when 
 men thought of Wordsworth, they thought less of an 
 actually living man than of a marble bust, already in its 
 niche of fame, the lips closed in majestic silence, never 
 more deigning to solicit their applause. The heart of the 
 British nation had ceased to throb with the excitement of 
 the war. Napoleon had died amid the wail of the far 
 Atlantic, his sceptre wrested from his grasp, and only 
 
68 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 the gleam of his vanished armies to flit before his eye as 
 it flickered in the last delirium. The death of Napoleon 
 was the termination of the great historical drama, whose 
 first act opened in the Hall of the States General at Ver- 
 sailles in 1789. A period of greater stillness, particularly 
 in Great Britain, succeeded ; a period marked by no poetic 
 fertility, and in which poetry ceased to take the lead in 
 popular literature, but one in which many influences were 
 working towards undefined issues, and which brought to 
 light, in various quarters, more piercing and delicate 
 thought, a deeper reflectiveness, and a more refined culture, 
 than had been apparent in the stirring time which went 
 before. In the province of philosophy, the essays of Ham- 
 ilton marked the introduction of a profounder erudition 
 and a more searching analysis. Carlyle's essay on Burns 
 may be considered the first of a series of biographical studies 
 by that author, which must accomplish a revolution in our 
 mode of viewing man, and, by consequence, in our mode 
 of writing history : a revolution in the course of which the 
 whole theory of man and his ways, accepted from French 
 philosophism, and illustrated in such writings, marvellous 
 in many respects, as the history of Gibbon, cannot fail to 
 be crumpled up like a faded map and flung aside. Mainly, 
 also, through the labors of Mr. Carlyle, the influence of 
 the last great outburst of German poetry and philosophy 
 entered, more deeply than it had previously done, into the 
 agencies by which the most powerful young minds of Great 
 Britain were directed. But as yet there was no poetic 
 voice in which the blended influences of the time combined 
 in cunning harmony, and which expressed the most delicate 
 result of its refined and reflective culture. For such a 
 voice, the nation waited. 
 
 In 1830 and 1832 there issued successively, from the 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 69 
 
 publishing establishment of Mr. Moxon of London, two 
 poetical volumes. The critics of the olden time looked at 
 them, sniffed lightly, uttered a few words of angry con- 
 tempt, and passed on. Here and there an eye glistened, 
 as at the streaks of a new dawn. Here and there an ear 
 hearkened, as to the sound of a new and trancing melody. 
 But the great body, even of the cultivated portion of the 
 people, was unmoved. Year after year went on. Gradu- 
 ally, imperceptibly, surely, a change was wrought. The 
 light which had touched the highest intellectual mountain- 
 tops crept slowly but certainly down towards the lower 
 grounds. The fact at length dawned broadly upon the 
 intellect of the nation that an eye had once more been 
 opened on the Beautiful, that a fresh revelation of loveliness y^ 
 was being made, that a great poet had arisen. That poet 
 was Alfred Tennyson. After all that philosophers ■ have 
 said, the essentially correct definition of poetry in the con- 
 crete is, The Beautiful in sight wedded to the Beautiful in"| 
 sound. Alfred Tennyson, it was perceived, was gifted with 
 an original perception of the Beautiful in man and in nature, 
 and with an original power of melody by which to constrain 
 men to gaze upon his visions. It was found, too, that, 
 under whatever strange and new conditions, the new poet 
 shared the sympathies of his time. His poetry was, as that 
 of every great poet more or less is, reflexive of the feelings 
 and characteristics of his age ; not necessarily of the most 
 common or even the strongest, but certainly of some and 
 those distinctive. A movement may be traced in the 
 literary public of Great Britain of that period. The vast 
 body of readers which had found intellectual enjoyment in 
 the poetry of Scott and of Byron had divided into two 
 great portions. The one, and by far the larger, ceasing to 
 discover in the poetry of the day that passionate excitement 
 
70 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 which had been found in the poetry of Scott and Byron, 
 had betaken itself to prose, mainly to the works of Dickens 
 and his brother novelists. The other, educated by such 
 influences as those at which we have glanced, and with 
 literary tastes refined by a familiar and meditative acquaint- 
 ance with the poetry of the previous period, sought after a 
 more exquisite and costly intellectual pleasure than could 
 be yielded by such writers as Dickens. Such a pleasure 
 was afforded in the poetry of Tennyson. That poetry 
 reflects the most delicate civilization of the second quarter 
 of the nineteenth century ; its dainty elegance, its critical 
 fastidiousness, its reflective musing, its slumbering might. 
 The time, as I said, was one less of new emotion or aspira- 
 tion, than of musing upon emotions and aspirations which 
 had entered the world of mental influence in the preceding 
 years; and in the poetry of Tennyson, to use an image 
 furnished by itself, all those thunder-clouds of doubt, fear, 
 and ambition, which had long been roofing the European 
 world, were still visible, only they floated in an evening 
 atmosphere, and had grown golden all about the sky. 
 
 The poetical schools of Great Britain during the first 
 part of this century have passed cursorily before us ; and 
 I think the glimpses we had of them enables us, with 
 sufficient decision, to trace the outline of Tennyson's poeti- 
 cal training. We can picture him first, in the enthusiasm 
 of boyhood, hanging enraptured over the page of Scott or 
 Byron. The solemn music of Wordsworth would then 
 woo him to a loftier region and awaken him to a more 
 spiritual enjoyment, the works of the two most popular 
 poets of the age ceasing to satisfy the highest cravings of 
 his nature. Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley would afford 
 that nourishment and that delight to his strictly poetical 
 taste, of which he was in quest. The great poets of a 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 71 
 
 former age, Shakspeare, Milton, and whoever were great- 
 est among their predecessors and successors, would not, of 
 course, have escaped his studious attention. 
 
 It may be said that these remarks are superfluous, since, 
 in an age of culture, every poet may be concluded to have 
 made himself master of the poetic wealth of his country. 
 But I am impressed with the idea that an altogether 
 peculiar relation subsists between the poetry of Tennyson 
 and that of the great masters by whom he was preceded, 
 more especially of those near his own time. The spirit 
 of former schools appears to me to have passed into his 
 poetry, determining its character though undergoing perfect 
 transformation. If, to change the figure, I might imagine 
 the great poets of the language pouring the contributions 
 of their genius into one golden chalice, I should call the 
 poetry of Tennyson a delicately tinted, exquisitely refined 
 foam, mantling on the top. This comparison, I need hardly 
 say, does not necessarily assign to Tennyson a higher place 
 than belongs to any of the poets who preceded him. You 
 may excel any number of masters in single effects, yet be, 
 on the whole, inferior to them all. On this point I do not 
 speak. Nor does the figure impugn the essential originality 
 of Tennyson's genius. Originality is to be .judged by the 
 result : so long as the hues of the flower are blended in the 
 unity of life and nature, and compel you to feel the magic 
 and freshness of their beauty, you cannot affect its essential 
 newness by naming its scientific elements, or by telling 
 how the soil was dressed in which it grew. But bearing 
 these things in mind, it is an interesting and quickening 
 application of the critical faculty, to trace, in the poetry of 
 Tennyson, the effects of that complex influence under which 
 his genius developed. (His figures are more definite in 
 form and more finished in detail than those of Scott : but 
 
72 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 in the bright, wandering gleams from the days of chivalry, 
 which flit across the page of Tennyson, may we not detect 
 the influence of the great romancer of Scotland ? In his 
 occasional bursts of passion, may we not, though dubiously, 
 suffer ourselves to be reminded of Byron ? The spirit of 
 Wordsworth is ever near, as a mild, pervading presencej/ 
 breathing not only in the high and unsullied morality, but 
 perceptible at times, in idyllic passages of liquid sweetness, 
 in a whispered suggestion of Wordsworthian childishness. 
 The influence of( Coleridge and Shelley we can hardly err 
 in discovering in the delicate harmony and inwoven richness 
 of the versification, perhaps, also, in the choice of imagery* 
 Nor must we fail to recollect those foreign influences to 
 which allusions has been made, as playing an important part 
 in moulding the ideas of the most cultivated minds in the 
 period of Tennyson's education. The poetry of Dante 
 became then the object of very careful study, and the 
 manner of Dante, the sternest of poetical realists, is per- 
 petually exhibited in the poems of Tennyson. That intense 
 realization too, of the idea of art, which was represented 
 by Goethe, and that absolute elaboration which his works 
 exhibit, had beyond question left an ineffaceable impression 
 on the mind of Tennyson. But of all the teachers of 
 Tennyson, there was none with whose genius his own was 
 more strictly consonant, or whom he has, or appears to 
 have more diligently studied, than John Keats. So close, 
 indeed, is the affinity between the poetical genius of Tenny- 
 son and that of Keats, that the mention of the latter con- 
 ducts us naturally to what must be the central problem in 
 a critique on any poet, the question as to what is the par- 
 * ticular quality and order of his imagination. 
 
 A truce to philosophers. If we once permitted ourselves 
 to dive into the subterranean regions of discussion, analysis, 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 73 
 
 and definition, we should emerge into the fair fields and 
 open skies of objective poetry, only with jaded limbs and 
 exhausted patience. Whether there is an essential differ- 
 ence between fancy and imagination, in what exact sense 
 imagination can be pronounced creative, whether its opera- 
 tion is of the nature of that of the reason, conscious and 
 deliberate, or of the nature of dreams, involuntary and 
 hardly conscious, are questions on which I may have a 
 decided opinion or not, but which I beg leave not to dis- 
 cuss at present. Our object will be attained with equal 
 completeness, and far greater comfort, by considering 
 merely two modes, broadly discriminated and perhaps all- 
 embracing, in which different poets produce their effects, 
 or in which the same poets write on different occasions. 
 
 The first of these modes might be styled that of the 
 imagination stimulative : the second that of the imagina- 
 tion delineative. The one deals in bold, dashing, single 
 strokes. It casts a flash of light over a wide surface of 
 country, causing every mountain ridge, every valley stream, 
 every castled crag, to gleam for a moment on the eye, but 
 revealing no geographical details. It evokes the imagina- 
 tion of the reader, by striking but comparatively indefinite 
 epithets. It says a face was lovely, a storm terrible, a 
 lake beautiful; but it does not dwell on the "snow-and- 
 rose-bloom" in the maiden's face, it does not particularize 
 the terrors of the storm, it does not speak of every cloud 
 that wandered over the lake, or mention the flowers that 
 glassed themselves in its mirror. It runs with wizard hand 
 over a thousand cords of association, sympathy, affection, 
 touching the string but trusting to nature for the vibrar 
 tion. Not so with imagination in her other mood. She 
 then seems to draw near to the painter, that she may 
 imitate the definiteness of his colors, to the sculptor, that 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 7 
 
74 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 she may reach the perfection of his forms, She exhausts 
 her subject. She deals in measurement and detail. Her 
 aim is not to arouse but to satisfy, not to stimulate but 
 to delineate ; or if both to rouse and stimulate, then by 
 the effect of minute and elaborate painting. 
 
 But old Hume reminds me that criticism will not be 
 of much use until it deals in abundant instance and illus- 
 tration. I shall attempt, therefore, to make good my 
 position, respecting the modes of imaginative operation 
 which I have defined, and to afford illustration of those 
 modes, by one or two references and citations. I premise 
 that, as there is no such thing as a mathematical line in 
 nature, neither have we here an exact boundary line. No 
 poet has ever exhibited either of the imaginative modes 
 to the complete exclusion of the other. Some poets exhibit 
 both in proportions difficult to define. But certain poets 
 lean so manifestly towards the one, and others so generally 
 to the other, that the fact affords a satisfactory means of 
 classification. 
 
 Of imagination stimulative, I suppose Homer would be 
 cited as having furnished examples hardly to be surpassed. 
 The old man is of course garrulous and minute, but he is 
 fond also of the single flash, of the daring sweep, of the 
 word that kindles a whole dawn, of the comparison which 
 evokes a whole shadowy host of thoughts, sympathies, 
 imaginings. His heroes are so often lion-like ! His many 
 sounding sea draws on our imagination so endlessly ! - Sten- 
 tor bawls as loud as fifty ; a great indefinite bellow, only 
 beyond the reach of any dozen of ordinary mortals. 
 Achilles wanders by the surf, looking unutterable things, 
 but the curtains of his sublime sorrow are not drawn. 
 Milton, with all his austerity, and though his rhythm is as 
 the measured and martial music of angelic armies, is one 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 75 
 
 of the greatest masters of this from of imagination. Gen- 
 eration after generation will ponder his immortal words, 
 and every new form of apprehension, distress, dismay, ter- 
 ror, or the reverse, that the ages exhibit, will be compelled 
 by his irresistible imagination to minister to its ends. The 
 eyes of men will ever peer into that " darkness visible," and 
 never will they cease to discover in it 
 
 " sights of woe, 
 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
 And rest can never dwell." 
 
 Celestial music ever new in tone, celestial fragrance never 
 to be exhausted, breathe round his Raphaels and Uriels ; 
 and the deep scars of thunder, sublimely indefinite, will 
 never cease to be gazed at, with awe and terror, on the 
 brow of the fallen Angel. But the finest example of this 
 form of imagination in existence is beyond question the 
 description of the horse in Job. " Hast thou given the 
 horse strength ? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ? 
 canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper ? the glory 
 of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and 
 rejoiceth in his strength : he goeth on to meet the armed 
 men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted ; neither 
 turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth 
 against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He 
 swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage; neither 
 believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He 
 saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha! and he smelleth the 
 battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shout- 
 ing." There is, under all this description, a, stern and ac- 
 curate realism. The abstract qualities of the horse, his 
 strength, courage, and the majesty of his movements, 
 are discerned with unerring truth. But what words can 
 
76 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 express the wonder with which we silently look upon the 
 final picture ! If the impressions of a thousand differently 
 constituted minds- could be recorded after surveying the 
 marvellous portraiture, each set of impressions would prove 
 different, yet every mind, if capable of being moved at all, 
 would have been stirred to its depths. By the very free- 
 dom which is accorded to the impressions of the individual 
 beholder, imagination is laid under a spell which, will make 
 it work in all climes and countries forever. 
 
 Dante and Spenser belong to the class of imaginative 
 delineators perhaps as obviously as any poets of the whole 
 past. Mr. Macaulay has contrasted Milton and Dante on 
 essentially the same grounds as those on which we are at 
 present dividing poets into two classes. The poet of 
 Florence, whose face we see in his portraits, staring on 
 there, as if, with unblenching earnestness, it would look 
 through the very sky, seems to have disdained the min- 
 istry of the imagination of his fellows. Cold, stern, deter- 
 mined, he graved, with a pen of iron, to the last line, and 
 then left his writing in the rock forever. Spenser is equally 
 minute, but there is no sternness in Spenser. Dante fin- 
 ishes, because his proud austerity will leave no touch to 
 be added by any other finger, because he scorns toil and 
 pain, and yearns after hard actual truth. Spenser finishes 
 because he loves, or because his genial all-embracing humor 
 makes him never tire of any figure, however grotesque or 
 monstrous, which he has once evoked. He will not lose one 
 of the smiles of Una. He loves every tree of the forest, 
 and gives you the name of each. If he stands on a heaven- 
 kissing hill, he is so enraptured with the beauty of earth 
 and heaven, that he must needs tell you of every cloud in 
 the sky and every flower in the meadow. Even when he 
 yokes unsightly creatures in hideous cars, he does not get 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 77 
 
 angry with them : he looks and lingers, and describes, 
 laughing, perhaps, a quiet laugh. 
 
 Shakspeare will afford, wherever we choose to open, 
 admirable examples of both our forms of imaginative ex- 
 ertion. 
 
 " Ay, every inch a king : 
 When I do stare, see how the subject quakes !" 
 
 These words of Lear are a magnificent example of the 
 imagination that awakens and stimulates. There is nothing 
 of kingly dignity, of imposing presence, of majesty to 
 awe, and power to terrify, which you cannot associate 
 with that line and a half. The description of Dover Cliff, 
 almost immediately preceding, is a specimen, though not 
 so pure, in the other kind. The suggestive imagination 
 insinuates its voice in a whisper; but the closeness of 
 detail is sufficient for illustration. 
 
 " How fearful 
 And dizzy 't is, to cast one's eyes so low ! 
 The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air, 
 Show scarce so gross as beetles : half way down 
 Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade ! 
 Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. 
 The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, 
 Appear like mice ; and yon tall anchoring bark, 
 Diminished to her cock ; her cock, a buoy 
 Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge, 
 That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, 
 Cannot be heard so high : — I '11 look no more ; 
 Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 
 Topple down headlong." 
 
 Of all the poets of the commencement of this century, 
 John Keats exhibited, most distinctively and with the 
 
 7* 
 
78 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 greatest success, the second form of imaginative descrip- 
 tion. His intimacy with Leigh Hunt perhaps influenced 
 him to adopt this style. The Story of Rimini by the 
 former is a very fine specimen of rich, warm, detailed 
 coloring. But The Eve of JSt. Agnes not merely casts 
 the work of Hunt into utter eclipse but is one of the very 
 finest examples of the style in existence. The opening 
 stanza at once reveals imagination in her lingering, loving, 
 particularizing mood. 
 
 " St. Agnes' Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was ! 
 The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ; 
 The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, 
 And silent was the flock in woolly fold *. 
 Numb were the Beadsman's fingers while he told 
 His rosary, and while his frosted breath, 
 Like pious incense from a censer old, 
 Seem'd taking flight for heaven without a death, 
 Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith." 
 
 But I need not scruple to quote once more the most 
 wonderful passage in this wonderful poem, a passage 
 which perhaps no poet but Keats could ever have written, 
 which in the closeness of its detail is a perfectly distinctive 
 example of the delineative imagination, and which, in the 
 perfect loveliness of every tint, exhibits how rich a poetic 
 effect can be produced by the imagination that so works. 
 
 " A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, 
 All garlanded with carven imageries 
 Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, 
 And diamonded with panes of quaint device, 
 Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 
 As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings ; 
 And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 79 
 
 And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
 
 A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. 
 
 Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
 And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
 As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon ; 
 Rose bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
 And on her hair a glory, like a saint : 
 She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, 
 Save wings, for heaven : — Porphyro grew faint : 
 She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 
 
 Anon his heart revives : her vespers done, 
 Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 
 Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ; 
 Loosens her fragrant boddice ; by degrees 
 Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees : 
 Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea weed, 
 Pensive a while she dreams awake, and sees, 
 In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, 
 But does not look behind or all the charm is fled." 
 
 I must repeat that no poet of great genius belongs 
 exclusively to either of the classes I have endeavored to 
 discriminate. The general manner is, in The Eve of /St. 
 Agnes, unmistakeably marked: yet there might be cited 
 from its stanzas example after example of those far-illumin- 
 ing words and burning metaphors, which belong specially 
 to the first kind of imaginative action. In turning to 
 Tennyson, we must not expect a uniformity not to be 
 found elsewhere, and perhaps inconsistent with powerful 
 genius. But the order of his imagination is marked with 
 a distinctness not admitting of doubt. It delights in 
 detail, delineation, finish. Herein is found the key to 
 a critical appreciation of the poet ; the point of view from 
 which, surveying all he has done, his true station among 
 
80 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 masters in the same kind may be discovered. Broad as are 
 the flashes of light which he casts at times across his page, 
 exhaustless as is the suggestion which lurks in many of 
 his metaphors, belonging as some of his entire poems do 
 to the other class, it is side by side with Dante, Spenser, 
 and Keats that he takes his stand. It was just about the 
 time when his poetical genius was first growing into con- 
 sciousness of its might, and in all probability looking earn- 
 estly for any aids, in the way of model or advice, to help its 
 expansion, that Great Britain was awaking to a sense of the 
 loss sustained in the death of Keats, and when that criticism, 
 which had killed by its loud and indiscriminate censure, 
 was hasting to mock by its loud and indiscriminate ap- 
 plause. I cannot but think, therefore, that Tennyson must 
 have devoted to the works of Keats a close, deliberate, 
 and emulous attention ; nor do I know a better introduc- 
 tion to the poetry of the former than a familiar acquaint- 
 ance with that of the latter. One might shrink from the 
 comparison of Tennyson with the three great poets with 
 whom I have classed him. My idea of his poetry, as an 
 abstract of the perfections of other schools wrapped in the 
 light of a new idealization, tends to repel even the sug- 
 gestion of such a comparison. But I do not hesitate to 
 ^v say that in the works of our great living poet, there are 
 traces of the supreme excellences of Dante, of Keats, and 
 Spenser: the austere grandeur and painful finish of the 
 Florentine, the classic taste and intellectual strength exhib- 
 ited in Hyperion, and the mellowed splendor, the golden 
 jjlow, the lavish opulence, of Spenser. 
 
 A glance, however cursory, at certain of the poems of 
 Tennyson, is sufficient to prove and illustrate the preceding 
 statements. 
 The Recollections of the Arabian Nights^ one of the 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 81 
 
 most remarkable pieces in Tennyson's first volume, reminds 
 one strongly of the Lamia of Keats. In that poem, the 
 latter shrinks not from the most minute detail. He de- 
 scribes his hall of banquet with the accuracy of an inven- 
 tory. You know how the flowers festoon from pillar to 
 pillar, how every capital is wreathed, whether the vases 
 are fluted or plain, where the light falls from every lamp. 
 The youthful Tennyson, in the poem I first named, dreams 
 himself away to a scene in the far East, when the Sultan 
 is in the full blush of his glory, and gazes entranced on the 
 floral and festal magnificence by which he finds himself 
 surrounded. Dauntless in its consciousness of power, his 
 imagination does not say how beautiful or grand was the 
 eastern garden scenery ; it tells precisely what that scenery 
 was, it details each of its particular appearances. We may 
 think it beautiful or not as we please : the poet merely tells 
 us what he saw. No sooner is he afloat on the Tigris than 
 we find that the gold of the shrines of Bagdat was fretted, 
 and that the gardens were high walled. His shallop rustles 
 through foliage that is low and covered with bloom, and 
 the shadows, falling over the fragrant, glistening water, are 
 not general, indiscriminate shadows, but the particular ones 
 cast from the citron trees. When he passes from the river 
 into the canal, he finds the outlet guarded by platans ; the 
 pillared palms make a vault above him as he glides along, 
 and the sweet odors which attempt to climb heavenward 
 are stayed beneath the dome of hollow boughs ; the canal 
 is rounded to a lake, and the silver-chiming music of the 
 rills, that fall into the water from the green rivage above, 
 seems to shake the sparkling flints beneath his prow; on 
 either side of the lake are fluted vases and brazen urns, duly 
 occupied by flowers, of which some drop low their crim- 
 son bells, while others are studded with disks and tiars ; 
 
82 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 and the bulbul sings in the coverture of the lemon grove. 
 Getting ashore and leaving his boat hanging by its silver 
 anchor, he is led on towards the pavilion of the Caliphat. 
 The doors are of cedar, and are carved; they are flung 
 inward over spangled floors ; broad flights of stairs run 
 up, and the balustrade is of gold; there are fourscore 
 windows, which are lighted. At last he looks upon the 
 great Sultan himself, and the author of the Court Circular, 
 published next morning in Bagdat, could not have de- 
 scribed more faithfully the tout ensemble of his Majesty. 
 
 " Six columns, three on either side, 
 
 Pure silver, underpropt a rich 
 
 Throne of the massive ore, from which 
 
 Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, 
 
 Engarlanded and diaper'd 
 
 "With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 
 
 Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd 
 
 With merriment of kingly pride, 
 
 Sole star of all that place and time, 
 
 I saw him in his golden prime, 
 
 The GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHED I" 
 
 The Lady of Shallott, JEnone, Mariana in the Moated 
 Grange, and Mariana in the South need only to be named 
 in order to recall the detail of their finishing. It is the 
 hand of a pre-Raphaelite that draws the lines and brings 
 out the tints. But it is needless to multiply examples. 
 I choose one which will, I think, prove ample, and may be 
 conclusive. 
 
 The Palace of Art is one of Tennyson's most charac- 
 teristic and marvellous works. If all his other poems were 
 lost, I am persuaded that, from this alone could be defined 
 the essential quality and order of his genius. Of its value 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 83 
 
 in philosophy, of the profundity or practical worth of the 
 thought it embodies, I do not now speak. It is as an 
 exhibition of Tennyson's mode of imaginative operation, 
 that I regard it. But it is impossible to proceed except by 
 quotation, since no summary could convey an adequate 
 idea of its architectural detail. I begin, therefore, by 
 citing the passage in which the erection of the Palace is 
 described. 
 
 " A huge crag platform, smooth as burnish'd brass, 
 I chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
 From level meadow-bases of deep grass 
 Suddenly scaled the light. 
 
 Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 
 
 The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 
 ****** 
 
 •I* 1* V *!• •!* «|6 
 
 Four courts I made, east, west and south and north, 
 
 In each a squared lawn, wherefrom 
 The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 
 
 A flood of fountain-foam. 
 
 And round the cool green courts there ran a row 
 Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods, 
 
 Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 
 Of spouted fountain-floods. 
 
 And round the roofs a gilded gallery, 
 
 That lent broad verge to distant lands, 
 Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
 
 Dipt down to sea and sands. 
 
 From those four jets four currents in one swell 
 
 Across the mountain streamed below 
 In misty folds, that, floating as they fell, 
 
 Lit up a torrent-bow. 
 
84 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 And high on every peak a statue seem'd 
 
 To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
 A cloud of incense, of all odor steam'd 
 
 From out a golden cup. 
 
 So that she thought, ' And who shall gaze upon 
 
 My palace with unblinded eyes, 
 While this great bow will waver in the sun, 
 
 And that sweet incense rise ? ' 
 
 For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd, 
 And, while day sank or mounted higher, 
 
 The light, aerial gallery, golden rail'd, 
 Burnt like a fringe of fire. 
 
 Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced, 
 
 Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires 
 From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced, 
 
 And tipt with frost-like spires." 
 
 The structure, it must be seen, is conceived as a whole. 
 It has the massiveness of architecture, its proportion, and 
 its completeness. Roberts could not have rendered more 
 minutely the aerial gallery, the statues on the top, or the 
 Gothic windows with their frost-like spires. Contrast with 
 Tennyson's description the following by Edgar Poe. 
 
 " In the greenest of our valleys, 
 By good angels tenanted, 
 Once a fair and stately palace, 
 Radiant palace, reared its head. 
 
 In the monarch Thought's dominion, 
 
 It stood there ; 
 Never seraph spread a pinion 
 
 Over fabric half so fair. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 85 
 
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
 On the roof did float and flow." 
 
 With the respective merits of these delineations we have 
 nothing to do. But how different they are! The great 
 American poet awakens your imagination by the mention 
 of radiant lights and floating banners. His palace is ideal, 
 shadowy, touched with new hues by every imagination. 
 Painters for many generations might attempt to portray 
 it, and each canvass would exhibit an edifice bearing no 
 traceable resemblance to any of the others. But Tennyson 
 will have none of your palace : he builds you his own. If 
 you paint it, you must be careful ; if you painted it a 
 hundred times, you would be constrained to make the 
 great features the same. A crag platform, rising four- 
 square from a plain of grass ; a stream pouring over the 
 face of the crag ; a roof with peaks, on each of which stands 
 a statue bearing incense ; a bartizan faced by a golden 
 railing : — these must enter into every attempt to paint the 
 Palace of Art. We find, then, that the characteristic of 
 Tennyson's delineation is extreme accuracy, minute archi- 
 tectural clearness. Yet the passage I have quoted would 
 in general be pronounced obscure, and it is precisely in 
 such passages that the difficulty of Tennyson's style is 
 exhibited. I feel assured that the lines of Poe would, by 
 the majority of readers, be pronounced the clearer of the 
 two. How is this? The answer can be rendered with 
 perfect decision. The general imagination is far more dis- 
 tinguished by excitability, than by definiteness of vision. 
 The eye glances along the page, securing the mental 
 impression, not realizing the separate pictures. This im- 
 pression is what the stimulative imagination aims at, and 
 the most popular poetry of all ages has therefore been the 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 8 
 
86 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 work of the stimulative imagination. But it is quite im- 
 possible for the same sort of perusal to suit both the 
 modes of imagination. In the one case, the single word 
 or metaphor produces its own effect, and there an end. In 
 the other case, word must find its word, stanza must be, 
 swiftly or slowly, collated with stanza. If all the limbs 
 and features of the body, in a human delineation, are 
 specified in their true forms and colors ; if all the parts of 
 an edifice architecturally correspond ; the scattered mem- 
 bers can unite into one living frame, the separate courts 
 and galleries into one palace. But if the delineative poet 
 has, in ifae course of his perilous enumeration, put an arch 
 where there should be a pillar, or a battlement where there 
 should be a rampart, his edifice is strictly a heap of dis- 
 jointed rubbish. If the reader's imagination refuses to 
 follow the poet in meek obedience, the whole becomes, 
 whether correct in itself or no, an unintelligible mass of 
 confusion, or an unimpressive blank. The descriptions of 
 Spenser, Keats, and Tennyson are literally too clear to be 
 instantly comprehended ; dark with excess of light. Only 
 be silent and listen to such poets and they will tell you far 
 more than that their mansions are stately, their forests rich 
 in light and shade, their maidens sweet and rosy. The 
 indefinite, flickering light of your own imagination is sternly 
 shorn away : but by degrees the creation of the poet, rest- 
 ing calm as against the sky of dawn, every crystal spire 
 unchangeably fixed, every golden pillar standing immov- 
 able, rises before you and remains forever. 
 
 It is a tempting question, which of these orders of 
 delineation demands the greater power and is essentially 
 the greater. Perhaps they are co-ordinate. I confess that, 
 though the delight I have received from such descriptions 
 as those of Spenser, Keats, and Tennyson, has been inex- 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 87 
 
 pressibly intense, I am inclined to yield to the voice of 
 humanity, which has, in all ages, accorded supreme popu- 
 larity to the poets of the first class. From Homer to 
 Byron, those poets have exercised the most potent influence 
 over the mass of men, whose touch has been sweeping, who 
 have delighted in broad masses of shade and sunshine, 
 who have scattered imaginative spells rather than finished 
 imaginative pictures. Viewed abstractly, however, the 
 case on the other side is exceedingly strong. If imagina- 
 tion works perfectly in every detail, and yet unites her 
 whole composition in living harmony, is it fair to impugn 
 the supremacy of her might, because the human eye, 
 dazzled, it may be, by false glories, turbid through ignoble 
 admirations, and incapable of a long, calm gaze, fails to 
 take in the magnificent sweep of her lines, to perceive the 
 elaborate correspondence of her colors ? Beyond question, 
 the higher the scale of culture, the higher is the pleasure 
 found in the work perfect in its minuteness as well as in 
 its majesty; beyond question, too, the poets who have 
 delighted in such work, Dante perhaps excepted, have 
 depended more, for their power of fascination, on their 
 pure sense of beauty, than on the breadth of their human 
 sympathies or power of general interest. The sense of 
 abstract loveliness was possessed by Spenser and Keats as 
 strongly and as exquisitely as by any men that ever lived. 
 It might be urged, too, that, in this form of imaginative 
 exertion, the sister Arts, poetry and painting, meet, while 
 the indefinite imagination affords no forms or colors which 
 the painter can follow. The ideal end of painting as an 
 Art, and that of the Spenserian imagination, — to reveal 
 beauty in perfect form and color, — are identical. Of all 
 painters, in landscape at all events, Turner, on a great 
 scale, and old David Cox on a less, have alone, so far as I 
 
88 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 can remember, attempted in form and color the suggestive- 
 ness and mystery of the stimulative imagination. But 
 here, it is to be feared, Poetry might step in, arrayed in 
 her most gorgeous robes, and declare, with a smile of 
 haughty disdain, that Turner and Cox merely struggled 
 into her empyreal freedom above the constraints of the 
 inferior Art, and that the imagination, which catches a 
 gleam from the infinite, and transcends any definite form 
 of color to be rendered by human hand, is, after all, the 
 grander of the two. 
 
 The description of the palace in the poem we have been 
 contemplating, is perhaps suflScient for our purpose. But 
 every stanza is of the same order. A few of them I cannot 
 forbear from quoting. 
 
 " Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, 
 All various, each a perfect whole 
 From living Nature, fit for every mood 
 And change of my still soul. 
 
 For some were hung with arras green and blue, 
 
 Showing a gaudy summer-morn, 
 Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew 
 
 His wreathed bugle-horn. 
 
 One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand, 
 
 And some one pacing there alone, 
 Who paced forever in a glimmering land, 
 
 Lit with a low, large moon. 
 
 One show'd an iron coast and angry waves, 
 You seem'd to hear them climb and fall, 
 
 And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
 Beneath the windy wall. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 89 
 
 And one, a full-fed river winding slow 
 
 By herds upon an endless plain, 
 The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, 
 
 With shadow-streaks of rain. 
 
 And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. 
 
 In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
 Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, 
 
 And hoary to the wind. 
 
 And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, 
 
 Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 
 All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. 
 
 And highest, snow and fire. 
 
 And one, an English home — gray twilight poured 
 
 On dewy pastures, dewy trees, 
 Softer than sleep— all things in order stored, 
 
 A haunt of ancient Peace. 
 
 Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd, 
 From off her shoulder backward borne : 
 
 From one hand droop'd a crocus : one hand grasp'd 
 The mild bull's golden horn. 
 
 Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh 
 Half-buried in the Eagle's down, 
 
 Sole as a flying star shot through the sky- 
 Above the pillar'd town." 
 
 I doubt whether it is within the limit of possibility to 
 bestow too high a commendation upon these delineations, 
 unsurpassed as they are in the whole range of art. Each 
 stanza is a poem. Each stanza exhibits a strength and 
 
 8* 
 
90 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 calmness of imaginative vision, a sense of symmetry and 
 proportion, in one word a capacity to see and delineate 
 the Beautiful, which would render it, if found separately, 
 as infallibly demonstrative of supreme poetic genius. A 
 single gem, of unparalleled loveliness, tells of the one 
 mine in all the world where it can have been dug. Of 
 the mastery of the English language which concentrated 
 so many complete pictures into such frames it is needless 
 to speak. But how distinctly traceable in every line is 
 the hand of the finishing imagination ! What can you add 
 to that figure of Europa ? Her mantle is unclasped and 
 borne backward from her shoulder. The crocus droops 
 from one hand ; the other grasps the horn of the bull, the 
 horn being golden and the bull mild. The one epithet 
 which might be regarded as a signal of freedom to the 
 imagination, "sweet," hardly releases you here, for you 
 can imagine only a quiet, contented, hoping smile. This 
 little picture has always seemed to me to reveal the genius 
 of Tennyson to the very life, — Tennyson, his mark. 
 
 It would be a very delightful but is not a necessary task, 
 to trace the imaginative action, of which I have said so 
 much, through all the poems of Tennyson, whether his 
 earlier or his later. For the present I confine myself 
 to the former, and even of these I can in this connection 
 say but a few words. Observe how the poet always gazes 
 face to face upon what he portrays, how distinctly he hears 
 every word falling from the lips of his characters. He 
 never slurs, he never generalizes. Is he in his idyllic mood, 
 wandering by the brook or among the hay-cocks ? He sees 
 the apple-blossom as it sails on the rill ; the garden walk is 
 bordered with lilac ; the green wicket is in a privet hedge. 
 He lets you hear the very words of the simple, kindly 
 rustics, and you see the flowers plucked for the wreath 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 91 
 
 to bind the brow of the little child. Is it of affection or 
 passion, in the depth of their tenderness or the might of 
 their burning, that he speaks ? He shows you the eyelid 
 of the mother quivering, and every little flutter, of love 
 and doubt, in the breast of the village bride. Or the 
 irresistible emotion reddens over cheek and brow, like a 
 northern morning, and the inmost secrets of the spirit 
 dawn out in the dark of the hazel eye. He seems to track 
 the blood in the veins as it courses from the heart to 
 the cheek. The bride in The Lord of Burleigh has just 
 heard the announcement, that the landscape painter whom 
 she had loved is a great and wealthy noble. Tennyson 
 does not say how she was impressed. He merely looks at 
 her and reads off the signs on her face. 
 
 " All at once the color flushes 
 
 Her sweet face from brow to chin : 
 As it were with shame she blushes, 
 And her spirit changed within. 
 
 Then her countenance all over 
 Pale again as death did prove." 
 
 This is all. You hear, in a little, how she strove against 
 her weakness, and addressed herself to her wifely duties, 
 but of her feelings at the time you hear nothing. The 
 characters in which nature wrote those feelings are set 
 before the eye ; and how vivid, how profound their por- 
 traiture, how delicate and deep their pathos ! 
 
 Tennyson's diction and melody are in perfect harmony 
 with his imaginative faculty. To describe his command of 
 language, by any ordinary terms, expressive of fluency or 
 force, would be to convey an idea both inadequate and 
 erroneous. It is not only that he knows every word in 
 
92 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 the language suited to express his every idea; he can select 
 with the ease of magic the word that of all others is best 
 for his purpose : nor is it that he can at once summon to his 
 aid the best word the language affords ; with an art which 
 Shakspeare never scrupled to apply, though in our day it 
 is apt to be counted mere Germanism and pronounced 
 contrary to the genius of the language, he combines old 
 words into new epithets, he daringly mingles old colors to 
 bring out new tints that never were on sea or shore. His 
 words gleam like pearls and opals, like rubies and emeralds. 
 He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue to the 
 chariot of his imagination, and they become gracefully bril- 
 liant as the leopards of Bacchus, or soft as the Cytherean 
 doves, file must have been born with an ear for verbal 
 sounds, an instinctive appreciation of the beautiful and deli- 
 cate in words, hardly ever equalled. \ His earliest poems are 
 festoons of verbal beauty, which He seems to shake sport- 
 ively, as if he loved to see jewel and agate and almondine 
 glittering amid tropic flowers. He was very young when 
 he published the Recollections of the Arabian Nights; yet 
 that piece displays a familiarity with the most remote and 
 costly stores of the English language not exceeded in the 
 same space by Spenser. If these expressions seem to any 
 extravagant, I would beg to suggest a study of two poems; 
 — I might name twenty. Consider Eleanore and The 
 Lotos Eaters. Both these poems are every way charac- 
 teristic of Tennyson, and illustrate admirably his imagina- 
 tive method. I regard them, in respect of diction, as not 
 only justifying every word I have said, but as putting 
 utterly to shame my attempts to convey an adequate 
 impression of Tennyson's power over words. Here I 
 cannot quote single verses; for there are no degrees in 
 perfection ; and the most minute acquaintance with these 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 93 
 
 poems leaves me deliberately unable to point to a line in 
 either, of which the diction is not absolutely perfect. In 
 the case of Eleanore I can just imagine it objected, that 
 the ambition of the diction overleaps itself and falls on the 
 other side, that the skill of the poet, like the inimitable 
 finish of Lewis on the dress of an uninteresting woman, is 
 expended so lavishly on robes and jewelry, that the serene 
 imperial Eleanore fails to concentrate our regard. But of 
 The Lotos Eaters, this cannot be even argued. As you 
 read that poem, you are so steeped in its golden langor, 
 you are so overpowered by the trance-like joy of its calm, 
 that you cannot think even of the spell that binds you. 
 The force of language could no further go. 
 
 Tennyson's choice of measure, and general sense of 
 rhythm and melody, correspond accurately with the order 
 of his imagination, and the pearly delicacy of his diction. 
 It, too, generally requires, for its full appreciation, an ear 
 that will listen carefully, and even permit itself to be 
 tuned to the melody. There is rarely that instantaneous 
 attractiveness, which a well known measure, handled with 
 any novelty or skill, is sure to possess ; an attractiveness 
 to be deemed analogous to that superficial beauty, which 
 clearness and elegance impart to prints in annuals, and 
 soft, well contrasted lights and shades to pictures generally. 
 There is no reliance on antithesis, as is so common in the 
 smaller lyrics of Byron. There is no courting of anape- 
 stic buoyancy, or voluptuous sweetness, as in the lyrics 
 of Moore. In almost every case, the radical metrical foot 
 is the iambus, that most deeply consistent with the genius 
 of the English tongue, but that, also, affording the poet 
 the least resource in dashing turns or sounding cadences, 
 and forcing him to trust most exclusively to his real power, 
 to the gold seen gleaming beneath the pellucid current of 
 
91 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 his verse. LocJcsley Hall is a magnificent exception to 
 Tennyson's general habit, its trochaic measure being su- 
 perbly adapted for the expression of passion, and itself 
 being incomparably the finest of trochaic melody in the 
 language. But though Tennyson's measures are generally 
 iambic, he breathes into them a melodiousness which is 
 new, and gives them forms of his own. The stanza of 
 The Palace of Art is quite new, and it is only by degrees 
 that its exquisite adaptation to the style and thought of 
 the poem is perceived. The ear instinctively demands, in 
 the second and fourth lines, a body of sound not much less 
 than that of the first and third ; but in Tennyson's stanza, 
 the fall is complete ; the body of sound in the second and 
 fourth lines is not nearly sufficient to balance that in the 
 first and third ; and the consequence is, that the ear dwells 
 on the alternate lines, especially on the fourth, stopping 
 there to listen to the whole verse, to gather up its whole 
 sound and sense. I do not know whether Tennyson ever 
 contemplated scientifically the effect of this. I should 
 think it far more likely, and indicative of far higher genius, 
 that he did not. But it appears to me that no means could 
 be conceived for setting forth, to such advantage, those 
 separate pictures, " each a perfect whole," which constitute 
 so great a portion of the poem. Wherever the picture to 
 be drawn is spread over several stanzas, or the same precise 
 strain of feeling is kept up for so long, the form of the 
 verse is felt to be by no means equally suitable, and the 
 ear, accustomed to the deep rest of the full stop after the 
 short line, will hardly consent merely to stop a moment at 
 a comma, and then hasten to the succeeding verse. But 
 it is a poor business analyzing verse like this, or attempting 
 to reduce it to scientific rules. It is like trying to convey 
 an idea of a flower, by enumerating its stamens and tissues, 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 05 
 
 or by presenting it, dried and shrivelled, with its name 
 beside it, in some adust herbarium : instead of holding it 
 up to the living eye, arrayed in that dress of purple, or 
 blue, or scarlet, which God taught it to weave for itself from 
 the sunbeams, or inhaling that fragrance, which eludes, like 
 a spirit, the rude touch of science. Better is it, in thinking 
 of the melodiousness of Tennyson's poetry, to recall those 
 hours, so intensely, so serenely happy, when gradually the 
 ear came under its spell: when the miller's daughters, 
 and gardener's daughters, first glided into the field of 
 vision, to tender, mildly cheerful music ; when the Dream 
 of Fair Women, and The Lotos Eaters, and The Palace 
 of Art, almost hushed the beatings of the heart, at the 
 flute-like softness and dreamy calm of their melody ; when 
 the tropic lightnings of passion first flashed amid the 
 thunder of Locksley Hall; or when the great autumnal 
 sorrow of In Memoriam, voiced itself in a rhythm, solemn 
 and majestic as the roll of the melancholy main. The 
 melody of Tennyson's poems is perhaps more peculiarly 
 his own even than his other characteristics ; it is still more 
 difficult than in the case of these, to find its prototype in 
 preceding English poetry. 
 
 We have hitherto, strictly speaking, considered only the 
 methods and appliances of Tennyson's genius. His form 
 of imaginative exertion, his diction, and his melody, are 
 perfectly separable, in critical consideration, from the emo- 
 tions he portrays, the thought he utters, or the new aspects 
 of nature's beauty to which he opens our eyes. Expression 
 is, in a sense, everything in poetry, as painting is id a sense 
 everything in the pictorial Art :- in the sense, namely, that, 
 whatever thought and feeling may be exhibited, without 
 metrical expression, in the one, or pictorial expression, in 
 the other, loses the distinctive characteristic, however much 
 
96 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 it may retain of the general character, of either. Yet 
 expression can never be all in all, whether in painting or in 
 poetry. Some association, however we may define it, with 
 the world of human thought and feeling, is indispensable. 
 The perfect tones of a prism will never be to man as the 
 imperfect tones of a picture ; and the pure notes of music 
 are vacant of influence, until, by combination into melodies, 
 they attain the power of touching the mystic chords of 
 association. Whatever the conditions prescribed by the 
 nature of each Art, there is no Art in which it is not neces- 
 sary that there be a something related to its expression as 
 substance is related to form. Here again, the genius of 
 metaphysics beckons us to answer a few stiff and ancient 
 questions, touching the nature of those truths, of experi- 
 ence, of feeling, of reason, which may be pronounced neces- 
 sary in poetry. "What, asks that menacing presence, is 
 the connection between the Good, the Beautiful, and the 
 True ? Are Science and Poetry one, or are they different, 
 and how ? Happily Poetry has not the unreasonable habit 
 of that beautiful but whimsical lady, the Sphynx. Poetry 
 does not insist upon our explaining the riddle of the nature, 
 or any other riddle, before enjoying the benignity of her 
 smile. But our present business is criticism, and a word 
 or two, as to the relations of Poetry and Science, may ren- 
 der us important assistance as we proceed. 
 
 Professor Wilson pronounced Poetry to be "the true 
 exhibition, in musical and metrical speech, of the thoughts 
 of humanity when colored by the feelings, throughout the 
 whole range of the physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual 
 regions of being." As a definition of poetry, this might 
 be open to objection, but as a definition of poetry by Pro- 
 fessor Wilson, it is of value. Wilson's scientific capacity 
 was perhaps as feeble as his dramatic. But he was the 
 greatest sympathetic critic that ever used the English Ian- 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 97 
 
 guage, the man most thoroughly capable, through delicacy, 
 power, and range of sympathy, to discover and appreciate 
 poetic excellence. Nor was he ever tempted, by over- 
 refinement of sensibility, or sickly admiration for any par- 
 ticular mannerism, to abandon the broad canons of criticism 
 which base themselves on deep and universal laws of human 
 nature. He is pre-eminently fitted to represent the culti- 
 vated but healthy human mind, as affected by poetry. 
 Viewing him in this capacity, importance must be attached 
 to his words. When thought is contrasted with feeling, as 
 he contrasts it, it must have reference to truth. Thoughts 
 without any substantial basis of truth are valueless or incon- 
 ceivable. And Professor Wilson's words clearly indicate 
 that, in regarding poetry, he experienced an instinctive 
 craving for this substantial truth, whether as recorded in 
 experience or construed to reason. 
 
 The view of Goethe and his school in Germany, adopted 
 by Mr. Carlyle, touching the relation between the True and 
 the Beautiful, between Poetry and Science, I understand 
 to be, that Poetry, in its true essence and noblest realiza- 
 tion, presents the truths of reason in the forms of sense. 
 The mere expression of such an opinion indicates the neces- 
 sity felt by such thinkers as Goethe and Carlyle to discover, 
 in the last resort, some intimate, indissoluble alliance be- 
 tween the True and the Beautiful. 
 
 But it is unnecessary to make any parade of authorities 
 on this point. The right doctrine can be reached without 
 any painful consultation of Aristotle, Bacon, and the rest. 
 When understood in its proper sense, it will be universally 
 conceded as an axiom, that truth is inseparable from every 
 sound form of composition. But what is truth ? of what 
 does it consist ? It may all be classed under two catego- 
 ries, each containing two divisions : — » 
 
 FIKST SERIES. 9 
 
98 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 1. (a) What is; (b) What may supposably, in change of 
 time or condition, be. 
 
 2. (a) Hoio what exists is ; (b) How the supposably exist- 
 ent would be. 
 
 All Art has, as its subject matter, truth of the first cate- 
 gory : all Science truth of the second. 
 
 There is nothing here in the slightest degree obscure, or 
 difficult of comprehension. Goethe and Carlyle, in recog- 
 nizing the essential connection between poetry and form, 
 lend us really their support ; their antithesis between truth 
 of reason and form of sense can alone be rightly interpreted, 
 in accordance with our categories ; only I think that, by 
 fairly recognizing truth as equally independent of poetry 
 and science, we are secured from certain errors, into which 
 a definition of poetry simply as the truths of reason in the 
 forms of sense might lead us. It would be erroneous to 
 give any countenance to the idea that poetry receives cer- 
 tain truths from reason, attained by the method of logic, 
 and proceeds to clothe them in the forms of sense. "We 
 should thus find ourselves identifying Art with allegory ; 
 a peril not altogether escaped in the poetry of Schiller, 
 and surely affecting the rugged truthfulness of Wilhelm 
 Meister. I shall not, however, enter here into any debate. 
 Concluding that the antithesis suggested by Mr. Carlyle is 
 the key to the whole subject, and professing merely to 
 interpret and formally apply it, we shall find the division I 
 have made sufficient for the classification of all Art and all 
 Science, whether real or ideal. 
 
 Art, then, always deals with what is, or with what may 
 be. Its postulate is that nothing is, or may be imagina- 
 tively represented, which is not worthy of observation. It 
 is divided into realistic and ideal. Realistic Art concerns 
 itself with what is ; its subject matter is the now existent 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 99 
 
 universe : ideal Art concerns itself with the world of imag- 
 ination ; its subject matter is all that the imaginative faculty 
 calls up in vision, looks forward to in hope, or combines into 
 new creations. The ultimate attainment of realistic Art 
 would be, by all-embracing, all-potent observation, by all- 
 penetrating, all-compelling imagination, to body forth, in 
 form, motion, color, the existent universe, animate and 
 inanimate. The last achievement of ideal Art would be, to 
 represent, not in theory but in fact, a perfect universe. It 
 would set before us, with Plato, the world of the idea, 
 with the idea at last perfectly expressed in form; it 
 would show us that "type of perfect in the mind," for 
 which Tennyson looked in vain in nature ; in an expressly 
 Christian scheme of things, it would exhibit humanity re- 
 adomed in its paradisal garments, in a world fitted to such 
 a race, or robed in a purer whiteness than that of Paradise, 
 on the plains of heaven. The province of Art is thus 
 shown to be commensurate with the powers of the human 
 intellect, and the regions of the finite. 
 
 Turning to Science, there is no more difficulty in dis- 
 criminating between real and ideal Science, than between 
 real and ideal Art. The utmost conceivable perfection of 
 realistic Science would be formally to construct, from its 
 elements, the whole material universe, of nature and of 
 man, — to trace, in all their operations, the laws by which 
 it consists. Ideal Science is not so familiar to our concep- 
 tions as ideal poetry. But if we do concede it a sphere, 
 its ultimate achievement is definable as the exhibition, in 
 its forming and sustaining laws, of possible perfection. A 
 perfect theory of Plato's ideal world, a perfect theory of 
 man and nature renewed by Christianity, would precisely 
 answer to this. 
 
 The grand antithesis between Art and Science is that of 
 
100 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 form and law, of result and cause, of representation and 
 dialectic, of the visible and invisible. Art looks; her 
 guide, from star to star, is the cherub contemplation: 
 Science investigates. Art depicts ; Science records. 
 
 This distinction is available for important practical pur- 
 poses. 
 
 It enables us, to begin with, to perceive how and why it 
 is that Art is associated inseparably with the Beautiful, 
 while Science has no essential connection with beauty what- 
 ever. Science deals with what nature does not show. She 
 lifts the. green turf of the mountain, to investigate the 
 strata ; she divides the ray of light, to examine its separate 
 filaments ; she lays open the cheek of beauty, to trace the 
 course of the arteries. She is entirely conversant with 
 those processes and those forms, by contrast with which 
 nature produces her final effects of beauty. Science, there- 
 fore, save in the work of discovering and classifying per- 
 fected forms hitherto unobserved, has no office whatever in 
 connection with the Beautiful. But Art has to do only 
 with what is seen, whether by the eye of sense or of imag- 
 ination. She gazes enraptured on the dress of nature, 
 intended to be admired : that garment, woven by the hand 
 of God, ineffable in its beauty, in which the purple of night, 
 dark against the star-fires, the green of earth, touched with 
 crimson and gold, the blue of ocean wreathed with tinted 
 foam, the azure of the sky, flushed with dawn and even, 
 and hung with broidered vails of cloud, combine in one 
 picture of sublimity and loveliness, over which the angels 
 clap their hands, and on which we of the earth can never 
 gaze with sufficient wonder and earnestness. All that Art 
 can see of the untainted workmanship of God is beautiful. 
 Wherever the shadow of sin has come, a blight has passed 
 over beauty. In humanity, in world-history, Art does not 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 101 
 
 find all beautiful. But beauty is bound up in the purpose 
 of the ages ; the Good, the True, the Beautiful struggle on 
 together, to celestial music, through the night of time; 
 with every new throb of the heart of mankind towards a 
 higher life and a loftier nobleness, a fresh glory and love- 
 liness passes, as it were a blush, along its countenance. At 
 the meridian splendor of this loveliness, ideal Art guesses 
 and gazes from afar. And thus Art's function, whether in 
 the real or the ideal, is ever with the Beautiful. 
 
 But, next, does not our antithesis explain the fact that, 
 in all ages, pleasure has been associated with Art, that the 
 poetic nature finds delight in external nature, and that a 
 magnificent, rapturous ease is the mood deemed appropriate 
 to poetic composition ? The forms of God's universe are 
 fitted, with sublime beneficence, to impart joy. God willed 
 that whatsoever countenance, of man or angel, unstained 
 by sin, looked upon his world, should break into a smile. 
 God said let there be light; and morning drawing aside 
 the vail of night will ever continue the emblem of joy, 
 because it shows us, once more, that world which then 
 flashed into visibility and beauty. The fact that the con- 
 templation of external loveliness is productive of joy cannot 
 be called in question ; and we may view it either as a proof 
 that the Creator of the universe is good, or as a proof that 
 the God of Christianity is the God of Nature. I am per- 
 fectly assured that whosoever has spoken of the exercise 
 of the poetic faculty, whether in the case of Milton, Dante, 
 or Goethe, as something arduous, difficult, painful, has 
 erred. To all earnest and honest labor a joy is annexed ; 
 there is pleasure, if not in the preliminary toil, at least in 
 the ultimate discovery, of science : but in true poetic com- 
 position, the joy approaches rapture. The fine frenzy that 
 Shakspeare saw in the eye of the poet was unquestionably 
 9* 
 
102 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 a frenzy of joy. De Quincey, in his own fashion of flinging 
 abroad, with princely recklessness, hints that lighten over 
 wide regions of thought, remarks that the life of poetic 
 enthusiasm, which Coleridge led during his youth, unfitted 
 him for the sternness of life and made him an easy victim 
 to opium. He required, says De Quincey, finer bread than 
 was baked with wheat. The observation is pointedly true 
 in the case of Coleridge : and doubtless the irregular lives 
 of poets, and their inability in general to grapple steadily 
 with the difficulties of life, are to a great extent traceable 
 to the insipidity with which every day realities must present 
 themselves, after the rapturous excitement of imaginative 
 vision. 
 
 Truth then, to return, is of the essence of poetry as well 
 as of science. But in the one case, the truth is always 
 enveloped in form ; in the other it is eliminated from form. 
 Science gives you truth in algebraic formula ; poetry gives 
 you truth in the dance of the stars. A Newton is mighty 
 in the exposition of law, a Shakspeare in the exhibition of 
 fact, of human and physical nature as actually existing or 
 as seen under the revealing idealization of his imaginative 
 genius. An Aristotle applies a powerful analysis to the 
 laws of morals ; a Milton exhibits those grand revolutions, 
 in human and angelic existence, in which the might and 
 grandeur of moral law have been displayed. 
 
 But it is necessary to guard here against a misapprehen- 
 sion. We are so apt to associate everything with inference 
 and lesson, that when we talk of truth in Science or Art, 
 we almost irresistibly think of some expressly didactic 
 moral. But it hardly admits of question, that neither 
 Science nor Art is by nature bound to acknowledge the 
 justice of the claim thus implied. Truth in visibility is all 
 Art professes to give : truth in law all we can require of 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 103 
 
 Science. Science may investigate the laws of cookery, or 
 those of the heavenly bodies : and her dignity, no doubt, 
 increases as she ascends. Art may delineate the wayside 
 weeds, or pencil out the lightest bodyings of fancy, — the 
 reveries of the child, the dance of the fairies; she may 
 represent also the mountains that steady the earth, the 
 armies that have shaken the plains of heaven: and her 
 greatness, too, increases as her subjects are ennobled. But 
 as to express moralizing, Science may be dumb as the 
 pyramids, and Art silent as the dew. 
 
 It is necessary, also, once more to recollect that neither 
 is there here a mathematical line of demarcation. Art and 
 science, realism and idealism, perpetually mingle in the 
 concrete example. 
 
 Tennyson's right to a place among the really great poets 
 of the human race is vindicated by this fact, That he has 
 looked, as a great man might, upon what is most distinc- 
 tive in the age in which he writes, and that he has bodied 
 forth the result with marvellous poetic realization. This I 
 proceed briefly to establish. 
 
 ^One good example may at times convey, expressly or by 
 implication, a whole argument. I choose here one illustra- 
 tion of Tennyson's truth-grasping power, which seems to 
 me to necessitate the conclusion that he is a great poet, in 
 the sense of seeing and poetically embodying great truths. 
 It is the same as that I selected as a perfectly satisfactory 
 illustration of his peculiar imaginative mothod, The Palace 
 of Art. When we contemplate this poem, what do we 
 behold ? We see a human being, represented by the soul 
 of the poet, separating from the rest of the world, and 
 going to dwell in a palace apart. This palace is gorgeously 
 constructed. Its roofs gleam with gold. Its courts echo 
 with fountains. A torrent-bow is lit up from the edge of 
 
104 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 the crag on which it is built. The interior is adorned with 
 the most rich, refined, and elaborate magnificence. The 
 eye can rest on no spot from which there does not come an 
 answering beam of beauty. In the towers are great bells, 
 moving of themselves with silver sound. Through the 
 painted windows, stream the lights, rose, amber, emerald, 
 blue. Between the shining Oriels, the royal dais is placed, 
 hung round with the paintings of wise men, and there 
 the inmate takes her throne, to sing her songs in solitary 
 beatitude. 
 
 " No nightingale delighteth to prolong 
 Her low preamble all alone, 
 More than my soul to hear her echo'd song. 
 Throb through the ribbed stone; 
 
 Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, 
 
 Joying to feel herself alive, 
 Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth, 
 
 Lord of the senses five ; 
 
 Communing with herself: « All these are mine, 
 And let the world have peace or wars, 
 
 'Tis one to me.' She — when young night divL * 
 Crown'd dying day with stars, 
 
 Making sweet close of his delicious toils — 
 
 Lit light in wreaths and anadems, 
 And pure quintessences of precious oils 
 
 In hollow'd moons of gems, 
 
 To mimic heaven ; and clapt her hands and crie.% 
 
 1 I marvel if my still delight 
 In this great house so royal-rich and wide, 
 
 Be flatter'd to the height. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 105 
 
 O, all things fair to sate my various eyes ! 
 
 O, shapes and hues that please me well 1 
 O, silent faces of the Great and Wise, 
 
 My Gods with whom I dwell ! 
 
 O, God-like isolation which art mine, 
 
 I can but count thee perfect gain, 
 What time I watch the darkening droves of swine 
 
 That range on yonder plain ! 
 
 In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, 
 They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; 
 
 And oft some brainless devil enters in, 
 And drives them to the deep.' 
 
 Then of the moral instinct would she prate, 
 
 And of the rising from the dead, 
 As hers by right of full-accomplished Fate ; 
 
 And at the last she said : 
 
 * I take possession of man's mind and deed. 
 
 I care not what the sects may brawl. 
 I sit as God, holding no form of creed, 
 
 But contemplating all.' " * 
 
 Thus it continues for three years. Then, suddenly, all is 
 changed. The proud soul is smitten from the height of 
 her glory into sore despair. A darkness and a pestilence 
 pass over the beauty with which she is surrounded. She 
 cannot comprehend how the woe has come, but her palace 
 is now an abode of loathing and ghastliness. 
 
 " 'What ! is not this my place of strength,' she said, 
 1 My spacious mansion built for me, 
 Whereof the strong foundation stones were laid 
 Since my first memory ? ' 
 
 * Quoted from the tenth edition. 
 
106 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 But in dark corners of her palace stood 
 Uncertain shapes ; and unawares 
 
 On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, 
 And horrible nightmares, 
 
 And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, 
 And, with dim fretted foreheads all, 
 
 On corpses three months old at noon she came, 
 That stood against the wall. 
 
 Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. 
 1 No voice,' she shrieked in that lone hall, 
 
 * No voice breaks through the stillness of the world : 
 
 One deep, deep silence all I*" 
 
 At last the end comes : — 
 
 " She howl'd aloud, ' I am on fire within. 
 There comes no murmur of reply. 
 What is it that will take away my sin, 
 And save me lest I die ? ' 
 
 So when four years were wholly finished, 
 She threw her royal robes away. 
 
 * Make me a cottage in the vale/ she said, 
 
 * Where I may mourn and pray/ " 
 
 In all this — in the whole of the poem, — with its perfect 
 symmetry, and that elaborate fullness of beauty which 
 isolated quotations so defectively represent — it is just 
 possible that certain persons may not find any great truth 
 revealed. Stated in so many words, the poem does not 
 contain a single didactic lesson. The poet-nature of Tenny- 
 son, instinct with an unconscious appreciation of the essence 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 107 
 
 of Art, prevented the possibility of there being any such. 
 But taking the poem in the noble characters of its breath- 
 ing form, is there any difficulty in knowing what it means ? 
 Even had those lines, in which the poet explicitly announces 
 his design, been absent, the significance would have been 
 perfectly clear. But those introductory lines, and the 
 name of the poem, leave one and only one possibility open 
 for mistake, — incapacity to comprehend or estimate the 
 truth embodied. That truth is very ancient, if not in 
 didactic expression, at least in historical manifestation : but 
 as proclaimed by Tennyson, it may lay claim to a high 
 originality. The right is always original; if we embrace 
 in the term right, seasonableness of occasion, verity of 
 doctrine, and perfect execution. The truth embodied in 
 The Palace of Art has the infallible mark of originality, 
 that it was specially called forth by the requirements of the 
 time. In itself, besides, it is of so refined and exalted a 
 nature, that it never can become commonplace. It is 
 simply this, That Art can never be religion, that man can 
 never live nobly all for himself, that the supremacy of 
 intellectual culture, ministered to by all the beauty and 
 intelligence of the world, is not so excellent as the lowly 
 self-sacrifice of daily life. It is, that there are abysmal 
 deeps of personality, in which slumber earthquakes, to con- 
 vulse the soul despite of all the azure smiling of beauty ; 
 and that all the lamps which man can kindle here, to make 
 a heaven for himself, will be but a vain mimicry of real 
 felicity. When we consider that Tennyson's poems gen- 
 erally, and this poem in particular, teem with unmistakeable 
 evidence that he has drunk, perhaps more deeply than any 
 other poet, at the fountains of Art ; when we reflect that 
 the influence of Goethe upon the development of his genius 
 has been profound and pervasive ; and when we remember 
 
108 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 that the most refined and plausible delusion of the age, 
 presented in many forms, is radically this of putting culture 
 for godliness, we are shut up to the conclusion that the 
 writer is original and powerful, and that the truth he prac- 
 tically proclaims is substantial and important. I should 
 hold it, too, in the highest degree dishonoring to Tennyson, 
 to imagine, that he exhibited this truth merely as a poetical 
 artist, that he chose it for its literary capabilities. In no 
 case does our great poet protrude his religion; but his 
 moral tone is as pure as Milton's ; and In Memoriam 
 contains numerous passages, indicative of a deep and medi- 
 tative acquaintance with the highest questions of religion, 
 and revealing the heaven-light of Christianity plainly irra- 
 diating the moralities of earth. In The Palace of Art, 
 let it not be questioned, Tennyson's grand intent was, to 
 exhibit the ghastly isolation of mere individual culture, the 
 hollowness of self-worship (or that reflected self-worship 
 which in "the Great and Wise" finds "Gods,") in contrast, 
 not didactically unfolded but poetically suggested, with the 
 household sanctities, the simple joys, the home-love, the 
 heaven-love, the ancient, motherly smile, of Christianity. 
 Of the imaginative power with which the great truth of 
 the poem is exhibited, it is unnecessary, after what has 
 been said, to make any remark. Suffice it to say, that, 
 after having as it were kept this poem before my mind's 
 eye for many years, I still gaze in fresh wonder on its 
 marvellous poetical perfections, combining towards the en- 
 forcement of one great truth. 
 
 Only a great poet could have composed The Palace 
 of Art. I do not, therefore, deem it absolutely necessary 
 to/fclte any other instance, from the poems of Tennyson, of 
 the combination of strictly intellectual with strictly poetic 
 power. But I cannot forbear making a reference to The 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 109 
 
 Tico Voices. This poem is perhaps unique. It is in the 
 highest sense philosophic, nay, metaphysical, throughout: 
 yet no lyrical trill of undiluted melody, no lilt sung by 
 village maiden, was ever more purely and entirely poetical. 
 The subject of the piece is that riddle of the painful earth, 
 of which we hear in The Palace of Art. The argument 
 on the one side is, that it were better to curse God and 
 die ; on the other, that it were better not to do so. The 
 force and acuteness of the reasoning would be sufficient to 
 fit out a powerful and original dissertation in metaphysics. 
 But does the poet stumble on syllogism, or glide out of the 
 form of poetic Art, into the analysis of metrical Science ? 
 By no means. The poem is a study of the richest poetry, 
 from the consistency with which nature sustains the argu- 
 ment on either side. If sorrow is expressed, it is less in 
 human accents than in the tears of nature ; morning weep- 
 ing in her still place, and the daisy fading away in death. 
 If joy is described, it is written in the calm light of a 
 Sabbath morn, and in the flowers hiding the grass. If doubt, 
 disappointed hope, vain aspiration, are shadowed forth, 
 they are emblemed by the mist of the hills, and the crags 
 momentarily seen and then hidden behind its wreathing 
 folds. If courage and resolution are the theme, we see the 
 flashing of the battle in the distance, and mark the gleam 
 on the face of the dying warrior as he watches the last 
 victorious charge. Such knowledge of nature's language, 
 so true, so deep, so varied, never belonged but to the born, 
 the master poet. Readers who are novices in this language, 
 who have not sympathetically studied in the mighty volume 
 of nature, find the poem obscure. The express declarations 
 of didactic composition, the exposed links of science, they 
 miss. Such the poetic instinct sternly denies them. But 
 when the poem is read poetically, it beams with light. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 10 
 
: 110 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Truth, says the scientific skeptic, is -unattainable. That is 
 a simple fact, simply stated, and its accompaniment may 
 be either irony or whatever else of a prosaic nature will 
 suit. The poet- skeptic states the same fact, and likewise 
 accompanies it with delicate irony. But you have a series 
 of views, intelligible or unintelligible, instead of a state- 
 ment : — 
 
 " Cry, faint not : either Truth is born 
 Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 
 Or in the gateways of the morn. 
 
 Cry, faint not, climb : the summits slope 
 Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 
 Wrapt in dense clouds from base to cope. 
 
 Sometimes a little corner shines, 
 
 As over rainy mist inclines 
 
 A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 
 
 I will go forward, sayest thou, 
 I shall not fail to find her now. 
 Look up, the fold is on her brow. 
 
 If straight thy track, or if oblique, 
 
 Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, 
 
 Embracing cloud, Ixion-like." 
 
 Truth, answers the scientific believer, may be difficult to 
 define in the abstract ; but I must credit the nobleness of 
 the great believers and actors of human history. The poet- 
 believer answers thus : — 
 
 " I cannot hide that some have striven, 
 Achieving calm, to whom was given 
 The joy that mixes man with heaven* 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. Ill 
 
 Who, rowing hard against the stream, 
 Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
 And did not dream it was a dream , 
 
 But heard, by secret transport led, 
 Even in the charnels of the dead, 
 The murmur of the fountain-head — 
 
 Which did accomplish their desire, 
 Bore and forbore, and did not tire, 
 Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 
 
 He heeded not reviling tones, 
 
 Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 
 
 Though cursed and scorned, and bruised with stones : 
 
 But looking upward, full of grace, 
 He pray'd, and from a happy place, 
 God's glory smote him on the face." 
 
 The conclusion of the poem is remarkable, both for the 
 perfection of its poetical form and for the depth of its sig- 
 nificance. The argument had not taken a wide range. The 
 first voice had sunk into silence, merely from its inability to 
 prove a universal negative. No recourse had been had, in 
 opposing it, to the promised glories of Christianity. But 
 now the light of dawn breaks ruddy along the whole horizon. 
 It is the Sabbath morn, and men wend to the house of God, 
 passing by the graves without a sigh. The hidden hope of 
 the world, the millennial and celestial expectations of man- 
 kind, are emblemed in that house into which they enter. 
 Great in thought and marvellous in poetry, this piece might 
 alone sustain a reputation. 
 
 So much for separate poems. Tennyson is great like- 
 wise in isolated gleams of thought. 
 
 I said that the real and the ideal are not always separated 
 
112 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 by any poet. I may add that the poetic and the scientific 
 modes of thought and expression are not always kept dis- 
 tinct. Tennyson, however, remains singularly true to the 
 character of a poet, seeming to have truth revealed to him 
 in figure and impersonation while others reach it only by 
 the chain of logical sequence. And there are verses of his 
 which compress into their limits the essential characteristics 
 of the national life of Europe for a hundred years. 
 
 " The people here, a beast of burden slow, 
 
 Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings , 
 Here play'd a tiger, rolling to and fro 
 The heads and crowns of kings ; 
 
 Here rose an athlete, strong to break or bind 
 
 All force in bonds that might endure, 
 And here once more like some sick man declined 
 
 And trusted any cure." 
 
 Could Count de Montalembert convey, in any number 
 of volumes, a more accurate account of "the state of 
 society in France," before and during the first Revolution, 
 than is contained in that first verse ? 
 
 Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, 
 Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire." 
 
 What a picture is this of Feudalism settling to its last 
 sleep, with Freedom advancing upon it ! Or of aristoc- 
 racies, that nod and wink in the waning light of their 
 heraldic honors, with the grand roar of the democracy 
 beginning to be heard ! 
 
 " All the past of Time reveals 
 A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, 
 Whenever Thought hath wedded Fact." 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 113 
 
 This is a magnificent poetic embodiment of one of the 
 most important and mysterious facts in philosophic history. 
 But it would be absurd to attempt an exhibition of such 
 passages as might, even with approximate completeness, 
 illustrate Tennyson's power as a poetic thinker. The per- 
 plexities, the longings, the fitful gleams of hope, the ten- 
 dency to lapse into ennui or despair, characteristic of the 
 time, are all sympathetically reflected in his verse, shadowed 
 or brightened by his supreme imagination. In The Lotos 
 Eaters, there are glimpses into the mysteries of human 
 destiny, penetrating perhaps as far as human eye can go. 
 I confess I could have wished, although I consider the 
 poem to possess a perfection defying any attempt at esti- 
 mate, to have seen the atmosphere of Epicurean repose 
 over the heads of the Lotos Eaters shaken by the thun- 
 der of some higher truth, — by the tumult of passionate, 
 acting men, by the roar of battle ; and I am assured that 
 Tennyson could have effected this, without any serious dam- 
 age to the preceding impression. But it has been hinted 
 that the poet's sympathy with the joy of calm is somewhat 
 more than healthy; and he has certainly succeeded in 
 setting before us a trance of intellectual and sensuous peace, 
 in comparison of which all other paintings of calm, whether 
 with pen or brush, pass at once out of calculation. 
 
 I might enlarge indefinitely upon the order of subjects 
 which Tennyson delights to handle, but a critique need not 
 be an inventory, and I must hasten to a conclusion. One 
 word, however, of those idyllic picturings, which form so 
 remarkable a portion of his works. These have no parallels 
 in the language, if in any language. The pastorals of the 
 Pope and Dry den school are not to be named beside them. 
 Wordsworth's " solemn-thoughted idyl," as Mrs. Barrett 
 Browning, with a sincerity of compliment which from her 
 10* 
 
114 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 mind at least dismissed all idea of suppressed irony, bears 
 the comparison better, yet not well. Tennyson's coloring 
 is of a mellowness and glow, of which Wordsworth never 
 gives a suggestion. Tennyson depicts passion with a 
 pencil of fire, vivid, tender, true, as life : Wordsworth 
 knew only the loves of the flowers, and even Wilson, in 
 his elaborate apology, concedes that he wanted strength 
 and vividness of diction. One finds himself utterly at 
 a loss for expressions to convey the idea of sylvan loveli- 
 ness, of tender, vernal gaiety, of gentleness in emotion and 
 simplicity in thought, derived from such idyls as The 
 Gardener's Daughter or The Brook. They make you 
 think of sunbeams wandering among roses and lilies, of 
 light streaming silently through delicate foliage, turning 
 all its green to gold, of the prattling of children by sunny 
 rills, of the tears and smiles of whispering lovers. They, 
 too, are, of course, ideal ; though in a very different way 
 from the old pastoral. The miller's daughter must have 
 had her gleaming beauty somewhat dimmed by the ad- 
 hesion of that floating meal to her hair and dress, and 
 there can be no reasonable doubt that, when Eustace and 
 his friend visited the real gardener's daughter, they found 
 her seated on the hack-log peeling potatoes. If the shep- 
 herdesses of the old pastoral were court ladies or Grecian 
 Nymphs, the peasant girls of Tennyson are exquisitely 
 refined English ladies. But this does not affect the inner 
 truth of the portraiture, — since village girls and titled 
 ladies love very much alike, — or do more than pleasantly 
 enhance our sympathy with the emotions delineated. 
 
 As the poet of a period of unparalleled civilization, 
 Tennyson occasionally reflects a mood, differing, in a j^ecu- 
 liar and remarkable way, from any of the moods of pas- 
 sion. Not a few of his poems suggest a time of wearied 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 115 
 
 emotion and jaded sympathy, when passion, as it throbs in 
 human breasts, is looked upon for its artistic effects, and 
 contemplated in unparticipating, unimpassioned admiration. 
 Civilization lies languid on her noonday couch, oppressed 
 with the weight of her own crown, faint in the sun of her 
 own prosperity. To a biographer of Tennyson, this char- 
 acteristic of his poetry would be very suggestive, and it 
 must have struck Mrs. Barrett Browning as distinctive 
 when she described that poetry in the words " enchanted 
 reverie." I could scarce define the cause, but The Day 
 Dream is always associated in my mind with this general 
 impression. 
 
 The greatest poem, all things considered, that Tennyson 
 ever wrote, is In Memoriam. Its name indicates one of 
 the most difficult efforts which can be made in literature. 
 It aims at embalming a private sorrow for everlasting 
 remembrance, at rendering a personal grief generally and 
 immortally interesting. The set eye and marble brow of 
 stoicism would cast back human sympathy; the broken 
 accents and convulsive weeping of individual afiliction 
 would awaken no nobler emotion than mere pity : it was 
 sorrow in a calm and stately attitude, robed in angel-like 
 beauty, though retaining a look of earnest, endless sadness, 
 that would draw generation after generation to the house 
 of mourning. No poet, save one possessed not only of 
 commanding genius but of peculiar qualifications for the 
 task, could have attempted to delineate a sorrow like this. 
 The genius of Tennyson found in the work its precise and 
 most congenial employment ; and the result is surely the 
 finest elegaic poem in the world. 
 
 In whatever aspect we view it, by whatever test we try 
 it, this poem is great, is wonderful. Very absurdly did 
 those critics talk, who spoke of the grief it contained as not 
 
116 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 very strong, perhaps not quite sincere, because it was so 
 elaborately sung, and dwelt upon so long. They utterly 
 misconceived the nature of that grief. They applied a 
 general and commonplace rule to an altogether exceptional 
 instance; an instance which might give new canons to 
 criticism, but which might well perplex the old critics. 
 The shadow of death had fallen between two spirits, knit 
 together in close and noble friendship. That friendship 
 had depended for its endurance on the community of lofty 
 and immortal sympathies, of great thoughts, of pure and 
 earnest affections. It was beyond the power of death to 
 bring it to a termination. Death could only cast a vail of 
 shadow between the two friends, and leave the one still on 
 the earthward side to endeavor to pierce its obscurity, to 
 hope for the day of its removal. It was rather a solemnity, 
 a stillness, a composed and majestic mournfulness, that was 
 cast over the life of Tennyson, than a darkening, over- 
 powering distress. It was the silence and sadness of Au- 
 tumn enveloping all the glories of summer; it was the 
 melancholy of that aspect of nature, perhaps the loveliest 
 of all, when the year first knows the approach of winter, 
 and welcomes it with a resigned yet mournful smile. The 
 shadow fell everywhere. Amid all the groups of living 
 men, amid all the forms of external nature, there was still 
 its presence, and into all the regions of thought and feel- 
 ing it came. Everywhere it brought its solemn sadness : 
 only, on the skies of the future, like the shadow of the 
 earth cast up towards immensity, it seemed to kindle 
 brighter lights as it were stars. The maiden combing her 
 golden hair, in expectation of her lover, whose steps will 
 not be heard that evening, or at all again, at the door, the 
 bride leaving her father's house, the wife whose husband 
 lives apart from her sympathy, in high and remote regions 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 117 
 
 of thought, the boy friends of the village green whose 
 paths in after life lie far asunder, — these all move in the 
 procession of the poem, passing through the shadow of its 
 sorrow. Nature, too, must mourn with the poet, as Shelley- 
 saw her mourning by the bier of Adonais. The ocean must 
 sink into calm around the coming corpse; the gorgeous 
 gloom of evening must shroud it ; and all the tears of 
 morning must fall over it. Into the world of thought and 
 meditation, the same solemn influence comes. The greatest 
 questions on which the human mind can be engaged, 
 questions relating to the being of God, to the immortality 
 of the soul, to the limits of knowledge, to the nature and 
 conditions of future existence, all of which arise naturally 
 before a mind ever looking beyond the bourne for the face 
 of a friend, present themselves to the mourner, if perchance 
 he may find any solace or enlightenment in them. From 
 the simplest scenes of domestic life Tennyson has ascended 
 into the rare atmosphere of metaphysics, and from those 
 heights of contemplation where he so well can tread, sees the 
 shadow of his sorrow falling over the filmy clouds. Nor is 
 this all. The shadow of that sorrow fell everywhere, but, 
 as the poet himself tells us, it was a shadow glory-crowned. 
 Death at times takes up the harp of life, as love did in one 
 of Tennyson's earlier poems, and draws from it grand and 
 inspiring music. The mighty hopes that make us men, the 
 future glories of humanity, the social joys and tendernesses 
 which even on earth shed a softening radiance over settled 
 sorrow, the encouragement which a noble heart finds in 
 dwelling on a life honorably finished, in listening to the 
 earnest voices of the dead, all mingle in the lofty strain. 
 So perfect is the unity, so mighty the sweep of this poem : 
 what more could elegaic poetry be ? 
 
 The measure adopted by Tennyson for In Memoriam 
 
118 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 was almost new to the English language, and it has none 
 of that sweetness or ring which at first take the ear. But, 
 for its subject, it is perfectly adapted. The melancholy of 
 the poet seeks no sudden changes or excitements; it is 
 deep, solemn, still ; and the sameliness of the melody, its 
 majestic uniformity, its calm iEolian flow, correspond ex- 
 actly with the theme. Yet amid its stately uniformity, there 
 is sufficient variation to prevent any disagreeable monotony. 
 Now, in its calm, dream-like harmony, it seems, as it were, 
 to give voice to the silent gaze with which we look into the 
 eyes of Mary looking upon Christ ; now it is deep, solemn, 
 organ-toned, " Ionian music " measuring out the steps of 
 Time — the shocks of Chance — the blows of Death ; and 
 yet again it takes up a trumpet note, and our hearts leap as 
 it bids the wild bells ring out to the wild sky. 
 
 It will be fitting to add a few passages from In Memo- 
 riam, illustrative of the varying subjects which the poet 
 treats, and the mode in which he adapts his delineation 
 and his harmony to each. Let us glance, first, into one 
 or two of those domestic scenes into which falls the light 
 of sorrowing love. 
 
 " Could we forget the widow'd hour 
 And look on spirits breathed away, 
 As on a maiden in the day 
 When first she wears her orange flower ! 
 
 When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
 To take her latest leave of home, 
 And hopes and light regrets that come 
 
 Make April of her tender eyes ; 
 
 And doubtful joys the father move, 
 
 And tears are on the mother's face, 
 
 As parting with a long embrace 
 She enters other realms of love ; 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 119 
 
 Her office there to rear, to teach, 
 
 Becoming as is meet and fit 
 
 A link among the days, to knit 
 The generations each with each ; 
 
 And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
 
 A life that bears immortal fruit 
 In such great offices as suit 
 
 The full-grown energies of heaven. 
 
 Ay me, the difference I discern ! 
 How often shall her old fireside 
 Be cheered with tidings of the bride, 
 
 How often she herself return, 
 
 And tell them all they would have told, 
 And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
 Till even those that miss'd her most, 
 
 Shall count new things as dear as old ? 
 
 But thou and I have shaken hands, 
 
 Till growing winters lay me low ; 
 
 My paths are in the fields I know, 
 And thine in undiscover'd lands." 
 
 Of a somewhat different kind, but from the same class of 
 incident, is the following : — 
 
 " Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
 As some divinely gifted man, 
 Whose life in low estate began 
 And on a simple village green ; 
 
 Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
 And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
 
 And grapples with his evil star ; 
 
120 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS 
 
 Who makes by force his merit known, 
 And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
 To mould a mighty state's decrees, 
 
 And shape the whisper of the throne ; 
 
 And moving up from high to higher, 
 Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 
 The centre of a world's desire ; 
 
 Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 
 When all his active powers are still, 
 A distant dearness in the hill, 
 
 A sacred sweetness in the stream, 
 
 The limit of his narrower fate, 
 While yet beside its vocal springs 
 He play'd at counsellors and kings, 
 
 With one that was his earliest mate ; 
 
 Who ploughs with pain his native lea, 
 And reaps the labor of his hands, 
 Or, in the furrow musing stands ; 
 
 * Does my old friend remember me? ,w 
 
 Once more : — 
 
 ** Two partners of a married life— » 
 
 I looked on these and thought of thee 
 In vastness and in mystery, 
 And of my spirit as of a wife. 
 
 These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
 Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
 Their meetings made December June, 
 
 Their every parting was to die. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS 121 
 
 Their love has never past away ; 
 
 The days she never can forget 
 
 Are earnest that he loves her yet, 
 Whate'er the faithless people say. 
 
 Her life is lone, he sits apart, 
 
 He loves her yet, she will not weep 
 Though rapt in matters dark and deep 
 
 He seems to slight her simple heart. 
 
 He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
 
 He reads the secret of the star, 
 
 He seems so near and yet so far, 
 He looks so cold : she thinks him kind. 
 
 She keeps the gift of years before, 
 
 A wither'd violet is her bliss ; 
 
 She knows not what his greatness is ; 
 For that, for all, she loves him more. 
 
 For him she plays, to him she sings 
 
 Of early faith and plighted vows ; 
 
 She knows but matters of the house, 
 And he, he knows a thousand things. 
 
 Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 
 She darkly feels him great and wise, 
 She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 
 
 1 1 cannot understand : I love/" 
 
 Sometimes the delineation is of feeling still deeper and 
 more hallowed, as in this picture of Mary, when Lazarus 
 has returned from the grave : — 
 
 " Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 
 Nor other thought her mind admits 
 But, he was dead, and there he sits, 
 And He that brought him back is there. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 11 
 
122 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Then one deep love doth supersede 
 All other, when her ardent gaze 
 Roves from the living brother's face, 
 
 And rests upon the Life indeed. 
 
 All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
 Borne down by gladness so complete, 
 She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 
 
 With costly spikenard and with tears. 
 
 Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
 Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
 What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 
 Or is there blessedness like theirs ? " 
 
 Of the aspect of nature, with the great shadow falling 
 over it, as represented by the poet, the following superb 
 piece of imaginative description may enable us to form some 
 conception. 
 
 " Calm is the morn without a sound, 
 Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
 And only through the faded leaf 
 The chestnut pattering to the ground : 
 
 Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
 And on these dews that drench the furze, 
 And all the silvery gossamers 
 
 That twinkle into green and gold : 
 
 Calm and still light on yon great plain 
 That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
 And crowded farms and lessening towers, 
 
 To mingle with the bounding main : 
 
 Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
 These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
 And in my heart, if calm at all, 
 
 If any calm, a calm despair : 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 123 
 
 Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 
 
 And waves that sway themselves in rest, 
 And dead calm in that noble breast 
 
 Which heaves but with the heaving deep." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 
 That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
 Of evening over brake and bloom 
 And meadow, slowly breathing bare 
 
 
 
 The round of space, and rapt below 
 
 Through all the dewy-tasselPd wood, 
 And shadowing down the horned flood 
 In ripples, fan my brows and blow 
 
 The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
 The full new life that feeds thy breath 
 Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 
 
 111 brethren, let the fancy fly . 
 
 From belt to belt of crimson seas 
 
 On leagues of odor streaming far, 
 
 To where in yonder orient star 
 A hundred spirits whisper ■ Peace.' * 
 
 From these we turn naturally to the more meditative 
 and metaphysical parts of the poem. The hope that 
 crowns the shadow with glory dawns here, though some- 
 what faintly: — 
 
 " Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill ! 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood : 
 
124 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 
 That not one life shall be destroy'd 
 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void 
 When God hath made the pile complete ; 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 
 Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserves another's gain. 
 
 Behold, we know not anything; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 
 At last — far off — at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 
 So runs my dream : but what am I ? 
 
 An infant crying in the night : 
 
 An infant crying for the light : 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 In the next, the spirit of man rises up indignant against 
 the idea that nature's grandest piece of work will be 
 crumbled into notningness by death. 
 
 * * * " And he, shall he, 
 * Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed 
 And love Creation's final law — 
 Though Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 
 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed — 
 
 WTio loved, who suffer'd countless ills, 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 
 Or seal'd within the iron hills ? 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 125 
 
 No more ? A monster, then, a dream, 
 A discord. Dragons of the jprime, 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 
 Were mellow music matched with him. 
 
 O, life as futile, then, as frail ! 
 
 O, for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 
 
 What hope of answer or redress ? 
 Behind the vail, behind the vail." 
 
 In the following, the last I can quote, there is involved 
 a whole philosophy of human history. 
 
 " Contemplate all this work of Time, 
 The giant laboring in his youth ; 
 Nor dream of human love and truth, 
 As dying Nature's earth and lime ; 
 
 But trust that those we call the dead, 
 
 Are breathers of an ampler day 
 
 For ever nobler ends. They say, 
 The solid earth whereon we tread 
 
 In tracts of fluent heat began, . 
 
 And grew to seeming-random forms, 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 
 
 Till at the last arose the man ; 
 
 Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, 
 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 
 And of himself in higher place, 
 If so he type this work of time 
 
 Within himself, from more to more ; 
 And, crown'd with attributes of woe 
 Like glories, move his course, and show 
 
 That life is not as idle ore, 
 11* 
 
126 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 But iron, dug from central gloom, 
 And heated hot with burning fears, 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 
 
 And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
 Move upward, working out the beast, 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die." 
 
 I have hitherto used solely the language of commendation. 
 It is perhaps not too presumptuous to say, that I have 
 exhibited some little capacity at least for the enjoyment 
 of Tennyson's poetry. I consider what I have adduced 
 to be matter of simple and conclusive demonstration ; and 
 I believe it to be sufficient to vindicate for Tennyson the 
 highest place among the British poets of his day. He will 
 henceforth, beyond question, be 
 
 " A star among the stars of mortal night : " 
 
 the brightest in that galaxy of poetic genius, containing 
 Bailey, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Alexander Smith, 
 which illustrates the brave days of the Mother Queen, 
 
 " And like one constellation bright, 
 Moves round Victoria." 
 
 But now I am brought to a stand still. I should certainly 
 feel that my estimate of Tennyson's genius and achieve* 
 ment was little worth, if I could apply such terms as I have 
 hitherto made use of to one of his recent poems. With 
 precisely the same decision as I affirmed of In Jfemoriam, 
 that in every aspect and by every test it is great and mar- 
 vellous, do I affirm of Maud that it is a failure. 
 
 The grounds of defence adopted by the esoteric few 
 
TENNYSON" AND HIS TEACHERS. 127 
 
 who are daring enough to profess admiration both for 
 Maud and for Tennyson shift and vary. Is it demon- 
 strated that the feeling of the poem — its love-story and 
 passionate delineation — is, by every possible definition, 
 commonplace? You are assured that Maud is a grand 
 ethical composition, in which sublime truths, concentrated in 
 the bolts of satire, are hurled at a degenerate nation. Is 
 it proved that the thought, the truth, the doctrine, of the 
 poem, are, in a similar sense and degree, hackneyed, and, 
 though hackneyed, by no means profoundly or unquestion- 
 ably true ? You are informed that the description of 
 passion is exquisite and exact. Is it shown that there is 
 here no artistic perfection, that, in one word, Maud is not 
 beautiful ? You are met with knowing and oracular hints 
 about truth to nature and dramatic force, and asked whether, 
 beautiful or no, the characters and incidents of Maud are 
 not exhibited in the; actual world, and peculiarly at the 
 present time. Thus do these select persons change their 
 position, able to make a final and definite stand nowhere. 
 If the mere fact that certain aspects of feeling are not 
 incorrectly rendered, and the circumstance that here and 
 there the melody is exquisite and the color glowing, are 
 sufficient to make a poem worthy of comparison with those 
 of the poet of In Memoriam, it may be conceded that 
 Maud ranks with the other efforts of Tennyson. But 
 whatever the position assigned it, the following points 
 appear to me to be literally and irresistibly demonstrable : 
 that its thought is commonplace and superficial ; that its 
 central idea, in respect of plot and passion, is in no possi- 
 ble sense original ; and that no consideration of dramatic 
 fitness is of the least avail to redeem its essential defect as 
 a work of Art, its want of beauty. 
 
 What is the tale, what the argument of Maud f The 
 
128 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 poem cannot be seriously charged with obscureness. It is 
 so short that, after one or two perusals, its plan becomes 
 perfectly clear, and the most deplorable of pedants finds 
 himself unable to pretend that it contains mysterious truths 
 patent to him alone. A certain person, lying under circum- 
 stances of misfortune, which he believes traceable to lust 
 of gold, and, if you will, to the evil character of the times, 
 indulges in long and fierce soliloquies on the social morality 
 of Great Britain. He falls in love. His affection is recip- 
 rocated. The whole world beams and brightens around 
 him. The grass has a fresher green, the flowers a sweeter 
 fragrance ; and he asks the stars whether the whole world 
 has gone nearer to their light that they shine so softly 
 brilliant. Suddenly his heavens are overcast. He kills the 
 brother of the loved one, escapes to the continent, falls into 
 a disordered state of mind, is haunted by the phantom of 
 Maud, and at last, having returned to his native land, is 
 comforted and tranquillized by the information, imparted 
 by the ghost, that there is " a hope for the world in the 
 coming wars," of which the Russian war is the commence- 
 ment. That is all. The only originality about which I care 
 to dispute is the right thing in the right place. The high 
 argument by which the sanative influence of war in human 
 history can be made out, by which carnage can be proved 
 to be the daughter of God, would have been amply suffi- 
 cient, if invested with poetic form in a manner worthy of 
 the imagination before which arose The Palace of Art, to 
 have vindicated for the poem a true originality. But do 
 we not pause in astonishment when we learn that there are 
 persons who are not sensible of an incongruity and absurd- 
 ity, nay who profess to find a magnificent poetic fitness, 
 in the proclamation of this great truth by means of the 
 machinery of a private love affair, the hero of which is on 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 129 
 
 all hands allowed to be a weakling! The author of Locks- 
 ley Hall and The Palace of Art demands our assent to a 
 mighty truth, by letting us hear a jargoning, ill-conditioned 
 misanthrope declare that a tailor, dishonest in peace, would 
 be brave in war ; and by introducing the ghost of a pretty 
 girl, informing her distracted lover, that the Russian war 
 will be a good beginning of the end! Scott has been 
 blamed for warning Fitz-James by means of a mad girl, 
 but his device is unobjectionable compared with this. Put- 
 ting together the importance of the intelligence and the 
 weight of the authority, one is reminded, by Mr. Tenny- 
 son's climax, only of the person, somewhat crazed, who 
 convoked, it is said, the inhabitants of Edinburgh for the 
 purpose of announcing some momentous fact, and declared, 
 to the assembled Athenians, that he was about to assert his 
 title to the throne of Great Britain, seeing that his mother's 
 ghost had informed him, on the Broomielaw of Glasgow, 
 that he was the Prince of "Wales. It needs more than a 
 ghost to tell us some things ! To descend more to detail, 
 the gloomy descriptions of the age blustered forth by our 
 hero can be accurately paralleled from any one of Mr. Car- 
 lyle's books, written after the period at which that author 
 abandoned reasoning and resolved to confine himself to 
 denunciation. Selected passages from the Latter Day 
 Pamphlets, very scantily softened by the form of verse, 
 would fairly outdo, in downright jagged scolding, all the 
 rant of this uncouth lover. There is nothing now more 
 utterly commonplace than indiscriminate and unmeasured 
 denunciation. Tennyson was surely not the man to follow 
 in the wake of Mr. Kingsley in mimicking the worst parts 
 of Carlyle. The love-story, again, apart from the ethical 
 truth it so artistically embodies, is as commonplace as the 
 denunciation. It is true that happy love spreads a blessed 
 
130 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 illumination over the face of things, and unhappy love a 
 blasting gloom. But there can be no originality in describ- 
 ing, for a second or a fiftieth time, what you have yourself 
 described before, or what has been elsewhere described 
 much better. The harp of life, struck by the hand of 
 love, was heard in -Locksley Hall discoursing new and most 
 eloquent music ; the moorland was there found to be 
 dreary, and the shore barren, when the light of love was 
 withdrawn. The influence of happy affection and the 
 reverse was told once and forever in Locksley Hall. It 
 is deeply to be deplored that Mr. Tennyson returned to 
 a theme which the might of his own genius had exhausted. 
 But not only will the author's own volumes deprive the 
 delineations of feeling in Maud of originality. "We must 
 assert its claim to that characteristic, if we insist in so 
 doing, in face of all the circulating libraries. In Jane 
 Eyre, in Shirley, in Villette, in the loves of Jane and 
 Rochester, of Shirley and Moore, of John and Polly, the 
 not very recondite truth that the birds do n't sing sweetly 
 when the heart is weary and filled with care, is proclaimed 
 and illustrated. Here, in fact, lay the chief strength of 
 one of the most powerful female intellects which ever 
 existed ; and it is no insult to Tennyson to say that, if in 
 Locksley Hall he showed love in joy and in sorrow, with 
 an epic power beyond any emulation of the novelist, he has, 
 in Maud, fallen immeasurably behind Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 I have named Locksley Hall as exhibiting in some re- 
 spects a resemblance to Maud. But the two poems do 
 not, on the whole, admit of comparison. Locksley Hall, 
 though, rhythmically considered, an exception to Tenny- 
 son's previous poems, is of its sort an absolute master- 
 piece. No lyre ever voiced the wild yet melodious 
 raptures of passion more deeply or powerfully. But what 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 131 
 
 is the melody of Maud ? It is neither the rapid, glancing 
 lilt of Scott, the fervid rush of Byron, nor the rich in- 
 woven harmony, of lute and harp and organ, to which our 
 ear had been tuned by Tennyson. Its music is the music 
 of kettle drums at a recruits' ball. Sometimes, indeed, a 
 wandering strain from the old music, seeming to rise magi- 
 cally from the far distance, takes us with the old delight : — 
 
 " Alas for her that met me, 
 
 That heard me softly call, 
 Came glimmering through the laurels 
 
 At the quiet evenfall, 
 In the garden by the turrets 
 
 Of the old manorial hall." 
 
 In the love song of the garden, too, the lyric harmony 
 and glowing joyousness are truly refreshing and delightful. 
 But as for the poem in general, it will never be recognized 
 as tuneful by any human ear, unless hopelessly stuffed with 
 pedantic cotton. One cannot help imagining it sung by 
 skeletons, to the accompaniment of rattling bones. 
 
 I am perfectly aware, dear pedantic critic, — who have 
 had the misfortune to study yourself out of all human sym- 
 pathy, and think nothing worth discovering unless it is n't 
 there, — that you will affirm both the flitting feverish style 
 of narrative, and the jerking, jingling melody, adapted to 
 the general character of Maud, and on that account right. 
 I answer that the person, into whose mouth the whole is 
 put, must be supposed to utter it after his madness is over ; 
 and that an enveloping calm, which Tennyson knows so 
 well how to combine with power of expression, would have 
 had a far finer artistic effect than this atmosphere of wild- 
 ness and raving. It is, besides, a fatal objection to any 
 work of Art, even though it be descriptive of madness, 
 
132 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 that there does not dwell in it some fascination, making 
 you contemplate it with a certain pleasure. In the case of 
 poetical Art, this pleasure is inseparably connected with 
 tune, and were it only that the ear acknowledges no fasci- 
 nation in Maud, it would be proved artistically and poeti- 
 cally wrong. An all important distinction is here to be 
 made, between the effect on our feelings, produced by the 
 scenes or characters of the artist in themselves, and the 
 charm by which he constrains us to look upon them. We 
 loathe Iago and detest Shylock, yet, while delineating 
 them, Shakspeare enthrals us with a mighty fascination. 
 We shrink in horror from Haley or Legree, and almost 
 shriek when old Tom is lashed to death : yet to the repul- 
 siveness of Haley and Legree, and the death of the Negro, 
 much of the popularity of Uncle Tom? 8 Cabin is to be 
 imputed. The power, in fact, of the artist's genius is dis- 
 played mainly in the spell by which he fixes our gaze when 
 he chooses. With Crabbe, we tire not in looking upon the 
 jabbering maniac ; with Tennyson, we calmly behold the 
 ancient dragons tearing each other in their slime. Art 
 paints you the sea shore, but it does not spatter you with 
 the sand and surf. In Maud all this is forgotten. We 
 are charmed by no sense of appropriateness, lured by no 
 perception of means converging to an end, to sympathize 
 with or suffer the unmelodious ranter. It is as if Mrs. 
 Stowe had at once broken on us with the screams of 
 Uncle Tom; as if Crabbe had merely jotted down the 
 ravings of his maniac ; as if Shakspeare had simply, accu- 
 rately, and by themselves, echoed the chatterings of Lear. 
 I argue, of course, on the supposition that unmelodious- 
 ness is conceded in Maud and defended on the ground 
 of appropriateness. 
 The mere play of the sympathies of the reader is not 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 133 
 
 secured in this poem. The heroine may pass. She can 
 sing. But why does she love this remarkable hero ? He 
 is a sour, shabby, purposeless soliloquizer. By all physio- 
 logical and physiognomical reasons, he is sallow, squalid, 
 with his skin hanging loose on his bones, with matted hair, 
 shuffling, conceited, probably squint-eyed, demonstrably a 
 sloven. Why does she love him ? He hates her kindred 
 and all men and women. He is moody, idle, given to 
 night walking. Worst of all, he writes such verse as 
 
 u I kissed her slender hand, 
 She took the kiss sedately, 
 Maud is not seventeen, 
 But she is tall and stately." 
 
 It is a scientific fact, deserving, for the honor of the fair, 
 all due prominence, that no woman of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race could love a man capable of such maundering. Why 
 does Maud love him ? He goes about* with an aggrieved, 
 injured-looking, gingerly expression, which makes you ex- 
 pect he is going to knock you down. Poe's raven is 
 the only hero in literature his precise counterpart ; but the 
 raven had some dignity, and was not so intensely egotistical, 
 so profoundly selfish, as this ungainly, gaunt, and ominous 
 radical. And Maud, with aristocracy in every line of her 
 face, loves him ! Nay, she seems to be attracted by his 
 personal appearance, perhaps by his bright and benignant 
 look when he first makes up his mind that she has neither 
 savor nor salt. She smiles him on without any meetings 
 that we hear of, without any attractions on his part that we 
 can conceive. What great Apollo will render us the 
 reason of this? 
 
 The Princess, though inferior to the general run of 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 12 
 
134 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Tennyson's earlier poems, on the one hand, and to the 
 single magnificent effort of In Memoriam, on the other, 
 contains much exquisite poetry, and can hardly fail to main- 
 tain its place as a classic. It will stand higher than the 
 Story of Rimini, though not, I think, in a different class. 
 
 It is my strong conviction that neither Maud nor The 
 Princess was the result of very deep or natural feeling on 
 the part of Tennyson. Let it not be imagined that I bring 
 here any charge of mere affectation against the poet, or for 
 a moment sanction the idea that he deliberately set himself 
 to sing about what he cared nothing for. This superficial 
 affectation is rare indeed with men of real genius. But 
 it is competent to criticism, nay it is one of the most im- 
 portant tasks of a criticism aiming at philosophic accuracy, 
 to penetrate the sources of feeling in the case of poetic 
 production, to determine whether it dwelt really in the 
 deepest nature of the poet, commanding all his powers, or 
 whether it was, more or less decidedly, more or less 
 unconsciously, assumed. It can hardly be alleged that 
 the feeling in Byron's Tales is not, in a sense, strong and 
 sincere : yet there are few who would now declare that the 
 central affection of Byron's nature, a nature, as Moore 
 declared, at bottom essentially practical and English, was 
 awakened by those scowling Giaours and tragical Gulnares. 
 The genius of Tennyson, I must be permitted to consider, 
 is radically of a far rarer kind than Byron's ; and being of 
 a rarer kind, it admits less of any compulsion, however 
 subtle, it acts with more pure unconsciousness. Byron was 
 to a remarkable extent a made poet ; he knew well whence 
 he drew his stores and who were his masters ; he could at 
 any time write about equally well on any subject. He did 
 a set of Hebrew Melodies, we might almost say, to order, 
 and did them incomparably ; he had acquired the Art of 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 135 
 
 Poetry as Landseer has acquired the Art of Painting. But 
 Tennyson is not thus master of his capacities ; their very 
 rareness, costliness, dewy delicacy, prevent his being so. 
 It is said that, before accepting the Laureateship, he stipu- 
 lated that he should not have to compose birthday odes by 
 tale ; and the fact would merely indicate his own conscious- 
 ness of the glorious impotence of genius. Now, in the case- 
 both of his earlier poems and of In Memoriam, the im- 
 pulse to poetical production was natural, spontaneous, and 
 mighty. In the former it was the first youthful enthusiasm 
 for the Beautiful, the pure outgoing of uncontrollable 
 radiance from the poet's soul, coloring all nature, and, 
 wherever it fell, coming straight from the centre. In the 
 latter, the impulse was one which affected the whole life ; 
 a deep, genuine, though noble and manly sorrow, con- 
 strained all the powers to minister to it. But in the case 
 both of The Princess and Maud, I am assured that Ten- 
 nyson felt himself expected to write, that he more or less 
 looked out for a subject. In almost every other case, his 
 subject was not sought for, but came of its own accord. 
 The poem in which it bloomed out in fadeless beauty 
 expanded spontaneously like a rose amid the dews and 
 sunbeams. In Maud and The Princess it is Tennyson 
 that works : in the others his mind is but the JEolian harp 
 from which the cunning hand of nature draws ethereal 
 music. 
 
 There are scattered over certain of the larger poems of 
 Tennyson, and there are found separately among his earlier 
 pieces, short lyrics of a highly remarkable character. They 
 combine an elaboration that reminds one of the odes of 
 Keats, with a rapidity and sweep not altogether unworthy 
 of Campbell. Amid the beauty of Tennyson's general 
 poetry, such lyrics shine out conspicuously beautiful, like 
 
136 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 diamonds in gold fields. I cannot do better, in drawing 
 towards a conclusion, than take up a few of these gems, 
 and string them together, as it were, into a diamond 
 necklace. 
 
 The first shall be taken from The Miller's Daughter. 
 That poem is one of the finest emotional poems in the 
 language ; true in its originality, tenderly beautiful in its 
 imagery, life itself in its feeling. The poetry of married 
 life is there expressed perhaps for the first time, and so 
 well that it might be the last. The very spirit and essence 
 of connubial felicity breathe through the piece, and its 
 supremacy, in the deep rest and peacefulness of its joy, to 
 the fiery thrillings of passion, is triumphantly asserted. 
 
 " True wife, 
 Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
 My other dearer life in life, 
 
 Look through my very soul with thine ! 
 
 The kiss, 
 The woven arms, seem but to be 
 Weak symbols of the settled bliss, 
 The comfort, I have found in thee." 
 
 But I digress. It is not with The Miller's Daughter we 
 have at present to do ; it is with one of those trills of lyric 
 melody, which so charmingly interrupt its general flow; 
 a little love song, given by the bridegroom to the bride on 
 their wedding day. The ideas are simple, and their sug- 
 gestion probably as old as Anacreon, but the birds in the 
 hedges, as the young pair passed along, could not have 
 carolled >more gaily or tenderly. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 137 
 
 " It is the miller's daughter, 
 And she is grown so dear, so dear, 
 That I would be the jewel 
 That trembles at her ear ; 
 For, hid in ringlets day and night, 
 I *d touch her cheek so warm and white. 
 
 And I would be the girdle 
 
 About her dainty, dainty waist, 
 
 And her heart would beat against me 
 
 In sorrow and in rest ; 
 
 And I should know if it beat right, 
 
 I 'd clasp it round so close and tight. 
 
 And I would be the necklace, 
 
 And all day long to fall and rise 
 
 Upon her balmy bosom, 
 
 With her laughter or her sighs, 
 
 And I would lie so light, so light, 
 
 I scarce should be unclasp'd at night" 
 
 The next is a higher effort. It may, without any hesita- 
 tion, be pronounced one of the most successful efforts ever 
 made in lyric poetry. Except perhaps the appropriation 
 of " the vision of the world and all the glory that shall be," 
 as the song of the poet, there is in it no originality of idea. 
 The feat of Orpheus was essentially that here recorded. 
 But where, in the compass of sixteen lines, can we find 
 such a description, of that sudden amazement and rapture, 
 with which the voice of human song was from of old said 
 to take the ear of nature ? The delineation is as clear as it 
 is condensed. Every touch is laid on as with a pencil of 
 light ; and Homer never was more graphic. In the melody 
 there is a blending of buoyancy and stateliness beyond all 
 praise. 
 
 12* 
 
138 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 THE POET'S SONG. 
 
 " The rain had fallen, the poet arose, 
 
 He pass'd by the town and out of the street; 
 A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 
 
 And waves of shadow went over the wheat ; 
 And he sat him down in a lonely place, 
 
 And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
 That made the wild swan pause in her cloud, 
 
 And the lark drop down at his feet. 
 
 The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 
 
 The snake slipt under a spray, 
 The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 
 
 And stared, with his foot on the prey, 
 And the nightingale thought, ' I have sung many songs* 
 
 But never a one so gay, 
 For he sings of what the world will be 
 
 When the years have passed away.' n 
 
 The following is in a strain equally exalted: perhaps 
 more so. The vision swept grandly before the poet's eye, 
 and he shed out on it a light of immortality. 
 
 M Of old sat Freedom on the heights, 
 The thunders breaking at her feet: 
 Above her shook the starry lights : 
 She heard the torrents meet. 
 
 There in her place she did rejoice, 
 
 Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, 
 But fragments of her mighty voice 
 
 Came rolling on the wind. 
 
 Then stept she down through town and field 
 
 To mingle with the human race, 
 And part by part to men reveal'd 
 
 The fullness of her face — 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 139 
 
 Grave mother of majestic works, 
 
 From her isle-altar gazing down, 
 Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, 
 
 And, King-like, wears the crown; 
 
 Her open eyes desire the truth. 
 
 The wisdom of a thousand years 
 Is in them. May perpetual youth 
 
 Keep dry their light from tears ; 
 
 That her fair form may stand and shine, 
 Make bright our days and light our dreams, 
 
 Turning to scorn with lips divine 
 The falsehood of extremes ! " 
 
 Our next is of a lowlier order and a milder tone, but in 
 its way is exceedingly fine. Tennyson is a great master of 
 pathos ; knows the very tones that go to the heart ; can 
 arrest every one of those looks of upbraiding or appeal, 
 by which human woe brings the tear into the human eye. 
 In the few simple verses that follow, the pathos is purely 
 realistic. Trusting to the mighty simplicity of nature, the 
 poet has so completely divested the lines of all meretricious 
 adornment, nay of all the coloring which even a chaste 
 imagination can cast over fact, that they at first appear 
 somewhat hard and bare. But only look long enough 
 upon that simple fact : those tears, tenderest of all, that 
 mingle joy with sorrow, can hardly fail to come. 
 
 " Home they brought her warrior dead : 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry ; 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 ' She must weep, or she will die.' 
 
140 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
 Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
 
 Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
 
 Stole a maiden from her place, 
 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 Took the face-cloth from the face ; 
 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
 
 Set his child upon her knee ; 
 Like summer tempest came her tears — 
 
 * Sweet my child, I live for thee/ " 
 
 There is far more than mere realism in the next. Imagina- 
 tion in her highest mood strikes the harp, and marshals the 
 stately imagery. The pathos here too is deep, but it is the 
 majesty not the prostration of grief. 
 
 " Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depths of some divine despair 
 Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, 
 In looking on the happy autumn-fields, 
 Amd thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
 That brings our friends up from the under world, 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 141 
 
 Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
 On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
 O death in life, the days that are no more." 
 
 It has been said that the whole of In Memoriam is in 
 the following ; and the expression is not absurd. 
 
 u Break, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, oh Sea ! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 O well for the fisherman's boy, 
 That he shouts with his sister at play I 
 
 O well for the sailor lad, 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay. 
 
 And the stately ships go on 
 
 To the haven under the hill ; 
 But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, oh Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 "Will never come back to me." 
 
 The two pieces preceding the last are from The Princess. 
 So is the next. The heroine of that poem is represented 
 standing on the roof of her palace, a golden circlet round 
 her hair and a babe in her arms, and uplifting, " like that 
 great dame of Lapidoth," the martial strain. It is uttered 
 in exultation over the defeat of her enemies by her selected 
 champions. 
 
142 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : the seed, 
 The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
 Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
 Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 
 A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. 
 
 Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they came ; 
 The leaves were wet with women's tears : they heard 
 A noise of songs they would not understand : 
 They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 
 And would have strewn it, and are fall'n themselves. 
 
 Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they came, 
 The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
 But we will make it faggots for the hearth, 
 And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 
 And boats and bridges for the use of men. 
 
 Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they struck ; 
 With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
 There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
 The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 
 Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 
 
 Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
 A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
 Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power ; and roll'd 
 r With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
 The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
 Shall move the stony bases of the world." 
 
 I add only that singular, mysterious, yet strangely fasci- 
 nating lyric, a play of wild fantastic melody, and flashing, 
 foam-like color, which was composed, I believe, to the 
 Killarney bugle music. The descriptive touches in the 
 first verse are superb. 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 143 
 
 " The splendor falls on castle walls 
 
 And snowy summits old in story ; 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying: 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O hark! O hear! how thin and clear, 
 
 And thinner, clearer, further going ! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar, 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying." 
 
 Historical parallels are not always or entirely to be relied 
 on ; for time never accurately repeats itself, and external 
 resemblances may divert attention from essential though 
 deep-lying differences. The British world of to-day is alto- 
 gether different from that of the commencement of last 
 century. Yet I cannot but perceive, if not a parallel, at />S4 s 
 least a correspondence, between the poetry of Tennyson 
 and that of the Pope and Dryden school. Since the Puri- 
 tan era, there had been in Great Britain no period of 
 excitement so deep and general, as that of the end of last 
 century and the commencement of the present. In the 
 former period, the minds of men were shaken in religious 
 and civil revolutions ; in the latter, though religion had 
 receded into the background, the convulsive stragglings of 
 
144 TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 
 
 democracy, and the magnificent war-drama with all Europe 
 for a stage, had awakened every energy and every enthu- 
 siasm that slumbers in the human breast. These two 
 periods seem to answer each other with their rolling thun- 
 ders, silencing all intermediate noises. Each had a poetical 
 literature. That of the Puritan age was concentrated in 
 one man, John Milton. He was a literature in himself, an 
 ample, a magnificent literature. The earnestness of that 
 heroic time, of which throbbings may yet be detected both 
 in Britain and America, will burn, through the night of all 
 ages, in his sublimest epic. The poetic literature of the 
 modern period is represented in Great Britain by a multi- 
 tude of names, Scott, Byron, "Wordsworth, and the rest ; 
 men endowed with a poetic genius so true and so powerful, 
 that they plainly tower above all who had preceded them 
 since the Puritan era : but whose highest applause it must 
 be, that their united voice wakes an echo worthy to reply 
 to the single harp of Milton. After the Puritan poetry, 
 came the poetry of Dryden and Pope. This was calmer, 
 smoother, smaller. Neatness and elegance succeeded to 
 rugged strength, appropriate thoughts neatly expressed, 
 balanced sentences trimly versified, to great ideas chafing 
 in the harness of diction, and burdened sentences rolling on 
 in stern majestic rhythm. Dryden is a versifier but no 
 poet, said Milton : the Puritan poet would probably have 
 considered inconsistent with the poetic character that power 
 of dexterous manipulation, that capacity of delicate chisel- 
 ling, by which the poets of the new school set so much 
 store. To the poetry of the modern revolutionary time, 
 succeeded the poetry of Tennyson. It contrasted with that 
 immediately preceding, in the perfection of its finish, and 
 in its deeper, more delicate harmony. It was also, on the 
 whole, more calm and reflective. So far it may correspond 
 
TENNYSON AND HIS TEACHERS. 145 
 
 to the poetry of Pope and his compeers. But the parallel 
 cannot be carried further. The poetry of Tennyson is 
 pervaded by an intense realism, by a deep unvarying truth, 
 which sets it altogether apart from that of the school of 
 Pope. Here all passion, from the panting ecstacy of first 
 love to the satisfied, smiling happiness of connubial affection, 
 is voiced with pure veracity. Here the deepest thoughts 
 that can occupy the human mind are earnestly grappled 
 with, and every shred of conventionality is flung aside. 
 The very finish, the polish and delicacy, are not the result 
 of deliberate manipulation, but the natural mode in which 
 a poet, endowed with marvellous powers of expression, and 
 accustomed to wander through all the Muses' walk, clothes 
 his ideas and emotions. Such a poet cannot soon be popu- 
 lar with the million; but as the last and most exquisite 
 culture of educated minds, as the ultimate sublimation of 
 thought and beauty, as the most refined expression of the 
 most refined civilization that ever dawned upon the world, 
 his works must continue to exercise a mighty influence 
 upon the leading intellects of those nations which lead the 
 world. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 13 
 
 r- 
 
III. 
 
 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 There are two things, for which, I think, the world has 
 especially to rejoice, in contemplating the position and 
 circumstances of Shakspeare. The first is, that he was 
 not technically a scholar, that between him and the great 
 ancient hearts whose secrets he was to read, there inter- 
 vened, not the frosty twilight of antiquarian lore, but only 
 the unpretentious dimness of translation and tradition. 
 How well that, in great Julius, the greater Shakspeare 
 had to recognize the heart only of a brother ! How well 
 that the thaumaturgic hand had not to clip, and measure, 
 and adjust, amid moth-eaten cerements and rusty helmets, 
 in order to fashion forth the old Roman exterior and shell 
 of Julius, but only to cast asunder the gates of the human 
 heart that those deathless notes might be heard, which are 
 the undertone of human emotion in all ages, and to show 
 us Julius himself! How well that he, who was to give to 
 the Anglo-Saxon tongue that tune it was never to lose, 
 whose language, exhaustless in range, in delicacy, in force, 
 in variety, taking every hue of thought and feeling as the 
 sky takes shade or sunshine, as the forest takes breeze or 
 calm, was to remain forever the emblem of the multitu- 
 dinous life and lightly moved and all-conceiving spirit of 
 the modern time, as contrasted with the grave uniformity 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 147 
 
 and petrified aristocratism of antiquity, was tempted, by 
 no familiarity with ancient writings, to any formal rotundity 
 of diction or obscure involution of sentence ! How dread- 
 ful the thought that he, whose hall of audience, increasing 
 with civilization, is the world, he who has moved a broader 
 stratum of human sympathy than any other man, might 
 have passed into that narrow chamber, narrowing with 
 every generation, in which Gray, Collins, and such erudite 
 minstrels receive frost-bitten compliments from critics and 
 pedants. But it is wronging Shakspeare to suppose, even 
 for a moment, that the temptation of learning could have 
 overcome him. He, of all men, would have been least apt 
 to prefer the poor glitter of learned paint to God's sunlight 
 of living smiles, the classic drops of Naiad's well or Casta- 
 lian fountain to the sacred dew of human tears. He, of all 
 men, would have been least apt to set the icy guerdon of a 
 pedant's approbation above the sight of simple emotion, 
 welling irresistibly from the heart of a peasant. Only, 
 when one thinks how much learning has done to veil 
 genius which it is not absurd to name along with Shak- 
 speare's, and reflects that the throne of Milton, though of 
 the loftiest, was never raised, on its classic pedestal, to the 
 height of Shakspeare's, it is impossible to suppress a sense 
 of satisfaction that the greatest author of mankind was not 
 learned. 
 
 The next thing for which, perhaps still more expressly, 
 we may be thankful in the case of Shakspeare, is the 
 complex fact, that he never attained to consciousness of his 
 powers, that he heard not the voice of his fame, and that 
 he was never surrounded by a circle of admirers. Healthy, 
 whole-hearted, it perhaps never occurred to him to ask 
 what precise position he, Shakspeare, might occupy, in 
 relation to other writers. His chief t life-work, he may 
 
148 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 have, on the whole, concluded, was the realization of a 
 comfortable living in his native Stratford : one can imagine 
 him staggering in bewildered incredulity, if the eyes of all 
 coming generations, hailing him as the mightiest of mere 
 men, had gleamed suddenly in vision before him. Gruff 
 Ben Jonson, too, wishing he had "blotted a hundred" 
 words of his dramas instead of boasting that he never 
 made an erasure, and the other brave spirits of the Mer- 
 maid Tavern " whistling him down," when, though, indeed, 
 clever, he was becoming something of a rattle, were not 
 likely to permit Shakspeare to dote over his faults, to coax 
 him into a belief that what the general common sense 
 disliked in his poetry was its peculiar excellence, to make 
 him imagine that any veil filming his genius was greater 
 than his genius itself. Hero-worship is twice cursed ; in 
 the hero who is befooled, and in the zanies who befool him. 
 The one is bewildered into extravagance, like, shall we 
 say, Mahomet, or enervated by conceit, like, shall we say, 
 Wordsworth: the other brings himself to rejoice in any 
 feast of shells, if only it is laid out by his hero. The grand 
 evil which hero-worship brings upon the literary hero is 
 confirmation in his mannerism, instead of being left, like 
 Shakspeare, and with nature always assisting him, more 
 and more to cast off his mannerism in the broad light of 
 truth. Living so near Wordsworth as this generation does, 
 and recalling many phenomena allied to that presented by 
 him, his hero-worshippers, and their mutual relation, one is 
 tempted to say that the peculiar danger to which literature 
 is in these days exposed is that of having mannerisms 
 extolled into models. At all events, must we not rejoice 
 that the subtlest of all poisons was never mingled in Shak- 
 speare' s cup, that he was all unconscious of his praises, 
 perhaps even of his powers, that, like a great cataract, he 
 rolled heedless down " the dust of continents to be." 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 149 
 
 The reader may not yet be prepared to sympathize with 
 me in the feelings with which I regard the poems of Mrs. 
 Barrett Browning. I cannot claim instant assent, when, 
 though allowing that between her and Shakspeare, as well 
 as many other men, there can be instituted no comparison, 
 I yet deliberately assign her the same place among women 
 as Shakspeare occupies among men. To show ground for 
 this opinion will be, more or less, the object of all the 
 following remarks. But it must at present be allowed me 
 to declare, that no circumstance to which reference could 
 be made, in connection with the genius of Mrs. Barrett 
 Browning, is to me more evident or distressing, than the 
 fact that it is prevented, by certain vailing clouds of esoteric 
 culture and repelling mannerism, from casting abroad, with 
 full, sunlike charms, the rich magnificence of its power. If 
 it were the homage of a second rate applause that were 
 challenged for this poetess, — if it was to be mentioned in 
 honor of her, that she could translate from Bion and 
 .JEschylus, and talk of gnomons, zodiacs, and apogees, — 
 it would be absurd to regret that certain characteristics of 
 her poetry withhold it from the many and confine it to the 
 few. But it is the very highest distinction that can be 
 •claimed for her; it is that mysterious power, to be com- 
 municated by no culture, and related to learning as the 
 .living flower, rich in green leaf and tinted petal, is related 
 to the wooden framework over which it climbs, which she 
 possesses. The power of stirring the inmost fountains of 
 laughter and tears, of bringing music from the rough metal 
 of every day life, of kindling those lights in human eyes, 
 which glance from scholar to rustic, from peasant to king, 
 with the gleam of recognition, reconcilement, and relation- 
 ship, is hers. To this, all learning is a very small matter. 
 And believing that Mrs. Barrett Browning is gifted with 
 13* 
 
150 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 this, I cannot but deeply regret that it is impeded in its 
 way to that over which such power exerts its noblest sway, 
 the general heart. Why, you cannot but ask, should the 
 words of this woman, burning in their tenderness, pene- 
 trating in their truth, so broadly and deeply human in their 
 application, not reach the strongly pulsing heart of common 
 humanity ? Why should not the cottage mother thrill with 
 the expression she has given to maternal ecstacy? Why 
 should not the mourner at the village grave see a beam 
 falling from heaven on the sod, at the recollection of her 
 words? Why should not the peasant Christian, who re- 
 joices to trace, with Bunyan, the path of the Pilgrim from 
 the city of destruction to the celestial gate, glow with a 
 still loftier emotion, as this great Christian singer casts for 
 him rays of revealing light, far and deep into the night of 
 history, over the most mysterious sublimities of human 
 destiny ? That all this does not happen, that Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's readers are what is called select, and that they are 
 students rather than listeners, is a well known fact. The 
 cause can be easily discovered, — a certain obscurity, an 
 excessive demand on the reader; — and I cannot help think- 
 ing that this cause came to operate, partly through her 
 learning, (occasioning un-English involution of style,) and 
 partly, however unconscious she may have been of the 
 influence, through some hero-worshipping bray, proclaiming 
 in her ears that her obscurities were her beauties. We are 
 all, geniuses and common persons, subject to weakness. 
 As one hears Mrs. Browning talking of apogees, and ad- 
 dressing Lucifer as Heosphoros, and marks the involved 
 and sonorous Latinity of her style, he can hardly repel the 
 suggestion, that the weapon which, probably with con- 
 siderable toil, she acquired, with the aid of her fellow-men, 
 for herself was by her deemed of greater value, than those 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 151 
 
 weapons which it cost her no trouble to attain or wield, 
 and which not man but God had given her. Her womanly 
 humility even, her virgin modesty, may have hidden from 
 her the fact that she could afford to thrust all learning into 
 the background ! As to the other influence, the applause 
 of defects by cultivated pedants, I am far from asserting 
 that Mrs. Barrett Browning ever indulged in any weak, 
 Wordsworthian self-canonization ; but in Casa Guidi Win- 
 dows, one of her latest poems, I find the same sources of 
 obscurity as in her earliest, and such as seemed at one 
 stage to be clearing themselves away; and I cannot but 
 think that the literary dilettantism of the age, with its 
 execrable inversion of criticism, with its commendation 
 of what the common heart does not feel, and of what the 
 unsophisticated mind will not comprehend, has, to some 
 extent, cast its enchantment over her. 
 
 It were a mistake to infer, from anything I have said, 
 an ignorance, on my part, of the fact, that there is a legiti- 
 mate obscurity attaching to certain kinds of composition, 
 and attendant upon certain moods of genius. The strong 
 surge of passion, bearing a writer along, may render him 
 incapable of attending to the small niceties of composition, 
 and putting in those little links, on which clearness depends. 
 Shakspeare, his heart and brain throbbing with the passion 
 and the thought of a Samlet, cannot point and round his 
 sentences with such nice discrimination, or even keep his 
 ideas in such lucid sequence, as is easy for a Pope. A 
 Tacitus will not write so clearly as a Macaulay. The 
 theme, too, may be so remote from the beaten tracks of 
 thought, the ideas may so far underlie the general growth 
 and efflorescence of practical thinking, that effort, beyond 
 what all readers will give, is necessary to their intelligence. 
 To these considerations I would give full weight in proceed- 
 
152 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 ing to survey one or two of Mrs. Browning's most remark- 
 able poems ; but this can be done in perfect consistency 
 with what has been said. 
 
 The Drama of Exile is of itself sufficient at once to 
 justify and to illustrate all I have advanced. Many, I doubt 
 not, have cast aside the poem in despair, ere proceeding far 
 in its perusal; and many more, after penetrating to the 
 end, have said, with a feeling of honest regret, that they 
 had been aware of the presence of astonishing genius, that 
 they had met with many fine thoughts, but that the whole 
 seemed to them a wild and wavering phantasmagoria. 
 Yet this may fearlessly be pronounced one of the greatest 
 poems in the language : of a pathos genuine and unfathom- 
 able, of sublimity exalted, and in which a resistless imagi- 
 nation casts its lit eye, with a glance swifter than that of 
 logic, far aloft into the regions of intellectual and religious 
 truth. So confident am I of this, and so confident also am 
 I that the Drama of Exile is withdrawn from the knowl- 
 edge and admiration of thousands whom it might instruct 
 and delight, that I feel it an august task to attempt, as I 
 purpose, indeed, to do in relation to Mrs. Browning's 
 poetry in general, to wave aside the cloud-drapery, and 
 loosen forth some of the notes of its mighty music. 
 
 The scene — for the form, though but the form, of the 
 poem, is dramatic — is laid on the outer side of the gate of 
 Eden on the evening of the day of the expulsion, and 
 Adam and Eve are seen flying in the distance along the 
 glare of the flaming sword. The first speaker is Lucifer. 
 He opens the poem with a chant of exultation over God 
 and man, and of haughty congratulation to himself and his 
 angels. This chant has, in its first stanza, one of those 
 grotesque rhymes which Mrs. Browning too carelessly per- 
 mits, and by which, with a fastidiousness perhaps somewhat 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 153 
 
 feeble and excessive, the English reader is apt to allow him- 
 self to be prejudiced against a whole performance. One 
 might desiderate, too, somewhat more of the majesty of 
 the Miltonic fiend, to temper the fierce and passionate 
 boasting of Lucifer. But the passage is nevertheless true in 
 conception and magnificent in execution. It is the com- 
 mencement of the poem, in the essential respect of striking 
 its key note, of providing for its catastrophe or triumph, of 
 folding up the end in the beginning. Lucifer, man's victor, 
 stands upon the earth which he has conquered, calls upon 
 his host to arise through the shaken foundations of the 
 world, and boasts, with an assurance which his very despair 
 seems to crown, that this throne must remain his, since 
 it is evil, and God himself cannot do other than curse it. 
 It is necessary to quote this opening strain, and the reader 
 will do well to permit no slight offences to the ear to turn 
 him aside from pondering it carefully, line by line. 
 
 w Rejoice in the clefts of Gehenna, 
 
 My exiled, my host ! 
 Earth has exiles as hopeless as when a 
 
 Heaven's empire was lost. 
 Through the seams of her shaken foundations, 
 
 Smoke up in great joy ! 
 With the smoke of your fierce exultations 
 
 Deform and destroy ! 
 Smoke up with your lurid revenges, 
 
 And darken the face 
 Of the white heavens, and taunt them with changes 
 
 From glory and grace. 
 We, in falling, while destiny strangles, 
 
 Pull down with us all. 
 Let them look to the rest of their angels ! 
 
 Who 's safe from a fall ? 
 
loi MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 HE saves not. Where 's Adam ? Can pardon 
 
 Requicken that sod ? 
 Unkinged is the King of the Garden, 
 
 The image of God 
 Other exiles are cast out of Eden, — 
 
 More curse has been hurled ! 
 Come up, O my locusts, and feed in 
 
 The green of the world 1 
 Come up ! we have conquered by evil. 
 
 Good reigns not alone. 
 I prevail now ! and, angel or devil, 
 
 Inherit a throne !" 
 
 The pure intellectual might — the strict metaphysical 
 truth — displayed in the Drama of Mcile, is precisely on a 
 level with its consummate poetry. Satanic motives and 
 emotions may be beyond the reach of human searching, 
 but when we penetrate as far as reason and imagination can 
 carry us, we find nothing deeper than reliance on evil in 
 itself, and a belief, never shaken from old eternity, that the 
 bond between woe and sin cannot be severed by the hand 
 even of the Almighty, that not even God can take from the 
 devil his crown of thorns. Mrs. Browning's fifth stanza, in 
 the piece I have quoted, is a superb expression of this reli- 
 ance and this belief, and by broadly exhibiting these in the 
 outset, she lays the stablest possible foundation, in meta- 
 physic truth, for her whole poem. 
 
 To this chant of Lucifer's there succeeds a dialogue 
 between Gabriel and the fiend. Its tone is at first half 
 Miltonic, half Byronic. The first piece of unmistakable 
 originality it contains is the following remarkable passage. 
 It is by no means entirely unexceptionable, but deserves 
 our best attention from that free strength of imagination, 
 which introduces, in contrast to the tumult of the Miltonic 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 155 
 
 contests between fiend and angel, the truer and more awful 
 idea of the calm potency of light, on the one hand, and 
 blank despair written, by the very calmness of its beam, on 
 the visages of the rebel angels, on the other. The style of 
 delineation, besides, is highly characteristic of the poetess. 
 The occasion of the lines is found in an allusion made by 
 Gabriel to divine and angelic pity. 
 
 "Lucifer. * * As it is, I know 
 
 Something of pity. When I reeled in Heaven, 
 And my sword grew too heavy for my grasp, 
 Stabbing through matter which it could not pierce 
 So much as the first shell of, — toward the throne ; 
 When I fell back, down, — staring up as I fell, — 
 The lightnings holding open my scathed lids, 
 And that thought of the infinite of God, 
 Hurled after to precipitate descent ; 
 When countless angel faces still and stern 
 Pressed out upon me from the level heavens 
 Adown the abysmal spaces, and I fell 
 Trampled down by your stillness, and struck blind 
 By the sight within your eyes, — 't was then I knew 
 How ye could pity, my kind angelhood ! " 
 
 The dialogue between Lucifer and Gabriel ended, and 
 Adam and Eve still seen flying along the sword-glare, a 
 Chorus of the Spirits of Eden sends, from within the walls 
 of Paradise, a chant of melancholy condolence and farewell 
 after the exiles. The idea embodied in the varying music 
 of this chant of the Spirits, is the sorrow, pervading the 
 whole world of Eden, — its streams, its trees, its flowers, — 
 on account of the departure of the human pair. To bring 
 out such a thought, in prominent poetic manifestation, was 
 an evident necessity in any treatment of the subject, and 
 Mrs. Browning performs the task with opulence and deli- 
 
156 MRS BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 cacy of fancy, with great powers of thought, and with 
 exquisite tenderness of feeling. But the personification is 
 not happy, and the pathos would have trickled with far 
 more deep and dew-like power on the heart, had there been 
 less about songs built up note over note until they " strike the 
 arch of the Infinite " and silence shivering, and shadings off 
 to resonances, and such like touches of gorgeous feebleness, 
 to which Mrs. Browning declines, when learning and crit- 
 icism turn her from the clear monitions of her own genius, 
 and the simplicity of nature, to make her mock herself. 
 
 In the next scene, we emerge more into the kindly blue 
 of pure, plain, human feeling. For the first time, we are 
 made unmistakably aware that our guide is a woman ; not 
 from any weakness, not from any sameliness or extrava- 
 gance, but from the access of elements of pathos and 
 beauty, which no man could have commanded, and belong- 
 ing only to one, whose womanliness is as intense as her 
 genius is consummate. A broad gleam of softest light, 
 dewy, beautiful, original, like a stream of sunlight falling 
 through a shower on a rugged hill side, is cast over the 
 tragical realities of her theme, from the feminine knowledge 
 and womanly sympathy of Mrs. Browning. Eve, in distress 
 and despair, accuses herself of having brought the great 
 woe upon Adam, and adjures him to bring down at once 
 the curse of death on her, " for so, " says she, " perchance, 
 thy God might take thee into grace for scorning me ; thy 
 wrath against the sinner giving proof of inward abrogation 
 of the sin. " 
 
 Adam replies. 
 
 "If God, 
 
 Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world 
 Both unto thee and me, — gave thee to me, 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 157 
 
 The best gift last, the last sin was the worst, 
 Which sinned against more complement of gifts 
 And grace in giving. God ! I render back 
 Strong benediction and perpetual praise 
 From mortal, feeble lips (as incense-smoke, 
 Out of a little censer, may fill heaven), 
 That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands 
 And forcing them to drop all other boons 
 Of beauty, and dominion, and delight, — 
 Hast left this well-beloved Eve — this life 
 Within life — this best gift — between their palms, 
 In gracious compensation ! " 
 
 All can sympathize with this ! And with this: — 
 
 "Eve. Is it thy voice ? 
 
 Or some saluting angel's — calling home 
 My feet into the garden ? 
 
 Adam. O my God ! 
 
 I, standing here between the glory and dark, — 
 The glory of thy wrath projected forth 
 From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress 
 Which settles a step off in that drear world, — 
 Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen 
 Only creation's sceptre, — thanking Thee 
 That rather Thou hast cast me out with her 
 Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, 
 With angel looks and angel songs around 
 To show the absence of her eyes and voice, 
 And make society full desertness 
 Without her use in comfort." 
 
 The scene, however, soon changes, and the action of the 
 poem becomes of more dark and terrible interest. Lucifer 
 again appears, and the dialogue is sustained between him 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 14 
 
158 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 and the exiled pair. Passages of power and pathos abound 
 in this part. 
 
 11 Adam. Ay, mock me ! now I know more than I knew : 
 Now I know thou art fallen below hope 
 Of final re-ascent. 
 
 Lucifer. Because ? 
 
 Adam. Because 
 
 A spirit who expected to see God 
 Though at tha last point of a million years, 
 Could dare no mockery of a ruined man 
 Such as this Adam. 
 
 Lucifer. * * * * . 
 
 ****** 
 
 Is it not possible, by sin and grief 
 
 (To give the things your names) that spirits should rise 
 
 Instead of falling ? 
 
 Adam. Most impossible. 
 
 The Highest being the Holy and the Glad, 
 Whoever rises must approach delight 
 And sanctity in the act" 
 
 The pathos in the first of these lines is very noble. The 
 thought with which they conclude is an impressive illustra- 
 tion of what has been advanced, touching the intellectual 
 substance of this poem. It is one of the great lights or- 
 dained by God perennially to burn in the heaven of truth, 
 dividing moral day from moral night ; and its calm, celes- 
 tial effulgence casts into pale and sickly pining that "wor- 
 ship of sorrow," which, in the hands of Goethe and Carlyle, 
 is but the sublime of sentimentalism, in spite of the grain 
 of living truth, summed up by St. Paul in one verse, which 
 it does contain. 
 
 As Lucifer disappears, there is heard a low music, prov- 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 159 
 
 ing to be "The Song of the Morning Star to Lucifer." 
 This is one of those portions of the poem which cannot 
 fail to repel many readers. The song of the star may be 
 as good as the theme rendered possible ; but it has no hold 
 on human sympathy, and attains, for beauty, only a cold, 
 unsatisfactory gorgeousness. Perhaps no poet could make 
 you feel for a star, and certainly no person will feel in this 
 instance. The piece plays, as will be seen, an important 
 part in the evolution of the poem, but must in itself be pro- 
 nounced in no sense felicitous. 
 
 The next scene is one of the longest and most important 
 in the poem. The exiles are now far out in the desert, and 
 the night is thickening round them. The farewells of the 
 Eden Spirits have died away. The shadow of the curse is 
 on the face of the world. The change is thus announced. 
 
 "Adam. How doth the wide and melancholy earth 
 Gather her hills aroand us, gray and ghast, 
 And stare with blank significance of loss 
 Eight in our faces ! Is the wind up ? 
 
 Eve. Kay. 
 
 Adam. And yet the cedars and the junipers 
 Rock slowly through the mist, without a sound \ 
 And shapes which have no certainty of shape 
 Drift duskly in and out among the pines, 
 And loom along the edges of the hills, 
 And he flat, curdling in the open ground— 
 Shadows without a body, which contract 
 And lengthen as we gaze on them." 
 
 The meaning of this becomes gradually apparent. We 
 have now the reverse of that soft music, in which the Eden 
 Spirits had bidden adieu to those who were among them 
 the centre of all blessing. To the outer world the man 
 
160 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 and woman bring a curse, and they are received with the 
 grim welcome of universal execration. The mode in which 
 the poetess has chosen to body forth this detestation of all 
 creatures for those who have brought them sin, is singular 
 rather than happy, and would have gained in effect by gain- 
 ing in simplicity. The signs of the zodiac become instinct 
 with life, and stand in horrid circle round Adam and Eve. 
 From that circle " of the creatures' cruelty," they cannot 
 escape, and within it the spirits of organic and inorganic 
 nature arise to taunt and curse them. 
 
 That this conception is strong and original, it would be 
 hard to deny. But it can be wholly defended neither from 
 the charge of extravagance nor from that of obscurity. 
 The passage abounds in masterly delineation, and the hor- 
 ror and anguish, gradually darkening down like the night 
 upon the human pair, arising from the contempt and hatred 
 of those creatures over which they had been appointed to 
 reign, are very powerfully expressed. I can quote but one 
 stanza. It may convey some idea of the spirit and intent 
 of the whole, but none at all of the execution. The spirit 
 of inorganic nature speaks. 
 
 " I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike 
 A sense of death to me and undug graves ! 
 The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like 
 
 The ragged foam along the ocean-waves : 
 The restless earthquakes rock against each other ; — 
 The elements moan round me — 'Mother, mother* — 
 And I wail!" 
 
 Lucifer suddenly rises in the circle, but only to increase 
 the anguish of the exiles, now approaching its climax. Lu- 
 cifer, fierce and remorseless, launches at them this bolt, the 
 more piercing in its agony that it is winged with truth : — 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 1G1 
 
 " Your sin is but your grief in the rebound 
 And cannot expiate for it." 
 
 Hardly a line now occurs but might be quoted. The foL. 
 lowing passage, however, cannot be passed by. It is im- 
 portant, not so much in its bearing on the catastrophe of 
 the poem at the stage at which we have now arrived, as in 
 its peculiar and felicitous exhibition of Mrs. Browning's 
 mode of imaginative conception and handling. The lines 
 in which Lucifer applies to himself the comparison of the 
 lion are too long to quote. 
 
 i 
 "Lucifer. Dost thou remember, Adam, when the curse 
 
 Took us in Eden ? On a mountain-peak 
 
 Half-sheathed in primal woods and glittering 
 
 In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour 
 
 A lion couched, — part raised upon his paws, 
 
 With his calm, massive face turned full on thine, 
 
 And his mane listening. When the ended curse 
 
 Left silence in the world, — right suddenly 
 
 He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff, 
 
 As if the new reality of death 
 
 Were dashed against his eyes, — and roared so fierce 
 
 (Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat 
 
 Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear), 
 
 And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills 
 
 Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales 
 
 Precipitately, — that the forest beasts, 
 
 One after one, did mutter a response 
 
 Of savage and of sorrowful complaint 
 
 Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once, 
 
 He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height 
 
 Into the dusk of pines. 
 
 Adam. It might have been. 
 
 I heard the curse alone." 
 
 14* „ .... 
 
162 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 No hand but Mrs. Browning's could have drawn that 
 picture of the lion. The pathos of Adam's last words is 
 sublime ; and, so far as I know, original. In IsobePs Child, 
 a later poem of Mrs. Browning's, there occur the following 
 words, the person addressed being one of the redeemed, 
 and the time the day of judgment : — 
 
 " Thrones and seraphim, 
 Through the long ranks of their solemnities, 
 Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise — 
 Thy look alone on Him." 
 
 This idea has often been expressed, but I do not remember 
 an instance in which the opposite note, in the same grand 
 harmony of pathos, is struck. Mrs. Browning has given 
 both. 
 
 The attention of the reader is now drawn studiously to 
 Lucifer, as if the poetess had some purpose with him. 
 "With strange dauntlessness, does this marvellous woman 
 gaze down into the depths of Satanic misery. 
 
 "Lucifer. * * * * 
 
 I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed, — 
 To whom the highest and the lowest alike 
 Say, Go from us — we have no need of thee, — 
 Was made by God like others. Good and fair, 
 He did create me ! — ask Him, if not fair ! 
 Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly 
 His blessing for chief angels on my head 
 Until it grew there, a crown crystallized ! 
 Ask, if He never called me by my name, 
 Lucifer — kindly said as ' Gabriel' — 
 Lucifer — soft as ' Michael ! ' while serene 
 I, standing in the glory of the lamps, 
 Answered ' my Father,' innocent of shame 
 And of the sense of thunder. * * * 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 163 
 
 Pass along 
 Your wilderness vain mortals ! Puny griefs, 
 In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed 
 To your own conscience by the dread extremes 
 Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen, 
 It is but a step's fall, — the whole ground beneath 
 Strewn woolly soft with promise ! if ye have sinned, 
 Your prayers tread high as angels ! if ye have grieved, 
 Ye are too mortal to be pitiable, 
 The power to die disproves the right to grieve. 
 
 * * Increase and multiply, 
 
 Ye and your generations, in all plagues, 
 Corruptions, melancholies, poverties, 
 And hideous forms of life and fears of death, — 
 The thought of death being always eminent, 
 Immovable and dreadful in your life, 
 And deafly and dumbly insignificant 
 Of any hope beyond, — as death itself, — 
 Whichever of you lieth dead the first, — 
 Shall seem to the survivor — yet rejoice ! 
 My curse catch at you strongly, body and soul, 
 And HE find no redemption — nor the wing 
 Of seraph move your way — and yet rejoice ! 
 Rejoice, — because ye have not set in you 
 This hate which shall pursue you — this forehate 
 "Which glares without, because it burns within — 
 Which kills from ashes — this potential hate 
 Wherein I, angel, in antagonism 
 To God and His reflex beatitudes, 
 Moan ever in the central universe 
 With the great woe of striving against Love — 
 And gasp for space amid the Infinite — 
 And toss for rest amid the Desertness — 
 
164 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 Self-orphaned by my will, and self-elect 
 
 To kingship of resistant agony 
 
 Toward the good round me — hating good and love 
 
 And willing to hate good and to hate love, 
 
 And willing to will on so evermore, 
 
 Scorning the Past, and damning the To Come — 
 
 Go and rejoice ! I curse you ! t 
 
 Milton never sent a plummet so far down into the depths 
 of Satanic anguish! And if we earnestly ponder, with 
 what amount of scientific precision is possible in the case, 
 wherein that anguish must consist, we shall, I think, arrive 
 at the conclusion of the poetess. Precisely in this neces- 
 sity of sorrow where there is persistence in ill, — precisely 
 in the inevitable arrangement that the being personifying 
 sin must personify also that pain which is the essence of all 
 its influence subjective and objective, — precisely in being 
 eternally blasted by the rays of Light and Love defied, — 
 must lie the deepest reality of Satanic woe. 
 
 After a further elaboration of melancholy circumstance, 
 rather retarding than advancing the action of the poem, 
 the humiliation and despair of the wanderers reaches its 
 climax. Adam and Eve, able to resist no longer, appeal to 
 the Deliverer who has been promised. Then comes the 
 change for which we have been so long prepared. A vision 
 of Christ appears. The circle which had enclosed the 
 human pair "pales before the heavenly light," and the spir- 
 its of creation, pouring, until now, their indignation on the 
 head of the man and the woman, give signs of alarm and 
 dismay. 
 
 The Saviour thus stills the tumult of the rage and hatred 
 of the creatures. 
 
 "Christ. Spirits of the earth, 
 
 I meet you with rebuke for the reproach 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 165 
 
 And cruel and unmitigated blame 
 
 Ye cast upon your masters. * * * 
 
 This regent and sublime Humanity 
 
 Though fallen, exceeds you ! this shall film your sun, 
 
 Shall hunt your lightning to its lair of cloud, 
 
 Turn back your rivers, footpath all your seas, 
 
 Lay flat your forests, master with a look 
 
 Your lion at his fasting, and fetch down 
 
 Your eagle flying, * * * 
 
 * * * * * *}» 
 
 Then occurs another of those inimitable passages, in 
 which Mrs. Browning is peculiarly herself; in which she 
 vindicates for her sex the distinction that a woman and 
 not man has written of it most nobly. In fitness of con- 
 ception, in terseness of diction, in loftiness of thought, the 
 following lines have all that the genius of a man could im- 
 part : while the thrill of deeper tenderness pervading them 
 tells, in unmistakable accents, of a heart which can throb 
 with wifely emotion, and a breast on which a babe, sleeping 
 in the light of its mother's smile, may rest. In all great 
 poems, there are many lesser poems, complete in them- 
 selves ; and this passage may be regarded as a poem, on 
 the duties and joys of woman, by Mrs. Browning. It 
 occurs in the form of a blessing, pronounced by Adam, at 
 the command of Christ, on Eve. I regret that it is too 
 long to be quoted entire. 
 
 "Adam. * * Henceforward, rise, aspire 
 To all the calms and magnanimities, 
 The lofty uses and the noble ends, 
 The sanctified devotion and full work, 
 To which thou art elect for evermore, 
 First woman, wife, and mother. 
 
 Eve. And first in sin. 
 
166 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 Adam. And also the sole bearer of the Seed 
 Whereby sin dieth ! Raise the majesties 
 Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved, 
 And front with level eyelids the To Come, 
 And all the dark o' the world. Rise, woman, rise 
 To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
 Of doing good and of enduring ill, — 
 Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, 
 t And reconciling all that ill and good 
 Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 
 Rise with thy daughters ! If sin came by thee, 
 And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness, 
 The heavenly light and compensative rest 
 Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee 
 Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth 
 An angel of the woe thou didst achieve, 
 Found acceptable to the world instead 
 Of others of that name, of whose bright steps 
 Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied ; 
 Something thou hast to bear through womanhood, 
 Peculiar suffering answering to the sin, — 
 Some pang paid down for each new human life, 
 Some weariness in guarding such a life, 
 Some coldness from the guarded ; some mistrust 
 From those thou hast too well served ; from those beloved 
 Too loyally some treason ; feebleness 
 Within thy heart, and cruelty without, 
 And pressures of an alien tyranny 
 With its dynastic reasons of larger bones 
 And stronger sinews. But, go to ! Thy love 
 Shall chant itself its own beatitudes, 
 After its own life-working. A child's kiss 
 Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ; 
 A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 
 A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong 
 Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 
 Of service which thou rcnderest. * * * 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 167 
 
 ***** * 
 
 Eve. * * * I accept 
 
 For me and for my daughters this high part 
 Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work 
 Shall hold me in the place of garden rest, 
 And in the place of Eden's lost delight 
 Worthy endurance of permitted pain ; 
 While on my longest patience there shall wait 
 Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east 
 Whence cometh the cold wind." 
 
 Every sentence here is full of meaning and pathos, mean- 
 ing which every mind can apprehend, pathos which every 
 heart can feel. 
 
 High, however, as has been the flight of the poetess 
 hitherto, she may be said to have yet unfolded but the 
 minor sublimities of her song. Christ, who has until now 
 stood before the exiles in the majesty of his Divine nature, 
 takes the aspect of humanity and suffering, and proceeds 
 to predict for them his own great anguish and the accom- 
 plishment of their supreme hope. To execute so daring an 
 attempt on the part of the poetess, — to put words into the 
 mouth of the Saviour foretelling his own humiliation, with 
 perfect preservation of Christian reverence, yet with an 
 energy befitting the theme, and poetic beauty embracing 
 the whole, — was a task of overpowering difficulty. Mrs. 
 Browning has performed it in a way not unworthy of Mil- 
 ton. The Saviour announces first his own crucifixion, and 
 his being forsaken of the Father. This is done in a passion 
 of perhaps overstrained sublimity. To personify eternity 
 would have tasked the genius of Milton and Shakspeare 
 combined, and it is high praise to Mrs. Browning to say 
 that, thus personifying, she has not absolutely failed : but 
 first to personify eternity, and then to represent its silent 
 
168 MRS BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 astonishment at the death of Christ, was surely, in concep- 
 tion at least, as magnificent as daring. 
 
 " Eternity stands alway fronting God ; 
 A stern colossal image, with blind eyes 
 And grand dim lips that murmur evermore 
 God, God, God ! * * * 
 
 ****** 
 
 Eternity shall wax as dumb as Death, 
 While a new voice beneath the spheres shall cry, 
 * God ! why hast Thou forsaken me, my God ? ' 
 And not a voice in Heaven shall answer it." 
 
 From his own sufferings, Christ passes to the blessings 
 of which they are the source to mankind. Only a part of 
 this superb passage can be quoted. 
 
 "In my brow 
 Of kingly whiteness, shall be crowned anew 
 Your discrowned human nature. Look on me I 
 As I shall be uplifted on a cross 
 In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread. 
 So shall I lift up in my pierced hands, 
 Not into dark, but light — not unto death, 
 But life, — beyond the reach of guilt and grief, 
 The whole creation. Henceforth in my name 
 Take courage, O thou woman, — man, take hope ! 
 Your grave shall be as smooth as Eden's sward, 
 Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts, 
 And, one step past it, a new Eden gate 
 Shall open on a hinge of harmony 
 And let you through to mercy. Ye shall fall 
 No more, within that Eden, nor pass out 
 Any more from it. In which hope, move on, 
 First sinners and first mourners. Live and love, — 
 Doing both nobly, because lowlily ! 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 169 
 
 Live and work, strongly, — because patiently 1 
 
 And, for the deed of death, trust it to God 
 
 That it be well done, unrepented of, 
 
 And not to loss. And thence, with constant prayers 
 
 Fasten your souls so high, that constantly 
 
 The smile of your heroic cheer may float 
 
 Above all floods of earthly agonies, 
 
 Purification being the joy of pain ! " 
 
 Christ departs. The spirits of the earth sing in submis- 
 sion and commiseration. Choruses of angels chant the 
 glories of redemption and the triumphs of the Redeemer. 
 
 " When your bodies therefore 
 . . Reach the grave their goal, 
 
 Softly will we care for 
 
 Each enfranchised soul ! 
 
 ***** 
 * * * * * 
 
 From the empyrean centre 
 
 Heavenly voices shall repeat, 
 * Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter, 
 
 For the chrism on you is sweet.' 
 And every angel in the place 
 Lowlily shall bow his face, 
 
 Folded fair on softened sounds, 
 Because upon your hands and feet 
 
 He images his Master's wounds I" 
 
 " The last enemy," it is written, " that shall be overcome 
 is death." This final conquest shall close the roll of the 
 Saviour's victories. But what hand so bold as attempt the 
 delineation of that crowning triumph? Mrs. Browning, 
 gazing, with her woman's eye, where Michael Angelo's 
 might have blenched, has dared to depict Christ taming 
 the steed of Death. The piece is the last of those poems 
 15 
 
170 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 within this poem, which, never transgressing the grand 
 law of rythmic and imaginative harmony, in obedience 
 to which they all move, have yet a beauty, as of separate 
 stars in a constellation, pertaining to themselves alone. 
 The extracts I have already made occupy so much space 
 that I cannot quote this remarkable passage : but let any 
 one dispassionately, and making allowance for certain ex- 
 travagances and obscurities, consider its conception and 
 execution, — the descent of Christ into Hades to guide 
 the Death-steed calmly, from amid the moaning and trem- 
 bling ranks of the lost, — the last journey of the pale horse 
 up through immensity, while the planets become ashen 
 gray and motionless as stones — up towards the crystal 
 ceiling of heaven, through ranks of angels paling at the 
 sight — up straight to the Throne — where the eye of 
 Jehovah, looking out in the light of life essential, strikes 
 upon the phantasm, and, " meek as a lamb at pasture," it 
 staggers, shivers, expires, — and then decide whether there 
 is here a mighty and marvellous imagination, or whether 
 there is not. 
 
 But the poem is not yet ended. The full circle of its 
 great unity is not completed. It opened with that exultant 
 song of Lucifer's, in which he boasted over man, and in 
 which the lurid joy of a revenge that could not be balked 
 tinged the darkness of his despair. The jewel in the Cre- 
 ator's crown, which he had blackened and blasted by sin, 
 could not surely be taken from him: the light of God, 
 meeting sin, must turn into lightning to afflict and destroy. 
 But now, amid the rejoicing angel voices, is heard a strange 
 cry. 
 
 "First voice. Gabriel, O Gabriel ! 
 Second voice. What wouldst thou with me ? 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 171 
 
 First voice. Is it true, O thou Gabriel, that the crown 
 Of sorrow, which I claimed, another claims ? 
 That HE claims THAT too ? 
 
 Second voice. Lost one, it is true. 
 
 First voice. That HE will be an exile from His Heaven, 
 To lead those exiles homeward ? 
 
 Second voice. It is true. 
 
 First voice. That HE will be an exile by His will, 
 As I by mine election ? 
 
 Second voice. It is true. 
 
 First voice. That I shall stand sole exile finally, — 
 Made desolate for fruition ? 
 
 Second voice. It is true. 
 
 -First voice. Gabriel. 
 
 Second voice. I hearken. 
 
 First voice. Is it true besides— 
 
 Aright true — that mine orient Star will give 
 Her name of i Bright and Morning Star* to Him,— 
 And take the fairness of his virtue back, 
 To cover loss and sadness ? 
 
 Second voice. It is true. 
 
 First voice. Untrue, untrue ! O Morning Star ! O MINE. 
 Who sittest secret in a veil of light 
 Ear up the starry spaces, say — Untrue ! 
 Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon 
 To Tyrrhene waters ! I am Lucifer — 
 
 [A pause. Silence in the stars.] 
 All things grow sadder to me, one by one." 
 
 The culminating pathos of Paradise Regained, had it 
 been completed, could have been none other than that here 
 expressed. I know not where, out of sacred writ, a pathos 
 more sublime is attained. 
 
172 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 I have judged it best to devote particular attention to 
 one of Mrs. Browning's poems, that the reader may have 
 an opportunity of comparing my statements and opinions, 
 with at least a few of the passages on which they are 
 based. If he is acquainted with anything in the range of 
 female poetry, worthy of being set for a moment on a level 
 with what we have seen, I must confess my own ignorance : 
 there seems to me to be enough in this poem alone, to set 
 the poetess at the head of her sex. The imagination it 
 displays is not only fertile in metaphoric brilliancies and 
 lyric bursts, but broad of vision, and mighty to control a 
 thousand elements into one harmony. The intellectual 
 power of the poem is exhibited, not only in the rugged 
 vigor of the style, but in the penetration with which the 
 metaphysic depths of the subject are searched, and in the 
 easy mastery with which great truths, of the sort on 
 which minds of sound sagacity, yet daring speculation, 
 pillar themselves, are set in their due place to support the 
 whole. Two things further appear to be peculiarly charac- 
 teristic of this poem : beautiful apart, they are still more 
 beautiful in combination. The first is its earnest and es- 
 sential Christianity: the second its intense and pathetic 
 womanliness. Mrs. Browning is in the highest sense, and 
 always, a Christian poetess. She has drunk more deeply 
 into the spirituality of the gospel, and, it may even be, 
 looked with greater earnestness and amazement upon cer- 
 tain of its most sublime facts, than Milton. The poem 
 before us is, throughout, Christian ; not ethically, not senti- 
 mentally, not alone in spirit, far less for artistic purposes, but 
 in the strictness and literalness of actual belief. It is true 
 that, in legitimate consistency with her poetic object, — 
 to contrast a mankind that found salvation with an angel 
 host which did not, — she has used the general expressions 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 173 
 
 applied by Scripture in that sense, and which, alone, would 
 imj^ly universalism. But it is not necessary to suppose her 
 declaring her belief that those who, in the most free exer- 
 cise of their human will, defy the Saviour, and take part 
 with the diabolic tormentors of man in time, will share the 
 same futurity with those who now commence an eternity of 
 opposition to evil under the banner of the Redeemer. Such 
 a belief introduces elements of fatal weakness into a system 
 of thought, and is inconsistent with any theory of -things, in 
 which strength of realism repels fancy and sentimentalism. 
 But interpreting the expressions to which I allude in the 
 sense I have indicated, we find, in the Drama of MciZe, all 
 those central truths of Christianity which have been ac- 
 cepted by the mightiest minds of the era, Paul, Augustine, 
 Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Neander ; and once more it has 
 been demonstrated that the bare facts of Christianity 
 transcend in sublimity any counterfeit, and more power- 
 fully stimulate a really great imagination than any other 
 theme whatever. The Christianity of Mrs. Browning's 
 poems is far too constant and deep-lying — it enters too 
 pervasively into the warp and woof of her thought and 
 feeling — to be by possibility an affectation or fashion. It 
 is manifestly the life of her life, the breath of immortality 
 at the centre of her being. In the dedication of her first 
 volumes to her father, she appeals, with solemn tenderness, 
 to his knowledge that she holds " over all sense of loss and 
 transiency, one hope by one Name." Her poetry testifies 
 that in so saying she speaks words of truth and soberness. 
 Her genuine womanliness is, in this poem, no less conspic- 
 uous. It is characteristic of this century, that in all senses 
 women play a more important part in literature than here- 
 tofore. Not only have women of genius commanded 
 universal homage, but the distinctive characteristics of 
 15* 
 
174 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 the female nature, have been exhibited with more exquisite 
 analysis and more powerful truth than heretofore. The 
 heart of woman was, I suppose, never laid bare as it has 
 been by Charlotte Bronte and Mrs. Browning. And in 
 the Drama of Mcile, in such passages as we have seen, 
 the mission of woman to the world — her peculiar glory 
 of sowing blessing with every tear she sheds — her angelic 
 privilege of being the incarnation of peace above con- 
 flict, of gentleness mightier than anger, of love stronger 
 than hate — is defined and illustrated, with that bold sweep 
 which pertains to truth, and in those colors which only sym- 
 pathy can supply. But we must embrace in our view other 
 poems besides the Drama of Exile before we apprehend, 
 to the full, the revelation of the female heart, opened to us 
 by this poetess. 
 
 And now, since readers may be willing to concede that in 
 this poem there is a sufficiency of simple human emotion, 
 expressed in the mother tongue of noble passion, to thrill 
 all hearts with pleasure, I must once more appeal to them, 
 whether it is not cause of regret, that the elaborate ma- 
 chinery and painful erudition of the poem will indubitably 
 prevent the general mind from penetrating to its inner 
 beauty. The sense reels under the bewildering pagean- 
 try of earth spirits, and bird spirits, and river spirits, and 
 zodiacs, and stars, and chorusing angels: the mind is 
 perplexed with gnomons, and apogees, and vibrations, and 
 infinites. One stares on all this as he might on the foam, 
 glorious in its shivered snow and wavering irises, that 
 roars and raves round a coral reef. The vessel draws near 
 the reef, and many an eye looks into that foam, but its 
 beauty fascinates only for a moment, and the sail fills, and 
 the island is left forever. Never, perhaps, is it known, 
 that in the heart of that island, hidden by the torn fringes 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 175 
 
 of tinted foam, there was soft green grass, and a quiet, 
 crystal fountain, and cottages smiling in the light of flowers, 
 and all the home affections offering a welcome. 
 
 Of Mrs. Browning's other poems, I shall say, compara- 
 tively, but a few. words. 
 
 The Seraphim is a poem which all ought to study, who 
 would habituate their minds to soaring thought and lofty 
 imagination. It is in conception that it is finest. The 
 poetess depicts the emotions with which the highest of the 
 heavenly host contemplated the crucifixion. How magnifi- 
 cent the daring of this! Nay, rather, let us say how 
 irresistible must have been the afflatus, breathing on the 
 poetess, as she contemplated this, to her, central fact of 
 human story, and bearing her towards the highest heavens, 
 to find hearts strong enough representatively to feel, and 
 tongues fit to express, the emotions she experienced. The 
 speakers are two seraphim, Zerah and Ador. In the fol- 
 lowing passage, the only one I can quote from the poem, I 
 know not whether the imaginative energy, or the almost 
 startling realism, is the more remarkable ; but their union 
 makes up one of the most extraordinary passages in English 
 poetry : — 
 
 "Ador. The pathos hath the day undone : 
 The death-look of His eyes 
 Hath overcome the sun, 
 And made it sicken in its narrow skies — 
 Is it to death ? 
 
 Zerah. He dieth. Through the dark, 
 
 He still, He only, is discernible — 
 The naked hands and feet, transfixed stark, 
 The countenance of patient anguish white 
 
 Do make themselves a light 
 More dreadful than the glooms which round them dwell, 
 And therein do they shine." 
 
176 M$S. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 A Vision of Poets can hardly fail to suggest Tennyson. 
 A first and partial acquaintance, indeed, with the works of 
 Mrs. Browning, is apt to prompt the opinion that she may 
 be classed among the pupils and followers of that poet. 
 Both belong to one time, and their thoughts run, not 
 unfrequently, in the same channels. But a more complete 
 knowledge of Mrs. Browning's works puts to flight every 
 imagination of an influence which could do more than 
 stimulate, which could in the slightest degree control, her 
 powers. Her genius is of an order altogether above that 
 which can be permanently or organically affected by any 
 other mind. And, in truth, her whole mode of imaginative 
 action is different from that of Tennyson. The unrivalled 
 finish and strange perfection of the latter, — his unique 
 imaginative faculty, which combines a color more rich than 
 that of Eastern gardens, with a science more austere than 
 that of Greek architecture, — his instinctive and imperious 
 rejection of aught wearing even the semblance of fault or 
 imperfection, requiring that all his marble be polished, and 
 all his gems crystals, — can in no respect or degree be said 
 to characterize Mrs. Browning. Tennyson, more than any 
 English poet of mark, approaches the statue-like calmness 
 of Goethe : Mrs. Browning thrills with every emotion she 
 depicts, whether passion kindles with a smile her own 
 funeral pyre, or earnestness flows rhythmic from the lips 
 of the Pythoness, or irrepressible weeping shakes the breast 
 of the child. Tennyson is the wizard, looking, with un- 
 moved face, into the furnace, whose white heat melts the 
 flint: Mrs. Browning has the furnace in her own bosom, 
 and you see its throbbings. Tennyson's imagination treads 
 loftily on cloth of gold, its dainty foot neither wetted with 
 dew nor stained with mire: Mrs. Browning's rushes up- 
 wards and onwards, its drapery now streaming in the wind, 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 177 
 
 now draggled in the mountain rivers, making, with impetu- 
 ous lawlessness, for the goal. Mrs. Browning has scarcely a 
 poem undefaced by palpable error or extravagance : Tenny- 
 son's poetry is characterized by that perilous absence of 
 fault, which seems hardly consistent with supreme genius. 
 Between our greatest living poet, therefore, and the 
 greatest of all poetesses, there can be instituted no general 
 comparison. But in A Vision of Poets \ and in The PoeVs 
 Vow, there is much to recall Tennyson. In the former, 
 the individual portraits, in the latter, the central thought, 
 point unmistakably to The Palace of Art. But even when 
 most like Tennyson, Mrs. Browning is unmistakably herself. 
 If the succession of individual likenesses in A Vision of 
 Poets recalls that in The Palace of Art, as the melody 
 sometimes suggests that of The Two Voices, there is a 
 boldness, a sweeping breadth of touch, in Mrs. Browning's 
 delineations, belonging to herself alone. If the thought 
 of The PoeVs Vow, — the fatal error and deadly sin of 
 preferring self-culture to human sympathy, — is the same 
 as in The Palace of Art, the imagery is totally dissimilar 
 from Tennyson's, and is adapted, but for the intervention 
 of some of Mrs. Browning's tantalizing dimness, to come 
 upon the general heart with more powerful directness than 
 the more elaborate idealization of Tennyson. The poet 
 gave the thought in allegory: the poetess gives it in 
 life. One or two of the portraits of " God's prophets of 
 the Beautiful," from the hand of Mrs. Browning, cannot 
 be passed over. They occur, of course, in A Vision of 
 Poets. 
 
 " There, Shakspeare ! on whose forehead climb 
 The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime — 
 With tears and laughters for all time ! 
 
 ***** 
 
178 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim: 
 The shapes of suns and stars did swim 
 Like clouds from them, and granted him 
 
 God for sole vision. * * * 
 
 ***** 
 And Sappho, with that gloriole 
 
 Of ebon hair on calmed brows — 
 O poet woman ! none forgoes 
 The leap, attaining the repose ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 And Burns, with pungent passionings 
 
 Set in his eyes * * * * 
 
 This is a critique on Burns. When you have said this, 
 you have spoken the one indispensable word concerning 
 him ; if you wrote folios on his poetry, you could hardly 
 supplement, however you might illustrate, those " pungent 
 passionings." 
 
 " And Shelley, in his white ideal 
 All statue blind." 
 
 That, too, is marvellous : in philosophy profound, in pathos 
 genuine, in poetry perfect. There are few such examples 
 of condensation in the language. 
 
 " And visionary Coleridge, who 
 Did sweep his thoughts as angels do 
 Their wings with cadence up the Blue." 
 
 It is little to say that these lines contain a biography. 
 
 " And poor, proud Byron, — sad as grave, 
 And salt as life : forlornly brave, 
 And quivering with the dart he drave." 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 179 
 
 This is very bold, and in almost any case might be pro- 
 nounced towering presumption. But Mrs. Browning had 
 a right to say it; she whose intellectual and imaginative 
 powers are to the full as great as those of Byron, and who 
 has never stained, by one foul image or impure emotion, 
 the gold and azure of her genius. 
 
 The PoeVs Vow is one of those poems in which there is 
 exhibited a certain mode or habit of poetic representation, 
 of so frequent occurrence in the pages of Mrs. Browning, 
 that it may be pronounced a principal part of her maimer, 
 or mannerism. At first, you are merely astonished and 
 bewildered. You know not who are the actors, what is 
 the subject, at what point the narrative is commenced. 
 But there comes gleam after gleam of backward-falling 
 light ; and when finally you open on the full meaning of 
 the poem, and when the cataract of its passion flashes on 
 your eye, the light streams along the whole avenue by 
 which you have approached. To illustrate this peculiarity 
 in detail would occupy too much space ; but no better 
 example of it than this poem could be cited. I must 
 content myself, however, with quoting one or two stanzas, 
 not illustrative of this point, though individually remark- 
 able. The poet speaks thus : — 
 
 u Hear me forswear man's sympathies, 
 
 His pleasant yea and no — 
 His riot on the piteous earth 
 
 Whereon his thistles grow ! 
 His changing love — with stars above I 
 
 His pride — with graves below I" 
 
 . 
 
 is expresses his determination to put away from him all 
 ;hat can break the serenity of self-culture, to abandon men 
 vnd seek the grand solitudes of nature. The thought in the 
 
180 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 two last lines in Goethe's, and has been made familiar to all 
 by the iteration of Mr. Carlyle. But I do not remember a 
 case in which it was more finely applied. 
 
 The solitary divides his wealth among his friends, and 
 bids a determined adieu to his brothers who " love him true 
 as brothers do," and to Rosalind, his betrothed, who loves 
 him as no brother can. The following words are spoken by 
 Sir Roland, whom the poet would fain have the accepted 
 lover of his forsaken Rosalind. Both she and Sir Roland, 
 of course, scorn the union, as well as the dower which the 
 poet offers; and Sir Roland addresses him thus: — 
 
 " And thou, O distant, sinful heart, 
 
 That climbest up so high, 
 To wrap and blind thee with the snows 
 
 That cause to dream and die — 
 What blessing can, from lips of man, 
 
 Approach thee with his sigh ? 
 
 Ay ! what from earth — create for man, 
 
 And moaning in his moan ? 
 Ay ! what from stars — revealed to man, 
 
 And man-named, one by one ? 
 Ay, more ! what blessing can be given, 
 Where the Spirits seven do show in heaven 
 
 A MAN upon the Throne V — 
 
 A man on earth HE wandered once, 
 
 All meek and undented : 
 And those who loved Him, said ' He wept, — 
 
 None ever said He smiled, 
 Yet there might have been a smile unseen, 
 When He bowed his holy face, I ween, 
 
 To bless that happy child." 
 
 There is here another illustration of the way in which the 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 181 
 
 vital Christianity of Mrs. Browning leads her constantly to 
 the purest loveliness and the deepest truth. Tennyson has 
 struck no note so high in The Palace of Art. 
 
 Rosalind dies of a broken heart, leaving a written scroll, 
 to be put in her coffin, and laid, with her body, at the door 
 of the lonely castle, where her lover dwells apart. At 
 midnight the poet opened his bolted door, to look upon the 
 midnight sky. The stars shine on the face of the corpse. 
 He sees and reads the scroll. The two following verses are 
 part of its contents. 
 
 " I have prayed for thee with bitter sobs, 
 
 When passion's course was free ! 
 
 I have prayed for thee with silent lips, 
 
 In the anguish none could see ! 
 They whispered oft, * She sleepeth soft'— 
 But I only prayed for thee. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I charge thee, by the living's prayer, 
 
 And the dead's silentness, 
 To wring from out thy soul a cry 
 
 Which God shall hear and bless ! 
 Lest Heaven's own palm droop in my hand, 
 And pale among the saints I stand, 
 
 A saint companionless." 
 
 The victory is won. 
 
 " Bow lower down before the throne 
 
 Triumphant Rosalind ! 
 He boweth on thy corpse his face 
 
 And weepeth as the blind. 
 Twas a dread sight to see them so — 
 For the senseless corpse rocked to and fro 
 
 With the wail of his living mind. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 16 
 
182 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 But dreader sight, could such be seen, 
 
 His inward mind did lie ; 
 Whose long subjected humanness 
 
 Gave out its lion cry, 
 And fiercely rent its tenement 
 
 In a mortal agony. 
 
 I tell you, friends, had you heard his wail, 
 T would haunt you in court and mart, 
 
 And in merry feast, until you set 
 Your cup down to depart — 
 
 That weeping wild of a reckless child 
 From a proud man's broken heart. 
 
 O broken heart, O broken vow, 
 
 That wore so proud a feature ! 
 God, grasping as a thunderbolt 
 
 The man's rejected nature, 
 Smote him therewith — i' the presence high 
 Of his so worshipped earth and sky 
 That looked on all indifferently — 
 
 A wailing human creature." 
 
 You might read that after Shakspeare and ^Eschylus, and 
 yet pronounce its excellence supreme. 
 
 Our inspection of the Drama of Exile may have enabled 
 us to form some idea of Mrs. Browning's manner, in the 
 treatment of those sublime themes which are, in a sense, 
 removed from human sympathy. As in a region congenial 
 to her soaring imagination and dauntless intellect, we found 
 her, with steady poise, casting her illumining glance around 
 the abode of the Seraphim, following her high argument 
 above the Aonian Mount and Muse's Hill. We have had 
 one brief look, also, into her mode of handling subjects con- 
 nected, directly or indirectly, with the principles of her own 
 art. In A Vision of Poets, which was specified rather 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 183 
 
 than criticised, her idea of a poet's training is set before us ; 
 and The PoeVs Vow shows that she has not only exhibited 
 unconsciously in her works, but presented consciously to 
 her own mind, the conviction, that the Human is the 
 noblest theme and inspiration of poetry, above all the beau- 
 ties, enticements, and meanings of physical nature. 
 
 There is still at least one other class, demanding separate 
 consideration, among the poems of Mrs. Browning. It 
 consists of those which may be most broadly characterized 
 as poems of personal emotion, and which are more expressly 
 to be described, as delineations of feeling peculiar to the 
 female heart. The passion of love in the maiden heart, the 
 devotion of the wife, and the affection of the mother, are 
 severally and fully portrayed. In each case, the emotion is 
 conceived and exhibited with a power of sympathy, and a 
 dramatic force, of which it is, I believe, but slight applause 
 to say, that they are totally unrivalled. Mrs. Browning 
 has given us the counterpart to all the poetry of chivalry. 
 Troubadour and minstrel sung for ages in homage to 
 woman ; knights and monarchs waited for the smile of 
 beauty ; the imagination of Europe exhausted itself in 
 devising heroic adventures, by which, penetrating through 
 dark woods, crossing tempestuous seas, fighting giants and 
 monsters, breaking enchantments and prison walls, the bold 
 soldier forced his way to his ladye-love. But the counter- 
 part in this picture, the devotion of the woman to him she 
 loves, was wanting ; and we stand in unfeigned astonish- 
 ment as Mrs. Browning reveals to us what a woman's passion 
 means. This extraordinary writer is always original; but 
 here she had the field almost to herself. We feel her words 
 to be true : they come on us with the authoritative emphasis 
 of nature, coined in the mint of the heart and accepted by 
 the heart at once. Yet none but a woman would have had a 
 
184: MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 right to assert, that passion so intense and self-annihilating 
 could be inspired by man in the heart of woman. Ties of 
 relationship, worldly station, riches, life, are cast into the 
 crucible ; they are instantly not only melted but dissolved 
 and cast aloft as impalpable vapor. All this happens, and 
 the crucible is still, itself, firm. ; the heart is yet unbroken : 
 until the passion is unrequited, until the flame is left to eat 
 the heart itself, and then it too dissolves in ashes and death. 
 In IsobePs Child, it is the maternal instinct that is por- 
 trayed. The poem suffers greatly from accumulation of 
 useless and distracting machinery. The nurse's dream 
 appears to me simply an incumbrance, and far less ought to 
 have been said about owls and elements. But the beat of 
 the mother's heart falls clear and true amid all this ; and 
 when we penetrate far enough to hear it, our own heart 
 cannot but beat in unison. The incident of the poem, 
 stripped of accessories, is very simple. A mother has long 
 watched, in agony of hope and fear, by the sick-bed of her 
 child, for whose recovery she earnestly prays. Her petition 
 is granted, and the child recovers. Her heart is, for a 
 brief hour, filled with pure and unspeakable ecstacy. But, 
 by not very happy imagery, it is revealed to her, that her 
 prayer has deprived her babe of the bliss of present heaven. 
 So she recalls her prayer, yields him up, and herself 
 presently expires. I do not attempt to convey any idea of 
 this composition ; but do not the following lines, spoken by 
 Isobel in anticipation of the death of her son, express with 
 strange exactness, yet no less marvellous poetic power, the 
 feeling of a mother looking on the grave of an only child. 
 
 " How I shall shiver every day 
 In thy June sunshine, knowing where 
 The grave-grass keeps it from his fair 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 185 
 
 Still cheeks ! and feel at every tread 
 
 His little body which is dead 
 
 And hidden in the turfy fold, 
 
 Doth make the whole warm earth a~cold 1 * 
 
 But her love for her babe is stronger than her joy in 
 possessing him. "When his corpse lies before her, she speaks 
 thus: — 
 
 " I changed the cruel prayer I made, 
 And bowed my meekened face and prayed 
 That God would do His will ! and thus 
 He did it, nurse ! He parted its. 
 And His sun shows victorious 
 The dead calm face, — and / am calm ; 
 And heaven is hearkening a new psalm. * 
 
 From many remarkable poems, such as The Romawit of 
 the Page, Bertha in the Lane, Lady Geraldine^s Court- 
 ship, and so on, each of which could hardly have failed to 
 make a reputation, I select, for special notice, The Rhyme 
 of the Duchess May. This, take it all in all, is, in my 
 opinion, Mrs. Browning's masterpiece. All the exceptions 
 which can possibly be taken to it may be summed up in a 
 single sentence : while it is difficult to say how many specks 
 and flaws might have been covered up from sight, in the 
 broad and steady blaze of its general power. The compar- 
 ison of an ancient wood, standing " mute adown," to a 
 " full heart having prayed ; " such an expression as " the 
 castle seethed in blood, " when we hear of but five hundred 
 archers besieging it, and when the besieged have not a 
 score of men killed ; the tediousness and apparent triviality 
 of the refrain about the little birds ; the monotony of the 
 recurrence of the words " toll slowly, " which altogether 
 fail, as any words would have failed, to produce the effect, 
 16* 
 
186 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 on the ear or imagination of the reader, which would have 
 been produced by the tolling of a death-knell: — these 
 exhaust the heads of offending, which can be specified, with 
 any show of reason, against the poem. I think each of 
 them is more or less objectionable, and I would totally do 
 away with that weakening and irritating " toll slowly ; " but 
 they are worthy of notice not for their importance but 
 their unimportance. Contemplating the piece, which con- 
 sists of several hundred lines, in its entireness, it is found 
 to be a production, whose rare artistic completeness is only 
 less remarkable than the quality of its detailed drawing and 
 local color. It could have been the work only of one to 
 whom long practice had imparted the skill of consummate 
 art ; and no poet could have produced it, save one on whose 
 burning genius consummate art had exercised no constrain- 
 ing power. 
 
 In considering this poem, as, indeed, in forming a judg- 
 ment of any of Mrs. Browning's poems, it is necessary 
 clearly to discriminate two things : the realistic basis, and 
 the imaginative form. Not Byron, not Scott, not Burns 
 was a greater realist than Mrs. Browning : not one of them 
 could take, with surer hand, the lineaments of living passion. 
 But the imaginative drapery in which she clothes her 
 figures is of that sort which we formerly saw, loose-flowing 
 as the mist, perpetually suggesting the supernatural or 
 mysterious, gorgeous, indeed, in coloring, but in effect 
 bewildering. In The Rhyme of the Duchess May, the 
 groundwork, laid in with uncompromising realism, is the 
 passion of wifely devotion, triumphing not over but through 
 death. The covering in which imagination wraps this 
 central passion — the outward form of the poem — will 
 strike many as romantic. If it is insisted that the element 
 of romance too much abounds, let it be so : the realistic 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 187 
 
 basis still remains. But I think that if the piece is fairly 
 and deliberately viewed, it will be found that the charge of 
 excessive romance has no force whatever. The central 
 portion of the poem, that to which alone the accusation can 
 apply, is professedly and expressly imaginative. It comes, 
 with its passion and its change, between the stillness before 
 and after, like a meteor between two calm celestial spaces. 
 The poetess sits in a churchyard ; there she reads, the 
 church bell tolling deathfully the while, an "ancient 
 rhyme, " a tale of life and sin, weird and wondrous, which 
 would contradict all our expectations, if it proved staid and 
 regular, like a modern copy of verses ; when the Rhyme is 
 finished, we are again in the churchyard, and a deeper calm 
 is around us than before. Surely, if the delineation of the 
 passion at the heart of the poem is true, there is here no 
 unwarrantable license of imagination. 
 
 The description of the churchyard, with which the poem 
 opens, does not long detain the reader. The Rhyme itself 
 soon hurries him into the main current of interest. The 
 Castle of Linteged, the scene of the whole incident, is thus 
 boldly dashed in : — 
 
 " Down the sun dropt large and red, on the towers of Linteged, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 Lance and spear upon the height, bristling strange in fiery light, 
 While the castle stood in shade. 
 
 There, the castle stood up black, with the red sun at its hack, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Like a sullen smouldering pyre, with a top that flickers fire 
 
 When the wind is on its track." 
 
 To this castle, three months before this time, the Duchess 
 May had come, as the bride of Sir Guy of Liuteged. She 
 had been the ward of her uncle, the old Earl of Leigh, 
 
188 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 who betrothed her in her childhood, for the sake of her 
 inheritance, to his son, Lord Leigh. On coming of age, 
 however, she was rather more than indifferent to the young 
 lord, and haughtily defied both him and his father. The 
 son, as base and avaricious as the father, declares that, let 
 her love him or let her loathe him, let her live or die, 
 marry her he will. Then : — 
 
 " Up she rose with scornful eyes, as her father's child might rise, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 'Thy hound's blood, my lord of Leigh, stains thy knightly heel,' 
 quoth she, 
 
 ' And he moans not where he lies.' 
 
 ' But a woman's will dies hard, in the hall or on the sward !' — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 ' By that grave, my lords, which made me orphaned girl and dowered 
 lady, 
 
 I deny you wife and ward.' n 
 
 This Duchess May is one of the most admirably drawn 
 figures that ever came from the pencil of art. Every line is 
 so definite, every tint so bright and clear. Her whole exter- 
 nal existence, her haughtiness, her beauty, her queenliness of 
 mien and manner, are touched in with the airy vividness of 
 Scott : her inmost heart is laid bare, her boundless womanly 
 tenderness, her inflexible womanly pride, her womanly ecsta- 
 cy of self-sacrifice, — with, I speak deliberately, the power of 
 a Shakspeare. In some respects, she reminds one of a large 
 class of female characters ; Scott's Die Vernon, Shakspeare's 
 Beatrice, still more closely, Currer Bell's Shirley. Shirley, 
 indeed, comes exceedingly near ; she is the Duchess May 
 in a novel, as the Duchess May is Shirley in an atmosphere 
 of epic grandeur. But, on the whole, the Duchess May 
 must be ranked with the Juliets and Desdemonas, far 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 189 
 
 beyond any flight of Scott or Currer Bell, and perhaps 
 not admitting of being introduced save where tragedy in 
 sceptred pall sweeps by. Beatrice is one of the most 
 charming characters ever portrayed, but she could not 
 have died like Desdemona, to whom it is not the epithet, 
 charming, that we would apply. 
 
 The Duchess May bestows her hand upon Sir Guy of 
 Linteged, and the bridal train, pursued by the Leighs, 
 dashes off at midnight, through storm and rain, for the 
 castle among the hills. 
 
 " And the bridegroom led the flight on his red-roan steed of might, — 
 Toll slowly. 
 And the bride lay on his arm, still, as if she felt no harm, 
 Smiling out into the night." 
 
 This lets us see the essential contrast, which, in its unity, 
 completes the delineation of the lady : defiance of kindred, 
 scorn of all terrors of midnight and storm, dauntless courage 
 and inflexible pride, where love is to be vindicated, — per- 
 fect rest, submission, confidence, halcyon repose, as of a 
 child on the breast of its mother, as of a dewdrop in the 
 bosom of a rose, in the encircling arms of love accepted 
 and returned. 
 
 Sir Guy and his bride reach the castle in safety, and 
 three happy months pass by. Then the castle is besieged 
 by Lord Leigh, the rejected suitor, and after a fortnight's 
 siege is about to fall into his hands. Ruthless and grovel- 
 ling, he is still determined to wed the Duchess, though it 
 be over the corpse of her present husband. In this the 
 lady is resolved, through life and death, to foil him. 
 Attired in purple robes, and with her ducal coronet on 
 her brow, she looks down upon him from the wall, wither- 
 ing him with her scorn. Meantime Sir Guy has been 
 
190 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 superintending operations on the east tower, the highest 
 of all. He perceives that hope is gone, bethinks him that 
 he alone stands between his wife and followers and safety, 
 that resistance at the breach would result simply in the 
 destruction of all, and determines at once to put an end 
 to his life. His wife, he thinks, will soon get over her 
 distress, soothed and entreated by his victorious foes, who 
 made war on her only for his sake : 
 
 " ' She will weep her woman's tears, she will pray her woman's 
 prayers,' — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 But her heart is young in pain, and her hopes will spring again 
 By the suntime of her years.' " 
 
 He binds his men by oath not to strike a blow that night. 
 He then demands, of his two most faithful knights, the last 
 service of leading the good steed which he rode on that 
 unforgotten night journey, in full harness, up the turret 
 stair, to the place where he stands. He will leap from the 
 wall and so die on his battle-steed, as a good knight ought. 
 But the Duchess May has a heart as strong as his. She is 
 bound, on the one hand, by her womanly honor, not to 
 wed Lord Leigh : on the other, she will show her husband 
 what lightnings may lurk amid the softness of woman's 
 tears. As the knights are goading the horse up the stair, 
 she comes from Ker chamber and inquires their errand. 
 They tell her that one half-hour completes the breach, and 
 that her lord, wild with despair, is about to ride the castle 
 wall. For a moment, the thought of love past, and the 
 weight of all this anguish, overcome her: she bows her 
 head, and tear after tear is heard falling to the ground. 
 The knights, gentle in their valor, assay to comfort 
 her: — 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 191 
 
 *■ ' Get thee in, thou soft ladye ! — here, is never a place for thee ! ' — ■ 
 Toll slowly. 
 'Braid thy hair and clasp thy gown, that thy beauty in its moan 
 May find grace with Leigh of Leigh.' " 
 
 In a moment she is herself again : love's pride sets its iron 
 heel on love's tenderness. 
 
 " She stood up in bitter case, with a pale yet steady face, 
 Toll slowly, 
 Like a statue thunderstruck, which though quivering seems to look 
 Right against the thunder-place.'' 
 
 These two lines are not alone in Mrs. Browning's poetry : 
 they belong to a considerable class, which might be cited 
 to prove that she has attained the very highest success in 
 the very highest order of poetic effort. This by the way. 
 The Duchess May brushes impatiently aside the well inten- 
 tioned kindness of her consolers, and takes herself the rein 
 of the good steed. He now needs no goading : 
 
 " Soft he neighed to answer her, and then followed up the stair 
 For the love of her sweet look. 
 * * * * # * * * 
 
 On the east tower, high'st of all, — there, where never a hoof did 
 fall,— 
 
 Toll slowly, 
 Out they swept, a vision steady, — noble steed and lovely lady, 
 Calm as if in bower or stall." 
 
 The passage succeeding this, it would be totally absurd to 
 attempt, by any description, to bring before the reader. 
 The wife has determined that, if her husband leaps over 
 that wall, she will leap over with him. He endeavors 
 frantically to urge the horse over alone. The breach falls 
 in as she pleads, and the crash of wall and window, the 
 
192 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 shouts of foemen and the shrieks of the dying, rise in one 
 roar around the pair. But love is victor. In vain he 
 wrings her small hands twice and thrice in twain. She 
 clings to him as in a swoon of agonized determination. At 
 last, when the horse, rearing on the verge of the precipitous 
 battlement, could no longer be stopped, " she upsprang, she 
 rose upright," and took her seat beside him : 
 
 "And her head was on his breast, where she smiled as one at rest, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 1 Ring/ she cried, ' O vesper bell, in the beechwood's old chapelle ! 
 
 But the passing bell rings best.' 
 
 They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose — in 
 vain, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, 
 On the last verge rears amain. 
 
 Now he hangs the rocks between -~ and his nostrils curdle in, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Now he shivers head and hoof — and the flakes of foam fall off; 
 
 And his face grows fierce and thin ! 
 
 And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go, — 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony 
 
 Of the headlong death below, — 
 
 And, * Ring, ring, thou passing bell/ still she cried, ' i' the old 
 chapelle!' 
 
 Toll slowly. 
 Then back-toppling, crashing back — a dead weight flung out to 
 wrack, 
 
 Horse and riders overfell." 
 
 Sterner realism than this description cannot be conceived. 
 That horse is frightfully true to fact. Mrs. Browning has 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 193 
 
 once more shown that only on the rugged crags of the real 
 can imagination preen her wings for flight to the regions 
 of the ideal. The passion here, too, doubt it not, is true : 
 Mrs. Browning's heart sympathetically thrilled with it, as 
 she touched that smile on the face of the bride, sinking 
 into the abyss of death in her husband's arms : with all her 
 gentleness, Mrs. Browning could have smiled that smile, 
 and ridden that wall! "Woman's love can make of the 
 chariot of death a car of victory ; amid the flames of the 
 funeral pyre it can find the softest bed. There is even a 
 strictly practical value in this realization, to our perceptions 
 and sympathies, of transcendent passion. It furnishes us 
 with the key to many singular biographical problems. I 
 consider it a literal fact, that the love of such women as 
 Esther Johnson and Esther Yanhomrigh, for such a man as 
 Swift, which, tried by any ordinary rules, seems simply 
 madness, has been rendered far more clearly intelligible 
 and conceivable, by such delineations of female nature, 
 as have been given us by Charlotte Bronte and Mrs. 
 Browning. 
 
 The wild ancient Rhyme having sung itself out, we return 
 to the calm of the churchyard, and are reminded of a 
 serenity enveloping and subduing all passion. The poetess 
 fixes her eye on a little grave beneath a willow tree, on 
 which is engraved an inscription, stating that it is the grave 
 of a child of three years. Mrs. Browning, however she 
 may indulge the play of dramatic sympathy, has far too 
 stable an intellect to waver, for a moment, from the convic- 
 tion, that passion can never be the highest. From her 
 thoughts, too, the essential points of the morality preached 
 from the Mount are never absent ; she draws, in her own 
 rapid, inimitable manner, rather suggesting than detailing, a 
 contrast between the passage of the child-soul to heaven, 
 
 FIBST SERIES. 17 
 
194 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 encompassed by star-wheels and angel wings, and the pas- 
 sionate dashing up of those frantic lovers against the thick- 
 bossed shield of God's judgment. And so the poem ends 
 in rest and stillness : leaving us in silent wonder at its artis- 
 tic symmetry and matchless execution, and gazing up into 
 the celestial blue which overarches all its passion. 
 
 Thus has Mrs. Browning poetically realized the feelings 
 of the bride and of the wife : she has depicted with corres- 
 ponding power and delicacy the feelings of the mother. In 
 IsobeVs Child, as I have already remarked, it is the mater- 
 nal instinct which is the central subject of representation. 
 It is, however, in Aurora Leigh, that Mrs. Browning's de- 
 lineation of this affection, in all its tenderness and in all its 
 rapture, attains its highest perfection. To do even approx- 
 imate justice to the succession of passages in. which, in the 
 poem named, Marian Erie and her babe are the objects of 
 portraiture, would demand a separate critique. But were 
 we to embrace all that is revealed in one view to us of woman 
 in the Drama of Exile, The Duchess May, IsobePs Child, 
 and Aurora Leigh, not to mention other poems, we should 
 find it difficult to dispute the position that this poetess has 
 sung of her own sex, as no poet or poetess ever did. 
 
 Of Aurora Leigh, as Mrs. Browning's last and longest 
 poem, it will be proper to speak at somewhat greater length. 
 
 Whatever the estimate of this poem, at which we may 
 on the whole arrive, no doubt can be entertained that it is 
 the finest which has appeared in Great Britain since In Me- 
 moriam. Merely to specify its beauties would occupy an 
 extended space. The descriptions of English scenery in the 
 early books may challenge comparison with anything in the 
 language. Yivid as if resting in the very light of clear 
 English mornings, fresh as if the dew-drops glistened on the 
 page, broad and powerful as is the work of strong imagina- 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 195 
 
 tion, touched everywhere with those more playfully delicate 
 lights which are commonly attributed to fancy, these lim- 
 nings must make every Englishman proud of a country that 
 can be so described, and of a poetess who can so describe 
 it. To the delineations of Italian scenery, a similar charac- 
 ter may be ascribed, the necessary changes being of course 
 made. Even without a personal familiarity with that scenery, 
 the accuracy of such descriptions is instinctively relied on : 
 there is in them an honest minuteness which is its own 
 guarantee. Besides these more general delineations, there 
 are in this poem certain descriptive passages, such as the 
 view of London, and the sail by night along the Sardinian 
 sea-coast towards Italy, which would require a separate and 
 more elaborate characterization. They are among those 
 solitary efforts of genius to which, with scientific precision, 
 we may apply the epithets, magnificent and sublime. Turn- 
 ing to the human figures, Marian Erie is in all respects 
 worthy of Mrs. Browning's genius. The historical exist- 
 ence of Emma Lyon renders it no outrage on poetic proba- 
 bility to suppose such ability and such character as those of 
 Marian Erie in an English girl born in the lowest order of 
 society ; nor in the present diffusion of the elements of 
 knowledge, is the mode, in which she is represented as ac- 
 quiring some considerable culture, by any means strained or 
 unnatural. It must, of course, be permitted to a poet to 
 violate minor probabilities: a reasonable possibility is all 
 that can be demanded. Marian Erie is imbued with true 
 poetic life : we approve, admire, and love her : and so per- 
 fectly are we interested and enchained by the tenderness, 
 the loveliness, the inexpressible pathos, of which she is made 
 the centre^ that it is only afterwards we reflect on the mar- 
 vellous genius displayed by the poetess. 
 
 It may appear that after such a specification, and with the 
 
196 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 clear admission that it might be very greatly extended, no 
 alternative remains but to pronounce Aurora Leigh, on the 
 whole, a successful performance, a poetical achievement at 
 once noble and complete. I am compelled to state that, 
 after careful deliberation, my conclusion has been the reverse. 
 In all the other poems by Mrs. Browning, with which I am 
 acquainted, the defects, though sometimes great, are not 
 sufficient to neutralize the excellence : to Aurora Leigh, all 
 things considered, the only word to be applied is "failure." 
 The grounds of this opinion will be briefly indicated. 
 
 In the first place, nearly all the exceptions which critics 
 have incidentally taken to Mrs. Browning's poems come 
 here into application, and certain of them can be urged with 
 greater force than in any former instance. The style, in- 
 deed, is somewhat simplified, and if parenthesis and involu- 
 tion still prevail to a greater extent than is now necessary 
 to any one using the English language, the charge of unin- 
 telligibility, or even of decided difficulty, can hardly be 
 brought against the poem. But there is a considerable 
 number of those overstrained and extravagant images, 
 those sublime conceits towards which Mrs. Browning has 
 so often manifested a tendency. 
 
 " Then the bitter sea 
 Inexorably pushed between us both, 
 And sweeping up the ship with my despair 
 Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.** 
 
 Mr. Carlyle has been bold enough to declare that Shak- 
 speare sometimes premeditates the sheerest bombast. It 
 was more probably through momentary negligence that 
 Mrs. Browning permitted this unpardonable passage to 
 escape her pen. At all events, no Homeric bellman, no 
 Ossianic juvenile, ever perpetrated purer nonsense, or more 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 197 
 
 unredeemed bombast. What possible resemblance there 
 can be between a ship and a pasture, why and when stars go 
 out to grass, and wherefore, having so gone out, they should 
 feed on ships and young ladies — these are questions of in- 
 soluble mystery, but hardly more mysterious than how Mrs. 
 Browning could crowd so many absurdities into two lines. 
 The lines are enough in themselves seriously to damage a 
 great poem : and though perhaps the worst, they constitute 
 by no means a solitary example of extravagance. 
 
 In the next place the melody of Aurora Leigh is defect- 
 ive. There are indeed passages in which the thoughts and 
 images fairly float themselves away in the sphere-dance of 
 harmony ; wonderful passages, in which it is again demon- 
 strated that true melody in language is but the rhythmic 
 cadence natural to a mood of thought, imagination and ex- 
 pression, sufficiently elevated, calm and mighty. But over 
 wide spaces of the poem the ear finds no delight, and the 
 ear most rightfully demands from the poet what the eye 
 demands from the painter. In a very fair review of Aurora 
 Leigh, published in Blackwood's Magazine, a method of es- 
 timate was applied to the poem of a sort which Edgar Poe 
 strongly insisted on. Certain passages were given without 
 the form of verse. Has Mrs. Browning read those passages ? 
 If she has, and if the impression made on her mind was that 
 conveyed irresistibly to mine, how did she contemplate the 
 fact that her poetry suggested Mr. Kingsley's prose ? It is 
 no commendation of Mrs. Browning, and no disparagement 
 to Mr. Kingsley, to say that it could only be in the case of 
 utter, though perhaps temporary, abrogation of her highest 
 qualities, that a production of the former could recall the 
 work of the latter ; yet it is so. The crowding, the vehem- 
 ence, the feverish haste and impatience, which so frequently 
 characterise Mr. Kingsley's novels, can hardly fail to be 
 17* 
 
198 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 suggested by such passages as those to which allusion is 
 now made. It cannot be pleaded that these are exceptional. 
 The heroine invariably talks like one of Mr. Kingsley's 
 characters. There is a lack, besides, of tenderer strains to 
 refresh and relieve the ear ; the atmosphere wants calm, the 
 landscape wants perspective. Once more, the irreverent or 
 seeming irreverent use of the names of the Persons of the 
 Trinity, which had been formerly objected to Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, is carried further in Aurora Leigh than in any of her 
 previous poems. No defence can be offered for this cir- 
 cumstance. It may be perfectly true that Mrs. Browning's 
 irreverence is only seeming, and that it results mainly from 
 a constant habit of reference, in life, to the will of the Deity. 
 But the fact remains, and is indubitable, that the simple 
 and sincere worshippers of God throughout the British 
 islands will be pained at heart by the words of Mrs. Brown- 
 ing. Something called reverence by Goethe and Carlyle 
 may be consistent with a familiarity in the use of Divine 
 names, such as we instinctively shrink from in the case of a 
 sister, a mother, a father, a departed relative, a tenderly 
 beloved friend ; but if Mrs. Browning would have her books 
 associated with the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, the Chris- 
 tian Year, in the homes and hearts of simple, godly people, 
 she must condescend to a reverence conceivable in itself, 
 and uncontradicted by the whole analogy of nature. The 
 example of Tennyson ought surely to have preserved her 
 from this great and pervading error. Genius need not be 
 ashamed to learn from its equal; and Mrs. Browning 
 would do well to meditate on Tennyson's invariable . mode 
 of reference to 
 
 " That which we dare invoke to bless." 
 These are serious objections ; yet they are the least im- 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 199 
 
 portant which can be urged against Aurora Leigh. They 
 are the light musketry ; the park of artillery has still to 
 open fire. 
 
 Aurora Leigh is herself an essentially defective character. 
 "We do not love her: we cannot love her. Had Mrs. 
 Browning not instructed us, it might have been otherwise. 
 But since Mrs. Browning, in her Eve and her Duchess May, 
 has shown us what woman can be, what sort of women we 
 ought to love, it is impossible for us to reject and scorn all 
 her teaching, in the single act of accepting Aurora Leigh. 
 The intellectual character of this young lady may pass ; she 
 has even a certain bare and masculine sense of justice, and 
 willingness to be kind : but real warmth of heart, true wo- 
 manly tenderness, she has not. She is generically different 
 from any other female character from the pencil of Mrs. 
 Browning. None other which Mrs. Browning has drawn 
 could have been, on the whole, so cold, hard, heartless, as, 
 on the occasion of the death of her aunt, Aurora Leigh 
 shows herself to be. It is absolutely astonishing that Mrs. 
 Browning has permitted her heroine to exhibit no trace of 
 generous relenting, of natural grief, of mere human ten- 
 derness, on the death of one who really loved her. There 
 is no dew-drop in the bosom of this rose. 
 
 The heroine is a failure in respect of the intention of the 
 poetess. She must be considered as claiming our admira- 
 tion and love ; and she is not worthy of their being accorded 
 her. But Aurora Leigh is, I think, true to nature : real- 
 istically, if not poetically, the portraiture may be correct. 
 What is perhaps the most important of all the charges to 
 be brought against the poem before us still remains to be 
 made. In the portraiture of Romney Leigh, and in the 
 whole treatment of socialism, the necessary realistic basis, 
 wholly fails. 
 
200 MRS-. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 Mrs. Browning is in theory a stern realist. She earnestly 
 proclaims that the Homer of his time must always write of 
 the present. Throughout Aurora Leigh, she aims at bold, 
 broad, truthful delineation. She takes her reader to the 
 purlieus of St. Giles's, and writes off fearlessly the curse of 
 the ruffian, the slang of the prostitute. So far, — it may 
 be, — good. The truth as to the real and the ideal, the 
 present and the past, in relation to poetical composition, is 
 easily defined. In the real is found the only true mode of 
 ascent to the ideal ; the loftiest tree must have its roots in 
 the ground. The present is the subject of all poetry, inas- 
 much as the substantial frame-work of man's moral and 
 intellectual nature is, in essentials, in all ages, the same. 
 Costume, using the word in its widest sense, varies from age 
 to age ; it is a noble work of a perfectly informed imagina- 
 tion to picture forth, in perfect exactness, that worn by any 
 past generation ; but the living men whom that costume 
 enveloped, in their essential attributes of reason and pas- 
 sion, can be accurately conceived only by knowledge of the 
 men that think and love in the present. To all objections 
 that her descriptions in Aurora Leigh are too realistic, Mrs. 
 Browning will almost glory in the reply that she paints the 
 life. But the objection now urged is that her realism is in 
 the cases mentioned, utterly at fault, and that her realism 
 failing, her idealization becomes of necessity mere vague- 
 ness, vapour, nonentity. A single illustration from the poem 
 itself will show Mrs. Browning that it is not in respect of 
 theory or method that the present exception is taken. Her 
 view of London is sufficiently real and grandly ideal. The 
 light of imagination is there, but it falls on a real river, on 
 real spires and palaces. Her Romney Leigh and her view 
 of socialism have no such basis of reality, of fact ; they are 
 not the stuff of which the poetic dream can make anything ; 
 they are dreams about dreams. 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 201 
 
 There have, in all ages, been individual enthusiasts ; but 
 in no age could an individual enthusiast have been repre- 
 sentative ; and even as an enthusiast, Romney Leigh is im- 
 possible. He is represented as a man of ability, without the 
 smallest trace of intellectual power ; he is represented as a 
 man of statistics and of science, while his conception of 
 human regeneration is purely fanciful, and precisely as scien- 
 tific as the proposition that twice five make out the dozen. 
 He represents the age in a way in which a fifth-monarchy 
 man, of neplus ultra principles, would represent the age of 
 Cromwell. Joe Smith would be considered an inappropri- 
 ate hero for a poem descriptive of the present time. I am 
 personally of opinion that he might be made the centre of 
 a great poem. But, whether or no, the Mormon leader 
 would represent incomparably more of the present time 
 than is represented by Romney Leigh. Thus delusive as 
 representative of his time, he is in himself unsubstantial. 
 There is no actuality or life in him : He wants bone. Noth- 
 ing can convince the reader that he walks the solid earth. 
 Tliis circumstance is fatal. 
 
 The general conclusion from Mrs. Browning's new poem 
 is, that socialistic schemes are nonsensical. But Mrs. Brown- 
 ing does not exhibit the slightest degree of knowledge of the 
 science of the social system, the special science of the present 
 time. She has studied in the school of Carlyle : the doctrines 
 and methods of which school bear almost precisely the same re- 
 lation to the social regeneration of peoples, as the scholastic 
 logic bears to the construction of railways. Mrs. Brown- 
 ing has not even skirted the border of that realistic field in 
 which the noblest idealizations of the present time are to 
 be planted. Facts and figures are not poetry, but they may 
 be the materials from which a mighty imagination will build 
 up the noblest poems. Mrs. Browning has such an imagin- 
 
202 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 ation. But she has no surmise that, in dry statistical tables 
 is to be found the most glorious theme that can invite im- 
 agination in these years : she has totally overlooked a factor 
 which is necessary, I say not to the solution, but to the 
 smallest contribution towards a solution, of the great prob- 
 lem, at which, to say the least, she looks. To reiterate ab- 
 stract maxims, were they elaborated by the combined intel- 
 lects of Bacon and Goethe, comes here to little ; to discover 
 that misery abounds in the world and merely to depict it, 
 in colors however true and striking, is almost equally value- 
 less ; to fling abroad vague denunciation upon those who, in 
 good and in bad report, with less light or with more, strive 
 earnestly through long years to benefit their fellow men, is 
 in itself worse than useless, and has now become hopelessly 
 commonplace. Through the whole history of mankind, 
 the world has been a place of sorrow as of sin. The bright- 
 est year that ever swept, in kindly change of seasons, over 
 the earth, saw enough of individual distress, to drive a man, 
 were it presented to his imagination with vivid poetic power, 
 raving mad. So surely as the race continues as it is, so 
 surely must this, for many centuries to come, be still the 
 case. The man who cannot deliberately envisage this dread 
 circumstance, who cannot thus look before and after, and 
 yet retain the faith that earth is a place in which to live and 
 work, becomes a rebel against the order of things ; in con- 
 sistence, he ought to commit suicide or accept atheism. But 
 the strong and healthful man will, we shall agree, find it, on 
 the whole, rational and advisable to submit to the condi- 
 tions of his existence and to believe in God. To enable 
 him to do so, it is necessary not that he should accept any 
 delusive representation of the present or Utopian prediction 
 for the future, but that he should perceive in the history of 
 man a progress, that he should be assured that, however 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 203 
 
 slowly, the evil and the sorrowful recede, and the good and the 
 joyful advance. Now there is one fact which the great science 
 of statistics has already proved, in reference at least to that 
 island which is the principal scene of Mrs. Browning's poem ; 
 — that crime and misery are on the decline. Amid all the vo- 
 ciferation of Mr. Carlyle and his school, in full view of stupen- 
 dous individual crimes, with ready admission of multitudinous 
 cases of individual distress, the wise man will calmly and earn- 
 estly fix his eye on this fact ; on the bare figures in which it is 
 inscribed he will look with unspeakable joy, nay reverence, as if 
 he saw them traced in light by the finger of God. Ahriman, 
 they proclaim, though fighting sternly, does draw back his foot. 
 The ocean rolls darkly beneath a troubled sky, but the sand- 
 grains are being deposited, year by year, which will one 
 day build the broad continent right into the sunlight. The 
 night is still murky, but a rim of light slowly broadens out 
 to dawn. How magnificently, how epically, might Mrs. 
 Browning, with such an imagination as hers, have concluded 
 her poem by showing us this ring of light on the horizon of 
 the world, this aureole which proves that the sorrowful 
 earth is still among the family of God ! But except out of 
 realism no true idealization can arise ; and the realism which 
 it is necessary to master in this case is to be found in a 
 science, which Mrs. Browning probably despises and of which 
 she is certainly ignorant. The conclusion to which, in Au- 
 rora Zeigh, we are conducted, is exceedingly true, and is 
 presented in very beautiful poetry : but, in originality and 
 practical utility, it is not one whit superior to the doctrine 
 preached on the subject, any Sunday in the year, in the 
 churches and chapels of England. Miss Leigh's platonism 
 cannot in the least affect the state of the case : the original- 
 ity wanted was not to be had by looking across two thou- 
 sand years, but by accepting the present, not in the philos- 
 
204 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 ophy of Plato, but in criminal reports, in the history of free 
 trade, in the works of Grey, MacCulloch and Chalmers, in 
 the letters of Colonel Jebb. 
 
 Aurora Leigh, then, despite countless beauties, despite 
 passages sufficient to furnish forth anthology after anthology, 
 despite an exuberant display of that genius which makes 
 Mrs. Browning the greatest poetess in the world, is a failure. 
 Why is it so ? It would be tiresome and probably vain to 
 attempt to answer the question at length. But one cause, 
 perhaps a principal cause, seems to lie in that recoil from 
 common men and exoteric doctrines, to which an early refer- 
 ence was made. The influence of Mr. Carlyle upon Mrs. 
 Browning has been very powerful ; and it has been evil. To 
 apply to her the words used in a different connection by a 
 thoroughly able writer in the Edinburgh Review, she has 
 more and more learned from Mr. Carlyle what she could 
 not have learned " from Greek philosophy or Holy Writ, a 
 fierce and unenlightened disdain .... of the MUL- 
 TITUDE." 
 
 " Heavens, 
 I think I should be almost popular 
 If this went on ! " 
 
 So exclaims Aurora, and though passages might be quoted 
 which seem to point to a different conclusion, this indicates the 
 doctrine of the book. Yet there was ONE of whom his 
 disciples were not ashamed to declare that " the common 
 people heard him gladly." 
 
 To refer, save in the most general way, to Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's smaller poems, is now impossible. Some of them, as 
 The Cry of the Children, Cowper's Grave, The Cry of the 
 Human, and The Sleep, are absolute masterpieces. The 
 first is one of the greatest of strictly modem poems. It 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 205 
 
 demonstrates that a pathos may be got out of cotton fuzz 
 and rattling machinery, to which the woes of Achilles and 
 Hector, and the sublime sorrows of battling goddesses, 
 around windy Troy, were a very poor affair : it shows that, 
 though tragedy on the boards may be looked upon with very 
 dry eyes, the real tragedy is still amongst us. The poem re- 
 minds us of Hood. The pathos of Hood is true and piercing ; 
 it is the pathos of bare fact, of life ; it is the tear of sorrow 
 itself, falling upon the heart. But The Cry of the Chil- 
 dren^ to a realism as literal as Hood's, adds an imagina- 
 tive gleam such as Hood could not impart. The piece is 
 radiant with poetic fervor. There is perhaps no respect in 
 which it is not a study : in language, in melody, in imagery, 
 in truthfulness. 
 
 Cowper^s Grave is an outburst of emotion, irrepressible 
 in its earnestness, unspeakable in its tenderness. Some of 
 the thoughts are by no means common, and some of the 
 turns might, from their point and ingenuity, almost sug- 
 gest the word, conceit : but a passion of tenderness glows 
 so visibly over the whole, that we think no more of premedi- 
 tation than if we witnessed a paroxysm of weeping. 
 
 The Cry of the Human does not omit that word, with 
 out which all denunciation of man's vice and shortcoming, 
 all lamentation over man's misery, must be pronounced 
 aimless fury or maudlin puerility. Mere despair at the sight 
 of sorrow, mere frenzied indignation at the sight of sin, can 
 beseem no man, when we think Who atoned for human sin, 
 and Who shared human suffering. 
 
 " Then, Soul of mine, 
 Look up and triumph rather — 
 Lo ! in the depth of God's Divine, 
 The Son adjures the Father — 
 Be pitiful, O God!" 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 18 
 
206 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 The Sleep is one of those poems of Mrs. Browning's, in 
 which not only the inmost thought and feeling are beautiful 
 and simple, but in which no veil intervenes between these 
 and general sympathy. This remark, indeed, extends, more 
 or less, to all the pieces now under notice. In her smaller 
 poems Mrs. Browning seemed to be working fairly clear of 
 what must be called her mannerism. In these she stands 
 before us in no classic adornment, clothed on with the per- 
 fect beauty of her own womanliness and truth. 
 
 " O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 
 O men, with wailing in your voices I 
 
 O delved gold, the wailers heap ! 
 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 * And giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap. 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 1 He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 • * * * 4c 
 
 * * * * 
 
 And friends, dear friends, — when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me, 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let one, most loving of you all, 
 Say, ' Not a tear must o'er her fall — 
 He giveth His beloved sleep.' " 
 
 The man who cannot feel this is capable of no poetic feeling 
 at all. Had Mrs. Browning been always so simply herself; 
 her poems might be found on every cottage shelf. And 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 207 
 
 who has more nobly told us that nature's truth is better 
 than art's conventions, than Mrs. Browning herself? The 
 .Dead JPan, another poem of sustained and consummate 
 excellence, is most of all precious, for its bold modernism, 
 and haughty protest against the cant of classicism. 
 
 " Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 
 Sung beside her in her youth : 
 And those debonaire romances 
 
 Sound but dull beside the truth. 
 Phoebus' chariot-course is run. 
 Look up, poets, to the sun ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 ***** 
 • * * * 
 
 Truth is fair : should we forego it ? 
 Can we sigh right for a wrong ? 
 God Himself is the best Poet, 
 
 And the Real is his song. 
 Sing his Truth out fair and full, 
 And secure His beautiful. 
 
 Let Pan be dead." 
 
 These words are worthy of a time of universal reaction 
 towards reality : against all formalism and artifice ; a time 
 which has seen unveiled the face of Cromwell, and when 
 Ruskin is flinging open to the peoples the gallery of Art. 
 
 But it were a bootless task to attempt to refer, even in a 
 word, to all that are peculiarly marked among Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's smaller poems. She touches in them a thousand chords 
 of feeling, and glances into unnumbered spheres of thought. 
 From deep metaphysical musings,* and philosophical deline- 
 ations of the characteristics of the age, to the tenderest 
 limnings of home life, they exhibit every mood of thought 
 and emotion. A deep tone of pathos is very constantly 
 
208 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 present, its pervading idea being the inextricable blending 
 of joy and sorrow in the lot of man, the necessity that there 
 seems of all joy being through sorrow. The smile, the 
 mother smile, comes on a cheek white with an " eight-day 
 weeping," and, says the poetess, 
 
 M All smiles come in such a wise." 
 
 " "Who," she asks, " can love and rest ? " But neither 
 does she ever permit the shadow to fall over all man's 
 glory ; she knows of a sky, pure and blue, above all plain- 
 ing. 
 
 " Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city, 
 The blue sky covering thee 4ike God's great pity." 
 
 This last is but an instance of a universal characteristic 
 of Mrs. Browning's writings on which one loves to dwell. 
 Somewhat decided language has been applied to the un- 
 seemly familiarity with which the Divine names are used in 
 Aurora Leigh. But no further qualification is necessary in 
 asserting the pervasive Christianity of Mrs. Browning's 
 works. Over all the domain of her poetry, over its central 
 ranges, its quiet gardened valleys, its tinkling rills, falls a 
 radiance of gospel light. Ever, as her music rises to its 
 noblest cadence, it seems taken up by an angel harp : the 
 highest tone is as the voice of spirits. It would, I cannot 
 doubt, be to their own sincere enjoyment and real profit, if 
 the Christian public pressed boldly into the temple of Mrs. 
 Browning's song. She" is a Christian poetess, not in the 
 sense of appreciating, like Carlyle, the loftiness of the 
 Christian type of character, not in the sense of adopting, 
 like Goethe, a Christian machinery for artistic self-worship, 
 not even in the sense of preaching, like Wordsworth, an 
 
MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 209 
 
 august but abstract morality, but in the sense of finding, 
 like Cowper, the whole hope of humanity bound up in 
 Christ, and taking all the children of her mind to him, that 
 he may lay his hand on them and bless them. It is well 
 that Mrs. Browning is a Christian. It is difficult, but pos- 
 sible, to bear the reflection, that many great female writers 
 have rejected that gospel which has done more for woman 
 than any other civilizing agency ; but it is well that the 
 greatest woman of all looks up, in faith and love, to that 
 Eye which fell on Mary from the cross. 
 
 The greatest woman of all ! This is my firm and deliber- 
 ate conviction. I am, of course, not acquainted with the 
 works of all great female writers, perhaps not even of many. 
 But, as you look towards the brow of a towering mountain, 
 rising far over the clouds and crowned with ancient snow, 
 you may have an assurance, even though it rises from a 
 plain, or, if amid lower hills, though you have not actually 
 taken the elevation of each, that in height it is peerless. 
 In the poems of Mrs. Browning are qualities which admit 
 of their being compared with those of the greatest men ; 
 touches which only the mightiest give. With the few sov- 
 ereigns of literature, the Homers, Shakspeares, Miltons, she 
 will not rank. But in full recollection of Scott's magical 
 versatility and bright, cheerful glow, of Byron's fervid pas- 
 sion and magnificent description, of Wordsworth's majesty, 
 of Shelley's million-colored fancy, of Coleridge's occasional 
 flights right into the sun-glare, of Bailey's marvellous exu- 
 berance, and of Tennyson's golden calm, I yet hold her 
 worthy of being mentioned with any poet of this century. 
 She has the breadth and versatility t)f a man, no sameliness, 
 no one idea, no type character: our single Shakspearean wo- 
 man. In this view I am agreed with by the author of The 
 Jiaven, a critic of great acuteness and originality, and who 
 18* 
 
210 MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 had no moral or religious prepossessions in favor of Mrs. 
 Browning. 
 
 "Woman, sister, — " says Thomas De Quiney, "there 
 are some things which you do not execute as well as your 
 brother, man ; no, nor ever will. Pardon me, if I doubt 
 whether you will ever produce a great poet from your 
 choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a 
 great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is 
 meant — not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, 
 but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination ; 
 bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of 
 the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, 
 into the unity of breathing life. If you can create your- 
 selves into any of these great creators, why have you not ? " 
 
 Mrs. Browning has exalted her sex : this passage was true. 
 
IV. 
 
 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 A DIALOGUE. 
 
 * * * Englishmen of pith, 
 
 Sixteen named Thomson and nineteen named Smith.— Byron. 
 
 Thomson, Oh — Mr. Smith. How d'ye do? In that 
 good old English salutation everything is included, — 
 wealth, health, and family. — How are you ? 
 
 Smith. All well. Everything in order at the old place. 
 Crops good, boys and girls well, and wife, I will say, 
 buxom, blithe, and debonair as you could wish an English 
 matron. 
 
 Thorn. And you have given all your country comforts 
 the go-by to have a look at London ? 
 
 Smith. Not exactly. Business brought me to town, but 
 to-day I am free. London, you know, is on the race-course, 
 — which it may have to itself for me, — and I have seized 
 the opportunity for a stroll through the rooms of the 
 Academy. 
 
 Thorn. Indeed. This is fortunate. You know my love 
 of Art ? — I, too, had made up my mind to avail myself of 
 the absence of fashion and dilettantism to inspect, with 
 favoring quiet and leisure, the works of the year. Suppose 
 we make a day of it — looking as we talk, and talking as 
 we look ? 
 
212 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 Smith. Agreed — most heartily. I hold you something 
 of an authority, whereas I know nothing of pictures, and 
 profess no opinion on the subject. I know when I am 
 pleased, and my pleasure is often deep. But there I stop. 
 I have a feeling, even, that I have but a questionable right 
 to the pleasure I experience. I am one of the common 
 crowd, hated and shunned by connoisseurs, and despised 
 by the artists whose pictures they buy. Like the rest I 
 bow to the connoisseurs, and placidly receive what artists 
 condescend to tell me. But with you I am free. Even if 
 you were a connoisseur at all points, which you are not, 
 the indulgence of the friend would vail the terror of the 
 critic. I am a child, of course, but I shan't be startled at 
 the dreadful crest ; and you won't hector, will you ? I give 
 in, to begin with. I surrender all freedom of judgment, 
 while retaining utmost freedom of impression and remark. 
 I give you a general permission to laugh at me. You may 
 even give me a smart touch with the whip, when I am 
 running fairly off the road. I know nothing of pictures. 
 
 Thorn. Hm ! — All remarkably fine. Your modesty is 
 no counterfeit — that I know; — but let me broadly declare 
 it is a mistake. We shall perhaps contrive to raise you 
 somewhat in your own opinion as a picture critic. In the 
 meantime, what, pray, do you mean by " having no knowl- 
 edge of painting ? " You are fond of Art. You make at 
 least an annual visit to London, to see whatever pictures 
 the year produces. And has not your interest in Art led 
 you to read a little on the subject ? 
 
 Smith. Well, really, you will do me a service if you 
 teach me to cast myself free of that timorousness with 
 which I now think of any picture. But you must take care 
 that a worse thing come not upon me ; I should rather be 
 a coward among critics, than a pretender among dunces. 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 213 
 
 You ask what I mean by being ignorant of painting. Well, 
 I could not give you a single rule of perspective, or read, 
 you off one of the harmonies of color, or define tone or 
 chiaroscuro. In one word, I am ignorant of the technical 
 part of painting. I cannot paint, and I do not know the 
 rules of painting. Besides, — for I shall make a clean breast 
 of it, — I have a lurking preference for pictures that are 
 bright, clear, clean, new ; and I fancy I might give my 
 money for a school copy with just as much heartiness 
 as if I bore away the real master. Still worse, I have not 
 nearly the due measure of enthusiasm for the said masters. 
 I sigh over my want of raptures on the subject of Rubens's 
 flesh-tint ; and when I catch sight of a number of undressed 
 ladies, even though the catalogue calls them Diana and her 
 Nymphs, and even though it be Titian who draws aside the 
 curtain of — of — decency — I am despicably inclined to get 
 out of the way. In short, you must give me up. 
 
 Thorn. Not quite yet. Nor have you told me all you 
 have to tell. There is a positive as well as a negative side. 
 
 Smith. I have said nearly all that is to the purpose, I 
 think. But you would ask what I have seen and read in 
 connection with Art ? There is a little to tell in that direc- 
 tion. Plain folks as we are in the Dell, I cannot pretend to 
 a total ignorance of what is said, seen, and written in the 
 world. There is no excuse now-a-days, even among our 
 fern and heather, for complete ignorance. Why, — think of 
 it. I read in the afternoon, at my tea table, the debate of 
 last night in the House. Every rumor which circulates in 
 the London clubs, political, literary, or artistic, finds its 
 way to us in a few hours. I hear to-day of the arrival or 
 production of a new painting : to-morrow I mingle with 
 the throng inspecting it. Half a dozen libraries are ready 
 to supply me with every new work, on Art as on every 
 
214 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 other subject. I do n't see, therefore, what right I have to 
 be inferior in Art-knowledge to townsmen as such. I im- 
 agine that I am not so. For many years I have visited all 
 the principal exhibitions, and have taken pleasure in pene- 
 trating, as far as I could, into the truth and meaning of the 
 pictures. "What with this, and with reading, I have formed 
 a notion, correct or not, of the distinctive ideas which 
 reigned in particular schools, and of the way in which sub- 
 jects have been treated by particular masters. But all this 
 is beyond the pale of technical knowledge ; all this is out- 
 side the studio ; and I have nothing to plead in arrest of the 
 verdict of artistic barbarism. 
 
 Thorn. Yery good. But talking threatens to encroach 
 on looking. We must get at the pictures. As you have 
 said all you can for yourself, however, grant me just another 
 minute to see whether I cannot allege something additional 
 in your favor. There is a little matter which you not un- 
 gracefully omit, but which I consider of paramount impor- 
 tance. You know nothing, it appears, of color. You are 
 rather hazy in chiaroscuro, and are apt to lose yourself in 
 golden and silvery tones. You never saw, you might have 
 added, the original Venus de Medicis, nor affected rapture 
 over Leonardo's Supper at Milan. Very sad, indeed ! Now 
 I happen to have visited you in that Dell of yours, so sweetly 
 sinking, with its crag and copse, from the general level of 
 the upland. I well remember a walk with you, one fresh, 
 dewy morning, which would have been dull in town, but 
 which in the country only made everything more rural, 
 quiet, country-like. The sky was of course well filled with 
 broken clouds. No other composition of the sky, if I may 
 steal a term from Art and apply it to nature, gives at once 
 transparency of air, pure richness of color, and fine effects 
 of light and shade. There was a moment when the sun- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. . 215 
 
 beams, which had been peeping and peering for an outlet 
 in the clouds all morning, suddenly streamed through 
 a valley opened for them by the gentle wind, and 
 spread themselves in their countless companies along the 
 faint purple of the hill. The gleam of their golden ban- 
 ners shone clear against the shadow which was still 
 lying dark over the greater part of the mountain. The 
 eyes of both of us were at once on the ridge, which had 
 caught the light ; and when I looked at yours, shall I tell 
 you what I saw there ? If not exactly a tear, at least a 
 glistening which told that the heart required some kind of 
 overflow. Nor have I forgotten that day, when, like a 
 good, respectable Mr. Smith, you drove me to the market- 
 town in your own gig. It was about the end of July. As 
 we passed along, a cornfield lay by the wayside. Through 
 it the hand of autumn had just begun to sprinkle the gold 
 into which melts the green of summer; and, amidst this 
 golden-green, myriads of poppies waved their crimson 
 flames. " These," you exclaimed, casting a glance in the 
 direction of the poppies, " take a pretty penny out of my 
 pocket, but for two reasons I am happy to pay the price ; 
 first, because of the pure delight of the color, and second, 
 because that one sight, to leave out a thousand others, and 
 the emotion it excites, are amply sufficient to annihilate, 
 Once for all, the theory of beauty professed and defended 
 by Francis Jeffrey." 
 
 Smith. Ah, let me interrupt you. Perhaps that was 
 severe on Jeffrey. His dissertation is extremely valuable 
 as a classification of what the beautiful is not. It is a mon- 
 ument cere perennius; only you must turn it upside down ! 
 Go on. 
 
 Thorn. Now, of whatever precise value it may be, I think 
 I need not prove that in estimating one's capacity for judg-. 
 
21o GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 ing in Art, it is at least well to know his power to observe 
 and enjoy the beauty of nature. The instances I have ad- 
 duced show that, whatever you may say of the landscapes 
 of the former, you are not indifferent to those of the latter. 
 Were I to pass beyond landscape, and inquire in the same 
 way into your fitness to form an opinion on painting of 
 human life, I should find my case still stronger. Nothing 
 human have I ever known which did not, one way or other, 
 interest and attract you. I have seen you look with genial 
 curiosity on the equipages, the dresses, the languid smiles, 
 the artificial flowers, of Hyde Park. I have seen you mark 
 with stronger interest, and sympathy far more ardent, the 
 glowing cheeks and glittering, twinkling eyes of the hay- 
 makers in your own fields. I think you would know the 
 mark of human feeling wherever you saw it, in field, in 
 street, or on canvas. But we can put this to the proof at 
 once. Look here. "What think you of this picture ? 
 
 Smith. It impresses and delights me : more I shall not 
 yet venture to say. 
 
 Thorn. But wherein consists your pleasure ? What do 
 you see in the picture ? Read me off your impressions as 
 clearly as you can. 
 
 Smith. I shall make the attempt. It seems to me, as I 
 look, that there gradually dawns upon me the whole modu- 
 lated beauty of a lyric poem, written not in alphabetical 
 characters but in soft, sweet, variegated light. There is 
 before me the well stored room, kitchen and sitting-room 
 in one, of a homely yet substantial farmhouse. The wife 
 of the good yeoman is seated on the left, beautiful with the 
 beauty of joy and health, her cheek white and ruddy, her 
 whole face bathed in the tender illumination of that smile, 
 which prosperity never fails to light upon the countenance 
 of a true woman. She is perfectly happy and contented in 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 217 
 
 her babe, lying there in her lap, in rosy, healthy slumber. 
 That woman is a realization of all that is kind, vigilant, 
 comforting, blissful, in the character and office of a mother. 
 The yeoman's boys, stout, hearty little fellows, who spend 
 nine tenths of their time in leaping and shouting in the 
 fields, are seen near their mother. And what boy is that 
 beside them ? What child is it, who has glided in through 
 the half-open door, and stands, in his thin rags, his little cap 
 in his hand, looking up, submissively, piteously, into the 
 face of the old grandmother ? Why is he so woe-begone, 
 so forlorn, weary-looking, beside the jocund children of the 
 farmer ? He is The Mitherless Bairn! Look at that babe 
 on its mother's knee, and those boys standing beside. The 
 blessedness of a mother's smile rests on them visibly, red- 
 dening on their cheeks, beaming in their eyes. To the 
 right, the brood-hen has come fussing on the floor, followed 
 by one or two chickens. Even these are cared for ! But 
 that feeble, trembling child stands alone, — homeless, un- 
 cared for, motherless. In all this, there is a felicitous 
 truth, a telling lyrical contrast, such as I might hope for 
 from a Burns, a Crabbe, or a Thorn. And the artist has, 
 with a wise tenderness, relieved the mere sadness of his 
 story, by letting me know, in the softened look of the 
 grandmother and the dewy smile of the mother, that the 
 little stranger has this day found a home. These are my 
 impressions of Mr. Faed's picture. 
 
 Thorn. Exactly. And yet you pretend to be unable to 
 form an opinion touching its merits ! Is it not an extreme 
 absurdity that people will stand by such a picture, the very 
 tears in their eyes attesting their power of appreciation, 
 and disclaim all right to have an opinion regarding it ? 
 
 Smith. Ha! — I trust I have made my first step to the 
 acquisition of that valuable human quality, conceit. But 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 19 
 
218 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 this picture is of the simplest kind, and I suppose I must 
 not attempt to deny that men of natural feeling and ordi- 
 nary culture may appreciate pictures of that school, of 
 which the great Wilkie and the greater Hogarth are in 
 Britain the legitimate masters. But I should be at a loss 
 if you asked me to criticise the quality of the painting, 
 strictly so called, even in this picture ; and I am not sure 
 that I should not be deceived into purchasing a poor copy 
 of it after seeing the original. What have you to say to 
 that? 
 
 Thorn. We shall see. But you must not imagine that 
 I pronounce extended acquaintance with pictures of no 
 importance, or undervalue any kind of artistic knowledge 
 accessible to people in general. I maintain, merely, that 
 the knowledge which is necessary to the Artist, the en- 
 tire range of those subjects which relate to the producing 
 methods of Art, — the laws of perspective, of coloring, and 
 so on, — are foreign to the sphere both of the beholder and 
 the critic. This truth, — which I hold to be demonstra- 
 ble, we may indirectly illustrate in the course of this our 
 dialogue, — which, by the way, will, I hope, be rambling. 
 
 Smith. Oh, rambling by all means. You and I, I rather 
 think, are not the men to converse in the linear dialectics 
 of those hard fellows who talked under the Greek plane 
 trees. Fancy, whim, the caprice of the moment, the sug- 
 gestion of a word or glance, have a place in conversation. 
 I believe that these are not only among the most potent of 
 the elements which make airy, vivacious, sincere, confiding 
 talk one of the supreme pleasures, but that they cast at 
 times such revealing side-gleams upon truth and beauty, as 
 bring out more subtle and pointed intellectual views, and 
 more rare and delicate lights of loveliness, than can be 
 obtained by the elaborate method of study and composi- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 219 
 
 tion. It has sometimes occurred to me that the best things 
 ever uttered may have been uttered in conversation ; and 
 it is my settled conviction that the conversation of men 
 of culture, trained in the expression of their ideas, is very 
 nearly as accurate — even formally and grammatically — as 
 their published writings. 
 
 Thorn. We shall not confine ourselves, then, to any 
 stated topic, but glance generally round the horizon of Art, 
 tarrying a little wherever an opening into the pure blue 
 may draw our eyes with promise. But another word just 
 now as to this deceivability by copies, which seems to lie so 
 heavily upon you. The danger is neither so great nor so 
 important as you imagine. You must remember, to begin 
 with, that the difference between high, or even the highest 
 truth and beauty, as embodied in a work of Art, and what is 
 commonplace, may be not only not very easily perceptible 
 but actually slight. It may be the dewdrop, scarcely noted 
 by the eye, yet making one rose the fairest of the garden. 
 It may be the inscrutable somewhat, of beauty and music, 
 which renders one poem a household term, a nation's watch- 
 word, for ages, while another, in which you can hardly 
 define an inferiority, is a mere fleeting popularity. It may 
 be the nameless, indescribable expression, lending to one 
 face a subduing and incomparable witchery, whose absence 
 from another, with features of even higher order, leaves a 
 countenance insipid and commonplace. The difference of 
 a hair's-breadth in line may be that which sets Phidias and 
 Michael Angelo at the head of sculpture : a diminution, if 
 possible still less, in the ethereal mildness and saintly ele- 
 gance of Raphael, might have cost him his throne among 
 painters. Now I think the original may be distinguished 
 from the copy, by bearing well in mind this last and exqui- 
 site difference, not to be defined in words. The master has 
 
220 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 rested on his work. There is in it a patient intensity of 
 care. Its tints blend more delicately, more elusively, than 
 in the copy. Its lines have either the sweep or the accu- 
 racy that belonged to but one hand. An artist, familiar 
 with the operations of drawing and painting, may have 
 peculiar skill in detecting a certain quality of lines as lines, 
 or of colors as colors ; and here the man devoid of techni- 
 cal knowledge is at a disadvantage. But a master is to 
 be distinguished by his effect as well as his means, by the 
 result as well as the processes by which it has been at- 
 tained ; — a certain depth and clearness of sky, neither 
 more nor less, a certain truth of feeling, a certain approxi- 
 mation to the softness and the color of a living face. And 
 on these points, a thorough acquaintance, on the one hand 
 with nature, and on the other with this master's power of 
 approaching her, is all that is required in order to ability to 
 discriminate his work from a counterfeit. All this, I need 
 not say, is distinct from technical power of hand or eye. 
 Your knowledge must be accurate, your practice great, but 
 neither the knowledge nor the practice demands any ac- 
 quaintance with artistic methods. Have you not found 
 this so ? Do you not, after all, believe in your liability to 
 be deceived, more because the connoisseurs tell you that it 
 must attach to you, than from positive experience ? 
 
 Smith. I am bound to confess that there is some truth 
 in your words. And, in fact, for that matter, both artists 
 and connoisseurs fall into error on the subject of originals 
 and copies, to all appearance about as readily as ordinary 
 mortals. 
 
 Thorn. Of course. What is still more, this of distin- 
 guishing between copies and originals, though made very 
 much of, is not of the first importance, after all. Art will 
 never be much worth as an influence on the public mincl, 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 221 
 
 until we learn to respect work for its own sake, and not for 
 the name it bears. The craftsman can never be an artist ; 
 the copyist does not necessarily share one spark of the 
 genius of the master : but while I have the thought, the 
 feeling, the truth of the artist conveyed to me by a copy, 
 I shall prize the picture, just as I should the book, which, by 
 means of types arranged by a nameless printer, transmits to 
 me the thoughts of a Plato or a Luther. But we are again 
 forgetting the pictures around us. You must allow me to 
 throw the rein right over the neck of my enthusiasm as I 
 look upon Mr. Faed's principal work of the year, — Highland 
 Mary. This is one of those pictures for which I am ready 
 to thank and bless an artist : so deep, so delicate, so pure is 
 the pleasure it imparts ; so beautiful and unsullied are the 
 emotions it awakens ; so sweetly attractive, so airy, so end- 
 less the imaginings it evokes ; so thickly-crowding, so 
 noble, so natural, the thoughts and associations it suggests. 
 Highland Mary is on her way back from Ayrshire, and has 
 already reached the mountains of native Argyllshire. She 
 rests by the wayside. Around her are mountain flowers, 
 — the fox-glove, the heath-bell. In the distance the view 
 is closed in by the blue and gray of the hills. With one 
 hand she draws closer round her her plaid of tartan. Her 
 other rests on the little scarlet bundle in her lap. Her hair is 
 bound by a simple blue braid, and the blue, gray, and russet of 
 her dress combine into a pleasing harmony of color. Every- 
 thing breathes a subdued but tender loveliness; not the 
 loveliness of Greece, not the loveliness of Italy ; not the 
 loveliness of regal purple or queenly jewels ; but that which 
 lurks in the sequestered dell or about heathery braes, and 
 which peeps out here and there from the cottage and the 
 dress of the peasant. But this is not all. There is a pic- 
 ture within the picture. There is a central beauty, to which 
 19* 
 
222 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 all the rest of the loveliness ministers, and up to which it 
 leads. This is the face of the figure ; that face of Highland 
 Mary which beams on you from the hill side, holding you 
 with its pensive beauty, so faultless yet so Scottish. The 
 full, ripe lips are closed in silent kindliness and love, no 
 Paphian curve expressing the consciousness or pride of 
 beauty. On the cheek rests the color of the mountain rose, 
 that indivisible blending of the dawn-red and the snow- 
 white, which is nature's highest effort in hue. The eye, 
 soft, deep blue, looks out in maiden purity beneath the un- 
 wrinkled maiden brow. Spread over the whole face, 
 breathing through its every feature, what thought is that 
 which is its life and spirit? Ah, we can guess it well! 
 Highland Mary is dreaming of that strange Ayrshire youth 
 from whom she lately parted ; that swarthy youth with the 
 glittering eye, in whose words dwelt so potent, so perilous 
 a fascination. She thinks of Robert Burns. A thousand 
 fancies and questions, of virgin pride, of womanly ambition, 
 of glad, loving surmise, are whirling in summer tempest, 
 spanned by its rainbow, through her breast. Further than 
 this the poet -painter does not reveal : but who can hinder 
 imagination from looking somewhat beyond, and seeing the 
 lowly headstone in the highland churchyard, beneath which 
 so soon were laid all the earthly hopes and loves of High- 
 land Mary ! 
 
 Smith. Permit me to express my decided hope that 
 your Pegasean enthusiasm has finished its flight, and to con- 
 gratulate you both on the emptiness of the rooms and the 
 patience of your one listener. But Mr. Faed's is no doubt 
 a beautiful picture, a work of unquestionable genius. Have 
 you reflected on the seeming difficulty of painting a really 
 beautiful female face ? No manifestation of beauty exercises 
 so entrancing a power over man. The grace of the forest, 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 223 
 
 the color of the garden, the evening on the sea, the morn- 
 ing on the mountains, — all these possess but a feeble 
 enchantment compared with that of the countenance of 
 a lovely woman. I must add that the power to bring 
 this beauty upon canvas is very rare among artists. Faed 
 is one of the few painters who has an unerring eye for 
 female beauty ; among living painters he seems to be with- 
 out an equal in this department. I trust that nothing may 
 induce him to desert the manifest walk of his genius. 
 
 This picture pleases me, also, because it supports a little 
 theory of mine, which, countryman as I am, has been 
 discussed more than once at my fireside. In perception of 
 what may be called typal loveliness, in capacity to apprc 
 hend abstract and, so to speak, geometrical beauty, partic- 
 ularly of the human face and form, the Greeks surpassed 
 all nations. In the very accuracy of their perceptions 
 here, might lie, partially at least, the cause of that restric- 
 tion of their sympathy for the beautiful, which contrasts 
 with the expansiveness of the Gothic spirit. Grant that 
 there was a certain meagreness, a sameliness, a too scrupu- 
 lous elegance, in their sense of beauty ; grant that they 
 bound the zone of Yenus a little too tightly ; yet I think 
 you will find that with them lay the discovery of those 
 essential, geometrical forms, of which all beauty in lines 
 must be a modification. This face in Mr. Faed's picture is 
 perfectly Scotch. The brown .hair verging to golden, the 
 cheek somewhat round and full, the general tendency to 
 depart from the perfect oval, — these all abandon the 
 Aphrodite model. Yet the Greek type is discernible. It 
 is seen in the proportion and unity of the features, in the 
 chiselling of the brow, in the delicate straightness of the 
 nose. It is the Greek ideal of female loveliness, only not 
 shaped from iEgean foam, or breathed on by JEgean 
 
224 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 breezes. It grew amid the mountain heather, and its 
 cheek was visited by the rough wind of Scotland. 
 
 Thorn. It is unpleasant to hint an objection to such a 
 picture, and while Mr. Faed gives us such beauty, I for one 
 have not the heart to bid him venture on any modification 
 of his system. But what da you think of that background ? 
 
 Smith. The mountains are certainly generalized. I can- 
 not say I like generalization ; but you know the connois- 
 seurs are very terrifying on that subject. 
 
 Thorn. "We must be too severe neither with Mr. Faed 
 nor with the connoisseurs. That the background of this 
 picture is generalized, there can be no doubt. The painter 
 evidently concentrated his power upon his figure, and left 
 the trees and hills in great measure to the brush. Yet the 
 generalization is not extreme. The mountains, you observe, 
 are by no means strictly conventional, — in form at least. 
 They are bold and serrated, true to the general type of the 
 Argyllshire mica schists. Mr. Faed has evidently looked 
 on these mountains, and that with a penetrating, mindful 
 eye. So much on his behalf. To the connoisseurs it 
 must be conceded, that their theory of generalization, if 
 not true, is an apology for and aim at truth, — and finds 
 its analogue in nature. "What is that theory ? It is that 
 every picture should have one central interest, idea, object ; 
 that everything ought to be subordinated to this; and 
 that, therefore, the painter should fling in his backgrounds 
 in broad, general, conventional masses, lest the minute 
 perfection of their painting arrest the attention of the 
 beholder, and diminish the power of the central idea. 
 Now, it is unquestionably true that nature teaches and 
 pleases by single effects, keeping in view particular objects 
 in particular cases, to the marked, though not entire, ex- 
 clusion of others. The carolling of the birds in temperate 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 225 
 
 climates, the songs of the linnet, the lark, the blackbird, 
 are plainly intended to be delightful to man, and poets in 
 all ages have testified to the completeness of success with 
 which the intention has been carried out. It is equally 
 manifest that the colors of tropical birds — the most bril- 
 liant of nature's colors, though inferior, in all qualities save 
 brilliancy, to the color of flowers and precious stones — are 
 intended to be a source of joy. . I do not mean, of course, 
 to assert that everything on earth is meant exclusively for 
 man. The manifestation of his own glory and perfection is 
 an all-sufficing end to the Creator. Yet is it true that 
 man, in virtue of his Divine origin and relationship, has 
 had his eye so far opened to the mystery of nature, that 
 the mode in which he is affected by any natural phenomenon 
 may lead him on by gentle hints to the intention of nature 
 in the case. In the contrasted instances I have quoted, the 
 unmistakable effect aimed at, in the one, was of sound, in 
 the other, of color. And what I would have specially 
 observed, is the singleness of the effect in either case. The 
 plumage of the nightingale does not divert your attention 
 from her note : you listen in vain for anything beyond an 
 unmusical screech, from the bird that glances with dazzling 
 flash through the gloom of southern forests. Look, again, 
 to the vegetable world. Take the two great families, dis- 
 criminated for Art, not for Science, of the flowers and the 
 trees. Of all the ministers of beauty, pure and simple, 
 flowers are the best accredited: their office in creation it 
 is impossible to mistake. " What is the use of flowers ? " 
 This question, in its generally received implication, is one of 
 the most foolish and ignoble which can be put. Economic 
 use they have none. They are nature's living antithesis to 
 economic use. They exist to be admired, looked at, loved. 
 They are chalices of Divine workmanship, of purple, and 
 
226 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 scarlet, and liquid gold, from which man is to drink the 
 pure joy of beauty. But remark that the whole attention 
 of nature is concentrated on what is specifically and exclu- 
 sively the flower, — on the part that blooms into color and 
 breathes fragrance, — in cutting its petals, and touching 
 them with pure and perfect hues. Whether you will or 
 no, your attention is fixed on the colored part ; you think 
 not of the rest of the plant ; it*furnishes merely the stalk, 
 it finds its sole merit in supporting the flower. That a rose 
 is intended to glorify God in its color is to me as evident a 
 truth as that man is intended to glorify Him in worship. 
 "When we turn to the trees, there is a broad, an unmis- 
 takable difference. Through all the kingdoms of inanimate 
 nature, trees are peerless in form. The shape of the wave 
 is beautiful, but it is samely. The forms of the clouds are 
 beautiful and of utmost variety, but their beauty is vast 
 and grand, not coming quickly home to the human mind, 
 and not unfrequently stretching into long straight lines, or 
 losing itself in shapeless hugeness. But the forms of forest 
 foliage have a variety, whispering of nature's infinitude ; they 
 are precisely of a size, and are precisely so placed as to 
 render them obvious to the eye; and, in their chastened, 
 regulated, consummate beauty, they never fail. ' The 
 birch, with nodding plumes as of the forest queen, and 
 waving tresses as of the woodland maiden ; the elm, with 
 its imperial drapery, and majestic yet graceful port, a 
 "Queen Elizabeth" among trees; the elastic, defiant, soar- 
 ing beech, its boughs seeming to leap into the sky: — these, 
 and how many others, present the finest compositions in 
 abstract form presented in the whole range of inanimate 
 nature. But here again a central purpose is unmistakably 
 traceable. There are no flowers now to draw the eye from 
 the arching of the leaves and the grouping of the boughs ; 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 227 
 
 no local intensity, no concentration of color, prevents it 
 from resting calmly on the broad sweeps of green which 
 robe but conceal not the majesty of the form. Among 
 trees themselves, a manifestation of the same law of unity 
 — or rather a thousand manifestations — may be found. 
 The fruit tree has no fineness of form, nor is it valuable as 
 timber ; but what it wants in form and timber, it makes up 
 in flower and fruit. Its wood is valueless compared with 
 that of the oak, its form paltry compared with that of the 
 elm : but no tree of the forest can boast of apple-bloom in 
 spring, and the golden and roseate offerings of many an 
 autumn atone for the worthlessness of the fallen trunk. 
 
 To conclude this whole matter, so far as nature is con- 
 cerned, — the provinces of creation, in the illimitable 
 variegation of their beauties, are filled with separate unities, 
 with accomplished individual aims, not with one vast 
 uniformity. Nature is always perfect ; but perfect in her 
 wholes ; part is related to part, and the less beautiful has 
 given the oil of its own waning lamp to kindle the greater 
 flame of loveliness. 
 
 I should transgress all bounds if I attempted to inquire 
 at length into the manner in which Art embodies and 
 reflects the laws of nature. But I think we shall agree in 
 not entertaining a doubt as to the general principle, that 
 nature's laws of beauty reappear in human sympathy with 
 beauty. The universal law I have noted has in all ages 
 found its counterpart, its echo, in the universal and impor- 
 tunate demand made by the human instinct in every depart- 
 ment of Art for unity. In all poetry, from the epigram to 
 the epic, unity is indispensable. Whether in the single 
 glimpse of thought, the momentary thrill of feeling, or in 
 describing the ruin of planets and the procession of 
 creations, there must always be the restraining, governing, 
 
223 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 unifying law. The thought may be sharpened into a single 
 epigrammatic dagger : then it must not be beaten into 
 length or breadth, or overladen with jewelry ; and it must 
 have no rust to dim its keen glittering, or to eat off its 
 invisible edge.. The feeling may be one pulse of emotion 
 to dance, like a gush of summer lightning, along the veins : 
 then it must be poured forth in one lyric swell, every word 
 a note of music, every line a gleam of light. - Or an immeas- 
 urable variety both of thought and emotion may have to be 
 portrayed ; philosophy, religion, love, may pass and repass 
 on the page : but here too, every episode must be governed 
 by one central law ; and the most uncultured taste will be 
 offended, in profound unconsciousness as to the reason why, 
 if a single incident, a single sentiment, a single thought, is 
 knit to the central purpose by no traceable affinity, catches 
 no gleam of an all-suffusing light. In the case of painting 
 it is emphatically true that there is no departure from this 
 universal law of Art. Take the most unsophisticated man 
 you can find ; place him before a canvas in wliich there is a 
 multitude of figures, each exquisitely painted, but engaged 
 neither in any one pursuit interesting them all, nor in a 
 variety of pursuits coalescing in one general idea (as in a 
 fair) ; let the soldier be seen in this corner, burnishing his 
 arms to attack no foe, the merchant in that, erecting his 
 booth on the sea-shore ; let there be a specimen from every 
 order of craftsmen, each separate from all the rest and each 
 engaged in objectless labor: — how will he be affected? 
 He will declare that it is a collection of pictures within a 
 single frame, or a stupid agglomeration and no picture at 
 all. The necessity of a single aim and interest is most 
 obvious in the case of human subjects; but the law holds 
 good also in landscape. Now it is just an attempt to carry 
 out this law of nature and of Art which has resulted in the 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 229 
 
 academic canon of generalization. Your central idea, it is 
 argued, must be prominent, must arrest and rivet attention ; 
 therefore, in painting your picture, all the skill you can 
 command must, in human subjects, be devoted to your most 
 important figure, and in landscape to your most prominent 
 object. The argument and aim were right : of the inference 
 from the argument, of the mode of attaining the aim, I 
 have something to say not by any means of a complimentary 
 nature. 
 
 Smith. Well, well : — this last remark is to the point. 
 Grant that the object had in view in the accepted method 
 of generalization is a correct one, will that avail you much 
 in defending the connoisseurs ? Have not errors always, or 
 almost always, lain in methods ? Have not aims generally 
 been right ? The method of imparting unity of idea and 
 interest to a picture, by putting in a false background, I 
 assert to be utterly and in every way wrong, — unnatural, 
 pernicious, preposterous. It is unnatural: for nature has 
 attained her object in a way perfectly different, a way which 
 may be defined in one word as, The establishment of a 
 relation of more and less, among incidents, forms, colors, 
 in their own excellence, and in their power over human 
 sympathy. Thus, at the head of all interest, nature places 
 human interest: the grandest scenery, of precipice and 
 cloud and forest, never attracted a lover as the smile in his 
 loved one's eye. In other provinces of creation, her most 
 delicate form and her richest color are relieved by forms 
 and colors which are in themselves not so exquisite or so 
 pure. Her finish is always the same ; the rose leaf is 
 finished as the rose petal ; but the pink and white has a 
 natural, an inherent supremacy over the plain green. The 
 distinction between nature's plan and that of the generalizer 
 >g exceeding broad, and of the last importance in Art ; it 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 20 
 
230 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 has an appearance of subtlety, but it is really obvious if we 
 give it fair and earnest consideration. The generalizers 
 precisely evade the problem proposed and worked out by 
 nature ; and by so doing, spread a vail between themselves 
 and all the regions of the Beautiful. Nature gives all her 
 forms and colors fair play ; but so arranges them that your 
 eye, while gazing impartially over her prospect, is drawn 
 by a sweet, mild, unconscious, but irresistible compulsion, 
 to what is intrinsically noblest in form and hue. The 
 academic generaiizer finds it extremely difficult to discover 
 the truly natural subordination of thought to thought, 
 emotion to emotion, form to form, color to color. This 
 demands long and searching observation and deep reflec- 
 tion. He cannot trust to his lovers for an interest greater 
 than that of the oak under which they whisper ; he cannot 
 trust to his cataract for an interest greater than the coj)se 
 by its side. So he turns his oak into broad splashes of 
 green, and his copse into broad daubs of brown. Thus his 
 method is unnatural. It is pernicious : for, by its legalized 
 blunder, it altogether turns away the artist from the right 
 path of natural study. It prevents him from catching 
 sight of nature's chief Art-secret, from learning her cun- 
 ning method of unity. It accustoms him to all manner of 
 degrading and enfeebling slovenliness. It causes him, as a 
 true bungler, to say aloud, this I want you to observe, this 
 mountain I specially painted, this rose I elaborately han- 
 dled : whereas nature is always majestically silent, leading 
 the eye to the mountain by the soft smile of its own blue, 
 and not plucking off or misshaping her leaves that the eye 
 may rest on her roses. Thus his method is pernicious. It 
 is preposterous, for, when Art-culture has made the slightest 
 progress, it certainly defeats itself. At whatever prospect 
 we look, whether a picture or no, the eye can, at any one 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 231 
 
 moment, rest only on one point. This is a physiological 
 law, unvarying and indisputable. In looking over a natural 
 landscape, I am, suppose, attracted by a group of human 
 figures. That group alone, I, for the moment, see. All 
 other things are in a certain indistinct light around it. But 
 I am not physically able to look long on any one point. I 
 naturally cast my eye around. What then happens ? The 
 scene becomes definite. I discover no interference with the 
 general aspect of nature ; clouds, hills, houses, are all in 
 their proper places and in their perfect forms. Looking 
 upon these, my eye is rested ; my attention gently relaxes ; 
 probably without any conscious emotion whatever, I turn 
 again to the centralizing group. How is it in the picture 
 of the academic generalizer ? While the eye rests exclu- 
 sively on the one portion which he has ventured to paint 
 correctly, all may be so far well. But in a moment it 
 wanders over the other parts of the picture. Then it is 
 startled, disturbed, pained, by meeting an impossibility, a 
 wild agglomeration of forms that form have none, and hues 
 unknown to nature. It is deluded of the repose it seeks. 
 It is not softly conducted from the pinnacle to the plain. 
 It is called, instead, to contemplate something new in this 
 world. The hills, the trees, the clouds, are no longer hills, 
 trees, or clouds. The hills have permitted themselves to be 
 pounded into dust ; the trees have been mashed up for the 
 sake of their green and brown ; the clouds have kindly had 
 themselves condensed, to yield a liquid medium for the 
 a3sthetic amalgam ; and the result is a surprising and afflict- 
 ing phantasmagoria, suggesting only some hideous and 
 unprecedented convulsion in all the elements. 
 
 Thorn. To all that I must assent. It is indeed difficult 
 to exaggerate the pernicious influence of this theory of gen- 
 eralization. By rightly using the backgrounds of nature, 
 
232 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 an incalculable accession of power might accrue to a picture. 
 The pale moon setting beyond the white wave, lends only a 
 deeper sadness to the human sorrow which Burns breathes 
 through his poem. Let us really see a few sufferers clinging 
 in despair to a wreck that tosses in mid ocean, far from any 
 shore ; and the sun setting behind them in blood, and cast- 
 ing a burning glare over the cruel sea, will but enhance our 
 feeling of the human anguish. Every aspect, phenomenon, 
 and mood of nature takes a light from human sympathy ; 
 " ours is the wedding garment, ours the shroud ; " the poet- 
 painter might bring unnumbered voices of dewdrop and 
 sunbeam, of wild wave and lightning gleam, to blend their 
 silent but expressive accents with the main thought or emo- 
 tion of his picture. 
 
 Smith. Talking of generalization, and of the methods 
 of nature, what do you think of the pre-Raphaelite pic- 
 tures? 
 
 Thorn. I am inclined to venture on the paradoxical 
 looking answer, that there are no pre-Raphaelite pictures. 
 
 Smith. No pre-Raphaelite pictures ! Either argue me 
 out of my eyesight, or explain. 
 
 Thorn. I mean that pre-Raphaelitism has hitherto done 
 little or nothing. I recognize the princij)le ; I have little 
 faith in the men. 
 
 Smith. O, — and you like to be antithetic ; — well, go 
 on. 
 
 Thorn. I see many things in pre-Raphaelitism, but this 
 first and best of all : a new earnestness in Art taking the 
 right direction. I shall not separate the direction from the 
 earnestness, because I like to believe that there was an orig- 
 inal and causal connection between the two. An intense 
 and lofty devotion to Art arose among certain students ; it 
 at once sent them to nature : in nature their earnestness 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 233 
 
 found its fitting and fostering aliment. One cannot but 
 experience a glow of sympathy with those young men of 
 " stubborn instincts," who rebelled against the stepmother 
 academy, and rushed to the bosom of the mighty mother 
 herself. Seldom has a pursuit led to no great results, never 
 has it failed to lay a giant grasp on the heart of man, when 
 followed in the spirit which sent Holman Hunt from the 
 luxury and adulation of a London season to take up his sta- 
 tion with the vultures in the white blaze of a desert sun, 
 by the wan glare of an accursed sea, merely in order that 
 the look of lorn and lonely despair with which it lies swoon- 
 ing under its pestilential atmosphere, might be brought to 
 his canvas. Such resolution and courage I shall honor, 
 though as yet their achievement is slight. 
 
 Smith. Very good. But neither earnestness of applica- 
 tion nor nobleness of devotion ensure exemption from radi- 
 cal error ; and radical error at the commencement will turn 
 into mockery all hopes of subsequent excellence. Bear this, 
 if you please, in mind. 
 
 Thorn. Do n't be alarmed ; grant me, also, a few min- 
 utes all to myself, even though I seem to forget the funda- 
 mental law of conversation, — that there be no engrossing. 
 The doctrine of pre-Raphaelitism I take to be, that what- 
 ever is painted should be done as well as the artist can, and 
 that nature is the great educator. It would not be far 
 wrong to say that pre-Raphaelitism is a rebellion against the 
 false theory of generalization ; that, in its true interpreta- 
 tion, as given, for instance, in the works of Ruskin, it is a 
 proclamation of the great Art-law of unity. Since this is the 
 chief organic law, the Magna Charta, of Art, there is no 
 dishonor, but much honor, due to pre-Raphaelitism in thus 
 denning it. In speaking of the new school, therefore, I 
 shall, in some sense, carry out what we have already said 
 on the express subject of generalization. 
 
234 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 Not contending for absolute accuracy, and bearing 
 always in mind that there are no geometrical lines, no mu- 
 seum cases, in nature, we find all painters divide themselves 
 into three broad classes. Of course they are mingled and 
 modified in all sorts of ways, but never mind that. The 
 first is the class of the simple narrators ; the second that of 
 the selectors; the third that of the inventors, the color- 
 poets. 
 
 Painters belonging to the first of these orders engage in 
 the mere express delineation of whatever is characteristic of 
 the general life of their generation ; its interiors, its costume, 
 its architecture. Such delineation must ever continue an hon- 
 orable and important occupation. The human mind, striv- 
 ing with an earnestness proportioned to its general nobler 
 ness and capacity, to make itself at home in all centuries, 
 must prize whatever enables it to effect, with vividness and 
 certainty, this domestication. What would we give to have 
 such representations of Greek and Roman, or, still more 
 precious, of Jewish interiors, at the time, say, of the spread 
 of Christianity, distinct and accurate as the Flemish inte- 
 riors of Jan Steen and Ostade? All portrait-painting 
 might be claimed for this class, and if we once concede the 
 claim, how high in honor and estimation does it rise ! If, 
 however, the claim were exclusive, it could not on any 
 account be acknowledged : and it is unnecessary to press it, 
 since it is quite certain that painters simply of what is seen, 
 in its bare actual realization, will always be popular in their 
 own generation, and esteemed by those which follow. In 
 the popular mind, it is probable, the love of imitation is as 
 powerful as any of the instincts gratified in Art, and to this 
 instinct the painters in question are the declared and perpet- 
 ual ministers. Interest in the past is also undying, and on 
 it these painters may depend for their estimation in succeed- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 235 
 
 ing times. But it is undeniable that paintings of things as 
 they are, indiscriminatingly taken, if belonging to Art at 
 all, and not exclusively to artisanship, occupy the lowest 
 rank. The reason of this is distinct and conclusive ; — that 
 the power they demand is purely mechanical, that of hand 
 and eye, and that they afford no sphere to the free will, to 
 the originating or altering capacity of man. 
 
 The next great class of painters, I have called the select- 
 ors. Their reliance is not placed upon any mere power of 
 imitation, although power of imitation is indispensably 
 necessary. What is ordinary, they pass by. They look for 
 the rare, the exceptional, the excelling, and it they paint. 
 I speak of their choice of whole subjects, not of their mode 
 of securing interest in individual pictures. They select : I 
 do not say they generalize. Academic generalization is 
 always wrong: selection rightly performed is always right. 
 In every landscape nature subordinates form to form, work- 
 ing every form perfectly out : but nature has some land- 
 scapes more beautiful than others. It is true that there is 
 beauty in all. But this is a dangerous commonplace, and I 
 rather imagine that those who very much use it — there are 
 exceptions, of course — have no very delicate sense of beauty 
 in any case. All loveliness, as presented to the human mind, 
 influences by degree, and displays itself by contrast. The 
 dripping, cheerless clouds, with but a few touches of livid 
 blue breaking their monotony of ashy gray, are not so beau- 
 tiful, and were not intended by nature to be thought so beau- 
 tiful, as those same clouds, when the wind has gently waved 
 them into valleys and avenues, and the bounteous sun has 
 flung abroad upon them his varied light, here clustering 
 into roses, there gleaming into gold. The broad, blunted 
 features of the clodhopper, the dim, relaxed features of the 
 sluggard, are not to be called beautiful beside the delicately 
 
23G GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 cut features, the mantling color, the radiant expression, of 
 such a face as one may see once in a year or a lifetime. 
 The dreary, drizzling, colorless day sets off the azure and 
 vermilion of its evening. The heavy, ill-proportioned fea- 
 tures, the blunt lines and torpid expression, of a thousand 
 faces, contribute power to the one face of dazzling beauty. 
 And in the case of beauty, as elsewhere, nature is most 
 bountiful to him who appreciates her gifts, and who, by 
 long, resolute, concentrated study, makes them his own. 
 Were that vague, monotonous loveliness a characteristic of 
 nature, man might cast on the world a heedless and wan- 
 dering gaze. Its beauty would not vanish ; there would be 
 nothing to unvail, nothing to be discovered. But now the 
 choicest natural beauties are momentary glances, evanes- 
 cent as glorious ; nature's smiles have to be watched and 
 waited for; the eye must train itself to see, the mind to 
 remember. Doubt it not, the most worthy student of 
 nature, he who shows for the works of God the most pure 
 and reasonable reverence, is not he who pays to the beauty 
 of the world a general, indiscriminate admiration, but he 
 who has listened well to nature's voice, who has learned to 
 distinguish her degrees of beauty, who has been handed 
 from the lichen to the daisy, from the daisy to the heather- 
 bell, from the heather-bell to the lily, from the lily to the 
 rose, until, passing from loveliness to loveliness, he has at 
 last attained to such glimpses of the purest, highest beauty, 
 as might touch the eye of an angel with rapturous fire. 
 Here, of course, one man is originally gifted more exqui- 
 sitely than another: and he who, to a peculiar sensibility to 
 beauty, adds a rare perseverance in its culture, is the man 
 who will excel as a painter of the second class. He is the 
 commissioned of his fellow-men to be a spy upon nature : to 
 visit her in her solitudes; to steal upon her at eventide 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 237 
 
 when she is shedding her faintest, tenderest purples into the 
 mountain valleys ; to mark the streaming of the light over 
 unseen mists in the gorges of remote hills ; to trace the 
 glittering cloud edges, as they break into white fire in the 
 glance of the lightning. If he deals with human subjects, it is 
 his to note the manifestation of mighty and noble passion ; 
 to arrest forever the gleam of strange, flitting light which 
 glances along the features, when a sudden throb of uncon- 
 trollable emotion strikes the heart. He goes, too, into the 
 paths of common life, looking there for what is honorable, 
 and lovely, and of good report. Whatever he deems wor- 
 thy of choice, he paints. But he is not original save in the 
 exercise of choice. Once give him his subject, and he paints 
 it with literal exactness. 
 
 "Whole schools of painting belong to this second class, — 
 conspicuous among them, the Dutch and Flemish. Ruys- 
 dael and Cnyp are admirable examples. Mr. Ruskin speaks 
 of the works of Ruysdael as furniture pictures, void of all 
 the higher attributes of Art. Neither for Cuyp has he any 
 great affection. "Were it not that profound stupidity has 
 no tendency to modesty, this fact might have made it 
 impossible for critics of Mr. Ruskin to tell the world that 
 all he cares for is finish, and that for its own sake. But 
 this by the way. Be the pictures of Ruysdael and Cuyp 
 what they may, they have been long, widely, and pro- 
 foundly popular; and while adducing them as examples 
 of their class, I would point to them also as incontestably 
 proving our second class of painters fitted to exercise a 
 very powerful influence upon the human mind. It seems 
 impossible for an unsophisticated mind not to be arrested 
 and delighted by the works of Ruysdael. Yet wherefore 
 is it so ? Wherein lies their charm ? If you wandered 
 bodily by that wood beside the moor, with the sparse sun- 
 
238 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 beams struggling here and there through its foliage — if 
 your eye rested on that moorland, bleak and brown, as it 
 actually presented itself to the eye of Ruysdael, with its 
 bit of black road, and its one pool so dead and murky — 
 would you not hurry on, glancing carelessly at the whole 
 scene, uninduced even by that ruin, seen by the struggling 
 sunlight through the trees, to linger for a moment ? ,Or 
 if you stood by the original of this torrent, in another pic- 
 ture, with one or two uninteresting cottages on the hill 
 side above, a few larches, somewhat tattered looking, on 
 the river bank, and a broken stem or two lying across the 
 current, would you think the scene, though perhaps deserv- 
 ing a look, worthy of being long and needfully observed ? 
 Surely not. Yet here you are enchained. If not enrap- 
 tured, you at least experience an intense pleasure. Why, 
 I say, is this? Is it not because a touch of nature makes 
 the whole world kin, and here nature is rendered in all 
 the plainness of her truth ? The slightest effort of imagi- 
 nation bears you away to Ruysdael's moorland, spreading 
 bleak and brown under those sullen, lowering clouds. His 
 earth has the very look of nature's surfaces — not glazed, 
 not rolled out in smooth uniformity, the green all enamel, 
 the black all jet, but rough and fretted, as nature's surface 
 always is, with its millions of points, singly invisible, of 
 grass-blade, reed, and heather. His clouds have the mass 
 and depth, the light and shade, of cumulous clouds, and 
 that look of laggard dreariness, which those clouds wear 
 on a chill, gloomy day, threatening rain. His torrent, 
 though it takes from the dull gray of the sky a dissatisfy- 
 ing bluish dimness, where you looked for bright, leaping 
 spray, is yet true under its own sky, and you feel that those 
 larches actually grow by that grumbling northern stream. 
 Limited as Ruysdael's range may be, you cannot but see 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 239 
 
 that what landscapes he selected he painted, so far as bare 
 truth was concerned, with consummate power. If you 
 find, as I do, any fascination in the particular scenes he 
 depicts, he will appear to you to have done no mean work. 
 
 For Cuyp, too, let me speak a word. He must, indeed, 
 have been, in some sense, a dull man. If nature could be 
 consulted, she would surely declare the man who could see 
 and love but one of her aspects, who was contented to paint 
 during his whole life one of her innumerable phases, a vo- 
 tary not worth having. I do not remember any picture of 
 Cuyp's, and pictures by Cuyp are to be found in every 
 collection, in which there was not a broad yellow light 
 streaming from the left. Always, I think, that light 
 touched, with a faint copper color, the tops of stately 
 cumulous clouds, piled up, their domes towards sunset, 
 in the repose of evening. Yet Cuyp's monotony has not 
 deprived him of popularity, nor ought it entirely to have 
 done so. There was a power in his dullness. He set him- 
 self to paint his one effect with unflagging assiduity ; and 
 he painted it, as it appears to me, with consummate suc- 
 cess. 
 
 This second class of painters is the widest of any. It 
 embraces all the men of unquestionable talent, but not high 
 genius. I hold them in great honor. In their inability 
 to paint more than one effect variously modified, I find an 
 attestation of the infinitude by which the works of God 
 excel the works of man. Their endowment is certainly 
 beyond the common; their perseverance is indomitable; 
 yet they spend their whole lives in attempting to trace 
 and imitate one touch of the Divine finger ! There are 
 of course many living painters who belong to this class. 
 Cooper, Lee, Cooke, and others without end, able, meri- 
 torious artists, are men possessing, so to speak, one piece 
 
240 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 of knowledge. You can tell precisely what each sees in 
 nature. Lee paints everything as if it had been " washed, 
 just washed, in a shower." He takes his palette to the 
 fields in the intervals of the showers that drift before the 
 west winds of June. Green, gray, blue, — these are his 
 colors. Cooper is as fond of yellow sunlight as Cuyp, 
 .whom, indeed, he seems to have closely studied. His cows 
 are of the color of tortoise-shell, and you may be sure of 
 the dreamy yellow of afternoon on his skies and streams. 
 Cooke keeps to nearly the same color as Cooper, with the 
 modification enforced by the nature of his marine views. 
 A pale yellow illumination is about all his skies and clouds, 
 — now and then, perhaps, fading into gray. 
 
 Smith. Allow me to interrupt you for a moment. I 
 once happened to look at a landscape in this Academy, by 
 Which I was not a little puzzled. The sky, the clouds, the 
 trees, were certainly the painting of Lee. But where had 
 Lee got those yellow lights, those broad pale gleams, 
 changing the tone of the whole picture? The cattle, on 
 the other hand, the yellow tones here and there, were 
 Cooper's, but how had Cooper stolen a march upon Lee, 
 whence had he got the west wind shower to wash up his 
 picture ? A glance at the catalogue resolved the mystery. 
 The landscape was Lee's : the cattle were Cooper's. 
 
 Thorn. Thank you. The case is precisely in point. I 
 have only to add, as to this class of painters, that all which 
 has been said of them as landscapists applies to them, with 
 obvious modification, as painters of life. Caravaggio's gam- 
 blers answer precisely to Cuyp's evenings and Cooper's 
 cows. 
 
 There is a third class of painters, the inventors, the 
 poets. It is an inalienable attribute of man that he can 
 modify, recombine, adorn nature. He casts a gleam from 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECEKT BRITISH ART. 241 
 
 his crown as king of the world. To recur to Coleridge's 
 matchless thought, he breathes over earth the music of his 
 bridals, and compels its melodies to take a tone from his 
 funeral wails. Raphael's Madonna did not altogether grow 
 amid the Italian mountains. The most skilful daguer- 
 reotypist of our nineteenth century could not bring a 
 Madonna like Raphael's from any valley of the Appenines 
 or any plain of Italy. The angelic mildness of the eye, 
 looking in satisfied, unchanging gaze of love and adoration 
 on the face of that Child in her arms, — the saintliness and 
 hallowed purity of all around the still group, — the sweet 
 and tender loveliness of the maid-mother's face, — these were 
 Raphael's own. And in the case of every painter among 
 the mightiest, there is this something added, which gives 
 its last glory to the picture. To expatiate upon this high- 
 est class of artists is needless, since its existence will be 
 disputed in no criticism worth opposition, and its works 
 cannot be easily mistaken. 
 
 Smith. Have you forgotten that this is all an introduc- 
 tion to your answer to my question about pre-Raphaelitism ? 
 May I ask whether the length of the reply is to be inferred 
 from its introductory exercitation ? 
 
 Thorn. Do n't be impatient. I have not lost my reckon- 
 ing. What I have been saying is not exclusively, or even 
 strictly, an introduction; and so far as it is, be so good 
 as to compare it to a winding avenue, that opens upon 
 a country mansion. You take some time to thread the 
 approach; but once you reach its end, you embrace the 
 house in one brief glance. Now for that glance. 
 
 Apply the grand pre-Raphaelite principle, that whatever 
 is painted should be painted as well as the painter can, in 
 each of the provinces of Art that we have been surveying. 
 Since I must take it for granted that the academic theory 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 21 
 
242 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 of generalization has been demolished, it is unnecessary to 
 inquire whether this is the only true principle for thq 
 guidance of painters of the first two classes. The question 
 is of the third class. Does not pre-Raphaelitism of necessity- 
 cabin, crib, confine the greatest minds? Rightly under- 
 stood, it does not so, by any means. Perhaps, in its most 
 important aspect, it is an educational principle; and as 
 such, its main value lies in destroying erroneous and per- 
 nicious principles of Art-education. There has been from 
 time immemorial, in the schools of Art, a fatal confusion 
 between two kinds or divisions of training ; that which is 
 mechanical and reducible to rules, and that which relates 
 to things not mechanical, and which cannot be done by 
 rule. There is a certain amount of intellectual culture, a 
 certain attainment in intellectual excellence, which one 
 generation can transmit to another with precisely the same 
 ease and certainty as a method of ploughing or an improved 
 system of rotation in crops. But there is a province in 
 human affairs, in which teaching, whatever it may do, can 
 never get the length of prescribing rules; in which the 
 influence of education must be indirect and informal. This 
 province is that of the poetic, the creative imagination, 
 answering to that of the inventive intellect. It is specially 
 the province of Art as distinguished from any sort of 
 artisanship. As well appoint rules for invention in manu- 
 factures, as draw up canons by which great pictures may 
 be produced. In other provinces of exertion this great 
 principle is recognized. The fallacy which from time im- 
 memorial has covered our exhibition walls with Deluges, 
 and Dears, and Orpheuses, which has kept ordinary men, 
 age after age, attempting to puff* themselves into genius, 
 has never drawn breath in healthier atmospheres, where 
 no dilettantism turned aside the searching but salubrious 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 243 
 
 influence of the popular gale. The human mind has always, 
 in the might of its unsophisticated instincts, spurned the 
 idea of a poem written by rule. Fancy a lyric constructed 
 upon scientific principles ! Fancy a lark instructed out of 
 "Whewell how to flap his wings, or a nightingale conning 
 the theory of music ! Might not an epic be put together 
 in an age when mechanical invention has got so far ? " For 
 your tempest, take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, and 
 cast them together in one verse; add to them, of rain, 
 lightning, and thunder (the loudest you can), quantum 
 sufficit. Mix your clouds and billows well together till 
 they foam, and thicken your description here and there 
 with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head, 
 before you set it a blowing. For a battle, pick a large 
 quantity of images and descriptions from Homer's Iliad, 
 with a spice or two of Yirgil, and if there remain any 
 overplus, you may lay them by for a skirmish. Season it 
 well with similes, and it will make an excellent battle." 
 You remember Swift's exquisite humor. And will not 
 all men laugh with him at the absurdity involved in this 
 "Recipe for an Epic?" But Art has ever yet been the 
 possession of comparatively a few; and in painting, it is 
 quite possible, by adherence to certain rules, of composition 
 in form, and harmony in color, to produce pictures pleasing 
 the eye and satisfying a mediocre taste. Hence your regu- 
 lar crop of mock sublimities from year to year : hence the 
 oversight of that axiom of all Art-criticism and Art-educa- 
 tion, that the distinguishing character and very essence of 
 genius lies in the impossibility of attaining its results by 
 rule, in the vanity of all attempts to steal its celestial fire 
 and set it to burn in the cast-iron grates of mediocrity. 
 The word, "conventionality," is very much in use at 
 present, and I have no doubt that very little meaning is 
 
244 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 in many cases attached to it: but I consider all con- 
 ventionality, so far as it is evil, to consist simply in the 
 accumulation of methods by which genius may be mim- 
 icked. Now true pre-Raphaelitism — the pre-Raphaelitism of 
 Ruskin — appeals from the hoary conventionalism of Art- 
 teaching to nature, declares that rules can never produce 
 great pictures, and maintains that the one infallible method 
 of securing sound work — plain, valuable artisanship if the 
 worker is but an artisan, the invaluable fruits of genius if 
 he is a born artist — is to hold to nature, and paint what 
 is seen. Is not this a principle, "which to look at is to 
 love?" 
 
 Smith. True, true; but do you not at least imply an 
 oversight of part of the truth? Can you dissociate past 
 effort from present study? Will you assert that I can 
 derive no benefit from knowing how my fellow-men of past 
 generations looked on the face of nature ? Will you pro- 
 nounce present knowledge of natural phenomena, present 
 discovery of more excellent Art-methods, of the highest 
 importance, yet tacitly affirm that neither fact nor principle 
 can be so assuredly ascertained, as to be transmitted to 
 posterity? Nature, with all her demand for labor, has a 
 grand motherly habit of thrift, by which she encourages, 
 rewards, dignifies toil. Newton sets his foot easily, for a 
 second ascent, upon the principle, to discover which was 
 a long and painful task for Archimedes. Watt does not 
 re-invent steam before he invents the steam engine. Can 
 you wholly exclude this law from the province of Art? 
 
 Thorn. By no means ; and allow me to say that I think 
 I have already said enough to indicate how far and in what 
 sense it is either admitted or excluded. No sort of Art- 
 education, pre-Raphaelite or other, can confer the creative 
 capacity of genius : Archimedes did not tell Newton horn 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 245 
 
 lie had discovered ; Milton, schoolmaster as he was, could 
 teach no pupil to write a Paradise Lost. But this pre- 
 vents not that a thousand ordinary mathematicians, between 
 Archimedes and Newton, apply to useful purposes the 
 discoveries of the former. Now it is impossible wholly to 
 dissever Art from mere workmanship ; the pure spirit must 
 dwell in a temple of clay : and the greatest genius, if he had 
 to paint a house or a man, would act absurdly by attempt- 
 ing to re-invent all his processes and rules. Only, if his 
 province is that of real Art, he can breathe the new life 
 into the old form, and to do that no rules will avail him. 
 
 Smith. Well: but will study of nature enable him to 
 do this either ? 
 
 Thorn. You think that a clincher. I answer without 
 any hesitation, No. By learning accurately to paint all 
 the earth and all the sky, a man would learn to produce 
 painted landscapes capable of affording great pleasure and 
 information to his fellow-men ; but he would never neces- 
 sarily learn to produce a work of Art. I might find it 
 difficult to establish this proposition, but for the stores of 
 instance afforded me by the history of painting. With 
 these I can have no difficulty. The Dutch painters have 
 shown the world what workmanship can attain without 
 genius. The daguerreotype has shown it still better. 
 These give nature, but not the poetry of nature. Turner's 
 •Temple of Minerva Sunias gives nature and the poetry of 
 nature also ; it is a work of Art. By study of the works 
 of bygone artists, encouragement, suggestion, awakening, 
 may be found for genius; therefore such study is good: 
 only it must be remembered that nature is the great 
 check upon human influence, that she furnishes the test 
 of accepted truth, and is the source of every truth that 
 is new. 
 
 21* 
 
24G GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 Smith. Now what would you say if I pronounced you 
 at your conclusion a little further off than you were at your 
 commencement ? You seem to have left very little of dis- 
 tinctive character to your pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 Thorn. Why, if you so pronounced, I should simply say 
 you are not so shrewd a man as I take you for. You are 
 very well aware that the two things invariably and essen- 
 tially opposed to truth are novelty and paradox. Ruskin 
 and the pre-Raphaelites cannot be accused of having pro- 
 pounded any new-fangled, unheard of idea. They proclaim 
 an ancient and substantial truth ; and it is as representing 
 and promoting a reaction towards this truth, that they can 
 claim a position of their own. A conventionalism, piled 
 fold after fold for centuries, had stiffened and benumbed the 
 limbs of Art. This fact must be borne in mind in contem- 
 plating the whole phenomenon ofpre-Raphaelitism. Had 
 not Mr. Ruskin opened the eyes of all who will see to its 
 certainty, the fact of established conventionalism might' 
 take long to prove. But it is now preposterous to call it in 
 question. Surely, surely, in all reason and honesty, it must 
 be admitted that the old traditions and admirations retarded 
 Art, lowered and deadened the general sense of artistic 
 truth, produced pictures without number whose greatness 
 was a sham, and evoked applause without end which was 
 an hypocrisy. The Claudes, the Salvators, the Poussins sat 
 on their hero-thrones, their sceptres, whether leaden or 
 golden, stretched out to protect placid absurdities, with 
 their scholars, surrounded by all their ghastly paraphernalia 
 of extinct classicism, manufacturing " great " pictures at 
 their feet. Only conceive the power of that moral and 
 intellectual narcotic, through which men came not only to 
 tolerate but to praise those landscapes, for instance, which 
 the said masters called after Scripture subjects? The 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 247 
 
 picture was called The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 
 The Sacrifice of Isaac, The Departure of the Queen of 
 jSheba to visit Solomon, or by some such name. The 
 painter put in his modern villas, harbors, and trees, and 
 when he had finished, you had to search the picture over 
 and over, until you lighted on a miserable figure or two in 
 a corner, in some trivial or despicable attitude, representing 
 the artist's conception of some one or other of the most 
 solemn and interesting incidents in human story. I have 
 seen a picture by Salvator Rosa called Paul preaching in 
 the 'Wilderness. The apostle has precisely the look of a 
 vulgar, crusty, petulant monk, and he points to a couple of 
 crossed sticks in his hand, representing a rude cross. The 
 scene is a rocky gorge after the manner of Salvator, and 
 such as might have existed in the country of the Galatians. 
 Imagine Paul addressing those same Galatians with a cross 
 in his hand by way of illustrating his doctrine ! Read his 
 letter to those mountaineers, and inquire into the truth, 
 say rather the complicated, outrageous falsehood, of Salva- 
 tor's picture. Now I do not of course blame the painters 
 for such things as these. The civilization of their time 
 admitted and encouraged such falsities. Nor do I forget 
 that there are abstract qualities of hue and line. But was 
 there not need for a reaction, when men, on the intellectual 
 level of the nineteenth century, were told to take such men 
 as infallible models, and when imitations of their manner 
 were set apart in a specially great school ? The Art of 
 Great Britain is passing through a transition period. It 
 experienced of old, more or less, the paralyzing effect of an 
 excessive conventionalism. The truth and beauty which 
 former masters had perceived and exhibited was not esti- 
 mated in itself or valued for its own sake. Instead of this, 
 the reverence for authority, for men, for names, entered in. 
 
248 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 Painting surrendered its freedom and its originality in a 
 species of hero-worship. But Ruskin and the pre-Raphaelites 
 sent artists back to the fountains of nature. They pro- 
 claimed again that all truly great, all nobly ideal Art must 
 arise out of the real ; that over the gaunt skeleton of 
 material fact must the elastic muscle, the trembling nerve, 
 the vital blood, the mantling bloom, of artistic creation lie. 
 Re-invigorated by converse with nature, Art may again 
 turn to the old masters ; not now to worship, but to 
 examine, to see, to know, to admire, to learn. It will 
 watch the first efforts of Cimabue, the dawning glory of 
 Giotto, the softened splendor, surely a noonday splendor, 
 of Raphael. It will mark Claude as he " sets the sun in 
 heaven," and follow to the fields the hardy workers of 
 Holland. It will watch the hand of every great and honest 
 man who ever painted. 
 
 It can hardly be conceived that the simultaneous appear- 
 ance of Ruskinism ? pre-Raphaelitism, and photography is not 
 destined to yield some great result. That simultaneousness 
 may reverently be held to have been providential. All 
 three send Art in the same direction, — to nature. Photo- 
 graphy is gradually becoming perfect in the rendering, not 
 only of faces, trees, and buildings, but of the great forms of 
 landscape. The eye finds so much delight in color, that it 
 is not in the least surprising that the brown and white of 
 large photographs should not be generally admired or liked, 
 or that they should be unable at first to enter the lists of 
 popularity against pictures. But as the eye accustoms 
 itself to dispense with the charm of color, and learns to 
 dwell on the abstract forms revealed by the photographer, 
 the beholder experiences a profound delight. I have been 
 myself positively surprised at the increasing sense of beauty, 
 grandeur, majesty, with which I have looked upon Alpine 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 249 
 
 photographs. The silent, stable masses, resting in their 
 colossal strength on the foundations of the world, — the 
 faint, diffused shade, drawing me on into the depths of 
 solemn valleys, — the rich variety of the pine foliage on the 
 lower reaches of the hills ; — these have come by degrees 
 to afford me an exquisite pleasure. This is nature in her 
 own majesty. She is disrobed of the mantle of Art ; and 
 methinks it is hardly flattering to one's human pride to 
 find how well the human drapery can be dispensed with. 
 It may be that the universal presence, in prints and pictures, 
 of some added element — whether the imperfection of 
 incompetency, the mistake of conventionalism, or, if you 
 will, the poetry of genius — gives a special zest to repre- 
 sentations in which this is wanting. It may even be that 
 the literal forms of nature have in themselves an august 
 beauty which man has as yet, generally speaking, failed not 
 only to improve but to equal. But however it is, I confess 
 I find more nourishment for eye and soul, in a few good 
 photographs of Swiss scenery, than in a similar number of 
 prints or pictures. Depend upon it, as the public eye 
 becomes, by means of pre-Raphaelite paintings, of photo- 
 graphic views, and, let me add, of modern facilities in 
 beholding the hills and rivers of nature, accustomed to fact, 
 the craving for more truth in the works of artists will 
 become too general and too intense to be resisted. The 
 old ideal of landscape will be unable to maintain itself. It 
 must either pass away or learn to embody all the fresh 
 knowledge of the time. That there is a possibility of this 
 being done, even of a grandeur being added to all that 
 nature can display, I have no doubt whatever. A future of 
 unexampled glory may await Art. 
 
 Smith. Let me add a word as to the dangers to which 
 pre-Raphaelitism is peculiarly exposed. Of the mistake of 
 
25J GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 offering or accepting correct studies as pictures, and of that 
 of drawing not only feature but expression from models, I 
 cannot speak. These have simply to be mentioned, as 
 indefensible and fatal. But there is a subtler and more, 
 comprehensive error than these, of which pre-Raphaelites 
 would do well to beware. I mean the error of dishonor- 
 ing the creative imagination, confounding it with a mere 
 combination of accuracy of memory and power of eye and 
 hand. Memory and imagination are essentially distinct. 
 The one is indeed the handmaid of the other, the service- 
 able, the indispensable handmaid ; but the handmaid cannot 
 change places with the mistress.. Memory brings the 
 materials and lays them out ; it may be in systematic 
 arrangement, it may be in chaotic disorder ; imagination 
 looks upon them, and they are grouped into unity or spring 
 to life. Mere mechanical order becomes living harmony, 
 and disorder subsides into a world. All those lights of 
 natural beauty, all those truths of symmetry and form, 
 which the Greek imagination embodied in Aphrodite, could 
 be catalogued and counted over by memory. The bend of 
 the sea-wave, the white foam, mantling, in the sunlight, into 
 rose-bloom, the laughing light that danced in a thousand 
 smiles over the broad front of ocean, might all have been 
 chronicled and remembered, yet remained forever dead and 
 apart. But imagination comes upon the scene. Lo ! the 
 bending wave is a moving arm ; the snow of the foam, and 
 the tints of its rainbows blend in a living cheek; the many- 
 twinkling laughter of the sea is gathered into the witching 
 eye of Aphrodite. Take another example. A most power- 
 ful and touching description could be drawn out in detail 
 of -the horrors of popular commotion, of anarchic revolution. 
 The poverty occasioned by the obstruction of steady 
 industry might be depicted ; the number of the slain might 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 251 
 
 be specified, and the miserable manner of their death 
 described ; the destruction of ancient dynasties, the confla- 
 gration of opulent cities, the blackening of fertile provinces, 
 might be dwelt on in all the ghastliness of their coloring 
 and all the minuteness of their detail. In all this, memory 
 alone might have been at work. A totally different faculty 
 is in operation when Coleridge annihilates, by one stroke of 
 consummate perfection, all descriptions of popular madness, 
 in these brief words : — 
 
 " Lo ! the giant Frenzy, 
 Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm, 
 Mocketh high heaven." 
 
 To say how, precisely, this faculty works is what no critic 
 ought to attempt, and what he who possesses it most might 
 be of all least able to do. But as to its radical differ- 
 ence from memory, no question can be entertained. Pre- 
 Raphaelitism, rightly understood, does not endanger the 
 distinction. By recognizing it in all its force, Mr. Ruskin 
 has both exhibited to those willing or able — which you 
 like — to follow him, the completeness and symmetry of 
 his system, and set whole nests of hornet-critics, whose 
 characteristic is that they can fasten upon but one point at 
 once, buzzing about his ears. He hailed pre-Raphaelitism as 
 mighty, because it companied with truth ; he gazed won- 
 dering upon the imaginative " dream," as it bodied itself out 
 under the pencil of Turner. " Why," buzzed the hornets, 
 " this man, this Turner, is among the mists on the moun- 
 tain's brow ; these pre-Raphaelites have stuck their palettes 
 among the weeds at its foot, and paint as with microscopes : 
 how can any one pretend to admire and approve of both ? " 
 Ruskin, with the eye of true critical genius, embraced the 
 whole mountain from brow to base. Turner he saw far 
 
252 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 up among the mists, which turned to glory round him: 
 between his station and that of the pre-Raphaelites lay 
 many a wreath of cloud, hiding the pathway up: but 
 on the same pathway were both, — the pathway of lov- 
 ing submission to nature, of earnest devotion to truth. 
 Pre-Raphaelitism is the surest path — though, recollect, 
 no path can be guaranteed — to the capacities and achieve- 
 ments of creative genius; and whatever it positively en- 
 sures, it has the grand negative advantage of producing 
 no utterly abortive work. When, therefore, I look to 
 the works of Ruskin and consider his estimate of Turner, 
 I fear no misconception of pre-Raphaelitism. But it is 
 not equally so, when I look at the works of Millais and 
 recollect Ruskin's estimate of them. I should be sorry 
 to say anything implying disrespect for the powers of 
 Mr. Millais. However much certain of his works may fall 
 short or offend, the man who has looked upon nature with 
 his earnestness is deserving of honor. No man but one very 
 peculiarly gifted could have given so mighty a realization 
 of the deep, dark amethyst of the autumn hill, as Millais has 
 given in his Autumn Leaves. But with all his realizing 
 power, I cannot believe that this artist has any real imagi- 
 native force. You may test the fact simply but infallibly. 
 Attempt to take his pictures to pieces. Endeavor to trace 
 the process of their composition. To do so in the case of 
 imaginative genius may be pronounced impossible. The 
 touch there is invisible as the conception was instantane- 
 ous. The mode of working is subtle as life. Coleridge 
 could not have told you how that giant sprung to life in 
 his soul. A mechanical mind, considering characteristics 
 and adopting traits for a century, could not have produced 
 the impersonation. But whenever Millais attempts imagi- 
 native work, he lets his hand be seen. You know how 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 253 
 
 idea after idea struck him, and was taken up, and fitted 
 to its place, and put in. In his large picture, Peace Con- 
 cluded, for instance, who cannot perceive that triviality 
 after triviality, about the cock, the bear, the turkey, the 
 lion, suggested itself to his mind, and was mechanically 
 suited to his purpose? You can put the colons and full 
 stops into the long-winded pointless tale. Mr. Ruskin may 
 continue to admire Millais, but he will never persuade more 
 than a coterie that his favorite possesses a fine sympathy or 
 a high imagination. It would be a dreary consummation 
 if pre-Raphaelitism, aftre toiling long in the mines of truth, 
 laid its stores, not at the foot of some wizard imagination, 
 capable of evoking perfections of loveliness undreamed of 
 in the world, but before mere memory, gigantic indeed in 
 its powers, but mechanical and manufacturing after all. 
 
 Thorn. Whether Millais has true imagination or no, he 
 has produced one great picture. The Rescue appears to 
 me by far his finest painting as yet, — there are one or two 
 of his, by the way, that I have not seen. The Autumn 
 Leaves gives perhaps greater promise, but the children in 
 it are so intolerably ugly, and their gestures so strained and 
 artificial, that the picture seems to me destroyed. The 
 Rescue pointedly exhibits the possibility of mere faithful 
 rendering of nature yielding noble pictures. Learn to de- 
 pict her faithfully, and when you come upon her in a grand 
 mood, you produce a grand picture. The story of The 
 Rescue, is simple. A fireman brings three children in safety 
 from a burning house. The mother awaits him, kneeling 
 at the foot of the stair. One of the children she receives 
 from his hands; the two others still cling to him. He 
 stands upon the creaking staircase, in the full red blaze 
 reflected from the conflagration. The figure of the mother 
 has generally been regarded as the principal one in the 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 22 
 
254 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 picture ; but, in spite of the depth of tenderness, mingled 
 with love and gratitude, in the expression of her face, I 
 cannot say that it fully satisfies me. The fireman is cer- 
 tainly good : resolute, manly, strong as iron, like one accus- 
 tomed to pass through the fire. But the central figure in 
 the picture, its climax, if I may so speak, is the boy on the 
 fireman's shoulder. That child's eye is the grandest thing 
 Millais ever did. The little fellow has just been snatched 
 from a fearful death, and the fierce flame yet glares on him 
 its burning crimson. But it is not terror that reigns in his- 
 face. He does not, like the younger children, stretch and 
 shriek towards his mother. That mighty glare has caught 
 him, not with its terror but with its sublimity. He gazes 
 on it, in awe and wonder, fascinated by its maddened 
 beauty. ,- The soul of the man, with all its regal suprem- 
 acy over nature, is in his lit eye; that supremacy, in 
 virtue of which man can abstract every phenomenon 
 from its effects, and behold it in itself; causing the tem- 
 pest to play before him like a beautiful wild beast, and 
 gazing into the eye of the lightning until he has mastered 
 the secret of its beauty. The younger children will forget 
 the whole incident in a few months or years : but when 
 that boy's eye is dim, and the snows of eighty years are 
 gathering over that fair brow, his grand-children will learn 
 from his lips, in minute detail, every circumstance and 
 every aspect of that tremendous fire. If there is nothing 
 but realism in this picture of Mr. Millais, it is realism of 
 a very valuable sort. 
 
 But let us now bid farewell to the pre-Raphaelites. There 
 are one or two young men, who work upon principles 
 closely allied to those of the brotherhood, — if not, in- 
 deed, identical with these, — but whose genius seems to 
 me, in certain important respects, higher, and whose 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 255 
 
 pictures are totally free of crudity, affectation, or sin- 
 gularity. At the head of these, I set the young Scotch 
 painter, Noel Paton. Very high in their ranks are Mr. 
 Wallis and Mr. J. C. Hook. The two former paint with 
 an accuracy and universality strictly pre-Raphaelite ; but 
 their sense of beauty is so exquisite that when you behold 
 its results you feel constrained to ask whether Mr. Mil- 
 lais has a special sense of ugliness. If the old theory of 
 generalization receives a support it by no means merits, 
 from the frequent lack of power, among the pre-Raphael- 
 ites expressly so called, to impart to their pictures any 
 centralizing interest, it is irrecoverably overthrown by the 
 absolute and uniform finish, combined with perfect unity, 
 of Paton and Wallis. Home by Paton is the chief poem- 
 picture called forth by the Russian war. It has the beauty 
 of truth, that beauty which, when reached, seems so plain, 
 obvious, easy of attainment, but which, even in so simple a 
 case as this, demands, if not strict imaginative intuition, 
 yet so rare a variety and harmony of powers, so delicately 
 yet accurately attuned a sympathy with human emotion, so 
 true a sense of pathos, so exquisite a capacity for perceiv- 
 ing the line, invisible to a thousand eyes, which marks off, 
 on all sides, the tender, the graceful, the beautiful, from 
 everything coarse, forced, or glaring, that it is difficult to 
 name it otherwise than with the name of genius. The 
 soldier has arrived in the heat of the day, wounded, weary, 
 footsore, has walked into his little cottage, and sunk on a 
 chair. His wife had been sitting beside the cradle of her 
 child, engaged partly in sewing, partly in inspecting cer- 
 tain letters, preserved in that casket, the most precious, 
 doubt it not, in the dwelling, which stands upon the table. 
 She had been musing once more upon him who was away, 
 her eye now filling in anxious solicitude, now brightening 
 
256 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 in delicious hope, now resting in connubial joy and pride 
 on the letter in her hand; — and he was far away. Then, 
 suddenly, he entered and sank upon the chair. She spake 
 not a word, but, kneeling down, laid her head on his breast 
 and strained him to her heart of hearts. His mother 
 meanwhile, resigning him to his wife, had drooped her 
 head over his chair, her face unseen, but the tears fall- 
 ing. The soldier gazed downward on the face of his wife, 
 in a silent rapture of manly tenderness, of perfect love. 
 Such was the story the painter chose to tell, and this 
 the moment which, as the most impressive, he fixed upon 
 to reveal the whole. Every heart acknowledges his 
 power. 
 
 Smith. Is not the expression on the face of the wife 
 too negative, too sleep-like ? You do not see any emotion 
 through her eyelids, though she has closed them over balls 
 throbbing like fire. 
 
 Thorn. I agree with you. I think that, in any case of 
 emotion so powerful, the face would needs show more vivid 
 trace of it. But I have heard it maintained that the 
 slumbering look of the face is accurately true, expressive 
 of a feeling which is satisfied, which no longer goes out- 
 ward, but gathers itself up in the heart. Perhaps this is 
 the more delicately penetrative criticism, but I cannot 
 repel a suspicion that Mr. Paton told his lay figure to 
 close her eyes, and forgot himself into painting what he 
 saw. Millais in the same way painted a girl with her eyes 
 shut for a blind girl, giving that equable radiance of expres- 
 sion over the whole face which belongs only to the entire 
 complement of the senses, and of course not painting a 
 blind girl at all. This is one of the minor dangers of pre- 
 Raphaelitism, but one into which such painters ought surely 
 not to have fallen. 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 257 
 
 You have seen Paton's Quarrel and Reconciliation of 
 Oberon and Titania from Midsummer Night's Dream ? 
 
 Smith. Yes. They are characterized by great spirit 
 and vivacity, delightful in fancy, masterly in execution, but 
 not comparable for a moment with the bit of real life at 
 which we have been looking. He has on one occasion 
 failed, — ambitiously, powerfully, as only a strong man fails, 
 yet indubitably. His far-famed picture, The Pursuit of 
 Pleasure, is a failure. The subject was one of surpassing 
 difficulty, to be successfully treated only by the highest 
 imaginative energy, and it does not perceptibly detract 
 from the promise of a young artist that it baffled him. 
 The idea on which the picture is founded is the common- 
 place, that all men follow after pleasure, each seeking it in 
 some particular manner, and each finding it a delusion. 
 The triteness of the thought did not in the least affect the 
 possibility of original treatment. It is a commonplace 
 truth that war is replete with horrors and that peace 
 brings joy and plenty ; but the picture by Rubens, in 
 which this truth is embodied, is by no means commonplace. 
 Treatment will redeem any subject. But Mr. Paton's 
 treatment is irredeemably bad. In the immediate fore- 
 ground you behold a motley group of pleasure seekers, — 
 the warrior, the miser, the rake, and so on, women 
 mingling in the throng. Each of these, let it be granted, 
 is finely conceived and painted. Before the group, there 
 floats in the air, life-size or nearly so, rich in color, and 
 with a leering expression, a golden-haired female figure, 
 almost entirely nude. Lured by her witching smile, that 
 motley group follows on heedless towards dark spaces of 
 ocean. Over the Avhole, afar in the sky, is seen the Shadow 
 of Death, cloud-like and ghastly, — a powerful thought, 
 suggested, I should think, perhaps unconsciously, by the 
 22* 
 
253 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 genius of David Scott. Omitting all consideration of 
 detail, the question as to whether the picture is a failure 
 or not resolves itself into this other, Has the painter 
 succeeded in bodying forth the unity in variety, and the 
 variety in unity, of the universal pursuit of pleasure ? Has 
 he, on his canvas, given local habitation and name to that 
 mystic something, which allures all yet seems different to 
 each ? To this question I answer, He has not. To ninety- 
 nine out of every hundred, for one thing, his figure of 
 pleasure would suggest only sensual pleasure; and the 
 power of that figure to allure the gambler and miser would 
 be simply a negation or a puzzle. But even this fact is not 
 necessary to my case. Be it that sensual pleasure is not 
 solely indicated by the alluring maiden. If any character- 
 istic can be named, in virtue of which her influence upon 
 her followers can vary in each case, the painter has, I 
 acknowledge, attained his end. But after the most candid 
 and careful exercise of judgment, I cannot discover any 
 kind of varying identity in the figure ; and I am absolutely 
 satisfied that none such exists. Therefore the painting is 
 an explicit failure. 
 
 Thorn. How could the idea have been better em- 
 bodied? 
 
 Smith. You are very well aware that such a question, 
 if intended to invalidate an adverse criticism, is weak and 
 futile. The critic does not profess to be a painter or a 
 poet ; the question he has first of all to discuss is how the 
 thing is done, not wherefore the artist has failed in doing 
 it. But I do not scruple to assert that, in the present 
 instance, certain sources of suggestion are patent to all, by 
 duly availing ourselves of which, we may secure one or 
 two important hints as to how Mr. Paton might have 
 modified his treatment. The idea is one which has been 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 259 
 
 from the earliest times familiar to the intellect and imagina- 
 tion of the race. Poetry has variously shadowed it forth. 
 How did the ancients represent it ? I cannot but wonder 
 that Mr. Paton did not find a suggestion in the marvellously 
 true yet marvellously beautiful myth of the Syrens. The 
 sisters sat at the mouth of their sea-side cave, half hidden 
 in its twilight shade, clearly discernible by the eye of no 
 traveller. There they sung their witching song. It was 
 heard on the ocean by the voyager, mingling its deep tone 
 with the waves, mystic, indefinable, irresistible. To every 
 listener, that music told a different tale. The lover heard 
 in it the voice of his mistress. To the warrior, it was the 
 promise of glory and fame. To the miser, it brought 
 visions of treasures untold. To all it came with irresistible 
 potency. Turning at once to our own times, do we not 
 naturally picture to ourselves the allurement of fancied joy 
 in some vague, half-defined manner, the enchantment of 
 distance, the shadows of mystery, entering into the concep- 
 tion ? " The curtain of existence," says Carlyle, speaking 
 of Burns, " was slowly rising before him in many-colored 
 splendor and gloom." Do not the words superbly express 
 the idea generally formed of those wavering, varying tints, 
 which lure every one on in the name of happiness? Or 
 are we not apt to think of promised joy as a vague illu- 
 mination on the horizon, seeming to grow on the sight, yet 
 ever receding, ever disappointing ? Or, once more, is not 
 pleasure thought of as a rainbow, followed by children, 
 never yet caught by any child ? In one word, indefinite- 
 ness is the never-failing characteristic of all attempts 
 naturally made to represent the attraction of pleasure. 
 Had we caught sight, dimly through veiling clouds and 
 in the distance, of some fair maiden, striking a harp ; or 
 had some indistinct, mysterious illumination been seen 
 
260 GLIMFSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 gleaming over the further waves; we could have sympa- 
 thized with each figure in Mr. Paton's eager group. But 
 his Syren has come to look us in the face, and by so doing 
 her spell has been forever broken. 
 
 Thorn. The public sentiment coincided with your view 
 of The Pursuit of Pleasure. I earnestly hope, for the 
 sake both of Mr. Paton and his country, that he will not 
 learn to despise public opinion on such matters. His Home 
 has awakened no feeling of disappointment in the multitude, 
 who, be assured, differ from connoisseurs in this, as much 
 as in other things, that they like better to praise than to 
 censure. If, moreover, they are not apt to censure, still 
 less likely are they to fawn or flatter, which a coterie of 
 friends and of friendly connoisseurs always do. Were I a 
 poet or painter, I might not wish for new imagination, 
 melodiousness, or success : but I should wish and pray 
 that I might not fall under the enervating, the humiliating 
 influence of a circle of blinded admirers. The poet or 
 painter who knows the grand secret that man's honor and 
 blessedness here below consist not in being praised for his 
 powers but in getting that work out of them, to the utmost, 
 which God has fitted them to perform, will desire to go 
 out, as far as is possible, a mere voice or presence, into the 
 wide atmosphere of the world, with its bracing winds, its 
 ready thunders, and its benignant glory of calm. 
 
 Smith. As I have spoken of what, as an express and 
 demonstrable failure, may be pronounced with some con- 
 fidence one of Mr. Paton's worst pictures, I shall now turn 
 to what may Avith equal confidence be pronounced his best. 
 The picture to which I refer might be variously named. 
 A lady has just expired. A watcher bends over that face 
 from which the majesty of death has not yet obliterated 
 the smile of womanly farewell. The corpse lies by an open 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 2G1 
 
 casement, and, beyond, is the saintly calm of a summer 
 night. From the dim mountain-horizon streams upwards 
 silently towards the zenith, that suffusion of fair, faint 
 radiance, which is, through the whole summer night, a 
 prophecy of summer dawn. Never painter, one had almost 
 said never poet, blended so many great silences into one 
 ecstacy of repose. Night, death, and sorrow make up the 
 awful calm. A star twinkling in that sky would break the 
 perfect rest. The moon must not walk in brightness there. 
 That veil of faint dawn-radiance shuts out the gaze of moon 
 and stars, and only the eyes of human love look on the face 
 of the dead. The lamp has gone out in the chamber ; its 
 last pale smoke-wreath curls gently upward in the still 
 air. -. — I shall not say of the painter of such a picture that 
 there is nothing in the highest province of poetic painting 
 which he may not attempt ; it were a superfluous remark 
 in reference to a man who has already produced a master- 
 piece in the very highest department of Art. No theme is 
 more august or sublime than that of death. Around it 
 gathers all that is darkest in human woe, and brightest in 
 human hope. It is a cipher of the mystery of human ex- 
 istence. And Mr. Paton has spread over it the solemnity 
 of night, and touched it with the glory of dawn, falling on 
 it from afar. In the bowed form of the watcher beside 
 the pale corpse, we see that human weakness which faints 
 under the mighty shadow; but yonder radiance reminds 
 us of a victory beyond death, of the breaking of a resur- 
 rection morn, of the angels now welcoming the human 
 spirit which has fled. 
 
 Thorn. To offer advice to a painter like Mr. Paton, to 
 declare dogmatically in what province he may best exercise 
 his genius, would be presumptuous. But one may be par- 
 doned for saying how, with his own bounded means of 
 
.262 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 judging, he would like to see Mr. Paton exerting his powers. 
 It seems, then, to me, that he might find a peculiarly suitable 
 sphere in certain departments of religious painting. The 
 highest note of a man's fame is not generally struck until he 
 has himself passed away. It is in the far distance that 
 the great mind "orbs into the perfect star." It would 
 probably be thought incomparably absurd to name the 
 genius of Paton along with that of Raphael. Yet I cannot 
 but feel that, allowing for any difference in degree, the 
 powers of the former are in some sense akin to those of the 
 latter. I am strongly impressed with the conviction, that 
 no living painter is so well qualified as Paton to realize 
 for us, if human skill can in any measure realize, those 
 moments in the history of our Saviour, when the mildness, 
 the tenderness, the sorrow, of the human hearts and faces 
 round him, were so touched and irradiated by his presence, 
 that the whole scene seems to appertain to some region, if 
 not all of heaven, yet surely not solely of earth. If any 
 man could paint for us the eyes of Mary, " homes of silent 
 prayer," resting on Him who had called Lazarus from the 
 grave, I think it could be done by Mr. Paton. If any 
 man could bring to canvas even a faint suggestion of that 
 Divine tenderness, with which the dying Lord committed 
 his earthly mother to the care of John, I believe it would 
 be he. Only I am by no means prepared to maintain that 
 such subjects could possibly be so treated in painting as 
 not to disturb and degrade the ideal of them which dwells 
 in the imagination of the devout Christian. 
 
 Smith. I also might be well pleased to see Paton taking 
 the shoes from his feet and entering such holy ground. 
 Meantime it is well that lus genius frequents such lowly 
 paths, as, while leading, perhaps best of all, to the highest 
 ideal, secure his mind perfectly from extravagance and 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 263- 
 
 affectation. Let him paint such pure and perfect color- 
 lyrics as Home, let him breathe into simple joys and 
 sorrows, over peasant faces and into cottage interiors, the 
 immortality of beauty, and not only will he touch chords 
 to which the heart of humanity must vibrate, but will find 
 for his own genius a wholesome and precious aliment. 
 
 Thorn. Have you remarked how completely Paton's 
 paintings refute that old generalization theory ? Is there 
 a generalized hair's-breadth in his picture of Death and 
 Night ? Is not the casement painted to its last stone ? 
 Has not the brush lingered on each filament in that faint, 
 dying wreath of lamp-smoke ? Yet has not the artist 
 proved himself capable of dispensing with the base min- 
 istry of imperfection and slovenliness ? Have not, on the 
 contrary, all the details of the picture been compelled to 
 do service and homage to that mighty thought, to that 
 mastering emotion, which his genius set in its central and 
 undisputed throne ? Perfect unity and perfect finish. 
 
 /Smith. If that miserable fallacy required one other 
 death-blow, it would receive it in this picture by Mr. 
 Wallis — who stands, I suppose, next to Paton among 
 those who act on the pre-Raphaelite principle, without fall- 
 ing into the pre-Raphaelite grotesqueness, mawkishness, or 
 affectation. The Death of Ghatterton is a subject worthy 
 of the highest ambition, and requiring commanding pow- 
 ers. Mr. Wallis has attempted it and not failed. Chatter- 
 ton lies before us on his humble truckle-bed, in his squalid 
 garret. The first glimpse of dawn sheds a drear and 
 slumbrous light, of faint cowslip-yellow and fainter rose, 
 over the distant dome of St. Paul's. The window is half 
 open, and on the sill is one rose-bush. A rose, a solitary 
 one, had burst suddenly into full bloom, but then broke 
 its slender stalk, and now hangs its head, the petals fall- 
 
264 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 ing one by one. Chatterton lies on the bed, his full 
 auburn locks falling over the coverlid, his relaxed arm 
 holding the phial drooped to the floor, his face pale and 
 rigid in death. His form and posture express simply the 
 awfulness, the silence, the might of death. There is in 
 the face no triumph over the last enemy ; nor is there 
 lingering anguish as of the final conflict ; nor do fear and 
 horror cast their shadow over it. It is the calm surren- 
 der of despair : " Death, thou hast conquered ! " 
 
 Thorn. Mr. Wallis has produced a noble picture ; de- 
 serving, it may be, of Mr. Ruskin's expression of applause, 
 " faultless and marvellous.' 1 But there was one thing which 
 transcended even this picture, indubitably, immeasurably 
 transcended it ; — the bare fact itself. There is in the work 
 of Art before us a certain beauty on which the eye can rest 
 with pleasure. Part of the dress of Chatterton is of a rich, 
 lovely purple ; and other touches of color about the picture 
 complete the sweet harmony of which this is the central 
 chord. Mr. Wallis has permitted himself a certain ideal- 
 izing license; he has paid a modicum of deference to 
 the taste of the public, to the delicacy of fastidious eyes. 
 But when death smiled from beneath his grisly crown upon 
 the dead Chatterton, there was no dallying with cultured 
 sensibilities, no tender refinement of idealization. The boy 
 staggered upstairs that evening, haggard, squalid, hunger- 
 stricken. Had Mr. Wallis dared to give the rugged fact, 
 we should have seen those cheeks sunken and livid, that 
 flesh clinging to the bones with the clasp of starvation. 
 In all England, that evening, there was no boy of seven- 
 teen dowered with faculties so princely as those of Chatter- 
 ton. And he knew it ! Yes : that was the most searching 
 element in his agony. His critical capacity was developed 
 as fully as his poetical. He knew not only his right to 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 265 
 
 literary distinction, but his power, if he were but once 
 known, infallibly to secure it. He longed, he yearned, to 
 live. But a week or two before, he had written a boastful 
 letter to his mother and sister, full of hope and courage. 
 He had sent them also a few cheap presents, confident that 
 they would be followed by others of a very different sort. 
 But hunger overtook him: sheer starvation dug a grave 
 before his eyes. He did not need much. One loaf per 
 Week, bought stale that it might last the longer, was, with 
 water, all he needed. But that was denied him. So, in 
 the strength of despair and madness, he ended his tor- 
 ment, preferring instant rest within the jaws of darkness, 
 to that agonized flutter by which he strove vainly to resist 
 the deadly fascination. No soft, sweet colors met the eyes 
 that first looked upon him next morning ; only threadbare 
 ghastliness and squalor. Death, that night, was in his 
 coarsest mood, and had arranged no picturesque effects. 
 Read the simple detail of Chatterton's life and death as 
 given in his biography by Mr. David Masson, and you 
 will, I think, allow that, whatever Mr. Wallis has attained, 
 he has not realized the stern fact. 
 
 Smith. But we have wandered from the circumstance 
 which first attracted us to this picture. Observe how 
 minute the painting is. You have the wavering of the 
 light on the rose-petals, you have every crease in the bed- 
 cover, every chink in the garret wall. Would we have 
 felt more for Chatterton if the dome of St. Paul's had 
 been a blot of black paint and the walls of the cottage 
 random sweeps of brown ? 
 
 Thorn. J. C. Hook is worthy to be mentioned with 
 Wallis and Paton. Of him much may be expected, for 
 he is one of those men who have really a great deal tQ 
 say. His Finding of Moses is a beautiful and original 
 picture. Perhaps for the first time in the history of Art 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 23 
 
266 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 the true key-note in that incident, the strongest, purest, 
 noblest tone of human emotion it affords, is struck. It 
 was no doubt a grand sight, for any eyes which that 
 morning beheld it, to see the Princess of Egypt, in glit- 
 ter of jewels and stateliness of fine linen, surrounded by 
 her maidens, proceeding to the river to bathe, or looking 
 down upon the babe found among the bulrushes. But 
 there was a heart near, whose palpitations expressed an 
 emotion, to which any feeling in the breast of Pharaoh's 
 daughter was a faint, fleeting tenderness, a slight womanly 
 interest. A mother's heart was beating near, the heart 
 of the mother of that child. And since the destinies of 
 mankind hung upon the fate of that little boy, since Chris- 
 tendom lay folded in that frail cradle, a Divine hand led a 
 little girl, standing by, up to Pharaoh's daughter, to offer 
 to fetch a nurse for the child. The mother came. She 
 took her boy into her arms, crushing down in her breast 
 the tears of joy which forced themselves to her eyes with 
 the importunity of anguish. Then she turned from the 
 king's daughter, and clasping her babe to her breast, up- 
 lifted her streaming eyes to the God of Abraham, in grati- 
 tude unutterable. At that moment, the sublimity of the 
 incident reached its climax ; and that is the moment fixed 
 upon by Mr. Hook. You see the mother in the foreground 
 in the attitude described. In the background, not unseen 
 but occupying only their natural station of importance, are 
 the Princess and her maidens. The mind in which this 
 picture originated must be gifted with no ordinary meas- 
 ure of power, emotional and intellectual. 
 
 Smith. Mr. Hook has not, to my knowledge, painted 
 any other picture comparable to this. His more ordinary 
 walk is quiet, homely life. In this department his feeling 
 is so true that had he adopted the medium of words in- 
 stead of colors, he could not have failed to secure an abid- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 267 
 
 ing if not a sounding popularity, as a poet of the affections. 
 Observe this simple picture. Had you passed the cottage 
 and happened to note the little incident Mr. Hook records, 
 it would probably have had power, slight as it is, to bring 
 a tear into your eye. The boat has arrived, and the tired 
 fisherman goes up the steep stone steps, leading from the 
 beach to his dwelling. His wife has come out to meet and 
 greet him. And how does her womanly, wifely instinct 
 instruct her to give him the welcome that most will warm 
 his heart ? She brings out their child, just beginning, as 
 the Scotch say, to " toddle," and pushes it gently before 
 her on the steps. The little fellow has a timorous look, 
 as if never before trusted so far from his mother's arms. 
 The eyes of father and mother meet on him in one har- 
 mony of love. All this is doubtless very plain, very 
 ordinary. Yet does not your heart bear witness to the 
 power of the picture ? Such men as Mr. Hook and Cal- 
 cott Horsley — whose feeling is at times, I think, still 
 more exquisite — must exercise a genial, salutary influence, 
 at a time when Art is beginning really to lay a finger on 
 the public heart. 
 
 Thorn. By the bye, are we to omit Burd Helen by W. 
 L. Windus ? He is, indeed, an express pre-Raphaelite, and 
 we have bidden adieu to such ; but the laws of conversa- 
 tion permit us to double on our steps, and if any pre- 
 Raphaelite is worth turning back for, he is Mr. Windus. 
 The lines from the old Scotch ballad by which the painter 
 explains his picture tell its story touchingly and well. 
 
 " Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran, 
 A live-lang simmer's day ; 
 Until they cam' to Clyde water, 
 Was filled frae bank to brae. 
 
268 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 * Seest thou yon water, Helen,' said he, 
 
 * That flows from bank to brim ? ' 
 
 4 1 trust to God, Lord John,' she said, 
 
 * You ne'er will see me swim.' " 
 
 The girl clings to the stirrup leather with one hand, press- 
 ing the other to her side with a look of utter weariness 
 and desolation. Lord Ronald looks down in stony heart- 
 lessness. The river flows before, and the ashy gray of an 
 evening sky roofs the lone moorland. There is a fringe 
 of ghostly trees on the sky-line. All this is true, and 
 deeply imaginative. But I cannot think that the fearful 
 character of the incident is brought out with perfectly suf- 
 ficing power. At that time of the evening, the flanks of 
 the horse would have been flecked with foam; all the 
 jaunty pride, with which he pranced and curvetted in the 
 morning, would have been broken with fatigue : but here 
 he steps daintily along, as if setting out on his journey, 
 no suggestion of weakness or weariness about him. In the 
 face of the rider, too, it may at least be asked whether 
 there is the determination necessary for the deed. Must 
 not such cruelty have been " stubborned with iron ? " 
 This man looks piqued, provoked, petulant. His features, 
 though blunt and base, are small. He is the image of 
 spite, of meanness, of petty malevolence, not of such 
 fiendish and inflexible cruelty as seems necessary for deeds 
 like his or Iago's. We shall not, however, be dogmatic 
 on this point. I am not sure that attainment in crime, 
 that mastership in iniquity, writes itself even in a clouded 
 form of those big bones and massive brows which denote 
 strength of character. It is perhaps with feebleness of 
 character, with incapacity to resist any suggestion of the 
 flesh or the devil, with total and enervating absence of sym- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 269 
 
 pathy with good, that colossal ability to commit cruelty 
 best consists. It may be that we gratuitously postulate, 
 in the soul of the utter villain, some such powers and feel- 
 ings as, in our own, would have struggled with advancing 
 depravity and gone down only after a fierce wrestle. It 
 would have required a giant strength of will in most men 
 never to have winced during the protracted agonies of 
 Cook the victim of Palmer, — never to have flinched 
 through the whole execution of that diabolic purpose. 
 Yet the face of Palmer gave no indication of natural 
 strength of character. It had no strong, noble bones. 
 It was suffused with a foul dinginess of sensuality, and 
 had no look even of dogged resolution. It had, now that 
 I think of it, a distant generic resemblance to the face of 
 Lord John in Mr. Windus's picture. Perhaps, therefore, 
 the deliberate choice of the artist was truer than my hasty 
 impression. 
 
 Smith. The day is westering, and yet we have even 
 glanced at very little in the wide kingdom of Art. I fear 
 we must leave the greater part, until that promised day, 
 when we are to have you at the old place, and you and 
 I shall have another chat on our favorite subject, with 
 mountains, clouds, and brooks for reference. 
 
 Thorn. That is a pleasant prospect; we have indeed 
 much to talk of. Only a few artists have passed in review 
 before us. But we have not altogether erred in fixing 
 our regards mainly on the prospective phases of Art, on 
 the youthful and the promising. It is more important to 
 know and hail the new than to linger about the old, 
 whether to build over it a mausoleum or to pronounce 
 on it a solemn anathema. We need not part, however, 
 without saying a word or two about some of those paint- 
 ers who bulk more largely in the world's eye than those 
 23* 
 
270 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 we have mentioned, and whom general consent would set 
 at the head of the contemporary British school. 
 
 In the treatment of marine subjects, as was allowed even 
 by the somewhat ungenerous savans of the French Expo- 
 sition, we stand supreme; and the first of living marine 
 painters is Clarkson Stanfield. The Abandoned is a good 
 example of his work. The scene is the " deep mid-ocean," 
 no shore, no rock in sight. The wearied, mastless vessel 
 has lain down like a spent animal after the shock of the 
 last sea, when she is met by another fierce, massy buffet, 
 the furious billow dashing once more over her timbers in 
 wild, flying, filmy foam. The sky is broken in the midst, 
 and a burst of white light streams down, pouring along 
 the trough of the sea, and whitening every tossing wave- 
 let, on the broad backs of the swells. That light will soon 
 pass away ; for to windward, a cloud, still blacker than 
 those around the vessel, comes drifting swiftly on. Be- 
 neath the edges of that cloud, the livid waves spring, and 
 writhe, and dance, in the mad music of the wind. Soon 
 the canopy of a new storm will shroud the doomed ship 
 in deeper night ; and away she will roll, tossed from valley 
 to valley by the might of the sea, borne into the remote 
 solitudes of ocean never to return. The picture is one of 
 genius and power. Stanfield is your true man to paint a 
 wave. He knows it in all its freaks of motion, in all its 
 wild play of glistening, wavering, flashing light. He has 
 watched it in the fair, racing breeze, in the vexed chop- 
 ping sea, where tides and winds contend, and under the 
 murky tempest, when it gathers itself into a huge billow, 
 fronting the blast like an angry brow, corrugated in agony 
 and rage. 
 
 Smith. The genius of Collins seems to have been more 
 pensive, and it may be less daring, than that of Stanfield. 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 271 
 
 In the rendering of far, faint horizons, and bleak, sandy 
 flats of shore, I suppose he stands wholly unequalled. I 
 could name no paintings which bear you so completely to 
 the scenes they represent. The salt breeze cools your fore- 
 head ; you shiver sympathetically with the fisherman, toil- 
 ing along between wave and bent. 
 
 Cooke must surely be a substantial, hearty man, enjoying 
 life, and going at his work with a will. His most generally 
 chosen subjects, indeed, are rather of a quiet than a stir- 
 ring character. He loves to paint boats with sails faintly 
 flapping over slumbering seas, above which his clouds, per- 
 meated with that soft pale-yellow radiance of his, are a true 
 and fitting drapery. But he can paint a strong gale, as 
 well as a glassy sea. Observe this scene on the Adriatic ; 
 Chioggian fishing vessels, &c, running into the lagune of 
 Venice, on the approach of a borasco or violent squall. 
 You remark Cooke's characteristic orange on the broad sail 
 of that big, bright boat, bounding like a sea-monster in 
 front. How the thing of life leaps into that wave, laving 
 her shoulders with the sheeted foam as the sea comes gal- 
 loping like a race-horse from the left! She positively 
 stands out from the sky amid the storm clouds. It was 
 a sweeping and strong hand, I think, too, a joyous one, 
 which painted that boat. The picture makes you hold 
 your breath. 
 
 Thorn. Sir Edwin Landseer is the most popular living 
 painter. His subjects are not the highest, yet I cannot find 
 it in my heart to grudge him his pre-eminence. He stands 
 apart from all animal painters. If Turner can be alleged to 
 have differed from other landscapists, by embracing in the 
 comprehensiveness of his love and power all the moods of 
 nature, while they dwelt on particular aspects, still more 
 expressly may it be said of Landseer that he differs from 
 
272 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 all animal painters, in having imparted to his own subject a 
 breadth and dignity absolutely unexampled. He has thrown 
 over the animal world the light of human association, a 
 task hard to perform, but which he has accomplished with 
 incomparable felicity. In bare realism, there may be one or 
 two departments in which he has been equalled, I shall not 
 say surpassed ; but wherever his supremacy as an animal 
 painter may be disputed by another, the disputed glory is 
 not, I think, worth contending for. The ferocity, terror, 
 rage, and pain, of animal life, were perhaps never conveyed 
 as by Snyders. But his pictures can be profitable only in 
 such a manner as gladiatorial shows or prize fights might 
 be profitable ; and can be vindicated only by such fallacies 
 as might be urged in order to screen these from a just con- 
 demnation. I cannot look upon a group of bears and dogs 
 rending each other, from the hand of Snyders, without 
 being sensible that the man possessed observation to pierce, 
 memory to seize, and a conquering power of execution. 
 Grant that I find a certain lesson in the earnestness with 
 which he must have devoted himself to his task, a certain 
 encouragement in his marvellous success. As much as this 
 can be said in favor of the moral advantage derived from 
 him who, after his fight of an hour and twenty minutes, 
 his one remaining eye starting bloodshot from his head, 
 scarcely, for utter exhaustion, hears the shouts that hail his 
 victory. The didactic uses of Snyders are perhaps as great 
 as those of Ben Caunt or Harry Broom. But the sin of 
 palliating the misuse of power by the very circumstance 
 which lends that sin its aggravation, by the excellence of 
 the gifts debased, has prevailed too widely in these hero- 
 worshipping days. The time, I trust, will soon arrive, 
 when Art shall disclaim, indignantly and forever, the base 
 privilege of perpetuating what ought to be forgotten, and 
 
GLIMPSES OF KECENT BRITISH ART. 273 
 
 bringing into light what decent nature vails in darkness. 
 Complete and happy sympathy with what there is of idea 
 or feeling in the pictures of Snyders would imply a gross, a 
 ferocious, a brutish nature ; and, since distempered tastes 
 are known to grow by what they feed on, all such pictures 
 ought to be rejected unmercifully and with scorn. Let 
 it be mentioned to Landseer's real honor, that he cannot 
 dispute with Snyders his tarnished crown. A total exemp- 
 tion from blame cannot, indeed, be claimed for him. Once 
 or twice he has fallen into the error of painting the base 
 and revolting in animal life. No humane man could for a 
 moment look upon the writhings of a transfixed otter, with- 
 out pity, shame, horror; and no painter ought to have 
 pandered to the degraded tastes which could enjoy such a 
 spectacle. But that was almost a solitary instance. The 
 sound feeling of the multitude, which conferred popularity 
 upon Landseer, warned him that such pictures were essen- 
 tially wrong. In the overwhelming majority of cases, he has 
 fallen into no such error. On the contrary, he has, as I 
 said, shed over animal life an exquisite and novel illumina- 
 tion, poetical in a high sense, and partaking of countless 
 delicate elements of humor, of pathos, of vivacity, of 
 mirthfulness. I do n't know whether any pictorial critic, of 
 the small, nibbling, pedantic order, has ever happened to 
 lay down the limits of motive and expression, within which 
 the animal painter ought to confine himself. It would be 
 pleasant to compare the result with what Landseer has 
 done, to note how and how often genius had overleaped the 
 stakes of mediocrity. Landseer's animals are, with the 
 possible exception I have noted, more like nature's animals 
 than any ever painted. Yet he contrives, while painting 
 them, to touch with cunning hand a thousand chords of 
 human sympathy, glancing with delicate satire at human 
 
274 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 foible, and gracefully suggesting the more deep and tender 
 human emotions. Since, moreover, he is professedly an 
 animal painter, no more would have been strictly demanded 
 in his backgrounds than is given in those of Snyders or 
 Hondekoeter. But he has scorned to avail himself of any 
 such indulgence. He has given the solitude of the Arctic 
 night, the sweep of the sea-horizon, and, above all, effects 
 of mountain mist, in a manner which entitle him to high 
 consideration among landscape painters. In power and 
 range of expression, once more, while still strictly within his 
 own province, he has surpassed not only all animal painters, 
 but all prose and poetic fabulists. I remember no exception 
 to the rule, that when writers have desired to draw any 
 lesson from animal life, they have assumed a jocular, serio- 
 comic tone. But Landseer's Night and Morning create no 
 trivial emotions, make no appeal to the risible faculties. 
 
 The drear moonlight shivers through the storm, drifting 
 along the lake, and all the mountains are wrapped in gloom. 
 In the foreground, you see two stags in contest. Land- 
 seer's utmost power is here displayed ; in the knotted 
 sinews, entangled horns, and bloodshot eyes, of the animals, 
 you have perfect expression of a rage stronger than anguish 
 or death. This is Night. Turn to the companion picture. 
 Morning has brought perfect peace. The lake, still as glass, 
 watches for the first cloud to rise like a smile on the fair 
 face of the sky. The mountains stand silent and beautiful, 
 in the ruddy dawn. The noble stags are rigid in death, 
 their limbs in the unyielding posture of their last grapple. 
 And, see there, creeping up the hill, now almost touching 
 the booty, with a look of archness, of cunning, of pure, 
 approving satisfaction, which Landseer alone could have 
 painted, the hill fox approaches his prey. The mountain 
 eagle, too, is winging his way across the lake, snuffing the 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 275 
 
 feast. And thus the monarchs of the waste have ended 
 their mortal duel ! Never, in prose or rhyme, was the 
 story so grandly told. It is fable become epic. 
 
 Consider, again, his Highland Nurses, dedicated to Miss 
 Nightingale. This is the second poem-picture called forth 
 by the Russian War. The wounded stag has retired to die 
 on the highest and loneliest crag, curtained by the mist. 
 Two hinds bend over him and lick his wound. On the rock 
 beside, are one or two mountain birds. Such a scene is 
 probably impossible in animal life, yet who will say where 
 the superadded expression, separating them from the animal 
 world, becomes visible in those life-like hinds ? The pathos 
 of the picture cannot but be felt. 
 
 It will be as an animal painter that Landseer is remem- 
 bered. Yet I am assured that he would have succeeded if 
 he had devoted himself exclusively to such high ideal paint- 
 ing as he has once or twice attempted. His Peace and 
 War might alone support a reputation in this kind. War 
 is all narrowness, gloom, horror. The steed and rider lie 
 ghastly at the foot of the rampart, the fierce flames of the 
 cannon flashing through the thick smoke around. Peace is 
 all spaciousness, serenity, blessedness. The unfathomable 
 blue of the sky, the broad, smiling ocean, the wide sweeps 
 of sunny sward, these are themselves magnificent in con- 
 ception, as a contrast to the walled up darkness of war. 
 Then there is the bright grass over the sea ; the lamb crops 
 the green blade that has grown in the mouth of the rusty 
 cannon ; a few glad children sport in front ; and there is no 
 question to agitate the mind, more serious than the solution 
 of the thread-puzzle on the child's hands. 
 
 Smith. Shall we pretend to have had a conversation 
 upon the aspects of Art in Great Britain, yet pass by Wil- 
 liam Mallord Turner ? I have so far shaken off my 
 
276 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 despicable bashfulness, that I shall venture to say a word 
 or two of that great artist, and with them let this desultory 
 chat, which to me at least has been pleasant, come to a 
 close. 
 
 A complete or final idea of the character and achieve, 
 ments of Turner's genius I cannot profess to have formed. 
 But I have had somewhat uncommon opportunities of 
 observing his pictures, and have examined innumerable 
 engravings from his works. I can say with decision, that I 
 have discerned certain lineaments, vague yet unmistakable, 
 of a gigantic mind, great in its simplicity, in its massiveness, 
 in its sweep of comprehension, in its concentration of 
 energy. Turner had none of your perked and paltry origi- 
 nalities about him. His power of plagiarism was as mag- 
 nificent as Shakspeare's, Goethe's, or Carlyle's. His real 
 originality was no more doubtful than theirs. " He who 
 has really caught the mantle of the prophet, is the last man 
 to imitate his walk : " and he who catches the mantle, 
 without imitating the gait, is the true original. Turner 
 was the most earnest of scholars ; he reminds you contin- 
 ually of other painters ; but what he found brick, he left 
 marble. As a realist, his grasp was irresistible, and will not 
 now be questioned. But it is my deliberate opinion that as 
 a poet he was more wonderful than as a realist. He ren- 
 dered mountains and skies, forests and streams, as they had 
 never previously been rendered. Every bone in the frames 
 of the reclining giants whose weight steadies the earth, 
 every wrinkle on their brows, every gleam of light upon 
 their craggy foreheads, he brought out with solitary power. 
 The springing also of the bough and the sinewy strength 
 of the stem, the wayward grace of the river and boiling 
 torrent foam, the hot haze, swooning over the distances of 
 mid-summer, the scenery of the upper heavens, the lurid or 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 277 
 
 fiery red of stormy sunset, all were Turner's own. But if 
 he surpassed other painters in these and other provinces of 
 pure realism, he surpassed them still more, as I said, in 
 strictly poetic, in creative might. Who could select like 
 Turner ? You know that city and the scenery in which it 
 is embosomed : but did you ever see it in that grandeur of 
 attitude, could any other painter have showed you it so f 
 You would say cities and mountains were proud to sit to 
 their great portrait-painter, since none could perceive like 
 him their characteristic points, none could so elicit and com- 
 bine their distinctive and contrasted beauties, none could 
 let them so well be seen. Yet selection is by no means the 
 only power of Turner. Taste might go far to impart or 
 regulate a power of selection, but the sovereign imagination 
 alone could give the deepest poetry that dwells in Turner's 
 pictures. He seems, by life-long observation and musing, 
 to have detected nature's secrets of effect, her modes of 
 contrast, her suggestions of thought : and his imagination 
 struck out more grandly that at which she aimed. The 
 strength and stateliness of the precipice, the majesty of 
 mountain shadow, the exulting magnificence of broad 
 streaming light, the mysterious suggestion of infinitude, by 
 the steep and soaring line of mountain side lost in the 
 hanging clouds that seem to vail immensity, are all as it 
 were vocal in a picture by Turner. The mountains are no 
 longer dumb ; Turner caught their inarticulate accents ; 
 and when he made them speak, all could understand them. 
 This is not an easy thing to explain in words ; but the 
 universal sentiment as to prints from Turner proves that I 
 am not alone in finding in his works the most poetic render- 
 ings of nature's deepest expressions. A critic, whose 
 literary immortality is, I think, as secure as that of Sporus or 
 King Colley, is severe upon Mr. Ruskin for demanding 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 24 
 
278 GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 
 
 thought in pictures. The thoughts that are built up in the 
 mountains may be to him a great mystery. But if you ask 
 me where you will find thought, poetry, invention, in land- 
 scape painting, I refer you to any volume of engravings 
 after Turner. 
 
 I cannot fix upon any picture to illustrate all the charac- 
 teristics of Turner's genius, and to more than one picture, 
 I must not now refer. Let me take one almost indiscrimi- 
 nately. In Lord Ellesmere's Gallery, there is a large pic- 
 ture by Turner, painted evidently after the great Vander- 
 velde in the same collection. I shall briefly compare the 
 two. 
 
 The Yandervelde contains a considerable number of ves- 
 sels. In front is a Dutch packet-ship, a gleam of color on 
 its sail from the dreary sunlight to windward. It mounts 
 a broken sea, dipping into its foam, which dashes up over 
 the bows. To leeward is a ship with sails clewed up, facing 
 the wind. The sky has two great banks of cloud, one of 
 them again dividing into three tower-like masses, through 
 which is shed a faint illumination of stormy sunlight. The 
 sea in front is broken, yeasty, racing before the wind with 
 fearful velocity. Look now to the Turner. 
 
 One vast bank of cloud, piled mountain after mountain, 
 comes darkening over the waves, " cramming all the blast 
 before it." Its rounded tops are steeped in the sombre 
 light which appears in the Vandervelde. A gleam of the 
 same rests on the sail in front. The whole under-part of 
 the great bank of cloud is black and thundery ; beneath, 
 the white waves are seen mysteriously rising and writhing. 
 In the distance, a tall, three-masted ship has furled all sail 
 and looks towards the blast. In front, two small vessels 
 are lifted into prominence, running foul of each other, the 
 one with canvas down, the other with bellying sail attempt- 
 
GLIMPSES OF RECENT BRITISH ART. 279 
 
 ing to hold up to the wind. A sea strikes them both, 
 dashing in wild foam over the bow of that one which has 
 its sail spread. The waves in the foreground roll in one 
 or two huge, angry ridges, the trough of the sea being 
 filled with seething foam. 
 
 It is known that the picture by Turner is a companion 
 to that by Vandervelde, and was a direct attempt either to 
 imitate or to grapple with it. But mark how the con- 
 ception, or rather conceptions, of Vandervelde, gain from 
 the touch of Turner. The forms of the Dutchman's pic- 
 ture seem to have been dissolved or sent apart, and again 
 brought together, into grander, simpler masses, at the 
 word of a mightier imagination. Vandervelde's sea is cov- 
 ered with ships. Only one or two break the loneliness 
 and gloom of Turner's. The sea of Vandervelde is chop- 
 ping and gusty, a broad plain of countless equal waves. 
 One or two mighty ridges, with millions of wavelets in 
 their hollows, occupy the front of Turner's. But the alter- 
 ation in which the master mind and hand are most sig- 
 nally displayed is that passed upon the clouds. These all 
 come together in Turner's picture ; no division breaks the 
 unity of the simple, overpowering mass ; it rolls on there, 
 dark, heavy, towering, majestic, in the grandeur and ter- 
 ror of tempest. 
 
 It could, I think, be distinctly proved, that a change, 
 similar to that observable in Turner's treatment of Vander- 
 velde's subject, was effected by him in all that he made, by 
 earnest study, his own. The conceptions of other artists 
 I compare to the many hills, interesting, varied, beautiful, 
 of the newer geological formations. They may be the pic- 
 turesque crags of the limestone, they may even be the 
 jagged crests of the metamorphic hills ; but they are com- 
 paratively low and comparatively many: the imagination 
 
280 GLIMPSES OF KECENT BUITISII AKT. 
 
 of Turner, working from lower deeps and with mightier 
 power, upheaved the central ridge, the primary mountain 
 chain, rising above all the rest, unapproached in height, 
 and unbroken and alone in majesty. Composition be- 
 comes, with him, vital artistic unity; prettiness becomes 
 noble symmetry and proportion; beauty becomes sublim- 
 ity. I think I can admire the grace and elegance, the 
 liquid sky and limpid water, the ordered pillars and dig- 
 nified fronts, of Claude. But my perception of the fact 
 that a precipice is more majestic than a palace gable, is 
 hardly more distinct than my perception of a greatness 
 and majesty in the forms of Turner totally absent from 
 those of Claude. The latter is to the former as Pope was 
 to Homer. And this I say while aware of the historical 
 fact that Turner studied Claude with tears of despairing 
 admiration in his eyes. 
 And so, farewell. 
 
V. 
 
 RUSKIN AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 Our good friends the artists must not be too hard upon 
 us. It would be pleasant, if one only could, to school our 
 ideas exactly to their standard: to watch their cunning 
 pencils, as they bring out lines and hues, too exquisite for 
 our exoteric capacities ; to follow their clever pens, as they 
 set down artistic rules, according to which alone we ignoble 
 vulgar must be pleased or displeased; to admire nothing 
 but what they tell us is admirable ; to believe nothing but 
 what they tell us is credible ; and to find vent for our free 
 activity, only in the becoming and ennobling privilege of 
 paying out the cash. If one could but do this, he might 
 be lapped in the music of their most sweet voices, and 
 bask in a sunshine as pure as Claude's. He might even 
 be patted with benignant condescension on the back, pro- 
 nounced a man of taste and culture, called a judicious 
 critic and a felicitous collector. Then would gradually 
 gather around him that delicate, translucent vail, that 
 misty, mysterious garment, whose qualities precisely re- 
 verse those of the shirt of Hercules, for it thrills with 
 exquisite pleasure the whole frame of the wearer, and 
 causes his breast to swell with the sublime consciousness 
 of connoisseurship, and flutters all bosoms in the dove-cots 
 of fashion, and awakens, when it appears, a whisper, instinct 
 24* 
 
282 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 with veneration, spirit-stirring, that here is a veritable and 
 most alarming lion, having no relationship to Bully Bottom 
 the weaver. This migki, indeed, be delightful; but the 
 conditions of the enjoyment are hard. Admiration, sympa- 
 thy, pleasure, are precisely the things that will not force : 
 the very consciousness of our human freedom is bound up 
 with them. Great, also, as the studio and the Art-gallery 
 are, the world is, on the whole, neither a studio nor an 
 Art-gallery. Interests manifold and important, religious, 
 social, domestic, will not cease to play their parts there, 
 in remarkable independence of the rules of the studio. 
 Pictures, moveover, are there prepared for us, of a beauty 
 wondrous, inexhaustible, older than those of the oldest 
 masters, old as the mountains and the skies, with which we 
 cannot help being rather impressed, but which we cannot 
 perfectly see or understand, until some one show them 
 unto us. We must not, therefore, consent to the consecra- 
 tion to Art of a little temple, not only apart from the great 
 world, but shut against it ; we must forego the proud 
 honor of being connoisseurs; we must content ourselves 
 with distinctions common to mortal men. 
 
 Ruskin must not be given up wholly to the artists. True 
 it is, and let the fact be stated with due emphasis, that we 
 believe him to be, in the province of Art, strictly defined, 
 a critic of marvellous accuracy and of no less marvellous 
 comprehensiveness, whose sympathy, universally acknowl- 
 edged, is not one whit more remarkable than his science. 
 True it is, that we think we hold in our hand the threads 
 of a detailed and indubitable demonstration of this. Yet 
 Ruskin cannot be viewed solely as a critic of what is 
 generally understood as Art. Nay, he cannot be correctly 
 judged of in the capacity of Art-critic, if he is contemplated 
 in that alone. The nature of man is a unity, and no man 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 283 
 
 can engage long or earnestly in any work, without exibit- 
 ing the essential characteristics which that nnity compre- 
 hends. We must regard Ruskir in at least three aspects : 
 as a poet of external nature, a revealer of its beauties, a 
 narrator of its facts ; as a thinker, impelled by sympathies 
 of extraordinary power, to reflect on the general condition, 
 religious and social, of mankind ; and as a critic, who has 
 brought the general capacities of his nature, primarily and 
 systematically, to an examination of the mode in which the 
 nations of Christendom have pursued and embodied the 
 Beautiful, with special reference to that pursuit and em- 
 bodiment in his own country, in his own time. It is dis- 
 tinctly to be understood that, if he has radically failed in 
 this last department, he cannot be defended. He might 
 have been a Richter to perceive the beauty of nature ; he 
 might have cast abroad, like a Luther, the seeds of moral 
 -and religious truth : but he came before the world as an 
 Art-critic, and if he failed here, he failed in what he chose 
 and professed as his life-work. But, thus conceding that 
 no excellence in other provinces could have redeemed fail- 
 ure in this, it may be allowed us to add, that an extraordi- 
 nary power to perceive natural beauty, and a remarkable 
 range and nobleness of human sympathy, might promote 
 instead of counteracting ability to treat expressly of Art, 
 nay, if not implying such ability, is indispensable to it. If 
 Art had not a distinct character, — separable both from 
 physical beauty and human excellence, — it would not have 
 a distinct name. But can it be denied that, standing on 
 her own w 7 atch-tower, Art casts her eye now towards 
 the world of nature, now towards the world of man, for 
 suggestion, instruction, and inspiration? The connection 
 between Art and nature, be it what it may, is at least inti- 
 mate and indissoluble ; and a knowledge of nature, and a 
 
284 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 Jbroad and earnest sympathy with human interests, furnish 
 I a presumption in favor of the Art-critic. It would surely 
 be unnecessary to argue with any one who did not look 
 upon an enthusiasm in Art, unable to connect itself with 
 enthusiasm in nature and sympathy with men, as either p*T- 
 tial, affected, or altogether unsound. The strong sense of 
 humanity will always recognize, in those wider emotions, 
 the best guarantee of excellence in every species of criti- 
 cism ; and in endeavoring to attain a correct understanding 
 of any critical system, to form a sound estimate of the 
 capacities and achievements of any critic, it will not fail to 
 commend itself as the best mode of procedure, to com- 
 mence with a survey, in relation to each, of such initial 
 feelings. The artists, therefore, and connoisseurs, must for 
 a little stand aside, while we consult, touching the critic 
 they revile, the oracles of nature. 
 
 With an explicitness which was a duty, and with that 
 scientific calmness, with which any man may recall and 
 state the impressions of boyhood, Mr. Ruskin has informed 
 us of the emotions, with which, in his earliest years, he 
 looked upon nature. The passage to which we allude, 
 occurring in the third volume of Modern Painters, may 
 fearlessly be pronounced one of the most important, as well 
 as interesting and beautiful, in the whole range of biog- 
 raphy. We can quote but a part of it. " The first thing," 
 he says, " which I remember, as an event in life, was being 
 taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwent- 
 water ; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in 
 looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the 
 crag into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less 
 with all twining roots of trees ever since. Two other 
 things I remember, as, in a sort, beginnings of life, — cross- 
 ing Shapfells, being let out of the chaise to run up the hills, 
 
JOHN RUSKItf. 285 
 
 — and going through Glenfarg, near Kinross, in a winter's 
 morning, when the rocks were hung with icicles ; these 
 being culminating points in an early life of more travelling 
 than is usually indulged to a child. In such journeyings, 
 whenever they brought me near hills, and in all mountain 
 ground and scenery, I had a pleasure, as early as I can 
 remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or twenty, 
 infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to 
 me in anything ; comparable for intensity only to the joy 
 of a lover in being near a noble and kind mistress, but no 
 more explicable or definable than that feeling of love itself. 
 . . . . Although there was no definite religious senti- 
 ment mingled with it, there was a continual perception of 
 sanctity in the whole of nature, from the slightest thing to 
 the vastest ; — an instinctive awe, mixed with delight ; an 
 indefinable thrill, such as we sometimes imagine to indicate, 
 the presence of a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this 
 perfectly when I was alone ; and then it would often make 
 me shiver from head to foot with the joy and fear of it, 
 when after being some time away from hills, I first got to 
 the shore of a mountain river, where the brown water 
 circled among the pebbles, or when I saw the first swell of 
 distant land against the sunset, or the first low broken wall, 
 covered with mountain moss. I cannot in the least describe 
 the feeling ; but I do not think this is my fault or that of 
 the English language, for, I am afraid, no feeling is describ- 
 able. 'If we had to explain even the sense of bodily hunger 
 to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put to 
 it for words ; and this joy in nature seemed to me to come 
 of a sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a 
 Great and Holy Spirit. These feelings remained in their 
 full intensity till I was eighteen or twenty, and then, as the 
 reflective and practical power increased, and the ' cares of 
 
286 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 this world ' gained upon me, faded gradually away, in the 
 manner described by Wordsworth in his Intimations of 
 Immortality." 
 
 It is of the emotions experienced amid mountain scenery 
 that Mr. Ruskin here more expressly speaks. But the 
 passage reveals a mental and physical organization, gener- 
 ally adapted to derive pleasure from the appearances of 
 nature, altogether peculiar ; and of mountains themselves 
 it must be remembered, that every form of scenery, of the 
 highest beauty or grandeur, excepting only the sublime 
 solitude or majestic fury of the central ocean, belongs 
 pre-eminently to them. It is from the mountain that you 
 behold the sky above and the valley below, the cloud on the 
 shoulders of the hill, the torrent thundering in its chasm, 
 the forest climbing among the crags, the lake slumbering 
 around its promontories. That " intense, superstitious, 
 insatiable, and beatific perception" of the grandeur and 
 loveliness of mountain scenery, which characterized Ruskin 
 in childhood and youth, implied a perception of all that is 
 grandest and loveliest in God's earthly creation. 
 
 The words in which Ruskin has consciously described his 
 early passion for nature's beauty are brief and unpreten- 
 tious, marked by a noble and manly modesty. But the 
 attestation of that passion which he soon unconsciously 
 made, the manifestation forced on him by the abounding of 
 the gift, is as imposing as it is conclusive. At an age when 
 most clever young men are bent on distinction in debating 
 societies, or resting on their laurels as prize versifiers, he 
 published the first volume of Modem Painters. Had it 
 been the work of a life-time, it would have secured an 
 immortality of renown : and if one or two works, produced 
 at a similar age, have indicated a genius equally rare, it 
 seems open to no dispute that no work ever published by a 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 287 
 
 very young man effected so profound and important a revo- 
 lution. It at once took a separate and solitary place among 
 works in English prose. In style and in matter, it was 
 unique. It recalled what had passed entirely out of English 
 composition, the stately march and long-drawn cadence of 
 Hooker and Taylor ; beside the richness of its descriptive 
 detail, the Traveller was bare, the Lady of the Lake general 
 and indefinite ; while its clearness of conception, its vigor, 
 and business-like tone, belonged distinctively to prose, and, 
 if not distinctively, at least conspicuously, to the nineteenth 
 century. Its matter was equally remarkable and as original. 
 At a consideration of its doctrines, we have not yet arrived, 
 but its principal contents were a series of descriptions of 
 the aspects of nature, and to these the language could show 
 no parallel. Nay, it was, perhaps, in the nature of things 
 impossible, that at any previous time they could have been 
 produced. A great invention is possible only at one period. 
 The fact is proved by the circumstance that the history of 
 invention is a history of controversy, that great discoveries 
 have often, if not uniformly, been made by different minds 
 about the same time. The production of the first volume 
 of Modem Painters in the sixteenth century was equally 
 impossible with the discovery of fluxions in the ninth. This 
 assertion means simply that, at the date of the appearance 
 of this volume, certain elements had entered into civiliza- 
 tion, certain agencies had come to bear upon the general 
 mind, absent in other centuries, whose presence was indis- 
 pensable to its suggestion or accomplishment. Proof of 
 this is necessary, but conclusive proof is at hand. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, and with accelerated 
 speed during the early part of the present, a great process 
 went on, by which the ideas of men, touching the realm 
 of physical nature, were rectified and defined. The most 
 
283 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 prominent intellectual characteristic of the epoch is scien- 
 tific activity. The prospect embraced within the ken of 
 science continued gradually to widen, until, before the mid- 
 dle of this century, it might be said to comprehend the 
 whole sphere of terrestrial existence, and the material 
 aspects of the astral heavens. From the frigid crags of 
 Iceland to the cactus-hedges of the Cape, from the pebble 
 at your foot to the nebula in the outer deeps of space, 
 from the flower of yesterday to the tree-ferns of the car- 
 boniferous period, Science had extended her gaze. Fancy 
 and imagination seemed about to be extinguished, or to 
 become the mere eyes of science. "No ocean was now sup- 
 posed to hide Isles of the Blessed ; no Atlantis could now 
 rise before the eyes of the voyager. Geology told you 
 the forms of the mountains. Meteorology guessed at the 
 balancing of the clouds. The lightning went faster and 
 further, as the slave of man, than it ever went from its 
 own lone dwelling in the thunder-cloud. The beasts of 
 the forest had been watched and classified; the flowers 
 of the field were named and known; the very rainbows, 
 with which, from time immemorial, the sun had wreathed 
 the mist and foam of Orinoco, could not escape the eye 
 of science. 
 
 It is plain that any mind of remarkable power and sus- 
 ceptibility, going through the stages of culture and devel- 
 opment in a time thus characterized, could not escape the 
 pervading influence. Ruskin did not escape it: but it is 
 important to note the nature of the impress which his 
 genius received. His capacity was not distinctively scien- 
 tific. Taking Coleridge's antithesis between science and 
 poetry, it was rather poetic. That emotion which played 
 so important a part in his early history found satisfaction, 
 not in analysis and classification, but in contemplation, 
 
JOHN EUSKIN. 289 
 
 reverence, and wonder. So mighty, however, was that 
 feeling, so earnest and perpetual its action, that its result 
 was a knowledge of the external appearances of nature, 
 poetic in its order but scientific in its accuracy: while it 
 cannot be doubted that, at a certain stage of its early 
 manifestation, the expressly scientific influence of the time 
 came in to assist and define it. The first volume of Mod- 
 em Painters reveals both influences. It gives express 
 evidence of scientific knowledge : it is, from first to last, 
 one tissue of evidence of that pure sensibility, which finds 
 delight in simply looking on the face of nature, and which 
 necessitates knowledge. This combination of science with 
 poetry it is, which imparts essential originality to the vol- 
 ume of which we speak; and so closely allied is such a 
 combination, with the general character of the age, that it 
 may be confidently asserted that it could not have existed, 
 as it certainly did not exist, in any other. 
 
 The critics have said things about Ruskin which are to 
 us amazing, which only the evidence of sense could render 
 credible. But we have not yet seen it asserted that he 
 is ignorant of nature. Into this arena no critic has ven- 
 tured deliberately and openly to step. The wildest fury 
 of insolence, the utmost assurance of imbecility, has here 
 confined itself to feeble innuendo or nursery flippancy. 
 And when we contemplate, in all the comprehensiveness 
 of its range, in all the correctness of its science, in all 
 the glory of its poetry, that revelation of nature which 
 he has made, this is perhaps, even considering what critics 
 Ruskin has had, not wonderful. One is apt, as he reads, 
 to imagine that the whole capacities and the whole life of 
 the author had been devoted to the study of that class of 
 natural appearances with which he is at the moment con- 
 cerned* Listen to Ruskin's description of the sea, and you 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 25 
 
290 JOHN RUSKIN". 
 
 think he must have spent his days and years, in watching 
 the beauty of its garlanded summer waves, and the tor- 
 tured writhing of its wintry billows. Follow his eye as it 
 ranges over the broad fields of the sky, and you are im- 
 pressed with the idea, that it can never have been turned 
 from observing the procession of the clouds across the blue, 
 or tracing the faint streaks of the cirri, lying, like soft 
 maiden's hair, along heaven's azure, or watching the sun 
 as he touches the whole sky with gold and scarlet and ver- 
 milion, to be for him a regal tent at eventide. Go with 
 him into the forest, and you believe that he has studied 
 nothing else, but the forms of stem and branch, the ar- 
 rangement of light and shade in the hollows of the foliage. 
 Enter with him the cathedral of the mountains, mark at- 
 tentively as he points out " their gates of rock, pavements 
 of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and 
 vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars," and you 
 conclude that there he must always have worshipped. But 
 when you have passed with him from province to province 
 of nature's beauty, and have found that in each he is a seer 
 and revealer, can you fail to acknowledge the justice and 
 modesty of his claim, not to be accused of arrogance in 
 asserting that he has walked with nature ? Can you, more- 
 over, turn from the loveliness and splendor of the succes- 
 sive visions which have risen before you, without knowing 
 nature better, loving her more, and associating with her 
 loftier, purer, mightier emotions, of reverence and wonder, 
 than ever theretofore ? 
 
 We have said that, in the sphere of simple description of 
 nature's facts, Ruskin has not been directly and deliberately 
 met. But among the many half-amusing, half-offensive 
 exhibitions of tip-toe mediocrity, trying to see up to the 
 height of this original genius, if haply it may discover that 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 291 
 
 it is merely a small mediocrity like itself, set on some sort 
 of stilts, there have not been wanting hints that Ruskin's 
 " word-painting " is an easy matter. The grandiose medi- 
 ocrity who, rather condescendingly, consented, once and 
 away, to annihilate Ruskin in the Quarterly, is of this 
 opinion. The less grandiose mediocrity who reviewed the 
 first Exhibition Pamphlet in the Art Journal utters some 
 expressions, conceived to be like Ruskin's, and remarks that 
 it is easy for the latter to write like this, however difficult 
 it might, we suppose, be, to discuss the high matters with 
 which his serene littleness is conversant. The compliment 
 thus paid to Ruskin is really too high. He might rival 
 Shakspeare in describing Dover Cliff, but there is no ground 
 for believing, that he could dramatically body forth a Slen- 
 der or an Aguecheek. We verily believe him incompetent, 
 by the utmost effort, to write what his small critic comically 
 fancies is in his manner. But we have no difficulty what- 
 ever in making, to these and all other critics of Ruskin, the 
 concession, that there is such a thing as vague and empty 
 verbosity, that there may be glowing, brilliant, fluent dic- 
 tion, without value of thought, sentiment, or information. 
 A book may glitter all over with rhetorical ornament, may 
 sparkle with metaphor, may, by alliteration and antithesis, 
 please the ear and fix the attention, yet be worthless. But 
 the descriptions of Ruskin are done in a style, which 
 nothing but an ignorance, too crass and unconscious to be 
 ashamed, or a perception jaundiced by malevolence, could 
 confound with the mere glitter of voluble feebleness. There 
 is a correspondence between all the real gifts of nature. 
 The true gleam, if you only know it, will always lead you 
 to the real gold. Able thinkers have recognized, — among 
 them, in express terms, Coleridge and Carlyle, — that a 
 linguistic capacity of sterling and surpassing excellence is 
 
292 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 always connected with real mental faculty, intellectual or 
 emotional. And we assert with perfect confidence, that 
 such verbal pictures as are drawn by Ruskin never were 
 drawn, and could not possibly be drawn, without the 
 existence of such real faculty. They are distinguished by 
 one quality which never pertains to false rhetoric : the 
 quality of unity. You may string together fact after fact, 
 and, to make their jingle somewhat more musical, you may 
 put ever so many sounding adjectives between. But in 
 order to place before the eye of the reader the distinct 
 features of a face, nay the exact likeness of a tree, a flower, 
 a snow-flake, so that he will have each plainly within the 
 sphere of his vision, an act of real observation must have 
 been performed, a capacity to see what is distinctive must 
 have been possessed, a certain amount of genuine mental 
 force must have been put in exercise. And if a man sets 
 before you, in all its breadth and clearness; a wide land- 
 scape, letting you see its main lines as distinctly as in a 
 surveyor's map, yet covering it with the very colors in 
 which nature has dressed it, it becomes mere stupidity and 
 ignorance to deny the display of real mental power. The 
 easel of a great painter might be covered with brilliant 
 colors, yet the whole would be a daub ; the picture he has 
 completed may show every tint on the easel, it may show a 
 great many more, and yet be no daub : in the one case, the 
 colors mean nothing, they are held together by no relation ; 
 in the other, every color is in its own place, every tint is 
 vocal, and the voice of the whole is one. Would it not be 
 a poor mistake, to confound the richness and abundance of 
 the picture's color, with the confused brilliancy produced 
 by the many colors of the daub ? Yet this is precisely the 
 pitiful and painful mistake of those critics, who, having 
 discovered, by the exercise of' their critical genius, that 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 293 
 
 where there is verbiage there must be many words, exclaim, 
 whenever they perceive many words, that there is verbiage. 
 Ruskin's words are used to bring out the minutest facts of 
 nature, the light and shade on a blade of grass, the blend- 
 ing of hue in the rainbow, the melting into each other of 
 the cloud-shadows upon the mountain side ; and critics such 
 as now find admission into the Quarterly, whose verbal 
 powers, of fair average excellence^ are to those of Ruskin, 
 as the pictorial talents of a sign-painter are to those of Noel 
 Paton, sneer at his facile word-painting, To show the 
 flickering dance of sunbeams on forest leaves, to set before 
 us the very spring and prancing of the waves, to word-paint 
 the wreathing of the mist and every caprice and humor of 
 the sky, required rather an abundant supply of words ; but 
 the supply at Ruskin's command was a small matter to his 
 power of laying them on, to the exquisite precision with 
 which he applied every vocable. In all that we are now 
 saying, we must, for proof, appeal mainly to our own experi- 
 ence, and refer the reader to Ruskin's own, pages. We do 
 not, for our part, recall a single instance, in which he has 
 deliberately set himself to place a scene before our eyes, 
 without enabling us, after a sufficiently close and steady 
 look, to see it in its grand, consistent features. "We invite 
 readers to test the matter for themselves. But we shall 
 quote one passage, which exhibits as well as any we can 
 recollect, the so-called verbiage of Ruskin. Our readers 
 shall peruse it, before we make any remarks upon it. It is 
 a description of the Fall of SchafFhausen : — " Stand for an 
 hour beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side 
 where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of 
 water first bends, unbroken, in pure polished velocity, over 
 the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering 
 them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift 
 25* 
 
294 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from 
 above darts over it like a falling star ; and how the trees 
 are lighted above it under all their leaves, at the instant 
 that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that 
 foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chryso- 
 prase ; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white 
 flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a 
 rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, 
 filling the air with light ; and how, through the curdling 
 wreaths of the restless crashing abyss below, the blue 
 of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows 
 purer than the sky through white rain-cloud ; while the 
 shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading 
 and flushing alternately through the choking spray and 
 shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick 
 golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the 
 wild water ; their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like 
 sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the 
 cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar 
 dies away ; the dew gushing from their thick branches 
 through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and spark- 
 ling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, 
 feeding the lichens which chase and chequer them with 
 purple and silver." 
 
 It is possible that, at first glance, this may appear a mass 
 of gorgeous confusion: and it is certain that a hurried 
 glance will convey but a slight idea of what it contains. 
 In following the long evolution of the sentence, something 
 of fatigue may be experienced, and the description would 
 doubtless have been more generally and readily appreci- 
 ated, had the mind been rested by one or two stops skil- 
 fully inserted. But it may be questioned whether the 
 impression of concentrated power, of mass, of urgent, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 295 
 
 irresistible haste, could have been so well conveyed by 
 a succession of sentences. The point to be peculiarly 
 noted, however, is the nature of the "verbiage," abun- 
 dant enough no doubt, of the passage. Let the reader, 
 amid all its plenitude of adjective, set his finger, if he can, 
 upon an epithet that could be dispensed with, a word which 
 does not state some fact or define some quality. Had the 
 same space been filled with ejaculations about the grandeur 
 and sublimity of the scene — had we heard only of Titanic 
 power, and inexpressible beauty, and tremendous velocity 
 — there would have been an example of verbiage. But 
 examine the passage clause by clause, and you find that 
 its richness of expression is not by any means so remark- 
 able as its condensation. The significance of the adjective 
 " polished," applied to the velocity of the vaulted water, 
 might be expanded into pages. You are told, in one 
 word, that the rocks at the brow of the cataract are 
 arched; you see the light breaking up from the foam 
 under the leaves; you are led from sight to sight, until 
 you know the tints of the lichens on the wetted rocks, 
 and mark the -foam paling the water under its surface ; 
 and from first to last there is not an indefinite touch, a 
 superfluous word. To attempt to detail what is in the 
 passage is found to be impossible: you cannot say what 
 Ruskin has told you in so few words as he has told it. 
 
 But masterly as this description is, it can rank only with 
 the less remarkable among Ruskin's pictures of external 
 nature. The subject to be described was comparatively 
 circumscribed, and there was little assistance rendered to 
 the associative imagination, in connecting its bare facts 
 with human sympathy. But in descriptions too numerous 
 to be referred to here, — in such pictures as that of the 
 Campagna of Rome under evening light, and that of Tur- 
 
29G JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 ner's Slave Ship, — not only are the grand lines of fact put 
 strongly in, but that idealizing power is displayed, which, 
 on whatever occasion, or in whatever form exhibited, 
 whether in the poetry of a Shakspeare or Byron, in 
 the prose of a Carlyle, a Richter, a Ruskin, in the colors 
 of a Titian or Turner, seems to be radically the same, 
 and marks the highest genius. If any single example of 
 Ruskin's display of this power were to be regarded as 
 more than an indication, a faint suggestion, of what he 
 has done, the error would be complete : but if the reader 
 can appreciate a very small part in its bearing upon the 
 whole, and thinks it important, as we do, that, in every 
 form of criticism, at least an opportunity should be af- 
 forded of comparing the writer's words with his allega- 
 tions, he may not deem it inappropriate that we subjoin 
 two passages, which, if not in Ruskin's very highest style, 
 /yet appear to us to display, along with the unfailing real- 
 i ism, the scientific accuracy, of which so much has been said, 
 traces of that higher power which is characteristic of con- 
 summate genius. The first is from the second volume of 
 The Stones of Venice, the second from the third volume 
 of Modern Painters. 
 
 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE SCENERY OF EUROPE, IN ITS CORRE- 
 SPONDENCE WITH NATIONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 " The charts of the world which have been drawn up by 
 modern science have thrown into a narrow space the ex- 
 pression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never 
 yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator 
 to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which 
 exists between northern and southern countries. We know 
 the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance 
 and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their ful- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 297 
 
 ness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives 
 on the Apennines ; but we do not enough conceive for our- 
 selves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a 
 bird sees in its migration, — that difference between the dis- 
 trict of the gentian and of the olive, which the stork and 
 the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. 
 Let us for a moment try to raise ourselves even above the 
 level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying 
 beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient pro- 
 montories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry 
 spot of thunder, a gray stain of storm, moving upon the 
 burning field ; and here and there a fixed wreath of white 
 volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes ; but for 
 the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and 
 Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of golden pave- 
 ment into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, 
 with bossy beaten-work of mountain chains, and glowing 
 softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frank- 
 incense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and 
 plumy palm, that abate with their gray-green shadows the 
 burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of por- 
 phyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass further 
 towards the north, until we see the orient colors change 
 gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pas- 
 tures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and 
 dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians, stretch from 
 the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through 
 clefts in gray swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the 
 mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands : 
 and then, further north still, to see the earth heave into 
 mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bor- 
 dering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt 
 of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and 
 
298 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 grisly islands, amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, 
 and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses 
 of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail 
 from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north 
 wind bites the peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the 
 wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, death-like, its white 
 teeth against us out of the polar twilight. And having 
 once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris 
 of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down 
 nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of 
 animal life : the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures 
 that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the 
 southern zone ; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glis- 
 tering serpents and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. 
 Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color and 
 swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and 
 shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern 
 tribes ; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the 
 tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope 
 with the elk, the bird of Paradise with the osprey; and 
 then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which 
 the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their 
 being, let us not condemn, but rejoice in the expression 
 by man of his own rest in the statutes of the land which 
 gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he 
 sets side by side the burning gems, and smoothes with 
 soft sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a cease- 
 less sunshine, and rise into a cloudless sky : but not with 
 less reverence let us stand by him, when, with rough 
 strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth anima- 
 tion out of the rocks which he has torn from among the 
 moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air 
 the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 299 
 
 work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the nor- 
 thern sea ; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but 
 full of wolfish life ; fierce as the winds that beat, and 
 changeful as the clouds that shade them." 
 
 THE GREAT MOUNTAINS. 
 
 " Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the 
 richness of the valleys at their feet ; the gray downs of 
 southern England, and treeless coteaux of central France, 
 and gray swells of Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm 
 they may possess in themselves, are at least destitute of 
 those which belong to the woods and fields of the Low- 
 lands. But the great mountains lift the lowlands on their 
 sides. Let the reader imagine, first, the appearance of the 
 most varied plain of some richly cultivated country ; let 
 him imagine it dark with graceful woods, and soft with 
 deepest pastures ; let him fill the space of it, to the utmost 
 horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents of 
 scenery and life; leading pleasant streamlets through its 
 meadows, strewing clusters of cottages beside their banks, 
 tracing sweet footpaths through its avenues, and animating 
 its fields with happy flocks, and slow wandering spots of 
 cattle ; and when he has wearied himself with endless 
 imagining, and left no space without some loveliness of its 
 own, let him conceive all this great plain, with its infinite 
 treasures of natural beauty and happy human life, gathered 
 up in God's hands from one edge of the horizon to the 
 other, like a woven garment ; and shaken into deep falling 
 folds, as the robes droop from a king's shoulders ; all its 
 bright rivers leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its 
 fall, and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its 
 slopes, as a rider rears himself back when his horse plunges ; 
 and all its villages nestling themselves into the new wind- 
 
300 JOHN BUSKIN. 
 
 ings of its glens; and all its pastures thrown into steep 
 waves of greensward, dashed with dew along the edges of 
 their folds, and sweeping down into endless slopes, with a 
 cloud here and there lying quietly, half on the grass, half in 
 the air ; and he will have as yet, in all this lifted world, 
 only the foundation of one of the great Alps. And what- 
 ever is lovely in the lowland scenery becomes lovelier in 
 this change : the trees which grew heavily and stiffly from 
 the level line of plain assume strange curves of strength 
 and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain 
 side ; they breathe more freely, and toss their branches 
 more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear 
 light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree; the 
 flowers which on the arable plain fell before the plough, now 
 find out for themselves unapproachable places, where year 
 by year they gather into happier fellowship, and fear no 
 evil ; and the streams which in the level land crept in dark 
 eddies by unwholesome banks, now move in showers of 
 silver, and are clothed with rainbows, and bring health and 
 life wherever the glance of their waves can reach." 
 
 We have said that if Ruskin has erred in his express Art- 
 criticism, he cannot be defended from the charge of having 
 radically mistaken his duty, and failed in what he selected 
 as the business of his life. This remark we do not in any 
 sense qualify. We beg leave, also, to observe, that for 
 artists and their art$ we entertain a deep respect. Painters 
 in general are certainly raised above the ordinary run of 
 men, by the delicacy of their tastes and by their devotion 
 to beauty : painting is an art which may afford the purest 
 delight, and ennoble while it pleases. But we must main- 
 tain that, however erroneous Ruskin's Art-theories might be 
 proved, the revelations of nature which he has made would 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 301 
 
 entitle him to separate and lofty honor ; and that, when 
 artists, believing they demonstrate his errors in matters 
 connected solely with Art, imagine that they altogether 
 disentitle him to regard, — prove him a man of small 
 capacity or achievement, — they wholly misconceive their 
 powers^ and the attitude in which both they and Ruskin 
 stand to the public. They and he, looked at in one impor- 
 tant aspect, stand between us and nature. If Ruskin's 
 word-paintings show us more of nature than their color- 
 paintings, we shall not permit the manner of their repre- 
 sentation to prejudice us against him and in favor of them. 
 Art may be difficult to know and understand : but nature 
 is not so easy. Custom has cast over her face its obscuring 
 veil ; we require to be awakened to pierce it, we require to 
 have it drawn aside that we may see the features beneath. 
 It seems to be an ordinance of Providence in this world — 
 and it is a benign and beautiful ordinance — that everything, 
 excepting, and that perhaps not always, the influence of the 
 Divine Spirit on the mind, possessed and enjoyed by man, 
 shall come to him through the instrumentality of his fellows. 
 The truth perceived first by one becomes the property of 
 millions ; the delight, first felt in a single breast, is com- 
 municated by sympathy, and thrills through a thousand 
 bosoms. A great man lends a voice to the hills and adds a 
 music to the streams : he looks on the sea, and it becomes 
 more calmly beautiful, on the clouds and they are more 
 radiantly touched : he becomes a priest of the mysteries, a 
 dispenser of the charities, of nature, and men call him poet. 
 Ruskin stands among a select and honored few, who have 
 thus interpreted nature's meaning, and conveyed her bounty 
 to mankind. He has spoken with a voice of power, of 
 those pictures, which ever change yet are ever new, which 
 are old yet not dimmed or defaced, of the beauty of which 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 26 
 
302 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 all Art is an acknowledgment, of the admiration of which 
 all Art is the result, but which, having hung in our view 
 since" childhood, we are apt to pass lightly by. He has 
 reminded us that Morning, rosy-fingered as in the days of 
 Homer, has yet a new and distinct smile at each arising, 
 and that, as she steps along the ocean, its foam is, always 
 wreathed into new broideries of gold and roses. He has 
 shown us, by evidence which none can resist, that no true 
 lover ever trysted with Spring, by her own fountains or in 
 her own woods, without seeing some beauty never seen 
 before. At his bidding, we awake to a new consciousness 
 of the beauty and grandeur of the world. We have more 
 distinct ideas as to what it is ; we know better how to look 
 for it. Summer has for us a new opulence and pride ; 
 Autumn, which is Summer meeting death with a smile, a 
 new solemnity and a more noble sadness. Even to Winter 
 we learn to look for his part in nature's pageantry, in 
 nature's orchestral beauty ; we find a new music in his 
 storms, a new majesty in his cataracts, a more exquisite 
 pencilling in his frost-work. Artists and artist-critics may 
 rail at Ruskin as they please ; but in order to prove his 
 word-painting a small matter, they must prove that Riehter's 
 most wonderful passages are mean achievements, that Shel- 
 ley and Wordsworth, in their moments of richest inspiration, 
 wrote what was " more easy than is supposed," and that 
 those descriptive passages which are the masterpieces of 
 Byron are of small account. We do not call Ruskin a poet. 
 The name, we hold, cannot be claimed unless the distinctive 
 form of poetry, the metrical, has been adhered to. But in 
 the elements of descriptive power, which underlie the garb, 
 either of prose or verse, we have no hesitation in declaring 
 that, with the exception of one or two of Byron's highest 
 efforts, such as his description of the storm in the, Alps, the 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 303 
 
 boasted and magnificent descriptions of that poet are 
 decidedly inferior to those of Ruskin. Such a series of 
 descriptions, indeed, as Ruskin's, does not, in prose or 
 verse, exist in the English language, or, we are assured, in 
 any other. The value of Ruskin's Art-criticism, we have 
 yet to determine : but it at least must be conceded, that he 
 who has added to our knowledge of nature, to an extent 
 which would have given him high standing as a man of 
 science, and who has irradiated nature by his imaginative 
 power, in a manner which entitles him, in all but the form 
 of his works, to take rank with the greatest descriptive 
 poets that ever lived, is a man of rare and precious genius. 
 
 But it is time that we left this wider field, and addressed, 
 ourselves to the strict inquiry, how the marvellous natural! \ 
 sensibility of Ruskin has availed him in treating of the I 
 theory and practice of Art. We shall confine ourselves, I 
 almost entirely, to an investigation of his opinions on 
 painting. 
 
 There are two points of view, by taking which succes- 
 sively, it will be possible to obtain a fair and dispassionate 
 idea of Ruskin's opinions on pictorial Art. The first is by 
 considering his great work, Modern Painters; the second, 
 by glancing generally at the way he has applied his princi- 
 ples to the criticism of individual artists and schools. 
 
 It is of importance, particularly in view of the assaults 
 which have been made upon Ruskin as an Art-critic, that 
 we exhibit his fundamental ideas, as little as may be in our 
 words, and as much as our limits permit in his. 
 
 In the very outset of Ruskin's first volume, we find him 
 speaking thus : — 
 
 ""Painting, or Art generally, as such, with all its techni- 
 calities, difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a 
 noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of 
 
304 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 thought, but by itself nothing. He who has learned what 
 is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, 
 the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as 
 yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to 
 be expressed. He has done just as much towards being 
 that which we ought to respect as a great painter, as a 
 man who has learned how to express himself grammati- 
 cally and melodiously has towards being a great poet. 
 The language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in 
 the one case than in the other, and possesses more power 
 of delighting the sense, while it speaks to the intellect ; 
 but it is, nevertheless, nothing more than language, and 
 all those excellences which are peculiar to the painter as 
 such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision, and force 
 are in the words of the orator and the poet, necessary to 
 their greatness, but not the tests of their greatness. It 
 is not by the mode of representing, and saying, but by 
 what is represented and said, that the respective greatness 
 either of the painter or the writer is to be finally deter- 
 mined." 
 
 The nature of Ruskin's system of criticism will mani- 
 festly depend upon the meaning he attaches to the "thought" 
 and the "language" here spoken of. It is indispensable, 
 therefore, to ascertain that meaning with certainty and pre- 
 cision. The illustration by which the author explains the 
 passage is first of all worthy of attention. 
 
 " Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or 
 pictures (I use the word as synonymous) which modern 
 times have seen: — the 'Old Shepherd's Chief-mourner.' 
 Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair 
 of the dog. the bright sharp touching of the green bough 
 beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and 
 the folds of the blanket, are language — language clear and 
 
JOHN RU SKIN. 305 
 
 expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure 
 of the dog's breast against the wood, the convulsive cling- 
 ing of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the 
 trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid close and 
 motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the 
 eye in its utter hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which 
 marks that there has been no motion nor change in the 
 trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the 
 coffin lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the 
 spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last 
 closed, indicating how lonely has been the life — how 
 un watched the departure, of him who is now laid solitary 
 in his sleep ; — these are all thoughts, — thoughts by which 
 the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal 
 merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as 
 a work of high art, and stamps its author, not as the neat 
 imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, 
 but as the Man of Mind." 
 
 It is just possible that one might be so ignorant of the 
 nature and philosophy of language, as to mistake the mean- 
 ing of this explicit and satisfactory passage. There may be 
 men, and they may even write in the Quarterly, who can 
 find something to bewilder them in the description of the 
 "wood of the coffin and of the folds of the blanket" as 
 " language — language clear and expressive in the highest 
 degree," and who can evince their astonishment by inquir- 
 ing " what, after all, does such painting express, but hair, 
 wood, and wool?" But it is not necessary to suppose men 
 in general unable to perceive, that it is just this fact of 
 their being hair, wood, and wool, in visible, pictorial rep- 
 resentation, and not the alphabetical characters which are 
 used to express these things, by cultivated reviewers, that 
 makes them a language. "Were the daguerreotype to be 
 
 perfected so as to give the color as well as the form 
 26* 
 
306 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 of nature, it would render nature's language perfectly. 
 It could not, of course,, do so, without giving nature's 
 meaning too, whether deep and solemn, as in mountain 
 scenery, commonplace, as in a street, or trivial, as in a 
 heap of rubbish or a Dutch kitchen. But only in its ap- 
 plication by mind, in its application to nature's scenes of 
 exceeding grandeur, or to passages of human history of 
 pathos and significance, could it produce pictures really 
 great, full of meaning and thought. A perfect daguerreo- 
 type would render a barber's shop or haystack, as well as 
 a mountain gorge lit by its cataract, or an army reposing 
 under the sinking sun after a hard-fought day. The lan- 
 guage in each of these cases would be alike faultless ; and 
 if an erudite critic were to slip into the assertion that the 
 language of painting " is in itself everything '," he would 
 have slipped into the declaration that the two former pic- 
 tures would be as noble as the two latter. Even with 
 your perfect daguerreotype you must know how to apply 
 it before you have valuable pictures ; and even its best 
 application would not give the highest Art ; nay, the mind 
 of a great painter will do, without a daguerreotype, whati 
 a man of no genius could never do with it. 
 
 But there is another point which this illustration makes 
 clear. If it were the duty of a critic, professing to stand 
 between the public and an author, and to declare plainly 
 and honestly what the latter means, to fix upon a word, 
 and attempt, with it, to nail his author down to a certain 
 meaning or no-meaning, there might be defence set up for 
 one who, settling on the word " thought," in the first of 
 the passages just quoted, should "glance at the different 
 fields of thought — moral, speculative, theoretic, poetic, 
 epigrammatic,"* and so lead himself and his readers a 
 
 * Quarterly Review : March, 1856. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 307 
 
 ludicrous wild-goose chase in quest of the meaning of 
 Buskin. But if the duty of one who comes between the 
 public and an author is precisely the reverse of this, how 
 can any apology be offered for the man who, so coming, 
 should put aside the simple and intentional explanation of 
 Ruskin's meaning in the use of tne word, which his illus- 
 tration affords. The thoughts pointed out by him in 
 Landseer's picture might be called facts, truths, touches 
 of sentiment, proofs of observation or reflection, and so on. 
 It is at least plain that if you inquire only after what 
 precisely occupies " the thinking faculty," you will be led 
 unpardonably as well as hopelessly astray. In the very 
 quotation in which the word "thought" occurs, as that of 
 which the painter's language is the vehicle, the expression 
 " what is represented and said," is used as precisely equiva- 
 lent. What if a critic seized the former and refused to 
 look at the latter ? 
 
 But there is more still to be said on this point. Raskin 
 is a somewhat voluminous writer, and it might be fair, 
 always supposing that you did not wish to gratify a pitiable 
 malignity but to perform a duty to the public, to proceed 
 beyond one or two of his pages, and endeavor to discover 
 whether subsequent declarations do not cast light upon 
 those previously made. The previous quotations are im- 
 portant to an intelligence of Ruskin's meaning, but the 
 following, and one or two others, are also of essential 
 moment. He thus defines greatness in pictures : — • 
 
 " The greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind 
 of the spectator the g reatest num ber of the greatest idea s." 
 This expression is met witlfln the same important initiatory 
 chapter from which we made the former quotations. It Is" 
 difficult to imagine a mistake as to the identity of meaning 
 between the words "thought" in the one case, and "ideas" 
 in the other. And if the author had first categorically 
 
3J8 ' JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 stated what the ideas which he looked for in pictures were, 
 and then devoted two volumes to the detailed illustration 
 and exposition of them, would not a distinguished re- 
 viewer look very foolishly pompous, in taking that sublime 
 " glance at the different fields of thought — moral, specula- 
 tive, theoretic, poetic, epigrammatic," when, all the time, 
 the information needed lay at his feet ? The distinguished 
 reviewer, endangering the stars with his sublime head, 
 would, we imagine, have fallen into a well ! The question 
 is one of simple fact. If what we state can be proved in 
 Ruskin' s words, surely the reviewer's position is some- 
 what ridiculous, surely his academic robes are somewhat 
 draggled. 
 
 What, then, are the ideas which Mr. Ruskin looks for in 
 Art ? It is perhaps unfortunate that he has used the word 
 " number" in precisely the connection in which it appears; 
 for it affords a color, if no more, to quibbling. Candid 
 criticism, however, will take it for granted, that the ideas 
 he desiderates, however numerous, must, in his view, com- 
 bine in one unity. Where unity is secured, where the 
 ideas own the sway of one imperial thought, it is most 
 true that the greater their number, the greater the pic- 
 ture is. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin proceeds to classify his Ideas as follows : we 
 invite readers to consider whether the sentences, with 
 which he introduces the classification, are calculated to 
 mislead a candid critic, or to remove any misconception 
 which might have been already formed. 
 
 "The definition of Art," these are his words, "which I 
 have just given requires me to determine what kinds of 
 ideas can be received from works of Art, and which of 
 these are the greatest, before proceeding to any practical 
 application of the test. 
 
 " I think that all the sources of pleasure, or of any other 
 
JOHN BUSKIN. 309 
 
 good, to be derived from works of Art, may be referred to 
 five distinct heads. 
 
 " I. Ideas of Power. — The perception or conception of 
 the mental or bodily powers by which the work has been 
 produced. 
 
 "II. Ideas of Imitation. — The perception that the thing 
 produced resembles something else. 
 
 "III. Ideas of Truth. — The perception of faithfulness in 
 a statement of facts by the thing produced. 
 
 " IV. Idea3 of Beauty. — The perception of beauty, 
 either in the thing produced, or in what it suggests or 
 resembles. 
 
 " V. Ideas of Relation. — The perception of intellectual 
 relations in the thing produced, or in what it suggests or 
 resembles." 
 
 It may be maintained that certain of these classes might 
 be merged in each other, and a different mode of statement 
 might by some be desired. But we think that if any one 
 deliberately and Carefully peruses the volumes, in which 
 Mr. Ruskin has, so far, explained and illustrated the cate- 
 gory, he can hardly fail to acknowledge that it is radically 
 correct, and that it furnishes the groundwork of a complete 
 system of Art-criticism. The first class is one with which 
 all are familiar, who have the slightest acquaintance with 
 critical opinion, or who have at all reflected on the mode in 
 which the efforts of man are pleasing to his fellows. The 
 secorfd and third classes might not, perhaps, have been 
 kept asunder, but represented as differing rather in rela-* 
 tion of degree, in inferiority or superiority, than in essential 
 nature. The difference, however, as Mr. Ruskin explains 
 it, is by no means shadowy, the delight in imitation being 
 confined to the mere pleasant illusion of the senses, while the 
 delight in truth can extend to the most sublime facts, both 
 
310 JOHN RTJSKIN. 
 
 of physical nature and of human feeling. To the discus- 
 sion of the Ideas of Beauty, the whole of the second 
 volume of Modern Painters is, more or less directly, de- 
 voted. The Ideas of Relation comprehend " all those con- 
 veyable by Art, which are the subjects of distinct intellec- 
 tual perception and action, and which are therefore worthy 
 of the name of thoughts." " Under this head," we are 
 informed further, "must be arranged everything produc- 
 tive of expression, sentiment, and character, whether in 
 figures or landscaj^es," and it especially includes the high- 
 est human interest. 
 
 It must be carefully noticed that the part of the whole 
 work, Modem Painters, in which the Ideas of Relation 
 would have come to be discussed and illustrated, has not 
 yet appeared, and may perhaps never appear. After a 
 comparatively brief investigation of the Ideas of Power 
 and of Imitation, the whole of the first volume was de- 
 voted to the Ideas of Truth. In this portion of the work 
 was displayed that marvellous acquaintance with the facts 
 of nature, of which we have already spoken. After the 
 Ideas of Truth came the Ideas of Beauty, constituting 
 Part III., and theoretically treated of in the second vol- 
 ume. In it is drawn out that noble theory, which affirms, 
 of all inherent beauty, that it is typical of the Divine attri- 
 butes ; a theory of which the metaphysical profundity may 
 be found to be as remarkable, as the celestial purity of 
 religious feeling, and the mellow splendor of eloquence, 
 with which it is explained. Then there was a pause 
 The symmetrical completion of the work required eithei 
 that the manifestation of the Ideas of "Beauty, in Art and 
 in nature, should be traced, with a fullness corresponding 
 to that with which the Ideas of Truth had been exhibited, 
 — a proceeding, we suspect, anticipated in the first volume, 
 
JOHN RUSK IN. 311 
 
 — or that the Ideas of Relation should be at once taken 
 up. But volume third, consummate as was the power it 
 displayed, proved, in relation to the outlined scheme of 
 the book, an episode. It took up " many things," not' 
 expressly the Ideas of Relation. Nor has the fourth vol- 
 ume returned to the subject. It treats of "Mountain 
 Beauty," which might, in great measure, be styled Moun- 
 tain Truth, and a remark about "changes" which have 
 been permitted " in the arrangement of the book," though 
 breaking the " symmetrical continuation" of the previous 
 volumes, renders one apprehensive that the original plan 
 has been lost sight of, and that the Ideas of Relation will 
 never be expressly taken up. 
 
 We confess that this seems to us matter for regret. In 
 the first place, Mr. Ruskin himself distinctly declares these 
 ideas to be the most important with which Art can be 
 conversant. If he neglects their formal treatment, it may 
 be very plausibly urged that he has condemned himself. 
 In the next place, a thorough discussion of these ideas, and 
 the accordance of a due prominence to the human interest 
 with which they are conspicuously allied, might remove a 
 charge which even able and candid critics may bring against 
 Mr. Ruskin. After the pretentious feebleness of the Quar- 
 terly, the insolence of the Edinburgh,, and the baseness of 
 Blackwood, the critique of Ruskin which appeared in the 
 National Review was refreshing and delightful. The 
 writer perceived one half of Ruskin's greatness. He 
 acknowledged his unequalled acquaintance wkh nature. 
 But he denied him a due, or at least a correspondent meas- 
 ure of human sympathy. He honestly conceived him to 
 love trees and mountains better than men. The mistake, 
 indeed, even in the present state of Ruskin's works, could 
 hardly have failed to yield to a sufficiently careful examina- 
 
312 JOHN RU SKIN. 
 
 tion. The chapter on the functions of the Workman in 
 Art in The Stones of Venice, the chapter on Vital Beauty 
 in man, and that on Mountain Gloom, both in Modern 
 Painters, much of the criticism in the Exhibition Pamph- 
 lets, and the whole tenor, indicated in a thousand expres- 
 sions, of Iiis works, conclusively evince that his heart beats 
 with human sympathy as powerfully, as his senses are acute 
 in the perception of beauty. Had Ruskin's energies been 
 early directed into a different channel, he might have been 
 a profound and sagacious writer on political or social sub- 
 jects. But such a critic as the National reviewer could not 
 have fallen into the mistake of supposing him open only to 
 impressions of natural beauty, if, in the discussion of Ideas 
 of Relation, he had balanced his treatment of natural 
 beauty by a proportionate investigation of the human 
 element in Art. 
 
 We are prevented by the narrowness of our limits, from 
 following Mr. Ruskin in the detailed treatment of the 
 various ideas of Art. It is hardly necessary that we should 
 do so. All we have already said of his descriptions of 
 natural appearance may be taken as declarative of what he 
 has done in discussing the Ideas of Truth. His theory of 
 Beauty, That, so far as it is inherent, it is typical of the 
 Divine attributes, and, so far as it is not inherent, it consists 
 in felicitous performance of vital functions, would require a 
 separate critique. How the first half of the theory can be., 
 rejected we hardly see, except to suit an atheistic scheme 
 of things. But whether the elements of the Beautiful do, 
 or do not, typify the Divine attributes, it is at least true 
 that suggestion of infinity, that unity, repose, symmetry, 
 purity, and moderation are characteristics of beauty in Art. 
 However, therefore, you may choose to apply it, the classi- 
 fication of these characteristics is neither vague, fanciful, 
 nor devoid of strict practical value. 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 313 
 
 Though not professing to subscribe to every one of Rus- 
 kin's theoretic opinions, we yet believe him, and think we 
 have at least indicated grounds for believing him, a compre- 
 hensive and scientific theorist in Art. But all theories are 
 in some sense but moulds into which the metal of fact is 
 run ; and it is an evidence of the preciousness of this metal, 
 that it can be melted from its old appearance and run into 
 new dyes, yet retain its inherent value. Mr. Ruskin was 
 gifted with the power of seeing new truth in nature, and if 
 he has given us that truth he has done a substantial work. 
 His theories may go, his facts cannot. Believing his 
 theories to stand, in the substance of them, stably on facts, 
 we are satisfied that they too will endure. But we have 
 still to glance at him, engaged in the work of practical 
 criticism, when, his theories aside, he brings his living force 
 to solve the artistic problems, to judge the artistic phenom- 
 ena, of his time. Do we find soundness or unsoundness, 
 consistency or inconsistency, here ? 
 
 Within the compass of that classification which we have 
 quoted, there was range enough for diversity, both in 
 degree, and nature, of power. Between the ideas of imita- 
 tion and the ideas of highest truth and relation, there was 
 room for drudging accuracy and for poetic invention. In 
 his treatment of schools and artists, Mr. Ruskin has acted 
 in accordance with a theory thus all-embracing. He has 
 recognized the smallest molehill of real worth : he has 
 ascended to the Himalayas of colossal power. Since, how- 
 ever, many men, who feel angry if you did not count them 
 clever, can perceive consistency in ' the straightness of a 
 lamp-post, but not in the strong stem, dividing branches, 
 and delicate foliage of a living tree, there have been critics 
 without end to pronounce Ruskin inconsistent. 
 
 Ruskin's practical criticism, in its true nature and essen- 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 27 
 
314 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 tial consistency, can be amply and pointedly illustrated, 
 by a single antithetic illustration: his opinion of Turner 
 in contrast or coincidence with his opinion of the pre- 
 Raphaelites. 
 
 Within the first thirty pages which Ruskin ever gave 
 to the world, marked applause was accorded to a piece 
 of pure idealization, a touch of highest poetry, from 
 the pencil of Turner. In the fourth volume of Modem 
 Painters, large space is devoted to a consideration of 
 the distinctively poetic, the creative, imagination, of that 
 painter. The imaginative power, which summons before 
 the eye of its possessor, as if in vision or dream, forms and 
 colors having no actual existence, but combining in a 
 beauty higher than that of external nature, is there dis- 
 tinctly contemplated ; an attempt even is made, — no one 
 but Ruskin could have dared it, — to enter, if we may so 
 speak, the chambers of Turner's mind, and to watch his 
 conceptions coming together. Explicit acknowledgment 
 is thus made, of the reality of the highest imaginative 
 exertion, and it is set in the seat of supreme artistic honor. 
 You must state facts very minutely in order to meet such 
 critics as Ruskin's ; else why should we make these refer- 
 ences at all ? Is not Ruskin most of all distinguished as 
 the expositor and eulogist of Turner, and is not Turner 
 the greatest landscape poet that ever used a brush ? No 
 painter ever so daringly magnified nature's forms, none 
 ever arranged them anew so superbly in novel combina- 
 tions, as Turner. It is evident, therefore, that Ruskin 
 acknowledges, and with emphasis, that highest excellence 
 in Art, which we may variously designate as the poetic, the 
 ideal, the creative. ^^ 
 
 Shortly after the appearance of the first volume of 
 Modem Painters, there began to attract attention a re- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 315 
 
 markable and original school of painting. It obtained the 
 name of the pre-Raphaelite school, from professing the 
 belief, that a pernicious conventionalism in Art dated from 
 the time of Raphael. On its banner, it inscribed the 
 word, Nature. The most conspicuous characteristic of its 
 handling was a daring, uncompromising realism, and the 
 most relentless of its realists was Everard Millais. The 
 newspaper wits were in a state of excitement and com- 
 motion. The young painters were pronounced a set of 
 miserable imitators, who could do nothing better than 
 trace cracks in brick walls, make you believe you saw a 
 bundle of hay within a picture frame, and perform despi- 
 cable little bits of trickery with feathers and hairs. The 
 general public was offended and repelled. The broad and 
 distant horizon, the free sunlight, the pleasing sweeps of 
 ©loud, the balanced masses of foliage, the regulated har- 
 mony of color, all of which had been confidently looked for 
 in a picture, were, in the pre-Raphaelite paintings, looked 
 forirrvain. The brethren would give you only what they 
 could see, so closely and so continuously, that they could 
 paint it line by line and tint by tint. No flowing cloud, 
 no undulating horizon, no breadth of woodland, had you 
 here. You were compelled to cramp yourself into the 
 corner of a room, to concentrate your attention on briars 
 and twining roots in the smallest nook of the dell, to be 
 happy if you got a bit of garden wall with the least pos- 
 sible modicum, straight, level, uninteresting, of cloud. 
 All this was intolerable. But one thing seemed clear : — 
 Ruskin, the unbounded admirer of Turner, the exultant 
 defender of him who gave more of sky and horizon than 
 any painter known to Art, would join the public and the 
 connoisseurs, in scourging these presumptuous youths into 
 summary oblivion. Such, as we trust it is not unbecoming 
 
Slu JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 to state, were precisely our own first impressions as to the 
 relation which must subsist between Ruskin and the pre- 
 Raphaelites. We were fresh from Modem Painters, and 
 the intense gratification the work had afforded to our love 
 of nature had inspired us with ardor in the study of Art. 
 With its exaltation of poetic thought over skilful execu- 
 tion, we had heartily sympathized. Cordially, if not very 
 intelligently, had we agreed that the Flemish school might 
 be "left in peace to count the spicula of haystacks and 
 the hairs of donkeys." With unfeigned astonishment and 
 perplexity, we heard that Ruskin defended the pre-Rapha- 
 elites. We were at fault. If Ruskin admired bareness, 
 narrowness, ugliness, we thought we must have strangely 
 misapprehended his words. The simple and honest course 
 to pursue was, to read Mr. Ruskin's own pamphlet on the 
 subject. We did so: and had not proceeded far when 
 we perceived, that our perplexity originated in partial 
 knowledge of Ruskin, and in still more partial knowledge 
 of the pre-Raphaelites. All that particularly offended us 
 in the pictures of the latter was, in itself, displeasing to 
 Ruskin. For narrowness, littleness, ugliness, in themselves, 
 he had no defence. But beneath all these, he discerned a 
 i devotion, not selfish, not conceited, but pure and manly, to 
 (/nature. He saw that the dexterities of the pre-Raphaelites 
 were not performed for their own sakes, but in determined 
 adherence to fact. He saw that the brothers were on the 
 right way, and he proclaimed it. He met our every objec- 
 tion in a manner more precise and explicit than we could 
 have pointed out, by bringing together and comparing 
 Turner and Millais. In the one, there was the eye of an 
 eagle and the soul of a poet ; the other had an eye like a 
 microscope and cultivated unflinching realism : but both, as 
 students of Art, sat at the feet of Nature. The pre-Rapha- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 317 
 
 elites, Ruskin distinctly asserted, were yet but scholars. 
 They were parted from Turner by a lifetime of study, 
 such as few men ever had passed through, and by pos- 
 session of genius, such as appears once in ages : but where 
 Turner had learned his highest lessons, they had also gone 
 to learn. It was plain that Ruskin was perfectly consist- 
 ent ; and a more accurate acquaintance with pre-Raphaelite 
 principles, aided by a more careful consideration of Rus- 
 kin's words, could hardly have failed, even without his 
 own explanation, to exhibit that consistency. For, in the 
 first volume of Modem Painters, occurred the following 
 passage. As one peruses it he cannot help asking in amaze- 
 ment, why, whenever Ruskin addresses young painters, 
 young whether in years or in faculty, he is assailed as if he 
 were addressing old, and why, whenever he praises the 
 works of genius fully developed, he is accused of inconsis- 
 tency for not similarly praising the works of beginners. 
 
 " From young artists," said Ruskin long ago, " nothing 
 ought to be tolerated but simple bona fide imitation of 
 nature. They have no business to ape the execution of 
 masters ; to utter weak and disjointed repetitions of other 
 men's words, and mimic the gestures of the preacher, with- 
 out understanding his meaning or sharing in his emotions. 
 We do not want their crude ideas of composition, their 
 unformed conceptions of the Beautiful, their unsystema- 
 tized experiments upon the sublime. "We scorn their ve- 
 locity; for it is without direction: we reject their decision; 
 for it is without grounds : we contemn their composition ; 
 for it is without materials : we reprobate their choice ; for 
 it is without comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, 
 nor compose, nor imagine, nor experimentalize ; but to be 
 humble and earnest in following the steps of nature, and 
 tracing the finger of God. Nothing is so bad a symptom, 
 27* 
 
318 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 in the work of young artists, as too much dexterity of 
 handling ; for it is a sign that they are satisfied with their 
 work, and have tried to do nothing more than they were 
 able to do. Their work should be full of failures; for 
 these are the signs of efforts. They should keep to quiet 
 colors, grays and browns ; and, making the earlier works 
 of Turner their example, as his latest are to be their object 
 and emulation, should go to nature with all singleness of 
 heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having 
 no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, 
 and remember her instruction ; rejecting nothing, selecting 
 nothing, and scorning nothing ; believing all things to be 
 right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth. Then, 
 when their memories are stored, and their imaginations 
 fed, and their hands firm, let them take up the scarlet 
 and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us 
 what their heads are made of. We will follow them wher- 
 ever they choose to lead ; we will check at nothing ; they 
 are then our masters, and are fit to be so. They have 
 placed themselves above our criticism, and we will listen 
 to their words in all faith and humility; but not unless 
 they themselves have before bowed, in the same submission, 
 to a higher Authority and Master." 
 
 I The man who thus recognizes every order of excellence, 
 from Turnerism to pre-Raphaelitism, must be substantially 
 sound as a critic of Art. As we listen to his commendations 
 of realism, we have only to inquire whether, as an Art- 
 education, nature ought to be paramount or not ? It need 
 scarcely be added, that, though Ruskin denounces artistic 
 slavery to any master, his whole exposition and vindication 
 of Turner evince that he can joyfully learn from all masters, 
 so far as they are interpreters of nature, or exhibit true 
 thought and emotion. He will gladly take the hand of 
 
JOHN BUSKIN. 319 
 
 Raphael to lead him to those fields of study where Raphael 
 learned to be what he was; he will earnestly strive to 
 enter into the moods of mind in which Raphael conceived 
 or executed : but he will not stand close up to the canvas 
 of Raphael, letting it shut out the light of heaven and the 
 loveliness of earth, and steal from him the thoughts and 
 facts which nature gave to him alone. 
 
 Has Ruskin's criticism of individual artists, pre-Raphaelite 
 or other, corresponded with the view we have just taken, 
 the facts we have just adduced? Has he neglected to 
 inform the pre-Raphaelites of their failings, to shake them 
 out of their crotchets? Has he shunned to make such a 
 remark as that the painting of truthful ugliness is the 
 " Nemesis of pre-Raphaelitism," indefensible in itself, though 
 to be laid at the door of those who goaded the pre-Raphael- 
 ites into fractiousness ? Has he refused to acknowledge 
 diverse excellence, to turn from the crystal transparency, 
 and outline sharp as a knife-edge, of John Lewis, to the 
 pouring skies and matted herbage of David Cox, bestow- 
 ing words of ardent commendation on both? Has he 
 overlooked the tender feeling hiding behind imperfect 
 execution in the pictures of Hook, because he prizes the 
 rugged facts of Millais ? He does not praise now as he 
 praised Turner : he waits until a Turner rise. 
 
 The Dutch school may deserve one other word. Mr. 
 Ruskin's willingness to consign all its productions to an 
 auto dafe looks at first singular. Were the expressions he 
 has used regarding it unqualified by the context and by the 
 rest of his works, they might admit of no defence. The 
 Dutch painters deserve deep respect as accurate narrators 
 of fact, and as honestly representative of a national charac- 
 ter. But considered in connection with the whole aim and 
 development of Art, the Dutch school is without hesitation 
 
320 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 / to be condemned. With all his admiration for artistic 
 truth, Ruskin's Art-instinct is far too sound to permit him 
 to forget that the end of Art is beauty, that her eye is ever 
 upwards. The Dutch artists, with the exceptions he 
 expressly makes, Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, rested in 
 their work. They did not press up and up, until the light 
 of common day paled in the higher imaginative radiance 
 never seen on sea or shore. The tendency of a devoted 
 study of their works might be to prevent artists from thus 
 perpetually going on. They were a pre-Raphaelite school 
 struck, at a certain point, with blindness. Had Ruskin 
 wholly approved them, his admiration of pre-Raphaelitism 
 would have been a sanction of its crudities, not a hope for 
 its perfection, and his praise of Turner, not the pinnacle of 
 /: a symmetrical building, but a contradiction. Thus, as is 
 always the case, a real consistency is most triumphantly 
 vindicated in and through an apj>arent inconsistency. 
 
 One thing Ruskin has always condemned without quali- 
 fication, and, besides of course, pure falsehood and sloven- 
 liness, it alone : The manufacture of poetry in form and 
 color, the production of great pictures by conventional 
 rules. No attempt to ape genius can either escape or 
 propitiate him : a thousand academies, chanting the praises 
 of cultured and pretentious mediocrity, would not daunt 
 him in his assault upon it. 
 
 It has been objected to Ruskin, and, not perhaps so inap- 
 propriately as may appear, by one who proclaims that in 
 the application of his intellectual powers there is "not one 
 single great moral quality," that he forces upon Art a moral 
 responsibility. An unbiassed consideration of Mr. Ruskin's 
 own words shows that he demands of landscape Art what 
 he finds in nature, a tendency, namely, to awaken certain 
 great and elevating ideas. A man of religion, a Christian, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 321 
 
 finds that all such ideas lead him up towards his Father in 
 heaven, and Ruskin, being thus led in nature, has to deplore 
 the twofold fact, that ancient Art does not so lead him, 
 and that Art in general has hitherto exhibited no power of 
 so leading men. He demands, in Art, earnestness, simplic- 
 ity, truthfulness, humility, knowing that, when the heart 
 is rightly strung, it will, by these, be turned in the direction 
 of Him who is the source of all such good gifts. The idea 
 of turning all Art into allegory, or of contriving landscapes 
 to suggest ethical doctrines or moral maxims, would be to 
 him as abhorrent, as the idea of graving wise saws on the 
 rocks, or pasting the trees with good advice from the copy 
 books. Yet we should omit a characteristic, without a con- 
 sideration of which it is impossible to form a comprehension 
 of Ruskin's mind and writings, if we did not take into 
 account his religious earnestness, his Christian piety. Of 
 this he cannot divest himself: if Art required him to divest 
 himself of it, he would abandon Art. Whether the reality 
 and depth of his Christianity have affected the soundness 
 of his artistic views, the reader must now judge for himself. 
 There was no reason why they should have done so and 
 they have not. On the other hand, they have led him into 
 regions of pure and beautiful thought, little known to 
 critics ; they have cast over his whole works a softened yet 
 steady-beaming glory, a benign and tranquil splendor; 
 they have caused to break out, ever and anon, as it were 
 tones of music, which waft you gently upwards, leaving 
 material beauty for spiritual, the things of earth for the 
 things of heaven. He has, as we saw, shown that Poetry 
 and Science, though different, are Sisters ; and as he shows 
 them they are looking towards God for his light to fall 
 ujDon both. Therefore it is that the works of Ruskin stand 
 apart from all that has ever been written on Art. They 
 
322 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 connect themselves with what is greatest and holiest in 
 human duty and devotion, with what is most solemn and 
 benign in the ways of God to man. The following passage 
 may illustrate these remarks. The author has been consid- 
 ering the characteristic of repose in works of Art. In 
 accordance with his uniform method of broadly human 
 treatment, he traces the nobleness of the quality in its 
 highest manifestations : — 
 
 " But that which in lifeless things ennobles them by seem- 
 ing to indicate life, ennobles higher creatures by indicating 
 the exaltation of their earthly vitality into a Divine vitality ; 
 and raising the life of sense into the life of faith : faith, 
 whether we receive it in the sense of adherence to resolu- 
 tion, obedience to law, regardfulness of promise, in which 
 from all time it has been the test, as the shield of the true 
 being and life of man ; or in the still higher sense of trust- 
 fulness in the presence, kindness, and word of God, in 
 which form it has been exhibited under the Christian 
 dispensation ; for, whether in one or other form — whether 
 the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion 
 fixed, in the following and receiving of that path and por- 
 tion, as in the Thermopylae camp, or the happier faithfulness 
 of children in the good giving of their Father, and of 
 subjects in the conduct of their King, as in the c Stand 
 still and see the salvation of God? of the Red Sea shore — 
 there is rest and peacefulness, the c standing still » in both, 
 the quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of 
 expectation unimpatient : beautiful even when based only, 
 as of old, on the self-command and self-possession, the per- 
 sistent dignity or the uncalculating love of the creature ; 
 but more beautiful yet, when the rest is one of humility, 
 instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we 
 have taken, but in the hand we hold." 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 323 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's writings afford three or four instances of 
 slips in reasoning, so manifest and so avoidable, that they 
 seem intentionally thrown in the way of those critics who 
 will always insist upon forming the estimate of a field of 
 wheat from its half-dozen bad ears. Thus, in one place, an 
 appeal on behalf of the decaying monuments of architec- 
 tural Art is founded on an analogy between wasting one's 
 own time and wasting that of one's ancestors. This is an 
 argument which one cares not to answer. Logic is unneces- 
 sary in the case ; — formal logic, indeed, as Mr. Macaulay, 
 and we suppose multitudes before Mr. Macaulay, remarked 
 long ago, is not used in the thinking operations of any 
 man ; — the intuitive sense of every one simply rejects it. 
 If, however, it had to be explicitly shown to be unsound, 
 the task could be performed in a moment. You do not 
 waste your own time, first, because it may be turned to 
 account by yourself, because it is. of value to you, second, 
 because you are responsible for it. But a dead man has 
 had all the value out of his time that he can have : and 
 death has forever closed his account of responsibility. A 
 man's fame may be filched from him after his death ; but 
 would you call destroying a man's renown synonymous with 
 wasting his time ? Whether there is any conceivable sense 
 in which a living man can waste a dead man's time is doubt- 
 ful, or rather not doubtful ; but no human reason, unless 
 nodding, will recognize a parallel between wasting your 
 own time when alive, and wasting your father's when he is 
 dead. With the object in furtherance of which Mr. Ruskin 
 adduced this strange argument, we cordially sympathize. 
 Again, in a volume very recently published, Mr. Ruskin 
 declares his preference for drawing, as a part of the educa- 
 tion of children, to writing. No one, he argues, can draw 
 without benefitting himself and his fellows ; few can write, 
 
324 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 without doing no good, — if we remember correctly his lan- 
 guage is even stronger, — to either. Of the extreme useful- 
 ness of drawing, considered educationally, we are convinced. 
 But to compare it with that art by which human feeling 
 is, in absence, all communicated, and which must be 
 regarded, side by side with reading, as one of those great 
 pillars on which all education rests, and to which all educa- 
 tion is secondary, is to propound an obvious paradox. 
 Next, and here a better show of defence can be made, Mr. 
 Ruskin, immediately after declaring it "probable" that " the 
 critical and executive faculties are in great part independent 
 of each other," allows himself to assert, that " a certain 
 power of drawing is indispensable to the critic of Art." 
 Had any word but "indispensable" been here used, it 
 might have passed. But this word puts in peril the vital 
 principle involved in the very nature of Art, and without 
 the clear acknowledgment of which we believe dilettantism 
 can never be destroyed or even met, that its effect is totally 
 independent of its methods of production. It is not an 
 easy thing to be able to form a correct judgment on works 
 of Art. The power is in proportion to the accuracy and 
 width of knowledge, possessed of man and nature ; and 
 such knowledge, if we inquire, is seldom either accurate or 
 wide. To give precision to observations made by the 
 senses, the power of drawing cannot perhaps be exag- 
 gerated. But it is only by enabling one to know nature, 
 that drawing assists him in judging of Art. If the faculty 
 of observation is naturally so acute, and has been so heed- 
 fully exercised, that it cannot be deceived as to the form or 
 hue of clouds or foliage, as to the aspects of passion or the 
 lines of thought, it qualifies its possessor to be a critic in 
 Art. Do you require to know the mysterious properties by 
 which the sunbeams and the metal produced the likeness, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 325 
 
 in order to say whether the daguerreotype has succeeded in 
 rendering the features of your friend ? To say that one 
 must be able to draw in order to judge of Painting is to 
 say that, in order to judge of Poetry, one must not only be 
 able to read, must not only have the power of placing its 
 visions before his eyes, but must be able to versify. A 
 fourth instance of inadvertency is found in Mr. Ruskin's 
 sharp attack upon Macaulay, for having, in his essay upon 
 Moore's Life of Byron, spoken in a sneering tone of the pic- 
 tures of Paradise in old Bibles. The point which cannot 
 fail to strike every reader is, that Mr. Macaulay did not con- 
 sider these pictures at all in their symbolic significance, 
 that he contrasted them, as delineations of an actual Para- 
 dise, with delineations true to nature, and that, so contrast- 
 ing them, he pronounced them, as Mr. Ruskin doubtless 
 would, absurd. The circumstance that Macaulay spoke of 
 the sets of pictures solely in illustration, both made it 
 legitimate for him to place them in any opposition he chose, 
 and put it out of the question that he should contemplate 
 the deliberate condemnation of either. You may say that a 
 bishop's mitre, considered as a mere covering for the head, 
 is absurd in comparison with a wide-awake ; but you would 
 not therefore speak disrespectfully of the mitre. Once 
 more, Mr. Ruskin has assailed, with a violence the less ■ 
 defensible that it is incidental, " metaphysicians and philos- 
 ophers." These " are, on the whole, the greatest troubles 
 the world has got to deal with." The metaphysician or 
 philosopher is specially defined to be " an affected Thinker, 
 who supposes his thinking of any other importance than as 
 it tends to work." If Mr. Ruskin will accept a definition 
 of work in accordance with his own noble doctrine of 
 utility, laid down in the commencement of the second 
 volume of Modem Painters, we shall agree with him in 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 28 
 
JOHN iiUSKIN. 
 
 denouncing all such persons as these. But we have yet to 
 learn that Kant was a less practical thinker than Plato, or 
 that Plato was less a metaphysician than Kant ; while we 
 look in vain for affected thinkers among the Fichtes and 
 Hamiltons of recent times. If Mr. Ruskin had given the 
 names of those whom he advises prudent people to brush 
 out of their way " like spiders," we might have agreed with 
 him or we might not. But his words will be understood as, 
 on the whole, deprecating the study of metaphysics, and 
 as such we regret them. It would of course be absurd to 
 enter here upon a eulogium or defence of the most sublime 
 studies, theology excepted, in which the intellect of man 
 can be engaged : but why should Mr. Ruskin thus gratui- 
 tously strive to alienate that audience, which, of all others, is 
 most fitted to learn of him, and of which it is the highest 
 compliment that we can pay him to say that he is worthy 
 to be the teacher ? 
 
 A few more instances of unwariness or inaccuracy might 
 be culled from Mr. Ruskin's works. But considering the 
 voluminousness of his writings, it is altogether absurd to 
 view them in any other light than that in which we re- 
 gard the noddings of Homer, or the grammatical and geo- 
 graphical slips of Shakspeare. They are, for one thing,-- 
 utterly insufficient to furnish an excuse for the manner in 
 which critics have treated Ruskin. We deliberately assert 
 that several of these have earned the just indignation of 
 Ruskin's audience, that is, of the educated world. The 
 writer in the Quarterly whose absolute blindness to the 
 whole meaning of Ruskin in his system of criticism, we 
 think we have already shown, and who is understood to be 
 no less imposing a personage than Sir Charles Eastlake, not 
 only says that his intellectual qualities are guided by no 
 moral principle whatever, that the truth of his conclusions 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 327 
 
 is to him " no object in the process of reasoning," but adds 
 that " his writings have all the qualities of premature old 
 age — its coldness, callousness, and contraction." It is our 
 firm belief that there is not, in the whole range of litera- 
 ture, an expression more amazing, more incomprehensible, 
 than this last. "We do not answer it : certainly not. We 
 only request readers, first to read any volume or any page 
 of Ruskin's, and then to ponder, one by one, the words, — 
 coldness, — callousness, — contraction, — as a description of 
 the author's spirit. But the charge of want of controlling 
 principle, of regardlessness of truth in conclusions, amounts 
 to a charge of utter falsity ; if our verdict is affirmative, we 
 convict Mr. Ruskin of being, not only a scoundrel, but a 
 scoundrel of the deepest dye, at once false and hypocritical. 
 If all Mr. Ruskin has ever alleged against living artists were 
 concentrated into one thunderbolt, it would fall like a rocket 
 compared with this. To make such an accusation without 
 ample and indubitable proof was surely to run the risk of 
 being excluded from all honorable society. And what is 
 Sir Charles's proof? Why, in the first place, we hear of 
 Ruskin's " revilings of all that is most sacred in the past, 
 and his insults to all who are most sensitive in the present." 
 This about reviling the sacred past is, let us plainly say, 
 insufferable drivel. Ruskin feels, and has expressly said, 
 that the dead can be pained by no criticism ; and it is an 
 insult to common sense, to call in question a man's moral 
 integrity, because he rubs the gilt from ancient names. As 
 for insults to the living, the reference is, no doubt, chiefly 
 to the pamphlets on the Academy Exhibitions. It so hap- 
 pens that we agree with nearly every word of the first of 
 these, which alone could be charged with severity, and with 
 no word of it more cordially, according to our humble 
 capacity, than that which condemns Sir Charles Eastlake's 
 
328 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 insipid and mawkish Beatrice. There is nothing in the 
 pamphlet which a gentleman might not have written, and 
 which gentlemen might not accept. It may perhaps be, 
 that artists in general will not thank the president, for 
 leading ns to believe, that they all take to whimpering, when 
 Ruskin, never casting a shadow of reflection on their moral 
 qualities, points boldly and bluntly out their artistic short- 
 comings. But there is another department of proof, by 
 which Sir Charles would establish Mr. Ruskin's complete 
 moral worthlessness. He quotes several of those expressions 
 in which the latter reflects on the want of faith exhibited, as 
 he believes, at the present time, in the inanity of fashion- 
 able amusements, and such things, and we are to take these 
 expressions as satisfactory evidence of " malice, bitterness, 
 and uncharitableness." Readers must refer to pp. 405, 406, 
 vol. 196, of the Quarterly Revieio for this extraordinary pas- 
 sage. It is Sir Charles's last daring attempt to set reason, 
 sense, and even credibility, at defiance. We shall not ask 
 whether there may be reasons for attacking the faithless, 
 frivolous and selfish, besides malice, bitterness and uncharit- 
 ableness. Nor is it worth while to ask the honorable Sir 
 Charles why he has not seen fit to quote, say, the appeals 
 made by Ruskin on behalf of the Swiss peasants, as well as 
 the attacks on the follies of London. But is it not delight- 
 ful to figure the indignation of this virtuous president, 
 against *two such moral monsters as Mr. Carl yle and Mr. 
 Thackeray ? By bringing so grave and definite a charge 
 against Mr. Ruskin, and supporting it as he has done, Sir 
 Charles Eastlake puts himself in a position which few men 
 would like to occupy ! 
 
 The pert, penny-a-lining flippancy, with which the Edin- 
 burgh Review attacked Ruskin might best be treated with 
 silent contempt. But there is one point in its article, to 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 329 
 
 which allusion may be made. The reviewer notices that 
 autobiographical passage to which we had occasion to 
 refer ; and his mode of noticing it is a passing sneer. 
 Now it admits of no doubt whatever, that the question 
 as to how a critic's system is connected with his natural 
 endowment, is always of importance ; and the question is 
 in the case of Ruskin of more express and essential moment 
 than in any other. When you clear away all else, you find 
 that the grand, central affirmation, which he makes in the 
 face of the world, is, that he has brought into view a 
 certain number of the facts of nature. From this, all his 
 teaching branches out : on this, all his theories are, in one 
 sense or other, based. Take from him the circumstance 
 of having made a truthful interpretation, an authentic 
 revelation, of nature, and you take from him everything : 
 leave him this, and it is, as we said, impossible, on any 
 hypothesis, that his system can be destroyed, save in the 
 way in which a sterling currency is destroyed when it is 
 re-stamped. This being so, it was of the last importance 
 for the world to know that he had been pre-eminently 
 fitted, by original endowment, for making observations 
 upon natural appearance ; and to have turned aside, when 
 it came directly in his way to give information on the 
 point, would have been to display an unmanly and effemi- 
 nate sensitiveness. In the sneer of the Edinburgh reviewer, 
 therefore, there was a twofold insult : to the nation, whom 
 he pretended to instruct : to the man, whom he pretended 
 to understand. 
 
 But perhaps neither Sir Charles Eastlake's downright 
 accusation of malice, uncharitableness, and regardlessness 
 of truth, in one word, of total reprobacy and worthlessness, 
 nor the piteous frivolity of the last-mentioned imbecile, can 
 be pronounced, on the whole, so base and beggarly, as one 
 28* 
 
330 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 of the attacks, occurring incidentally in a rambling kind 
 of article, made upon Ruskin in Blackwood. The writer 
 of course discovers indubitable inconsistency in Ruskin's 
 works. Since, in order to know whether a system is con- 
 sistent or not, you must be of sufficient mental compass to 
 embrace it, as a whole, within your sphere of intellectual 
 vision, we should probably have to make important modi- 
 fications in the view we have presented of Ruskin and his 
 system, if critics of a certain order did not find both incon- 
 sistent. Having discovered his inconsistency, the critic 
 proceeds to account for it. Here imitation, and the finish 
 resulting only in imitation, and both the finish and the 
 imitation that end only in themselves, are decried; there 
 truth is exalted, and the finish subservient to truth is 
 praised. Over this remarkable contradiction, the expert 
 critic brings his little lamp. He has found it ! Ruskin 
 wanted to praise when he liked and blame when he liked, 
 according as whim or malice prompted, and so he put in 
 two different rules, that he might use the one at one time 
 and the other at another. The fear and dread of such 
 terrible critics as this small ebon dwarf lay upon Ruskin, 
 and so he contrived an elaborate trick, he uttered a deliber- 
 ate lie, that he might have a weapon against them in the 
 day of battle. We hope it was not Professor Aytoun who 
 propounded this theory. The writers in Blackwood toady 
 him so pitiably, that neither general rumor, nor internal 
 evidence, can make you perfectly certain that an article is 
 by him and not an imitation. By discovering what a man 
 finds in the character or system of another, one is led with 
 peculiar accuracy to the truth concerning the essential 
 nature of himself. We should experience a feeling of 
 strange and painful repulsion from the man, in whose breast 
 there dwelt a sympathy, casting so foul and dingy a light 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 331 
 
 as this. We should really not like to be capable of making 
 this discovery in connection with Raskin. We should fear 
 that there was some baseness, dark, deep-lying, insidious, 
 nestling about our heart and polluting all its streams. Such 
 a perception of moral taint has surely in it something of 
 recognition! Professor Aytoun is indeed no poet, except 
 so far as is implied in a certain command over that mechan- 
 ical part of poetry, which Milton, speaking of Dryden, 
 distinguished as versification ; and his character and poetry 
 seem on the whole a very pertinent exemplification of what 
 greatness is not. But he has one quality, both real and 
 precious, which, we shall hope, rendered it impossible for 
 him to find, in all the enthusiasm of feeling and glory of 
 description, exhibited in the works of Ruskin, simply the 
 paraphernalia of a small, nasty lie. Professor Aytoun 
 possesses a talent of genial banter, all his own. It is play- 
 ful yet manly, brilliant yet full of warm humor. If the 
 vein is not so deep as Thackeray's, we suspect it is more 
 rare. Thackeray has done nothing like The Raid of V 
 Pherson. The perception and appreciation of the two 
 aspects of Highland character, that of this piece and that 
 of the Cavalier ballads, shows a dramatic pliancy and 
 amplitude of mind really fine. Professor Aytoun's banter 
 could not be at present spared from British literature ; it is' 
 unique, and we could not supply its place. We shall hope 
 it was not he who arrived at this theory touching Ruskin. 
 
 The whole phenomenon of the author of Modern Paint- 
 ers and his critical assailants, the mode in which they 
 attack him and the relation in which they stand to him, is 
 singular and anomalous. About two hundred years ago, 
 the London theatres were ringing with the applause of the 
 dramatists of the Restoration. Pit, boxes, gallery, coffee- 
 house, court, echoed their renown. Meanwhile, in obloquy 
 
332 JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 and obscurity, John Milton was dictating Paradise Lost. 
 Deafened by the shouts in their ears, dazzled by the glare 
 of lamps and tinsel, the Congreves and Wycherlys knew 
 nothing of him. The dramas of the Restoration are fast 
 settling into that abyss of darkness, which swallows the 
 meteors of the night and the glimmering exhalations of the 
 fen. Paradise Lost is rising higher and higher above the 
 mountain-tops of the world, still in the morning of its fame. 
 Confident in the applause of Academies, strong in the 
 renown of Reviews, blatant mediocrity attempts to cry 
 down Ruskin. But he has told the world new truth, and 
 the world will do him justice if he bide his time. Medi- 
 ocrity may have it for years, but not for ages. 
 
 And he has not been without his reward. He has ex- 
 tended a magnificent patronage to those artists who reviled 
 him. That is a reward which he can appreciate. Was not 
 Actseon hunted by the base hounds he fed, and that because 
 he, too, caught a glimpse of the Beautiful ? But there are 
 artists who can appreciate Ruskin ; and the pre-Raphaelite 
 School, if not his express intellectual progeny, at least con- 
 forms to his rules. A critic in the National Review, very 
 different from those we have noticed, has recognized the 
 supremacy of his knowledge of nature, and may, by more 
 full consideration, learn that it is the accidental manifesta- 
 tion, rather than the real character, of his mind, which is 
 one-sided. It has been acknowledged in the Times that, let 
 artists say what they will, he first made the public really 
 aware what a painter they had in Turner. Best of all, the 
 young intellect of Great Britain has heard his voice, the 
 great heart of the nation has owned the might of his genius. 
 The clouds of conventionalism, which have brooded over 
 Europe for centuries, have been touched by his shafts of 
 light and must gradually disappear. He has been a recon- 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 333 
 
 ciler between Art and mankind, leading Art into the lowly 
 paths of life, setting Art by the household fire, and aston- 
 ishing men by the information, that the smile on her face is 
 actually warm and human. Let him not hear the critics ! 
 Let him not be baited into indignation ; let him not permit 
 his sympathies to be chilled by the companionship of con- 
 tempt ! Let him reveal those visions which God has given 
 him only to see among the hills ; let him tell us, as he only 
 can, of the streams that run among the valleys ; and let him 
 leave to those who have candidly read him, that small vent 
 for their gratitude, which they may find in answering his 
 critics. 
 
VI. 
 
 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Theke is a great deal in this rough-hewn, boisterous, not 
 very exquisitely mannered century, from which the whole 
 class of dilettants and fine gentlemen turn aside. There 
 has been no age in the world, and, until man radically 
 alters there will be none, in which the guinea's stamp has 
 not more or less drawn away men's eyes from the real 
 gold. The nineteenth century has its own sycophancies 
 and idolatries, its own Sir John Pauls and Barnums. But 
 set fairly in comparison with other times, our epoch seems 
 to be incontrovertibly distinguished by the scope it aifords 
 to real human faculty, and the willingness with which it 
 recognizes a man when it sees him. He has now a poor 
 chance who places his reliance upon ribands and parch- 
 ment. He puts himself in an unenviable position who 
 would now presume himself, on the strength of heraldic 
 distinctions and well-filled purse, in a position to do honor, 
 by the expression of his approval, or the bestowal of his 
 company, to the man of genius who has forced his way 
 from the ranks. Even within sixty years, a considerable 
 advance has been made in this respect within the British 
 Islands. There was something of the luxury of a haughty 
 condescension, not unmingled with self-applause, in the re- 
 ception of Burns by Edinburgh grandiosity at the close of 
 
HUGH MILLER. 335 
 
 last century. There was a serene complacency in the smil- 
 ing, as if it were peculiarly beautiful and praiseworthy in 
 people so fine and lofty to encourage the really entertaining 
 and talented ploughman. With rather an effort of kind- 
 ness, they patronized their king! Alexander Smith, his 
 birth as humble as that of Burns, and coming some sixty 
 years after him, finds a strong figure in the loathing with 
 which he would spurn a rich man's dole, whether, doubt- 
 less, of patronage or of pay. Tennyson, the poet of the 
 most refined culture, sees that feudalism with all its appor- 
 tionment of honor, has become a joke : — 
 
 " Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 From yon blue heaven above us bent, 
 The grand old gardener and his wife 
 Smile at the claims of long descent." 
 
 The duke who would come to confer distinction on Hugh 
 Miller, by taking his hand and showing him a little coun- 
 tenance, would get himself simply covered with derision. 
 A man stands now more solely and independently on the 
 pedestal of fiis individuality, than was ever the case before. 
 And no man is in this more strikingly representative of 
 his time than he of whom we here speak. What Hugh 
 Miller is and has, he owes entirely to himself. In the firm, 
 deliberate planting of his heavy step, in the quiet, wide- 
 open determination of his eye, in the unagitated, unaffected, 
 self-relying dignity of his whole gait and deportment, you 
 behold the man who feels that, whatever his origin, he 
 may, without pride or presumption, measure himself by 
 the standard of his manhood, and so look every man, of 
 what station soever, in the face. 
 
 Hugh Miller's education may also be pronounced if not 
 distinctive of the nineteenth century, yet highly character- 
 
;j3o HUGH MILLER. 
 
 istic of it. Theoretic education, the education of letters, 
 is in his case rather peculiarly blended with the education 
 of practice. He is one of the strong men who, amid the 
 sternest toil of mechanical employment, have become ac- 
 quainted, and that not cursorily and superficially but syste- 
 matically and profoundly, with those stores of book-knowl- 
 edge now open to all, if only they have learned to read 
 and have natural force not to be daunted by difficulty : yet 
 his character has derived its brawn and sinew from prac- 
 tice, from the rough jostling and wrestling of life. He has 
 all along been a man of action. Born of a wild, strong, 
 determined kindred, who seem from of old to have lived a 
 life of " sturb and strife," and in a rank of life just suffi- 
 ciently high to save him from knowing the pangs of want, 
 the world-oyster was to him very firmly closed, but he was 
 the kind of man to open it. Roughing it 'in the quarry or 
 barrack, seizing the brief intervals of labor to heap up 
 knowledge which a tenacious memory never lost, losing 
 no opportunity, ever ready to sti'ike occasion in its flight, 
 he suddenly emerged into public view, an expert literary 
 workman, and with store of scientific information, the fruit 
 of original discovery, sufficient to secure him a place among 
 the first physical philosophers of his time. Too long a stone- 
 mason to be ever sleeked down into the smooth drawing- 
 room gentleman, rugged, shaggy, burly, like a rough-hewn 
 statue of old red sandstone, he was yet possessed of a very 
 high intellectual culture, familiar with the discussions which 
 have agitated philosophical schools, intimately acquainted 
 with his country's poetry, and master of a style which 
 reminded one of Addison. 
 
 His school education was meagre. Through life, he has 
 learned more by the eye than by the ear, and he did not 
 find much to interest him in the instructions of the village 
 
HUGH MILLER. 337 
 
 pedagogue. He commenced Latin. But he found nothing 
 to attract him in the rudiments of the language. They 
 were exceedingly dry, and he saw no prospect of their 
 becoming alive or useful. He felt his eyes bandaged, and 
 he would not open his mouth to receive the necessary 
 though unpalatable fare. He experienced precisely such 
 a craving for the tangible and practical, as made Arnold, 
 when a boy, refuse to master quantities and accents, and 
 turn from "words" to "things." But Arnold regretted 
 his early refusal, and Miller has still more reason to lament 
 his boyish aversion to Latin. "We may remark in passing, 
 that though it ought to be the aim of every teacher to 
 cast, by his skill, an interest over the barest matters, it is 
 an indubitable principle in early education, that the pupil 
 should receive much blindfold, without either liking or un- 
 derstanding it. Both for the culture of faculty, and in 
 order to prepare a man for the many cases in life, in which 
 he will have to proceed unfaltering, when, for a time, the 
 interest flags, and the result is obscure or uncertain, this is 
 a principle of capital importance. 
 
 The fact, however, was so, that Hugh Miller left school 
 without gaining even an initial acquaintance with the an- 
 cient languages. It is in perfect consistence with all which 
 can be urged in honor of the present and the practical, to 
 avow a feeling of regret on account of this circumstance. 
 True it is, that there exists a vast and noble modern litera- 
 ture, and that the man who knows modern history and a 
 few modem languages, has undergone a very valuable intel- 
 lectual training. Yet it is a fact, at no time to be forgot- 
 ten, that every man is "heir of all the ages" behind him, 
 that, in virtue of his intellect, imagination, and sympathy, 
 he may connect himself with earliest times, that he may en- 
 rich and exercise his mind by a sympathizing acquaintance 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 29 
 
HUGH MILLER. 
 
 with every form of national and individual life, and every 
 masterpiece of mind, which the centuries behind him can 
 show. The past may be compared to a great, ever-ascend- 
 ing pyramid, to which each generation has added a layer 
 or stratum, and from the top of which each generation, as 
 it emerges into the light of the present, may see further 
 than its predecessor. Education is in every age more diffi- 
 cult than in the preceding. But the reward increases in 
 exact proportion to the labor : the higher the pyramid to 
 be ascended, the wider the prospect to be obtained. And 
 it is precisely the strong man, the man endowed with great 
 powers of intellectual vision, who will profit most largely 
 by the extension of the horizon. Hugh Miller, with his 
 fine, scholarly memory, and calm comprehensiveness of 
 glance, is just the man we should like to have seen stand- 
 ing on the pyramid of the past. 
 
 It may seem strange, but we must confess that our 
 regret that Hugh Miller did not at an early period ac- 
 quaint himself with the languages of antiquity is con- 
 firmed rather than removed by a consideration of his 
 style. That style we have already alluded to in terms 
 of commendation; and it were not easy to confer on it 
 too high praise. Dr. Buckland did not scruple to inform 
 the world, that he "would give his left hand to possess 
 such powers of description" as Hugh Miller. Recollect- 
 ing the staid and prosaic habits of professors, we cannot 
 but feel that Dr. Buckland must have been very much 
 struck indeed. The style in question is one of very rare 
 excellence. Easy, fluent, clear, and expressive, it adapts 
 itself, like a silken shawl, to every swell, and motion, and 
 curve of a subject. It is graphic yet not extravagant, 
 strong without vociferation, measured without formality, 
 classically chaste yet pleasingly adorned. It has the soft. 
 
HUGH MILLER. 339 
 
 flow and easy cadence which marked the best distinctive 
 styles of the eighteenth century, stubborned with some- 
 thing of the sterner music of the nineteenth. Such a style 
 belongs only to men of genius. Rich, lucid, pictorial, it 
 casts fascination over the old armor of the pterichthys, or 
 shows a whole geographical district at one view, the physi- 
 ognomic features strongly brought out, and the whole 
 robed in a beauty at once poetic and scientific. 
 
 Yet, we repeat, it seems to us matter for regret, in a 
 linguistic point of view, that Hugh Miller turned away 
 from the portals of antiquity. The almost universally 
 received canon of English style, that it ought to be 
 extremely Saxon, we venture to call in question. It 
 appears rather to be the case that Saxon may be generally 
 trusted to take care of itself, and that mass, majesty, 
 power, and deep, rhythmic cadence, are best secured by 
 an infusion of the Latin element. The grandest prose 
 styles in the language are cased in the Roman armor. 
 The " cathedral music " of Milton was toned by the classic 
 tongues. Johnson went, no doubt, to an unnatural excess, 
 yet the power exercised by his style when he used it must 
 not be overlooked. Burke was a classical scholar. So, 
 with emphasis, was Gibbon. De Quincey, Carlyle, Ruskin, 
 and Macaulay, the most wonderful stylists of our day, 
 are all familiar with the ancient languages. It were, 
 perhaps, bold to assert that this element is absolutely 
 necessary to an English style of the highest order. Bu^ 
 the instances cited, together with the fact that very impor- 
 tant component parts of our language — parts which 
 embrace more than mere words, and must have influenced 
 the very idiom of the tongue — are derived from antiquity, 
 may sufficiently vindicate the declaration, that Hugh Mil- 
 ler's style would have gained in stateliness and range, had 
 
340 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 he become, in his earlier days, a thorough classical scholar. 
 In the treatment of a vast majority of subjects, a simple 
 Saxon style, of the Bunyan or Goldsmith type, will suffice; 
 a good Saxon style is as superior to a bad Latin style, as 
 that of Goldsmith was to that of Johnson; but in the 
 highest flights of an author — and Hugh Miller has thought 
 to sustain him in the loftiest linguistic flights — one float3 
 best on the broad pinions of Latin. 
 
 But if the classic tongues are an important accession to a 
 literary education, there are other parts, still less easily 
 dispensed with, and in regard to these Hugh Miller 
 furnishes no subject for complaint. With quick faculty 
 and open sympathy, he mastered all the English books that 
 came in his way. He commenced to read at about six 
 years of age, and set about forming a little library for 
 himself. It began with our invaluable nursery literature, 
 rich in adventure, abounding with heroes, — the epic Jack, 
 the travelled Sinbad, the interesting, neat-footed Cinder- 
 ella, the shifty and politic Puss, knowing how to turn boots 
 to advantage ; and the rest. Pope's heroes, in his meta- 
 morphosis of Homer's Iliad, came next. The author of 
 Eothen testifies how the heart of every noble boy is stirred 
 by the fierce and fine-spoken valor of the Popian warriors, 
 set as it is in a melody, clear and ringing as the clang of 
 arms. The Pilgrim 's Progress, that book for the nursery, 
 the home, the shop, the study, the deathbed, followed. At 
 ten, he fell in with blind Harry's Wallace, and some time 
 after, with Barbour's Bruce, and was forthwith a patriot 
 and Scotchman to the finger-tips. During all this time, he 
 was under the full influence of Presbyterian opinions and 
 prepossessions. And thus his days passed, until he reached 
 the threshold of manhood, and adopted a profession. 
 
 The life of Hugh Miller as an apprentice and journey- 
 
HUGH MILLER. 341 
 
 man mason may be with sufficient accuracy imagined. It 
 was one of continual toil, and, now and then, of severe 
 hardship. He lived in various localities through the coun- 
 try, generally in bothies or barracks, where several 
 workmen put up together. But for a habit of taciturnity, 
 and a tendency to musing and poetry, there was no differ- 
 ence discernible between him and any other mason. Of 
 subsequent elevation, he never dreamed. His accent was 
 rude, and his appearance gave no hint of intellectual 
 culture. With a leathern apron before him, foul with mud 
 and dust, his hands, it might be, bleeding with his work 
 among the wet stones, none would have recognized him for 
 a man of peculiar and exquisite endowment, who had even 
 then acquired that easy and. graceful mastery over the 
 English language, which was to charm a large audience 
 of the most cultivated intellects of the age, and woke the 
 admiring despair of men staggering under their load of 
 erudition. We cannot refrain from taking one look at 
 Hugh Miller during his life as a journeyman mason. The 
 passage by means of which we do so, and which occurs in 
 his autobiography, insists upon associating itself in our 
 minds with that in which Milton so sublimely represents 
 the student of his time as outwatching the bear in converse 
 with the spirit of Plato: — 
 
 " There was no one in the barrack with whom I cared 
 much to converse, or who, in turn, cared much to converse 
 with me ; and so I learned, on the occasions when the 
 company got dull and broke up into groups, to retire to the 
 hay-loft where I slept, and pass there whole hours seated on 
 my chest. The loft was a vast apartment, some fifty or 
 sixty feet in length, with its naked rafters raised little more 
 than a man's height over the floor ; but in the starlit nights, 
 when the openings in the wall assumed the character of 
 29* 
 
342 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 square patches of darkness-visible stamped upon utter 
 darkness, it looked quite as well as any other unlighted 
 place that could not be seen, and in nights brightened by 
 the moon, the pale beams, which found access at openings 
 and crevices, rendered its wide area quite picturesque 
 enough for ghosts to walk in. But I never saw any ; and 
 the only sounds I heard were those made by the horses in 
 the stable below, champing and snorting over their food. 
 They were, I doubt not, happy enough in their dark stalls, 
 because they were horses, and had plenty to eat, and I was 
 at times quite happy enough in the dark loft above, because 
 I was a man, and could think and imagine. It is, I believe, 
 Addison who remarks, that if all the thoughts which pass 
 through men's minds were to be made public, the great 
 difference which seems to exist between the thinking of the 
 wise and of the unwise would be a good deal reduced ; 
 seeing that it is a difference which does not consist in their 
 not having the same weak thoughts in common, but merely 
 in the prudence through which the wise suppress their 
 foolish ones. I still possess notes of the cogitations of these 
 solitary evenings, ample enough to show that they were 
 extraordinary combinations of the false and the true ; but 
 I at the same time hold them sufficiently in memory to 
 remember, that I scarce, if at all, distinguished between 
 what was false and true in them at the time. The literature 
 of almost every people has a corresponding early stage, in 
 which fresh thinking is mingled with little conceits, and in 
 which the taste is usually false, but the feeling true." 
 
 For a protracted period, Hugh Miller worked for his 
 daily bread, pick or trowel in hand. He, then, for a short 
 time, acted as accountant in a bank in his native town of 
 Cromarty. He had become slightly known in the literary 
 world by the publication of a volume of poems, and contrib- 
 
HUGH MILLER. 343 
 
 uted to certain periodical works. A volume of tales and 
 legends, now very well known, brought him still further 
 into notice. But the famous non-intrusion controversy was 
 then agitating Scotland. Hugh Miller, strong in his Pres* 
 byterian leanings, and keenly alive to the evils of lay 
 patronage, addressed a letter to Lord Brougham, publishing 
 the piece in form of a pamphlet. It awakened a wide 
 interest, and was complimented in no measured terms by 
 O'Connell and Mr. Gladstone. Dr. Candlish, then busied, 
 in co-operation with the other leaders of the evangelical 
 party, about setting on foot a newspaper to advocate the 
 views of the non-intrusion ists, had perused the letter hi 
 manuscript, and at once pronounced its author the fitting 
 man to conduct the paper. So, in 1840, Hugh Miller 
 became editor of the Witness newspaper, and a very brief 
 period elapsed ere he was one of the most influential men 
 in his country. 
 
 The " able editor," if we may be permitted to interpose 
 a semi-pilosophical reflection, seems to us something of an 
 interim phenomenon. He marks a state of transition from 
 a state of information and intelligence gone past, to a state 
 of general intellectual culture not yet arrived. It is not 
 indeed necessary to suppose that he will himself pass away ; 
 such a supposition would, on the contrary, be highly ab- 
 surd: but he may gradually undermine the ground he 
 himself stands on, and there are not wanting indications in 
 the present day, that he is being overtaken by the general 
 intelligence. In the olden time, in the days, for instance, 
 of our old friend Abbot Samson, of St. Edmundsbury mon- 
 astery in the twelfth century, men were led blindfold by 
 some one man who had his eyes open. The chief saw for 
 the vassal, and led him along unknowing whither he went. 
 The priest saw for the flock, told it what he chose, and was 
 
344 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 implicitly believed. It was, in Fichte's phraseology, the 
 period of unquestioning submission to authority. We are 
 now in progress — we may at least hope or suppose — 
 toward that intellectual state which Fichte defined as 
 " freedom in consistence with reason. " Meanwhile, the 
 time is characterized by partial submission and partial free- 
 dom. The mass of men judge more, know more, are more 
 free and self-established, than the retainer or monk of the 
 middle ages. The newspaper editor still does much of the 
 thinking for men in general, and people submit, so far, their 
 thoughts to him. But, by the action of the press, you 
 obtain, on the one hand, a greater amount of freedom than 
 ever distinguished the mass before, and, on the other, 
 a higher average of information, a more general exercise of 
 thought, than, were men unassisted by newspapers, would 
 subsist. Mr. Carlyle must not sneer too bitterly against 
 the able editor. The matter perhaps most to be regretted 
 in connection with the profession is, that men, often of 
 great reach and sagacity, should spend their strength in the 
 continual day drudgery of editorial toil. One can sym- 
 pathize with Hugh Miller when he makes use of these 
 words : — " I remembered that I was a writer; that it was 
 my business to write, — to cast, day after day, shavings 
 from off my mind (the figure is Cowper's) — that went 
 rolling away, crisp and dry, among the vast heap already 
 on the floor, and were never more heard of, " &c. It must 
 not, however, be forgotten, that it is every man's duty to 
 lay so much of his heart's blood on the altar of his time, to 
 speak to and guide his own generation, though other gener- 
 ations hear him not. Now, more than heretofore, we must 
 be content to see a man spreading over twenty years, in 
 weekly dispensings, that teaching which, if condensed into 
 one work, — the result of twenty years' endeavor — might 
 
HUGH MILLER. 345 
 
 live for twenty centuries. The harvests of the present are 
 not lost, though they are swiftly gathered off the ground 
 and make room for others. Hugh Miller has not been 
 thrown away as a newspaper editor. His teachings have 
 sunk deep into the heart of Scotland, and work at the roots 
 of the national life. More than any layman he contributed 
 to the founding of the Free Church. 
 
 But we must view Miller somewhat more particularly in 
 his capacity of man of science. In the commencement of 
 The Old Red Sandstone^ there occurs the following pas- 
 sage. His life as a stone-mason had begun on the previous 
 day: — 
 
 "All the workmen rested at midday, and I went to enjoy 
 my half-hour alone on a mossy knoll in the neighboring 
 wood, which commands through the trees a wide prospect 
 of the bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrin- 
 kle on the water, nor a cloud in the sky, and the branches 
 were as moveless in the calm as if they had been traced on 
 canvas. From a wooded promontory that stretched half- 
 way across the Frith, there ascended a thin column of 
 smoke. It rose straight as the line of a plummet for 
 more than a thousand yards, and then, on reaching a 
 thinner stratum of air, spread out equally on every side 
 like the foliage of a stately tree. Ben Wyvis rose to the 
 west, white with the yet unwasted snows of winter, and as 
 sharply defined in the clear atmosphere, as if all its sunny 
 slopes and blue retiring hollows had been chiselled in mar- 
 ble. A line of snow ran along the opposite hills ; all above 
 was white, and all below was purple. They reminded me 
 of the pretty French story, in which an old artist is de- 
 scribed as tasking the ingenuity of his future son-in-law, by 
 giving him as a subject for his pencil a flower-piece com- 
 posed of only white flowers, of which the one half were to 
 
34G HUGH MILLER. 
 
 bear their proper color, the other half a deep purple hue, 
 and yet all be perfectly natural ; and how the young man 
 resolved the riddle and gained his mistress, by introducing 
 a transparent purple vase into the picture, and making the 
 light pass through it on the flowers that were drooping 
 over the edge. I returned to the quarry, convinced that a 
 very exquisite pleasure may be a very cheap one, and that 
 the busiest employments may afford leisure enough to enjoy 
 it. The gunpowder had loosened a large mass in one of 
 the inferior strata, and our first employment, on resuming 
 our labors, was to raise it from its bed. I assisted the other 
 workmen in placing it on edge, and was much struck by 
 the appearance of the platform on which it had rested. 
 The entire surface was ridged and furrowed like a bank 
 of sand that had been left by the tide an hour before. 
 I could trace every bend and curvature, every cross hol- 
 low and counter ridge of the corresponding phenomenon ; 
 for the resemblance was no half resemblance — it was the 
 thing itself, and I had observed it a hundred and a hun- 
 dred times when sailing my little schooner in the shallows 
 left by the ebb. But what had become of the waves that 
 had thus fretted the solid rock, or of what element had 
 they been composed ? I felt as completely at fault as Rob- 
 inson Crusoe did on his discovering the print of a man's 
 foot on the sand. The evening furnished me with still 
 further cause of wonder. We raised another block in a 
 different part of the quarry, and found that the area of 
 a circular depression in the stratum below was broken 
 and flawed in every direction, as if it had been the bot- 
 tom of a pool recently dried up, which had shrunk and 
 split in the hardening. Several large stones came rolling 
 down from the diluvium in the course of the afternoon. 
 They were of different qualities from the sandstone below, 
 
. HUGH MILLER. 347 
 
 and from one another, and, what was more wonderful still, 
 they were all rounded and water-worn, as if they had been 
 tossed about in the sea, or the bed of a river, for hundreds 
 of years. There could not, surely, be a more conclusive 
 proof that the bank which had enclosed them so long, could 
 not have been created on the rock on which it rested. No 
 workman ever manufactures a half-worn article, and the 
 stones were all half-worn! And, if not the bank, why, 
 then, the sandstone underneath? I was lost in conjec- 
 ture, and found that I had food enough for thought that 
 evening without once thinking of the unhappiness of a life 
 of labor." 
 
 That company of quarrymen on the banks of the Cro- 
 marty Frith, on that fine spring morning, had been a sight 
 worth seeing. Nothing, probably, would have struck us as 
 we marked the group going out in the morning. Nothing 
 would have arrested our attention in the somewhat lank, 
 bushy-headed, quiet-looking lad, who worked hard, but 
 seemed somewhat of a novice, as we watched them at 
 their toil. But, when we observed, at the hour of noon, 
 that while the others went to lounge, or smoke, or doze, 
 this young man found his rest and pleasure in gazing upon 
 that sublime panorama, where, in the west, Wyvis presides 
 among the mountains, and the glassy Frith lies lake-like at 
 his feet, reminding one of the fine lines in which an Amer- 
 ican poet describes a great mountain, looking down in the 
 pride of a monarch, 
 
 " While far below the lake in bridal rest 
 Sleeps with his glorious picture on her breast;" 
 
 when we observed that his eye brightened with the glow 
 of pure delight, and continued to rest on the scene until 
 every feature was pencilled out and hung in the hall of 
 
348 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 memory ; we might have begun to suspect that there was 
 something unusual in this mason. We might have begun 
 to surmise, that nature had twined around his heart some 
 of those finer threads of sympathy which draw her favored 
 child away from the crowd to her own breast. We might 
 have ventured to predict, that the man before us would not 
 die in his present capacity. And then, when we returned 
 with him to the quarry, and noted that, while the others 
 who toiled with him, as they turned up stone after stone, 
 found no sermons therein for them, and felt no questionings 
 arise in their minds, his eye kindled with the quick piercing 
 gleam of curiosity, and he could not resist the impulse to 
 question, and examine, and infer; we might again have ven- 
 tured to affirm, that nature had here a son who would one 
 day know her well, and perhaps reveal her to men. 
 
 We should not have erred in our surmisings. The inquis- 
 itive look and cautious glance of that quarryman were 
 signs of the presence of one of the finest observational 
 capacities of the age. The training of the faculty had 
 begun in early youth ; its exercise was the solace of years 
 of toil, and the ultimate guide to a brilliant and world-wide 
 reputation. By the shores of the Friths of Cromarty and 
 Moray, under the direction of Uncle Sandy, young Hugh 
 had learned to watch the habits of the crab and the 
 lobster, to admire the tints of the sea-moss, to wonder at 
 the organization of the sea-hare and cuttle-fish. His life as 
 a mason furnished admirable opportunities for the gratifi- 
 cation of his curiosity, and the exercise of his observational 
 powers. He was, he tells us, " an explorer of caves and 
 ravines — a loiterer along sea-shores — a climber among 
 rocks." Surrounded by the deep silence of a workman's 
 life, in the seclusion of tastes unshared, of powers un- 
 known, of ambition unawakened, he pursued, calmly, 
 
HUGH MILLER. 349 
 
 steadily, accurately, his course of observation. Living a 
 life in reality apart, strengthening and expanding his 
 general powers by the study of philosophy and poetry 
 he did not permit his observation to degenerate into a 
 childish storing up of isolated facts. He combined a 
 generalizing power of a high order, with that of minute, 
 unfailing observation. He learned to unite the broad glance 
 of the geographer, with the microscopic inspection of the 
 mineralogist. He could chronicle every tint of hue, every 
 line of form, in the scale embedded in the rock ; while by 
 wide philosophic induction, he could ascertain precisely 
 what contribution was made by that scale to the geolog- 
 ical history of the planet. 
 
 Traversing Scotland from the German Ocean to the 
 Atlantic, from Pentland Frith to the Cheviots, living now 
 among the craggy valleys of Argyllshire, now upon the 
 sandy flats of Moray, his eye became accustomed to every 
 form of landscape. He came speedily to know his country 
 with that profound knowledge, which recognizes the anat- 
 omy under the form, and which can predict the form from 
 the anatomy. Possessing also that delicate sensibility to 
 beauty, and that familiar acquaintance with the descriptive 
 stores of English poetry, to which we have already alluded, 
 he was able to cast exquisite lights of fancy over those 
 landscapes which science first revealed to him in their 
 rugged and literal truth. His descriptions of nature were 
 of a kind not merely to instruct and delight the man of 
 science, but to afford intense gratification to the artist, and 
 whoever had a soul open to the enjoyment of nature's beauty. 
 We refer at present to a quality of description deeper than 
 mere style. It relates to the exhibition of nature's facts, 
 which must first be known, and that in a peculiar manner, 
 before the effect can be produced. Miller's descriptions of 
 natural scenes may be compared with those of Ruskin. 
 
 EIEST SERIES- 30 
 
350 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 He, as well as the great pictorial critic, produces pictures, 
 clear, definite, visible, which one can hang up in the cham- 
 bers of his mind, and gaze on with unsated pleasure. 
 Hugh Miller and Kuskin started from different points. 
 The latter set out from beauty. He looked over nature for 
 the Beautiful. Had scientific accuracy proved inconsistent 
 with beauty, he would have discarded scientific accuracy, 
 and wrapped himself in a garb of fantasy. But as he 
 looked over nature through the glass of beauty, he dis- 
 cerned, as he believed, that the loveliness of truth was 
 greater than the loveliness of fantasy. So science became 
 for him the handmaid of beauty; his imagination smiled 
 most brightly beside the homely fires of fact. Hugh 
 Miller started from the side of science. He sought for, he 
 described, bare truth. He desired to know and show what 
 the world was, making no postulate in favor of beauty. 
 He opened his eyes and looked. He followed the lines, 
 and imitated the colors, of reality. He held up the page, 
 and lo! the result was beauty. Ruskin set out with 
 poetry, and met science : Hugh Miller set out with science, 
 and met poetry. 
 
 A parallel might be instituted, also, between Ruskin and 
 Miller in this, That each attracted to his particular sub- 
 ject of study, a large audience of those previously repelled. 
 Ruskin, by expounding Art on broader principles and in 
 a more eloquent manner than had been formerly done, by 
 freeing it of encumbering technicalities and allying it to 
 general human sympathy, drew a vast miscellaneous 
 audience to listen to essentially profound and accurate 
 artistic teaching. Miller, by arraying science in that garb 
 of beauty which belongs to all the visible forms of nature, 
 allured a similar audience to receive scientific instruction 
 of a kind correspondingly deep and exact. 
 
 As a geologist, Hugh Miller stands in the highest of all 
 
HUGH MILLER. 351 
 
 orders, if in that order he does not occupy one of the first 
 stations. He is in the order of original discoverers. His 
 place is among the honored few, who have added to the 
 domain of human knowledge. He accurately mapped out, 
 as represented in his own country, one of the most inter- 
 esting and least known of geographical formations, the Old 
 Red Sandstone. He made express additions to the number 
 of its classified organisms. His views of the science as a 
 whole are comprehensive and philosophical, but it is on this 
 distinctively that his fame as a geologist will repose. 
 
 In the cottage of Hugh Miller's boyhood, was that " one 
 Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of 
 man has found light, and an interpreting response to what- 
 ever is deepest in him," and which is still the Word of God, 
 whatever the author of these words may think. In Hugh 
 Miller's education, the most important agent of all had been 
 the Bible. For many years, the influence of early instruc- 
 tion had seemed to have passed away, but before the time 
 at which he quitted manual labor, he had reflected deeply 
 on religious subjects, had accepted Christianity as a living 
 faith, and owned the gravitating power of that " Divine 
 Man " whom he saw to be " the sole gravitating point of a 
 system which owes to Him all its coherence, and which 
 would be but a chaos were He away." This leads us to 
 one of the most important aspects in which Hugh Miller 
 can be viewed — that great practical aspect, namely, in 
 which he unites the theologian and the man of science. We 
 shall introduce our remarks upon him in this capacity by a 
 quotation from the remarkable chapter which closes his 
 " Footprints of the Creator :" — 
 
 " The first idea of every religion on earth which has arisen 
 out of what may be termed the spiritual instinct of man's 
 nature, is that of a future state ; the second idea is, that in 
 
352 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 this state men shall exist in two separate classes — the one 
 in advance of their present condition, the other far in the 
 rear of it. It is on these two great beliefs that conscience 
 everywhere finds the fulcrum from which it acts upon the 
 conduct ; and it is wholly inoperative as a force without 
 them. And in that one religion among men that, instead 
 of retiring, like the pale ghosts of the others, before the 
 light of civilization, brightens and expands in its beams, 
 and in favor of whose claim as a revelation from God the 
 highest philosophy has declared, we find these two master 
 ideas occupying a still more prominent place than in any of 
 those merely indigenous religions that spring up in the 
 
 human mind of themselves There is not in all 
 
 revelation a single doctrine which we find oftener, or more 
 clearly enforced, than that there shall continue to exist, 
 through the endless cycles of the future, a race of degraded 
 men and of degraded angels. Now it is truly wonderful 
 how thoroughly, in its general scope, the revealed pieces on 
 to the geologic record. We know, as geologists, that the 
 dynasty of the fish was succeeded by that of the reptile — 
 that the dynasty of the reptile was succeeded by that of 
 the mammiferous quadruped — and that the dynasty of the 
 mammiferous quadruped was succeeded by that of man, as 
 man now exists — a creature of mixed character, and sub- 
 ject, in all conditions, to wide alternations of enjoyment 
 and suffering. We know, further — so far, at least, as we 
 have yet succeeded in deciphering the record — that the 
 several dynasties were introduced, not in their lower, but in 
 their higher forms ; that, in short, in the imposing pro- 
 gramme of creation it was arranged, as a general rule, that 
 in each of the great divisions of the procession the mag, 
 nates should walk first. We recognize yet further the fact 
 of degradation specially exemplified in the fish and the 
 
HUGH MILLER. 353 
 
 reptile. And then, passing on to the revealed record, we 
 learn that the dynasty of man in the mixed state and 
 character is not the final one, but that there is to be yet 
 another creation, or, more properly, re-creation, known 
 theologically as the Resurrection, which shall be connected 
 in its physical components, by bonds of mysterious pater- 
 nity, with the dynasty which now reigns, and be bound to 
 it mentally by the chain of identity, conscious and actual ; 
 but which, in all that constitutes superiority, shall be as 
 vastly its superior, as the dynasty of responsible man is 
 superior to even the lowest of the preliminary dynasties. 
 We are further taught, that at the commencement of this 
 last of the dynasties there will be a re-creation of not only 
 elevated, but also of degraded beings — a re-creation of the 
 lost. We are taught yet further, that though the present 
 dynasty be that of a lapsed race, which at their first intro- 
 duction were placed on higher ground than that on which 
 they now stand, and sank by their own act, it was yet part 
 of the original design, from the beginning of all things, 
 that they should occupy the existing platform ; and that 
 Redemption is thus no after-thought, rendered necessary 
 by the Fall, but, on the contrary, part of a general scheme, 
 for which provision had been made from the beginning ; so 
 that the Divine Man, through whom the work of restora- 
 tion has been effected, was in reality, in reference to the 
 purposes of the Eternal, what he is designated in the 
 remarkable text, c the Lamb slain from the foundations 
 of the world? Slain from the foundations of the world ! 
 Could the assertors of the stony science ask for language 
 more express ? By piecing the two records together — 
 that revealed in Scripture, and that revealed in the rocks — 
 records which, however widely geologists may mistake the 
 one, or commentators misunderstand the other, have 
 30* 
 
354 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 emanated from the same great Author — we learn that in 
 slow and solemn majesty has period succeeded period, each 
 in succession ushering in a higher and yet higher scene of 
 existence; that fish, reptiles, mammiferous quadrupeds, 
 have reigned in turn ; that responsible man, ' made in the 
 image of God,' and with dominion over all creatures, ulti- 
 mately entered into a world ripened for his reception : but, 
 further, that this passing scene, in which he forms the 
 prominent figure, is not the final one in the long series, but 
 merely the last of the preliminary scenes ; and that that 
 period to which the by-gone ages, incalculable in amount, 
 with all their well proportioned gradations of being, form 
 the imposing vestibule, shall have perfection for its occu- 
 pant, and eternity for its duration. I know not how it may 
 appear to others ; but, for my own part, I cannot avoid 
 thinking that there would be a lack of proportion in the 
 series of being, were the period of perfect and glorified 
 humanity abruptly connected, without the introduction of 
 an intermediate creation of responsible imperfection, with 
 that of the dying irresponsible brute. That scene of things 
 in which God became Man, and suffered, seems, as it no 
 doubt is, a necessary link in the chain." 
 
 The theologian of the nineteenth century will have to 
 know and ponder such passages as this, to scrutinize care- 
 fully the intimations they read him, to follow conscientiously 
 the clue they put into his hand. The seventeenth century 
 is known among the centuries as that in which the written 
 Word of God was explored, so to speak, to its inmost recess. 
 We say not the work was finished ; but, of all ages, the 
 most strictly biblical, that which seemed to live in and upon 
 the simple and separate Bible, was the seventeenth. One 
 great task of the nineteenth century seems to be, to search 
 into and know the works of God. It stands distinguished 
 
HUGH MILLER. 355 
 
 as the age of physical science. There was a certain danger 
 that theologians should forget that God made the world, 
 and that therefore it was holy. The gaze of hallowed ecstacy 
 with which David had looked from the battlements of Zion, 
 upon the palm-crowned mountains that stood around, as he 
 seized his harp, and burst into a song of praise to God the 
 Maker, seemed to have darkened and narrowed into a cold, 
 critical, peering look, that searched for flaws in creeds, and 
 glanced rather timorously towards the mountains, as if it 
 might turn out that God had not made them after all. As 
 must ever and universally be the case, partiality was error. 
 A certain littleness was imparted to the views of the physi- 
 cal world, as a piece of God's workmanship ; a certain glory 
 was taken away from the Word of God, as the oracle of 
 the moral world; by the absence of that light which they 
 were fitted to cast on each other. Such men as Thomas 
 Chalmers, Hugh Miller, John Pye Smith, and others, have 
 essayed to show the inter-reflection of light and glory 
 between the two, and the day will come when the work 
 they have commenced will be fully accomplished. Its even 
 partial accomplishment will mark our century. As it is, the 
 theologian who accepts the facts of God's workmanship as 
 not to be disputed, as facts which, if once well proved, it 
 were irreverent, nay blasphemous, to deny, may already, we 
 think, obtain dim but glorious glimpses into far regions of 
 spiritual truth — into the destinies of man, into the essen- 
 tials of judgment, into the meaning of death — which the 
 lamp of science faintly indicates when hung over the Word 
 of God. But much has yet to be done, and much must be 
 acknowledged to lie yet unrevealed. Meanwhile the two 
 grand perils are, on the one hand, ignoble fear, and, on the 
 other, presumption. The man who looks over the moral 
 world, and discerns that it is an inexplicable chaos, a stan- 
 
356 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 dardless battle, a sick and fevered dream, unless God has 
 spoken in the Bible, may surely have such manlike trust in 
 God that he can fearlessly examine every story of the phys- 
 ical dwelling He has made for him, although, for the 
 present, God does not reveal to him how its apparent dis- 
 crepancies with the moral fabric He has let down from 
 heaven are to be harmonized. Surely, on the other hand, 
 the man, who talks in the fashionable pagan language of 
 the day of " the gods," and who yet must see these gods 
 preparing this earth for man, with much fuss and commo- 
 tion, and then sitting, like a set of fools, to see the great 
 game of blind-man's-buff which their children play, and 
 laugh at the gropings and mistakes, — the man, who, if he is 
 honest, and bold, and unhesitating in discrowning God and 
 his religion, must accept as the correct and unexaggerated 
 scheme of world-history, that ghastly poem of Poe's, in 
 which, with perfect honesty from his point of view, he por- 
 trays man, since his arrival here, as running after phantoms, 
 of which the central phantom is merely the most phantas- 
 mal of all, and which very appropriately concludes in these 
 words, 
 
 " The play is the tragedy Man, 
 And the hero the conqueror Worm: " 
 
 this man, we say, might surely pause ere he declares that 
 the scientific information of yesterday contradicts the alone 
 explaining theory of man's existence. Let the Christian 
 have faith in God's word : let the infidel tumble his moral 
 world in ruins ; there is not the slightest fear of his tum- 
 bling the moral world into ruins. Both infidels and Chris- 
 tians are always thinking God is such an one as themselves. 
 The one party thinks it has got the Sun of the moral uni- 
 verse fairly out. The other takes to trembling and 
 
HUGH MILLER. 357 
 
 vociferating, and holding tip supplementary rush-lights, as 
 if it feared the Sun was going out. Meanwhile the ages 
 roll on, and the mist rolls off, and the Sun is there still. 
 From every new elevation of science, fear it not, there will 
 be a wider prospect of truth. Just now we may be in the 
 valley, and the ocean may be shut out which we saw clearly 
 from the lower hill behind. But onwards! When we 
 reach the top of this other hill before us, the ocean of truth, 
 and the Sun that clothes it all in gold, will be seen spreading 
 further than ever before. Hugh Miller's clear, strong intel- 
 lect, fine poetic discernment of nature's all-pervading analo- 
 gies, and manly piety, fit him well to pioneer the scientific, 
 cosmical theology of the latter time. 
 
 We have not spoken expressly of Hugh Miller's poetry, 
 and it is unnecessary to do so. His finest poetry is, we 
 presume, his prose. He would, we feel assured, agree in 
 this himself. We go on to mention a characteristic which 
 harmonizes finely with the general strength of his nature, 
 and which seems the result of this in combination with the 
 kindness of his heart : we mean his humor. This is not one 
 of the most important or engrossing of his qualities, but, as 
 far as it goes, it is genuine, and remarkably pleasing. It is 
 a perception of the laughable in nature ; of those weak- 
 nesses which are not sins, those incongruities which do not 
 hurt, those self-revelations which oscillate amusingly be- 
 tween the egotism that is offensive and the vanity that is des- 
 picable ; of all those things which were manifestly intended 
 to be kept in check by no ruder weapon than laughter, and 
 which are not checked absolutely, because laughter is good 
 for men in its time. Hugh Miller's laugh is always quiet 
 and kindly ; never, to our knowledge, cynical and contemp- 
 tuous, save when some real iniquity is to be mocked into 
 air. He has no feeling of contempt for the " young lady 
 
353 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 passenger of forty or thereabouts," who took her seat in the 
 same railway carriage with him, and who " had a bloom of 
 red in her cheeks that seemed to have been just a little 
 assisted by art, and a bloom of red in her nose that seemed 
 not to have been assisted by art at all." It is merely a 
 smile of hearty geniality which lights his features as he 
 encounters two of Shenstone's nymphs on his visit to the 
 Leasowes: — 
 
 " I had read Shenstone early enough to wonder what 
 sort of looking people his Delias and Cecilias were ; and 
 now, ere plunging into the richly wooded Leasowes, I had 
 got hold of the right idea. The two naileresses were really 
 very pretty. Cecilia, a ruddy blonde, was fabricating tackets ; 
 Delia, a bright-eyed brunette, engaged in heading a double- 
 double." 
 
 Even when he visits St. Paul's, and speaks thus, he is in 
 the best humor, for all the slyness of his laugh: — 
 
 "It is comfortable to have only twopence to pay for 
 leave to walk over the area of so noble a pile, and to have 
 to pay the twopence, too, to such grave, clerical looking 
 men as the officials at the receipt of custom. It reminds 
 one of the blessings of a religious establishment in a place 
 where otherwise they might possibly be overlooked; no 
 private company could afford to build such a pile as St. 
 Paul's, and then show it for twopences." 
 
 But perhaps, of all we can say in praise of Hugh Miller, 
 the highest compliment, all things considered, is the last 
 we are to pay him. It is, that he is, in the best sense, a 
 gentleman ; that he is truly and strictly polite. We intend, 
 by this, very high praise indeed ; true politeness is one of 
 the rarest things. The word has been variously denned. 
 We have heard it indicated as being a knowledge of the 
 little usages of society, such as not pouring tea into a 
 
HUGH MILLER. 359 
 
 saucer, not speaking in company without an introduction, 
 and such like, and the habit of strictly and naturally con- 
 forming to such. This requires no refutation : its very 
 utterance, on the principle that in speaking of a thing you 
 set in the foreground your main idea regarding it, implies 
 hopeless ignorance of the nature of politeness: — • 
 
 " The churl in spirit, howe'er he vail 
 His want in forms for fashion's sake, 
 Will let his coltish nature break 
 At seasons through the gilded pale." 
 
 True politeness may be met in the hut of the Arab, in the 
 courtyard of the Turk, in the cottage of the Irishman, and 
 is excessively rare in ball-rooms. It is independent of 
 accent and of form, it is one of the constant and universal 
 noble attributes of man, wherever and howsoever devel- 
 oped. It has been defined again, "perfect ease, without 
 vulgarity or affectation." Here manifestly a great advance 
 is made ; one half of politeness is correctly defined. Yet 
 we think there is overlooked that part of politeness which 
 refers to others besides one's self; and politeness, as it 
 consists wholly in a certain dealing of man with man, must 
 include both parties in its reference. The truly polite man 
 is not merely at ease, but always sets you at ease. We 
 venture to define it thus: Politeness is natural, genial, 
 manly deference, with a natural delicacy in dealing with the 
 feelings of others, and without hypocrisy, sycophancy, or 
 obtrusion. This, we think, is at once sufficiently inclusive 
 and exclusive. It excludes a great many. "We cannot 
 agree that Johnson was polite ; that is, if politeness is to be 
 distinguished from nobleness, courage, and even kindness 
 of heart ; in a word, from everything but itself. Burns was 
 polite, when jewelled duchesses were charmed with his 
 
360 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 ways ; Arnold was polite, when the poor woman felt that 
 he treated her as if she were a lady; Chalmers was 
 polite, when every old woman in Morningside was elated 
 and delighted with his courteous salute. But Johnson, 
 who shut a civil man's mouth with, " Sir, I perceive you 
 are a vile Whig," who ate like an Esquimaux, who deferred 
 so far to his friends, that they could differ with him only in 
 a round-robin, was not polite. Politeness is the last touch, 
 the finishing perfection, of a noble character. It is the gold 
 on the spire, the sunlight on the corn field, the smile on the 
 lip of the noble knight lowering his sword point to his 
 ladye-love. It results only from the truest balance and 
 harmony of soul. We assert Hugh Miller to possess it. 
 A duke in speaking to him would know he was speaking 
 to a man as independent as himself; a boy, in expressing 
 to him an opinion, would feel unabashed and easy, from his 
 genial and unostentatious deference. He has been accused 
 of egotism. The charge is a serious one ; fatal, if it can be 
 substantiated in any offensive degree, to politeness. And 
 let it be fairly admitted that he knows his name is Hugh 
 Miller, and that he has a colossal head, and that he once 
 was a mason; his foible is probably that which caused 
 Napoleon, in a company of kings, to commence an anec- 
 dote with u When I was a lieutenant in the regiment of La 
 Fere." But we cannot think it more than a very slight 
 foible; a manly sell-consciousness somewhat in excess. 
 His autobiography has been blamed as egotistic ; we think 
 without cause. The sketches appear to us much the 
 reverse. They are almost entirely what he has seen ; what 
 he has done or been is nowise protruded. And shall we 
 blame a man with the eye and the memory of Hugh Miller, 
 for leading us through the many scenes of Scottish life, 
 which he knows better than any man, because he does so in 
 
HUGH MILLER. 361 
 
 a very natural and orderly way ? Wherever he is egotistic, 
 he is not so in conversation— the great test of the polite 
 man. Years in the quarry have not dimmed in Hugh 
 Miller that finishing gleam of genial light which plays over 
 the framework of character, and is politeness. Not only 
 did he require honest manliness for this ; gentleness was 
 also necessary. He had both, and has retained them ; and 
 so merits fairly 
 
 " The grand old name of gentleman." 
 
 It is now 1857; and with all the hopes and forebodings 
 of a new year, there mingles, in my breast, the recollection 
 of a kindness no more to be experienced, of a condescend- 
 ing genial helpfulness no longer to instruct, of a steadfast 
 nobleness whose living presence will no longer animate and 
 cheer, of a great and godly man who has passed away. In 
 the last days of 1856, Hugh Miller died: a self-sacrificed 
 martyr to science. At the great work which was to com- 
 plete his service to his country and mankind, he toiled on 
 with indomitable resolution, amid the paroxysms of fearful 
 disease. His powerful brain, wearied with the sustained 
 tension of twenty years, recoiled from its work, and, as it 
 were, groaned and struggled for rest. But that adaman- 
 tine will knew no flinching. Ever, as the paroxysm passed 
 by, and the soft glow of the old genius spread itself again 
 along the mind, the most intense and unremitted exertion 
 was compelled. The light burnt nightly in his chamber, 
 
 FIB8T SERIES. 31 
 
362 HUGH MILLER. 
 
 long after the midnight hour, as Hugh Miller continued 
 to write, the body failing, the nerves fluttering, the brain 
 held to its work only by that indomitable will. He feared 
 madness might dash the pen from his hand, before the 
 last line was traced. But the work was finished. On the, 
 last day of his life, Hugh Miller said it was done. Mad- 
 ness and the grave could not at least deprive him of that. 
 Then, as might have been expected, despite consultation 
 with a physician, the paroxysm returned with redoubled 
 fury: ere it again subsided, Hugh Miller was no more. Let 
 science honor her too devoted son ! For her he worked on 
 undaunted under the thunder-cloud ; the lightnings of mad- 
 ness flashing ever and anon around him. He finished his 
 work ; closed the book ; and looked up as if defiant of the 
 lightning. But it came down and smote him ; and he died, 
 may we not say, the greatest of the martyrs of science. 
 
VII 
 
 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 DICKENS— BUL WE R — THACKERAY. 
 
 "Literature," says so distinguished a novelist as Sir 
 Edward Bulwer Lytton, " commences with poetical fiction, 
 and usually terminates with prose fiction. It was so in the 
 ancient world — it will be so with England and France. 
 The harvest of novels is, I fear, a sign of the approaching 
 exhaustion of the soil." Of whatever the harvest spoken 
 of is a sign, there can be no doubt of its own exuberance. 
 The novel has gone far to supersede all other forms of liter- 
 ature ; and where it does not supersede, it has an influence. 
 Philosophy has receded into the background. Poetry, if in 
 itself of rare perfection, occupies no such place in public 
 estimation as it did in the days of Byron. History is 
 specially commended as being equally pleasant reading with 
 fiction. "We have dukes and earls patronizing mechanics' 
 institutes and public libraries ; we have platform speeches 
 of the sweetest eloquence, setting forth the way in which 
 science and philosophy are to be used in the self-culture of 
 readers; we have the shelves well filled with metaphysical, 
 historical, and scientific treatises. In eighteen months we 
 •revisit the institution, and inspect the books. The philos- 
 ophers, the men of science, the historians, have enjoyed, 
 like kings and queens at their country-seats, an honorable 
 
364 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 seclusion : the novels are dog's-eared, crumpled, soiled, from 
 the effects of affectionate familiarity. The attraction by 
 which the young aspirant to literary distinction is at present 
 drawn towards fictitious composition seems, at first sight, 
 overpowering. Who would not enlist in an army in which 
 the discipline is lax, the fighting not severe, and the prizes 
 dazzling, rather than in one in which the discipline is the 
 rigid restraint of truth, the fighting a stern struggle up the 
 rugged crags of fact, and the prizes comparatively poor ? 
 "With all our enlightened support of literature, a young 
 man who would at present determine to devote himself, 
 with energies untrammelled by any other profession, with 
 zeal undivided with any other pursuit, to philosophy, theol- 
 ogy, social science, or history, trusting thereto for his daily 
 bread, would do so at the risk of his life. We know an 
 instance of a young literary man in London, of distinguished 
 ability and high aims, who pursued studies of an important 
 nature, but was compelled, at intervals, in order to secure 
 subsistence, to write novels. There is a gentleman, now in 
 Edinburgh, whose name is known in every part of the 
 island, and whose works, in philosophy, political economy, 
 and apologetics, are of high standing, who yet, we are con- 
 fident, has derived no pecuniary profit whatever from the 
 main labor of his life, and finds his talents of pecuniary 
 avail, only in such off-hand work as occasional lecturing and 
 contributions to the journals. Is not the temptation strong 
 for such a man, to ungird the armor of the legionary, and 
 bind on the light arms which are so effective ? Why should 
 the youthful poet keep gazing into the face of the Beautiful, 
 why should the young philosopher dig sedulously in the 
 mines of thought for the True, if literary tinsel will bests* 
 exchange for current coin, and men prefer the flowers that 
 grow on the surface to the metal that is hidden below ? 
 
DICKENS — BULWER— THACKERAY. 365 
 
 These remarks may seem logically to require an unquali- 
 fied denunciation of novels. But, for many reasons, we 
 should deem this an unwise proceeding. 
 
 In the first place, he who would engage in the highest 
 literature must always so do with somewhat of the spirit 
 of a martyr. It has ever been the way to reward the most 
 severe and noble efforts of mind in a manner which in 
 itself seems paltry. Milton got five pounds for Paradise 
 Lost. We cannot too often recall the remarkable fact. If 
 every generation of mankind, succeeding the appearance of 
 that poem, had raised to its author a new statue of solid 
 gold, they would have made no approach to paying him. 
 The Dantes, the Keplers, the Pascals, and such as they, are 
 not so paid for their mental labors. It is a manifest appoint- 
 ment of nature that they should not be : and, let us say, it is 
 a right appointment, benign, beautiful, and, for the men who 
 seem passed over, an appropriate and sublime honor. By 
 their capacity for such work, they afford a reasonable 
 presumption that they can rightly estimate and duly con- 
 temn material payment. It is in celestial coin that they 
 receive their wages. If they know not what this is, if they 
 scorn it, let them descend to lower grades of intellectual 
 labor ; let them deal in goods known and wanted in the 
 market, and they will have the success of ordinary traders. 
 But the general law is open to no doubt : the highest spir- 
 itual employments are not distinguished by yielding large 
 material rewards. The fact is exemplified in the case of 
 whole professions. Ministers of the gospel will always be 
 paid, on an average, at a rate in no degree correspondent to 
 the abilities they possess or the functions they perform. To 
 men of learning, to professors of erudition and philosophy, 
 the same rule applies. No spectacle appears to us more 
 truly despicable than that of any one who pretends to com- 
 31* 
 
366 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 municate to men the higher kinds of knowledge, complaining 
 that he is not paid like successful confectioners or ballet 
 dancers, and sending round his hat for coppers. The man 
 who makes it his sole object to amuse, and has talents of 
 extraordinary power, be he novelist or play actor, will be 
 more handsomely remunerated, in the way he can value, 
 than the man whose ambition it is to elevate and improve 
 his fellows. The novelist himself who aims high, both in 
 means and end, must submit to see his gains small in pro- 
 portion. The public, however, let us add in a corner, has 
 the option of doing that for men of lofty aspirations, which 
 it is not becoming, which in some sense it is not possible, 
 for them to do for themselves ! 
 
 But it may be questioned, in the next place, whether the 
 facts with which we set out, — facts of which, in themselves, 
 there cannot be any doubt, — do not indicate chiefly a 
 change in the proportion borne by one set of literary works 
 to another, and not solely, if at all, a diminution either in 
 the production or the perusal of those of the higher orders. 
 It may be that though more novels are produced than trea- 
 tises in history or science, though more fiction is read than 
 philosophy or poetry, the reading public has been so much 
 increased by the influence of novels, that the condition of 
 higher literature is really improved. And to this consider- 
 ation we may add the hope, that novels may in future do 
 still more to promote this end, awakening the frivolous and 
 indifferent to some sort of mental exertion, and handing 
 them on to nobler studies. Still further it may be here 
 urged, that there are not wanting, at present, novels, which 
 themselves convey wholesome instruction, and which can 
 hardly exercise an enervating influence. Such novels as 
 those of Currer Bell, Kingsley, and Thackeray, are not to 
 be confounded with the productions of the Minerva Press. 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 367 
 
 After all, the most pertinent remark which can be made 
 as to this unexampled efflorescence of fictitious literature 
 seems to be that it is a fact, and that it may be pronounced 
 unalterable. This alone makes it worthy of consideration. 
 It were very strange, too, if a phenomenon so vast in 
 extent and so powerful in influence, had no real meaning 
 and could be turned to no account. It may be that, by 
 looking into the matter somewhat closely, we may discover 
 some principle by which the man, who is conscientiously 
 and resolutely bent upon a self-culture as complete as his 
 faculties admit and his time affords, may safely and profit- 
 ably undertake an incursion into fictitious literature. 
 
 What is a novel ? The question seems exceedingly easy, 
 and may be so. But it is well to have precise ideas as to 
 its answer, for when you know accurately what a thing is, 
 you have got, in germ, all that it is most important to 
 know concerning it. What, then, we repeat, is a novel? 
 
 In every production of Art there are two principal 
 elements, whose unity gives the result. The one is the 
 original type presented in nature, the other the modi- 
 fication — the curtailment, addition, or transformation — - 
 effected by the free will and imaginative energy of the 
 artist. Thus, in the art of painting, the type from which 
 the artist sets out is some natural appearance, a landscape, 
 a building, a face. If he is only a daguerreotypist, he 
 records merely the literal facts of nature in their real 
 localities. If he is a true artist, the daguerreotype can do 
 no more than furnish him with studies, and only when he 
 has combined these as he chooses and breathed into them 
 the spirit of his own genius, has he produced a picture., In 
 all Art this distinction holds good, 
 
 It is not difficult to discover the original type on which 
 the novel is founded. If we consider, we shall find some- 
 
368 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 thing not unlike it in life, though by no means the same. 
 The direction in which to turn is manifestly that of history ; 
 the first thing that strikes us in a novel is its narrative. It 
 may be profitable to look for a moment at history. If he 
 has a true sense of his Art, the historian will find himself, 
 in certain important respects, resembling the novelist. We 
 do not allude to his depicting manners, or adopting a 
 picturesque style. The similarity lies deeper ; in the very 
 materials with which he works. In the life of nations, as 
 well as in that of individuals, are found circumstances 
 corresponding to those which afford the novelist his color- 
 ing, and suggest to him his plot. These may serve the 
 historical artist none the worse that the laws by which he 
 works are those of stern realism. Incidents more stirring 
 than imagination ever dreamed, characters more strange 
 and puzzling than novelist ever portrayed, plot more dark 
 and mysterious than ever artist devised, may be already 
 provided him. He may lead us, in earnest curiosity, along 
 the path of Providence, not blunting, by any anachronism 
 of anticipation or disclosure, the feelings of wonder and ad- 
 miration, with which, at the right moment, we behold the 
 curtain rise. And, be it remarked, the more completely 
 he thus imitates the recognized method of the novelist, the 
 more emphatically does he bring before us the great lessons 
 which it is his duty to teach. In the warlike contendings 
 or peaceful labors of nations, in their growth and decline, in 
 their birth, glory, and destruction, certain grand monitions 
 are providentially addressed to us, constituting one principal 
 portion of that system of education, practical or theoretic, 
 by which nature is pervaded. We all acknowledge that 
 the office of the historian is august and important. But 
 the slightest reflection will make it plain, both that the 
 sphere of the historian is not precisely that of the novelist, 
 
DICKENS— BULWER— THACKERAY. 369 
 
 and that there is a sphere in which the latter may convey 
 instruction of a value equal to that conveyed by the former. 
 The historian does not and cannot descend into domestic 
 life. Nations in their national capacity and in their national 
 doings are his theme ; with battles, sieges, treaties, senates, 
 cities, he deals. He may paint manners ; but only in the 
 mass. He may give details of private life; but only to 
 exhibit the hidden strings which guide the men who guide 
 nations. But domestic life has also its instructive lessons. 
 Here, too, Providence teaches. In the festal assemblage and 
 by the household hearth, beside her who is wreathed with 
 orange flower and by the deathbed, the footsteps of Provi- 
 dence may be traced, the voice of Providence may be heard. 
 Warnings, examples, encouragements, intimations, which, if 
 known, prized, and used, would be more precious than rubies, 
 are being ever presented in the common course of life. If it 
 is right to strengthen and widen our powers of intellectual 
 vision, by watching the dealings of God with nations, it is 
 assuredly right, also, to have an accurate and extensive 
 knowledge of domestic life, to gain a wider acquaintance, 
 than our own circle affords, with the perils which beset our 
 private walk, with the modes in which the problems of 
 individual and family life have already been solved. To 
 occupy a field thus rich and thus distinctly marked off, the 
 biographer steps forward. And it will not be called in 
 question that, in the biography, the original type of the 
 novel is found. There is, however, in the circumstances of 
 the case, a reason for fictitious biography, which does not 
 exist for fictitious history. The most interesting and in- 
 structive series of incidents may occur in private life, yet 
 cause appear why the actors should be vailed in secresy. 
 The fictitious form provides the vail. In some such series 
 of incidents as we have supposed, lies the realistic ground- 
 
370 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 work on which the novel should be constructed. By this 
 it is connected with the world of fact. This is to it as 
 the knowledge of the features of a locality, its leading 
 geological lines, its distinctive botanical products, is to the 
 artist who paints a landscape. If the novelist proceeds 
 without such realistic basis, his work is sure to be worth- 
 less. The wing of imagination flaps at once in a vacuum. 
 Weak sentimentality takes the place of manly feeling, faded 
 commonplace is offered instead of fresh truth, the whole 
 wears a flabby, sickly aspect, if only the novelist ignores 
 fact and trusts solely to fancy. We do not know any 
 instance of imaginative power on which we would more 
 willingly rely, which we could more absolutely trust, than 
 that of Dickens. Yet when he leaves the alleys of St. 
 Giles and the office in Bow Street, which he has seen, and 
 sets himself to depict what he merely imagines to exist, 
 how strange is the work he produces ! Literature does not 
 contain a more false, foolish, preposterous character than 
 Mrs. Clennam. Mr. Dickens fancied this must be w T hat 
 evangelical religion was ; and if he had informed us that a 
 Fakir or other Indian devotee swung himself daily in the 
 air, by a hook attached to the top of Nelson's monument, 
 he would not have committed a greater absurdity. We 
 are quite sure there are as many persons in England who 
 believe they will go to heaven by swinging by the foot, as 
 there are who propose to compass that end by abstaining 
 from their usual allowance of oysters. But if the necessity 
 of a realistic basis is distinctly recognized, the function of 
 the novelist is vindicated from all assault, the novel is 
 worthy of respect and attention. The nominally fictitious 
 author becomes the recorder of Providence in domestic 
 life, the historian of the fireside, the philosopher of the 
 family circle. The recognition of this necessity has of late 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 371 
 
 been more express than formerly. The temper of the time 
 sets strongly towards rugged truth and away from smooth, 
 painted falsehood. But no recognition of it could be too 
 emphatic. On its practical acknowledgment we must hang 
 our hope for the production of a literature, in name and 
 form, for obvious and weighty reasons, fictitious, but in 
 reality true, and an honor and blessing to the nation. 
 
 But the novel is a work of Art. There is more in it 
 than bare reality. Of this fact the whole history of fictitious 
 composition is a proof, and if the fact has been so, its 
 theoretic vindication or the reverse is of comparatively 
 slight importance. Fact, however, and theory agree. The 
 novel is unquestionably a work of Art, and, being so, it 
 must exhibit some element, for which we can find no 
 precise equivalent, though there may be suggestion or 
 analogue, in nature. 
 
 The novel, as we saw, differs broadly from the history. 
 Its theme is always domestic life, however the domestic 
 incidents with which it deals may be affected by public 
 events ; just as history is always national, though the des- 
 tinies of nations may be influenced by domestic circum- 
 stances. But not even in the biography is there the 
 precise counterpart of the novel. The biography is spread 
 over the whole period of life. Its incidents derive their 
 relative importance from the illustration they afford of 
 character. 
 
 But in the novel a particular period of life is selected, 
 the incidents are grouped round one centralizing interest, 
 and the narrative stops short at life's grand climacteric. 
 What is this interest ? What this climacteric ? It is love. 
 We must consider it a little. 
 
 " ' Love, the soul of soul, within the soul, 
 Evolving it sublimely. First, God's love.' 
 
372 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 « And next/ lie smiled, « the love of wedded souls, 
 Which still presents that mystery's counterpart. 
 Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life, 
 Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave 
 A name to ! human, vital, fructuous rose, 
 Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves, — 
 Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbor-loves, 
 And civic, * * * all fair petals, all good scents, 
 All reddened, sweetened, from one central Heart I'* 
 
 Thus writes Mrs. Barrett Browning in her latest poem. 
 If the first poem ever composed were still before us, should 
 we not find it some lilt, of joyfulness and tears, sung by 
 primeval lover beside the trysting tree ? There are feelings 
 of a purely spiritual nature, connecting themselves with 
 man's celestial relations and eternal destiny, which tran- 
 scend all that pertain to earth. But of those which belong 
 distinctively to the world of living men, whose dwelling is 
 the heart that beats for threescore years and ten, whose 
 sphere of operation is between the silent graves and the 
 silent stars, the greatest, the mightiest, is love. The scale 
 of human emotion, through all its changes of gladness and 
 sorrow, lies between the silver treble of love and the deep 
 bass of death. The fountain of life rises sunward, and the 
 light that falls on its white foam at the highest point is love. 
 The hill of life is climbed in the dewy morning : in the light 
 of noon, on the green, unclouded summit, the loved one is 
 met ; as evening steals on, and the dew begins again to fall, 
 the descent is slowly made towards the grave at the foot. 
 Sometimes death starts up on the top, and chills the heart 
 of love at its fullest throbbing : the might of the anguish is 
 then measured by the intensity of the joy. 
 
 However we may represent this fact, even though we 
 may be moved to a smile, a fact it is, and one of chief im- 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 373 
 
 portance. In the Scriptural view of man, it is explicitly 
 attested. The emotion, of which, if we may so speak, the 
 final end is marriage, is expressly appointed to the suprem- 
 acy among the feelings by which one human being can be 
 attracted towards or linked to another ; and the arrange- 
 ment of the social system, as exhibited in history, corre- 
 sponds with the original appointment. Innumerable as are 
 the interests which there circle, various as are the orbits 
 there occupied, they all, directly or indirectly, own the 
 regulating power of love. 
 
 Turning from life to literature, using the word in its most 
 comprehensive sense, the same fact meets us in broad and 
 clear reflexion. Love was the main theme of epic poetry, 
 and may be called the sole theme of the lyre. Around love 
 Tragedy and Comedy alike arranged their parts. Here, the 
 lovers sat upon the dais, crimson broidered with gold, and 
 from their happy faces gleamed out a light on all around. 
 Comedy arranged the lights, placed the surrounding groups 
 in the most effective positions, appointed the music and the 
 dancing, and showered her smiles upon the happy pair. 
 There, the blue of love's heaven shone pure and serene, 
 above the summer ocean and the balmy isle : but suddenly 
 the blissful calm was swallowed in black, firelit tornado, 
 and, arrayed in the trailing draperies of storm, Tragedy 
 swept by. Take love out of literature, and all of it which 
 is not. strictly scientific, — the simple statement of fact and 
 law, — all of it that lies within the province of the imagi- 
 nation, falls into incoherence and disruption. It becomes a 
 system of which the gravitating centre has been unfixed. 
 But while love remains, however the form may change, the 
 radical characteristics of the old imaginative literature will 
 survive. Amid the multitudinous activity, and wild, free 
 life of modern times, the drama and the epic of antiquity 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 32 
 
374 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 may be said to have been shaken from their unities and 
 proprieties, and finally dashed into fragments. But the 
 joys and sorrows of love with which they were concerned 
 emerged from the ruin, and commenced, in fresh and buoy- 
 ant youth, a new epoch of literary representation in "the 
 modem novel. " 
 
 The novel, therefore, is scientifically definable as a domes- 
 tic history, in which the whole interest and all the facts are 
 made to combine in the evolution of a tale of love. A 
 biographic strain of which the key note is love. The appli- 
 cation of terms may vary to any extent, but we are con- 
 vinced that any inquiry into the nature of the novel, 
 bearing reference at once to the laws of Art and to the facts 
 of history, will conduct to a conclusion essentially the one 
 with this. 
 
 It would appear to be irrefragably established that the 
 love story is no mere conventional appendage of the modern 
 novel, but bound up in its essence. The passion of love has 
 been indissolubly connected with all imaginative literature. 
 It will not, on a deliberate survey, be questioned by any, 
 that the fictitious literature of modern times is, to at least a 
 large extent, the more formal imaginative literature of 
 antiquity, accommodated to a wider audience and engaged 
 in by a larger class of authors. It were surely too bold to 
 affix the name of conventionalism to what has been an 
 unfailing characteristic of the most popular class of literary 
 works, and which we found correspondent to an important 
 fact in life. 
 
 Have we not found a clue at once to the cause of the 
 supreme popularity of the novel with readers, and to the 
 means by which the novelist secures this popularity ? That 
 ancient theme, to which the hearts of the old Greeks thrilled 
 at the Olympic Games, and which fired the Arab eye at the 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 375 
 
 poetical contest in the desert, before the days of Mahomet, 
 has been scrambled for in modern times, by romance poets 
 and novelists, and the novelists have been very successful in 
 the appropriation. They have possessed themselves of the 
 irresistible fascination : they wield the spell which was 
 never yet broken. The sympathetic imagination, evoked 
 by the novelist, enables his reader to enjoy the happiness of 
 the hero and heroine. No one is so stupid as to be unable 
 to live in a land of reverie ; the difficult thing is, amid the 
 buffeting of the waves, to keep the foot firm, as on a rock, 
 on the present ; therefore the novelist dispenses joy to the 
 widest class. But no one is so wise as to resist the charm. 
 The philosopher succumbs to it as fast as to the toothache, 
 time out of mind the sage's vanquisher. He laughs and 
 weeps with the lover just as other men. 
 
 He weeps. — Yes ; but may not this give us pause ? The 
 luxury of sorrow, about the existence of which there is not 
 a whit more doubt than about that of the luxury of joy, 
 has a puzzling look, which may justify us in turning aside 
 for a moment to consider it. The pathos which wrings 
 your heart, and bathes your cheek in tears, holds you 
 enchained as powerfully as the gladness which makes you 
 laugh for joy. Sympathetic participation is here out of the 
 question. You rejoice xoith Shirley and Moore, when they 
 at last beat out the music of their lives ; but you cannot 
 rejoice with Nancy when Sykes murders her. Yet the 
 pleasure of tragedy, while of a more august and solemn, 
 seems to be also of a more profound character than that of 
 comedy. We venture upon an explanation of the fact. 
 All mighty emotion is in itself pleasurable. This looks 
 like, but is not, a contradiction in terms. Distress, it is 
 true, cannot be delightful ; but the weeping by which it is 
 relieved, the overflow of the emotion, is pleasurable. The 
 
376 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 fire itself bums and scathes the heart : but the streaming 
 of the lava through its tear-channels bears away the woe, 
 and produces, in so doing, a sensation of delight. So far 
 there can be no dispute ; the psychological fact is perfectly 
 well known. But may it not be applied to the explanation 
 of that singular pleasure with which we are concerned? 
 Does not the secret of all the joy of tragedy and pathos 
 lie in the skillful opening of the sluices, by which the 
 surcharged fountains of the heart empty themselves in 
 tears? Is not the flow of the emotion secured, without 
 the suffering of the pain? The cause is brought into 
 operation by imagination; the emotion naturally follows: 
 but the surge of emotion and its cause are precisely pro- 
 portioned to each other, and the former bears the latter 
 fairly out of the heart. The difference between the distress 
 occasioned by literal fact, and that evoked by the tragic 
 artist, may be clearly perceived, by a glance at the scene 
 to which reference has been already made, the murder 
 of Nancy in Oliver Twist. Let one, after perusing the 
 description given by Dickens, reflect for a moment on the 
 possibility that such an incident may have occurred in 
 actual life. He instantly experiences a thrill of regret and 
 dismay. But it is very different from. that felt while he 
 listened to Mr. Dickens. A new condition affects the case. 
 The sorrow is anchored in the heart by fact. To weep, it 
 is true, gives relief: weeping, as distinguished from not 
 weeping, sorrow relieved as distinguished from sorrow 
 unrelieved, is pleasurable: but the knowledge that such 
 girls have actually been killed can be washed out by no 
 tears; it remains there, demanding a fresh flow, nay, de- 
 manding, to relieve the grating pain, that active effort be 
 engaged in, to put such catastrophes beyond the limits of 
 possibility. Imagination in the one case, lulls reason asleep, 
 
DICKENS — BULW Eli — THACKERAY. 377 
 
 and produces an emotion powerful while it lasts ; when 
 reason awakens, the man declares he has forgotten himself, 
 and the cause and the emotion pass from the mind together. 
 In all cases, whether of real belief or factitious, the emotion 
 in itself is pleasurable : in each case, whether it overflows 
 in weeping or no, it relieves the heart : but in the one case, 
 the pain it assuages is deeply fixed in the heart, and the 
 distress remains long, withstanding the alleviation : in the 
 other, the emotion bears away all the pain, and reason closes 
 behind sorrow the gates of the heart. 
 
 But besides this joy of sympathetic participation in 
 happiness, and the other joy of deep and active emotion, 
 though of the kind occasioned by distress, there is another 
 which it is in the power of the novelist to confer upon his 
 readers, and which, as representing one of those large 
 classes not to be omitted in even a partial view of the 
 subject, it will be well to notice. Like his ancient brethren, 
 the epic and dramatic poets, the novelist calls into active 
 operation the sympathies of approbation and disapprobation. 
 He has at his disposal the princeliest rewards and the most 
 severe punishments ; love and death are in his hands. 
 These he dispenses with what is not inappropriately styled 
 poetic justice. It is customary to rail considerably at this 
 idea of poetic justice, and to remark that life is sometimes 
 not quite so just as poetry. Yet it lies deep in the nature 
 of man, modified as it is by the circumstances of his present 
 existence, to find in poetic justice an intense pleasure. 
 Virtue consists in holding to the Good and the True in 
 the face of opposition ; in defying temptation ; in buffeting 
 circumstance ; in smiling up, patient, courageous, thankful, 
 through the drizzle of every day existence. There is a 
 notion deep in the hearts of all of us, that we should be 
 what we ought* were circumstances modified to suit us, 
 32* 
 
378 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 were we not the victims of a luckless destiny. With Becky 
 Sharp, we think we could be good, if we had five thousand 
 a year. If we have the five thousand, we would be virtuous 
 upon five-and-twenty thousand. We should cultivate all 
 sweet and generous emotions on a sunny bank in Eden. 
 We might take a place in the church triumphant, but the 
 church militant is left to its own battle. In one word, 
 there is beside every man in life, a spectre, more dire than 
 that old black spectre, Care, which restrains his generous 
 impulses ; the spectre Selfishness. Remove this phantom, 
 and we would, as a rule, obey the nobler instinct. In 
 literary representation, it is removed. We do not recog- 
 nize ourselves in nature's mirror. , Our instincts, unleashed 
 by selfishness, fly fiercely at us, as dogs may fly at their 
 master when bathing, and when, from his being undressed, 
 they do not know him. Approbation, therefore, is readily 
 accorded to such persons, in a drama or novel, as deserve 
 it. And approbation is always pleasurable. The indigna- 
 tion accompanying disapprobation is to some extent the 
 same ; and partly it acts in the manner which we en- 
 deavored to define, in considering the luxury of distress. 
 Along both with the approbation and the disapprobation 
 comes an insinuating side wind of self-applause, conveying 
 a portion of all the approbation felt on him that feels it, 
 and casting conscience into pleasant slumber. 
 
 The modes of pleasing his readers which we have hitherto 
 discovered to belong to the novelist, pertain primarily to 
 that element in the novel, which is contributed by Art, in 
 the exercise of her inalienable right to mould nature to suit 
 her purposes, to deck her out in what new fascinations, to 
 inspire her with what new thought, the artist chooses. But 
 the delineation of reality itself is a source of real and potent 
 pleasure. Of the enjoyment derived from what is strictly 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 379 
 
 called imitation in pictorial Art — from momentarily mis- 
 taking one thing for another — we do not now speak. We 
 allude to the satisfaction experienced when literary descrip- 
 tion sets vividly before us any scene, face, or incident, 
 which, in actual existence, would not in any measure arrest 
 us. Mr. Dickens interests us in the description of a thread- 
 bare coat, on which our glance would not have lingered for 
 a moment. Mr. Thackeray keeps us pleasantly entertained, 
 in the presence of persons, whom, in actual life, we should 
 find insufferably tedious. "A touch of nature makes the 
 whole world kin." When we recognize accurate descrip- 
 tion of fact in any literary work, we are apt to forget 
 all other qualities in our abounding delight. No doubt 
 this pleasure depends partly, if not entirely, on sympathy 
 with the exertion of human power ; but the fact is suffi- 
 cient for us, and we shall not tarry to discuss its theory. 
 
 We have already ventured to hint a rule, to enunciate a 
 principle, by which the novel may be tested, its dross dis- 
 covered and rejected, its sterling metal discerned and ap- 
 propriated. We have found it made up of a real and an 
 ideal element. To investigate the connection between the 
 two would lead us into deep and protracted discussion. 
 But so much is known of the relation borne by the one 
 to the other, that strength of realism is the surest pledge 
 of strength in the exercise of the pure imagination. Let 
 the demand made of novels therefore be, life, life, and 
 again, life ; truth in the delineation of character, truth in 
 portraying passion, truth in the direction given to the 
 reader's sympathies. The novelist may dispose his person- 
 ages as he will, but, once he has disposed them, they must 
 act in accordance with human nature and the facts of life. 
 Our space forbids any attempt to draw all the distinctions 
 which it might be useful here to lay down. But the prac- 
 
380 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 tical test we offer will be found not to fail. It is possible, 
 indeed, that the novelist may accurately narrate facts, yet 
 select such facts as ought not to be brought forward into 
 observation. In some instances, these may come under the 
 head of gross immorality, in which case they must be sim- 
 ply condemned and scorned. In others, they may be of 
 an abnormal and exceptional sort, beyond the legitimate 
 province of Art.* Of such we cannot speak here; but 
 nothing we could discover regarding them would lead us 
 to doubt the general principle, that truthful delineation of 
 life implies power in the writer and wholesomeness for the 
 reader. With this in his hand, discreetly borne, any one 
 may venture into the domain of fictitious literature. 
 
 We say the novelist may adjust the relations of his char- 
 acters as he pleases. He is of course bound down by cer- 
 tain laws of probability and natural fitness ; but, on the 
 whole, he may modify circumstances to his mind, if he 
 correctly and correspondingly modifies the actings of his 
 personages. It is a poor error, to be turned from essen- 
 tial truth by the thin veil of fictitious form. Whether such 
 a man as Othello lived or no is of little consequence ; that 
 is, it matters little whether his name was Othello, whether 
 he was by birth a Moor, whether he served the Venetians. 
 Wherever a warm, impulsive, passionate nature, noble and 
 generous to the core, is subdued by love and maddened by 
 jealousy, the Othello of Shakspeare will appear. Romeo 
 and Juliet may never have trod the streets of Verona ; but 
 wherever love exerts its strange, transforming power, there 
 will be Romeos and Juliets. The intense burning of Shak- 
 speare's truth forces its way, and shines out clear upon 
 us, through geographical mistakes, anachronisms, and the 
 
 * See the Essay on Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 381 
 
 wildest play of the imagination. Prospero is none the 
 less a man, that he dwells in an enchanted island and has 
 dealings with Ariel and Caliban. The angelic love and 
 pity which unite in the smile and the tear of Cordelia are 
 most true. The fiendish malignity in the eye and on the 
 brow of Iago is also, alas ! true. Lear is as a great ship, 
 tossing in a mighty wind, but in such a tempest precise- 
 ly so would such a ship rock and strain. 
 
 This matter of truth in the delineation of character, is 
 of first rate importance in estimating the value of any 
 work of fiction. It may be of use to name a few of the 
 more common errors fallen into in this department. In 
 the first place, men are apt to be converted into mere 
 embodiments of single passions. Life is represented as a 
 wild hurly-burly of passionate excitement. No allowance, 
 or insufficient allowance, is made for the continual small 
 rain of custom and habit, which so cools the heated brain 
 in every day existence. Next, there is a peculiar liability 
 to failure, in what might be called the right depicting of 
 silence. Men, it is well known, when they feel most 
 deeply are not apt to be loud in the communication of 
 their feelings. If they are men of action, they are still less 
 likely to be loquacious. But how is the poor novelist to 
 get on without his noisy dialogue and sounding soliloquy ? 
 Again, we meet with mere oafs and oddities, fit inmates of 
 Bedlam, or such as inhabit travelling caravans. It cannot 
 be doubted that these are almost entirely beyond the legit- 
 imate province of the novelist. Last of all, an error, pre- 
 cisely the reverse of that with which we set out, is often 
 committed. An exclusively intellectual nature, a superhu- 
 man superiority to, or inhuman absence of, passion, is 
 imputed to the supposititious characters. 
 
 All these errors, variously combined and modified, are 
 
382 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 abundantly represented in the novels of the Minerva Press. 
 That this class of novels still exists is too evident : but it 
 does not now occupy any seat of honor, and no Monk 
 Lewis will arise to rescue it from merited disdain. If we 
 consider it well, we shall find that its absurdities are, on the 
 whole, traceable to an absence of that sound, basing realism, 
 which we have praised so highly. It exhibited, on a grand 
 scale, the sickliness, the foolish vagaries, of an imagination 
 not walking constantly with life. It rendered an invaluable 
 service to criticism, by furnishing an incomparable example 
 of those false sources of popularity, those exaggerated de- 
 scriptions of passion, those morbid excitements, those 
 modish ideals, — of honor, of beauty, of picturesqueness, of 
 sublimity, — which may, for a time, secure unbounded 
 success, but which, having no root in nature, are fleeting as 
 the whims they pamper. No critic can henceforward be at 
 a loss for specimens of sentimentality, theatricality, fustian, 
 and the mock sublime. 
 
 Since nature alone affords inexhaustible variety, the 
 Minerva Press novel becomes soon recognizable, by the 
 recurring circle of its plots and characters. The book 
 opens with an atrocious murder. A body is found in some 
 pond, or river, or dungeon, or in the mysterious glade of 
 some haunted wood. The reader must be particularly on 
 his guard here against jugglery. Unless he is genuine 
 Yorkshire, a man whom he believed dead will surely arise 
 to his discomfiture in after days, heading some band of 
 robbers, and performing all manner of truculent work. 
 The reader must insist upon seeing the coffin nailed down 
 and committed to the grave ; if the death has been 
 hanging, he must watch by the fatal tree, at least three 
 hours, to certify himself that injured innocence is not cut 
 down before life is extinct; he must inspect the throat, 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 383 
 
 to see that no iron ring has been inserted to cheat the hang- 
 man. However, be it agreed that there is a murder, and 
 a mysterious one. The guilt of it somehow casts a dark 
 shadow around some sweet Adeline or Angelina, who is 
 either accused while innocent, or defrauded by cruel rela- 
 tives who have done the deed. In process of time, some 
 good-looking, gallant, mustachioed Herbert, or Lionel, or 
 Clifford, rights the oppressed, sets all in train about the 
 murder, talks the highest sentiment, and marries Angelina. 
 This instructive narrative is, of course, enlivened by a due 
 allotment of night attacks, tapers twinkling in ruins in lone 
 woods, rapturous ejaculations, superhuman devotions, and 
 valiant deaths. The novelist amends nature, but not in a 
 cunning or admirable manner ; not in accordance with the 
 deeper laws of nature itself, with which it is well for Art 
 always to consort, but in accordance with the requirements 
 of mode, in subservience to the trick o' the time. He 
 improves men in the manner of the applauded French 
 dramatist, who made men of the old Romans, by putting 
 them in court dresses and presenting them at Versailles. 
 To this class of novels appears to belong the whole series 
 bearing the title of Mysteries, whether of Paris, of London, 
 or Udolpho. Requiescant ! 
 
 The three greatest living novelists are Mr. Dickens, Sir 
 Edward Lytton Bulwer, and Mr. Thackeray. 
 
 We cannot undertake to say how much of the popularity 
 of Mr. Dickens is owing to that exertion of his genius which 
 is in itself highest, and how much to that large class of. 
 cases, in which, as must appear to a sound criticism, he has, 
 if not subjected his genius to dishonor, at least permitted it 
 to indulge in child's play. It is not for him to depend on 
 the delineation of those personal eccentricities, which Sterne 
 called hobby-horses, Jonson humors and which Mr., 
 
381 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 Macaulay has so finely characterized in his essay on Fanny 
 Burney. The Minerva Press itself might be challenged to 
 produce, from a like number of volumes, a number of oafs, 
 deformed persons, idiots, and monomaniacs, equal to that 
 which can be collected from the works of Mr. Dickens. 
 Consider the fat boy in Pickwick. What an exquisite ob- 
 servation was required, in order to discriminate from his 
 fellows that delicately marked character ; what a fine touch 
 was necessary to set distinctly on the canvas that instruc- 
 tive and charming personage ! Tupman is simply a man 
 of " humor " in Ben Jonson's sense. So is Winkle. Turn- 
 ing to the author's later works, the same characteristic is 
 presented. Skimpole, in Bleak House, is an oddity. Rich- 
 ard is a nonentity, with a foible or two which might have 
 cost him his freedom and secured him lodging in a lunatic 
 asylum. The little mad woman, the repulsive being who is 
 destroyed by spontaneous combustion, the brutalized old 
 miser, and so on, all belong to the same class. Boythorn 
 must have a canary to perch about his person. Jarndyce 
 must have idiosyncrasies about the growlery and the east 
 wind. Surely Mr. Dickens does not confer the highest 
 honor upon his genius, when he sets it to such tickling of 
 the fancy as this. 
 
 And his genius is worthy of honor. No writer could be 
 named on whom the indefinable gift has been more mani- 
 festly conferred. His early works are all aglow with genius. 
 The supreme potency with which he commands it, is shown 
 in the total absence of effort, in the classic chasteness and 
 limpid flow, of thought, fancy, and diction. You are in a 
 meadow just after dawn ; the flowers are fresh as if they 
 had awakened from slumber, and the dew is on them all. 
 A word, an idea, a glimpse of beauty, is always at hand ; 
 the writer never tarries a moment ; yet there is no display, 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 385 
 
 no profusion, of opulence. You do not see him waving the 
 wand ; the tear or the smile is on your cheek before you 
 are aware. 
 
 The distinctive power of Dickens lies, we think, in a sym- 
 pathy of extraordinary range, exquisite delicacy, and mar- 
 vellous truth. He does not so much look, with steady, 
 jmparticipating gaze, until he knows and remembers the 
 £xact features of life : he feels. With all human sorrow he 
 could weep ; with all human mirth he could laugh ; and 
 when he came to write, every emotion he aimed at exciting 
 was made sure, by being first experienced in his own breast. 
 [t was not with the individual man, in the wholeness of his 
 life, in the depths of his identity, that he naturally con- 
 cerned himself. It was kindness, rather than the one kind 
 man, that he saw. It was mirth, rather than the whole 
 character which is modified by humor. Qualities, capacities, 
 characteristics, rather than complete men, glassed them- 
 selves in the mirror of his clear and open soul. With all 
 his accuracy in detailed portraiture, it is a superficial per- 
 ception of the order of his genius, which does not see that 
 its power rested naturally less on realism, than on a peculiar, 
 delicate, and most captivating idealization. Pickwick, at 
 ieast in the whole earlier part of his history, is an impos- 
 sible personage. He belongs to broad farce. But we laugh 
 at his impossible conversation with the cabman. We laugh 
 at his impossible credulity as he listens to Jingle. We 
 iaugh at his impossible simplicity at the review. The far- 
 famed Sam Weller, too, corresponds to no reality. The 
 Londoner born and bred is apt to be the driest and most 
 uninteresting of beings. All things lost for him the gloss 
 of novelty when he was fifteen years old. He would suit 
 the museum of a nil admirari philosopher, as a specimen, 
 shrivelled and adust, of the ultimate result of his principle. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 33 
 
THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 But Dickens collected more jokes than all the cabmen in 
 London would utter in a year, and bestowed the whole 
 treasure upon Sam. His eye was far too acute for the 
 comical to let it rest on any one funny man. In the case 
 of those of his characters whom we are simply to admire 
 and love, the same distinctive mode of treatment is exhib- 
 ited. Rose Maylie and Esther Summerson are breathing 
 epitomes of the tendernesses, the sweetnesses, the beauties, 
 of life. Oliver Twist concentrates the single good qualities 
 of a hundred children. The kind-hearted man, Dickens's 
 stock character, be his name Pickwick, Jarndyce, or Clen- 
 nam, seems always radically the same, and corresponds well 
 enough with our theory. Perhaps it is essential deficiency 
 in the highest power of individualization, which drives Mr. 
 Dickens, it may be unconsciously, to affix, by way of labels, 
 to the personages of his story, those insignificant peculiari- 
 ties which all can perceive. 
 
 Amid the tumult and distracting blaze of his fame, one 
 is by no means safe from the blunder of overlooking the 
 kernel of genuine and precious humanity, of honest kind- 
 liness, of tender yet expansive benignity, which is in the 
 centre of Dickens's being. His nature must originally 
 have been most sweetly tuned. He must from the first 
 have abounded in those qualities, which are so beautiful 
 and winning when combined with manly character and 
 vigorous powers ; a cheerful gentleness, a loving hopeful- 
 ness, a willingness to take all thh/gs and men for the 
 best, an eye for the loveable; supi a disposition as one 
 finds in Goldsmith, a passionate admiration of happy 
 human faces, a delight in the sports and laughter of chil- 
 dren. He has always, too, been earnestly desirous to pro- 
 mote the welfare of men, to remove abuses, to do practical 
 good. In the conduct of Household Words, it is easy to 
 
DICKENS — BULWEK — THACKERAY. 387 
 
 see, he has ever had his eye on the practical, coming down 
 heartily now on one social wrong or absurdity, now on 
 another, the manner perhaps not always unexceptionable, 
 the spirit always right. 
 
 His stepping forward to aid the Administrative Reform 
 Association was very characteristic, and strikingly indi- 
 cated the practicality and nobleness of his nature. That 
 miserable association could expose the evils of malad- 
 ministration only as the Helot could expose the evils of 
 drunkenness. But Dickens could not sit apart in the 
 approved literary fashion. When men arose visibly, and 
 declared it their wish and endeavor to bring talent into 
 the councils of the nation, they could not, of course, look 
 for any aid from him who had been preaching hero-worship 
 and the importance of finding talent for the nation all his 
 days. Mr. Carlyle was quiet. Mr. Maurice published a 
 weak and windy pamphlet, to the effect, of course, that 
 you both should and should not support Administrative 
 Reform. Dickens simply attempted to render some prac- 
 tical assistance. Thus he has ever acted. A pure white 
 flame of ambition to do practical good has ever burned 
 steadily in his breast, and no blustering applause, no favor- 
 ing fortune, could dim its brightness. It is a consideration 
 of this fact, associated with that of his warm and generous 
 sympathy with every emotion he believes at once noble and 
 sincere, which makes it so mournful that Dickens has never 
 really in any sense known what true evangelical Christian- 
 ity is. The most earnest and exalted feeling that dwells in 
 the human breast is to him strange and inconceivable. He 
 has had no glimpse of the beauty and joy of holiness. The 
 zeal which has sent hundreds from the luxuries and adula- 
 tions of civilization, to die, with wasted cheek and burning 
 brow, on the sterile sands of moral and physical desolation, 
 
388 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 is to him a delusion and absurdity. The delight that can 
 be found in the sabbatic calm of devotion, the solace and 
 blissful rest of worship, are to him hypocritical affectations 
 or wholly unknown. He has indeed felt his heart drawn 
 out in sympathy towards the perfect humanity of the 
 Saviour, towards His tender compassion and infinite self- 
 sacrificing love : but of the religion of Jesus in its truest 
 form now extant he knows only a painful and revolting 
 caricature. 
 
 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton seems to have been adapted 
 by nature to succeed as a novelist ; and he has succeeded. 
 The characteristic of his mind is diffused and comprehen- 
 sive energy. Neither emotionally nor intellectually, is Sir 
 Edward's mind determined, with overwhelming force, in 
 one direction. The result has been that neither in the 
 province of pure imagination, nor in that of pure intellect, 
 has he attained the highest degree of excellence. As a 
 thinker, men will not accept him for a guide ; as a poet, 
 he has failed. The novel is in some respects a debatable 
 region, between the spheres of the philosophic thinker and 
 the poet. In the department of the novel he has accord- 
 ingly won very distinguished honor. The creations of his 
 fertile mind, decked out in the fairest colors, float between 
 the domains of unimaginative prose and truly imaginative 
 poetry. The rhythmic melody, the heaven-kindled en- 
 thusiasm, the deep, unfeigned faith, which pervade the 
 prose of Milton are absent from his works ; the penetrat- 
 ing logic of Butler, the determined inquisition of Foster, 
 are alike foreign to him; but his prose holds in solution 
 about as much poetry as prose can, and his novels contain 
 about as much thought as readers will endure. 
 
 The special ability of Bulwer appears to lie in the delin- 
 eation of that passion with which the novel is so deeply 
 
DICKENS — BULWER- THACKERAY. 389 
 
 concerned, the passion of love. All true and manly pas- 
 sions, let it be said, are honored and illustrated in his 
 pages. But he stands alone among novelists of his sex in 
 the portraiture of love, and specially of love in the female 
 breast. The heroism, the perfect trust the strength in death, 
 are painted by him with a sympathetic truth for which we 
 know not where to seek a parallel. The effect of Eugene 
 Aram's speech at his trial, upon Madeline, his betrothed, — 
 the calm, beautiful, satisfied smile, which lit up her wan 
 features, — is a golden letter from the very handwriting 
 of nature. Then, where, out of Shakspeare, can we find 
 such a series of female portraits as those in Rienzi f One 
 scarce knows to which of the masterly delineations to ac- 
 cord the palm. There is the weak, womanly Adeline, 
 strong only in love, able to die beautifully, but not to live 
 well. In Irene, there is love's complete, ineradicable de- 
 votion, all-subduing, spontaneous, self-sacrificing. In Nina, 
 proud love gazes, self-reliant, and self-satisfied, on all the 
 world around, but sinks in womanly tenderness on the 
 breast of the loved one. Adeline is the soft, flower-like 
 woman, growing fair in the calm summer radiance, but 
 withering in the wintry blast. Irene is the human angel, 
 of whom poets have so long sung. Nina is the queen, 
 ready to live with, or die for, her husband-king. Rienzi 
 himself is nobly imagined, endeavoring to tread the surges 
 and engulfed. ^ 
 
 Mr. Thackeray is, as a novelist, so pointed and unmis- 
 takable a contrast to Mr. Dickens, that it is interesting to 
 find them writing at the same time. Thackeray is as little 
 of an idealizer as it seems possible to be, if you write novels 
 at all. He cuts into conventionalism so daringly, that you 
 fear sometimes, as when he gives you a novel without a 
 hero, that he goes too far, and puts in peril the essence of 
 
390 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 his Art. If he does idealize, it is not in the manner of 
 Dickens, but in one strikingly different. He selects charac- 
 ters as Dickens selects characteristics. But he depends 
 for success not on the power of his personages to evoke 
 sympathy, negative or positive, but on their strict corre- 
 spondence with fact. It cannot, perhaps, be said that he, 
 any more than Mr. Dickens, reaches the Shakspearean sub- 
 stratum of character. His eye is that of an artist. It has 
 been trained to take in the whole aspect of the outer man, 
 not only in the minutiae of his dress, but in the whole 
 monotonous circumstance of his every day life. His popu- 
 larity is the most powerful evidence to which one could 
 easily point, of the capacity residing in the exhibition of 
 bare, or even repulsive fact, to interest mankind. It is said 
 that Thackeray abandoned the career of an artist, because, 
 according to his own avowal, he could only caricature. 
 He felt the absence of the higher idealizing power. His 
 novels exhibit the radical qualities which would have dis- 
 tinguished his pictures. It is not emotionally that we 
 regard them. They call forth no glow of admiration, no 
 i warm, loving sympathy, no wonder, no reverence. He 
 makes his appeal to sterner, colder powers, to reflection, to 
 the cynic's philosophy, to contempt. It may be better, 
 higher, more noble and self-denying, in him, to do so ; but; 
 the fact is patent. And its inevitable consequence has 
 been and will be, a popularity not so wide, a command 
 over the heart not so great, as those of men who permit 
 fancy to lay on color, and imagination to heighten life. 
 The non-existent Pickwick will always be more deeply 
 loved than the actual Dobbin. The positive folly and 
 knavishness of Job and Jingle will always interest more 
 than the dismally negative stupidity of Jos. The metallic 
 heartlessness, the machine-like selfishness, of Becky, marvel- 
 
DICKENS — BULWER — THACKERAY. 391 
 
 lous, inimitable, as that portrait is, will neutralize all her 
 cleverness in attempting to awaken so warm an interest 
 as Rose May lie, Nancy, or Esther Summerson. Facts of 
 perfect notoriety bear out this view. Thackeray owes his 
 popularity in great measure to reviewers. The men who 
 were not in the way of experiencing emotion recognized 
 his power. The clever young fellows of a satirical cast, 
 laboring under the misfortune, painfully conscious to them- 
 selves, of being before their age, were all on his side. 
 Currer Bell, with woman's vehemence and woman's cordi- 
 ality, made up her mind that he was a great teacher, come 
 with some profound and important message for his genera- 
 tion ; and, having made up her mind, she emphatically 
 announced it. Of truth, whether intellectual or ethical, the 
 works of Thackeray contain, demonstrably and indubitably, 
 but a superficial film. But the voice of Currer Bell was 
 heard, and the trumpetings of reviewers, the applause of 
 knowing young men, and other causes, gradually brought 
 him into notice. Thackeray became the fashion. Dickens 
 owed as little of his popularity to reviewers as the Great 
 Unknown or the Oxford Graduate. It must not be, from 
 this, inferred that Mr. Dickens is to be set before Mr. 
 Thackeray. The reverse might, indeed, be argued, although 
 we do not intend to argue either. Mr. Thackeray suc- 
 ceeded, without any aid, in obtaining an audience, select 
 it is true, but so cultivated and influential, that, somewhat 
 as in the case of Wordsworth, the nation at large was 
 forced to acknowledge him. Those who could find satis- 
 faction in the uncompromising recital of nature's facts 
 thronged around him. 
 
 If it were asked what one aspect of life Mr. Thackeray 
 has distinctively exhibited, the answer could be given in 
 one word, — the trivial aspect. The characters he draws 
 
392 THE MODERN NOVEL. 
 
 are neither the best of men nor the worst. But the atmos- 
 phere of triviality which envelopes them all was never 
 before so plainly perceivable. He paints the world as a 
 great Vanity Fair, and none has done that so well. 
 
 The realism of Thackeray can hardly fail to have a good 
 effect in fictitious literature. It represents the extreme 
 point of reaction against the false idealism of the Minerva 
 Press. It is a pre-Raphaelite school of novel writing. And 
 as pre-Raphaelitism is not to be valued in itself, so much as 
 in being the passage to a new and nobler ideal, the stern 
 realism of Thackeray may lead the way to something better 
 than itself. 
 
 We found that the novel occupies a distinct and legiti- 
 mate place among the forms of human exertion, and we 
 cannot but deem it a crude and shallow error to pronounce 
 upon it a sentence of indiscriminating condemnation. The 
 man who looks resolutely for truth, and bids away from 
 him any feeble desire to be merely amused, may derive 
 important information as to his time, and valuable knowl- 
 edge of human nature, by a heedful and limited study of 
 modern novels. But, on the whole, our decision would be 
 that the more limited this study is the better. Converse 
 with rugged fact, whether of history or science, is what, 
 beyond question, most effectually braces and nourishes the 
 mind. If the tendency of the time were to strike its roots 
 into the rock, and not to seek the soft sunshine above, one 
 might freely advise indulgence in light reading. But 
 since the tendency on this side is by no means likely to 
 run to excess, and since the studious facilitation of mental 
 exercise, and the habitual use of intellectual stimulants, are 
 exceedingly apt to enervate and destroy the mind, our 
 final counsel is to lay, as much as may be, the novel on 
 the shelf. 
 
VIII. 
 
 ELLIS, ACTON, AND CURRER BELL. 
 
 Even while the heart of the British nation is filled to 
 overflowing by one great anguish and one great hope, we 
 cannot doubt that a thrill of real sorrow will pass to e very- 
 corner of the land with the tidings that Mrs. Nicholls, 
 formerly Charlotte Bronte, and known to all the world as 
 Currer Bell, is no more. But a few months ago, we heard 
 of her marriage. It became known, with a smile of happy 
 surprise, that the merciless derider of weak and insipid 
 suitors had found a lord and master, that the hand which 
 drew the three worshipful ecclesiastics, Malone, Donne, and 
 Sweeting, had been locked at the altar in that of a curate. 
 And already the smile fades away in the sound of her 
 funeral knell, leaving us to reflect, that all of fruit and 
 flower which time might have matured in the garden of 
 her genius has been nipped by the frost of death. There 
 is something which strikes us as peculiarly touching in the 
 death of Currer Bell. She seemed so full of animation, of 
 vigor ; life danced like wine in her veins : all she said was 
 so fresh and stirring ; the child-look, taking this for a grand 
 world, worth living in, no place for whining, was still on 
 her face. The brave little woman ! — in whose works you 
 could not point to a slovenly line, to an obscure or tarrying 
 idea. One thought of her as combining the iron will of 
 
394 CURRER BELL. 
 
 her little Jane, with the peerless nature of her Shirley, the 
 beautiful pantheress, the forest-born. She could have stood 
 out under the lightning, to trace, with firm pencil, its zig- 
 zags of crackling fire. And now she too is but a few 
 handfuls of white dust ! Her step will never more be upon 
 the loved wolds of Yorkshire and the broad moors which 
 she made classic by her genius. 
 
 " Her part in all the pomp that fills 
 
 The circuit of the summer hills 
 
 Is that her grave is green." 
 
 It is a trite, yet ever a suggestive remark, that the variety 
 of nature is infinite. You have been watching the sun, 
 when, as if in love's changefulness, he smiled from behind 
 April clouds on the awakening earth. Those evanescent 
 lights on lawn and lea, those bright gleams on the distant 
 river, that fantastic sport of the sunlight, kindling its broad 
 and silvery illumination, burst after burst, amid the moun- 
 tain mist, will never be seen again. Every effect of nature 
 is solitary. Each star has its own twinkle, every lily of the 
 field its peculiar and unshared beauty. The Hand whose 
 touch is perfection repeats not its strokes. But, without 
 inquiring what specifically is that mystic thing called genius, 
 it is universally conceded, that it is of its essential nature 
 to be, in a peculiar sense, unexampled and alone. Whether 
 it be a positive addition to the ordinary complement of 
 human faculty, or whether it be some new and cunning 
 harmony, some delicate balancing, some exquisite sharpen- 
 ing, of the ordinary mental powers, it is at least agreed 
 that, from the eye in which men discern genius, there falls 
 over the world a light whose very novelty urges to the 
 term. It has been said by Coleridge, that the effect of 
 genius on its possessor is to perpetuate, in mature age, the 
 
CURRER BELL. 395 
 
 wakeful curiosity, the fresh enjoyment, the loving surprise, 
 with which healthful childhood gazes on the new w T orld ; to 
 enable a man to see, in the clear, strong light of intellectual 
 noontide, the same fairness and freshness over the earth as 
 when it lay under the dewy dawn. Be this as it may, the 
 fact is beyond question, that there is a difference between 
 the perceptions of such an one and those of the throng. 
 Into recesses of the human heart, whither, erewhile, we 
 could not penetrate, this new light guides our steps. Secret 
 and ravishing glimpses of beauty, to which we never before 
 thrilled, are now revealed to us. Passions which lay dormant 
 in our breasts have been awakened ere we were aware, to 
 overflow in tears or flash in fire. Truths which were alto- 
 gether unknown, or, through custom, faded and powerless, 
 have beamed forth with startling or alluring clearness. 
 And when here, too, death asserts his iron rule, it is no 
 figure of speech, but a simple statement of fact, that tones 
 have died away which we can never hear again from the 
 universal harp of nature, that " a light has passed from the 
 revolving year," and that Providence has again worked 
 out, in all it involves of responsibility and monition, those 
 high intents for which there was sent among us an original 
 mind. The mind of Currer Bell was assuredly original; 
 and when we add, that the genius by which it was charac- 
 terized was accompanied by an earnestness which might be 
 called religious, and turned, by a strong human sympathy, 
 upon the general aspects and salient points of the age, it 
 becomes a matter of serious moment to sum up the work 
 she has done, and estimate the lesson she has taught us. 
 The office of criticism is twofold ; it has one duty to perform 
 for behoof of the author and another to the reader. From 
 that point of view which every honest and individual, 
 though nowise remarkably powerful, mind occupies, lights 
 
396 CURRER BELL, 
 
 of guidance or suggestion may be discerned, of value to 
 the highest ; honest criticism of living authors is therefore 
 beyond question to be approved. But this task, and what- 
 ever of even apparent acerbity it may entail, ceases with 
 the life of the author. As we received from the dying 
 hand the gift to which there will be no addition, however 
 it may be required of us to define its value, we may at 
 least permit to criticism the tone of affection and respect. 
 It is singularly so in the case of Currer Bell. Whatever 
 estimate we may form of the net result of positive instruc- 
 tion — the actual amount of such sound available thought 
 as will pave the highways of the world — to be found in 
 her works, we cannot but think with tender emotion on 
 the darkness which has so soon swallowed the brief and 
 meteoric splendor of her career; while we should deem 
 that reader of perceptions strangely blunted, who has never 
 discerned that, with all her vigor and sternness, it was 
 deep and womanly love which filled the inmost fountains 
 of her heart. It is well, too, to remember, that it were an 
 important mistake to test the value of any work, or series 
 of works, by the mere logical truth they contain. The 
 true, the beautiful, and the good, are inalienably allied. In 
 the immeasurable system of education which nature has 
 constructed around us in this world, their conscious or 
 unconscious influences are perpetually blended. He who 
 came to unfold celestial and unattainable truth, deemed 
 not His teaching complete, until He turned the eyes of His 
 disciples on the loveliness of the lily and the gay careless- 
 ness of the birds. Every tone of true pathos, every reveal- 
 ing glance by which a new aspect of nature's loveliness 
 opens on our eyes — all that tends, in what way soever, to 
 make us nobler, gentler, better — must be reckoned in the 
 account of what an author has conferred upon us. 
 
CURRER BELL. 397 
 
 The name of Currer Bell has constantly been associated 
 with those of her two sisters, Emily and Anne, known in 
 the literary world as Ellis and Acton Bell. The three 
 were the daughters of a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, who, as we learn from the newspapers, still " at 
 Haworth, near Keighley, in Yorkshire," survives his wife 
 and all his children. Genius, as has not unfrequently hap- 
 pened, was, in the case of the three sisters, associated 
 with the seeds of fatal disease. Perhaps our whole literary 
 annals will show no more touching episode than that on 
 which the leaf has just been turned by the death of Currer 
 Bell. It is our present purpose to treat chiefly of the 
 works of this last, but we shall be pardoned for making 
 allusion to her sisters. 
 
 Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, was, we 
 have no hesitation in saying, one of the most extraordinary 
 women that ever lived. We have felt strongly impelled to 
 pronounce her genius more powerful, her promise more 
 rich, than those of her gifted sister, Charlotte. For ac- 
 cepting this avowal, the reader will be somewhat prepared, 
 by perusing the following sentences, from the biographic 
 notice, brief, but of thrilling interest, of her two sisters, 
 given to the world by Currer Bell : — " My sister Emily 
 first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded 
 in my memory ; but to dwell on them, either in thought or 
 narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had 
 she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she 
 did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste 
 to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally 
 she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by 
 day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I 
 looked on her with an anguish of wonder and love. I 
 have seen nothing like it ; but, indeed, I have never seen 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 34 
 
398 CURRER BELL. 
 
 her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler 
 than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point 
 was, that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had 
 no pity; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the 
 trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the 
 same service was exacted as they had rendered in health." 
 The picture thus vividly drawn of a frail form stand- 
 ing up undaunted in the scowl of death, should be 
 kept before us as we turn to the work left us by Ellis 
 Bell. It were a strange and surely a distempered criti- 
 cism which hesitated to pass sentence of condemnation on 
 Wuthering Heights. We have no such hesitation. Can- 
 ons of art sound and imperative, true tastes and natural 
 instincts, of which these canons are the expression, unite 
 in pronouncing it unquestionably and irremediably mon, 
 strous. If there is any truth or indication of truth in all 
 that the most artistic of nations alleged concerning the line 
 of beauty, if it is true that in every w 7 ork of art, however 
 displayed, we must meet the proofs of moderation, of calm- 
 ness, of tempered and mastered power; if it is a reasonable 
 demand that the instances of nature's abortion, from which 
 we would turn away in the street, objects and incidents 
 which awake no higher emotion than abhorrent disgust, 
 be honored with no embalming rites, but left to be taken 
 out of our sight, like dead dogs and carrion, by that nature 
 which never perpetuates what is gross or noisome; this 
 work must be condemned. On the dark brow and iron 
 cheek of HeathclifF, there are touches of the Miltonic 
 fiend; but we shrink in mere loathing, in "unequivocal 
 contempt," from the base wretch who can use his cruelty 
 as the tool of his greed, and whose cruelty itself is so un- 
 redeemed by any resistance or stimulant, as to expend 
 itself on a dying son or a girl's poodle. There are things 
 
CUBRER BELL. a99 
 
 which the pen of history cannot be required to do more 
 than touch on and pass by. "We desire not admittance into 
 the recesses of the palace of Sujah Dowlah, we will not 
 penetrate the privacy of the Caesars. If the historic artist 
 must at times show us the darkest evil, that we may avoid 
 it, or sweep it from the earth, neither his nor any other 
 art can altogether forego the glorious privilege of washing 
 its creations in pure water, and shunning, at least, the foul 
 and offensive. The whole atmosphere, too, of this fiction 
 is distempered, disturbed, and unnatural. Fever and mal- 
 aria are in the air. The emotions and the crimes are on the 
 scale of madness ; and, as if earthly beings, and feelings 
 called terrestrial, were not of potency sufficient to carry on 
 the exciting drama, there are dangerous, very ghostly per- 
 sonages, of the spectral order, introduced, and communings 
 held with the spirit world which would go far to prove 
 Yorkshire the original locality of spirit-rapping. All this 
 is true, and no reader of the book will deem our mode of 
 expressing it severe. Yet we have perfect confidence in 
 pointing to Wuthering Heights, as a work containing evi- 
 dence of powers it were perhaps impossible to estimate, 
 and mental wealth which we might vainly attempt to com- 
 pute. A host of Titans would make wild work, if directed 
 by a child to overturn the mountains; a host of dwarfs 
 would do little good or harm in any case ; but bring your 
 Titans under due command, set over them a judgment that 
 can discern and command, and hill will rise swiftly over 
 hill, till the pyramid is scaling the sky. The powers mani- 
 fested in this strange book seem to us comparable to a 
 Titan host ; and we know no task beyond their might, had 
 they been ruled by a severe taste and discriminating judg- 
 ment. The mere ability to conceive and depict, with 
 strength so unwavering and clearness so vivid, that wild 
 
400 CURRER BELL. 
 
 group of characters, the unmeasured distance into which 
 recedes all that is conventional, customary, or sentimental, 
 the tremendous strength and maturity of the style, would 
 be enough to justify our words. The very absurdities and 
 exaggerations of the construction lend their testimony here. 
 Not for a moment, with such materials, could the aim of art 
 have been attained, could belief, in some sense and for some 
 space, have been produced, save by commanding powers. 
 It may be the wild and haggard pageantry of a dream at 
 which we gaze, but it is a dream we can never forget. 
 Though the dissent and denial of our reason are, when we 
 pause, explicit, we no sooner resign ourselves to the spell 
 of the magician, than we feel powerless to disbelieve. In 
 the strength of the assertion, we overlook its absurdity. 
 Touching the character of Heathcliff, moreover, and, with 
 less expressness, of that of Cathy Earnshaw, we have a 
 remark to make, which will extend to certain of the char- 
 acters of Currer Bell, and which might, we think, go far to 
 point out a psychological defence, to be urged with some 
 plausibility, of much that is extravagant and revolting in 
 either case. The power over the mind of what Mr. Car- 
 lyle calls " fixed idea," is well known ; the possession of 
 the whole soul by one belief or aim produces strange and 
 unaccountable effects, commingling strength and weakness, 
 kindness and cruelty, and seeming, at first sight, to com- 
 promise the very unity of nature. Ellis Bell, in Wither- 
 ing Heights, deals with a kindred, though somewhat differ- 
 ent phenomenon. She has not to do with intellect, but 
 emotion. She paints the effects of one overmastering feel- 
 ing, the maniac actings of him who has quaffed one draught 
 of maddening passion. The passion she has chosen is love. 
 There is still a gleam of nobleness, of natural human affec- 
 tion, in the heart of Heathcliff in the days of his early love 
 
CURRER BELL. 401 
 
 for Cathy, when he rushes manfully at the bull-dog which 
 has seized her, and sets himself, after she is safe in Thrush- 
 cross Grange, on the window ledge, to watch how matters 
 go on, u because," says he, " if Catherine had wished to 
 return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a 
 million fragments, unless they let her out." But we watch 
 that boyish heart, until, in the furnace of hopeless and 
 agonizing passion, it becomes as insensible to any tender 
 emotion, to any emotion save one, as a mass of glowing 
 iron to trickling dew. Heathcliff's original nature is seen 
 only in the outgoing of his love towards Cathy ; there he 
 is human, if he is frenzied ; in all other cases, he is a devil. 
 As his nature was never good, as there were always in it 
 the hidden elements of the sneak and the butcher, the 
 whole of that semi-vital life which he retains towards the 
 rest of the world is ignoble and revolting. His sorrow 
 has been to him moral death. With truly diabolic uni- 
 formity, every exercise of power possible to him upon any 
 creature, rational or irrational, Cathy, of course, excepted, 
 is made for its torment. He seems in one half of his nature 
 to have lost all sensibility, to be unconscious that human 
 beings suffer pain. The great agony of passion has burned 
 out of his bosom the chords of sympathy which linked him 
 to his kind, and left him in that ghastly and fiendish soli- 
 tude, which it is awful to dream of as a possible element in 
 the punishment of hell. However-frightful the love-scenes 
 in the death chamber of Cathy — and we suppose there is 
 nothing at all similar to these in the range of literature — 
 we feel that we are in the presence of a man. When we 
 think on his early roamings with his lost and dying love 
 on the wild moors, we can even perceive, stealing over the 
 heart, a faint breath of sympathy. But when he leaves 
 the world of his real existence — the world of his love for 
 34* 
 
402 CURRER BELL. 
 
 Cathy, whether as a breathing woman, or as the wraith 
 which he still loves on — we shrink from him as from a 
 corpse, made more ghastly by the hideous movements of 
 galvanism. Somewhat different is the effect of the same 
 passion upon Cathy. Hers was originally a brave, beauti- 
 ful, essentially noble nature ; through all her waywardness, 
 we love her still ; and though her passion for Heathcliff 
 costs her her life, it never scathes and sears her soul into 
 a calcined crag like his. To the last, her heart and imag- 
 ination can bear her to the wild flowers she used to gather 
 amid the heath ; strange and wraith-like as she grows in the 
 storm of that resistless passion, we know full well that no 
 mean, or cruel, or unwomanly thought could enter her 
 breast. Viewed as a psychological study of this sort, a 
 defence might, we say, be set up for the choice of these 
 two characters; and when thus confessedly morbid, their 
 handling will be allowed to be masterly. Nor can it be 
 alleged that instances of similar passion, attended by like 
 results, are not to be met with in real life. Madness, 
 idiocy, and death, are acknowledged to follow misguided 
 or hopeless affection. In the case both of Cathy and 
 Heathcliff, there was unquestionably a degree of the first. 
 But the defence can at best be partial, for, we submit, 
 bedlam is no legitimate sphere of art. Of one thing, how- 
 ever, there can be no doubt. The girl's hand which drew 
 Heathcliff and Cathy, which never shook as it brought out 
 those lines of agony on cheek and brow, which never for a 
 moment lost its strength and sweep in flourish or bravura, 
 was such as has seldom wielded either pen or pencil. 
 
 "We might descant at great length on the variety of 
 power displayed in this extraordinary book ; but we should 
 leave it without conveying an idea, even partially correct, 
 of its general character, if we omitted to notice those 
 
CURRER BELL. 403 
 
 touches of nature's softest beauty, those tones of nature's 
 softest melody, which are blended, so cunningly as to excite 
 no sense of discord, with its general excitement and gloom. 
 We cannot forbear quoting here a passage which seems to 
 us deeply suggestive ; the speaker is a young girl, and he 
 of whom she speaks a boy about her own age : — 
 
 " One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said 
 the pleasantest manner of spending, a hot July day was 
 lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the 
 middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily 
 about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up 
 overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily 
 and cloudlessly. That was his perfect idea of heaven's 
 happiness. Mine was, rocking in a rustling green tree, with 
 a west wind blowing, and bright, white clouds flitting 
 rapidly above ; and not only larks, but throstles, and black- 
 birds, and linnets, and cuckoos, pouring out music on every 
 side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool, 
 dusky dells ; but close by great swells of long grass undu- 
 lating in waves to the breeze ; and woods, and sounding 
 water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He 
 wanted all to lie in an ecstacy of peace ; I wanted all to 
 sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee." 
 
 Does this not bear witness to much ? No sympathy but 
 that of a green heart could have won access to that child's 
 heaven. None but a free, and elastic, and loving nature 
 could thus, with the inimitable touch of truth and reality* 
 have heard, through the ear of that glad girl, in the joy- 
 toned anthem of bird, and water, and rustling branch, the 
 very music of heaven. The faithfulness of the picture, the 
 perfect and effortless realization of the whole summer scene, 
 so that we hear that west wind, and see those bright white 
 clouds — the cumulous clouds which the summer long, are 
 
404 CURRER BELL. 
 
 the flocks of the west wind — and scent that bloom of the 
 warm, waving heather, is demonstration absolutely sufficient 
 of that inborn love of nature's joy and beauty which never 
 yet dwelt in a narrow or unworthy breast. This short 
 extract, too, is sufficient to prove maturity and excellence 
 of style. There is a free, strong, graceful force in every 
 line ; there is no dallying, no second touch ; the little scene 
 groups itself gracefully together as if to that summer music. 
 
 We make no more than an allusion to Ellis Bell's poetry. 
 It is characterized by strength and freshness, and by that 
 original cadence, that power of melody, which, be it wild, 
 or tender, or even harsh, was never heard before, and comes 
 at first hand from nature, as her sign of the born poet. 
 We have compared the poetry of the three sisters ; and in 
 spite of a prevailing opinion to the contrary, we scruple 
 not to declare, that the clear result of our examination is 
 the conclusion that Ellis Bell's is beyond measure the best. 
 
 But, after all, we must pronounce what has been left us 
 by this wonderful woman, unhealthy, immature, and worthy 
 of being avoided. WutJiering Heights, we repeat, belongs 
 to the horror school of fiction, and is involved in its unequiv- 
 ocal and unexcepting condemnation. We say not that a 
 mind, inured to the task, cannot, by careful scrutiny and 
 severe discrimination, derive valuable hints and important 
 exercise from such works. You may trace and emulate 
 strength of touch and richness of color, while you detest the 
 subject. You may listen to snatches of woodland music, and 
 thrill to tints of woodland beauty, in the neighborhood of 
 the hyena's den. But we do not for this recall our condem- 
 nation. At the foot of the gallows, touches of nature's 
 tenderness may be marked: in the pallid face of the crim- 
 inal you may note workings of emotion not to be seen 
 elsewhere. Anatomy might be studied, with both novelty 
 
CURRER BELL. 405 
 
 and force of instruction, in the quivering of the muscles and 
 wrenching of the forehead of one who lay on the wheel. 
 But it admits not of question, that the general effect of such 
 spectacles is brutalizing, and we would therefore without 
 hesitation terminate their publicity. On exactly the same 
 grounds, would we bid our readers avoid works of distem- 
 pered excitement. Even when such are of the highest 
 excellence in their class, as those of Ellis Bell and Edgar 
 Poe, we would deliberately sentence them to oblivion. 
 Their general effect is to produce a mental state alien to the 
 calm energy and quiet homely feelings of real life ; to make 
 the soul the slave of stimulants, and those of the fiercest 
 kind ; and, whatever morbid irritability may for the time 
 be fostered, to shrivel and dry up those sympathies which 
 are the most tender, delicate, and precious. Works like 
 those of Edgar Poe and this Wuthering Heights must be 
 plainly declared to blunt, to brutalize, and to enervate the 
 mind. Of the poetry, also, of Ellis Bell, it must be said 
 that it is not healthful. Its beauty is allied to that wild 
 loveliness which may gleam on the hectic cheek, or move 
 while it startles, as we listen to maniac ravings. And 
 wherefore this unchanging wail, whence this perpetual and 
 inexpressible melancholy, in the poems of one so young ? 
 What destiny is it with which this young heart so vainly 
 struggles, and by which it is overcome ? Is it possible that, 
 under the sunny azure of an English sky, and while the foot 
 is on English moors, so utter a sadness may descend on a 
 girl, whom we expect to find " a metaphor of spring, and 
 mirth, and gladness," the sister of the fawn and the linnet ? 
 The spectacle is deeply touching, and, alas ! the explanation 
 is at hand ; an explanation which, while it leaves untouched 
 the assertion that the beauty of these poems is that of the 
 blighted flower, changes every feeling with which we might 
 
406 CURBER BELL. 
 
 momentarily regard their author into pitying sorrow. Her 
 genius was yoked with death. It never freed itself from 
 the dire companionship, never rose into freedom and clear- 
 ness. As in the old Platonic chariot, her soul, borne by 
 her winged genius, rose strong and daring towards the 
 empyrean ; but ere it breathed the pure serene, that black 
 steed, which was also yoked indissolubly to the car, dragged 
 her downwards even to the grave. Her poetry, whatever 
 tones of true and joyful lyric music it may at intervals 
 afford, is, as a whole, but the wild wailing melody to which 
 was fought the battle between genius and death. 
 
 Of Anne Bronte, known as Acton Bell, we have scarce a 
 remark to make. In her life, too, sadness was the reigning 
 element, but she possessed no such strong genius as her 
 sister. " Anne's character," says Currer Bell, " was more 
 subdued ; she wanted the power, the fire, the originality of 
 her sister, but was well endowed with quiet virtues of her 
 own. Long-suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelli- 
 gent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and 
 kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially 
 her feelings, with a sort of nun-like veil, which was rarely 
 lifted." Her death is thus recorded by the same authority : 
 — " She (Ellis) was not buried ere Anne fell ill. She had 
 not been committed to the grave a fortnight, before we 
 received distinct intimation that it was necessary to prepare 
 our minds to see the younger sister go after the elder. 
 Accordingly, she followed in the same path, with slower 
 step, and with a patience that equalled the other's fortitude. 
 I have said that she was religious, and it was by leaning on 
 those Christian doctrines in which she firmly believed, that 
 she found support through her most painful journey. I 
 witnessed their efficacy in her latest hour and greatest trial, 
 and must bear testimony to the calm triumph with which 
 
CURRER BELL. 407 
 
 they brought her through." She died May 28, 1849. The 
 last lines written by Acton Bell are so full of pathos, 
 awaken a sorrow so holy and ennobling, and breathe a faith 
 so strong and tranquil, that we cannot pass them by : — 
 
 " I hoped, that with the brave and strong, 
 My portion'd task might lie ; 
 To toil amid the busy throng, 
 With purpose pure and high. 
 
 But God has fix'd another part, 
 
 And he has fix'd it well : 
 I said so with my bleeding heart, 
 
 When first the anguish fell. 
 
 Thou, God, hast taken our delight, 
 
 Our treasured hope away : 
 Thou bidd'st us now weep through the night, 
 
 And sorrow through the day. 
 
 These weary hours will not be lost, 
 
 These days of misery, 
 These nights of darkness, anguish-tost, 
 
 Can I but turn to thee : 
 
 With secret labor to sustain 
 
 In humble patience every blow ; 
 To gather fortitude from pain, 
 
 And hope and holiness from woe. 
 
 Thus let me serve thee from my heart, 
 
 Whate'er may be my written fate ; 
 Whether thus early to depart, 
 
 Or yet awhile to wait. 
 
 If thou should'st bring me back to life, 
 
 More humbled I should be ; 
 More wise — more strengthen'd for the strife, 
 
 More apt to lean on thee. 
 
408 CURRER BELL. 
 
 Should death be standing at the gate, 
 
 Thus should I keep my vow ; 
 But, Lord ! whatever be my fate, 
 
 Oh, let me serve thee now I" 
 
 "These lines written," adds Currer Bell, "the desk was 
 closed, the pen laid aside, forever." 
 
 It may well be doubted whether any more than a faint 
 and mournful reminiscence of Ellis and Acton Bell will 
 survive the generation now passing away. But the case is 
 widely different with the eldest of the sisters. Currer Bell 
 has won for herself a place in our literature from which she 
 cannot be deposed. Her influence will long be felt, as a 
 strong plastic energy, in the literature of Britain and the 
 world. The language of England will retain a trace of her 
 genius. We have no intention, at present, to subject her 
 works to a detailed criticism ; we purpose merely to notice 
 a few of her leading characteristics, and, listening to her 
 words as those of one who scrupled not to assume the 
 tone of a censor of her age, and considered every word she 
 penned matter of conscientious regard, to endeavor to 
 define, briefly but articulately, the worth of her teaching. 
 Currer Bell professed to be no idle entertainer. She did 
 not, indeed, tag on a moral to the end of her book, — else 
 it had been little worth, — or even blazon it on its surface. 
 But she professed to write truly, to show living men 
 and women, meeting the exigencies, grappling with the 
 problems of real life, to point out how the battle goes in 
 private circles, between pretension and reality, between 
 falsehood and truth. If we were content to listen to her 
 as a historian, she relinquished with a smile the laurel of 
 the romancer. She was the professed foe of convention- 
 ality, and the whole tone of her writings evinces her desire 
 
CURRER BELL, 409 
 
 to fling off its trammels. To what extent she succeeded 
 we may learn as we proceed. 
 
 The style of Currer Bell is one which will reward study 
 for its own sake. Its character is directness, clearness, 
 force. We could point to no style which appears to us 
 more genuinely and nobly English. Prompt and business- 
 like, perfectly free of obscurity, refining, or involution, it 
 seems the native garment of honest passion and clear 
 thought, the natural dialect of men that can work and will. 
 It reminds one of a good highway among English hills : 
 leading straight to its destination, and turning aside for no 
 rare glimpse of landscape, yet bordered by dewy fields, 
 and woods, and crags, with a mountain stream here rolling 
 beneath it, and a thin cascade here whitening the face 
 of the rock by its side : utility embosomed in beauty. 
 Perhaps its tone is somewhat too uniform, its balance and 
 cadence too unvaried. Perhaps, also, there is too much of 
 the abruptness of passion. We should certainly set it far 
 below many styles in richness, delicacy, calmness, and 
 grace. But there is no writer whose style can be pro- 
 nounced a universal model; and for simple narrative, for 
 the relation of what one would hear with all speed, yet 
 with a spice of accompanying pleasure, this style is a model 
 as nearly perfect as we can conceive. And its beauty is so 
 genuine and honest ! You are at first at a loss to account 
 for the charm which breathes around, filling the air as with 
 the fragrance of roses after showers ; but the secret cannot 
 long remain hidden from the poor critic, doomed to know 
 how he is pleased. It lies in the perfect honesty, combine^ 
 with the perfect accuracy, of the sympathy with nature's 
 beauty which dwelt in the breast of the author ; in the 
 fact that she ever loved the dew-drop, the daisy, the moun- 
 tain bird, the vernal branch. Uncalled for and to her 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 35 
 
410 CURRER BELL. 
 
 unconsciously, at the smile of sympathy, the flowers and 
 the dew-drops come to soften and adorn her page. 
 
 Of Currer Bell's love of nature we wish we had space to 
 speak at some length: we can offer merely one or two 
 remarks. There is nothing so commonly mimicked, and 
 there are few things so rarely displayed, as genuine love 
 and accurate knowledge of nature. The truth is, nature 
 is somewhat difficult to know: we think not of noting 
 the tints in a picture which has hung in our eyes since 
 childhood. And whatever may be said of universal beauty, 
 we have become perfectly assured of this, that he who sets 
 himself really to watch nature will find the beauty of her 
 general aspect merely the contrast by which she illustrates 
 her moods and moments — the every day dress by which 
 she sets off her jewelry: and that few indications can 
 be surer of a want of delicate appreciation of the loveli- 
 ness of sky, and cloud, and mountain, than the common- 
 place prating about all being beautiful which we behold. 
 Currer Bell, like her sister Ellis, gives us such pictures of 
 nature, so detailed, so definite, so unmistakable, so fresh, 
 that they rise before us like a reminiscence, or give us an 
 assurance as of eyesight. We could quote, in illustration 
 of these remarks, passage after passage of perfect truth, not 
 in any measure the less true that the scenes described have 
 been seen by the eye of an original imagination, or that an 
 exquisite fancy has at times flung a pearl-wreath round the 
 dove's neck, where nature's touches of azure and gold were 
 already gleaming. Among the more ordinary but most 
 easily appreciable of such passages, is that careless passing 
 description in the third volume of Shirley, of the general 
 effect of an east wind in a cloudless August sky, and the 
 sudden change to the west: — "It was the close of August: 
 the weather was fine — that is to say, it was very dry and 
 
CURRER BELL. 411 
 
 very dusty, for an arid wind had been blowing from the 
 east this month past: very cloudless, too, though a pale 
 haze, stationary in the atmosphere, seemed to rob of all 
 depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the ver- 
 dure of earth, and of all glow the light of day 
 
 But there came a day when the wind ceased to sob at the 
 eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel window of 
 the church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the 
 west ; gusts from the same quarter drove it on, and spread 
 it wide; wet and tempest prevailed awhile. When that 
 was over, the sun broke out genially, heaven regained its 
 azure, and earth its green : the livid cholera-tint had van- 
 ished from the face of nature ; the hills rose clear round, 
 the horizon, absolved from that pale malaria-haze." Not 
 more true, but more rare, is the following bit of woodland 
 painting, which, we humbly submit, is worthy of Words- 
 worth : — "I know all the pleasantest spots : I know where 
 we could get nuts in nutting-time ; I know where wild 
 strawberries abound ; I know certain lonely, quite untrod- 
 den glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as 
 if gilded, some a sober gray, some gem-green. I know 
 groups of trees, that ravish the eye with their perfect, pic- 
 ture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, 
 clustered in contrast ; and ash-trees stately as Saul, stand- 
 ing isolated, and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright 
 shrouds of ivy." The reader of these works will know we 
 could quote similar sketches from every chapter. 
 
 Allied with this power of original and loving observation 
 of nature, and here naturally claiming our attention, the 
 imaginative faculty of Currer Bell was altogether new and 
 remarkable. It would lead us very far to discuss and de- 
 termine the relations and distinctions between the powers 
 of perception, of imagination, and of thought. We lean 
 
412 CUBBEB BELL. 
 
 to the belief, that a definite line cannot be drawn between 
 them ; that it is not possible in every case to distinguish 
 between the piercing glance which perceives, and the imag- 
 inative gaze which bestows ; between the strong memory 
 Which retains, and the clear conception which recalls. We 
 doubt not that the imagination of Currer Bell was con- 
 cerned in every embracing look she cast over nature ; and 
 we should deem it a vain assay to disentangle the complex- 
 ity of faculty by which so fair a variety of beauty was 
 lured to her page. But there are effects of imagination 
 which are unmistakably its own, where no scene or form 
 of nature is recalled, but where, from her tints and her 
 lines, a chosen number are selected, and the whole ar- 
 ranged anew by a power which we must name creative. 
 We may falter in defining the precise faculty which enables 
 us to paint perfectly the waving corn or the glowing gar- 
 den. But we own the magic of imagination at once, when, 
 in the midst of her gardens, or surrounded by swarthy 
 reapers and crowned with the yellow sheaf, the Flora or 
 the Ceres stands before us. It is to efforts of the imagi- 
 native faculty thus unmistakable, that we direct attention 
 in the case before us. There are pieces of poetic creation 
 in the prose works of Currer Bell, distinct, not only from 
 the general texture of her composition, but, so far as we 
 know, from anything in the English language. They are 
 not of great number, but so distinct are they and striking, 
 that every one of them could, after a single perusal of her 
 works, be pointed out. The three pictures selected by 
 Rochester from Jane's portfolio, the Mermaid and Nereides 
 in Shirley, and a few such, complete the list. We shall 
 select one as an example, perhaps the finest, yet closely re- 
 sembling in all important particulars the others. It is the 
 personification of nature in the second volume of Shirley : — 
 
CURRER BELL. 413 
 
 " The gray church, and grayer tombs, look divine with 
 this crimson gleam on them. Nature is now at her even- 
 ing prayers ; she is kneeling before those red hills. I see 
 her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a 
 fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for 
 
 lambs in moors, and unfledged birds in woods 
 
 I saw — I now see — a woman-Titan : her robe of blue air 
 spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is 
 grazing; a veil, white as an avalanche, sweeps from her 
 head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on its 
 borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that 
 horizon ; through its blush shines the star of evening. Her 
 steady eyes I cannot picture — they are clear, they are deep 
 as lakes, they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble 
 with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her 
 forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the 
 early moon, risen long before dark gathers ; she reclines 
 her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor, her mighty hands 
 are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks 
 with God." 
 
 We have nothing in the poetry of Currer Bell to com- 
 pare with this. There seems to us a grandeur of concep- 
 tion, a strength and sweep of line, a calm and beautiful 
 glow of color, a Grecian harmony and finish, in the whole 
 creation, which would render no epithet of applause ex- 
 travagant. It has the unity of poetry. Had it been 
 wrapped in a garment of metrical harmony, it would have 
 been recognized as one of the most powerful and beautiful 
 personifications in the range of our poetic literature. We 
 might speak in similar terms of her pictures of the Mer- 
 maid and the Nereides. By the wizard and plastic might 
 of her imagination, the sea-woman of the North is once 
 more informed with life, and glares appalling from the 
 35* 
 
414 CURRER BELL. 
 
 ridge of the wave. By the same original energy, the 
 poetic dream of the old Greek mind is rescued from en- 
 veloping oblivion, and the daughters of Nereus, filmy as 
 the foam amid which they glide, rise spectral before us, 
 as they might to the eyes of the young bard of Hellas, 
 wandering belated by the moonlit surge of the iEgean. 
 Passages of solitary brilliancy are of frequent occurrence 
 in all our more imaginative prose writers. Apostrophic 
 bursts and long elaborate similes are abundantly to be met 
 with. But the clear and separate creation of poetry, the 
 group or the figure, fairly chiselled from the flawless mar- 
 ble and left forever in the loneliness of their beauty, we 
 know not to have been ever formally introduced into Eng- 
 lish prose, save by Currer Bell. 
 
 The peculiar strength of Currer Bell as a novelist can be 
 pointed out in a single word. It is that to which allusion 
 was made in speaking of Wuthering Heights; the delinea- 
 tion of one relentless and tyrannizing passion. In hope, in 
 ardor, in joy, with proud, entrancing emotion, such as 
 might have filled the breast of him who bore away the fire 
 of Jove, love is wooed to the breast. But a storm as of 
 fate awakens : the blue sky is broken into lightnings, and 
 hope smitten dead ; and now the love which formerly was 
 a dove of Eden is changed into a vulture, to gnaw the 
 heart, retained in its power by bands of adamant. As the 
 victim lies on his rock, the whole aspect of the world 
 changes to his eye. Ordinary pleasures and ordinary pains 
 are impotent to engage the attention, to assuage the tor- 
 ment. No dance of the nymphs of ocean attracts the wan 
 eye, or for a moment turns the vulture aside. Such a 
 passion is the love of Rochester for Jane, perhaps in a 
 somewhat less degree, that of Jane for Rochester; such, 
 slightly changed in aspect, is the passion beneath which 
 
CURRER BELL. 415 
 
 Caroline pines away, and that which convulses the brave 
 bosom of Shirley. With steady and daring hand, Currer 
 Bell depicts this agony in all its stages ; we may weep and 
 tremble, but we feel that her nerves do not quiver, that 
 her eye is unfilmed. So perfect is the verisimilitude, nay 
 the truth, of the delineation, that you cannot for a moment 
 doubt that living hearts have actually throbbed with like 
 passion. It is matter, we believe, of universal assent, that 
 Currer Bell here stands almost alone among the female 
 novelists of Britain, and we doubt whether, however they 
 surpass her in the variety of their delineations, there is any 
 novelist of the other sex who, in this department, has 
 exhibited greater power. 
 
 What positive lesson, we ask finally, moral or intellectual, 
 did Currer Bell read to her age? The question can be 
 simply and briefly answered. In her works, there is a 
 universal assertion of rights and emotions stamped by the 
 seal-royal of nature, against the usurpations of avarice and 
 mode. The passion which is kindled really by nature, 
 though the hearts in which it glows may be far asunder, 
 shall burn its way, through station, through prejudice, 
 through all obstacles that can oppose it, until the fires 
 unite, and rise upwards in one white flame. The true love 
 of Rochester for the governess he employs, the true love 
 of the rich and brilliant Shirley for her tutor, must finally 
 triumph: Nature and Custom contend, and the "anarch 
 old" goes down. It is always so; the sympathy with 
 nature's strength and reality is unchanging. Poltroonery, 
 too, of all sorts, baseness, feeble pretension, and falsehood, 
 are crowned with their rightful scorn. Valor, fortitude, 
 strength of will, and all the stalwart virtues that bear the 
 world before them, are honored and illustrated. The great 
 duty of submission, without fainting or murmuring, to the 
 
416 CURRER BELL. 
 
 decrees of Providence, is proclaimed with overwhelming 
 power, and indeed with an iteration which makes us at 
 times fain to cry out, that this is Currer Bell's one lecture, 
 which we may expect at any moment to be held by the 
 button-hole to hear. "I disapprove everything Utopian. 
 Look life in its iron face, stare reality out of its brassy 
 countenance : " this is the gist of all her moralizing. The 
 lesson, however, belongs to the stern and practical ethics 
 of life, not easily rendered trite, and we deem worthy of 
 special remark a particular instance in which we have it, 
 or one nearly allied to it, is enforced ; in all the fiction we 
 ever read, we could point to no case of instruction, at 
 once so practical, so impressive, and so precious. It is a 
 particular touch in the delineation of the triumph of reso- 
 lution and principle in the breast of Jane Eyre. The 
 conflict is at its height. Reason and conscience falter, and 
 will give no clear decision; they seem inclined rather to 
 regard surrender as a less evil than the possible .-aiicide of 
 Rochester. Then it is that the epic heroism of little Jane, 
 while it reaches the climax of its grandeur, reaches also the 
 height of its practical value. " I had no solace from self- 
 approbation: not even from self-respect. I had injured — 
 wounded — left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. 
 Still, I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must 
 have led me on. As to my own will or conscience, impas- 
 sioned grief had trampled one, and stifled the other." The 
 same phase of her agony had been presented shortly before, 
 and perhaps with still greater force. We believe this no 
 mere imaginary picture. There are situations in life when 
 blackness is overhead and desolation within, and not any- 
 thing remains but an indestructible, unaccountable, scarce 
 conscious instinct of duty ; when the soul may be likened 
 to one who clings to a rope in a swoon, while a great billow 
 
CURRER BELL. 417 
 
 goes over him, and his only chance is, that the senseless 
 hand still holds spasmodically on. In the hour of sorest 
 need, the figure of that invincible girl may rise, with a look 
 of real and potent encouragement, to steel many a heart to 
 defy the devil to the last. 
 
 The assertion of what we may call the sacredness of 
 natural emotion, in its natural modes of action, made by 
 Currer Bell, merits an attention altogether peculiar. There 
 are few subjects on which we would speak with greater 
 emphasis. It relates to a part of the system of natural 
 ethics which Christians are most apt to neglect, but of 
 which the neglect is as pernicious as it is indefensible. Has 
 it not a somewhat singular sound, to talk of the Christian 
 duty of permitting in the formation of the nuptial tie (nay, 
 of enjoining and insisting on) the free play of the natural 
 affections? Is it not widely customary, for men and 
 women, ready to die in defence of Christian principle, 
 anxiously and prayerfully shaping their lives by the teach- 
 ing of the New Testament, either themselves to marry, or 
 to lend their sanction to marriages, in which it is well 
 known and deliberately contemplated, that no feeling of 
 intense attachment, no love, exists in the breast of either 
 party ? Men whom it would be hard not to call excellent, 
 clergymen especially, regard entrance upon the married 
 state as a part of the formal and mechanical business of 
 life. At a certain age, the duties of the parish are entered 
 upon, the manse is furnished, and then, for various reasons, 
 of comfort, of economy, of respectability, a wife is u taken." 
 Young persons of the other sex are, so far as we can judge, 
 equally apt to look upon marriage with no sense of the fact 
 that affection is here one with duty, and its absence a sin. 
 Parents, again, as will occur to every one, though of sincere 
 and habitual piety, though desirous of promoting the best 
 
418 CUKKEK BELL. 
 
 interests of their children, and while deeply concerned that 
 their daughters are wedded to men of position and means, 
 of integrity and ability, nay, of religion, will pass over, or 
 lightly shuffle by, all questions touching capacity of affec- 
 tion or sympathy of nature. Yet one would think a single 
 look beneath the outermost vail of appearance might con- 
 vince all that, with the answers practically rendered to such 
 questions as these, is vitally and indissolubly connected the 
 real happiness, or the bitter misery, of after life. One 
 would imagine, too, that it required no very penetrating 
 inquisition into the laws of things, to discover that, on the 
 original settlement of such questions, depend unnumbered 
 influences, of the most intimate and inevitable kind, affect- 
 ing the moral and religious condition of the community. 
 One would think, last of all, that it required a studious and 
 habitual opposition to the plainest teaching of the gospel, or 
 a blindness wholly marvellous to the nature of that teaching, 
 to persist in meeting with a direct negative the Christian 
 view of marriage. The teachings of nature and of Chris- 
 tianity are here in the strictest and most beautiful accord- 
 ance. Nature and experience testify, for their part, that a 
 lifetime of cohabitation, where there is no natural, mutual, 
 overpowering attraction, no love, is not only a lifetime of 
 chronic suffering, an imprisonment in "polar ice," but a 
 condition in which each noble and genial emotion is met 
 by a subtle poison, pervading the moral atmosphere, by a 
 biting frost-wind, where it ought to have found the balmiest 
 sunshine, by chilling and withering sleet, where nature 
 would have prepared for it gentle, fostering rain. Look- 
 ing beyond the individual victims of such a rebellion 
 against nature, to those to whom they are related as 
 parents, the aspects of the case, holding still by the light 
 of mere experience and common sense, are, if possible, still 
 
CURRER BELL. 419 
 
 more obvious and impressive. The education of the family 
 circle, no one will dispute, is the most important of all. It 
 may not be a matter of so common reflection, that the part 
 of this education, which consists in express precepts and 
 oral instruction, is of trivial importance compared with the 
 silent, practical education of parental life, from the respon- 
 sibility of which the parent never escapes for a moment, 
 and of which the influence, searching and perpetual, can be 
 counteracted by no set words, however earnest and well 
 studied ! If the parents are not united by a love which, in 
 its fervid intensity, sets them apart from the rest of the 
 world, and causes every other earthly feeling to revolve in 
 an orbit comparatively remote, the unity of the family circle 
 is broken. A fatal element insinuates itself into the affec- 
 tion with which the children are regarded. They are 
 taught by the presence of no mighty and beautiful emotion 
 in those to whom they look up, to know the happiness of 
 pure affection, to admire it, to aspire after it. For the first 
 few years of life, the parent is to the child, with hardly any 
 qualification, in the place of God. The home is the first 
 temple in which man worships. The parent is the imper- 
 sonation of perfection. And if, in striving after that perfec- 
 tion, as the child will do almost before he can speak, he is 
 guided by no melodious harmony of parental love, embrac- 
 ing his parents and uniting in himself, his whole nature, 
 intellectual as well as moral, may from the first be stunted. 
 The influences of which we speak are not such as can be mi- 
 nutely defined : could they be so, they would be slight. But 
 it is impossible, on fair consideration, to deny their supreme 
 power. It is the enactment of nature, visible in every depart- 
 ment of the physical universe, that the life of the parent, in 
 its substance and its form, be, so to speak, stamped upon the 
 offspring. No discordance can enter into parental exist- 
 
420 CURRER BELL. 
 
 ence, without marking itself in the character and life of the 
 child. The assumptions of mode and affectation may fall 
 away, but the deepest nature will be transmitted. The 
 face may be unmoved before the world, the breast may lie, 
 sternly placid, over the beating, burning heart, but a drop 
 of the internal agony, with all its power to paralyze emotion 
 and embitter life, will find its way into the bosom of the 
 offspring. And if all this belongs to the most practical and 
 homely truth of nature, Christianity is not less but more 
 explicit. It is strange and anomalous that ideas, so poor 
 and dishonoring, of the formation of the nuptial relationship 
 should prevail, considering the august and peculiar place 
 accorded to that relationship by Scripture. The family 
 relations are those habitually chosen to illustrate the most 
 sublime conceptions which are brought by Scripture before 
 the mind of man, — the relations between the Persons of 
 the Trinity and the Saviour and his church. St. Paul does 
 not scruple to make the love entertained by Christ for his 
 redeemed the model and measure of connubial affection. 
 The Creator in Paradise gave this feeling the express pre- 
 eminence over all others : the Saviour affirmed his words. 
 It is impossible to reflect earnestly on the deep-lying and 
 wonderful threads of connection, which run through Scrip- 
 ture and human history, through Christianity and nature, 
 without perceiving that the emotion, crowned by the 
 Creator in Paradise, signally honored by the Saviour, and 
 measured by Paul by an infinite standard, is that which 
 plays, in the natural world, so strange and prominent a 
 part ; grouping around itself all comedy and tragedy, the 
 life of literature and art, the source of half the nobleness 
 and half the crime of human history, unique in its nature 
 and irresistible in its influence, undefinable by any but in 
 some way conceived of by all, and known distinctively by 
 
CURRER BELL. 421 
 
 the name of love. It admits of no doubt that the existence 
 of this emotion is the sign appointed by God in nature for 
 the formation of the nuptial tie, that this is one of the great 
 correspondences which pervade the system of things, as 
 that of reason to truth, that of conscience to rectitude, that 
 of vision to the objects of perception, that of climate to 
 natural productions. Without this affection the nuptial 
 unity is impossible ; marriage, in the sense of nature and 
 Scripture, cannot be. And yet the Christian world very 
 generally, if not very explicitly, coincides with the idea of 
 Johnson that marriages might be well enough arranged by 
 the chancellor ! That the rest of the world is, in all practi- 
 cal points, as much to blame here as that calling itself 
 distinctively Christian, is probably the fact. But it is to 
 books not belonging to strictly Christian literature, that 
 one would point, for the most emphatic assertion of theo- 
 retic truth in the matter. In the conclusion of his essay on 
 Mirabeau, Mr. Carlyle takes occasion, from certain circum- 
 stances in the history of his hero, to set his fiery finger on 
 this great social commandment. And we concentrate in 
 brief compass a critique on the writings of Currer Bell, 
 when we say that their central doctrine for the reconstitu- 
 tion of social ethics, their one remedy for the cure of social 
 ills, is the permission of free play to the passion of love, 
 and the abolition of its counterfeits. 
 
 There being, therefore, much of what is stirring and; 
 healthful in the works of Currer Bell, can we close with a 
 declaration that the region in which her characters move is 
 the highest and purest, and that she has solved, or hinted 
 how we may solve, the social problems which at present 
 confront the earnest and practical mind ? We cannot. 
 We must record our distinct and unalterable negative in 
 either case. The truth she proclaims is one sided. Her 
 
 JBHK8T SERIES. 36 
 
422 CURRER BELL. 
 
 scheme of life is too narrow. The pleasures and sufferings 
 of existence do not all depend on one emotion though it be 
 that of love, on one passion though itself be right. Her 
 works are the ovation of passion. It may be true, it may 
 be noble, it may be allied with principle, but Passion is 
 ever the conqueror and king; The joys of existence which 
 have any real point, the sorrows which have any real 
 bitterness, are alike in the dispensation of Passion. Is 
 more than a word necessary to make this assertion good ? 
 Who sees not more to be desired in the very anguish 
 of the love of Caroline or Shirley, than in the blanched 
 existence of Miss Ainley? Do we not mark St. John 
 Rivers go away, joyless and marble-cold, on his high 
 mission, while Passion welcomes back Jane to his burning, 
 bliss-giving arms ? Where Passion appears, all becomes 
 real and alive : where Passion is not, the widest philan- 
 thropy, the holiest devotion, are powerless to confer happi- 
 ness. And shall we thus crown Passion, and bend the 
 knee before him ? By no means. Passion, when alone, is 
 essentially and ignobly selfish. Despite a barren kindness 
 of heart, the existence of Rochester is utterly selfish. Sis 
 luckless marriage, his impure loves, his interesting sorrows, 
 have eaten up the substance of his life. One would say, 
 were he a sound example, that a man was linked by no 
 duties to his fellows, that, in a world like this, a man, 
 without being coward or caitiff, could be occupied solely 
 by self. "Love thy neighbor as thyself:" know thyself a 
 unit among millions : perform the duties God has assigned 
 thee towards thyself, but value not that self beyond any 
 other of a million units. How thorough the reversal of the 
 whole manner of Mr. Rochester's existence, which would 
 have been wrought by the simple adoption, as its leading 
 principle, of this divine motto of Christian philanthropy, in 
 
CURRER BELL. 423 
 
 which is bound up the regeneration of the world ! There 
 must be a love higher than that of mere passion. There 
 must be joys, moral, intellectual, spiritual, whose pure oil 
 can make the lamp of life burn as clearly and cheerfully as 
 the flame of passion, and far more beautifully. To say 
 otherwise, were to utter a libel upon nature, to impugn the 
 justice and love of God. Of a love, pure and lofty, allying 
 us to God and man, illumining the universe around us with 
 the mingled lights of heaven and home, Currer Bell gives 
 no representation, nay, she gives a caricature, which, while 
 wondrous in execution, is utterly false. St. John had no 
 affection for Jane which could be named love. It is to be 
 regretted that she did not think of cutting short all his 
 fine speeches, by simply pointing him to the measure 
 allotted to connubial affection by Paul, and telling him 
 that, unless he felt within him the power to love her as his 
 own soul, nay, with an unutterable force of affection to be 
 compared with the infinite love of Christ for his own body, 
 his own church, he committed a sin in asking her to 
 become his wife. There is an altar on which terrestrial 
 and celestial love can blend their fires. If passion is the 
 whole of love, it must debase and not ennoble. 
 
 When we speak of those practical problems, on which 
 Currer Bell has touched, but which she has not solved, we 
 refer specially to the dreary pictures she draws in Shirley 
 of the social standing of woman. Marriage, we are told, is 
 the one hope of the great majority of England's daughters, 
 a hope destined in countless cases to be never realized. A 
 youth of scheming inanity, deriving a faint animation from 
 this hope, must fade into a blighted and solitary age. The 
 authority of a lady may be taken as conclusive of the state 
 of the case here ; but when we assent to her allegations, 
 and paragraph after paragraph has impressed them on our 
 
424 CURRER BELL. 
 
 minds, we have no more, by way of remedy, than a sentence 
 of general and valueless exhortation to fathers to cultivate 
 the minds .of their daughters. There is nothing in the 
 works of Currer Bell to assure us that any amount of 
 cultivation will produce fresh and satisfying happiness, 
 unless that one wish which she points to is gratified. She 
 indicates no fields of pleasure accessible to all. She exhibits 
 not the means of the cultivation she commends, and leaves 
 us to guess the connection between culture and enjoyment. 
 The hand of this gifted woman had power, we think, to 
 paint a daughter of England gladdening and beautifying 
 her existence, though the light of passion never rose upon 
 her path. But this she has not done. 
 
 The publication of Mrs. Gaskell's most interesting and 
 valuable biography of Currer Bell might seem to require 
 the addition of certain qualifying remarks to the preceding. 
 Not the slightest modification, however, has been felt to be 
 necessary in the view given of the genius and aims of the 
 authoress. But there are two circumstances brought to 
 light in this biography, which have, in themselves, an inter- 
 est and importance justifying particular observation. The 
 first is, that the artistic instinct of Currer Bell was, in one 
 chief instance, more piercing and accurate, more strictly in 
 accordance with the verities of life and nature, than that 
 general mode of thought which ruled her habitual and 
 practised opinions. The central doctrine of her works was 
 found to be the sacredness of the natural affections in the 
 formation of the marriage relationship — the necessity of 
 
CURRER BELL. 425 
 
 the existence of a distinctive feeling, called love, in every 
 such case. It is impossible to imagine that, in those works, 
 this necessity is asserted in reference to the man, but not in 
 reference to the woman. All the power of the authoress is 
 exerted to set in strong colors the sense which Shirley has of 
 the dishonor done to her and to himself by Robert Moore, 
 when he proposes to marry her without loving her : and all 
 that is claimed for woman in what Currer Bell wrote would 
 be at once given up, by the concession, that it would have 
 been right and natural in Shirley to marry Moore, while feel- 
 ing towards him as he felt towards her. But when Currer 
 Bell became Charlotte Bronte, when she ceased to be the 
 artist and became the woman, she made this concession. In 
 so many words, she declared that " respect," entertained by 
 a woman for a man, was a feeling which could justify her in 
 marrying him. Moore respected Shirley very deeply ; and 
 Currer Bell pours out on him in full measure the burning 
 fountains of her scorn, for having, in that state of feeling, 
 proposed marriage ; but the heart of Shirley was not so 
 sacred or precious a gift, but that it might have been given 
 with a cold hand ; not love but respect would have justified 
 her in blending her being with another. But Charlotte 
 Bronte shall not prevail against Currer Bell : this common- 
 place surrender to the dreariest working of social mechanism 
 shall not invalidate the magnificent protests of genius. The 
 second circumstance revealed by the biography of Currer 
 Bell which demands a word of notice, is antithetically con- 
 trasted with the first. In the one, the woman was less 
 true than the authoress : in the other, the authoress is less 
 true than the woman. In words clear and forcible as those 
 which it was her habit to use, Charlotte Bronte expressed 
 her conviction, that a noble and every way admirable life 
 
426 CURRER BELL. 
 
 could be led by a woman, with no aid from passion, with no 
 thought of marriage. And with this opinion for every day 
 practice, the portrait given in her works of one leading 
 such a life is Miss Ainlie, and the place accorded to passion 
 in the dispensation of happiness such as was seen. 
 
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 method, candor of spirit, acumen and comprehensiveness of thought." 
 
 The work, though so recently published, has met with most remarkable success ; having bees 
 already introduced into a large number of the leading colleges and schools in various parts of tho 
 tountry, and bids fair to take the place of every other work on the subject now before the public 
 
 THESAURUS OP ENGLISH WOBDS AND PHRASES, so classi- 
 fied and arranged as to facilitate the expression of ideas, and assist in literary composi- 
 tion. New and Improved Edition. By Peter Mark Roget, late Secretary of the Royal 
 Society, London, &c. Revised and edited, with a List of Foreign Words defined in Eng- 
 lish, and other additions, by Barnas Sears, D. D., President of Brown University. A 
 New American Edition, with Additions and Improvements. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This edition is based on the London edition, recently issued. The first American Edition hav- 
 ing been prepared by Dr. Sears for strictly educational purposes, those words and phrases properly 
 termed " vulgar," incorporated in the original work, were omitted. These expurgated portions have, 
 in the present edition, been restored, but by such an arrangement of the matter as not to inters 
 fere with the educational purposes of the American editor. Besides this, it contains important 
 additions of words and phrases not in the English edition, making it in all respects more full arid 
 perfect than the author's edition. The work has already become one of standard authority, both 
 in this country and in Great Britain. 
 
 PALEY'S NATURAL THEOLOGY. Illustrated by forty Plates, with 
 Selections from the Notes of Dr. Paxton, and Additional Notes, Original and Selected, 
 with a Vocabulary of Scientific Terms. Edited by John Ware, M. D. Improved edition, 
 with elegant newly engraved plates. 12mo, cloth, embossed, $1.25. 
 
 This work is very generally introduced into our best Schools and Colleges throughout the coun- 
 try. An entirely new and beautiful set of Illustrations has recently been procured, which, with 
 •ther improvements, render it the best and most complete work of the kind extant. 
 
 (38) 
 
VALUABLE WORKS. 
 
 THE PURITANS ; or the Court, Church, and Parliament of England, during the 
 reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. By Samuel Hopkins, author of " Lessons at the 
 Cross," etc. In 3 vols. Vol. I. now ready. Octavo, cloth, per vol., $2.50. 
 Vol. II. ready in February, " " " " $2.50. 
 
 It will be found the most interesting and reliable History of the Puritans yet published, narrating 
 in a dramatic style many facts hitherto unknown. 
 
 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT EXAMINED, in Eight Lec- 
 tures delivered in the Oxford University Pulpit, in the year 1858, on the " Bampton 
 Foundation." By Rev. H. Longueville Mansel, B. D., Reader in Moral and Meta- 
 physical Philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford, and Editor of Sir William Hamilton's 
 Lectures. With the Copious Notes translated for the American Ed. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 This volume is destined to create a profounder sensation in this country than any philosophical 
 or religious work of this century. It is a defence of revealed religion, equal in ability to the 
 " Analogy " of Bishop Butler, and meets the scepticism of our age as effectually as that great work 
 in an earlier day. The Pantheism and Parkerism infused into our popular literature will here find 
 an antidote. The Lectures excited the highest enthusiasm at Oxford, and the Volume has already 
 reached a third edition in England. The copious " Notes " of the author having been translated 
 for the American edition by an accomplished scholar, adds greatly to its value. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OP THE TRUTH OP THE 
 SCRIPTURE RECORDS, STATED ANEW, with Special Reference 
 to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern Times. In Eight Lectures, delivered in the 
 Oxford University pulpit, at the Bampton Lecture for 1859. By Geo. Rawlinson, M.A., 
 Editor of the Histories of Herodotus. With the Copious Notes translated for the 
 American Edition by an accomplished scholar. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S LECTURES ON LOGIC. With 
 
 Notes from Original Materials, and an Appendix containing the Latest Development of 
 his New Logical Theory. Edited by Prof. H. Longueville Mansel, Oxford, and 
 John Veitch, M. A., Edinburgh. Royal octavo, cloth, $3.00. (In press.) 
 
 MORAL PHILOSOPHY, including Theoretical and Practical Ethics. By Jo- 
 seph Haven, D. D., late Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in Amkerst 
 College •, author of " Mental Philosophy." Royal 12mo, cloth, embossed, $1.25. 
 
 It is eminently scientific in method, and thorough in discussion, and its views on unsettled ques- 
 tions in morals are discriminating and sound. It treats largely of Political Ethics— a department 
 of morals of great importance to American youth, but generally overlooked in text-books. In the 
 history of ethical opinions it is unusually rich and elaborate. 
 
 POPULAR GEOLOGY; With Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio. 
 By Hugh Miller. With a Resume of the Progress of Geological Science during the 
 last two years. By Mrs. Miller. I2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
 
 This work is likely to prove the most popular of Hugh Miller's writings, and to attain the widest 
 circulation. It is written in his best style, and makes the mysteries of Geology intelligible to the 
 common mind. As an architect explains the structure of a house from cellar to attic, so this ac- 
 complished geologist takes the globe to pieces, and explains the manner in which all its strata have 
 been formed, from the granite foundation to the alluvial surface. It supplies just the information 
 which many readers have been longing for, but unable to find. Also, 
 
 HUGH MILLER'S "WORKS. Seven volumes, uniform style, in an elegant 
 box, embossed cloth, $8.25 ; library sheep, $10.00 ; half calf, $14.00 ; antique, $14.00. 
 
 MANSEL'S MISCELLANIES; including "Prolegomina Logica," "Meta- 
 physics," " Limits of Demonstrative Evidence," " Philosophy of Kant," etc. 12mo, cloth. 
 {In press.) (38) 
 
IMPORTANT WORKS. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF REV. DANIEL WIL- 
 SON, D. D., late Bishop of Calcutta. By Rev. Josiah Bateman, M. A., Rector of 
 North Cray, Kent. With Portraits, Map, and numerous Illustrations. One Volume, 
 Royal octavo, cloth, $3.00. 
 
 BRITISH NOVELISTS AND THEIR STYLES. Being a Critical 
 Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction. By David Masson, M. A., Author of 
 " The Life and Times of John Milton," etc. etc. 16mo, cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 This charming volume will find its way to many American homes, and win for its author a place 
 by the side of the masters of English Fiction, of whom he discourses so pleasantly. 
 
 THE LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION. Luther, Calvin, Lati- 
 mer and Knox, the Representative Men of Germany, France, England, and Scotland. 
 By J. Tulloch, D. D., Author of "Theism," etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 A portrait gallery of sturdy reformers, drawn by a keen eye and a strong hand. Dr. Tulloch 
 discriminates clearly the personal qualities of each Reformer, and commends and criticises with 
 equal frankness. 
 
 LESSONS AT THE CROSS; or, Spiritual Truths Familiarly Exhibited in their 
 Relations to Christ. By Samuel Hopkins, author of " The Puritans." With an Intro- 
 duction by Rev. George W. Blagden, D. D. New Edition. 16mo, cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 THE CRUCIBLE ; or Tests of a Regenerate State ; designed to bring to light sup- 
 pressed hopes, expose false ones, and confirm the true. By Rev. J. A. Goodhue, A. M. 
 With an Introduction by Rev. E. N. Kirk, D. D. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 A volume of peculiar originality and power. It presents novel, original and startling views. It 
 places within the Christian fold many who claim no place there ; cuts off from it many who con- 
 sider themselves entitled to all its privileges, and applies tests of spiritual character, which are 
 vitally distinct from those which are current in the popular religion of the day. It is one of the 
 books to be read, marked and inwardly digested. 
 
 GOTTHOLD'S EMBLEMS ; or, Invisible Things Understood by Things that 
 are Made. By Christian Scriver, Minister of Magdeburg in 1671. Translated from 
 the Twenty-eighth German Edition by the Rev. Robert Menzies. 8vo, cloth, $1.00 ; 
 cloth, bevelled boards, $1.25 ; cloth, bevelled boards, red edges, $1.25. Fine Edition, 
 Tinted Paper, royal 8vo, cloth, $1.50 ; cloth gilt, $2.00 ; half Turkey morocco, $4.00 j 
 Turkey morocco, $5.Q0. 
 
 Its singular merits will soon make it a favorite in American households ; for all readers will 
 pronounce it the most fascinating of devotional books. It teaches how to find God everywhere, 
 and to carry devotion into the humblest duties of daily life. Its juicy thoughts and rich sugges- 
 tions have an equal charm for the scholar and the unlearned. 
 
 THE GREAT CONCERN ; or, Man's Relation to God and a Future State. By 
 Nehemiah Adams, D. D. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 
 
 Pungent and affectionate, reaching the intellect, conscience, and feelings ; admirably fitted to 
 awaken, guide, and instruct. The book is just the thing for wide distribution in our congrega- 
 tions. — N. T. Observer. 
 
 EVENINGS "WITH THE DOCTRINES. By Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D.D. 
 12mo, cloth. (In preparation.) 
 
 THE STILL HOUR ; or, Communion with God. By Prof. Austin Phelps, D.D., 
 of Andover Theological Seminary. 16mo, cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 CHRIST IN HISTORY. By Robert Tubnbull, D.D. A New and Enlarge* 
 Edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. (39) 
 
IMPORTA NT NEW WORKS. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE : Social and Individual. By Peter Bayne. A M 
 
 12mo. Cloth. #1.25. 
 
 Contents.— Part I. Statement. I. The Individual Life. II. The Social Lite. 
 Part II. Exposition and Illustration. Book I. Christianity the Basis oj 
 Social Life 1. First Principles. II. Howard; and the rise oi Philanthropy. III. 
 Wilberforce; and the development of Philanthropy. IV. Budgett; the Christian 
 Freeman. V. The social problem of the age, and one or two hints towards its solution. 
 Book II. Christianity the Basis of Individual Cliaracter. I. Introductory: a few 
 Words on Modern Doubt. II. John Foster. III. Thomas Arnold. IV. Thomaf 
 Chalmers. Pakt III. Outlook. I. The Positive Philosophy. II. Pantheist it 
 Spiritualism. 111. General Conclusion. 
 
 Particular attention is invited to this work. In Scotland, its publication, durinj 
 the last winter, produced a great sensation. Hugh Miller made it the subject of he 
 elaborate review in his paper, the Edinburgh Witness, and gave his readers to under- 
 stand that it was an extraordinary work. The " News of the Churches," the month!} 
 organ of the Scottish Free Church, was equally empbatic in its praise, pronouncing 
 it "the religious book of the season." Strikingly original in plan and brilliant iu 
 execution, it far surpasses the expectations raised by the somewhat familiar title. It 
 is, in truth, a bold onslaught (and the first of the kind) upon the Pantheism of Carlyle, 
 Fichte, etc., by an ardent admirer of Carlyle; and at the same time an exhibition cJ 
 the Christian Life, in its inner principle, and as illustrated in the lives of Howard 
 Wilberforce, Bu<i ;ett, Foster. Chalmers, eto. The brilliancy and vigor of the author s 
 style are remarkable • 
 
 PATRIARCHY; or, the Family, its Constitution and Proba By Johh 
 
 Harms, D. D., President of " New College," London, and author of 44 The 
 Great Teacher " " Mammon," " Pre- Adamite Earth," " Man Primeval," etc 
 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. K7" A new work of great interest. 
 This is the third and last of a series, by the same author, entitled " Contributions 
 to Theological Science." The plan of this series is highly original, and has been 
 most successfully executed. Of the two first in the series, '• Pre- Adamite Earth" and 
 " Man Primeval," we have already issued four and five editions, and the demand 
 still continues. The immense sale of all Dr. Harris's works attest their intrinsic 
 worth. This volume contains most important information and instruction touching 
 the family— its nature and order, parental instruction, parental authority and gov- 
 ernment, parental responsibility, &c. It contains, in fact, such a fund of valuable 
 information as no pastor, or head of a family, can afford to dispense with. 
 
 GOD REVEALED IN NATURE AND IN CHRIST: Including a Refutation 
 of the Development Theory contained in the " Vestiges of the Natural History 
 of Creation." By the Author of " The Philosophy of the Plan of Salt 
 VATION." 12mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 I'hk author of that remarkable book, " The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation ' 
 ha devoted several years of incessant labor to the preparation of this work. Without 
 being specifically controversial, its aim is to overthrow several of the popular error 
 ol the day, by establishing the antagonist truth upon an impregnable basis of reaso.i 
 ■lid logic. In opposition to the doctrine of a mere subjective revelation, now so 
 plausibly inculcated by certain eminent writers, it demonstrates the necessity A an 
 external, objective revelation. Especially, it furnishes a new, and as it is conceived, 
 a conclusive argument against the " development theory " so ingeniously maintained 
 in the u Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." As this author does not pub- 
 lish except when h*> has something to say, there is good reason to anticipate that the 
 work will be one of unusual interest and value. His former book has met with tlit 
 most signal success in ^oth hemispheres, having passed through numerous edition* 
 in England and Scotiana, and been translated into four of the European langup^at 
 tosides It *s also about to be translated into the Hiudoo6tanee tonjiue Um 
 
AMOS LAWRENCE. 
 
 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE AMOS LAW- 
 RENCE ; with a brief account of some Incidents in his Life. Edited by hi.s son, 
 William K. Lawrenck, M. D. Witli line steel Portraits of Amos and Abbott 
 Lawrence, an Engraving of their Birth-place, a Eac-simile page of Mr. Law- 
 rence's Hand-writing, and a copious Index. Octavo edition, cloth, $1.50. Royal 
 duodecimo edition, §1.00. 
 
 This work was first published in an elegant octavo volume, and sold at the unusu- 
 ally low price of $1.50. At the solicitation of numerous benevolent individuals who 
 were desirous of circulating the work— so remarkably adapted to do good, especially 
 to young men— gratuitously, and of giving those of moderate means, ol every class, an 
 opportunity of possessing it, the royal duodecimo, or " cheap edition,'''' was issued, 
 varying from the other edition, Only in a reduction in the size (allowing less margin £ 
 and the thickness of the paper. 
 
 Within six mouths alter the first publication of this work, twenty-two thousand 
 copies had been sold. This extraordinary sale is to be accounted for by the character 
 of the man and the merits of the book. It is the memoir of a Boston merchant, who 
 became distinguished for his great wealth, but more distinguished for the manner in 
 which he used it. It is the memoir of a man, who, commencing business with only 
 $20, gave away in public and private charities, during his lifetime more, probably, 
 than any other person in America. It is substantially an autobiography, containing 
 a full account ol Mr. Lawrence's career as a merchant, of his various multiplied chan- 
 ties, and of his domestic life. 
 
 " We have by us another wc rk, the ' Life of Amos Lawrence.' "We heard it once said in the pulpit, 
 ' There is no work of art like a noble life,' and for that reason he who has achieved one, takes rank 
 with the great artists and becomes the world's property. We are proud of this book. We are 
 
 WILLING TO LET IT GO FORTH TO OTHER LANDS AS A SPECIMEN OF WHAT AMERICA CAN 
 
 produce. In the old world, reviewers have called Barnum the characteristic American man. We 
 are willing enough to admit that he is a characteristic American man ; he is one fruit of our soil, 
 but Amos Lawrence is another. Let our country have credit for him also. The good effect 
 which this Life may have in determining the course of young men to honor and 
 Virtue in incalculable."— Mrs. Stowk, in N. Y. Independent. 
 
 " We are glad to know that our large business houses are purchasing copies of this work for each 
 of their numerous clerks. Its influence on young men cannot be otherwise than highly salutary. 
 As a business man, Mr. Lawrence was a pattern for the young clerk."— Boston Traveller. 
 
 M We are thankful for the volume before us. It carries us back to the farm-house of Mr. Law* 
 rence's birth, and the village store of his first apprenticeship. It exhibits a charity noble and active, 
 while the young merchant was still poor. And above all, it reveals to us a beautiful cluster of sister 
 graces, a keen sense of honor, integrity which never knew the shadow of suspicion, candor in the 
 estimate of character, filial piety, rigid fidelity in every domestic relation, and all these connected 
 with and flowing from steadfast religious principle, profound sentiments of devotion, and a vivid 
 realization of spiritual truth."— North American Review. 
 
 " We are glad that American Biography has been enriched by such a contribution to its treasures. 
 In all that composes the career of ' the good man,' and the practical Christian, we have read few 
 memoirs more full of instruction, or richer in lessons of wisdom and virtue. We cordially unite in 
 the opiuion that the publication of this memoir was a duty owed to society." —National Intel- 
 ligences. 
 
 "With the intention of placing, it within the reach of a large number, the mere cost price is 
 •harged, and a more beautifully printed volume, or one calculated to do more good, has not been 
 Issued from the press of late years."— Evening Gazette. 
 
 " This book, besides being of a different class from most biographies, has another peculiar charm. 
 It shows the inside life of the man. You have, as it were, a peep behind the curtain, and see Mr. 
 Lawrence as he went in and out among business men, as he appeared on 'change, as he received 
 his friends, as he poured out, 'with liberal hand and generous heart,' his wealth for the bent- r 
 of others, as he received the greetings and salutations of children, and as he appeared in the bo»i>iu 
 of his family at his own hearth stone."— Bruns.vick Telegraph. 
 
 " Tt is printed on new type, the best paper, and is illustrated by four beautiful plates. How it can 
 be sold for the price named is a marvel."— Norfolk Co. Journal. 
 
 "It was first privvtely printed, and a limited number of copies were distributed among the 
 rt -lnti ves and near friends of the deceased. This volume was read with the deepest interest by those 
 wlio were so favored as to obtain a copy, and it passed from friend to friend as rapidly as it could be 
 read. Dr. Lawrence has yielded to the general wish, and made public the volume. It will now be 
 widely circulated, will certainly prove a standard work, and be read over and over again.'V-BoS' 
 ro.\- Dailt Advertiser. 
 
VALUABLE WORKS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. Suggested by a Tour through the 
 Holy Land. With numerous Illustrations. A New, Improved and Enlarged Edition. 
 By H. B. Hackett, D. D., Prof, of Biblical Literature in the Newton Theological 
 Institution } author of " A Commentary on The Acts of the Apostles," etc. 12mo, cloth, 
 $1.00. 
 
 A COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS, 
 Explanatory, Doctrinal and Practical. With a Series of Questions. By Robert E. 
 Pattison, D. D., late President of Waterville College. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 
 
 This Commentary contains the very marrow of the Gospel, unfolding, from a single Epistle, the 
 ■cheme of Divine mercy through Jesus Christ. It will instruct young disciples, and feed older 
 saints ; and the questions annexed will make it a useful text-book in Bible Classes. 
 
 THEOPNEUSTIA. — THE BIBLE; ITS DIVINE ORIGIN AND 
 INSPIRATION ; Deduced from Internal Evidence, and the Testimonies of Na- 
 ture, History, and Science. By L. Gaussen, D. D. New and Revised Edition, with 
 Analysis and Topical Index. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 HISTORICAL VINDICATIONS; or, the Province and Uses of Baptist 
 History. With Appendixes containing Historical Notes and Confessions of Faith. By 
 S. S. Cutting, D. D., Professor of Rhetoric and History in the University of Rochester. 
 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 An admirable contribution to Baptist History, tracing the origin and rapid growth of Baptist 
 principles in England at the time of the Reformation, and suggesting important lessons for future 
 guidance. The Appendixes contain historical facts worth two-fold the price of the volume. 
 
 KIND "WORDS FOR CHILDREN, to Guide them to the Path of Peace. 
 By Rev. Harvey Newcomb, author of "How to be a Man," "How to be a Lady," 
 " Harvest and Reapers," etc. 16mo, cloth, 42 cts. 
 
 A simple and beautiful exposition of the doctrines and duties of the Gospel, in language and 
 with illustrations adapted to children. 
 
 We wish every mother would buy it, read it, and cause its contents to be engraved on the hearts 
 of her children. — Recorder. 
 
 THE PSALMIST, WITH MUSIC; a Manual for the service of Sacred Song 
 in Baptist Congregations and Choirs ; the Tunes being adapted to the collection of 
 Hymns compiled by Baron Stow and S. F. Smith. Collated by B. F. Edmands, 
 Conductor of Music at Baldwin Place Church, Boston. With a Supplement, contain- 
 ing a variety of Chants, and Selections of Scripture for chanting. Royal 12mo, 
 cloth, arabesque, $1.00. 
 
 This Manual embraces all the Hymns of the Psalmist, with one or more tunes adapted to 
 every hymn. The tunes have been selected with great care and rare judgment, by B. F. Edmands, 
 Esq., a gentleman of fine musical taste, a chorister for many years in one of our largest churches, 
 and an active manager of several of our leading musical societies. They are chiefly taken 
 from the approved standard tunes, whose long use and popularity in the churches attest their fit- 
 ness for congregational singing. The convenient size of the Manual, its cheapness, its judicious 
 arrangement, as well as its admirable selection of tunes, give it important advantages over every 
 other Manual for public worship. Baptist congregations already using the Psalmist, — which is 
 almost universal throughout the denomination. — can introduce this new edition, with Music, 
 at very trifling expense. No change of books will be needed for those who do not join in the sing- 
 ing. The numbering of hymns is the same in all editions, and the full and perfect Indexes enable 
 minister or people to refer from one edition to the other without difficulty. Only those who wish 
 to sing, and to have the tunes before them, will need the new edition with Music, and the great 
 expense incident to an entire change of hymn-books will be avoided. 
 
 THE SAME WORK, WITH A SUPPLEMENT, containing a Selec- 
 tion of Hymns, by Richard Fuller and J. B. Jeter, in place of the " Chants an* 
 Selections for Chanting," $1.00. ,±q\ 
 
THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES. 
 
 So Classified and Arranged as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas, and Assist 
 in Literary Composition. By Peter Mark Roget, late Secretary of the Royal 
 Society, and author of the " Bridgewater Treatise," etc. Revised and En- 
 larged; with a List of Foreign Words and Expressions most frequently 
 occurring in works of general Literature, Defined in English, by Barnas 
 Sears, D. D., Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, assisted by 
 several Literary Gentlemen. 12mo., cloth. #1.50. 
 
 J85r" A work of great merit, admirably adapted as a text-book for schools and colleges, and 
 cf high importance to every American scholar. Among the numerous commendations re- 
 ceived from the press, in all directions, the publishers would call attention to the following : 
 
 We are glad to see the Thesaurus of English Words republished in this country. It is a most 
 taluable work, giving the results of many years' labor, in an attempt to classify and arrange 
 the words of the English tongue, so as to facilitate the practice of composition. The purpose 
 of an ordinary dictionary is to explain the meaning of words, while the object of this Thesaurus 
 is to collate all the words by which any given idea may be expressed. — Putnam's Monthly. 
 
 This volume offers the student of English composition the results of great labor in the form 
 of a rich and copious vocabulary. We would commend the work to those who have charge 
 of academies and high schools, and to all students. — Christian Observer. 
 
 This is a novel publication, and is the first and only one of the kind ever issued in which 
 words and phrases of our language are classified, not according to the sound of their orthog- 
 raphy, but strictly according to their signification. It will become an invaluable aid in the 
 communication of our thoughts, whether spoken or written, and hence, as a means of improve- 
 ment, we«an recommend it as a work of rare and excellent qualities. — Scientific American. 
 
 A work of great utility. It will give a writer the word he wants, when that word is on the 
 tip of his tongue, but altogether beyond his reach. — N. Y. Times. 
 
 It is more complete than the English work, which has attained a just celebrity. It is intended 
 to supply, with respect to the English language, a desideratum hitherto unsupplied in any 
 language, namely, a collection of the words it contains, and of the idiomatic combinations 
 peculiar to it, arranged, not in alphabetical order, as they are in a dictionary, but according to 
 the ideas which they express. The purpose of a dictionary is simply to explain the meaning 
 of words — the word being given, to find its signification, or the idea it is intended to convey. 
 The object aimed at here is exactly the converse of this : the idea being given, to find the word 
 or words by which that idea may be mostly fitly and aptly expressed. For this purpose, the 
 words and phrases of the language are here classed, not according to their sound or their 
 orthography, but strictly according to their signification. — New York Evening Mirror. 
 
 An invaluable companion to persons eng.iged in literary labors. To persons who are not 
 familiar with foreign tongues, the catalogue of foreign words and phrases most current in 
 modern literature, which the American editor has appended, will be very useful. — Presbyterian. 
 It casts the whole English language into groups of words and terms, arranged in such a 
 manner that the student of English composition, when embarrassed by the poverty of his 
 vocabulary, may supply himself immediately, on consulting it, with the precise term for 
 which he has occasion. — New York Evening Post. 
 
 This is a work not merely of extraordinary, but of peculiar value. We would gladly praise 
 jt, if any thing could add to the consideration held out by the title page. Ko one who speaks 
 ar writes for the public need be urged to study Roget's Thesaurus. — Star of the West. 
 
 Every writer and speaker ought to possess himself at once of this manual. It is far from 
 lieingamere dull, dead string of synonymes. but it is enlivened and vivified by the classifying 
 and crystallizing power of genuine philosophy. We have put it on our table as a permanent 
 fixture, as near our left hand as the Bible is to our right — Omgregationalist. 
 
 This book is one of the most valuable we ever examined. It supplies a want long acknowl- 
 edged by the best writers, and supplies it completely. — Portland Advertiser. 
 
 One of the most efficient aids to composition that research, industry, and scholarship have 
 ever produced. Its object is to supply the writer or speaker with the most felicitous terms 
 for expressing an idea that may be vaguely floating on his mind; and, indeed, through the 
 peculiar mauner of arrangement, ideas themselves may be expanded or modified by reference 
 fcfi Mr. U^ft'fl elucidations. — Albion, N. Y. (fi; 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
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