Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

It cannot be complained of _Mr Whittier's_ poems that they are not sufficiently national; but they are national in a very disagreeable point of view--they introduce us into the controversies of the day. Mr Whittier appears to be one of those who write verses, hymns, or odes, instead of, or perhaps in addition to, sundry speeches at popular assemblies in favour of some popular cause. His rhymes have the same relation to poetry that the harangues delivered at such meetings bear to eloquence. We were at a loss to understand on what wings (certainly not those of his poetic genius) he had flown hither, till we discovered that his intemperate zeal against slavery, as it exists in the southern States of America, had procured for him a welcome amongst a certain class of readers in England. If we insert his name here, it is simply to protest against the adoption by any party, but especially by any English party, of such blind, absurd, ungovernable zeal, upon a question as difficult and intricate as it is momentous. Both Mr Longfellow and Mr Bryant write upon slavery; and both have produced some very touching poems on the subject; but they treat the topic as poets. Mr Whittier treats the subject with the rabid fury of a fierce partisan. No story so preposterous or ridiculous but he can bend it to his purpose. He throws contumely upon the ministers of the gospel in the Southern States, because instead of attempting, every moment of their lives, to overthrow the unfortunate organisation of society that is there established, they endeavour to make the slave contented with his lot, and the master lenient in the exercise of his authority. Sentence of death was passed, it seems, on a man of the name of Brown, for assisting a slave to escape. The sentence was commuted, but this does not prevent Mr Whittier from hanging the man in his own imagination, and then, _à propos_ of this imaginary execution, thus addressing the clergy of South Carolina:--

"Ho! thou who seekest late and long
A license from the Holy Book
For brutal lust and hell's red wrong,
_Man of the pulpit, look!
Lift up those cold and atheist eyes,
This ripe fruit of thy teaching see_;
And tell us how to Heaven will rise
The incense of this sacrifice--
This blossom of the gallows-tree!"

And thus he proceeds, lashing himself into frenzy, through the whole of the piece. We dismiss Mr Whittier, and venture to express a hope that those who appear to be looking into American literature, for the purpose of catering for the English public, will be able to discover and import something better than strains such as these--which administer quite as much to the love of calumny, and an appetite for horrors, as to any sentiment of philanthropy.

The next person whom we have to mention, and probably to introduce for the first time to our readers, is not one whom we can commend for his temperate opinions, or knowledge of the world, or whatever passes under the name of strong common sense or practical sagacity. He is much a dreamer; he has little practical skill, even in his own craft of authorship; but there runs a true vein of poetry through his writings; it runs zig-zag, and is mixed with much dross, and is not extracted without some effort of patience; but there is a portion of the true metal to be found in the works of _James Russell Lowell_.

Mr Lowell has, we think, much of the true poet in him--ardent feelings and a fertile fancy; the last in undue proportion, or at least under very irregular government. But he lacks taste and judgment, and the greater part of the two small volumes before us is redolent of youth, and we presume that those compositions which stand first in order were really written at an early age. To the very close, however, there is that immaturity of judgment, and that far too enthusiastic view of things and of men, which is only excusable in youth; as witness certain lines "To De Lamartine," towards the end of the second volume.

With one peculiarity we have been very much struck--the combination of much original power with a tendency to imitate, to an almost ludicrous extent, other and contemporary poets. We find, especially in the first volume, imitations which have all the air of a theme or exercise of a young writer, sitting down deliberately to try how far he could succeed in copying the manner of some favourite author. Sometimes it is Keats, sometimes it is Tennyson, who seems to have exercised this fascination over him: he is in the condition of a bewildered musician, who can do nothing but make perpetual _variations_ upon some original melody that has bewitched his ear. He revels with Keats in that poetic imagery and language which has a tendency to separate itself too widely from the substratum of an intelligible meaning, which ought always to be kept at least _in sight_. At other times he paints ideal portraits of women after the manner of Tennyson. On these last he was perfectly welcome to practise his pictorial art: he might paint as many _Irenes_ as he pleased; but when, in his piece called "The Syrens," he recalls to mind the beautiful poem of "The Lotus Eaters!" our patience broke down--we gave him up--we closed the book in despair. However, at another time we reopened it, and read on, and we are glad we did so; for we discovered that, notwithstanding, this proneness to imitate, and often to imitate what should have been avoided, there was a vein of genuine poetry in the book, some specimens of which we shall proceed to give. It is a task which we the more readily undertake because we suspect that most readers of taste would be disposed, after a cursory perusal, to lay the book aside: they would not have the motive which prompted us to explore further, or to renew their examination.

Mr Lowell's faults lie on the surface; they cannot be disguised, nor will there be the least necessity to quote for the purpose of illustrating them. He is an egregious instance of that _half excellence_ which we have ventured to attribute to such American poets as have come under our notice. The genius of the poet is but partially developed. The peach has ripened but on one side. We want more sun, we want more culture. To speak literally, there is a haste which leads the writer to extravagance of thought, to extravagance of language and imagery; an impatience of study, and of the long labour that alone produces the complete work. The social and economical condition of America has probably something to do with this. It is a condition more favourable to the man and the citizen than propitious to the full development of the poet. In England, or any other old established country, the educated class crowd every profession, and every avenue to employment; if a youth once gives himself up to the fascination of literature, he will probably find himself committed to it for life, and be compelled to accept as a career, what perhaps at first only tempted him as a pleasure. If he wishes to retrace his steps, and resume his place in any profession, he finds that the ranks are closed up; no opening at all presents itself--certainly none which, if he is only wavering in his resolution, will solicit his return. He has wandered from his place in the marching regiment; it has marched on without him, in close order, and there is no room for the repenting truant. Now in America there cannot yet be such over-crowding in all the recognised pursuits of life as to render it difficult or impossible for the truant to return. He is probably even invited, by tempting prospects of success, to re-enter some of those avenues of life which lead to wealth, or to civic prosperity. This must act materially upon the young poet. He indulges his predilections, yet does not feel that he has irrevocably committed himself by so doing. Or if he adopts literature as the main object and serious occupation of his life, he can at the first discouragement--he can, as soon as he has learnt the fact that authorship is a labour, as well as a pleasure--abandon his hasty choice, and adopt an easier and a more profitable career. He has not burnt his ships. They lie in the offing still; they are ready to transport him from this enchanted island to which some perverse wind has blown him, and restore him to the stable continent. Retreat is still open; he does not feel that he must here conquer or be utterly lost; there is no desperate courage, nothing to induce strenuous and indefatigable labour.

But to Mr Lowell. The first piece in his collection of poems is entitled "A Legend of Brittany." The subject is as grotesque as legendary lore could have supplied him with. A knight-templar, a soldier-priest who has taken the vow of chastity at a time and place when that vow was expected to be kept, has fallen in love with a beautiful girl. He seduces her; then to hide his own disgrace he murders her; and he buries the body, with the unborn infant, under the altar of the church! One day at high mass, when the guilty templar is there himself standing, with others, round the altar, a voice is heard, a vision is seen--it is the spirit of the murdered girl and mother. She appears--not to denounce the assassin--she regrets to expose his guilt--there is so much woman in the angel that she loves him still--she appears to claim the rite of baptism for her unborn infant, who, till that rite is performed, wanders in darkness and in pain. The legend must have received this turn during some _Gorham controversy_ now happily forgotten. Notwithstanding the very strange nature of the whole story, there is a pleasing tenderness in this address of the spirit to the wicked templar. After glancing more in sadness than in anger at his falsehood, it continues:--

"And thou hadst never heard such words as these,
Save that in heaven I must ever be
Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this
Our unbaptisèd babe shut out from bliss.

This little spirit, with imploring eyes,
Wanders alone the dreary wild of space;
The shadow of his pain forever lies
Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place;
His loneliness makes me in paradise
More lonely; and unless I see his face,
Even here for grief could I lie down and die,
Save for my curse of immortality.

I am a mother, spirits do not shake
This much of earth from them, and I must pine,
Till I can feel his little hands, and take
His weary head upon this heart of mine.
And might it be, full gladly for his sake
Would I this solitude of bliss resign,
And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him
For ever in that silence drear and dim.

I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak
At first for thy dear sake. A woman's love
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
And by its weakness overcomes; I strove
To smother better thoughts with patience meek,
But still in the abyss my soul would rove,
Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim
The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.

I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing:
I can but long and pine the while they praise,
And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling
My voice to where I deem my infant stays,
Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring
Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace;
But still he answers not, and I but know
That heaven and earth are but alike in woe."

The sacred rite, so piteously pleaded for, was of course duly performed. This poem seems to have been written when Keats was in the ascendant, and predominated over the imagination of our author. Nor has he failed to catch a portion of the finer fancy of that exuberant poet. Such lines as the following are quite in the manner of Keats.

"The deep sky, _full-hearted with the moon_."
...."_the nunneries of silent nooks_,
_The murmured longing of the wood_."

Or this description:--

"In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway,
A Triton blowing jewels through his shell
Into the sunshine."

In the second volume we have another legend, or rather a legendary vision, of the author's own invention, which is of a higher import, and still more redolent of poetry. It is called "The vision of Sir Launfal." This knight has a vision, or a dream, in which he beholds himself going forth from his proud castle to accomplish a vow he had made, namely, to seek "over land and sea for the Holy Grail." What the Holy Grail is, Mr Lowell is considerate enough to inform, or remind his readers, in a note which runs thus,--"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favourite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it." Well, Sir Launfal, in his vision, starts forth upon this knightly and pious enterprise. It is the month of June when he sallies from his castle, and the poet revels in a description of the glories of the summer:--

"Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten:
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, _grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers_.
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
_The little bird sits at his door in the sun
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves_,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives.
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings--
He sings to the wide world, she to her nest.

* * * * *

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,--
'Tis the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
And the heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
And the soul partakes the season's youth."

The drawbridge of the castle is let down, and Sir Launfal, on his charger, springs from under the archway, clothed in his glittering mail--

"To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail."
"As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate
He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same,
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;
And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,
The flesh 'neath his armour did shrink and crawl,

* * * * *

For this man, so foul and bent of stature,
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,--
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.

The leper raised not the gold from the dust:
'Better to me the poor man's crust.
Better the blessing of the poor,
Though I turn me empty from his door;
_That is no true alms which, the hand can hold_.'"

Sir Launfal proceeds in search of the Holy Grail; but he finds it not. He returns an old man, worn with toil, and sad at heart, and full of tender commiseration for all the afflicted and distressed. It is winter when he returns to his castle. There sits the same miserable leper, and moans out the same prayer for alms; but this time it is answered in a very different spirit.

"Straightway he
Remembered in what a haughty guise
He had flung an alms to leprosie,
When he caged his young life up in gilded mail
To set forth in search of the Holy Grail--
The heart within him was ashes and dust;
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and to drink;
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,--
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,
And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,
A light shone round about the place;
The leper no longer crouched at his side,
But stood before him glorified,
And a voice that was calmer than silence said--
'In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold it is here,--this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now!
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need.'"

Such was the dream or vision of Sir Launfal. We need hardly add that, when he awoke from it, he exclaimed that the Holy Grail was already found--bade his servants hang up his armour on the wall, and open his gates to the needy and the poor.

We shall venture upon one more quotation before we quit Mr Lowell. We must premise that we do not always mark by asterisks the omission that we make, when that omission creates no obscurity whatever in the passage. The following poem we take the liberty of abridging, and we print it, without any interruption of this kind, in its abridged form. In this form it will perhaps remind our readers of some of those tender, simple, and domestic lyrics in which German poetry is so rich. There is no other language from which so many beautiful poems might be collected which refer to childhood, and the love of children, as from the German. It has sometimes occurred to us that our poetesses, or fair translators of poetry, might contrive a charming volume of such lyrics on childhood.

THE CHANGELING.

"I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently onward
To the Heavenly Father's knee.

I know not how others saw her,
But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair.

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away.

But they left in her stead a changeling,
A little angel child,
That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled.

This child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly,
And bless it upon my breast.

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair."

We have still a brief space for _Mr Holmes_. It is fit that, amongst our list, there should be one representative of the comic muse. Mr Holmes, however, is not always comic. Some of his serious pieces are not without a certain manly pathos. Some, too, are of a quite didactic character, and have the air of college exercises. But it is only a few of his lighter pieces we should feel any disposition to quote, or refer to. Mr Holmes portrays himself to us as a boon companion;--a physician by profession, and one to whom poetry has been only an occasional amusement--one of those choice spirits who can set the table in a roar, and who can sing himself the good song that he indites. Such being the case, we have only to lay down the critical pen to court amusement ourselves, and conclude our paper by sharing with the reader a few specimens of wit or humour.

Civilised life in New York, or Boston, seems to have the same disagreeable accompaniments as with us--as witness.

THE MUSIC-GRINDERS.

"There are three ways in which men take
One's money from his purse,
And very hard it is to tell
Which of the three is worse;
But all of them are bad enough
To make a body curse.

You're riding out some pleasant day,
And counting up your gains;
A fellow jumps from out a bush,
And takes your horse's reins;
Another hints some words about
A bullet in your brains.

It's hard to meet such pressing friends
In such a lonely spot;
It's very hard to lose your cash,
But harder to be shot;
And so you take your wallet out,
Though you had rather not.

Perhaps you're going out to dine,
Some filthy creature begs
You'll hear about the cannon-ball
That carried off his pegs;
He says it is a dreadful thing
For men to lose their legs.

He tells you of his starving wife,
His children to be fed,
Poor little lovely innocents.
All clamorous for bread;
And so you kindly help to put
A bachelor to bed.

You're sitting on your window-seat,
Beneath a cloudless moon;
You hear a sound that seems to wear
The semblance of a tune,
As if a broken fife should strive
To drown a cracked basoon.

And nearer, nearer still, the tide
Of music seems to come,
There's something like a human voice
And something like a drum;
You sit in speechless agony
Until your ear is numb.

Poor 'home, sweet home,' should seem to be
A very dismal place,
Your 'auld acquaintance,' all at once
Is altered in the face--

* * * * *

* * * * *

But hark! the air again is still,
The music all is ground;
It cannot be--it is--it is--
A hat is going round!

No! Pay the dentist when he leaves
A fracture in your jaw;
And pay the owner of the bear,
That stunned you with his paw;
And buy the lobster that has had
Your knuckles in his claw;

But if you are a portly man,
Put on your fiercest frown,
And talk about a constable
To turn them out of town;
Then close your sentence with an oath,
And shut the window down!

And if you are a slender man,
Not big enough for that,
Or, if you cannot make a speech,
Because you are a flat,
_Go very quietly and drop
A button in the hat_!"

Excellent advice! How many hats there are--and not of music-grinders only--in which we should be delighted to see the button dropped! The next in order is very good, and equally intelligible on this side of the Atlantic. We give the greater part of it:--

THE TREADMILL SONG.

"They've built us up a noble wall,
To keep the vulgar out;
We've nothing in the world to do,
_But just to walk about_;
So faster now, you middle men,
And try to beat the ends,
Its pleasant work to ramble round
Among one's honest friends.

Here, tread upon the long man's toes,
He shan't be lazy here--
And punch the little fellow's ribs,
And tweak that lubber's ear,
He's lost them both--don't pull his hair,
Because he wears a scratch,
But poke him in the further eye,
That isn't in the patch.

Hark! fellows, there's the supper-bell,
And so our work is done;
It's pretty sport--suppose we take
A round or two for fun!
If ever they should turn me out,
When I have better grown,
Now hang me, but I mean to have
A treadmill of my own!"

"The September Gale," "The Ballad of an Oysterman," "My Aunt," all solicit admission, but we have no space. A few of the verses "On the Portrait of 'A Gentleman,' in the Athenæum Gallery," we will insert. Perhaps we may see the companion picture to it on the walls of our own Exhibition at Trafalgar Square:--

"It may be so, perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.

That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be,
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.

Those eyes, among thine elder friends,
Perhaps they pass for blue;
No matter--if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?

Thy mouth--that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin--
May be a very useful place
To put thy victual in."

Not, it seems, a thing to paint for public inspection. _Apropos_ of the pictorial art, we cannot dismiss Mr Holmes' book without noticing the two or three tasteful vignettes or medallions, or by whatever name the small engravings are to be called, which are scattered through its pages. We wish there were more of them, and that such a style of illustration, or rather of decoration, (for they have little to do with the subject of the text,) were more general. Here are two little children sitting on the ground, one is reading, the other listening--a mere outline, and the whole could be covered by a crown-piece. A simple medallion, such as we have described, gives an exquisite and perpetual pleasure; the blurred and blotched engraving, where much is attempted and nothing completed, is a mere disfigurement to a book. The volume before us, we ought perhaps to add, comes from the press of Messrs Ticknor and Co., Boston.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.