Chapter VIII: Part I: The Design (3)

If, as every poet, every painter, every sculptor will acknowledge, his best and most original ideas are derived from his own times: if his great lessonings to piety, truth, charity, love, honor, honesty, gallantry, generosity, courage, are derived from the same source; why transfer them to distant periods, and make them _not things of to-day?_ Why teach us to revere the saints of old, and not our own family-worshippers? Why to admire the lance-armed knight, and not the patience-armed hero of misfortune? Why to draw a sword we do not wear to aid and oppressed damsel, and not a purse which we do wear to rescue an erring one? Why to worship a martyred St. Agatha, and not a sick woman attending the sick? Why teach us to honor an Aristides or a Regulus, and not one who pays an equitable, though to him ruinous, tax without a railing accusation? And why not teach us to help what the laws cannot help?--Why teach us to hate a Nero or an Appius, and not an underselling oppressor of workmen and betrayer of women and children? Why to love a _Ladie in bower_, and not a wife's fireside? Why paint or poetically depict the horrible race of Ogres and Giants, and not show Giant Despair dressed in that modern habit he walks the streets in? Why teach men what were great and good deeds in the old time, neglecting to show them any good for themselves?--Till these questions are answered absolutory to the artist, it were unwise to propose the other question--Why a poet, painter or sculptor is not honored and loved as formerly? "As formerly," says some avowed sceptic in _old world transcendency_ and _golden age affairs_, "I believe _formerly_ the artist was as much respected and cared for as he is now. 'Tis true the Greeks granted an immunity from taxation to some of their artists, who were often great men in the state, and even the companions of princes. And are not some of our poets peers? Have not some of our artists received knighthood from the hand of their Sovereign, and have not some of them received pensions?"

To answer objections of this latitude demands the assertion of certain characteristic facts which, tho' not here demonstrated, may be authenticated by reference to history. Of these, the facts of Alfred's disguised visit to the Danish camp, and Aulaff's visit to the Saxon, are sufficient to show in what respect the poets of that period were held; when a man without any safe conduct whatever could enter the enemy's camp on the very eve of battle, as was here the case; could enter unopposed, unquestioned, and return unmolested!--What could have conferred upon the poet of that day so singular a privilege? What upon the poet of an earlier time that sanctity in behoof whereof

"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground: and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare."

What but an universal recognition of the poet as an universal benefactor of mankind? And did mankind recognize him as such, from some unaccountable infatuation, or because his labours obtained for him an indefeasible right to that estimate? How came it, when a Greek sculptor had completed some operose performance, that his countrymen bore him in triumph thro' their city, and rejoiced in his prosperity as identical with their own? How but because his art had embodied some principle of beauty whose mysterious influence it was their pride to appreciate--or he had enduringly moulded the limbs of some well-trained Athlete, such as it was their interest to develop, or he had recorded the overthrow of some barbaric invader whom their fathers had fallen to repel.

In the middle ages when a knight listened, in the morning, to some song of brave doing, ere evening he himself might be the hero of such song.--What wonder then that he held sacred the function of the poet! Now-a-days our heroes (and we have them) are left unchapleted and neglected--and therefore the poet lives and dies neglected.

Thus it would appear from these facts (which have been collaterally evolved in course of enquiring into the propriety of choosing the subject from past or present time, and in course of the consequent analysis) that Art, to become a more powerful engine of civilization, assuming a practically humanizing tendency (the admitted function of Art), should be made more directly conversant with the things, incidents, and influences which surround and constitute the living world of those whom Art proposes to improve, and, whether it should appear in event that Art can or can not assume this attitude without jeopardizing her specific existence, that such a consummation were desirable must be equally obvious in either case.

Let us return now to the former consideration. It was stated that the poet is affected by every day incidents, which would have little or no effect on the mind of a general observer: and if you ask the poet, who from his conduct may be the supposed advocate of the past as the fittest medium for poetic eduction, why he embodied the suggestions of to-day in the matter and dress of antiquity; he is likely to answer as follows.--"You have stated that men pass by that which furnishes me with my subject: If I merely reproduce what they slighted, the reproduction will be slighted equally. It appears then that I must devise some means of attracting their sympathies--and the medium of antiquity is the fittest for three several reasons. 1st.--Nothing comes down to us from antiquity unless fraught with sufficient interest of some sort, to warrant it being worthy of record. Thus, all incidents which we possess of the old time being more or less interesting, there arises an illative impression that all things of old really were so: and all things in idea associated with that time, whether real or fictitious, are afforded a favorable entertainment. Now these associations are neither trivial nor fanciful:{11} for I remember to have discovered, after visiting the British Museum for the first time, that the odour of camphor, for which I had hitherto no predilection, afforded me a peculiar satisfaction, seemingly suggestive of things scientific or artistic; it was in fact a _literary smell!_ All this was vague and unaccountable until some time after when this happened again, and I was at once reminded of an enormous walrus at the British Museum, and then remembered how the whole collection, from end to end, was permeated with the odour of camphor! Still, despite the _consciousness_ of this, the camphor retains its influence. Now let a poem, a painting, or sculpture, smell ever so little of antiquity, and every intelligent reader will be full of delightful imaginations. 2nd.--All things ancient are mysterious in obscurity:--veneration, wonder, and curiosity are the result. 3rd.--All things ancient are dead and gone:--we sympathize with them accordingly. All these effects of antiquity, as a means of enforcing poetry, declare it too powerful an ally to be readily abandoned by the poet." To all this the painter will add that the costume of almost any ancient time is more beautiful than that of the present--added to which it exposes more of that most beautiful of all objects, the human figure.

{11} Here the author, in the person of respondent, takes occasion to narrate a real fact.

Thus we have a formidable array of objections to the choice of _present-day subjects:_ and first, it was objected and granted, that incidents of the present time are well nigh barren in poetic attraction for the many. Then it was objected, but not granted, that their poetic or pictorial counterparts will be equally unattractive also: but this last remains to be proved. It was said, and is believed by the author, (and such as doubt it he does not address) that all good men are more or less poetical in some way or other; while their poetry shows itself at various times. Thus the business-man in the street has other to think of than poetry; but when he is inclined to look at a picture, or in his more poetical humour, will he neglect the pictorial counterpart of what he neglected before? To test this, show him a camera obscura, where there is a more literal transcript of present-day nature than any painting can be:--what is the result? He expresses no anxiety to quit it, but a great curiosity to investigate; he feels it is very beautiful, indeed more beautiful than nature: and this he will say is because he does not see nature as an artist does. Now the solution of all this is easy: 1st. He is in a mood of mind which renders him accessible to the influences of poetry, which was not before the case. 2nd. He looks at that steadily which he before regarded cursorily; and, as the picture remains in his eye, it acquires an amount of harmony, in behoof of an intrinsic harmony resident in the organ itself, which exerts proportionately modifying influences on all things that enter within it; and of the nervous harmony, and the beautifully apportioned stimuli of alternating ocular spectra. 3rd. There is a resolution of discord effected by the instrument itself, inasmuch as its effects are homogeneous. All these harmonizing influences are equally true of the painting; and though we have no longer the homogeneous effect of the camera, we have the homogeneous effect of one mind, viz., the mind of the artist.

Thus having disproved the supposed poetical obstacles to the rendering of real life or nature in its own real garb and time, as faithfully as Art can render it, nothing need be said to answer the advantages of the antique or mediaeval rendering; since they were only called in to neutralize the aforesaid obstacles, which obstacles have proved to be fictitious. It remains then to consider the _artistic_ objection of costume, &c., which consideration ranges under the head of _real differences between the things of past and present times_, a consideration formerly postponed. But this requiring a patient analysis, will necessitate a further postponement, and in conclusion, there will be briefly stated the elements of the argument, thus.--It must be obvious to every physicist that physical beauty (which this subject involves on the one side [the ancient] as opposed to the want of it on the other [the modern]) was in ancient times as superior to physical beauty in the modern, as psychical beauty in the modern is superior to psychical beauty in the ancient. Costume then, as physical, is more beautiful ancient than modern. Now that a certain amount of physical beauty is requisite to constitute Fine Art, will be readily admitted; but what that amount is, must be ever undefined. That the maximum of physical beauty does not constitute the maximum of Fine Art, is apparent from the facts of the physical beauty of _Early Christian_ Art being inferior to that of Grecian art; whilst, in the concrete, Early Christian Art is superior to Grecian. Indeed some specimens of Early Christian Art are repulsive rather than beautiful, yet these are in many cases the highest works of Art.

In the "Plague at Ashdod," great physical beauty, resulting from picturesque costume and the exposed human figure, was so far from desirable, that it seems purposely deformed by blotches of livid color; yet the whole is a most noble work of Poussin. Containing as much physical beauty as this picture, the writer remembers to have seen an incident in the streets where a black-haired, sordid, wicked-headed man, was striking the butt of his whip at the neck of a horse, to urge him round an angle of the pavement; a smocked countryman offered him the loan of his mules: a blacksmith standing by, showed him how to free the wheel, by only swerving the animal to the left: he, taking no notice whatever, went on striking and striking; whilst a woman waiting to cross, with a child in her one hand, and with the other pushing its little head close to her side, looked with wide eyes at this monster.

This familiar incident, affording a subject fraught with more moral interest than, and as much picturesque matter as, many antique or mediaeval subjects, is only wanting in that romantic attraction which, by association, attaches to things of the past. Yet, let these modern subjects once excite interest, as it really appears they can, and the incidents of to-day will acquire romantic attractions by the same association of ideas.

The claims of ancient, mediaeval, and modern subjects will be considered in detail at a future period.

The Carillon. (Antwerp and Bruges)

In these and others of the Flemish Towns, the _Carillon_, or chimes which have a most fantastic and delicate music, are played almost continually The custom is very ancient.

At Antwerp, there is a low wall
Binding the city, and a moat
Beneath, that the wind keeps afloat.
You pass the gates in a slow drawl
Of wheels. If it is warm at all
The Carillon will give you thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,
What time the urgent weight of sound
At sunset seems to heave it round.
Far up, the Carillon did search
The wind; and the birds came to perch
Far under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt
I stood along, a certain space
Of night. The mist was near my face:
Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.
The Carillon kept pause, and dwelt
In music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train,
--A singing numbness in your ears,--
The Carillon's first sound appears
Only the inner moil. Again
A little minute though--your brain
Takes quiet, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van Eyck
Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame
I scanned the works that keep their name.
The Carillon, which then did strike
Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike:
It set me closer unto them.

I climbed at Bruges all the flight
The Belfry has of ancient stone.
For leagues I saw the east wind blown:
The earth was grey, the sky was white.
I stood so near upon the height
That my flesh felt the Carillon.

_October_, 1849.

Emblems

I lay through one long afternoon,
Vacantly plucking the grass.
I lay on my back, with steadfast gaze
Watching the cloud-shapes pass;
Until the evening's chilly damps
Rose from the hollows below,
Where the cold marsh-reeds grow.

I saw the sun sink down behind
The high point of a mountain;
Its last light lingered on the weeds
That choked a shattered fountain,
Where lay a rotting bird, whose plumes
Had beat the air in soaring.
On these things I was poring:--

The sun seemed like my sense of life,
Now weak, that was so strong;
The fountain--that continual pulse
Which throbbed with human song:
The bird lay dead as that wild hope
Which nerved my thoughts when young.
These symbols had a tongue,

And told the dreary lengths of years
I must drag my weight with me;
Or be like a mastless ship stuck fast
On a deep, stagnant sea.
A man on a dangerous height alone,
If suddenly struck blind,
Will never his home path find.

When divers plunge for ocean's pearls,
And chance to strike a rock,
Who plunged with greatest force below
Receives the heaviest shock.
With nostrils wide and breath drawn in,
I rushed resolved on the race;
Then, stumbling, fell in the chase.

Yet with time's cycles forests swell
Where stretched a desert plain:
Time's cycles make the mountains rise
Where heaved the restless main:
On swamps where moped the lonely stork,
In the silent lapse of time
Stands a city in its prime.

I thought: then saw the broadening shade
Grow slowly over the mound,
That reached with one long level slope
Down to a rich vineyard ground:
The air about lay still and hushed,
As if in serious thought:
But I scarcely heeded aught,

Till I heard, hard by, a thrush break forth,
Shouting with his whole voice,
So that he made the distant air
And the things around rejoice.
My soul gushed, for the sound awoke
Memories of early joy:
I sobbed like a chidden boy.

Sonnet: Early Aspirations

How many a throb of the young poet-heart,
Aspiring to the ideal bliss of Fame,
Deems that Time soon may sanctify his claim
Among the sons of song to dwell apart.--
Time passes--passes! The aspiring flame
Of Hope shrinks down; the white flower Poesy
Breaks on its stalk, and from its earth-turned eye
Drop sleepy tears instead of that sweet dew
Rich with inspiring odours, insect wings
Drew from its leaves with every changing sky,
While its young innocent petals unsunn'd grew.
No more in pride to other ears he sings,
But with a dying charm himself unto:--
For a sad season: then, to active life he springs.

From the Cliffs: Noon

The sea is in its listless chime:
Time's lapse it is, made audible,--
The murmur of the earth's large shell.
In a sad blueness beyond rhyme
It ends: sense, without thought, can pass
No stadium further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No stagnance that death wins,--it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Always enduring at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Fancies at Leisure

I. In Spring

The sky is blue here, scarcely with a stain
Of grey for clouds: here the young grasses gain
A larger growth of green over this splinter
Fallen from the ruin. Spring seems to have told Winter
He shall not freeze again here. Tho' their loss
Of leaves is not yet quite repaired, trees toss
Sprouts from their boughs. The ash you called so stiff
Curves, daily, broader shadow down the cliff.

II. In Summer

How the rooks caw, and their beaks seem to clank!
Let us just move out there,--(it might be cool
Under those trees,) and watch how the thick tank
By the old mill is black,--a stagnant pool
Of rot and insects. There goes by a lank
Dead hairy dog floating. Will Nature's rule
Of life return hither no more? The plank
Rots in the crushed weeds, and the sun is cruel.

III. The Breadth of Noon

Long time I lay there, while a breeze would blow
From the south softly, and, hard by, a slender
Poplar swayed to and fro to it. Surrender
Was made of all myself to quiet. No
Least thought was in my mind of the least woe:
Yet the void silence slowly seemed to render
My calmness not less calm, but yet more tender,
And I was nigh to weeping.--'Ere I go,'
I thought, 'I must make all this stillness mine;
The sky's blue almost purple, and these three
Hills carved against it, and the pine on pine
The wood in their shade has. All this I see
So inwardly I fancy it may be
Seen thus of parted souls by _their_ sunshine.'

IV. Sea-Freshness

Look at that crab there. See if you can't haul
His backward progress to this spar of a ship
Thrown up and sunk into the sand here. Clip
His clipping feelers hard, and give him all
Your hand to gripe at: he'll take care not fall:
So,--but with heed, for you are like to slip
In stepping on the plank's sea-slime. Your lip--
No wonder--curves in mirth at the slow drawl
Of the squat creature's legs. We've quite a shine
Of waves round us, and here there comes a wind
So fresh it must bode us good luck. How long
Boatman, for one and sixpence? Line by line
The sea comes toward us sun-ridged. Oh! we sinned
Taking the crab out: let's redress his wrong.

V. The Fire Smouldering

I look into the burning coals, and see
Faces and forms of things; but they soon pass,
Melting one into other: the firm mass
Crumbles, and breaks, and fades gradually,
Shape into shape as in a dream may be,
Into an image other than it was:
And so on till the whole falls in, and has
Not any likeness,--face, and hand, and tree,
All gone. So with the mind: thought follows thought,
This hastening, and that pressing upon this,
A mighty crowd within so narrow room:
And then at length heavy-eyed slumbers come,
The drowsy fancies grope about, and miss
Their way, and what was so alive is nought.

Papers of "The M.S. Society" {12}

{12} The Editor is requested to state that "M. S." does not here mean Manuscript.

No. I. An Incident in the Siege of Troy, seen from a modern Observatory

Sixteen Specials in Priam's Keep
Sat down to their mahogany:
The League, just then, had made _busters_ cheap,
And Hesiod writ his "Theogony,"
A work written to prove "that, if men would be men,
And demand their rights again and again,
They might live like gods, have infinite _smokes_,
Drink infinite rum, drive infinite _mokes_,
Which would come from every part of the known
And civilized globe, twice as good as their own,
And, finally, Ilion, the work-shop should be
Of the world--one vast manufactory!"

From arrow-slits, port-holes, windows, what not,
Their sixteen quarrels the Specials had shot
From sixteen arblasts, their daily task;
Why they'd to do it they didn't ask,
For, after they'd done it, they sat down to dinner;
The sixteen Specials they didn't get thinner;
But kept quite loyal, and every day
Asked no questions but fired away.

Would you like me to tell you the reason why
These sixteen Specials kept letting fly
From eleven till one, as the Chronicle speaks?
They did it, my boys, to annoy the Greeks,
Who kept up a perpetual cannonade
On the walls, and threaten'd an escalade.
The sixteen Specials were so arranged
That the shots they shot were not shots exchanged,
But every shot so told on the foe
The Greeks were obliged to draw it mild:
Diomedes--"A fix," Ulysses--"No go"
Declared it, the "king of men" cried like a child;
Whilst the Specials, no more than a fine black Tom
I keep to serenade Mary from
The tiles, where he lounges every night,
Knew nor cared what they did, and were perfectly right.

But the fact was thus: one Helenus,
A man much faster than any of us,
More fast than a gent at the top of a "bus,"
More fast than the coming of "Per col. sus."
Which Shakespeare says comes galloping,
(I take his word for anything)
This Helenus had a cure of souls--
He had cured the souls of several Greeks,
Achilles sole or heel,--the rolls
Of fame (not French) say Paris:--speaks
Anatomist Quain thereof. Who seeks
May read the story from z to a;
He has handled and argued it every way;--
A subject on which there's a good deal to say.
His work was ever the best, and still is,
Because of this note on the Tendo Achillis.

This Helenus was a man well bred,
He was _up_ in Electricity,
Fortification, Theology,
aesthetics and Pugilicity;
Celsus and Gregory he'd read;
Knew every "dodge" of _glove and fist;_
Was a capital curate, (I think I've said)
And Transcendental Anatomist:
_Well up_ in Materia Medica,
_Right up_ in Toxicology,
And Medical Jurisprudence, that sell!
And the _dead sell_ Physiology:
Knew what and how much of any potation
Would get him through any examination:
With credit not small, had passed the Hall
And the College----and they couldn't _pluck_ him at all.
He'd written on Rail-roads, delivered a lecture
Upon the Electric Telegraph,
Had played at single-stick with Hector,
And written a paper on half-and-half.

With those and other works of note
He was not at all a "_people's man_,"
Though public, for the works he wrote
Were not that sort the people can
Admire or read; they were Mathematic
The most part, some were Hydrostatic;
But Algebraic, in the main,
And full of a, b, c, and n--
And other letters which perplex--
The last was full of double x!
In fact, such stuff as one may easily
Imagine, didn't go down greasily,
Nor calculated to produce
Such heat as "cooks the public goose,"
And does it of so brown a hue
Men wonder while they relish too.

It therefore was that much alone
He studied; and a room is shown
In a coffee-house, an upper room,
Where none but hungry devils come,
Wherein 'tis said, with animation
He read "Vestiges of Creation."

Accordingly, a month about
After he'd _chalked up_ steak and stout
For the last time, he gave the world
A pamphlet, wherein he unfurled
A tissue of facts which, soon as blown,
Ran like wildfire through the town.
And, first of all, he plainly showed
A capital error in the mode
Of national defences, thus--
"The Greek one thousand miles from us,"
Said he, (for nine hundred and ninety-nine
The citadel stood above the brine
In perpendicular height, allowing
For slope of glacis, thereby showing
An increase of a mile,) "'tis plain
The force that shot and shell would gain,
By gravitation, with their own,
Would fire the ground by friction alone;
Which, being once in fusion schooled
Ere cool, as _Fire-mist had cooled_"
Would gain a motion, which must soon,
Just as the earth detached the moon
And gave her locomotive birth,
Detach some twenty miles of earth,
And send it swinging in the air,
The Devil only could tell where!
Then came the probability
With what increased facility
The Greeks, by this projectile power,
Might land on Ilion's highest tower,
All safe and sound, in battle array,
With howitzers prepared to play,
And muskets to the muzzles rammed;--
Why, the town would be utterly smashed and jammed,
And positively, as the phrase is
Vernacular, be "sent to blazes"!

In the second place, he then would ask,
(And here he took several members to task,
And wondered--"he really must presume
To wonder" a statesman like--you know whom--
Who ever evinced the deepest sense
Of a crying sin in any expense,
Should so besotted be, and lost
To the fact that now, at public cost,
Powder was being day by day
Wantonly wasted, blown away);--
Yes, he would ask, "with what intent
But to perch the Greeks on a battlement
From which they might o'erlook the town,
The easier to batter it down,
Which he had proved must be the case
(If it hadn't already taken place):
He called on his readers to fear and dread it,
_Whilst he wrote it,--whilst they read it!_"
"How simple! How beautifully simple," said he,
"And obvious was the remedy!
Look back a century or so--
And there was the ancient Norman bow,
A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh)
Efficient, better, cheaper by half:
(He knew quite well the age abused it
Because, forsooth, the Normans used it)
These, planted in the citadel,
Would reach the walls say,--very well;
There, having spent their utmost force,
They'd drop down right, as a matter of course,
A thousand miles! Think--a thousand miles!
What was the weight for driving piles
To this? He calculated it--
'Twould equal, when both Houses sit,
The weight of the entire building,
Including Members, paint, and gilding;
But, if a speech or the address
From the throne were given, something less,
Because, as certain snores aver,
The House is then much heavier.

Now this, though very much a rub like
For Ministers, convinced the public;
And Priam, who liked to hear its brays
To any tune but "the Marseillaise,"
Summoned a Privy Council, where
'Twas shortly settled to confer
On Helenus a sole command
Of Specials.--He headed that daring band!

And sixteen Specials in Priam's keep
Got up from their mahogany;
They smoked their pipes in silence deep
Till there was such a fog--any
Attempt to discover the priest in the smother
Had bothered old Airy and Adams and t'other
And--Every son of an _English_ mother.

June, 1848.

No. II. Swift's Dunces

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against him."--_Swift_.

How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool--by the proverb?

At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the mass of readers, have clearer wits than the dunces--then why should I not know what you are as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.--unless a dunce has a good nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.

Now I take it that these people stigmatized as dunces are but men of ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to the average of minds. For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition, has written the "Lampiad," an epic; when he should not have dared beyond the Doric reed: his ambitious pride has prevented the publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for his failure. This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his ambition (an ill-combination of self-conscious worth and spleen) leads him to compare works of the highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his own. In all cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe; this naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.

He has himself failed; he sees errors in successful writers; he knows he possesses certain merits, and knows what the perfection of them should be. This is the ground work of envy, which makes a man of parts a comparative fool, and a confederate against "true genius."

No. III. Mental Scales

I make out my case thus--

There is an exact balance in the distribution of causes of pleasure and pain: this has been satisfactorily proved in my next paper, upon "Cause and Effect," therefore I shall take it for granted. What, then, is there but the mind to determine its own state of happiness, or misery: just as the motion of the scales depends upon themselves, when two equal weights are put into them. The balance ought to be truly hung; but if the unpleasant scale is heavier, then the motion is in favor of the pleasant scale, and vice versa. Whether the beam stands horizontally, or otherwise, does not matter (that only determines the key): draw a line at right angles to it, then put in your equal weights; if the angle becomes larger on the unpleasant scale's side of the line, happiness is the result, if on the other, misery.

It requires but a slight acquaintance with mechanics to see that he who would be happy should have the unpleasant side heavier. I hate corollaries or we might have a group of them equally applicable to Art and Models.

_June_, 1848.

Reviews

_Some Account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart. Done in Verse by George John Cayley. Canto 1st. Pickering._ 1849.

Inconsistency, whether in matters of importance or in trifles, whether in substance or in detail, is never pleasant. We do not here impute to this poem any inconsistency between one portion and another; but certainly its form is at variance with its subject and treatment. In the wording of the title, and the character of typography, there is a studious archaism: more modern the poem itself could scarcely be.

"Sir Reginald Mohun" aims, to judge from the present sample, at depicting the easy intercourse of high life; and the author enters on his theme with a due amount of sympathy. It is in this respect, if in any, that the mediaeval tone of the work lasts beyond the title page. In Mr. Cayley's eyes, the proof of the comparative prosperity of England is that

"Still Queen Victoria sits upon her throne;
Our aristocracy still keep alive,
And, on the whole, may still be said to thrive,--
Tho' now and then with ducal acres groan
The honored tables of the auctioneer.
Nathless, our aristocracy is dear,
Tho' their estates go cheap; and all must own
That they still give society its tone."--p. 16.

He proceeds in these terms:

"Our baronets of late appear to be
Unjustly snubbed and talked and written down;
Partly from follies of Sir Something Brown,
Stickling for badges due to their degree,
And partly that their honor's late editions
Have been much swelled with surgeons and physicians;
For 'honor hath small skill in surgery,'
And skill in surgery small honor."--p. 17.

What "honor" is here meant? and against whom is the taunt implied?--against the "surgeons and physicians," or against the depreciation of them. Surely the former can hardly have been intended. The sentence will bear to be cleared of some ambiguity, or else to be cleared off altogether.

Our introduction to Sir Reginald Mohun, Lord of Nornyth Place, and of "an income clear of 20,000 pounds," and to his friends Raymond St. Oun, De Lacy, Wilton, Tancarville, and Vivian--(for the author's names are aristocratic, like his predilections)--is effected through the medium of a stanza, new, we believe, in arrangement, though differing but slightly from the established octave, and of verses so easy and flowing as to make us wonder less at the promise of

"provision plenty
For cantos twelve, or may be, four and twenty,"

than at Mr. Cayley's assertion that he "Can never get along at all in prose."

The incidents, as might be expected of a first canto, are neither many nor important, and will admit of compression into a very small compass.

Sir Reginald, whose five friends had arrived at Nornyth Place late on the preceding night, is going over the grounds with them in a shooting party after a late breakfast. St. Oun expresses a wish to "prowl about the place" in preference, not feeling in the mood for the required exertion.

"'Of lazy dogs the laziest ever fate
Set on two useless legs you surely are,
And born beneath some wayward sauntering star
To sit for ever swinging on a gate,
And laugh at wiser people passing through.'
So spake the bard De Lacy: for they two
In frequent skirmishes of fierce debate
Would bicker, tho' their mutual love was great."--p. 35.

Mohun, however, sides with St. Oun, and agrees to escort him in his rambles after the first few shots. He accordingly soon resigns his gun to the keeper Oswald, whose position as one who

"came into possession
Of the head-keepership by due succession
Thro' sire and grandsire, who, when one was dead,
Left his right heir-male keeper in his stead,"

Mr. Cayley evidently regards with some complacence. The friends enter a boat: here, while sailing along a rivulet that winds through the estate, St. Oun falls to talking of wealth, its value and insufficiency, of death, and life, and fame; and coming at length to ask after the history of Sir Reginald's past life, he suggests "this true epic opening for relation:"

"'The sun, from his meridian heights declining
Mirrored his richest tints upon the shining
Bosom of a lake. In a light shallop, two
_Young men, whose dress,_ etcaetera, _proclaims,_
Etcaetera,--so would write G.P.R. James--
Glided in silence o'er the waters blue,
Skirting the wooded slopes. Upward they gazed
On Nornyth's ancient pile, whose windows blazed

"'In sunset rays, whose crimson fulgence streamed
Across the flood: wrapped in deep thought they seemed.
'You are pensive, Reginald,' at length thus spake
The helmsman: 'ha! it is the mystic power
Fraught by the sacred stillness of the hour:
Forgive me if your reverie I break,
Craving, with friendship's sympathy, to share
_Your spirit's burden, be it joy or care.'"_--pp. 48, 49.

Sir Reginald Mohun's story is soon told.--Born in Italy, and losing his mother at the moment of his birth, and his father and only sister dying also soon after, he is left alone in the world.

"'My father was a melancholy man,
Having a touch of genius, and a heart,
But not much of that worldly better part
Called force of character, which finds some plan
For getting over anguish that will crush
Weak hearts of stronger feeling. He began
To pine; was pale; and had a hectic flush
At times; and from his eyelids tears would gush.

"'Some law of hearts afflicted seems to bind
A spell by which the scenes of grief grew dear;
He never could leave Italy, tho' here
And there he wandered with unquiet mind,--
Rome, Florence, Mantua, Milan; once as far
As Venice; but still Naples had a blind
Attraction which still drew him thither. There
He died. Heaven rest his ashes from their care.

"'He wrote, a month or so before he died,
To Wilton's father; (he is Earl of Eure,
My mother's brother); saying he was sure
That he should soon be gone, and would confide
Us to his guardian care. My uncle came
Before his death. We stood by his bedside.
He blessed us. We, who scarcely knew the name
Of death, yet read in the expiring flame

"'Of his sunk eyes some awful mystery,
And wept we knew not why. There was a grace
Of radiant joyful hope upon his face,
Most unaccustomed, and which seemed to be
All foreign to his wasted frame; and yet
So heavenly in its consolation we
Smiled through the tears with which our lids were wet.
His lips were cold, as, whispering, 'Do not fret

"'When I am gone,' he kissed us: and he took
Our uncle's hands, which on our heads he laid,
And said: 'My children, do not be afraid
Of Death, but be prepared to meet him. Look;
Here is your mother's brother; he to her
As Reginald to Eve.' His thin voice shook.--
'Eve was your Mother's name.' His words did err,
As dreaming; and his wan lips ceased to stir.'"--pp. 55-57.

(We have quoted this passage, not insensible to its defects,--some common-place in sentiment and diction; but independently of the good it does really contain, as being the only one of such a character sustained in quality to a moderate length.)

Reginald and his cousin Wilton grew up together friends, though not bound by common sympathies. The latter has known life early, and "earned experience piecemeal:" with the former, thought has already become a custom.

Thus far only does Reginald bring his retrospect; his other friends come up, and they all return homeward. Here, too, ends the story of this canto; but not without warranting some surmise of what will furnish out the next. There is evidence of observation adroitly applied in the talk of the two under-keepers who take charge of the boat.

"They said: 'Oh! what a gentleman to talk
Is that there Lacy! What a tongue he've got!
But Mr. Vivian _is_ a pretty shot.
And what a pace his lordship wish to walk!
Which Mr. Tancarville, he seemed quite beat:
But he's a pleasant gentleman. Good lawk!
How he do make me laugh! Dang! this 'ere seat
Have wet my smalls slap thro'. Dang! what a treat!

"'There's company coming to the Place to morn:
Bess housemaid told me. Lord and Lady----: dash
My wigs! I can't think on. But there's a mash
O' comp'ny and fine ladies; fit to torn
The heads of these young chaps. Why now I'd lay
This here gun to an empty powder-horn
Sir Reginald be in love, or that-a-way.
He looks a little downcast-loikish,--eh?'"--pp.62, 63.

It will be observed that there is no vulgarity in this vulgarism: indeed, the gentlemanly good humour of the poem is uninterrupted. This, combined with neatness of handling, and the habit of not over-doing, produces that general facility of appearance which it is no disparagement, in speaking of a first canto, to term the chief result of so much of these life and adventures as is here "done into verse." It may be fairly anticipated, however, that no want of variety in the conception, or of success in the pourtrayal, of character will need to be complained of: meanwhile, a few passages may be quoted to confirm our assertions. The two first extracts are examples of mere cleverness; and all that is aimed at is attained. The former follows out a previous comparison of the world with a "huge churn."

"Yet some, despising life's legitimate aim,
Instead of butter, would become "the cheese;"
A low term for distinction. Whence the name
I know not: gents invented it; and these
Gave not an etymology. I see no
Likelier than this, which with their taste agrees;
The _caseine_ element I conceive to mean no
Less than the _beau ideal_ of the Casino."--p.12.

"Wise were the Augurers of old, nor erred
In substance, deeming that the life of man--
(This is a new reflection, spick and span)--
May be much influenced by the flight of birds.
Our senate can no longer hold their house
When culminates the evil star of grouse;
And stoutest patriots will their shot-belts gird
When first o'er stubble-field hath partridge whirred."--p.25.

In these others there is more purpose, with a no less definite conciseness:

"Comes forth the first great poet. Then a number
Of followers leave much literary lumber.
He cuts his phrases in the sapling grain
Of language; and so weaves them at his will.
They from his wickerwork extract with pain
The wands now warped and stiffened, which but ill
Bend to their second-hand employment."--pp. 4, 5.

"What's life? A riddle;
Or sieve which sifts you thro' it in the middle."--p.45.

The misadventures of the five friends on their road to Nornyth are very sufficiently described:

"The night was cold and cloudy as they topped
A moorland slope, and met the bitter blast,
So cutting that their ears it almost cropped;
And rain began to fall extremely fast.
A broken sign-post left them in great doubt
About two roads; and, when an hour was passed,
They learned their error from a lucid lout;
Soon after, one by one, their lamps went out."--p.29.

There remains to point out one fault,--and that the last fault the occurrence of which could be looked for, after so clearly expressed an intention as this:

"But, if an Author takes to writing fine,
(Which means, I think, an artificial tone),
The public sicken and won't read a line.
I hope there's nothing of this sort in mine."--p. 6.

A quotation or two will fully explain our meaning: and we would seriously ask Mr. Cayley to reflect whether he has always borne his principle in mind, and avoided "writing fine;" whether he has not sometimes fallen into high-flown common-place of the most undisguised stamp, rendered, moreover, doubly inexcusable and out of place by being put into the mouth of one of the personages of the poem; It is Sir Reginald Mohun that speaks; and truly, though not thrust forward as a "wondrous paragon of praise," he must be confessed to be,

"Judging by specimens the author quotes,
An utterer of most ordinary phrases,"

not words only and sentences, but real _phrases_, in the more distinct and specific sense of the term.

"'There, while yet a new born thing,
Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing;
My mother died to give me birth: forlorn
I came into the world, a babe of woe,
Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn;
Yet heir to what the idolators of show
Deem life's good things, which earthly bliss bestow.

"'The riches of the heart they call a dream;
Love, hope, faith, friendship, hollow phantasies:
Living but for their pockets and their eyes,
They stifle in their breasts the purer beam
Of sunshine glanced from heaven upon their clay,
To be its light and warmth. This is a theme
For homilies: and I will only say,
The heart feeds not on fortune's baubles gay.'"--p. 51.

Sir Reginald's narrative concludes after this fashion:

"'But what is this? A dubious compromise;
Twilight of cloudy zones, whereon the blaze
Of sunshine breaks but seldom with its rays
Of heavenly hope, towards which the spirit sighs
Its aspirations, and is lost again
'Mid doubts: to grasp the wisdom of the skies
Too feeble, tho' convinced earth's bonds are vain,
Cowering faint-hearted in the festering chain.'"--p. 60.

A similar instance of conventionality constantly repeated is the sin of inversion, which is no less prevalent, throughout the poem, in the conversational than in the narrative portions. In some cases the exigencies of rhyme may be pleaded in palliation, as for "Cam's marge along" and "breezy willows cool," which occur in two consecutive lines of a speech; but there are many for which no such excuse can be urged. Does any one talk of "sloth obscure," or of "hearts afflicted?" Or what reason is there for preferring "verses easy" to _easy verses?_ Ought not the principle laid down in the following passage of the introduction to be followed out, not only into the intention, but into the manner and quality also, of the whole work?

"'I mean to be _sincere_ in this my lay:
That which I think I shall write down without
A drop of pain or varnish. Therefore, pray,
Whatever I may chance to rhyme about,
Read it without the shadow of a doubt.'"--p. 12.

Again, the Author appears to us to have acted unwisely in occasionally departing from the usual construction of his stanzas, as in this instance:

"'But, as I said, you know my history;
And your's--not that you made a mystery
Of it, nor used reserve, yet, being not
By nature an Autophonophilete,
(A word De Lacy fashioned and called me it)--
Your's you have never told me yet. And what
Can be a more appropriate occasion
Than this true epic opening for relation?'"--p. 48.

Here the lines do not cohere so happily as in the more varied distribution of the rhymes; and, moreover, as a question of principle, we think it not advisable to allow of minor deviations from the uniformity of a prescribed metre.

It may be well to take leave of Mr. Cayley with a last quotation of his own words,--words which no critic ought to disregard:

"I shall be deeply grateful to reviews,
Whether they deign approval, or rebuke,
For any hints they think may disabuse
Delusions of my inexperienced muse."--p.8.

If our remarks have been such as to justify the Author's wish for sincere criticism, our object is attained; and we look forward for the second canto with confidence in his powers.

_Published Monthly.--Price One S._

Art and Poetry,
Being Thoughts towards Nature.

Conducted principally by Artists.

Of the little worthy the name of writing that has ever been written upon the principles of Art, (of course excepting that on the mere mechanism), a very small portion is by Artists themselves; and that is so scattered, that one scarcely knows where to find the ideas of an Artist except in his pictures.

With a view to obtain the thoughts of Artists, upon Nature as evolved in Art, in another language besides their _own proper_ one, this Periodical has been established. Thus, then, it is not open to the conflicting opinions of all who handle the brush and palette, nor is it restricted to actual practitioners; but is intended to enunciate the principles of those who, in the true spirit of Art, enforce a rigid adherence to the simplicity of Nature either in Art or Poetry, and consequently regardless whether emanating from practical Artists, or from those who have studied nature in the Artist's School.

Hence this work will contain such original Tales (in prose or verse), Poems, Essays, and the like, as may seem conceived in the spirit, or with the intent, of exhibiting a pure and unaffected style, to which purpose analytical Reviews of current Literature--especially Poetry--will be introduced; as also illustrative Etchings, one of which latter, executed with the utmost care and completeness, will appear in each number.

No. 4. (_Price One Shilling_.) MAY, 1850.

With an Etching by W.H. Deverell.

Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature Conducted principally by Artists.

When whoso merely hath a little thought
Will plainly think the thought which is in him,--
Not imaging another's bright or dim,
Not mangling with new words what others taught;
When whoso speaks, from having either sought
Or only found,--will speak, not just to skim
A shallow surface with words made and trim,
But in that very speech the matter brought:
Be not too keen to cry--"So this is all!--
A thing I might myself have thought as well,
But would not say it, for it was not worth!"
Ask: "Is this truth?" For is it still to tell
That, be the theme a point or the whole earth,
Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

London:
DICKINSON & Co., 114, NEW BOND STREET,
AND
AYLOTT & JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW.

G. F Tupper, Printer, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street.

CONTENTS.

Etching.--Viola and Olivia.
Viola and Olivia 145
A Dialogue.--_John Orchard_ 146
On a Whit-sunday Morn in the Month of May.--_John Orchard_ 167
Modern Giants.--_Laura Savage_ 169
To the Castle Ramparts--_W.M. Rossetti_ 173
Pax Vobis.--_Dante G. Rossetti_ 176
A Modern Idyl.--_Walter H. Deverell_ 177
"Jesus Wept."--_W.M. Rossetti_ 179
Sonnets for Pictures.--_Dante G Rossetti_ 180
Papers of "The M. S. Society,"
No IV. Smoke 183
No. V. Rain 186
Review: Christmas Eve and Easter Day.--_W.M. Rossetti_ 187
The Evil under the Sun 192

The Subscribers to this Work are respectfully informed that the future Numbers will appear on the last day of the Month for which they are dated. Also, that a supplementary, or large-sized Etching will occasionally be given.

Viola and Olivia

When Viola, a servant of the Duke,
Of him she loved the page, went, sent by him,
To tell Olivia that great love which shook
His breast and stopt his tongue; was it a whim,
Or jealousy or fear that she must look
Upon the face of that Olivia?

'Tis hard to say if it were whim or fear
Or jealousy, but it was natural,
As natural as what came next, the near
Intelligence of hearts: Olivia
Loveth, her eye abused by a thin wall
Of custom, but her spirit's eyes were clear.

Clear? we have oft been curious to know
The after-fortunes of those lovers dear;
Having a steady faith some deed must show
That they were married souls--unmarried here--
Having an inward faith that love, called so
In verity, is of the spirit, clear
Of earth and dress and sex--it may be near
What Viola returned Olivia?

A Dialogue on Art

[The following paper had been sent as a contribution to this publication scarcely more than a week before its author, Mr. John Orchard, died. It was written to commence a series of "Dialogues on Art," which death has rendered for ever incomplete: nevertheless, the merits of this commencement are such that they seemed to warrant its publication as a fragment; and in order that the chain of argument might be preserved, so far as it goes, uninterrupted, the dialogue is printed entire in the present number, despite its length. Of the writer, but little can be said. He was an artist; but ill health, almost amounting to infirmity--his portion from childhood--rendered him unequal to the bodily labour inseparable from his profession: and in the course of his short life, whose youth was scarcely consummated, he exhibited, from time to time, only a very few small pictures, and these, as regards public recognition, in no way successfully. In art, however, he gave to the "seeing eye," token of that ability and earnestness which the "hearing ear" will not fail to recognize in the dialogue now published; where the vehicle of expression, being more purely intellectual, was more within his grasp than was the physical and toilsome embodiment of art.

It is possible that a search among the papers he has left, may bring to light a few other fugitive pieces, which will, in such event, as the Poem succeeding this Dialogue, be published in these pages.

To the end that the Author's scheme may be, as far as is now possible, understood and appreciated, we subjoin, in his own words, some explanation of his further intent, and of the views and feelings which guided him in the composition of the dialogue:

"I have adopted the form of dialogue for several, to me, cogent reasons; 1st, because it gives the writer the power of exhibiting the question, Art, on all its sides; 2nd, because the great phases of Art could be represented idiosyncratically; and, to make this clear, I have named the several speakers accordingly; 3rd, because dialogue secures the attention; and, that secured, deeper things strike, and go deeper than otherwise they could be made to; and, 4th and last, because all my earliest and most delightful pleasures associate themselves with dialogue,--(the old dramatists, Lucian, Walter Savage Landor, &c.)

"You will find that I have not made one speaker say a thing on purpose for another to condemn it; but that I make each one utter his wisest in the very wisest manner he can, or rather, that I can for him.

"The further continuation of this 1st dialogue embraces the question _Nature_, and its processes, invention and imitation,--imitation chiefly. Kosmon begins by showing, in illustration of the truth of Christian's concluding sentences, how imperfectly all the Ancients, excepting the Hebrews, loved, understood, or felt Nature, &c. This is not an unimportant portion of Art knowledge.