The life and writings of Henry Fuseli Volume I Part 4

"Olney, Sept. 2d, 1786.

"SIR,

"Present, Sir, if you please, my compliments to your friend Mr.

Fuseli, and tell him, that I shall be obliged to him if, when he has finished the revisal of the 8th book, he will be so good as to send it to General Cowper's, in Charles Street, together with his strictures. a.s.sure him, likewise, that I will endeavour, by the closest attention to all the peculiarities of my original, to save him as much trouble as I can hereafter. I now perfectly understand what it is that he requires in a translation of Homer; and being convinced of the justness of his demands, will attempt at least to conform to them. Some escapes will happen in so long a work, which he will know how to account for and to pardon.

"I have been employed a considerable time in the correction of the first seven books, and have not yet begun the ninth; but I shall in a day or two, and will send it as soon as finished.

"I am, Sir,

"Your most humble servant,

"William Cowper."

"Mr. Joseph Johnson."

Fuseli grew tired of the labour which he had imposed upon himself, before the Iliad was finished; but yet he went through the task of correcting the translation of that poem until its conclusion. The following extract of a letter to Mr. Roscoe, dated 25th November, 1789, shows his feelings upon the subject:--

"You are not surely serious when you desire to have your remarks on Cowper's Iliad burnt; whatever they contain upon the specific turn of language is just; many observations are acute, most elegant: though, perhaps, I cannot agree to all; for instance, the word rendered murky is not that which, in other pa.s.sages, expresses the negative transparency of water: it means, I believe, in the text, a misty appearance: this depended on a knowledge of the Greek.

"I heartily wish with you, that Cowper had trusted to his own legs, instead of a pair of stilts, to lift him to fame."

When Cowper began the Odyssey, Fuseli pleaded, and, as will be shown, justly pleaded, that his numerous avocations would not allow him time to correct the translation; this the poet states, and regrets the circ.u.mstance in his preface. He however saw parts of the poem as it was pa.s.sing through the press, and made some observations thereon: these are given in notes, to which the initial letter F. is affixed.

It is a singular fact that Fuseli never saw Cowper, nor did he ever write to him or receive a letter from him; all communications being carried on either through General Cowper, the relation of the poet, or Mr. Joseph Johnson.

The late Doctor Geddes frequently visited at Mr. Johnson's, and often met Fuseli there; both, from their natural temperament, were impatient of contradiction, and each had an opinion of his own powers, and depreciated those of the other. It was only to meet in order to dispute, and the ready wit of Fuseli usually raised the irritable temper of the doctor, who, when provoked, would burst out of the room and walk once or twice round St. Paul's Churchyard before he returned to the company; to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of Fuseli. One day he indulged himself at Johnson's table, to plague Geddes with uttering a string of truisms: Geddes at length became impatient, and said, "I wonder that you, Mr. Fuseli, who have so much ready wit, should be uttering dogmas by the hour together."

Fuseli immediately answered, "You, Doctor, to find fault with dogmas,--you, who are the son of a dog--ma." The pause between the syllables instantly raised a tumult in the doctor's mind, and he replied, "Son of a b----h I suppose you mean;" and, as usual, left the room to cool himself by his accustomed round.

Dr. Geddes had a great love for horticultural pursuits. Dilating one day on the evils of fanaticism, Fuseli stopped him, by, "You, Doctor, to speak against fanaticism, when you are a fanatic."--"In what?" asked Geddes impatiently.--"In raising cuc.u.mbers," said the other.

When Cowper's translation of Homer appeared, Geddes, who was a great admirer of Pope, was irritated beyond measure at the work, but chiefly by the praises bestowed in the preface upon Fuseli; and he had not sufficient prudence even to hide what he felt, but a detail of this will be given best in the words of his intimate friend, admirer, and biographer, the late Doctor I. Mason Good.

"Pope was the idol of Geddes, and estimated by him as highly above Cowper, as Cowper was above his contemporaries: and he could not but look with a jealous eye upon any one who attempted to rival the poet of his heart. Geddes was disgusted with Cowper from the very first page, and in a fit of undue exasperation declared he would translate Homer himself, and show that it was possible to make as good versification, while he preserved not only all the epithets and phraseologies of the original, which Mr. Cowper has not done, but the very order itself. Yet what appears princ.i.p.ally to have irritated him, was Mr. Cowper's declaration, towards the close of his preface, of acknowledgments 'to the learned and ingenious Mr. Fuseli,' whom he styles in the same place 'the best critic in Homer I have ever met with.'

"Accident had frequently thrown Dr. Geddes and Mr. Fuseli into the same company, and much learned dust had as frequently been excited between the two critical combatants, not at all times to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the rest of the respective parties. Whatever opinion Mr. Fuseli may have entertained of the powers of his antagonist, it is certain that Doctor Geddes was not very deeply impressed with those of Mr. Fuseli, and that he scarcely allowed him the merit to which he is actually ent.i.tled. When, therefore, he found in Mr. Cowper's preface, that instead of consulting the profound erudition and sterling authorities of Stephens, Clarke, Ernesti, and Velloison, he had turned to Mr. Fuseli as his only oracle, and had gloried in submitting to the whole of his corrections and emendations: to his disappointment at the inadequacy of the version, was added a contempt of the quarter to which he had fled for a.s.sistance.

"Geddes resolved to translate Homer, and in the beginning of 1792, published a translation of the first book as a specimen. In the preface he says, 'I beg leave to a.s.sure my readers that neither _Fuseli nor any other profound critic_ in Homer, has given me the smallest a.s.sistance; the whole merit or demerit of my version rests solely with myself.' The attempt failed, and he never succeeded beyond the first book."

CHAPTER V.

Subjects painted by Fuseli for Boydell's "Shakspeare Gallery."--His a.s.sistance towards the splendid Edition of "Lavater's Physiognomy."--His picture for Macklin's "Poets' Gallery."--His contributions to the a.n.a.lytical Review.--His critique on Cowper's Homer.

In the year 1786, Mr. Alderman Boydell, at the suggestion of Mr. George Nicol, began to form his splendid collection of modern historical pictures, the subjects being from Shakspeare's plays, and which was called "The Shakspeare Gallery." This liberal and well-timed speculation gave great energy to this branch of the art, as well as employment to many of our best artists and engravers, and among the former, to Fuseli, who executed eight large and one small picture for the gallery. The following were the subjects:

Prospero, Miranda, Caliban, and Ariel--from the Tempest. t.i.tania in raptures with Bottom, who wears the a.s.s's head, attendant fairies, &c.

t.i.tania awaking, discovers Oberon at her side; Puck is removing the a.s.s's head from Bottom--Midsummer Night's Dream. Henry the Vth with the Conspirators--King Henry V. Lear dismissing Cordelia from his Court--King Lear. Ghost of Hamlet's Father--Hamlet. Falstaff and Doll--King Henry IV. 2d part. Macbeth meeting the Witches on the Heath--Macbeth. Robin Goodfellow--Midsummer Night's Dream.--This gallery gave the public an opportunity of judging of Fuseli's versatile powers.

The stately majesty of the ghost of Hamlet's father, contrasted with the expressive energy of his son, and the sublimity brought about by the light, shadow, and general tone, strike the mind with awe. In the picture of Lear is admirably pourtrayed the stubborn rashness of the father, the filial piety of the discarded daughter, and the wicked determination of Regan and Goneril. The fairy scenes in the Midsummer Night's Dream amuse the fancy, and show the vast inventive powers of the painter: and Falstaff with Doll is exquisitely ludicrous.

The example set by Boydell was a stimulus to other speculations of a similar nature, and within a few years appeared the Macklin and Woodmason galleries; and it may be said with great truth, that Fuseli's pictures were among the most striking, if not the best in either collection.

The splendid edition of Lavater's physiognomy was announced this year (1786) for publication. Fuseli wrote the preface, or, as he modestly called it, the "advertis.e.m.e.nt;" corrected the translation by Hunter; made several drawings to ill.u.s.trate the work; and superintended the execution of the engravings. Lavater had prepared many of his drawings, ill.u.s.trative of the system, on a folio size, wis.h.i.+ng the treatise to be brought out in that form; and it was his desire, that his lines should be rather traced than imitated by the engraver. Fuseli entered into an animated correspondence on this subject; gave him to understand, that the quarto size best pleased the British public; and expressed his own decided opinion against "ponderous folios." He at length succeeded in getting Lavater's slow consent to the work appearing in quarto; but so particular was the author as to a proper exemplification, that he made his drawings anew to suit the quarto size.

In 1787, he painted a picture for Macklin's Poet's Gallery, "the Vision of Prince Arthur."

In May 1788, the a.n.a.lytical Review was commenced by Mr. Johnson, and he entered into engagements with most of the authors whose works he published, to write criticisms for it. Fuseli, of course, was among the number; and he wrote, during the progress of that work, which continued until December 1798, upwards of eighty articles, some of which were long and laboured criticisms, while others were only brief notices of the contents of the books. As his knowledge was general and extensive, so he was employed in several departments of literature, and reviewed works on the cla.s.sics, history, the _belles lettres_, physiology, geography, and the fine arts. Fuseli not only took an interest in his own criticisms in this Review, but frequently defended those of others. When the authenticity of the Parian Chronicle was doubted by the Rev. Joseph Robertson, in a work which he published, it was reviewed and confuted by the Rev. John Hewlett. Robertson replied to this very angrily; and on Mr. Hewlett's being urged, in the hearing of Fuseli, not to let this reply pa.s.s without observation, he immediately said, "Answer it! no, by G----d, the subject is as dead as h.e.l.l: a lion does not feed upon carrion."

The following criticisms on "Cowper's Homer," and "Roscoe's Lorenzo de'

Medici," will give some idea of his powers in this department of literature.

COWPER'S HOMER.

Translators of poetry may be arranged into two cla.s.ses: those who, without invention, but an ardent ambition for its honours, with powers of embellishment, harmony of diction, and elegance of taste, attempt to graft their own scions on a solid stem; and those who, from real or imagined sympathy with the production of another, unable to perceive excellence through any other medium but that of their idol, renounce all individual consequence, swear to his words, and rank themselves under his banner. The first sacrifice their model to themselves and their age; the second sacrifice both to their darling original. Of both kinds of translation, the muses of this country have produced specimens: Mr. Pope ranks foremost in the former; whether that of Mr. Cowper claims the same eminence in the latter cla.s.s, we are now to inquire.

Though the ultimate end of poetry be to please, and the best include both instruction and pleasure at once, it will easily be perceived that the laws which are to rule two species of translation so different, cannot be the same. The laws which the first imposes, are of its own creation and choice; the laws of the second resemble somewhat those which a master prescribes to his servant;--they have little to gratify vanity, they are related to resignation,--they are fidelity and simplicity, with as much harmony and vivacity as is compatible with both; for the translator of Homer, indeed, the difficulty will not be--how much he shall sacrifice of these two last requisites, but how much he shall be able to obtain, or to preserve.

By _fidelity_, some will understand the mere subst.i.tution of one language for another, with the entire sacrifice of idiom and metre, which belongs only to the literal translation of school-books.

Fidelity, as Mr. C. himself has with equal happiness and precision defined it in his preface, is that quality which neither omits nor adds any thing to an author's stock. "I have invented nothing,'

says he; "I have omitted nothing." When we consider the magnificent end of epic poetry,--to write for all times and all races,--to treat of what will always exist and always be understood, the puny laws of local decorum and fluctuating fas.h.i.+ons by which the omission or modification of certain habits and customs, natural but obsolete, is prescribed, cannot come into consideration. Such laws may bind the meaner race of writers. He who translates Homer knows, that when Patroclus administers at table, or Achilles slays the sheep himself for Priam, a chief and a prince honour the chieftains and king who visit them, and disdain to leave to meaner hands these pledges of hospitality; and he translates faithfully and minutely, nor fears that any will sneer at such a custom, but those who sneer at the principle that established it. He neither "attempts to soften or refine away" the energy of pa.s.sages relative to the theology of primitive ages, or fraught with allegoric images of the phenomena of nature, though they might provoke the smile of the effeminate, and of the sophists of his day. This is the first and most essential part of the fidelity prescribed to a translator; and this Mr. C. has so far scrupulously observed, that he must be allowed to have given us more of Homer, and added less of his own, than all his predecessors; and this he has done with that simplicity, that purity of manner, which we consider as the second requisite of translation.

By _simplicity_, we mean, what flows from the heart; and there is no instance of any translator known to us, who has so entirely transfused the primitive spirit of an ancient work into a modern language; whose own individual habits and bent, if we may be allowed the expression, seem to be so totally annihilated, or to have coalesced so imperceptibly with his model. He is so lost in the contemplation of his author's narrative, that, in reading, we no more think of _him_ than we do of Homer, when he hurls us along by the torrent of his plan: no quaintness, no ant.i.thesis, no epigrammatic flourish, beckons our attention from its track, bids us admire or rather indignantly spurn the intruding dexterity of the writer. To have leisure to think of the author when we read, or of the artist when we behold, proves that the work of either is of an inferior cla.s.s: we have neither time to inquire after Homer's birth-place or rank, when Andromache departs from her husband, nor stoop to look for the inscription of the artist's name, when we stand before the Apollo.

Considering next the _harmony_ of numbers prescribed to the translator of a poet, Mr. C. himself allows that he has many a line 'with an ugly hitch in its gait;' and perhaps to those he acknowledges as such, and the copious list of others called forth in battle array against him, no trifling file of equally feeble, harsh, or halting ones might be added. Still we do not hesitate to give it as our opinion, founded on a careful perusal of the whole, that the style and the flow of his numbers are in general consonance with the spirit of the poem. In particular lines, he may be inferior to many; we even venture to say, that he has as often adopted or imitated the discords of Milton, as his flow of verse.

The English Jupiter perhaps shakes his ambrosial curls not with the full majesty of the Greek; the plaintive tones of Andromache do not perhaps melt, or the reverberated bursts of Hector's voice break, on our ear with their native melody or strength; the stone of modern Sisyphus oppresses not with equal weight, or rebounds with equal rapidity as that of old; the hoa.r.s.eness of Northern language bound in pebbly monosyllables, and almost always dest.i.tute of decided quant.i.ties, must frequently baffle the most vigorous attempt, if even no allowance were made for the terror that invests a celebrated pa.s.sage, and dashes the courage of the translator with anxiety and fear. Still, if Mr. C. be not always equally successful in the detail, his work possesses that harmony which consists in the variety of well-poised periods,--periods that may be pursued without satiety, and dismiss the ear uncloyed by that monotony which attends the roundest and most fortunate rhyme, the rhyme of Dryden himself.

The chief trespa.s.s of our translator's style,--and it will be found to imply a trespa.s.s against his fidelity and simplicity,--is no doubt the intemperate use of inversion, ungraceful in itself, contrary to the idiom of his language, and, what is still worse, subversive of perspicuity, than which no quality distinguishes Homer more from all other writers: for Homer, though fraught with every element of wisdom, even in the opinion of a critic[16] to no heresy more adverse than that of acknowledging faultless merit, whether ancient or modern,--Homer, with all this fund of useful doctrine, remains to this day the most perspicuous of poets, the writer least perplexed with ambiguity of style. His tale is so clearly told, that even now, as of yore, he is or may be the companion of every age, and almost every capacity, at almost every hour. This perspicuity is perhaps not to be attained by the scantiness of modern grammar; it is perhaps not to be fully expected from the inferior powers of the most attentive translator, wearied with labour, and fancying that to be clear to others which is luminous to him: but this we cannot allow to be pleaded every where in excuse of our translator's ambiguities, after the ample testimony he bore in his preface to the perspicuity of his author.

Such palliation, indeed, will not be offered by him who tells us, that not one line before us escaped his attention. We decline entering into particulars on this head, partly because Mr. C.

cannot be ignorant of the pa.s.sages alluded to, partly because sufficient, and even exuberant, pains have been taken by others to point them out to the public.

But if the translator often deviate from his model in so essential a requisite, he scrupulously adheres to another of much less consequence,--the observance of those customary epithets with which Homer distinguishes his G.o.ds and heroes from each other. As most of these are frequently no more than harmonious expletives of the verse, often serve only as a ceremonious introduction to his speakers, we are of opinion, that he might at least have sometimes varied them with advantage to his verse, and for the greater gratification of his reader. He who thought it a venial licence to deviate in the first line of his work from the text, who cries--'woe to the land of dwarfs,'[17]--who makes his hero often 'the swiftest of the swift,' tinges the locks of Menelaus with 'amber,' and varies Eumaeus from plain swineherd to 'the ill.u.s.trious steward or n.o.ble pastor of the sties,' he surely might have saved us from the 'archer-G.o.d,' 'the cloud-a.s.sembler Jove,' the 'city-spoiler chief,' the 'cloud-a.s.sembler deity,' &c. &c. &c. or, in mercy to our debauched ears, have meditated combinations more consonant to verse and language. Their casual omission would not have proved a greater infidelity than that which made him disregard names and epithets, expressly repeated in the original, of which that of Asius the Hyrtacide in the catalogue[18] is a striking instance.

Homer is ample, and the translator studies to be so, and generally with success; but Homer is likewise concise, where Mr. C. is often verbose, and where, by more careful meditation, or more frequent turning of line and period, he might have approached his master.

Homer finishes; but, like Nature, without losing the whole in the parts. The observations which the translator offers on this in the Preface we are tempted to transcribe. Pref. p. xv.

"The pa.s.sages which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all, except by those who shall wish to find me at a fault, are those which have cost me abundantly the most labour. It is difficult to kill a sheep with dignity in a modern language, to flay and to prepare it for the table, detailing every circ.u.mstance of the process. Difficult also, without sinking below the level of poetry, to harness mules to a waggon, particularizing every article of their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of the knots that kept all together. Homer, who writes always to the eye, with all his sublimity and grandeur, has the minuteness of a Flemish painter."

To this remark, founded on truth, we could have wished Mr. C. had added the reason why Homer contrived to be minute without being tedious,--to appear finished without growing languid,--to acc.u.mulate details without losing the whole; defects which have invariably attended the descriptions of his finished followers, from Virgil and Apollonius, down to Ariosto, and from him to the poets of our days, Milton alone excepted. It is, because he never suffered the descriptions that branched out of his subject to become too heavy for the trunk that supported them; because he never admitted any image calculated to reflect more honour on his knowledge than on his judgment; because he did not seek, but find, not serve, but rule detail, absorbed by his great end; and chiefly, because he, and he alone, contrived to create the image he described, limb by limb, part by part, before our eyes, connecting it with his plot, and making it the offspring of action and time, the two great mediums of poetry. The chariot of Juno is to be described:[19] it is not brought forth as from a repository, tamely to wait before the celestial portico, and subjected to finical examination, the action all the while dormant: on the spur of the moment, Hebe is ordered to put its various parts together before our eyes; the G.o.ddess arranges her coursers, mounts, shakes the golden reins, and flies off with Minerva, and our antic.i.p.ating expectation, to the battle. Agamemnon is to appear in panoply:[20]

we are not introduced to enumerate greaves, helmet, sword, belt, corslet, spear; they become important by the action only that applies them to the hero's limbs. We are admitted to the toilet of Juno:[21] no idle _etalage_ of ornaments ready laid out, of boxes, capsules, and cosmetics; the ringlets rise under her fingers, the pendants wave in her ears, the zone embraces her breast, perfumes rise in clouds round her body, her vest is animated with charms.

Achilles is to be the great object of our attention: his s.h.i.+eld a wonder:[22] heaven, earth, sea, G.o.ds, and men, are to occupy its...o...b.. yet, even here he deviates not from his great rule, we see its august texture rise beneath the hammer of Vulcan, and the action proceeds with the strokes of the celestial artist. Where description must have stagnated or suspended action, it is confined to a word, 'the sable s.h.i.+p,' 'the hollow s.h.i.+p;' or despatched with a compound, 'the red-prowed s.h.i.+p,' 'the shadow-stretching spear.'

If the instrument be too important to be pa.s.sed over lightly, he, with a dexterity next to miraculous, makes it contribute to raise the character of the owner. The bow of Pandarus is traced[23] to the enormous horns of the mountain ram, and its acquisition proves the sly intrepidity of the archer, who bends it now. The sceptre of Agamemnon[24] becomes the pedigree of its wearer: it is the elaborate work of Vulcan for Jupiter, his gift to Hermes, his present to Pelops, the inheritance of Atreus, the shepherd-staff of Thyestes, the badge of command for Agamemnon. Thus Homer describes; this is the mystery, without which the most exquisite description becomes an excrescence, and only clogs and wearies the indignant and disappointed reader. Poetic imitation, we repeat it, is progressive, and less occupied with the _surface_ of the object than its _action_; hence all comparisons between the poet's and the painter's manners, ought to be made with an eye to the respective end and limits of either art: nor can these observations be deemed superfluous, except by those who are most in want of them, the descriptive tribe, who imagine they paint what they only perplex, and fondly dream of enriching the realms of fancy by silly excursions into the province of the florist, chemist, or painter of still life.