Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 28

Wordsworth, or Mr. Southey, or any of the other "naturals," make a poem upon them, and then see which is most poetical, their production, or the commonest guide-book, which tells you the road from St. Peter's to the Coliseum, and informs you what you will see by the way. The ground interests in Virgil, because it _will_ be _Rome_, and not because it is Evander's rural domain.

Mr. Bowles then proceeds to press Homer into his service, in answer to a remark of Mr. Campbell's, that "Homer was a great describer of works of art." Mr. Bowles contends, that all his great power, even in this, depends upon their connection with nature. The "s.h.i.+eld of Achilles derives its poetical interest from the subjects described on it." And from what does the _spear_ of Achilles derive its interest?

and the helmet and the mail worn by Patroclus, and the celestial armour, and the very brazen greaves of the well-booted Greeks? Is it solely from the legs, and the back, and the breast, and the human body, which they enclose? In that case, it would have been more poetical to have made them fight naked; and Gulley and Gregson, as being nearer to a state of nature, are more poetical boxing in a pair of drawers than Hector and Achilles in radiant armour, and with heroic weapons.

Instead of the clash of helmets, and the rus.h.i.+ng of chariots, and the whizzing of spears, and the glancing of swords, and the cleaving of s.h.i.+elds, and the piercing of breast-plates, why not represent the Greeks and Trojans like two savage tribes, tugging and tearing, and kicking and biting, and gnas.h.i.+ng, foaming, grinning, and gouging, in all the poetry of martial nature, unenc.u.mbered with gross, prosaic, artificial arms; an equal superfluity to the natural warrior, and his natural poet. Is there any thing unpoetical in Ulysses striking the horses of Rhesus with _his bow_ (having forgotten his thong), or would Mr. Bowles have had him kick them with his foot, or smack them with his hand, as being more unsophisticated?

In Gray's Elegy, is there an image more striking than his "shapeless sculpture?" Of sculpture in general, it may be observed, that it is more poetical than nature itself, inasmuch as it represents and bodies forth that ideal beauty and sublimity which is never to be found in actual nature. This at least is the general opinion. But, always excepting the Venus di Medicis, I differ from that opinion, at least as far as regards female beauty; for the head of Lady Charlemont (when I first saw her nine years ago) seemed to possess all that sculpture could require for its ideal. I recollect seeing something of the same kind in the head of an Albanian girl, who was actually employed in mending a road in the mountains, and in some Greek, and one or two Italian, faces. But of _sublimity_, I have never seen any thing in human nature at all to approach the expression of sculpture, either in the Apollo, the Moses, or other of the sterner works of ancient or modern art.

Let us examine a little further this "babble of green fields" and of bare nature in general as superior to artificial imagery, for the poetical purposes of the fine arts. In landscape painting, the great artist does not give you a literal copy of a country, but he invents and composes one. Nature, in her actual aspect, does not furnish him with such existing scenes as he requires. Even where he presents you with some famous city, or celebrated scene from mountain or other nature, it must be taken from some particular point of view, and with such light, and shade, and distance, &c. as serve not only to heighten its beauties, but to shadow its deformities. The poetry of nature alone, _exactly_ as she appears, is not sufficient to bear him out. The very sky of his painting is not the _portrait_ of the sky of nature; it is a composition of different _skies_, observed at different times, and not the whole copied from any _particular_ day.

And why? Because nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered, and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care, and gathered with difficulty.

Of sculpture I have just spoken. It is the great scope of the sculptor to heighten nature into heroic beauty, _i.e._ in plain English, to surpa.s.s his model. When Canova forms a statue, he takes a limb from one, a hand from another, a feature from a third, and a shape, it may be, from a fourth, probably at the same time improving upon all, as the Greek of old did in embodying his Venus.

Ask a portrait painter to describe his agonies in accommodating the faces with which nature and his sitters have crowded his painting-room to the principles of his art: with the exception of perhaps ten faces in as many millions, there is not one which he can venture to give without shading much and adding more. Nature, exactly, simply, barely nature, will make no great artist of any kind, and least of all a poet--the most artificial, perhaps, of all artists in his very essence. With regard to natural imagery, the poets are obliged to take some of their best ill.u.s.trations from _art_. You say that a "fountain is as clear or clearer than _gla.s.s_"

to express its beauty:--

"O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro!"

In the speech of Mark Antony, the body of Caesar is displayed, but so also is his _mantle_:--

"You all do know this _mantle_," &c.

"Look! in this place ran Ca.s.sius' _dagger_ through."

If the poet had said that Ca.s.sius had run his _fist_ through the rent of the mantle, it would have had more of Mr. Bowles's "nature" to help it; but the artificial _dagger_ is more poetical than any natural _hand_ without it. In the sublime of sacred poetry, "Who is this that cometh from Edom? with _dyed garments_ from Bozrah?" Would "the comer" be poetical without his "_dyed garments?_" which strike and startle the spectator, and identify the approaching object.

The mother of Sisera is represented listening for the "_wheels of his chariot_." Solomon, in his Song, compares the nose of his beloved to "a tower," which to us appears an eastern exaggeration. If he had said, that her stature was like that of a "tower's," it would have been as poetical as if he had compared her to a tree.

"The virtuous Marcia _towers_ above her s.e.x,"

is an instance of an artificial image to express a _moral_ superiority. But Solomon, it is probable, did not compare his beloved's nose to a "tower" on account of its length, but of its symmetry; and making allowance for eastern hyperbole, and the difficulty of finding a discreet image for a female nose in nature, it is perhaps as good a figure as any other.

Art is _not_ inferior to nature for poetical purposes. What makes a regiment of soldiers a more n.o.ble object of view than the same ma.s.s of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the _art_ and artificial symmetry of their position and movements. A Highlander's plaid, a Mussulman's turban, and a Roman toga, are more poetical than the tattooed or untattooed b.u.t.tocks of a New Sandwich savage, although they were described by William Wordsworth himself like the "idiot in his glory."

I have seen as many mountains as most men, and more fleets than the generality of landsmen; and, to my mind, a large convoy with a few sail of the line to conduct them is as n.o.ble and as poetical a prospect as all that inanimate nature can produce. I prefer the "mast of some great ammiral," with all its tackle, to the Scotch fir or the alpine tannen; and think that _more_ poetry _has been_ made out of it. In what does the infinite superiority of "Falconer's s.h.i.+pwreck"

over all other s.h.i.+pwrecks consist? In his admirable application of the terms of his art; in a poet-sailor's description of the sailor's fate. These _very terms_, by his application, make the strength and reality of his poem. Why? because he was a poet, and in the hands of a poet, _art_ will not be found less ornamental than nature. It is precisely in general nature, and in stepping out of his element, that Falconer fails; where he digresses to speak of ancient Greece, and "such branches of learning."

In Dyer's Grongar Hill, upon which his fame rests, the very appearance of nature herself is moralised into an artificial image:

"Thus is nature's _vesture_ wrought, To instruct our wandering thought; Thus she _dresses green and gay_, To disperse our cares away."

And here also we have the telescope; the misuse of which, from Milton, has rendered Mr. Bowles so triumphant over Mr. Campbell:--

"So we mistake the future's face, Eyed through Hope's deluding _gla.s.s_."

And here a word en pa.s.sant to Mr. Campbell:--

"As yon summits, soft and fair Clad in colours of the air, Which to those who journey near Barren, brown, and rough appear, Still we tread the same coa.r.s.e way-- The present's still a cloudy day."

Is not this the original of the far-famed--

"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue?"

To return once more to the sea. Let any one look on the long wall of Malamocco, which curbs the Adriatic, and p.r.o.nounce between the sea and its master. Surely that Roman work (I mean _Roman_ in conception and performance), which says to the ocean, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further," and is obeyed, is not less sublime and poetical than the angry waves which vainly break beneath it.

Mr. Bowles makes the chief part of a s.h.i.+p's poesy depend upon the "_wind:_" then why is a s.h.i.+p under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the s.h.i.+p is all art, "coa.r.s.e canva.s.s," "blue bunting," and "tall poles;" both are violently acted upon by the wind, tossed here and there, to and fro, and yet nothing but excess of hunger could make me look upon the pig as the more poetical of the two, and then only in the shape of a griskin.

Will Mr. Bowles tell us that the poetry of an aqueduct consist in the _water_ which it conveys? Let him look on that of Justinian, on those of Rome, Constantinople, Lisbon, and Elvas, or even at the remains of that in Attica.

We are asked, "What makes the venerable towers of Westminster Abbey more poetical, as objects, than the tower for the manufactory of patent shot, surrounded by the same scenery?" I will answer--the _architecture_. Turn Westminster Abbey, or Saint Paul's into a powder magazine, their poetry, as objects, remains the same; the Parthenon was actually converted into one by the Turks, during Morosini's Venetian siege, and part of it destroyed in consequence. Cromwell's dragoons stalled their steeds in Worcester cathedral; was it less poetical as an object than before? Ask a foreigner on his approach to London, what strikes him as the most poetical of the towers before him: he will point out Saint Paul's and Westminster Abbey, without, perhaps, knowing the names or a.s.sociations of either, and pa.s.s over the "tower for patent shot,"--not that, for any thing he knows to the contrary, it might not be the mausoleum of a monarch, or a Waterloo column, or a Trafalgar monument, but because its architecture is obviously inferior.

To the question, "Whether the description of a game of cards be as poetical, supposing the execution of the artists equal, as a description of a walk in a forest?" it may be answered, that the _materials_ are certainly not equal; but that "the _artist_," who has rendered the "game of cards poetical," is _by far the greater_ of the two. But all this "ordering" of poets is purely arbitrary on the part of Mr. Bowles. There may or may not be, in fact, different "orders"

of poetry, but the poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art.

Tragedy is one of the highest presumed orders. Hughes has written a tragedy, and a very successful one; Fenton another; and Pope none.

Did any man, however,--will even Mr. Bowles himself,--rank Hughes and Fenton as poets above _Pope_? Was even Addison (the author of Cato), or Rowe (one of the higher order of dramatists as far as success goes), or Young, or even Otway and Southerne, ever raised for a moment to the same rank with Pope in the estimation of the reader or the critic, before his death or since? If Mr. Bowles will contend for cla.s.sifications of this kind, let him recollect that descriptive poetry has been ranked as among the lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere ornament, but which should never form the "subject" of a poem. The Italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess now five _great_ poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Ta.s.so, and, lastly, Alfieri[1]; and whom do they esteem one of the highest of these, and some of them the very highest? Petrarch the _sonneteer_: it is true that some of his Canzoni are _not less_ esteemed, but _not_ more; who ever dreams of his Latin Africa?

[Footnote 1: Of these there is one ranked with the others for his SONNETS, and _two_ for compositions which belong to _no cla.s.s_ at all? Where is Dante? His poem is not an epic; then what is it? He himself calls it a "divine comedy;" and why? This is more than all his thousand commentators have been able to explain. Ariosto's is not an _epic_ poem; and if poets are to be _cla.s.sed_ according to the _genus_ of their poetry, where is he to be placed? Of these five, Ta.s.so and Alfieri only come within Aristotle's arrangement, and Mr.

Bowles's cla.s.s-book. But the whole position is false. Poets are cla.s.sed by the power of their performance, and not according to its rank in a gradus. In the contrary case, the forgotten epic poets of all countries would rank above Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Burns, Gray, Dryden, and the highest names of various countries. Mr. Bowles's t.i.tle of "_invariable_ principles of poetry," is, perhaps, the most arrogant ever prefixed to a volume. So far are the principles of poetry from being "_invariable_," that they never were nor ever will be settled. These "principles" mean nothing more than the predilections of a particular age; and every age has its own, and a different from its predecessor. It is now Homer, and now Virgil; once Dryden, and since Walter Scott; now Corneille, and now Racine; now Crebillon, now Voltaire. The Homerists and Virgilians in France disputed for half a century. Not fifty years ago the Italians neglected Dante--Bettinelli reproved Monti for reading "that barbarian;" at present they adore him. Shakspeare and Milton have had their rise, and they will have their decline. Already they have more than once fluctuated, as must be the case with all the dramatists and poets of a living language. This does not depend upon their merits, but upon the ordinary vicissitudes of human opinions. Schlegel and Madame de Stael have endeavoured also to reduce poetry to _two_ systems, cla.s.sical and romantic. The effect is only beginning.]

Were Petrarch to be ranked according to the "order" of his compositions, where would the best of sonnets place him? with Dante and the others? no; but, as I have before said, the poet who _executes_ best, is the highest, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem.

Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory: without it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame. The depreciation of Pope is partly founded upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast,

"That not in fancy's maze he wandered long, But _stoop'd_ to truth, and moralised his song."

He should have written "rose to truth." In my mind, the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral truth. Religion does not make a part of my subject; it is something beyond human powers, and has failed in all human hands except Milton's and Dante's, and even Dante's powers are involved in his delineation of human pa.s.sions, though in supernatural circ.u.mstances. What made Socrates the greatest of men? His moral truth--his ethics. What proved Jesus Christ the Son of G.o.d hardly less than his miracles? His moral precepts. And if ethics have made a philosopher the first of men, and have not been disdained as an adjunct to his Gospel by the Deity himself, are we to be told that ethical poetry, or didactic poetry, or by whatever name you term it, whose object is to make men better and wiser, is not the _very first order_ of poetry; and are we to be told this too by one of the priesthood? It requires more mind, more wisdom, more power, than all the "forests" that ever were "walked" for their "description," and all the epics that ever were founded upon fields of battle. The Georgics are indisputably, and, I believe, _undisputedly_ even a finer poem than the aeneid. Virgil knew this; he did not order _them_ to be burnt.

"The proper study of mankind is man."

It is the fas.h.i.+on of the day to lay great stress upon what they call "imagination" and "invention," the two commonest of qualities: an Irish peasant with a little whiskey in his head will imagine and invent more than would furnish forth a modern poem. If Lucretius had not been spoiled by the Epicurean system, we should have had a far superior poem to any now in existence. As mere poetry, it is the first of Latin poems. What then has ruined it? His ethics. Pope has not this defect; his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious.

In speaking of artificial objects, I have omitted to touch upon one which I will now mention. Cannon may be presumed to be as highly poetical as art can make her objects. Mr. Bowles will, perhaps, tell me that this is because they resemble that grand natural article of sound in heaven, and simile upon earth--thunder. I shall be told triumphantly, that Milton made sad work with his artillery, when he armed his devils therewithal. He did so; and this artificial object must have had much of the sublime to attract his attention for such a conflict. He _has_ made an absurd use of it; but the absurdity consists not in using _cannon_ against the angels of G.o.d, but any _material_ weapon. The thunder of the clouds would have been as ridiculous and vain in the hands of the devils, as the "villanous saltpetre:" the angels were as impervious to the one as to the other.

The thunderbolts become sublime in the hands of the Almighty not as such, but because _he_ deigns to use them as a means of repelling the rebel spirits; but no one can attribute their defeat to this grand piece of natural electricity: the Almighty willed, and they fell; his word would have been enough; and Milton is as absurd, (and, in fact, _blasphemous_,) in putting material lightnings into the hands of the G.o.dhead, as in giving him hands at all.

The artillery of the demons was but the first step of his mistake, the thunder the next, and it is a step lower. It would have been fit for Jove, but not for Jehovah. The subject altogether was essentially unpoetical; he has made more of it than another could, but it is beyond him and all men.

In a portion of his reply, Mr. Bowles a.s.serts that Pope "envied Phillips," because he quizzed his pastorals in the Guardian, in that most admirable model of irony, his paper on the subject. If there was any thing enviable about Phillips, it could hardly be his pastorals.

They were despicable, and Pope expressed his contempt. If Mr.

Fitzgerald published a volume of sonnets, or a "Spirit of Discovery,"

or a "Missionary," and Mr. Bowles wrote in any periodical journal an ironical paper upon them, would this be "envy?" The authors of the "Rejected Addresses" have ridiculed the sixteen or twenty "first living poets" of the day, but do they "envy" them? "Envy" writhes, it don't laugh. The authors of the Rejected Addresses may despise some, but they can hardly "envy" any of the persons whom they have parodied; and Pope could have no more envied Phillips than he did Welsted, or Theobald, or Smedley, or any other given hero of the Dunciad. He could not have envied him, even had he himself _not_ been the greatest poet of his age. Did Mr. Ings "_envy_" Mr. Phillips when he asked him, "How came your Pyrrhus to drive oxen and say, I am _goaded_ on by love?" This question silenced poor Phillips; but it no more proceeded from "envy" than did Pope's ridicule. Did he envy Swift? Did he envy Bolingbroke? Did he envy Gay the unparalleled success of his "Beggar's Opera?" We may be answered that these were his friends--true: but does _friends.h.i.+p_ prevent _envy_? Study the first woman you meet with, or the first scribbler, let Mr. Bowles himself (whom I acquit fully of such an odious quality) study some of his own poetical intimates: the most envious man I ever heard of is a poet, and a high one; besides, it is an _universal_ pa.s.sion.

Goldsmith envied not only the puppets for their dancing, and broke his s.h.i.+ns in the attempt at rivalry, but was seriously angry because two pretty women received more attention than he did. _This is envy;_ but where does Pope show a sign of the pa.s.sion? In that case Dryden envied the hero of his Mac Flecknoe. Mr. Bowles compares, when and where he can, Pope with Cowper--(the same Cowper whom in his edition of Pope he laughs at for his attachment to an old woman, Mrs. Unwin; search and you will find it; I remember the pa.s.sage, though not the page;) in particular he requotes Cowper's Dutch delineation of a wood, drawn up, like a seedsman's catalogue[1], with an affected imitation of Milton's style, as burlesque as the "Splendid s.h.i.+lling."

These two writers, for Cowper is no poet, come into comparison in one great work, the translation of Homer. Now, with all the great, and manifest, and manifold, and reproved, and acknowledged, and uncontroverted faults of Pope's translation, and all the scholars.h.i.+p, and pains, and time, and trouble, and blank verse of the other, who can ever read Cowper? and who will ever lay down Pope, unless for the original? Pope's was "not Homer, it was Sponda.n.u.s;" but Cowper's is not Homer either, it is not even Cowper. As a child I first read Pope's Homer with a rapture which no subsequent work could ever afford, and children are not the worst judges of their own language.

As a boy I read Homer in the original, as we have all done, some of us by force, and a few by favour; under which description I come is nothing to the purpose, it is enough that I read him. As a man I have tried to read Cowper's version, and I found it impossible. Has any human reader ever succeeded?

[Footnote 1: I will submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment a pa.s.sage from another poem of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's Sylvan Sampler. In the lines to Mary,--