Lectures on the English Poets Part 4

"------the cold icicles from his rough beard Dropped adown upon her snowy breast!"

Or is it not a sufficient account of one of the sea-G.o.ds that pa.s.s by them, to say--

"That was Arion crowned:-- So went he playing on the watery plain."

Or to take the Procession of the Pa.s.sions that draw the coach of Pride, in which the figures of Idleness, of Gluttony, of Lechery, of Avarice, of Envy, and of Wrath speak, one should think, plain enough for themselves; such as this of Gluttony:

"And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony, Deformed creature, on a filthy swine; His belly was up blown with luxury; And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne; And like a crane his neck was long and fine, With which he swallowed up excessive feast, For want whereof poor people oft did pine.

In green vine leaves he was right fitly clad; For other clothes he could not wear for heat: And on his head an ivy garland had, From under which fast trickled down the sweat: Still as he rode, he somewhat still did eat.

And in his hand did bear a bouzing can, Of which he supt so oft, that on his seat His drunken corse he scarce upholden can; In shape and size more like a monster than a man."

Or this of Lechery:

"And next to him rode l.u.s.tfull Lechery Upon a bearded goat, whose rugged hair And whaly eyes (the sign of jealousy) Was like the person's self whom he did bear: Who rough and black, and filthy did appear.

Unseemly man to please fair lady's eye: Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear, When fairer faces were bid standen by: O! who does know the bent of woman's fantasy?

In a green gown he clothed was full fair, Which underneath did hide his filthiness; And in his hand a burning heart he bare, Full of vain follies and new fangleness; For he was false and fraught with fickleness; And learned had to love with secret looks; And well could dance; and sing with ruefulness; And fortunes tell; and read in loving books; And thousand other ways to bait his fleshly hooks.

Inconstant man that loved all he saw, And l.u.s.ted after all that he did love; Ne would his looser life be tied to law; But joyed weak women's hearts to tempt and prove, If from their loyal loves he might them move."

This is pretty plain-spoken. Mr. Southey says of Spenser:

"------Yet not more sweet Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise; High priest of all the Muses' mysteries!"

On the contrary, no one was more apt to pry into mysteries which do not strictly belong to the Muses.

Of the same kind with the Procession of the Pa.s.sions, as little obscure, and still more beautiful, is the Mask of Cupid, with his train of votaries:

"The first was Fancy, like a lovely boy Of rare aspect, and beauty without peer;

His garment neither was of silk nor say, But painted plumes in goodly order dight, Like as the sun-burnt Indians do array Their tawny bodies in their proudest plight: As those same plumes so seem'd he vain and light, That by his gait might easily appear; For still he far'd as dancing in delight, And in his hand a windy fan did bear That in the idle air he mov'd still here and there.

And him beside march'd amorous Desire, Who seem'd of riper years than the other swain, Yet was that other swain this elder's sire, And gave him being, common to them twain: His garment was disguised very vain, And his embroidered bonnet sat awry; Twixt both his hands few sparks he close did strain, Which still he blew, and kindled busily, That soon they life conceiv'd and forth in flames did fly.

Next after him went Doubt, who was yclad In a discolour'd coat of strange disguise, That at his back a broad capuccio had, And sleeves dependant _Albanese-wise_; He lookt askew with his mistrustful eyes, And nicely trod, as thorns lay in his way, Or that the floor to shrink he did avise; And on a broken reed he still did stay His feeble steps, which shrunk when hard thereon he lay.

With him went Daunger, cloth'd in ragged weed, Made of bear's skin, that him more dreadful made; Yet his own face was dreadfull, ne did need Strange horror to deform his grisly shade; A net in th' one hand, and a rusty blade In th' other was; this Mischiefe, that Mishap; With th' one his foes he threat'ned to invade, With th' other he his friends meant to enwrap; For whom he could not kill he practiz'd to entrap.

Next him was Fear, all arm'd from top to toe, Yet thought himselfe not safe enough thereby, But fear'd each shadow moving to and fro; And his own arms when glittering he did spy Or clas.h.i.+ng heard, he fast away did fly, As ashes pale of hue, and winged-heel'd; And evermore on Daunger fixt his eye, 'Gainst whom he always bent a brazen s.h.i.+eld, Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield.

With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid, Of chearfull look and lovely to behold; In silken samite she was light array'd, And her fair locks were woven up in gold; She always smil'd, and in her hand did hold An holy-water sprinkle dipt in dew, With which she sprinkled favours manifold On whom she list, and did great liking shew, Great liking unto many, but true love to few.

Next after them, the winged G.o.d himself Came riding on a lion ravenous, Taught to obey the menage of that elfe That man and beast with power imperious Subdueth to his kingdom tyrannous: His blindfold eyes he bade awhile unbind, That his proud spoil of that same dolorous Fair dame he might behold in perfect kind; Which seen, he much rejoiced in his cruel mind.

Of which full proud, himself uprearing high, He looked round about with stern disdain, And did survey his goodly company: And marshalling the evil-ordered train, With that the darts which his right hand did strain, Full dreadfully he shook, that all did quake, And clapt on high his colour'd winges twain, That all his many it afraid did make: Tho, blinding him again, his way he forth did take."

The description of Hope, in this series of historical portraits, is one of the most beautiful in Spenser: and the triumph of Cupid at the mischief he has made, is worthy of the malicious urchin deity. In reading these descriptions, one can hardly avoid being reminded of Rubens's allegorical pictures; but the account of Satyrane taming the lion's whelps and lugging the bear's cubs along in his arms while yet an infant, whom his mother so naturally advises to "go seek some other play-fellows," has even more of this high picturesque character. n.o.body but Rubens could have painted the fancy of Spenser; and he could not have given the sentiment, the airy dream that hovers over it! With all this, Spenser neither makes us laugh nor weep. The only jest in his poem is an allegorical play upon words, where he describes Malbecco as escaping in the herd of goats, "by the help of his fayre hornes on hight." But he has been unjustly charged with a want of pa.s.sion and of strength. He has both in an immense degree. He has not indeed the pathos of immediate action or suffering, which is more properly the dramatic; but he has all the pathos of sentiment and romance--all that belongs to distant objects of terror, and uncertain, imaginary distress. His strength, in like manner, is not strength of will or action, of bone and muscle, nor is it coa.r.s.e and palpable--but it a.s.sumes a character of vastness and sublimity seen through the same visionary medium, and blended with the appalling a.s.sociations of preternatural agency. We need only turn, in proof of this, to the Cave of Despair, or the Cave of Mammon, or to the account of the change of Malbecco into Jealousy. The following stanzas, in the description of the Cave of Mammon, the grisly house of Plutus, are unrivalled for the portentous ma.s.siness of the forms, the splendid chiaro-scuro, and shadowy horror.

"That house's form within was rude and strong, Like an huge cave hewn out of rocky clift, From whose rough vault the ragged breaches hung, Embossed with ma.s.sy gold of glorious gift, And with rich metal loaded every rift, That heavy ruin they did seem to threat: And over them Arachne high did lift Her cunning web, and spread her subtle net, Enwrapped in foul smoke, and clouds more black than jet.

Both roof and floor, and walls were all of gold, But overgrown with dust and old decay, [4]

And hid in darkness that none could behold The hue thereof: for view of cheerful day Did never in that house itself display, But a faint shadow of uncertain light; Such as a lamp whose life doth fade away; Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night Does shew to him that walks in fear and sad affright.

And over all sad Horror with grim hue Did always soar, beating his iron wings; And after him owls and night-ravens flew, The hateful messengers of heavy things, Of death and dolour telling sad tidings; Whiles sad Celleno, sitting on a clift, A song of bitter bale and sorrow sings, That heart of flint asunder could have rift; Which having ended, after him she flieth swift."

___ [4] "That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, Tho' they are made and moulded of things past, And give to Dust, that is a little gilt, More laud than gold o'er-dusted."

_Troilus and Cressida_.

___

The Cave of Despair is described with equal gloominess and power of fancy; and the fine moral declamation of the owner of it, on the evils of life, almost makes one in love with death. In the story of Malbecco, who is haunted by jealousy, and in vain strives to run away from his own thoughts--

"High over hill and over dale he flies"--

the truth of human pa.s.sion and the preternatural ending are equally striking.--It is not fair to compare Spenser with Shakspeare, in point of interest. A fairer comparison would be with Comus; and the result would not be unfavourable to Spenser. There is only one work of the same allegorical kind, which has more interest than Spenser (with scarcely less imagination): and that is the Pilgrim's Progress. The three first books of the Faery Queen are very superior to the three last. One would think that Pope, who used to ask if any one had ever read the Faery Queen through, had only dipped into these last. The only things in them equal to the former, are the account of Talus, the Iron Man, and the delightful episode of Pastorella.

The language of Spenser is full, and copious, to overflowing; it is less pure and idiomatic than Chaucer's, and is enriched and adorned with phrases borrowed from the different languages of Europe, both ancient and modern. He was, probably, seduced into a certain license of expression by the difficulty of filling up the moulds of his complicated rhymed stanza from the limited resources of his native language. This stanza, with alternate and repeatedly recurring rhymes, is borrowed from the Italians. It was peculiarly fitted to their language, which abounds in similar vowel terminations, and is as little adapted to ours, from the stubborn, unaccommodating resistance which the consonant endings of the northern languages make to this sort of endless sing-song.--Not that I would, on that account, part with the stanza of Spenser. We are, perhaps, indebted to this very necessity of finding out new forms of expression, and to the occasional faults to which it led, for a poetical language rich and varied and magnificent beyond all former, and almost all later example. His versification is, at once, the most smooth and the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds, "in many a winding bout of linked sweetness long drawn out"--that would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation-- dwelling on the pauses of the action, or flowing on in a fuller tide of harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It has not the bold dramatic transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the high-raised tone of Milton's; but it is the perfection of melting harmony, dissolving the soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of suspense.

Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams; and he has invented not only a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are infinite, like those of the waves of the sea: but the effect is still the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises of the world, from which we have no wish to be ever recalled.

LECTURE III.

ON SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON.

In looking back to the great works of genius in former times, we are sometimes disposed to wonder at the little progress which has since been made in poetry, and in the arts of imitation in general. But this is perhaps a foolish wonder. Nothing can be more contrary to the fact, than the supposition that in what we understand by the _fine arts_, as painting, and poetry, relative perfection is only the result of repeated efforts in successive periods, and that what has been once well done, constantly leads to something better. What is mechanical, reducible to rule, or capable of demonstration, is progressive, and admits of gradual improvement: what is not mechanical, or definite, but depends on feeling, taste, and genius, very soon becomes stationary, or retrograde, and loses more than it gains by transfusion. The contrary opinion is a vulgar error, which has grown up, like many others, from transferring an a.n.a.logy of one kind to something quite distinct, without taking into the account the difference in the nature of the things, or attending to the difference of the results. For most persons, finding what wonderful advances have been made in biblical criticism, in chemistry, in mechanics, in geometry, astronomy, &c. _i.e._ in things depending on mere inquiry and experiment, or on absolute demonstration, have been led hastily to conclude, that there was a general tendency in the efforts of the human intellect to improve by repet.i.tion, and, in all other arts and inst.i.tutions, to grow perfect and mature by time. We look back upon the theological creed of our ancestors, and their discoveries in natural philosophy, with a smile of pity: science, and the arts connected with it, have all had their infancy, their youth, and manhood, and seem to contain in them no principle of limitation or decay: and, inquiring no farther about the matter, we infer, in the intoxication of our pride, and the height of our self-congratulation, that the same progress has been made, and will continue to be made, in all other things which are the work of man. The fact, however, stares us so plainly in the face, that one would think the smallest reflection must suggest the truth, and overturn our sanguine theories. The greatest poets, the ablest orators, the best painters, and the finest sculptors that the world ever saw, appeared soon after the birth of these arts, and lived in a state of society which was, in other respects, comparatively barbarous. Those arts, which depend on individual genius and incommunicable power, have always leaped at once from infancy to manhood, from the first rude dawn of invention to their meridian height and dazzling l.u.s.tre, and have in general declined ever after. This is the peculiar distinction and privilege of each, of science and of art:--of the one, never to attain its utmost limit of perfection; and of the other, to arrive at it almost at once. Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dante, and Ariosto, (Milton alone was of a later age, and not the worse for it)--Raphael, t.i.tian, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Cervantes, and Boccaccio, the Greek sculptors and tragedians,--all lived near the beginning of their arts --perfected, and all but created them. These giant-sons of genius stand indeed upon the earth, but they tower above their fellows; and the long line of their successors, in different ages, does not interpose any object to obstruct their view, or lessen their brightness. In strength and stature they are unrivalled; in grace and beauty they have not been surpa.s.sed. In after-ages, and more refined periods, (as they are called) great men have arisen, one by one, as it were by throes and at intervals; though in general the best of these cultivated and artificial minds were of an inferior order; as Ta.s.so and Pope, among poets; Guido and Vand.y.k.e, among painters. But in the earlier stages of the arts, as soon as the first mechanical difficulties had been got over, and the language was sufficiently acquired, they rose by cl.u.s.ters, and in constellations, never so to rise again!

The arts of painting and poetry are conversant with the world of thought within us, and with the world of sense around us--with what we know, and see, and feel intimately. They flow from the sacred shrine of our own b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and are kindled at the living lamp of nature. But the pulse of the pa.s.sions a.s.suredly beat as high, the depths and soundings of the human heart were as well understood three thousand, or three hundred years ago, as they are at present: the face of nature, and "the human face divine" shone as bright then as they have ever done. But it is _their_ light, reflected by true genius on art, that marks out its path before it, and sheds a glory round the Muses' feet, like that which

"Circled Una's angel face, And made a suns.h.i.+ne in the shady place."

The four greatest names in English poetry, are almost the four first we come to--Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. There are no others that can really be put in compet.i.tion with these. The two last have had justice done them by the voice of common fame. Their names are blazoned in the very firmament of reputation; while the two first (though "the fault has been more in their stars than in themselves that they are underlings") either never emerged far above the horizon, or were too soon involved in the obscurity of time. The three first of these are excluded from Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Shakspeare indeed is so from the dramatic form of his compositions): and the fourth, Milton, is admitted with a reluctant and churlish welcome.

In comparing these four writers together, it might be said that Chaucer excels as the poet of manners, or of real life; Spenser, as the poet of romance; Shakspeare as the poet of nature (in the largest use of the term); and Milton, as the poet of morality. Chaucer most frequently describes things as they are; Spenser, as we wish them to be; Shakspeare, as they would be; and Milton as they ought to be. As poets, and as great poets, imagination, that is, the power of feigning things according to nature, was common to them all: but the principle or moving power, to which this faculty was most subservient in Chaucer, was habit, or inveterate prejudice; in Spenser, novelty, and the love of the marvellous; in Shakspeare, it was the force of pa.s.sion, combined with every variety of possible circ.u.mstances; and in Milton, only with the highest. The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakspeare, every thing.--It has been said by some critic, that Shakspeare was distinguished from the other dramatic writers of his day only by his wit; that they had all his other qualities but that; that one writer had as much sense, another as much fancy, another as much knowledge of character, another the same depth of pa.s.sion, and another as great a power of language. This statement is not true; nor is the inference from it well-founded, even if it were. This person does not seem to have been aware that, upon his own shewing, the great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its virtually including the genius of all the great men of his age, and not his differing from them in one accidental particular. But to have done with such minute and literal trifling.

The striking peculiarity of Shakspeare's mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds--so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become. He not only had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them by antic.i.p.ation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict of pa.s.sion, or turn of thought. He had "a mind reflecting ages past,"

and present:--all the people that ever lived are there. There was no respect of persons with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar: "All corners of the earth, kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave," are hardly hid from his searching glance. He was like the genius of humanity, changing places with all of us at pleasure, and playing with our purposes as with his own. He turned the globe round for his amus.e.m.e.nt, and surveyed the generations of men, and the individuals as they pa.s.sed, with their different concerns, pa.s.sions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives--as well those that they knew, as those which they did not know, or acknowledge to themselves.

The dreams of childhood, the ravings of despair, were the toys of his fancy. Airy beings waited at his call, and came at his bidding. Harmless fairies "nodded to him, and did him curtesies": and the night-hag bestrode the blast at the command of "his so potent art." The world of spirits lay open to him, like the world of real men and women: and there is the same truth in his delineations of the one as of the other; for if the preternatural characters he describes could be supposed to exist, they would speak, and feel, and act, as he makes them. He had only to think of any thing in order to become that thing, with all the circ.u.mstances belonging to it. When he conceived of a character, whether real or imaginary, he not only entered into all its thoughts and feelings, but seemed instantly, and as if by touching a secret spring, to be surrounded with all the same objects, "subject to the same skyey influences," the same local, outward, and unforeseen accidents which would occur in reality. Thus the character of Caliban not only stands before us with a language and manners of its own, but the scenery and situation of the enchanted island he inhabits, the traditions of the place, its strange noises, its hidden recesses, "his frequent haunts and ancient neighbourhood," are given with a miraculous truth of nature, and with all the familiarity of an old recollection. The whole "coheres semblably together" in time, place, and circ.u.mstance. In reading this author, you do not merely learn what his characters say,--you see their persons. By something expressed or understood, you are at no loss to decypher their peculiar physiognomy, the meaning of a look, the grouping, the bye-play, as we might see it on the stage. A word, an epithet paints a whole scene, or throws us back whole years in the history of the person represented. So (as it has been ingeniously remarked) when Prospero describes himself as left alone in the boat with his daughter, the epithet which he applies to her, "Me and thy _crying_ self," flings the imagination instantly back from the grown woman to the helpless condition of infancy, and places the first and most trying scene of his misfortunes before us, with all that he must have suffered in the interval. How well the silent anguish of Macduff is conveyed to the reader, by the friendly expostulation of Malcolm--"What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows!" Again, Hamlet, in the scene with Rosencrans and Guildenstern, somewhat abruptly concludes his fine soliloquy on life by saying, "Man delights not me, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so." Which is explained by their answer--"My lord, we had no such stuff in our thoughts. But we smiled to think, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you, whom we met on the way":--as if while Hamlet was making this speech, his two old schoolfellows from Wittenberg had been really standing by, and he had seen them smiling by stealth, at the idea of the players crossing their minds. It is not "a combination and a form" of words, a set speech or two, a preconcerted theory of a character, that will do this: but all the persons concerned must have been present in the poet's imagination, as at a kind of rehearsal; and whatever would have pa.s.sed through their minds on the occasion, and have been observed by others, pa.s.sed through his, and is made known to the reader.--I may add in pa.s.sing, that Shakspeare always gives the best directions for the costume and carriage of his heroes. Thus to take one example, Ophelia gives the following account of Hamlet; and as Ophelia had seen Hamlet, I should think her word ought to be taken against that of any modern authority.

"_Ophelia_. My lord, as I was reading in my closet, Prince Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd, No hat upon his head, his stockings loose, Ungartred, and down-gyved to his ancle, Pale as his s.h.i.+rt, his knees knocking each other, And with a look so piteous, As if he had been sent from h.e.l.l To speak of horrors, thus he comes before me.

_Polonius_. Mad for thy love!

_Oph_. My lord, I do not know, But truly I do fear it.

_Pol_. What said he?

_Oph_. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard, Then goes he to the length of all his arm; And with his other hand thus o'er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face, As he would draw it: long staid he so; At last, a little shaking of my arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound, As it did seem to shatter all his bulk, And end his being. That done, he lets me go, And with his head over his shoulder turn'd, He seem'd to find his way without his eyes; For out of doors he went without their help, And to the last bended their light on me."