Part 8

was but a cockney poet, who wrote vulgar indecorums, “probably in the indulgence of his social propensities”? How did they feel when the same Maginn called the Adonais “dreary nonsense” and “a wild waste of words,” and devoted bitter pages to proving that Shelley was not only undeserving, but “hopeless of poetic reputation”? Yet surely indignation must have melted into laughter, when this notable reviewer--who has been recently reprinted as a shining light for the new generation--added serenely that “a hundred or a hundred thousand verses might be made, equal to the best in Adonais, without taking the pen off the paper.” This species of sweeping assertion has been repeated by critics more than once, to the annoyance of their friends and the malicious delight of their enemies. Ruskin, who, with all his gifts, seems cursed with what Mr. Bagehot calls “a mind of contrary flexure, whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around them say,” has ventured to tell the world that any head clerk of a bank could write a better history of Greece than Mr. Grote, if he would have the vanity to waste his time over it; and I have heard a man of fair attainments and of sound scholarship contend that there were twenty living authors who could write plays as fine as Shakespeare’s.

Jeffrey’s extraordinary blunders are too well known to need repetition, and Christopher North was not without his share of similar mishaps; Walpole cheerfully sentenced Scandinavian poetry in the bulk as the horrors of a Runic savage; Madame de Staël objected to the “commonness” of Miss Austen’s novels; Wordsworth thought Voltaire dull, and Southey complained that Lamb’s essays lacked “sound religious feeling;” George Borrow, whose literary tastes were at least as erratic as they were pronounced, condemned Sir Walter Scott’s Woodstock as “tiresome, trashy, and unprincipled,” and ranked Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, and the Welsh bard Huw Morris together as “great poets,” apparently without recognizing any marked difference in their respective claims. Then there is Taine, who finds Pendennis and Vanity Fair too full of sermons; Mr. Dudley Warner, who compares the mild and genial humor of Washington Irving to the acrid vigor of Swift; and Mr. Howells, who, perhaps in pity for our sense of loss, would fain persuade us that we could no longer endure either the “mannerisms” of Dickens or the “confidential attitude” of Thackeray, were we happy enough to see these great men still in our midst.

Imagine, ye who can, the fiery Hazlitt’s wrath, if he but knew that in punishment for his youthful admiration of the Nouvelle Héloïse a close resemblance has been traced by friendly hands between himself and its author. Think of Lord Byron’s feelings, if he could hear Mr. Swinburne saying that it was greatly to his--Byron’s--credit that he knew himself for a third-rate poet! Even though it be the only thing to his credit that Swinburne has so far discovered, one doubts whether it would greatly mollify his lordship, or reconcile him to being classed as a “Bernesque poet,” and the companion of those two widely different creatures, Southey and Offenbach. Perhaps, indeed, his lively sense of humor would derive a more positive gratification from watching his angry critic run amuck through adjectives with frenzied agility. Such sentences as “the blundering, floundering, lumbering, and stumbling stanzas of Childe Harold, ... the gasping, ranting, wheezing, broken-winded verse, ... the hideous absurdities and jolter-headed jargon,” must surely be less deeply offensive to Lord Byron’s admirers than to Mr. Swinburne’s. They come as near to describing the noble beauty of Childe Harold as does Southey’s senseless collection of words to describing the cataract of Lodore, or any other cataract in existence; and, since the days when Milton and Salmasius hurled “Latin billingsgate” at each other’s heads, we have had no stronger argument in favor of the comeliness of moderation.

“The most part of Mr. Swinburne’s criticism,” hints a recent reviewer, “is surely very much of a personal matter,--personal, one may say, in expression as well as in sensation.” He has always a “neat hand at an epithet,” and the “jolter-headed jargon” of Byron is no finer in its way than the “fanfaronade and falsetto of Gray.” But even the charms of alliteration, joined to the fish-wife’s slang which has recently so tickled the fancy of Punch,[11] cannot wholly replace that clear-headed serenity which is the true test of a critic’s worth and the most pleasing expression of his genius. He should have no visible inclination to praise or blame; it is not his business, as Mr. Bagehot puts it, to be thankful, and neither is he the queen’s attorney pleading for conviction. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who considered that Byron was “the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary power, which has appeared in our literature since Shakespeare,” presented his arguments plainly and without the faintest show of enthusiasm. He did not feel the need of reviling somebody else in order to emphasize his views, and he did not care to advance opinions without some satisfactory explanation of their existence. Mr. Courthope may content himself with saying that a matter is one not for argument, but for perception; but Mr. Arnold gave a reason for the faith that was in him. Mere preference on the part of a critic is not a sufficient sanction for his verdicts, or at least it does not warrant his imparting them to the public. Swinburne may honestly think four lines of Wordsworth to be of more value than the whole of Byron, but that is no reason why we should think so too. When Mr. George Saintsbury avows a strong personal liking for some favorite authors,--Borrow and Peacock, for instance,--he modestly states that this fact is not in itself a convincing proof of their merit; but when Mr. Ernest Myers says that he would sacrifice the whole of Childe Harold to preserve one of Macaulay’s Lays, he seems to be offering a really impressive piece of evidence. The tendency of critics to rush into print with whatever they chance to think has resulted in readers who naturally believe that what they think is every bit as good. Macaulay and Walter Savage Landor are both instances of men whose unusual powers of discernment were too often dimmed by their prejudices. Macaulay knew that Montgomery’s poetry was bad, but he failed to see that Fouqué’s prose was good; and Landor hit right and left, amid friends and foes, like the blinded Ajax scourging the harmless flocks.

It is quite as amusing and far less painful to turn from the critics’ indiscriminate abuse to their equally indiscriminate praise, and to read the glowing tributes heaped upon authors whose mediocrity has barely saved them from oblivion. Compare the universal rapture which greeted “the majestick numbers of Mr. Cowley” to the indifference which gave scant welcome to the Hesperides. Mr. Gosse tells us that for half a century Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda, was an unquestioned light in English song. “Her name was mentioned with those of Sappho and Corinna, and language was used without reproach which would have seemed a little fulsome if addressed to the Muse herself.”

“For, as in angels, we Do in thy verses see Both improved sexes eminently meet; They are than Man more strong, and more than Woman sweet.”

So sang Cowley to this much admired lady; and the Earl of Roscommon, in some more extravagant and amusing stanzas, asserted it to be his unique experience that, on meeting a pack of angry wolves in Scythia,

“The magic of Orinda’s name Not only can their fierceness tame, But, if that mighty word I once rehearse, They seem submissively to roar in verse.”

“It is easier to flatter than to praise,” says Jean Paul, but even flattery is not always the facile work it seems.

Sir Walter Scott, who was strangely disposed to undervalue his own merit as a poet, preserved the most genuine enthusiasm for the work of others. When his little daughter was asked by James Ballantyne what she thought of The Lady of the Lake, she answered with perfect simplicity that she had not read it. “Papa says there is nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry.” Yet Sir Walter always spoke of Madoc and Thalaba with a reverence that would seem ludicrous were it not so frankly sincere. Southey himself could not have admired them more; and when Jeffrey criticised Madoc with flippant severity in the Edinburgh Review, we find Scott hastening to the rescue in a letter full of earnest and soothing praise. “A poem whose merits are of that higher tone,” he argues, “does not immediately take with the public at large. It is even possible that during your own life you must be contented with the applause of the few whom nature has gifted with the rare taste for discriminating in poetry. But the mere readers of verse must one day come in, and then Madoc will assume his real place, at the feet of Milton.”[12] The mere readers of verse, being in no wise responsible for Milton’s position in literature, have so far put no one at his feet; nor have they even verified Sir Walter’s judgment when, writing again to Southey, he says with astonishing candor, “I am not such an ass as not to know that you are my better in poetry, though I have had, probably but for a time, the tide of popularity in my favor.” The same spirit of self-depreciation, rare enough to be attractive, made him write to Joanna Baillie that, after reading some of her songs, he had thrust by his own in despair.

But if Sir Walter was an uncertain critic, his views on criticism were marked by sound and kindly discretion, and his patience under attack was the result of an evenly balanced mind, conscious of its own strength, yet too sane to believe itself infallible. He had a singular fancy for showing his manuscripts to his friends, and it is quite delicious to see how doubtful and discouraging were their first comments. Gray, when hard pressed by the “light and genteel” verses of his companion, Richard West, was not more frugal of his doled-out praises. But Scott exacted homage neither from his acquaintances nor from the public. When it came--and it did come very soon in generous abundance--he basked willingly in the sunshine; but he had no uneasy vanity to be frightened by the shade. He would have been as sincerely amused to hear Mr. Borrow call Woodstock “tiresome, trashy, and unprincipled” as Matthew Arnold used to be when pelted with strong language by the London newspapers. “I have made a study of the Corinthian or leading-article style,” wrote the great critic, with exasperating urbanity; “and I know its exigencies, and that they are no more to be quarreled with than the law of gravitation.” In fact, the most hopeless barrier to strife is the steady indifference of a man who knows he has work to do, and who goes on doing it, irrespective of anybody’s opinion. Lady Harriet Ashburton, who dearly loved the war of words, in which she was sure to be a victor, was forced to confess that where no friction was excited, even her barbed shafts fell harmless. “It is like talking into a soft surface,” she sighed, with whimsical despondency; “there is no rebound.”

American critics have the reputation of being more kind-hearted than discriminating. The struggling young author, unless overweeningly foolish, has little to fear from their hands; and, if his reputation be once fairly established, all he chooses to write is received with a gratitude which seems excessive to the more exacting readers of France and England. If he be a humorist, we are always alert and straining to see the fun; if a story-teller, we politely smother our yawns, and say something about a keen analysis of character, a marked originality of treatment, or a purely unconventional theme; if a scholar, no pitfalls are dug for his unwary feet by reviewers like Mr. Collins. Such virulent and personal attacks we consider very uncomfortable reading, as in truth they are, and we have small appetite at any time for a sound kernel beneath a bitter rind. Yet surely in these days, when young students turn impatiently from the very fountain-heads of learning, too much stress cannot be laid on the continuity of literature, and on the absolute importance of the classics to those who would intelligently explore the treasure-house of English verse. Moreover, Mr. Collins has aimed a few well-directed shafts against the ingenious system of mutual admiration, by which a little coterie of writers, modern Della Cruscans, help each other into prominence, while an unsuspecting public is made “the willing dupe of puffers.” This delicate game, which is now conducted with such well-rewarded skill by a few enterprising players, consists, not so much in open flattery, though there is plenty of that too, as in the minute chronicling of every insignificant circumstance of each other’s daily lives, from the hour at which they breakfast to the amount of exercise they find conducive to appetite, and the shape and size of their dining-room tables. We are stifled by the literary gossip which fills the newspapers and periodicals. Nothing is too trivial, nothing too irrelevant, to be told; and when, in the midst of an article on any subject, from grand-dukes to gypsies, a writer gravely stops to explain that a perfectly valueless remark was made to him on such an occasion by his friend such a one, whose interesting papers on such a topic will be well remembered by the readers of such a magazine, we are forcibly reminded of the late Master of Trinity’s sarcasm as to the many things that are too unimportant to be forgotten.

People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism. There was a time, now happily past, when the reviewer’s skill lay simply in the clever detection of flaws; it was his business in life to find out whatever was weak or absurd in an author, and to hold it up for the amusement of those who were not quick enough to see such things for themselves. Now his functions are of a totally different order, and a great many writers seem to think it his sole duty to bring them before the public in an agreeable light, to say something about their books which will be pleasant for them to read and to pass over in turn to their friends. If he cannot do this, it is plain he has no sanction to say anything at all. That the critic has a duty to the public itself is seldom remembered; that his work is of the utmost importance, and second in value only to the original conception he analyzes, is a truth few people take the pains to grasp. Coleridge thought him a mere maggot, battening upon authors’ brains; yet how often has he helped us to gain some clear insight into this most shapeless and shadowy of great men! Wordsworth underrated his utility, yet Wordsworth’s criticisms, save those upon his own poems, are among the finest we can read; and, to argue after the fashion of Mr. Myers, the average student would gladly exchange The Idiot Boy, or Goody Blake and Harry Gill, for another letter upon Dryden. As a matter of fact, the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader. It is natural that poets and novelists should devoutly believe that the creative faculty alone is of any true service to the world, and that it cannot rightly be put to trial by those to whom this higher gift is rigorously denied. But the critical power, though on a distinctly lower level than the creative, is of inestimable help in its development. Great work thrives best in a critical atmosphere, and the clear light thrown upon the past is the surest of guides to the future. When the standard of criticism is high, when the influence of classical and foreign literature is understood and appreciated, when slovenly and ill-digested work is promptly recognized as such, then, and then only, may we look for the full expansion of a country’s genius. To be satisfied with less is an amiable weakness rather than an invigorating stimulant to perfection.

Matthew Arnold’s definition of true criticism is familiar to all his readers; it is simply “a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.” But by disinterestedness he did not mean merely that a critic must have no distinct design of flattering either his subject or his audience. He meant that in order to recognize what is really the best a man must free himself from every form of passion or prejudice, from every fixed opinion, from every practical consideration. He must not look at things from an English, or a French, or an American, standpoint. He has no business with politics or patriotism. These things are excellent in themselves, and may be allowed to control his actions in other matters; but when the question at issue is the abstract beauty of a poem, a painting, a statue, or a piece of architecture, he is expected to stand apart from his every-day self, and to judge of it by some higher and universal law. This is a difficult task for most men, who do not respire easily in such exceedingly rarefied air, and who have no especial taste for blotting out their individuality. With Macaulay, for instance, political considerations frankly outweigh all others; he gives us the good Whig and the wicked Tory on every page, after the fashion of Hogarth’s idle and industrious apprentices. Mr. Bagehot, while a far less transparent writer, manifests himself indirectly in his literary preferences. When we have read his essay on Shakespeare, we feel pretty sure we know his views on universal suffrage. Mr. Andrew Lang has indeed objected vehemently to the intrusion of politics into literature, perhaps because of a squeamish distaste for the harsh wranglings of the political field. But Mr. Arnold was incapable of confusing the two ideas. His taste for Celtic poetry and his attitude towards home rule are both perfectly defined and perfectly isolated sentiments; just as his intelligent admiration and merciless condemnation of Heinrich Heine stand side by side, living witnesses of a mind that held its own balance, losing nothing that was good, condoning nothing that was evil, as far removed from weak enthusiasm on the one hand as from frightened depreciation on the other.

It is folly to rail at the critic until we have learned his value; it is folly to ignore a help which we are not too wise to need. “The best that is known and thought in the world” does not stand waiting for admission on our door-steps. Like the happiness of Hesiod, it “abides very far hence, and the way to it is long and steep and rough.” It is hard to seek, hard to find, and not easily understood when discovered. Criticism does not mean a random opinion on the last new novel, though even the most dismal of light literature comes fairly within its scope. It means a disinterested endeavor to learn and to teach whatever wisdom or beauty has been added by every age and every nation to the great inheritance of mankind.

FOOTNOTES:

[11]

“But when poet Swinburne steps into the fray, And slangs like a fish-wife, what, _what_ can one say?”

[12] Compare Charles Lamb’s letter to Coleridge: “On the whole I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets besides.”

SOME ASPECTS OF PESSIMISM.

When Mr. Matthew Arnold delivered his lecture on Emerson in this country, several years ago, it was delightful to see how the settled melancholy of his audience, who had come for a panegyric and did not get it, melted into genial applause when the lecturer touched at last upon the one responsive chord which bound his subject, his hearers, and himself in a sympathetic harmony,--I mean Emerson’s lifelong, persistent, and unconquerable optimism. This was perhaps the more apparent because Mr. Arnold’s addresses were not precisely the kind with which we Americans are best acquainted; they were singularly deficient in the oratorical flights that are wont to arouse our enthusiasm, and in the sudden descents to colloquial anecdote by which we expect to be amused. For real enjoyment it was advisable to read them over carefully after they were printed, and the oftener they were so read the better they repaid perusal; but this not being the point of view from which ordinary humanity is apt to regard a lecture, it was with prompt and genuine relief that the audience hailed a personal appeal to that cheerful, healthy hopefulness of disposition which we like to be told we possess in common with greater men. It is always pleasant to hear that happiness is “the due and eternal result of labor, righteousness, and veracity,” and to have it hinted to us that we have sane and wholesome minds because we think so; it is pleasanter still to be assured that the disparaging tone which religion assumes in relation to this earthly happiness arises from a well-intentioned desire to wean us from it, and not at all from a clear-sighted conviction of its feeble worth. When Mr. Arnold recited for our benefit a cheerless little scrap of would-be pious verse which he had heard read in a London schoolroom, all about the advantages of dying,--

“For the world at best is a dreary place, And my life is getting low,”--

we were glad to laugh over such dismal philosophy, and to feel within ourselves an exhilarating superiority of soul.