Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes Part 25

With that, a _keen_ and _quivering glance of_ tears Scarce moves her _patient mouth_, and disappears.

But to the nurse.--She introduces the messenger of death to the princess, who communicates his story, in pursuance of her command--

Something, I'm sure, has happened--tell me what-- I can bear all, though _you may fancy not_.

Madam, replied the squire, you are, I know, All sweetness--_pardon me for saying so_.

My Master bade _me_ say then, resumed _he_, That _he_ spoke firmly, when he told it _me_,-- That I was also, madam, to your ear Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear,-- That he was forced this day, _whether or no_, To combat with the prince;--'--p. 103.

The _second_ of Mr. Hunt's new principles he thus announces:

With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have joined one of still greater importance--that of having a _free and idiomatic_ cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which affects non-affectation.--(What does all this mean?)--But the proper _language of poetry_ is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks. It is only adding _musical modulation_ to what a _fine understanding_ might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakespeare did,--not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than they copied from their predecessors,--but use as much as possible an _actual, existing language,_--omitting of course _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as tragedy phrases, _dead idioms,_ and exaggerations of dignity, are of the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of simplicity, are of the natural.--p. xvi.

This pa.s.sage, compared with the verses to which it preludes, affords a more extraordinary instance of self-delusion than even Mr. Hunt's notion of the merit of his versification; for if there be one fault more eminently conspicuous and ridiculous in Mr. Hunt's work than another, it is,--that it is full of _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, and that in every page the language is--not only not _the actual, existing language_, but an ungrammatical, unauthorised, chaotic jargon, such as we believe was never before spoken, much less written.

In what vernacular tongue, for instance, does Mr. Hunt find a lady's waist called _clipsome_ (p. 10)--or the shout of a mob "enormous" (p.

9)--or a fit, _lightsome_;--or that a hero's nose is "_lightsomely_ brought down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought" (p. 46)--or that his back "drops" _lightsomely in_ (p. 20). Where has he heard of a _quoit-like drop_--of _swaling_ a jerked feather--of _unbedinned_ music (p. 11)--of the death of _leaping_ accents (p. 32)--of the _thick reckoning_ of a hoof (p. 33)--of a _pin-drop_ silence (p. 17)--a _readable_ look (p. 20)--a _half indifferent wonderment_ (p. 37)--or of

_Boy-storied_ trees and _pa.s.sion-plighted_ spots,--p. 38.

of

s.h.i.+ps coming up with _scattery_ light,--p. 4.

or of self-knowledge being

_Cored_, after all, in our complacencies?--p. 38.

We shall now produce a few instances of what "_a fine understanding might utter_," with "the addition of _musical modulation_," and of the _dignity_ and _strength_ of Mr. Hunt's sentiments and expressions.

A crowd, which divided itself into groups, is--

--the mult.i.tude, Who _got_ in clumps----p. 26.

The impression made on these "clumps" by the sight of the Princess, is thus "musically" described:

There's not in all that croud one _gallant_ being, Whom, if his heart were whole, and _rank agreeing_, It would not _fire to twice of what he is_,--p. 10.

"Dignity and strength"--

First came the trumpeters-- And as they _sit along_ their easy way, Stately and _heaving_ to the croud below.--p. 12.

This word is deservedly a great favourite with the poet; he _heaves_ it in upon all occasions.

The deep talk _heaves_.--p. 5.

With _heav'd_ out tapestry the windows glow.--p. 6.

Then _heave_ the croud.--_id_.

And after a rude _heave_ from side to side.--p. 7.

The marble bridge comes _heaving_ forth below.--p. 28.

"Fine understanding"--

The youth smiles _up_, and with a _lowly_ grace, _Bending_ his _lifted_ eyes--p. 22.

This is very neat:

No peevishness there was-- But a _mute_ gush of _hiding_ tears from one, Clasped to the _core_ of him who yet shed none.--p. 83.

The heroine is suspected of wis.h.i.+ng to have some share in the choice of her own husband, which is thus elegantly expressed:

She had stout notions on the marrying _score_.--p. 27.

This n.o.ble use of the word _score_ is afterwards carefully repeated in speaking of the Prince, her husband--

--no suspicion could have touched him more, Than that of _wanting_ on the generous _score_.--p. 48.

But though thus punctilious on the _generous score_, his Highness had but a bad temper,

And kept no reckoning with his _sweets and sours_.--p. 47.

This, indeed, is somewhat qualified by a previous observation, that--

_The worst of Prince Giovanni_, as his bride Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride.

How n.o.bly does Mr. Hunt celebrate the combined charms of the fair s.e.x, and the country!

_The two divinest things this world_ HAS GOT, A lovely woman in a rural spot!--p. 58.

A rural spot, indeed, seems to inspire Mr. Hunt with peculiar elegance and sweetness: for he says, soon after, of Prince Paulo--

For welcome grace, there rode not such another, Nor yet for strength, except his lordly brother.

Was there a court day, or a sparkling feast, Or better still--_to my ideas, at least!_-- A summer party in the green wood shade.--p. 50.

So much for this new invented _strength_ and _dignity_: we shall add a specimen of his syntax:

But fears like these he never entertain'd, And had they crossed him, would have been disdain'd.--p. 50.

After these extracts, we have but one word more to say of Mr. Hunt's poetry; which is, that amidst all his vanity, vulgarity, ignorance, and coa.r.s.eness, there are here and there some well-executed descriptions, and occasionally a line of which the sense and the expression are good-- The interest of the story itself is so great that we do not think it wholly lost even in Mr. Hunt's hands. He has, at least, the merit of telling it with decency; and, bating the qualities of versification, expression, and dignity, on which he peculiarly piques himself, and in which he has utterly failed, the poem is one which, in our opinion at least, may be read with satisfaction after GALT'S Tragedies.

Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he a.s.sumes a high tone, and talks big of his "_fellow-dignity_" and independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the _dignity_ of a _fellow_; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language, than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to _proper spirit_, as he calls it, and _fellow-dignity_; for we never, in so few lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coa.r.s.e flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and fidget himself into the _stout-heartedness_ of being familiar with a LORD.

OF SHAKESPEARE

[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1816]