Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes Part 9

Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held in horror among religious people. In decent families which did not profess extraordinary sanct.i.ty, there was a strong feeling against all such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and husbands, when he p.r.o.nounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist, having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem almost incredible.

Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a tale might be written in which both the fas.h.i.+onable and the vulgar life of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She vindicated the right of her s.e.x to an equal share in a fair and n.o.ble province of letters. Several accomplished women have followed in her track. At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No cla.s.s of works is more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of Madame D'Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpa.s.sed her. But the fact that she has been surpa.s.sed, gives her an additional claim to our respect and grat.i.tude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee.

ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH

[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1807]

_Poems_, in Two Volumes. By W. WORDSWORTH. London, 1807.

This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who have haunted for some years about the lakes of c.u.mberland; and is generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been labouring to establish. Of the general merits of that school, we have had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the writer now before us. We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions.

The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they were undoubtedly characterised by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural feeling; and recommended to all good minds by the clear impression which they bore of the amiable disposition and virtuous principles of the author. By the help of these qualities, they were enabled, not only to recommend themselves to the indulgence of many judicious readers, but even to beget among a pretty numerous cla.s.s of persons, a sort of admiration of the very defects by which they were attended. It was on this account chiefly, that we thought it necessary to set ourselves against the alarming innovation. Childishness, conceit, and affectation, are not of themselves very popular or attractive; and though mere novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree of zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable towards authors, to whom so much merit had been conceded. There were times and moods, indeed, in which we were led to suspect ourselves of unjustifiable severity, and to doubt, whether a sense of public duty had not carried us rather too far in reprobation of errors, that seemed to be atoned for, by excellences of no vulgar description. At other times the magnitude of these errors--the disgusting absurdities into which they led their feebler admirers, and the derision and contempt which they drew from the more fastidious, even upon the merits with which they were a.s.sociated, made us wonder more than ever at the perversity by which they were retained, and regret that we had not declared ourselves against them with still more formidable and decided hostility.

In this temper of mind, we read the _annonce_ of Mr. Wordsworth's publication with a good deal of interest and expectation, and opened his volumes with greater anxiety, than he or his admirers will probably give us credit for. We have been greatly disappointed certainly as to the quality of the poetry; but we doubt whether the publication has afforded so much satisfaction to any other of his readers:--it has freed us from all doubt or hesitation as to the justice of our former censures, and has brought the matter to a test, which we cannot help hoping may be convincing to the author himself.

Mr. Wordsworth, we think, has now brought the question, as to the merit of his new school of poetry, to a very fair and decisive issue. The volumes before us are much more strongly marked by its peculiarities than any former publication of the fraternity. In our apprehension, they are, on this very account, infinitely less interesting or meritorious; but it belongs to the public, and not to us, to decide upon their merit, and we will confess, that so strong is our conviction of their obvious inferiority, and the grounds of it, that we are willing for once to waive our right of appealing to posterity, and to take the judgment of the present generation of readers, and even of Mr. Wordsworth's former admirers, as conclusive on this occasion. If these volumes, which have all the benefit of the author's former popularity, turn out to be nearly as popular as the lyrical ballads--if they sell nearly to the same extent--or are quoted and imitated among half as many individuals, we shall admit that Mr. Wordsworth has come much nearer the truth in his judgment of what const.i.tutes the charm of poetry, than we had previously imagined--and shall inst.i.tute a more serious and respectful inquiry into his principles of composition than we have yet thought necessary. On the other hand,--if this little work, selected from the compositions of five maturer years, and written avowedly for the purpose of exalting a system, which has already excited a good deal of attention, should be generally rejected by those whose prepossessions were in its favour, there is room to hope, not only that the system itself will meet with no more encouragement, but even that the author will be persuaded to abandon a plan of writing, which defrauds his industry and talents of their natural reward.

Putting ourselves thus upon our country, we certainly look for a verdict against this publication; and have little doubt indeed of the result, upon a fair consideration of the evidence contained in these volumes. To accelerate that result, and to give a general view of the evidence, to those into whose hands the record may not have already fallen, we must now make a few observations and extracts.

We shall not resume any of the particular discussions by which we formerly attempted to ascertain the value of the improvements which this new school has effected in poetry: but shall lay the grounds of our opposition, for this time, a little more broadly. The end of poetry, we take it, is to please--and the same, we think, is strictly applicable to every metrical composition from which we receive pleasure, without any laborious exercise of the understanding. Their pleasure may, in general, be a.n.a.lysed into three parts--that which we receive from the excitement of Pa.s.sion or emotion--that which is derived from the play of Imagination, or the easy exercise of Reason--and that which depends on the character and qualities of the Diction. The two first are the vital and primary springs of poetical delight, and can scarcely require explanation to anyone. The last has been alternately over-rated and undervalued by the possessors of the poetical art, and is in such low estimation with the author now before us and his a.s.sociates, that it is necessary to say a few words in explanation of it.

One great beauty of diction exists only for those who have some degree of scholars.h.i.+p or critical skill. This is what depends on the exquisite _propriety_ of the words employed, and the delicacy with which they are adapted to the meaning which is to be expressed. Many of the finest pa.s.sages in Virgil and Pope derive their princ.i.p.al charm from the fine propriety of their diction. Another source of beauty, which extends only to the more instructed cla.s.s of readers, is that which consists in the judicious or happy application of expressions which have been sanctified by the use of famous writers, or which bear the stamp of a simple or venerable antiquity. There are other beauties of diction, however, which are perceptible by all--the beauties of sweet sounds and pleasant a.s.sociations. The melody of words and verses is indifferent to no reader of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is certainly derived from those general a.s.sociations, which give it a character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness. Everyone knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coa.r.s.eness and vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection. We do not mean, of course, to say anything in defiance of the hackneyed commonplace of ordinary vers.e.m.e.n. Whatever might have been the original character of these unlucky phrases, they are now a.s.sociated with nothing but ideas of schoolboy imbecility and vulgar affectation. But what we do maintain is, that much of the most popular poetry in the world owes its celebrity chiefly to the beauty of its diction; and that no poetry can be long or generally acceptable, the language of which is coa.r.s.e, inelegant, or infantine.

From this great source of pleasure, we think the readers of Mr.

Wordsworth are in great measure cut off. His diction has nowhere any pretensions to elegance or dignity; and he has scarcely ever condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his versification. If it were merely slovenly or neglected, however, all this might be endured. Strong sense and powerful feeling will enn.o.ble any expressions; or, at least, no one who is capable of estimating these higher merits, will be disposed to mark these little defects. But, in good truth, no man, now-a-days, composes verses for publication, with a slovenly neglect of their language. It is a fine and laborious manufacture, which can scarcely ever be made in a hurry; and the faults which it has, may, for the most part, be set down to bad taste or incapacity, rather than to carelessness or oversight. With Mr.

Wordsworth and his friends it is plain that their peculiarities of diction are things of choice, and not of accident. They write as they do, upon principle and system; and it evidently costs them much pains to keep _down_ to the standard which they have proffered themselves. They are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the poetasters who ring changes on the commonplaces of magazine versification; and all the difference between them is that they borrow their phrases from a different and a scantier _gradus ad Parna.s.sum_. If they were, indeed, to discard all imitation and set phraseology, and bring in no words merely for show or for metre,--as much, perhaps, might be gained in freedom and originality, as would infallibly be lost in allusion and authority; but, in point of fact, the new poets are just as much borrowers as the old; only that, instead of borrowing from the more popular pa.s.sages of their ill.u.s.trious predecessors, they have preferred furnis.h.i.+ng themselves from vulgar ballads and plebian nurseries.

Their peculiarities of diction alone, are enough, perhaps, to render them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court this literary martyrdom by a device still more infallible,--we mean that of connecting his most lofty, tender, or impa.s.sioned conceptions, with objects and incidents which the greater part of his readers will probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sights of a friend's garden-spade, of a sparrow's-nest, or a man gathering leeches, might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful impressions and interesting reflections; but it is certain, that, to most minds, such a.s.sociations will always appear forced, strained, and unnatural; and that the composition in which it is attempted to exhibit them, will always have the air of parody, or ludicrous and affected singularity. All the world laughs at Eligiac stanzas to a sucking pig--a Hymn on Was.h.i.+ng-day, Sonnets to one's grandmother--or Pindarics on gooseberry-pie; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to persuade Mr. Wordsworth, that the same ridicule must infallibly attach to most of the pathetic pieces in these volumes. To satisfy our readers, however, as to the justice of this and our other antic.i.p.ations, we shall proceed without further preface, to lay before them a short view of their contents.

The first is a kind of ode "to the Daisy,--" very flat, feeble, and affected; and in diction as artificial, and as much enc.u.mbered with heavy expletives as the theme of an unpractised schoolboy....

The scope of the piece is to say, that the flower is found everywhere; and that it has suggested many pleasant thoughts to the author--some chime of fancy, "_wrong or right_"--some feeling of devotion _more or less_--and other elegancies of the same stamp....

The next is called "Louisa," and begins in this das.h.i.+ng and affected manner.

I met Louisa in the shade; And, having seen that lovely maid, _Why should I fear to say_ That she is ruddy, fleet and strong; _And down the rocks can leap along_, Like rivulets in May? I. 7.

Does Mr. Wordsworth really imagine that this is more natural or engaging than the ditties of our common song-writers?...

By and by, we have a piece of namby-pamby "to the Small Celandine,"

which we should almost have taken for a professed imitation of one of Mr. Phillips's prettyisms....

Further on, we find an "Ode to Duty," in which the lofty vein is very unsuccessfully attempted. This is the concluding stanza.

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The G.o.dhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. I. 73.

The two last lines seem to be utterly without meaning; at least we have no sort of conception in what sense _Duty_ can be said to keep the old skies _fresh_, and the stars from wrong.

The next piece, ent.i.tled "The Beggars," may be taken, in fancy, as a touchstone of Mr. Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and affectation.... "Alice Fell" is a performance of the same order.... If the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.

After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume, under the t.i.tle of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich.

We poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92.

In the midst of his meditations--

I saw a man before me unawares, The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs....

The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n--

"G.o.d," said I, "be my help and stay secure; I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97.

We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the specimens of his friend Mr. Southey....

The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the t.i.tle that attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable....

The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which the poet has ent.i.tled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after this there is an address to a b.u.t.terfly.... We come next to a long story of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed out from the sh.o.r.e.

In such a vessel ne'er before Did human creature leave the sh.o.r.e. II, p. 72.

And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would be s.h.i.+p as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon which all the pathos and interest of the story depend.

A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72.

This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go; nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is tolerated....

Afterwards come some stanzas about an echo repeating a cuckoo's voice.... Then we have Elegiac stanzas "to the spade of a friend,"

beginning--

Spade! with which Wilkinson hath till'd his lands.

But too dull to be quoted any further.

After this there is a minstrel's song, on the Restoration of Lord Clifford the Shepherd, which is in a very different strain of poetry; and then the volume is wound up with an "Ode," with no other t.i.tle but the motto _Paulo majora canamus_. This is, beyond all doubt, the most illegible and unintelligible part of the publication. We can pretend to no a.n.a.lysis or explanation of it....

We have thus gone through this publication, with a view to enable our readers to determine, whether the author of these verses which have now been exhibited, is ent.i.tled to claim the honours of an improver or restorer of our poetry, and to found a new school to supersede or new-model all our maxims on the subject. If we were to stop here, we do not think that Mr. Wordsworth, or his admirers, would have any reason to complain; for what we have now quoted is undeniably the most peculiar and characteristic part of his publication, and must be defended and applauded if the merit or originality of his system is to be seriously maintained. In our opinion, however, the demerit of that system cannot be fairly appreciated, until it be shown, that the author of the bad verses which we have already extracted, can write good verses when he pleases; and that, in point of fact, he does always write good verses, when, by any account, he is led to abandon his system, and to transgress the laws of that school which he would fain establish on the ruin of all existing authority.

The length to which our extracts and observations have already extended, necessarily restrains us within more narrow limits in this part of our citations; but it will not require much labour to find a pretty decided contrast to some of the pa.s.sages we have already detailed. The song on the restoration of Lord Clifford is put into the mouth of an ancient minstrel of the family; and in composing it, the author was led, therefore, almost irresistibly to adopt the manner and phraseology that is understood to be connected with that sort of composition, and to throw aside his own babyish incidents and fantastical sensibilities....

All English writers of sonnets have imitated Milton; and, in this way, Mr. Wordsworth, when he writes sonnets, escapes again from the trammels of his own unfortunate system; and the consequence is, that his sonnets are as much superior to the greater part of his other poems, as Milton's sonnets are superior to his....

When we look at these, and many still finer pa.s.sages, in the writings of this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and compa.s.sion, at that strange infatuation which has bound him up from the fair exercise of his talents, and withheld from the public the many excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of the trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions, there are, no doubt, occasional little traits of delicate feeling and original fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the ma.s.s of childishness and insipidity with which they are incorporated, nor can anything give us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr. Wordsworth, and made him appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the worst of his former productions.

We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that, like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the extravagances resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth's open violation of the established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means of restoring to that antient and venerable code its due honour and authority.