” I
blush for Elizabeth!
blush for Elizabeth!
Letters to Dead Authors - Andrew Lang
May one put him through
his paces?
HERMES: Certainly; try your luck.
PURCHASER: What is your name?
PESSIMIST: Hartmann.
PURCHASER: What can you teach me?
PESSIMIST: That Life is not worth Living.
PURCHASER: Wonderful! Most edifying! How much for this lot?
HERMES: Two hundred pounds.
PURCHASER: I will write you a cheque for the money. Come home,
Pessimist, and begin your lessons without more ado.
HERMES: Attention! Here is a magnificent article—the Positive Life, the
Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. Who bids for a possible place in
the Calendar of the Future?
PURCHASER: What does he call himself? he has a very French air.
HERMES: Put your own questions.
PURCHASER: What’s your pedigree, my Philosopher, and previous
performances?
POSITIVIST: I am by Rousseau out of Catholicism, with a strain of the
Evolution blood.
PURCHASER: What do you believe in?
POSITIVIST: In Man, with a large M.
PURCHASER: Not in individual Man?
POSITIVIST: By no means; not even always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all
Churches, all parties, all philosophies, and even the other sect of our
own Church, are perpetually in the wrong. Buy me, and listen to me, and
you will always be in the right.
PURCHASER: And, after this life, what have you to offer me?
POSITIVIST: A distinguished position in the Choir Invisible; but not, of
course, conscious immortality.
PURCHASER: Take him away, and put up another lot.
Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, and the Darwinian, with his notions,
and the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mixture of Religion and Evolution,
and the Spencerian, with that Absolute which is a sort of a something,
might all be offered with their divers wares; and cheaply enough, Lucian,
you would value them in this auction of Sects. “There is but one way to
Corinth,” as of old; but which that way may be, oh master of Hermotimus,
we know no more than he did of old; and still we find, of all
philosophies, that the Stoic route is most to be recommended. But we
have our Cyrenaics too, though they are no longer “clothed in purple, and
crowned with flowers, and fond of drink and of female flute-players. ”
Ah, here too, you might laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure lies,
when the Cyrenaics are no “judges of cakes” (nor of ale, for that
matter), and are strangers in the Courts of Princes. “To despise all
things, to make use of all things, in all things to follow pleasure
only:” that is not the manner of the new, if it were the secret of the
older Hedonism.
Then, turning from the philosophers to the seekers after a sign, what
change, Lucian, would you find in them and their ways? None; they are
quite unaltered. Still our Peregrinus, and our Peregrina too, come to us
from the East, or, if from the West, they take India on their way—India,
that secular home of drivelling creeds, and of religion in its
sacerdotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins and Buddhism; though, unlike
Peregrinus, they do not publicly burn themselves on pyres, at Epsom
Downs, after the Derby. We are not so fortunate in the demise of our
Theosophists; and our police, less wise than the Hellenodicæ, would
probably not permit the Immolation of the Quack. Like your Alexander,
they deal in marvels and miracles, oracles and warnings. All such bogy
stories as those of your “Philopseudes,” and the ghost of the lady who
took to table-rapping because one of her best slippers had not been
burned with her body, are gravely investigated by the Psychical Society.
Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still with us—the man without a tinge
of letters, who buys up old manuscripts “because they are stained and
gnawed, and who goes, for proof of valued antiquity, to the testimony of
the book-worms. ” And the rich Bibliophile now, as in your satire,
clothes his volumes in purple morocco and gay _dorures_, while their
contents are sealed to him.
As to the topics of satire and gay curiosity which occupy the lady known
as “Gyp,” and M. Halévy in his “Les Petites Cardinal,” if you had not
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change. One
reads, in Halévy’s French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in your Greek, of the
mother of Philinna, and marvels that eighteen hundred years have not in
one single trifle altered the mould. Still the old shabby light-loves,
the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. Still the unconquerable
superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your
time, resorted to the sorceress with her magical “bull-roarer” or
_turndun_. {64}
Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of
unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at
whom you smiled. Nay, our very “social question” is not altered. Do you
not write, in “The Runaways,” “The artisans will abandon their workshops,
and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows
their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling
pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are floating in Pactolus”?
They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of their
vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do not need to
care. Hail to you, and farewell!
VII.
_To Maître Françoys Rabelais_.
OF THE COMING OF THE COQCIGRUES.
MASTER,—In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from the
noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus
voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and adventurous, who had
no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as
Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once
they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there
would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the
coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their
deities, should do battle against the enemies of all mankind; which day
they rather desired than dreaded.
So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company,
after they had once partaken of the secret of the _Dive Bouteille_.
Thereafter they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were
merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise; only that they always and ever
did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of
that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew nothing;
and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth
that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least.
Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty,
and precious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air
a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, addresses, discourses,
lectures, and the like; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried,
“Methinks this wind bloweth from Midlothian,” and so fell a trembling.
Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was
borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos,
psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most
hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the
chattering of his teeth: “May I never drink if here come not the
Coqcigrues! ” and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired.
But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his
cowardice. “Here am I! ” cried Brother John, “well-armed and ready to
stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with
great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams,
tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies,
pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while
I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine,
Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy
Coqcigrues! ”
But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather
army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes,
horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools,
engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de
Pourceaugnac! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him,
“Abstain! Abstain! ” And one said, “I have well diagnosed thee, and thou
art in a fair way to have the gout. ” “I never did better in my days,”
said Brother John. “Away with thy meats and drinks! ” they cried. And
one said, “He must to Royat;” and another, “Hence with him to Aix;” and a
third, “Banish him to Wiesbaden;” and a fourth, “Hale him to Gastein;”
and yet another, “To Barbouille with him in chains! ”
And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote
prescriptions for him like men mad. “For thy eating,” cried he that
seemed to be their leader, “No soup! ” “No soup! ” quoth Brother John; and
those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the
winter solstice, grew white as lilies. “Nay! and no salmon, nor any beef
nor mutton! A little chicken by times, _pericolo tuo_! Nor any game,
such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any
cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor _eau de vie_; and avoid
all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind. ” “Then what may
I eat? ” quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles
of his sandals. “A little cold bacon at breakfast—no eggs,” quoth the
leader of the strange folk, “and a slice of toast without butter. ” “And
for thy drink”—(“What? ” gasped Brother John)—“one dessert-spoonful of
whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner.
No more! ” At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of
a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.
While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great
platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and
women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which
meaneth “Salvation;” and others wore white crosses, with a little black
button of crape, to signify “Purity;” and others bits of blue to mean
“Abstinence. ” While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset
Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short
answers. Thus they asked:—
Have ye Local Option here? —Pan. : What?
May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst? —Pan. : Yea!
Have ye Free Education? —Pan. : What?
Must they that have, pay to school them that have not? —Pan. : Nay!
Have ye free land? —Pan. : What?
Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor out of
work and the candlemaker masterless? —Pan. : Nay!
Have your women folk votes? —Pan. : Bosh!
Have ye got religion? —Pan. : How?
Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before
you, and making long prayers? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you manhood suffrage? —Pan. : Eh?
Is Jack as good as his master? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you joined the Arbitration Society? —Pan. : _Quoy_?
Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you
deserve the same? —Pan. : Nay!
Do you eat what you list? —Pan. : Ay!
Do you drink when you are athirst? —Pan. : Ay!
Are you governed by the free expression of the popular will? —Pan. : How?
Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers? —Pan. : NO!
Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a
weeping, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a
lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing,
some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily
press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, “reforming
the island,” Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly
dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may
not endure it.
Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had
ready in the harbour. And having provisioned her well with store of meat
and good drink, they set sail for the kingdom of Entelechy, where, having
landed, they were kindly entreated; and there abide to this day; drinking
of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protection of that
intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its
circumference.
Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the
Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of
laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb
Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Françoys, thou art not well liked in
this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce,
cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to
thee, and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found thy _grand
peut-être_.
VIII.
_To Jane Austen_.
MADAM,—If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of
the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the
thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete. Moreover, it
is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature
will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that delicious
topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled
“literary shop. ” For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some
inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam,
raised to its highest pitch of perfection.
As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is
wholly cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone
in her freedom from a lettered vanity. You are not a very popular
author: your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall;
or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of
our generation. ’Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation
of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of
your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did
not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too
unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disappointed by the
absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more
convinced of your wisdom. In your letters (knowing your correspondents)
you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them sufficient;
for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imperishable.
Your admirers, if not very numerous, include all persons of taste, who,
in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the
habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation.
’Tis the fault of all art to seem antiquated and faded in the eyes of the
succeeding generation. The manners of your age were not the manners of
to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott “slow,” think Miss
Austen “prim” and “dreary. ” Yet, even could you return among us, I
scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might,
and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration. For how
tame, madam, are your characters, especially your favourite heroines! how
limited the life which you knew and described! how narrow the range of
your incidents! how correct your grammar!
As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and
Catherine: women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the
degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the
parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with
vain yearnings and interesting doubts. Who can engage his fancy with
their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many
daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard?
Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped with golden
fleurs-de-lys—ladies with hearts of ice and lips of fire, who count their
roubles by the million, their lovers by the score, and even their
husbands, very often, in figures of some arithmetical importance. With
these are the immaculate daughters of itinerant Italian musicians—maids
whose souls are unsoiled amidst the contaminations of our streets, and
whose acquaintance with the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Dædalus and
Scopas, is the more admirable, because entirely derived from loving study
of the inexpensive collections vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round
the corner. When such heroines are wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where
are your Emmas and Elizabeths? Your volumes neither excite nor satisfy
the curiosities provoked by that modern and scientific fiction, which is
greatly admired, I learn, in the United States, as well as in France and
at home.
You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and
Kitty so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost
insignificant characters? With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone
far; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to
the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the
circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first
beheld her Wickham; how, on her challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to
her side; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd
seasons, in strange places, and finally eloped: all this might have been
put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would
not have been less popular than several favourites of our time. Had you
cast the whole narrative into the present tense, and lingered lovingly
over the thickness of Mary’s legs and the softness of Kitty’s cheeks, and
the blonde fluffiness of Wickham’s whiskers, you would have left a
romance still dear to young ladies.
Or, again, you might entrance fair students still, had you concentrated
your attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henry Crawford. These
should have been the chief figures of “Mansfield Park. ” But you timidly
decline to tackle Passion. “Let other pens,” you write, “dwell on guilt
and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. ” Ah, _there_
is the secret of your failure! Need I add that the vulgarity and
narrowness of the social circles you describe impair your popularity? I
scarce remember more than one lady of title, and but very few lords (and
these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in
society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we
get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a
country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have
heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of
the notice which your characters give each other when they offer
invitations to dinner. “An invitation to dinner next day was
despatched,” and this demonstrates that your acquaintance “went out” very
little, and had but few engagements. How vulgar, too, is one of your
heroines, who bids Mr. Darcy “keep his breath to cool his porridge.
” I
blush for Elizabeth! It were superfluous to add that your characters are
debased by being invariably mere members of the Church of England as by
law established. The Dissenting enthusiast, the open soul that glides
from Esoteric Buddhism to the Salvation Army, and from the Higher
Pantheism to the Higher Paganism, we look for in vain among your studies
of character. Nay, the very words I employ are of unknown sound to you;
so how can you help us in the stress of the soul’s travailings?
You may say that the soul’s travailings are no affair of yours; proving
thereby that you have indeed but a lowly conception of the duty of the
novelist. I only remember one reference, in all your works, to that
controversy which occupies the chief of our attention—the great
controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries: “I have no
idea of there being so much Design in the world as some persons imagine. ”
Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when
Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the
cruelty “of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in
favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. ” There, madam, in that
cruelly unjust performance, what a text you had for a _tendenz-romanz_.
Nay, you can allow Kitty to report that a Private had been flogged,
without introducing a chapter on Flogging in the Army. But you formally
declined to stretch your matter out, here and there, “with solemn
specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story. ” No
“padding” for Miss Austen! in fact, madam, as you were born before
Analysis came in, or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or Irreverence,
or Religious Open-mindedness, you really cannot hope to rival your
literary sisters in the minds of a perplexed generation. Your heroines
are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses
dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Mænads. What says your best
successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals
yours? She says of Miss Austen: “Her heroines have a stamp of their own.
_They have a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of
heart_ . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an
interest, deep and silent. ” I think one prefers them so, and that
Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. “All
the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when
existence or when hope is gone,” said Anne; perhaps she insisted on a
monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it
is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day
in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet! How fine, nay, how noble is
your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the
note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature! You worked, without
thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and
exquisitely organised. “Dear books,” we say, with Miss Thackeray—“dear
books, bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely
heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting. ”
IX.
_To Master Isaak Walton_.
FATHER ISAAK,—When I would be quiet and go angling it is my custom to
carry in my wallet thy pretty book, “The Compleat Angler. ” Here,
methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content, and good company, and
sweet songs, fair milkmaids, and country mirth. For you are to know that
trout be now scarce and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, he hath of
late become so wary that none but the cunningest anglers may be even with
him.
It is not as it was in your time, Father, when a man might leave his shop
in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when he had stretched his legs up
Tottenham Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered with waterlilies and
lady-smocks, and so fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much
increased, like a spreading sore (through the breaking of that excellent
law of the Conscientious King and blessed Martyr, whereby building beyond
the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in
streets. And as to the River Lea, wherein you took many a good trout, I
read in the news sheets that “its bed is many inches thick in horrible
filth, and the air for more than half a mile on each side of it is
polluted with a horrible, sickening stench,” so that we stand in dread of
a new Plague, called the Cholera. And so it is all about London for many
miles, and if a man, at heavy charges, betake himself to the fields, lo
you, folk are grown so greedy that none will suffer a stranger to fish in
his water.
So poor anglers are in sore straits. Unless a man be rich and can pay
great rents, he may not fish in England, and hence spring the discontents
of the times, for the angler is full of content, if he do but take trout,
but if he be driven from the waterside, he falls, perchance, into evil
company, and cries out to divide the property of the gentle folk. As
many now do, even among Parliament-men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak,
neither do I love them more than Reason and Scripture bid each of us be
kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the causes of the ill content are
not yet all expressed, for even where a man hath licence to fish, he will
hardly take trout in our age, unless he be all the more cunning. For the
fish, harried this way and that by so many of your disciples, is
exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite at a fly unless it falleth
lightly, just above his mouth, and floateth dry over him, for all the
world like the natural _ephemeris_. And we may no longer angle with worm
for him, nor with penk or minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was your
manner, but only with the artificial, for the more difficulty the more
diversion. For my part I may cry, like Viator in your book, “Master, I
can neither catch with the first nor second Angle: I have no fortune. ”
So we fare in England, but somewhat better north of the Tweed, where
trout are less wary, but for the most part small, except in the extreme
rough north, among horrid hills and lakes. Thither, Master, as methinks
you may remember, went Richard Franck, that called himself
_Philanthropus_, and was, as it were, the Columbus of anglers,
discovering for them a new Hyperborean world. But Franck, doubtless, is
now an angler in the Lake of Darkness, with Nero and other tyrants, for
he followed after Cromwell, the man of blood, in the old riding days.
How wickedly doth Franck boast of that leader of the giddy multitude,
“when they raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves
and others, and the rabble would herd themselves together,” as you said,
“and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority. ” So you wrote;
and what said Franck, that recreant angler? Doth he not praise “Ireton,
Vane, Nevill, and Martin, and the most renowned, valorous, and victorious
conqueror, Oliver Cromwell”? Natheless, with all his sins on his head,
this Franck discovered Scotland for anglers, and my heart turns to him
when he praises “the glittering and resolute streams of Tweed. ”
In those wilds of Assynt and Loch Rannoch, Father, we, thy followers, may
yet take trout, and forget the evils of the times. But, to be done with
Franck, how harshly he speaks of thee and thy book. “For you may
dedicate your opinion to what scribbling putationer you please; the
_Compleat Angler_ if you will, who tells you of a tedious fly story,
extravagantly collected from antiquated authors, such as Gesner and
Dubravius. ” Again he speaks of “Isaac Walton, whose authority to me
seems alike authentick, as is the general opinion of the vulgar prophet,”
&c.
Certain I am that Franck, if a better angler than thou, was a worse man,
who, writing his “Dialogues Piscatorial” or “Northern Memoirs” five years
after the world welcomed thy “Compleat Angler,” was jealous of thy favour
with the people, and, may be, hated thee for thy loyalty and sound faith.
But, Master, like a peaceful man avoiding contention, thou didst never
answer this blustering Franck, but wentest quietly about thy quiet Lea,
and left him his roaring Brora and windy Assynt. How could this noisy
man know thee—and know thee he did, having argued with thee in
Stafford—and not love Isaak Walton? A pedant angler, I call him, a
plaguy angler, so let him huff away, and turn we to thee and to thy sweet
charm in fishing for men.
How often, studying in thy book, have I hummed to myself that of Horace—
_Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula quæ te_
_Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello_.
So healing a book for the frenzy of fame is thy discourse on meadows, and
pure streams, and the country life. How peaceful, men say, and blessed
must have been the life of this old man, how lapped in content, and
hedged about by his own humility from the world! They forget, who speak
thus, that thy years, which were many, were also evil, or would have
seemed evil to divers that had tasted of thy fortunes. Thou wert poor,
but that, to thee, was no sorrow, for greed of money was thy detestation.
Thou wert of lowly rank, in an age when gentle blood was alone held in
regard; yet thy virtues made thee hosts of friends, and chiefly among
religious men, bishops, and doctors of the Church. Thy private life was
not unacquainted with sorrow; thy first wife and all her fair children
were taken from thee like flowers in spring, though, in thine age, new
love and new offspring comforted thee like “the primrose of the later
year. ” Thy private griefs might have made thee bitter, or melancholy, so
might the sorrows of the State and of the Church, which were deprived of
their heads by cruel men, despoiled of their wealth, the pious driven,
like thee, from their homes; fear everywhere, everywhere robbery and
confusion: all this ruin might have angered another temper. But thou,
Father, didst bear all with so much sweetness as perhaps neither natural
temperament, nor a firm faith, nor the love of angling could alone have
displayed. For we see many anglers (as witness Richard Franck aforesaid)
who are angry men, and myself, when I get my hooks entangled at every
cast in a tree, have come nigh to swear prophane.
Also we see religious men that are sour and fanatical, no rare thing in
the party that professes godliness. But neither private sorrow nor
public grief could abate thy natural kindliness, nor shake a religion
which was not untried, but had, indeed, passed through the furnace like
fine gold. For if we find not Faith at all times easy, because of the
oppositions of Science, and the searching curiosity of men’s minds,
neither was Faith a matter of course in thy day. For the learned and
pious were greatly tossed about, like worthy Mr. Chillingworth, by doubts
wavering between the Church of Rome and the Reformed Church of England.
The humbler folk, also, were invited, now here, now there, by the
clamours of fanatical Nonconformists, who gave themselves out to be
somebody, while Atheism itself was not without many to witness to it.
Therefore, such a religion as thine was not, so to say, a mere innocence
of evil in the things of our Belief, but a reasonable and grounded faith,
strong in despite of oppositions. Happy was the man in whom temper, and
religion, and the love of the sweet country and an angler’s pastime so
conveniently combined; happy the long life which held in its hand that
threefold clue through the labyrinth of human fortunes! Around thee
Church and State might fall in ruins, and might be rebuilded, and thy
tears would not be bitter, nor thy triumph cruel.
Thus, by God’s blessing, it befell thee
_Nec turpem senectam_
_Degere, nec cithara carentem_.
I would, Father, that I could get at the verity about thy poems. Those
recommendatory verses with which thou didst grace the Lives of Dr. Donne
and others of thy friends, redound more to the praise of thy kind heart
than thy fancy. But what or whose was the pastoral poem of “Thealma and
Clearchus,” which thou didst set about printing in 1678, and gavest to
the world in 1683? Thou gavest John Chalkhill for the author’s name, and
a John Chalkhill of thy kindred died at Winchester, being eighty years of
his age, in 1679. Now thou speakest of John Chalkhill as “a friend of
Edmund Spenser’s,” and how could this be?
Are they right who hold that John Chalkhill was but a name of a friend,
borrowed by thee out of modesty, and used as a cloak to cover poetry of
thine own inditing? When Mr. Flatman writes of Chalkhill, ’tis in words
well fitted to thine own merit:
Happy old man, whose worth all mankind knows
Except himself, who charitably shows
The ready road to virtue and to praise,
The road to many long and happy days.
However it be, in that road, by quiet streams and through green pastures,
thou didst walk all thine almost century of years, and we, who stray into
thy path out of the highway of life, we seem to hold thy hand, and listen
to thy cheerful voice. If our sport be worse, may our content be equal,
and our praise, therefore, none the less. Father, if Master Stoddard,
the great fisher of Tweedside, be with thee, greet him for me, and thank
him for those songs of his, and perchance he will troll thee a catch of
our dear River.
Tweed! winding and wild! where the heart is unbound,
They know not, they dream not, who linger around,
How the saddened will smile, and the wasted rewin
From thee—the bliss withered within.
Or perhaps thou wilt better love,
The lanesome Tala and the Lyne,
And Manor wi’ its mountain rills,
An’ Etterick, whose waters twine
Wi’ Yarrow frae the forest hills;
An’ Gala, too, and Teviot bright,
An’ mony a stream o’ playfu’ speed,
Their kindred valleys a’ unite
Amang the braes o’ bonnie Tweed!
So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old anglers,
like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age.
X.
_To M. Chapelain_.
MONSIEUR,—You were a popular poet, and an honourable, over-educated,
upright gentleman. Of the latter character you can never be deprived,
and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you are, than the
laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon.
Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day,
But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
I know not if Mr. Swinburne is correct in his botany, but _your_ laurel
certainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell where Orpheus
and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other Paradise, we cannot
doubt it, awaited _un si bon homme_. But the moral excellence that even
Boileau admitted, _la foi, l’honneur, la probité_, do not in Parnassus
avail the popular poet, and some luckless Glatigny or Théophile, Regnier
or Gilbert, attains a kind of immortality denied to the man of many
contemporary editions, and of a great commercial success.
If ever, for the confusion of Horace, any Poet was Made, you, Sir, should
have been that fortunately manufactured article. You were, in matters of
the Muses, the child of many prayers. Never, since Adam’s day, have any
parents but yours prayed for a poet-child. Then Destiny, that mocks the
desires of men in general, and fathers in particular, heard the appeal,
and presented M. Chapelain and Jeanne Corbière his wife with the future
author of “La Pucelle. ” Oh futile hopes of men, _O pectora cæca_! All
was done that education could do for a genius which, among other
qualities, “especially lacked fire and imagination,” and an ear for
verse—sad defects these in a child of the Muses. Your training in all
the mechanics and metaphysics of criticism might have made you exclaim,
like Rasselas, “Enough! Thou hast convinced me that no human being can
ever be a Poet. ” Unhappily, you succeeded in convincing Cardinal
Richelieu that to be a Poet was well within your powers, you received a
pension of one thousand crowns, and were made Captain of the Cardinal’s
Minstrels, as M. de Tréville was Captain of the King’s Musketeers.
Ah, pleasant age to live in, when good intentions in poetry were more
richly endowed than ever is Research, even Research in Prehistoric
English, among us niggard moderns! How I wish I knew a Cardinal, or
even, as you did, a Prime Minister, who would praise and pension _me_;
but envy be still! Your existence was made happy indeed; you constructed
odes, corrected sonnets, presided at the Hôtel Rambouillet, while the
learned ladies were still young and fair, and you enjoyed a prodigious
celebrity on the score of your yet unpublished Epic. “Who, indeed,” says
a sympathetic author, M. Théophile Gautier, “who could expect less than a
miracle from a man so deeply learned in the laws of art—a perfect Turk in
the science of poetry, a person so well pensioned, and so favoured by the
great? ” Bishops and politicians combined in perfect good faith to
advertise your merits. Hard must have been the heart that could resist
the testimonials of your skill as a poet offered by the Duc de
Montausier, and the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and Monseigneur
Godeau, Bishop of Vence, and M. Colbert, who had such a genius for
finance.
If bishops and politicians and Prime Ministers skilled in finance, and
some critics (Ménage and Sarrazin and Vaugelas), if ladies of birth and
taste, if all the world in fact, combined to tell you that you were a
great poet, how can we blame you for taking yourself seriously, and
appraising yourself at the public estimate?
It was not in human nature to resist the evidence of the bishops
especially, and when every minor poet believes in himself on the
testimony of his own conceit, you may be acquitted of vanity if you
listened to the plaudits of your friends. Nay, you ventured to pronounce
judgment on contemporaries—whom Posterity has preferred to your
perfections. “Molière,” said you, “understands the genius of comedy, and
presents it in a natural style. The plot of his best pieces is borrowed,
but not without judgment; his _morale_ is fair, and he has only to avoid
scurrility. ”
Excellent, unconscious, popular Chapelain!
Of yourself you observed, in a Report on contemporary literature, that
your “courage and sincerity never allowed you to tolerate work not
absolutely good. ” And yet you regarded “La Pucelle” with some
complacency.
On the “Pucelle” you were occupied during a generation of mortal men. I
marvel not at the length of your labours, as you received a yearly
pension till the Epic was finished, but your Muse was no Alcmena, and no
Hercules was the result of that prolonged night of creation. First you
gravely wrote out all the composition in prose: the task occupied you for
five whole years. Ah, why did you not leave it in that commonplace but
appropriate medium? What says the Précieuse about you in Boileau’s
satire?
In Chapelain, for all his foes have said,
She finds but one defect, he can’t be read;
Yet thinks the world might taste his Maiden’s woes,
If only he would turn his verse to prose!
The verse had been prose, and prose, perhaps, it should have remained.
Yet for this precious “Pucelle,” in the age when “Paradise Lost” was sold
for five pounds, you are believed to have received about four thousand.
Horace was wrong, mediocre poets may exist (now and then), and he was a
wise man who first spoke of _aurea mediocritas_. At length the great
work was achieved, a work thrice blessed in its theme, that divine Maiden
to whom France owes all, and whom you and Voltaire have recompensed so
strangely. In folio, in italics, with a score of portraits and
engravings, and _culs de lampe_, the great work was given to the world,
and had a success. Six editions in eighteen months are figures which
fill the poetic heart with envy and admiration. And then, alas! the
bubble burst. A great lady, Madame de Longueville, hearing the “Pucelle”
read aloud, murmured that it was “perfect indeed, but perfectly
wearisome. ” Then the satires began, and the satirists never left you
till your poetic reputation was a rag, till the mildest Abbé at Ménage’s
had his cheap sneer for Chapelain.
I make no doubt, Sir, that envy and jealousy had much to do with the
onslaught on your “Pucelle. ” These qualities, alas! are not strange to
literary minds; does not even Hesiod tell us that “potter hates potter,
and poet hates poet”? But contemporary spites do not harm true genius.
Who suffered more than Molière from cabals? Yet neither the court nor
the town ever deserted him, and he is still the joy of the world. I
admit that his adversaries were weaker than yours. What were Boursault
and Le Boulanger, and Thomas Corneille and De Visé, what were they all
compared to your enemy, Boileau? Brossette tells a story which really
makes a man pity you. You remember M. de Puimorin, who, to be in the
fashion, laughed at your once popular Epic. “It is all very well,” said
you, “for a man to laugh who cannot even read. ” Whereon M. de Puimorin
replied: “Qu’il n’avoit que trop sû lire, depuis que Chapelain s’étoit
avisé de faire imprimer. ” A new horror had been added to the
accomplishment of reading since Chapelain had published. This repartee
was applauded, and M. de Puimorin tried to turn it into an epigram. He
did complete the last couplet,
Hélas! pour mes péchés, je n’ai sû que trop lire
Depuis que tu fais imprimer.
But by no labour would M. de Puimorin achieve the first two lines of his
epigram. Then you remember what great allies came to his assistance. I
almost blush to think that M. Despréaux, M. Racine, and M. de Molière,
the three most renowned wits of the time, conspired to complete the poor
jest, and assail you. Well, bubble as your poetry was, you may be proud
that it needed all these sharpest of pens to prick the bubble. Other
poets, as popular as you, have been annihilated by an article. Macaulay
put forth his hand, and “Satan Montgomery” was no more. It did not need
a Macaulay, the laughter of a mob of little critics was enough to blow
him into space; but you probably have met Montgomery, and of contemporary
failures or successes I do not speak.
I wonder, sometimes, whether the consensus of criticism ever made you
doubt for a moment whether, after all, you were not a false child of
Apollo? Was your complacency tortured, as the complacency of true poets
has occasionally been, by doubts? Did you expect posterity to reverse
the verdict of the satirists, and to do you justice? You answered your
earliest assailant, Linière, and, by a few changes of words, turned his
epigrams into flattery. But I fancy, on the whole, you remained calm,
unmoved, wrapped up in admiration of yourself. According to M. de
Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead,
you “conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious
veneration for yourself and your genius. ” Probably you were protected by
the invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that
mere jealousy dictated the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain’s real
fault was his popularity, and his pecuniary success,
Qu’il soit le mieux renté de tous les beaux-esprits.
This, you would avow, was your offence, and perhaps you were not
altogether mistaken. Yet posterity declines to read a line of yours,
and, as we think of you, we are again set face to face with that eternal
problem, how far is popularity a test of poetry? Burns was a poet: and
popular. Byron was a popular poet, and the world agrees in the verdict
of their own generations. But Montgomery, though he sold so well, was no
poet, nor, Sir, I fear, was your verse made of the stuff of immortality.
Criticism cannot hurt what is truly great; the Cardinal and the Academy
left Chimène as fair as ever, and as adorable. It is only pinchbeck that
perishes under the acids of satire: gold defies them. Yet I sometimes
ask myself, does the existence of popularity like yours justify the
malignity of satire, which blesses neither him who gives, nor him who
takes? Are poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet? I doubt it, Sir,
holding that, even unpricked, a poetic bubble must soon burst by its own
nature. Yet satire will assuredly be written so long as bad poets are
successful, and bad poets will assuredly reflect that their assailants
are merely envious, and (while their vogue lasts) that the purchasing
public is the only judge. After all, the bad poet who is popular and
“sells” is not a whit worse than the bad poets who are unpopular, and who
deride his songs.
his paces?
HERMES: Certainly; try your luck.
PURCHASER: What is your name?
PESSIMIST: Hartmann.
PURCHASER: What can you teach me?
PESSIMIST: That Life is not worth Living.
PURCHASER: Wonderful! Most edifying! How much for this lot?
HERMES: Two hundred pounds.
PURCHASER: I will write you a cheque for the money. Come home,
Pessimist, and begin your lessons without more ado.
HERMES: Attention! Here is a magnificent article—the Positive Life, the
Scientific Life, the Enthusiastic Life. Who bids for a possible place in
the Calendar of the Future?
PURCHASER: What does he call himself? he has a very French air.
HERMES: Put your own questions.
PURCHASER: What’s your pedigree, my Philosopher, and previous
performances?
POSITIVIST: I am by Rousseau out of Catholicism, with a strain of the
Evolution blood.
PURCHASER: What do you believe in?
POSITIVIST: In Man, with a large M.
PURCHASER: Not in individual Man?
POSITIVIST: By no means; not even always in Mr. Gladstone. All men, all
Churches, all parties, all philosophies, and even the other sect of our
own Church, are perpetually in the wrong. Buy me, and listen to me, and
you will always be in the right.
PURCHASER: And, after this life, what have you to offer me?
POSITIVIST: A distinguished position in the Choir Invisible; but not, of
course, conscious immortality.
PURCHASER: Take him away, and put up another lot.
Then the Hegelian, with his Notion, and the Darwinian, with his notions,
and the Lotzian, with his Broad Church mixture of Religion and Evolution,
and the Spencerian, with that Absolute which is a sort of a something,
might all be offered with their divers wares; and cheaply enough, Lucian,
you would value them in this auction of Sects. “There is but one way to
Corinth,” as of old; but which that way may be, oh master of Hermotimus,
we know no more than he did of old; and still we find, of all
philosophies, that the Stoic route is most to be recommended. But we
have our Cyrenaics too, though they are no longer “clothed in purple, and
crowned with flowers, and fond of drink and of female flute-players. ”
Ah, here too, you might laugh, and fail to see where the Pleasure lies,
when the Cyrenaics are no “judges of cakes” (nor of ale, for that
matter), and are strangers in the Courts of Princes. “To despise all
things, to make use of all things, in all things to follow pleasure
only:” that is not the manner of the new, if it were the secret of the
older Hedonism.
Then, turning from the philosophers to the seekers after a sign, what
change, Lucian, would you find in them and their ways? None; they are
quite unaltered. Still our Peregrinus, and our Peregrina too, come to us
from the East, or, if from the West, they take India on their way—India,
that secular home of drivelling creeds, and of religion in its
sacerdotage. Still they prattle of Brahmins and Buddhism; though, unlike
Peregrinus, they do not publicly burn themselves on pyres, at Epsom
Downs, after the Derby. We are not so fortunate in the demise of our
Theosophists; and our police, less wise than the Hellenodicæ, would
probably not permit the Immolation of the Quack. Like your Alexander,
they deal in marvels and miracles, oracles and warnings. All such bogy
stories as those of your “Philopseudes,” and the ghost of the lady who
took to table-rapping because one of her best slippers had not been
burned with her body, are gravely investigated by the Psychical Society.
Even your ignorant Bibliophile is still with us—the man without a tinge
of letters, who buys up old manuscripts “because they are stained and
gnawed, and who goes, for proof of valued antiquity, to the testimony of
the book-worms. ” And the rich Bibliophile now, as in your satire,
clothes his volumes in purple morocco and gay _dorures_, while their
contents are sealed to him.
As to the topics of satire and gay curiosity which occupy the lady known
as “Gyp,” and M. Halévy in his “Les Petites Cardinal,” if you had not
exhausted the matter in your “Dialogues of Hetairai,” you would be amused
to find the same old traits surviving without a touch of change. One
reads, in Halévy’s French, of Madame Cardinal, and, in your Greek, of the
mother of Philinna, and marvels that eighteen hundred years have not in
one single trifle altered the mould. Still the old shabby light-loves,
the old greed, the old luxury and squalor. Still the unconquerable
superstition that now seeks to tell fortunes by the cards, and, in your
time, resorted to the sorceress with her magical “bull-roarer” or
_turndun_. {64}
Yes, Lucian, we are the same vain creatures of doubt and dread, of
unbelief and credulity, of avarice and pretence, that you knew, and at
whom you smiled. Nay, our very “social question” is not altered. Do you
not write, in “The Runaways,” “The artisans will abandon their workshops,
and leave their trades, when they see that, with all the labour that bows
their bodies from dawn to dark, they make a petty and starveling
pittance, while men that toil not nor spin are floating in Pactolus”?
They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of their
vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do not need to
care. Hail to you, and farewell!
VII.
_To Maître Françoys Rabelais_.
OF THE COMING OF THE COQCIGRUES.
MASTER,—In the Boreal and Septentrional lands, turned aside from the
noonday and the sun, there dwelt of old (as thou knowest, and as Olaus
voucheth) a race of men, brave, strong, nimble, and adventurous, who had
no other care but to fight and drink. There, by reason of the cold (as
Virgil witnesseth), men break wine with axes. To their minds, when once
they were dead and gotten to Valhalla, or the place of their Gods, there
would be no other pleasure but to swig, tipple, drink, and boose till the
coming of that last darkness and Twilight, wherein they, with their
deities, should do battle against the enemies of all mankind; which day
they rather desired than dreaded.
So chanced it also with Pantagruel and Brother John and their company,
after they had once partaken of the secret of the _Dive Bouteille_.
Thereafter they searched no longer; but, abiding at their ease, were
merry, frolic, jolly, gay, glad, and wise; only that they always and ever
did expect the awful Coming of the Coqcigrues. Now concerning the day of
that coming, and the nature of them that should come, they knew nothing;
and for his part Panurge was all the more adread, as Aristotle testifieth
that men (and Panurge above others) most fear that which they know least.
Now it chanced one day, as they sat at meat, with viands rare, dainty,
and precious as ever Apicius dreamed of, that there fluttered on the air
a faint sound as of sermons, speeches, orations, addresses, discourses,
lectures, and the like; whereat Panurge, pricking up his ears, cried,
“Methinks this wind bloweth from Midlothian,” and so fell a trembling.
Next, to their aural orifices, and the avenues audient of the brain, was
borne a very melancholy sound as of harmoniums, hymns, organ-pianos,
psalteries, and the like, all playing different airs, in a kind most
hateful to the Muses. Then said Panurge, as well as he might for the
chattering of his teeth: “May I never drink if here come not the
Coqcigrues! ” and this saying and prophecy of his was true and inspired.
But thereon the others began to mock, flout, and gird at Panurge for his
cowardice. “Here am I! ” cried Brother John, “well-armed and ready to
stand a siege; being entrenched, fortified, hemmed-in and surrounded with
great pasties, huge pieces of salted beef, salads, fricassees, hams,
tongues, pies, and a wilderness of pleasant little tarts, jellies,
pastries, trifles, and fruits of all kinds, and I shall not thirst while
I have good wells, founts, springs, and sources of Bordeaux wine,
Burgundy, wine of the Champagne country, sack and Canary. A fig for thy
Coqcigrues! ”
But even as he spoke there ran up suddenly a whole legion, or rather
army, of physicians, each armed with laryngoscopes, stethoscopes,
horoscopes, microscopes, weighing machines, and such other tools,
engines, and arms as they had who, after thy time, persecuted Monsieur de
Pourceaugnac! And they all, rushing on Brother John, cried out to him,
“Abstain! Abstain! ” And one said, “I have well diagnosed thee, and thou
art in a fair way to have the gout. ” “I never did better in my days,”
said Brother John. “Away with thy meats and drinks! ” they cried. And
one said, “He must to Royat;” and another, “Hence with him to Aix;” and a
third, “Banish him to Wiesbaden;” and a fourth, “Hale him to Gastein;”
and yet another, “To Barbouille with him in chains! ”
And while others felt his pulse and looked at his tongue, they all wrote
prescriptions for him like men mad. “For thy eating,” cried he that
seemed to be their leader, “No soup! ” “No soup! ” quoth Brother John; and
those cheeks of his, whereat you might have warmed your two hands in the
winter solstice, grew white as lilies. “Nay! and no salmon, nor any beef
nor mutton! A little chicken by times, _pericolo tuo_! Nor any game,
such as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercailzie, wild duck; nor any
cheese, nor fruit, nor pastry, nor coffee, nor _eau de vie_; and avoid
all sweets. No veal, pork, nor made dishes of any kind. ” “Then what may
I eat? ” quoth the good Brother, whose valour had oozed out of the soles
of his sandals. “A little cold bacon at breakfast—no eggs,” quoth the
leader of the strange folk, “and a slice of toast without butter. ” “And
for thy drink”—(“What? ” gasped Brother John)—“one dessert-spoonful of
whisky, with a pint of the water of Apollinaris at luncheon and dinner.
No more! ” At this Brother John fainted, falling like a great buttress of
a hill, such as Taygetus or Erymanthus.
While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great
platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and
women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which
meaneth “Salvation;” and others wore white crosses, with a little black
button of crape, to signify “Purity;” and others bits of blue to mean
“Abstinence. ” While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset
Pantagruel; asking him very long questions, whereunto he gave but short
answers. Thus they asked:—
Have ye Local Option here? —Pan. : What?
May one man drink if his neighbour be not athirst? —Pan. : Yea!
Have ye Free Education? —Pan. : What?
Must they that have, pay to school them that have not? —Pan. : Nay!
Have ye free land? —Pan. : What?
Have ye taken the land from the farmer, and given it to the tailor out of
work and the candlemaker masterless? —Pan. : Nay!
Have your women folk votes? —Pan. : Bosh!
Have ye got religion? —Pan. : How?
Do you go about the streets at night, brawling, blowing a trumpet before
you, and making long prayers? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you manhood suffrage? —Pan. : Eh?
Is Jack as good as his master? —Pan. : Nay!
Have you joined the Arbitration Society? —Pan. : _Quoy_?
Will you let another kick you, and will you ask his neighbour if you
deserve the same? —Pan. : Nay!
Do you eat what you list? —Pan. : Ay!
Do you drink when you are athirst? —Pan. : Ay!
Are you governed by the free expression of the popular will? —Pan. : How?
Are you servants of priests, pulpits, and penny papers? —Pan. : NO!
Now, when they heard these answers of Pantagruel they all fell, some a
weeping, some a praying, some a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a
lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith-healing,
some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily
press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, “reforming
the island,” Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly
dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may
not endure it.
Then Pantagruel and his company stole aboard a barque that Panurge had
ready in the harbour. And having provisioned her well with store of meat
and good drink, they set sail for the kingdom of Entelechy, where, having
landed, they were kindly entreated; and there abide to this day; drinking
of the sweet and eating of the fat, under the protection of that
intellectual sphere which hath in all places its centre and nowhere its
circumference.
Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the
Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of
laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb
Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Françoys, thou art not well liked in
this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce,
cruel, and tyrannical. Yet thou hast thy friends, that meet and drink to
thee, and wish thee well wheresoever thou hast found thy _grand
peut-être_.
VIII.
_To Jane Austen_.
MADAM,—If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of
the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the
thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete. Moreover, it
is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature
will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that delicious
topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled
“literary shop. ” For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some
inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam,
raised to its highest pitch of perfection.
As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is
wholly cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone
in her freedom from a lettered vanity. You are not a very popular
author: your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall;
or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of
our generation. ’Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation
of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of
your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did
not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too
unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disappointed by the
absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more
convinced of your wisdom. In your letters (knowing your correspondents)
you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them sufficient;
for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imperishable.
Your admirers, if not very numerous, include all persons of taste, who,
in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the
habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation.
’Tis the fault of all art to seem antiquated and faded in the eyes of the
succeeding generation. The manners of your age were not the manners of
to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott “slow,” think Miss
Austen “prim” and “dreary. ” Yet, even could you return among us, I
scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might,
and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration. For how
tame, madam, are your characters, especially your favourite heroines! how
limited the life which you knew and described! how narrow the range of
your incidents! how correct your grammar!
As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and
Catherine: women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the
degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the
parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with
vain yearnings and interesting doubts. Who can engage his fancy with
their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many
daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard?
Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped with golden
fleurs-de-lys—ladies with hearts of ice and lips of fire, who count their
roubles by the million, their lovers by the score, and even their
husbands, very often, in figures of some arithmetical importance. With
these are the immaculate daughters of itinerant Italian musicians—maids
whose souls are unsoiled amidst the contaminations of our streets, and
whose acquaintance with the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Dædalus and
Scopas, is the more admirable, because entirely derived from loving study
of the inexpensive collections vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round
the corner. When such heroines are wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where
are your Emmas and Elizabeths? Your volumes neither excite nor satisfy
the curiosities provoked by that modern and scientific fiction, which is
greatly admired, I learn, in the United States, as well as in France and
at home.
You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and
Kitty so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost
insignificant characters? With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone
far; and, had you devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to
the passions of Kitty, you might have held your own, even now, in the
circulating library. How Lyddy, perched on a corner of the roof, first
beheld her Wickham; how, on her challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to
her side; how they kissed, caressed, swung on gates together, met at odd
seasons, in strange places, and finally eloped: all this might have been
put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister, say Elizabeth, and you would
not have been less popular than several favourites of our time. Had you
cast the whole narrative into the present tense, and lingered lovingly
over the thickness of Mary’s legs and the softness of Kitty’s cheeks, and
the blonde fluffiness of Wickham’s whiskers, you would have left a
romance still dear to young ladies.
Or, again, you might entrance fair students still, had you concentrated
your attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henry Crawford. These
should have been the chief figures of “Mansfield Park. ” But you timidly
decline to tackle Passion. “Let other pens,” you write, “dwell on guilt
and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. ” Ah, _there_
is the secret of your failure! Need I add that the vulgarity and
narrowness of the social circles you describe impair your popularity? I
scarce remember more than one lady of title, and but very few lords (and
these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in
society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we
get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a
country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have
heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of
the notice which your characters give each other when they offer
invitations to dinner. “An invitation to dinner next day was
despatched,” and this demonstrates that your acquaintance “went out” very
little, and had but few engagements. How vulgar, too, is one of your
heroines, who bids Mr. Darcy “keep his breath to cool his porridge.
” I
blush for Elizabeth! It were superfluous to add that your characters are
debased by being invariably mere members of the Church of England as by
law established. The Dissenting enthusiast, the open soul that glides
from Esoteric Buddhism to the Salvation Army, and from the Higher
Pantheism to the Higher Paganism, we look for in vain among your studies
of character. Nay, the very words I employ are of unknown sound to you;
so how can you help us in the stress of the soul’s travailings?
You may say that the soul’s travailings are no affair of yours; proving
thereby that you have indeed but a lowly conception of the duty of the
novelist. I only remember one reference, in all your works, to that
controversy which occupies the chief of our attention—the great
controversy on Creation or Evolution. Your Jane Bennet cries: “I have no
idea of there being so much Design in the world as some persons imagine. ”
Nor do you touch on our mighty social question, the Land Laws, save when
Mrs. Bennet appears as a Land Reformer, and rails bitterly against the
cruelty “of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in
favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. ” There, madam, in that
cruelly unjust performance, what a text you had for a _tendenz-romanz_.
Nay, you can allow Kitty to report that a Private had been flogged,
without introducing a chapter on Flogging in the Army. But you formally
declined to stretch your matter out, here and there, “with solemn
specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story. ” No
“padding” for Miss Austen! in fact, madam, as you were born before
Analysis came in, or Passion, or Realism, or Naturalism, or Irreverence,
or Religious Open-mindedness, you really cannot hope to rival your
literary sisters in the minds of a perplexed generation. Your heroines
are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses
dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Mænads. What says your best
successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals
yours? She says of Miss Austen: “Her heroines have a stamp of their own.
_They have a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of
heart_ . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an
interest, deep and silent. ” I think one prefers them so, and that
Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver. “All
the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest when
existence or when hope is gone,” said Anne; perhaps she insisted on a
monopoly that neither sex has all to itself. Ah, madam, what a relief it
is to come back to your witty volumes, and forget the follies of to-day
in those of Mr. Collins and of Mrs. Bennet! How fine, nay, how noble is
your art in its delicate reserve, never insisting, never forcing the
note, never pushing the sketch into the caricature! You worked, without
thinking of it, in the spirit of Greece, on a labour happily limited, and
exquisitely organised. “Dear books,” we say, with Miss Thackeray—“dear
books, bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely
heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting. ”
IX.
_To Master Isaak Walton_.
FATHER ISAAK,—When I would be quiet and go angling it is my custom to
carry in my wallet thy pretty book, “The Compleat Angler. ” Here,
methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content, and good company, and
sweet songs, fair milkmaids, and country mirth. For you are to know that
trout be now scarce and whereas he was ever a fearful fish, he hath of
late become so wary that none but the cunningest anglers may be even with
him.
It is not as it was in your time, Father, when a man might leave his shop
in Fleet Street, of a holiday, and, when he had stretched his legs up
Tottenham Hill, come lightly to meadows chequered with waterlilies and
lady-smocks, and so fall to his sport. Nay, now have the houses so much
increased, like a spreading sore (through the breaking of that excellent
law of the Conscientious King and blessed Martyr, whereby building beyond
the walls was forbidden), that the meadows are all swallowed up in
streets. And as to the River Lea, wherein you took many a good trout, I
read in the news sheets that “its bed is many inches thick in horrible
filth, and the air for more than half a mile on each side of it is
polluted with a horrible, sickening stench,” so that we stand in dread of
a new Plague, called the Cholera. And so it is all about London for many
miles, and if a man, at heavy charges, betake himself to the fields, lo
you, folk are grown so greedy that none will suffer a stranger to fish in
his water.
So poor anglers are in sore straits. Unless a man be rich and can pay
great rents, he may not fish in England, and hence spring the discontents
of the times, for the angler is full of content, if he do but take trout,
but if he be driven from the waterside, he falls, perchance, into evil
company, and cries out to divide the property of the gentle folk. As
many now do, even among Parliament-men, whom you loved not, Father Isaak,
neither do I love them more than Reason and Scripture bid each of us be
kindly to his neighbour. But, behold, the causes of the ill content are
not yet all expressed, for even where a man hath licence to fish, he will
hardly take trout in our age, unless he be all the more cunning. For the
fish, harried this way and that by so many of your disciples, is
exceeding shy and artful, nor will he bite at a fly unless it falleth
lightly, just above his mouth, and floateth dry over him, for all the
world like the natural _ephemeris_. And we may no longer angle with worm
for him, nor with penk or minnow, nor with the natural fly, as was your
manner, but only with the artificial, for the more difficulty the more
diversion. For my part I may cry, like Viator in your book, “Master, I
can neither catch with the first nor second Angle: I have no fortune. ”
So we fare in England, but somewhat better north of the Tweed, where
trout are less wary, but for the most part small, except in the extreme
rough north, among horrid hills and lakes. Thither, Master, as methinks
you may remember, went Richard Franck, that called himself
_Philanthropus_, and was, as it were, the Columbus of anglers,
discovering for them a new Hyperborean world. But Franck, doubtless, is
now an angler in the Lake of Darkness, with Nero and other tyrants, for
he followed after Cromwell, the man of blood, in the old riding days.
How wickedly doth Franck boast of that leader of the giddy multitude,
“when they raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves
and others, and the rabble would herd themselves together,” as you said,
“and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority. ” So you wrote;
and what said Franck, that recreant angler? Doth he not praise “Ireton,
Vane, Nevill, and Martin, and the most renowned, valorous, and victorious
conqueror, Oliver Cromwell”? Natheless, with all his sins on his head,
this Franck discovered Scotland for anglers, and my heart turns to him
when he praises “the glittering and resolute streams of Tweed. ”
In those wilds of Assynt and Loch Rannoch, Father, we, thy followers, may
yet take trout, and forget the evils of the times. But, to be done with
Franck, how harshly he speaks of thee and thy book. “For you may
dedicate your opinion to what scribbling putationer you please; the
_Compleat Angler_ if you will, who tells you of a tedious fly story,
extravagantly collected from antiquated authors, such as Gesner and
Dubravius. ” Again he speaks of “Isaac Walton, whose authority to me
seems alike authentick, as is the general opinion of the vulgar prophet,”
&c.
Certain I am that Franck, if a better angler than thou, was a worse man,
who, writing his “Dialogues Piscatorial” or “Northern Memoirs” five years
after the world welcomed thy “Compleat Angler,” was jealous of thy favour
with the people, and, may be, hated thee for thy loyalty and sound faith.
But, Master, like a peaceful man avoiding contention, thou didst never
answer this blustering Franck, but wentest quietly about thy quiet Lea,
and left him his roaring Brora and windy Assynt. How could this noisy
man know thee—and know thee he did, having argued with thee in
Stafford—and not love Isaak Walton? A pedant angler, I call him, a
plaguy angler, so let him huff away, and turn we to thee and to thy sweet
charm in fishing for men.
How often, studying in thy book, have I hummed to myself that of Horace—
_Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula quæ te_
_Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello_.
So healing a book for the frenzy of fame is thy discourse on meadows, and
pure streams, and the country life. How peaceful, men say, and blessed
must have been the life of this old man, how lapped in content, and
hedged about by his own humility from the world! They forget, who speak
thus, that thy years, which were many, were also evil, or would have
seemed evil to divers that had tasted of thy fortunes. Thou wert poor,
but that, to thee, was no sorrow, for greed of money was thy detestation.
Thou wert of lowly rank, in an age when gentle blood was alone held in
regard; yet thy virtues made thee hosts of friends, and chiefly among
religious men, bishops, and doctors of the Church. Thy private life was
not unacquainted with sorrow; thy first wife and all her fair children
were taken from thee like flowers in spring, though, in thine age, new
love and new offspring comforted thee like “the primrose of the later
year. ” Thy private griefs might have made thee bitter, or melancholy, so
might the sorrows of the State and of the Church, which were deprived of
their heads by cruel men, despoiled of their wealth, the pious driven,
like thee, from their homes; fear everywhere, everywhere robbery and
confusion: all this ruin might have angered another temper. But thou,
Father, didst bear all with so much sweetness as perhaps neither natural
temperament, nor a firm faith, nor the love of angling could alone have
displayed. For we see many anglers (as witness Richard Franck aforesaid)
who are angry men, and myself, when I get my hooks entangled at every
cast in a tree, have come nigh to swear prophane.
Also we see religious men that are sour and fanatical, no rare thing in
the party that professes godliness. But neither private sorrow nor
public grief could abate thy natural kindliness, nor shake a religion
which was not untried, but had, indeed, passed through the furnace like
fine gold. For if we find not Faith at all times easy, because of the
oppositions of Science, and the searching curiosity of men’s minds,
neither was Faith a matter of course in thy day. For the learned and
pious were greatly tossed about, like worthy Mr. Chillingworth, by doubts
wavering between the Church of Rome and the Reformed Church of England.
The humbler folk, also, were invited, now here, now there, by the
clamours of fanatical Nonconformists, who gave themselves out to be
somebody, while Atheism itself was not without many to witness to it.
Therefore, such a religion as thine was not, so to say, a mere innocence
of evil in the things of our Belief, but a reasonable and grounded faith,
strong in despite of oppositions. Happy was the man in whom temper, and
religion, and the love of the sweet country and an angler’s pastime so
conveniently combined; happy the long life which held in its hand that
threefold clue through the labyrinth of human fortunes! Around thee
Church and State might fall in ruins, and might be rebuilded, and thy
tears would not be bitter, nor thy triumph cruel.
Thus, by God’s blessing, it befell thee
_Nec turpem senectam_
_Degere, nec cithara carentem_.
I would, Father, that I could get at the verity about thy poems. Those
recommendatory verses with which thou didst grace the Lives of Dr. Donne
and others of thy friends, redound more to the praise of thy kind heart
than thy fancy. But what or whose was the pastoral poem of “Thealma and
Clearchus,” which thou didst set about printing in 1678, and gavest to
the world in 1683? Thou gavest John Chalkhill for the author’s name, and
a John Chalkhill of thy kindred died at Winchester, being eighty years of
his age, in 1679. Now thou speakest of John Chalkhill as “a friend of
Edmund Spenser’s,” and how could this be?
Are they right who hold that John Chalkhill was but a name of a friend,
borrowed by thee out of modesty, and used as a cloak to cover poetry of
thine own inditing? When Mr. Flatman writes of Chalkhill, ’tis in words
well fitted to thine own merit:
Happy old man, whose worth all mankind knows
Except himself, who charitably shows
The ready road to virtue and to praise,
The road to many long and happy days.
However it be, in that road, by quiet streams and through green pastures,
thou didst walk all thine almost century of years, and we, who stray into
thy path out of the highway of life, we seem to hold thy hand, and listen
to thy cheerful voice. If our sport be worse, may our content be equal,
and our praise, therefore, none the less. Father, if Master Stoddard,
the great fisher of Tweedside, be with thee, greet him for me, and thank
him for those songs of his, and perchance he will troll thee a catch of
our dear River.
Tweed! winding and wild! where the heart is unbound,
They know not, they dream not, who linger around,
How the saddened will smile, and the wasted rewin
From thee—the bliss withered within.
Or perhaps thou wilt better love,
The lanesome Tala and the Lyne,
And Manor wi’ its mountain rills,
An’ Etterick, whose waters twine
Wi’ Yarrow frae the forest hills;
An’ Gala, too, and Teviot bright,
An’ mony a stream o’ playfu’ speed,
Their kindred valleys a’ unite
Amang the braes o’ bonnie Tweed!
So, Master, may you sing against each other, you two good old anglers,
like Peter and Corydon, that sang in your golden age.
X.
_To M. Chapelain_.
MONSIEUR,—You were a popular poet, and an honourable, over-educated,
upright gentleman. Of the latter character you can never be deprived,
and I doubt not it stands you in better stead where you are, than the
laurels which flourished so gaily, and faded so soon.
Laurel is green for a season, and Love is fair for a day,
But Love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
I know not if Mr. Swinburne is correct in his botany, but _your_ laurel
certainly outlived not May, nor can we hope that you dwell where Orpheus
and where Homer are. Some other crown, some other Paradise, we cannot
doubt it, awaited _un si bon homme_. But the moral excellence that even
Boileau admitted, _la foi, l’honneur, la probité_, do not in Parnassus
avail the popular poet, and some luckless Glatigny or Théophile, Regnier
or Gilbert, attains a kind of immortality denied to the man of many
contemporary editions, and of a great commercial success.
If ever, for the confusion of Horace, any Poet was Made, you, Sir, should
have been that fortunately manufactured article. You were, in matters of
the Muses, the child of many prayers. Never, since Adam’s day, have any
parents but yours prayed for a poet-child. Then Destiny, that mocks the
desires of men in general, and fathers in particular, heard the appeal,
and presented M. Chapelain and Jeanne Corbière his wife with the future
author of “La Pucelle. ” Oh futile hopes of men, _O pectora cæca_! All
was done that education could do for a genius which, among other
qualities, “especially lacked fire and imagination,” and an ear for
verse—sad defects these in a child of the Muses. Your training in all
the mechanics and metaphysics of criticism might have made you exclaim,
like Rasselas, “Enough! Thou hast convinced me that no human being can
ever be a Poet. ” Unhappily, you succeeded in convincing Cardinal
Richelieu that to be a Poet was well within your powers, you received a
pension of one thousand crowns, and were made Captain of the Cardinal’s
Minstrels, as M. de Tréville was Captain of the King’s Musketeers.
Ah, pleasant age to live in, when good intentions in poetry were more
richly endowed than ever is Research, even Research in Prehistoric
English, among us niggard moderns! How I wish I knew a Cardinal, or
even, as you did, a Prime Minister, who would praise and pension _me_;
but envy be still! Your existence was made happy indeed; you constructed
odes, corrected sonnets, presided at the Hôtel Rambouillet, while the
learned ladies were still young and fair, and you enjoyed a prodigious
celebrity on the score of your yet unpublished Epic. “Who, indeed,” says
a sympathetic author, M. Théophile Gautier, “who could expect less than a
miracle from a man so deeply learned in the laws of art—a perfect Turk in
the science of poetry, a person so well pensioned, and so favoured by the
great? ” Bishops and politicians combined in perfect good faith to
advertise your merits. Hard must have been the heart that could resist
the testimonials of your skill as a poet offered by the Duc de
Montausier, and the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and Monseigneur
Godeau, Bishop of Vence, and M. Colbert, who had such a genius for
finance.
If bishops and politicians and Prime Ministers skilled in finance, and
some critics (Ménage and Sarrazin and Vaugelas), if ladies of birth and
taste, if all the world in fact, combined to tell you that you were a
great poet, how can we blame you for taking yourself seriously, and
appraising yourself at the public estimate?
It was not in human nature to resist the evidence of the bishops
especially, and when every minor poet believes in himself on the
testimony of his own conceit, you may be acquitted of vanity if you
listened to the plaudits of your friends. Nay, you ventured to pronounce
judgment on contemporaries—whom Posterity has preferred to your
perfections. “Molière,” said you, “understands the genius of comedy, and
presents it in a natural style. The plot of his best pieces is borrowed,
but not without judgment; his _morale_ is fair, and he has only to avoid
scurrility. ”
Excellent, unconscious, popular Chapelain!
Of yourself you observed, in a Report on contemporary literature, that
your “courage and sincerity never allowed you to tolerate work not
absolutely good. ” And yet you regarded “La Pucelle” with some
complacency.
On the “Pucelle” you were occupied during a generation of mortal men. I
marvel not at the length of your labours, as you received a yearly
pension till the Epic was finished, but your Muse was no Alcmena, and no
Hercules was the result of that prolonged night of creation. First you
gravely wrote out all the composition in prose: the task occupied you for
five whole years. Ah, why did you not leave it in that commonplace but
appropriate medium? What says the Précieuse about you in Boileau’s
satire?
In Chapelain, for all his foes have said,
She finds but one defect, he can’t be read;
Yet thinks the world might taste his Maiden’s woes,
If only he would turn his verse to prose!
The verse had been prose, and prose, perhaps, it should have remained.
Yet for this precious “Pucelle,” in the age when “Paradise Lost” was sold
for five pounds, you are believed to have received about four thousand.
Horace was wrong, mediocre poets may exist (now and then), and he was a
wise man who first spoke of _aurea mediocritas_. At length the great
work was achieved, a work thrice blessed in its theme, that divine Maiden
to whom France owes all, and whom you and Voltaire have recompensed so
strangely. In folio, in italics, with a score of portraits and
engravings, and _culs de lampe_, the great work was given to the world,
and had a success. Six editions in eighteen months are figures which
fill the poetic heart with envy and admiration. And then, alas! the
bubble burst. A great lady, Madame de Longueville, hearing the “Pucelle”
read aloud, murmured that it was “perfect indeed, but perfectly
wearisome. ” Then the satires began, and the satirists never left you
till your poetic reputation was a rag, till the mildest Abbé at Ménage’s
had his cheap sneer for Chapelain.
I make no doubt, Sir, that envy and jealousy had much to do with the
onslaught on your “Pucelle. ” These qualities, alas! are not strange to
literary minds; does not even Hesiod tell us that “potter hates potter,
and poet hates poet”? But contemporary spites do not harm true genius.
Who suffered more than Molière from cabals? Yet neither the court nor
the town ever deserted him, and he is still the joy of the world. I
admit that his adversaries were weaker than yours. What were Boursault
and Le Boulanger, and Thomas Corneille and De Visé, what were they all
compared to your enemy, Boileau? Brossette tells a story which really
makes a man pity you. You remember M. de Puimorin, who, to be in the
fashion, laughed at your once popular Epic. “It is all very well,” said
you, “for a man to laugh who cannot even read. ” Whereon M. de Puimorin
replied: “Qu’il n’avoit que trop sû lire, depuis que Chapelain s’étoit
avisé de faire imprimer. ” A new horror had been added to the
accomplishment of reading since Chapelain had published. This repartee
was applauded, and M. de Puimorin tried to turn it into an epigram. He
did complete the last couplet,
Hélas! pour mes péchés, je n’ai sû que trop lire
Depuis que tu fais imprimer.
But by no labour would M. de Puimorin achieve the first two lines of his
epigram. Then you remember what great allies came to his assistance. I
almost blush to think that M. Despréaux, M. Racine, and M. de Molière,
the three most renowned wits of the time, conspired to complete the poor
jest, and assail you. Well, bubble as your poetry was, you may be proud
that it needed all these sharpest of pens to prick the bubble. Other
poets, as popular as you, have been annihilated by an article. Macaulay
put forth his hand, and “Satan Montgomery” was no more. It did not need
a Macaulay, the laughter of a mob of little critics was enough to blow
him into space; but you probably have met Montgomery, and of contemporary
failures or successes I do not speak.
I wonder, sometimes, whether the consensus of criticism ever made you
doubt for a moment whether, after all, you were not a false child of
Apollo? Was your complacency tortured, as the complacency of true poets
has occasionally been, by doubts? Did you expect posterity to reverse
the verdict of the satirists, and to do you justice? You answered your
earliest assailant, Linière, and, by a few changes of words, turned his
epigrams into flattery. But I fancy, on the whole, you remained calm,
unmoved, wrapped up in admiration of yourself. According to M. de
Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead,
you “conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious
veneration for yourself and your genius. ” Probably you were protected by
the invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that
mere jealousy dictated the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain’s real
fault was his popularity, and his pecuniary success,
Qu’il soit le mieux renté de tous les beaux-esprits.
This, you would avow, was your offence, and perhaps you were not
altogether mistaken. Yet posterity declines to read a line of yours,
and, as we think of you, we are again set face to face with that eternal
problem, how far is popularity a test of poetry? Burns was a poet: and
popular. Byron was a popular poet, and the world agrees in the verdict
of their own generations. But Montgomery, though he sold so well, was no
poet, nor, Sir, I fear, was your verse made of the stuff of immortality.
Criticism cannot hurt what is truly great; the Cardinal and the Academy
left Chimène as fair as ever, and as adorable. It is only pinchbeck that
perishes under the acids of satire: gold defies them. Yet I sometimes
ask myself, does the existence of popularity like yours justify the
malignity of satire, which blesses neither him who gives, nor him who
takes? Are poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet? I doubt it, Sir,
holding that, even unpricked, a poetic bubble must soon burst by its own
nature. Yet satire will assuredly be written so long as bad poets are
successful, and bad poets will assuredly reflect that their assailants
are merely envious, and (while their vogue lasts) that the purchasing
public is the only judge. After all, the bad poet who is popular and
“sells” is not a whit worse than the bad poets who are unpopular, and who
deride his songs.
