No More Learning

The
stanza becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunate
author are alternately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle.
The abrupt and yet consecutive style of Dante suffers more than that
of any other poet by a version diffuse in style, and divided into
paragraphs, for they deserve no other name, of equal length.

Nothing can be said in favour of Hayley's attempt, but that it is better
than Boyd's. His mind was a tolerable specimen of filigree work,--rather
elegant, and very feeble. All that can be said for his best works is
that they are neat. All that can be said against his worst is that they
are stupid. He might have translated Metastasio tolerably. But he was
utterly unable to do justice to the

"rime e aspre e chiocce,
"Come si converrebbe al tristo buco. "
(Inferno, canto xxxii. )

I turn with pleasure from these wretched performances to Mr Cary's
translation. It is a work which well deserves a separate discussion, and
on which, if this article were not already too long, I could dwell
with great pleasure. At present I will only say that there is no other
version in the world, as far as I know, so faithful, yet that there is
no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a
man of poetical genius. Those who are ignorant of the Italian language
should read it to become acquainted with the Divine Comedy. Those
who are most intimate with Italian literature should read it for its
original merits: and I believe that they will find it difficult to
determine whether the author deserves most praise for his intimacy with
the language of Dante, or for his extraordinary mastery over his own.

*****


CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL ITALIAN WRITERS.




No. II. PETRARCH. (April 1824. )

Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte,
Sic positae quoniam suaves miscetis odores. Virgil.

It would not be easy to name a writer whose celebrity, when both its
extent and its duration are taken into the account, can be considered as
equal to that of Petrarch. Four centuries and a half have elapsed since
his death. Yet still the inhabitants of every nation throughout the
western world are as familiar with his character and his adventures as
with the most illustrious names, and the most recent anecdotes, of their
own literary history. This is indeed a rare distinction. His detractors
must acknowledge that it could not have been acquired by a poet
destitute of merit. His admirers will scarcely maintain that the
unassisted merit of Petrarch could have raised him to that eminence
which has not yet been attained by Shakspeare, Milton, or Dante,--that
eminence, of which perhaps no modern writer, excepting himself and
Cervantes, has long retained possession,--an European reputation.

It is not difficult to discover some of the causes to which this great
man has owed a celebrity, which I cannot but think disproportioned to
his real claims on the admiration of mankind. In the first place, he
is an egotist. Egotism in conversation is universally abhorred. Lovers,
and, I believe, lovers alone, pardon it in each other. No services,
no talents, no powers of pleasing, render it endurable. Gratitude,
admiration, interest, fear, scarcely prevent those who are condemned to
listen to it from indicating their disgust and fatigue. The childless
uncle, the powerful patron can scarcely extort this compliance. We leave
the inside of the mail in a storm, and mount the box, rather than
hear the history of our companion. The chaplain bites his lips in the
presence of the archbishop. The midshipman yawns at the table of
the First Lord. Yet, from whatever cause, this practice, the pest of
conversation, gives to writing a zest which nothing else can impart.
Rousseau made the boldest experiment of this kind; and it fully
succeeded. In our own time Lord Byron, by a series of attempts of the
same nature, made himself the object of general interest and admiration.
Wordsworth wrote with egotism more intense, but less obvious; and he has
been rewarded with a sect of worshippers, comparatively small in number,
but far more enthusiastic in their devotion. It is needless to multiply
instances. Even now all the walks of literature are infested with
mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting
all the distortions of their intellects, and stripping the covering from
all the putrid sores of their feelings. Nor are there wanting many who
push their imitation of the beggars whom they resemble a step further,
and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by
simulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than by
such honest labour as their health and strength enable them to perform.
In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance which
requires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful
when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works which
possess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know something of
the character and situation of those whose writings we have perused
with pleasure. The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own
circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest,
than any other lines in his poems. It is amusing to observe with what
labour critics have attempted to glean from the poems of Homer, some
hints as to his situation and feelings. According to one hypothesis,
he intended to describe himself under the name of Demodocus. Others
maintain that he was the identical Phemius whose life Ulysses spared.
This propensity of the human mind explains, I think, in a great degree,
the extensive popularity of a poet whose works are little else than the
expression of his personal feelings.

In the second place, Petrarch was not only an egotist, but an amatory
egotist. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, which he described,
were derived from the passion which of all passions exerts the widest
influence, and which of all passions borrows most from the imagination.
He had also another immense advantage. He was the first eminent amatory
poet who appeared after the great convulsion which had changed, not only
the political, but the moral, state of the world. The Greeks, who, in
their public institutions and their literary tastes, were diametrically
opposed to the oriental nations, bore a considerable resemblance to
those nations in their domestic habits. Like them, they despised the
intellects and immured the persons of their women; and it was among the
least of the frightful evils to which this pernicious system gave
birth, that all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fascinations of
manner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will generally be necessary
to attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by the
Phrynes and the Lamais. The indispensable ingredients of honourable and
chivalrous love were nowhere to be found united. The matrons and their
daughters confined in the harem,--insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all
but the mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married,--could
rarely excite interest; afterwards their brilliant rivals, half Graces,
half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, could
never inspire respect.

The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and
the Latin literature partook of the superiority. The Roman poets have
decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of
love. There is no subject which they have treated with so much success.
Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Horace, and Propertius, in spite of all their
faults, must be allowed to rank high in this department of the art. To
these I would add my favourite Plautus; who, though he took his plots
from Greece, found, I suspect, the originals of his enchanting female
characters at Rome.

Still many evils remained: and, in the decline of the great empire, all
that was pernicious in its domestic institutions appeared more strongly.
Under the influence of governments at once dependent and tyrannical,
which purchased, by cringing to their enemies, the power of trampling on
their subjects, the Romans sunk into the lowest state of effeminacy
and debasement. Falsehood, cowardice, sloth, conscious and unrepining
degradation, formed the national character. Such a character is totally
incompatible with the stronger passions. Love, in particular, which, in
the modern sense of the word, implies protection and devotion on the one
side, confidence on the other, respect and fidelity on both, could not
exist among the sluggish and heartless slaves who cringed around the
thrones of Honorius and Augustulus. At this period the great renovation
commenced. The warriors of the north, destitute as they were of
knowledge and humanity, brought with them, from their forests and
marshes, those qualities without which humanity is a weakness and
knowledge a curse,--energy--independence--the dread of shame--the
contempt of danger. It would be most interesting to examine the manner
in which the admixture of the savage conquerors and the effeminate
slaves, after many generations of darkness and agitation, produced the
modern European character;--to trace back, from the first conflict to
the final amalgamation, the operation of that mysterious alchemy which,
from hostile and worthless elements, has extracted the pure gold of
human nature--to analyse the mass, and to determine the proportion in
which the ingredients are mingled. But I will confine myself to the
subject to which I have more particularly referred. The nature of the
passion of love had undergone a complete change. It still retained,
indeed, the fanciful and voluptuous character which it had possessed
among the southern nations of antiquity. But it was tinged with the
superstitious veneration with which the northern warriors had been
accustomed to regard women. Devotion and war had imparted to it their
most solemn and animating feelings. It was sanctified by the blessings
of the Church, and decorated with the wreaths of the tournament. Venus,
as in the ancient fable, was again rising above the dark and tempestuous
waves which had so long covered her beauty. But she rose not now, as of
old, in exposed and luxurious loveliness. She still wore the cestus of
her ancient witchcraft; but the diadem of Juno was on her brow, and
the aegis of Pallas in her hand. Love might, in fact, be called a new
passion; and it is not astonishing that the first poet of eminence
who wholly devoted his genius to this theme should have excited an
extraordinary sensation. He may be compared to an adventurer who
accidentally lands in a rich and unknown island; and who, though he may
only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the shore, acquires possession of
its treasures, and gives it his name. The claim of Petrarch was indeed
somewhat like that of Amerigo Vespucci to the continent which should
have derived its appellation from Columbus. The Provencal poets were
unquestionably the masters of the Florentine. But they wrote in an age
which could not appreciate their merits; and their imitator lived at the
very period when composition in the vernacular language began to attract
general attention. Petrarch was in literature what a Valentine is
in love. The public preferred him, not because his merits were of a
transcendent order, but because he was the first person whom they saw
after they awoke from their long sleep.

Nor did Petrarch gain less by comparison with his immediate successors
than with those who had preceded him. Till more than a century after his
death Italy produced no poet who could be compared to him. This decay of
genius is doubtless to be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence
which his own works had exercised upon the literature of his country.
Yet it has conduced much to his fame. Nothing is more favourable to
the reputation of a writer than to be succeeded by a race inferior
to himself; and it is an advantage, from obvious causes, much more
frequently enjoyed by those who corrupt the national taste than by those
who improve it.

Another cause has co-operated with those which I have mentioned to
spread the renown of Petrarch. I mean the interest which is inspired by
the events of his life--an interest which must have been strongly felt
by his contemporaries, since, after an interval of five hundred years,
no critic can be wholly exempt from its influence. Among the great men
to whom we owe the resuscitation of science he deserves the foremost
place; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes
his most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity. He was
the votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He worshipped
it with an almost fanatical devotion. He was the missionary, who
proclaimed its discoveries to distant countries--the pilgrim, who
travelled far and wide to collect its reliques--the hermit, who retired
to seclusion to meditate on its beauties--the champion, who fought its
battles--the conqueror, who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led
barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the Capitol the
laurel which his magnificent victory had earned.

Nothing can be conceived more noble or affecting than that ceremony. The
superb palaces and porticoes, by which had rolled the ivory chariots
of Marius and Caesar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled
fasces--the golden eagles--the shouting legions--the captives and the
pictured cities--were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. The
sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier
influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder
reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the
dominion of her ancient language--who had erected the trophies
of philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance and
ferocity--whose captives were the hearts of admiring nations enchained
by the influence of his song--whose spoils were the treasures of ancient
genius rescued from obscurity and decay--the Eternal City offered the
just and glorious tribute of her gratitude. Amidst the ruined monuments
of ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored
the broken link between the two ages of human civilisation was crowned
with the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to him
their refinement--from the ancients who owed to him their fame. Never
was a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or by Rheims.

When we turn from this glorious spectacle to the private chamber of the
poet,--when we contemplate the struggle of passion and virtue,--the
eye dimmed, the cheek furrowed, by the tears of sinful and hopeless
desire,--when we reflect on the whole history of his attachment, from
the gay fantasy of his youth to the lingering despair of his age, pity
and affection mingle with our admiration. Even after death had placed
the last seal on his misery, we see him devoting to the cause of the
human mind all the strength and energy which love and sorrow had spared.
He lived the apostle of literature;--he fell its martyr:--he was found
dead with his head reclined on a book.

Those who have studied the life and writings of Petrarch with attention,
will perhaps be inclined to make some deductions from this panegyric.
It cannot be denied that his merits were disfigured by a most unpleasant
affectation. His zeal for literature communicated a tinge of pedantry
to all his feelings and opinions. His love was the love of a
sonnetteer:--his patriotism was the patriotism of an antiquarian. The
interest with which we contemplate the works, and study the history, of
those who, in former ages, have occupied our country, arises from
the associations which connect them with the community in which are
comprised all the objects of our affection and our hope. In the mind
of Petrarch these feelings were reversed. He loved Italy, because it
abounded with the monuments of the ancient masters of the world. His
native city--the fair and glorious Florence--the modern Athens, then in
all the bloom and strength of its youth, could not obtain, from the most
distinguished of its citizens, any portion of that passionate homage
which he paid to the decrepitude of Rome. These and many other
blemishes, though they must in candour be acknowledged, can but in a
very slight degree diminish the glory of his career. For my own part, I
look upon it with so much fondness and pleasure that I feel reluctant
to turn from it to the consideration of his works, which I by no means
contemplate with equal admiration.

Nevertheless, I think highly of the poetical powers of Petrarch. He did
not possess, indeed, the art of strongly presenting sensible objects to
the imagination;--and this is the more remarkable, because the talent of
which I speak is that which peculiarly distinguishes the Italian poets.
In the Divine Comedy it is displayed in its highest perfection. It
characterises almost every celebrated poem in the language. Perhaps this
is to be attributed to the circumstance, that painting and sculpture
had attained a high degree of excellence in Italy before poetry had been
extensively cultivated. Men were debarred from books, but accustomed
from childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in
the thirteenth century, Italy began to produce. Hence their imaginations
received so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste for
graphic delineation is discernible. The progress of things in England
has been in all respects different. The consequence is, that English
historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are
pictures painted to the mind by means of words. Of this national
characteristic the writings of Petrarch are almost totally destitute.
His sonnets indeed, from their subject and nature, and his Latin Poems,
from the restraints which always shackle one who writes in a dead
language, cannot fairly be received in evidence. But his Triumphs
absolutely required the exercise of this talent, and exhibit no
indications of it.

Genius, however, he certainly possessed, and genius of a high order. His
ardent, tender, and magnificent turn of thought, his brilliant fancy,
his command of expression, at once forcible and elegant, must be
acknowledged. Nature meant him for the prince of lyric writers. But by
one fatal present she deprived her other gifts of half their value. He
would have been a much greater poet had he been a less clever man. His
ingenuity was the bane of his mind. He abandoned the noble and natural
style, in which he might have excelled, for the conceits which he
produced with a facility at once admirable and disgusting. His muse,
like the Roman lady in Livy, was tempted by gaudy ornaments to betray
the fastnesses of her strength, and, like her, was crushed beneath the
glittering bribes which had seduced her.

The paucity of his thoughts is very remarkable. It is impossible to look
without amazement on a mind so fertile in combinations, yet so barren
of images. His amatory poetry is wholly made up of a very few topics,
disposed in so many orders, and exhibited in so many lights, that it
reminds us of those arithmetical problems about permutations, which so
much astonish the unlearned. The French cook, who boasted that he could
make fifteen different dishes out of a nettle-top, was not a greater
master of his art. The mind of Petrarch was a kaleidoscope. At every
turn it presents us with new forms, always fantastic, occasionally
beautiful; and we can scarcely believe that all these varieties have
been produced by the same worthless fragments of glass. The sameness of
his images is, indeed, in some degree, to be attributed to the sameness
of his subject. It would be unreasonable to expect perpetual variety
from so many hundred compositions, all of the same length, all in
the same measure, and all addressed to the same insipid and heartless
coquette. I cannot but suspect also that the perverted taste, which is
the blemish of his amatory verses, was to be attributed to the influence
of Laura, who, probably, like most critics of her sex, preferred a gaudy
to a majestic style. Be this as it may, he no sooner changes his subject
than he changes his manner. When he speaks of the wrongs and degradation
of Italy, devastated by foreign invaders, and but feebly defended by
her pusillanimous children, the effeminate lisp of the sonnetteer
is exchanged for a cry, wild, and solemn, and piercing as that which
proclaimed "Sleep no more" to the bloody house of Cawdor. "Italy seems
not to feel her sufferings," exclaims her impassioned poet; "decrepit,
sluggish, and languid, will she sleep forever? Will there be none to
awake her? Oh that I had my hands twisted in her hair! "

("Che suoi guai non par che senta;
Vecchia, oziosa, e lenta.
Dormira sempre, e non fia chi la svegli?
Le man l' avess' io avvolte entro e capegli. "
Canzone xi. )

Nor is it with less energy that he denounces against the Mahometan
Babylon the vengeance of Europe and of Christ. His magnificent
enumeration of the ancient exploits of the Greeks must always excite
admiration, and cannot be perused without the deepest interest, at a
time when the wise and good, bitterly disappointed in so many other
countries, are looking with breathless anxiety towards the natal land of
liberty,--the field of Marathon,--and the deadly pass where the Lion of
Lacedaemon turned to bay.

("Maratona, e le mortali strette
Che difese il LEON con poca gente. "
Canzone v. )

His poems on religious subjects also deserve the highest commendation.
At the head of these must be placed the Ode to the Virgin. It is,
perhaps, the finest hymn in the world. His devout veneration receives an
exquisitely poetical character from the delicate perception of the sex
and the loveliness of his idol, which we may easily trace throughout the
whole composition.

I could dwell with pleasure on these and similar parts of the writings
of Petrarch; but I must return to his amatory poetry: to that he
entrusted his fame; and to that he has principally owed it.

The prevailing defect of his best compositions on this subject is
the universal brilliancy with which they are lighted up. The natural
language of the passions is, indeed, often figurative and fantastic; and
with none is this more the case than with that of love. Still there is
a limit. The feelings should, indeed, have their ornamental garb; but,
like an elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The
drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes
of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should
sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a
beauty; but never to conceal, much less to distort, the charms to which
they are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary, arrays
itself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring,
whose skin is painted with grotesque forms and dazzling colours, and
whose ears are drawn down his shoulders by the weight of jewels. It is
a rule, without any exception, in all kinds of composition, that the
principal idea, the predominant feeling, should never be confounded with
the accompanying decorations. It should generally be distinguished from
them by greater simplicity of expression; as we recognise Napoleon in
the pictures of his battles, amidst a crowd of embroidered coats and
plumes, by his grey cloak and his hat without a feather. In the verses
of Petrarch it is generally impossible to say what thought is meant
to be prominent. All is equally elaborate. The chief wears the same
gorgeous and degrading livery with his retinue, and obtains only his
share of the indifferent stare which we bestow upon them in common.
The poems have no strong lights and shades, no background, no
foreground;--they are like the illuminated figures in an oriental
manuscript,--plenty of rich tints and no perspective. Such are the
faults of the most celebrated of these compositions. Of those which are
universally acknowledged to be bad it is scarcely possible to speak with
patience. Yet they have much in common with their splendid companions.
They differ from them, as a Mayday procession of chimneysweepers differs
from the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the gaudiness but not the
wealth. His muse belongs to that numerous class of females who have
no objection to be dirty, while they can be tawdry. When his brilliant
conceits are exhausted, he supplies their place with metaphysical
quibbles, forced antitheses, bad puns, and execrable charades. In his
fifth sonnet he may, I think, be said to have sounded the lowest chasm
of the Bathos. Upon the whole, that piece may be safely pronounced to be
the worst attempt at poetry, and the worst attempt at wit, in the world.

A strong proof of the truth of these criticisms is, that almost all the
sonnets produce exactly the same effect on the mind of the reader. They
relate to all the various moods of a lover, from joy to despair:--yet
they are perused, as far as my experience and observation have gone,
with exactly the same feeling. The fact is, that in none of them are the
passion and the ingenuity mixed in just proportions. There is not enough
sentiment to dilute the condiments which are employed to season it. The
repast which he sets before us resembles the Spanish entertainment in
Dryden's "Mock Astrologer", at which the relish of all the dishes
and sauces was overpowered by the common flavour of spice.
Fish,--flesh,--fowl,--everything at table tasted of nothing but red
pepper.

The writings of Petrarch may indeed suffer undeservedly from one cause
to which I must allude. His imitators have so much familiarised the ear
of Italy and of Europe to the favourite topics of amorous flattery and
lamentation, that we can scarcely think them original when we find them
in the first author; and, even when our understandings have convinced us
that they were new to him, they are still old to us. This has been the
fate of many of the finest passages of the most eminent writers.
It
is melancholy to trace a noble thought from stage to stage of its
profanation; to see it transferred from the first illustrious wearer to
his lacqueys, turned, and turned again, and at last hung on a scarecrow.
Petrarch has really suffered much from this cause. Yet that he should
have so suffered is a sufficient proof that his excellences were not of
the highest order. A line may be stolen; but the pervading spirit of a
great poet is not to be surreptitiously obtained by a plagiarist. The
continued imitation of twenty-five centuries has left Homer as it
found him. If every simile and every turn of Dante had been copied ten
thousand times, the Divine Comedy would have retained all its freshness.
It was easy for the porter in Farquhar to pass for Beau Clincher, by
borrowing his lace and his pulvilio. It would have been more difficult
to enact Sir Harry Wildair.

Before I quit this subject I must defend Petrarch from one accusation
which is in the present day frequently brought against him. His sonnets
are pronounced by a large sect of critics not to possess certain
qualities which they maintain to be indispensable to sonnets, with as
much confidence, and as much reason, as their prototypes of old insisted
on the unities of the drama. I am an exoteric--utterly unable to explain
the mysteries of this new poetical faith. I only know that it is a
faith, which except a man do keep pure and undefiled, without doubt he
shall be called a blockhead. I cannot, however, refrain from asking what
is the particular virtue which belongs to fourteen as distinguished from
all other numbers. Does it arise from its being a multiple of seven? Has
this principle any reference to the sabbatical ordinance? Or is it
to the order of rhymes that these singular properties are attached?
Unhappily the sonnets of Shakspeare differ as much in this respect from
those of Petrarch, as from a Spenserian or an octave stanza. Away with
this unmeaning jargon! We have pulled down the old regime of criticism.
I trust that we shall never tolerate the equally pedantic and irrational
despotism, which some of the revolutionary leaders would erect upon its
ruins. We have not dethroned Aristotle and Bossu for this.

These sonnet-fanciers would do well to reflect that, though the style of
Petrarch may not suit the standard of perfection which they have chosen,
they lie under great obligations to these very poems,--that, but for
Petrarch the measure, concerning which they legislate so judiciously,
would probably never have attracted notice; and that to him they owe the
pleasure of admiring, and the glory of composing, pieces, which seem
to have been produced by Master Slender, with the assistance of his man
Simple.

I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on the
Latin writings of Petrarch. It appears that, both by himself and by his
contemporaries, these were far more highly valued than his compositions
in the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literary
appeal, has not only reversed the judgment, but, according to its
general practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunate
works to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for the
injustice of those who had given them an unmerited preference. And
it must be owned that, without making large allowances for the
circumstances under which they were produced, we cannot pronounce a very
favourable judgment. They must be considered as exotics, transplanted to
a foreign climate, and reared in an unfavourable situation; and it would
be unreasonable to expect from them the health and the vigour which
we find in the indigenous plants around them, or which they might
themselves have possessed in their native soil. He has but very
imperfectly imitated the style of the Latin authors, and has not
compensated for the deficiency by enriching the ancient language with
the graces of modern poetry. The splendour and ingenuity, which we
admire, even when we condemn it, in his Italian works, is almost totally
wanting, and only illuminates with rare and occasional glimpses the
dreary obscurity of the African. The eclogues have more animation; but
they can only be called poems by courtesy. They have nothing in common
with his writings in his native language, except the eternal pun about
Laura and Daphne. None of these works would have placed him on a level
with Vida or Buchanan. Yet, when we compare him with those who preceded
him, when we consider that he went on the forlorn hope of literature,
that he was the first who perceived, and the first who attempted to
revive, the finer elegancies of the ancient language of the world, we
shall perhaps think more highly of him than of those who could never
have surpassed his beauties if they had not inherited them.

He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as well
as the poetical majesty of Virgil. His essay on the Remedies of Good
and Evil Fortune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a most
scholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the Tusculan
Questions,--with what success those who have read it may easily
determine. It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these a
person is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse
event: he gravely states his case; and a reasoner, or rather Reason
personified, confutes him; a task not very difficult, since the disciple
defends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost
the same words at the end of every argument of his antagonist. In this
manner Petrarch solves an immense variety of cases. Indeed, I doubt
whether it would be possible to name any pleasure or any calamity which
does not find a place in this dissertation. He gives excellent advice to
a man who is in expectation of discovering the philosopher's stone;--to
another, who has formed a fine aviary;--to a third, who is delighted
with the tricks of a favourite monkey. His lectures to the unfortunate
are equally singular. He seems to imagine that a precedent in point is a
sufficient consolation for every form of suffering. "Our town is taken,"
says one complainant; "So was Troy," replies his comforter. "My wife has
eloped," says another; "If it has happened to you once, it happened
to Menelaus twice. " One poor fellow is in great distress at having
discovered that his wife's son is none of his. "It is hard," says
he, "that I should have had the expense of bringing up one who is
indifferent to me. " "You are a man," returns his monitor, quoting the
famous line of Terence; "and nothing that belongs to any other man
ought to be indifferent to you. " The physical calamities of life are not
omitted; and there is in particular a disquisition on the advantages of
having the itch, which, if not convincing, is certainly very amusing.

The invectives on an unfortunate physician, or rather upon the medical
science, have more spirit. Petrarch was thoroughly in earnest on this
subject. And the bitterness of his feelings occasionally produces, in
the midst of his classical and scholastic pedantry, a sentence worthy of
the second Philippic. Swift himself might have envied the chapter on the
causes of the paleness of physicians.

Of his Latin works the Epistles are the most generally known and
admired. As compositions they are certainly superior to his essays.
But their excellence is only comparative. From so large a collection of
letters, written by so eminent a man, during so varied and eventful
a life, we should have expected a complete and spirited view of the
literature, the manners, and the politics of the age. A traveller--a
poet--a scholar--a lover--a courtier--a recluse--he might have
perpetuated, in an imperishable record, the form and pressure of the age
and body of the time. Those who read his correspondence, in the hope
of finding such information as this, will be utterly disappointed. It
contains nothing characteristic of the period or of the individual. It
is a series, not of letters, but of themes; and, as it is not generally
known, might be very safely employed at public schools as a magazine of
commonplaces. Whether he write on politics to the Emperor and the
Doge, or send advice and consolation to a private friend, every line is
crowded with examples and quotations, and sounds big with Anaxagoras and
Scipio. Such was the interest excited by the character of Petrarch, and
such the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was
with difficulty that his letters reached the place of their destination.
The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the
importunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole,
these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of all his
epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead
and the unborn. Nothing can be more absurd than his whim of composing
grave letters of expostulation and commendation to Cicero and Seneca;
yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural manner
than his communications to his living correspondents. But of all his
Latin works the preference must be given to the Epistle to Posterity;
a simple, noble, and pathetic composition, most honourable both to his
taste and his heart. If we can make allowance for some of the affected
humility of an author, we shall perhaps think that no literary man has
left a more pleasing memorial of himself.

In conclusion, we may pronounce that the works of Petrarch were below
both his genius and his celebrity; and that the circumstances under
which he wrote were as adverse to the development of his powers as they
were favourable to the extension of his fame.

*****




SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT LAWSUIT BETWEEN THE PARISHES OF ST DENNIS AND
ST GEORGE IN THE WATER. (April 1824. )


PART I.

The parish of St Dennis is one of the most pleasant parts of the county
in which it is situated. It is fertile, well wooded, well watered, and
of an excellent air. For many generations the manor had been holden in
tail-male by a worshipful family, who have always taken precedence of
their neighbours at the races and the sessions.

In ancient times the affairs of this parish were administered by a
Court-Baron, in which the freeholders were judges; and the rates were
levied by select vestries of the inhabitant householders. But at length
these good customs fell into disuse. The Lords of the Manor, indeed,
still held courts for form's sake; but they or their stewards had the
whole management of affairs. They demanded services, duties, and customs
to which they had no just title. Nay, they would often bring actions
against their neighbours for their own private advantage, and then send
in the bill to the parish. No objection was made, during many years, to
these proceedings, so that the rates became heavier and heavier: nor
was any person exempted from these demands, except the footmen and
gamekeepers of the squire and the rector of the parish. They indeed were
never checked in any excess. They would come to an honest labourer's
cottage, eat his pancakes, tuck his fowls into their pockets, and cane
the poor man himself. If he went up to the great house to complain, it
was hard to get the speech of Sir Lewis; and, indeed, his only chance of
being righted was to coax the squire's pretty housekeeper, who could
do what she pleased with her master. If he ventured to intrude upon
the Lord of the Manor without this precaution, he gained nothing by his
pains. Sir Lewis, indeed, would at first receive him with a civil face;
for, to give him his due, he could be a fine gentleman when he pleased.
"Good day, my friend," he would say, "what situation have you in my
family? " "Bless your honour! " says the poor fellow, "I am not one of
your honour's servants; I rent a small piece of ground, your honour. "
"Then, you dog," quoth the squire, "what do you mean by coming here? Has
a gentleman nothing to do but to hear the complaints of clowns? Here!
Philip, James, Dick, toss this fellow in a blanket; or duck him, and set
him in the stocks to dry. "

One of these precious Lords of the Manor enclosed a deer-park; and, in
order to stock it, he seized all the pretty pet fawns that his tenants
had brought up, without paying them a farthing, or asking their leave.
It was a sad day for the parish of St Dennis. Indeed, I do not believe
that all his oppressive exactions and long bills enraged the poor
tenants so much as this cruel measure.

Yet for a long time, in spite of all these inconveniences, St Dennis's
was a very pleasant place. The people could not refrain from capering
if they heard the sound of a fiddle. And, if they were inclined to be
riotous, Sir Lewis had only to send for Punch, or the dancing dogs,
and all was quiet again. But this could not last forever; they began
to think more and more of their condition; and, at last, a club of
foul-mouthed, good-for-nothing rascals was held at the sign of the
Devil, for the purpose of abusing the squire and the parson. The doctor,
to own the truth, was old and indolent, extremely fat and greedy. He had
not preached a tolerable sermon for a long time. The squire was still
worse; so that, partly by truth and partly by falsehood, the club set
the whole parish against their superiors. The boys scrawled caricatures
of the clergyman upon the church-door, and shot at the landlord with
pop-guns as he rode a-hunting. It was even whispered about that the Lord
of the Manor had no right to his estate, and that, if he were compelled
to produce the original title-deeds, it would be found that he only held
the estate in trust for the inhabitants of the parish.

In the meantime the squire was pressed more and more for money. The
parish could pay no more. The rector refused to lend a farthing. The
Jews were clamorous for their money; and the landlord had no other
resource than to call together the inhabitants of the parish, and to
request their assistance. They now attacked him furiously about their
grievances, and insisted that he should relinquish his oppressive
powers. They insisted that his footmen should be kept in order, that
the parson should pay his share of the rates, that the children of the
parish should be allowed to fish in the trout-stream, and to gather
blackberries in the hedges. They at last went so far as to demand that
he should acknowledge that he held his estate only in trust for them.
His distress compelled him to submit. They, in return, agreed to set him
free from his pecuniary difficulties, and to suffer him to inhabit the
manor-house; and only annoyed him from time to time by singing impudent
ballads under his window.

The neighbouring gentlefolks did not look on these proceedings with much
complacency. It is true that Sir Lewis and his ancestors had plagued
them with law-suits, and affronted them at county meetings. Still they
preferred the insolence of a gentleman to that of the rabble, and felt
some uneasiness lest the example should infect their own tenants.

A large party of them met at the house of Lord Caesar Germain. Lord
Caesar was the proudest man in the county. His family was very ancient
and illustrious, though not particularly opulent. He had invited most
of his wealthy neighbours. There was Mrs Kitty North, the relict of poor
Squire Peter, respecting whom the coroner's jury had found a verdict
of accidental death, but whose fate had nevertheless excited strange
whispers in the neighbourhood. There was Squire Don, the owner of the
great West Indian property, who was not so rich as he had formerly been,
but still retained his pride, and kept up his customary pomp; so that he
had plenty of plate but no breeches. There was Squire Von Blunderbussen,
who had succeeded to the estates of his uncle, old Colonel Frederic
Von Blunderbussen, of the hussars. The colonel was a very singular old
fellow; he used to learn a page of Chambaud's grammar, and to translate
Telemaque, every morning, and he kept six French masters to teach him
to parleyvoo. Nevertheless he was a shrewd clever man, and improved his
estate with so much care, sometimes by honest and sometimes by dishonest
means, that he left a very pretty property to his nephew.

Lord Caesar poured out a glass of Tokay for Mrs Kitty. "Your health, my
dear madam, I never saw you look more charming. Pray, what think you of
these doings at St Dennis's? "

"Fine doings, indeed! " interrupted Von Blunderbussen; "I wish that
we had my old uncle alive, he would have had some of them up to the
halberts. He knew how to usa cat-o'-nine-tails. If things go on in this
way, a gentleman will not be able to horsewhip an impudent farmer, or to
say a civil word to a milk-maid. "

"Indeed, it's very true, Sir," said Mrs Kitty; "their insolence is
intolerable. Look at me, for instance:--a poor lone woman! --My dear
Peter dead! I loved him:--so I did; and, when he died, I was so
hysterical you cannot think. And now I cannot lean on the arm of a
decent footman, or take a walk with a tall grenadier behind me, just to
protect me from audacious vagabonds, but they must have their nauseous
suspicions;--odious creatures! "

"This must be stopped," replied Lord Caesar. "We ought to contribute to
support my poor brother-in-law against these rascals. I will write to
Squire Guelf on this subject by this night's post. His name is always at
the head of our county subscriptions. "

If the people of St Dennis's had been angry before, they were well-nigh
mad when they heard of this conversation. The whole parish ran to the
manor-house. Sir Lewis's Swiss porter shut the door against them; but
they broke in and knocked him on the head for his impudence. They then
seized the Squire, hooted at him, pelted him, ducked him, and carried
him to the watch-house. They turned the rector into the street, burnt
his wig and band, and sold the church-plate by auction. They put up a
painted Jezebel in the pulpit to preach. They scratched out the texts
which were written round the church, and scribbled profane scraps of
songs and plays in their place. They set the organ playing to pot-house
tunes. Instead of being decently asked in church, they were married
over a broomstick. But, of all their whims, the use of the new patent
steel-traps was the most remarkable.

This trap was constructed on a completely new principle. It consisted
of a cleaver hung in a frame like a window; when any poor wretch got
in, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in a
twinkling. They got the squire into one of these machines. In order to
prevent any of his partisans from getting footing in the parish, they
placed traps at every corner. It was impossible to walk through the
highway at broad noon without tumbling into one or other of them. No
man could go about his business in security. Yet so great was the hatred
which the inhabitants entertained for the old family, that a few decent,
honest people, who begged them to take down the steel-traps, and to put
up humane man-traps in their room, were very roughly handled for their
good nature.

In the meantime the neighbouring gentry undertook a suit against the
parish on the behalf of Sir Lewis's heir, and applied to Squire Guelf
for his assistance.

Everybody knows that Squire Guelf is more closely tied up than any
gentleman in the shire. He could, therefore, lend them no help; but he
referred them to the Vestry of the Parish of St George in the Water.
These good people had long borne a grudge against their neighbours on
the other side of the stream; and some mutual trespasses had lately
occurred which increased their hostility.

There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite among them, who used to
entertain them with raree-shows, and to exhibit a magic lantern to the
children on winter evenings. He had gone quite mad upon this subject.
Sometimes he would call out in the middle of the street--"Take care
of that corner, neighbours; for the love of Heaven, keep clear of that
post, there is a patent steel-trap concealed thereabouts. " Sometimes he
would be disturbed by frightful dreams; then he would get up at dead of
night, open his window and cry "fire," till the parish was roused,
and the engines sent for. The pulpit of the Parish of St George seemed
likely to fall; I believe that the only reason was that the parson had
grown too fat and heavy; but nothing would persuade this honest man but
that it was a scheme of the people at St Dennis's, and that they had
sawed through the pillars in order to break the rector's neck. Once he
went about with a knife in his pocket, and told all the persons whom he
met that it had been sharpened by the knife-grinder of the next parish
to cut their throats. These extravagancies had a great effect on the
people; and the more so because they were espoused by Squire Guelf's
steward, who was the most influential person in the parish. He was a
very fair-spoken man, very attentive to the main chance, and the idol
of the old women, because he never played at skittles or danced with the
girls; and, indeed, never took any recreation but that of drinking on
Saturday nights with his friend Harry, the Scotch pedlar. His supporters
called him Sweet William; his enemies the Bottomless Pit.

The people of St Dennis's, however, had their advocates. There was
Frank, the richest farmer in the parish, whose great grandfather had
been knocked on the head many years before, in a squabble between the
parish and a former landlord. There was Dick, the merry-andrew, rather
light-fingered and riotous, but a clever droll fellow. Above all, there
was Charley, the publican, a jolly, fat, honest lad, a great favourite
with the women, who, if he had not been rather too fond of ale and
chuck-farthing, would have been the best fellow in the neighbourhood.

"My boys," said Charley, "this is exceedingly well for Madam North;--not
that I would speak uncivilly of her; she put up my picture in her best
room, bless her for it! But, I say, this is very well for her, and for
Lord Caesar, and Squire Don, and Colonel Von;--but what affair is it of
yours or mine? It is not to be wondered at, that gentlemen should wish
to keep poor people out of their own. But it is strange indeed that
they should expect the poor themselves to combine against their own
interests. If the folks at St Dennis's should attack us we have the law
and our cudgels to protect us. But why, in the name of wonder, are we to
attack them? When old Sir Charles, who was Lord of the Manor formerly,
and the parson, who was presented by him to the living, tried to bully
the vestry, did not we knock their heads together, and go to meeting to
hear Jeremiah Ringletub preach? And did the Squire Don, or the great Sir
Lewis, that lived at that time, or the Germains, say a word against
us for it? Mind your own business, my lads: law is not to be had for
nothing; and we, you may be sure, shall have to pay the whole bill. "

Nevertheless the people of St George's were resolved on law. They cried
out most lustily, "Squire Guelf for ever! Sweet William for ever! No
steel traps! " Squire Guelf took all the rascally footmen who had worn
old Sir Lewis's livery into his service. They were fed in the kitchen on
the very best of everything, though they had no settlement. Many people,
and the paupers in particular, grumbled at these proceedings. The
steward, however, devised a way to keep them quiet.

There had lived in this parish for many years an old gentleman, named
Sir Habeas Corpus. He was said by some to be of Saxon, by some of
Norman, extraction. Some maintain that he was not born till after the
time of Sir Charles, to whom we have before alluded. Others are of
opinion that he was a legitimate son of old Lady Magna Charta, although
he was long concealed and kept out of his birthright. Certain it is that
he was a very benevolent person. Whenever any poor fellow was taken
up on grounds which he thought insufficient, he used to attend on his
behalf and bail him; and thus he had become so popular, that to take
direct measures against him was out of the question.

The steward, accordingly, brought a dozen physicians to examine Sir
Habeas. After consultation, they reported that he was in a very bad way,
and ought not, on any account, to be allowed to stir out for several
months. Fortified with this authority, the parish officers put him
to bed, closed his windows, and barred his doors.