]
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it.
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it.
Coleridge - Table Talk
The same criticism may be found
in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n. ; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to
the same effect, vol. i. p. 165. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk with regard to poor
Irving. They might with ample reason have visited him for the monstrous
indecencies of those exhibitions of the spirit;--perhaps the Kirk would not
have been justified in overlooking such disgraceful breaches of decorum;
but to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was
very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged,
inconvenient, in had taste, and in terms false: nevertheless his apparent
meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body--as mere body, or rather
carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or
righteousness than mine or yours;--that his humanity had a capacity of sin,
follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was
tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being
seduced?
It is Irving's error to use declamation, high and passionate rhetoric, not
introduced and pioneered by calm and clear logic, which is--to borrow a
simile, though with a change in the application, from the witty-wise, but
not always wisely-witty, Fuller--like knocking a nail into a board, without
wimbling a hole for it, and which then either does not enter, or turns
crooked, or splits the wood it pierces.
August 18. 1833.
MILTON'S EGOTISM. --CLAUDIAN. --STERNE.
In the Paradise Lost--indeed in every one of his poems--it is Milton
himself whom you see; his Satan, his Adam, his Raphael, almost his Eve--are
all John Milton; and it is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me
the greatest pleasure in reading Milton's works. The egotism of such a man
is a revelation of spirit.
* * * * *
Claudian deserves more attention than is generally paid to him. He is the
link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You
will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the
ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly
reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is
in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of
renascence is varied. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll:--"Oceani summo
circumfluus cequore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c. See the lines--
"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;
Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante
Emeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
. . .
Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabaeum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
. . .
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci
Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,
Accipe principium rursus.
. . .
Parturiente rogo--
. . .
Victuri cineres--
. . .
Qm fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,
Succeditque novus---
. . .
O felix, haeresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; praebetur origo
Per cinerem; moritur te non pereunte senectus. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
I think highly of Sterne--that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy:
for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and
disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a
great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters
of Trim and the two Shandies[1] are most individual and delightful.
Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one
whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite
grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden take away the effect for
the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by
women.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as
by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the
Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist; but I could never
get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the
more clearly will you perceive the _great_ difference between Tristram
Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one,
and little beyond a clever affectation in the other. "--ED. ]
August 20. 1833.
HUMOUR AND GENIUS. --GREAT POETS GOOD MEN. --DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW
TESTAMENT VERSION. --HEBREW. --VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.
Men of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so,
although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as
Shakspeare.
* * * * *
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual
powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.
* * * * *
Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people,
because they have a power of looking _at_ such persons as objects of
amusement of another race altogether.
* * * * *
I quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson in his splendid
dedication of the Fox[1]--that there can be no great poet who is not a good
man, though not, perhaps, a _goody_ man. His heart must be pure; he must
have learned to look into his own heart, and sometimes to look _at_ it; for
how can he who is ignorant of his own heart know any thing of, or be able
to move, the heart of any one else?
[Footnote 1:
[Greek: 'H de (arhet_e) poi_etou synezeyktai t_e tou anthrh_opou kai ouch
oion te agathon genesthai poi_et_en, m_e prhoterhon gen_ethenta angrha
agathon. ]--Lib. I. p. 33. folio.
"For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and
function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the
impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good
man. "]
* * * * *
I think there is a perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness
of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield
to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the
New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered,
and there are slovenly phrases which would never have come from Ben Jonson
or any other good prose writer of that day.
* * * * *
Hebrew is so simple, and its words are so few and near the roots, that it
is impossible to keep up any adequate knowledge of it without constant
application. The meanings of the words are chiefly traditional. The loss of
Origen's Heptaglott Bible, in which he had written out the Hebrew words in
Greek characters, is the heaviest which biblical literature has ever
experienced. It would have fixed the sounds as known at that time.
* * * * *
Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants. It is
natural, therefore, that the consonants should be marked first, as being
the framework of the word; and no doubt a very simple living language might
be written quite intelligibly to the natives without any vowel sounds
marked at all. The words would be traditionally and conventionally
recognized as in short hand--thus--_Gd crtd th Hvn nd th Rth_. I wish I
understood Arabic; and yet I doubt whether to the European philosopher or
scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense labour of acquiring that
or any other Oriental tongue, except Hebrew.
_August_ 23. 1833.
GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY.
The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt,
observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such
recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common
conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible
to _talk_ any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with
their high or low tones[1]; although you may _sing_ or _recitative_ the
difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered
exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or
African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also
carry the stress of time with it? If _[Greek: **anthropos]_ was to be
pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the
length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima,
why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an
ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter
omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such
words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like--the quantity of the
penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we
altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of
accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old
one, as the _versus politici_ of John Tzetzes [2] in the twelfth century
and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples
prove _a fortiori_ what the common pronunciation in prose then was.
[Footnote 1:
This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of
Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of
the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was
for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;--Mr.
C. would, _in prose_, attend to the accents only as indicators of the
quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time
and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates
quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of _shortness_ in the
penultimates of _[Greek: --hodos hr odos, tz opos]_ and _[Greek: --stz
ophos]_, and this expressly _[Greek: --eu logois psilois]_, or plain prose,
as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the
evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference
between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in
the quality, of tones:--_[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi
oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio_. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11. ? ]) The extreme
sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved
by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps,
not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech
for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you
to be the mercenary (_[Greek: **misthothos]_} of Alexander, or his guest or
friend (_[Greek: **xenos]_)? " It is said that he pronounced _[Greek:
**misthothos]_ with a false accent on the antepenultima, as _[Greek:
**misthotos]_, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of
correction, _[Greek: **misthothos]_, with an emphasis, the orator continued
coolly,--_[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]_--"You yourself hear what they
say! " Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to
have sworn in some speech by _[Greek: Asklaepios]_, throwing the accent
falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he
declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that
the divinity was _[Greek: aepios]_, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are
very striking:--"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon'
Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos
legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis
hethozuzaethae. " Dec. Orat. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote 2:
See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the
following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for
tetrameter catalectic iambics, like--
[Greek: ----]
(
_Chil_. I.
I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;
I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.
Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very
loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early
confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens
the penultima in _eremus_ and _idola_, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek:
eidola].
Cui jejuna _eremi_ saxa loquacibus
Exundant scatebris, &c.
_Cathemer_. V. 89.
--cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas,
_Idola_, conflavit fallendi trina potestas.
_Cont. Symm_. 47. --ED. ]
_August 24. 1833. _
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS. ---MOCK EVANGELICALS. --AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in
distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service,
must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's
mind in this, and am inclined to _wait_ for the spirit.
* * * * *
The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with
young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
* * * * *
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds
and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE. --LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed
it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet--and such a poet as
Dante--have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti?
The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain
enough, I think, at first reading.
* * * * *
To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and
laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as
if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden
convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's
definition is as good as can be:--surprise at perceiving any thing out of
its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of
serious danger. _Such_ surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable
that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic.
Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in
its essence than comedy is.
August 28. 1833.
BARON VON HUMBOLDT. --MODERN DIPLOMATISTS.
Baron von Humboldt, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following
compliment at Rome:--"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that
you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon
reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the
Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order
to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and
ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a _ruse de guerre_, of sending
out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connections as diplomatists to
the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever
fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled. " Is the case much
altered now, do you know?
* * * * *
What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember
dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other
interesting men. Just before dinner Lord ---- called on Frere, and asked
himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the
whole party, and in French--all of us being genuine English--and I was told
his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and
seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war: of none of those
things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes
in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused
for a little--and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be
reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent
parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and
the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost [1], and the
ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:--
"And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine, as that chew the cud.
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c.
Hereupon Lord ---- resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he
had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two
and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great
majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said
Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their
trunks! " This floored the ambassador for half an hour.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were
distinguished men. [2] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of
those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed
not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in
which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere
compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience--not, as now, by
parliamentary interest.
[Footnote 1: Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c. ]
[Footnote 2:
Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran
diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the
reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following
terms:--
O embajadores, puros majaderos,
Que si los reyes quieren enganar,
Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.
_Nuestro mayor negocio es, no danar,
Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,
Que no corramos riesgo de ensenar. _
What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very
carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this
passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding
remark--_that their principal business is just to do no mischief_. --ED.
]
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What
can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a
love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is
stuff:--no truly greatly man now would negotiate upon any such shallow
principles.
August 30. 1833.
MAN CANNOT BE STATIONARY. --FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE. --SYMPATHY IN JOY.
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is
sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most
savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
* * * * *
The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of
contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of
God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into
fatalism; the Christian relies upon it--when he has nothing else to rely
on. He does not practically rely upon it at all.
* * * * *
For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full and adequate sympathy
with joy an angel's only. And ever remember, that the more exquisite and
delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it.
_September_ 2. 1833.
CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS. --GREEK PARTICLES. --LATIN COMPOUNDS. -
-PROPERTIUS. --TIBULLUS. --LUCAN. --STATIUS. --VALERIUS FLACCUS. --CLAUDIAN. --
PERSIUS. ------PRUDENTIUS. --HERMESIANAX.
The English affect stimulant nourishment--beef and beer. The French,
excitants, irritants--nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians,
sedatives--hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics--opium, tobacco, and beng.
* * * * *
It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in
the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of
passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere
grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers
of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this
peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus,
and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer
words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are
lost.
All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are
they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem
sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope
and strive, a Polybius appeared. Theocritus is almost the only instance I
know of a man of true poetic genius nourishing under a tyranny.
The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely as the Greek; hence in
Ennius such words as _belligerentes_, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his
judgment more than in rejecting these, except just where common usage had
sanctioned them, as _omnipotens_ and a few more. He saw that the Latin was
too far advanced in its formation, and of too rigid a character, to admit
such composition or agglutination. In this particular respect Virgil's
Latin is very admirable and deserving preference. Compare it with the
language of Lucan or Statius, and count the number of words used in an
equal number of lines, and observe how many more short words Virgil has.
* * * * *
I cannot quite understand the grounds of the high admiration which the
ancients expressed for Propertius, and I own that Tibullus is rather
insipid to me. Lucan was a man of great powers; but what was to be made of
such a shapeless fragment of party warfare, and so recent too! He had fancy
rather than imagination, and passion rather than fancy. His taste was
wretched, to be sure; still the Pharsalia is in my judgment a very
wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan[1] was.
I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant
sometimes. Valerius Flaccus is very pretty in particular passages. I am
ashamed to say, I have never read Silius Italicus. Claudian I recommend to
your careful perusal, in respect of his being properly the first of the
moderns, or at least the transitional link between the Classic and the
Gothic mode of thought.
I call Persius hard--not obscure. He had a bad style; but I dare say, if he
had lived[2], he would have learned to express himself in easier language.
There are many passages in him of exquisite felicity, and his vein of
thought is manly and pathetic.
Prudentius[3] is curious for this,--that you see how Christianity forced
allegory into the place of mythology. Mr. Frere [Greek: ho philokalos, ho
kalokagathos] used to esteem the Latin Christian poets of Italy very
highly, and no man in our times was a more competent judge than he.
[Footnote 1:
Lucan died by the command of Nero, A. D. 65, in his twenty-sixth year. I
think this should be printed at the beginning of every book of the
Pharsalia. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A. D. 62. --ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A. D. 348, in Spain. --ED. ]
* * * * *
How very pretty are those lines of Hermesianax in Athenaeus about the poets
and poetesses of Greece! [1]
[Footnote 1:
See the fragment from the Leontium:--
[Greek: HOi_en men philos huios an_egagen Oiagrhoio
Agrhiop_en, THr_essan steilamenos kithar_en
Aidothen k. t. l. ] _Athen_. xiii. s. 71--ED]
September 4. 1833.
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. --EPIC POEM. --GERMAN
AND ENGLISH. --MODERN TRAVELS. --PARADISE
LOST.
I have already told you that in my opinion the destruction of Jerusalem is
the only subject now left for an epic poem of the highest kind. Yet, with
all its great capabilities, it has this one grand defect--that, whereas a
poem, to be epic, must have a personal interest,--in the destruction of
Jerusalem no genius or skill could possibly preserve the interest for the
hero from being merged in the interest for the event. The fact is, the
event itself is too sublime and overwhelming.
* * * * *
In my judgment, an epic poem must either be national or mundane. As to
Arthur, you could not by any means make a poem on him national to
Englishmen. What have _we_ to do with him? Milton saw this, and with a
judgment at least equal to his genius, took a mundane theme--one common to
all mankind. His Adam and Eve are all men and women inclusively. Pope
satirizes Milton for making God the Father talk like a school divine. [1]
Pope was hardly the man to criticize Milton. The truth is, the judgment of
Milton in the conduct of the celestial part of his story is very exquisite.
Wherever God is represented as directly acting as Creator, without any
exhibition of his own essence, Milton adopts the simplest and sternest
language of the Scriptures. He ventures upon no poetic diction, no
amplification, no pathos, no affection. It is truly the Voice or the Word
of the Lord coming to, and acting on, the subject Chaos. But, as some
personal interest was demanded for the purposes of poetry, Milton takes
advantage of the dramatic representation of God's address to the Son, the
Filial Alterity, and in _those addresses_ slips in, as it were by stealth,
language of affection, or thought, or sentiment. Indeed, although Milton
was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature life, he does in the necessity
of poetry give a greater objectivity to the Father and the Son, than he
would have justified in argument. He was very wise in adopting the strong
anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures at once. Compare the Paradise
Lost with Klopstock's Messiah, and you will learn to appreciate Milton's
judgment and skill quite as much as his genius.
[Footnote 1:
"Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground;
In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school divine. "
1 Epist. 2d book of Hor. v. 99. ]
* * * * *
The conquest of India by Bacchus might afford scope for a very brilliant
poem of the fancy and the understanding.
* * * * *
It is not that the German can express external imagery more _fully_ than
English; but that it can flash more images _at once_ on the mind than the
English can. As to mere power of expression, I doubt whether even the Greek
surpasses the English. Pray, read a very pleasant and acute dialogue in
Schlegel's Athenaeum between a German, a Greek, a Roman, Italian, and a
Frenchman, on the merits of their respective languages.
* * * * *
I wish the naval and military officers who write accounts of their travels
would just spare us their sentiment. The Magazines introduced this cant.
Let these gentlemen read and imitate the old captains and admirals, as
Dampier, &c.
October 15. 1833.
THE TRINITY. --INCARNATION. --REDEMPTION. --EDUCATION.
The Trinity is the idea: the Incarnation, which implies the Fall, is the
fact: the Redemption is the mesothesis of the two--that is--the religion.
* * * * *
If you bring up your children in a way which puts them out of sympathy with
the religious feelings of the nation in which they live, the chances are,
that they will ultimately turn out ruffians or fanatics--and one as likely
as the other.
October 23. 1833.
ELEGY. --LAVACRUM PALLADOS. --GREEK AND LATIN PENTAMETER. --MILTON'S LATIN
POEMS. --POETICAL FILTER. --GRAY AND COTTON.
Elegy is the form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It _may_ treat
of any subject, but it must treat of no subject _for itself_; but always
and exclusively with reference to the poet himself. As he will feel regret
for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love become the
principal themes of elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone, or
absent and future. The elegy is the exact opposite of the Homeric epic, in
which all is purely external and objective, and the poet is a mere voice.
The true lyric ode is subjective too; but then it delights to present
things as actually existing and visible, although associated with the past,
or coloured highly by the subject of the ode itself.
* * * * *
I think the Lavacrum Pallados of Callimachus very beautiful indeed,
especially that part about the mother of Tiresias and Minerva. [1] I have a
mind to try how it would bear translation; but what metre have we to answer
in feeling to the elegiac couplet of the Greeks?
I greatly prefer the Greek rhythm of the short verse to Ovid's, though,
observe, I don't dispute his taste with reference to the genius of his own
language. Augustus Schlegel gave me a copy of Latin elegiacs on the King of
Prussia's going down the Rhine, in which he had almost exclusively adopted
the manner of Propertius. I thought them very elegant.
[Footnote 1:
Greek:
Paides, Athanaia numphan mian en poka Th_ezais
po_olu ti kai pezi d_e philato tan hetezan,
mateza Teizesiao, kai oupoka ch_ozis egento k. t. l.
v 57, &c. ]
* * * * *
You may find a few minute faults in Milton's Latin verses; but you will not
persuade me that, if these poems had come down to us _as_ written in the
age of Tiberius, we should not have considered them to be very beautiful.
* * * * *
I once thought of making a collection,--to be called "The Poetical
Filter,"--upon the principle of simply omitting from the old pieces of
lyrical poetry which we have, those parts in which the whim or the bad
taste of the author or the fashion of his age prevailed over his genius.
You would be surprised at the number of exquisite _wholes_ which might be
made by this simple operation, and, perhaps, by the insertion of a single
line or half a line, out of poems which are now utterly disregarded on
account of some odd or incongruous passages in them;--just as whole volumes
of Wordsworth's poems were formerly neglected or laughed at, solely because
of some few wilfulnesses, if I may so call them, of that great man--whilst
at the same time five sixths of his poems would have been admired, and
indeed popular, if they had appeared without those drawbacks, under the
name of Byron or Moore or Campbell, or any other of the fashionable
favourites of the day. But he has won the battle now, ay! and will wear the
crown, whilst English is English.
* * * * *
I think there is something very majestic in Gray's Installation Ode; but as
to the Bard and the rest of his lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and
artificial. There is more real lyric feeling in Cotton's Ode on Winter. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Let me borrow Mr. Wordsworth's account of, and quotation from, this poem:--
"Finally, I will refer to Cotton's 'Ode upon Winter,' an admirable
composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he
lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The
middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance
of Winter, with his retinue, as 'a palsied king,' and yet a military
monarch, advancing for conquest with his army; the several bodies of which,
and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and
a profusion of _fanciful_ comparisons, which indicate, on the part of the
poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of
delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where--
a magazine
Of sovereign juice is cellared in;
Liquor that will the siege maintain
Should Phoebus ne'er return again. "
Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing
what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the
treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem supplies of
her management of forms.
'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;
Matures the Young, restores the Old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.
It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;
* * * * *
Then let the _chill_ Scirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow;
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar:
Whilst we together jovial sit
Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit;
Where, though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.
We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.
But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.
We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.
The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie
Shall taste the air of liberty.
The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue, praise,
And the neglected poet, bays.
Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?
_Preface to the editions of Mr. W. 's Poems, in_
1815 and 1820. --ED. ]
_November_ 1. 1833.
HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE. --DRYDEN. --DR. JOHNSON. --SCOTT'S NOVELS. --
SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY.
Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of
Shakspeare with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to
have been at school ever since. I scarcely know a more striking instance of
the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind.
Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his
chariot wheels _get_ hot by driving fast.
* * * * *
Dr. Johnson seems to have been really more powerful in discoursing _viva
voce_ in conversation than with his pen in hand. It seems as if the
excitement of company called something like reality and consecutiveness
into his reasonings, which in his writings I cannot see. His antitheses are
almost always verbal only; and sentence after sentence in the Rambler may
be pointed out to which you cannot attach any definite meaning whatever. In
his political pamphlets there is more truth of expression than in his other
works, for the same reason that his conversation is better than his
writings in general. He was more excited and in earnest.
* * * * *
When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, and they are almost
the only books I can then _read_. I cannot at such times read the Bible; my
mind reflects on it, but I can't bear the open page.
* * * * *
Unless Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and comprehensive way, how
large a portion of our intellectual and moral nature does it leave without
object and action!
* * * * *
Let a young man separate I from Me as far as he possibly can, and remove Me
till it is almost lost in the remote distance. "I am me," is as bad a fault
in intellectuals and morals as it is in grammar, whilst none but one--God--
can say, "I am I," or "That I am. "
_November_ 9. 1833.
TIMES OF CHARLES I.
How many books are still written and published about Charles the First and
his times! Such is the fresh and enduring interest of that grand crisis of
morals, religion, and government!
in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n. ; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to
the same effect, vol. i. p. 165. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk with regard to poor
Irving. They might with ample reason have visited him for the monstrous
indecencies of those exhibitions of the spirit;--perhaps the Kirk would not
have been justified in overlooking such disgraceful breaches of decorum;
but to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was
very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged,
inconvenient, in had taste, and in terms false: nevertheless his apparent
meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body--as mere body, or rather
carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or
righteousness than mine or yours;--that his humanity had a capacity of sin,
follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was
tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being
seduced?
It is Irving's error to use declamation, high and passionate rhetoric, not
introduced and pioneered by calm and clear logic, which is--to borrow a
simile, though with a change in the application, from the witty-wise, but
not always wisely-witty, Fuller--like knocking a nail into a board, without
wimbling a hole for it, and which then either does not enter, or turns
crooked, or splits the wood it pierces.
August 18. 1833.
MILTON'S EGOTISM. --CLAUDIAN. --STERNE.
In the Paradise Lost--indeed in every one of his poems--it is Milton
himself whom you see; his Satan, his Adam, his Raphael, almost his Eve--are
all John Milton; and it is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me
the greatest pleasure in reading Milton's works. The egotism of such a man
is a revelation of spirit.
* * * * *
Claudian deserves more attention than is generally paid to him. He is the
link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You
will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the
ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly
reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is
in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of
renascence is varied. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll:--"Oceani summo
circumfluus cequore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c. See the lines--
"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;
Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante
Emeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
. . .
Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabaeum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
. . .
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci
Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,
Accipe principium rursus.
. . .
Parturiente rogo--
. . .
Victuri cineres--
. . .
Qm fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,
Succeditque novus---
. . .
O felix, haeresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; praebetur origo
Per cinerem; moritur te non pereunte senectus. "--ED. ]
* * * * *
I think highly of Sterne--that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy:
for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and
disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a
great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters
of Trim and the two Shandies[1] are most individual and delightful.
Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one
whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite
grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden take away the effect for
the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by
women.
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as
by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the
Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist; but I could never
get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the
more clearly will you perceive the _great_ difference between Tristram
Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one,
and little beyond a clever affectation in the other. "--ED. ]
August 20. 1833.
HUMOUR AND GENIUS. --GREAT POETS GOOD MEN. --DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW
TESTAMENT VERSION. --HEBREW. --VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.
Men of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so,
although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as
Shakspeare.
* * * * *
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like
manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual
powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.
* * * * *
Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people,
because they have a power of looking _at_ such persons as objects of
amusement of another race altogether.
* * * * *
I quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson in his splendid
dedication of the Fox[1]--that there can be no great poet who is not a good
man, though not, perhaps, a _goody_ man. His heart must be pure; he must
have learned to look into his own heart, and sometimes to look _at_ it; for
how can he who is ignorant of his own heart know any thing of, or be able
to move, the heart of any one else?
[Footnote 1:
[Greek: 'H de (arhet_e) poi_etou synezeyktai t_e tou anthrh_opou kai ouch
oion te agathon genesthai poi_et_en, m_e prhoterhon gen_ethenta angrha
agathon. ]--Lib. I. p. 33. folio.
"For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and
function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the
impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good
man. "]
* * * * *
I think there is a perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness
of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield
to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the
New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered,
and there are slovenly phrases which would never have come from Ben Jonson
or any other good prose writer of that day.
* * * * *
Hebrew is so simple, and its words are so few and near the roots, that it
is impossible to keep up any adequate knowledge of it without constant
application. The meanings of the words are chiefly traditional. The loss of
Origen's Heptaglott Bible, in which he had written out the Hebrew words in
Greek characters, is the heaviest which biblical literature has ever
experienced. It would have fixed the sounds as known at that time.
* * * * *
Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants. It is
natural, therefore, that the consonants should be marked first, as being
the framework of the word; and no doubt a very simple living language might
be written quite intelligibly to the natives without any vowel sounds
marked at all. The words would be traditionally and conventionally
recognized as in short hand--thus--_Gd crtd th Hvn nd th Rth_. I wish I
understood Arabic; and yet I doubt whether to the European philosopher or
scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense labour of acquiring that
or any other Oriental tongue, except Hebrew.
_August_ 23. 1833.
GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY.
The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt,
observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such
recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common
conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible
to _talk_ any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with
their high or low tones[1]; although you may _sing_ or _recitative_ the
difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered
exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or
African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also
carry the stress of time with it? If _[Greek: **anthropos]_ was to be
pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the
length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima,
why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an
ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter
omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such
words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like--the quantity of the
penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we
altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of
accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old
one, as the _versus politici_ of John Tzetzes [2] in the twelfth century
and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples
prove _a fortiori_ what the common pronunciation in prose then was.
[Footnote 1:
This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of
Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of
the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was
for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;--Mr.
C. would, _in prose_, attend to the accents only as indicators of the
quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time
and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates
quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of _shortness_ in the
penultimates of _[Greek: --hodos hr odos, tz opos]_ and _[Greek: --stz
ophos]_, and this expressly _[Greek: --eu logois psilois]_, or plain prose,
as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the
evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference
between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in
the quality, of tones:--_[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi
oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio_. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11. ? ]) The extreme
sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved
by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps,
not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech
for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you
to be the mercenary (_[Greek: **misthothos]_} of Alexander, or his guest or
friend (_[Greek: **xenos]_)? " It is said that he pronounced _[Greek:
**misthothos]_ with a false accent on the antepenultima, as _[Greek:
**misthotos]_, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of
correction, _[Greek: **misthothos]_, with an emphasis, the orator continued
coolly,--_[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]_--"You yourself hear what they
say! " Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to
have sworn in some speech by _[Greek: Asklaepios]_, throwing the accent
falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he
declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that
the divinity was _[Greek: aepios]_, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are
very striking:--"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon'
Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos
legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis
hethozuzaethae. " Dec. Orat. _--Ed. ]
[Footnote 2:
See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the
following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for
tetrameter catalectic iambics, like--
[Greek: ----]
(
_Chil_. I.
I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;
I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.
Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very
loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early
confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens
the penultima in _eremus_ and _idola_, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek:
eidola].
Cui jejuna _eremi_ saxa loquacibus
Exundant scatebris, &c.
_Cathemer_. V. 89.
--cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas,
_Idola_, conflavit fallendi trina potestas.
_Cont. Symm_. 47. --ED. ]
_August 24. 1833. _
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS. ---MOCK EVANGELICALS. --AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in
distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service,
must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's
mind in this, and am inclined to _wait_ for the spirit.
* * * * *
The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with
young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
* * * * *
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds
and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE. --LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed
it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet--and such a poet as
Dante--have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti?
The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain
enough, I think, at first reading.
* * * * *
To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and
laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as
if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden
convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's
definition is as good as can be:--surprise at perceiving any thing out of
its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of
serious danger. _Such_ surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable
that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic.
Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in
its essence than comedy is.
August 28. 1833.
BARON VON HUMBOLDT. --MODERN DIPLOMATISTS.
Baron von Humboldt, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following
compliment at Rome:--"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that
you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon
reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the
Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order
to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and
ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a _ruse de guerre_, of sending
out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connections as diplomatists to
the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever
fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled. " Is the case much
altered now, do you know?
* * * * *
What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember
dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other
interesting men. Just before dinner Lord ---- called on Frere, and asked
himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the
whole party, and in French--all of us being genuine English--and I was told
his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and
seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war: of none of those
things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes
in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused
for a little--and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be
reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent
parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and
the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost [1], and the
ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:--
"And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine, as that chew the cud.
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c.
Hereupon Lord ---- resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he
had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two
and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great
majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said
Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their
trunks! " This floored the ambassador for half an hour.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were
distinguished men. [2] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of
those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed
not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in
which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere
compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience--not, as now, by
parliamentary interest.
[Footnote 1: Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c. ]
[Footnote 2:
Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran
diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the
reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following
terms:--
O embajadores, puros majaderos,
Que si los reyes quieren enganar,
Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.
_Nuestro mayor negocio es, no danar,
Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,
Que no corramos riesgo de ensenar. _
What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very
carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this
passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding
remark--_that their principal business is just to do no mischief_. --ED.
]
* * * * *
The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What
can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a
love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is
stuff:--no truly greatly man now would negotiate upon any such shallow
principles.
August 30. 1833.
MAN CANNOT BE STATIONARY. --FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE. --SYMPATHY IN JOY.
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is
sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most
savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
* * * * *
The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of
contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of
God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into
fatalism; the Christian relies upon it--when he has nothing else to rely
on. He does not practically rely upon it at all.
* * * * *
For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full and adequate sympathy
with joy an angel's only. And ever remember, that the more exquisite and
delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it.
_September_ 2. 1833.
CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS. --GREEK PARTICLES. --LATIN COMPOUNDS. -
-PROPERTIUS. --TIBULLUS. --LUCAN. --STATIUS. --VALERIUS FLACCUS. --CLAUDIAN. --
PERSIUS. ------PRUDENTIUS. --HERMESIANAX.
The English affect stimulant nourishment--beef and beer. The French,
excitants, irritants--nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians,
sedatives--hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics--opium, tobacco, and beng.
* * * * *
It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in
the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of
passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere
grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers
of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this
peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus,
and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer
words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are
lost.
All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are
they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem
sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope
and strive, a Polybius appeared. Theocritus is almost the only instance I
know of a man of true poetic genius nourishing under a tyranny.
The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely as the Greek; hence in
Ennius such words as _belligerentes_, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his
judgment more than in rejecting these, except just where common usage had
sanctioned them, as _omnipotens_ and a few more. He saw that the Latin was
too far advanced in its formation, and of too rigid a character, to admit
such composition or agglutination. In this particular respect Virgil's
Latin is very admirable and deserving preference. Compare it with the
language of Lucan or Statius, and count the number of words used in an
equal number of lines, and observe how many more short words Virgil has.
* * * * *
I cannot quite understand the grounds of the high admiration which the
ancients expressed for Propertius, and I own that Tibullus is rather
insipid to me. Lucan was a man of great powers; but what was to be made of
such a shapeless fragment of party warfare, and so recent too! He had fancy
rather than imagination, and passion rather than fancy. His taste was
wretched, to be sure; still the Pharsalia is in my judgment a very
wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan[1] was.
I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant
sometimes. Valerius Flaccus is very pretty in particular passages. I am
ashamed to say, I have never read Silius Italicus. Claudian I recommend to
your careful perusal, in respect of his being properly the first of the
moderns, or at least the transitional link between the Classic and the
Gothic mode of thought.
I call Persius hard--not obscure. He had a bad style; but I dare say, if he
had lived[2], he would have learned to express himself in easier language.
There are many passages in him of exquisite felicity, and his vein of
thought is manly and pathetic.
Prudentius[3] is curious for this,--that you see how Christianity forced
allegory into the place of mythology. Mr. Frere [Greek: ho philokalos, ho
kalokagathos] used to esteem the Latin Christian poets of Italy very
highly, and no man in our times was a more competent judge than he.
[Footnote 1:
Lucan died by the command of Nero, A. D. 65, in his twenty-sixth year. I
think this should be printed at the beginning of every book of the
Pharsalia. --ED. ]
[Footnote 2:
Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A. D. 62. --ED. ]
[Footnote 3:
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A. D. 348, in Spain. --ED. ]
* * * * *
How very pretty are those lines of Hermesianax in Athenaeus about the poets
and poetesses of Greece! [1]
[Footnote 1:
See the fragment from the Leontium:--
[Greek: HOi_en men philos huios an_egagen Oiagrhoio
Agrhiop_en, THr_essan steilamenos kithar_en
Aidothen k. t. l. ] _Athen_. xiii. s. 71--ED]
September 4. 1833.
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. --EPIC POEM. --GERMAN
AND ENGLISH. --MODERN TRAVELS. --PARADISE
LOST.
I have already told you that in my opinion the destruction of Jerusalem is
the only subject now left for an epic poem of the highest kind. Yet, with
all its great capabilities, it has this one grand defect--that, whereas a
poem, to be epic, must have a personal interest,--in the destruction of
Jerusalem no genius or skill could possibly preserve the interest for the
hero from being merged in the interest for the event. The fact is, the
event itself is too sublime and overwhelming.
* * * * *
In my judgment, an epic poem must either be national or mundane. As to
Arthur, you could not by any means make a poem on him national to
Englishmen. What have _we_ to do with him? Milton saw this, and with a
judgment at least equal to his genius, took a mundane theme--one common to
all mankind. His Adam and Eve are all men and women inclusively. Pope
satirizes Milton for making God the Father talk like a school divine. [1]
Pope was hardly the man to criticize Milton. The truth is, the judgment of
Milton in the conduct of the celestial part of his story is very exquisite.
Wherever God is represented as directly acting as Creator, without any
exhibition of his own essence, Milton adopts the simplest and sternest
language of the Scriptures. He ventures upon no poetic diction, no
amplification, no pathos, no affection. It is truly the Voice or the Word
of the Lord coming to, and acting on, the subject Chaos. But, as some
personal interest was demanded for the purposes of poetry, Milton takes
advantage of the dramatic representation of God's address to the Son, the
Filial Alterity, and in _those addresses_ slips in, as it were by stealth,
language of affection, or thought, or sentiment. Indeed, although Milton
was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature life, he does in the necessity
of poetry give a greater objectivity to the Father and the Son, than he
would have justified in argument. He was very wise in adopting the strong
anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures at once. Compare the Paradise
Lost with Klopstock's Messiah, and you will learn to appreciate Milton's
judgment and skill quite as much as his genius.
[Footnote 1:
"Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,
Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground;
In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school divine. "
1 Epist. 2d book of Hor. v. 99. ]
* * * * *
The conquest of India by Bacchus might afford scope for a very brilliant
poem of the fancy and the understanding.
* * * * *
It is not that the German can express external imagery more _fully_ than
English; but that it can flash more images _at once_ on the mind than the
English can. As to mere power of expression, I doubt whether even the Greek
surpasses the English. Pray, read a very pleasant and acute dialogue in
Schlegel's Athenaeum between a German, a Greek, a Roman, Italian, and a
Frenchman, on the merits of their respective languages.
* * * * *
I wish the naval and military officers who write accounts of their travels
would just spare us their sentiment. The Magazines introduced this cant.
Let these gentlemen read and imitate the old captains and admirals, as
Dampier, &c.
October 15. 1833.
THE TRINITY. --INCARNATION. --REDEMPTION. --EDUCATION.
The Trinity is the idea: the Incarnation, which implies the Fall, is the
fact: the Redemption is the mesothesis of the two--that is--the religion.
* * * * *
If you bring up your children in a way which puts them out of sympathy with
the religious feelings of the nation in which they live, the chances are,
that they will ultimately turn out ruffians or fanatics--and one as likely
as the other.
October 23. 1833.
ELEGY. --LAVACRUM PALLADOS. --GREEK AND LATIN PENTAMETER. --MILTON'S LATIN
POEMS. --POETICAL FILTER. --GRAY AND COTTON.
Elegy is the form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It _may_ treat
of any subject, but it must treat of no subject _for itself_; but always
and exclusively with reference to the poet himself. As he will feel regret
for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love become the
principal themes of elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone, or
absent and future. The elegy is the exact opposite of the Homeric epic, in
which all is purely external and objective, and the poet is a mere voice.
The true lyric ode is subjective too; but then it delights to present
things as actually existing and visible, although associated with the past,
or coloured highly by the subject of the ode itself.
* * * * *
I think the Lavacrum Pallados of Callimachus very beautiful indeed,
especially that part about the mother of Tiresias and Minerva. [1] I have a
mind to try how it would bear translation; but what metre have we to answer
in feeling to the elegiac couplet of the Greeks?
I greatly prefer the Greek rhythm of the short verse to Ovid's, though,
observe, I don't dispute his taste with reference to the genius of his own
language. Augustus Schlegel gave me a copy of Latin elegiacs on the King of
Prussia's going down the Rhine, in which he had almost exclusively adopted
the manner of Propertius. I thought them very elegant.
[Footnote 1:
Greek:
Paides, Athanaia numphan mian en poka Th_ezais
po_olu ti kai pezi d_e philato tan hetezan,
mateza Teizesiao, kai oupoka ch_ozis egento k. t. l.
v 57, &c. ]
* * * * *
You may find a few minute faults in Milton's Latin verses; but you will not
persuade me that, if these poems had come down to us _as_ written in the
age of Tiberius, we should not have considered them to be very beautiful.
* * * * *
I once thought of making a collection,--to be called "The Poetical
Filter,"--upon the principle of simply omitting from the old pieces of
lyrical poetry which we have, those parts in which the whim or the bad
taste of the author or the fashion of his age prevailed over his genius.
You would be surprised at the number of exquisite _wholes_ which might be
made by this simple operation, and, perhaps, by the insertion of a single
line or half a line, out of poems which are now utterly disregarded on
account of some odd or incongruous passages in them;--just as whole volumes
of Wordsworth's poems were formerly neglected or laughed at, solely because
of some few wilfulnesses, if I may so call them, of that great man--whilst
at the same time five sixths of his poems would have been admired, and
indeed popular, if they had appeared without those drawbacks, under the
name of Byron or Moore or Campbell, or any other of the fashionable
favourites of the day. But he has won the battle now, ay! and will wear the
crown, whilst English is English.
* * * * *
I think there is something very majestic in Gray's Installation Ode; but as
to the Bard and the rest of his lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and
artificial. There is more real lyric feeling in Cotton's Ode on Winter. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Let me borrow Mr. Wordsworth's account of, and quotation from, this poem:--
"Finally, I will refer to Cotton's 'Ode upon Winter,' an admirable
composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he
lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The
middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance
of Winter, with his retinue, as 'a palsied king,' and yet a military
monarch, advancing for conquest with his army; the several bodies of which,
and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and
a profusion of _fanciful_ comparisons, which indicate, on the part of the
poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of
delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where--
a magazine
Of sovereign juice is cellared in;
Liquor that will the siege maintain
Should Phoebus ne'er return again. "
Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing
what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the
treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem supplies of
her management of forms.
'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;
Matures the Young, restores the Old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.
It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;
* * * * *
Then let the _chill_ Scirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow;
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar:
Whilst we together jovial sit
Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit;
Where, though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.
We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.
But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.
We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.
The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie
Shall taste the air of liberty.
The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue, praise,
And the neglected poet, bays.
Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?
_Preface to the editions of Mr. W. 's Poems, in_
1815 and 1820. --ED. ]
_November_ 1. 1833.
HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE. --DRYDEN. --DR. JOHNSON. --SCOTT'S NOVELS. --
SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY.
Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of
Shakspeare with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to
have been at school ever since. I scarcely know a more striking instance of
the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind.
Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his
chariot wheels _get_ hot by driving fast.
* * * * *
Dr. Johnson seems to have been really more powerful in discoursing _viva
voce_ in conversation than with his pen in hand. It seems as if the
excitement of company called something like reality and consecutiveness
into his reasonings, which in his writings I cannot see. His antitheses are
almost always verbal only; and sentence after sentence in the Rambler may
be pointed out to which you cannot attach any definite meaning whatever. In
his political pamphlets there is more truth of expression than in his other
works, for the same reason that his conversation is better than his
writings in general. He was more excited and in earnest.
* * * * *
When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, and they are almost
the only books I can then _read_. I cannot at such times read the Bible; my
mind reflects on it, but I can't bear the open page.
* * * * *
Unless Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and comprehensive way, how
large a portion of our intellectual and moral nature does it leave without
object and action!
* * * * *
Let a young man separate I from Me as far as he possibly can, and remove Me
till it is almost lost in the remote distance. "I am me," is as bad a fault
in intellectuals and morals as it is in grammar, whilst none but one--God--
can say, "I am I," or "That I am. "
_November_ 9. 1833.
TIMES OF CHARLES I.
How many books are still written and published about Charles the First and
his times! Such is the fresh and enduring interest of that grand crisis of
morals, religion, and government!
