Europe and the Faith

L adie

2 The following poem is intended as the introduction to a

3 somewhat longer one. The use of the old ballad word *Ladie*

4 for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is

5 professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the

6 affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity, as Camden says, will

7 grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a

8 force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced

9 against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation,

10 when novelties explode around us in all directions, he should

11 presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned

12 love: and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt

13 the force of this objection. But alas! explosion has succeeded

14 explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear new;

15 and it is possible that now, even a simple story, wholly

16 uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention

17 amid the hubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a

18 long time by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes

19 distinctly audible.

20 1799.

21 >

22 O leave the lily on its stem;

23 > O leave the rose upon the spray;

24 > O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!

25 > And listen to my lay.

26 >

27 > A cypress and a myrtle-bough

28 > This morn around my harp you twin'd,

29 > Because it fashion'd mournfully

30 > Its murmurs in the wind.

31 >

32 > And now a tale of love and woe,

33 > A woful tale of love I sing;

34 > Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs

35 > And trembles on the string.

36 >

37 > But most, my own dear Genevieve,

38 > It sighs and trembles most for thee!

39 > O come and hear the cruel wrongs

40 > Befell the Dark Ladie! 1

41 >

42 > ...

43 >

44 > And now once more a tale of woe,

45 > A woful tale of love I sing;

46 > For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,

47 > And trembles on the string.

48 >

49 > When last I sang the cruel scorn

50 > That craz'd this bold and lovely knight,

51 > And how he roam'd the mountain-woods,

52 > Nor rested day or night;

53 >

54 > I promised thee a sister tale

55 > Of man's perfidious cruelty;

56 > Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong

57 > Befell the Dark Ladie.

58 Footnote

59 1

60 : Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published

61 separately under the title

62 *Love*

63 . (

64 *Poet. Works*

65 , vol.

66 i. p. 145. Pickering, 1834.) and after them came the other three

67 stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the

68 intended

69 *Dark Ladie*

70 , of which all that exists is to be

71 found

72 *ibid*

73 . p. 150.

74 *Ed*

75 .

76 return to footnote mark

77 Contents

78 ---

Epilogue to the Rash Conjuror

4 *an uncomposed poem*

5 >

6 We ask and urge ­ (here ends the story!)

7 > All Christian Papishes to pray

8 > That this unhappy Conjuror may,

9 > Instead of Hell, be but in Purgatory, ­

10 > For then there's hope; ­

11 > Long live the Pope!

12 *1805*

13 .

14 Contents

15 ---

Psyche

7 >

8 The butterfly the ancient Grecians made

9 > The soul's fair emblem, and its only name ­

10 > But of the soul, escap'd the slavish trade

11 > Of mortal life! ­ For in this earthly frame

12 > Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,

13 > Manifold motions making little speed,

14 > And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

15 *1808*

16 .

17 Contents

18 ---

Complaint

10 >

11 How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits

12 > Honour or wealth, with all his worth and pains!

13 > It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,

14 > If any man obtain that which he merits,

15 > Or any merit that which he obtains.

16 >

17 Contents

18 ---

Reproof

13 >

14 For shame, dear Friend! renounce this canting

15 > strain!

16 > What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?

17 > Place ­ titles ­ salary ­ a gilded chain ­

18 > Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain? ­

19 > Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!

20 > Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

21 > The good great man? ­ three treasures, love and light,

22 > And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath; ­

23 > And three firm friends, more sure than day and night ­

24 > Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

25 *1809*

26 .

27 Contents

28 Contents, p.2

29 ---

an Ode to the Rain

16 *composed before day-light on the morning appointed for the

17 departure of a very worthy, but not very pleasant visitor, whom

18 it was feared the rain might detain*

19 >

20 I know it is dark; and though I have lain

21 > Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain,

22 > I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes,

23 > But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies.

24 > 0 Rain! that I lie listening to,

25 > You're but a doleful sound at best:

26 > I owe you little thanks, 'tis true,

27 > For breaking thus my needful rest!

28 > Yet if, as soon as it is light,

29 > O Rain! you will but take your flight,

30 > I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,

31 > Though sick and sore for want of sleep.

32 >

33 > But only now, for this one day,

34 > Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

35 > O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,

36 > The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!

37 > You know, if you know aught, that we,

38 > Both night and day, but ill agree:

39 > For days, and months, and almost years,

40 > Have limped on through this vale of tears,

41 > Since body of mine, and rainy weather,

42 > Have lived on easy terms together.

43 > Yet if, as soon as it is light,

44 > O Rain! you will but take your flight,

45 > Though you should come again to-morrow,

46 > And bring with you both pain and sorrow;

47 > Though stomach should sicken, and knees should swell ­

48 > I'll nothing speak of you but well.

49 > But only now for this one day,

50 > Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

51 >

52 > Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say

53 > You're a good creature in your way.

54 > Nay, I could write a book myself,

55 > Would fit a parson's lower shelf,

56 > Showing, how very good you are. ­

57 > What then? sometimes it must be fair!

58 > And if sometimes, why not to-day?

59 > Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

60 >

61 > Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy,

62 > Take no offence! I'll tell you why.

63 > A dear old Friend e'en now is here,

64 > And with him came my sister dear;

65 > After long absence now first met,

66 > Long months by pain and grief beset ­

67 > With three dear friends! in truth, we groan

68 > Impatiently to be alone.

69 > We three, you mark! and not one more!

70 > The strong wish makes my spirit sore.

71 > We have so much to talk about,

72 > So many sad things to let out;

73 > So many tears in our eye-corners,

74 > Sitting like little Jacky Horners ­

75 > In short, as soon as it is day,

76 > Do go, dear Rain! do go away.

77 >

78 > And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain!

79 > Whenever you shall come again,

80 > Be you as dull as e'er you could;

81 > (And by the bye 'tis understood,

82 > You're not so pleasant, as you're good;)

83 > Yet, knowing well your worth and place,

84 > I'll welcome you with cheerful face;

85 > And though you stay'd a week or more,

86 > Were ten times duller than before;

87 > Yet with kind heart, and right good will,

88 > I'll sit and listen to you still;

89 > Nor should you go away, dear Rain!

90 > Uninvited to remain.

91 > But only now, for this one day,

92 > Do go, dear Rain! do go away.

93 1809.

94 Contents

95 Contents, p.2

96 ---

Translation of a Passage....

19 *in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the Gospels*

20 "This Paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, is by no

21 means deficient in occasional passages of considerable poetic

22 merit. There is a flow, and a tender enthusiasm in the following

23 lines (at the conclusion of Chapter V.), which even in the

24 translation will not, I flatter myself, fail to interest the

25 reader. Ottfried is describing the circumstances immediately

26 following the birth of our Lord." ­ *Biog. Lit.* vol. i.

27 p. 203.

28 >

29 She gave with joy her virgin breast;

30 > She hid it not, she bared the breast,

31 > Which suckled that divinest babe!

32 > Blessed, blessed were the breasts

33 > Which the Saviour infant kiss'd;

34 > And blessed, blessed was the mother

35 > Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes,

36 > Singing placed him on her lap,

37 > Hung o'er him with her looks of love,

38 > And soothed him with a lulling motion.

39 >

40 > Blessed! for she shelter'd him

41 > From the damp and chilling air; ­

42 > Blessed, blessed! for she lay

43 > With such a babe in one blest bed,

44 > Close as babes and mothers lie!

45 > Blessed, blessed evermore,

46 > With her virgin lips she kiss'd,

47 > With her arms, and to her breast,

48 > She embraced the babe divine,

49 > Her babe divine the virgin mother!

50 > There lives not on this ring of earth

51 > A mortal that can sing her praise.

52 > Mighty mother, virgin pure,

53 > In the darkness and the night

54 > For us she bore the heavenly Lord.

55 *1810*

56 .

57 Most interesting is it to consider the effect, when the feelings

58 are wrought above the natural pitch by the belief of something

59 mysterious, while all the images are purely natural: then it is

60 that religion and poetry strike deepest." ­

61 *Biog. Lit.*

62 vol. i. p. 204.

63 Contents

64 Contents, p.2

65 ---

Israel's Lament...

22 *on the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales**.**from the Hebrew of Hyman Hurwitz*

23 >

24 Mourn, Israel! Sons of Israel, mourn!

25 > Give utterance to the inward throe,

26 > As wails of her first love forlorn

27 > The virgin clad in robes of woe!

28 >

29 > Mourn the young mother snatch'd away

30 > From light and life's ascending sun!

31 > Mourn for the babe, death's voiceless prey,

32 > Earn'd by long pangs, and lost ere won!

33 >

34 > Mourn the bright rose that bloom'd and went,

35 > Ere half disclosed its vernal hue!

36 > Mourn the green bud, so rudely rent,

37 > It brake the stem on which it grew!

38 >

39 > Mourn for the universal woe,

40 > With solemn dirge and falt'ring tongue;

41 > For England's Lady is laid low,

42 > So dear, so lovely, and so young!

43 >

44 > The blossoms on her tree of life

45 > Shone with the dews of recent bliss; ­

46 > Translated in that deadly strife

47 > She plucks its fruit in Paradise.

48 >

49 > Mourn for the prince, who rose at morn

50 > To seek and bless the firstling bud

51 > Of his own rose, and found the thorn,

52 > Its point bedew'd with tears of blood.

53 >

54 > Mourn for Britannia's hopes decay'd; ­

55 > Her daughters wail their dear defence,

56 > Their fair example, prostrate laid,

57 > Chaste love, and fervid innocence!

58 >

59 > O Thou! who mark'st the monarch's path,

60 > To sad Jeshurun's sons attend!

61 > Amid the lightnings of thy wrath

62 > The showers of consolation send!

63 >

64 > Jehovah frowns! ­ The Islands bow,

65 > And prince and people kiss the rod!

66 > Their dread chastising judge wert Thou ­

67 > Be Thou their comforter, O God!

68 *1817*

69 .

70 Contents

71 Contents, p.2

72 ---

Sentimental

25 >

26 The rose that blushes like the morn

27 > Bedecks the valleys low;

28 > And so dost thou, sweet infant corn,

29 > My Angelina's toe.

30 >

31 > But on the rose there grows a thorn

32 > That breeds disastrous woe;

33 > And so dost thou, remorseless corn,

34 > On Angelina's toe.

35 *1825*

36 .

37 Contents

38 Contents, p.2

39 ---

the Alternative

28 >

29 This way or that, ye Powers above me!

30 > I of my grief were rid ­

31 > Did Enna either really love me,

32 > Or cease to think she did.

33 *1826*

34 .

35 Contents

36 Contents, p.2

37 ---

the Exchange

31 >

32 We pledged our hearts, my love and I, ­

33 > I in my arms the maiden clasping;

34 > I could not tell the reason why,

35 > But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.

36 >

37 > Her father's love she bade me gain;

38 > I went, and shook like any reed!

39 > I strove to act the man ­ in vain!

40 > We had exchanged our hearts indeed.

41 *1826*

42 Contents

43 Contents, p.2

44 ---

What is Life?

34 >

35 Resembles life what once was deem'd of light,

36 > Too ample in itself for human sight?

37 > An absolute self ­ an element ungrounded ­

38 > All that we see, all colours of all shade

39 > By encroach of darkness made? ­

40 > Is very life by consciousness unbounded?

41 > And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,

42 > A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?

43 *1829*

44 .

45 Contents

46 Contents, p.2

47 ---

Inscription for a Time-Piece

37 >

38 Now! It is gone. ­ Our brief hours travel

39 > post,

40 > Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:­

41 > But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost

42 > To dwell within thee ­ an eternal Now!

43 *1830*

44 .

45 *

46 Contents

47 Contents, p.2

48 ---

A Course of Lectures

40 (Texto do capítulo)

Prospectus

43 There are few families, at present, in the higher and middle

44 classes of English society, in which literary topics and the

45 productions of the Fine Arts, in some one or other of their

46 various forms, do not occasionally take their turn in

47 contributing to the entertainment of the social board, and the

48 amusement of the circle at the fire side. The acquisitions and

49 attainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to hold a very

50 inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral worth, or even

51 to professional and specific skill, prudence, and industry. But

52 why should they be opposed, when they may be made subservient

53 merely by being subordinated? It can rarely happen, that a man of

54 social disposition, altogether a stranger to subjects of taste,

55 (almost the only ones on which persons of both sexes can converse

56 with a common interest) should pass through the world without at

57 times feeling dissatisfied with himself. The best proof of this

58 is to be found in the marked anxiety which men, who have

59 succeeded in life without the aid of these accomplishments, shew

60 in securing them to their children. A young man of ingenuous mind

61 will not wilfully deprive himself of any species of respect. He

62 will wish to feel himself on a level with the average of the

63 society in which he lives, though he may be ambitious of

64 distinguishing himself only in his own immediate pursuit or

65 occupation.

66 Under this conviction, the following Course of Lectures*

67 was planned. The several titles will best explain the particular

68 subjects and purposes of each: but the main objects proposed, as

69 the result of all, are the two following.

70 1. To convey, in a form best fitted to render them impressive at

71 the time, and remembered afterwards, rules and principles of

72 sound judgment, with a kind and degree of connected information,

73 such as the hearers cannot generally be supposed likely to form,

74 collect, and arrange for themselves, by their own unassisted

75 studies. It might be presumption to say, that any important part

76 of these Lectures could not be derived from books; but none, I

77 trust, in supposing, that the same information could not be so

78 surely or conveniently acquired from such books as are of

79 commonest occurrence, or with that quantity of time and attention

80 which can be reasonably expected, or even wisely desired, of men

81 engaged in business and the active duties of the world.

82 2. Under a strong persuasion that little of real value is derived

83 by persons in general from a wide and various reading; but still

84 more deeply convinced as to the actual mischief of unconnected

85 and promiscuous reading, and that it is sure, in a greater or

86 less degree, to enervate even where it does not likewise inflate;

87 I hope to satisfy many an ingenuous mind, seriously interested in

88 its own development and cultivation, how moderate a number of

89 volumes, if only they be judiciously chosen, will suffice for the

90 attainment of every wise and desirable purpose; that is, in

91 addition to those which he studies for specific and professional

92 purposes. It is saying less than the truth to affirm, that an

93 excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a

94 Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well chosen and well tended

95 fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due

96 and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it

97 will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if

98 only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful

99 appetite.

100 The subjects of the Lectures are indeed very different, but not

101 (in the strict sense of the term) diverse; they are various,

102 rather than miscellaneous. There is this bond of connexion common

103 to them all, ­ that the mental pleasure which they are

104 calculated to excite is not dependent on accidents of fashion,

105 place, or age, or the events or the customs of the day; but

106 commensurate with the good sense, taste, and feeling, to the

107 cultivation of which they themselves so largely contribute, as

108 being all in kind, though not all in the same degree, productions

109 of genius.

110 What it would be arrogant to promise, I may yet be permitted to

111 hope, ­ that the execution will prove correspondent and

112 adequate to the plan. Assuredly, my best efforts have not been

113 wanting so to select and prepare the materials, that, at the

114 conclusion of the Lectures, an attentive auditor, who should

115 consent to aid his future recollection by a few notes taken

116 either during each Lecture or soon after, would rarely feel

117 himself, for the time to come, excluded, from taking an

118 intelligent interest in any general conversation likely to occur

119 in mixed society.

120 *Syllabus of the Course***.**

121 I.** January 27, l8l8. ­ On the manners, morals,

122 literature, philosophy, religion, and the state of society in

123 general, in European Christendom, from the eighth to the

124 fifteenth century, (that is from A.D. 700, to A.D. 1400), more

125 particularly in reference to England, France, Italy and Germany;

126 in other words, a portrait of the so called dark ages of

127 Europe.**

128 II.** January 30. ­ On the tales and metrical romances

129 common, for the most part, to England, Germany, and the north of

130 France, and on the English songs and ballads, continued to the

131 reign of Charles I. A few selections will be made from the

132 Swedish, Danish, and German languages, translated for the purpose

133 by the Lecturer.**

134 III.** February 3. ­ Chaucer and Spenser; of Petrarch;

135 of Ariosto, Pulci, and Boiardo.**

136 IV. V. VI.** February 6, 10, l3. ­ On the dramatic works

137 of Shakspeare. In these Lectures will be comprised the substance

138 of Mr. Coleridge's former courses on the same subject, enlarged

139 and varied by subsequent study and reflection.***Note: These lectures have not been included in the original

140 text. html* Ed.

141 VII.** February l7. ­ On Ben Jonson, Beaumont and

142 Fletcher, and Massinger; with the probable causes of the

143 cessation of dramatic poetry in England with Shirley and Otway,

144 soon after the restoration of Charles II.**

145 VIII.** February 20. ­ Of the life and all the works of

146 Cervantes, but chiefly of his Don Quixote. The ridicule of knight

147 errantry shewn to have been but a secondary object in the mind of

148 the author, and not the principal cause of the delight which the

149 work continues to give to all nations, and under all the

150 revolutions of manners and opinions.**

151 IX.** February 24. ­ On Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne: on

152 the nature and constituents of genuine Humour, and on the

153 distinctions of the Humorous from the Witty, the Fanciful, the

154 Droll, and the Odd.**

155 X.** February 27. ­ Of Donne, Dante, and Milton.**

156 XI.** March 3. ­ On the Arabian Nights' Entertainments,

157 and on the romantic use of the supernatural in poetry, and in

158 works of fiction not poetical. On the conditions and regulations

159 under which such books may be employed advantageously in the

160 earlier periods of education.**

161 XII.** March 6. ­ On tales of witches, apparitions, &c.

162 as distinguished from the magic and magicians of Asiatic origin.

163 The probable sources of the former, and of the belief in them in

164 certain ages and classes of men. Criteria by which mistaken and

165 exaggerated facts may be distinguished from absolute falsehood

166 and imposture. Lastly, the causes of the terror and interest

167 which stories of ghosts and witches inspire, in early life at

168 least, whether believed or not.**

169 XIII.** March 10. ­ On colour, sound, and form in

170 Nature, as connected with poesy: the word "Poesy" used as the

171 generic or class term, including poetry, music, painting,

172 statuary, and ideal architecture, as its species. The reciprocal

173 relations of poetry and philosophy to each other; and of both to

174 religion, and the moral sense.**

175 XIV.** March 13. ­ On the corruptions of the English

176 language since the reign of Queen Ann, in our style of writing

177 prose. A few easy rules for the attainment of a manly, unaffected

178 and pure language, in our genuine mother tongue, whether for the

179 purpose of writing, oratory, or conversation.

180 Contents**Contents, p.2

181 ---

Lecture I ­ General Character of the

46 Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages

47 1

48 Mr. Coleridge began by treating of the races

49 of mankind as descended from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and therein

50 of the early condition of man in his antique form. He then dwelt

51 on the pre-eminence of the Greeks in Art and Philosophy, and

52 noticed the suitableness of polytheism to small insulated states,

53 in which patriotism acted as a substitute for religion, in

54 destroying or suspending self. Afterwards, in consequence of the

55 extension of the Roman empire, some universal or common spirit

56 became necessary for the conservation of the vast body, and this

57 common spirit was, in fact, produced in Christianity. The causes

58 of the decline of the Roman empire were in operation long before

59 the time of the actual overthrow; that overthrow had been

60 foreseen by many eminent Romans, especially by Seneca. In fact,

61 there was under the empire an Italian and a German party in Rome,

62 and in the end the latter prevailed.

63 He then proceeded to describe the generic character of the

64 Northern nations, and defined it as an independence of the whole

65 in the freedom of the individual, noticing their respect for

66 women, and their consequent chivalrous spirit in war; and how

67 evidently the participation in the general council laid the

68 foundation of the representative form of government, the only

69 rational mode of preserving individual liberty in opposition to

70 the licentious democracy of the ancient republics.

71 He called our attention to the peculiarity of their art, and

72 showed how it entirely depended on a symbolical expression of the

73 infinite, ­ which is not vastness, nor immensity, nor

74 perfection, but whatever cannot be circumscribed within the

75 limits of actual sensuous being. In the ancient art, on the

76 contrary, every thing was finite and material. Accordingly,

77 sculpture was not attempted by the Gothic races till the ancient

78 specimens were discovered, whilst painting and architecture were

79 of native growth amongst them. In the earliest specimens of the

80 paintings of modern ages, as in those of Giotto and his

81 associates in the cemetery at Pisa, this complexity, variety, and

82 symbolical character are evident, and are more fully developed in

83 the mightier works of Michel Angelo and Raffael. The

84 contemplation of the works of antique art excites a feeling of

85 elevated beauty, and exalted notions of the human self; but the

86 Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a sense of

87 self-annihilation; he becomes, as it were, a part of the work

88 contemplated. An endless complexity and variety are united into

89 one whole, the plan of which is not distinct from the execution.

90 A Gothic cathedral is the petrefaction of our religion. The only

91 work of truly modern sculpture is the Moses of Michel Angelo.

92 The Northern nations were prepared by their own previous religion

93 for Christianity; they, for the most part, received it gladly,

94 and it took root as in a native soil. The deference to woman,

95 characteristic of the Gothic races, combined itself with devotion

96 in the idea of the Virgin Mother, and gave rise to many beautiful

97 associations. Mr. C. remarked how Gothic an instrument in origin

98 and character the organ was.

99 He also enlarged on the influence of female character on our

100 education, the first impressions of our childhood being derived

101 from women. Amongst oriental nations, he said, the only

102 distinction was between lord and slave. With the antique Greeks,

103 the will of every one conflicting with the will of all, produced

104 licentiousness; with the modern descendants from the northern

105 stocks, both these extremes were shut out, to reappear mixed and

106 condensed into this principle or temper; ­ submission, but

107 with free choice, ­ illustrated in chivalrous devotion to

108 women as such, in attachment to the sovereign, &c.

109 Footnote 1:

110 From Mr. Green's note taken at the delivery. *Ed.*

111 return to footnote mark

112 Contents

113 Contents, p.2

114 ---

Lecture II ­

49 General Character if the Gothic Literature and Art.

50 1

51 In my last lecture I stated that the descendants of Japhet and

52 Shem peopled Europe and Asia, fulfilling in their distribution

53 the prophecies of Scripture, while the descendants of Ham passed

54 into Africa, there also actually verifying the interdiction

55 pronounced against them. The Keltic and Teutonic nations occupied

56 that part of Europe, which is now France, Britain, Germany,

57 Sweden, Denmark, &c. They were in general a hardy race,

58 possessing great fortitude, and capable of great endurance. The

59 Romans slowly conquered the more southerly portion of their

60 tribes, and succeeded only by their superior arts, their policy,

61 and better discipline. After a time, when the Goths, ­ to use

62 the name of the noblest and most historical of the Teutonic

63 tribes, ­ had acquired some knowledge of these arts from

64 mixing with their conquerors, they invaded the Roman territories.

65 The hardy habits, the steady perseverance, the better faith of

66 the enduring Goth rendered him too formidable an enemy for the

67 corrupt Roman, who was more inclined to purchase the subjection

68 of his enemy, than to go through the suffering necessary to

69 secure it. The conquest of the Romans gave to the Goths the

70 Christian religion as it was then existing in Italy; and the

71 light and graceful building of Grecian, or Roman-Greek order,

72 became singularly combined with the massy architecture of the

73 Goths, as wild and varied as the forest vegetation which it

74 resembled. The Greek art is beautiful. When I enter a Greek

75 church, my eye is charmed, and my mind elated; I feel exalted,

76 and proud that I am a man. But the Gothic art is sublime. On

77 entering a cathedral, I am filled with devotion and with awe; I

78 am lost to the actualities that surround me, and my whole being

79 expands into the infinite; earth and air, nature and art, all

80 swell up into eternity, and the only sensible impression left,

81 is, 'that I am nothing!' This religion, while it tended to soften

82 the manners of the Northern tribes, was at the same time highly

83 congenial to their nature. The Goths are free from the stain of

84 hero worship. Gazing on their rugged mountains, surrounded by

85 impassable forests, accustomed to gloomy seasons, they lived in

86 the bosom of nature, and worshipped an invisible and unknown

87 deity. Firm in his faith, domestic in his habits, the life of the

88 Goth was simple and dignified, yet tender and affectionate.

89 The Greeks were remarkable for complacency and completion; they

90 delighted in whatever pleased the eye; to them it was not enough

91 to have merely the idea of a divinity, they must have it placed

92 before them, shaped in the most perfect symmetry, and presented

93 with the nicest judgment; and if we look upon any Greek

94 production of art, the beauty of its parts, and the harmony of

95 their union, the complete and complacent effect of the whole, are

96 the striking characteristics. It is the same in their poetry. In

97 Homer you have a poem perfect in its form, whether originally so,

98 or from the labour of after critics, I know not; his descriptions

99 are pictures brought vividly before you, and as far as the eye

100 and understanding are concerned, I am indeed gratified. But if I

101 wish my feelings to be affected, if I wish my heart to be

102 touched, if I wish to melt into sentiment and tenderness, I must

103 turn to the heroic songs of the Goths, to the poetry of the

104 middle ages. The worship of statues in Greece had, in a civil

105 sense, its advantage, and disadvantage; advantage, in promoting

106 statuary and the arts; disadvantage, in bringing their gods too

107 much on a level with human beings, and thence depriving them of

108 their dignity, and gradually giving rise to scepticism and

109 ridicule. But no statue, no artificial emblem, could satisfy the

110 Northman's mind; the dark wild imagery of nature, which

111 surrounded him, and the freedom of his life, gave his mind a

112 tendency to the infinite, so that he found rest in that which

113 presented no end, and derived satisfaction from that which was

114 indistinct.

115 We have few and uncertain vestiges of Gothic literature till the

116 time of Theodoric, who encouraged his subjects to write, and who

117 made a collection of their poems. These consisted chiefly of

118 heroic songs, sung at the Court; for at that time this was the

119 custom. Charlemagne, in the beginning of the ninth century,

120 greatly encouraged letters, and made a further collection of the

121 poems of his time, among which were several epic poems of great

122 merit; or rather in strictness there was a vast cycle of heroic

123 poems, or minstrelsies, from and out of which separate poems were

124 composed. The form of poetry was, however, for the most part, the

125 metrical romance and heroic tale. Charlemagne's army, or a large

126 division of it, was utterly destroyed in the Pyrenees, when

127 returning from a successful attack on the Arabs of Navarre and

128 Arragon; yet the name of Roncesvalles became famous in the songs

129 of the Gothic poets. The Greeks and Romans would not have done

130 this; they would not have recorded in heroic verse the death and

131 defeat of their fellow-countrymen. But the Goths, firm in their

132 faith, with a constancy not to be shaken, celebrated those brave

133 men who died for their religion and their country! What, though

134 they had been defeated, they died without fear, as they had lived

135 without reproach; they left no stain on their names, for they

136 fell fighting for their God, their liberty, and their rights; and

137 the song that sang that day's reverse animated them to future

138 victory and certain vengeance.

139 I must now turn to our great monarch, Alfred, one of the most

140 august characters that any age has ever produced; and when I

141 picture him after the toils of government and the dangers of

142 battle, seated by a solitary lamp, translating the holy

143 scriptures into the Saxon tongue, ­ when I reflect on his

144 moderation in success, on his fortitude and perseverance in

145 difficulty and defeat, and on the wisdom and extensive nature of

146 his legislation, I am really at a loss which part of this great

147 man's character most to admire. Yet above all, I see the

148 grandeur, the freedom, the mildness, the domestic unity, the

149 universal character of the middle ages condensed into Alfred's

150 glorious institution of the trial by jury. I gaze upon it as the

151 immortal symbol of that age; ­ an age called indeed dark;

152 ­ but how could that age be considered dark, which solved the

153 difficult problem of universal liberty, freed man from the

154 shackles of tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision of

155 twelve of his fellow countrymen? The liberty of the Greeks was a

156 phenomenon, a meteor, which blazed for a short time, and then

157 sank into eternal darkness. It was a combination of most opposite

158 materials, slavery and liberty. Such can neither be happy nor

159 lasting. The Goths on the other hand said, You shall be our

160 Emperor; but we must be Princes on our own estates, and over them

161 you shall have no power! The Vassals said to their Prince, We

162 will serve you in your wars, and defend your castle; but we must

163 have liberty in our own circle, our cottage, our cattle, our

164 proportion of land. The Cities said, We acknowledge you for our

165 Emperor; but we must have our walls and our strong holds, and be

166 governed by our own laws. Thus all combined, yet all were

167 separate; all served, yet all were free. Such a government could

168 not exist in a dark age. Our ancestors may not indeed have been

169 deep in the metaphysics of the schools; they may not have shone

170 in the fine arts; but much knowledge of human nature, much

171 practical wisdom must have existed amongst them, when this

172 admirable constitution was formed; and I believe it is a decided

173 truth, though certainly an awful lesson, that nations are not the

174 most happy at the time when literature and the arts flourish the

175 most among them.

176 The translations I had promised in my syllabus I shall defer to

177 the end of the course, when I shall give a single lecture of

178 recitations illustrative of the different ages of poetry. There

179 is one Northern tale I will relate, as it is one from which

180 Shakspeare derived that strongly marked and extraordinary scene

181 between Richard III. and the Lady Anne. It may not be equal to

182 that in strength and genius, but it is, undoubtedly, superior in

183 decorum and delicacy.

184 A Knight had slain a Prince, the lord of a strong castle, in

185 combat. He afterwards contrived to get into the castle, where he

186 obtained an interview with the Princess's attendant, whose life

187 he had saved in some encounter; he told her of his love for her

188 mistress, and won her to his interest. She then slowly and

189 gradually worked on her mistress's mind, spoke of the beauty of

190 his person, the fire of his eyes, the sweetness of his voice, his

191 valour in the field, his gentleness in the court; in short, by

192 watching her opportunities, she at last filled the Princess's

193 soul with this one image; she became restless; sleep forsook her;

194 her curiosity to see this Knight became strong; but her maid

195 still deferred the interview, till at length she confessed she

196 was in love with him; ­ the Knight is then introduced, and

197 the nuptials are quickly celebrated.

198 In this age there was a tendency in writers to the droll and the

199 grotesque, and in the little dramas which at that time existed,

200 there were singular instances of these. It was the disease of the

201 age. It is a remarkable fact that Luther and Melancthon, the

202 great religious reformers of that day, should have strongly

203 recommended for the education of children, dramas, which at

204 present would be considered highly indecorous, if not bordering

205 on a deeper sin. From one which they particularly recommended, I

206 will give a few extracts; more I should not think it right to do.

207 The play opens with

208 Adam and Eve washing and dressing their children to appear before

209 the Lord, who is coming from heaven to hear them repeat the

210 Lord's Prayer, Belief, &c. In the next scene the Lord appears

211 seated like a schoolmaster, with the children standing round,

212 when Cain, who is behind hand, and a sad pickle, comes running in

213 with a bloody nose and his hat on. Adam says, "What, with your

214 hat on!" Cain then goes up to shake hands with the Almighty, when

215 Adam says (giving him a cuff), "Ah, would you give your left hand

216 to the Lord?" At length Cain takes his place in the class, and it

217 becomes his turn to say the Lord's Prayer. At this time the Devil

218 (a constant attendant at that time) makes his appearance, and

219 getting behind Cain, whispers in his ear; instead of the Lord's

220 Prayer, Cain gives it so changed by the transposition of the

221 words, that the meaning is reversed; yet this is so artfully done

222 by the author, that it is exactly as an obstinate child would

223 answer, who knows his lesson, yet does not choose to say it. In

224 the last scene, horses in rich trappings and carriages covered

225 with gold are introduced, and the good children are to ride in

226 them and be Lord Mayors, Lords, &c.; Cain and the bad ones are to

227 be made cobblers and tinkers, and only to associate with

228 such.

229 This, with numberless others, was written by Hans Sachs. Our

230 simple ancestors, firm in their faith, and pure in their morals,

231 were only amused by these pleasantries, as they seemed to them,

232 and neither they nor the reformers feared their having any

233 influence hostile to religion. When I was many years back in the

234 north of Germany, there were several innocent superstitions in

235 practice. Among others at Christmas, presents used to be given to

236 the children by the parents, and they were delivered on Christmas

237 day by a person who personated, and was supposed by the children

238 to be, Christ: early on Christmas morning he called, knocking

239 loudly at the door, and (having received his instructions) left

240 presents for the good and a rod for the bad. Those who have since

241 been in Germany have found this custom relinquished; it was

242 considered profane and irrational. Yet they have not found the

243 children better, nor the mothers more careful of their offspring;

244 they have not found their devotion more fervent, their faith more

245 strong, nor their morality more pure. 2

246 Footnote 1:

247 From Mr. William Hammond's note taken at the delivery.

248 *Ed.*

249 return to footnote mark

250 Footnote 2:

251 See this custom of Knecht Rupert more minutely described in Mr.

252 Coleridge's own letter from Germany, published in the 2nd vol. of

253 the *Friend*, p. 320. *Ed.*; also in the 1st vol. of

254 the *Bibliographia Epistolaris*, currently also available in

255 both .txt and .html form, free for download from

256 Project Gutenberg. html

257 *Ed.*

258 Contents

259 Contents, p.2

260 ---

Lecture III. The Troubadours ­

52 Boccacio ­ Petrarch ­ Pulci ­ Chaucer ­

53 Spenser

54 The last Lecture (II) was allotted to an investigation into

55 the origin and character of a species of poetry, the least

56 influenced of any by the literature of Greece and Rome, ­

57 that in which the portion contributed by the Gothic conquerors,

58 the predilections and general tone or habit of thought and

59 feeling, brought by our remote ancestors with them from the

60 forests of Germany, or the deep dells and rocky mountains of

61 Norway, are the most prominent. In the present Lecture I must

62 introduce you to a species of poetry, which had its birth-place

63 near the centre of Roman glory, and in which, as might be

64 anticipated, the influences of the Greek and Roman muse are far

65 more conspicuous, ­ as great, indeed, as the efforts of

66 intentional imitation on the part of the poets themselves could

67 render them. But happily for us and for their own fame, the

68 intention of the writers as men is often at complete variance

69 with the genius of the same men as poets. To the force of their

70 intention we owe their mythological ornaments, and the greater

71 definiteness of their imagery; and their passion for the

72 beautiful, the voluptuous, and the artificial, we must in part

73 attribute to the same intention, but in part likewise to their

74 natural dispositions and tastes. For the same climate and many of

75 the same circumstances were acting on them, which had acted on

76 the great classics, whom they were endeavouring to imitate. But

77 the love of the marvellous, the deeper sensibility, the higher

78 reverence for womanhood, the characteristic spirit of sentiment

79 and courtesy, ­ these were the heir-looms of nature, which

80 still regained the ascendant, whenever the use of the living

81 mother-language enabled the inspired poet to appear instead of

82 the toilsome scholar.

83 From this same union, in which the soul (if I may dare so express

84 myself) was Gothic, while the outward forms and a majority of the

85 words themselves, were the reliques of the Roman, arose the

86 Romance, or romantic language, in which the Troubadours or

87 Love-singers of Provence sang and wrote, and the different

88 dialects of which have been modified into the modern Italian,

89 Spanish, and Portuguese; while the language of the Trouveurs,

90 Trouveres, or Norman-French poets, forms the intermediate link

91 between the Romance or modified Roman, and the Teutonic,

92 including the Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and the upper and lower

93 German, as being the modified Gothic. And as the northernmost

94 extreme of the Norman-French, or that part of the link in which

95 it formed on the Teutonic, we must take the Norman-English

96 minstrels and metrical romances, from the greater predominance of

97 the Anglo-Saxon Gothic in the derivation of the words. I mean,

98 that the language of the English metrical romance is less

99 romanized, and has fewer words, not originally of a northern

100 origin, than the same romances in the Norman- French; which is

101 the more striking, because the former were for the most part

102 translated from the latter; the authors of which seem to have

103 eminently merited their name of *Trouveres*, or inventors.

104 Thus then we have a chain with two rings or staples:­ at the

105 southern end there is the Roman, or Latin; at the northern end

106 the Keltic, Teutonic, or Gothic; and the links beginning with the

107 southern end, are the Romance, including the Provençal,

108 the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with their different

109 dialects, then the Norman-French, and lastly the English.

110 My object in adverting to the Italian poets, is not so much for

111 their own sakes, in which point of view Dante and Ariosto alone

112 would have required separate Lectures, but for the elucidation of

113 the merits of our countrymen, as to what extent we must consider

114 them as fortunate imitators of their Italian predecessors, and in

115 what points they have the higher claims of original genius. Of

116 Dante, I am to speak elsewhere. Of Boccaccio, who has little

117 interest as a metrical poet in any respect, and none for my

118 present purpose, except, perhaps, as the reputed inventor or

119 introducer of the octave stanza in his *Teseide*, it will be

120 sufficient to say, that we owe to him the subjects of numerous

121 poems taken from his famous tales, the happy art of narration,

122 and the still greater merit of a depth and fineness in the

123 workings of the passions, in which last excellence, as likewise

124 in the wild and imaginative character of the situations, his

125 almost neglected romances appear to me greatly to excel his far

126 famed *Decameron*. To him, too, we owe the more doubtful

127 merit of having introduced into the Italian prose, and by the

128 authority of his name and the influence of his example, more or

129 less throughout Europe, the long interwoven periods, and

130 architectural structure which arose from the very nature of their

131 language in the Greek writers, but which already in the Latin

132 orators and historians, had betrayed a species of effort, a

133 foreign something, which had been superinduced on the language,

134 instead of growing out of it; and which was far too alien from

135 that individualizing and confederating, yet not blending,

136 character of the North, to become permanent, although its

137 magnificence and stateliness were objects of admiration and

138 occasional imitation. This style diminished the control of the

139 writer over the inner feelings of men, and created too great a

140 charm between the body and the life; and hence especially it was

141 abandoned by Luther.

142 But lastly, to Boccaccio's sanction we must trace a large portion

143 of the mythological pedantry and incongruous paganisms, which for

144 so long a period deformed the poetry, even of the truest poets.

145 To such an extravagance did Boccaccio himself carry this folly,

146 that in a romance of chivalry, he has uniformly styled God the

147 Father Jupiter, our Saviour Apollo, and the Evil Being Pluto. But

148 for this there might be some excuse pleaded. I dare make none for

149 the gross and disgusting licentiousness, the daring profaneness,

150 which rendered the *Decameron* of Boccaccio the parent of a

151 hundred worse children, fit to be classed among the enemies of

152 the human race; which poisons *Ariosto* ­ (for that I

153 may not speak oftener than necessary of so odious a subject, I

154 mention it here once for all) ­ which interposes a painful

155 mixture in the humour of Chaucer, and which has once or twice

156 seduced even our pure-minded Spenser into a grossness, as

157 heterogeneous from the spirit of his great poem, as it was alien

158 to the delicacy of his morals.

Petrarch

55 Born at Arezzo, l304. ­ Died 1374.

56 Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours.

57 See

58 *Biog. Lit*

59 . vol. ii. p.27, &c.

60 *Notes on Petrarch's 1

61 Sonnets, Canzones &c.

62 Vol. 1***

63 **

64 *GOOD:* |

65 Sonnet 1 |

66 Voi, ch' ascoltate, &c. |

67 Sonnet 7 |

68 La gola, e 'l sonno, &c. |

69 Sonnet 11 |

70 Se la mia vita, &c. |

71 Sonnet 12 |

72 Quando fra l'altre, &c. |

73 Sonnet 18 |

74 Vergognando talor, &c. |

75 Sonnet 25 |

76 Quanto più m' avvicino, &c. |

77 Sonnet 28 |

78 Solo e pensoso, &c. |

79 Sonnet 29 |

80 S' io credessi, &c.. |

81 Canz. 14 |

82 Sì è debile il filo, &c. |

83 *PLEASING:* |

84 Ballade 1 |

85 Lassare il velo, &c. |

86 Canzone 1 |

87 Nel dolce tempo, &c. |

88 This poem was imitated by our old Herbert

89 2

90 ; it is ridiculous in the thoughts, but simple

91 and sweet in diction.

92 *DIGNIFIED:* |

93 Canzone 2 |

94 O aspettata in ciel, &c. |

95 Canzone 9 |

96 Gentil mia Donna, &c. |

97 The first half of this ninth canzone is exquisite; and in

98 Canzone 8, the nine lines beginning:

99 >

100 O poggi, o valli, &c.

101 to

102 *cura*

103 , are expressed with vigour and chastity.

104 *DIGNIFIED, cont.:* |

105 Canzone 9 |

106 Daquel dì innanzi a me medesmo piacqui

107 Empiendo d'un pensier' alto, e soave

108 Quel core, *ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave* |

109 Note. O that the Pope would take these eternal keys, which so

110 for ever turn the bolts on the finest passages of true

111 passion!

112 *Vol. II***

113 **

114 Canzone 1 |

115 Che debb' io far? &c. |

116 Very good, but not equal, I think, to

117 Canzone 2 |

118 Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni, &c. |

119 though less faulty. With the omission of half-a-dozen conceits

120 and Petrarchisms of

121 *hooks, baits, flames*

122 , and

123 *torches*

124 , this second canzone is a bold and impassioned

125 lyric, and leaves no doubt in my mind of Petrarch's having

126 possessed a true poetic genius.

127 *Utinam deleri possint

128 sequentia*

129 :­

130 L. 17-19 |

131 ­­ e la soave fiamma

132 Ch' ancor, lasso! m' infiamma

133 Essendo spenta, or che fea dunque ardendo? |

134 L. 54-56 |

135 ­­ ov' erano a tutt' ore

136 Disposti gli ami ov' io fui preso, e l'esca

137 Ch' i' bramo sempre |

138 L. 76-79 |

139 ­­ onde l' accese

140 Saette uscivan d' invisibil foco,

141 E ragion temean poco;

142 Chè contra 'l ciel non val difesa umana. |

143 and the lines 86, 87

144 >

145 Poser' in dubbio, a cui

146 > Devesse il pregio di più laude darsi­

147 are rather flatly worded.

148 Footnote

149 1

150 : These notes, by Mr. C., are written in a Petrarch in my

151 possession, and are of some date before 1812. It is hoped that

152 they will not seem ill placed here.

153 *Ed.*

154 return to footnote mark

155 Footnote 2

156 :

157 If George Herbert is meant, I can find nothing like an imitation

158 of this canzone in his poems.

159 *Ed.*

160 return to footnote mark

Luigi Pulci

58 Born at Florence, 1431. ­ Died about 1487.

59 Pulci was of one of the noblest families in Florence, reported to

60 be one of the Frankish stocks which remained in that city after

61 the departure of Charlemagne:­

62 >

63 Pulcia Gallorum soboles descendit in urbem,

64 > Clara quidem bello, sacris nec inhospita Musis.

65 >

66 > (Verino *De illustrat. Cort. Flor.* III. v.

67 > 118.)

68 Members of this family were five times elected to the Priorate,

69 one of the highest honours of the republic. Pulci had two

70 brothers, and one of their wives, Antonia, who were all

71 poets:­

72 >

73 Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles;

74 > Quis non hanc urbem Musarum dicat arnicam,

75 > Si tres producat fratres domus una poetas?

76 >

77 > (*Ib.* II. v. 241.)

78 Luigi married Lucrezia di Uberto, of the

79 Albizzi family, and was intimate with the great men of his time,

80 but more especially with Angelo Politian, and Lorenzo the

81 Magnificent. His

82 *Morgante*

83 has been attributed, in part at

84 least

85 1

86 , to the assistance of Marsilius

87 Ficinus, and by others the whole has been attributed to Politian.

88 The first conjecture is utterly improbable; the last is possible,

89 indeed, on account of the licentiousness of the poem; but there

90 are no direct grounds for believing it.

91 The

92 *Morgante Maggiore*

93 2

94 is the first proper

95 romance; although, perhaps, Pulci had the

96 *Teseide*

97 before

98 him. The story is taken from the fabulous history of Turpin; and

99 if the author had any distinct object, it seems to have been that

100 of making himself merry with the absurdities of the old

101 romancers. The

102 *Morgante*

103 sometimes makes you think of

104 Rabelais.

105 It contains the most remarkable guess

106 or allusion upon the subject of America that can be found in any

107 book published before the discovery

108 3

109 . The well

110 known passage in the tragic Seneca is not to be compared with it.

111 The

112 *copia verborum*

113 of the mother Florentine tongue, and

114 the easiness of his style, afterwards brought to perfection by

115 Berni, are the chief merits of Pulci; his chief demerit is his

116 heartless spirit of jest and buffoonery, by which sovereigns and

117 their courtiers were flattered by the degradation of nature, and

118 the

119 *impossibilification*

120 of a pretended virtue.

121 Footnote 1

122 :

123 Meaning the 25th canto.

124 *Ed*

125 .

126 return to footnote mark

127 Footnote 2

128 :

129 The

130 *Morgante*

131 was printed in 1488.

132 *Ed*

133 .

134 return to footnote mark

135 Footnote 3

136 :

137 The reference is, of course, to the following stanzas:­

138 >

139 Disse Astarotte: un error lungo e fioco

140 > Per molti secol non ben conosciuto,

141 > Fa che si dice d' Ercol le colonne,

142 > E che più là molti periti sonne.

143 > Sappi che questa opinione è vana;

144 > Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,

145 > Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana,

146 > Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote:

147 > Era più grossa allor la gente humana;

148 > Falche potrebbe arrosirne le gote

149 > Ercule ancor d' aver posti que' segni,

150 > Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.

151 > E puossi andar giù ne l' altro emisperio,

152 > Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime;

153 > Sì che la terra per divin misterio

154 > Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,

155 > E là giù son città, castella, e

156 > imperio;

157 > Ma nol cognobbon quelle genti prime:

158 > Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,

159 > Dove io ti dico che là giù s' aspetta.

160 > E come un segno surge in Oriente,

161 > Un altro cade con mirabil arte,v Come si vede qua ne l'

162 > Occidente,

163 > Però che il ciel giustamente comparte;

164 > Antipodi appellata è quella gente;

165 > Adora il sole e Jupiterre e Marte,

166 > E piante e animal come voi hanno,

167 > E spesso insieme gran battaglie fanno.

168 >

169 > C. XXV. st. 228, &c.

170 return to footnote mark

Chaucer

61 Born in London, 1328. ­Died 1400.

62 1

63 Chaucer must be read with an eye to the Norman-French Trouveres,

64 of whom he is the best representative in English. He had great

65 powers of invention. As in Shakspeare, his characters represent

66 classes, but in a different manner; Shakspeare's characters are

67 the representatives of the interior nature of humanity, in which

68 some element has become so predominant as to destroy the health

69 of the mind; whereas Chaucer's are rather representatives of

70 classes of manners. He is therefore more led to individualize in

71 a mere personal sense. Observe Chaucer's love of nature; and how

72 happily the subject of his main work is chosen. When you reflect

73 that the company in the

74 *Decameron*

75 have retired to a place

76 of safety from the raging of a pestilence, their mirth provokes a

77 sense of their unfeelingness; whereas in Chaucer nothing of this

78 sort occurs, and the scheme of a party on a pilgrimage, with

79 different ends and occupations, aptly allows of the greatest

80 variety of expression in the tales. ...

81 Footnote 1

82 :

83 From Mr. Green's note.

84 *Ed*

85 .

Spenser

64 Born in London, 1553. ­Died 1599.

65 There is this difference, among many others, between Shakspeare

66 and Spenser:­ Shakspeare is never coloured by the customs of

67 his age; what appears of contemporary character in him is merely

68 negative; it is just not something else. He has none of the

69 fictitious realities of the classics, none of the grotesquenesses

70 of chivalry, none of the allegory of the middle ages; there is no

71 sectarianism either of politics or religion, no miser, no witch,

72 ­ no common witch, ­ no astrology ­ nothing

73 impermanent of however long duration; but he stands like the yew

74 tree in Lorton vale, which has known so many ages that it belongs

75 to none in particular; a living image of endless

76 self-reproduction, like the immortal tree of Malabar. In Spenser

77 the spirit of chivalry is entirely predominant, although with a

78 much greater infusion of the poet's own individual self into it

79 than is found in any other writer. He has the wit of the southern

80 with the deeper inwardness of the northern genius.

81 No one can appreciate Spenser without some reflection on the

82 nature of allegorical writing. The mere etymological meaning of

83 the word, allegory, ­ to talk of one thing and thereby convey

84 another, ­ is too wide. The true sense is this, ­ the

85 employment of one set of agents and images to convey in disguise

86 a moral meaning, with a likeness to the imagination, but with a

87 difference to the understanding, ­ those agents and images

88 being so combined as to form a homogeneous whole. This

89 distinguishes it from metaphor, which is part of an allegory. But

90 allegory is not properly distinguishable from fable, otherwise

91 than as the first includes the second, as a genus its species;

92 for in a fable there must be nothing but what is universally

93 known and acknowledged, but in an allegory there may be that

94 which is new and not previously admitted. The pictures of the

95 great masters, especially of the Italian schools, are genuine

96 allegories.

97 Amongst the classics, the multitude

98 of their gods either precluded allegory altogether, or else made

99 every thing allegory, as in the Hesiodic

100 *Theogonia*

101 ; for

102 you can scarcely distinguish between power and the

103 personification of power.

104 *The Cupid and Psyche*

105 of, or

106 found in, Apuleius, is a phenomenon. It is the Platonic mode of

107 accounting for the fall of man. The

108 *Battle of the Soul*

109 1

110 by Prudentius is an early instance of Christian

111 allegory.

112 Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality

113 from symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between

114 person and personification. Where it is too strongly

115 individualized, it ceases to be allegory; this is often felt in

116 the

117 *Pilgrim's Progress*

118 , where the characters are real

119 persons with nick names. Perhaps one of the most curious warnings

120 against another attempt at narrative allegory on a great scale,

121 may be found in Tasso's account of what he himself intended in

122 and by his

123 *Jerusalem Delivered*

124 .

125 (1)**

126 As characteristic of Spenser, I would call your

127 particular attention in the first place to the indescribable

128 sweetness and fluent projection of his verse, very clearly

129 distinguishable from the deeper and more inwoven harmonies of

130 Shakspeare and Milton. This stanza is a good instance of what I

131 mean:­

132 **

133 >

134 Yet she, most faithfull ladie, all this while

135 > Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd,

136 > Far from all peoples preace, as in exile,

137 > In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd

138 > To seeke her knight; who, subtily betrayd

139 > Through that late vision which th' enchaunter wrought,

140 > Had her abandond; she, of nought affrayd,

141 > Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought,

142 > Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought.

143 >

144 > (*F. Qu.*. B. I. c. 3. st. 3.)

145 2.**

146 Combined with this sweetness and fluency, the

147 scientific construction of the metre of the

148 *Faery Queene*

149 is very noticeable. One of Spenser's arts is that of

150 alliteration, and he uses it with great effect in doubling the

151 impression of an image:­

152 **

153 >

154 In w**ildernesse and **w**astful deserts,

155 > ­**> Through w**oods and **w**astnes **w**ilde, ­**> They passe the bitter w**aves of Acheron,**> Where many soules sit w**ailing **w**oefully,**> And come to f**iery **f**lood of **Ph**legeton,**> Whereas the damned ghosts in torments f**ry,**> And with sh**arp **sh**rilling **sh**rieks doth

156 > bootlesse cry, ­ &c.

157 He is particularly given to an alternate alliteration, which is,

158 perhaps, when well used, a great secret in melody:­

159 **

160 >

161 A r**amping lyon **r**ushed suddenly, ­

162 > And **s**ad to **s**ee her **s**orrowful

163 > con**s**traint, ­**> And on the grasse her d**aintie **l**imbes **d**id

164 > **l**ay, ­ &c.

165 You cannot read a page of the

166 *Faery Queene*

167 , if you read

168 for that purpose, without perceiving the intentional

169 alliterativeness of the words; and yet so skilfully is this

170 managed, that it never strikes any unwarned ear as artificial, or

171 other than the result of the necessary movement of the verse.

172 **

173 3.**

174 Spenser displays great skill in harmonizing his

175 descriptions of external nature and actual incidents with the

176 allegorical character and epic activity of the poem. Take these

177 two beautiful passages as illustrations of what I mean:­

178 **

179 >

180 By this the northerne wagoner had set

181 > His sevenfol teme behind the stedfast starre

182 > That was in ocean waves yet never wet,

183 > But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre

184 > To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;

185 > And chearefull chaunticlere with his note shrill

186 > Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery carre

187 > In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,

188 > Full envious that Night so long his roome did fill;

189 >

190 > *When* those accursed messengers of hell,

191 > That feigning dreame, and that faire-forged spright

192 > Came, &c.

193 >

194 > (B. I. c. 2. st. 1.)

195 >

196 > ...

197 >

198 > At last, the golden orientall gate

199 > Of greatest Heaven gan to open fayre;

200 > And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,

201 > Came dauncing forth, shaking his deawie hayre;

202 > And hurld his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.

203 > *Which when* the wakeful Elfe perceiv'd, streightway

204 > He started up, and did him selfe prepayre

205 > In sunbright armes and battailons array;

206 > For with that Pagan proud he combat will that day.

207 >

208 > (*Ib.* c. 5. st. 2.)

209 Observe also the exceeding vividness of Spenser's descriptions.

210 They are not, in the true sense of the word, picturesque; but are

211 composed of a wondrous series of images, as in our dreams.

212 Compare the following passage with any thing you may remember

213 *in pari materia*

214 in Milton or Shakspeare:­

215 >

216 His haughtie helmet, horrid all with gold,

217 > Both glorious brightnesse and great terrour bredd

218 > For all the crest a dragon did enfold

219 > With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd

220 > His golden winges; his dreadfull hideous hedd,

221 > Close couched on the bever, seemd to throw

222 > From flaming mouth bright sparkles fiery redd,

223 > That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show;

224 > And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full low.

225 >

226 > Upon the top of all his loftie crest

227 > A bounch of haires discolourd diversly,

228 > With sprinkled pearle and gold full richly drest,

229 > Did shake, and seemd to daunce for jollitie;

230 > Like to an almond tree ymounted hye

231 > On top of greene Selinis all alone,

232 > With blossoms brave bedecked daintily,

233 > Whose tender locks do tremble every one

234 > At everie little breath that under heaven is blowne.

235 >

236 > (*Ib.* c. 7. st. 31-2.)

237 4.**

238 You will take especial note of the marvellous

239 independence and true imaginative absence of all particular space

240 or time in the

241 *Faery Queene*

242 . It is in the domains neither

243 of history or geography; it is ignorant of all artificial

244 boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in land of Faery,

245 that is, of mental space. The poet has placed you in a dream, a

246 charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor have the power, to

247 inquire where you are, or how you got there. It reminds me of

248 some lines of my own:­

249 **

250 >

251 Oh! would to Alla!

252 > The raven or the sea-mew were appointed

253 > To bring me food! ­ or rather that my soul

254 > Might draw in life from the universal air!

255 > It were a lot divine in some small skiff

256 > Along some ocean's boundless solitude

257 > To float for ever with a careless course

258 > And think myself the only being alive!

259 >

260 > (*Remorse*, Act iv. sc. 3.)

261 Indeed Spenser himself, in the conduct of his great poem, may be

262 represented under the same image, his symbolizing purpose being

263 his mariner's compass:­

264 >

265 As pilot well expert in perilous wave,

266 > That to a stedfast starre his course hath bent,

267 > When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have

268 > The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent,

269 > And coverd Heaven with hideous dreriment;

270 > Upon his card and compas firmes his eye,

271 > The maysters of his long experiment,

272 > And to them does the steddy helme apply,

273 > Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly.

274 >

275 > (B. II. c. 7. st. 1.)

276 So the poet through the realms of allegory.

277 5.**

278 You should note the quintessential character of

279 Christian chivalry in all his characters, but more especially in

280 his women. The Greeks, except, perhaps, in Homer, seem to have

281 had no way of making their women interesting, but by unsexing

282 them, as in the instances of the tragic Medea, Electra, &c.

283 Contrast such characters with Spenser's Una, who exhibits no

284 prominent feature, has no particularization, but produces the

285 same feeling that a statue does, when contemplated at a

286 distance:­

287 **

288 >

289 From her fayre head her fillet she undight,

290 > And layd her stole aside: her angels face,

291 > As the great eye of Heaven, shyned bright,

292 > And made a sunshine in the shady place;

293 > Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

294 >

295 > (B. I. c. 3. st. 4.)

296 6.**

297 In Spenser we see the brightest and purest form of

298 that nationality which was so common a characteristic of our

299 elder poets. There is nothing unamiable, nothing contemptuous of

300 others, in it. To glorify their country ­ to elevate England

301 into a queen, an empress of the heart ­ this was their

302 passion and object; and how dear and important an object it was

303 or may be, let Spain, in the recollection of her Cid, declare!

304 There is a great magic in national names. What a damper to all

305 interest is a list of native East Indian merchants! Unknown names

306 are non-conductors; they stop all sympathy. No one of our poets

307 has touched this string more exquisitely than Spenser; especially

308 in his chronicle of the British Kings (B. II. c. 10.), and the

309 marriage of the Thames with the Medway (B. IV. c. 11.), in both

310 which passages the mere names constitute half the pleasure we

311 receive. To the same feeling we must in particular attribute

312 Spenser's sweet reference to Ireland:­

313 **

314 >

315 Ne thence the Irishe rivers absent were;

316 > Sith no lesse famous than the rest they be, &c.

317 >

318 > (*Ib.*)

319 >

320 > ...

321 >

322 > And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep.

323 >

324 > (*Ib.*)

325 And there is a beautiful passage of the same sort in the Colin

326 Clout's

327 *Come Home Again*

328 :­

329 >

330 "One day," quoth he, "I sat, as was my trade,

331 > Under the foot of Mole," &c.

332 Lastly, the great and prevailing character of Spenser's mind is

333 fancy under the conditions of imagination, as an ever present but

334 not always active power. He has an imaginative fancy, but he has

335 not imagination, in kind or degree, as Shakspeare and Milton

336 have; the boldest effort of his powers in this way is the

337 character of Talus. Add to this a feminine

338 tenderness and almost maidenly purity of feeling, and above all,

339 a deep moral earnestness which produces a believing sympathy and

340 acquiescence in the reader, and you have a tolerably adequate

341 view of Spenser's intellectual being.

342 Footnote 1

343 :

344 *Psychomachia*

345 return to footnote mark

346 Contents

347 Contents, p.2

348 ---

Lecture VII. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and

67 Fletcher, and Massinger

68 A contemporary is rather an ambiguous term, when applied to

69 authors. It may simply mean that one man lived and wrote while

70 another was yet alive, however deeply the former may have been

71 indebted to the latter as his model. There have been instances in

72 the literary world that might remind a botanist of a singular

73 sort of parasite plant, which rises above ground, independent and

74 unsupported, an apparent original; but trace its roots, and you

75 will find the fibres all terminating in the root of another plant

76 at an unsuspected distance, which, perhaps, from want of sun and

77 genial soil, and the loss of sap, has scarcely been able to peep

78 above the ground. ­ Or the word may mean those whose

79 compositions were contemporaneous in such a sense as to preclude

80 all likelihood of the one having borrowed from the other. In the

81 latter sense I should call Ben Jonson a contemporary of

82 Shakspeare, though he long survived him; while I should prefer

83 the phrase of immediate successors for Beaumont and Fletcher, and

84 Massinger, though they too were Shakspeare's contemporaries in

85 the former sense.

Ben Jonson  1

70 Born, 1754. ­Died, 1637

71 Ben Jonson is original; he is, indeed, the only one of the great

72 dramatists of that day who was not either directly produced, or

73 very greatly modified, by Shakspeare. In truth, he differs from

74 our great master in every thing ­ in form and in substance

75 ­ and betrays no tokens of his proximity. He is not original

76 in the same way as Shakspeare is original; but after a fashion of

77 his own, Ben Jonson is most truly original.

78 The characters in his plays are, in the strictest sense of the

79 term, abstractions. Some very prominent feature is taken from the

80 whole man, and that single feature or humour is made the basis

81 upon which the entire character is built up. Ben Jonson's

82 *dramatis personae*

83 are almost as fixed as the masks of the

84 ancient actors; you know from the first scene ­ sometimes

85 from the list of names ­ exactly what every one of them is to

86 be. He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only to

87 observe what was external or open to, and likely to impress, the

88 senses. He individualizes, not so much, if at all, by the

89 exhibition of moral or intellectual differences, as by the

90 varieties and contrasts of manners, modes of speech and tricks of

91 temper; as in such characters as Puntarvolo, Bobadill, &c.

92 I believe there is not one whim or affectation in common life

93 noted in any memoir of that age which may not be found drawn and

94 framed in some corner or other of Ben Jonson's dramas; and they

95 have this merit, in common with Hogarth's prints, that not a

96 single circumstance is introduced in them which does not play

97 upon, and help to bring out, the dominant humour or humours of

98 the piece. Indeed I ought very particularly to call your

99 attention to the extraordinary skill shown by Ben Jonson in

100 contriving situations for the display of his characters. In fact,

101 his care and anxiety in this matter led him to do what scarcely

102 any of the dramatists of that age did ­ that is, invent his

103 plots. It is not a first perusal that suffices for the full

104 perception of the elaborate artifice of the plots of the

105 *Alchemist*

106 and the

107 *Silent Woman*

108 ; ­ that of the

109 former is absolute perfection for a necessary entanglement, and

110 an unexpected, yet natural, evolution.

111 Ben Jonson exhibits a sterling English diction, and he has with

112 great skill contrived varieties of construction; but his style is

113 rarely sweet or harmonious, in consequence of his labour at point

114 and strength being so evident. In all his works, in verse or

115 prose, there is an extraordinary opulence of thought; but it is

116 the produce of an amassing power in the author, and not of a

117 growth from within. Indeed a large proportion of Ben Jonson's

118 thoughts may be traced to classic or obscure modern writers, by

119 those who are learned and curious enough to follow the steps of

120 this robust, surly, and observing dramatist.

121 Footnote 1

122 :

123 From Mr. Green's note.

124 *Ed.*

125 return to footnote mark

Beaumont

73 Born, 1586. ­Died, 1616.

Fletcher

76 Born, 1576. ­Died, 1625.

77 Mr. Weber, to whose taste, industry, and

78 appropriate erudition we owe, I will not say the best, (for that

79 would be saying little,) but a good, edition of Beaumont and

80 Fletcher, has complimented the

81 *Philaster*

82 , which he himself

83 describes as inferior to the

84 *Maid's Tragedy*

85 by the same

86 writers, as but little below the noblest of Shakspeare's plays,

87 *Lear*

88 ,

89 *Macbeth*

90 ,

91 *Othello*

92 , &c. and consequently

93 implying the equality, at least, of the

94 *Maid's Tragedy*

95 ;

96 ­ and an eminent living critic, ­ who in the manly wit,

97 strong sterling sense, and robust style of his original works,

98 had presented the best possible credentials of office as

99 *chargé d'affaires*

100 of literature in general, ­

101 and who by his edition of Massinger ­ a work in which there

102 was more for an editor to do, and in which more was actually well

103 done, than in any similar work within my knowledge ­ has

104 proved an especial right of authority in the appreciation of

105 dramatic poetry, and hath potentially a double voice with the

106 public in his own right and in that of the critical synod, where,

107 as

108 *princeps senatus*

109 , he possesses it by his prerogative,

110 ­ has affirmed that Shakspeare's superiority to his

111 contemporaries rests on his superior wit alone, while in all the

112 other, and, as I should deem, higher excellencies of the drama,

113 character, pathos, depth of thought, &c. he is equalled by

114 Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Massinger!

115 1

116 Of wit I am engaged to treat in another Lecture. It is a genus of

117 many species; and at present I shall only say, that the species

118 which is predominant in Shakspeare, is so completely

119 Shakspearian, and in its essence so interwoven with all his other

120 characteristic excellencies, that I am equally incapable of

121 comprehending, both how it can be detached from his other powers,

122 and how, being disparate in kind from the wit of contemporary

123 dramatists, it can be compared with theirs in degree. And again

124 ­ the detachment and the practicability of the comparison

125 being granted ­ I should, I confess, be rather inclined to

126 concede the contrary; ­ and in the most common species of

127 wit, and in the ordinary application of the term, to yield this

128 particular palm to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom here and hereafter

129 I take as one poet with two names, ­ leaving undivided what a

130 rare love and still rarer congeniality have united. At least, I

131 have never been able to distinguish the presence of Fletcher

132 during the life of Beaumont, nor the absence of Beaumont during

133 the survival of Fletcher.

134 But waiving, or rather deferring, this question, I protest

135 against the remainder of the position

136 *in toto*

137 . And indeed,

138 whilst I can never, I trust, show myself blind to the various

139 merits of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, or

140 insensible to the greatness of the merits which they possess in

141 common, or to the specific excellencies which give to each of the

142 three a worth of his own, ­ I confess, that one main object

143 of this Lecture was to prove that Shakspeare's eminence is his

144 own, and not that of his age; ­ even as the pine-apple, the

145 melon, and the gourd may grow on the same bed; ­ yea, the

146 same circumstances of warmth and soil may be necessary to their

147 full development, yet do not account for the golden hue, the

148 ambrosial flavour, the perfect shape of the pine-apple, or the

149 tufted crown on its head. Would that those, who seek to twist it

150 off, could but promise us in this instance to make it the germ of

151 an equal successor!

152 What had a grammatical and logical consistency for the ear, ­

153 what could be put together and represented to the eye ­ these

154 poets took from the ear and eye, unchecked by any intuition of an

155 inward impossibility; ­ just as a man might put together a

156 quarter of an orange, a quarter of an apple, and the like of a

157 lemon and a pomegranate, and make it look like one round

158 diverse-coloured fruit. But nature, which works from within by

159 evolution and assimilation according to a law, cannot do so, nor

160 could Shakspeare; for he too worked in the spirit of nature, by

161 evolving the germ from within by the imaginative power according

162 to an idea. For as the power of seeing is to light, so is an idea

163 in mind to a law in nature. They are correlatives, which suppose

164 each other.

165 The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are mere aggregations without

166 unity; in the Shakspearian drama there is a vitality which grows

167 and evolves itself from within, ­ a key note which guides and

168 controls the harmonies throughout. What is

169 *Lear*

170 ? ­ It

171 is storm and tempest ­ the thunder at first grumbling in the

172 far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length bursting in

173 fury over our heads, ­ succeeded by a breaking of the clouds

174 for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing in of night,

175 and the single hope of darkness! And

176 *Romeo and Juliet*

177 ?

178 ­ It is a spring day, gusty and beautiful in the morn, and

179 closing like an April evening with the song of the nightingale;

180 ­ whilst

181 *Macbeth*

182 is deep and earthy, ­ composed to

183 the subterranean music of a troubled conscience, which converts

184 every thing into the wild and fearful!

185 Doubtless from mere observation, or from the occasional

186 similarity of the writer's own character, more or less in

187 Beaumont and Fletcher, and other such writers will happen to be

188 in correspondence with nature, and still more in apparent

189 compatibility with it. But yet the false source is always

190 discoverable, first by the gross contradictions to nature in so

191 many other parts, and secondly, by the want of the impression

192 which Shakspeare makes, that the thing said not only might have

193 been said, but that nothing else could be substituted, so as to

194 excite the same sense of its exquisite propriety. I have always

195 thought the conduct and expressions of Othello and Iago in the

196 last scene, when Iago is brought in prisoner, a wonderful

197 instance of Shakspeare's consummate judgment:­

198 >

199 *Oth.* I look down towards his feet; ­ but

200 > that's a fable.

201 > If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.

202 >

203 > *Iago.* I bleed, Sir; but not kill'd.

204 >

205 > *Oth.* I am not sorry neither.

206 Think what a volley of execrations and defiances Beaumont and

207 Fletcher would have poured forth here!

208 Indeed Massinger and Ben Jonson are both more perfect in their

209 kind than Beaumont and Fletcher; the former in the story and

210 affecting incidents; the latter in the exhibition of manners and

211 peculiarities, whims in language, and vanities of appearance.

212 There is, however, a diversity of the most dangerous kind here.

213 Shakspeare shaped his characters out of the nature within; but we

214 cannot so safely say, out of his own nature as an individual

215 person. No! this latter is itself but a

216 *natura naturata*

217 ,

218 ­ an effect, a product, not a power. It was Shakspeare's

219 prerogative to have the universal, which is potentially in each

220 particular, opened out to him, the

221 *homo generalis*

222 , not as

223 an abstraction from observation of a variety of men, but as the

224 substance capable of endless modifications, of which his own

225 personal existence was but one, and to use this one as the eye

226 that beheld the other, and as the tongue that could convey the

227 discovery. There is no greater or more common vice in dramatic

228 writers than to draw out of themselves. How I ­ alone and in

229 the self-sufficiency of my study, as all men are apt to be proud

230 in their dreams ­ should like to be talking

231 *king*

232 !

233 Shakspeare, in composing, had no

234 *I*

235 , but the

236 *I*

237 representative. In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptions of

238 characters by the poet rather than the characters themselves; we

239 are told, and impressively told, of their being; but we rarely or

240 never feel that they actually are.

241 Beaumont and Fletcher are the most lyrical of our dramatists. I

242 think their comedies the best part of their works, although there

243 are scenes of very deep tragic interest in some of their plays. I

244 particularly recommend

245 *Monsieur Thomas*

246 for good pure comic

247 humor.

248 There is, occasionally, considerable license in

249 their dramas; and this opens a subject much needing vindication

250 and sound exposition, but which is beset with such difficulties

251 for a Lecturer, that I must pass it by. Only as far as Shakspeare

252 is concerned, I own, I can with less pain admit a fault in him

253 than beg an excuse for it. I will not, therefore, attempt to

254 palliate the grossness that actually exists in his plays by the

255 customs of his age, or by the far greater coarseness of all his

256 contemporaries, excepting Spenser, who is himself not wholly

257 blameless, though nearly so; ­ for I place Shakspeare's merit

258 on being of no age. But I would clear away what is, in my

259 judgment, not his, as that scene of the Porter

260 2

261 in

262 *Macbeth*

263 , and many other such passages, and

264 abstract what is coarse in manners only, and all that which from

265 the frequency of our own vices, we associate with his words. If

266 this were truly done, little that could be justly reprehensible

267 would remain. Compare the vile comments, offensive and defensive,

268 on Pope's

269 >

270 Lust thro' some gentle strainers, &c.

271 with the worst thing in Shakspeare, or even in Beaumont and

272 Fletcher; and then consider how unfair the attack is on our old

273 dramatists; especially because it is an attack that cannot be

274 properly answered in that presence in which an answer would be

275 most desirable, from the painful nature of one part of the

276 position; but this very pain is almost a demonstration of its

277 falsehood!

278 Footnote 1

279 :

280 See Mr. Gifford's introduction to his edition of Massinger.

281 Ed.

282 return to footnote mark

283 Footnote 2

284 :

285 Act ii. sc. 3.

Massinger

79 Born at Salisbury, 1584. ­Died, 1640.

80 With regard to Massinger, observe,

81 1.**

82 The vein of satire on the times; but this is not as

83 in Shakspeare, where the natures evolve themselves according to

84 their incidental disproportions, from excess, deficiency, or

85 mislocation, of one or more of the component elements; but is

86 merely satire on what is attributed to them by others.

87 **

88 2.**

89 His excellent metre ­ a better model for

90 dramatists in general to imitate than Shakspeare's, ­ even if

91 a dramatic taste existed in the frequenters of the stage, and

92 could be gratified in the present size and management, or rather

93 mismanagement, of the two patent theatres. I do not mean that

94 Massinger's verse is superior to Shakspeare's or equal to it. Far

95 from it; but it is much more easily constructed and may be more

96 successfully adopted by writers in the present day. It is the

97 nearest approach to the language of real life at all compatible

98 with a fixed metre. In Massinger, as in all our poets before

99 Dryden, in order to make harmonious verse in the reading, it is

100 absolutely necessary that the meaning should be understood; ­

101 when the meaning is once seen, then the harmony is perfect.

102 Whereas in Pope and in most of the writers who followed in his

103 school, it is the mechanical metre which determines the

104 sense.

105 **

106 3.**

107 The impropriety, and indecorum of demeanour in his

108 favourite characters, as in Bertoldo in the

109 *Maid of

110 Honour*

111 , who is a swaggerer, talking to his sovereign what no

112 sovereign could endure, and to gentlemen what no gentleman would

113 answer without pulling his nose.

114 **

115 4.**

116 Shakspeare's Ague-cheek, Osric, &c. are displayed

117 through others, in the course of social intercourse, by the mode

118 of their performing some office in which they are employed; but

119 Massinger's

120 *Sylli*

121 come forward to declare themselves fools

122 *ad arbitrium auctoris,*

123 and so the diction always needs the

124 *subintelligitur*

125 ('the man looks as if he thought so and

126 so,') expressed in the language of the satirist, and not in that

127 of the man himself:­

128 **

129 >

130 *Sylli.* You may, madam,

131 > Perhaps, believe that I in this use art

132 > To make you dote upon me, by exposing

133 > My more than most rare features to your view;

134 > But I, as I have ever done, deal simply,

135 > A mark of sweet simplicity, ever noted

136 > In the family of the Syllis. Therefore, lady,

137 > Look not with too much contemplation on me;

138 > If you do, you are in the suds.

139 >

140 > *Maid of Honour*, act i. sc. 2.

141 The author mixes his own feelings and judgments concerning the

142 presumed fool; but the man himself, till mad, fights up against

143 them, and betrays, by his attempts to modify them, that he is no

144 fool at all, but one gifted with activity and copiousness of

145 thought, image and expression, which belong not to a fool, but to

146 a man of wit making himself merry with his own character.

147 5.**

148 There is an utter want of preparation in the decisive

149 acts of Massinger's characters, as in Camiola and Aurelia in the

150 *Maid of Honour*

151 . Why? Because the

152 *dramatis personae*

153 were all planned each by itself. Whereas in Shakspeare, the play

154 is

155 *syngenesia;*

156 each character has, indeed, a life of its

157 own, and is an

158 *individuum*

159 of itself, but yet an organ of

160 the whole, as the heart in the human body. Shakspeare was a great

161 comparative anatomist.

162 **

163 Hence Massinger and all, indeed, but Shakspeare, take a dislike

164 to their own characters, and spite themselves upon them by making

165 them talk like fools or monsters; as Fulgentio in his visit to

166 Camiola, (Act ii. sc. 2.) Hence too, in Massinger, the continued

167 flings at kings, courtiers, and all the favourites of fortune,

168 like one who had enough of intellect to see injustice in his own

169 inferiority in the share of the good things of life, but not

170 genius enough to rise above it, and forget himself. Beaumont and

171 Fletcher have the same vice in the opposite pole, a servility of

172 sentiment and a spirit of partizanship with the monarchical

173 faction.

174 6.**

175 From the want of a guiding point in Massinger's

176 characters, you never know what they are about. In fact they have

177 no character.

178 **

179 7.**

180 Note the faultiness of his soliloquies, with

181 connectives and arrangements, that have no other motive but the

182 fear lest the audience should not understand him.

183 **

184 8.**

185 A play of Massinger's produces no one single effect,

186 whether arising from the spirit of the whole, as in the

187 *As You

188 Like It*

189 ; or from any one indisputably prominent character as

190 Hamlet. It is just "which you like best, gentlemen!"

191 **

192 9.**

193 The unnaturally irrational passions and strange whims

194 of feeling which Massinger delights to draw, deprive the reader

195 of all sound interest in the characters; ­ as in Mathias in

196 the

197 *Picture*

198 , and in other instances.

199 **

200 10.**

201 The comic scenes in Massinger not only do not

202 harmonize with the tragic, not only interrupt the feeling, but

203 degrade the characters that are to form any part in the action of

204 the piece, so as to render them unfit for any tragic interest. At

205 least, they do not concern, or act upon, or modify, the principal

206 characters. As when a gentleman is insulted by a mere blackguard,

207 ­ it is the same as if any other accident of nature had

208 occurred, a pig run under his legs, or his horse thrown him.

209 There is no dramatic interest in it.

210 **

211 I like Massinger's comedies better than his tragedies, although

212 where the situation requires it, he often rises into the truly

213 tragic and pathetic. He excells in narration, and for the most

214 part displays his mere story with skill. But he is not a poet of

215 high imagination; he is like a Flemish painter, in whose

216 delineations objects appear as they do in nature, have the same

217 force and truth, and produce the same effect upon the spectator.

218 But Shakspeare is beyond this; ­ he always by metaphors and

219 figures involves in the thing considered a universe of past and

220 possible experiences; he mingles earth, sea and air, gives a soul

221 to every thing, and at the same time that he inspires human

222 feelings, adds a dignity in his images to human nature

223 itself:­

224 >

225 Full many a glorious morning have I seen

226 > Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye;

227 > Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

228 > Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy, &c.

229 >

230 > (33rd Sonnet.)

231 *Note*

232 . ­ Have I not over-rated Gifford's edition of

233 Massinger? ­ Not, ­ if I have, as but just is, main

234 reference to the restitution of the text; but yes, perhaps, if I

235 were talking of the notes. These are more often wrong than right.

236 In the

237 *Maid of Honour*

238 , Act i. sc. 5. Astutio describes

239 Fulgentio as "A gentleman, yet no lord." Gifford supposes a

240 transposition of the press for "No gentleman, yet a lord." But

241 this would have no connection with what follows; and we have only

242 to recollect that "lord" means a lord of lands, to see that the

243 after lines are explanatory. He is a man of high birth, but no

244 landed property; ­ as to the former, he is a distant branch

245 of the blood royal; ­ as to the latter, his whole rent lies

246 in a narrow compass, the king's ear! In the same scene the text

247 stands:

248 >

249 *Bert*. No! they are useful

250 > For your *imitation;* ­ I remember you, &c.;

251 > ­

252 and Gifford condemns Mason's conjecture of 'initiation' as void

253 of meaning and harmony. Now my ear deceives me if 'initiation' be

254 not the right word. In fact, 'imitation' is utterly impertinent

255 to all that follows. Bertoldo tells Antonio that he had been

256 initiated in the manners suited to the court by two or three

257 sacred beauties, and that a similar experience would be equally

258 useful for his initiation into the camp. Not a word of his

259 imitation. Besides, I say the rhythm requires 'initiation,' and

260 is lame as the verse now stands. .

261 Contents

262 Contents, p.2

263 ---

Lecture VIII. *Don Quixote*.

82 Cervantes.

83 Born at Madrid, 1547; ­ Shakspeare, 1564; both put off

84 mortality on the same day, the 23rd of April, 1616, ­ the one

85 in the sixty-ninth, the other in the fifty-second, year of his

86 life. The resemblance in their physiognomies is striking, but

87 with a predominance of acuteness in Cervantes, and of reflection

88 in Shakspeare, which is the specific difference between the

89 Spanish and English characters of mind.

90 I.**  The nature and eminence of Symbolical writing;

91 ­**

92 II.**  Madness, and its different sorts, (considered without

93 pretension to medical science); ­**

94 To each of these, or at least to my own notions respecting them,

95 I must devote a few words of explanation, in order to render the

96 after critique on Don Quixote, the master work of Cervantes' and

97 his country's genius easily and throughout intelligible. This is

98 not the least valuable, though it may most often be felt by us

99 both as the heaviest and least entertaining portion of these

100 critical disquisitions: for without it, I must have foregone one

101 at least of the two appropriate objects of a Lecture, that of

102 interesting you during its delivery, and of leaving behind in

103 your minds the germs of after-thought, and the materials for

104 future enjoyment. To have been assured by several of my

105 intelligent auditors that they have reperused *Hamlet* or

106 *Othello* with increased satisfaction in consequence of the

107 new points of view in which I had placed those characters ­

108 is the highest compliment I could receive or desire; and should

109 the address of this evening open out a new source of pleasure, or

110 enlarge the former in your perusal of *Don Quixote*, it will

111 compensate for the failure of any personal or temporary

112 object.

113 I.**  The Symbolical cannot, perhaps, be better defined in

114 distinction from the Allegorical, than that it is always itself a

115 part of that, of the whole of which it is the representative.

116 ­ "Here comes a sail," ­ (that is, a ship) is a

117 symbolical expression. "Behold our lion!" when we speak of some

118 gallant soldier, is allegorical. Of most importance to our

119 present subject is this point, that the latter (the allegory)

120 cannot be other than spoken consciously; ­ whereas in the

121 former (the symbol) it is very possible that the general truth

122 represented may be working unconsciously in the writer's mind

123 during the construction of the symbol; ­ and it proves itself

124 by being produced out of his own mind, ­ as the Don Quixote

125 out of the perfectly sane mind of Cervantes, and not by outward

126 observation, or historically. The advantage of symbolical writing

127 over allegory is, that it presumes no disjunction of faculties,

128 but simple predominance.**

129 II.**  Madness may be divided as ­**

130 1.**  hypochondriasis; or, the man is out of his senses.**

131 2.**  derangement of the understanding; or, the man is out

132 of his wits.**

133 ** loss of reason.**

134 4.**  frenzy, or derangement of the sensations.**

135 Cervantes's own preface to *Don Quixote*

136 is a perfect model of the gentle, every where intelligible, irony

137 in the best essays of the *Tatler* and the *Spectator*.

138 Equally natural and easy, Cervantes is more spirited than

139 Addison; whilst he blends with the terseness of Swift, an

140 exquisite flow and music of style, and above all, contrasts with

141 the latter by the sweet temper of a superior mind, which saw the

142 follies of mankind, and was even at the moment suffering severely

143 under hard mistreatment; 1 and yet seems every

144 where to have but one thought as the undersong ­ "Brethren!

145 with all your faults I love you still!" ­ or as a mother that

146 chides the child she loves, with one hand holds up the rod, and

147 with the other wipes off each tear as it drops!

148 Don Quixote was neither fettered to the earth by want, nor holden

149 in its embraces by wealth; ­ of which, with the temperance

150 natural to his country, as a Spaniard, he had both far too

151 little, and somewhat too much, to be under any necessity of

152 thinking about it. His age too, fifty, may be well supposed to

153 prevent his mind from being tempted out of itself by any of the

154 lower passions; ­ while his habits, as a very early riser and

155 a keen sportsman, were such as kept his spare body in serviceable

156 subjection to his will, and yet by the play of hope that

157 accompanies pursuit, not only permitted, but assisted, his fancy

158 in shaping what it would. Nor must we omit his meagerness and

159 entire featureliness, face and frame, which Cervantes gives us at

160 once: "It is said that his surname was *Quixada* or

161 *Quesada,*" &c. ­ even in this trifle showing an

162 exquisite judgment; ­ just once insinuating the association

163 of *lantern-jaws* into the reader's mind, yet not retaining

164 it obtrusively like the names in old farces and in the

165 *Pilgrim's Progress,* ­ but taking for the regular

166 appellative one which had the no meaning of a proper name in real

167 life, and which yet was capable of recalling a number of very

168 different, but all pertinent, recollections, as old armour, the

169 precious metals hidden in the ore, &c. Don Quixote's leanness and

170 featureliness are happy exponents of the excess of the formative

171 or imaginative in him, contrasted with Sancho's plump rotundity,

172 and recipiency of external impression.

173 He has no knowledge of the sciences or scientific arts which give

174 to the meanest portions of matter an intellectual interest, and

175 which enable the mind to decypher in the world of the senses the

176 invisible agency ­ that alone, of which the world's phenomena

177 are the effects and manifestations, ­ and thus, as in a

178 mirror, to contemplate its own reflex, its life in the powers,

179 its imagination in the symbolic forms, its moral instincts in the

180 final causes, and its reason in the laws of material nature: but

181 ­ estranged from all the motives to observation from

182 self-interest ­ the persons that surround him too few and too

183 familiar to enter into any connection with his thoughts, or to

184 require any adaptation of his conduct to their particular

185 characters or relations to himself ­ his judgment lies

186 fallow, with nothing to excite, nothing to employ it. Yet, ­

187 and here is the point, where genius even of the most perfect

188 kind, allotted but to few in the course of many ages, does not

189 preclude the necessity in part, and in part counterbalance the

190 craving by sanity of judgment, without which genius either cannot

191 be, or cannot at least manifest itself, ­ the dependency of

192 our nature asks for some confirmation from without, though it be

193 only from the shadows of other men's fictions.

194 Too uninformed, and with too narrow a sphere of power and

195 opportunity to rise into the scientific artist, or to be himself

196 a patron of art, and with too deep a principle and too much

197 innocence to become a mere projector, Don Quixote has recourse to

198 romances:­

199 >

200 His curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived

201 > at that pitch, that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase

202 > books of knight-errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands

203 > on of that kind! (C.I.)

204 The more remote these romances were from the language of common

205 life, the more akin on that very account were they to the

206 shapeless dreams and strivings of his own mind; ­ a mind,

207 which possessed not the highest order of genius which lives in an

208 atmosphere of power over mankind, but that minor kind which, in

209 its restlessness, seeks for a vivid representative of its own

210 wishes, and substitutes the movements of that objective puppet

211 for an exercise of actual power in and by itself. The more wild

212 and improbable these romances were, the more were they akin to

213 his will, which had been in the habit of acting as an unlimited

214 monarch over the creations of his fancy! Hence observe how the

215 startling of the remaining common sense, like a glimmering before

216 its death, in the notice of the impossible-improbable of Don

217 Belianis, is dismissed by Don Quixote as impertinent:­

218 >

219 *He had some doubt* 2 as to

220 > the dreadful wounds which Don Belianis gave and received: for he

221 > imagined, that notwithstanding the most expert surgeons had cured

222 > him, his face and whole body must still be full of seams and

223 > scars. *Nevertheless* 3 he commended in

224 > his author the concluding his book with a promise of that

225 > unfinishable adventure! (C. 1.)

226 Hence also his first intention to turn author; but who, with

227 such a restless struggle within him, could content himself with

228 writing in a remote village among apathists and ignorants? During

229 his colloquies with the village priest and the barber surgeon, in

230 which the fervour of critical controversy feeds the passion and

231 gives reality to its object ­ what more natural than that the

232 mental striving should become an eddy? ­ madness may perhaps

233 be denned as the circling in a stream which should be progressive

234 and adaptive: Don Quixote grows at length to be a man out of his

235 wits; his understanding is deranged; and hence without the least

236 deviation from the truth of nature, without losing the least

237 trait of personal individuality, he becomes a substantial living

238 allegory, or personification of the reason and the moral sense,

239 divested of the judgment and the understanding. Sancho is the

240 converse. He is the common sense without reason or imagination;

241 and Cervantes not only shows the excellence and power of reason

242 in, Don Quixote, but in both him and Sancho the mischiefs

243 resulting from a severance of the two main constituents of sound

244 intellectual and moral action. Put him and his master together,

245 and they form a perfect intellect; but they are separated and

246 without cement; and hence each having a need of the other for its

247 own completeness, each has at times a mastery over the other. For

248 the common sense, although it may see the practical

249 inapplicability of the dictates of the imagination or abstract

250 reason, yet cannot help submitting to them. These two characters

251 possess the world, alternately and interchangeably the cheater

252 and the cheated. To impersonate them, and to combine the

253 permanent with the individual, is one of the highest creations of

254 genius, and has been achieved by Cervantes and Shakspeare, almost

255 alone.

256 Observations on particular passages,

257 >

258 (B. I. c. 1.)  But not altogether approving of his

259 > having broken it to pieces with so much ease, to secure himself

260 > from the like danger for the future, he made it over again,

261 > fencing it with small bars of iron within, in such a manner,

262 > *that he rested satisfied of its strength; and without caring

263 > to make a fresh experiment on it, he approved and looked upon it

264 > as a most excellent helmet.*

265 His not trying his improved scull-cap is an exquisite trait of

266 human character, founded on the oppugnancy of the soul in such a

267 state to any disturbance by doubt of its own broodings. Even the

268 long deliberation about his horse's name is full of meaning;

269 ­ for in these day-dreams the greater part of the history

270 passes and is carried on in words, which look forward to other

271 words as what will be said of them.

272 >

273 (*Ib*)   Near the place where he lived, there

274 > dwelt a very comely country lass, with whom he had formerly been

275 > in love; though, as it is supposed, she never knew it, nor

276 > troubled herself about it.

277 The nascent love for the country lass, but without any attempt at

278 utterance, or an opportunity of knowing her, except as the hint

279 ­ the

280 *

281 ­ of the inward imagination, is happily

282 conceived in both parts; ­ first, as confirmative of the

283 shrinking back of the mind on itself, and its dread of having a

284 cherished image destroyed by its own judgment; and secondly, as

285 showing how necessarily love is the passion of novels. Novels are

286 to love as fairy tales to dreams. I never knew but two men of

287 taste and feeling who could not understand why I was delighted

288 with the

289 Arabian Nights' Tales*

290 , and they were likewise the

291 only persons in my knowledge who scarcely remembered having ever

292 dreamed. Magic and war ­ itself a magic ­ are the

293 day-dreams of childhood; love is the day-dream of youth and early

294 manhood.

295 >

296 (C. 2.)  "Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus spread the

297 > golden tresses of his beauteous hair over the face of the wide

298 > and spacious earth; and scarcely had the little painted birds,

299 > with the sweet and mellifluous harmony of their forked tongues,

300 > saluted the approach of rosy Aurora, who, quitting the soft couch

301 > of her jealous husband, disclosed herself to mortals through the

302 > gates of the Mauchegan horizon; when the renowned Don Quixote,"

303 > &c.

304 How happily already is the abstraction from the senses, from

305 observation, and the consequent confusion of the judgment, marked

306 in this description! The knight is describing objects immediate

307 to his senses and sensations without borrowing a single trait

308 from either. Would it be difficult to find parallel descriptions

309 in Dryden's plays and in those of his successors?

310 (C. 3.) The host is here happily conceived as one who from his

311 past life as a sharper, was capable of entering into and

312 humouring the knight, and so perfectly in character, that he

313 precludes a considerable source of improbability in the future

314 narrative, by enforcing upon Don Quixote the necessity of taking

315 money with him.

316 >

317 (C. 3.)  "Ho, there, whoever thou art, rash knight,

318 > that approachest to touch the arms of the most valorous

319 > adventurer that ever girded sword," &c.

320 Don Quixote's high eulogiums on himself ­ "the most valorous

321 adventurer!" ­ but it is not himself that he has before him,

322 but the idol of his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is

323 acting. And this, that it is entirely a third person, excuses his

324 heart from the otherwise inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and

325 so by madness itself he preserves our esteem, and renders those

326 actions natural by which he, the first person, deserves it.

327 (C. 4.) Andres and his master. The manner in which Don Quixote

328 redressed this wrong, is a picture of the true revolutionary

329 passion in its first honest state, while it is yet only a

330 bewilderment of the understanding. You have a benevolence

331 limitless in its prayers, which are in fact aspirations towards

332 omnipotence; but between it and beneficence the bridge of

333 judgment ­ that is, of measurement of personal power ­

334 intervenes, and must be passed. Otherwise you will be bruised by

335 the leap into the chasm, or be drowned in the revolutionary

336 river, and drag others with you to the same fate.

337 (C. 4.) Merchants of Toledo.

338 >

339 When they were come so near as to be seen and heard,

340 > Don Quixote raised his voice, and with arrogant air cried out:

341 > "Let the whole world stand; if the whole world does not confess

342 > that there is not in the whole world a damsel more beautiful

343 > than," &c.

344 Now mark the presumption which follows the self-complacency of

345 the last act! That was an honest attempt to redress a real wrong;

346 this is an arbitrary determination to enforce a Brissotine or

347 Rousseau's ideal on all his fellow creatures.

348 >

349 Let the whole world stand!

350 >

351 > 'If there had been any experience in proof of the excellence of

352 > our code, where would be our superiority in this enlightened

353 > age?'

354 >

355 > "No! the business is that without seeing her,

356 > you believe, confess, affirm, swear, and maintain it; *and if

357 > not, I challenge you all to battle.*" 4

358 Next see the persecution and fury excited by opposition however

359 moderate! The only words listened to are those, that without

360 their context and their conditionals, and transformed into

361 positive assertions, might give some shadow of excuse for the

362 violence shown! This rich story ends, to the compassion of the

363 men in their senses, in a sound rib-roasting of the idealist by

364 the muleteer, the mob. And happy for thee, poor knight! that the

365 mob were against thee! For had they been with thee, by the change

366 of the moon and of them, thy head would have been off.

367 (C. 5.) first part ­ The idealist recollects the causes that

368 had been accessary to the reverse and attempts to remove them

369 ­ too late. He is beaten and disgraced.

370 (C. 6.) This chapter on Don Quixote's library proves that the

371 author did not wish to destroy the romances, but to cause them to

372 be read as romances ­ that is, for their merits as poetry.

373 >

374 (C. 7.)  Among other things, Don Quixote told him, he

375 > should dispose himself to go with him willingly; ­ for some

376 > time or other such an adventure might present, that an island

377 > might be won, in the turn of a hand, and he be left governor

378 > thereof.

379 At length the promises of the imaginative reason begin to act on

380 the plump, sensual, honest common sense accomplice, ­ but

381 unhappily not in the same person, and without the

382 *copula*

383 of the judgment, ­ in hopes of the substantial good things,

384 of which the former contemplated only the glory and the colours.

385 >

386 (C. 7.)  Sancho Panza went riding upon his ass, like

387 > any patriarch, with his wallet and leathern bottle, and with a

388 > vehement desire to find himself governor of the island which his

389 > master had promised him.

390 The first relief from regular labour is so pleasant to poor

391 Sancho!

392 >

393 (C. 8.)  "I no gentleman! I swear by the great God,

394 > thou liest, as I am a Christian. Biscainer by land, gentleman by

395 > sea, gentleman for the devil, and thou liest: look then if thou

396 > hast any thing else to say."

397 This Biscainer is an excellent image of the prejudices and

398 bigotry provoked by the idealism of a speculator. This story

399 happily detects the trick which our imagination plays in the

400 description of single combats: only change the preconception of

401 the magnificence of the combatants, and all is gone.

402 >

403 (B. II. c. 2.)   "Be pleased, my lord Don Quixote, to

404 > bestow upon me the government of that island," &c.

405 Sancho's eagerness for his government, the nascent lust of actual

406 democracy, or isocracy!

407 >

408 (C. 2.)   "But tell me, on your life, have you ever

409 > seen a more valorous knight than I, upon the whole face of the

410 > known earth? Have you read in story of any other, who has, or

411 > ever had, more bravery in assailing, more breath in holding out,

412 > more dexterity in wounding, or more address in giving a fall?"

413 > ­ "The truth is," answered Sancho, "that I never read any

414 > history at all; for I can neither read nor write; but what I dare

415 > affirm is, that I never served a bolder master," &c.

416 This appeal to Sancho, and Sancho's answer are

417 exquisitely humorous. It is impossible not to think of the French

418 bulletins and proclamations. Remark the necessity under which we

419 are of being sympathized with, fly as high into abstraction as we

420 may, and how constantly the imagination is recalled to the ground

421 of our common humanity! And note a little further on, the

422 knight's easy vaunting of his balsam, and his quietly deferring

423 the making and application of it.

424 >

425 (C. 3.)  "Happy times and happy ages," &c. 5

426 Note the rhythm of this, and the admirable beauty and wisdom of

427 the thoughts in themselves, but the total want of judgment in Don

428 Quixote's addressing them to such an audience.

429 (B. III. c. 3.) Don Quixote's balsam, and the vomiting and

430 consequent relief; an excellent hit at

431 *panacea nostrums,*

432 which cure the patient by his being himself cured of the medicine

433 by revolting nature.

434 >

435 "Peace! and have patience; the day will come,"

436 > &c.

437 The perpetual promises of the imagination!

438 >

439 "Your Worship," said Sancho, "would make a better

440 > preacher than knight errant!"

441 Exactly so. This is the true moral.

442 (C. 6.) The uncommon beauty of the description in the

443 commencement of this chapter. In truth, the whole of it seems to

444 put all nature in its heights and its humiliations, before

445 us.

446 (Ib.) Sancho's story of the goats:

447 >

448 "Make account, he carried them all over," said Don

449 > Quixote, "and do not be going and coming in this manner; for at

450 > this rate, you will not have done carrying them over in a

451 > twelvemonth." "How many are passed already?" said Sancho,

452 > &c.

453 Observe the happy contrast between the

454 all-generalizing mind of the mad knight, and Sancho's

455 all-particularizing memory. How admirable a symbol of the

456 dependence of all

457 *copula*

458 on the higher powers of the mind,

459 with the single exception of the succession in time and the

460 accidental relations of space. Men of mere common sense have no

461 theory or means of making one fact more important or prominent

462 than the rest; if they lose one link, all is lost. Compare Mrs.

463 Quickly and the Tapster.

464 6

465 And note also

466 Sancho's good heart, when his master is about to leave him. Don

467 Quixote's conduct upon discovering the fulling-hammers, proves he

468 was meant to be in his senses. Nothing can be better conceived

469 than his fit of passion at Sancho's laughing, and his sophism of

470 self-justification by the courage he had shown.

471 Sancho is by this time cured, through experience, as far as his

472 own errors are concerned; yet still is he lured on by the

473 unconquerable awe of his master's superiority, even when he is

474 cheating him.

475 (C. 8.) The adventure of the Galley-slaves. I think this is the

476 only passage of moment in which Cervantes slips the mask of his

477 hero, and speaks for himself.

478 >

479 Don Quixote desired to have it, and bade him take the

480 > money, and keep it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the

481 > favour, &c.

482 Observe Sancho's eagerness to avail himself of the permission of

483 his master, who, in the war sports of knight-errantry, had,

484 without any selfish dishonesty, overlooked the

485 *meum*

486 and

487 *tuum.*

488 Sancho's selfishness is modified by his involuntary

489 goodness of heart, and Don Quixote's flighty goodness is debased

490 by the involuntary or unconscious selfishness of his vanity and

491 self-applause.

492 (C. 10.) Cardenio is the madman of passion, who meets and easily

493 overthrows for the moment the madman of imagination. And note the

494 contagion of madness of any kind, upon Don Quixote's interruption

495 of Cardenio's story.

496 (C. 11.) Perhaps the best specimen of Sancho's proverbializing is

497 this:

498 >

499 "And I (Don Q.) say again, they lie, and will lie two

500 > hundred times more, all who say, or think her so." "I neither

501 > say, nor think so," answered Sancho: "let those who say it, eat

502 > the lie, and swallow it with their bread: whether they were

503 > guilty or no, they have given an account to God before now: I

504 > come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am no friend to

505 > inquiring into other men's lives; *for* he that buys and

506 > lies shall find the lie left in his purse behind; *besides,*

507 > naked was I born, and naked I remain; I neither win nor lose; if

508 > they were guilty, what is that to me? Many think to find bacon,

509 > where there is not so much as a pin to hang it on: *but* who

510 > can hedge in the cuckoo? *Especially,* do they spare God

511 > himself?"

512 >

513 (*Ib.*)  "And it is no great matter, if it be in

514 > another hand; for by what I remember, Dulcinea can neither write

515 > nor read," &c.

516 (P. II. B. III. c. 9.) Sancho's account of what he had seen on

517 Clavileno is a counterpart in his style to Don Quixote's

518 adventures in the cave of Montesinos. This last is the only

519 impeachment of the knight's moral character; Cervantes just gives

520 one instance of the veracity failing before the strong cravings

521 of the imagination for something real and external; the picture

522 would not have been complete without this; and yet it is so well

523 managed, that the reader has no unpleasant sense of Don Quixote

524 having told a lie. It is evident that he hardly knows whether it

525 was a dream or not; and goes to the enchanter to inquire the real

526 nature of the adventure.

527 Footnote 1

528 :

529 *Bien como quien se engendrò en una carcel, donde toda

530 incomodidad tiene su assiento, y todo triste ruido hace su

531 habitacion.*

532 Like one you may suppose born in a prison, where

533 every inconvenience keeps its residence, and every dismal sound

534 its habitation. Pref. Jarvis's Tr.

535 *Ed.*

536 return to footnote mark

537 Footnote 2

538 :

539 *No estaba muy bien con.*

540 *Ed.*

541 return to footnote mark

542 Footnote 3

543 :

544 *Pero con todo*

545 .

546 *Ed.*

547 return to footnote mark

548 Footnote 4

549 :

550 *Donde no, conmigo sois en batalla, gente descomunal!*

551 *Ed.*

552 return to footnote mark

553 Footnote 5

554 :

555 *Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos, &c.*

556 *Ed.*

557 return to footnote mark

558 Footnote 6

559 :

560 See the

561 *Friend*

562 , vol. iii. p. 138.

563 *Ed.*

564 return to footnote mark

Summary on Cervantes

85 A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman, true to religion,

86 and true to honour.

87 A scholar and a soldier, and fought under the banners of Don John

88 of Austria, at Lepanto, lost his arm and was captured.

89 Endured slavery not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and by

90 the superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian

91 owner.

92 Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny, the awful task

93 of achieving fame; and for that reason died poor and a prisoner,

94 while nobles and kings over their goblets of gold gave relish to

95 their pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the

96 inventor of novels for the Spaniards, and in his

97 *Persilis and

98 Sigismunda*

99 , the English may find the germ of their

100 *Robinson Crusoe*

101 .

102 The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of

103 poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth.

104 He painted only what he knew and had looked into, but he knew and

105 had looked into much indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand

106 to adapt and modify the world of his experience. Of delicious

107 love he fabled, yet with stainless virtue.

108 Contents

109 Contents, p.2

110 ---

Lecture IX ­ On the distinctions of

88 the witty, the droll, the odd and the humourous; the nature and

89 constituents of humour; ­ Rabelais ­ Swift ­

90 Sterne.

91 I.**  Perhaps the most important of our intellectual

92 operations are those of detecting the difference in similar, and

93 the identity in dissimilar, things. Out of the latter operation

94 it is that wit arises; and it, generically regarded, consists in

95 presenting thoughts or images in an unusual connection with each

96 other, for the purpose of exciting pleasure by the surprise. This

97 connection may be real; and there is in fact a scientific wit;

98 though where the object, consciously entertained, is truth, and

99 not amusement, we commonly give it some higher name. But in wit

100 popularly understood, the connection may be, and for the most

101 part is, apparent only, and transitory; and this connection may

102 be by thoughts, or by words, or by images. The first is our

103 Butler's especial eminence; the second, Voltaire's; the third,

104 which we oftener call fancy, constitutes the larger and more

105 peculiar part of the wit of Shakspeare. You can scarcely turn to

106 a single speech of Falstaff's without finding instances of it.

107 Nor does wit always cease to deserve the name by being transient,

108 or incapable of analysis. I may add that the wit of thoughts

109 belongs eminently to the Italians, that of words to the French,

110 and that of images to the English.**

111 II.**  Where the laughable is its own end, and neither

112 inference, nor moral is intended, or where at least the writer

113 would wish it so to appear, there arises what we call drollery.

114 The pure, unmixed, ludicrous or laughable belongs exclusively to

115 the understanding, and must be presented under the form of the

116 senses; it lies within the spheres of the eye and the ear, and

117 hence is allied to the fancy. It does not appertain to the reason

118 or the moral sense, and accordingly is alien to the imagination.

119 I think Aristotle has already excellently defined the

120 *laughable*, *, as consisting of, or depending

121 on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet without danger

122 or pain. Here the impropriety* ­ *­ is the positive qualification; the

123 dangerlessness* ­ *­ the negative.

124 Neither the understanding without an object of the senses, as for

125 example, a mere notional error, or idiocy; ­ nor any external

126 object, unless attributed to the understanding, can produce the

127 poetically laughable. Nay, even in ridiculous positions of the

128 body laughed at by the vulgar, there is a subtle personification

129 always going on, which acts on the, perhaps, unconscious mind of

130 the spectator as a symbol of intellectual character. And hence

131 arises the imperfect and awkward effect of comic stories of

132 animals; because although the understanding is satisfied in them,

133 the senses are not. Hence too, it is, that the true ludicrous is

134 its own end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is

135 felt as serious, however comically drest, free and genuine

136 laughter ceases; it becomes sardonic. This you experience in

137 reading Young, and also not unfrequently in Butler. The true

138 comic is the blossom of the nettle.**

139 III.**  When words or images are placed in unusual

140 juxta-position rather than connection, and are so placed merely

141 because the juxta-position is unusual ­ we have the odd or

142 the grotesque; the occasional use of which in the minor ornaments

143 of architecture, is an interesting problem for a student in the

144 psychology of the Fine Arts.**

145 IV.**  In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion

146 between a definite act and a definite purpose or end, or a

147 disproportion of the end itself to the rank or circumstances of

148 the definite person; but humour is of more difficult description.

149 I must try to define it in the first place by its points of

150 diversity from the former species. Humour does not, like the

151 different kinds of wit, which is impersonal, consist wholly in

152 the understanding and the senses. No combination of thoughts,

153 words, or images will of itself constitute humour, unless some

154 peculiarity of individual temperament and character be indicated

155 thereby, as the cause of the same. Compare the comedies of

156 Congreve with the Falstaff in Henry IV*. or with Sterne's

157 Corporal Trim, Uncle Toby, and Mr. Shandy, or with some of

158 Steele's charming papers in the *Tatler*, and you will feel

159 the difference better than I can express it. Thus again, (to take

160 an instance from the different works of the same writer), in

161 Smollett's Strap, his Lieutenant Bowling, his Morgan the honest

162 Welshman, and his Matthew Bramble, we have exquisite humour,

163 ­ while in his Peregrine Pickle we find an abundance of

164 drollery, which too often degenerates into mere oddity; in short,

165 we feel that a number of things are put together to counterfeit

166 humour, but that there is no growth from within. And this indeed is the origin of the word, derived from

167 the humoral pathology, and excellently described by Ben

168 Jonson:

169 >

170 So in every human body,**> The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,

171 > By reason that they flow continually

172 > In some one part, and are not continent,

173 > Receive the name of humours. Now thus far

174 > It may, by metaphor, apply itself

175 > Unto the general disposition:

176 > As when some one peculiar quality

177 > Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw

178 > All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,

179 > In their confluctions, all to run one way,

180 > This may be truly said to be a humour. 1

181 Hence we may explain the congeniality of humour with pathos, so

182 exquisite in Sterne and Smollett, and hence also the tender

183 feeling which we always have for, and associate with, the humours

184 or hobby-horses of a man. First, we respect a humourist, because

185 absence of interested motive is the ground-work of the character,

186 although the imagination of an interest may exist in the

187 individual himself, as if a remarkably simple-hearted man should

188 pride himself on his knowledge of the world, and how well he can

189 manage it:­ and secondly, there always is in a genuine humour

190 an acknowledgement of the hollowness and farce of the world, and

191 its disproportion to the godlike within us. And it follows

192 immediately from this, that whenever particular acts have

193 reference to particular selfish motives, the humourous bursts

194 into the indignant and abhorring; whilst all follies not selfish

195 are pardoned or palliated. The danger of this habit, in respect

196 of pure morality, is strongly exemplified in Sterne.

197 This would be enough, and indeed less than this has passed, for a

198 sufficient account of humour, if we did not recollect that not

199 every predominance of character, even where not precluded by the

200 moral sense, as in criminal dispositions, constitutes what we

201 mean by a humourist, or the presentation of its produce, humour.

202 What then is it? Is it manifold? Or is there some one humorific

203 point common to all that can be called humourous? ­ I am not

204 prepared to answer this fully, even if my time permitted; but I

205 think there is; ­ and that it consists in a certain reference

206 to the general and the universal, by which the finite great is

207 brought into identity with the little, or the little with the

208 finite great, so as to make both nothing in comparison with the

209 infinite. The little is made great, and the great little, in

210 order to destroy both; because all is equal in contrast with the

211 infinite.

212 "It is not without reason, brother

213 Toby, that learned men write dialogues on long noses."

214 2

215 I would suggest, therefore, that whenever a finite is

216 contemplated in reference to the infinite, whether consciously or

217 unconsciously, humour essentially arises. In the highest humour,

218 at least, there is always a reference to, and a connection with,

219 some general power not finite, in the form of some finite

220 ridiculously disproportionate in our feelings to that of which it

221 is, nevertheless, the representative, or by which it is to be

222 displayed. Humourous writers, therefore, as Sterne in particular,

223 delight, after much preparation, to end in nothing, or in a

224 direct contradiction.

225 That there is some truth in this definition, or origination of

226 humour, is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourous man who

227 does not give some disproportionate generality, or even a

228 universality to his hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy;

229 or at least there is an absence of any interest but what arises

230 from the humour itself, as in my Uncle Toby, and it is the idea

231 of the soul, of its undefined capacity and dignity, that gives

232 the sting to any absorption of it by any one pursuit, and this

233 not in respect of the humourist as a mere member of society for a

234 particular, however mistaken, interest, but as a man.

235 The English humour is the most thoughtful, the Spanish the most

236 etherial ­ the most ideal ­ of modern literature. Amongst

237 the classic ancients there was little or no humour in the

238 foregoing sense of the term. Socrates, or Plato under his name,

239 gives some notion of humour in the Banquet, when he argues that

240 tragedy and comedy rest upon the same ground. But humour properly

241 took its rise in the middle ages; and the Devil, the Vice of the

242 mysteries, incorporates the modern humour in its elements. It is

243 a spirit measured by disproportionate finites. The Devil is not,

244 indeed, perfectly humourous; but that is only because he is the

245 extreme of all humour.

246 Footnote 1

247 :

248 *Every Man Out Of His Humour*

249 . Prologue.

250 return to footnote mark

251 Footnote 2

252 :

253 *Trist. Sh*

254 . Vol. iii. c. 37.

255 return to footnote mark

Rabelais  1

91 Born at Chinon, 1483-4. ­Died 1553.

92 One cannot help regretting that no friend of Rabelais, (and

93 surely friends he must have had), has left an authentic account

94 of him. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which

95 contained a rod of gold; it was necessary as an amulet against

96 the monks and bigots. Beyond a doubt, he was among the deepest as

97 well as boldest thinkers of his age. Never was a more plausible,

98 and seldom, I am persuaded, a less appropriate line than the

99 thousand times quoted,

100 >

101 Rabelais laughing in his easy chair

102 > ­

103 of Mr. Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyism proves how

104 fully he both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could

105 write a treatise in proof and praise of the morality and moral

106 elevation of Rabelais' work which would make the church stare and

107 the conventicle groan, and yet should be the truth and nothing

108 but the truth. I class Rabelais with the creative minds of the

109 world, Shakspeare, Dante, Cervantes, &c.

110 All Rabelais' personages are phantasmagoric allegories, but

111 Panurge above all. He is throughout the

112 *

113 ­ the wisdom, that is, the cunning of the human animal, ­

114 the understanding, as the faculty of means to purposes without

115 ultimate ends, in the most comprehensive sense, and including

116 art, sensuous fancy, and all the passions of the understanding.

117 It is impossible to read Rabelais without an admiration mixed

118 with wonder at the depth and extent of his learning, his

119 multifarious knowledge, and original observation beyond what

120 books could in that age have supplied him with.

121 >

122 (B. III. c. 9.)  How Panurge asketh counsel of

123 > Pantagruel, whether he should marry, yea or no.

124 Note this incomparable chapter. Pantagruel stands for the reason

125 as contradistinguished from the understanding and choice, that

126 is, from Panurge; and the humour consists in the latter asking

127 advice of the former on a subject in which the reason can only

128 give the inevitable conclusion, the syllogistic

129 ergo*

130 , from

131 the premisses provided by the understanding itself, which puts

132 each case so as of necessity to predetermine the verdict thereon.

133 This chapter, independently of the allegory, is an exquisite

134 satire on the spirit in which people commonly ask advice.

135 Footnote 1

136 : No

137 note remains of that part of this Lecture which treated of

138 Rabelais. This seems, therefore, a convenient place for the

139 reception of some remarks written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy

140 of Rabelais, about the year 1825. See

141 *Table Talk*

142 , vol. i.

143 p. 177.

144 *Ed.*

145 return to footnote mark

Swift  1

94 Born in Dublin, 1667. ­Died 1745.

95 In Swift's writings there is a false misanthropy grounded upon an

96 exclusive contemplation of the vices and follies of mankind, and

97 this misanthropic tone is also disfigured or brutalized by his

98 obtrusion of physical dirt and coarseness. I think

99 *Gulliver's

100 Travels*

101 the great work of Swift. In the voyages to Lilliput

102 and Brobdingnag he displays the littleness and moral

103 contemptibility of human nature; in that to the Houyhnhnms he

104 represents the disgusting spectacle of man with the understanding

105 only, without the reason or the moral feeling, and in his horse

106 he gives the misanthropic ideal of man ­ that is, a being

107 virtuous from rule and duty, but untouched by the principle of

108 love.

109 Footnote 1

110 :

111 From Mr. Green's note.

112 *Ed.*

Sterne

97 Born at Clonmel, 1713. ­Died 1768.

98 With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which

99 presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would

100 remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which

101 depends ­ 1st, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, 2dly, on

102 the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or,

103 3dly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind

104 between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature

105 ­ a sort of dallying with the devil ­ a fluxionary act of

106 combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle

107 with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps,

108 like that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea

109 urn, because it has been forbidden; so that the mind has in its

110 own white and black angel the same or similar amusement, as may

111 be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude,

112 ­ she feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential

113 anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character, and, on the

114 other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose

115 society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would

116 be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound because

117 exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an

118 offence against the good manners of human nature itself.

119 This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with

120 wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour, and we have only to regret

121 the misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the

122 former, may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the

123 morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and

124 Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit,

125 from the rest of Tristram Shandy, and by supposing, instead of

126 them, the presence of two or three callous debauchees. The result

127 will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for

128 thus using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and

129 condiments for the basest.

130 The excellencies of Sterne consist ­

131 1.**

132 In bringing forward into distinct consciousness those

133 minutiae of thought and feeling which appear trifles, yet have an

134 importance for the moment, and which almost every man feels in

135 one way or other. Thus is produced the novelty of an individual

136 peculiarity, together with the interest of a something that

137 belongs to our common nature. In short, Sterne seizes happily on

138 those points, in which every man is more or less a humourist.

139 And, indeed, to be a little more subtle, the propensity to notice

140 these things does itself constitute the humourist, and the

141 superadded power of so presenting them to men in general gives us

142 the man of humour. Hence the difference of the man of humour, the

143 effect of whose portraits does not depend on the felt presence of

144 himself, as a humourist, as in the instances of Cervantes and

145 Shakspeare ­ nay, of Rabelais too; and of the humourist, the

146 effect of whose works does very much depend on the sense of his

147 own oddity, as in Sterne's case, and perhaps Swift's; though

148 Swift again would require a separate classification.

149 **

150 2.**

151 In the traits of human nature, which so easily assume

152 a particular cast and colour from individual character. Hence

153 this excellence and the pathos connected with it quickly pass

154 into humour, and form the ground of it. See particularly the

155 beautiful passage, so well known, of Uncle Toby's catching and

156 liberating the fly:

157 >

158 "Go," ­ says he, one day at dinner, to an

159 > overgrown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him

160 > cruelly all dinner-time, and which, after infinite attempts, he

161 > had caught at last, as it flew by him; ­ "I'll not hurt

162 > thee," says my Uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going

163 > across the room, with the fly in his hand, ­ "I'll not hurt a

164 > hair of thy head:­ Go," says he, lifting up the sash, and

165 > opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; ­ "go, poor

166 > devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? This world is

167 > surely wide enough to hold both thee and me." (Vol. ii. ch.

168 > 12.)

169 Observe in this incident how individual character may be given by

170 the mere delicacy of presentation and elevation in degree of a

171 common good quality, humanity, which in itself would not be

172 characteristic at all.

173 **

174 3.**

175 In Mr. Shandy's character, ­ the essence of which

176 is a craving for sympathy in exact proportion to the oddity and

177 unsympathizability of what he proposes; ­ this coupled with

178 an instinctive desire to be at least disputed with, or rather

179 both in one, to dispute and yet to agree ­ and holding as

180 worst of all ­ to acquiesce without either resistance or

181 sympathy. This is charmingly, indeed, profoundly conceived, and

182 is psychologically and ethically true of all Mr. Shandies. Note,

183 too, how the contrasts of character, which are always either

184 balanced or remedied, increase the love between the brothers.

185 **

186 4.**

187 No writer is so happy as Sterne in the unexaggerated

188 and truly natural representation of that species of slander,

189 which consists in gossiping about our neighbours, as whetstones

190 of our moral discrimination; as if they were conscience-blocks

191 which we used in our apprenticeship, in order not to waste such

192 precious materials as our own consciences in the trimming and

193 shaping of ourselves by self-examination:­

194 >

195 Alas o'day! ­ had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman!)

196 > had but her wish in going up to town just to lie in and come down

197 > again; which, they say, she begged and prayed for upon her bare

198 > knees, and which, in my opinion, considering the fortune which

199 > Mr. Shandy got with her, was no such mighty matter to have

200 > complied with, the lady and her babe might both of them have been

201 > alive at this hour. (Vol. i. c. 18.)

202 **5.**

203 When you have secured a man's likings and prejudices

204 in your favour, you may then safely appeal to his impartial

205 judgment. In the following passage not only is acute sense

206 shrouded in wit, but a life and a character are added which exalt

207 the whole into the dramatic:­

208 >

209 "I see plainly, Sir, by your looks" (or as the case

210 > happened) my father would say ­ "that you do not heartily

211 > subscribe to this opinion of mine ­ which, to those," he

212 > would add, "who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom, ­

213 > I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it; and

214 > yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character, I am

215 > morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you,

216 > not as a party in the dispute, but as a judge, and trusting my

217 > appeal upon it to your good sense and candid disquisition in this

218 > matter; you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of

219 > education as most men; and, if I may presume to penetrate farther

220 > into you, of a liberality of genius above bearing down an

221 > opinion, merely because it wants friends. Your son, ­ your

222 > dear son, ­ from whose sweet and open temper you have so much

223 > to expect, ­ your Billy, Sir! ­ would you, for the world,

224 > have called him JUDAS? Would you, my dear Sir," he would say,

225 > laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,

226 > ­ and in that soft and irresistible *piano* of voice

227 > which the nature of the *argumentum ad hominem* absolutely

228 > requires, ­ "Would you, Sir, if a *Jew* of a godfather

229 > had proposed the name for your child, and offered you his purse

230 > along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration of

231 > him? O my God!" he would say, looking up, "if I know your temper

232 > rightly, Sir, you are incapable of it; ­ you would have

233 > trampled upon the offer; ­ you would have thrown the

234 > temptation at the tempter's head with abhorrence. Your greatness

235 > of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous

236 > contempt of money, which you show me in the whole transaction, is

237 > really noble; ­ and what renders it more so, is the principle

238 > of it; ­ the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and

239 > conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, that were your son

240 > called Judas, ­ the sordid and treacherous idea, so

241 > inseparable from the name, would have accompanied him through

242 > life like his shadow, and in the end made a miser and a rascal of

243 > him, in spite, Sir, of your example." (Vol. i. c.

244 > 19.)

245 **6.**

246 There is great physiognomic tact in Sterne. See it

247 particularly displayed in his description of Dr. Slop,

248 accompanied with all that happiest use of drapery and attitude,

249 which at once give reality by individualizing and vividness by

250 unusual, yet probable, combinations:­

251 >

252 Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure

253 > of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular

254 > height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly,

255 > which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horseguards.

256 > ... Imagine such a one; ­ for such I say, were the outlines

257 > of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling

258 > through the dirt upon the *vertebræ* of a little

259 > diminutive pony, of a pretty colour ­ but of strength, ­

260 > alack! scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a

261 > fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition; ­ they

262 > were not. Imagine to yourself Obadiah mounted upon a strong

263 > monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making

264 > all practicable speed the adverse way. (Vol. ii. c.

265 > 9.)

266 **

267 7.**

268 I think there is more humour in the single remark,

269 which I have quoted before ­ "Learned men, brother Toby,

270 don't write dialogues upon long noses for nothing!" ­ than in

271 the whole Slawkenburghian tale that follows, which is mere oddity

272 interspersed with drollery.

273 **

274 8.**

275 Note Sterne's assertion of, and faith in, a moral good

276 in the characters of Trim, Toby, &c. as contrasted with the cold

277 scepticism of motives which is the stamp of the Jacobin spirit.

278 (Vol. v. c. 9.)

279 **

280 9.**

281 You must bear in mind, in order to do justice to

282 Rabelais and Sterne, that by right of humoristic universality

283 each part is essentially a whole in itself. Hence the digressive

284 spirit is not mere wantonness, but in fact the very form and

285 vehicle of their genius. The connection, such as was needed, is

286 given by the continuity of the characters.

287 **

288 Instances of different forms of wit, taken largely:

289 1.**

290 Why are you reading romances at your age?" ­ "Why,

291 I used to be fond of history, but I have given it up, ­ it

292 was so grossly improbable."

293 **

294 2.**

295 "Pray, sir, do it! ­ although you have promised

296 me."

297 **

298 3.**

299 The Spartan mother's ­

300 >

301 "Return with, or on, thy shield."**>

302 > "My sword is too short!" ­ "Take a step

303 > forwarder."

304 4.**

305 The Gasconade:­

306 >

307 "I believe you, Sir! but you will excuse my repeating

308 > it on account of my provincial accent."

309 **

310 5.**

311 Pasquil on Pope Urban, who had employed a committee to

312 rip up the old errors of his predecessors.

313 **

314 Some one placed a pair of spurs on the heels of the statue of St.

315 Peter, and a label from the opposite statue of St. Paul, on the

316 same bridge; ­

317 >

318 *St. Paul.* "Whither then are you bound?"

319 >

320 > *St. Peter.* "I apprehend danger here;- they'll soon call

321 > me in question for denying my Master."

322 >

323 > *St. Paul.* "Nay, then, I had better be off too; for

324 > they'll question me for having persecuted the Christians, before

325 > my conversion."

326 6.**

327 Speaking of the small German potentates, I dictated

328 the phrase, ­

329 *officious for equivalents.*

330 This my

331 amanuensis wrote, ­

332 *fishing for elephants;*

333 ­

334 which, as I observed at the time, was a sort of Noah's angling,

335 that could hardly have occurred, except at the commencement of

336 the Deluge.

337 Contents**Contents, p.2

338 ---

Lecture X. Donne ­ Dante ­ Mlton

100 ­ *Paradise Lost*

Donne  1

103 Born in London, 1573. ­Died, 1631 4th July, 1796.

104 >

105 I. 2

106 >

107 > With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,

108 > Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;

109 > Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,

110 > Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

111 >

112 >

113 > II

114 >

115 > See lewdness and theology combin'd, ­

116 > A cynic and a sycophantic mind;

117 > A fancy shar'd party per pale between

118 > Death's heads and skeletons and Aretine! ­

119 > Not his peculiar defect or crime,

120 > But the true current mintage of the time.

121 > Such were the establish'd signs and tokens given

122 > To mark a loyal churchman, sound and even,

123 > Free from papistic and fanatic leaven.

124 The wit of Donne, the wit of Butler, the wit of Pope, the wit of

125 Congreve, the wit of Sheridan ­ how many disparate things are

126 here expressed by one and the same word, Wit! ­

127 Wonder-exciting vigour, intenseness and peculiarity of thought,

128 using at will the almost boundless stores of a capacious memory,

129 and exercised on subjects, where we have no right to expect it

130 ­ this is the wit of Donne! The four others I am just in the

131 mood to describe and inter-distinguish; ­ what a pity that

132 the marginal space will not let me!

133 >

134 My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

135 > And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

136 > Where can we ­ find two fitter hemispheres

137 > Without sharp north, without declining west?

138 >

139 > *Good-Morrow*, v. 15, &c.

140 The sense is; ­ Our mutual loves may in many respects be

141 fitly compared to corresponding hemispheres; but as no simile

142 squares (

143 *nihil simile est idem*

144 ), so here the simile fails,

145 for there is nothing in our loves that corresponds to the cold

146 north, or the declining west, which in two hemispheres must

147 necessarily be supposed. But an ellipse of such length will

148 scarcely rescue the line from the charge of nonsense or a bull.

149 *January,*

150 1829.

151 >

152 Woman's constancy.

153 A misnomer. The title ought to be ­

154 >

155 Mutual Inconstancy.

156 >

157 > Whether both th' Indias of spice and *mine*, &c.

158 > *Sun Rising*, v. 17.

159 >

160 > And see at night thy western land of *mine*, &c.

161 > *Progress of the Soul*, 1 Song, 2. st.

162 This use of the word

163 *mine*

164 specifically for mines of gold,

165 silver, or precious stones, is, I believe, peculiar to Donne.

166 Footnote 1

167 :

168 Nothing remains of what was said on Donne in this Lecture. Here,

169 therefore, as in previous like instances, the gap is filled up

170 with some notes written by Mr. Coleridge in a volume of

171 Chalmers's

172 *Poets*

173 , belonging to Mr. Gillman.

174 *Ed.*

175 return to footnote mark

176 Footnote

177 2

178 : The verses were added in pencil to the collection of

179 commendatory lines; No. I. is Mr. C.'s; the publication of No.

180 II. I trust the all-accomplished author will, under the

181 circumstances, pardon. Numerous and elaborate notes by Mr.

182 Coleridge on Donne's

183 *Sermons*

184 are in existence, and will be

185 published hereafter.

186 *Ed.*

187 return to footnote mark

Dante

106 Born at Florence, 1265. ­Died, 1321.

107 As I remarked in a former Lecture on a different subject (for

108 subjects the most diverse in literature have still their

109 tangents), the Gothic character, and its good and evil fruits,

110 appeared less in Italy than in any other part of European

111 Christendom. There was accordingly much less romance, as that

112 word is commonly understood; or, perhaps, more truly stated,

113 there was romance instead of chivalry. In Italy, an earlier

114 imitation of, and a more evident and intentional blending with,

115 the Latin literature took place than elsewhere. The operation of

116 the feudal system, too, was incalculably weaker, of that singular

117 chain of independent interdependents, the principle of which was

118 a confederacy for the preservation of individual, consistently

119 with general, freedom. In short, Italy, in the time of Dante, was

120 an afterbirth of eldest Greece, a renewal or a reflex of the old

121 Italy under its kings and first Roman consuls, a net-work of free

122 little republics, with the same domestic feuds, civil wars, and

123 party spirit, ­ the same vices and virtues produced on a

124 similarly narrow theatre, ­ the existing state of things

125 being, as in all small democracies, under the working and

126 direction of certain individuals, to whose will even the laws

127 were swayed; ­ whilst at the same time the singular spectacle

128 was exhibited amidst all this confusion of the flourishing of

129 commerce, and the protection and encouragement of letters and

130 arts. Never was the commercial spirit so well reconciled to the

131 nobler principles of social polity as in Florence. It tended

132 there to union and permanence and elevation, ­ not as the

133 overbalance of it in England is now doing, to dislocation, change

134 and moral degradation. The intensest patriotism reigned in these

135 communities, but confined and attached exclusively to the small

136 locality of the patriot's birth and residence; whereas in the

137 true Gothic feudalism, country was nothing but the preservation

138 of personal independence. But then, on the other hand, as a

139 counterbalance to these disuniting elements, there was in Dante's

140 Italy, as in Greece, a much greater uniformity of religion common

141 to all than amongst the northern nations.

142 Upon these hints the history of the republican aeras of ancient

143 Greece and modern Italy ought to be written. There are three

144 kinds or stages of historic narrative:

145 1.**

146 that of the annalist or chronicler, who deals merely

147 in facts and events arranged in order of time, having no

148 principle of selection, no plan of arrangement, and whose work

149 properly constitutes a supplement to the poetical writings of

150 romance or heroic legends:

151 **

152 2.**

153 that of the writer who takes his stand on some moral

154 point, and selects a series of events for the express purpose of

155 illustrating it, and in whose hands the narrative of the selected

156 events is modified by the principle of selection; ­ as

157 Thucydides, whose object was to describe the evils of democratic

158 and aristocratic partizanships; ­ or Polybius, whose design

159 was to show the social benefits resulting from the triumph and

160 grandeur of Rome, in public institutions and military discipline;

161 ­ or Tacitus, whose secret aim was to exhibit the pressure

162 and corruptions of despotism; ­ in all which writers and

163 others like them, the ground-object of the historian colours with

164 artificial lights the facts which he relates:

165 **

166 3.**

167 and which in idea is the grandest-the most truly,

168 founded in philosophy ­ there is the Herodotean history,

169 which is not composed with reference to any particular causes,

170 but attempts to describe human nature itself on a great scale as

171 a portion of the drama of providence, the free will of man

172 resisting the destiny of events, ­ for the individuals often

173 succeeding against it, but for the race always yielding to it,

174 and in the resistance itself invariably affording means towards

175 the completion of the ultimate result. Mitford's history is a

176 good and useful work; but in his zeal against democratic

177 government, Mitford forgot, or never saw, that ancient Greece was

178 not, nor ought ever to be considered, a permanent thing, but that

179 it existed, in the disposition of providence, as a proclaimer of

180 ideal truths, and that everlasting proclamation being made, that

181 its functions were naturally at an end.

182 **

183 However, in the height of such a state of society in Italy, Dante

184 was born and flourished; and was himself eminently a picture of

185 the age in which he lived. But of more importance even than this,

186 to a right understanding of Dante, is the consideration that the

187 scholastic philosophy was then at its acme even in itself; but

188 more especially in Italy, where it never prevailed so exclusively

189 as northward of the Alps. It is impossible to understand the

190 genius of Dante, and difficult to understand his poem, without

191 some knowledge of the characters, studies, and writings of the

192 schoolmen of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.

193 For Dante was the living link between religion and philosophy; he

194 philosophized the religion and christianized the philosophy of

195 Italy; and, in this poetic union of religion and philosophy, he

196 became the ground of transition into the mixed Platonism and

197 Aristotelianism of the Schools, under which, by numerous minute

198 articles of faith and ceremony, Christianity became a craft of

199 hair-splitting, and was ultimately degraded into a complete

200 *fetisch*

201 worship, divorced from philosophy, and made up of

202 a faith without thought, and a credulity directed by passion.

203 Afterwards, indeed, philosophy revived under condition of

204 defending this very superstition; and, in so doing, it

205 necessarily led the way to its subversion, and that in exact

206 proportion to the influence of the philosophic schools. Hence it

207 did its work most completely in Germany, then in England, next in

208 France, then in Spain, least of all in Italy. We must, therefore,

209 take the poetry of Dante as christianized, but without the

210 further Gothic accession of proper chivalry. It was at a somewhat

211 later period, that the importations from the East, through the

212 Venetian commerce and the crusading armaments, exercised a

213 peculiarly strong influence on Italy.

214 In studying Dante, therefore, we must consider carefully the

215 differences produced, first, by allegory being substituted for

216 polytheism; and secondly and mainly, by the opposition of

217 Christianity to the spirit of pagan Greece, which receiving the

218 very names of its gods from Egypt, soon deprived them of all that

219 was universal. The Greeks changed the ideas into finites, and

220 these finites into

221 *anthropomorphi,*

222 or forms of men. Hence

223 their religion, their poetry, nay, their very pictures, became

224 statuesque. With them the form was the end. The reverse of this

225 was the natural effect of Christianity; in which finites, even

226 the human form, must, in order to satisfy the mind, be brought

227 into connexion with, and be in fact symbolical of, the infinite;

228 and must be considered in some enduring, however shadowy and

229 indistinct, point of view, as the vehicle or representative of

230 moral truth.

231 Hence resulted two great effects; a combination of poetry with

232 doctrine, and, by turning the mind inward on its own essence

233 instead of letting it act only on its outward circumstances and

234 communities, a combination of poetry with sentiment. And it is

235 this inwardness or subjectivity, which principally and most

236 fundamentally distinguishes all the classic from all the modern

237 poetry. Compare the passage in the

238 *Iliad*

239 (Z. vi. 119-236.)

240 in which Diomed and Glaucus change arms, ­

241 >

242 *>

243 >

244 > They took each other by the hand, and pledged friendship

245 > ­

246 with the scene in

247 Ariosto*

248 (Orlando Furioso, c. i. st.

249 20-22.), where Rinaldo and Ferrauto fight and afterwards make it

250 up:­

251 >

252 Al Pagan la proposta non dispiacque:

253 > Così fu differita la tenzone;

254 > E tal tregua tra lor subito nacque,

255 > Sì l' odio e l' ira va in oblivïone,

256 > Che 'l Pagano al partir dalle fresche acque

257 > Non lasciò a piede il buon figliuol d' Amone:

258 > Con preghi invita, e al fin lo toglie in groppa,

259 > E per l' orme d' Angelica galoppa.

260 Here Homer would have left it. But the Christian poet has his

261 own feelings to express, and goes on:­

262 >

263 Oh gran bontà de' cavalieri antiqui!

264 > Eran rivali, eran di fè diversi,

265 > E si sentían degli aspri colpi iniqui

266 > Per tutta la persona anco dolersi;

267 > E pur per selve oscure e calli obbliqui

268 > Insieme van senza sospetto aversi!

269 And here you will observe, that the reaction of Ariosto's own

270 feelings on the image or act is more fore-grounded (to use a

271 painter's phrase) than the image or act itself.

272 The two different modes in which the imagination is acted on by

273 the ancient and modern poetry, may be illustrated by the parallel

274 effects caused by the contemplation of the Greek or Roman-Greek

275 architecture, compared with the Gothic. In the Pantheon, the

276 whole is perceived in a perceived harmony with the parts which

277 compose it; and generally you will remember that where the parts

278 preserve any distinct individuality, there simple beauty, or

279 beauty simply, arises; but where the parts melt undistinguished

280 into the whole, there majestic beauty, or majesty, is the result.

281 In York Minster, the parts, the grotesques, are in themselves

282 very sharply distinct and separate, and this distinction and

283 separation of the parts is counterbalanced only by the multitude

284 and variety of those parts, by which the attention is bewildered;

285 ­ whilst the whole, or that there is a whole produced, is

286 altogether a feeling in which the several thousand distinct

287 impressions lose themselves as in a universal solvent. Hence in a

288 Gothic cathedral, as in a prospect from a mountain's top, there

289 is, indeed, a unity, an awful oneness; ­ but it is, because

290 all distinction evades the eye. And just such is the distinction

291 between the

292 *Antigone*

293 of Sophocles and the

294 *Hamlet*

295 of

296 Shakespeare.

297 The

298 *Divina Commedia*

299 is a system of moral, political, and

300 theological truths, with arbitrary personal exemplifications,

301 which are not, in my opinion, allegorical. I do not even feel

302 convinced that the punishments in the Inferno are strictly

303 allegorical. I rather take them to have been in Dante's mind

304 *quasi*

305 -allegorical, or conceived in analogy to pure

306 allegory.

307 I have said, that a combination of poetry with doctrines, is one

308 of the characteristics of the Christian muse; but I think Dante

309 has not succeeded in effecting this combination nearly so well as

310 Milton.

311 This comparative failure of Dante, as also some other

312 peculiarities of his mind, in

313 *malam partem,*

314 must be

315 immediately attributed to the state of North Italy in his time,

316 which is vividly represented in Dante's life; a state of intense

317 democratical partizanship, in which an exaggerated importance was

318 attached to individuals, and which whilst it afforded a vast

319 field for the intellect, opened also a boundless arena for the

320 passions, and in which envy, jealousy, hatred, and other

321 malignant feelings, could and did assume the form of patriotism,

322 even to the individual's own conscience.

323 All this common, and, as it were, natural

324 partizanship, was aggravated arid coloured by the Guelf and

325 Ghibelline factions; and, in part explanation of Dante's

326 adherence to the latter, you must particularly remark, that the

327 Pope had recently territorialized his authority to a great

328 extent, and that this increase of territorial power in the

329 church, was by no means the same beneficial movement for the

330 citizens of free republics, as the parallel advance in other

331 countries was for those who groaned as vassals under the

332 oppression of the circumjacent baronial castles.

333 1

334 By way of preparation to a satisfactory perusal of the

335 *Divina

336 Commedia*

337 , I will now proceed to state what I consider to be

338 Dante's chief excellences as a poet. And I begin with:

339 I.**

340 Style ­ the vividness, logical connexion,

341 strength and energy of which cannot be surpassed. In this I think

342 Dante superior to Milton; and his style is accordingly more

343 imitable than Milton's, and does to this day exercise a greater

344 influence on the literature of his country. You cannot read Dante

345 without feeling a gush of manliness of thought within you. Dante

346 was very sensible of his own excellence in this particular, and

347 speaks of poets as guardians of the vast armory of language,

348 which is the intermediate something between matter and

349 spirit:­

350 **

351 >

352 Or se' tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte,

353 > Che spande di parlar sì largo fiume?

354 > Risposi lui con vergognosa fronte.

355 > O degli altri poeti onore e lume,

356 > Vagliami 'l lungo studio e 'l grande amore,

357 > Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo volume.

358 > Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore:

359 > *Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi

360 > Lo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore.*

361 > (*Inf*. c. 1. v. 79.)

362 >

363 > "And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring,

364 > From which such copious floods of eloquence

365 > Have issued?" I, with front abash'd, replied:

366 > "Glory and light of all the tuneful train!

367 > May it avail me, that I long with zeal

368 > Have sought thy volume, and with love immense

369 > Have conn'd it o'er. My master, thou, and guide!

370 > *Thou he from whom I have alone deriv'd

371 > That style, which for its beauty into fame

372 > Exalts me."*

373 > (Cary. [his translation. html *Ed.*])

374 Indeed there was a passion and a miracle of words in the twelfth

375 and thirteenth centuries, after the long slumber of language in

376 barbarism, which gave an almost romantic character, a virtuous

377 quality and power, to what was read in a book, independently of

378 the thoughts or images contained in it. This feeling is very

379 often perceptible in Dante.

380 II.**

381 The Images in Dante are not only taken from obvious

382 nature, and are all intelligible to all, but are ever conjoined

383 with the universal feeling received from nature, and therefore

384 affect the general feelings of all men. And in this respect,

385 Dante's excellence is very great, and may be contrasted with the

386 idiosyncracies of some meritorious modern poets, who attempt an

387 eruditeness, the result of particular feelings. Consider the

388 simplicity, I may say plainness, of the following simile, and how

389 differently we should in all probability deal with it at the

390 present day:

391 **

392 >

393 Quale i fioretti dal notturno

394 > gelo

395 > Chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol gl' imbianca,

396 > Si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo, ­

397 > Fal mi fec' io di mia virtute stanca;

398 > (*Inf.* c. 2. v. 127.)

399 >

400 > As florets, by the frosty air of night

401 > Bent down and clos'd, when day has blanch'd their leaves,

402 > Rise all unfolded on their spiry stems, ­

403 > So was my fainting vigour new restor'd.

404 > (Cary. 2)

405 III.**

406 Consider the wonderful profoundness of the whole

407 third canto of the

408 *Inferno*

409 ; and especially of the

410 inscription over Hell gate:

411 >

412 Per me si va, &c. ­

413 which can only be explained by a meditation on the true nature of

414 religion; that is, ­ reason

415 *plus*

416 the understanding. I

417 say profoundness rather than sublimity; for Dante does not so

418 much elevate your thoughts as send them down deeper. In this

419 canto all the images are distinct, and even vividly distinct; but

420 there is a total impression of infinity; the wholeness is not in

421 vision or conception, but in an inner feeling of totality, and

422 absolute being.

423 **

424 IV.**

425 In picturesqueness, Dante is beyond all other poets,

426 modern or ancient, and more in the stern style of Pindar, than of

427 any other. Michel Angelo is said to have made a design for every

428 page of the

429 *Divina Commedia*

430 . As superexcellent in this

431 respect, I would note the conclusion of the third canto of the

432 *Inferno*

433 :

434 **

435 >

436 Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave

437 > Un vecchio bianco per antico pelo

438 > Gridando: guai a voi anime prave: &c. ...

439 > (Ver. 82. &c.)

440 >

441 > And lo! toward us in a bark

442 > Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,

443 > Crying, "Woe to you wicked spirits!" ...

444 > (Cary.)

445 >

446 > Caron dimonio con occhi di bragia

447 > Loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie:

448 > Batte col remo qualunque s' adagia.

449 > Come d' autunno si levan le foglie

450 > L' una appresso dell altra, infin che 'l ramo

451 > Rende alia terra tutte le sue spoglie;

452 > Similemente il mal seme d' Adamo,

453 > Gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una

454 > Per cenni, com' augel per suo richiamo.

455 > (Ver. 100, &c.)

456 >

457 > ­ ­ ­ Charon, demoniac form,

458 > With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,

459 > Beck'ning, and each that lingers, with his oar

460 > Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,

461 > One still another following, till the bough

462 > Strews all its honours on the earth beneath; ­

463 > E'en in like manner Adam's evil brood

464 > Cast themselves one by one down from the shore

465 > Each at a beck, as falcon at his call.

466 > (Cary.)

467 And this passage, which I think admirably picturesque:

468 >

469 Ma poco valse, che l' ale al sospetto

470 > Non potero avanzar: quegli andò sotto,

471 > E quei drizzò, volando, suso il petto.

472 > Non altrimenti l' anitra di botto,

473 > Quando 'l falcon s' appressa, giù s' attuffa,

474 > Ed ei ritorna su crucciato e rotto.

475 > Irato Calcabrina della buffa,

476 > Volando dietro gli tenne, invaghito,

477 > Che quei campasse, per aver la zuffa:

478 > E come 'l barattier fu disparito,

479 > Cosi volse gli artigli al suo compagno,

480 > E fu con lui sovra 'l fosso ghermito.

481 > Ma l' altro fu bene sparvier grifagno

482 > Ad artigliar ben lui, e amedue

483 > Cadder nel mezzo del bollente stagno.

484 > Lo caldo sghermidor subito fue:

485 > Ma però di levarsi era niente,

486 > Si aveano inviscate l' ale sue.

487 > (*Infer.* c. xxii. ver. 127, &c.)

488 >

489 > But little it avail'd: terror outstripp'd

490 > His following flight: the other plung'd beneath,

491 > And he with upward pinion rais'd his breast:

492 > E'en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives

493 > The falcon near, dives instant down, while he

494 > Enrag'd and spent retires. That mockery

495 > In Calcabrina fury stirr'd, who flew

496 > After him, with desire of strife inflam'd;

497 > And, for the barterer had 'scap'd, so turn'd

498 > His talons on his comrade. O'er the dyke

499 > In grapple close they join'd; but th' other prov'd

500 > A goshawk, able to rend well his foe;

501 > And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat

502 > Was umpire soon between them, but in vain

503 > To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued

504 > Their pennons.

505 > (Cary.)

506 V.**

507 Very closely connected with this picturesqueness, is

508 the topographic reality of Dante's journey through Hell. You

509 should note and dwell on this as one of his great charms, and

510 which gives a striking peculiarity to his poetic power. He thus

511 takes the thousand delusive forms of a nature worse than chaos,

512 having no reality but from the passions which they excite, and

513 compels them into the service of the permanent. Observe the

514 exceeding truth of these lines:

515 **

516 >

517 Noi ricidemmo 'l cerchio all' altra riva,

518 > Sovr' una fonte che bolle, e riversa,

519 > Per un fossato che da lei diriva.

520 > L' acqua era buja molto più che persa:

521 > E noi in compagnia dell' onde bige

522 > Entrammo giù per una via diversa.

523 > Una palude fa, ch' ha nome Stige,

524 > Questo tristo ruscel, quando è disceso

525 > Al piè delle maligne piagge grige.

526 > Ed io che di mirar mi stava inteso, ­

527 > Vidi genti fangose in quel pantano

528 > Ignude tutte, e con sembiante offeso.

529 > Questi si percotean non pur con mano,

530 > Ma con la testa, e col petto, e co' piedi,

531 > Troncandosi co' denti a brano a brano. ...

532 >

533 > Così girammo della lorda pozza

534 > Grand' arco tra la ripa secca e 'l mezzo,

535 > Con gli occhi volti a chi del fango ingozza:

536 > *Venimmo appiù d' una torre al dassezzo.*

537 > (C. vii. ver. 100 and 127.)

538 >

539 > ­ ­ We the circle cross'd

540 > To the next steep, arriving at a well,

541 > That boiling pours itself down to a foss

542 > Sluic'd from its source. Far murkier was the wave

543 > Than sablest grain: and we in company

544 > Of th' inky waters, journeying by their side,

545 > Enter'd, though by a different track, beneath.

546 > Into a lake, the Stygian nam'd, expands

547 > The dismal stream, when it hath reach'd the foot

548 > Of the grey wither'd cliffs. Intent I stood

549 > To gaze, and in the marish sunk, descried

550 > A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks

551 > Betok'ning rage. They with their hands alone

552 > Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,

553 > Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs. ...

554 >

555 > ­ ­ Our route

556 > Thus compass'd, we a segment widely stretch'd

557 > Between the dry embankment and the cove

558 > Of the loath'd pool, turning meanwhile our eyes

559 > Downward on those who gulp'd its muddy lees;

560 > *Nor stopp'd, till to a tower's low base we came.*

561 > (Cary.)

562 VI.**

563 For Dante's power, ­ his absolute mastery over,

564 although rare exhibition of, the pathetic, I can do no more than

565 refer to the passages on Francesca di Rimini (

566 *Infer*

567 . C. v.

568 ver. 73 to the end.) and on Ugolino, (

569 *Infer*

570 . C. xxxiii.

571 ver. 1. to 75.) They are so well known, and rightly so admired,

572 that it would be pedantry to analyze their composition; but you

573 will note that the first is the pathos of passion, the second

574 that of affection; and yet even in the first, you seem to

575 perceive that the lovers have sacrificed their passion to the

576 cherishing of a deep and rememberable impression.

577 **

578 VII.**

579 As to going into the endless subtle beauties of

580 Dante, that is impossible; but I cannot help citing the first

581 triplet of the 29th canto of the

582 *Inferno*

583 :

584 **

585 >

586 La molta gente e le diverse piaghe

587 > Avean le luci mie sì inebriate,

588 > Che dello stare a piangere eran vaghe.

589 >

590 > So were mine eyes inebriate with the view

591 > Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds

592 > Disfigur'd, that they long'd to stay and weep.

593 >

594 > (Cary.)

595 Nor have I now room for any specific comparison of Dante with

596 Milton. But if I had, I would institute it upon the ground of the

597 last canto of the

598 *Inferno*

599 from the 1st to the 69th line,

600 and from the 106th to the end. And in this comparison I should

601 notice Dante's occasional fault of becoming grotesque from being

602 too graphic without imagination; as in his Lucifer compared with

603 Milton's Satan. Indeed he is sometimes horrible rather than

604 terrible, ­ falling into the

605 *

606 instead of the

607 of

608 Longinus ; in

609 3

610 other words, many of his

611 images excite bodily disgust, and not moral fear. But here, as in

612 other cases, you may perceive that the faults of great authors

613 are generally excellencies carried to an excess.

614 Footnote

615 1

616 : Mr. Coleridge here notes: "I will, if I can, here make

617 an historical movement, and pay a proper compliment to Mr.

618 Hallam." Ed.

619 return to footnote mark

620 Footnote

621 2

622 : Mr. Coleridge here notes: "Here to speak of Mr. Cary's

623 translation." ­

624 Ed.*

625 return to footnote mark

626 Footnote

627 3

628 :

629 *De Subl*

630 . 1. ix.

Milton

109 Born in London, 1608. ­Died, 1674

110 If we divide the period from the accession of Elizabeth to the

111 Protectorate of Cromwell into two unequal portions, the first

112 ending with the death of James I. the other comprehending the

113 reign of Charles and the brief glories of the Republic, we are

114 forcibly struck with a difference in the character of the

115 illustrious actors, by whom each period is rendered severally

116 memorable. Or rather, the difference in the characters of the

117 great men in each period, leads us to make this division.

118 Eminent as the intellectual powers were that were displayed in

119 both; yet in the number of great men, in the various sorts of

120 excellence, and not merely in the variety but almost diversity of

121 talents united in the same individual, the age of Charles falls

122 short of its predecessor; and the stars of the Parliament, keen

123 as their radiance was, in fulness and richness of lustre, yield

124 to the constellation at the court of Elizabeth; ­ which can

125 only be paralleled by Greece in her brightest moment, when the

126 titles of the poet, the philosopher, the historian, the statesman

127 and the general not seldom formed a garland round the same head,

128 as in the instances of our Sidneys and Raleighs. But then, on the

129 other hand, there was a vehemence of will, an enthusiasm of

130 principle, a depth and an earnestness of spirit, which the charms

131 of individual fame and personal aggrandisement could not pacify,

132 ­ an aspiration after reality, permanence, and general good,

133 ­ in short, a moral grandeur in the latter period, with which

134 the low intrigues, Machiavellic maxims, and selfish and servile

135 ambition of the former, stand in painful contrast.

136 The causes of this it belongs not to the present occasion to

137 detail at length; but a mere allusion to the quick succession of

138 revolutions in religion, breeding a political indifference in the

139 mass of men to religion itself, the enormous increase of the

140 royal power in consequence of the humiliation of the nobility and

141 the clergy ­ the transference of the papal authority to the

142 crown, ­ the unfixed state of Elizabeth's own opinions, whose

143 inclinations were as popish as her interests were protestant

144 ­ the controversial extravagance and practical imbecility of

145 her successor ­ will help to explain the former period; and

146 the persecutions that had given a life and soul-interest to the

147 disputes so imprudently fostered by James, ­ the ardour of a

148 conscious increase of power in the commons, and the greater

149 austerity of manners and maxims, the natural product and most

150 formidable weapon of religious disputation, not merely in

151 conjunction, but in closest combination, with newly awakened

152 political and republican zeal, these perhaps account for the

153 character of the latter aera.

154 In the close of the former period, and during the bloom of the

155 latter, the poet Milton was educated and formed; and he survived

156 the latter, and all the fond hopes and aspirations which had been

157 its life; and so in evil days, standing as the representative of

158 the combined excellence of both periods, he produced the

159 *Paradise Lost*

160 as by an after-throe of nature. "There are

161 some persons (observes a divine, a contemporary of Milton's) of

162 whom the grace of God takes early hold, and the good spirit

163 inhabiting them, carries them on in an even constancy through

164 innocence into virtue, their Christianity bearing equal date with

165 their manhood, and reason and religion, like warp and woof,

166 running together, make up one web of a wise and exemplary life.

167 This (he adds) is a most happy case, wherever it happens; for,

168 besides that there is no sweeter or more lovely thing on earth

169 than the early buds of piety, which drew from our Saviour signal

170 affection to the beloved disciple, it is better to have no wound

171 than to experience the most sovereign balsam, which, if it work a

172 cure, yet usually leaves a scar behind." Although it was and is

173 my intention to defer the consideration of Milton's own character

174 to the conclusion of this Lecture, yet I could not prevail on

175 myself to approach the

176 *Paradise Lost*

177 without impressing on

178 your minds the conditions under which such a work was in fact

179 producible at all, the original genius having been assumed as the

180 immediate agent and efficient cause; and these conditions I find

181 in the character of the times and in his own character. The age

182 in which the foundations of his mind were laid, was congenial to

183 it as one golden era of profound erudition and individual genius;

184 ­ that in which the superstructure was carried up, was no

185 less favourable to it by a sternness of discipline and a show of

186 self-control, highly flattering to the imaginative dignity of an

187 heir of fame, and which won Milton over from the dear-loved

188 delights of academic groves and cathedral aisles to the

189 anti-prelatic party. It acted on him, too, no doubt, and modified

190 his studies by a characteristic controversial spirit, (his

191 presentation of God is tinted with it) ­ a spirit not less

192 busy indeed in political than in theological and ecclesiastical

193 dispute, but carrying on the former almost always, more or less,

194 in the guise of the latter.

195 And so far as

196 Pope's censure

197 1

198 of our poet, ­ that he

199 makes God the Father a school divine ­ is just, we must

200 attribute it to the character of his age, from which the men of

201 genius, who escaped, escaped by a worse disease, the licentious

202 indifference of a Frenchified court.

203 Such was the

204 *nidus*

205 or soil, which constituted, in the

206 strict sense of the word, the circumstances of Milton's mind. In

207 his mind itself there were purity and piety absolute; an

208 imagination to which neither the past nor the present were

209 interesting, except as far as they called forth and enlivened the

210 great ideal, in which and for which he lived; a keen love of

211 truth, which, after many weary pursuits, found a harbour in a

212 sublime listening to the still voice in his own spirit, and as

213 keen a love of his country, which, after a disappointment still

214 more depressive, expanded and soared into a love of man as a

215 probationer of immortality. These were, these alone could be, the

216 conditions under which such a work as the

217 *Paradise Lost*

218 could be conceived and accomplished.

219 By a

220 life-long study Milton had known ­

221 >

222 What was of use to know,

223 > What best to say could say, to do had done.

224 > His actions to his words agreed, his words

225 > To his large heart gave utterance due, his heart

226 > Contain'd of good, wise, fair, the perfect shape;

227 and he left the imperishable total, as a bequest to the ages

228 coming, in the

229 *Paradise Lost*

230 .

231 2

232 Difficult as I shall find it to turn over these leaves without

233 catching some passage, which would tempt me to stop, I propose to

234 consider,

235 1st**

236 ,  the general plan and arrangement of the work;

237 **

238 2ndly**

239 ,  the subject with its difficulties and

240 advantages;

241 **

242 3rdly**

243 ,  the poet's object, the spirit in the letter, the

244 *

245 , the true school-divinity;

246 **

247 and

248 lastly**

249 ,  the characteristic excellencies of the poem,

250 in what they consist, and by what means they were produced.

251 **

252 1.**

253 As to the plan and ordonnance of the Poem.

254 **

255 Compare it with the

256 Iliad*

257 , many of the books of which

258 might change places without any injury to the thread of the

259 story. Indeed, I doubt the original existence of the

260 *Iliad*

261 as one poem; it seems more probable that it was put together

262 about the time of the Pisistratidae. The

263 *Iliad*

264 ­ and,

265 more or less, all epic poems, the subjects of which are taken

266 from history ­ have no rounded conclusion; they remain, after

267 all, but single chapters from the volume of history, although

268 they are ornamental chapters. Consider the exquisite simplicity

269 of the

270 *Paradise Lost*

271 . It and it alone really possesses a

272 beginning, a middle, and an end; it has the totality of the poem

273 as distinguished from the

274 *ab ovo*

275 birth and parentage, or

276 straight line, of history.

277 2.**

278 As to the subject.

279 **

280 In Homer, the supposed importance of the subject, as the first

281 effort of confederated Greece, is an after-thought of the

282 critics; and the interest, such as it is, derived from the events

283 themselves, as distinguished from the manner of representing

284 them, is very languid to all but Greeks. It is a Greek poem. The

285 superiority of the

286 *Paradise Lost*

287 is obvious in this

288 respect, that the interest transcends the limits of a nation. But

289 we do not generally dwell on this excellence of the

290 *Paradise

291 Lost*

292 , because it seems attributable to Christianity itself;

293 ­ yet in fact the interest is wider than Christendom, and

294 comprehends the Jewish and Mohammedan worlds; ­ nay, still

295 further, inasmuch as it represents the origin of evil, and the

296 combat of evil and good, it contains matter of deep interest to

297 all mankind, as forming the basis of all religion, and the true

298 occasion of all philosophy whatsoever.

299 The FALL of Man is the subject; Satan is the cause; man's

300 blissful state the immediate object of his enmity and attack; man

301 is warned by an angel who gives him an account of all that was

302 requisite to be known, to make the warning at once intelligible

303 and awful; then the temptation ensues, and the Fall; then the

304 immediate sensible consequence; then the consolation, wherein an

305 angel presents a vision of the history of men with the ultimate

306 triumph of the Redeemer. Nothing is touched in this vision but

307 what is of general interest in religion; any thing else would

308 have been improper.

309 The inferiority of Klopstock's

310 *Messiah*

311 is inexpressible. I

312 admit the prerogative of poetic feeling, and poetic faith; but I

313 cannot suspend the judgment even for a moment. A poem may in one

314 sense be a dream, but it must be a waking dream. In Milton you

315 have a religious faith combined with the moral nature; it is an

316 efflux; you go along with it. In Klopstock there is a wilfulness;

317 he makes things so and so. The feigned speeches and events in the

318 *Messiah*

319 shock us like falsehoods; but nothing of that sort

320 is felt in the

321 *Paradise Lost*

322 , in which no particulars, at

323 least very few indeed, are touched which can come into collision

324 or juxta-position with recorded matter.

325 But notwithstanding the advantages in Milton's subject, there

326 were concomitant insuperable difficulties, and Milton has

327 exhibited marvellous skill in keeping most of them out of sight.

328 High poetry is the translation of reality into the ideal under

329 the predicament of succession of time only. The poet is an

330 historian, upon condition of moral power being the only force in

331 the universe. The very grandeur of his subject ministered a

332 difficulty to Milton. The statement of a being of high intellect,

333 warring against the supreme Being, seems to contradict the idea

334 of a supreme Being. Milton precludes our feeling this, as much as

335 possible, by keeping the peculiar attributes of divinity less in

336 sight, making them to a certain extent allegorical only. Again,

337 poetry implies the language of excitement; yet how to reconcile

338 such language with God? Hence Milton confines the poetic passion

339 in God's speeches to the language of scripture; and once only

340 allows the

341 *passio vera,*

342 or

343 *quasi-humana*

344 to appear,

345 in the passage, where the Father contemplates his own likeness in

346 the Son before the battle:­

347 >

348 Go then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might,

349 > Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels

350 > That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war,

351 > My bow and thunder; my almighty arms

352 > Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh;

353 > Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them out

354 > From all Heaven's bounds into the utter deep:

355 > There let them learn, as likes them, to despise

356 > God and Messiah his anointed king.

357 > (B. VI. v. 710.)

358 3.**

359 As to Milton's object:­

360 **

361 It was to justify the ways of God to man! The controversial

362 spirit observable in many parts of the poem, especially in God's

363 speeches, is immediately attributable to the great controversy of

364 that age, the origination of evil. The Arminians considered it a

365 mere calamity. The Calvinists took away all human will. Milton

366 asserted the will, but declared for the enslavement of the will

367 out of an act of the will itself. There are three powers in us,

368 which distinguish us from the beasts that perish;

369 1,**

370 reason;

371 **

372 2,**

373 the power of viewing universal truth;

374 **

375 and

376 3,**

377 the power of contracting universal truth into

378 particulars. Religion is the will in the reason, and love in the

379 will.

380 **

381 The character of Satan is pride and sensual indulgence, finding

382 in self the sole motive of action. It is the character so often

383 seen

384 *in little*

385 on the political stage. It exhibits all the

386 restlessness, temerity, and cunning which have marked the mighty

387 hunters of mankind from Nimrod to Napoleon. The common

388 fascination of men is, that these great men, as they are called,

389 must act from some great motive. Milton has carefully marked in

390 his Satan the intense selfishness, the alcohol of egotism, which

391 would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. To place this

392 lust of self in opposition to denial of self or duty, and to show

393 what exertions it would make, and what pains endure to accomplish

394 its end, is Milton's particular object in the character of Satan.

395 But around this character he has thrown a singularity of daring,

396 a grandeur of sufferance, and a ruined splendour, which

397 constitute the very height of poetic sublimity.

398 Lastly**

399 , as to the execution:­

400 **

401 The language and versification of the

402 *Paradise Lost*

403 are

404 peculiar in being so much more necessarily correspondent to each

405 than those in any other poem or poet. The connexion of the

406 sentences and the position of the words are exquisitely

407 artificial; but the position is rather according to the logic of

408 passion or universal logic, than to the logic of grammar. Milton

409 attempted to make the English language obey the logic of passion

410 as perfectly as the Greek and Latin. Hence the occasional

411 harshness in the construction.

412 Sublimity is the pre-eminent characteristic of the

413 *Paradise

414 Lost*

415 . It is not an arithmetical sublime like Klopstock's,

416 whose rule always is to treat what we might think large as

417 contemptibly small. Klopstock mistakes bigness for greatness.

418 There is a greatness arising from images of effort and daring,

419 and also from those of moral endurance; in Milton both are

420 united. The fallen angels are human passions, invested with a

421 dramatic reality.

422 The apostrophe to light at the commencement of the third book is

423 particularly beautiful as an intermediate link between Hell and

424 Heaven; and observe, how the second and third book support the

425 subjective character of the poem. In all modern poetry in

426 Christendom there is an under consciousness of a sinful nature, a

427 fleeting away of external things, the mind or subject greater

428 than the object, the reflective character predominant. In the

429 *Paradise Lost*

430 the sublimest parts are the revelations of

431 Milton's own mind, producing itself and evolving its own

432 greatness; and this is so truly so, that when that which is

433 merely entertaining for its objective beauty is introduced, it at

434 first seems a discord.

435 In the description of Paradise itself you have Milton's sunny

436 side as a man; here his descriptive powers are exercised to the

437 utmost, and he draws deep upon his Italian resources. In the

438 description of Eve, and throughout this part of the poem, the

439 poet is predominant over the theologian. Dress is the symbol of

440 the Fall, but the mark of intellect; and the metaphysics of dress

441 are, the hiding what is not symbolic and displaying by

442 discrimination what is. The love of Adam and Eve in Paradise is

443 of the highest merit ­ not phantomatic, and yet removed from

444 every thing degrading. It is the sentiment of one rational being

445 towards another made tender by a specific difference in that

446 which is essentially the same in both; it is a union of

447 opposites, a giving and receiving mutually of the permanent in

448 either, a completion of each in the other.

449 Milton is not a picturesque, but a musical, poet; although he has

450 this merit that the object chosen by him for any particular

451 foreground always remains prominent to the end, enriched, but not

452 incumbered, by the opulence of descriptive details furnished by

453 an exhaustless imagination. I wish the

454 *Paradise Lost*

455 were

456 more carefully read and studied than I can see any ground for

457 believing it is, especially those parts which, from the habit of

458 always looking for a story in poetry, are scarcely read at all,

459 ­ as for example, Adam's vision of future events in the llth

460 and l2th books. No one can rise from the perusal of this immortal

461 poem without a deep sense of the grandeur and the purity of

462 Milton's soul, or without feeling how susceptible of domestic

463 enjoyments he really was, notwithstanding the discomforts which

464 actually resulted from an apparently unhappy choice in marriage.

465 He was, as every truly great poet has ever been, a good man; but

466 finding it impossible to realize his own aspirations, either in

467 religion, or politics, or society, he gave up his heart to the

468 living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on the

469 world by enriching it with this record of his own transcendant

470 ideal.

471 Footnote

472 1

473 :

474 *Table Talk*

475 , vol. ii. p. 264.

476 return to footnote mark

477 Footnote

478 2

479 : Here Mr. C. notes: "Not perhaps here, but towards, or

480 as, the conclusion, to chastise the fashionable notion that

481 poetry is a relaxation or amusement, one of the superfluous toys

482 and luxuries of the intellect! To contrast the permanence of

483 poems with the transiency and fleeting moral effects of empires,

484 and what are called, great events." Ed.

485 return to footnote mark

Notes on Milton  1

112 (Hayley quotes the following passage:­ )

113 >

114 "Time serves not now, and, perhaps, I might seem too

115 > profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in

116 > the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to

117 > herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether

118 > that epic form, whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other

119 > two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and *the Book of

120 > Job* a brief, model," p. 69.

121 These latter words deserve particular notice. I do not doubt

122 that Milton intended his

123 *Paradise Lost*

124 as an epic of the

125 first class, and that the poetic dialogue of the

126 *Book of

127 Job*

128 was his model for the general scheme of his

129 *Paradise

130 Regained*

131 . Readers would not be disappointed in this latter

132 poem, if they proceeded to a perusal of it with a proper

133 preconception of the kind of interest intended to be excited in

134 that admirable work. In its kind it is the most perfect poem

135 extant, though its kind may be inferior in interest ­ being

136 in its essence didactic ­ to that other sort, in which

137 instruction is conveyed more effectively, because less directly,

138 in connection with stronger and more pleasurable emotions, and

139 thereby in a closer affinity with action. But might we not as

140 rationally object to an accomplished woman's conversing, however

141 agreeably, because it has happened that we have received a keener

142 pleasure from her singing to the harp?

143 *Si

144 genus sit probo et sapienti viro hand indignum, et si poema sit

145 in suo genere perfectum, satis est. Quod si hoc auctor idem

146 altioribus numeris et carmini diviniori ipsum per se divinum

147 superaddiderit, mehercule satis est, et plusquam satis.*

148 2

149 I cannot, however, but wish that the answer of

150 Jesus to Satan in the 4th book, (v. 285.) ­

151 >

152 Think not but that I know these things;

153 > Or think I know them not,

154 > Not therefore am I short

155 > Of knowing what I ought, &c.

156 had breathed the spirit of Hayley's noble quotation rather than

157 the narrow bigotry of Gregory the Great. The passage is, indeed,

158 excellent, and is partially true; but partial truth is the worst

159 mode of conveying falsehood.

160 >

161 (Hayley, p. 75.) "The sincerest friends of Milton may

162 > here agree with Johnson, who speaks of *his controversial

163 > merriment as disgusting."*

164 The man who reads a work meant for immediate effect on one age

165 with the notions and feelings of another, may be a refined

166 gentleman, but must be a sorry critic. He who possesses

167 imagination enough to live with his forefathers, and, leaving

168 comparative reflection for an after moment, to give himself up

169 during the first perusal to the feelings of a contemporary, if

170 not a partizan, will, I dare aver, rarely find any part of

171 Milton's prose works disgusting.

172 (Hayley, p. 104. Hayley is speaking of the passage in Milton's

173 *Answer to Icon Basilice*

174 , in which he accuses Charles of

175 taking his Prayer in captivity from Pamela's prayer in the 3rd

176 book of Sidney's

177 *Arcadia*

178 . The passage begins, ­

179 >

180 "But this king, not content with that which, although

181 > in a thing holy, is no holy theft, to attribute to his own making

182 > other men's whole prayers, &c. (Symmons' Ed. 1806, p.

183 > 407.))

184 Assuredly, I regret that Milton should have written this

185 passage; and yet the adoption of a prayer from a romance on such

186 an occasion does not evince a delicate or deeply sincere mind. We