Biographia Literaria

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"And after this forth to the gate he wente,
Ther as Creseide out rode a ful gode pass,
And up and doun there made he many' a wente,
And to himselfe ful oft he said, Alas!
Fro hennis rode my blisse and my solas
As woulde blisful God now for his joie,
I might her sene agen come in to Troie!
And to the yondir hil I gan her Bide,
Alas! and there I toke of her my leve
And yond I saw her to her fathir ride;
For sorow of whiche mine hert shall to-cleve;
And hithir home I came whan it was eve,
And here I dwel, out-cast from ally joie,
And steal, til I maie sene her efte in Troie.
"And of himselfe imaginid he ofte
To ben defaitid, pale and woxin lesse
Than he was wonte, and that men saidin softe,
What may it be? who can the sothe gesse,
Why Troilus hath al this hevinesse?
And al this n' as but his melancolie,
That he had of himselfe suche fantasie.
Anothir time imaginin he would
That every wight, that past him by the wey,
Had of him routhe, and that thei saien should,
I am right sory, Troilus wol dey!
And thus he drove a daie yet forth or twey,
As ye have herde: suche life gan he to lede
As he that stode betwixin hope and drede:
For which him likid in his songis shewe
Th' encheson of his wo as he best might,
And made a songe of words but a fewe,
Somwhat his woful herte for to light,
And whan he was from every mann'is sight
With softe voice he of his lady dere,
That absent was, gan sing as ye may here:

* * * * * *

This song, when he thus songin had, ful Bone
He fil agen into his sighis olde
And every night, as was his wonte to done;
He stode the bright moone to beholde
And all his sorowe to the moone he tolde,
And said: I wis, whan thou art hornid newe,
I shall be glad, if al the world be trewe!"

Another exquisite master of this species of style, where the scholar
and the poet supplies the material, but the perfect well-bred
gentleman the expressions and the arrangement, is George Herbert. As
from the nature of the subject, and the too frequent quaintness of the
thoughts, his TEMPLE; or SACRED POEMS AND PRIVATE EJACULATIONS are
Comparatively but little known, I shall extract two poems. The first
is a sonnet, equally admirable for the weight, number, and expression
of the thoughts, and for the simple dignity of the language. Unless,
indeed, a fastidious taste should object to the latter half of the
sixth line. The second is a poem of greater length, which I have
chosen not only for the present purpose, but likewise as a striking
example and illustration of an assertion hazarded in a former page of
these sketches namely, that the characteristic fault of our elder
poets is the reverse of that, which distinguishes too many of our more
recent versifiers; the one conveying the most fantastic thoughts in
the most correct and natural language; the other in the most fantastic
language conveying the most trivial thoughts. The latter is a riddle
of words; the former an enigma of thoughts. The one reminds me of an
odd passage in Drayton's IDEAS

As other men, so I myself do muse,
Why in this sort I wrest invention so;
And why these giddy metaphors I use,
Leaving the path the greater part do go;
I will resolve you: I am lunatic! [72]

The other recalls a still odder passage in THE SYNAGOGUE: or THE
SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE, a connected series of poems in imitation of
Herbert's TEMPLE, and, in some editions, annexed to it.

O how my mind
Is gravell'd!
Not a thought,
That I can find,
But's ravell'd
All to nought!
Short ends of threds,
And narrow shreds
Of lists,
Knots, snarled ruffs,
Loose broken tufts
Of twists,
Are my torn meditations ragged clothing,
Which, wound and woven, shape a suit for nothing:
One while I think, and then I am in pain
To think how to unthink that thought again.

Immediately after these burlesque passages I cannot proceed to the
extracts promised, without changing the ludicrous tone of feeling by
the interposition of the three following stanzas of Herbert's.

VIRTUE.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box, where sweets compacted lie
My music shews, ye have your closes,
And all must die.

THE BOSOM SIN:
A SONNET BY GEORGE HERBERT.

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round,
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises;
Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,
The sound of Glory ringing in our ears
Without, our shame; within, our consciences;
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.
Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

LOVE UNKNOWN.

Dear friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad
And in my faintings, I presume, your love
Will more comply than help. A Lord I had,
And have, of whom some grounds, which may improve,
I hold for two lives, and both lives in me.
To him I brought a dish of fruit one day,
And in the middle placed my heart. But he
(I sigh to say)
Look'd on a servant, who did know his eye,
Better than you know me, or (which is one)
Than I myself. The servant instantly,
Quitting the fruit, seiz'd on my heart alone,
And threw it in a font, wherein did fall
A stream of blood, which issued from the side
Of a great rock: I well remember all,
And have good cause: there it was dipt and dyed,
And wash'd, and wrung: the very wringing yet
Enforceth tears. "Your heart was foul, I fear."
Indeed 'tis true. I did and do commit
Many a fault, more than my lease will bear;
Yet still ask'd pardon, and was not denied.
But you shall hear. After my heart was well,
And clean and fair, as I one eventide
(I sigh to tell)
Walk'd by myself abroad, I saw a large
And spacious furnace flaming, and thereon
A boiling caldron, round about whose verge
Was in great letters set AFFLICTION.
The greatness shew'd the owner. So I went
To fetch a sacrifice out of my fold,
Thinking with that, which I did thus present,
To warm his love, which, I did fear, grew cold.
But as my heart did tender it, the man
Who was to take it from me, slipt his hand,
And threw my heart into the scalding pan;
My heart that brought it (do you understand?)
The offerer's heart. "Your heart was hard, I fear."
Indeed 'tis true. I found a callous matter
Began to spread and to expatiate there:
But with a richer drug than scalding water
I bath'd it often, ev'n with holy blood,
Which at a board, while many drank bare wine,
A friend did steal into my cup for good,
Ev'n taken inwardly, and most divine
To supple hardnesses. But at the length
Out of the caldron getting, soon I fled
Unto my house, where to repair the strength
Which I had lost, I hasted to my bed:
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults,
(I sigh to speak)
I found that some had stuff'd the bed with thoughts,
I would say thorns. Dear, could my heart not break,
When with my pleasures ev'n my rest was gone?
Full well I understood who had been there:
For I had given the key to none but one:
It must be he. "Your heart was dull, I fear."
Indeed a slack and sleepy state of mind
Did oft possess me; so that when I pray'd,
Though my lips went, my heart did stay behind.
But all my scores were by another paid,
Who took my guilt upon him. "Truly, Friend,
"For aught I hear, your Master shews to you
"More favour than you wot of. Mark the end.
"The font did only what was old renew
"The caldron suppled what was grown too hard:
"The thorns did quicken what was grown too dull:
"All did but strive to mend what you had marr'd.
"Wherefore be cheer'd, and praise him to the full
"Each day, each hour, each moment of the week
"Who fain would have you be new, tender quick."

CHAPTER XX

The former subject continued--The neutral style, or that common to
Prose and Poetry, exemplified by specimens from Chaucer, Herbert, and
others.

I have no fear in declaring my conviction, that the excellence defined
and exemplified in the preceding chapter is not the characteristic
excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's style; because I can add with equal
sincerity, that it is precluded by higher powers. The praise of
uniform adherence to genuine, logical English is undoubtedly his; nay,
laying the main emphasis on the word uniform, I will dare add that, of
all contemporary poets, it is his alone. For, in a less absolute sense
of the word, I should certainly include Mr. Bowies, Lord Byron, and,
as to all his later writings, Mr. Southey, the exceptions in their
works being so few and unimportant. But of the specific excellence
described in the quotation from Garve, I appear to find more, and more
undoubted specimens in the works of others; for instance, among the
minor poems of Mr. Thomas Moore, and of our illustrious Laureate. To
me it will always remain a singular and noticeable fact; that a
theory, which would establish this lingua communis, not only as the
best, but as the only commendable style, should have proceeded from a
poet, whose diction, next to that of Shakespeare and Milton, appears
to me of all others the most individualized and characteristic. And
let it be remembered too, that I am now interpreting the controverted
passages of Mr. Wordsworth's critical preface by the purpose and
object, which he may be supposed to have intended, rather than by the
sense which the words themselves must convey, if they are taken
without this allowance.

A person of any taste, who had but studied three or four of
Shakespeare's principal plays, would without the name affixed scarcely
fail to recognise as Shakespeare's a quotation from any other play,
though but of a few lines. A similar peculiarity, though in a less
degree, attends Mr. Wordsworth's style, whenever he speaks in his own
person; or whenever, though under a feigned name, it is clear that he
himself is still speaking, as in the different dramatis personae of
THE RECLUSE. Even in the other poems, in which he purposes to be most
dramatic, there are few in which it does not occasionally burst forth.
The reader might often address the poet in his own words with
reference to the persons introduced:

"It seems, as I retrace the ballad line by line
That but half of it is theirs, and the better half is thine."

Who, having been previously acquainted with any considerable portion
of Mr. Wordsworth's publications, and having studied them with a full
feeling of the author's genius, would not at once claim as
Wordsworthian the little poem on the rainbow?

"The Child is father of the Man, etc."

Or in the LUCY GRAY?

"No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor;
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door."

Or in the IDLE SHEPHERD-BOYS?

"Along the river's stony marge
The sand-lark chants a joyous song;
The thrush is busy in the wood,
And carols loud and strong.
A thousand lambs are on the rocks,
All newly born! both earth and sky
Keep jubilee, and more than all,
Those boys with their green coronal;
They never hear the cry,
That plaintive cry! which up the hill
Comes from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll."

Need I mention the exquisite description of the Sea-Loch in THE BLIND
HIGHLAND BOY. Who but a poet tells a tale in such language to the
little ones by the fire-side as--

"Yet had he many a restless dream;
Both when he heard the eagle's scream,
And when he heard the torrents roar,
And heard the water beat the shore
Near where their cottage stood.

Beside a lake their cottage stood,
Not small like our's, a peaceful flood;
But one of mighty size, and strange;
That, rough or smooth, is full of change,
And stirring in its bed.

For to this lake, by night and day,
The great Sea-water finds its way
Through long, long windings of the hills,
And drinks up all the pretty rills
And rivers large and strong:

Then hurries back the road it came
Returns on errand still the same;
This did it when the earth was new;
And this for evermore will do,
As long as earth shall last.

And, with the coming of the tide,
Come boats and ships that sweetly ride,
Between the woods and lofty rocks;
And to the shepherds with their flocks
Bring tales of distant lands."

I might quote almost the whole of his RUTH, but take the following
stanzas:

But, as you have before been told,
This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,
And, with his dancing crest,
So beautiful, through savage lands
Had roamed about with vagrant bands
Of Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky,
Might well be dangerous food
For him, a Youth to whom was given
So much of earth--so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he found
Irregular in sight or sound
Did to his mind impart
A kindred impulse, seemed allied
To his own powers, and justified
The workings of his heart.

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought,
The beauteous forms of nature wrought,
Fair trees and lovely flowers;
The breezes their own languor lent;
The stars had feelings, which they sent
Into those magic bowers.

Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween,
That sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high intent
For passions linked to forms so fair
And stately, needs must have their share
Of noble sentiment."

But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compositions, which already
form three-fourths of his works; and will, I trust, constitute
hereafter a still larger proportion;--from these, whether in rhyme or
blank verse, it would be difficult and almost superfluous to select
instances of a diction peculiarly his own, of a style which cannot be
imitated without its being at once recognised, as originating in Mr.
Wordsworth. It would not be easy to open on any one of his loftier
strains, that does not contain examples of this; and more in
proportion as the lines are more excellent, and most like the author.
For those, who may happen to have been less familiar with his
writings, I will give three specimens taken with little choice. The
first from the lines on the BOY OF WINANDER-MERE,--who

"Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him.--And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
With long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of mirth and jocund din! And when it chanced,
That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene [73]
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake."

The second shall be that noble imitation of Drayton [74] (if it was
not rather a coincidence) in the lines TO JOANNA.

--"When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space,
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld
That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.
The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,
Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again!
That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag
Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar
And the tall Steep of Silver-How sent forth
A noise of laughter; southern Lougbrigg heard,
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone.
Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky
Carried the lady's voice!--old Skiddaw blew
His speaking trumpet!--back out of the clouds
From Glaramara southward came the voice:
And Kirkstone tossed it from its misty head!"

The third, which is in rhyme, I take from the SONG AT THE FEAST OF
BROUGHAM CASTLE, upon the restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd,
to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors.

------"Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom;
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;
Armour rusting in his halls
On the blood of Clifford calls,--
'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the Lance!
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the Shield--
Tell thy name, thou trembling Field!--
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!
Happy day, and mighty hour,
When our Shepherd, in his power,
Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
To his ancestors restored,
Like a re-appearing Star,
Like a glory from afar,
First shall head the flock of war!"

"Alas! the fervent harper did not know,
That for a tranquil Soul the Lay was framed,
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

The words themselves in the foregoing extracts, are, no doubt,
sufficiently common for the greater part.--But in what poem are they
not so, if we except a few misadventurous attempts to translate the
arts and sciences into verse? In THE EXCURSION the number of
polysyllabic (or what the common people call, dictionary) words is
more than usually great. And so must it needs be, in proportion to the
number and variety of an author's conceptions, and his solicitude to
express them with precision.--But are those words in those places
commonly employed in real life to express the same thought or outward
thing? Are they the style used in the ordinary intercourse of spoken
words? No! nor are the modes of connections; and still less the breaks
and transitions. Would any but a poet--at least could any one without
being conscious that he had expressed himself with noticeable
vivacity--have described a bird singing loud by, "The thrush is busy
in the wood?"--or have spoken of boys with a string of club-moss round
their rusty hats, as the boys "with their green coronal?"--or have
translated a beautiful May-day into "Both earth and sky keep jubilee!"
--or have brought all the different marks and circumstances of a
sealoch before the mind, as the actions of a living and acting power?
Or have represented the reflection of the sky in the water, as "That
uncertain heaven received into the bosom of the steady lake?" Even the
grammatical construction is not unfrequently peculiar; as "The wind,
the tempest roaring high, the tumult of a tropic sky, might well be
dangerous food to him, a youth to whom was given, etc." There is a
peculiarity in the frequent use of the asymartaeton (that is, the
omission of the connective particle before the last of several words,
or several sentences used grammatically as single words, all being in
the same case and governing or governed by the same verb) and not less
in the construction of words by apposition ("to him, a youth"). In
short, were there excluded from Mr. Wordsworth's poetic compositions
all, that a literal adherence to the theory of his preface would
exclude, two thirds at least of the marked beauties of his poetry must
be erased. For a far greater number of lines would be sacrificed than
in any other recent poet; because the pleasure received from
Wordsworth's poems being less derived either from excitement of
curiosity or the rapid flow of narration, the striking passages form a
larger proportion of their value. I do not adduce it as a fair
criterion of comparative excellence, nor do I even think it such; but
merely as matter of fact. I affirm, that from no contemporary writer
could so many lines be quoted, without reference to the poem in which
they are found, for their own independent weight or beauty. From the
sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three
persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the
poems of others with more and more unallayed pleasure, and had thought
more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me,
that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their
minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a
meditative mood.

CHAPTER XXI

Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals.

Long have I wished to see a fair and philosophical inquisition into
the character of Wordsworth, as a poet, on the evidence of his
published works; and a positive, not a comparative, appreciation of
their characteristic excellencies, deficiencies, and defects. I know
no claim that the mere opinion of any individual can have to weigh
down the opinion of the author himself; against the probability of
whose parental partiality we ought to set that of his having thought
longer and more deeply on the subject. But I should call that
investigation fair and philosophical in which the critic announces and
endeavours to establish the principles, which he holds for the
foundation of poetry in general, with the specification of these in
their application to the different classes of poetry. Having thus
prepared his canons of criticism for praise and condemnation, he would
proceed to particularize the most striking passages to which he deems
them applicable, faithfully noticing the frequent or infrequent
recurrence of similar merits or defects, and as faithfully
distinguishing what is characteristic from what is accidental, or a
mere flagging of the wing. Then if his premises be rational, his
deductions legitimate, and his conclusions justly applied, the reader,
and possibly the poet himself, may adopt his judgment in the light of
judgment and in the independence of free-agency. If he has erred, he
presents his errors in a definite place and tangible form, and holds
the torch and guides the way to their detection.

I most willingly admit, and estimate at a high value, the services
which the EDINBURGH REVIEW, and others formed afterwards on the same
plan, have rendered to society in the diffusion of knowledge. I think
the commencement of the EDINBURGH REVIEW an important epoch in
periodical criticism; and that it has a claim upon the gratitude of
the literary republic, and indeed of the reading public at large, for
having originated the scheme of reviewing those books only, which are
susceptible and deserving of argumentative criticism. Not less
meritorious, and far more faithfully and in general far more ably
executed, is their plan of supplying the vacant place of the trash or
mediocrity, wisely left to sink into oblivion by its own weight, with
original essays on the most interesting subjects of the time,
religious, or political; in which the titles of the books or pamphlets
prefixed furnish only the name and occasion of the disquisition. I do
not arraign the keenness, or asperity of its damnatory style, in and
for itself, as long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere
impersonation of the work then under trial. I have no quarrel with
them on this account, as long as no personal allusions are admitted,
and no re-commitment (for new trial) of juvenile performances, that
were published, perhaps forgotten, many years before the commencement
of the review: since for the forcing back of such works to public
notice no motives are easily assignable, but such as are furnished to
the critic by his own personal malignity; or what is still worse, by a
habit of malignity in the form of mere wantonness.

"No private grudge they need, no personal spite
The viva sectio is its own delight!
All enmity, all envy, they disclaim,
Disinterested thieves of our good name:
Cool, sober murderers of their neighbour's fame!"
S. T. C.

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