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Leader (1850-1860), 14th June 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 560, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      " This year , " writes Pliny the Younger to his friend , "there is a harvest of poets ; not a day in April but some new poem sees the light : magnum proventum poetarum annus hie attulit . Toto mense Aprili nullas fere dies quo non redtaret aliquis . " We are not quite so abundant ; but , in the dearth of other literature , the copiousness of verse is

      noteworthy . The cause , we imagine , lies in the eminent indifference of poets to all questions of" supply and demand" —they are not affected by the " state of the market . " There is always corn enough to feed Pegasus—he lives on so little ! Perhaps , also , the irresistible spontaneity of verse has something to do with it ; there are few tormented with a _ prose gad-fly stinging them to composition ; but verse , like murder , will out .

      Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos Et quod tentabam . scribere . versus erat . The lines are by that " most capricious poet , Honest Ovid , " and express what every scribbler must have felt . Pliny , with grave irony , avows that the indifference of the public increases his admiration for the courage of these poets who are not to be daunted

      by non-success ; but what true poet cares for success ? Is not success the proof of mediocrity , and are not all men " before their age " scorned by the age they outstrip ? If failure is the test of geniuswhich seems to be a theory accepted among the unsold—the world is rich indeed , and Henry Taylor ' s harmonious

      sophism—The world knows nothing of its greatest men , rises eminent into truth . Among the volumes of verse , one at least must be honourably distinguished—Casa Guidi Windows—but that we have touched upon elsewhere ; and one more , for the sake of its subject and authorship—viz ., Abd-el-Kader , by Viscount Maidstone . The days are past when Let but a Lord but own the happy lines , How the wit brightens ! how the style refines !

      And we have had so many of the Aristocracy of Birth proving their plebeian station in intellect , that a title is , if anything , prejudicial to a poet ; but we shall see next week what Lord Maidstone can make of his noble subject . Every one remembers Tom Taylor ' s glorious ballad in Punch upon this Eagle of the Desert .

      Untitled Article

      A " sensation , " we are told , is agitating the English circles at Florence by the wicked sketches which Lev Kit introduces in his serial romance The Daltons , wherein all the notabilities of the place are taken off . What a fund of maliciousness there is in human nature ! and how domineering an instinct is that for " scandal " falsely said to be the peculiar distinction of women ! A subtle philosopher might perhaps make out that this ] ove of scandal was after all but an inverted or perverted sympathy ; a saturnine philosopher would set it down simply to envy .

      But envy is a word too recklessly flung about . Authors are wiid to be envious of each other ' s success ; which is unquestionably true of some authors , and of sornc among those whom one would think the least excusable for entertaining such a feeling ; but it in not true of the best men , nor of the highest writers . Whoever knew poor IIai-zac knew that be was entirely free from jealousy , though he wan more frequently " pitted "

      against other writers than any of Ins contemporaries ; and ( JiicoiK . ic Sand , whom everyone knows to be incapable of u petty feeling , has in the . dedication of her Molit : re given a graceful protest against being nuppoNcd by her recent dramatic efforts to have net up a system against that of her brilliant confrere Alkxandkk Dumah . To him the play is dedicated , becauNC she wishes to protest against the " tendency that may be attributed to me of regarding tho absence of action as a

      systematic reaction against the school of which you are the chief . Far from me such a blasp hemy against movement and life ! I am too fond of your works ; I read them and listen to them with too much attention and emotion ; I am too much an artist in feeling to wish the slightest lessening of your triumphs . Many believe that artists are necessarily jealous of each other . I pity those who believe it , pity them for having so little of the artist as not to understand that the idea of assassinating our rivals would be that of our own suicide . "

      Untitled Article

      We cannot pass over without mention the very remarkable letters which Michel Chevalier is publishing in the Journal des Debats on the Great Exhibition . They are very different from the wordiness and commonplace which distinguish the majority of articles on this subject ; and although they bear the impress of that exclusive preoccupation of industry and its products which is peculiar to his school of thinkers , as if industry were the whole of a nation ' s life and activity , yet as a philosophic review of the Great Industrial Congress they are well worth attention .

      Untitled Article

      Thackeray ' s third lecture was even more crowded than its predecessors : Fashion , Celebrity , Beauty , were there to lend increased attractions to the delightful entertainment ; and Fashion , Celebrity , and Beauty , each found itself reflected in that mirror of the Wit and Manners of the eighteenth century . It was more as a picture of that period , full of manyglancing lights , than as a delineation of Steele that this lecture was remarkable , and hence , perhaps , its diminished interest . He sketched indeed

      the eav improvident wit , sinning and repenting , the gay improvident wit , sinning and repenting , and sinning again , but always delicate and kindly , even in his cups !—always the gentleman , even in the sponging-house ! He dwelt with admirable emphasis on the truth , that human nature owes much of its loveahleness , no less than of its happiness , to its imperfections , and that , to use Goethe ' s

      words—Es fehlt der meusch , und darum hat er Freunde . " Man is weak , and therefore has he friends to love and strengthen him . " And he applied this general truth to Steele ' s particular case , showing that even his foibles and his vices , being but the weaknesses of a nature kind and good in essentials , endeared him to us : and that we loved him more than

      Swift or Addison , who claimed more admiration . All this was in Thackeray ' s peculiar style—the teaching of a wise , a saddened , and a loving heartof one who , like the many-teared Ulysses , had " learnt from what he had suffered " ipotQev if' iitaQe . But all this was scarcely sufficient to fill a long lecture ; nor , indeed , was Steele of sufficient eminence to warrant a whole lecture .

      Apropos of these appreciations of the great humorists , one anecdote was moving amidst the crowd on the staircase , which is humorous enough to bear publicity . It appears there is some gentleman whose literary susceptibility has been so wounded by Thackeray ' s denouncement of the odious qualities in Swift , that he wrote a letter threatening to insult biro publicly and interrupt his lecture , " unless he openly retracted from the rostrum those foul aspersions on Swift ' s memory . He must be an Irishman !

      Untitled Article

      MRfi . DKOWNINfi ' s NEW POEM . Casa Guidi / Pinilowt . A Poem , lly Hlizatwth Iiarrt-tt Ilrowijiii £ . Chapman uud Hull . That Mrs . Browning is gifted with the special faculty which demarcates poets from verse writerssingern from speakers—we have already in these columns emphatically declared ; the great deficiency in her writings we found to be a want of

      experience , an imperfect grasp of life , a certain unmibstantiality which made the arabesques upon her Temples more important than the Temples themselveH . In her Casa Guidi Windows wo notice an immen « c improvement . The subject is grave with sad memories and disappointed hopes , and although vast in its scope , and somewhat abstract in its treatment , is animated by the lifeblood of reality . Out of realit y it grew ; direct to reality it

      appeals . She was there in Florence—not there in bodily presence merely—but there in spirit , in sympathy , in hope , in gladness and in sadness ; and the actual experience of the things she utters in musical creativeness has given a graver and more touching tone to the rhythm of her thoughts , such as transcends all excellence of imagery and chastened expression . Criticism may point out many a flaw in these verses , but the heart recognizes in them the true heart utterance . The difference

      between feigning and creating—between imagining scenes and language for things which others have experienced , and of taking from the world of our experience things which Art raises into its own world of plastic beauty—this difference , we say , which lies at the root of all asthetics , Mrs . Browning illustrates in such poems as the majority of those previously published by her compared with Casa Guidi Windows .

      Having thus intimated that it belongs to the comparatively small class of poems , another question immediately presses itself upon the critic , viz ., What rank does it hold in that class ? A question we , with all humility , decline to answer at this early period . Long acquaintance with a work of art is indispensable to its thorough appreciation ; nay , the greater the work the longer is this critical apprenticeship needful , as every one will testify in such cases as Hamlet , Faust , Fidelio , Don Giovanni , The Triumph of Galatea , or the frescoes in the Loggie . Without intimating that Casa Guidi Windows is of that family , or requires any unusual amount of sagacity for its appreciation , we would rather , for the present , at least , avoid endeavouring to settle its rank , content if we can lure the reader

      into the proper desire of possessing it . The subject is Italy , or more especially Tuscany , in the memorable 1848 . Her own words best describe her purpose : — " No continuous narrative , nor exposition of political philosophy , is attempted by her . It is a simple story of personal impressions , whose only value is in the intensity with which they were received , as proving a warm affection for a beautiful and unfortunate country ; and the sincerity with which , they are related , as indicating her own good faith and . freedom from all partisanship .

      "Of the two parts of this Poem , the first was written nearly three years ago , while the second resumes the actual situation of 1851 . The discrepancy between the two parts is a sufficient guarantee to the public of the truthfulness of the writer , who , though she certainly escaped the epidemic , falling sickness ' of enthusiasm for Pio Nono , takes shame upon herself that f-he believed , like a woman , some royal oaths , and lost sight of the probable consequences of some obvious popular defects . If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader , let him understand that to the writer it has been more so . But such .

      discrepancy we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature . . . the discrepancy between aspiration and performance , between faith and dis-illusion , between hope and fact . " From her windows in the Casa Guidi she hears a little child singing O bella liberttl , and this sets her musing upon Italy past and present , more especially as in the past Italy appears crowned with the deathless glories of her heroes and artists : — " ' Less wretched if less fair , ' perhaps a truth Is ho far plain in this—that Italy , Long trammelled with the purple of her youth Against her age ' s due activity , Sate still upon her graves , without the ruth Of death , but also without energy

      And hope- of life . ' What ' s Italy ? ' men ask : And others answer , ' Virgil , Cicero , Catullus , Crcsar . ' And what more ? to ask Tho memory closer— ' Why , Boccaccio , Dante , Petrnrca , " —and if still the flask Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow , —• 4 Angelo , Kaffael , IVrgolese , ' —all Whose strong hearts boat through stone , or charged , again , Cloth-threads with fire of kouIh electrical , Or broke , up heaven for music . What more then ? Why , then , no moie . The chaplet ' w last bends fall In naming the last wuntship within ken , And , niter that , none prayeth in the land . Aids , this Italy has too long swept . Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand ; Of her own past , impansioued nympholept ! Consenting to be nailed by the hand To the same Iwty-tree under which nhv Htepped A queen of old , and plucked a leafy branch ; And licensing the world too long , indeed , To use her broad phylacteries to Htaunch And stop her bloody Hjih , which took no heed How one quick breath would draw an avalanche Of living HoiiH around her , to succeed Tho vanished generations . Could she count Those oil-eaters , with large , live , mobile mouths Agape for jnaccaroni . in the amount

      Xtttratttre.

      Xtttratttre .

      Untitled Article

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .

      Untitled Article

      * 560 C (( H ^ alret . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1851, page 560, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1887/page/12/