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[page 578:]
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CC. [[CCI.]]
A book* which puzzles me
beyond
measure, since, while
agreeing with its general conclusions, (except where it discusses prévision,)
I invariably find fault with the reasoning through which the
conclusions
are attained. I think the treatise grossly illogical throughout. For
example: — the
origin of the work is thus stated in an introductory chapter:
About twelve months
since, I was asked
by some friends to write a paper against Mesmerism — and I was
furnished
with materials by a highly esteemed quondam pupil, which proved
incontestably
that under some circumstances the operator might be duped — that
hundreds
of enlightened persons might equally be deceived — and certainly went
far
to show that the pretended science was wholly a delusion — a system of
fraud
and jugglery by which the imaginations of the credulous were held in
thraldom
through the arts of the designing. Perhaps in an evil hour I assented
to
the proposition thus made — but on reflection, I found that the facts
before
me only led to the direct proof that certain phenomena might
be
counterfeited; and the existence of counterfeit coin is rather a proof
that there is somewhere the genuine standard gold to be imitated.
The fallacy here lies in a mere
variation of what
is called "begging the question." Counterfeit coin is said to prove the
existence of genuine: — this, of course, is no more than the truism
that
there can be no counterfeit where there is no genuine — just as there
can
be no badness where there is no goodness — the terms being purely
relative.
But because there can be no counterfeit where there is no
original,
does it in any manner follow that any undemonstrated original exists?
In
seeing a spurious coin we know it to be such by comparison with coins admitted
to be genuine; but were no coin admitted to be
genuine, how
should we establish the counterfeit, and what right should we have to
talk
of counterfeits at all? Now, in the case of Mesmerism, our author is
merely begging the admission. In saying that the existence
of counterfeit
proves the existence of real Mesmerism, he demands that the real be
admitted. Either he demands this or there is no shadow of force in
his proposition — for it is clear that we can pretend to be that
which is not. A man, for instance, may feign himself a sphynx or a
griffin,
but it would never do to regard [page 579:] as
thus demonstrated the actual
existence
of either griffins or sphynxes. A word alone — the word
"counterfeit" — has
been sufficient to lead Mr. Newnham astray. People cannot be properly
said to "counterfeit" prévision, etc., but to feign these
phenomena.
Dr. Newnham's argument, of course, is by no means original with him,
although he seems to pride himself on it as if it were.
Dr. More says:
"That there should be so universal a fame and fear of that which never
was, nor is, nor can be ever in the world, is to me the greatest
miracle
of all. If there had not been, at some time or other, true miracles, it
had not been so easy to impose on the people by false. The alchemist
would
never go about to sophisticate metals, to pass them off for true gold
and
silver, unless that such a thing was acknowledged as true gold and
silver
in the world." This is precisely the same idea as that of Dr. Newnham,
and belongs to that extensive class of argumentation which is all
point — deriving
its whole effect from epigrammatism. That the belief in ghosts, or in a
Deity, or in a future state, or in anything else credible or
incredible — that
any such belief is universal, demonstrates nothing more than that which
needs no demonstration — the human unanimity — the identity of
construction
in
the human brain — an identity of which the inevitable result must be,
upon
the whole, similar deductions from similar data. Most
especially
do I disagree with the author of this book in his (implied)
disparagement
of the work of Chauncey Hare Townshend — a work to be valued properly
only
in a day to come.
CCI. [[CCII.]
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in its flight.* |
The single feather here is imperfectly
illustrative of the omni-prevalent
darkness; but a more especial objection is the likening of one feather
to the falling of another. Night is personified as a bird, and
darkness — the
feather of this bird — falls from it, how? — as another feather
falls
from
another bird. Why, it does this of course. The illustration is
identical —
that is to say, null. It has no more force than an identical
proposition
in logic. [page 580:]
CCII. [[CCIII.]]
The question of international
copyright has been
overloaded with words. The right of property in a literary work is
disputed
merely for the sake of disputation, and no man should be at the trouble
of arguing the point. Those who deny it, have made up their minds to
deny
everything tending to further the law in contemplation. Nor is the
question
of expediency in any respect relevant. Expediency is only to be
discussed
where no rights interfere. It would no doubt be very expedient
in
any poor man to pick the pocket of his wealthy neighbor, (as the
poor
are the majority, the case is precisely parallel to the copyright
case;)
but what would the rich think if expediency were permitted to overrule
their right? But even the expediency is untenable, grossly so. The
immediate
advantage arising to the pockets of our people, in the existing
condition
of things, is no doubt sufficiently plain. We get more reading for less
money than if the international law existed; but the remoter
disadvantages
are of infinitely greater weight. In brief, they are these: First, we
have
injury to our national literature by repressing the efforts of our men
of genius; for genius, as a general rule, is poor in worldly goods and
cannot write for nothing. Our genius being thus repressed, we are
written at only
by our "gentlemen of elegant leisure," and mere gentlemen of elegant
leisure
have been noted, time out of mind, for the insipidity of their
productions.
In general, too, they are obstinately conservative, and this feeling
leads
them into imitation of foreign, more especially of British models. This
is one main source of the imitativeness with which, as a people, we
have
been justly charged, although the first cause is to be found in our
position
as a colony. Colonies have always naturally aped the mother land. In
the
second place, irreparable ill is wrought by the almost exclusive
dissemination
among us of foreign — that is to say, of monarchical or aristocratical
sentiment
in foreign books; nor is this sentiment less fatal to democracy because
it reaches the people themselves directly in the gilded pill of the
poem
or the novel. We have next to consider the impolicy of our committing,
in the national character, an open and continuous wrong on the
frivolous
pretext of its benefiting ourselves. The last and by far the most
important
consideration [page 581:] of all, however, is that
sense of insult and injury aroused in the whole active intellect of the
world, the bitter and fatal resentment excited in the universal heart
of
literature — a resentment which will not and which cannot make nice
distinctions
between the temporary perpetrators of the wrong and that democracy in
general
which permits its perpetration. The autorial body is the most
autocratic
on the face of the earth. How, then, can those institutions even hope
to
be safe which systematically persist in trampling it under foot?
CCIII. [[CCIV.]]
The drama, as the chief of the
imitative arts, has
a tendency to beget and keep alive in its votaries the imitative
propensity.
This might be supposed à priori, and experience
confirms the
supposition.
Of all imitators, dramatists are the most perverse, the most
unconscionable,
or the most unconscious, and have been so time out of mind. Euripides
and
Sophocles were merely echoes of Æschylus, and not only was
Terence
Menander
and nothing beyond, but of the sole Roman tragedies extant, (the ten
attributed
to Seneca,) nine are on Greek subjects. Here, then, is cause enough for
the "decline of the drama," if we are to believe that the drama has
declined.
But it has not: on the contrary, during the last fifty years it has
materially
advanced. All other arts, however, have in the same interval, advanced
at a far greater rate — each very nearly in the direct ratio of its
non-imitativeness — painting,
for example, least of all — and the effect on the drama is, of course,
that
of apparent retrogradation.
CCIV. [[CCV.]]
The Swedenborgians inform me that
they have discovered
all that I said in a magazine article, entitled "Mesmeric Revelation,"
to be absolutely true, although at first they were very strongly
inclined
to doubt my veracity — a thing which, in that particular instance, I
never
dreamed of not doubting myself. The story is a pure fiction from
beginning
to end.
CCV. [[CCVI.]]
Here is a book of "amusing travels,"
which is full
enough of statistics to have been the joint composition of Messieurs
Busching,
Hassel, Cannabitch, Gaspari, Gutsmuth and company. [page 582:]
CCVI. [[CCVII.]]
I have never yet seen an English
heroic verse on
the proper model of the Greek — although there have been innumerable
attempts,
among which those of Coleridge are, perhaps, the most absurd, next to
those
of Sir Philip Sidney and Longfellow. The author of "The Vision of
Rubeta"
has done better, and Percival better yet; but no one has seemed to
suspect
that the natural preponderance of spondaic words in the Latin and Greek
must, in the English, be supplied by art — that is to say, by a careful
culling of the few spondaic words which the language affords — as, for
example,
here:
| Man is a | complex, | compound, |
compost, | yet is he |
God-born. |
This, to all intents, is a Greek hexameter, but then its
spondees, are
spondees, and not mere trochees. The verses of Coleridge and others are
dissonant, for the simple reason that there is no equality in time
between
a trochee and a dactyl. When Sir Philip Sidney writes,
| So to the | woods Love | runnes as |
well as | rides to
the | palace, |
he makes an heroic verse only to the eye; for "woods
Love" is the only
true spondee, "runs as," "well as," and "palace," have each the first
syllable
long and the second short — that is to say, they are all trochees, and
occupy
less time than the dactyls or spondee — hence the halting. Now, all
this
seems to be the simplest thing in the world, and the only wonder is how
men professing to be scholars should attempt to engraft a verse, of
which
the spondee is an element, upon a stock which repels the spondee as
antagonistical.
CCVII. [[CCVIII.]]
In the sweet "Lily of Nithsdale," we
read —
She's gane to dwell in heaven, my
lassie —
She's gane to dwell in heaven; —
Ye're ow're pure, quo' the voice of God,
For dwelling out o' heaven.
|
The owre and the o'
of the two last
verses should be Anglicized. The Deity, at least, should be supposed to
speak so as to be understood — although I am aware that a folio has
been
written to demonstrate broad Scotch as the language of Adam and Eve in
Paradise. [page 583:]
CCVIII. [[CCIX.]]
The conclusion of the Pröem in Mr.
Longfellow's late
"Waif" is exceedingly beautiful. The whole poem is remarkable in this,
that one of its principal excellences arises from what is[[,]]
generically,
a demerit. No error, for example, is more certainly fatal in poetry
than
defective rhythm; but here the slipshodiness is so
thoroughly
in unison with the nonchalant air of the thoughts — which again, are
so
capitally applicable to the thing done (a mere introduction of other
people's
fancies) — that the effect of the looseness of rhythm becomes palpable,
and we see at once that here is a case in which to be correct would
be inartistic. Here are three of the quatrains —
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes over me
That my soul cannot resist —
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mists resemble the rain
. . . .
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
|
Now these lines are not to be scanned. They are
referable
to no true principles of rhythm. The general idea is that of a
succession
of anapæsts; yet not only is this idea confounded with that of
dactyls,
but this succession is improperly interrupted at all
points — improperly,
because by unequivalent feet. The partial prosaicism thus brought
about,
however, (without any interference with the mere melody,) becomes a
beauty
solely through the nicety of its adaptation to the tone of the
poem,
and of this tone, again, to the matter in hand. In his keen sense of
this
adaptation, (which conveys the notion of what is vaguely termed
"ease,")
the reader so far loses sight of the rhythmical imperfection that he
can
be convinced of its existence only by treating in the same rhythm (or,
rather, lack of rhythm) a subject of different tone — a subject in
which
decision shall take the place of nonchalance. Now, undoubtedly, I
intend all this as complimentary to
Mr. Longfellow;
but it was for the utterance [page 584:] of these
very
opinions in the "New York Mirror" that I was accused, by some of the
poet's
friends, of inditing what they think proper to call "strictures" on the
author of "Outre-Mer."
CCIX. [[CCX.]]
We might contrive a very poetical and
very suggestive,
although, perhaps, no very tenable philosophy, by supposing that the
virtuous
live while the wicked suffer annihilation, hereafter; and that the
danger
of the annihilation (which danger would be in the ratio of the sin)
might be
indicated
nightly by slumber, and occasionally, with more distinctness, by a
swoon.
In proportion to the dreamlessness of the sleep, for example, would be
the degree of the soul's liability to annihilation. In the same way, to
swoon and awake in utter unconsciousness of any lapse of time during
the
syncope, would demonstrate the soul to have been then in such condition
that,
had death occurred, annihilation would have followed. On the other
hand,
when the revival is attended with remembrance of visions, (as is now
and
then the case, in fact,) then the soul to be considered in such
condition
as would insure its existence after the bodily death — the bliss or
wretchedness
of the existence to be indicated by the character of the visions.
CCX. [[CCXI.]]
When we attend less to "authority"
and more to principles,
when we look less at merit and more at demerit,
(instead
of the converse, as some persons suggest,) we shall then be better
critics
than we are. We must neglect our models and study our capabilities. The
mad eulogies on what occasionally has, in letters, been well done,
spring
from our imperfect comprehension of what it is possible for us to do
better.
"A man who has never seen the sun," says Calderon, ''cannot be blamed
for
thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon; a man who has seen
neither moon nor sun, cannot be blamed for expatiating on the
incomparable
effulgence of the morning star." Now, it is the business of the critic
so to soar that he shall see the sun, even although its orb be
far
below the ordinary horizon.
CCXI. [[CCXII.]]
The United States' motto, E
pluribus unum, may
possibly have a sly allusion to Pythagoras' definition of beauty — the
reduction
of many into one. [page 585:]
CCXII. [[CCXIII.]]
The great feature of the "Curiosity
Shop" is its
chaste, vigorous, and glorious imagination. This is the one
charm, all
potent, which alone would suffice to compensate for a world more of
error
than Mr. Dickens ever committed. It is not only seen in the conception,
and general handling of the story, or in the invention of character;
but
it pervades every sentence of the book. We recognise its prodigious
influence
in every inspired word. It is this which induces the reader who is at
all
ideal, to pause frequently, to re-read the occasionally quaint phrases,
to muse in uncontrollable delight over thoughts which, while he wonders
he has never hit upon them before, he yet admits that he never has
encountered.
In fact it is the wand of the enchanter.
Had we room to particularize, we
would mention as
points evincing most distinctly the ideality of the "Curiosity
Shop" — the
picture of the shop itself — the newly-born desire of the worldly old
man
for the peace of green fields — his whole character and conduct, in
short — the
schoolmaster, with his desolate fortunes, seeking affection in little
children —
the haunts of Quilp among the wharf-rats — the tinkering of the
Punch-men
among the tombs — the glorious scene where the man of the forge sits
poring,
at deep midnight, into that dread fire — again the whole conception of
this
character; and, last and greatest, the stealthy approach of Nell to her
death — her gradual sinking away on the journey to the village, so
skilfully
indicated rather than described — her pensive and prescient
meditation — the
fit of strange musing which came over her when the house in which
she
was
to die first broke upon her sight — the description of this house,
of
the
old church, and of the church-yard — everything in rigid
consonance with
the one impression to be conveyed — that deep meaningless well —
the
comments
of the Sexton upon death, and upon his own secure life — this whole
world
of mournful yet peaceful idea merging, at length, into the decease of
the
child Nelly, and the uncomprehending despair of the grandfather. These
concluding scenes are so drawn that human language, urged by human
thought,
could go no farther in the excitement of human feelings. And the pathos
is of that best order which is relieved, in great measure, by ideality.
Here the book has never been equalled, — never approached [page
586:] except in one instance, and that is in the case of the
"Undine" of De La Motte Fouqué. The imagination is perhaps as
great in
this latter work, but the pathos, although truly beautiful and deep,
fails
of much of its effect through the material from which it is wrought.
The
chief character, being endowed with purely fanciful attributes, cannot
command our full sympathies, as can a simple denizen of earth. In
saying,
a page or so above, that the death of the child left too painful an
impression,
and should therefore have been avoided, we must, of course, be
understood
as referring to the work as a whole, and in respect to its general
appreciation
and popularity. The death, as recorded, is, we repeat, of the highest
order
of literary excellence — yet while none can deny this fact, there are
few
who will be willing to read the concluding passages a second time.
Upon the whole we think the
"Curiosity Shop" very
much the best of the works of Mr. Dickens. It is scarcely possible to
speak
of it too well. It is in all respects a tale which will secure for its
author the enthusiastic admiration of every man of genius.
CCXIII. [[CCXIV.]]
It is not every one who can put "a
good thing" properly
together, although, perhaps, when thus properly put together, every
tenth
person you meet with may be capable of both conceiving and appreciating
it. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that less actual ability is
required
in the composition of a really good "brief article," than in a
fashionable
novel of the usual dimensions. The novel certainly requires what is
denominated
a sustained effort — but this is a matter of mere perseverance, and has
but
a collateral relation to talent. On the other hand — unity of effect, a
quality
not easily appreciated or indeed comprehended by an ordinary mind, and
a desideratum difficult of attainment, even by those who can
conceive
it — is
indispensable in the "brief article," and not so in the common novel.
The
latter, if admired at all, is admired for its detached passages,
without
reference to the work as a whole — or without reference to any general
design — which,
if it even exist in some measure, will be found to have occupied but
little
of the writer's attention, and cannot, from the length of the
narrative,
be taken in at one view, by the reader. [page 587:]
CCXIV. [[CCXV.]]
I am not sure that Tennyson is not
the greatest of
poets. The uncertainty attending the public conception of the term
"poet"
alone prevents me from demonstrating that he is. Other bards
produce
effects
which are, now and then, otherwise produced than by what we call
poems;
but Tennyson an effect which only a poem does. His alone are
idiosyncratic
poems. By the enjoyment or non-enjoyment of the "Morte D'Arthur," or of
the "Ænone," I would test any one's ideal sense. There are
passages in
his works which rivet a conviction I had long entertained, that the indefinite
is an element in the true [[Greek text:]] xxxxx [[:Greek text]].
Why do some
persons
fatigue themselves in attempts to unravel such phantasy-pieces as the
"Lady
of Shalott?" As well unweave the "ventum textilem" If the
author
did not deliberately propose to himself a suggestive indefinitiveness
of
meaning, with the view of bringing about a definitiveness of vague and
therefore of spiritual effects — this, at least, arose from
the
silent
analytical promptings of that poetic genius which, in its supreme
development,
embodies all orders of intellectual capacity. I know that
indefinitiveness
is an element of the true music — I mean of the true musical
expression.
Give to it any undue decision — imbue it with any very determinate
tone —
and you deprive it, at once, of its ethereal, its ideal, its intrinsic
and essential character. You dispel its luxury of dream. You dissolve
the atmosphere of the mystic upon which it floats. You exhaust it of
its
breath of fäery. It now becomes a tangible and easy appreciable
idea —
a
thing of the earth, earthy. It has not, indeed, lost its power to
please,
but all which I consider the distinctiveness of that power. And to the
uncultivated talent, or to the unimaginative apprehension, this
deprivation
of its most delicate nare will be, not unfrequently, a recommendation.
A determinateness of expression is sought — and often by composers who
should
know better — is sought as a beauty rather than rejected as a blemish.
Thus we have, even from high authorities, attempts at absolute imitation
in
music. Who can forget the sillinesses of the "Battle of Prague?" What
man
of taste but must laugh at the interminable drums, trumpets,
blunderbusses
and thunder? "Vocal music," says L'Abbate Gravina, who would
have
said the same thing of instrumental, "ought to imitate the [page
588:] natural
language
of the human feelings and passions, rather than the warblings of Canary
birds, which our singers, now-a-days, affect so vastly to mimic with
their
quaverings and boasted cadences." This is true only so far as the
"rather"
is concerned. If any music must imitate anything, it were assuredly
better
to limit the imitation as Gravina suggests. Tennyson's shorter pieces
abound
in minute rhythmical lapses sufficient to assure me that — in common
with
all poets living or dead — he has neglected to make precise
investigation
of the principles of metre; but, on the other hand, so perfect is his
rhythmical
instinct in general, that, like the present Viscount Canterbury, he
seems to
see with his ear.
CCXV. [[CCXVI.]]
There are some facts in the physical
world which
have a really wonderful analogy with others in the world of thought,
and
seem thus to give some color of truth to the (false) rhetorical dogma,
that metaphor or simile may be made to strengthen an argument, as well
as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis
inertiæ, for
example,
with the amount of momentum proportionate with it and
consequent upon
it,
seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true,
in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion
than a smaller one, and that its subsequent impetus is commensurate
with
this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the
vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more extensive in
their
movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved,
and are more embarrassed and more full of hesitation in the first few
steps
of their progress.
CCXVI. [[CCXVII.]]
Thomas Moore — the most skilful
literary artist of
his day — perhaps of any day — a man who stands in the singular and
really
wonderful predicament of being undervalued on account of the profusion
with which he has scattered about him his good things. The brilliancy
on
any one page of Lalla Rookh would have sufficed to establish that very
reputation which has been in a great measure self-dimned by the
galaxied
lustre of the entire book. It seems that the horrid laws of political
economy
cannot be evaded even by the inspired, and that a perfect
versification,
a vigorous [page 589:] style, and a never-tiring
fancy, may, like the water we
drink
and die without, yet despise, be so plentifully set forth as to be
absolutely
of no value at all.
CCXVII. [[CCXVIII.]]
This is a queer little book,*
which
its author regards
as "not only necessary, but urgently called for," because not only "the
mass of the people are ignorant of English Grammar, but because those
who
profess great knowledge of it, and even those who make the teaching of
it their business, will be found, upon examination, to be very far from
understanding its principles."
Whether Mr. P. proceeds upon the safe
old plan of
Probo meliora, deteriora sequor — whether he is one
of "the mass," and
means
to include himself among the ignoramuses — or whether he is only a
desperate
quiz — we shall not take it upon ourselves to say; but the fact is
clear
that, in a Preface of less than two small duodecimo pages (the leading
object of which seems to be an eulogy upon one William Cobbett,) he has
given us some half dozen distinct instances of bad grammar.
"For these purposes," says he — that is
to say — the
purposes of instructing mankind and enlightening "every American youth"
without exception — "for these purposes, I have written my lessons in a
series
of letters. A mode that affords more opportunity for plainness,
familiarity,
instruction, and entertainment, than any other. A mode that was adopted
by Chesterfield, in his celebrated instructions on politeness. A mode
that
was adopted by Smollett, in many of his novels, which, even at this
day,
hold a distinguished place in the world of fiction. A mode that was
adopted
by William Cobbett, not only in his admirable treatise on English
Grammar,
but in nearly every work that he wrote." "To Mr. Cobbett," adds the
instructer
of every American youth — "to Mr. Cobbett I acknowledge myself indebted
for
the greater part of the grammatical knowledge which I possess." Of the
fact stated there can be no question. Nobody but Cobbett could have
been
the grammatical Mentor of Mr. Pue, whose book (which is all
Cobbett)
speaks
plainly upon the point — nothing but the ghost of William
Cobbett, [page 590:]
looking
over the shoulder of Hugh A. Pue, could have inspired the latter
gentleman
with the bright idea of stringing together four consecutive sentences,
in each of which the leading nominative noun is destitute of a verb.
Mr. Pue may attempt to justify his
phraseology here,
by saying that the several sentences, quoted above, commencing with the
words, "A mode," are merely continuations of the one beginning "For
these
purposes;" but this is no justification at all. By the use of the
period,
he has rendered each sentence distinct, and each must be examined as
such,
in respect to its grammar. We are only taking the liberty of condemning
Mr. P. by the words of his own mouth. Turning to page 72, where he
treats
of punctuation, we read as follows: — "The full point is used at the
end
of every complete sentence; and a complete sentence is a collection of
words making a complete sense, without being dependent upon another
collection
of words to convey the full meaning intended." Now, what kind of a
meaning
can we give to such a sentence as "A mode that was adopted by
Chesterfield
in his celebrated instructions on politeness," if we are to have "no
dependence
upon" the sentences that precede it? But, even in the supposition that
these five sentences had been run into one, as they should have been,
they
would still be ungrammatical. For example — "For these purposes I have
written
my lessons in a series of letters — a mode that affords more
opportunity
for plainness, familiarity, instruction, and entertainment than any
other — a
mode, etc." This would have been the proper method of punctuation. "A
mode"
is placed in apposition with "a series of letters." But it is evident
that
it is not the "series of letters" which is the "mode." It is the
writing
the lessons in a series which is so. Yet, in order that the noun
"mode"
can be properly placed in apposition with what precedes it, this latter
must be either a noun, or a sentence, which, taken collectively, can
serve
as one. Thus, in any shape, all that we have quoted is bad grammar.
We say "bad grammar," and say it
through sheer obstinacy,
because Mr. Pue says we should not. "Why, what is grammar?" asks he
indignantly.
"Nearly all grammarians tell us that grammar is the writing and
speaking
of the English language correctly. What then is bad grammar? Why bad
grammar
must be the bad [page 591:] writing and speaking
of the English language
correctly!!"
We give the two admiration notes and all.
In the first place, if grammar be
only the writing
and speaking the English language correctly, then the French,
or the
Dutch,
or the Kickapoos are miserable, ungrammatical races of people, and have
no hopes of being anything else, unless Mr. Pue proceeds to their
assistance: —
but let us say nothing of this for the present. What we wish to assert
is, that the usual definition of grammar as "the writing and speaking
correctly,"
is an error which should have been long ago exploded. Grammar is the
analysis
of language, and this analysis will be good or bad,
just as the
capacity
employed upon it be weak or strong — just as the grammarian be a Horne
Tooke
or a Hugh A. Pue. But perhaps, after all, we are treating this
gentleman
discourteously. His book may be merely intended as a good joke. By the
by, he says in his preface, that "while he informs the student, he
shall
take particular care to entertain him." Now, the truth is, we
have been
exceedingly entertained. In such passages as the following, however,
which
we find upon the second page of the Introduction, we are really at a
loss
to determine whether it is the utile or the dulce which
prevails. We
give
the italics of Mr. Pue; without which, indeed, the singular force and
beauty
of the paragraph cannot be duly appreciated.
"The proper study of English grammar,
so far from
being dry, is one of the most rational enjoyments known to us;
one that
is highly calculated to rouse the dormant energies of the student; it
requiring
continual mental effort; unceasing exercise of mind. It is, in fact,
the spreading of a thought-producing plaster of paris upon
the extensive
grounds
of intellect! It is the parent of idea, and great causation of
reflection;
the mighty instigator of insurrection in the interior; and,
above all,
the unflinching champion of internal improvement!" We know
nothing
about
plaster of Paris; but the analogy which subsists between ipecac and
grammar — at
least between ipecac and the grammar of Mr. Pue — never,
certainly,
struck
us in so clear a point of view, as it does now.
But, after all, whether Mr. P.'s
queer little book
shall or shall not meet the views of "Every American Youth," will
depend
pretty much upon another question of high moment — whether "Every
American
Youth" be or be not as great a nincompoop as Mr. Pue. [page
592:]
CCXVIII. [[CCXIX.]]
That Lord Brougham was an
extraordinary man no one
in his senses will deny. An intellect of unusual capacity, goaded into
diseased action by passions nearly ferocious, enabled him to astonish
the
world, and especially the "hero-worshippers," as the author of
Sartor-Resartus
has it, by the combined extent and variety of his mental triumphs.
Attempting
many things, it may at least be said that he egregiously failed in
none.
But that he pre-eminently excelled in any cannot be affirmed with
truth,
and might well be denied à priori. We have no faith in
admirable
Crichtons,
and this merely because we have implicit faith in Nature and
her laws.
"He that is born to be a man," says Wieland, in his Peregrinus Proteus,
"neither should nor can be anything nobler, greater, nor better than a
man." The Broughams of the human intellect are never its Newtons or its
Bayles. Yet the contemporaneous reputation to be acquired by the former
is naturally greater than any which the latter may attain. The
versatility
of one whom we see and hear is a more dazzling and more readily
appreciable
merit than his profundity; which latter is best estimated in the
silence
of the closet, and after the quiet lapse of years. What impression Lord
Brougham has stamped upon his age, cannot be accurately determined
until
Time has fixed and rendered definite the lines of the medal; and fifty
years hence it will be difficult, perhaps to make out the deepest
indentation
of the exergue. Like Coleridge he should be regarded as one who
might
have
done much, had he been satisfied with attempting but little.
CCXIX. [[CCXX.]]
The Art of Mr. Dickens, although
elaborate and great,
seems only a happy modification of Nature. In this respect he differs
remarkably
from the author of "Night and Morning." The latter, by excessive care
and
by patient reflection, aided by much rhetorical knowledge, and general
information, has arrived at the capability of producing books which
might
be mistaken by ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, for the genuine
inspirations
of genius. The former, by the promptings of the truest genius itself,
has
been brought to compose, and evidently without effort, works which have
effected a long-sought consummation — which have [page 593:]
rendered him the idol
of
the people, while defying and enchanting the critics. Mr. Bulwer,
through
art, has almost created a genius. Mr. Dickens, through genius, has
pefected
[[perfected]] a standard from which art itself will derive its essence
in rules.
CCXX.
While Defoe would have been fairly
entitled to immortality
had he never written Robinson Crusoe, yet his many other very excellent
writings have nearly faded from our attention, in the superior lustre
of
the Adventures of the Mariner of York. What better possible species of
reputation could the author have desired for that book than the species
which it has so long enjoyed? It has become a household thing in nearly
every family in Christendom. Yet never was admiration of any work
—
universal
admiration — more indiscriminately or more inappropriately bestowed.
Not
one person in ten — nay, not one person in five hundred, has, during
the
perusal of Robinson Crusoe, the most remote conception that any
particle
of genius, or even of common talent, has been employed in its creation!
Men do not look upon it in the light of a literary performance. Defoe
has
none of their thoughts — Robinson all. The powers which have wrought
the
wonder have been thrown into obscurity by the very stupendousness of
the
wonder they have wrought! We read, and become perfect abstractions in
the
intensity of our interest — we close the book, and are quite satisfied
that
we could have written as well ourselves. All this is effected by the
potent
magic of verisimilitude. Indeed the author of Crusoe must have
possessed,
above all other faculties, what has been termed the faculty of
identification — that
dominion exercised by volition over imagination which enables the mind
to lose its own, in a fictitious, individuality. This includes, in a
very
great degree, the power of abstraction; and with these keys we may
partially
unlock the mystery of that spell which has so long invested the volume
before us. But a complete analysis of our interest in it cannot be thus
afforded. Defoe is largely indebted to his subject. The idea of man in
a state of perfect isolation, although often entertained, was never
before
so comprehensively carried out. Indeed the frequency of its occurrence
to the thoughts of mankind argued the extent of its influence on their
sympathies, while the fact of no attempt having been made to give an
embodied
form to [page 594:] the conception, went to prove
the difficulty of the
undertaking.
But the true narrative of Selkirk in 1711, with the powerful impression
it then made upon the public mind, sufficed to inspire Defoe with both
the necessary courage for his work, and entire confidence in its
success.
How wonderful has been the result!
CCXXI. [[CCXXII.]]
The increase, within a few years, of
the magazine
literature, is by no means to be regarded as indicating what some
critics
would suppose it to indicate — a downward tendency in American taste or
in American letters. It is but a sign of the times — an indication of
an
era in which men are forced upon the curt, the condensed, the
well-digested —
in place of the voluminous — in a word, upon journalism in lieu of
dissertation.
We need now the light artillery rather than the Peace-makers of the
intellect.
I will not be sure that men at present think more profoundly than half
a century ago, but beyond question they think with more rapidity, with
more skill, with more tact, with more of method and less of excrescence
in the thought. Besides all this, they have a vast increase in the
thinking
material; they have more facts, more to think about. For this reason,
they
are disposed to put the greatest amount of thought in the smallest
compass
and disperse it with the utmost attainable rapidity. Hence the
journalism
of the age; hence, in especial, magazines. Too many we cannot have, as
a general proposition; but we demand that they have sufficient merit to
render them noticeable in the beginning, and that they continue in
existence
sufficiently long to permit us a fair estimation of their value.
CCXXII. [[CCXXIII.]]
One half the pleasure experienced at a theatre
arises
from the spectator's
sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially, from his
belief
in their sympathy with him. The eccentric gentleman who not long ago,
at
the Park, found himself the solitary occupant of box, pit, and gallery,
would have derived but little enjoyment from his visit, had he been
suffered
to remain. It was an act of mercy to turn him out. The present absurd
rage
for lecturing is founded in the feeling in question. Essays which we
would
not be hired to read — so trite is their subject — so feeble is
their
execution — so
much easier is it to get better information on [page 595:]
similar themes out of
any
encyclopædia in Christendom — we are brought to tolerate, and
alas,
even
to applaud in their tenth and twentieth repetition, through the sole
force
of our sympathy with the throng. In the same way we listen to a story
with
greater zest when there are others present at its narration beside
ourselves.
Aware of this, authors without due reflection have repeatedly
attempted,
by supposing a circle of listeners, to imbue their narratives with the
interest of sympathy. At a cursory glance the idea seems plausible
enough.
But, in the one case, there is an actual, personal, and palpable
sympathy,
conveyed in looks, gestures and brief comments — a sympathy of real
individuals,
all with the matters discussed to be sure, but then especially, each
with
each. In the other instance, we, alone in our closet, are required
to
sympathise with the sympathy of fictitious listeners, who, so
far from being
present
in body, are often studiously kept out of sight and out of mind for two
or three hundred pages at a time. This is sympathy double-diluted
— the
shadow of a shade. It is unnecessary to say that the design invariably
fails of its effect.
CCXXIII. [[CCXXIV.]]
The qualities of Heber are well
understood. His poetry
is of a high order. He is imaginative, glowing, and vigorous, with a
skill
in the management of his means unsurpassed by that of any writer of his
time, but without any high degree of originality. Can there be anything
in the nature of a "classical" life at war with novelty per se?
At all
events, few fine scholars, such as Heber truly was, are
original.
CCXXIV. [[CCXXV.]]
Original characters, so called, can
only be critically
praised as such, either when presenting qualities known in real life,
but
never before depicted, (a combination nearly impossible) or when
presenting
qualities (moral, or physical, or both) which, although unknown, or
even
known to be hypothetical, are so skilfully adapted to the circumstances
which surround them, that our sense of fitness is not offended, and we
find ourselves seeking a reason why those things might not have been,
which
we are still satisfied are not. The latter species of
originality
appertains
to the loftier regions of the Ideal. [page 596:]
CCXXV. [[CCXXVI.]]
George Balcombe, we are induced to
regard, upon the
whole, as the best American novel. There have been few books of
its
peculiar
kind, we think, written in any country, much its superior. Its
interest
is intense from beginning to end. Talent of a lofty order is evinced in
every page of it. Its most distinguishing features are invention,
vigor,
almost audacity, of thought — great variety of what the German critics
term intrigue, and exceeding ingenuity and finish in the
adaptation of its
component
parts. Nothing is wanting to a complete whole, and nothing is out of
place,
or out of time. Without being chargeable in the least degree with
imitation,
the novel bears a strong family resemblance to the Caleb Williams of
Godwin.
Thinking thus highly of George Balcombe, we still do not wish to be
understood
as ranking it with the more brilliant fictions of some of the living
novelists
of Great Britain. In regard to the authorship of the book, some little
conversation has occurred, and the matter is still considered a secret.
But why so? — or rather, how so? The mind of the chief
personage of the
story,
is the transcript of a mind familiar to us — an unintentional
transcript,
let us grant — but still one not to be mistaken. George Balcombe
thinks,
speaks, and acts, as no person, we are convinced, but Judge Beverly
Tucker,
ever precisely thought, spoke, or acted before.
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