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560 Cf)£ ILca&ft\ [Saturday,
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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"This year," writes Pliny the Younger to...
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A " sensation," we are told, is agitatin...
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We cannot pass over without mention the ...
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Thackeray's third lecture was even more ...
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MRS. DitOWNINf. H NKW I'OKM. Casa <7ui<l...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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560 Cf)£ Ilca&Ft\ [Saturday,
560 Cf ) £ ILca & ft \ [ Saturday ,
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Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
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 .
"This Year," Writes Pliny The Younger To...
"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 . Totomense Aprili nullas fere dies quo non recitaret 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 .
A " Sensation," We Are Told, Is Agitatin...
A " sensation , " we are told , is agitating the English circles at Florence by the wicked sketches which Lkveu 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 love 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 said to be envious of each other ' s success ; which is unquestionably true of some authors , and of some among those whom one would think the least excusable for entertaining such a feeling ; but it is not true of the best men , nor of the highest writers . Whoever knew poor Balzac knew that he was entirely free from jealousy , though he was more frequently " pitted " against other writers than any of his contemporaries ; and GkontiK £ > ani > , whom everyone knows to he incapable of a petty feeling , has in the dedication of her Molicre given a graceful protest against being supposed by her recent dramatic efforts to have set up a system against that of her brilliant confrere Alkxandkk Dumah . To him the play is dedicated , because she wishes to protest against the " tendency that may be attributed to ^^ y / ff-ff ^ diog ^ io absence of action as a sya-/? -: * ¦ " /; "i-v ; . V X pf ' . V ; -, " " < s • :. y \ Wr . \ ' ^/ : b V < - ^'~ i ± & i" ; " a : * aval
tematic reaction against the school of which you are the chief . Far from me such a blasphemy 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 . "
We Cannot Pass Over Without Mention The ...
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 .
Thackeray's Third Lecture Was Even More ...
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 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 loveableness , 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 Steelic ' 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 Iiiackeray ' 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 " ifxacOev ip uv eirafie . 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 Thackkhay ' h denouncement of the odious qualities in Swift , that he wrote a letter threatening to insult him publicly and interrupt hia lecture , unless he openly retracted from the rostrum those foul aspersions on Swin ' s memory . He must be an Irishman !
Mrs. Ditowninf. H Nkw I'Okm. Casa <7ui<L...
MRS . DitOWNINf . H NKW I'OKM . Casa < 7 ui < li H ' indowt . A Toem . lly Klizulx-th llmntt Krowni"n- ( Miajiinan and Hall . That Mrs . Browning is gifted with the special faculty which demarcates poets from verse writers- —• Ringers from speakers—we have already in theso columns emphatically declared ; the great deficiency in her writings we found to be a want of experience , an imperfect grasp of life , a certain un-Nubstiuitinlity which made the arabesques upon her Temples more important , tlmn the Temples themselves . In her Casa ( hiidi Windows we notice an
immense improvement . rhe subject is grave with sad memories and disappointed hopes , uud although vast in its wcope , and somewhat ; abstract in its treatment , is animated by the lifeblood of reality . Out of reality it grew ; direct to reality it
appeals . She was there in Florence—not there in bodily presence iterely—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 , suc h 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 earty 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 Itahy , 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 enthusi-ism for Pio Nono , takes shame upon herself that i-lie 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 cnlled 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 sinking 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 : —• ' * ' Leas wretched if less fair , ' perhaps a truth Is so 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 , Cs : sar . ' And what more ? to ask The memory closer— ' Why , Boccaccio ,
Dante , Petrarcu , '—and if still the flask Appears to yield its wine by drops too alow , —• Angelo , Ratfatjl , Pergolese , ' —all Whose strong hearts beat through stone , or charged , again , Clolh-thrcadB with fire of souls electrical , Or broke up heaven for music . Whut more then ? Why , then , no more . The chaplet ' H last beads fall In naming the lust saintship within Icon , And , after that , none prayeth in the land . Alan , this Italy has too Umq swept
Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand ; Of her own past , impassioned nt / mplwlept ! Consenting to be nailed ' by the hand To the Hfime bay-tree under which alu > stepped A queen of old , and plucked a leaf y brunch ; And licensing the world too long , indeed , To use her broad phylacteries to staunch And stop her bloody lips , which took no heed llow oii (! quick breath would draw an avalanche Of living Hoiis around her , to succeed
1 he vanished KciUMutionH . Could . sho count Those oil-eaters , wit // , la / ye , live , molrilo mouths Agape for macearoni , in the amount
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14061851/page/12/
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