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The question—Is a Poet the creature or the creator of an Epoch ; m other words , does he express the national thought , or does he stamp his cast of thought upon the nation ? is a question of excessive complexity , and one that must have occupied the mind of the writer of an admirable article on Corneille and Shakspeare in this month ' s Blackwood . He decides in favour of the Poet . He traces in Cokneille the origin of French characteristics ; in Shakspeare of English . The nations have ranged themselves beside the standards of their intellectual chieftains . Thinking with JR . H .
Horne" One mind perchance in every age contains The sum of all before and much to come ; Much that ' s far distant still . " He thus expounds the influence of Corneille : — " When a Parisian multitude not only sought its amusement , but gained a large share of its ideas—of its thinking—from the theatre , the dramas of Corneille must have exercised a vast influence over them , and one which they can never repeat . "We think we trace that influence very distinctly in the political history of France , and of Paris ; for the great city and ' great nation' have , in political events , been terms almost synonymous . In the midst of the French Revolution we trace the theatre of Corneille . Whence did the people obtain that fondness for classical models , so conspicuous during the scenes of the French Revolution ? It must have been from the theatre—not from their scholarship . Whence , but from
Corneille , did they obtain that readiness to sacrifice to some principle , some all but imaginary duty , the natural feelings and affections of humanity ? But Corneille , it will be said , wrote in the very palmy days of the monarchy ; someone has called his dramas ' the breviary of kings , ' so delighted was be with magnifying the office , the rights and dignity of kings and emperors . It was not from Corneille , only occasionally republican , that they would learn the doctrines of the Revolution . Very true ; but he helped to make them the sort of revolutionists they were . For good and for bad , his influence is conspicuous in their mode of thinking and their moral temperament . He taught them a heroic devotion to a general principle ; he taught them , too , to sacrifice the safer guides of humane feeling , kindly sympathy , and the personal equities of life to some stern and national duty ; and he taught them , moreover , the intellectual habit of changing these general principles with surprising rapidity . "
But is he not here placing effect for cause ? Instead of attributing this influence to Cobneille we should rather attribute Corneille ' s great popularity to the admirable adaptation of his genius to the national genius . He expressed the national thought and the nation worshipped him . Influence he had , no doubt ; such influence as powerful expression and heroic imagery must always have when addressed to a nation which thinks in unison with the poet . But he himself was a Frenchman , a Norman Frenchman , a product of the whole concurrent circumstances which made French Nationality ; and had he attempted to direct the national thought he would have sained no audience . The truth is , between the Poet and
the Nation there is incessant action and reaction . A nationality is the product of individual minds acting on each other ; the more energetic an individual mind the more appreciable his influence , but at the same time the greater his susceptibility to surrounding influences . We touch this point , we cannot dwell on it . What the critic says of the English mind strikes us as still less traceable to Shakspeare , though the description is true enough : — » " Our national mind and character are permanently , and in every departme nt marked by compromise . In our political constitution , in our church , in our system of education , in our groat habits of thinking , we make some curious , undc / iimblc ,
hut most useful compromifio between irreconcilable antagonists . We talk liko republicans , and wo feel an enthusiastic loyalty ; wo have a . personal independence that amounts to churlishness ; and tho thrones is scarcely more honoured than the aristocracy ; we are tho most practical and business-like , and the most sad and reflective of men ; uml in our speculative opinions we claim ever the greatest freedom , and are most averse to any use of it—are very bold , and full of Helf-distrust;—and 1 <>! amongst our j > oels , our great epic is a compromise between Christian and diissical learning ; and in our Shaksperian drama we havo been taught to look for nothing , but a faithful reflection of all manner of men , of all sentiments , and all passions . "
Fit companion to this sketch of the national mind is the following sketch <> f u national failing , taken from another article in . the same magazine , called Are there not yreat lioasters among us ? " There is not a more absurdly boastful people on the fueo of tho earth than we , tho 'Clreat English Notion . * Wo boast of everything belonging to us . if there ! ' « a difference between us and our Transatlantic brethren , it in in this , that an their boasting takes its character from democratic institutions , our boasting is < -l » aracterisod by « , dash of aristocratic delicacy . Their *) is more vulgar , that is all ; JH » t , neverthelcHS , uh wo are daily progressing towards thorn in politics , so are wo
»» this respect , that our national swaggering is decidedly improving in vulgarity , ' ' nut regards tho manner of our boasting . Tho matter of it m to bo found everywhere , and in everything . Wo boast of everything belonging to us , and of some 1 ( V w that do not belong to us ; for swaggering Pride is twin-brother to Falsehood . We boast of a prosperity from which millions are running away ; of a ltepresontutivo H . yntom , which represents not much of the sense , but a very largo proportion of the "oiiseiiHo of tint people ; of a public morality , at which every man individually >«< ighs in bin nIoovc—to which no many elections are giving the lie , by a total disregard to the inoral « of their parliamentary candidaten . " The second part of the review of Lord Jkvfuey in even better than the
first . We borrow from it this plea for critics—a plea as seasonable as it is sensible . The critic is himself , of all writers , generally treated with the least leniency ; it is supposed that bis hand has been raised against all others , and that therefore no mercy should be shown him ; yet , considerable indulgence ought to be extended towards one who has to deliver a printed judgment , immediately after the first impression which a new and original work bas made upon him . Few of us have perused such a work a second time , and after some interval , without finding reason for modifying , in some material respect , the opinion formed on the first perusal . For our own part , we should be the last to criticise the critic with severity , or to fix him down irrevocably to what he had uttered—necessarily in haste—and as the best conclusion he could arrive at on the moment . " In the same article there is a novel and cogent refutation of a very common prejudice : —
" The prevailing notion is , that a more genuine expression is obtained of an author ' s sentiments from his private letters than from his published works . Under certain peculiar circumstances this may be the case , as where the author held opinions it was not safe or prudent to avow . But , in general , we believe that men are both more sincere , as well as more considerate , in what they confide to the public , than in what they pour out in private , whether in conversation or in letters . When a man reflects on any subject with the intention of delivering the results to the public , he is alone—he thinks alone ; he and his subject are locked up together in his study ; but when be writes to a friend , he is very much in the condition as if he were speaking to him ; he is more or less under the influence of the peculiar temper and opinions of that friend ; he writes as if in his presence , and , from an unpremeditated courtesy , if from no other motive , adapts himself , in some degree , the tone and tenor of the letter
to his humour , his disposition , or his views . Thus , may a great deal depend on the person to whom it is sent . * * * « So far from preferring the letter to the printed work , we are persuaded that , as evidence of opinion and sentiment , it is of less authority than unpremeditated conversation . For there are certain affectations of style and manner quite peculiar to epistolary authorship , which interfere not a little with everything like sincere and genuine expression of sentiment . Wherever the epistolary style is not employed for the direct purposes of business , or the communication of important fact , or is not imbued with some strong passion , it seems to have an incurable tendency to affectation of some kind ; either it is an affectation of ease and carelessness , or it is an elaborate elegance , or a most painful gaiety , or there is a tone of over-strained compliment and most wearisome facetiousness . These artificial graces are not friendly to honest statements , whether of fact or of opinion . We read few letters with
much faith , and fewer still with much pleasure . " Fraser this month , like all the magazines , has its article on the Duke ; it has also a most agreeable paper on Bear Hunting in India , which somewhat disarranges one ' s conception of a bamboo jungle : — " I remember the absurd ideas which the words ' bamboo jungle' used to raise in my mind years ago , before I had ever seen it ; I used to picture to myself something like a congregation of old gentlemen ' s bamboo walking-sticks , immensely magnified , and decorated with long dry sedge-like leaves ; and 1 do not doubt that most people figure to themselves something as far removed from the truth . Instead of this , imagine a long , pliant stem , twenty , thirty , or forty feet long , in shape like a huge fishing-rod , greenish-yellow in colour , and half wood , half vegetable in substance ; springing from each side of this at intervals , somewhat after the fashion of the branches of a fir-tree , are small sprays ; imagine a huge bundle
of thoso large Stems , with their butt-ends p lanted close together in t he ground , each rod bending outwards , and the whole forming a cluster in general shape not unlike the Prince of Wales' plume , or an Indian crown of feathers . This gives the skeleton of the tree ; but it requires to be powdered over with delicate light green , thinly-scattered leaves , forming a semi-transparent foliage , in general effect not unlike that of a gooseberry-bush just coming into leaf in spring . Towards the roots the . sprays are thickly set ' and entangled , and often completely covered by different creeping plants , which intertwine into a dense mass , out of which the tall feathery stems shoot gracefully . These clusters spring side by side , their top sprays interlacing , nnd lie in long spurs or patches along the winding- bottoms of the valleys , light , feathery , and beautiful in the extreme , the very bean ideal of all one ' s most romantic ideas of wild outlandish forests , through which the wild buffaloes should come crashing , or beneath whose boughs some beautiful nnd savage wild beast should lie grinning and snarling . "
We must also find room for this description of the bear ' s charge : — " I had before this been in at the death of several bears , but had never seen one charge , and consequently had no very clear idea of the style of executing this performance , beyond an idea which 1 bad picked up from books and pictures , that on approaching within a moderate gun-shot it would rear itself on its bind legs , and waddle up to me niter the fashion of a tipsy man , witb the intention of ' bugging , ' thereby giving me every leisure and convenience for taking a cool shot . Fortunately , I was not so persuaded of this fact as to neglect to cock all barrels , and to keep my finger on the trigger of my rifle , and my eyes rather anxiously fixed on the turn of
tho path . Suddenly my companion fired , and I beard two navago grunts round the corner ; still , for a . second or two—two very long , unpleasant seconds—1 saw nothing . All at once my shikarry , in no end of a fright , sang out , ' Mar , mar , sahib ! ' ' Kire , lire , . sir ! ' —and a great bear dashed on to the path at u hard gallop , grunting furiously . She came ho suddenly , and charged ho savagely , that I hntl barely time to lire my rifle and fling it down before she wan close on me ; another spring or two would have brought her to close quarters , when 1 snatched my second gun from my bhikarry , and took a regular simp shot at her head . "
Bhakhi'KARk is to us what IIomuk was to the Greeks , n banquet from which we are never tired of picking up crumbs . Fa i . staff , who naa exercised tho ingenious pens of so many critics , finds one more tins month in leaser , and one who contrives to say something new about him moreover . Let our actors ponder on this : — " The conventional representations on the stage have given a very erroneous impression of tho manners mid per . son of tho kni K li < > as they were conceived by Shakspeare . Our actors exhibit to uh , in most coses , an overgrown mans of flesh , covering a cowardly bouI ; they degrade FalHtafV ' s wit into buffoonery , and make him put on the nuinnoni of u low and vulgar publican , Shntapvaro intended Ful «
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nriiicB are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them .. —Edinburgh Bevteto .
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October 9 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 971
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 9, 1852, page 971, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1955/page/15/
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