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July 5, 1851.] %1&t fLlftfte t* 635
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Meredith's p oems. Poems. By Geoi'ge Mer...
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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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Gregory Of Nazfanzum. Gregory Of Jvaxian...
f force and violence ; there is no just mutual estimatei of views and efforts ; - there , personal ties and Slation * are poisoned ; there the difference of nion s traced to the most dishonourable sources ; the opponent in principles is looked upon as a personal pnemv , the erring as a criminal ; and , generally , fverv individual , without regard to his real worth , is only that which he is to his party . Into this age Gregory was born . The date is not now ascertainable , but is assumed to be a . d . 330 The place is a little town in the south-west of Cappadocia , called Nazianzum . His father was bishop ; but to his mother more than to his father did he owe the better parts of his education . But the time came when he was to leave home , and seek in Athens for all the culture which was then
the glory of the world . Athens was not then the brilliant home of genius which we are wont to picture it . Socrates was absent from the Agora ; P lato ' disciples no longer thronged to the groves of Academus ; Demosthenes had taken the pebbles from his mouth , and was how pacing the shores of another ocean , and not striving to raise his voice above its roar . But Athens was still the greatest Residence of Learning . Some of its old glory warmed it still . The earth is warm long after the sun has set ! From Armenia and other Asiatic provinces the students flocked to Athens , as in our days provincials flock to London or Paris . Once arrived there , the student was bewildered . The
din of professors distracted him . So many teachers , and all with partisans ! " An unprejudiced youth could scafcely set his foot upon Attic ground without being already claimed by the adherents of a party : they wrangled , they struggled , they threw themselves around him ; and it might easily happen that a young man was torn quite away from the very teacher whom he had come expressly to attend . The whole of Greece was drawn into this partisanship of the students for their favourite sophists ; so that this recruiting ( or touting ' ) was carried on in the streets and harbours of other cities
also . Nor were the literary disputes and altercations of the different schools , among themselves , less animated ; indeed , they seldom concluded without coming to blows . " Here in Athens Gregoiy first met with Basil , and a friendship at once sprang up between them . Together they studied rhetoric , grammar , mathematics , philosophy , and music . " How seduringly must heathenism have often presented itself to them , clothed as it was in the attractive garb of poetry and philosophy . Before them stood respected masters , who recommended the old religion with all tbe insinuating art of rhetoric , and their myths by the philosophical mysticism with
which they expounded them , and sought to soften what was offensive in them by means of allegories . Around them , in the heights and in the valleys , stood the serene and noble temples of the gods of antiquity ; and whichever way they looked , the gods themselves presented themselves in agreeable and attractive , or in grave and venerable forms . In truth , Athens was still , at that time , the most atractive seat of heathenism in Greece ; nowhere else had it so many friends , so many weighty and influential panegyrists . It was no easy matter , under these ciicuxnhtances , to continue a true Christian ; indeed , many Christian youths were here won over to the old faith . "
CJrcgory , however , stood firm , so did Basil ; and the Church gained two of its greatest ornaments . Gregory was in ( he bloom of youth when he arrived at . Athens ; thirty when lie quitted it . He had dedicated his life to God . Very early he had declared himself against marriage and the ties of this world ; and now the ascetic side of Christianity seems to have risen into excessive prominence ; in his mind , and he was nearly quitting the world altogether for . solitude . But although renouncing " pleasures "—even music—as sensual , >< ' finall y was led into active life , and became bishop himself . For an account of this , however , we refer to Dr . Ullman ' s volume .
I here is one point , which Vivian will observe with regret—viz ., the complete silence of Dr . oilman with regard to the Xfurroc irao-j ^ v , which , : i « the . earliest , specimen of European dra'"• 'ifie ail , and as a drama performed in churches , ''' serve d bis attention . lie might agree with liowe who doubt that , it was written by Gregory ; J | 't at least he might have made some mention of
'' . and slated the grounds of his rejection . If Gregor y wrote no tragedy of the kind , ' what , is the '' leaning of that passage in his oration i » — "My 'agedy ims l , ( . ( . ome u comedy ( o ( he enemy ; for '" y have taken not . a little from our churches , in < " ¦ ''< -r to transfer it to the theatre . " I he rage for dramatir performances at . Oon-^¦ 'iilmo ple was enough incited to have ntatid a (|| sK « isl in Gregory ' s mind : —
" The splendid city , ' around which ( as Gregory says ) ' sea and land emulously contend , in order to load it with all their best gifts , and to crown her as the queen of cities , ' had been already during the governments of several emperors , the storehouse of all the riches and all the magnificence of life from the three known quarters of the world . This new Rome strove to raise itself in external splendour above the old city , and already almost surpassed it in the love of pleasure , which had been fostered by a corrupt
court ; for Julian had in vain sought to bring back the simple habits of ancient Borne . To the inhabitants of Constantinople , as well as to the Romans of later days , the first want was , * Bread and public amusements' ( panis et Circenses ) . Races , the theatre , the chase , contests with wild beasts , public processions , exhibitions of oratory , had , in their turn , become a sort of necessaries of life for persons of all conditions ; so that Gregory might well say there was much reason to fear that the first of cides would
become a city of mere triflers . " Even religious matters , like everything else , had become to this idle hollow state of mind , objects of jesting and amusement . That which helonged to the theatre was introduced into the church , and things that belonged to the church were , in return , adapted to the theatre . The best feelings of Christianity were not unfrequently submitted in comedies to the scornful laugh of the multitude . " But what was still worse , the unbridled fondness of these people for dissipated enjoyment , threatened to turn the church into a theatre , and the preacher into an actor . If he wished to please the many , he was obliged to accommodate himself to their taste ,
and to entertain and amuse them in the church . They required also , in the sermon , something to gratify the ear , glittering declamation , with a theatrical delivery ; and they then applauded with the same sort of pleasure the actor ( den Komodianten ) in the holy place , and the histrionic performer on the stage . And alas ! there were found at that time also , too many who sought rather the approbation of men than the good of their souls . How many do I find this day ( says Gregory ) who have undertaken the priestly office , but have artificially adorned the simple , artless piety of our religion , and introduced a new sort of secular oratory into the sanctuary and its holy ministrations , borrowed from the forum and the theatre ! So that
we have now , if I may so express myself , two stages , differing from each other only in this , that the one stands open to all , the other only to a few ; the one is laughed at , the other is respected ; the one is theatrical , the other clerical . "
July 5, 1851.] %1&T Fllftfte T* 635
July 5 , 1851 . ] % 1 & t fLlftfte t * 635
Meredith's P Oems. Poems. By Geoi'ge Mer...
Meredith ' s p oems . Poems . By Geoi ' ge Meredith . J- W . Parker Among the many volumes of ambitious verse which the inconsiderate " request of friends " annually usher into public oblivion , there are generally two or three to " repay" the reader , if not the publisher—volumes with glimpses of " the enchanted gardens "—verse writers who have something" more than the " accomplishment of verse , " Mr . Meredith ' s volume is one of these . Amidst f !
pages of indifferent writing , carelessness , and commonplace , are mingled pages bright with fancy , and musical with emotion . A nice perception of nature , aided by a delicacy of expression , gives to these poems a certain charm not to be resisted ; and , although they betray no depth of insight nor of feeling , although they are neither thoughtful nor impassioned , yet they rise from out the mass of verses by a certain elegance and felicity of expression which distinguish them . Head this and judge : — " . The silence of precluded fiong—JRoYuxn silence charms the woods ; Kach tree a harp , whose folinged strings Are waiting for the master ' s touch To sweep them into storms of joy , Stands mute aivd whispers not ; tho birds Urood dumb in their foreboding nests , Save here and there a chirp or tweet , That utters fear or anxious love , Or when the ouzel sends a swift Half warble , shrinking back again His golden bill , or when aloud The Htorin-cock warns the dusking hills And vi'lagew and valleys round : l' \> r lo ! beneath lho . se ragged clouds That skirl , tin ; opening wr . ^ t , a . stream Of yellow light and windy Hume Spreads lengthening southward , and the sky JJegins to gloom , and o ' er ihe ground A moan of coming b ' asts ereeps low And rustles in the erixping grass ; Till suddenly with mighty arms Outspread , that ie > ieh the horizon round , Tho great South-West drives o ' er the earth , And loosens ( ill his rottvim / robes . lichind him , over heath ami moor . If" miner upon the neck of night , ' ' J . ike ( i : e t * .. ^ t 3 < ; u : ¦; a ! I ; i y ft . e ; l M'hose Jwlc-h Ha < k 1 a-. m . iuis quivering :. \ ir . e >
With eagerness and haste , that needs No spur to make the dark leagues fly ! Whose eyes are meteors of speed ; Whose mane is as a flashing foam ; Whose hoofs are travelling thunder-shocks ;—He comes , and while his growing gusts , Wild couriers of his reckless course—Are whistling from the daggered gorse . And hurrying over fern and , broom , Midway , far off , he feigns to halt And gather in his streaming train .
" Now , whirring like an eagle ' s wing Preparing for a wide blue flight , —¦ Now , flapping like a sail that tacks And chides the wet bewildered mast , Now , screaming like an anguish'd thing Chased close by some down-breathing beak , Now , wailing like a breaking heart , That will not wholly break , but hopes With hope that knows itself in vain ; Now , threatening like a storm-charged cloud , Now , cooing like a woodland dove , Now , up again in roar and wrath High soaring and wide sweeping , now With sudden fury dashing down Full-force on the awaiting woods .
" Long waited there , for aspens frail That tinkle with a silver btll , To warn the Zephyr of their love . When danger is at hand , and wake The neighbouring boughs , surrendering all Their prophet harmony of leaves , Had caught his earliest windward thought , And told it trembling ; naked birk Down showering her dishevell'd hair , And like a beauty yielding up Her fate to all the elements , Had sway'd in answer ; hazels close , Thick brambles and dark brushwood tufts , And briar'd brakes that line the dells With 6 haggy beetling brow . * , had sung Shrill music , while the tattered flaws Tore over them , and now the whole Tumultuous concords seized at once With savage inspiration , —pine , And larch , and beech , and hr , and thorn , And ash , and oak , and oakling , rave And shriek , and shout , and whirl , and toss , And stretch their arms , and split , and crack , And bend their stems , and bow their heads , And grind and groan , and lion-like Roar to the echo peopled hills And ravenous wild ? , and crake-like cry
With harsh delight , ana cave e can With hollow mouth , and harp-like thrill With mighty melodies , sublime , From clumps of column'd pines that Avave A lofty anthem to the sky , Fit music for a prophet ' s soul—And like an ocean gathering power , And murmuring deep , while down Jk-Icmv , jUtigns calm profound ; -not frembling now The aspens , but like freshening waA'ca That fall upon a shingly beach ; — And round the oak a solemn roll Of organ harmony ascends , And in the -upper foliage sounds A sgmphong of distant seas . " The versification of these poems' is frequently careless and unmusical to a degree that nothing j can excuse ; and in general we complain of a want of that care and thought which u true poet would bestow upon his trifles . There is something piquant and alluring in the opening of a pastoral we are about to quote ; but the rugged verse and commonplace conclusion make us regret it was not a fragment ending where our extract ends : — 1 . OVB IN THIS VAI . I . I-. Y . " Under yonder beech-tree standing on the green sward , Oouch'd with her arms behind her little head , Her knees folded up , and her tr « sues on her bosom , Lies my young love , sleeping in tin ; shade . Had 1 the heart to slide one arm beneath her ! l ' ress her dreaming lips ks her waist 1 folded slow , Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me—Ah ! would she hold me , nnd never let inn go ? " Shy iih the squirrel , and wayward as the nwallow ; ( Swift , im the swallow when athwart the western ilood Cireletiug the surface he meets his mirror ' tl winglets , — Th that dear oik ; in her maiden bud . Shy as tho squirrel whose nest , is iu the p ine top * ' , ( ientle— nh ! iliat . she w < re jt-alons us ihe . ( Jove ! Full of till the wildncKS of ihe womll . inrl cieatuieH , Happy in heiMcll iw the inciden ( liar 1 love I " Wliif can have tan ;; l . t 1 < t l .. i ;; ( Ui ;' v l .-r . i -. . *•' ¦
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 5, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05071851/page/15/
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