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October 9, 1852.] THE LEADER. 971
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rvif irs are not the legislators, but th...
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The question—Is a Poet the creature or t...
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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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October 9, 1852.] The Leader. 971
October 9 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 971
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Rvif Irs Are Not The Legislators, But Th...
rvif irs are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make Iaw 3—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
The Question—Is A Poet The Creature Or T...
The question—Is a Poet the creature or the creator of an Epoch ; in 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 Cobneille the origin of French characteristics ; in Shakspeare of English . The nations have ranged themselves beside the standards of their intellectual chieftains . Thinking with R . 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 Cobneille : — " 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 ; some one has called his dramas ' the breviary of kings , ' so delighted was he 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 t o 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 Corneille 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 aro permanently , and in every department marked by compromise . In our political constitution , in our church , in our system <> f education , in our great habits of thinking , we make some curious , undefinable ,
l >\ it ino . st useful compromise between irreconcilable antagonists . We talk like republicans , mid we feel an enthusiastic loyalty ; we have n personal independence that amounts to churlishness ; and the throne in scarcely more honoured than the aristocracy ; we are the most practical ami business-like , and the most sud and reflective of men ; and 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 self-distrust;—and 1 <>! amongst ; our poets , our great epic i . s a compromise between Christian and elassieal learning ; | lll ( l j u our Shaksperian drama we have been taught to look for nothing but , a faithful reflection of all miuiner of men , of all sentiments , and " 11 passions . "
l it companion to this sketch of the national mind is the following sketch ° f a national failing , taken from another article in the some magazine , called Arc . there , not great Boasters among us f " There in not u more absurdly boastful people on the face of the earth than we , Mo ' ( Jreat Knglish Nation . ' We boast of everything belonging to us . If there 1 )( > a dillere . nco between us and our Transatlantic brethren , it is in this , that as l- 'ieir boasting fakes its character from democratic institutions , our boasting i . '' 'iiraetorised by a diwh of aristocratic delicacy . Theirs is more vulgar , that is all ;
""I , nevertheless , as we are daily progressing towards them in politics , ho aro we ' <» this respect ,, that our national swaggering is decidedly improving in vulgarity , hut regards the manner of our boasting . The matter of it is to be found everywhere , and in everything 1 . We botist of everything belonging to us , and of some ' w that do not belong to us ; for swaggering Pride is twin-brother to Falsehood . vve . boast of a prosperity from which millions are running away ; of u Representative H VNteni , which represents not , much of the sense , but a very large proportion of the '" 'iihciino of || u , people ; of a public morality , at which every man individually auglin in his sleeve—to which so many elections are giving the- lie , by a total "' Hnigurd to the morals of their parliamentary candidates . " The second part of the review of Lord Jkfi'kky is 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 his 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 whi 6 h a new and original work has 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 w orks . 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 he 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 , to his humour , his disposition , or his views . Thus , the tone and tenor of the letter 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 op inion and sentiment , it is of less authority than unpremeditated conversation . For there are certain affectations of sty le 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 j ungle' 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 ^ 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 intervnls , somewhat after the fashion of the branches of a fir-tree , are small sprays ; imagine a huge bundle of these large stems , with their butt-ends planted close together in the 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 eflect not unlike that of a gooseberry-bush just coming into leaf in . spring . Towards the
roots the sprays are thickly set and entangled , and oi ' ten 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 , and lie in long spurs or patches along the winding bottoms of the valleys , light , feathery , and beautiful in the extreme , the very beau ideal of all one ' s most romantic ideas of Avild outlandish forests , through v / hich the wild buifaloes should come crashing , or beneath whose boughs . some beautiful and savage wild beast . should lie grinning and snarling . "
We : must also find room for this description of the bear's charge : — " I bad 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 I had 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 alter the fashion of a tipsy man , with the intention of ' bugging , ' thereby giving mo every leisure and convenience for taking a cool shot . Fortunately , 1 was not so persuaded of this fact as to neglect to cock all biu-veln , and to keep iny
finger on the trigger of my ritle , and my eyes rather anxiously lixed on the turn of the path . Suddenly my companion fired , and 1 heard two Havage grunts round the corner ; still , for u second or two—two very long , unjik'HHant seconds—I saw nothing . All at once my shikarry , in no end of a fright , Hang out , ' Mar , mar , sahib ! ' ' Fire , lire , mr !'— -and a great , bear dashed on to the path at a hard gallop , grunting furiously . ( Slie camu so suddenly , and charged h <> savagely , that I had barely time to lire uiy rille and lling it down before sho was close on me ; another spring or two would have brought her to close quarters , when I . snatched my second gun from my shikarry , and took a regular snap shot at her head . "
KiiAKMi'UAitK is to ' us what IIomkh wus t <* the ( ii'ctikt ) , a banquet Irom which we are never tiretl of picking up crumbs . Fai-ktai ' I 1 ' , who lms exercised the ingenious pens of so many critics , finds one more this month iu Fraser , 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 the manners ami person of the knight , as tluiy were conceived by tthakspearo . Our actors exhibit to us , in most cases , an oversown muss of flesh covering a cowardly soul ; they degrade Falstalf ' s wit into buffoonery , and make him put on tho manners of a low and vulgar publican . ShalcHpearo intended Fid-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 9, 1852, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09101852/page/15/
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