On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
" 7 the rank Beddoes is entitled to hold , and having ted out his main defects , we now turn to the P } " es for the more agreeable task of justifying k ° beautiful extracts our praise of his remarkable f nltv of expression . The poetic imagery and werful expression of these passages claim a place f ° rthem beside the " specimens" which Charles Tamb published from the Old Dramatists- —" specimens " which so deplorably misled public taste as t the value of the writers quoted from ! Read this remembrance of an Orgie : — « » Twas dull : all men spoke slow and emptily .
Strange things were said by accident . Their tongues TTttered wrong words : one fellow drank my death , Meaning my health ; another called for poison , Instead of wine ; and , as they spoke together , Voices were heard , most loud , which no man owned : There were more shadows too than there were men ; And all the air , more dark and thick than night , Was heavy , as 'twere made of something more Than living breaths . "
Is ifc not ghastly and true ? Here is an image of Power : — <( A nd Power that strides across the muttering people Like a tall bridge . " Here a powerful expression : — '' O that I could put on These feeble arms the proud and tawny strength Of the lion in my heart ! " Here a picture of maiden love unconsciously betraying itself : — " A year and more is past Since a brave Saxon knight did share our prison ; A noble generous man , in whose discourse I found much pleasure : yet , when he was near me , There ever was a pain which I could taste Even in the thick and sweetest of my comfort : Strange dread of meeting , greater dread of parting : My heart was never still : and many times , When he had fetched me flowers , I trembled so That oft they fell as I was taking them Out of his hand . When I would speak to him I heard not , and I knew not what I said . / saw his image clearer in his absence Than near him , for my eyes were strangely troubled ; And never had I dared to talk thus to him . Yet this I thought was Love . O self deceived ! For now I can speak all I think to thee With confidence and ease . What else can that be Except true love ? " A passage so tenderly thought and delicately expressed is worth volumes of mere imagery , and is dramatic in the highest sense of the word . How true and well said that "Strange dread of meeting , greater dread ofparting" ! For a magnificent intensity of expression , take this which occurs a few lines after the confession just cited : — " Enter a Knight .
hnujht . Hither , bir Knightlhiko . " What knight ? Knight . What knight , but Wolfram ? Duke . Wolfram , my knight ! S'kyl . My day , my Wolfram ! ¦ Duke . Ivnow ' st him ? Sibyl , His foot is on my heart ; he comes , he comes . " The pun " my day , " is like the Old Dramatists , as also the power of that line " His foot is on my heart ; he comes , he comes . " In the same school , and worthy a place beside t » c best , is this : — '' 'to . Thither ? Thither ? Traitor Ao every virtue . TIa ! What ' s this thought , yxipclcss ( i 7 id shadowy , that keeps wheeling round , ¦ ike a dumb creature that sees corning danger , And breaks its heart trying in vain to spcak ' t " \ V | - (> . tlle moinont : ' tin a dreadful one , \ Vi ' ^' ° ° "' ' very * comes once ; j . . " (! Il » for the frighted hesitating soul , 'K'i hcuven and luring aia with promises l ( » iiiul contend : oft the faltering spirit , cieoiao by the fair fascinating iiend , * 'iv (! n her eternal heritage of life or one caress , lor one triumphant crime . —• V" [ villain ! that dost long to win , •>« diir ' Ht . not . Shall I dream my « oul is bathing 'us reviving Wood , yet lose my right , /¦ •/ . / '¦ y ll ! 'alL' » . »» y solo delight on earth , " » Jaar of shadows on a chapel wall j ^ "kuj pule painted Hell ! No : by thy beauty , He I 1 ) OSNCNH thee , maiden . Doubt and euro j , i ' . lrain l 't'd in the dust with the worm conHcicnco I Un ' t * i " ' tn ( MI > Wolfram : now Amen in said ,,, 'hy timti of being in thin world : M ' < "i "halt die . Ha \ tho very worti doth doublo y HtrtMigth of life : the resolution leaps // m J h (> iirt divinely , as doth Mars lltu ¦ tri : mhliu < J f <>*> U > oara of his car , 'i /«» y ttUo batllo wild and pantitia ,
Even as my death-dispensing thought does now . Ho ! Ziba ! Enter Ziba . Hush ! How still , how full , how lightly I move , since this resolve , about the place , Like to a murder-charged thunder cloud Lurking about the starry streets of night , Breathless and masked , O ' er a still city sleeping by the sea . Ziba , come hither ; thou ' rt the night I'll hang My muffled wrath in . Come , I'll give thee work Shall make thy life still darker , for one light on ' t Must be put out . O let me joy no more , Till Fate hath kissed my wooing soul ' s desire Off her death-honeyed lips , and so set seal To my decree , in which he ' s sepulchred . Come , Ziba , thou must be my counsellor . " We could multiply extracts , hut enough has heen given to indicate the nature of these volumes , to which we refer all lovers of poetry . On turning over these pages from which so much beauty rises to delight us , we are more than ever impressed with the sense of multiplied greatness demanded by a fine tragedy . Tragedies are among the first things youthful poets aim at . Of all literary efforts they present the greatest amount of absolute , irredeemable failure . They seduce dwarfs to attempt the labour of giants . Given a poetic soul , think of what further indidsensable conditions there go to the production of a fine tragedy : the poet must have undergone tragic emotion , not simply of the pathetic but of the peace-shattering kind ; to profound emotions he must add varied experience of men , their ways , their habits , and their motives ; and even then all is not done—he must add thereto the instinct of dramatic art , and the knowledge of its limitations . What wonder that a fine tragedy is not written once in a century ? As tragedies these works of Beddoes are puerile ; as specimens of poetic expression they can scarcely be too highly praised .
Untitled Article
THE FAIR CAREW . The Fair Carew ; or , Husbands and Wives . Tn 3 vols . Smith , Elder , and Co . " I am reading an idle tale , " writes the charming Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her daughter , " not expecting wit or truth in it , and am very glad that it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment , or history to mislead my opinion . " A quiet , contented frame of mind , such as the novelist loves to meet with , and such as would welcome the calm mediocrity of works like this Fair Carew . We are
neither young enough nor old enough to extend very warm welcome to a book which does not charm us by its art , or set us thinking by its reality ; and although The Fair Carew gives indications of a talent which may in matirrer years produce works that will stand eminent above the " novels of the season , " yet in itself this novel decidedly belongs to those of the season , rather better than the generality , rather inferior to some i ' ew . One can read it in an idle evening , and find the reading pleasant . But the great test of a book is " Do you desire to reread it i "—and so little does The Fair Carew
fulfil such a test that , when the volume is closed , the work vanishes from your thoughts . A novel may interest by its story , by its skilful delineation of character , hy its acute remark , or by its sustained eloquence . A good novel unites these qualities ; but the possession of one of them is often sufficient for success . We cannot recognize in the The Fair Carew any power of eloquence , nor any acuteness of observation . The story is not without interest , though made up of threadbare materials . The best quality in the , book is the
power of sketching character , which , though ifc docs not go beyond sketching , has nevertheless a distinetivenesa and freedom of touch which give hope of future excellence . Mrs . Darner , Ksthcr , Mrs . Hamilton , and Mr . Francis are skilfully touched and without exaggeration . Something in the handling of the pencil here reminds us of the incomparable Miss Austen , whom we take it tho authoress of The Fair Carew ( we assume the sex of the writer ) has consciously or unconsciousl y made a model .
May we suggest to all novelists that Miss Austen , incomparable as an artint , is the most dangerous of models ? It is only plenitude of power that restrains her from the jierilN of the form sho has chosen—the periln , namely , of tedium and commonplace . Dealing an she docs with every day people aud every day life , avoiding all tho grander tragic emotions ami more impassioned aspects of Life , her art consists in charming ua by the fidelity of the picture while relieving it of all the tedium of reality . One degree less felicitous , and failure
begins ! She makes her people speak and act as they speak and act in every day life ; and she is the only artist who has done this with success and pleasant effect . Macaulay styled her a Prose Shakspeare . We cannot , for our parts , conceive Shakspeare under prosaic conditions , poetry being so essentially involved in the whole structure of his works ; but if we divest him , in thought , of his winged attributes—if we set aside his passion , imagination , fancy , and rhythm , there will remain
a central power of dramatic creation , the power of constructing and animating character , which may truly be said to find a younger sister in Miss Austen . Observe , however , that in place of his poetry we must put her daring prose—daring from its humble truthfulness . Here again is a serious danger : into it all Miss Austen ' s imitators fall , they cannot keep to the severe level of prose : they rise above it , and the result is incongruity ; or they sink below it , and the result is tediousness .
The authoress of The Fair Carew has lapsed occasionally into tediousness by the introduction of superfluous matter , and by presenting episodical scenes and people which do not excuse their presence by arresting our interest . If the work be a first attempt , we shall be glad to meet the authoress again ; for , as we have already indicated , the authoress is cleverer than , her book .
Untitled Article
TRAVELS IN EUROPEAN TURKEY . Travels in European Turkey , in 1850 . By Edmund Spencer , Eaq ., Author ol" Travels in Circassia . 2 vols . Colburn and Co . Under two very different aspects , namely , politics and entertainment , this work has unusual claims on attention . Mr . Spencer is an experienced traveller . He visited places not yet vulgarized by tourists ; and visiting them as he did , acquainted with the language , familiar with the history , and
prepared by general knowledge of the people , he was no cockney wanderer amazed and mystified by all he saw , he was no tiresome litterateur " getting up " a book . His observations , therefore , have a valuenot commonly found in travels through Turkey ; while as a matter of entertainment the mere fact of his swerving from the beaten track is enough to keep the interest alive . He takes us through
Servia—Bosnia—Bulgaria—Macedonia—Thrace—Albania—Epirus—the Ionian Isles—Hungaryand the Lower Danube . In point of matter we have only unqualified commendation to bestow on his book ; with regard to style we should make s ; oine reservations . There is nothing vicious in it , —no "imaginative writing , " no flippancy ; but there is " something too much" of commonplace diction . Mr . Spencer will understand what we mean by a single illustration : no good writer now-a-days expresses tho danger of a mountain-pass by saying that one false step " would ' plunge him into eternity ; " such flowe : s of lhctoric grow in the penny-a-liner ' s garden , but arc not highly appreciated elsewhere .
The political questions involved in the exi ^ tenc » of Turkey are momentouH . A careful reader of Mr . Spencer ' s volumes will gain some clear conceptions of the various races now living under the Sultan ; and of the means which Turkey possesses to uphold her position in Europe . Upon Knglish sympathies Turkey has peculiar claims : fust , that she is coveted by the Northern Bear ; second ,
that under her minarets the exiled HungarianH found noble protection against despotic Austria and peremptory Russia ; thirdly , that Knglishincn aro treated there with unfeigned kindness and respect , the very name of Knglinhman being almost as good as an imperial / inn ; m . Nay , Mr . Spencer has urged in several places a claim that will thrill the very heart of Kngland—a claim upon commercial enterprise . Here is an instance : — -
" Our wealthy swineherd pointed out to me a drovo of fat gruntera , who were then most diligently turning up the earth in ttcurch of hoiuo root more dainty than the heaps of acorns that lay around them , and requested me to toll him how much he should he likely to obtain a head for them in tin ; London . markets . When I assured him that each animal would he worth at least three hundred Tmkinh piastres , he east upon ne a look expntisive at once of incredulity and nnj < er , evidently regarding me as some mim . hief-loving 1 ' runk , who wus amusing himself with his ignorance . Then , without even vourhrtidhiK «>« a single ' nlougu ' or * phaln-botf , ' tho usual salutation at parting , ho spurred his steed , and , being well mounted , soon liif's us in tin ; di .-tince .
" 1 did not fuel surprised at . the conduct of the ; good . Servian , or his disbelief in my assertions , sinco tho AuHtiians , who nro the solo purchasers here , never i > uy more than tlireo or four llorins a head for these
Untitled Article
$ ov . , 1951 . 33 w > t Header . 1115
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1851, page 1115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1910/page/15/
-