108 A FOOL TARRED AND FEATHERED. blockhead, changed intil a bird-nae wings, nae tail, neither a cock nor a guse, but an undescribable leevin and loupin lump o' feathers frae Freezland, in fear, pain, and shamefacedness, uttering strange screechs and scraughs, as down alang lang lanes o' hootin spectators, the demented phenomenon, aye keepin to the gutter, and aften rinnin foul o' the lamp-posts, faster far than a cur wi' a kettle to his tail scours squares and streets o' cities, and then terrifyin the natives o' the kintra, bent on suicide, as if he were a drove o' swine possessed by a legion o' deevils, rushes intil the sea. I admire the Americans for Tickler. The Atlantic Ocean. the ingenious and humane invention. Shepherd. Yet they're no sae original in their poetry as micht hae been expected, and predicted, frae their adoption o' sic a punishment. North. Prigs are of opinion that the present age has not eyes to see into the heart of Goethe's poetry, which will lie hidden in its mysteries for a thousand years. Nay, 'tis pitiable to hear such cant even from critics of considerable and not undeserved reputation, who, at the same time, would pucker up the lines at the corner of their mouths and eyes Shepherd. Crawfeet. North. were you to question their clear and full comprehension of the character and condition of Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet and Lear. The worthy, weak, well-meaning, commonplace, not ill-fed, and decently-dressed European and American publics and republics must wait for a few centuries before they can hope to gain sight of more than some glimmerings of the glory enshrined in the genius of a certain German charlatan, known by the name of Goethe, who used to strut about in his prime and in his decay all bedizened with gaudy gewgaws, given him by the prince of a petty principality, to mark his admiration of the manager of a provincial theatre, whom the Dog of Montargis drove from his box into private lifethough a real living flesh-and-blood dog-a Newfoundlander or St Bernardine, as humane as sagacious-while the jealous and jewelled bard's own canine fancy was in comparison a cross-bred-cur and a mangy mongrel, whom Charlie Westropp of the Westminster pit would have despised, and his famous Billy the rat-killer worried till he could not have been brought in time to the scratch, nathless he were the Dog of Hell! THE ORACULAR SCHOOL OF POETRY. Tickler. Court and theatre of Weimar! 109 Shepherd. Ma heid's a' in confusion-and what is your real judgment o' Getty, as you ca' him, is a'thegither ayont ma comprehension. North. Of all schools of poetry and criticism, James, the most contemptible is the Oracular. Shepherd. That's just what I was gaun to say. Naebody can wi' truth say that I hae a bad temper, though it's sometimes rather het and short Tickler. Like gingerbread not yet cool from the oven. Shepherd. but the instant I discover that the owthor o' ony poem that I may happen to be tryin to peruse, is either takin pains to conceal his meanin or his want o' meanin—and the first is the warst, for weakness is naething to wickedness than I find ma face growin red, and a chokin in ma throat, as if I were threatened wi' a stroke o' the apoplex, and, risin in a passion, I dash the half-witted or deceptious cretur's abortive concern wi' sic a daud on the floor, that I've kent it stot up again on till the table, and upset the jug. Tickler. Hoo hoo! hoo! My dear James, you're first-rate this evening. Shepherd. If I werena, I wad hae a queer look in sic company for a' Lunnon couldna produce three sic first-rate fallows as noo, unknawn to the haill warld, are sittin in the Shepherd's Bower in the heart o' the Forest! What's that stirrin? Gurney ahint the honeysuckles! I wush he was deid. But he's no ane o' your folk that dee. He'll see us a' out, sirs, and then he'll publish the owtobiography o' a' Us Three, first piecemeal in Maga, and then ilka ane by itsel, in three vols. crown octavo, gettin a ransom1 for the copyrichts. North. The greatest sinner of the oracular school was Shelley-because the only true poet. True poets admire his genius, but, in spite of love and pity for the dead, they disdain the voluntary darkness in which he perversely dallied with things of light that should never have been so enshrouded, and according to the command and law of nature should have been wooed, won, wedded, and enjoyed in the face of heaven. Shepherd. I consider mysel a man o' mair than ordinar genie, and of about an average understaunin; and ha'in paid sic attention to the principles o' poetry laid in the natur o' 1 Ransom-an extravagant price. 110 SHELLEY.-LEIGH HUNT: things, as ane canna weel avoid doin wha engages with lifewarm and life-deep and life-lang luve in the practice o' the maist heavenly delichtfu' o' a' the divine arts, I canna bring mysel to accuse mysel o' onything rash nor unreasonable-like in declarin that to be dounricht drivellin nonsense, which, though expressed in words, and printed in gude teep, and on gude paper, in a byuck, either bund or in buirds, by day or by nicht, by coal, cawnle, lamp, or sunlicht, continues to lie afore ma een in shoals o' unintelligible syllables o' which a' you can safely assert is, that they seem as if they belanged, however remotely, in some way or ither, to the English tongue. North. Poor Shelley would turn on his face in his coffinShepherd. Oh! remember-remember, sir, that his drowned body was burnt on the sea-shore ! North. I had forgot it. "Custom lies upon us with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as death." Buried in the grave! In the Christian world so disposed is the dust of the disembodied spirit, and I dreamed not of the dismal smoke of Shelley's funeral pyre. Shepherd. But what was you gaun to say? North. That the worst dishonour done to his memory is the admiration in which his genius is held by feebles, and fribbles, and coxcombs, and cockneys. Tickler. And prigs. Shepherd. And sumphs. North. Their imitations of their oracle-who did indeed often utter glorious responses from a cloudy shrine all at once, and not transiently, illuminated from within by irrepressible native light-are better nonsense-verses than I ever knew written by men of wit for a wager. For unconscious folly in its own peculiar walk can far surpass the wildest extravagance of wit-perfect no-meaning can be perpetrated only by a natural numbskull, and is beyond the reach of art. Shepherd. Leigh Hunt truly loved Shelley. North. And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was honourable to both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and I hope Gurney will let a certain person in the City understand that I treat his offer of a reviewal of Mr Hunt's London Journal with disdain. If he has anything to say HIS LONDON JOURNAL COMMENDED. 111 against Us or against that gentleman, either conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other channel, and I promise him a touch and a taste of the Crutch. He talks to me of Maga's desertion of principle; but if he were a Christian—nay, a man-his heart and head too would tell him that the Animosities are mortal, but the Humanities live for ever— and that Leigh Hunt has more talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken upon himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling with forgotten falsehoods. Mr Hunt's London Journal, my dear James, is not only beyond all comparison, but out of all sight, the most entertaining and instructive of all the cheap periodicals (the nature of its plan and execution prevents it from all rivalry with the Penny Magazine edited by my amiable, ingenious, and honourable friend, Charles Knight); and when laid, as it duly is once a-week, on my breakfast-table, it lies there but is not permitted to lie long-like a spot of sunshine dazzling the snow. Shepherd. I gied vent to what shall ever seem to me to be a truly Christian sentiment, at the last Noctes. It was something to this effect-that, for my pairt, I desired naething sae earnestly as to see the haill warld shaking hauns.-Hollo! hollo! hollo! -Rover! Rover! Rover!-Fang! Fang! Fang!-Lend me the Crutch, sir-lend me the Crutch! For if there be na the twa stirks broken intil the garden, and scamperin through the second crap o' green pease! O! the marrowfats!-the marrowfats are a' ruined Tickler. - "Like ocean-weeds heap'd on the surf-beaten shore." [The SHEPHERD, armed with NORTH's crutch, TICKLER with his gold-headed cane, and MYSIE with a rung, attack the stirks, and drive them out of the garden of Altrive. Shepherd. Camstrairy1 deevils! North. I could have thought them red deer. Shepherd. And sae they are. I gied three pound the piece for them at St Boswell's, and they've dune mair mischief in a fortnicht about the place, than thrice that soum would repair. Ane o' them, only yesterday, ate twa pair o' wurset stockins aff the hedge; and I shouldna hae cared sae muckle about 1 Camstrairy-riotous. 112 แ POPE ON THE RULING PASSION." that, hadna the ither, at the same time, devoored a pair o' breeks. North. Such accidents will happen in the best-regulated families. But we must not allow this sally of the stirks to put an end to our literary conversation. Shepherd (rubbing his face with his small red pocket-handker chief). Hech! I'm a' sweatin. Tickler. Goethe! Faust! Give me Pope and any one of his epistles. "Search then the ruling passion; there alone The wild are constant, and the cunning known ; And you, great Cobham! to the latest breath 'Oh! save my country, heaven!' shall be your last.” 1 What truth, force, conciseness, correctness, grace, elegance, and harmony! But Pope was no poet. แ North. The passage is worthy of admiration, and is a fair specimen of the best style of the Nightingale of Twickenham. I suspect, Mr Tickler, you have misquoted him—if not, consistent" should not have been repeated. Pray, is it quite correct to say that "a clue unravels?" If it be—yet "the prospect clears seems to me an image that has no connec tion with a labyrinth and a clue. I shall not quarrel with Wharton--but he is somewhat abruptly introduced-and since "he stands confessed," will you have the goodness—from Pope to tell us what really was his character? Tickler. Poo! verbal hypercriticism is my contempt, sir. North. Well, then, let us dissect the doctrine. The idea here intended to be inculcated is, that the only way of understanding the character of any man is to discover his Ruling Passion, and that this will then serve as a key to explain all the peculiarities which have arisen under its influence. 1 From Pope's Moral Essays, Epistle First. "Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers bere." |