Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

that might make any tolerably good-hearted out power-to dishonour the national characman forbearant and conciliatory, and agitated ter, lower the national standard of morality, with discontents that might suggest caution and bring into contempt all notions of public to any ordinarily prudent statesman, he can- consistency and integrity in public men. It not refuse himself the pleasure of a parlia- is a government whose existence is a rementary fling at the "convicted conspira- proach to the age, and in nothing more so tors." He loves to say hard and bitter things than in the position which it assigns to the of, to and at his political opponents, with an RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JAMES GRAHAM. especial preference of his old political friends. P. Witness the peroration of his speech on the Want-of-Confidence motion in 1841:

"Never was a country cursed with a worse, a more reckless, or a more dangerous Government. The noble lord the Secretary for Ireland talks of lubricity: but, thank God! we have at last pinned you to something out of which you cannot wriggle. And, as we have the melancholy satisfaction to know that there is an end to all things, so I can now say with the noble lord,

Dabit Deus his quoque finem."

Авт. II.-A New Spirit of the Age.Edited by R. H. Horne. Smith, Elder & Co.

A TITLE of large promise. Amidst all that is even now stirring all human things to "Thank God, we have at last got rid of such a their deepest depths, the announcement of Government as this."*

a yet newer spirit is pregnant with high interest. For it is, after all, the "spirit"

We do not find this sort of temper in Sir which can alone give value to the material. Robert Peel, or Lord John Russell, or Lord The aspiring, the upward, and the onward Melbourne, or the Duke of Wellington. are all encircled in the term spirituality. It There are only two other leading public men, is synonymous with progress, with the at present--one in each House of Parlia- growth of man from the savage state, with ment-who habitually bring spite into their matted hair, projected muscles, high cheekpolitics.

bones, and prominent eyes up to the highest

On the whole, we will not say of the pre-forms of human beauty; it is synonymous

with the release of man from physical drudgery to mental exercise-his intellect gaining knowledge, and his spirituality teaching him, or impelling him to, its rightful application in the purposes of beneficence.

sent Administration, that "never was a country cursed with a worse, a more reckless, or a more dangerous government;" for we do not precisely think this; but seldom, we do think, in recent times, has this country been afflicted with a government more fitted-in the materials of which it is composed, the bigotries and hypocrisies by which it was lifted into power, and the shabby subservi- any former period of the world's history. ency bywhich it keeps itself in office with- And the reason for this is obvious. There own condition was deteriorating, Sir James inter- is a large leisure class who have time to rupted him with the inquiry, "Whether he was to think, who are clothed, fed, and lodged infer that the labouring classes thought they had while thinking, with more or less freedom

some claim to the landlords' estates.'

Through the whole range of human pur suits, we find constant traces of this advancing spirit, more rife at the present than at

from anxiety, and their thoughts are directed to the processes best adapted for guiding the work of the worker, and shaping it to the

• May 28, 1841. This coarse and insulting harangue-in which his old friends and coadjutors, with whom he had shared the difficulties, perils, and triumphs of the Reform year, are likened to "despe- most useful ends. The workers have n ore rate tenants" setting fire to the premises which they supervisors over them, and produce better have had notice to quit, and " pirates" blowing the ship which they are unable to defend was answered results; they waste less labour. A society by Serjeant Talfourd, in a speech which had the only of all workers would do little more than demerit of being quite unadapted to the moral per- realize their own physical consumption. A ceptions of the mind on which it was meant to act. sailing vessel, with a large crew and no capThe recreant Baronet did, however, so far feel it, tain, would be lost, with all its power of that he took care, in his after-dinner speech at the Dorchester election, to give his auditors their stupid physical labour. Converted into a steam

laugh at the "renowned author of Ion."

moving vessel by the long studies of men of

For a specimen of random imputation of a grave leisure, the drudgery of the mass of the public delinqueney, carelessly and slashingly made crew is dispensed with, and a very small on erroneous data, disingenuously defended after full minority do the work. They are set free to exposure of its baselessness, and, to the last, not more than half apologised for-see the discussion of become men of leisure or workers at other April 16th last, on the Whig appointments of sti- things. All that is greatest in the history of pendiary magistrates in Ireland.

human action has been produced, not by the

workers, but by the thinkers. The changes, wants, and the spirit of man speaks out that take place are the result of thoughts of more freely. individual minds, practicalised by the more The title of this book is a manifest misactive workers, of greater physical energy. nomer, of unphilosophic construction-a of weighing and looking through so many public, it is evident that he had found some

Even law-makers are but rarely statesmen or legislators. The world rarely sees the "spirit" which moves the external agency of a wise and beneficent law. Practical men gain the reputation, the power, the wealth. The "spirit" rests from its work contentedly, unknown, and says, "It is good."

All art, invention-i. e. original art is but the embodiment of "spirit" in some form directly or indirectly useful to man Art is but the combination or arrangement of natural principles to produce new results; and the organization of bodies of men or bodies of matter are, in all cases, operations of the "spirit." The art by which Michael ith Angelo found the statue in the marble block, he and the art by which Oliver Cromwell found a cavalry regiment in a rude mass of the men and horses, were alike operations of the "spirit." The spirit of Watt could discern the form of the steam-engine in the

metallic ore, with the dim vista of countless thousands of human beings set free from drudgery in the hewing of wood and the drawing of water; and the spirit of Arkwright beheld the forms of various kinds of el matter combining into a mill for grinding jirts out clothing by miles. These men put - forth their "spirit" in actual forms to the cognizance of the world. Other spirits, as bar Homer and Shakspeare, gave their creations to the world in written descriptions; their ideal embodied their actual. Michael Angelo, Oliver Cromwell, Watt, and Arkwright, actualised their ideal. But there it is, the self-same "spirit" in all, making itself obvious to man's apprehension in one or other of the various modes by which man holds converse with his fellows, of greater or lesser significance.

الا

What, then, is there new in the spirit of the present age? Development has mightily increased, but we can discern no change in the quality. Wisdom is but wisdom now, as it was in the earliest ages. The spirit of benevolence existed from the time that the first man possessed more provision than he could eat. The benevolence grew in proportion as wants were supplied, and its retardation has been caused only by the wants outgrowing the supply. The aristocratic Greeks of old could be benevolent to ✓ each other; but the slaves of the mill who ground corn for their bread, they regarded only as lower animals. Benevolence in the present day has greatly increased, because intellect, discovering steam, has diminished

title indicative of the littérateur spirit which so commonly sacrifices meaning for the purpose of catching the eye and ear--a bookselling title, not conveying the spirit of the book itself. We turn to the preface to enable ourselves to correct the defect of the title.

It appears that Mr. Horne, thinking Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age' nearly obsolete by the lapse of twenty years, wishes to make the public aware of the peculiarities of

"A new set of men, several of them animated by a new spirit, who have obtained eminent positions in the public mind, the selection not being made from those already crowned, and their claims settled, but almost entirely from those who are in progress and midway of fame.

"The selection therefore which it has been thought most advisable to adopt, has been the names of those most eminent in general literature, and representing most extensively the spirit of the

age, and the names of two individuals, who, in

this work, represent those philanthropic principles now influencing the minds and moral feelings of all the first intellects of the time."

Further on, Mr. Horne professes his intention at some future period to make the present work complete if the sale be good, by adding to it, 'The Political Spirit of the Age, The Scientific Spirit of the Age,' ''The' Artistical Spirit of the Age,' 'The Historical, Biographical, and Critical Spirit of the Age,' and 'The Educational Spirit of the Age. That is to say, the preface negatives the title, by showing that the book is not the spirit of the age, but a selection of certain literary men whom Mr. Horne considers "the most eminent in general literature," and " two individuals of philanthropic principles," whose " claims" he proceeds to "settle," for the purpose of " crowning" them. The promised New Spirit' we must look further for. The

Spirit of the Age' turns out to be, not the general progress of man on the globe we inhabit, not even the spirit of Europe, but the spirit of a very small class of men in a very small corner of Europe, and that not in " general literature," but in particular literature, chiefly confined to poetry and fiction, with a considerable infusion of the drama.

Mr. Horne, claiming to be "an author of the last ten or fifteen years," assumes the capacity to sit in judgment, and pass sentence on contemporary writers. The structure of the mind which assumes to do this, is a proper subject for inquiry; for it must be a mind of no light capacity to be capable

minds, to discover the spirit within them. Such a mind is in itself a spirit of the age, and we are disposed to welcome its advent in a reverential mood. Such a mind would

not enter on its task without due knowledge added to intuitive judgment. Knowing that men of even the highest powers are subjected to the occasional trammels of the mechanical routine of the bookselling trade, we may assume that the philosophical perceptions of the editor were overruled by the title-making propensity of the bookseller, and acquit him of any intention of misleading. Had the work been anonymous, we must have been content to form our estimate of the capabilities of the writer from its internal evidence. But we have a catalogue of works bearing the name of Mr. Horneprima facie evidence of an industrious writer -and abundant material to test his general capacity as a spirit of the age, and also of his fitness for estimating the spirits of the age. His first acknowledged work, published in 1833, was entitled 'Exposition of the False Medium and Barriers excluding Men of Genius from the Public. Subsequently he became editor of a periodical, The Monthly Repository. In 1837, he published Cosmo de Medici, an Historical Tragedy. In the same year he put forth the Death of Marlowe, a Tragedy in One Act.' In 1840, appeared Gregory the Seventh, a Tragedy. Subsequently he edited a publication in monthly numbers, entitled the Life of Napoleon; and in 1843 appeared an epic entitled 'Orion. In his preface to the 'Spirit of the Age, Mr. Horne states that during the last seven or eight years he has "contributed to several quarterly journals," probably to monthlies also. In addition, he has published a report of his proceedings as a factory commissioner, and was an occasional lecturer at the meetings of the Syncretic Association, of which he was a zealous member. He has also edited an edition of Chaucer. There can, therefore, be no doubt that he is a ready and industrious writer.

The first work, which, for the sake of brevity, we shall call the 'False Medium, is dedicated " to Edward Lytton Bulwer, a patriot and a man of genius." As Mr. Bulwer was at that time well known to the

* An association composed of unacted dramatists and others, impressed with the idea that they were unfairly treated by managers of theatres and others. result of this association was the production of a rejected tragedy, Martinuzzi,' at the Lyceum, where it was received by the public in a manner to confirm the judgment of the manager who had rejected it.

means of thrusting aside the 'False Medium. The "exordium" in this workis

"A common stone meets with more ready patronage than a man of genius."

That is to say, the stone being placed in a cabinet, as a specimen, by some one who selects it from a heap of other stones, it is taken care of, whereas, no one takes care of a man of genius, and Mr. Horne gives instances of men of genius, "poets and philosophers," from Homer down to Camoens, who have been buffeted about the world during their whole lives, and only valued after their deaths. "Authors in general," from Demosthenes down to some individual not specified by name, have been an ill-used race; imprisoned when possessing property, and starved when possessing none. R. P is accused of neglecting an author, scholar, and man of science, who had been of much service to him, so that "his wife is obliged to wash in one room while he translates Greek in another."

Sir

Now we object at the outset to a man of genius being made dependent on "ready patronage." A man of talents may be subservient to those who require his talents, but a man of genius must be essentially original. He is a guide and not a servant; he points out new paths of excellence, unrecognized at the outset by any one but himself, and to appreciate which, in some cases, even the few require years of instruction, and the many require centuries. If he were not in advance of his time, he would not be a man of genius. We speak now of the genius for great things, the genius which elevates. To expect that people should rush in crowds, to worship that which they neither recognize nor comprehend, is an absurdity; to expect that they should pay for it in ready coin, is a conclusion that no man of great genius ever dreamed of. People do not pay for being taught anything, but what they can take to market and sell or exchange away to advantage, or such accomplishments as may tend to personal influence. They will pay to be taught to dance, or sing, or work, in order that they may be enabled to sing, or dance, or work, for gain; but they will not pay to be taught philosophy. People will also pay to be pleased, and those who have pleasure to sell, find a ready market. A man or woman may have a talent for dancing, for singing, and working, in modes which people like, but if a man or woman has genius for inventing new dances, or songs, or work, of an intrinsically superior kind, but which people have not been accustomed to, the genius must be contented to

a

me

[ocr errors]

turn instructor without pay till the new art is rendered popular. Genius varies in its quality. One man originates a new philosophy; another originates a new mode of cheapening pleasure. One will get pupils by units, the other gets customers by thousands. But were the originator of the new philosophy to complain that he could not sell his philosophy for current coin, we should be apt to suspect him of false philosophy, and tell him he had mistaken his genius. The popular thing is the paying (thing; the widest popularity is amongst the the masses; and the greater the refinement, the ( less is the popularity. It is the essence of

in high genius to be in advance of its age.

ing pra

The genius of the Greek tragic poets was not in advance of their age. They had cultivated audiences to whom they presented the highest intellectual excitement of the time, but we doubt whether their popularity Tho was great with the masses of uncultivated slaves.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors][merged small]

And in a note he remarks

"The great tragedian is no more; but he can never be dead so long as those live who have once awoke from ordinary existence to appreciate him. A deep continuous feeling is worth all your tombs; for no capricious moral multitude can destroy or even disturb its sacred isolature."

Edmund Kean is a most unfortunate instance for Mr. Horne to have chosen. There is no doubt he possessed genius of a peculiar kind. There is no doubt that by personal energy he broke through all false mediums; and there is no doubt that he was very highly paid for his services, by a public to whom his peculiar genius gave great excitement. Unfortunately, also, there is no doubt that his personal character was rather that of a savage than of a civilized man. He was one to gaze on, but not to associate with. His stage powers were all that he gave to the public in return for their recognition and large pecuniary payment. The " moral multitude" are assuredly rather hardly dealt with by Mr. Horne.

"Mrs.

Composers and Musicians, Actors and Singers, all are alike ill-treated. Jordan with a paltry salary of four pounds per week." Claiming to be a man of genius, Mr. Horne has a strange propensity to try things by money value. "Pasta furnished with old clothes by the wardrobe women;" "Miss O'Neill brought out at a low salary, the owlish managers doubting her success."

Novelists, Painters, and Sculptors, fare no better. Men of Science, Original Projectors, and Inventors, still worse.

In treating of the causes of all this, Mr. Horne remarks:

"Napoleon was the greatest patron of genius and art in every possible class that ever lived. Those only who are conscious of superiority in themselves, apart from their station, who possess copiousness of intellect and power to do or suffer, can be above all petty jealousies and fears, and thus fit to govern others." "Shakspeare was treated by Elizabeth as an amusing playwright; and as he never meddled with public spirit,' or politics, she suffered him to continue his labours unmolested."

We incline to think that Napoleon's patronage of any genius adverse to himself is far from a proved case. He patronized talents that were useful to him. The genius of Carnot never succumbed, and was never forgiven.

Mr. Horne seems quite unable to comprehend that the genius of Shakspeare was above queen or court. He would have had him made a duke at least, as a recompense for his writings. And a pension of course, though of pecuniary gains the great man had probably enough for his wishes.

The evil of men of genius who write books, is, according to Mr. Horne, the " false medium" employed by booksellers, in the shape of a "Reader," who peruses MSS. offered for publication, who never judges rightly of the merit of a work; who invariably rejects all works of genius, and only accepts or approves of the very worst. This reader is always either a "fool or a knave," and, "in either case, the author is the victim." Unmeasured terms of abuse are heaped on "this reader "-on all "readers."

"He lords it dogmatically over the gin-and-bitter coteries he can bear down and impress with an idea of his knowledge, acute judgment, and literary importance. In the society of capable men over their brandy punch, he is still as a mouse."

The Dramatic Reader at the theatres is even worse, so bad, that Mr. Horne is surprised none of the ill-used authors have burned down the patent theatres

66

No man wno does write poetry can ever think, themselves worthy to be ranked with some of the of doing us anything but verbal mischief."

[blocks in formation]

dramatists of a nobler era, undoubtedly true-and one of them has been heard to set at naught the scoffs of his time, by claiming to rank in the pure elements of tragedy, with the dramatists of the Greek or Elizabethan ages."

In a note we are informed that this claimant is Mr. Horne himself, the author of 'Cosmo de' Medici,' and 'Gregory the Seventh.'

The plot of Cosmo is briefly as follows: Cosmo, a patron of art, who gives livings and employments to scholars and artists, and professes a love for justice above all other things, has two sons, the elder, Giovanní, a student, described as of most sweet disposition; the younger, Garcia, given to hunting. These two brothers much dislike one another, and the eldest exhibits his sweet disposition by constantly scolding the younger. By way of producing an attachment between them, their mother persuades the elder to join a hunting party with the younger. In the forest they quarrel as to which had slain a boar. Somehow this quarrel changes into a dispute about a young lady, and they draw and fight. Garcia, the younger, breaks his sword in half, but yet contrives to kill his brother, whose body he leaves on the spot. A courtier finds the body, and the broken sword point, which he conveys to Cosmo, informing him that Giovanni's sword was "unsheathed and stained as though he had fought." Cosmo, nevertheless, asserts that he has been "murdered,"

When a man has written a fine epic and and suspects that Garcia knows of it. By obtained the 3001. a-year for life,

"He has done enough; would you have a man

way of making sure, he has the dead body placed in an alcove, with a curtain before it. Garcia is ushered in, and Cosmo, after

write epics, and keep him at it, like a wheelwright charging him with the murder of his brother,

*

with a government order ?" Again, the producer of a powerful tragedy would only be entitled to an annuity of 100l., not that we do not consider such a tragedy as great an effect of human genius as the finest epic, but because there is a manifest difference in the time and labour employed, and also that a tragic author thus brought with his due honours before the public would have a great chance of emolument from the stage, whose gradual improvement would be a necessary consequence."

We pause to extract one more sentence from this False Medium.'

"He (Tonson) was the real Milton-he had got all the money" (from the sale of Paradise Lost'). Tonson and his nephew died worth 200,000l."

draws the curtain, shows the body, when Garcia says, "I did it;" but adds, " it was in self-defence." Cosmo insists that the blood is flowing afresh at sight of the murderer, but Garcia asserts that it is congealed, and very naturally appeals to his father " not to harrow his senses till he owns what is not." But the just Cosmo will hear nothing, draws forth "Garcia's broken sword," raises it to heaven, and says-

"Thou constant God! sanction, impel, direct The sword of Justice! and for a criminal son That pardon grant, which his most wretched Thus in the hour of agony implores !"

father

Subsequently we are informed that, with

We now turn to the 'New Spirit of the his own hand, and of course with this brokAge,' and find the following assertion.

en sword, the father has taken the son's life, soon after which an eye-witness informs him that Garcia slew his brother in self

"That in the pure element of dramatic composition, they (the unacted dramatists) also consider I defence.

« AnteriorContinuar »