Biographia Literaria
In the days of Chaucer and Gower, our language might (with due allowance
for the imperfections of a simile) be compared to a wilderness of vocal
reeds, from which the favourites only of Pan or Apollo could construct
even the rude syrinx; and from this the constructors alone could elicit
strains of music. But now, partly by the labours of successive
poets, and in part by the more artificial state of society and social
intercourse, language, mechanized as it were into a barrel-organ,
supplies at once both instrument and tune. Thus even the deaf may play,
so as to delight the many. Sometimes (for it is with similes, as it
is with jests at a wine table, one is sure to suggest another) I have
attempted to illustrate the present state of our language, in its
relation to literature, by a press-room of larger and smaller stereotype
pieces, which, in the present Anglo-Gallican fashion of unconnected,
epigrammatic periods, it requires but an ordinary portion of ingenuity
to vary indefinitely, and yet still produce something, which, if not
sense, will be so like it as to do as well. Perhaps better: for it
spares the reader the trouble of thinking; prevents vacancy, while
it indulges indolence; and secures the memory from all danger of an
intellectual plethora. Hence of all trades, literature at present
demands the least talent or information; and, of all modes of
literature, the manufacturing of poems. The difference indeed between
these and the works of genius is not less than between an egg and an
egg-shell; yet at a distance they both look alike.
Now it is no less remarkable than true, with how little examination
works of polite literature are commonly perused, not only by the mass of
readers, but by men of first rate ability, till some accident or chance
[10] discussion have roused their attention, and put them on their
guard. And hence individuals below mediocrity not less in natural power
than in acquired knowledge; nay, bunglers who have failed in the lowest
mechanic crafts, and whose presumption is in due proportion to their
want of sense and sensibility; men, who being first scribblers
from idleness and ignorance, next become libellers from envy and
malevolence,--have been able to drive a successful trade in the
employment of the booksellers, nay, have raised themselves into
temporary name and reputation with the public at large, by that most
powerful of all adulation, the appeal to the bad and malignant passions
of mankind [11]. But as it is the nature of scorn, envy, and all
malignant propensities to require a quick change of objects, such
writers are sure, sooner or later, to awake from their dream of vanity
to disappointment and neglect with embittered and envenomed feelings.
Even during their short-lived success, sensible in spite of themselves
on what a shifting foundation it rests, they resent the mere refusal
of praise as a robbery, and at the justest censures kindle at once into
violent and undisciplined abuse; till the acute disease changing into
chronical, the more deadly as the less violent, they become the fit
instruments of literary detraction and moral slander. They are then no
longer to be questioned without exposing the complainant to ridicule,
because, forsooth, they are anonymous critics, and authorized, in Andrew
Marvell’s phrase, as “synodical individuals” to speak of themselves
plurali majestatico! As if literature formed a caste, like that of
the Paras in Hindostan, who, however maltreated, must not dare to deem
themselves wronged! As if that, which in all other cases adds a deeper
dye to slander, the circumstance of its being anonymous, here acted
only to make the slanderer inviolable! [12] Thus, in part, from the
accidental tempers of individuals--(men of undoubted talent, but not
men of genius)--tempers rendered yet more irritable by their desire to
appear men of genius; but still more effectively by the excesses of the
mere counterfeits both of talent and genius; the number too being so
incomparably greater of those who are thought to be, than of those
who really are men of genius; and in part from the natural, but not
therefore the less partial and unjust distinction, made by the public
itself between literary and all other property; I believe the prejudice
to have arisen, which considers an unusual irascibility concerning the
reception of its products as characteristic of genius.
It might correct the moral feelings of a numerous class of readers, to
suppose a Review set on foot, the object of which should be to criticise
all the chief works presented to the public by our ribbon-weavers,
calico-printers, cabinet-makers, and china-manufacturers; which should
be conducted in the same spirit, and take the same freedom with personal
character, as our literary journals. They would scarcely, I think,
deny their belief, not only that the genus irritabile would be found
to include many other species besides that of bards; but that the
irritability of trade would soon reduce the resentments of poets into
mere shadow-fights in the comparison. Or is wealth the only rational
object of human interest? Or even if this were admitted, has the poet
no property in his works? Or is it a rare, or culpable case, that he
who serves at the altar of the Muses, should be compelled to derive
his maintenance from the altar, when too he has perhaps deliberately
abandoned the fairest prospects of rank and opulence in order to
devote himself, an entire and undistracted man, to the instruction or
refinement of his fellow-citizens? Or, should we pass by all higher
objects and motives, all disinterested benevolence, and even that
ambition of lasting praise which is at once the crutch and ornament,
which at once supports and betrays, the infirmity of human virtue,--is
the character and property of the man, who labours for our intellectual
pleasures, less entitled to a share of our fellow feeling, than that of
the wine-merchant or milliner? Sensibility indeed, both quick and deep,
is not only a characteristic feature, but may be deemed a component
part, of genius. But it is not less an essential mark of true genius,
that its sensibility is excited by any other cause more powerfully than
by its own personal interests; for this plain reason, that the man of
genius lives most in the ideal world, in which the present is still
constituted by the future or the past; and because his feelings have
been habitually associated with thoughts and images, to the number,
clearness, and vivacity of which the sensation of self is always in an
inverse proportion. And yet, should he perchance have occasion to repel
some false charge, or to rectify some erroneous censure, nothing is more
common than for the many to mistake the general liveliness of his manner
and language, whatever is the subject, for the effects of peculiar
irritation from its accidental relation to himself. [13]
For myself, if from my own feelings, or from the less suspicious test
of the observations of others, I had been made aware of any literary
testiness or jealousy; I trust, that I should have been, however,
neither silly nor arrogant enough to have burthened the imperfection on
genius. But an experience--(and I should not need documents in abundance
to prove my words, if I added)--a tried experience of twenty years, has
taught me, that the original sin of my character consists in a careless
indifference to public opinion, and to the attacks of those who
influence it; that praise and admiration have become yearly less and
less desirable, except as marks of sympathy; nay that it is difficult
and distressing to me to think with any interest even about the sale
and profit of my works, important as, in my present circumstances, such
considerations must needs be. Yet it never occurred to me to believe or
fancy, that the quantum of intellectual power bestowed on me by nature
or education was in any way connected with this habit of my feelings;
or that it needed any other parents or fosterers than constitutional
indolence, aggravated into languor by ill-health; the accumulating
embarrassments of procrastination; the mental cowardice, which is the
inseparable companion of procrastination, and which makes us anxious to
think and converse on any thing rather than on what concerns ourselves;
in fine, all those close vexations, whether chargeable on my faults
or my fortunes, which leave me but little grief to spare for evils
comparatively distant and alien.
Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born under happier stars.
I cannot afford it. But so far from condemning those who can, I deem
it a writer’s duty, and think it creditable to his heart, to feel and
express a resentment proportioned to the grossness of the provocation,
and the importance of the object. There is no profession on earth, which
requires an attention so early, so long, or so unintermitting as that of
poetry; and indeed as that of literary composition in general, if it be
such as at all satisfies the demands both of taste and of sound logic.
How difficult and delicate a task even the mere mechanism of verse is,
may be conjectured from the failure of those, who have attempted poetry
late in life. Where then a man has, from his earliest youth, devoted
his whole being to an object, which by the admission of all civilized
nations in all ages is honourable as a pursuit, and glorious as an
attainment; what of all that relates to himself and his family, if only
we except his moral character, can have fairer claims to his protection,
or more authorize acts of self-defence, than the elaborate products of
his intellect and intellectual industry? Prudence itself would command
us to show, even if defect or diversion of natural sensibility had
prevented us from feeling, a due interest and qualified anxiety for the
offspring and representatives of our nobler being. I know it, alas! by
woful experience. I have laid too many eggs in the hot sands of this
wilderness, the world, with ostrich carelessness and ostrich oblivion.
The greater part indeed have been trod under foot, and are forgotten;
but yet no small number have crept forth into life, some to furnish
feathers for the caps of others, and still more to plume the shafts in
the quivers of my enemies, of them that unprovoked have lain in wait
against my soul.
Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes!
CHAPTER III
The Author’s obligations to critics, and the probable
occasion--Principles of modern criticism--Mr. Southey’s works and
character.
To anonymous critics in reviews, magazines, and news-journals of various
name and rank, and to satirists with or without a name in verse or
prose, or in verse-text aided by prose-comment, I do seriously believe
and profess, that I owe full two-thirds of whatever reputation and
publicity I happen to possess. For when the name of an individual has
occurred so frequently, in so many works, for so great a length of time,
the readers of these works--(which with a shelf or two of beauties,
elegant Extracts and Anas, form nine-tenths of the reading of the
reading Public [14])--cannot but be familiar with the name, without
distinctly remembering whether it was introduced for eulogy or for
censure. And this becomes the more likely, if (as I believe) the
habit of perusing periodical works may be properly added to Averroes’
catalogue of Anti-Mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory [15]. But where
this has not been the case, yet the reader will be apt to suspect that
there must be something more than usually strong and extensive in
a reputation, that could either require or stand so merciless
and long-continued a cannonading. Without any feeling of anger
therefore--(for which indeed, on my own account, I have no pretext)--I
may yet be allowed to express some degree of surprise, that, after