Biographia Literaria
doggerel tale impressed on it, instantly assumed at once loco-motive
power and a sort of ubiquity, so as to flutter and buz in the ear of the
public to the sore annoyance of the said mysterious personage. But what
gives an additional and more ludicrous absurdity to these lamentations
is the curious fact, that if in a volume of poetry the critic should
find poem or passage which he deems more especially worthless, he
is sure to select and reprint it in the review; by which, on his own
grounds, he wastes as much more paper than the author, as the copies of
a fashionable review are more numerous than those of the original book;
in some, and those the most prominent instances, as ten thousand to five
hundred. I know nothing that surpasses the vileness of deciding on the
merits of a poet or painter,--(not by characteristic defects; for where
there is genius, these always point to his characteristic beauties;
but)--by accidental failures or faulty passages; except the impudence
of defending it, as the proper duty, and most instructive part, of
criticism. Omit or pass slightly over the expression, grace,
and grouping of Raffael’s figures; but ridicule in detail the
knitting-needles and broom-twigs, that are to represent trees in his
back grounds; and never let him hear the last of his galli-pots! Admit
that the Allegro and Penseroso of Milton are not without merit; but
repay yourself for this concession, by reprinting at length the two
poems on the University Carrier! As a fair specimen of his Sonnets,
quote
“A Book was writ of late called Tetrachordon;”
and, as characteristic of his rhythm and metre, cite his literal
translation of the first and second Psalm! In order to justify yourself,
you need only assert, that had you dwelt chiefly on the beauties and
excellencies of the poet, the admiration of these might seduce the
attention of future writers from the objects of their love and wonder,
to an imitation of the few poems and passages in which the poet was most
unlike himself.
But till reviews are conducted on far other principles, and with far
other motives; till in the place of arbitrary dictation and petulant
sneers, the reviewers support their decisions by reference to fixed
canons of criticism, previously established and deduced from the nature
of man; reflecting minds will pronounce it arrogance in them thus to
announce themselves to men of letters, as the guides of their taste
and judgment. To the purchaser and mere reader it is, at all events, an
injustice. He who tells me that there are defects in a new work,
tells me nothing which I should not have taken for granted without his
information. But he, who points out and elucidates the beauties of
an original work does indeed give me interesting information, such
as experience would not have authorized me in anticipating. And as to
compositions which the authors themselves announce with
Haec ipsi novimus esse nihil,
why should we judge by a different rule two printed works, only because
the one author is alive, and the other in his grave? What literary man
has not regretted the prudery of Spratt in refusing to let his friend
Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing gown? I am not perhaps
the only one who has derived an innocent amusement from the riddles,
conundrums, tri-syllable lines, and the like, of Swift and his
correspondents, in hours of languor, when to have read his more finished
works would have been useless to myself, and, in some sort, an act
of injustice to the author. But I am at a loss to conceive by what
perversity of judgment, these relaxations of his genius could be
employed to diminish his fame as the writer of Gulliver, or the Tale of
a Tub. Had Mr. Southey written twice as many poems of inferior merit, or
partial interest, as have enlivened the journals of the day, they
would have added to his honour with good and wise men, not merely or
principally as proving the versatility of his talents, but as evidences
of the purity of that mind, which even in its levities never dictated a
line which it need regret on any moral account.
I have in imagination transferred to the future biographer the duty of
contrasting Southey’s fixed and well-earned fame, with the abuse and
indefatigable hostility of his anonymous critics from his early youth to
his ripest manhood. But I cannot think so ill of human nature as not
to believe, that these critics have already taken shame to themselves,
whether they consider the object of their abuse in his moral or his
literary character. For reflect but on the variety and extent of his
acquirements! He stands second to no man, either as an historian or as
a bibliographer; and when I regard him as a popular essayist,--(for the
articles of his compositions in the reviews are, for the greater part,
essays on subjects of deep or curious interest rather than criticisms
on particular works)--I look in vain for any writer, who has conveyed so
much information, from so many and such recondite sources, with so many
just and original reflections, in a style so lively and poignant, yet so
uniformly classical and perspicuous; no one, in short, who has combined
so much wisdom with so much wit; so much truth and knowledge with
so much life and fancy. His prose is always intelligible and always
entertaining. In poetry he has attempted almost every species of
composition known before, and he has added new ones; and if we except
the highest lyric,--(in which how few, how very few even of the greatest
minds have been fortunate)--he has attempted every species successfully;
from the political song of the day, thrown off in the playful overflow
of honest joy and patriotic exultation, to the wild ballad; from
epistolary ease and graceful narrative, to austere and impetuous moral
declamation; from the pastoral charms and wild streaming lights of the
Thalaba, in which sentiment and imagery have given permanence even to
the excitement of curiosity; and from the full blaze of the Kehama,--(a
gallery of finished pictures in one splendid fancy piece, in which,
notwithstanding, the moral grandeur rises gradually above the brilliance
of the colouring and the boldness and novelty of the machinery)--to
the more sober beauties of the Madoc; and lastly, from the Madoc to
his Roderick, in which, retaining all his former excellencies of a
poet eminently inventive and picturesque, he has surpassed himself
in language and metre, in the construction of the whole, and in the
splendour of particular passages.
Here then shall I conclude? No! The characters of the deceased, like the
encomia on tombstones, as they are described with religious tenderness,
so are they read, with allowing sympathy indeed, but yet with rational
deduction. There are men, who deserve a higher record; men with whose
characters it is the interest of their contemporaries, no less than
that of posterity, to be made acquainted; while it is yet possible for
impartial censure, and even for quick-sighted envy, to cross-examine
the tale without offence to the courtesies of humanity; and while the
eulogist, detected in exaggeration or falsehood, must pay the full
penalty of his baseness in the contempt which brands the convicted
flatterer. Publicly has Mr. Southey been reviled by men, who, as I would
fain hope for the honour of human nature, hurled fire-brands against
a figure of their own imagination; publicly have his talents been
depreciated, his principles denounced; as publicly do I therefore, who
have known him intimately, deem it my duty to leave recorded, that it
is Southey’s almost unexampled felicity, to possess the best gifts of
talent and genius free from all their characteristic defects. To those
who remember the state of our public schools and universities some
twenty years past, it will appear no ordinary praise in any man to have
passed from innocence into virtue, not only free from all vicious habit,
but unstained by one act of intemperance, or the degradations akin to
intemperance. That scheme of head, heart, and habitual demeanour, which
in his early manhood, and first controversial writings, Milton, claiming
the privilege of self-defence, asserts of himself, and challenges
his calumniators to disprove; this will his school-mates, his
fellow-collegians, and his maturer friends, with a confidence
proportioned to the intimacy of their knowledge, bear witness to, as
again realized in the life of Robert Southey. But still more striking to
those, who by biography or by their own experience are familiar with the
general habits of genius, will appear the poet’s matchless industry
and perseverance in his pursuits; the worthiness and dignity of those
pursuits; his generous submission to tasks of transitory interest, or
such as his genius alone could make otherwise; and that having thus more
than satisfied the claims of affection or prudence, he should yet have
made for himself time and power, to achieve more, and in more various
departments, than almost any other writer has done, though employed
wholly on subjects of his own choice and ambition. But as Southey
possesses, and is not possessed by, his genius, even so is he master
even of his virtues. The regular and methodical tenor of his daily
labours, which would be deemed rare in the most mechanical pursuits,
and might be envied by the mere man of business, loses all semblance of
formality in the dignified simplicity of his manners, in the spring and
healthful cheerfulness of his spirits. Always employed, his friends find
him always at leisure. No less punctual in trifles, than steadfast in
the performance of highest duties, he inflicts none of those small pains
and discomforts which irregular men scatter about them, and which in
the aggregate so often become formidable obstacles both to happiness
and utility; while on the contrary he bestows all the pleasures, and
inspires all that ease of mind on those around him or connected with
him, which perfect consistency, and (if such a word might be framed)
absolute reliability, equally in small as in great concerns, cannot but
inspire and bestow; when this too is softened without being weakened
by kindness and gentleness. I know few men who so well deserve the
character which an antient attributes to Marcus Cato, namely, that
he was likest virtue, in as much as he seemed to act aright, not in
obedience to any law or outward motive, but by the necessity of a happy
nature, which could not act otherwise. As son, brother, husband,
father, master, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike
unostentatious, and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made
his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public
virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure
religion and of liberty, of national independence and of national
illumination. When future critics shall weigh out his guerdon of praise
and censure, it will be Southey the poet only, that will supply them
with the scanty materials for the latter. They will likewise not fail to
record, that as no man was ever a more constant friend, never had poet
more friends and honourers among the good of all parties; and that
quacks in education, quacks in politics, and quacks in criticism were
his only enemies. [17]
CHAPTER IV
The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface--Mr. Wordsworth’s earlier poems--On
fancy and imagination--The investigation of the distinction important to
the Fine Arts.
I have wandered far from the object in view, but as I fancied to myself
readers who would respect the feelings that had tempted me from the main
road; so I dare calculate on not a few, who will warmly sympathize with
them. At present it will be sufficient for my purpose, if I have proved,
that Mr. Southey’s writings no more than my own furnished the original