The Germ Part 23

It therefore was that much alone He studied; and a room is shown In a coffee-house, an upper room, Where none but hungry devils come, Wherein 'tis said, with animation He read "Vestiges of Creation."

Accordingly, a month about After he'd _chalked up_ steak and stout For the last time, he gave the world A pamphlet, wherein he unfurled A tissue of facts which, soon as blown, Ran like wildfire through the town.

And, first of all, he plainly showed A capital error in the mode Of national defences, thus-- "The Greek one thousand miles from us,"

Said he, (for nine hundred and ninety-nine The citadel stood above the brine In perpendicular height, allowing For slope of glacis, thereby showing An increase of a mile,) "'tis plain The force that shot and sh.e.l.l would gain, By gravitation, with their own, Would fire the ground by friction alone; Which, being once in fusion schooled Ere cool, as _Fire-mist had cooled_"

Would gain a motion, which must soon, Just as the earth detached the moon And gave her locomotive birth, Detach some twenty miles of earth, And send it swinging in the air, The Devil only could tell where!

Then came the probability With what increased facility The Greeks, by this projectile power, Might land on Ilion's highest tower, All safe and sound, in battle array, With howitzers prepared to play, And muskets to the muzzles rammed;-- Why, the town would be utterly smashed and jammed, And positively, as the phrase is Vernacular, be "sent to blazes"!

In the second place, he then would ask, (And here he took several members to task, And wondered--"he really must presume To wonder" a statesman like--you know whom-- Who ever evinced the deepest sense Of a crying sin in any expense, Should so besotted be, and lost To the fact that now, at public cost, Powder was being day by day Wantonly wasted, blown away);-- Yes, he would ask, "with what intent But to perch the Greeks on a battlement From which they might o'erlook the town, The easier to batter it down, Which he had proved must be the case (If it hadn't already taken place): He called on his readers to fear and dread it, _Whilst he wrote it,--whilst they read it!_"

"How simple! How beautifully simple," said he, "And obvious was the remedy!

Look back a century or so-- And there was the ancient Norman bow, A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh) Efficient, better, cheaper by half: (He knew quite well the age abused it Because, forsooth, the Normans used it) These, planted in the citadel, Would reach the walls say,--very well; There, having spent their utmost force, They'd drop down right, as a matter of course, A thousand miles! Think--a thousand miles!

What was the weight for driving piles To this? He calculated it-- 'Twould equal, when both Houses sit, The weight of the entire building, Including Members, paint, and gilding; But, if a speech or the address From the throne were given, something less, Because, as certain snores aver, The House is then much heavier.

Now this, though very much a rub like For Ministers, convinced the public; And Priam, who liked to hear its brays To any tune but "the Ma.r.s.eillaise,"

Summoned a Privy Council, where 'Twas shortly settled to confer On Helenus a sole command Of Specials.--He headed that daring band!

And sixteen Specials in Priam's keep Got up from their mahogany; They smoked their pipes in silence deep Till there was such a fog--any Attempt to discover the priest in the smother Had bothered old Airy and Adams and t'other And--Every son of an _English_ mother.

June, 1848.

No. II. Swift's Dunces

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against him."--_Swift_.

How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool--by the proverb?

At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the ma.s.s of readers, have clearer wits than the dunces--then why should I not know what you are as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.--unless a dunce has a good nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.

Now I take it that these people stigmatized as dunces are but men of ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to the average of minds. For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition, has written the "Lampiad," an epic; when he should not have dared beyond the Doric reed: his ambitious pride has prevented the publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for his failure. This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his ambition (an ill-combination of self-conscious worth and spleen) leads him to compare works of the highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his own. In all cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe; this naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.

He has himself failed; he sees errors in successful writers; he knows he possesses certain merits, and knows what the perfection of them should be. This is the ground work of envy, which makes a man of parts a comparative fool, and a confederate against "true genius."

No. III. Mental Scales

I make out my case thus--

There is an exact balance in the distribution of causes of pleasure and pain: this has been satisfactorily proved in my next paper, upon "Cause and Effect," therefore I shall take it for granted. What, then, is there but the mind to determine its own state of happiness, or misery: just as the motion of the scales depends upon themselves, when two equal weights are put into them. The balance ought to be truly hung; but if the unpleasant scale is heavier, then the motion is in favor of the pleasant scale, and vice versa. Whether the beam stands horizontally, or otherwise, does not matter (that only determines the key): draw a line at right angles to it, then put in your equal weights; if the angle becomes larger on the unpleasant scale's side of the line, happiness is the result, if on the other, misery.

It requires but a slight acquaintance with mechanics to see that he who would be happy should have the unpleasant side heavier. I hate corollaries or we might have a group of them equally applicable to Art and Models.

_June_, 1848.

Reviews

_Some Account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart.

Done in Verse by George John Cayley. Canto 1st. Pickering._ 1849.

Inconsistency, whether in matters of importance or in trifles, whether in substance or in detail, is never pleasant. We do not here impute to this poem any inconsistency between one portion and another; but certainly its form is at variance with its subject and treatment. In the wording of the t.i.tle, and the character of typography, there is a studious archaism: more modern the poem itself could scarcely be.

"Sir Reginald Mohun" aims, to judge from the present sample, at depicting the easy intercourse of high life; and the author enters on his theme with a due amount of sympathy. It is in this respect, if in any, that the mediaeval tone of the work lasts beyond the t.i.tle page.

In Mr. Cayley's eyes, the proof of the comparative prosperity of England is that

"Still Queen Victoria sits upon her throne; Our aristocracy still keep alive, And, on the whole, may still be said to thrive,-- Tho' now and then with ducal acres groan The honored tables of the auctioneer.

Nathless, our aristocracy is dear, Tho' their estates go cheap; and all must own That they still give society its tone."--p. 16.

He proceeds in these terms:

"Our baronets of late appear to be Unjustly snubbed and talked and written down; Partly from follies of Sir Something Brown, Stickling for badges due to their degree, And partly that their honor's late editions Have been much swelled with surgeons and physicians; For 'honor hath small skill in surgery,'

And skill in surgery small honor."--p. 17.

What "honor" is here meant? and against whom is the taunt implied?--against the "surgeons and physicians," or against the depreciation of them. Surely the former can hardly have been intended. The sentence will bear to be cleared of some ambiguity, or else to be cleared off altogether.

Our introduction to Sir Reginald Mohun, Lord of Nornyth Place, and of "an income clear of 20,000 pounds," and to his friends Raymond St.

Oun, De Lacy, Wilton, Tancarville, and Vivian--(for the author's names are aristocratic, like his predilections)--is effected through the medium of a stanza, new, we believe, in arrangement, though differing but slightly from the established octave, and of verses so easy and flowing as to make us wonder less at the promise of

"provision plenty For cantos twelve, or may be, four and twenty,"

than at Mr. Cayley's a.s.sertion that he "Can never get along at all in prose."

The incidents, as might be expected of a first canto, are neither many nor important, and will admit of compression into a very small compa.s.s.

Sir Reginald, whose five friends had arrived at Nornyth Place late on the preceding night, is going over the grounds with them in a shooting party after a late breakfast. St. Oun expresses a wish to "prowl about the place" in preference, not feeling in the mood for the required exertion.

"'Of lazy dogs the laziest ever fate Set on two useless legs you surely are, And born beneath some wayward sauntering star To sit for ever swinging on a gate, And laugh at wiser people pa.s.sing through.'

So spake the bard De Lacy: for they two In frequent skirmishes of fierce debate Would bicker, tho' their mutual love was great."--p. 35.

Mohun, however, sides with St. Oun, and agrees to escort him in his rambles after the first few shots. He accordingly soon resigns his gun to the keeper Oswald, whose position as one who

"came into possession Of the head-keepers.h.i.+p by due succession Thro' sire and grandsire, who, when one was dead, Left his right heir-male keeper in his stead,"

Mr. Cayley evidently regards with some complacence. The friends enter a boat: here, while sailing along a rivulet that winds through the estate, St. Oun falls to talking of wealth, its value and insufficiency, of death, and life, and fame; and coming at length to ask after the history of Sir Reginald's past life, he suggests "this true epic opening for relation:"

"'The sun, from his meridian heights declining Mirrored his richest tints upon the s.h.i.+ning Bosom of a lake. In a light shallop, two _Young men, whose dress,_ etcaetera, _proclaims,_ Etcaetera,--so would write G.P.R. James-- Glided in silence o'er the waters blue, Skirting the wooded slopes. Upward they gazed On Nornyth's ancient pile, whose windows blazed

"'In sunset rays, whose crimson fulgence streamed Across the flood: wrapped in deep thought they seemed.

'You are pensive, Reginald,' at length thus spake The helmsman: 'ha! it is the mystic power Fraught by the sacred stillness of the hour: Forgive me if your reverie I break, Craving, with friends.h.i.+p's sympathy, to share _Your spirit's burden, be it joy or care.'"_--pp. 48, 49.

Sir Reginald Mohun's story is soon told.--Born in Italy, and losing his mother at the moment of his birth, and his father and only sister dying also soon after, he is left alone in the world.

"'My father was a melancholy man, Having a touch of genius, and a heart, But not much of that worldly better part Called force of character, which finds some plan For getting over anguish that will crush Weak hearts of stronger feeling. He began To pine; was pale; and had a hectic flush At times; and from his eyelids tears would gush.

"'Some law of hearts afflicted seems to bind A spell by which the scenes of grief grew dear; He never could leave Italy, tho' here And there he wandered with unquiet mind,-- Rome, Florence, Mantua, Milan; once as far As Venice; but still Naples had a blind Attraction which still drew him thither. There He died. Heaven rest his ashes from their care.

"'He wrote, a month or so before he died, To Wilton's father; (he is Earl of Eure, My mother's brother); saying he was sure That he should soon be gone, and would confide Us to his guardian care. My uncle came Before his death. We stood by his bedside.

He blessed us. We, who scarcely knew the name Of death, yet read in the expiring flame