On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 25

Yet take the parallel from Scott, by a field of homelier rest:--

"And silence aids--though the steep hills Send to the lake a thousand rills; In summer tide, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear asleep; Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe Hath laid our Lady's Chapel low, Yet still beneath the hallowed soil, The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid Where erst his simple fathers prayed."

And last take the same note of sorrow--with Burns's finger on the fall of it:

"Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens, Ye hazly shaws and briery dens, Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens Wi' toddlin' din, Or foamin' strang wi' hasty stens Frae lin to lin."

62. As you read, one after another, these fragments of chant by the great masters, does not a sense come upon you of some element in their pa.s.sion, no less than in their sound, different, specifically, from that of "Parching summer hath no warrant"? Is it more profane, think you--or more tender--nay, perhaps, in the core of it, more true?

For instance, when we are told that

"Wharfe, as he moved along, To matins joined a mournful voice,"

is this disposition of the river's mind to pensive psalmody quite logically accounted for by the previous statement, (itself by no means rythmically dulcet,) that

"The boy is in the arms of Wharfe, And strangled by a merciless force"?

Or, when we are led into the improving reflection,

"How sweet were leisure, could it yield no more Than 'mid this wave-washed churchyard to recline, From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine!"

--is the divinity of the extract a.s.sured to us by its being made at leisure, and in a reclining att.i.tude--as compared with the meditations of otherwise active men, in an erect one? Or are we perchance, many of us, still erring somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity and Humanity,--poetical extraction, and moral position?

63. On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing for just a few words more of the school of Belial?

Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjustifiable one. Some very wicked people--mutineers, in fact--have retired, misanthropically, into an unfrequented part of the country, and there find themselves safe indeed, but extremely thirsty. Whereupon Byron thus gives them to drink:

"A little stream came tumbling from the height And straggling into ocean as it might.

Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray, Close on the wild wide ocean,--yet as pure And fresh as Innocence; and more secure.

Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep, While, far below, the vast and sullen swell Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell."[79]

Now, I beg, with such authority as an old workman may take concerning his trade, having also looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and not unfrequently at a wave, to a.s.sure the reader that here is entirely first-rate literary work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, the thing is itself good, and not only so, but unsurpa.s.sedly good, the closing line being probably the best concerning the sea yet written by the race of the sea-kings.

64. But Lucifer himself _could_ not have written it; neither any servant of Lucifer. I do not doubt but that most readers were surprised at my saying, in the close of my first paper, that Byron's "style" depended in any wise on his views respecting the Ten Commandments. That so all-important a thing as "style" should depend in the least upon so ridiculous a thing as moral sense: or that Allegra's father, watching her drive by in Count G.'s coach and six, had any remnant of so ridiculous a thing to guide,--or check,--his poetical pa.s.sion, may alike seem more than questionable to the liberal and chaste philosophy of the existing British public. But, first of all, putting the question of who writes or speaks aside, do you, good reader, _know_ good "style" when you get it? Can you say, of half a dozen given lines taken anywhere out of a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style, or bad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, or bad?

65. I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be given with hesitation, yet if you will give me a little patience, and take some accurate pains, I can show you the main tests of style in the s.p.a.ce of a couple of pages.

I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in manner highest, _i.

e._, kingly, and heroic, style: the first example in expression of anger, the second of love.

(1)

"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us, His present, and your pains, we thank you for.

When we have match'd our rackets to these b.a.l.l.s, We will in France, by G.o.d's grace, play a set Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard."

(2)

"My gracious Silence, hail!

Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear, Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear And mothers that lack sons."

66. Let us note, point by point, the conditions of greatness common to both these pa.s.sages, so opposite in temper.

A. Absolute command over all pa.s.sion, however intense; this the first-of-first conditions, (see the King's own sentence just before, "We are no tyrant, but a Christian King, Unto _whose grace_ our pa.s.sion is as subject As are our wretches fettered in our prisons"); and with this self-command, the supremely surveying grasp of every thought that is to be uttered, before its utterance; so that each may come in its exact place, time, and connection. The slightest hurry, the misplacing of a word, or the unnecessary accent on a syllable, would destroy the "style"

in an instant.

B. Choice of the fewest and simplest words that can be found in the compa.s.s of the language, to express the thing meant: these few words being also arranged in the most straightforward and intelligible way; allowing inversion only when the subject can be made primary without obscurity: (thus, "his present, and your pains, we thank you for" is better than "we thank you for his present and your pains," because the Dauphin's gift is by courtesy put before the Amba.s.sador's pains; but "when to these b.a.l.l.s our rackets we have matched" would have spoiled the style in a moment, because--I was going to have said, ball and racket are of equal rank, and therefore only the natural order proper; but also here the natural order is the desired one, the English racket to have precedence of the French ball). In the fourth line the "in France" comes first, as announcing the most important resolution of action; the "by G.o.d's grace" next, as the only condition rendering resolution possible; the detail of issue follows with the strictest limit in the final word.

The King does not say "danger," far less "dishonor," but "hazard" only; of _that_ he is, humanly speaking, sure.

67. C. Perfectly emphatic and clear utterance of the chosen words; slowly in the degree of their importance, with omission however of every word not absolutely required; and natural use of the familiar contractions of final dissyllable. Thus "play a set shall strike" is better than "play a set _that_ shall strike," and "match'd" is kingly short--no necessity of meter could have excused "matched" instead. On the contrary, the three first words, "We are glad," would have been spoken by the king more slowly and fully than any other syllables in the whole pa.s.sage, first p.r.o.nouncing the kingly "we" at its proudest, and then the "are" as a continuous state, and then the "glad," as the exact contrary of what the amba.s.sadors expected him to be.[80]

D. Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and necessarily as the heart beats. The king _cannot_ speak otherwise than he does--nor the hero. The words not merely come to them, but are compelled to them. Even lisping numbers "come," but mighty numbers are ordained, and inspired.

E. Melody in the words, changeable with their pa.s.sion, fitted to it exactly, and the utmost of which the language is capable--the melody in prose being Eolian and variable--in verse, n.o.bler by submitting itself to stricter law. I will enlarge upon this point presently.

F. Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that each carries not only its instant meaning, but a cloudy companions.h.i.+p of higher or darker meaning according to the pa.s.sion--nearly always indicated by metaphor: "play a set"--sometimes by abstraction--(thus in the second pa.s.sage "silence" for silent one) sometimes by description instead of direct epithet ("coffined" for dead) but always indicative of there being more in the speaker's mind than he has said, or than he can say, full though his saying be. On the quant.i.ty of this attendant fullness depends the majesty of style; that is to say, virtually, on the quant.i.ty of contained thought in briefest words, such thought being primarily loving and true: and this the sum of all--that nothing can be well said, but with truth, nor beautifully, but by love.

68. These are the essential conditions of n.o.ble speech in prose and verse alike, but the adoption of the form of verse, and especially rymed verse, means the addition to all these qualities of one more; of music, that is to say, not Eolian merely, but Apolline; a construction or architecture of words fitted and befitting, under external laws of time and harmony.

When Byron says "rhyme is of the rude,"[81] he means that Burns needs it,--while Henry the Fifth does not, nor Plato, nor Isaiah--yet in this need of it by the simple, it becomes all the more religious: and thus the loveliest pieces of Christian language are all in ryme--the best of Dante, Chaucer, Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney.

69. I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of modern scholars.h.i.+p; (nor, to say the truth, do I make the effort, the first edge of its waves being mostly muddy, and apt to make a shallow sweep of the sh.o.r.e refuse:) so that I have no better book of reference by me than the confused essay on the antiquity of ryme at the end of Turner's "Anglo-Saxons." I cannot however conceive a more interesting piece of work, if not yet done, than the collection of sifted earliest fragments known of rymed song in European languages. Of Eastern I know nothing; but, this side h.e.l.lespont, the substance of the matter is all given in King Canute's impromptu

"Gaily" (or is it sweetly?--I forget which, and it's no matter) "sang the monks of Ely, As Knut the king came sailing by;"

much to be noted by any who make their religion lugubrious, and their Sunday the eclipse of the week. And observe further, that if Milton does not ryme, it is because his faculty of Song was concerning Loss, chiefly; and he has little more than faculty of Croak, concerning Gain; while Dante, though modern readers never go further with him than into the Pit, is stayed only by Casella in the ascent to the Rose of Heaven.

So, Gibbon can write in _his_ manner the Fall of Rome; but Virgil, in _his_ manner, the rise of it; and finally Douglas, in _his_ manner, bursts into such rymed pa.s.sion of praise both of Rome and Virgil, as befits a Christian Bishop, and a good subject of the Holy See.

"Master of Masters--sweet source, and springing well, Wide where over all rings thy heavenly bell;

Why should I then with dull forehead and vain, With rude ingene, and barane, emptive brain, With bad harsh speech, and lewit barbare tongue Presume to write, where thy sweet bell is rung, Or counterfeit thy precious wordis dear?

Na, na--not so; but kneel when I them hear.

But farther more--and lower to descend Forgive me, Virgil, if I thee offend Pardon thy scolar, suffer him to ryme Since _thou_ wast but ane mortal man sometime."

"Before honor is humility." Does not clearer light come for you on that law after reading these n.o.bly pious words? And note you _whose_ humility? How is it that the sound of the bell comes so instinctively into his chiming verse? This gentle singer is the son of--Archibald Bell-the-Cat!

70. And now perhaps you can read with right sympathy the scene in "Marmion" between his father and King James.

"His hand the monarch sudden took-- 'Now, by the Bruce's soul, Angus, my hasty speech forgive, For sure as doth his spirit live As he said of the Douglas old I well may say of you,-- That never king did subject hold, In speech more free, in war more bold, More tender and more true:'

And while the king his hand did strain The old man's tears fell down like rain."

I believe the most infidel of scholastic readers can scarcely but perceive the relation between the sweetness, simplicity, and melody of expression in these pa.s.sages, and the gentleness of the pa.s.sions they express, while men who are not scholastic, and yet are true scholars, will recognize further in them that the simplicity of the educated is lovelier than the simplicity of the rude. Hear next a piece of Spenser's teaching how rudeness itself may become more beautiful even by its mistakes, if the mistakes are made lovingly.

"Ye shepherds' daughters that dwell on the green, Hye you there apace; Let none come there but that virgins been To adorn her grace: And when you come, whereas she in place, See that your rudeness do not you disgrace; Bind your fillets fast, And gird in your waste, For more fineness, with a taudry lace.

Bring hither the pink and purple cullumbine With gylliflowers; Bring coronations, and sops in wine, Worn of paramours; Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies; The pretty paunce And the chevisaunce Shall match with the fair flowre-delice."[82]