Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849

"Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Cæsar."

The King of Men – the Lord of the Earth – the pacificator of the distracted Empire – which, to a Roman, is as much as to say the World. Then – hail Saturnian Land! Mother of Corn! Saturnian, because golden Saturn had reigned there – Mother, I suppose the rather because in his time corn sprung unsown —sine semine– She gave it from out of her own loving and cherishing bosom. To Thee, Italy, sing I my Ascræan or Hesiodic song. The Works and Days – the Greek Georgics are his avowed prototype – rude prototype to magnificence – like the Arab of the Desert transplanted to rear his empire of dazzling and picturesque civilisation in the Pyrenean Peninsula.

BULLER.

Take breath, sir. Virgil said well —

"Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem."

SEWARD.

Allow me one other word. Virgil – in the vivid lines quoted with admiration by Mr Alison – lauds his beloved Italy for the absence of wild beasts and serpents – and he magnifies the whole race of serpents by his picture of One – the Serpent King – yet with subjects all equal in size to himself in our imagination. The Serpent is in the Poetry, but he is not in Italy. Is this a false artifice of composition – a vain ornament? Oh, no! He describes the Saturnian Land – the mother of corn and of men – bounteous, benign, golden, maternal Italy. The negation has the plenitude of life, which the fabulous absence of noxious reptiles has for the sacred Island of Ierne.

BULLER.

Erin-go-bragh!

SEWARD.

Suddenly he sees another vision – not of what is absent but present; and then comes the line arraigned and condemned – followed by lines as great —

"Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem,Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis,Fluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros."

The first line grasps in one handful all the mighty, fair, wealthy Cities of Italy – the second all the rock-cresting Forts of Italy – from the Alpine head to the sea-washed foot of the Peninsula. The collective One Thought of the Human Might and Glory of Italy – as it appears on the countenance of the Land – or visible in its utmost concentration in the girdled Towns and Cities of Men.

BULLER.

"Adde" then is right, Seward. On that North and you are at one.

NORTH.

Yes, it is right, and any other word would be wrong. Adde! Note the sharpness, Buller, of the significance – the vivacity of the short open sound. Fling it out – ring it out – sing it out. Look at the very repetition of the powerful "TOT" – "tot egregias" – "tot congesta" – witnessing by one of the first and commonest rules in the grammar of rhetoric – whether Virgil speaks in prose or in fire.

BULLER.

In fire.

NORTH.

Mr Alison then goes on to say, "that the effect of the following nervous and beautiful lines, in the conclusion of the same Book, is nearly destroyed by a similar defect. After these lines,

"Hanc olim veteres vitam coluêre Sabini,Hanc Remus et Frater; sic fortis Etruria crevit,Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma;"

We little expect the following spiritless conclusion: —

"Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."

SEWARD.

Oh! why does Mr Alison call that line spiritless?

NORTH.

He gives no reason – assured by his own dissatisfaction, that he has but to quote it, and leave it in its own naked impotence.

SEWARD.

I hope you do not think it spiritless, sir.

NORTH.

I think it contains the concentrated essence of spirit and of power. Let any one think of Rome, piled up in greatness, and grandeur, and glory – and a Wall round about – and in a moment his imagination is filled. What sort of a Wall? A garden wall to keep out orchard thieves – or a modern wall of a French or Italian town to keep out wine and meat, that they may come in at the gate and pay toll? I trow not. But a Wall against the World armed and assailing! Remember that Virgil saw Rome – and that his hearers did – and that in his eyes and theirs she was Empress of the inhabited Earth. She held and called herself such – it was written in her face and on her forehead. The visible, tangible splendour and magnificence meant this, or they meant nothing. The stone and lime said this – and Virgil's line says it, sedately and in plain, simple phrase, which yet is a Climax.

SEWARD.

As the dreaded Semiramis was flesh and blood – corporeal – made of the four elements – yet her soul and her empiry spake out of her – so spake they from the Face of Rome.

NORTH.

Ay, Seward – put these two things together – the Aspect that speaks Domination of the World, and the Wall that girds her with strength impregnable – and what more could you possibly demand from her Great Poet?

SEWARD.

Arx is a Citadel – we may say an Acropolis. Athens had one Arx – so had Corinth. One Arx is enough to one Queenly City. But this Queen, within her one Wall, has enclosed Seven Arces – as if she were Seven Queens.

NORTH.

Well said, Seward. The Seven Hills appeared – and to this day do – to characterise the Supremacy of Rome. The Seven-Hilled City! You seem to have said everything – the Seven Hills are as a seven-pillared Throne – and all that is in one line – given by Virgil. Delete it – no not for a thousand gold crowns.

BULLER.

Not for the Pigot Diamond – not for the Sea of Light.

NORTH.

Imagine Romulus tracing the circuit on which the walls were to rise of his little Rome – the walls ominously lustrated with a brother's blood. War after war humbles neighbouring town after town, till the seas that bathe, and the mountains that guard Italy, enclose the confederated Republic. It is a step – a beginning. East and West, North and South, flies the Eagle, dipping its beak in the blood of battle-fields. Where it swoops, there fanning away the pride, and fame, and freedom of nations, with the wafture of its wings. Kingdoms and Empires that were, are no more than Provinces; till the haughty Roman, stretching out the fact to the limits of his ambitious desires, can with some plausibility deceive himself, and call the edges of the Earth the boundaries of his unmeasured Dominion.

SEWARD.

"O Italy! Italy! would Thou wert stronger or less beautiful!" – was the mournful apostrophe of an Italian Poet, who saw, in the latter ages, his refined but enervated countrymen trampled under the foot of a more martial people from far beyond the Alps.

NORTH.

Good Manners giving a vital energy and efficacy to good Laws – in these few words, gentlemen, may be comprised the needful constituents of National Happiness and Prosperity – the foremost conditions.

TALBOYS.

Ay – ay – sir. For good Laws without good Manners are an empty breath – whilst good Manners ask the protecting and preserving succour of good Laws. But the good Manners are of the first necessity, for they naturally produce the good Laws.

NORTH.

What does history show, Talboys, but nations risen up to flourish in wealth, power, and greatness, that with corrupted and luxurious manners have again sunk from their pre-eminence; whilst another purer and simpler people has in turn grown mighty, and taken their room in the world's eye – some hardy, simple, frugal race, perhaps, whom the seeming disfavour of nature constrains to assiduous labour, and who maintain in the lap of their mountains their independence and their pure and happy homes.

TALBOYS.

The Luxury – the invading Goth and Hun – the dismembering – and new States uprisen upon the ruins of the World's fallen Empire. There is one line in Collins' Ode to Freedom– Mr North – which I doubt if I understand.

NORTH.

Which?

TALBOYS.

"No, Freedom, no – I will not tellHow Rome before thy weeping facePushed by a wild and artless raceFrom off its wide, ambitious base,With heaviest sound a giant-statue fell —What time the northern Sons of Spoil awoke,And all the blended work of strength and grace,With many a rude repeated stroke,And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke."

NORTH.

Which?

TALBOYS.

"How Rome before thy weeping face."

NORTH.

Freedom wept at Rome's overthrow – though she had long been Freedom's enemy – and though her destroyers were Freedom's children – and "Spoil's Sons" – for how could Freedom look unmoved at the wreck "of all that blended work of strength and grace" – though raised by slaves at the beck of Tyrants? It was not always so.

BULLER.

Let me, Apollo-like, my dear sir, pinch your ear, and admonish you to return to the point from which, in discursive gyrations, you and Seward have been —

NORTH.

Like an Eagle giving an Eaglet lessons how to fly —

BULLER.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to mention Eagles this evening.

NORTH.

I did not, sir.

BULLER.

But, then, Seward is no Eaglet – he is, and long has been, a full-fledged bird, and can fly as well's yourself, sir.

NORTH.

There you're right. But then, making a discursive gyration round a point is not leaving it – and there you're wrong. Silly folk – not you, Buller, for you are a strong-minded, strong-bodied man – say "keep to the point" – knowing that if you quit it one inch, you will from their range of vision disappear – and then they comfort themselves by charging you with having melted among the clouds.

BULLER.

I was afraid, my dear sir, that having got your Eaglet on your back – or your Eaglet having got old Aquila on his – you would sail away with him – or he with you – "to prey in distant isles."

NORTH.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to mention Eagles this evening.

BULLER.

I did not, sir. But don't let us quarrel.

SEWARD.

What does Virgil mean, sir, by "Rerum," in the line which Mr Alison thinks should have concluded the strain —

"Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma."

NORTH.

"Rerum" – what does he mean by "Rerum?" Let me perpend. Why, Seward, the legitimate meaning of Res here is a State – a Commonwealth. "The fairest of Powers – then – of Polities – of States."

SEWARD.

Is that all the word means here?

NORTH.

Why, methinks we must explain. Observe, then, Seward, that Rome is the Town, as England the Island. Thus "England has become the fairest among the Kingdoms of the Earth." This is equivalent, good English; and the only satisfactory and literal translation of the Latin verse. But here, the Physical and the Political are identified, – that is, England. England is the name at once of the Island – of so much earth limited out on the surface of the terraqueous globe – and of what besides? Of the Inhabitants? Yes; but of the Inhabitants (as the King never dies) perpetuated from generation to generation. Moreover, of this immortal inhabitation, further made one by blood and speech, laws, manners, and everything that makes a people. In short, England, properly the name of the land, is intended to be, at the same time, the name of the Nation.

"England, with all thy faults, I love Thee still."

There Cowper speaks to both at once – the faults are of the men only – moral – for he does not mean fogs, and March east winds, and fever and agues. I love thee – is to the green fields and the white cliffs, as well as to all that still survives of the English heart and thought and character. And this absorption, sir, and compenetration of the two ideas – land into people, people into land – the exposition of which might, in good hands, be made beautiful – is a fruitful germ of Patriotism – an infinite blending of the spiritual and the corporeal. To Virgil, Rome the City was also Rome the Romans; and, therefore, sir, those Houses and Palaces, and that Wall, were to him, as those green fields, and hills, and streams, and towns, and those cliffs are to Us. The girdled-in compendium of the Heaven's Favour and the Earth's Glory and Power.

"Scilicet et Rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."

Do you all comprehend and adopt my explanation, gentlemen?

TALBOYS.

I do.

BULLER.

I – do.

SEWARD.

I ask myself whether Virgil's "Rerum Pulcherrima" may not mean "Fairest of Things" – of Creatures – of earthly existences? To a young English reader, probably that is the first impression. It was, I think, mine. But fairest of earthly States and Seats of State is so much more idiomatic and to the purpose, that I conceive it – indubitable.

NORTH.

You all remember what Horatio sayeth to the soldiers in Hamlet, on the coming and going of the Ghost.

'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted deadDid squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell;Disasters veiled the sun, and the moist starUpon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse.'

What does Horatio mean by high and palmy state? That Rome was in a flourishing condition?

BULLER.

That, I believe, sir, is the common impression. Hitherto it has been mine.

NORTH.

Let it be erased henceforth and for ever.

BULLER.

It is erased – I erase it.

NORTH.

Read henceforth and for ever high and palmy State. Write henceforth and for ever State with a towering Capital. Res! "Most high and palmy State" is precisely and literally "Rerum Pulcherrima."

SEWARD.

At your bidding – you cannot err.

NORTH.

I err not unfrequently – but not now, nor I believe this evening. Horatio, the Scholar, speaks to the two Danish Soldiers. They have brought him to be of their watch because he is a Scholar – and they are none. This relation of distinction is indeed the ground and life of the Scene.

"Therefore I have entreated him, alongWith us to watch the minutes of the night;That if again this apparition come,He may approve our eyes, and speak to it."

TALBOYS.

"Thou art a Scholar – speak to it, Horatio."

NORTH.

You know, Talboys, that Scholars were actual Conjurors, in the mediæval belief, which has tales enow about Scholars in that capacity. Horatio comes, then, possessed with an especial Power; he knows how to deal with Ghosts – he could lay one, if need were. He is not merely a man of superior and cultivated intellect, whom intellectual inferiors engage to assist them in an emergency above their grasp – but he is the very man for the work.

TALBOYS.

Have not the Commentators said as much, sir?

NORTH.

Perhaps – probably – who? If they have in plenitude, I say it again – because I once did not know it – or think of it – and I suppose that a great many persons die believing that the Two resort in the way of general dependence merely on Horatio.

TALBOYS.

I believed, but I shall not die believing so.

NORTH.

Therefore, the scholarship of Horatio, and the non-scholarship of Bernardo and Marcellus, strikes into the life, soul, essence, ground, foundation, fabric, and organisation of this First Ghost Scene – sustain and build the whole Play.

TALBOYS.

Eh?

NORTH.

Eh? Yes. But to the point in hand. The Ghost has come and gone; and the Scholar addresses his Mates the two Non-Scholars. And show me the living Scholar who could speak as Horatio spake. Touching the matter that is in all their minds oppressively, he will transport their minds a flight suddenly off a thousand years, and a thousand miles or leagues – their untutored minds into the Region of History. He will take them to Rome – "a little ere" – and, therefore, before naming Rome, he lifts and he directs their imagination – "In the most high and palmy State." There had been Four Great Empires of the World – and he will by these few words evoke in their minds the Image of the last and greatest. And now observe with what decision, as well as with what majesty, the nomination ensues – of Rome.

TALBOYS.

I feel it, sir.

NORTH.

Try, Talboys, to render "State" by any other word, and you will be put to it. You may analogise. It is for the Republic and City, what Realm or Kingdom is to us – at once Place and indwelling Power. "State" – properly Republic – here specifically and pointedly means Reigning City. The Ghosts walked in the City – not in the Republic.

TALBOYS.

I think I have you, sir – am not sure.

NORTH.

You have me – you are sure. Now suppose that, instead of the solemn, ceremonious, and stately robes in which Horatio attires the Glorious Rome, he had said simply, "in Rome," or "at Rome," where then his ψυχαγωγια – his leading of their spirits? Where his own scholar-enthusiasm, and love, and joy, and wonder? All gone! And where, Talboys, are they who, by here understanding "state" for "condition" – which every man alive does —

TALBOYS.

Every man alive?

NORTH.

Yes, you did – confess you did. Where are they, I ask, who thus oblige Horatio to introduce his nomination of Rome – thus nakedly – and prosaically? Every hackneyer of this phrase —state– as every man alive hackneys it – is a nine-fold Murderer. He murders the Phrase – he murders the Speech – he murders Horatio – he murders the Ghost – he murders the Scene – he murders the Play – he murders Rome – he murders Shakspeare – and he murders Me.

TALBOYS.

I am innocent.

NORTH.

Why, suppose Horatio to mean – "in the most glorious and victorious condition of Rome, on the Eve of Cæsar's death, the graves stood tenantless" – You ask – Where? See where you have got. A story told with two determinations of Time, and none of Place! Is that the way that Shakspeare, the intelligent and intelligible, recites a fact? No. But my explanation shows the Congruity or Parallelism. "In the most high and palmy State," – that is, City of Rome – ceremonious determination of Place – "a little ere the mightiest Julius fell," – ceremonious determination of Time.

TALBOYS.

But is not the use of State, sir, for City, bold and singular?

NORTH.

It is. For Verse has her own Speech – though Wordsworth denies it in his Preface – and proves it by his Poetry, like his brethren Shakspeare and Milton. The language of Verse is rapid – abrept and abrupt. Horatio wants the notion of Republic; because properly the Republic is high and palmy, and not the wood, stone, and marble. So he manages an expeditious word that shall include both, and strike you at once. The word of a Poet strikes like a flash of lightning – it penetrates – it does not stay to be scanned – "probed, vexed, and criticised," – it illuminates and is gone. But you must have eyes – and suffer nobody to shut them. I ask, then – Can any lawful, well-behaved Citizen, having weighed all this, and reviewed all these things, again violate the Poesy of the Avonian Swan, and his own muse-enlightened intelligence, by lending hand or tongue to the convicted and condemned Vulgarism?

TALBOYS.

Now, then, and not till now, we Three know the full power of the lines —

"Scilicet et Rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces."

NORTH.

Another word anent Virgil. Mr Alison says – "There is a still more surprising instance of this fault in one of the most pathetic passages of the whole Poem, in the description of the disease among the cattle, which concludes the Third Georgic. The passage is as follows: —

"Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere TaurusConcidit, et mixtum spumis vomit ore cruoremExtremosque ciet gemitus; it tristis arator,Mœrentem abjungens fraternâ morte juvencum,Atque opere in medio defixa relinquit aratra."

The unhappy image in the second line is less calculated to excite compassion than disgust, and is singularly ill-suited to the tone of tenderness and delicacy which the Poet has everywhere else so successfully maintained, in describing the progress of the loathsome disease." The line here objected to is the life of the description – and instead of offence, it is the clenching of the pathos. First of all, it is that which the Poet always will have and the Critics wont – the Necessitated– the Thing itself – the Matter in hand. It shapes – features – characterises that particular Murrain. Leave it out – 'the one Ox drops dead in the furrow, and the Ploughman detaches the other.' It's a great pity, and very surprising – but that is NO PLAGUE. Suddenly he falls, and blood and foam gush mixed with his expiring breath. That is a plague. It has terror – affright – sensible horror – life vitiated, poisoned in its fountains. Vomit– a settled word, and one of the foremost, of the reversed, unnatural vital function. Besides, it is the true and proper word. Besides, it is vivid and picturesque, being the word of the Mouth. Effundit (which they would prefer) – (I do not mean it would stand in the verse) is general – might be from the ears. Vomit in itself says mouth. The poor mouth! whose function is to breathe, and to eat grass, and to caress – the visible organ of life – of vivification – and now of mortification. Taken from the dominion of the holy powers, and given up to the dark and nameless destroyer. "Vomit ore cruorem!" The verse moans and groans for him – it may have in it a death-rattle. How much more helpless and hopeless the real picture makes Arator's distress! Now, "it tristis" comes with effect.

SEWARD.

Yes, Virgil, as in duty bound to do, faced the Cattle Plague in all its horrors. Had he not, he would have been false to Pales, the Goddess of Shepherds – to Apollo, who fed the herds of Admetus. So did his Master, Lucretius – whom he emulated – equalled, but not surpassed, in execution of the dismal but inevitable work. The whole land groaned under the visitation – nor was it confined to Cattle – it seemed as if the brute creation were about to perish. But his tender heart, near the close, singled out, from the thousands, one yoke of Steers – in two lines and a half told the death of one – in two lines and a half told the sadness of its owner – and in as many lines more told, too, of the survivor sinking, because his brother "was not" – and in as many more a lament for the cruel sufferings of the harmless creature – lines which, Scaliger says, he would rather have written than have been honoured by the Lydian or the Persian king.

BULLER.

Perhaps you have said enough, Seward. It might have been better, perhaps, to have recited the whole passage.

NORTH.

Here is a sentence or two about Homer.

BULLER.

Then you are off. Oh! sir – why not for an hour imitate that Moon and those Stars? How silently they shine! But what care you for the heavenly luminaries? In the majestic beauty of the nocturnal heavens vain man will not hold his peace.

SEWARD.

Is that the murmur of the far-off sea?

NORTH.

It is – the tide, may be, is on its return – is at "Connal's raging Ferry" – from Loch Etive – yet this is not its hour – 'tis but the mysterious voice of Night.

BULLER.

Hush!

NORTH.

By moonlight and starlight, and to the voice of Night, I read these words from Mr Alison – "In the speech of Agamemnon to Idomeneus, in the Fourth Book of the Iliad, a circumstance is introduced altogether inconsistent both with the dignity of the speech, and the Majesty of Epic Poetry: —

'Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we oweTo worth like thine, what praise shall we bestow!To Thee the foremost honours are decreed,First in the fight, and every graceful deed.For this, in banquets, when the generous bowlsRestore our blood, and raise the warriors' souls,Though all the rest with stated rules be bound,Unmixed, unmeasured, are thy goblets crowned.'"

SEWARD.

That is Pope. Do you remember Homer himself, sir?

NORTH.

I do.

Ιδομενεὑ, φερι μἑν σε θιω Δαναὡν ταχυφωλων,ἡμἑν ἑνἱ πτολἑμω ἡδ' ἁλλοἱω ἑφι ἑργω,ηδ' ἑν δαἱθ', ὁτε φερ τε γεροὑσιον αἱθοπα οἱνον'Αργεἱων οἱ ἁριστοι ἑνἱ κρηθηρσι κἑρωνται.εἱπερ γἁρ τ' ἁλλοι γε καρηκομὁωντες 'Αχαιοἱδαιτῥον φινωσιν, σὁν δἑ πλεἱον δἑπας αἱεἱἑστηχ', ὡσπερ ἑμοἱ, πιἑειν, ὁτε θυμὁς ἁνὡγοι.ἁλλ' ὁρσευ φολεμὁνδ', οἱος φαρος εὑχεο εἱναι.P/I believe you will find that in general men praise more truly, that isjustly, deservedly, than they condemn. They praise from an impulse of love – thatis, from a capacity. Nature protects love more than hate. Their condemnationis often mere incapacity – want of insight. Mr Alison had eleganceof apprehension – truth of taste – a fine sense of the beautiful – a sense of thesublime. His instances for praise are always well – often newly chosen, froman attraction felt in his own genial and noble breast. The true chord struckthen. But he was somewhat too dainty-schooled – school-nursed, and school-born.A judge and critic of Poetry should have been caught wild, and tamed;he should carry about him to the last some relish of the wood and thewilderness, as if he were ever in some danger of breaking away, and relapsingto them. He should know Poetry as a great power of the Universe – a sun – ofwhich the Song – whosesoever – only catches and fixes a few rays. Howdifferent in thought was Epos to him and to Homer! Homer paints Manners – archaic,simple manners. Everybody feels – everybody says this – MrAlison must have known it – and could have said it as well as the best —SEWARD.But the best often forget it. They seem to hold to this knowledge betternow, Mr North; and they do not make Homer answerable as a Poet, for thefacts of which he is the Historian – Why not rather accept than criticise?NORTH.I am sorry, Seward, for the Achæan Chiefs who had to drink δαιτρον – that isall. I had hoped that they helped themselves.SEWARD.Perhaps, sir, the Stint was a custom of only the οινον γερουσιον – a ceremoniousBowl – and if so, undoubtedly with religious institution. The Feast is nothonorary – only the Bowl: for anything that appears, Agamemnon, feasting hisPrinces, might say, "Now, for the Bowl of Honour" – and Idomeneus alonedrinks. Or let the whole Feast be honorific, and the Bowl the sealing, andcrowning, and characterising solemnity. Now, the distinction of the Stint, andthe Full Bowl, selected for a signal of different honouring, has to me nolonger anything irksome. It is no longer a grudged and scanted cheer – butlawful Assignment of Place.TALBOYS.The moment you take it for Ceremonial, sir, you don't know what profoundmeaning may, or may not be in it. The phrase is very remarkable.NORTH.When the "Best of the Argives" mix in the Bowl "the honorific dark-glowingwine," or the dark-glowing wine of honour – when ὁτε – quite a specific andpeculiar occasion, and confined to the wine – you would almost think that theChiefs themselves are the wine-mixers, and not the usual ministrants – whichwould perhaps express the descent of an antique use from a time and mannersof still greater simplicity than those which Homer describes. Or take itmerely, that in great solemnities, high persons do the functions proper toServants. This we do know, that usually a servant, the Ταμιευς, or theοινοχοος, does mix the Bowl. By the way, Talboys, I think you will be not alittle amused with old Chapman's translation of the passage.TALBOYS.A fiery old Chap was George.NORTH.It runs thus —"O Idomen, I ever loved thyself past all the Greeks,In war, or any work of peace, at table, everywhere;For when the best of Greeks, besides, mix ever at our cheerMy good old ardent wine with small, and our inferior matesDrink ever that mixt wine measured too, thou drink'st without those ratesOur old wine neat; and ever more thy bowl stands like to mine;To drink still when and what thou wilt; then rouse that heart of thine;And whatsoever heretofore thou hast assumed to be,This day be greater."

TALBOYS.