Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 420, October 1850

Dies Boreales.

No. VIII.

CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS

Camp at CladichScene —The Wren's NestTime —EveningNorth – Talboys – Seward – BullerNORTH

Have you dined?

TALBOYS

That we have, sir.

NORTH

With me this has been Fast-day.

TALBOYS

We saw it was, at our breakfast. Your abstinence at that meal, and at luncheon, we knew from the composure of your features, and your benignant silence, was not from any disorder of material organisation, but from steady moral resolve; so his absence from the Dinner-Table gave us no uneasiness about Numa.

NORTH

No Nymph has been with him in the Grot.

TALBOYS

His Good Genius is always with him in Solitude. The form we observed stealing – no, not stealing – gliding away – was, I verily believe, but the Lady of the Wood.

NORTH

The Glen, you know, is haunted; and sometimes when the green umbrage is beginning to look grey in the still evening, I have more than a glimpse of the Faery Queen.

SEWARD

Perhaps we intrude on your dreams. Let us retire.

NORTH

Take your seats. What Book is that, beneath your arm, Talboys?

TALBOYS

The Volume you bid me bring with me this Evening to the Wren's Nest.

NORTH

Yes, yes – now I remember. You are here by appointment.

TALBOYS

Else had we not been here. We had not merely your permission, sir – but your invitation.

NORTH

I was expecting you – and by hands unseen this our Round Table has been spread for my guests. Pretty coffee-cups, are they not? Ask no questions – there they are – but handle them gently – for the porcelain is delicate – and at rude touch will disappear from your fingers. A Book. Ay, ay – a Quarto – and by a writer of deserved Fame.

SEWARD

We are dissatisfied with it, sir. Dugald Stewart is hard on the Poet, and we desire to hear a vindication from our Master's lips.

NORTH

Master! We are all pupils Of the Poet. He is the Master of us all. Talboys, read out – and begin at the beginning.

TALBOYS

"In entering on this subject, it is proper to observe, that the word Poet is not here used in that restricted sense in which it is commonly employed; but in its original acceptation of Maker, or Creator. In plainer language, it is used to comprehend all those who devote themselves to the culture of the Arts which are addressed to the Imagination; and in whose minds it may be presumed Imagination has acquired a more than ordinary sway over the other powers of the Understanding. By using the word in such a latitude, we shall be enabled to generalise the observations which might otherwise seem applicable merely to the different classes of versifiers."

NORTH

That Mr. Stewart should, as a Philosopher, mark the liberal and magnanimous, and metaphysical large acceptation of the Name is right and good. But look at his Note.

TALBOYS

"For this latitude in the use of the word Poet, I may plead the example of Bacon and d'Alembert, the former of whom (De Aug. Scient., lib. xi. cap. 1) comprehends under Poetry all fables or fictitious histories, whether in prose or verse; while the latter includes in it painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and their different divisions."

NORTH

"I may plead the example" appears to me a somewhat pompous expression to signify that you have (very properly) adopted one doctrine of one of the wisest, and another of one of the ablest of men. But he does not seem to know that d'Alembert might have "pleaded the example" of Aristotle in "including painting, sculpture," &c. "Poetry," says the Stagyrite, "consists in imitation, and the imitation may be by pictures, sculpture, and the like." It is μιμησις – and it is Man's nature to rejoice in imitation – χαιρειν τοις μιμημασιν. But a singular and illustrative trait in Mr Stewart's treatment of the subject is, that though he thus, at the outset, enlarges the Poet into the Painter, the Sculptor, &c., yet throughout the whole composition, (I know not if an incidental word may anywhere occur as an exception,) every point of the argument regards the Poet in words and verse! In what frame of understanding could – did he put this Head to these fragments of limbs?

BULLER

In the name of the Prophet – Figs!

NORTH

I am more than half disposed to hint an objection to the use of the words "sway over the other powers." We should have said – and we do say, "predominance amongst the other powers." I see in "sway" two meanings: first, a right meaning, or truth, not well expressed; to wit, in thinking poetically – for his art, whatever it may be – or out of his art – the Poet's other faculties minister to his Imagination. She reigns. They conform their operations to hers. This manner of intellectual action happens in all men, more or less, oftener or seldomer; in the Poet – of what Art soever – upon each occasion, with much more decision and eminence, and more habitually. But secondly, a wrong meaning, or error, is better expressed by the word "sway," to wit, that Imagination in the Poet illegitimately overbears the other intellectual powers, as judgment, attention, reflection, memory, prudence. Now, you may say that every power that is given in great strength, tends to overbear unduly the other powers. The syllogistic faculty does – the faculty of observation does – memory does – and so a power unbalanced may appear as a weakness – as wealth ruins a fool. But in the just dispensation of nature every power is a power, and to the mind which she constitutes for greatness she gives balanced powers. Giving one in large measure – say Imagination – she gives as large the directly antagonistic power – say the Intellective, the Logical; or she balances by a mass of powers. I suspect that the undue over-swaying was in Stewart's mind, and has probably distorted his language. I know that Genius is the combination of ten faculties.

SEWARD

Our expectations were raised to a high pitch by such grandiloquent announcement: and we have found in the Essay – which is unscientific in form – has no method – makes no progress – and is throughout a jumble, – not one bold or original thought.

BULLER

Too much occupied with exposure of vulgar errors – and instances beneath the matter in hand. Great part too —extra thesin.

SEWARD

You expect great things from the title – the Idea of the Poet. You then see that Mr Stewart after all does not intend this, but only certain influences, moral and intellectual, of characteristic pursuits. This, if rightly and fully done, would have involved the Idea – and so a portraiture indirect and incidental – still the features and their proportion. Instead of the Idea, you find —

BULLER

I don't know what.

TALBOYS

The reader is made unhappy, first, by defect, or the absence of principal features – then by degradation, or the low contemplation – and by the general tenor.

NORTH

Why, perhaps, you had better return the Quarto to its shelf in the Van. Yet 'twould be a pity, too, to do so. I am for always keeping our engagements; and as we agreed to have a talk about the Section this evening, let us have a talk. Read away, Talboys – at the very next Paragraph.

TALBOYS

"The culture of Imagination does not diminish our interest in human life, but is extremely apt to inspire the mind with false conceptions of it. As this faculty derives its chief gratification from picturing to itself things more perfect than what exist, it has a tendency to exalt our expectations above the level of our present condition, and frequently produces a youth of enthusiastic hopes, while it stores up disappointment and disgust for maturer years. In general, it is the characteristic of a poetical mind to be sanguine in its prospects of futurity – a disposition extremely useful when seconded by great activity and industry, but which, when accompanied, as it too frequently is, with indolence, and with an overweening self-conceit, is the source of numberless misfortunes."

BULLER

Why, all this is —

NORTH

Stop. Read on, Talboys.

TALBOYS

"A thoughtlessness and imprudence with respect to the future, and a general imprudence in the conduct of life, has been often laid to the charge of Poets. Horace represents them as too much engrossed and intoxicated with their favourite pursuits to think of anything else —

BULLER

Leave out the quotation from old Flaccus – and go on.

TALBOYS

"This carelessness about the goods of fortune is an infirmity very naturally resulting from their studies, and is only to be cured by years and experience; or by a combination – very rare, indeed – of poetical genius with a more than ordinary share of that homely endowment COMMON SENSE."

BULLER

Speak louder – yet that might not be easy. I feel the want of an ear-trumpet, for you do drop your voice so at the end of sentences.

TALBOYS

"A few exceptions" —

BULLER

Stentor's alive again – oh! that I were head over ears in a bale of cotton.

TALBOYS

"A few exceptions to these observations may undoubtedly be found, but they are so very few, as, by their singularity, to confirm rather than weaken the general fact. In proof of this, we need only appeal to the sad details recorded by Dr Johnson in his Lives of the Poets."

BULLER

Skip – skip – skip —

SEWARD

Skip – skip – skip —

TALBOYS

May I, sir?

NORTH

You may.

TALBOYS

"Considered in its moral effects on the mind, one of the most unfortunate consequences to be apprehended from the cultivation of a poetical talent, is its tendency, by cherishing a puerile and irritable vanity, to weaken the force, and to impair the independence of character. Whoever limits his exertions to the gratification of others, whether by personal exhibition, as in the case of the actor and mimic, or by those kinds of literary composition which are calculated for no end but to please or to entertain, renders himself, in some measure, dependent on their caprices and humours."

BULLER

Skip – skip – skip —

TALBOYS

"In all the other departments of literature besides, to please is only a secondary object. It is the primary one of poetry. Hence that timidity of temper, and restless and unmanly desire of praise, and that dependence on the capricious applause of the multitude, which so often detract from the personal dignity of those whose productions do honour to human nature."

NORTH

I don't quite understand what Mr Stewart means here by "the culture of Imagination." I see three senses of the word. First, the cultivation by the study of written Poetry and the poetical arts, and of the poetry poured through the Universe – to those minds which receive without producing – a legitimate process. Secondly, the cultivation as in Edwin, Beattie's young Minstrel, the destined and self-destining Poet – a legitimate process. And thirdly, the self-indulgence of a mind which, more sensitive than volitive, more imaginative than intellectual, more wilful than lawful, more self-loving than others-loving – turns life into a long reverie – an illegitimate process. Which of these three classes of minds does Stewart speak of? Strong native imagination in a young powerful enthusiastic mind, tutored by poetical studies, but whom the Muse has not selected to the services of her shrine? Or the faculty as in the Poet-born self-tutored, and now rushing into his own predestined work? Or the soft-souled and indolent fainéant Dreamer of life? Three totally distinct subjects for the contemplation of the Philosopher, but that here seem to hover confusedly and at once before our Philosopher.

BULLER

By his chosen title of the Section, The POET, he was bound to speak of him according to Bacon, d'Alembert, and Aristotle.

NORTH

The word culture must, I think, here specifically touch the First Case. Shall we then be afraid of giving a share, and a large share too, to the reading of the Poets, and the regard of the Fine Arts, in a liberal Education? Poetry, History, Science, are the three strands of the cable by which the vessel shall ride – Religion being the sheet-anchor.

SEWARD

Perhaps it is meant to touch the Second Case too?

NORTH

It may be meant to do so, but it does not. The word "culture" is dictated by or is proper to the First Case – for culture is deliberate and elective. But in him – the young Poet – the Edwin – in whom imagination is given in the measure assigned by the Muse to her children, the culture proceeds undeliberate and unwilled. Edwin, when he roves "beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine," or sitting to watch the "wide-weltering waves," or is seized from the hint of ballad or tale, or any chance word, with dreams and visions of the more illustrious Past – follows a delight and desire that have the nature and may have the name of a passion. All this is involuntary to the unforeseen result – but afterwards, when he has accepted his art for a vocation, he more than any man deliberately cultivates. Has the Philosopher, then, in mind only the third class, and do the dangers of "the culture of imagination" apply to them only – "the indolent fainéant dreamers of life?" If so, he not only forgets and loses his subject, as announced by himself, but wastes words on one altogether below it. "False conceptions of human life!" Here is an equivocation which must be set right. "Conceptions of human life" are here meant to apply to expectations of the honesty, gratitude, virtue of the persons in general with whom you or I shall come in contact in life. Good. The contemplation of human beings – men and women —ideally drawn by the Poet lifts me too high – tinges hope in me with enthusiasm, and prepares disappointment. So it has been often said, and said truly. This is conception prospective and personal; and more philosophically termed Expectation. But then "conception of human life" – from the lip of a philosopher should mean rather "intelligence of man's life." Now I repeat that only through the Poet have you true intelligence of man's life – either external or internal. In the Actual the Poet sees the Idea – just as a Painter does in respect of the visible man. In the man set before him He sees two men – the man that is and the man of whom at his nativity was given the possibility to be. He reads cause and effect; and sees what has hindered the possible from being. Who, excepting the Poet, does this? And excepting this, what intelligence of man is an intelligence?

SEWARD

There are two world-Wisdoms. One, to know men, as for the most part they will show themselves – commonly called Knowledge of the World: one, to know them as God made them. I forget what it is called. Possibly it has no name.

NORTH

Observe, my dear Seward, the precise error of that expectation. It is to believe the good more prevalent than it is. It is no misunderstanding as to the constitution of the good. The good is; and the important point of all is to know it, when you meet it. To be cheated, by not apprehending the ill of a man, is a wound to your purse, and when you at last apprehend, to your heart. To be cheated by not apprehending the good of man is —death, which you bear in yourself, and know it not.

SEWARD

What is desired? Is it that we should go into the world with hope not a whit wider and higher than the dimensions of the reality that we are to encounter? I trow not.

NORTH

Your hope will elect your own destiny – will shape it – will be it. There are possibilities given of the nobler happinesses, as well as of the nobler services; and your hope, faithful to itself, will reach and grasp them. And only to such hope are they given. Moreover, in all men there is under the mask of evil which the world has shaped on them, the power inextinct which the Creator sowed there; and they may, if they dare to believe in it, and know to call to it, bring it out with a burst. But belief is the main ingredient of the spell, and hope is the mother of belief.

TALBOYS

The Poet has glorious apprehensions of human existence – visions of men – visions of men's actions – visions of men's destinies. He pitches his theory of the human world above reality – and that he shall, in due season or before it, learn – to his great loss and to his great gain. In the meanwhile do not speak of the temper in him, as if you would upbraid him with it. Do not lay to his charge the splendour of his powers and aspirations. Do not chide and rate him for his virtues.

SEWARD

"False conceptions!" a term essentially of depreciation and reproach. They are not false, they are true. For they are faithful to the vocation that lies upon the human beings; but they, the human beings, are false, and their lives are false; falling short of those true conceptions.

NORTH

Well. He – the Poet – comes to the encounter. It is the trial set for him by his stars – as it is the trial set for all great spirits. He finds those who disappoint him, and those who do not. But, grant the disappointment, rather. What shall he do? That which all great spirits do – transfer the grandeur of his hopes, over which fate, fortune, and the winds of heaven ruled, to his own purposes of which he is master.

TALBOYS

Why did not Mr Stewart say simply that the Poet – and the young enthusiast of Poetry – thinks better of his fellows than they deserve, and brings a faith to them which they will take good care to disappoint? Why harp thus on the jarring string; torturing our ears, and putting our souls out of tune?

NORTH

Who doubts – who does not know, and admire, and love Hope – in the ardent generous spirit – looking out from within the Eden of Youth into the world into which it shall, alas! fall? What is asked? That the spring-flowering of youth shall be prematurely blighted and blasted by winds frosty or fiery, which the set fruit may bear? Of course we hope beyond the reality, and it is God's gift that we do.

TALBOYS

And why lay that Imagination which looks into Life with unmeasured ideas to the charge of the Poet alone? Herein every man is a Poet, more or less; and, most, every spirit of power – the hero, the saint, the minister of religion, the very Philosopher. Would we ask, sir, for a new law of nature? Upon the elements, fewer or more, which an anticipated experience gathers, a spirit impelled by the yearnings inseparable from self-conscious power, and mighty to create, works unchecked and unruled. What shall it do but build glorious illusions?

NORTH

"The culture of Imagination," – understanding thereby, first, in the Great Poets themselves, the intercourse of their own minds with facts which imagination vivifies, and with ideas which it creates – of humanity; and secondly, in all others, as poets to be or not to be, the reading of the Great Poets, Mr Stewart says – "does not diminish our interest in human life." Does not diminish! Quite the reverse. It extraordinarily deepens and heightens, increases and ennobles. For who are the painters, the authentic delineators and revealers of human life, outer and inner —

BULLER

Why, the Poets – the Poets to be sure – the Poets beyond all doubt —

NORTH

"Extremely apt to inspire the mind with false conceptions of it" – and so on. Why, the Faculty is there with a mission. It is its bounden office – its embassy from heaven – to exalt us above our earthly experience – to lift us into the ideal possibility of things. Thereby it is an "angel of Life," the white-winged good genius. The too sanguine hope is an adhering consequence, and the quelling of the hope is one of the penalties which we pay for Adam and Eve's coming through that Eastern Gate into this Lower World.

TALBOYS

Of course, my dear sir, every power has its dangers – the greater, the profounder, the more penetrating and vital the power, the greater the danger. But is this the way that a Philosopher begins to treat of a power – with hesitation and distrust – inauspiciously auspicating his inquiry? The common – the better – the true order of treatment is by Use and, Abuse – Use first. "Expectations above the level of our present existence!" Of course – that when the heaven on earth fails, we may have learnt "to expect above the level of our present existence," and go on doing so more and more, till Earth shall fade and Heaven open.

SEWARD

"Frequently produces a youth of enthusiastic hope!" Is this proposed as a perversion and calamity, a "youth" to be deprecated?

NORTH

I really don't know – it looks almost like it.

SEWARD

Will you say Wo and Alas! for the City – Wo and Alas! for the Nation – in which princes, and nobles, and the gentle of blood – and the merchants, and the husbandmen, and the peasants, and the artisans, suffer under this endemic and feverous malady – a "youth of enthusiastic hope?" Methinks, sir, you would expect there to find an overflow of Pericles's, and Pindars, and Phidias's, and Shakspeares, and Chathams, and Wolfes —

BULLER

Stop, Seward – spare us the Catalogue.

SEWARD

You would say – here is the People that is to lead the world in Arms and in Arts. Only let us use all our endeavours to see that the community produces reason enough in balance of the enthusiasm.

BULLER

Let us procure Aristotles, and Socrates's, and Newtons, and —

TALBOYS

What should a Philosopher do or say relatively to any particular power? He expounds an Economy of Nature. Therefore, he says, let us look how Nature deals with such or such a power. She gives it for such and such uses: and such is its fostering, and such are its phenomena. But as every power unbalanced carries the subject in which it inheres ex orbita, let us look how nature provides to balance this power which we consider.

NORTH

That, my dear Talboys, is a magnanimous and a capacious way of inquiry. But how can any man write about a power who has not a full sympathy with it? I have no doubt that Davy, when he wielded Galvanism to make wonderful and beautiful revelations of veiled things, deeply and largely sympathised with Galvanism. You would think it easier to sympathise with Imagination, and yet to Stewart it seems almost more difficult. Go on.

TALBOYS

How has Nature dealt with her mighty and perilous power – Love. Look at it, where it is raised to its despotism – when a man loves a woman, and that woman that man. It is a power to unhinge a world. Lo! in proof "an old song" – the Iliad!

'Trojanas ut opes et lamentabile regnum

Eruerint Danai!'

Has Nature feared, therefore, to use it? She builds the world with it. And look how she proceeds. To these two – the Lovers as they are called – the Universe is in these two – to each in the other. The rest of the Universe is shut out from their view, or more wonderfully comprehended in their view – seen to each through and relatively to the other – seen transformed in the magical mirror of their love. Can you expect anything less than that they should go by different doors, or by the same door, into Bedlam? Lo! they have become a Father and a Mother! They have returned into the real world – into a world yet dearer than Dreamland! The world in which their children shall grow up into men and women. Sedate, vigilant, circumspect, sedulous, industrious, wise, just – Pater-familias and Mater-familias. So Nature lets down from an Unreal which she has chosen, and knows how to use.

NORTH

The ground of the Poet, my dear Talboys, is an extraordinary dotation of sensibility – of course, ten thousand dangers. Life is exuberant in him – and if the world lies at all wide about him, the joy of the great and the beautiful. The dearest of all interests to every rational soul is her own coming destiny. The Poet, quick and keen above all men in self-reference, must, among his contemplations and creations, be full of contemplating and creating his own future, and must pour over it all his power of joy, rosy and golden hopes. And that vision, framed with all his power of the Ideal, must needs be something exceedingly different from that which this bare, and blank, and hard earth of reality has to bestow. What follows? A severe, and perhaps an unprepared trial. The self-protection demanded of him is a morally-guarded heart and life. The protection provided for him is – his Art. The visions – the Ideal – the Great and the Fair, which he cannot incorporate in his own straitened existence – the ambitions, at large, of his imagination he localises – colonises – imparadises – in his works. He has two lives; the life of his daily steps upon the hard and bare, or the green, and elastic, and sweet-smelling earth, and the life of his books, papers, and poetical, studious reveries – art-intending, intellectual ecstasies.

BULLER

What say you, sir, to the charge of "overweening self-conceit and indolence?"

NORTH

What say you, my Buller?